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Chapter Text

9 ABY

Din Djarin had never considered his purpose.

After his parents were killed, after he was rescued by the Mandalorians, his motive was to survive, survive, survive. In the Fighting Corps, he pushed past the extent of his limits, always climbing onto his feet when the more experienced Mandalorian children and foundlings alike thought he had had enough. Although he became one of the most skilled soldiers in his covert due to his ability to master and quickly recall technique, his perseverance was what made him a formidable opponent.

He was hardened from a young age, silently observant and wrathfully mourning. He wanted revenge, and for what, he did not know—his parents maybe, at least when he was a child. But his disdain developed from droids to anyone outside of the Mandalorian Creed. The Empire, the New Republic, the droids, the pirates—they were all the same to him, just more warring parties to wreak havoc across the galaxy and encourage more suffering.

So Din’s unspoken purpose became himself, as well as his covert. He put his talents to good use and made a name for himself as he climbed through the ranks of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild. Outsiders believed him to be a mysterious warrior who took pleasure in capturing bounties and ruthlessly murdering anyone who dared to stand in his way.

In reality, he was scraping by in his desolate life, providing what little he could for the foundlings. In the back of his mind, maybe he enjoyed bounty hunting because it brought him a sense of justice that most people could only wish for in the lawless Outer Rim.

Then Din Djarin’s purpose became something bigger than himself, or his Creed. It was a child who tugged on his deep-set personal beliefs until he recognized them. A gifted child whom he tirelessly defended and cared for in the inexperienced ways he knew how, until it became more than a quest for him.

Until he had to let him go.

And now, as Din sat in the pilot’s chair of the scrapped Rebel gunship known ironically as the Sovereign—which Cara had secured for him off the record—he struggled to consider what to make of his life. Before, it was simply going through the motions of each repetitive day in order to survive. This aftermath was much more complicated.

How could he return to his previous life? How could he be anything without Grogu?

He could return to Nevarro and approach Greef Karga for his next job. He had no credits, no belongings except for those he wore, but perhaps he could take some time to think about this while he worked. Maybe retaking Mandalore could become important to him, or maybe he could seek out the remnants of the Tribe, if they did indeed escape off-world.

But he knew he could not return to his tribe. He had removed his helmet, twice. He was no longer one of them. And maybe Bo-Katan was right about him being raised in a cult, but that would never make him feel any more Mandalorian after showing his face, forsaking the only Way he ever knew.

For most of his life, there was a disgraced, sickening clench in his abdomen whenever Din considered someone removing his helmet in a fight—because he never would have removed it himself. Now, he felt no shame in having removed it to show Grogu his true face before he let him go. The time with the child had changed his perspective about nearly everything, even things as trivial as his ingrained hatred of droids, even things as significant as his most sacred values.

In his eyes, his actions were justified, but he wasn’t sure he was a Mandalorian, although the helmet stayed on and he clung to what remained of his identity. He wasn’t sure what he was anymore.

But he could not be a pretender in that covert.

He could not be a pretender on Mandalore either. Aside from his newly acquired weapon and the name of his people, he had no connection to the planet.

Din’s default instinct then was to return to the Guild. He could get lost in the time-consuming, fast-paced work of hunting down bounties. He could rebuild his life from before, starting with his ship; except, after being stripped bare, he found that he did not care for his material possessions as he used to. Well, maybe his weapons.

Bounty hunting was familiar. It paid decently. He could get by with it.

Although, he dryly considered how well it worked out last time. A fifty-year-old that turned out to be an infant. A tiny being with faultless eyes that reached out to him with a whimper.

Is it not the Code of the Guild that these events are now forgotten?

How could he possibly forget?

Din frustratedly shoved himself up from the pilot’s chair, his helmet clanking against a panel on the ceiling that was positioned where it shouldn’t be. After not even a day in this cramped ship, he was already prepared to throw himself out of it to be sucked into the certain death of space; that tempting idea probably had more to do with his discontent about his current situation though.

With a sigh, he retreated to the main compartment of the ship, no longer having the patience to try to distract himself with mindless flying. He stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists without purpose.

When he closed his eyes, he was pained by the silence, the absence of babbling and giggles. When he opened them, his heart was wrenched out of his chest to once again find that he was all alone, millions of miles away from his kid. It was like no matter what he did, he could not escape the sheer loneliness and sorrow of not having Grogu there to reach up for him from the floor.

He tried not to consider how the kid was faring. It was miserable for him to think of Grogu disheartened from their separation even a fraction of the way he was. The worries crept in anyway, but underneath it all, Din knew he would be fine. Grogu had already made a friend, and he would be in qualified hands with the proficient Jedi, and one day he would probably forget all about their time together.

He’ll get over it, he had told Cara on Sorgan. We all do.

Din wouldn’t. Not this time.

The ache of loss tightened around his throat. It was all too much, and he found himself reaching up to take his helmet off for relief. He stared at his distorted reflection in the visor, his face somehow flushed in the cool, still air of the ship.

He had not dared to question his Creed after Bo-Katan had pointed out its faults. However, it preyed on his thoughts at times when he was with the kid, who would stare up at him curiously whenever he would lift the edge of his helmet. Was his Way the right way? Could it possibly be more important that he hide his face from his own child than break the Creed?

The answer came unexpectedly when he was forced to remove his helmet in the Imperial base on Morak. After decades of living beneath the armor, he revealed his face for the first time, in a room full of strangers. For the child—anything for him.

He had put his Mandalorian code second. Still, it didn’t feel right to relinquish it completely, so the armor remained, despite his knowledge of how the Armorer would deny his status.

Because, he had begun to realize, there was more to being a Mandalorian than covering one’s face.

So it begged the question: how much of his culture was false? He had obeyed the rules of the Tribe for most of his life, had followed them religiously, only to change his mind during his brief time with Grogu. Even then he continued, completing his task to deliver him to the Jedi.

This was the Way.

How could the Way be worth following when it forced him to give up his son?

With a grunt, Din forcefully threw his helmet against the wall of the ship. A loud clank echoed. The cheap metal was dented by the beskar.

No, this had nothing to do with the Way of the Mandalore. He would have reunited Grogu with his own kind regardless. He was not equipped to train him, could not possibly provide for him the way a father should. Grogu was better off as far away from him and his hectic lifestyle as possible. A child did not deserve to have a knife held to their throat or to be locked in a prison cell.

Every day their lives were in jeopardy. It didn’t matter if Din was there to protect him because the kid was going to be exposed to that violence until he was inevitably injured or killed. The Jedi was right: Grogu would never be safe until he was able to protect himself. And above all else, Din wanted to ensure his safety.

It was better to lose the kid this way than to lose him completely, he thought.

This was what he did anyway. He was a soldier; he was meant to lose the people he cared about, which was why he did not tend to form anything more than acquaintances on his ragged path through the galaxy. This wasn’t the first time his attachments were severed, and it certainly would not be the last.

I did the right thing. I did the right thing.

Then why did every breath hurt?

A foreign, choked sob startled Din before he realized that it had emerged from his own throat. Before Grogu, he hadn’t truly cried in years, and even then that was due to a brutal injury to his leg that he cauterized himself with angry tears. Now here he was, his knees giving out as he collapsed and cried harder than he could ever remember doing since he had donned his helmet for the first time.

He thought that the hardest thing he ever had to do was leave his parents until he had to leave his child.

For the first time in decades, he did not want to be alone. He had found something so meaningful in his hollow life that he could not fathom returning to the withdrawn one he led before.

Grogu’s place was with the Jedi, but Din’s place was with him, and he had to let that go for his sake. It would be the greatest sacrifice he ever had to make. Finally, he had begun to understand the agony of his parents’ sacrifice, one that he was certain they would have made again if given the chance, just as he would for his own foundling.

The tears landed on his chest plate, a testament that beskar steel was not impenetrable. The Mandalorian beneath it had been pierced in a way that his armor could not have protected him from.

He loved the child beyond what he thought was possible. It had brought him fulfillment to be a part of something virtuous and more beautiful than he thought could exist in the Outer Rim, or anywhere. But it had also rattled him to his core, proving it impossible to pick up where he left off or even find a new, insignificant purpose when Grogu had been it.

Every cell in Din’s body was tormented as he longed for the gentle weight of the kid in his arms. Crying was all he could do to express the pressure of void in his chest, and for once, he showed no restraint.

What meaningless existence could he possibly return to?

An entire galaxy, and he had nowhere to go.

Chapter Text

11 ABY

Grogu was a bright, curious child. On most days, he was an outgoing student, very eager to unlock more of the potential he held in his abilities. Admittedly, it had taken some time for him to let his guard down for Luke, since displaying his talents had led to dark years of being prodded and sold to the highest bidder. But once the Force had assured him that he could trust the Jedi, he had begun to thrive among the other students in the temple.

On most days, Grogu was extroverted, delighted.

Today was not one of those days.

Luke approached carefully, sensing the overwhelming melancholy that was somehow all emitting from the tiny being who was perched on the overgrown ruins. Grogu shut himself away from the Jedi, his ears pulled downward. He was not feeling very social today.

Patiently, the Jedi kept his distance and waited for permission to approach. Before long, the child allowed his barricaded mind to unbolt, the door slightly cracked as an open invitation. To Luke, it felt as if there had been a relentless wall in the Force that he began dismantling brick by brick. A slow process that he did not want to interfere with.

In the very beginning of Grogu’s training, that was how it had been, as he had hidden his powers and been disconnected from the Force for too long. He wore out quickly because he was out of practice, like the Force was a muscle that had been deteriorating and could only be strengthened through rigorous and consistent training. While he was improving, the occasional downturn in his mood would send him back into old, safe habits of drawing into himself.

The Jedi noticed that the child was transfixed on something trapped in his clawed grasp. He drew closer and saw it reflect in the sunshine, like metal.

“What do you have there, little one?” he inquired.

Grogu whimpered and kept the shiny object clutched in his hands. With a careful gesture, Luke reached out to uncover the object, and though the child’s hold did not falter, he was able to recognize what it was between his claws.

It was a mythosaur pendant. A Mandalorian symbol, no doubt gifted to him by his previous caregiver.

Father, Grogu finally communicated. Sad.

At first, Luke felt the immediate ache that was radiating off of Grogu at the thought of his Mandalorian father. This was not abnormal for his student; in fact, Luke was made aware of Grogu’s respect and love for the armored warrior every day. Because of the child’s resilient connection to the Force, it almost knocked him backward at times, the sheer strength of the emotions unexpected from such a small boy.

Luke took Grogu’s hand carefully and reached out to him. The child let his barriers crumble as he projected some of his fondest memories onto him, showing him again and again how much he missed his father.

In each of the visions, there was a threatening helmet tilted down to the infinitely shorter viewpoint. To anyone else in the galaxy, it would have been intimidating to hold the gaze of the bounty hunter. But the amount of love that accompanied the sight erased all wariness in the spectator.

There were brief flashes in which Grogu would be in direct peril and watch in awe as the Mandalorian fought off three, four attackers at a time to defend him. There were more quiet recollections, when the child would be seated at his father’s hip as he walked for hours on end, or when the beskar helmet would gleam in the light of the stars as he watched him pilot the ship—his home.

It had not always been this way. In the beginning, the bounty hunter rarely spoke and held the kid at a cold distance, but even those moments were precious to Grogu. Fifty years of age came with wisdom, even for an infant, and he understood how Din Djarin had given up everything—his menacing demeanor, his familiar lifestyle, his vital Creed—all for him. He knew that that development was just as tender in their relationship as the time when he had tearfully said goodbye.

At this point, after two years apart, he would have given anything for those experiences again. The new Jedi Order was his path, yet it was days like these that discouraged him to the point of complete disinterest in his powers.

Grogu yearned to be curled up against the steel plates of beskar and held in a protective grip. He missed being by his father’s side for every adventure. More than anything, he wanted to hear his voice again, low and stern but sometimes lifting with pride, only for his son.

It felt like those months had been the only time he was allowed to be a child. Not a Jedi to be trained, not a quarry to be mistreated, but a kid who belonged to a family.

Luke nodded understandingly. Maybe he would never know just how deeply Grogu cared for his father—maybe a part of him was always going to long to experience such a filial relationship—but he could grasp the basic concept through the pang of energy that he shared with him.

“You miss your father,” the Jedi spoke aloud. “That’s all right, Grogu. Although I have taught you how such an attachment can be problematic for your training, it is also a wonderful thing.”

Grogu’s ears lifted slightly as he looked up. He had been told the dangers of his bond, so he had worried that his teacher may be disappointed to find him grieving. But Luke had never outright discouraged the bond he shared with his father, and if anything, he seemed to understand the vacancy that accompanied loss. His eyes were friendly, yet at times he held an aura of insightful sorrow.

Luke sighed, searching for the correct words. “As I have said before, it is important that we learn to find a balance in our attachments. You have been doing well with this, but it is okay to let yourself have a moment of sadness as well.”

There was something else that stirred in the Force then, something that mirrored Grogu’s nostalgia in a distorted reflection. It was a distant echo that was just out of Luke’s reach, and it took him a moment of heavy concentration to figure it out:

Grogu could feel that the Mandalorian was also full of longing in that moment.

Father. Sad.

“You can feel his pain,” Luke whispered.

Except pain wasn’t the right word. It was incredible enough that Grogu could still have that tethered connection with someone parsecs away, so if Luke could sense that same emotion through him, that could only mean there was an agony weighing down that bond.

Grogu could almost feel the way his father sagged in the chair of an unfamiliar ship, his fingers curled around the metal ball he had developed a fascination with. He was aware that he often fell asleep with a hole in his chest and woke up from rare, hopeful dreams only to have them shattered by reality.

It hurt the child because while he had more distractions and duties, that same emptiness resonated through him during the slower days too.

This child was easily the most advanced student. He was constantly able to improve and display incredible discipline. Despite this fact, it was very impressive to Luke that he could have such a deep connection to the Force. It was practically unheard of.

“This is an ability that not many Jedi are capable of. I myself have not fully explored this area of the Force,” Luke tried to explain.

Grogu cooed inquisitively, blinking back at him.

The Jedi smiled encouragingly. “This is a perfect opportunity for you to build upon your skills as well as your understanding of the Force and its effect on emotion. I could teach you how to connect with your father through the Force.”

The long, soft ears finally began to raise with interest and twitched in the breeze. Grogu lifted the pendant in his direction.

“This is a unique talent that is not easy. But I have faith in your progress,” Luke said. “We will begin with extending your own emotions. Then I will teach you to demonstrate your presence.”

He reached down with Grogu’s acceptance and lifted him from the stone.

Miss him,  the child communicated forcefully, pleadingly. He had the urge to reach for a gloved thumb when he was picked up, but retracted his tiny hand disappointedly when he realized who was holding him.

“I know, little one,” Luke said patiently. “But he wanted this for you. As soon as you and I are confident in your abilities, you can return to him if that is what you wish.”

Grogu chirped in agreement. For now, their connection, with the Force serving as a guide, could be enough.

Space was vast and lonely.

That was why most people were inclined to travel together in the galaxy, either with a friend or with a droid to fill the deafening silence. For Din, he had preferred the solace all his life until he had a little green child to tug on his cloak and coo along to his disgruntled sighing.

Now, his only source of intimacy grounding him to the ship as it floated through the dark void was a silver ball that he twisted around in his hand.

It was almost pathetic how desperate he was for a sense of companionship when he had never desired it before. He hadn’t exactly believed that it would be a smooth transition back to dead quiet on top of the ship’s hum, but he had not expected to be tempted by the thought of leaving the cockpit to converse with a bounty to fill it. That was unacceptable, and it was a sign that he needed to quickly string himself together.

For over two years, he had coped by staying busy. Like if he worked with his helmet down and did not pause to think of how much his existence was numbed by the absence of long, fuzzy ears in the peripheral of his visor, then maybe he could survive.

But in the leisurely moments of no action, Din’s mind wandered, and he found himself reaching in his pocket for the little metal ball.

It could be worse, he told himself. He was strangely grateful that he didn’t have the Razor Crest to return to after he handed Grogu back to his own kind. He couldn’t imagine how even more agonizing it would have been to be always looking downward to make sure he didn’t trip over the ghost of him. To glance around their shared home and have the memories choke what little life he had left out of him.

A beep sounded on the console. He sighed with relief, finding that Nevarro was finally within reach. Shoving the ball back in its permanent place in his belt, he shut off the alert and began the landing cycle.

Stopping on Nevarro did not feel like as much of a homecoming as it used to. The covert was gone, the city was reimagined. Home did not signify a place for him anymore, let alone was it a concept he was familiar with in the first place, so it was difficult to find this planet as anything other than a fueling station in preparation for his next job.

The Sovereign touched down with a jolt that was always too smooth. Din lowered the ramp and stepped off the ship, into the black sands of Nevarro, leaving the three bounties onboard bound and gagged.

With the old cantina decimated and repurposed into a school, he and Greef Karga often met in his and Cara’s shared office to do business. So that was where he headed, striding inside past the Mythrol without a word; the bookkeeper knew better than to deny him access.

“Mando!” Greef called in greeting. He rose from Cara’s desk and reached out his hand. Din took it, albeit stiffly. “My friend. Back already?”

“All three bounties are on the ship,” the Mandalorian answered.

The magistrate smiled and sunk back down in his seat, not deterred by the bounty hunter’s usual cold tone. “Wonderful. I will make sure that your binders are returned to you as soon as they are locked up. When are you going to invest in a carbon freezer?” he asked.

“It will be a few years,” Din told him shortly. There was no possibility of the freezer being installed on his current, cramped vessel, so the traditional binding would have to do until he could buy a new ship. Maybe if you paid more, he thought to himself, it would be sooner.

Greef nodded, knowing that he was eager for his next job. “Of course. Well, I only have one puck for you this time, so—“

“Only one?”

“Business is slow. The New Republic recently swept through this region of the Outer Rim and apprehended a network of criminals,” Greef explained. “There will be more next time.”

Din tried not to display his disappointment as he swept the puck and the tracking fob from the table. Seemed as though he would have to pay Fett another visit for work. Keep busy. Keep busy or else you will be inhaled into a vacuum.

“You have me to thank for that,” Cara said from the doorway.

The Mandalorian turned to look at her. She smiled at him apologetically, and he nodded his head in greeting. After months of no contact, he was sincerely glad to see her.

Greef Karga sighed and offered, “There is another job. But it is direct commission.”

“I told you I only take jobs through you,” Din snapped with sudden hostility that made the observing Mythrol jump in his seat. “No private clients.”

That was his basic policy since returning to the Guild. No more direct contact with clients. No more hunting for the secret Imperial remnants. No more chances to run into a bounty that was reminiscent of his first deep-pocket job.

With his hands raised in defense, Greef shook his head. “That is why I didn’t want to bring it up.”

Din just sighed.

Cara stepped in then, throwing a friendly arm around his beskar-clad shoulders. “You have a while until your ship gets refueled, right?” she said. “Walk with me.”

He followed her out into the street. Vendors’ eyes still clung to him no matter how many times he had passed through Nevarro. Rumors of his adventures, of his massacred tribe, of his quarrel with the Empire had followed him around and shaped themselves into new, dishonest stories. There would not be a day when his expensive armor did not call attention, and that attention was now accompanied by exaggerated tales.

“Sorry I missed you the last few times you were here,” Cara commented. “I’ve been going out to patrol more often.”

Din glanced at the monument of IG-11 that had been erected in the square, a brief flash of gratitude sparking inside of him.

“Sounds like you’re cleaning up the system,” he stated.

She shrugged confidently. “I may have spearheaded a few operations lately.”

“Good. Maybe you could tell your Rebel friends not to interfere with the Guild,” he joked dryly.

The New Republic was not against bounty hunting, per se, but lately it seemed like they were not on his side. Their increased presence in the Outer Rim meant that criminals dug themselves deep in hiding, and it meant more routine stops to have his chain code verified. Whereas before he would lean their way over the Empire, his pursuit on Maldo Kreis a while back and their recent interference made them a nuisance.

And maybe he despised them a bit since the Jedi who had come for Grogu had flown an X-wing. It was juvenile of him to have such a thought, and he would never admit to it.

“Trust me, I’ve been trying to get their priorities straight.” Cara rolled her eyes. “The high-ranking officers don’t understand life out here. What people have to do to survive.”

Din nodded absently, kicking a stray rock out of his path.

“How are you? Keeping busy?” she asked.

“Yes. Saving up for a ship.”

There was a young New Republic pilot who saluted her from a shop entrance as they passed, and she acknowledged him with a simple nod. It still felt unnatural to be official, and Din took notice in the way she glanced around as if she was being monitored.

“You’ll have one soon enough, I’m sure. I can’t imagine bounty hunting has much downtime,” she commented. Although she had an inkling that he preferred it that way, mindless work to stay distracted. “Has it been interesting at all?”

The Mandalorian glanced down an alley where a floating pram was once discarded. With a quiet tone, he admitted, “It’s not the same as it used to be.”

It was more comfortable to confide in Cara than in someone like Greef, even about something so inconsequential. She had seen him without his helmet, had been there when he was declared Grogu’s father as well as when he lost him. She was probably the only person left that he could wholeheartedly trust.

The initial awkwardness between them after she had seen his true face had fizzled out long ago. They had both been hesitant to acknowledge it—her out of respect and him out of confusion on where he even stood—but after Cara’s assurance that he did the right thing, that he was always Mando in her eyes, he felt slightly more justified in leaving his helmet on and less uneasy in her presence.

Cara sensed the solemn change in tone and opted for a more lighthearted topic. “I was thinking about the kid the other day,” she told him with a nostalgic grin. “Remember when he saved us?”

She gestured over to the bar-turned-school, where Grogu had prevented them all from being turned to ash with only the will of his mind. He was very special, incredible in Din’s eyes, and just the mere memory caused his heart to clench with pride and yearning.

“Yes,” he said sharply.

Automatically, Cara knew she had made a mistake that was made obvious in his aggravated demeanor. She supposed she should have expected that her friend was more sensitive to the topic than fond of it this early on.

Guilt crept onto his shoulders until he lowered them. He had not meant to be so defensive or to snap at her, but it was like a second nature to shut out that angst, to keep it fortified beneath the beskar.

Cara did not want to press, but Din needed human interaction after being confined to a ship for so long, concern extended his way after nearly a lifetime of lacking companionship. Making up her mind, she stepped out of the street. She came to a stop and casually leaned against the side of a cantina. “Do you miss him?” she questioned carefully.

Din’s helmet tilted away from her. He felt the strong urge to reach into his pocket, but instead clenched his hand into a fist. “Every day,” he answered with a tight frown.

The marshal eyed him knowingly. He had always been an abrasive man of few words in the time she knew him—Greef indicated that he used to be even worse—but the change since losing his child had been clear. She had not needed to witness him break his Creed to say a touching goodbye to know that the kid had stripped him of every other care he had.

“I’ve lost family too, you know,” Cara said, her strong voice cracking for a moment. The tattooed tear on her cheek burned. “I know you won’t want to discuss it, but know that I have your back anyway.”

The words were oddly comforting to Din, even if they could not mend his gaping wound that did not seem to show signs of healing. She was more than an ally, and perhaps he would never be able to express his appreciation for her support in both skirmishes and downturns. He hoped she was somehow aware of his high regard for her.

“That’s...very kind of you,” he returned.

Cara was glad to have offered anything at all.

She changed the subject then, inquiring about his latest bounties and supplying him with stories of her patrolling. They spoke for what seemed like hours and yet not long at all, until Nevarro was bathed in a dying light. And when Din walked back up the ramp and into his ship, he was pacified for a bit, grateful for some company before he hit the road alone again.

However, it didn’t take long to slip back under the familiar crest of depression once he cleared the atmosphere. In fact, he had no motivation to chart his next coordinates. It was as if Cara’s acknowledgement of Grogu had made him less distant again, like he wasn’t a dream, but still far out of his reach.

The ship flew on autopilot without a destination as Din cradled Grogu’s ball in his hand. He did not remember reaching for it.

With a clenched jaw, he stubbornly blinked back tears. How was it still so challenging to persevere through each day? It had been almost two and a half years, yet it was nearly as painful as the day he watched Grogu leave Gideon’s cruiser in the Jedi’s arms.

There was a dull clink in the hull as the helmet made contact with the shiny control knob. Din’s chest felt hollow to him as the ship drifted aimlessly through space.

Please bring my son back to me,  he miserably pleaded with the universe.

But it wasn’t plausible. In his heart, he knew he had made the correct decision for Grogu’s future. He would not change it for his own selfish purposes.

He swore to the child that he would see him again eventually. He wanted to believe in it, in his desperate promise, except it would be utter torture to look forward to that day. Maybe he would see Grogu again despite both of their perilous circumstances, but he could not dwell on it, or else he would spend every single second of the rest of his life depending on a moment that might not come.

Din was fatigued, and he remained motionless in the pilot’s seat. His mental battles had become more straining than the physical combat he used almost every day of his treacherous lifestyle. It had all taken its toll on him, and each hour he felt his will draining from him.

Then, it happened.

The normally omnipresent dread receded. The void in his body was temporarily negligible. Comfort flowed through the Mandalorian’s veins, warm and familiar and so real that he straightened in astonishment, attempting to find the source of such an immediate alleviation.

Suddenly, the thought of Grogu didn’t send his head spinning. Instead, it encouraged the pleasant sensation. Almost like he—

Like he was there.

Kid, is that you? he thought. The idea was unreasonable and hopeless, but it came to the forefront of his mind all the same—he didn’t understand this Jedi stuff, and perhaps he never would.

And, as if in an answer, the serenity returned more insistently to his call. Yes, that was Grogu, obstinate and kind, pressing gently to make himself known.

Din blinked out at the remote planets and stars alike, wondering how such a connection could be possible. He had always been proud of the child for his achievements, but this was too powerful to even comprehend.

He had watched his child stop a charging mudhorn in its tracks and lift it into the air with a mere motion of his hand. He had seen him draw poison from a fatal wound, his wide eyes closed in concentration. Grogu had even shielded him from a flamethrower, as he could only watch in awe.

All of these incredible feats, but this ...this was something else entirely. Something sacred and beautiful that he hoped would linger with him for the rest of his life.

After the initial shock wore off, Din didn’t know whether to grin from the relief or resort to sobs. He had never felt such peace, with the exception of the tranquil nights when he allowed Grogu to drift off on his chest, against his half-hearted code to avoid any attachment before the inevitable parting.

For once, he could be glad that he let go. If training with the Jedi meant the child could learn to do something so unworldly, then he could at least attempt to live with himself.

The amount of sparkling worlds outside of the ship reminded Din that Grogu was out there on one of them, reaching out to offer comfort. With no certainty that he could respond, he spoke anyway, allowing himself to believe in something when even the Way of the Mandalore had not proven true.

“If you can hear me, kid...” The bounty hunter’s voice wavered and broke. “Just know that I miss you. And I’m proud of you every single day.”

As if in response, another tender current warmed him. Suddenly, space did not seem all that vast.

Chapter Text

14 ABY

Din stared up at the Razor Crest II.

It was a newer model, sleek and not worn by space travel and accidents as his older gunship was. He circled it carefully, noting only a few changes to the landing gear. Other than those slight adjustments that the dealer assured were a massive improvement from the historic model, the exterior was the same.

“Take a look inside,” the dealer suggested. Wary of the bounty hunter’s unforgiving demeanor, he was determined to assure him of the ship’s quality. “It is equipped with a carbon freezer and extra weapon storage, as you requested.”

Din approached the ship, brushing his hand along the clean metal until his fingers met the button to lower the ramp. The door opened with a familiar hiss, and he stepped aboard, into the past.

He set the pulse rifle down and allowed it to lean against a wall as he examined the interior. So much was the same and some of it a distant dream. The dim running lights served as a blanket of calm as he surveyed his new home.

There was a need for more weapons that he had not yet acquired to fill the storage. The cot was bigger than it had been before, and had more padding. Which, after napping uncomfortably in the pilot’s chair or the floor of the Sovereign for so long, was a major plus. There were also several upgrades to the cockpit and the control panel from what he noticed from a quick glance.

It wasn’t that he was not particular about his ships and his weapons—he was. And quite frankly, he should have been more scrutinizing of a ship he had spent nearly all of his credits on, that he had dedicated the last five years grinding for; it had been grueling, nonstop work, the bounties and the planets blurring into one another. But the Razor Crest was always perfectly imperfect. It was as close to a home as he could possibly have with his nomadic lifestyle, so any complaints he might have had were null and void.

Of all things, he almost missed his gunship falling apart.

After just a few moments of becoming reacquainted with the ship, Din emerged from it to finalize the deal.

“Is everything to your liking?” the seller asked.

“It’s still on the New Republic grid,” the Mandalorian stated darkly.

The dealer gulped. “I looked into that issue like you asked me to. You must understand. Unfortunately, my business would be shut down if I had—“

“Fine.”

Looked like it would be Peli Motto instead. Din sighed, retreating to the temporary, cramped ship that he would thankfully never have to see again. He came back with a massive stash of credits that he dropped at the man’s shoes; even after trading in the smaller ship, the rare and modified Razor Crest had been expensive. In addition, he had tipped handsomely.

“Pleasure doing business with you!” the dealer called after him, adjusting the goggles on his head and ogling the cash.

The Mandalorian disappeared into the Sovereign wordlessly to begin loading the rest of his items onto the Razor Crest.

It was when he settled into the pilot’s chair and the engines rumbled and whined to life that Din found a smile ambushing him. For five years he had been trying to get something of himself back, and although he had never been the same since Grogu, he felt that with his ship, he had finally reclaimed a piece of himself.

Lost in the triumphant and nostalgic moment, Din carelessly found himself saying over his shoulder, “Where should we head to now, womp ra—“

The sight of the empty seat made him deflate. His shoulders sagged from heavy years of loss. Closing his eyes at the familiar disappointment of nobody being there and internally chastising himself, he turned in the seat to face the dashboard again.

He still thought of the kid often. And the child would show up in his mind unannounced and sometimes at the most inconvenient times, as if to assertively remind him of the cherished experiences they shared—like he could forget. It helped quell the pain of longing in his darkest moments but left him a wreck in the aftermath.

Several months had somehow made a lifetime meaningless.

Determined not to get caught up in sentimental memories, the bounty hunter powered up the ship, familiarizing himself with new buttons. He reached for the knob to push the control stick forward—

Only to find that it was an odd, rectangular shape meant to fit more smoothly in a person’s palm. A kind of grip similar to that of the trigger joystick.

Din frowned. As if some newer model could dare to possibly replace the past.

He unscrewed the stiff knob. He found that he had to give it a firm pull to get it loose, and once he did, he set it aside on the panel.

His fingers instinctively found the spherical control knob at his belt. Carefully, he screwed Grogu’s treasured ball onto the switch, and it somehow fit like it was made for it, despite not being meant for this particular ship. A remnant of a predecessor, belonging even if the two parts were infinitely unalike.

If things couldn’t be the same as when he last had his ship, he could at least have this. A reminder that one day his son would be back where he belonged, whether that be with Din or with whatever life the Force willed.

With one last scoff at the ship he was glad to be rid of, he took off onto the trail of his next bounty.

It was later, when the Mandalorian was shut away in his sleeping quarters and en route to an arid planet, that he realized even having the Razor Crest again was not enough to ease the sting in his eyes each time he was tortured with recollections of Grogu. In fact, it exacerbated it.

Once again, he found himself grateful that his original gunship had been decimated before the child left with the Jedi; in those days when he was struggling to keep his head above the inescapable waters of depression, he would have sunk in an instant if he had to return back home to see the little hammock above his sorry excuse for a bed. The hammock that often went unused when the kid would repetitively drop down onto the cot to nestle against him until he relented with a tired sigh.

Every corner of the ship held significance where it didn’t before.

Now, those bittersweet moments raged in Din’s mind as he fought for rest. He could sleep anywhere—his lifestyle demanded it—and it should have been a simple task to let go in the only place he was comfortable when he was used to taking quick naps in full armor and a sitting position. But the loneliness was most overwhelming whenever he let his guard down.

With a frustrated sigh, he removed his helmet. He was usually less tense with it on, guarded from outsiders and shielded from his penetrating emotions, yet it had not seemed to be working after an hour of restless shifting. Next, he tried turning onto his other side, and then he eventually debated whether or not it would get him killed tomorrow if he tracked his bounty with his eyes half-closed, because sleep was too elusive to chase.

Nothing was working.

Five years without Grogu. He had gone five years , and those millions of seconds did nothing to distance him from the discomfort of not having his child home with him, in the quiet of his ship.

The kid made his appearance as he occasionally did whenever Din was aching like this, almost as if he sensed it. The warmth was always as bright and soothing as the first time, and the unwinding in his chest began steadily but forcefully. Tugging knotted threads until he was afraid that they would all come undone and he would be reduced to a pile of ash.

Except Grogu had learned much about his own capability. He knew he was strong enough with the Force, that his bond with his father had not waned no matter how long they had been separated. So many planets away, he concentrated with as much enthusiasm as a child could to provide more to their connection.

Then the Mandalorian felt it: a light weight fitted along the curve of his arm. His eyebrows furrowed before he peeled his eyes open, only to see nothing there. The weight dissolved into a phantom tingling, so he ignored it, searching for Grogu again in his mind as he shut his eyes.

It happened again, more insistent. Pushing and prodding until Din knew it was real and that he hadn’t been driven completely insane. He could have sworn the kid was right where he wanted him to be, pressed up underneath his chin with one ear folded over his pauldron.

He clung to the sensation, unwilling to open his eyes in fear that it would vanish. Tiny breaths echoed against his palm, and when he tucked his head down, he felt a soft forehead pressed against his own. It was enough to begin to pull him underneath consciousness.

Parsecs away, Luke watched on as Grogu scrunched his eyes closed with focus. Patiently, he waited to praise him so as not to interrupt the connection.

Grogu cooed and smiled as his ears lowered in sleepy contentment. The child felt his father tuck him closer under his cloak for warmth.

An entire galaxy, and their bond could not falter.

Dantooine was more crowded than it had been when Din last tracked a bounty through its lush forest over a decade ago. It was likely the reason why the current asset had sought out this planet rather than a vast and open place like Sorgan where it was easier to pick someone out—while it did complicate his job, it certainly did not halt it.

He was weary from space travel. He had not taken any time to rest after capturing the other bounty that was now left behind in carbonite on the Razor Crest. That was his method of surviving a life of nothingness: never stop. It had always worked for him before.

But now, as he worked to pick up a lead on his Rodian bounty in one of the markets, his burning eyes convinced him that he needed a break. It would halt his progress altogether, but the asset would be none the wiser, and he couldn’t afford to be caught inattentive by someone with such a high price on their head.

With a reluctant sigh, Din turned around and began making his way back to the shipyard.

The smattering of trees that separated the city from the shipyard was dense enough that he could barely make out the Razor Crest through all of the branches and trunks. Or maybe exhaustion was to blame—he hadn’t slept properly in almost two days.

It took him a few seconds too long to realize that he was being trailed.

When he did, he carefully came to a stop, listening for the hints of sounds lost in the breeze. He whirled around at the next shadow of paranoia over his shoulder without a warning and aimed his blaster—

At Ahsoka Tano.

His posture sunk out of its defensive state as he holstered his blaster.

“We should stop meeting like this,” she said with a genuine, soft smile.

“You seem to have a habit of sneaking up on me,” he retorted.

It wasn’t that he was unhappy to have their paths merge once more. It was just...seeing the Jedi again, especially on another forest planet, was enough to send his mind spiraling into a different time. A memory of fatherly bonding and new revelations that only hindered the already devastating process of his and Grogu’s split.

“I take it that you found a Jedi,” Ahsoka inferred from the missing satchel at his side.

Din dragged in a shaky breath. Most of his acquaintances knew not to mention the child because they were shut down immediately by his threatening tone more often than not. She didn’t know any better, and quite honestly, he was not eager to avoid this discussion.

She had been an integral part of their relationship, had offered him a chance to truly connect with Grogu by revealing his name and past. Out of respect for this, Din could not be discourteous and shut down the conversation before it began.

“Yes,” he eventually answered.

Ahsoka watched him knowingly, the Force rippling around him in waves of melancholy. With an understanding nod, she held her hand out in the direction of a more secluded area within the trees. “Walk with me,” she told him. It wasn’t an offer he could refuse.

The two stepped leisurely over fallen twigs as they caught up. Ahsoka did not pry much into his life after he briefly told her of his bounty hunting career, and he appreciated it. She spoke of the successful efforts she had put into rescuing her friend over the last several years. And inevitably, the conversation came full circle to Grogu.

“I understand why you let him go,” Ahsoka said, “and yet I don’t.”

Defensively, Din explained, “It was his choice.”

“Yes, I suppose it was.” But at the time of their departure from Corvus, she had heard the echoes of Grogu’s thoughts in his whimpers. Please, he had communicated. Please let me stay. Father.

Ahsoka could not have been the person to separate the father and son. She wondered who could have.

Din’s irritation flared. Did she mean to torture him with guilty thoughts about alternatives he hadn’t considered? He had already beaten himself more times than he could count.

“The kid belonged with his kind. Who are you to suggest that I didn’t make the right decision?” he snapped.

She stared back into his visor, fully aware of his emotions beneath it whether he meant to display them or not. He was lashing out because he was hurting, always hurting. Ahsoka recognized this years-old suffering boiling underneath the beskar like she was greeting an old friend—regret and shame fueling questions of the past like what could I have done differently?

“I didn’t say that. Only you can know if you made the right choice.”

The Jedi clasped her hands together and debated her next words. She didn’t want to aggravate his grief, but his hardened aura alone told her that the Mandalorian was no stranger to pain.

Din was a bit embarrassed by his outburst yet said nothing to amend it. So she carried on in the quiet.

“Grogu’s thoughts about you were...loud, to say the least,” Ahsoka told him. It was difficult to explain how fondly and ardently the child had communicated of the bounty hunter, and the reminder of the silent conversation they had had in the woods made a grin threaten to appear. But the way Din flinched at the sacred name told her to hide that reaction.

“With the way he spoke of you, I hadn’t expected him to choose the Jedi way,” she added.

Maybe things had changed after their meeting. Maybe Grogu came to find a deeper understanding of his powers on Tython, and the Force willed him to continue down that path. But it did not make sense to Ahsoka that he could love the Mandalorian so insistently during that time that his decision was solidly made and choose the Jedi so soon after he had made that clear to her. Though perhaps that was her own bias speaking.

“Well, he did,” Din stated firmly, pacing away from her with stubborn footsteps.

Still, she recalled the way Grogu had clung to his father’s cloak, repeating thank you thank you as they ascended the ship’s ramp.

And it led her to say, “I don’t believe that he chose that path lightly.”

Din scoffed, his heart wrenching in his chest, not wanting to hear another second of this. “Good to know.”

Ahsoka did not respond. It would only make matters worse to tell him, especially if the circumstances prevented the two from reuniting, but she had figured it out on her own: Grogu had not planned to join the Jedi permanently. At fifty years old, the child was informed enough to know what he was doing, and she knew that he was returning to his Mandalorian father. One day.

The latter turned back to her. His hostility faded with every passing moment, giving way to a gradient of sadness again.

“I wasn’t good for him,” he admitted. The modulator in his helmet failed miserably to hide the hitches in his voice. It was the first time he had expressed such thoughts to anyone in several years—and even then, anything he might have slipped up on was only told to Cara—but he felt that the secret was safe with her. “He deserved better. And he got it.”

Ahsoka shook her head at the obstinate warrior and finally offered, “I mentioned to you that his memory was dark. I hadn’t gotten to tell you that the only time he was ever truly happy was when he was with you.”

Din’s eyes fluttered shut to prevent the prickling in them from becoming something more. The kid always seemed to be joyful, a beaming star in the dismal Outer Rim. Could that have been true, that even with his innocence, he had not found patches of happiness to believe in all that time?

Fifty years was a long time to be passed around in a lawless galaxy. Din knew what decades in war-torn systems could make of a child.

Grogu had been a foundling, just like him. Another kid made into a warrior because space demanded it of him.

Yet the life of traveling with a bounty hunter had been his escape, and Din didn’t know how to feel about that. Grateful, mostly, that he could have offered those experiences. Tormented that the kid had not received much affection aside from what he had offered— not enough. Blameworthy, because he had urged him to leave when he was content, had spent too long in the beginning trying to pawn him off.

Ahsoka felt as if she should comfort the Mandalorian; that was what she did, always strived to help people. But she did not possibly know where to begin, and she figured that he would not want to hear any alleviations she could try to offer.

Eventually, after a few minutes of quiet contemplating, Din turned to the Jedi. “Is it...possible for your powers to work on others?” he asked, perplexed by his own question.

It was confusing for Ahsoka to understand as well. “In what way?”

“Let’s say, hypothetically, that I left this planet.” He swallowed. “Could you communicate with me through your powers?”

He didn’t want to sound as if he was driven mad, but he had to know more about the pleasant warmth that came and went, if it really was Grogu. Especially after the latest development.

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes in brief consideration of his inquisition. From what she knew of, the answer was simple, and it came quickly. “No. You would have to be Force-sensitive for us to establish such a connection, and even then, it is unreliable depending on how far you go.”

Din didn’t say anything. So she took it upon herself to say, “I believe you are asking me for a reason other than the hypothetical.”

With a sigh and a fidgeting motion with his hand, he tried to explain, “I think the kid has been...” How could he put such a sensation into words? “I get this feeling sometimes. It’s abnormal, but it’s a good feeling. And it is forceful, not something that can be ignored, so I know that I’m not unhinged or dreaming. Every time I get it, somehow it feels like him.”

His ramblings didn’t make any sense to himself, but he hadn’t been able to prevent the secret from being exposed. She knew of such unworldly things, so she could help him understand. Or maybe she would tell him that he was unstable and in desperate need of a healer. Either way, he was in need of an explanation.

Ahsoka knew of such connections that could be formed between two close Jedi. She could distantly remember feeling the familiar presence of another when it was established—namely Anakin, though recalling it made her chest ache decades later.

But between someone who did not wield the Force, and a child who had been in an unspecified location parsecs away? It sounded impossible.

“I know what you speak of,” she said. “Theoretically, such a connection is inconceivable.”

Din felt relief. “Is it actually...?” He couldn’t bear to speak of the kid with his hopes high.

Ahsoka chose her words carefully. “If you know it to be the child, then it must be him. I can’t consider any other explanation.”

But it still defied every law of the Force she had known. As Din’s emotions suddenly heightened with something like pained fulfillment, she was reminded that their attachment had been steadfast to the point of palpable. Perhaps the father and son’s bond had bent the rules.

The conversation had tapered off. With nothing left to speak of, Din offered, “Thank you.”

There were many things he was referencing. Her willingness to help Grogu, her refusal to train him if only to offer more time, her guidance on matters of the Force. Most of all, her compassion, which was a commodity that grew more rare with each encounter he had in the Outer Rim.

She understood. “Of course.”

With a goodbye hanging in the air, Din started toward the Razor Crest again.

“Mandalorian,” she called after him.

He turned, watching her robes curl around the wind and her montrals shift with the tilt of her head.

A smile tugged on Ahsoka’s lips as she assured him, “You will see him again. One day.” If the child’s thoughts had been any indication, the reunion was certain.

Din nodded in gratitude and continued on his path. One day. The words repetitively ran through his head with each step until he too could begin to believe it with as much conviction as she did.

Chapter Text

15 ABY

The Mandalorian was merciless to bounties.

He refused their bargains with threatening silence and paid their pleas no mind. Some fought back in a fruitless effort to escape and received crippling blows. Others took one glance at the valuable beskar armor and surrendered, having no interest in nursing a broken arm or worse on the certain way back to whatever client had sought them out.

He had no care for their excuses or their pitiful groveling. Everyone from the Outer Rim had their own tragic story, and his sympathy was nonexistent, both for his own safety and in his belief that people made their own choices to warrant a bounty puck.

Grogu didn’t.

They all thought he was heartless when he delivered his notorious line of bringing them in warm or cold. Little did they know that as they were frozen in carbonite down in the hold, the bounty hunter fondly twisted a small silver ball in the palm of his hand in remembrance of the life with his son he could never have. Little did they know that his work wasn’t about ego, that one of the many weapons attached to his armor declared him the ruler of a planet he had no interest in ruling.

Din did not display his sentiments to anyone, let alone his quarries. It was part of being a Mandalorian to live so secretively. And it was a disadvantage to feel anything other than the need to survive in battle, for it could make him unsteady and vulnerable to an attack.

However, he once defied the Guild and followed the honor his soul demanded. Well, aside from the time he returned for the child.

It happened when he had cornered a Twi’lek bounty on the planet Sullust. The chase had not lasted long because the terrain was mostly wasteland, and Din had taken advantage of this and caught him out in the open. With nowhere to go except for the pool of lava in the chasm below, the asset began his pleading as the hunter approached in the ash.

“Sir, you don’t know the circumstances. I had no other choice, I was—“

Din adjusted his grip on the blaster, tilting his helmet in boredom. The bounty knew his fate was sealed; he ceased his ramblings and sighed, defeated. With tears in his eyes and his blue skin pale, he held out his hands to be cuffed. Then, he begged for something that none of his quarries had wanted before.

“Can I please say goodbye to my son?” he asked. “He’s not far. He’s back at the village.”

For the second time in his bounty hunting career, Din hesitated. His joints locked up at the unexpected request, and he should not have been considering anything aside from his certain payment. But his mind stuttered and raced with the jarring transition from zeroing in on a bounty to commiserating with him.

“I just want to see my son one last time. Then I will come with you willingly. Please.”

It wasn’t even the words that struck too personally, though they did; it was the emotion behind them. It was the fierce protectiveness and the constant worry and the undying love that only a father could know. Din knew it all too well because those sentiments stirred to life within himself when he was reminded.

His aim faltered as he thought of floppy green ears and giggles in the cockpit. He considered his own mistakes he had committed over the years in the lawless parsecs that definitely warranted an arrest. Who was he to separate a father and his child over something he could have just as easily done?

I just want to see my son one last time.

In the back of his head, he recognized that the bounty could be falsifying his wishes to buy precious time or garner sympathy. Although, the Twi’lek would have to be a flawless actor to make up in his desperate facial expression what Din had felt countless times.

Even dormant from years of separation, that fatherly compassion was compelling enough to overrule any other commitments.

Wordlessly, the Mandalorian holstered his blaster. He reached for the tracking fob and the bounty puck, and the Twi’lek watched, utterly baffled, as the two items were tossed over the side of the cliff and into the lava.

Din stalked away. There would undoubtedly be a new bounty hunter to take his place eventually, but for now, it looked like his own equipment was lost.

It was one of his last acts as a member of the Guild.

His tribe was alive.

It had taken the better part of six years to catch a single rumor of what remained of the covert on an unfamiliar Outer Rim planet that Din had only visited once. While they had meant for their location to stay hidden, he had also refrained from seeking them out. He wasn’t like them anymore, and they would not accept his presence if he walked into the covert and told the truth.

However, times were changing. Din’s title of Mand’alor had caught up to him when Bo-Katan Kryze and her fellow soldiers had run into him on Nevarro. For a while, he tried to forget all about his right to the throne that unfortunately came with the saber he accidentally won. But after a tense conversation with her and several days to mull over his answer, it pestered him until he ultimately decided to step up to fulfill his duty.

She had spent long years gathering Mandalorians and spreading word of her plan to retake their home planet. In addition, she used that time to come to terms with the power Din held. He had been her adversary because of the controversial Darksaber, but before that they had been allies. Bo-Katan regarded him as honorable and did not wish to quarrel with him after years of introspection, especially not when his status could aid in her efforts.

Regardless, he had agreed to her request of engaging in a fair duel, once they had reclaimed the planet. And if she could have a position at his side for the time being, she told him, she would be satisfied.

Settling back on Mandalore and disposing of the sector’s Imperial presence was a massive task, one that would be impossible without many allies. So they and their Mandalorian companions searched across the galaxy for the last remnants of their kind, from the clans whose bloodline was rich in historical ties to Mandalore, to those who had only been raised to know the culture and not the home world.

Which led Din here, to the wet planet where he caught himself in a downpour, rain drops tapping so harshly against his armor that it sounded more like clattering. He headed to the underground market to escape the rain. The air was warm with food and spices and beckoned him further in, though the locals were questionable. A vendor eyed him suspiciously, and he found himself unconsciously shielding a nonexistent satchel at his side.

Oh, right.

His hand clenched into a fist. Sometimes Grogu felt like a missing limb that he would never be used to going without. Sometimes he would cover that spot at his side out of instinct, or he would see a toy or a small creature and think about how he would like that. It was strange to him how he traveled with the kid only for a few months when he spent decades without him, and now many years later, there were habits from that period that he could not unlearn. The habits of a father.

Din muted those thoughts to retain his focus. He made a turn and followed the tip he had to a lower level accessible by winding stairs. Where he was met with an arsenal of blasters pointed at his helmet.

“I don’t recognize you,” one of the Mandalorians said. He sounded young beneath the modulator, and he bore no signet.

“Do I look like aruetii?” (Traitor, foreigner, outsider) Din sighed, striding past him. Mando’a felt foreign on his tongue. He was.  

There were more than he expected. In fact, there were about as many Mandalorians here as there were on Nevarro. They must have rebuilt in the years when he was absent. Foundlings laughed as they chased each other; two soldiers grunted as they brawled for entertainment; three young women painted their newly-forged pauldrons. It was a distant home that he no longer belonged to, when they had once been all that he had. They had already ostracized him, and they were not even aware.

He felt more shame than nostalgia. He felt like a traitor prying his way into a culture he did not belong in, whereas he had not had these disparaging sentiments before he stepped foot in this covert. Truthfully, he thought he had worked these feelings out years ago.

A mythosaur skull hung precariously above his head as he stepped into the new armory. The Armorer wore darker furs than she used to, but her helmet was in its same, polished condition. Din was stuck in the entryway and watched her anxiously as she went about her job, hammering at a chestplate with the precision of a life’s work.

Once she noticed his presence, she ceased her actions and straightened. After their encounter on Nevarro, she believed him to likely be dead, since many years had passed without so much as a rumor of him this far out in the galaxy. But she would recognize her work anywhere, from the mudhorn symbol she had crafted to the cuirass she had shaped from scratch. Those characteristics easily set him apart in her memory.

“It has been a long time,” she stated.

He tipped his helmet and took a step forward, still loitering. “Yes.”

Several Mandalorians gathered in the entryway, curious about his presence. He recognized a few by their familiar armor and faded colors, but not any of the others.

“Did you succeed in your quest?” she questioned.

He took a steady breath in. “Yes,” he answered.

Recognizing discomfort in his tone and his stature, the Armorer clasped her hands together and studied him for a long moment with a penetrating gaze. Then, she assumed, “Something happened.”

“I completed my task. The child has been with his kind for years,” he explained with a strain in his throat.

She was glad to hear it, as she had wondered momentarily if his impression indicated that he came to deliver grave news of his foundling. Instead, she braced for another revelation, though nothing could have prepared her for what he actually had to say.

“But I removed my helmet during that time. Twice.”

It was like someone had shot a blaster. A deadly hush fell through the covert, the only sound in the room being the vigorous flames of the armory.

Then every Mandalorian erupted.

“Traitor!”

“You aren’t one of us.”

“You don’t deserve to wear that armor!”

”Dar’manda.” (A state of being "not Mandalorian"; not an outsider, but one who has lost his heritage, and so his identity and soul.)

Din bristled as the last slur cut underneath his skin, as sharp as a vibroblade. There were many insults in the concise Mando’a language, and that word, with the weight of shame that it carried, was indisputably the worst affront they could have spat. Even as disconnected as he was from them, he could not deny how the influence of his upbringing let the idea turn his blood ice cold.

He had been expecting this outrage. Still, it had been important for his own sanity to finally admit it to the family who had raised him, as right or wrong as they might have been.

For many desperate days in solitary space, he thought of this moment. The consequences of being cast out of the Tribe had haunted him until they suddenly didn’t. It had taken time to come to terms with the fact that the Way of the Mandalore was not all that made a Mandalorian, as they were his sanctuary and his pride for all of his adult life and even a large portion of his childhood. But after meeting so many within the entire culture, after realizing that there was nothing preventing him from keeping his identity that he clung so tightly to despite his sins...he couldn’t justify his fear of what would happen.

They weren’t accustomed to anything outside of the Creed, and they would not be until they went through the trials that he did, love and oath battling until the latter gave way. Perhaps for the vast majority of the Tribe, they never would.

They couldn’t understand that there were more important beliefs that could shock their identities into oblivion.

They wouldn’t understand why Din let them aggressively crowd and threaten him, why he only lashed out once they tried to tear his pauldron from his shoulder—the pauldron bearing his clan’s signet.

He began to wonder if he would make it out alive as the Mandalorians attacked him to wrench his armor off. It took all of his restraint to stop himself from igniting his flamethrower or deploying his whistling birds. Din fought desperately, smashing his fists bloody in the weak spots he could make out between the masses of beskar clouding his vision. His skills were not matched by the younger recruits, but when the experienced soldiers like Paz Vizsla began joining the clash, he had no choice but to wield the Darksaber in defense.

“Enough!” the Armorer called once she had processed the scene before her.

The warriors listened to their matron, slowly retreating from Din but still seething with fury. The Darksaber shined vividly upon its ignition, flaring with each burst of indignation felt by its owner.

“What is that?” someone asked. It seemed that every visor was mesmerized by the ringing hum emitting from the sword. Its brilliance rivaled the warm glow of the forge as the focal point of the room.

“It is the Darksaber,” the Armorer declared, stepping closer to have a better view. “An ancient Mandalorian weapon.”

After a moment, Din decided that he didn’t appreciate all of the eyes and returned the hilt back to his utility belt. No need to draw extra attention.

The Armorer knew of tales about the Darksaber. She was aware of the fragments in history that told of its authority, of how it was a symbol that could unite all Mandalorians. Scanning the rest of the onlookers, she noticed how some of the more informed warriors were torn between their duty to recognize his power and their right to claim his beskar.

If nothing else, they all owed him the entitlement to a rebuttal. Their culture’s integrity demanded that they give even their enemies a chance to defend themselves.

“Let us sit and discuss these matters, Din Djarin.”

He obliged, and the other Mandalorians lingered as she sat across from him. They glared down upon him heatedly, eagerly awaiting his punishment, though he did not shy from their gazes. Instead, he drew strength from them and held his head high, as he had forever done with all of the opponents that dared to look down on him.

“Tell us how you came to break the Creed,” the Armorer requested.

A prepared response flashed through his mind, and he decided against it, opting to speak from his heart. “I removed my helmet once to save my foundling.” He swallowed, his throat dry. “Then a second time to say goodbye.”

The Armorer listened as he briefly told her of his quest, of how he came to acquire the Darksaber. He evaded the part of the story of what it had been like to display his bare face in a room full of strangers, though he knew they were all listening with rapt attention for his account of it. He had felt humiliated and naked, revolted that the first person to meet his eyes since he was a child was a sinister Imperial officer, and he didn’t want to relive it. In the end, the only explanation he could offer his audience was that he had done it unthinkingly yet deliberately for his son.

The matron’s silence was unnerving, and he waited to be interrupted and told that he was banished and would need to turn over his armor—over his dead body would he.

“There is no excuse,” a shorter and bulky Mandalorian said once he had finished. “He is not Mandalorian anymore. He showed his face.”

“We should kill you for how you have disgraced us,” someone growled, the modulator crackling with disdain.

“You will do no such thing,” the Armorer warned. She carried authority well in her voice. “Not only are we not savages, but by tradition, the owner of the Darksaber is the rightful heir to the Mandalorian throne.”

Murmurs spread through the underground passages until more of the Tribe was attracted by the rumor. Din narrowed his eyes at the Armorer through his visor and wondered how she had not yet denied his status. Darksaber or not, he had sworn the Creed. And the Darksaber was not known among this sect; he had never heard of it until he met Bo-Katan. They had no reason to honor his position because of a sword they hadn’t known existed ten minutes ago.

“I’m here because my Mandalorian allies and I are retaking Mandalore,” Din said simply. “We need your help.”

“Do these so-called Mandalorians take off their helmets too?” someone ignorantly grumbled. There were assenting jeers.

“Why should we help you?” Paz’s stubborn voice cut through the chatter. “You shouldn’t have even stepped foot in here.”

The Mandalorian turned to face him and retorted, “You once spoke of our secrecy being a testament to our cowardice. This is our chance to live proudly as we were meant to, not huddled underground waiting to be picked off. Does that mean nothing to you all?”

Paz couldn’t respond without sounding like a traitor as well because a large part of him was in agreement. In addition, his own loyalty had already begun to waver after Din spoke of his commitment to his foundling. Paz considered if he would have done the same for his own foundling, Ragnar, whom he had taken in last year and chose to raise as his son. He suspected that other Tribe members with children were silently contemplating the moral dilemma as well.

The Armorer held Din’s gaze for an extended period of time. His hands gripped his knees as he waited agonizingly long for her condemnation.

“Have you removed your helmet since that day?” she asked.

“No,” he answered.

Her decision on the matter shocked him. She tilted her head upward to address the covert as well and said, “The Creed is important, but the most prioritized tenet within it is the protection of foundlings. Foundlings are the future. This is the Way.”

Everyone seemed to be frozen in place by her choice of response. They all wondered how such an exception could be made. Only Din would ever understand how the lifelong Creed signed in blood and effort could be overruled by something greater. In a way, he had upheld it better than anyone in the Tribe.

He had never regretted his decision. Not when he had the opportunity for his son to be the first to touch his face as a final thank you. There had been something in Grogu’s wide eyes that resembled recognition rather than surprise during their moment, and perhaps Din would never know that the child regarded him as the same warmth of his Force signature. That in some way, he always knew what he looked like. Father.

But at least he knew that Grogu had recognized the importance of that gesture. He had defied his unforgiving tribe to extend him one last parting gift.

That tribe was now offering him a reprieve.

“This is the Way,” the other Mandalorians finally echoed.

He couldn’t find it in himself to repeat it.

“We will consider aiding you in your mission,” the Armorer decided. “Whether the others follow our Creed or not, we are all bound by the same honor. We do not abandon our brothers, though this matter must be discussed among the Tribe.”

Din dipped his helmet in acknowledgement of her contribution.

“As for you, you displayed your face despite your vow, and this is unforgivable. However, given the circumstances involving your foundling, and considering you have not removed your helmet since, I will allow you to take the Creed once more, so long as you will continue to adhere to it.”

It was something like a pardon, which he never thought would be granted, though he could not find it in himself to accept her additional offer. Swearing the Creed was not something he particularly needed; he had been following the Way for the past six years since his sin regardless. It would forever be his moral law.

But there was a rule he could not promise to obey. And if that permanently cast him out, if they denied him aid for the future battles, then so be it. There were Mandalorians spread thin throughout the galaxy, all with shifting rules and hints of a similar culture—

He would redefine what it meant to be Mandalorian and find his own Way.

“I cannot take the Creed because I refuse to disrespect it again,” he declared, rising. “I cannot swear that my foundling will not see my face once more.”

The Armorer bowed her head in recognition of his honesty and kept her disappointment to herself. Some part of her understood why he would make this choice, even if she never would fully experience his point of view, and she respected that he would rather sever his ties with the Way of the Mandalore than disobey it.

She watched him leave through the parted crowd, his cloak allowing him to slip between the Mandalorians like a shadow, though he was too prominent to go unnoticed as he passed.

The whispers that had followed Din all his life now emanated from his former tribe. They trailed after him until he stepped back up into the steaming marketplace, and then the heated discussions of controversy began.

And one day, those who whispered would be swayed to follow him too.

Chapter Text

16 ABY

The world dipped and swayed outside of Din’s visor. Sounds of the final bombings and blaster shots were muffled behind a murky veil of pain, so that the explosions were only distinguishable to him as bursts of light. It was beginning to be impossible to stagger any further on his unreliable legs as he tried to balance himself upright with a gaping wound in his side.

A ragged cry tore sharply through his helmet when the gash was disturbed by an unthinking movement. His body collapsed with the effort, beskar meeting the sands it had once been mined from in an unfavorable homecoming, and he focused on breathing in unsteady gulps of air as a last resort. He couldn’t even lift his eyes to watch as his people chased the Empire remnants off of their planet; he simply dug his fingers into the ash and crawled forward. Always moving onward, even when there was nothing left.

We won.  He had done what he set out to do. The Mandalorians were now in control of their home world, and his year-long offensive had not been in vain. Wasn’t that enough? What was stopping him from collapsing in the dust and letting death claim him with forgiving arms? Its tendrils had already begun tugging on the ends of his consciousness, promising rest after a lifetime of endless toil. His hardened spirit vehemently resisted its temptation, yet there was a fraction of him that was too tired to contend with it anymore.

He couldn’t go back to not having a purpose. Not again. And it was that thought that allowed him an excuse to halt his weak actions, his body slumping to the earth.

Cara—who had volunteered for the final battle in the reclaiming of Mandalore in exchange for prisoners—sought Din out once the last of the Imperials had been driven from the atmosphere. A small crowd of Mandalorians within the capital had gathered to cheer, blasters and rifles raised in united exhilaration of victory, and she found it suspicious that he wasn’t in the center of them. So she began searching on her own, outside of the collapsed dome of the capital through the visual aid of her scope.

It wasn’t long before she found him face-first on the ground. Unmoving.

As a soldier, her only instinct was to run. She couldn’t think about how motionless her friend was, how still his body remained in the billowing smoke. With the image imprinted in her brain against all of her training, she raced with the uncertainty of his life fueling her forward.

Cara snagged a speeder bike that carried her most of the way. Then she was ditching it and sprinting the final meters, dodging the wreckage of TIE fighters and AT-ATs. An inhaled cloud of dust sent her into a brief coughing fit. Somewhere along the way, she dropped her rifle.

“Mando!” she called.

There was no answer, though his cloak shifted with his rapid breaths. Upon making it to his struggling body, she shoved him onto his back, desperately seeking out the trauma that had him on the verge of death.

Din coughed out his agony at the jostling, unconsciously grasping for the knife wound left by a death trooper in the side gap between his armor. There had been four of them, and the last had taken the chance while he was distracted fending off the others to take a vibroblade to his vulnerable place. He had been too delirious with the gnawing torture to finish the trooper before he retreated with a hurried limp, and that missed opportunity of revenge made the rest of him blaze with angry regret.

Cara followed the movement of his hand and pressed against the fatal gash. Her own hand came back from his torn flight suit darkened with crimson blood.

“Stay with me,” she pleaded helplessly. “You’re a survivor. You’re going to make it.”

He wheezed in response, barely registering her words over the loud throbbing in his ears. “Not...this time,” he gritted out.

“Hey, over here!” the ex-shock trooper shouted, waving her hand at an incoming group of Mandalorians on the battlefield. Once they saw her, their jetpacks flared, and they beamed towards her.

“Hang on, buddy,” she repeated.

Bo-Katan was among the squad. She landed a few meters away without a stumble, rushing over to offer any aid she could.

The helmet marked in blue and white was smeared in Din’s vision, and when it was removed, all that was left for him to decipher was strikingly red hair. “He needs medical attention, go!” Bo-Katan ordered the remaining soldiers. They nodded, taking off towards the partly demolished city without a second wasted.

“It’s bad,” Cara told her reluctantly. With a side glance, she skeptically watched her examine her friend; it was no secret that Cara had not trusted her since Din acquired her most prized possession. Bo-Katan was likely waiting for her chance to snatch it off his dead body.

Din shifted, his hand moving to his tactical belt. With a trembling grip, he reached for the hilt of the Darksaber and held it out to Bo-Katan. She watched him with bewilderment.

“You wanted it,” he choked.

To Cara’s surprise, the heiress shook her head in denial. Bo-Katan did not have the same desires she once had, as they had dissolved throughout their journey to regain her home world by his side. She demonstrated these sentiments by folding her hand over his and pushing the weapon back towards him. “Not like this. Not anymore,” she said. “You have proven that you deserve to rule Mandalore. More than I do, or anyone else.”

He had fought valiantly that year, had personally led the Mandalorians into both stealth missions and extreme warfare as they fought for their planet, a cause that he had not initially been convinced of. It had been a debilitating effort, but they had won. And on the other side, Bo-Katan found him to be the obvious choice.

“I don’t—“ Din groaned weakly. “I never...wanted this.”

Exhaustion from the loss of blood overwhelmed his coherence. When his head lolled to the side, Cara yelled something demanding at him, gripping his hand in a crushing hold.

“The medical team is on their way,” Bo-Katan stated once she got a call through her comm. “We need to keep him awake.”

Cara applied more pressure to the brutal stab wound in his side. His moan came out broken and fading. The pain started dissipating as he shut it out like he was raised to, except this time, the intentions of the survival mechanism were not to drive onward.

After all the instances Din had brushed shoulders with death, some part of him still believed the time when it was certain would be slow-going and nostalgic, if he wasn’t lucky enough for it to be sudden. He would grasp at his parents’ blurry faces in his memory and look back on his regretful experiences as if they were holovids being replayed. He would be prepared and want for nothing else because he had seen and done it all.

But all he could think about now was how tired he was.

Bo-Katan urged him, “You’re the ruler of Mandalore now. You have a duty to these people, and you don’t get to die.”

The words went unnoticed by Din, who drowsily shut his eyes, unafraid of the darkness ahead. The world outside was glazed by a subtle golden now as the sun breached the horizon; squinting against the reflection off his armor was beginning to be a strain for him.

Cara shook her head at Bo-Katan’s attempt. She knew that Din had no desire to do this, that he would find any reason to lie down and accept what he had hailed a “warrior’s death” once. It was obvious to anyone paying attention that he had been walking the thin line between risky operations and certain demise for years now. He had almost been searching for a permanent break, ever since...

That was it, the encouragement he needed. He didn’t care about Mandalore. Cara had been his trusted friend long enough to know that there was only one thing that she could bargain with, something that would wake him up even if he were dead and buried six feet underneath the toxic sands of this desert planet.

“Hey, Mando,” she said. He was unresponsive and stiff with anguished tension beneath the beskar, and she shook his shoulder forcefully. “Mando. Din!”

The Mandalorian’s helmet twitched in her direction at the rare sound of his abandoned name, as if he had been floating in a distant dream and was recalled to reality.

“You promised the kid you would see him again,” Cara reminded him with an assuring yet troubled smile. “You’re a man of your word, and I’m not about to let you break that promise.”

Something inside Din snapped back into the present when he thought of tiny claws tapping against his armor. There was a surge of energy—probably one last dose of adrenaline—that burst through his body when he saw the large eyes watching him expectantly in his hazy memory.

How could he have so carelessly forgotten? In his last moments, he had been so distracted by the physical aspects of exhaustion lulling him into death that he had neglected his own son in the tender, fortified places in his mind.

And in that moment, Din let the agony flood his senses to remind his body that it needed to mend. It felt like a massiff had sunken its razored teeth into his side and was actively tearing, but he endured it, if only to allow thoughts of Grogu ground him.

Cara was right. It didn’t matter if he was fatigued by this war, stripped to the bone to reveal how hollow he had been all the time he wore the mask of a leader. It didn’t matter if the stars were so distantly unaligned that he would never hold his kid again. It didn’t matter if there was a gaping hole in his waist that drew life from him every precious second—he made a promise, and he owed it to Grogu to keep it, even if he had to drag himself across the diameter of Mandalore with nothing but his sheer determination to hold himself together.

Din nodded, finally tightening his hand around Cara’s in a fiercely solid grip. No, he was not done yet. He had a vow to fulfill.

And he allowed himself to say the mantra he had not been able to speak for many complex years characterized by self-doubt and moral dilemmas. It came forth as an emotional expression yet emerged steady from his lips, an ancient, repetitive phrase taking on a new fervor. A battle cry, for his people and all that they suffered. A moral code, for his own survival. A promise, for the kid—

“This is the Way.”

Grogu felt it.

Oftentimes, deep in meditation, his connection to his father was substantial enough that he could sense his most intense emotions. It wasn’t unwelcoming, even though the Mandalorian tended to feel passionate anger and desolation more commonly than anything like contentment. It was familiar, less of a sting and comparable to a warm ache.

There were other times, since Grogu had been able to expand his knowledge in training, that the bond was physical. He could grasp at nothing and, with the will of his mind, translate it into a real touch and take hold of his father’s thumb. Alternatively, he could sometimes tell if he was injured when there was a slight pull on his arm or his leg.

This time, it came to Grogu in a sharp, sinking sensation, tugging downward and demanding attention. The disturbance in the Force was unmistakable. Something was very, very wrong, and he emerged from his concentrated state with a startled squeak.

Luke redirected his attention from one of the inexperienced Padawans to watch the stones floating around Grogu clatter to the ground. With a perplexed tilt of his head, the Jedi stood and approached the child.

“What is it, little one?” he asked.

But Grogu was inconsolable. Tiny claws covered his eyes, and his ears folded over in an effort to make himself smaller and protected from the invisible hands forcefully beckoning him.

“Is something wrong, Master Luke?” the youngest Padawan girl asked. She watched her fellow student with concern.

The other children broke from their meditations upon noticing the distractions, their focus not entirely intact to begin with. Grogu started whimpering repetitively, and Luke knelt down in front of him.

“You have to let me in, Grogu,” he said calmly.

If the child could hear him, he gave no indication. He was struggling in a way that started genuinely worrying the Jedi, who could not garner his cooperation. Once Luke knew there was no chance of Grogu doing anything other than pushing out , he reached out his hand and placed it on the child’s chest.

The Force almost seared in the space between his palm and the child. Father. Hurt. Pain. Dying. Fatherhelphimscared—

Luke closed his eyes and drowned out the questions of the other students. He knew that if he did not aid Grogu, the dark side could overwhelm his barriers by taking advantage of his fear. They had been practicing his management of his attachment for seven years now, but Luke could not rely solely on that training to guide the young Jedi. Not with a disturbance this powerful.

You must trust in the Force, Luke communicated once he had pierced the child’s obstructed mind. There is nothing you can do to save him. Remember, you must not allow your attachment to cloud your bond to the Force.

Grogu heard the reminder clearly through the haze of unfiltered terror. With the imagination of his father shattered and bloodied receding from his mind, he recalled his lessons and began toddling back to the light.

It was an indisputable fact since Luke began his training that his relationship with the Mandalorian would not be ignored—could not be. They had built upon it instead of shying away from it, the two of them experimenting in a way that had not been attempted by previous Jedi orders. And one of the many things Grogu had learned was that when he could not avoid a negative aspect of the attachment, whether it be longing or fear such as this, he could redirect the emotion.

That is what he did now, under the guidance of his master. He disentangled himself from the unrelenting grip and coerced his thoughts elsewhere.

He saw the corner of a visor as a helmet spoke to him over a shoulder in a pilot’s seat. He heard a drawn-out, irritated sigh, and he remembered a careful hand patting his back with encouragement. He felt a shoulder beneath his cheek as a warm presence rocked him. The light was brighter now, and he gravitated towards it.

Trust in the Force. The Force had always ensured that Grogu would land somewhere safe. It had protected him from the blind wrath that hurt his fellow Padawans in the Jedi temple. It had led him to his father.

The child had faith in the Force, but he could also believe in his father. Sometimes, the two sacred bonds were intertwined.

When Grogu emerged from the vision, Luke was there, offering a supportive nod. The process had not been without faults, but for a toddler to be frightened with the feeling of his father’s life hanging in the balance and be able to recover so quickly...it was impressive.

In the beginning, Luke was unsure how he could help the child navigate his path to mastering his abilities with a love so steadfast. The Jedi Order had warned against such sentiments, and rightly so, for there had been several failures in both Grogu’s practice and Luke’s own teaching.

But that day, it was proven to him that it was more than possible. The student had exceeded his expectations, passed the ultimate test and had not succumbed to the dark side, had not even shown temptation. Perhaps the old Order had been mistaken in their demand that attachments remain untouched.

“Well done,” the Jedi said.

“Buh,” Grogu replied proudly.

He was shaken for the remainder of the day, but he held his teacher’s praise high and balanced his emotions whenever they became unsteady. Eventually, the tugging faded, just as the Force had promised. Safe, it assured him. His father was healing and soundly resting and it was going to be okay. He was going to keep his promise because Grogu wasn’t sure that anything could prevent his father from adhering to his word.

Still, he clutched the mythosaur pendant a little tighter that night.

Chapter Text

17 ABY

Three New Republic scouts perched on a ledge overlooking the Imperial base. Their rifles remained steady as they zeroed in on the pharmaceutical laboratory and tallied the amount of stormtroopers stationed around the perimeter. Their elbows and knees were beginning to ache the longer they held their position, foreheads flushed from spending the afternoon in the direct path of the sun.

A newly promoted officer stepped up behind them, surveying the valley below as a whole without a scope. “So, what do we got?” Cara asked.

“They switch positions every half hour,” one of the soldiers said between a yawn. He briefly thought he witnessed movement down near the beach, but relaxed when he realized he had been tricked by a palm tree swaying in the breeze. Maybe he was just hoping to see something after a day of nothing.

“Not much to see out here, Officer Dune,” another clarified. It was getting late in the evening, and they were eager to call it a night.

At least, there hadn’t been action until the base coincidentally went into lockdown after his statement. Suddenly, the stormtroopers were scrambling along the edges of the facility before focusing their firepower inwards. With the faint blare of alarms being carried up between the rocky cliffs, it was clear that the base was under attack.

“Finally, some action,” the third scout said.

Cara stared into her binoculars to figure out what was happening, but with no sign of life outside, it was impossible to say what was occurring inside.

She sighed, “This isn’t good. Whoever is in there obviously isn’t New Republic. If they succeed, then we won’t be able to go through with our attack.”

“And our Imperial prisoners will either be dead or in other hands.”

“Could be locals,” someone speculated. “Maybe they grew tired of the occupation. If they succeed, we could bargain with them. If they don’t, then our plan won’t fall through.”

“Let’s just see what happens,” Cara suggested, not eager to entertain any of those outcomes.

They waited anxiously for fifteen minutes without shifting an inch or twitching their eyes in another direction. Only then did the siren fall silent, letting the tropical valley take a quiet breath. Still no sign of anyone.

One of the soldiers groaned before pointing out, “They would have sent stormtroopers outside by now if they had stopped the attack.”

“That was fast too. It wasn’t untrained locals. Whoever these people are, they are obviously professionals. Maybe pirates after the drugs?”

A few minutes later, armored warriors emerged from the Imperial base, their identities given away by the distinctive helmets they wore. Cara relaxed her shoulders, partly disappointed and partly relieved. She and her team would not have the chance to comb through this base themselves, but at least the spoils would go to someone with honorable intentions, someone worthy of it.

“Are those...Mandalorians?” The scout sounded flabbergasted at the rare sight.

A second later, Cara watched through her scope as a Mandalorian with unusually shiny armor stepped out of the main entrance to the facility and began distributing orders that she could only interpret through gestures. A huff of amusement escaped her lungs. Of course Mando had beat her to it.

“I’m going down there,” she eventually said.

There was a pause as each of the scouts glanced at each other incredulously. “Are you crazy?” one asked. He received a hit on the shoulder from his companion next to him as a scolding for disrespecting their commanding officer.

Cara just rolled her eyes and started down a path she carved out for herself among the rocks before they could try to convince her otherwise. It would take her a bit of time to get down to the beach without a proper trail to guide her.

“With all due respect, Officer Dune, this is insane,” another soldier called after her. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Cover me,” she ordered over her shoulder, though she knew she would not need it. “Whatever you do, though, do not follow me.”

Puzzled shrugs were thrown around between the three soldiers. They kept Cara in their scopes and obeyed her.

Once Cara stepped out of the tree line and into the sand, the Mandalorians had caught on to her presence. She didn’t recognize this fire team, and it was very clear that they did not recognize her.

“Hold it right there!” a modulated voice warned.

“Mand’alor?” another asked for instruction.

”Kaysh burc’ya. (She’s a friend.) Lower your weapons,” Din demanded calmly as he strode past his people. Confused, they did so anyway, reassured when their leader reached Cara and clasped arms with her.

“Looks like you were faster. Again,” Cara said with a smile in greeting.

Din’s tone was glad when he said, “Cara. It’s been a while.”

In fact, the last time the two had talked was almost a year before. The lack of communication had been no fault of their own, simply the fault of their hectic lives. Mandalore had been a disaster when the Mandalorians had inherited it, while the New Republic’s hunt for Imperial remnants had ratcheted up. And it was up to them to sort out both in their prominent positions.

Grateful for the brief time they now had to catch up, Din nodded in the direction of the stretch of beach beyond the base. He and Cara headed that way in order for their conversation to be private.

“I was here with a team doing recon before we attacked within the week, but you all got here first,” she explained.

The Mandalorian glanced up at the ridge that he figured her group was perched on. Cara tried not to be embarrassed by how predictable their position was. But hey, the Empire certainly had not figured it out.

“We weren’t aware of this location until recently either,” he offered.

She angled herself away from the water when it lapped up on the beach too closely to her boots. “Any chance you’re open to handing over an Imperial officer or two?” she bargained.

Din’s helmet met her gaze with a small amount of guilt. “Sorry,” he said. “If they were directly under your supervision, I would.”

Cara nodded in understanding. He could not offer her their prisoners when they would end up under the jurisdiction of New Republic authority figures well above her. The Imps had an ongoing, cold war with Mandalore, and the Mandalorians could not risk any information about their military or their planet falling into the New Republic’s hands when they had not aligned themselves with the galactic government.

It was no secret that Din did not trust them. Then again, he only genuinely trusted a select few people.

“You’ve been doing an incredible job cleaning up the Empire,” she commended him. “You Mandalorians have taken out more bases than we have these last few months.”

His visor shifted from his path to the soft sand that gave way beneath him with each footstep. “They’re going to keep coming back until we’ve dealt with them all.”

They had driven the Empire from their sector in an aggressive outward thrust, but that had only aggravated what was left of them. Most people in the galaxy had a problem with the Imperials, yet the defeated government had a select few groups which it would always have a more distinctive tension with; Mandalorians were one of those warring parties, as they held an unyielding grudge for the annihilation of their people.

Coordinated attacks against the Mandalorians had returned after the reclamation of Mandalore. Din had made it his mission to hunt them first instead, his additional personal reasons for despising the Empire fueling him. Thus far, he had exceeded his duties in that realm.

He told Cara about it, purposefully leaving out any information that might aid her own moves against the Imps. It was difficult to withhold the strategies from her, but the more the New Republic interfered, the less prisoners would be at his disposal to interrogate. She did not hold it against him.

Then he talked briefly of his life on and off the road, about how he traveled and led operations himself as much as he could in an attempt to avoid the rather political tasks back home. And Cara spoke of her own adventures in the Nevarro sector, of how Greef Karga was beginning to slow down with age and how he was keen on the idea of his most valuable partner returning to the Bounty Hunters’ Guild despite the high price he was worth—unfortunately for him, it would never happen.

By the time Cara decided that she had no other choice but to return to her team, she found herself crestfallen to depart from her friend again. Din felt similarly, though he was accustomed to a life of solitude. Even surrounded by his people, he often felt misunderstood. Alone.

“We seriously need to talk more often,” Cara told him as they came to a stop. “Even if it is just over holos.”

The setting sun bathed his armor in an orange hue, his visor glazed with it as he watched the waves disrupt the horizon. “I agree,” he said.

As if already drawing back into the isolation of his own self, his hand twitched towards his tactical belt for consolation.

Cara noticed the movement after a moment of enjoying the brilliant sunset with him. Her eyes drifted to where he was rolling a silver sphere between his palm and fingers, and after years of witnessing what she thought was a nervous habit—peculiar, because Mando was anything but nervous—she finally decided to ask.

“What is that, anyway?” she inquired.

Din lifted his arm from where it was limp at his side and held the ball in his field of vision. It danced in the dying light.

“It’s a control knob,” he answered evenly.

His friend had not received a real explanation yet refused to push him on the subject. It was then that he decided he was tired of staying silent about his foundling, of keeping the topic closely guarded to his chest. Grogu would always be a sensitive thing to discuss, but that didn’t mean he should be ignored as if he didn’t exist just because Din missed him profoundly.

So he expanded, “The kid was obsessed with it. Stole it all the time in the Crest when I wasn’t looking. Couldn’t take his eyes off of it.”

The words caused Cara to stiffen momentarily before gradually easing up so her surprise wasn’t obvious. It was a challenge to figure out an appropriate response. Mando didn’t talk about the kid often, and never this in-depth. It hurt too much to that day, nearly eight years since the Jedi came for him.

She cared for him too. She liked reminiscing about the curious child whom she and her companions had laid down their lives for. But Din never spoke, so she never pried. Now that the opportunity arose, she talked freely, years of her own longing spilling out.

“He was very serious about getting what he wanted,” she commented. She remembered him reaching out an innocent hand and an unknown force crushing her windpipe, but this didn’t seem like the time to mention it. While she looked back on the event with humor now—and a bit of warmth since the kid had only meant to protect his father—it didn’t stop a shudder from rolling through her body.

It caused Din to let out a quiet, gruff laugh that she had not once heard the entire time she had known him. “Yeah,” he said, picturing massive eyes fixated on the metal toy. “He was.”

For once, he found himself fondly discussing Grogu rather than miserably. It felt...freeing, if only on this occasion. Like sharing his love with another person instead of harboring it inside an enclosure of armor lessened the smarting wounds he had yet to patch up.

There was a reverence in his voice when he couldn’t help but add, “His name was Grogu.” For some reason, he felt like someone else besides him should know.

Cara nodded, trying out the name with a smirk. “Grogu,” she repeated. It was fitting for him. Short and strange but with an adorable ring to it once she accompanied the sound with those fuzzy ears.

Din grinned faintly beneath the privacy of his helmet when he recalled how the kid used to snap his attention over to him upon hearing his name. Somehow, learning his name had changed everything for the Mandalorian. Speaking it had been an acknowledgement of who the child really was, an attempt to truly understand him when he had left him at a safe distance for so long—as if that could have prevented a heart-shattering farewell. And for Grogu, hearing his abandoned, rejected, forgotten name from his father’s mouth was like finally coming home.

It couldn’t possibly have the same effect on Cara, but Din hoped that it would allow her to understand as he had. That before he was a bounty, before he had lived for decades in darkness, he had just been a child named Grogu.

“I miss that little one,” the New Republic officer said with uncharacteristic gentleness.

Din couldn’t conjure up an appropriate response. The silence reminded her that her squad was probably beyond confusion as they waited for her, and that it was time to go.

“Do me a favor and send me a holo when you do run into Grogu,” she said. “I’ll be there faster than lightspeed.”

When you run into Grogu.  He liked the sound of it, though he could not depend on their chance encounter.

“You’ll be the first to know,” he said. “Take care, Cara.”

They locked hands roughly before Cara started her uncertain way up through the tropical forest, dreading the inquisition she would receive from the scouts. Din kept the control knob cradled in his hand and decided not to return to the base down the stretch of sand until he saw the rest of the sunset. A distant memory of Trask flashed through his head, a similar myriad of colors in the sky and a content kid perched in his arm.

He had been to hundreds of planets throughout his life, had seen countless sights that he did not have the care or time to stop and admire. Truthfully, he had not once flown somewhere for his own leisure. But Sesid was almost overwhelmingly beautiful, from its dreamlike beaches to its crystal blue waters. Din took the time to appreciate it for himself now.

Grogu would love it here,  he thought.

He hoped he was somewhere peaceful like this, or like Sorgan, where he could run around and catch frogs to his heart’s content. He hoped that wherever he was, he was allowed to be the same joyful kid that would reach out for butterflies with innocent fascination and hug Din’s leg when he wanted to be lifted.

The Mandalorian didn’t know if he would see his kid again; nothing was certain in such a universe. He didn’t like to consider a reunion that was impossibly distant and perhaps nonexistent. But today, he let himself believe that he would hold Grogu one last time. He heard Ahsoka’s assurance, and Cara’s, and he allowed himself to anticipate the sight of green ears flopping with each uncoordinated step and short arms held high as he bounded over to him.

And he promised the unknowing child that he would bring him back with him to Sesid one day. He would sit in the sand and patiently listen as the kid babbled incoherently about the huge lily pads floating nearby. He would observe his exploration of the beach and let clawed fingers drop seashells in his lap. Together they would watch the same overlapping shades of orange and pink and yellow paint the sky, and Grogu would be transfixed in pure amazement, and maybe Din would remove his helmet to see the view with an unfiltered gaze.

As the last of the horizon glowed with a uniquely mauve tone, the Mandalorian held the metal ball tighter in his grasp and let himself dream in a way he hadn’t since he was merely a child on Aq Vetina. His grip was as steadfast as his vow, the sphere imbedding itself in his hand until he was sure it was a part of him, down to his bones.

“Until our paths cross,” he murmured. And they would.