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Din Djarin picks up the Child and carries him into the sky.
The world falls away: his feet are planted on the dirt, the buried-fossil surface of Nevarro, and then they’re planted on dust, dust, air, clouds. He is a cloud himself, or he is a new species of bird, pushed into rapid evolution by metal and fire. He is light, impossibly so.
The Armorer said the pack might take practice, but Din takes to it easily enough. It is the opposite of his armor, that extra layer of skin he’s worn so long, the burn on his muscles has both faded with time and still relentless, a reminder. This your Clan, this is the Way. The pack is the opposite of the armor: it lifts. All he has to do is adjust his stance. One force to weigh him down, one force to lift him back up.
The world falls away. No, the world divides: there is the desert, rolling sand growing imprecise beneath swirling dust, and there is the Child, holding tight to his armor.
Lifting the Child, too, comes easily enough. He weighs as much as a sack of vegetables, a couple of blasters. His face fits neatly into the crook of Din’s arm, as though his armor were designed specifically for this purpose. Din feels the Child’s eyes widen, he feels the Child’s ears twitch. If it weren’t for the armor, Din could feel the goosebumps on that wrinkled skin as they dive up into the wind. Din wonders what the Child sees, looking down. Can he now see Greef and Cara standing on the dunes, can he see the wreckage of the battle that raged around him? Or is it all sand and silt?
How does the light refract, when your eyes take up half your head? If the Child looked down at himself in a pool of still water, would he appear green? And how does Din appear to him—a suit of armor, shining in the sun and sinking in the shadows? Does the Child see black, or can he see other colors reflected in the panes? Can he see himself?
Din carries the Child. This is easy: he weighs nothing. And it is impossible: he weighs everything. How many have died for this wrinkled face, this tiny hand, opening and grasping and reaching out? How many have looked into these wide eyes, or have seen them in nightmares?
It means more to me than you will ever know, Gideon said. Perhaps this is true. Or perhaps the opposite is true. Din lifts the Child, and he lifts a world. A tiny world, strange and self-contained, but a world nonetheless. Continents rise and fall in these wide eyes.
Was it worth such destruction? the Armorer asked. Yes, he was worth the destruction. He is worth the burn in Din’s arms, the dents in his armor, the blood still drying on his face.
Is this how he felt, the Mandalorian who rescued Din? To hold nothing, to hold the world? A tiny face pressed against his arm, impossibly wide eyes looking out, taking in the world and sending it out changed?
Two foundlings, Din and the Child. Forged in fire and blood. Protected by the kindness of strangers. And this is another kindness, isn’t it—another kind of armor. A weight upon your back.
He touches the Child, and something shifts inside him. Like armor melting in the blacksmith’s fire, pounded from shield to sword.
Yes, he was worth it. The Child is worth, at least: my destruction. He is worth, at least: my rebirth.
What do you see, Din wants to ask the Child. Do you see the desert? Do you see our friends? Do you see me? Do you see your reflection in my armor? Do you see, beneath the helmet, how I am smiling?
Do you see how you are holding me—holding me, as much as I am holding you? Two foundlings: two weights, connected. Two worlds, contained within each other. Sometimes Din thinks he is still in that stronghold on Jaku, reaching out to let the Child grasp his finger, and all this is a vision, a possible future or an eclipse of some indefinable destiny, contained in the Child’s eyes.
He reaches out, he reaches, he lifts.
It is in your care, the Armorer said. You must reunite it with its own kind. Until then, you are as its father.
This, too, is easy enough.
They land together at the ship, and Din motions to put the Child down, but he wants to stay there, in the arc of Din’s arm. He stays there. The Child’s hold is strong.