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Din Djarin is eight years old, and he is afraid.
There are many people here, metal-and-flesh people who are loud and strong, and some of his fellow villagers among them.
The Mandalorian who saved his life has not set him down for hours. He clutches his neck for dear life- a lifeline in this unfamiliar aftermath. The man has not yet chosen to deny him this comfort, and he sits down with the boy in his lap, arms curled around him.
"This is my wife," says the man, and he points to a helmeted figure across from them, clad in dark blue durasteel. "She and I will care for you."
Hesitating, Din turns in his arms, loosening his grip. Her helmet shines in the dim light of the homestead. "Why do you wear that," he asks, pointing to the armor that covers her from head to toe.
The woman leans in and tilts her head just so. "It is our unity. Together we are strong. Nobody can hurt us this way."
"Okay," he says, watching as she kneels before him with her hands on her knees.
“What is your name?”
"Din."
“We will take care of you, Din. You are safe with us.”
"Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad," She whispers to him in a language he does not understand. It is soothing nonetheless. She pulls her helmet off her head; her hair is done in tight black braids against her scalp, and she has the darkest eyes he has ever seen. “Ner’ad.”
The Mandalorian brushes over his hair with one hand and translates. "... I know your name as my child. You are our Dinui. That means gift. You are our gift."
In a cave by the sea, Din sits in stillness with the darksaber in his hand.
The cave is grey, the air is cold, and the sun’s reflection on the water flickers over his armor like primordial fire, casting strange, fragmented light over the stone.
The saber hums in his hand. It is so quiet here. He feels an odd tug on his glove, another on his sleeve. An urge.
He flicks the switch, and the black bar bursts forth from the hilt, encased in its eerie white glow.
His breath catches.
The cave bursts to life. Across the stone walls, there is a shifting expanse of black handprints-- from the marks sprawls a strange oozing dust. They move as if they are crawling, flowing in and out of the rock, dribbling to the floor and reappearing elsewhere.
There are figures at the edge of his vision. They stand in his periphery and dissipate when he turns his helmet to look at them.
To anyone else, the sight of a room clamoring with ghosts might initiate the instinct to run. He does consider it, for a second-- but he doesn’t, because Mandalorians look death in the eye. He’s seen a great many strange things as of late, and he figures he may as well get used to it.
Sitting straighter, he folds his hands more firmly around the hilt of the saber and says; “What do you want?”
“That’s not the question you want an answer to,” whispers a melodic voice from behind him.
“Maybe not number one on the list, but I have a few,” he mutters, and chooses a better place to start. “What are you?”
From all around, he can hear a steadily intermingling throng of voices. You are safe with us, says one, good on you for showing that Imperial scum what our folk are made of, says another. Zealot, zealot. He cranes his neck, but the half-remembered ghosts flicker out of sight.
Where is your heart, a soft voice murmurs, you keep your heart in a bag on your hip or on the crook of your arm.
The walls of the cave bend around him; the gap in the stone where he entered through transforms into a mirror. The only solid figure he can discern in the room is the sight of himself. Cross-legged, helmeted, tense.
“We wielded the saber, we died by it, we live by it.” A woman’s voice, deep, sincere. “Ask your question.”
Images blink across the cave walls. Paintings of mythosaurs, spears, dead civilians, razed villages-- great herds of beasts cascade over the stone. The handprints divide and scatter, oozing together into black sludge that smears strange markings across the walls. Words in Mando’a, in Aurebesh, in alphabets he has never seen before. Stories he will never understand. The ghosts whisper now, ask us, speak, we are listening...
“I have brought Grogu to the Jedi. I completed my quest.”
Unsatisfied. Discontent. Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad, ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad. Wind rushes through the cave; the ocean laps against the rocks.
A deeper voice emerges from the hum. “Every Jedi is a child his family decided they could live without.”
“That’s--” Din pauses, swallowing his retort. He watches as the air burbles, a swirling prism scattering out from the cave-paintings. “I want him to be safe. With or without me.”
“He is your son. You are clan; one, together.” The ghosts blacken and flicker. He feels a firm hand on his shoulder-- one he can feel but cannot see. “It should be you.”
"What if I do it wrong? I'm not- I’m not a Jedi. I do not understand the force." he cuts himself short and sighs. "I'm afraid."
There is a metallic taste on his tongue. The air stinks of ozone. He feels the phantom weight of Grogu in his arms, and he can't help but instinctually cradle that empty space.
“You think your buirs were not afraid?” A rustle, the sound of bells, the sound of a hammer in a forge. Ner’ad, we will take care of you-
“Will you-- as long as I have this saber, will you help me? Tell me what to do?”
“We will not always be with you,” says one. “You have lived without us very long, and did well even then.”
“Hm,” he murmurs, unconvinced.
“You know what to do. You will not be alone.” Responsibility, whisper the ghosts. You are like a father to him- be afraid, and do it anyway.
Named and nameless, real as they are not, the souls who belong to the darksaber touch him. They press their palms into his shoulder, brush where his kneecap transitions into thigh, flutter at the base of his neck, squeeze his shoulders, lay their weight against his back.
“It must be you. It has to be you.” We will be with you all the way.. all will be well...
“I will try,” he says, and watches as all the strange forms in the cave retract into the black bar of the saber. He sheathes it, holding it in the palms of his hands. “I will try.”
Din is thirty-eight, and still afraid.
The strange planet that Luke Skywalker chose to build his temple upon is lush and green. The humidity crawls between the gaps in his armor. Moss covers the earth; his footsteps feel light as he sinks into that softness.
Overhead, strange birds called out. A ziggurat rears its head overtop the dense treeline. The darksaber weighs heavy on his hip. Sweat cloys in his helmet; Din swallows, watching silently as a silhouette clad in black emerges from the greenery, cape billowing about him.
They meet in the middle. Luke Skywalker's smile is as reassuring as it is gentle. "I’m glad you came," says the Jedi. "He asked for you every day."
From a bag on the man's hip, the child reaches for him.
Din's fragmented heart clicks back into place, whole and trembling.
He plucks the child from the pouch and cradles him against his armored chest.
The ghosts linger about him. He taps his helmet against the child's forehead; the baby gurgles, pressing his claws into the concave slope of Beskar.
"Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad, Grogu," he whispers to his son. “I know your name as my child.”