Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was strange, the Mandalorian thought, how quickly he got used to having another sentient on the Razor Crest.

The night the foundling decided to come with him, the Mandalorian took him into the cockpit for the first time. It was a calm moment as the Crest took off into the atmosphere, leaving the ad’s home planet. As the bounty hunter piloted his ship, he used his helmet’s 365 degree sensors to watch Harry’s reaction.

Awed was perhaps the best word for it, staring as the world became smaller and smaller beneath the ship, until the exited the atmosphere completely and the child just marveled at how simultaneously ginormous yet tiny the planet was from his seat to Mando’s left.

He reached into his pocket and clutched something, before carefully pulling out a small, green, plastic figure. A toy?, the Mandalorian had wondered, and watched as the ad carefully placed it on dashboard in front of him, as if to let it watch what was happening too.

“You strapped in kid?” he asked them. At the child’s nod, the bounty hunter entered in the last of his co-ordinates, and prepared to make the jump to hyperspace. “Hold on then.”

Before Harry could ask any more questions, he pulled the lever, and the planet beside them disappeared in a dance of blue light.

Whether it was the sight of his planet disappearing, the mesmerising yet calming site of hyperspace, or the realisation that he really was far away from his relatives and that he never had to see them again, the ad sank into his chair, completely boneless.

The Mandalorian had helped unstrap the kid from his chair, awkwardly settled the foundling on his hip, and carried the too light child down the ladder. The sleepy child was awake enough to eat some of the fruits they had bought earlier that day as a snack, and be talked through how the fresher worked. Freshly fed, cleaned, and dressed in his new pyjamas, the boy practically passed on the Mandalorian’s bunk.

The rest of the night, the Mandalorian stayed awake, planning a course of action while providing basic maintenance to the ship. His next job was to capture some Mythrol on Maldo Kreis, but taking the small child with him wasn’t a good idea. He didn’t have the clothes for it for one, and what if the bounty went wrong? He didn’t want an innocent getting hurt. He could take the child straight to Nevarro, but that was also a terrible idea. Nevarro was full of strange alien races, and he highly doubted the child had much of an immune system to speak of, he’d likely just get sick. Or freak out over the aliens. Or both. And wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to introduce the foundling to the covert, giving Harry a panic attack before getting him sick with Bantha Pox?

Eventually he had decided to stop on a small moon in the outer rim to refuel and visit a medcentre. Getting that child vaccinated was a must before they went anywhere. They were about three days from the moon, then he’d head straight for Maldo Kreis. He’d still take the child with him on the bounty, but Harry wasn’t setting foot outside the ship. He’d stay tucked away in the bunk.

The next morning, or as close to it as you could experience with the Crest in flight, Mando remembered another problem: language barrier. The kid wouldn’t be able to speak with anyone, and how would that help Harry? The Mandalorian also didn’t want to become to dependent on the translator to communicate with the ad. Practically speaking, Basic made more sense due to it’s status as the language of trade and business in most parts of the galaxy, but the bounty hunter still saw the merits of start with Mando’a. If Harry was taken in by the tribe, like he likely would be, where all the other younglings spoke Mando’a, whether they were clan born or foundlings, then speaking a few basic words or phrases would be a huge help in getting him settled in.

The debate of whether to teach the kid Mando’a or Basic first when faced with the choice was quickly solved when Harry quickly proclaimed he wanted to speak the same language the Mandalorian spoke. They quickly developed a sort of game to teach Harry different words, and every time he heard Harry stumble over the sounds, a smile appeared on his helmeted faced. He was tempted to download some educational modules on his datapad for the kid, but figured he was best waiting until contacting the covert, they dealt with traumatised foundlings much more than he ever did as a bounty hunter.

His heart had broken at how easily the kid bloomed under the simplest of affection and words of encouragement. The first time Harry had managed a few words in Mando’a, the Mandalorian had responded with a soft “Jate, Harry.” and a gentle squeeze on the shoulder, the boy had frozen for a second before practically beaming with pride. It was that second that made the Mandalorian pledge to give the poor adiikas much support and encouragement as possible while they were on his ship.

Living with the Mandalorian was the best, Harry thought. He gave him plenty of food to eat, and let him play with his toys whenever he wanted, and spent time teaching him all these strange new words in Mando’a> and Basic. He let Harry play with the datapad and ask as many questions as he wanted, and he even let Harry sleep in the Mandalorian’s bed.

He still didn’t know the Mandalorian’s name, but he did know that he was a beroya, or a bounty hunter, which Harry though was cool.

The Mandalorian didn’t have very many rules either. He just wanted Harry to stay away from the strange “carbonite freezers”, told him to put away his legos when he was finished playing, and said that Harry was never to go near the armoury unless the Mandalorian was with him. Harry was pretty happy to follow those rules.

When he woke up that morning (or whatever the space ship equivalence was), he was told there were landing the ship on a small moon. He practically ran up the ladder in his excitement to see the moon.

Harry practically buzzed when the blue light of “hyperspace” disappeared and was replaced with a huge planet. It was different from how Earth looked, and seemed like it was mostly made of rock or something. But that wasn’t where they were going.

Keeping one hand on the wheel to steer, the Mandalorian gestured to another planet that was almost completely green. “See there?”

At Harry’s nod, Mando said “That’s where were heading.”

“That’s a moon?” Harry exclaimed, “But it’s green!”

Shaking his head as if amused, the bounty hunter returned his hand to the wheel. “It is.”

“Is that where the other Mandalorian’s are?”

“Mando’ade,” Mando corrected. “And no. This is just a pit stop. We need to refuel, and you need to see a baar'ur.”

It was odd, Harry noted, how the Mandalorian’s voice sounded when the translator was off. His voice was quiet, but strangely warm. Much less robotic than the translator would have you think it was, but it was still kind of muffled due to his helmet.

“>Baar'ur?” he repeated. “What’s that?”

The Mandalorian hummed as the ship started to enter the moon’s atmosphere. “Ah, a healer or medic.”

“Like a doctor!” Harry blurted.

“’Lek.”

“But-“ he panicked, “I was good. Why?”

The helmet tilted to look at him in concern. “You were ori’jate. What does that have to do with seeing a Baar'ur?”

“But my aunt told me only naughty boys go to the doctor, and to stay as far away from them as possible.”

It was like the air chilled, before the Mandalorian managed a curt “Your relatives were liars. Don’t believe a word they said.”

The next few moments passed in silence as they approached the surface quickly rising to meet them.

The moon was strange, and completely different than the moon that Earth had. Most of the planet was covered in trees and lakes, apart from the small village the Razor Crest was approaching, which reminded Harry of pictures he saw in a book from school of futuristic buildings made of black and white steel, glass and concrete.

A voice came over the “comm” system, speaking what Harry vaguely recognised as Basic from the few words of it he knew, though he couldn’t tell you what they said. All Harry could say in the language was “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.”, “Please.”, “Thank you.”, “Hello” and “No”. From the way the Mandalorian nodded and began pressing buttons and flicking switches however, they were probably given permission to land.

As soon as they touched the surface Harry wrestled to get his seatbelt off. An alien planet! Or, well an alien moon anyway. Dudley would be so jealous, even if Harry did have to go see a doctor!

With a huff, the Mandalorian reached over and helped him release the buckles.

It was only Mando’s voice telling him to be careful and to wait for him that stopped Harry from opening the ships ramp himself. Well, that and Harry not remembering which button opened and closed it.

When the bounty hunter lowered the ramp, he grabbed one of Harry’s hands before he ran anywhere. “First time we go anywhere, stay by me.”

With a reluctant nod of understanding from Harry, the Mandalorian let go of him, and they departed the ship.

The sensation of standing on an alien planet was so cool! He excitedly looked all around them, and there were a bunch of other space ships of different shapes and sizes around. There were also a few people, but they all seemed human like Harry and the Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian led him over to the far side of what he was told was called a hanger, and led them through a metal door. They were out on a wide street, and there seemed to be lots of different buildings and houses everywhere they looked, and they all looked completely unique to each other, not at all like on Privet Drive.

As they walked down the street, Harry stared at everyone and everything they passed. They passed a man selling some strange fruit at a stand, and a woman walking some kind of strange cat, and everyone was dressed in these strange clothes that reminded Harry a bit of the way ninjas dressed, except with much more colour.

The entire time the bounty hunter remained quiet and seemingly focused on wherever they were going, but Harry could tell they were completely focused on Harry, and for some reason Harry thought they found his reaction funny.

Eventually, the reached a small stone building. Mando put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and said, “Just…be good.” Then he reached up and made a motion that Harry knew was to completely disable his translator.

Then he reached up and pressed a button on the door, and said something.

A moment later the door opened, and the first alien Harry ever saw appeared in front of them.

They were tall, like super tall, and their face reminded Harry of a cross between some sort of insect and a human. They had a mask covering their face, but Harry could still see some sort of tusks jutting out. They were wearing a white coat that he had seen doctors on tv wear before, so Harry guessed this must be the Baar'ur.

They gestured for Mando and Harry to follow them down the corridor, and led them into a white room with a bed, some sort of cabinet, and posters on the wall with an alien alphabet on them.

Suddenly, the Mandalorian lifted him up and set him on the bed, turning to say something to the doctor.

The doctor nodded, and responded in the same language. Harry couldn’t understand, but he thought the alien sound nice to.

Eventually, the doctor turned to Harry and started looking him up and down, before pulling out a datapad. They handed it to Mando, and told him something, before looking at Harry.

“Hello,” they said softly in basic. Harry beamed, he knew that word, and he was talking to a real alien!

“Hello,” he replied.

The doctor asked him something, and when Harry didn’t understand Mando stepped in.

“The kid doesn’t speak much basic,” the Mandalorian informed the Baar'ur.

“I see,” the kindly Kel Dor replied. “That may be a problem. You are the child’s guardian?”

“I am.”

“Then you may need to translate or help him calm down. Younglings tend to be scared easily by healers, and language barrier won’t help.” They pointedly looked at the datapad that sat in Mando’s hand. “Fill in the file as best you can, I can’t do much until I know what I’m working with.”

“I won’t be much help,” the Mandalorian admitted. “I don’t know much about the child either.”

“Why not?” they asked incredulously.

“I only rescued him a few weeks ago. Before that he was a slave on a backwater planet I took a job on.” While not technically the full truth, it was as much as the Mandalorian felt comfortable sharing with a near stranger.

The Kel Dor turned to examine Harry once more with a serious look in their eyes. “I see.” They paused before saying. “So it’s true what they say about Mandalorians?”

“Depends on what they’re saying.”

Mando could practically hear the smile in their voice as they responded “That you are very protective of younglings. Good.”

They reached into the cabinet and pulled out a small box filled with a variety of equipment. “Normally, I’d have a droid carry out a basic scan for me, but seeing as how firm you were on no droids, I’ll do it the old fashioned way.”

Harry shifted where he was sat and turned to look at the Mandalorian as the healer looked through his tools. He was staring at the bounty hunter with barely contained excitement, and gestured his head at the Kel Dor as if to say, you seeing this? Once again, Mando was glad his helmet hid his face, because he’d sure the expression he was making would definitely make people, wrongly, less fearful of him. He just nodded in response.

“Right,” the medic announced. “I will need to run a blood test to get a better breakdown of his species, diet, and what he is vaccinated for. Afterwards, I need to weigh him and get his height. Then we’ll run a few basic tests, make sure everything is working properly. You said he was a slave in a backwater?”

“Yes.”

“I hate to ask, but do you know if he has a slave chip?”

The idea of a child walking around with one of those explosive death-traps imbedded in their body was absolutely horrifying, and Mando was beyond grateful that he could firmly say that there was no chance of Harry having one. “He doesn’t.” At the look the doctor gave him he clarified, “Too young.”

“Ah yes, how old is he?”

“Nearly six standard.”

At that the Baar'urlooked furious. “Six standard! Oh yes, it was good that you brought him to me Mandalorian.”

The Mandalorian had been talking to the Baar'ur for a few minutes, and eventually the alien took a small needle similar to the ones Harry had used before to fix broken clothes out from a small box. They started speaking to him in a calm tone despite knowing that Harry didn’t understand, but Harry felt more comfortable around them already.

They gestured for the Mandalorian to come over, and said something to Harry. The alien held out their hand.

Confused, Harry looked at the Mandalorian, who did the same thing. Did they want Harry to hold out his hand? Okay then, he thought, and mirrored them.

Mando tilted his head at Harry in a way that told him he was smiling, and the doctor gently grabbed his hand. They said something once again, and Harry thought they might also be smiling at him under their mask.

Then they pointed at something on the opposite side of the room, and when Harry turned to look where they pointed, a quick jab of pain hit him coming from his finger. Harry shrieked, more out of shock than of actual pain. He’d done this before, and some of the things his cousin had done had hurt way more, but it still wasn’t a nice feeling.

Instantly the Mandalorian was by his side, gently squeezing his shoulder. “Ori’jate, Harry. Ori’jate<.”

Harry understood what he was saying but didn’t respond, still staring at the doctor, who ran some kind of paper over the cut, before holding down some sort of cotton bud on the cut.

They passed his hand to Mando, who kept the same pressure, and walked to the other side of the room to put the paper into the machine. Whatever they saw, the doctor had a sense of shock-sad-anger-curiosity about them.

After that, the rest of the doctor’s visit flew by. They had Harry stand up and be measured and weighed. Again, whatever they saw they weren’t happy at, but the once again his strange feeling told him the alien wasn’t mad at Harry, but at something else, so Harry stayed quiet.

They had him sit down and breathe in and out while the doctor held a cold thing up on his chest, and the doctor pulled out a tiny hammer that they tapped on his knees and arms. When his legs moved all by themselves he gasped, and was worried that the nice alien would think he meant to hurt them, but their eyes just twinkled at Harry in a funny way before doing it again. Harry couldn’t stop laughing everything they did it, so the doctor did it again and again.

Then came the scary bit that Harry didn’t like. The doctor brought out more needles, except this time they had little amounts of liquids attached to them. The Mandalorian told him to be calm, and that he was very brave and good as the doctor injected it into his arm. Harry cried a bit then, he didn’t like the strange “injections” as the Mandalorian called them, and the doctor gave Harry three of them before putting their stuff away.

The bounty hunter gave Harry a big hug, and told he was ori’jate, and mandokarla, and the doctor gave him a strange thing that Mando told him in broken Mando’a was for eating. When Harry bit into it he realised it was some sort of alien sweet, and was a bit similar to lollipops back on Earth, but it had an odd flavour that Harry had never had before, and it seemed to melt in his mouth in a way similar to chocolate. He definitely like it though, so maybe going to the doctor wasn’t that bad after all.

The doctor said some more things to the Mandalorian, and they nodded seriously before shaking the doctors hand. They paid, and as soon as they were outside the doctor’s office the Mando re-enabled his translator.

“You did great ad’ika,” he told Harry.

Harry just smiled up at him, and grabbed his hand. “Now where are we going?”

The Mandalorian huffed out his modulator version of a laugh, and said “Now we are going to go refuel. Then we’re heading back to the ship and taking off.”

“Already?” Harry asked surprised.

“We have no reason to stay. I have a job I need to finish before we can head back to Nevarro. Though,” he began. “I suppose we have enough credits to buy you some fresh food before we leave.”

With an excited cheer the boy began pulling the heavily armed Mandalorian back in the direction of the market they passed earlier, and Harry felt truly happy and excited to see more of the strange moon and the rest of the galaxy he found himself in.

Chapter Text

As luck would have it, the Mandalorian didn’t need to worry about Harry trying to join him on his hunt. Only a few hours after leaving for Maldo Kreis, the adiik starting feeling tired and complained of feeling sick. The baar’ur had warned him that it wasn’t an uncommon reaction in a kid after getting vaccinated for the first time, so the Mandalorian just had him lie down in the bunk to sleep it off.

Fortunately, Maldo Kreis was only about a day away from their current location, so by the time the Crest touched the surface Harry had come around enough for the beroya to tell the kid to stay put in the bunk, set him up with some water and some vary bland nutrition crackers that the baar’ur had insisted Mando work into the meal plan they created to get Harry up to the healthy weight for someone his age.

While Mando did feel a bit guilty leaving a sick child alone in a ship, it would probably be fine right? Taking the kid with him on his hunt definitely wasn’t an option, the ice planet would probably just reverse the progress he’d been making.

The hunt itself was quick and easy, but the Mandalorian was having a difficult time fighting the urge to just shoot the rambling Mythrol sitting in the speeder beside him. Slowly moving one hand down to his blaster, the Mythrol seemed to get the threat and shut up temporarily.

The relief the Mandalorian felt when they finally left that death trap of a speeder and made their way up the ramp was immense. Without stopping, he led the bounty into the cockpit and began preparing for take-off. Of course, the good luck that seemed to be following him on this job just had to come to an end.

When the ship began heavily listing towards the ice, the Mandalorian suddenly remembered exactly why locals stay off the ice when avoidable. Internally sighing as he passed the panicking Mythrol, he grabbed his Amban sniper riffle and made his way to the ramp.

Wasting no time, he opened the ramp and thrusted the end of the riffle at the Ravinak currently trying their best to eat his ship, and pulled the trigger.

The creature let go of the ship with a loud cry, and the Mandalorian considered that if the ship listing suddenly hadn’t woken Harry up, the loud cry of a Ravinak being electrocuted definitely would. Quickly shutting the ramp to the image of the giant creature falling back into the ice, he made his way back up the ladder to the cockpit to take off.

Barely a moment after he sat down and finished preparation to leave the atmosphere, another quieter set of footsteps followed his up the ladder. The Mythrol stopped whatever it was they were babbling about, and the bounty hunter turned around to see what got his attention.

Head poking barely into the cockpit, the mop of black hair asked, “What was that?”

“Nothing kid,” he answered. “Either climb up here and strap in, or head back to the bunk.” Preferably the second on, he thought to himself.

Of course, the adiik came up into the cockpit properly, and while throwing one leg awkwardly onto the floor and landing on his stomach he made eye contact with the frozen Mythrol beside him. “Who’s that?” he exclaimed.

“Bounty,” he responded simply, then gestured to the empty chair. “Sheber.”

Harry seemed to understand the command and practically ran to his seat to strap himself in, staring at the Mythrol the whole time. Suddenly, a realisation seemed to come to him and he turned to (adorably) glare at the Mandalorian.

“You went without me!” he accused.

Trying not to laugh, the Mandalorian returned to his controls. “I did.”

Whatever shock had kept the Mythrol silent seemed to ware off unfortunately, and he began rambling about how the bounty hunter had a great kid and wasn’t he just the cutest and I have a big family too, they’ll miss me when you hand me in to Karga, and I have lots of credits too, you know?

Harry just stared uncomprehending at the sentient, and the bounty hunter wondered at whether Karga would accept him as a carbonite slab too, or if he really had to listen to them ramble for the next few days.

The Mythrol, realising that this approach was having no effect on the hardened beroya in front of him, switched tactics. “I think I have to use the vacc tube,” he declared. “I could do it here, but if you’ve never seen a fledgling Mythrol evacuate their thorax you’re a lucky guy, trust me.”

Not lucky enough, the Mandalorian thought, because I now have that disturbing mental image in my head. Just for that, the Mandalorian decided to put him in carbonite.

The Mythrol scurried down the ladder, and after firmly telling the ad to stay put, he followed them. Sneaking up behind the unsuspecting, rambling Mythrol he pushed him into an empty carbonite slab.

Turning around, he saw Harry watching the whole thing with wide eyes. “You turned him into a statue!”

“And you left the cockpit,” he retorted. “Up.”

Harry dutifully hurried back up the ladder to his seat.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. “Is he dead?” the ad asked.

“Probably not,” the bounty hunter said.

“Probably?”

“People rarely die from carbonite sickness anymore. He’s just going to stay frozen for a few days until we get to Nevarro, then Karga will wake him up. Think of it like….a very long, cold nap.”

Harry hummed as he processed this. Then seemingly out of nowhere he said, “So not like Medusa.”

Pausing from entering the final co-ordinate for their hyperspace jump, he turned to the kid. “What is Medusa?”

“Who,” the ad’ika corrected. “And she’s a monster who turns people into statues.”

“…Right.”

Harry jumped in his seat as if excited to share more about this strange monster. “Uh huh, in school we read a story about her at story time, she was a big snake lady and whenever she looked at people they turned into statues. And then a hero with a big sword went wham-!” he mimed swinging a large invisible sword. “He killed her.”

From how little the Mandalorian knew about the kid’s home planet, he assumed that this was a fictional story for kids, or maybe some religious fable for kids to learn from, but whatever it was the bounty hunter made a note to beware of snake people who could turn you to stone anyway, just in case.

For the next few hours Harry chatted away about his favourite stories he knew, and they were all so drastically different from one another they gave him whiplash. The one about the wooden puppet turning into a real boy was definitely one of the weirder ones, but some of them sounded vaguely like some Mandalorian myths the Goran would tell the foundlings, like the story of the sword in the stone. The idea of some magic sword deciding who was king was familiar for some reason, but the Mandalorian couldn’t put his quite put his finger on why.

The Mandalorian in turn told Harry some of the old myths and legends his buir had been fond of, some of them older than when their people first settled Mandalore such as the Akaanati'kar'oya, others tales of Mand’alor’e past. Harry developed some strange obsession to know more about Mand’alor the Preserver, and the beroya was sorry to tell him he only knew a few stories about him and that Harry would have to ask the Goran for more information.

It took them three days to reach Nevarro, and as they got nearer Harry noticed a weird feeling start to follow the Mandalorian.

At first he didn’t realise it, but it looked like it was coming from the Mandalorian and not from that strange voice that sometimes followed Harry around. The armour he wore muffled it a bit, kind of like how his voice sounded under the buy’ce. If Harry had to guess, he’d say the Mandalorian was nervous for some reason, though he didn’t act like it.

When Harry was dressed and fed to his guardian’s satisfaction they landed the ship just outside the small town that the covert lived in.

It was strange to be on a foreign planet. Harry knew he’d been on that small unnamed moon a few days ago, but it wasn’t the same as knowing he was on a proper alien planet! And the Mandalorian lived here, so that just made it even cooler.

Or warmer really, it was definitely the hottest place Harry had ever been. The air seemed almost heavy with heat and while Harry was fine with it, it was so different from how cool and rainy England was most of the time. Every time he took a step, the ground crinkled strangely underneath him, and some times a bit of ash would fall and land on his face.

When they walked through the gates Harry noticed just how many aliens where around. They walked past some humans buying and selling things with these strange creatures with glowing red eyes wearing brown robes, some weird ugly animals in small wooden cages, and even a person who looked kind of human, but they had blue skin and long tentacles hanging from the back of their head.

The Mandalorian led Harry down some alley ways and to a door with a skull painted on top of it. When they walked through it, Harry instantly realised where they were, the covert. Harry grabbed the Mandalorian’s hand as they walked further down the corridor. The corridor was long and nearly empty bar two Mandalorians sitting at a table playing some type of card game, and they both stopped to stare when they saw Harry.

One of them was big, probably the tallest person Harry had ever seen, and his armour was painted a really pretty dark blue. The other had armour painted a mixture of colours, with a green buy’ce and an orange breastplate.

“---got a foundling of your own, beroya?” the blue one called as they passed. “The Goran will be---.”

Will be what?, Harry wondered. Learning a new language was very difficult he decided, and he felt very bad for the boy in his class who struggled with English last year.

Apparently, whatever Blue said didn’t matter much, because the Mandalorian just ignored them and pulled him down along the hall.

Eventually they reached an open doorway, and there was a really big….something in the middle of the room. It had blue fire sticking out of it, so that was cool.

The Mandalorian led him to sit in front of the circular…thing in the room, and knelt quietly beside him.

Another Mandalorian entered the room, and Harry guessed that this was the Goran. The Goran had a gold helmet, and a fur cape. Harry had never seen a fur cape before. Was it as soft as the beroya’s one? Before Harry could ask this important question, he was distracted by what the Goran did next.

They walked over to the circular fire pit and used prongs to pull out a bit of metal. Then they brought it over to a flat surface and began hammering at it, and the sound echoed loudly in the otherwise silent room. This lasted a long time, and Harry’s legs were starting to fall asleep, but something told him it was important to stay quiet.

Finally, the Goran put the metal into some water, and turned to face them.

The Mandalorian would be the first to admit he was nervous about brining the child to the covert. He knew that Harry would be accepted into the tribe, but the desire to have the Goran approve of his actions and of Harry still sat under skin the whole walk from the ship. He had of course informed the Goran of the foundling by comm only a few hours ago, and she knew to expect them, but that didn’t calm his nerves much.

He had decided to bring Harry straight to the Goran. There was no way he was taking the ad with him to Karga, and he could leave him in safety here before going to collect his credits. Once they were safely in his hand, he’d return to give them to the Goran, check in on Harry, then he’d leave for a new job, and fly away, alone, in his ship.

While she was working at the forge, the Mandalorian knew she was examining the adiik’s behaviour. Luckily, Harry had appeared to understand the need to be silent while sitting in front of her forge.

When she finally turned to look at them, she looked Harry up and down before turning the entirety of her attention to him.

“This is the foundling?” she questioned.

“Elek.”

“He is very small,” she commented, “but given the situation you described that is understandable.”

There was silence for a moment as she considered her next question. “Wild space?”

“Yes, I was…lying low on his home planet when I discovered him.”

“Hmm….And yet according to the healer you took him to he is baseline human?”

“More or less.”

“Interesting,” she tilted her helmet towards the ad once more. “Healthy?”

“Mostly. He was half starved when I found him. The baar’ur said he’ll make a full recovery.”

“He’s a survivor.”

“Yes.” His heart was in his throat, eager for her to finish asking questions and agree to take the foundling, while terrified that she’d say no.

“Good,” the smile in her voice was visible in the way she tilted her helmet. “We always need more warriors who are. I was beginning to think you’d never take a foundling of your own.”

There was a second of dumbfounded silence from the Mandalorian before he responded with a quiet “What?”

Turning away from them dismissively she responded. “You know the creed as well as I do beroya. Seeing as he has no parents, and you are his finder, it is only right that you are as his father.”

“But I-,” he began, glancing at the silent child who probably didn’t understand most of what was being said. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” she retorted. She reached into the bucket to retrieve what she was working on earlier.

“I’m the beroya,” he said. “That’s no life for a foundling, especially not one as young as Harry.”

“And yet your own buir was the beroya before you, and you lived to tell the tale.” She inspected the small item in her hand, and seemingly fining no flaw with it, took out a cloth to dry it.

“Wouldn’t he be better of staying here with the other foundlings?”

“I don’t believe so,” she replied. “He would benefit from forging relationships with his peers, and having time to spend planet side to focus more on connecting with our culture and receiving an education, but it is not required. We are a nomadic people at heart beroya, as you well know.”

There was silence for a moment more. The Goran kept fiddling with the object in her hand, then turned to look at Harry once more. “I assume you have yet to say the gai bal manda?”

“No.” He hadn’t dared to even acknowledge the possibility of it. The fear that Harry wouldn’t want it, or that the tribe would challenge him over it stopped him from even thinking about it.

She hummed quietly, then said. “Leave the child with me while you finish your business for the day. Then when you return,” she handed the Mandalorian the object she had been working on. “You can present your foundling with this and say the vows.”

It was a pendant, he realised. A mythosaur pendant, identical to the one currently wrapped on a string around the Mandalorian’s neck. The sign of identification all foundlings were given when they were adopted.

“Has your aliik been revealed?”

“No,” he said, slightly breathlessly. “Not yet.”

“Soon then,” she stated. “The Manda wouldn’t see fit to give you a clan, if you weren’t also ready to receive it.”

He could only bring himself to respond with a short, silent nod.

She stared back, unimpressed. “Well?”

“Oh, right.” He rose from the floor, and Harry copied him.

She made a shooing motion at him, faced Harry and said, “Come Har’ika, the beroya has work to do. The other ade are excited to meet you.”

Harry glanced at the Mandalorian, and when he nodded Harry walked over to the Goran. Seeing that the adiik was in safe hands, the Mandalorian turned and walked away.

After weeks spent living with the Mandalorian inside his ship it was strange not having him nearby. In his head, Harry understood that the Mandalorian wasn’t gone forever and would be back in a few hours, but it he had to keep reminding himself of that fact.

Harry hadn’t understood much of what the adults had said earlier at what the Goran told him was her forge, but he could tell that whatever had been said was important. He knew that the Mandalorian had been nervous, then scared, then happy, or maybe hopeful. That the Goran had been satisfied with him. Oh, and that the Beroya needed to go somewhere and that there were other kids around that wanted to meet him.

The Goran led him out of the forge, and far down into their base. She talked to him nearly the whole time, asking him all sorts of questions only the Mandalorian had cared enough to ask before, like how old he was (he thinks he’s six now, he wasn’t sure), or what his favourite colour was (green, and she seemed happy with that answer).

At the end of their journey she led him into a small room similar to many others they had passed earlier. Only this one had people in it. When they opened the door four people turned to look at them.

The biggest, and probably the oldest guessed Harry, had an odd looking helmet on, but it looked nothing like the one the older Mandalorians wore, and was kind of round on the top. As soon as they walked into the room, he stood up straight.

The next face looked similar to the alien with blue skin that Harry had seen earlier at the market. Except, their skin was green, and there was a cool looking mark on their forehead. Not at all like Harry’s own scar, which just a jagged line.

The last two where the clearly the youngest, and Harry would guess about his age. They were both human, with matching blue eyes. One of them had red hair that stuck up all over the place, and the other had shoulder length brown hair.

All four of them were dressed nearly identically, with loose fitting shirts and trousers, and brown boots.

“Su cuy'gar, Alor,” the oldest greeted, and their voice didn’t echo or sound muffled at all like the adults did in their helmets.

“Su cuy'gar, Jab’ika.” The woman tilted her head in greeting.

Harry peaked further into the room from his spot halfway tucked behind the Goran.

The alien kid gasped and excitedly asked “Is that him?”

The other kids turned to look at him more closely when the Goran replied with “Yes” and pushed Harry further into the room.

“Su-Su cuy'gar,” Harry said.

“What’s your name?” the ginger kid asked.

“Harry.”

“Nice to meet you Har’ika,” the helmeted kid said. “I’m Jabin.”

“And I’m Kade,” the red haired boy grinned. “And that’s my sister-”

“Lu.” She interrupted.

“I’m Taku,” the alien kid said.

“I ~~~~ you’ll be good to your new verd’ika?”

“Elek, Alor,” the children yelled in sync.

“Then I’ll leave him with you.”

With that she turned on her heel and left.

There was silence for a moment before Taku said, “We were talking about bolo-ball. What team do you like?”

“What’s bolo-ball?” he asked softly.

“What’s bolo-ball!” yelled Lu. “It’s only the best game ever!”

Suddenly the silence was filled with his new friends explaining the rules, and he was soon being dragged to Taku’s room to see his posters.

The next few hours where probably some of the most fun Harry ever had in his life. Harry learned all about sport called bolo-ball, or meshgeroya as they called it. Jabin and Taku seemed obsessed with it, and while Jabin told Harry that this was a clan of Team Ord Mantell supporters, Taku was adamant that Team Tralus where the best. It reminded Harry a bit of the kids on Earth fighting over their favourite football teams, the only difference was when they broke into a fist fight over it, Taku’s buir just watched them fight it out, laughed when Taku lost, and told him not to pick fights with a boy nearly four years older than him.

Then they played all sorts of games together, from tag, to hide and go seek, and then Jabin wanted to show him how to play something called cu'bikad, but Kade said that there were too many of them to play, and how it wouldn’t be fair on Harry because he was new.

After a few hours, Lu and Kade’s buir came and brought all five of them home to eat tiingilar. It was the spiciest thing Harry had ever eaten, and while the others laughed at his runny nose and teary eyes, they passed him the blue milk with no complaints. It was also where Harry got to see Jabin’s face for the first time, after he removed it to eat.

He was fairly normal really, with tanned skin and black hair that was curled tight around his face. Though it did make Harry ask, “I thought you can’t take of your helmets?”

“I can,” Jabin said around a mouthful of tiingilar. “I haven’t had my verd’goten and sworn the Resol’nare yet.”

“Verd’goten?”

“Uh, huh,” Lu hummed. “When you turn eight, you start training and learning how to fight, then when you’re thirteen you go out on your own for a few days and hunt and live by yourself. Then when you come back there’s a big party.”

“Yeah,” agreed Kade. “And there’s lots of uj'alayii.”

The siblings sighed together at the idea of it.

“Then you swear the Resol’nare,” finished Taku. “And you’re an adult, and nobody can make you do anything anymore.”

That was odd, Harry thought. He thought grownups had to be much older than that back on Earth.

As they were finishing with their food and putting their plates in the sink, there was a knock on the door. Kade’s buir answered it, and in walked the beroya.

“Su cuy'gar!” the ade greeted him.

“Su cuy'gar,” he replied. He looked a tiny bit different, and Harry realised it was the pauldron on his shoulder. It was shinier and unpainted, when a few hours ago it was red, almost like it was brand new. It seemed to muffle him a tiny bit more than he was before too. The helmet tilted at them cautiously. “I’m sorry, but me and Harry need to go.”

Harry wondered where they were going, he thought he had to stay on Nevarro for a long time.

“Aww,” complained Taku, “We were gonna go watch the meshgeroya!”

“Sorry ad’ika,” the beroya shrugged awkwardly. “Maybe next time.”

While Harry finished helping putting things away, he heard Lu’s buir congratulate the beroya on something, before telling him that Harry was welcome back any time.

They left quickly after that, and Harry could tell that the beroya was nervous about something. He had a hand deep inside a pouch on his belt, fiddling with whatever was inside.

The beroya led him back the way they came that morning, and walked Harry all the way back onto the Razor Crest, tense the entire time. Harry rambled to him about the other kids and the games they played, but that just seemed to make the beroya more nervous, so he stopped.

Once they were on the ship, the bounty hunter quickly closed the ramp behind them, which struck Harry as odd because the hunter hadn’t bothered doing it until take off every time before.

The Mandalorian turned to face Harry and knelt down in front of him on one knee. He took a deep breath before speaking. “I-, Before I say anything, know that you don’t have to say yes. I won’t be mad, understand.”

When Harry nodded in understanding, he continued. “I need to ask you something very important, and I need you to be honest. Do you want to stay with me?”

Harry froze for a second. “I can?”

The Mandalorian nodded. “If you want. Or you can stay here with the other Mandalorians and foundlings.”

Harry threw himself at the Mandalorian, and it reminded him of the day he met the man only a few weeks ago. “I want to stay with you.”

The Mandalorian wrapped his arms around Harry in return. “Then I have another question for you. You don’t have to say yes but-,” he took a deep breath and pulled his head back to rest the fore head of his helmet on Harry’s. “I want to adopt you.”

“Adopt me?” Harry whispered. At first, his brain denied what he heard. There’s no way the Mandalorian wanted Harry, no one ever wanted Harry, not his aunt and uncle, not his cousin, not the kids at school. Then he remembered that the Mandalorian had never lied to him, never been anything but fully honest, and he grabbed onto the man tighter and fought to keep the tears from falling as he cuddled closer into the man’s neck. “Yes.”

The Mandalorian let out a deep breath in relief and said, “Then ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad, Harry.”

I know your name as my child, his brain translated. “That-that’s it? You’re my buir now?”

“That’s it. Your stuck with me ad’ika.”

Harry, for the second time in his memory, just let himself cry.

When he finally calmed down enough, the Mandalorian pulled back a bit. “Seeing as your clan now Har’ika, there is something else I need to show you.”

Reaching up slowly, the Mandalorian’s hands left Harry’s back and carefully pulled the release hatch on his helmet.

Harry held his breath as more of his buir’s (his BUIR’S!) face was revealed. The man gently put the helmet on the floor beside him and met his eyes. They were very kind eyes, just as Harry knew they had to be, and his lips were pulled upwards in a small nervous smile, that was somehow so completely gentle and different from what Harry expected his smile to look like, framed only by a moustache.

“My name,” his buir said, and his voice sounded completely different from when his helmet was on or the translator was active, so soft and fond compared to anyone Harry had met before. “Is Din Djarin.”

“I like it,” Harry declared, and watched as the smile on Din’s face grew bigger and more confident, but no less fond. “Is my name Djarin now?”

“Well,” he stuttered. “If you want it to be, yes. Or your just Harry of Clan Djarin.”

Harry thought about that for a moment before nodding. “I want to be.”

“Then you are,” Din told him seriously. “Also, I- I have something for you you.” He pulled out a necklace and gestured for Harry to turn around.

“This,” he said as he tied it around Harry’s neck, “is a mythosaur pendant. All foundlings from our tribe have one from their finders. I have one from my buir, this one belongs to you. As small scrap of beskar to remind you of our people.”

Harry turned back around to face Din and whispered a quiet “thanks.”

“One last thing,” he told Harry. “I promise.”

Standing up and grabbing Harry’s hand, he gently guided him further into the ship, back to where the second set of carbonite slabs had been. Had been because all of the extra slabs were gone, replaced instead by a new bunk bed.

“I know you had no problems sleeping on my bunk, but you really need a bed of your own, and if you’re going to travel with me on jobs, you need your own space.”

Turning to stare up at Din with stars in his eyes, he threw himself at his buir once more. “Thanks buir.”

“My pleasure Har’ika,” he managed through a cough. “My pleasure.”

Chapter Text

The Mand- Din Djarin stared out at the blurry lights of hyperspace. It felt weird, he mused, to share his name and have someone who could use it. Of course, Harry didn't call him by name, instead calling him buir, and by the ka'ra if his heart didn't nearly explode whenever his son (His SON!!) used it.

It wasn't exactly taboo in the covert to share your name, to have one and to proudly use it and declare it to any who asked for it, and The Ma- Din even remembered a time before the purge filled with joyous (or not so joyous) shouting of names while playing games, fighting, or getting into mischief. After the purge though it was different. As the tribes beroya, it was imperative that nobody knew his name. After all, if an enemy found it out, it could be used to find his tribe.

After the death of his buir, and making the decision to take his place as beroya, Din knew he was effectively giving up the use of his name. And that was fine, he had no regrets. The way he saw it, he was using his talents to repay the people who took him in and gave him what little they had when he otherwise would have been killed by droids or left to starve in the ruins of his home town. Giving up his name and likely the chance to have a clan of his own was a small price to pay to return that kindness, while still allowing him to help other foundlings and the clan born ade.

Reaching to disengage the hyperdrive, he smiled beneath his helmet for what had to be the twentieth time that cycle. His ad…it was odd how comfortable with the idea of being a buir he had become in only a few weeks.

His ad who was sitting beside him doing an educational module the Goran had installed on Har’ika’s brand new datapad, stomach still full from the leftover tiingilar that had somehow found its way onto his ship before they left Nevaro.

Din didn’t quite regret bringing Harry along for this bounty but…There was something shady about this whole job. As a general rule he didn’t work with Imperials or ex-Imperials if he could help it, and the lack of any real information on the bounty was concerning. No matter what happened on this job, Din had the feeling that it would be memorable.

After landing the Crest on a rocky plain on the sparsely populated Arvala-7, Din headed down the ladder.

“Hey! Wait!” Harry cried as he struggled to unclip his seatbelt. “Wait for me!”

“Hang on a sec Har’ika,” he called up the ladder. “I’m just doing a quick environmental scan.” He walked over to the door of his ship, grabbing his Amban riffle from its spot beside the door. “You won’t miss anything.”

Of course, that statement seemed to invite the ka’ra to come laugh and challenge Din on that idea.

Carefully walking down the ramp he examined the area through the visor of his helmet. The sun was high in the sky, the sky was blue, and his HUD informed him that the humidity was low. The valley was completely silent, bar the far away sounding cry of what Din assumed was a native bird flying overhead. He reached by his side and held his riffle up to his eyes to better examine his surroundings. Scanning the skyline in the direction his steadily beeping fob told him the bounty was located, he saw nothing.

Suddenly, his arm was being eaten by one of the ugliest creatures he’d ever seen, his free arm was scrambling for the vibroblade sitting on his hip, and the thought of dying on this skughole because he didn’t pay attention to the 360 degree wayfinder in his helmet was incredibly embarrassing.

“Buir!” a horrified Harry called as he witnessed the scene from the bottom rung on the ladder.

Good, Din thought numbly, he figured out how to escape the seatbelts. He plunged his knife uselessly into the side of the creature.

And then something completely unexpected happened. The creature let go of Din’s arm as they buzzed the electric blue that indicated someone had tasered the creature. Unluckily, that didn’t help much, as there were two more of the beasts ready to take their friend’s place.

Before they had the chance however, the animals were suddenly stuck in place mid charge. A loud pop filled the air, and the Mandalorian was not capable of believing what he was seeing. Din blinked beneath his helmet as he stared at them, the creatures legs covered seemingly sinking slowly into the ground. Everytime the creatures tried moving, the rock beneath their feet crumbled to sand, trapping their feet further into the ground. Quick sand? He wondered. But the entire terrain just seconds ago had been one hundred percent solid rock.

Din knew he should reach for his riffle and take advantage of whatever the kriff was going on, but instead he turned to stare at Harry.

The boy looked at the sight before him with panicked eyes, breath coming in rapid pants as he glanced between the creatures, his buir still half lying on the ground, and his hand.

He did this, Din realised, and then wondered if he’d been concussed at some point between leaving his ship and hitting the ground a moment ago. Children can’t just turn solid rock into quick sand on a whim…right? Maybe it was different on his ad’ika’s home world, but here, in this galaxy? Definitely not. Then again, he recalled his sons tearful rambling after a nightmare not long ago, where his son had told him all about how his demagolke relatives called him a freak.

A loud thud broke his train of thought. Snapping his head around, he stared at all three of the creatures lying completely knocked out on the once more solid terrain.

Approaching was another one of the creatures though this time with a passenger. An Ugnaught lifted their goggles from atop their stead, and examined him and the child consideringly.

“Thank you,” the Mandalorian said.

The Ugnaught nodded his head in acknowledgement. “You are a bounty hunter?”

“Yes.”

“And they,” they gestured towards a still frozen Harry. “Are your child?”

“Yes.”

The Ugnaught tilted his head,, before nodding firmly once more as if coming to great decision. “I will help you.”

Slowly, Din stood from his position on the floor. “Wh-“ before he could say a word, he was stopped.

“I have spoken,” they said with a raised hand. They gestured for Din and Harry to follow, before turning to head back the way they came.

Din looked behind him to find Harry taking a deep breaths. Slowly, Din walked to his son, and slowly and carefully telegraphing his movements, pulled his son into a hug.

“I don’t know what that was kid,” he told him, “but thank you.”

“How-“ Harry started. His voice sounded seconds away from tears. “What-“

“I don’t care.” Din said firmly. “It doesn’t matter. You saved my skin Har’ika, and if that's the powers that caused your stupid dar’ba’vode used to call you freak their even more stupid than I thought. You’re a good kid.”

Letting out a short sob into his karta beskar, the ad hugged him tighter.

Though, Din thought, if his son could do that in pure panic, what else could he do? While he definitely didn’t expect his founding to actually have magic powers, with the way his life has been going lately he was not in anyway surprised. Maybe they’ll need to return to Harry’s home planet at some point, to find out more about his son’s abilities, and to prevent him accidently hurting himself or others with it. Either way, one thing was for certain; Din loved his son and was not going to let something as unexpected as magical powers stop him from being his buir (although he might have a chance at over taking Paz Vizla’s fathers mantel of buir with most troublesome son).

“Come on,” he said after a moment. “We have an Ugnaught to follow.”

And follow him they did, to a small homestead in the plains. Seemingly the Ugnaught was a herder of some sort, and a gracious host.

Harry had tried to politely not stare at them, but failed miserably. Harry wasn’t much taller than the Ugnaught, and was seemingly in awe of their ability to shut his buir up with only a raised hand.

The Ugnaught explained that he had been helping any bounty hunter that passed through lately in an attempt to bring peace to the valley, but nobody had yet to succeed in capturing the bounty.

“Well then, I don’t know if I want your help,” the Mandalorian said evenly.

“You do,” they replied. “I can show you to the encampment. And,” they gestured to Harry. “I can watch the little one while you hunt.”

“How much,” Din asked skeptically. He wasn’t sure he trusted this dubious Ugnaught with his son.

“Half.”

“Half the bounty?”

“Half the blurrg you helped capture,” he was corrected. Blurrg, good to know the name of the creatures that tried eating him alive not an hour ago.

“Blurrg,” Harry mumbled to himself from his spot at Din’s side, clearly not understanding much of what the Ugnaught was saying, but finding the word funny going by the goofy grin on his face.

“The blurrg? You can keep them both.”

“No, you will need one to ride. The way is impossible to pass without a blurrg mount. The little one can share with me.”

“I don’t know how to ride blurrg.”

With a raised eyebrow that spoke volumes of how unimpressed they were with that statement, they only said “I have spoken.”

Then they stood and gestured for the father and son to follow him for their impromptu blurrg riding lesson.

Surprisingly, Harry seemed to pick it up almost instantly. The blurrg seemed to have sensed that Harry had no bad intentions, or maybe realised that he was only a youngling, and soon he was giggling from the top of the blurrg, carefully strapped in and being guided by the Ugnaught around the enclosure. Despite not speaking much basic, Harry and the Ugnaught seemed to form a fast friendship. This actually helped steady Din's conflicted nerves about leaving his son with a near stranger. Harry is a good judge of character, Din had learnt, and if his instincts said the Ugnaught could be trusted, then Din trusted Harry.

Din however made a complete mess of learning to mount blurrg. It took him many failed attempts with the near constant laughing of his six year old (which, although heart-warming to see his son comfortable enough to laugh at his father’s expense, was still mortifying), an encouraging speech or two from the Ugnaught (who was surprisingly knowledgeable on Mandalorian history and mythology) comparing blurrg mounting to Mythosaur riding, and they were ready to go.

The ride to the encampment wasn’t as long as Din expected, though it was still nearly two hours away. When they reached the encampment, Din explained to Harry that he had to stay with his new friend. Harry wasn’t all that happy about that of course, but the promise of spending more time with his new friends and the animals Harry was feeling increasingly bad for hurting earlier in the day, he eventually agreed to go. With a heavy heart Din watched them disappear over the skyline and turned his attention to the encampment where-

“Oh, no.” He grumbled beneath his breath. “Bounty droid.”

The loud noises had started again. That was bad. Grogu hated it when the loud noises came. Loud noises meant being locked inside his pram in a rush until the quiet came again, and sometimes the noises lasted a long time.

And that was exactly what happened that time too. One of the humans picked him up from his spot on the floor. He wasn’t very happy about that. It was a nice spot, and Grogu was trying to make a picture of the lizards that sometimes snuck into the room out of rocks on the ground. He likes lizards, they were his favourite thing to eat, and the humans let him eat as many of them as he wanted, though they did make funny faces and feel odd in the Force when he did.

Grogu would have grumbled at the human as they locked him in his pram, but then he’d be in trouble, and then he definitely wouldn’t get any lizards tonight for dinner. Instead he told them through the Force exactly how little they appreciated being picked up, though the human didn’t understand him. Instead they whispered a harsh “Be quiet!”, and his pram was shut.

At least he had his blanky, Grogu thought. It was soft, and maybe he could have a nap. But there was just so much noise outside! Something exciting had to be happening, because the Force was yelling at him, and the noises were getting closer and closer, until suddenly- nothing.

Then there were footsteps, and the sound of metal clanging hard against the floor. And then Grogu was scared. This hadn’t happened before. Normally after it got quiet the humans would cheer, and drink the funny blue drink he wasn’t allowed touch, and someone would come feed him a lizard. These people weren’t the worst that Grogu had been with, and while he didn’t like them, they were much nicer than the person who had him before.

The clanging stopped, and Grogu realised he could hear a beeping sound right outside his pram. And then the pram opened.

There were two droids standing in front of him. The left one was all rusty, with the things that go boom tied all around them on a belt. It made Grogu a worried, but Grogu also remembered another thing the Masters at the temple had thought him, to be brave. So he poked more of his head out from other his blanket.

“Wait,” the droid on the right stated, stopping the other from raising the blaster any higher. “The client said fifty years old.”

Oh! That was interesting. This droid was different from the other one. Their voice sounded much more humanoid than the other, and they gave off a glimpses of emotions in the Force. Most of it was too complicated for Grogu to understand, but he thought that they were shocked, and angry, and a bit of something else that reminded Grogu of the feeling of getting caught doing a bad thing with the force in the temple. Droids don’t normally have strong feelings like that. Maybe they weren’t a droid.

“Species age differently.” The one on the left said. “Perhaps it could live many centuries.”

Reaching to pull his blanket down further, Grogu stared up at them. The one on the right let out another feeling Grogu couldn’t name.

Hello?, he tried uselessly to tell them, but the only sound his mouth could form was a high pitched coo. Despite not moving at all, something told Grogu that the left one had softened on the inside at the sound. Looking at them more closely, Grogu decided that this one definitely wasn’t a droid. Their head looked more like the helmet the fighting brothers wore around the temple, but completely different at the same time. Maybe their head was a helmet too, and it was just another humanoid. Their shoulders seemed to rise and fall, and their body moved more naturally than droids tended to.

“Sadly, we’ll never know,” the real droid stated, and then they were raising a metal hand with what he knew what was called a blaster to point at Grogu’s head. Suddenly Grogu was very terrified. He knew what blasters did. They made people go very still, and the force disappeared from their bodies as they got colder and colder. He saw that happen to many people, and he still remembers the scream of his friends in the crèche when the nice brother soldiers who came to play with them and guard them in the temple lifted their blasters to kill every youngling in their path.

“No,” the living one interrupted sharply, lowering the droid’s blaster. “We’ll bring it in alive.”

“The commission was quite specific,” the droid disagreed. “The asset was to be terminated.”

Grogu stared in terror as the blaster got raised higher and higher and then- Bang!

But Grogu was fine. Staring up at the Living One as they pocket their own blaster, Grogu blinked in confusion. Why did they save Grogu?

The Living One tilted their head as they stared at him. Then slowly, they reached out with a hand. Oh! They had five fingers, Grogu realised, way more than him. Humans had lots of fingers, perhaps the Living one was human.

The finger came closer and waggled in greeting before Grogu’s eyes and ooh, it was covered in a black wrinkled material.

Grogu reached up with his right claw to grab it, and the newly dubbed Nice One pulled their hand in a different direction. Grogu giggled, this was fun! Was this a game? He’d never played it before, and gripped the finger tighter as he babbled.

The Nice One seemed to sigh, went all soft beneath their helmet once more and said something that sounded like “Paz will never let me live this down.”

Eventually, The Nice One grew bored of the finger game and pulled his hand back. “Well ad’ika,” they said as they pulled his pram further out of its corner. “What do you say to meeting my son? He loves making new friends.”

Friends!, Grogu cried out. I love friends!, and he cooed to show his excitement.

Tilting their head in what Grogu thought was a happy way, the Nice One tapped on their arm and gestured for the pram to follow them out through the empty camp in silence.

Chapter Text

A child. Those demegolkase had the nerve to send him after a child. What type of idiot sends a Mandalorian after a child? A dead one, that’s who, the bounty hunter thought.

Out of the corner of his eye, Din Djarin glanced at the pram floating just two steps beside him through the rocky caves of Arvala-7. The…baby? Child? The child was staring wide eyed at all the hulking rock structures around them, and appeared fascinated by everything it saw, giant green ears poking out as they tilted their head to get a better look around their new environment.

Internally, Din sighed. If he had taken this job only weeks ago, he honestly does not know if he would have turned in the asset. He likes to think he wouldn’t have. It would go against not only the Guild’s code, but also went against the Way. Harming a child, even indirectly, was enough for the Tribe to declare you dar’manda. Even if the Client had offered an ingot of beskar as down payment and implied there was much more he would receive in payment when the job was completed. However, the part of him that was a new buir could think of nothing more horrifying than handing the child in.

It would be one thing if he was returning a child that had been kidnapped from a loving parent or guardian who was desperate for their safe return. In that instance, Din wasn’t quite sure he would even accept payment for the “bounty”. But if the purge had thought Mandalorians anything, it was that Imperials are traitorous hut'uun who will change the terms of your deal without a thought then shoot you in the back for your payment. He didn’t trust any Imperials with this child. If they wanted them for purely innocent reasons, they would have said as such. Not that he’d believe them then either.

Din stopped walking. What was that sound? In the next second, not a sound echoed against the rocks. That just made him more suspicious. Wasn’t the sound of lizards treading the walls and the coos of the ik’ad not just doing that? He tilted his head as he examined the top of the cavern they stood in, and imperceptibly tensed himself for a fight, hand steady on his blaster on his thigh.

From his righthand side, a sudden movement caught his eye and his jumped into action. Blaster held high, aimlessly pointing towards the blurring figure of a Trandoshan leaping into the cavern. It proved futile, as instantly the Trandoshan batted away his blaster with the vibro-axe in their claws.

In the spilt second of quiet after the strike, Din noticed the familiar device clasped on their belt, letting out a constant beeping noise. Dank ferrick, he thought. More hunters.

He leapt to shove the Child’s pram out of harms way, hearing their indignant squawk as they fell backward. Better mildly startled than dead, he thought.

And then the Trandoshan was attacking again, with a series of testing jabs and swipes with their vibro-axe, trying to get a better feel for the Mandalorian’s fighting style. This all backfired on the alien, who had really just given Din enough time to adapt to his fighting style and grab the axe mid motion.

Shifting his stance subtly to allow for better leverage, Din pulled the Trandoshan to the ground, and was about to stab him with his own axe when the tides of the battle turned once more. Jumping from their hiding place, two more Trandoshans appeared and flanked him.

Oh great, he thought. They brought friends.

Rapidly switching his focus between his two ne attackers he deflected blow after blow, reaching for the rifle of his back which often doubled as a staff in close quarters fighting. He kicked the knee out of his current attacker, seeing more than hearing the bone break under his attack. Turning rapidly once more, he stabbed the top of his riffle into the gut of Trandoshan number two gut and electrocuted them, and turned to do the same to Trandoshan number three.

They put up a good fight, before ultimately succumbing to a blow to the neck.

The first Trandoshan had made a run for it past Din seconds ago, and turning the fire his rifle at the sentient rapidly approaching the Child he fired on them.  The bullet struck through and they disintegrated on the spot, though Din knew it only appeared that way to the human eye. The Trandoshan was stuck being ripped apart atom by atom in a horrifically painful death the victim, and a nanosecond to in reality was a few centuries for the victim according to conservative estimates of scientists. There was a reason these type of riffles were considered illegal by most.

In Din’s mind, the Trandoshan was really asking for it going after the Asset.

He leaned down to where the rival bounty hunter once stood and picked up the device he had seen earlier on their hip. The bounty fob flashed an alarming red again and again, emitting the steady beep of a nearby target. Staring at the cooing ik'aad Din Djarin wondered just how many hunters were after this child.

Choosing the probable answer of “a lot”, he knew they needed to get off world as soon as possible. He supposed the best plan would be to return to the ship, less than a days walk from their current location, then fly the Crest to the Ugnaught’s lodging to collect his son. Of course, the Goran would need to be informed of the Guilds…loose morals.

Sighing, he set the pram to follow him once more, and headed in the direction of the ship. They’d likely need to break before then but no matter. So long as they returned to Harry by morning like he promised, all would be well.

The Nice One was weird, Grogu decided. After fighting off the Scaly Ones, and walking for what was basically forever, he led them to a quite spot where the wind was gone and sat down. Only when he sate down, he pulled out this glowing metal stick and held it up to a cut bleeding red and emitting pain, and made it hurt more by using the glowy stick on it.

This made no sense. Why was the Nice One trying to hurt himself more? That can’t be very fun or smart. Grogu knew he could help, and really it was only fair he did. Grogu remembered back Before, when he was even lttlerer, and the ones who looked like him came to visit, they always said you help others.

So Grogu pulled himself over the edge of the pram he was in and cushioned his landing with the force. The Nice One didn’t notice, and hadn’t moved a muscle.

Grogu waddled up closer to them and now staring at the cut just out of his reach he realised he was right. The Nice One was human! Human’s weren’t meant to have arms that hurt like this, so he lifted his right arm and closed his eyes. Pretty please force, Grogu asked it. It’s not meant to look like this, go back to normal, he told the arm. Just as the Force began flowing into Grogu to help him fix the arm, the Nice One moved and grabbed him, breaking Grogu’s concentration.

Grogu whined at the Nice One as they put him back in the pram. Did they not want help?

Leaking through the small pain Grogu could feel coming from the Nice One was a feeling of confusion. Oh, maybe they didn’t understand what Grogu was trying to do? That’s okay! Grogu would just try again. But then again, they used to say Before that there was no try, but Grogu didn’t really understand what that meant.

When the Nice One sat down again, he made another attempt. He again climbed over the edge of the pram and waddled over to the Nice One. Really, all this walking was fun! He hadn’t been allowed walk outside in a long time, but the small distance was very far for him.

His arm was raised, and the Force was with him, and the Nice One paused using his glowy stick of pain once more. “How?” Grogu thought he heard the Nice One whisper as he tried to heal the wound again. Just as the wound was starting to listen to him, Grogu found himself being lifted into his pram once more.

“Stay,” said the Nice One. “It’s sleepy time.”

No it’s not, Grogu tried to say. I’m not sleepy.

But either the Nice Man ignored him or, more likely, couldn’t hear him, because he shut the pram’s door closed.

That’s mean, Grogu thought. He was just trying to help, but maybe the Nice One didn’t need any help? Yes, that must be it. That’s okay, he’d just help the Nice One next time he needed it.

Kriffing Jawas, the Mandalorian mentally cursed as he stared at the little sleemo’s tearing his ship apart. He reached once more for his beloved riffle, and aimed it on the Jawa trying to make off with a box of what he thinks were hyperdrive and shield generator parts.

Shot lined up, Din took the shot and opened fire on the thieves. From there, Din could admit he lost control of the situation quickly.

Before he realised what he was doing, he was chasing the sandcrawler on foot after shooting the engine on the back of the craft proved useless. He began climbing the side of the death trap with no real plan, he would later admit to himself. Just barely escaping being crushed by the sprocket of the vehicle, and then had a variety of metal object chucked at him by Jawas appearing and disappearing from invisible windows on the side of the vessel.

Of course when he finally scaled the thing he was then immediately hit by five separate stun guns and knocked all the way back to the ground, where he remained knocked out for what his helmet told him was just shy of two hours. A few metres away, the Child cooed in what he thought was concern in his pram. Luckily, the pram at least was set to follow the Mandalorian, and no other hunters had found them in that time.

With a painful groan Din heaved himself back to his feet. Time to hike the 7 hour walk back to the Ughnaught’s to collect his son and hopefully some assistance.

Buir was late getting back. It was fine, Harry told himself. His buir was the best, and no bad guy would ever be able to stop him. Sure he said he’d be back by morning, and that he’d spend the night with the nice short man, but it was getting really dark out. He was just late.

The short man seemed to sense Harry’s anxiety about his father, and after they ate a breakfast of a mysterious bowl of sludge Harry would nearly call porridge, led him outside to help with the blurrg.

Through a mix of hand gestures and Harry’s very limited basic, Harry learned that the man was named Kuiil. He taught Harry how to feed the blurrg, and how to fill the water trough. Then he showed him his workshop, and in long rambling sentences Harry didn’t understand ranted about what he was working on. He taught Harry how to tighten the bolts on the….metal thing Kuiil was working on, and then they had lunch. Still, Buir hadn’t returned.

Somewhere, Kuiil found a collection of small metal and wooden bricks of all sorts that he handed to Harry to play with, indicating that he should build a tower or house with them. That kept Harry distracted a while longer, and before he knew it it was nearing pitch black out.

Throughout the afternoon, Harry had felt an air of anxiety around Kuiil but now he felt different. Now he felt just a bit sad, and very guilty as he looked at Harry, before becoming just a bit determined and like he had accepted something hard.

Then, just before the duo were about to head indoors and go to sleep, they heard it. The sound of an approaching person, near silent in the dead of night but already a comforting sound to Harry’s ears.

“Buir!” Harry cried, racing as fast as his legs would carry him to the footsteps. As he drew neared the shape of his buir’s armour became clearer, and the browns and reds of his outfit became clear. He threw himself at the bounty hunter, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding at the sight of his buir safe and sound, even as they grunted at the impact of their ad hitting them at full speed.

“Har’ika,” he said. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I was waiting on you!” he cried incredulously.  “Why were you late?”

“There was a- small problem.” Buir told Harry while leaning back to get a better look at his son.

“Really? What happened?”

“Nothing you need to know right now.” His buir stated, and nodded his head towards Kuiil in greeting. Harry hadn’t even noticed the man had caught up with them.

Releasing his parent entirely, Harry realised his father wasn’t alone. There was a round…thing following at his side. It stopped less than a metre in front of Harry.

“Is that what was causing all the fuss?” asked Kuiil in Basic.

Buir nodded in agreement, and reached for a button on his gauntlet before hesitating and stating in Mando’a. “Harry, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. Just, be careful alright?”

The bounty, Harry realised eagerly beamed up at his father. “I will!”

Buir pressed the button, and the sphere opened to reveal-. Wait.

What is that?, Harry wondered as he stared into the strange floating pram. The strange being stared back at him and tilted his ears in a way Harry would nearly call curious. Forget the strange short man with the goggles, or the nice doctor he saw just a week or so ago, this was the weirdest sentient he’d met so far.

“Bah!” they said in greeting and reached out with a tiny, clawed hand.

Cautiously, Harry reached out too, and as soon as their hands touched it was like something snapped into place. “I’m Harry,” he told them.

“Bah,” they repeated, and Harry’s mind was filled with a strange word that he just knew described the baby.

“Nice to meet you Grogu.” Turning to his new buir, Harry asked “Can we keep him?”

Despite not seeing his buir’s face something told him he was shocked under the helmet.

“Grogu?” Buir asked.

“Batu!” Grogu cooed in confirmation. A wave of excitement that didn’t belong to Harry came over them, and the thought of that’s-me-that’s-me!

“That’s his name,” Harry said simply. “I think…I think he’s happy people know it.”

Buir sighed beneath his helmet, and titled his head once more to look at the little green creature in the pram. “Dare I ask how you know this?”

“He said so,” Harry replied, confused. He supposed that Grogu didn’t say it aloud, but didn’t anyone else hear what he said?

“Har’ika,” his buir started. “He’s a baby. He can’t speak yet.”

“Yes he can,” Harry said fiercely. “You just aren’t listening.”

Silence reigned for a moment before- “So can we keep him?”

With a long suffering sigh, Buir gathered the Child in his arms. He stared down at Grogu, and Harry couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Grogu was tiny in his arms, barely covering the length if his forearm. Grogu cooed up at the bounty hunter, but this time he didn’t share what he was thinking with Harry either.

“…We’ll see.” His buir eventually said, and gently lowered Grogu to the rocky ground. “Why don’t you go play for a while. We’ll-“ he gestured to the silent Kuiil who’d been watching their conversation silently and uncomprehendingly. “Make a quick supper for both of you. There is…a matter that I need to see to in the morning before we can head home to the Covert.”

Harry beamed at his buir. That was basically a yes, right? When Uncle Vernon said “we’ll see” to Dudley that always meant yes.

Running to greet his new baby brother, Harry grabbed on of his tiny claws and helped him walk over to the corner Harry had been making a tower in earlier. “Come on Grogu, I’m making the biggest tower ever. You can help!”

Grogu squeezed his hand and cooed, before following the gentle pulling Harry was doing on his arm.

Behind him, Harry heard his buir turn to Kuiil and quietly say in basic “Tomorrow, I need your help with-”. Whatever he said after that, Harry didn’t understand. But that was okay. For now, he was happy to play with his new baby brother under the stars, with his buir safe beside them, and the knowledge of dinner in the near future, laughing as his brother ran to grab a frog bouncy by the trough while the adults talked, and grimacing when Grogu ate it before anybody could stop him. Life, Harry decided, was good.

Chapter Text

The next morning Harry woke up to the feeling of being patted on the cheek by something. Harry had always been fast to wake, a product of life with the Dursleys, and the sensation caused him to flinch back from the gentle prodding, eyes jumping wide awake. A “Coming Aunt Petunia” was barely suppressed from his mouth as he took in his surroundings.

He was lying on his side on the small camping cot Kuiil had set up for him on their first night on Arvala-7. A hairs width away from his face he was greeted by Grogu, who had at some point escaped the hover pram and climbed the cot to come poke Harry in the face till he woke up and looked, to Harry, way too proud of himself.

“Bwah,” he greeted, and emphasised it by reaching and poking Harry hard in the cheek.

“Ow,” Harry winced, and in his state of only being half-awake continued in English to say. “That hurt! Your nails are really sharp you know?”

Grogu didn’t understand what he said, but his tone clearly said enough because his pointy ears turned down and sank down to sit flat on his head, sagging down a bit where he sat by Harry’s head. Without speaking to Harry the same way he did the night before, the boy understood the apology the alien was offering.

“It’s okay,” he said slowly pulling himself to sit up. Looking around the small room his cot laid in he noticed they were alone. “Where’s buir and Kuiil?”

His new brother just cooed and tilted his head towards the door. Grogu pushed himself up and waddled all of three steps towards the door, before turning to Harry and making an ”up” gesture. Sighing, Harry accepted he wasn’t going back to bed and threw his blanket off.

“Come on then,” Harry said as he picked up Grogu who cooed at him. Walking only a few steps he then informed the baby “You’re heavier than you look.”

Grogu once more seemed to understand his sentiment and sniffed at him, sending a silent wave of hurt-am-not to Harry.

“How do you do that?” he asked as they walked out the door of the hut.

“How does who do what?” came the voice of his buir in Mando’a. Harry jumped.

His buir was awake then. Awake and sitting silently on a bench near Kuiil’s workbench thinking hard about something based on the tilt of his temple.

“How does Grogu speak in my head,” Harry told him.

“He…speaks in your head?” From the hesitant tone in his voice Harry suspected that Grogu wasn’t doing that to him or Kuiil.

“Yes?”

The shining beskar helmet tilted slightly to stare at Grogu, as if by looking at him hard enough he’s find an answer to whatever questions buzzed in his mind. Grogu just cooed and waved in response. Harry could just picture his buir’s face blinking back in surprise in the silent second that followed.

“Where’s Kuiil?”

“Kuiil?” came the bounty hunter’s confused response.

“The-The, Th-“ Harry huffed in frustration. “The small man?” He gestured with his hands to show the height of Kuiil, just a tiny bit shorter than Harry himself was.

“The Ugnaught?”

“I guess,” Harry shrugged. “He said his name is Kuiil.”

As if on cue, Kuiil appeared to greet them. He had been only a few dozen metres away Harry realised, pouring out the same disgusting looking sloppy mixture that Kuiil had sworn to Harry was food for the bluurgs. Kuiil greeted Harry and Grogu with a simple wave and said something to the Mandalorian. Harry didn’t understand what they said, but it made Grogu very excited and his stomach growled in response.

Sensing Harry’s lack of understanding, Grogu turned to him and pushed the concept of food, and hungry, and frogs- wait what was that last part?

But Grogu had lost interest in elaborating and instead started squirming to be out down. Harry did so, and turned to look at his buir as Kuiil disappeared into the house. Like always when his father was wearing his armour and helmet, it was difficult to sense exactly what his buir was feeling, but he could faintly sense a feeling of embarrassment lingering from whatever Kuiil had said.

“Kuiil is making you and Grogu breakfast before we leave.” He said simply.

“We’re going back to the Crest?” Harry asked in response. He was sad to leave his new friend and the new planet behind if they were.

“Not yet,” his buir stated. “Some jawas tried to strip her down and made off with a lot of her important parts. I need to get them back and put the ship back together before we can go anywhere.”

Kuiil returned with two bowls. He handed one to Harry with a spoon and went to grab Grogu from where he was about to climb into the bluurg’s water trough to feed him too. It had some sort of cereal in it. Harry felt his father’s embarrassment return stronger, and Harry realised Kuiil had scolded his buir for forgetting to have breakfast ready for the pair of boys when they woke up. Harry didn’t comment on it out loud, but Harry didn’t see why his father would be embarrassed about that. After all, he thought around a mouthful of grainy cereal, the Dursleys forgot to feed him all the time.

“Jawas, what are they?” He asked instead around a mouthful of the porridge like food.

“At the moment? A hassle.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “No, buir. Are they aliens too?”

“To you? Yes. To them? We’re the aliens ad’ika,” Din said.

“Can I come see them?” Harry exclaimed.

“No.”

“But wh-“

“No.”

“Bu-“

“No.” The bounty hunter rubbed his hand across his visor in an imitation of the universally familiar scene of a parent massaging away the oncoming headache their child was giving them.

“But I’ll be good,” he pleaded, widening his eyes.

“You’re always good. No.”

“But I’ve never seen a Jawa! It’ll be-,” he paused and said “ed-u-ca-tion-al?”

“Ori’jate, but no.” His father remained unimpressed.

“But-,” Harry put down his porridge on the work bench beside them. “Grogu’s never seen a Jawa either!”

“Patu,” agreed Grogu from his spot in Kuiil’s empty bluurg food bucket. Wait from his spot where now?

The Mandalorian rushed over and picked the green menace who had managed to escape Kuiil’s watchful eye out of the bucket, now firmly coated in the disgusting bluurg food mush and sighed. He looked over at Harry and said, “Ok, Har’ika, you and Gro’ika can come, if only to keep the pair of you from making a mess on your own.”

Harry grinned and cheered his enthusiasm. “Oya!” Grogu had a nickname. Buir was definitely keeping him and adopting him too.

There were many reasons Din was regretting bringing two foundlings with him on a quest for “The Egg”. The largest reason for his regrets was not, in fact, the danger to the adike or the impending sense of doom he was feeling deep in his bones. It was the singing. The. Karking. Singing.

The journey to the sand crawler only took an hour or two, but it was the longest hour of his life. The Imperial Security Bureau had nothing on the torture that was listening to the sounds of Har’ika singing a song he was informed by his helmet’s translation software was about bottles of milk on “the wall”. He lasted 13 bottles of milk being taken from “the wall” and drunk before madness began to set in. It didn’t help that Grogu had figured out the songs tune and was gleefully attempting to sing along in a series of out of tune coos and hums.

A tiny part of Din found it admittedly copikla, but the rest of him really wanted to put an end to it all and ask Harry to start singing a less annoying song or stop singing all together, but the parenting books on his datapad he’d been reading the past few weeks all discouraged “crushing a child’s artistic and musical expression”, and he didn’t want to cut the child off from what was likely one of the few kids songs he new in his native language. He didn’t want to erase Harry’s past any more than his own had been erased when he’d been taken in by the tribe.

The Ugnaught, who he had been informed was named Kuiil, looked content to listen to the younglings butcher the concept of music in the back of the bluurg pulled speeder. Din rapidly put teaching Harry to have a better taste in music and nursery rhymes at the top of his to do list.

When the group finally located the sandcrawler, Din was hit with a sense of dread. He doubted the negotiations would go well.

As Kuiil went to greet the Jawas and likely apologise on Din’s behalf, Din negotiated with the children to get them to stay put. Grogu seemed happy enough to sit and watch to start with, but Harry was determined to follow him over to meet the Jawas who’d broken their ship. Din also wasn’t sure if Harry wanted to badger them with questions or fight them for stealing parts of the ship. While the part of him that was a proud Mandalorian buir would love to see his child win a fight, that wouldn’t get them anywhere. With a promise of being allowed to stay up late that night and a bedtime story, he got Harry to sulkily agree to stay put.

Kuiil returned to say, “They really don’t like you for some reason.”

“Well I did disintegrate a few of them,” he shrugged.

“You need to drop your rifle,” Kuiil informed him. “They won’t do business otherwise.”

“I’m a Mandalorian. Weapons are a part of my religion.”

“Then you’re not getting your parts back,” he stated simply, and turned back to speak to the Jawas holding various stun guns at Din.

With a reluctant sigh, he left them it in the speeder with his found- with his son and the Asset.

As he sat down to negotiate, he spotted Harry leaning over to Grogu, who was half leaning off the barge to get a closer look. His helmet enhanced hearing informed him he said “Those red eyes are scary. What do you reckon they look like under the robes? I’ve bet they’ve got horns.”

Grogu cooed in response, and Harry responded as if he’d answered. “Furry? I don’t think so.”

Whatever else they said was lost as he was dragged back into the negotiation which instantly went south as soon as Din himself started speaking his broken Jawa.

“You sound like a Wookie,” the giggling leader informed him.

“Do you understand this,” he shouted and fired the flamethrower in his vambrace at the Jawas, creating a cascade of orange flames in a move he would later reflect was a bit hot-headed of him.

“Wow,” Harry whispered to Grogu. “Did you know he could do that?”

“Patu.”

The fact that Kuiil managed to salvage that situation spoke volumes about his skill in diplomacy and to cow anyone into submission despite his small size.

Before Din truly knew what was happening he found himself, Kuiil, Harry and Grogu were going for a ride in a sandcrawler to get “The Egg”. The egg of what exactly? Din wasn’t actually sure. He was too busy stopping Grogu from pulling on levers in the control room and strategically moving his son out of view of the Jawas. From the way he was staring at them Din figured he was finding the best way to tackle one and find out what they look like under the robes, and Din did not want to encourage him committing a cultural or religious taboo or dishonour. “Treat others like you want to be treated” and all that sort of stuff that parents are supposed to say.

When the time came to hike the short 2km distance to the den of the creature to receive an egg, he was faced with a choice. To leave the children or take them with him.

Most parents would probably leave the children in the hands of a friend who had proven himself a safe guardian, such as Kuiil. Most parents weren’t Mandalorian bounty hunters with a healthy sense of paranoia of other bounty hunters stealing the children in their care if left alone for a few minutes.

It was with that understanding, an incredulous Kuiil, his weaponry fully serviced and accounted for, and two very excited foundlings that Din made his way through the rocky plains towards the Den.

“What are you fighting?” Harry eventually asked once the sand crawler was out of sight.

“…I’m not sure.”

“Didn’t you ask?” Harry sounded offended.

“I did, but I didn’t know the word the kept using,” he admitted. “It’s a something-horn?”

“Well I guess that’s helpful to know,” Harry said, and sounded way too content with exactly how little information his buir had on his hunt. And way too trusting in his future success. Din swallowed.

Grogu babbled some sort of agreement from the hoverpram, and reached out to tap his tiny claws against Din’s thigh guard, the only part of his armour in reach for the ik’ad standing to his right in the pram. Great, even the baby was trying to comfort him.

Eventually, they reached the layer the Jawas had specified, and the bounty hunter began having second thought about bringing the foundlings there. It was typical of Mandalorians to bring their young out on hunts or sparring practice to demonstrate Mandalorian values or battle tactics, but typically this was reserved for children who had already turned 8 or 9 standard, depending on the clan. He supposed one of the children with him was technically 50 standard, so he wasn’t a complete failure of a cabur he supposed.

Stopping a fair distance from the entrance of the den he turned to the younglings. “Stay,” he commanded.

“But-“

“No, Har’ika,” Din interrupted. “Stay…Look after Grogu for me, okay?” Grogu cooed at hearing his name spoken aloud, but turned his attention back towards the cave. It seemed even the ik’ad could sense the danger lying ahead. “Maybe you’ll learn some battle or hunting tactis,” he said with a smile under the helmet. “If anything bad happens, run back to the Jawas and get Kuiil, alright?”

“O-Okay,” Harry replied, but his voice had broken just for a second. Still, he seemed to take his role as “cabur” and “messenger” seriously and straightened up.

Leaning down, he rested his helmet on Harry’s forehead in a Keldabe kiss for a moment. Pulling back, he gave another firm look to Harry and Grogu  under his helmet and said, “Oya.”

“Oya!” Harry dutifully exclaimed in response, but Din could tell he was still nervous.

Turning his back to the adike he traversed the tiny plateau before the mouth of the cave. He stared into the darkness that lay before him and once more, and taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, entered the breach.

From there, the venture quickly devolved into pure chaos. He had entered the cave cautiously, the side light on his helmet and the HUD built inside it barely enough to provide any semblance of vision in the dark.

He had stumbled around, searching and feeling around for anything even vaguely egg shape, and his hand had got caught on a strand of- was that fur buried in the muddy floor? He lent in for a closer look, his and wiped at the shape futilely to reveal more. Huffing and yanking the Egg out of the ground he found beneath his helmet.

It was an egg alright, a very furry and heavy one. It was also likely the one the jawas wanted so badly. He took a second to think it over. What sort of egg was furry? Not any laid by any species he knew, and what sort of egg laying creature lived in a dark muddy cave?

Oh kriff, his eyes widened under the helmet. Mudhorns. Didn’t mother mudhorns lay their eggs in caves and guard them relentlessly from poachers?

As soon as the question occurred to him, he found himself making eye contact with said mother mudhorn. Seconds later he dropped the egg as he was thrown out of the cave by the force of a charging mudhorn with extreme power.

“Buir!” Harry cried from a distance as he saw him land on his back.

“Stay back,” he barely had time to yell, before the mudhorn was rushing out of the cave to charge him again.

“What’s that?” his son screamed back.

“Mudhorn! Stay back!” He barely managed to reply as he steadied his rifle for a shot.

Only he never took that shot, as he was charged again by the beast and had his riffle knocked aside in the chaos.

Dank farrik that hurt. Din slowly brought himself to sit up with a groan, and he didn’t even need to look at his hal’cabur to realise his armour was completely destroyed and covered in muck that’d take hours to clean.

He stared head first at the creature digging its hooves into the ground, preparing to charge at him once more, and was overcome with guilt. He should never have taken Harry and Grogu with him. Harry had only started coming to terms with having a family to call his own in the form of Din and the Mandalorians, and no ad deserved to witness their parent slain as a result of their own hubris.

He stumbled into a kneeling position and scrambled for the nearest weapon to his dominant hand, a small vibroblade he usually only used for cooking dinner or playing cu'bikad when he was without his playing knives. Grunting, Din pulled it from his boot and held it out towards the charging mudhorn. He knew this wouldn’t work, that he was almost certainly going to die here on this skughole with children as his deaths witness, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Just before the he the horn of the beast came within reach of his blade, he heard it. “No!” screamed Harry, and the world around them seemed to slow down.

Din glanced sideways to where he left the children at the top of the surrounding stone banks around the tiny plataue leading to the cave, and saw a strange sight. Grogu was standing in his hoverpram, hand out-stretched and eyes closed in a grim look of determination that looked out of place on an ik’aad. Harry stopped in his tracks from where he was about to sprint recklessly down the bank to Din and stared open mouthed at the mudhorn.

“Buir look!”

Din looked back at the beast and behind his helmet his expression was one of pure astonishment. The mudhorn was floating. At first, only a centimetre above ground, then two, before rising to a full metre above the rocky terrain. The creature snarled as its legs futilely attempted to charge forward, meeting only air and remaining safetly incapable of harming him. Was Grogu doing this?, he wondered breathlessly, glancing back at the ik’aad. It sure seemed like it.

He brought himself to his feet and moved to the side of the creature to view the phenomenon from a new angle. Was Grogu like his Harry? Filled with some sort of magic powers beyond a bounty hunter’s comprehension? Is that why the Asset was worth so much? Was someone hunting him for his powers? Would someone hunt Harry for his?

As all these questions buzzed through his mind he failed to take advantage of the situation created by Grogu, and the beast returned to the ground for a split second, and Din vaguely processed the ik’add falling backwards in exhaustion from maintaining the magic.

Before the mudhorn could turn and target Din again however, Harry took the infant’s place. A strange calm came over his sons face as his hand trust out the same way Grogu’s had, seemingly trusting his abilities to allow his to perform the same perfectly illogical miracle.

“Harry?” Din questioned, breathless.

“Kill it buir!” Harry grunted, a visible strain starting to cover his features. “This is really hard!”

Oh right, he thought dumbly. The vibroblade. He gripped the blade tighter and stabbed it into the creature’s neck, then forced it in deeper and created a larger wound which gushed blood back at him when he reclaimed his knife. Din supposed he’d successfully guessed where the mudhorn’s major artery was then.

He heard Harry grunt and fall over as the mother mudhorn fell uselessly to the ground as it fell back to earth.

Din looked over to see that his son had fallen back onto the ground, and appeared to be asleep or knocked out just like Grogu had been. His gaze switched between his knife, the corpse of the mudhorn, and the children on the banks. What the kriff kind of magic osik just happened? He looked back towards the cave. First, grab the Egg, then get himself and the foundlings the kriff out of here.

The problem with highly encrypted commlinks, Din Djarin mused, was the severely limited range on the things. The Razor Crest could transmit and receive messages from anywhere in the galaxy, but the secure commlink built into his helmet could only contact others within the same sector.

Luckily the repairs on the ship had not taken too long, and after two weeks the Crest was ready to fly back to Nevarro. Kuiil of course refused any payment for his hospitality, babysitting services, repair work, and the impromptu mechanics classes he gave Harry over the past few weeks. He truly was a good man, Din thought, and he was sorry the man wouldn’t come with them. It was unlikely they would see each other again.

The journey back from Arvala-7 practically flew by. Harry was happy enough to work on his educational modules on the datapad and play with Grogu, and Grogu was content to be a menace by constantly pushing the worst possible buttons at the helm to nearly cause the ship to loose all hull integrity, gravity simulation, shielding, or stealing the silver sphere that topped the lever that controlled the backwards thrusters. For some reason the ik’ad had decided it was his new favourite toy.

Din was happy to see both of them healthy. He had been worried after the fight, when both children had passed out after using their magic. He’d carried Harry back slung over one shoulder like a bag of meilooruns, the Egg held in his free arm with a passed out Grogu following in the hoverpram, and gotten Harry absolutely covered in mud from a mudhorn lair for his troubles. Harry didn’t seem all that upset when he woke up a day later that one of his few shirts was completely destroyed and beyond saving, he was just worried about Grogu. Din himself had also been silently worrying over the ik’ad, but when he woke up on the second day of his nap he had thrown himself at a nearby lizard, promptly eaten it and laughed, so Din assumed he was back to normal.

With a beep from the console indicating they were finally in range for communication with the Covert, the bounty hunter put both his fou- the ad- oh who is he kidding, both his sons to bed.

The familiar sound of the dialling tone buzzed by Din’s ear as he waited for the Goran to answer the call. He tapped his left index finger on his thigh guard as he grimly thought over the information he was about to share. She would not be happy.

Suddenly, there was silence, followed by a cool “Beroya.” In the background, Din could hear the soft clanging of metal being struck. Of course, the Goran was in her forge.

It struck Din at times he was glad that this comm was voice only, this was one of those times. His body tensed in a manner imperceptible to those not from the covert and adept at reading the tiniest differences in body language. “Alor.”

“I trust your hunting has been a success.” Din didn’t need to see the Goran to understand the unspoken undertone of ‘why are you calling me’.

“Yes but there has been a complication.”

“How so?”

“The Asset, I was lied to about who exactly I was hunting.”

“And who exactly,” said the Goran. “Would that be?”

“I was led to believe I was chasing down an old man in his fifties. Imagine my surprise to find an ik’ad,” he emphasised “in a pram.”

The Goran fell silent for a moment, before letting out a deep breath that spoke of the anger such an idea creates in all Mandalorians. “I see. The commissioner of this job, you told me before that he is an imperial sympathiser?”

“Yes but,” Din hesitated, something niggling in the back of his mind, telling him he wasn’t seeing the whole picture. “I think it may be more than that.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. The client was accompanied by a group of former stormtroopers in rusting armour, and there was another person there. A scientist of some sort.”

The Goran hummed as she thought over the information. “Is it possible that the Client is working on behalf of another.”

“Almost certainly,” Din agreed, and felt like an idiot for not seeing it before. “How else could he afford to pay with a full container of beskar from the purge?”

“How indeed,” the Goran said, and through the vocoder Din could hear her stop working at her forge.

After a moment she said, “What would you like to do with this information Din Djarin?”

“What do you mean?” he responded in confusion.

There was a laugh in her voice when she responded. “What do you want to do? Many roads lie before you, how will you use this knowledge to guide your actions.”

The Mandalorian thought of the two children sleeping on the deck below him, and how quickly the two of them had connected. How Harry adored the ik’ad he insisted was named Grogu, and how both Din and Harry fussed over him when he fell asleep after the incident with the mudhorn. Maybe it was the magic both children had which seemed to connect them together, or maybe it was something else. One thing was for certain, Din loved his son completely. In the short few months since he had met Harry his desire to protect him from harm had grown into loving every bit of him, and if that meant accepting freaky magic stuff, then he would. Din also knew that he felt that same desire to protect for Grogu, and could easily picture the magical green ik’ad joining their clan, and growing that same sense of parental love connecting Grogu to Din. Maybe in another life he would have ignored how ill at ease his gut was with handing Grogu in, but in this one he simply could not.

“I cannot turn him in.” he declared.

“Of course not,” came the reply. “Foundlings are the future. This is the Way.”

“This is the Way.” Din agreed. Though at times his life had left him close to forgoing the Way, Harry had helped him remember it.

“There are tracking fobs are there not?” the Goran questions.

“Elek, Alor.”

“Then we give them what they want.” She stated.

“But-“ the bounty hunter interjected.

“Then,” she continued, “When that is complete the tribe may assist with your problem. How far are you from Nevarro now?”

“Just shy of two hours,” he said nonplussed.

“Then we shall begin emergency evacuations for the foundlings and their assigned protectors,” she stated simply.

“You’re going to relocate the covert?” he asked still stunned beyond belief.

“This is the Way. Oh and Djarin,” she laughed. “Two foundlings in such a short time. Are you developing a habit?”

Before he could respond, the comm line disconnected. He leaned back in the pilot’s chair in a state of numb shock. Two hours was not a lot of time to dedicate to evacuation or organising a plan of attack. But then his tribe were Mandalorians, and some of them had survived far worse by escaping the Night of a Thousand Tears with much less time to prepare. Already, Din could feel adrenaline begin to flow through his system, preparing him for the fight to protect both his people from an Imperial remnant and from his, apparently multiple, foundlings.

Chapter Text

It was with a heavy heart, a very stern argument when threatened with a magical temper tantrum, and promises of Grogu’s safety that Din finally managed to convince Harry to stay behind on the Crest. Din really did not want to risk Harry’s safety by involving him in the battle to come, and he suspected the boy was a natural trouble magnet seeing as how adventurous his life had been since adopting him. Truly the only reason he believed Harry agreed to stay was because Din told him that Grogu was definitely staying with them on the Razor Crest, so long as Harry didn’t disrupt the battle plan the Armourer had prepared.

It was with that in mind that Din and Grogu went on their way, Din desperately trying to act normal as possible as they walked through the streets, while subtly remaining vigilant of Grogu out of the corner of his eye. Grogu seemed rather indifferent to the tense muscles of Din’s body prepared for a fight, or the heavy atmosphere that followed them. Instead, the ik’ad seemed to care more about observing the new people he was seeing clustered around the streets, and trying to catch the occasional flake of ash on his tongue.

Wait Grogu was what? Din panicked and reached out to the baby with a stern finger. “No. It’s hot and will hurt. No.”

Pouting and whining in a way that told Din that the ik’ad understood just fine and was going to ignore his wise advice, he turned back to examining their surroundings. “I mean it buddy,” he said sternly. “No.” The ik’ad tilted his ears in acknowledgment, and promptly ignored him. The beroya sighed, just his luck he had two foundlings who wanted to ignore his every word.

Finally, they turned the corner outside the Imperial hideout, and Dins heart caught in his throat. He hated what he was about to do, he didn’t want to do it but- he glanced down at Grogu, only to find the ik’ad staring up at him. The Goran told him to trust her and the tribe, so he would. But first…

Din leaned down toward the baby and held out his finger for the baby to hold, which Grogu happily did, squeezing the appendage behind the smooth leather. “Listen carefully, okay ad’ika?” Grogu cooed up at him, the intense look in his small eyes telling Din he understood the seriousness of the situation.

“I need to leave you here for a bit, alright Gro’ika? But I’ll be back for you soon okay? Because-” Din paused and took in a deep breath. Once you said the words, they could never be unsaid, not that the bounty hunter would ever consider it. “Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad, Grogu.”

Grogu tilted his head up in confusion at the unfamiliar words, and the Mandalorian smiled down at his son in the pram despite himself. Grogu gurgled up at him and waved his right hand up, which Din quickly moved to meet and push back into the pram, gently holding it in his much larger hand. “It means, that I’m your buir now, just like with Harry,” he grinned sheepishly beneath his helmet, his joy waring with the nerves he felt about what he knew had to be done. “For as long as you’ll have me at least.”

Giving the tiny claw one last comforting stroke with a finger, Din let go of it, and hushed his new son’s cry of protest. “Not right now pal, we have a mission to complete,” he stated, and tuned his attention back to the door that stood metres away. “Ready to complete your first stealth mission ad’ika? You’re gonna have to be very brave.”

Grogu stared up at him before nodding determinately at his buir as if he understood. Harry did say the ik’ad understood more than he let on, Din remembered. The bounty hunter swiftly turned towards the door and closed the few metre distance that remained. Without allowing himself a moment further to hesitate banged on the rusted iron door.

Din Djarin felt many different, equally passionate emotions when walking back to the covert and after leaving Grogu with the Imperials. There was guilt of course, of leaving his son with the same genocidal maniacs who decimated their people not even a few years ago. There was the anger, why didn’t the other Mandalorians come to interfere? The Goran had made vague references to having a plan and perhaps providing assistance, and yet nothing. By the time he reached the forge he just felt plain stupid, for forgetting the position he’d placed his people in and forgetting they were mid evacuation when he arrived in the sewers.

He made his way through the eerily quiet hallway, without the sound of foundlings running around or verde laughing and fighting the feeling of home that Din had come to associate with the damp tunnels was missing. He did pass a few stray warriors on his journey, preforming final weapons checks and preparing for battle. And there was the guilt again.

Finally, he reached the forge, where the Goran awaited him. Kneeling reverently in his typical manner, he placed the container of beskar on the table before him. From behind him, he heard the sounds of the remaining verde joining to watch the proceedings with great interest.

Tentatively, the Armourer joined him on the floor and reached out her hand picket up an ingot. “The spoils of the Great Purge.” She noted with an undertone of grief.

“Yes.”

“And the foundling?”

“I did as you instructed Alor,” he swallowed. “Now what?”

She stared at the beroya from under her helmet. For a tribe that could not communicate or express emotions through their face, they had all become very adept of reading and projecting their body language to convey their every thought in a crystal clear manner. At that moment, the Goran’s said many things. The tilt to her helmet conveyed that she was deep in thought, both judging him and the beskar. A second later, the set to her shoulders said she was determined and had reached a decision.

“Now,” she said. “You shall wait.”

“What,” he stuttered. Surely she couldn’t expect him to wait in the forge with Grogu in danger and Harry left behind with little defences on his ship.

“You cannot expect to do battle in that armour do you?” Her tone was dry as she gestured to his badly damaged and hurriedly repaired armour.

He had attempted to fix it on the flight back to Nevaro with the tool box that Kuill had gifted him, but in truth he had been unable to fix much beyond some basic wiring and life support systems. Even his helmet, the one intact piece of armour, hadn’t escaped entirely unscathed. The targeting system was fried, the storage capabilities for recordings or images was partly damaged meaning he had no space for new language translation programmes or taking holorecording’s, and his ability to amplify sound was going to depend on the custom settings on his riffle instead. Under his helmet Din went red with embarrassment, in all his worry he’d forgotten his armour wasn’t exactly field ready. He simply bowed his head in response.

She nodded, clearly satisfied and addressed the soldiers standing in the cramped doorway to her forge. “Then I believe an upgrade for our beroya’s armour is in order. Unless there are any objections?”

“’Lek,” came the voice of the massive hulking Mandalorian known as Paz Vizsla. He stepped further into the forge, and his stance told the bounty hunter just how much is friendly rival was willing to pick a genuine fight to express his anger with him at that moment. “Why should beskar be wasted on him? The traitor was dealing with imperials! He’s exposing our tribe to them!”

“And now he is double crossing them so as to safely return the beskar and protect the safety of a foundling,” she replied simply. “And how is a buir to protect their children and fulfil their duties to their clan and their tribe without it?” It was a rhetorical question that brokered no response, and they all knew it. When silence greeted her statement she stood, and took the container of beskar with her. “This is the Way.”

“This is the Way,” the soldiers dutifully responded, Din’s quiet statement lost in the passion of the others.

“Today we prepare for battle,” the armourer said as she turned and walked to the forge. “Din Djarin, you shall accompany the others in to battle a few hours hence with the honour of armour forged entirely of beskar. I have already sent a few scouts ahead to observe the Asset, and another is stationed near your ship protecting Har’ika.” Tilting her helmet slightly in his direction she then finished with “Make the battle count.”
Once more, Din nodded his understanding. “I will,” he vowed.

“I know.”

If there was one thing Harry had learned about having parents in the few short weeks since he had acquired one, it was that they were always worried about things for no real reason. When Buir had made him promise before leaving that he would stay in the ship and not come out for any reason, he instantly knew his Buir had gotten them into trouble again. That also meant that he’d probably need Harry’s help soon, whether his Buir would admit to it or not.

However Harry had made a promise, and he was nothing if not an honest boy of his word so he stayed on the ship and waited. He waited for a long time. He played with his toys, then he sat in Buir’s seat in the cockpit and tried to do some homework, and then he paced around the cargo hold for a full 10 minutes before he decided it was probably safe to leave. Sure, Buir said to stay in the hold until he came back, but he’d been gone for nearly two hours at that point and if he still hadn’t turned up then he was definitely in trouble and needed Harry’s help.

As he was about to leave Harry paused by the entry ramp. What if he needed weapons? Buir told him he could not touch any of the blasters or knives without him until he began his official Mandalorian training, but surely he could still take something to help him? Looking around, he saw nothing that looked immediately useful but grabbed his Buir’s over the shoulder bag packed with ration bars just in case. If worse came to worse, maybe him and Grogu could use their magic to help out again?

With his packed bag and a nod of determination, Harry rushed out the entrance of the ship. If he had been paying more attention, he probably would have sensed another person standing near the Razor Crest. If he had really been paying attention, he might have even noticed their panic at realising a child was running into what was about to be a battlefield. Instead Harry was not paying attention to that, he was focusing on the faint feeling of Grogu he could feel inside the small mining settlement, and he was really focusing on the faint sense of fear he could feel his baby brother experiencing.

‘Don’t worry Grogu,’ he thought as he sprinted past the gates and the guards in white armour. ‘I’m on my way!’