Chapter Text
Seventy-five days after Din Djarin leaves Tatooine, sixty-four days after he departs Batuu with Paz Vizsla and the surviving members of their covert, fifty-one days after they rendezvous with Bo-Katan Kryze and her growing army in the Vilonis sector, he flies with her and Koska Reeves to Takodana. No covert operates out of Maz Kanata’s castle now, but there is a chance that other coverts and clans have walked through the doorway. If nothing else, the pirate queen will have information. She always does.
The small wizened woman is already outside when they disembark from Bo-Katan’s repainted Lambda shuttle. She welcomes them with a smile and beckons for them to follow her to the castle. Her small sharp eyes sweep over the three Mandalorians and linger longest on Din’s helmeted face. He always wondered if she could see through the visor; she has such an uncanny way of meeting his eyes even though she shouldn’t know where they are.
They seem to have arrived at a quieter hour. The hall is not as busy as Din expected it to be, though it’s not much of a fair comparison to his last memories of this place. That time, a massive firefight broke out between them, the Mandalorians operating out of Takodana Castle, Maz’s other guests, and an invading Imperial remnant seeking the contents of Maz’s vaults. Blast marks still scorch the outer walls of the towering castle, a warning that such a pleasant and peaceful region is not immune to galactic upheaval.
“You’ve come a long way for refreshments,” the pirate queen remarks while beckoning to a droid to bring drinks and food to their table.
“And information,” Bo-Katan says.
“On your fellow Mandalorians or on your lost homeworld?” Maz replies. “Or on the Imperial remnants still clinging to their former glory?”
“All of it,” she replies. “Name your price.”
A supervisor droid comes to the table to set down four drinks and a platter of steaming foodstuff. Bo-Katan and Koska remove their helmets but Din’s hands stay on the table. He might be a little hungry and a little thirsty, but he will wait until they’re back on Bo-Katan’s flagship. Instead, he scans the hall. The other travelers look like junker pilots and smugglers, jobless mercenaries and merchants, and they are all staring at him, Bo-Katan, and Koska.
Koska tilts her head at them and they all suddenly find their food and conversations much more interesting than three armed and armored Mandalorians. Satisfied, she elbows Din to bring his attention back to whatever bargain Bo-Katan is making with Maz.
“-isn’t for free,” Bo-Katan says. Her hand curls tightly around her glazed mug. “What is it that you really want?”
“I want these Imperials to stop showing up at my doorstep,” Maz says. “Such a suspicious child. These old bones want to rest between expeditions, not pick up a blaster every time their shuttles appear on my scanners.”
“Then ask the New Republic to deal with them,” she replies.
“You want an entire vault of beskar ingots to fall into their hands?” Maz asks. “Not every Mandalorian who joins your cause is armored with it. Where you’re going, you want all the beskar you can find.”
Koska folds her arms. “You’re baiting us?”
“Perhaps.” Maz plucks a ball of fried ahrisa from the platter between them. “But I have maps of the outpost and numbers from trustworthy eyes. Purge the outpost of every Imperial and take whatever you want, including the beskar. Leave the rest to me.”
She looks straight at Din. “What do you say, Mandalorian?”
He blinks and sits up straight when both Bo-Katan and Koska stare at him. He frowns, wondering what the old pirate queen is trying to achieve. Is this her way of acknowledging the reason why he’s here? “I… think it’s a fair deal.”
“Why are we putting our lives on the line for-” Koska starts.
“No, think about it. We have the firepower and she has the intel. It’ll be quick and the beskar will be back where it belongs—with us.”
Koska’s eyelid twitches but she sits back in her chair and takes a long drink from her mug.
“If that outpost has information on the forces holding our sector,” Bo-Katan declares, “I’m taking it.”
“Go ahead. I have no use for that kind of intel,” Maz says around a mouthful of ahrisa.
Bo-Katan chews on her cheek. “Is that all?”
“Yes. And make sure to come see me after the job is finished.”
“Why? So you can give us another job? We’re not common bounty hunters looking for credits.”
Din clenches his jaw but he’d given up saying anything about that long ago. Maz tips her head in his direction while stating, “I never said you were. It’s time for Mandalorians to return home. Come back with your beskar and victory songs, and I will give from my vaults to your cause. No strings attached. You have my word.”
Koska shifts in her seat while waiting for her cue. Bo-Katan stares into her mug, still chewing on the inside of her cheek. Eventually, she says, “Fine. We’ll take the job. Show us the maps.”
Once they have their intel, Bo-Katan and Koska toss back their drinks and get to their feet. Din pushes his full mug across the table to Maz but she places her hand on top of his before he can leave.
“We will talk later,” she says, then lets him go and picks up his drink.
An uneasy feeling sinks into his empty stomach like a rock and stays with him until after they return to the light cruiser and share their plans with the others. Din stays tight-lipped during the briefing, nodding when he needs to and talking about their strategy when prompted by others.
“Vod,” Paz says later, out of range of anybody else, “why do you allow her to be so insolent? You are the Mand’alor-”
Din sighs. “Paz.”
“-and should be demanding her respect.”
He presses his lips together, then carefully says, “I know when to step back and let others take the lead. She knows how to talk to these clans, these people. We don’t.”
“Kryze is self-righteous and blind to her own failings. Need I remind you that she is the reason why we lost Mandalore, why an Imperial moff held the Darksaber captive for all those years? She is not fit to rule. Stop giving her reason to believe that she is.”
His hand drifts to the hilt on his belt, palm and fingers pressing it flat against his side like they’ll hide it from view. “I’m not doing this right now.”
“That’s what you said the last time.” Paz presses a heavy finger to the center of Din’s unpainted breastplate and the force of it pushes him back a half-step. “You brought us here to protect us, to finally bring us home, yet you keep avoiding your duties as the rightful wielder of the Darksaber. I tire of this. Accept that you earned the right to lead us. Accept that this is the way.”
“This is the way,” Din murmurs immediately, without thought. It comes to him so easily, but there’s a lump at the back of his throat and a nauseating sensation in his stomach.
Satisfied that perhaps his point has finally gotten across, Paz leaves. Din bows his head, willing that lump in his throat to sink. He reaches for the dusty strip of black fabric wound around his upper arm, fingers tugging gently to test the knot. It still holds. It’s still here.
He wishes that the Jedi who gave it to him is here, too.
Din returns to Takodana twelve days later with Bo-Katan, Axe Woves, and several other Mandalorians. His beskar is unmarred, and layers of padding and thick fabric hide dull bruises and scabbed lacerations. Bacta is reserved for only the most dire situations and so he adds new scars to his body, new mementos of his victories over a dead empire. Others wearing beskar alloys sport dents and scrapes on their armor and helmets, and one walks with a limp thanks to a stormtrooper’s lucky shot. Bo-Katan doesn’t hide the inflamed scrape on the left side of her face or the bruised right eye as she removes her helmet and declares to Maz that the outpost had been purged. She took what she needed from it and Maz has claim over the rest.
“If there’s one thing anyone can count on, it is the word of a Mandalorian,” Maz says while glancing through the datapad Bo-Katan handed her. She sets it on the bar counter and gestures for them to follow her to the back. “You can count on mine as well.”
Deep down below her castle are rows and rows of vaults and storerooms. Trinkets and relics sit in the open, gathering dust and webs. Stacks of crates and lockboxes fill up several storerooms up to the ceiling, and Din wonders how Maz can take them out. He wonders how she keeps track of them all, if she even remembers everything she brought down here and stored away.
“I have my methods,” she says aloud like she read Din’s thoughts. She taps her wrinkled forehead, then rubs her fingers. “And a little help.”
He looks at Bo-Katan and Axe, who shrug and shake their heads.
Eventually, she finds what she’s looking for—a vault filled with cases of blaster rifles and charges. The rifles are older models, manufactured during the Clone Wars. Maz claims they are untraceable.
“I need to make room,” she says, clasping her hands together. “Take what you can carry back to your ship, then join me in the hall.”
She turns and walks away with a bounce in her step. Everyone looks at each other, then Axe asks, “Does she mean one trip or several?”
Out of respect for the pirate queen, they only make two trips from the vault to the shuttle outside the castle. When they emerge from the shuttle’s cargo hold the second time, the sky is stained with the pinks and oranges of Takodana’s setting sun. A cool breeze blows in from across the lake, pushing them toward the castle’s open doors.
They take up several tables and Maz tells them to order whatever they wish that the chef can cook. All but Din remove their helmets to indulge in a hot, freshly made meal. He sits in silence, watching them eat and drink, listening to them talk about the mission and the beskar ingots they liberated. Even Bo-Katan is relaxed and smiling, pleased with the fruits of their labor.
Din gets up and goes outside, ignoring the curious glances from the others. He supposes it doesn’t make a good impression to leave in silence and he knows Bo-Katan will explain it away as a demand of his creed. His skin prickles and crawls at the thought but he can’t do anything about it. It is no secret that his covert lives and breathes the creed, something that had led to confrontations over the traditions his covert preserved and the unconventional demands of a post-Empire galaxy. Many are simply waiting for the day Bo-Katan challenges him for the Darksaber.
He goes to the edge of the lake and looks skyward. The last gasp of sunlight drowns under the weight of the night sky, which slowly fills with stars and distant planets. He searches among them, wondering hopelessly if he’ll see the one that’s at the end of a set of untouched coordinates stored in his ship’s computer.
He still hears approaching footsteps over the rhythmic sounds of lapping water and turns to see the pirate queen strolling up to him, hands behind her back.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Maz says, as if she didn’t see him walk out the door, as if she doesn't know everything that happens on her grounds.
He shrugs. “I’m not hungry.”
“Not hungry enough to reveal yourself,” she corrects. She faces the lake, appearing to admire the light rippling across its shifting surface. “Last we met, we also stood here at the edge of the lake, looking up at the stars. You were deeply troubled by the burden you keep, the blade that carries the hope of your people.”
“To put it mildly.”
“Now you return with clarity and greater certainty of your place in this galaxy, and yet.” She tilts her head up at him, her small sharp eyes scrutinizing the planes and curves of the beskar shielding him. “Yet you carry a deep sadness about you.”
He shifts uneasily. Maz always had such an uncanny ability to read him even though he never took his helmet off around her. But she can’t possibly have Force powers, not without the Empire noticing.
“How can you lead your people back to Mandalore if you cannot see the way?” Maz continues. He turns his head sharply to her and she points at her right eye. “Your eyes wander elsewhere, to some faraway place where you know you cannot go. Or is it someone you seek, someone who is as far away as the most distant star?”
His fingers twitch and he realizes he’s reaching for the fabric tied around his arm. He drops his hand to his side. No need to give her reason to keep prying. “I was a bounty hunter once.”
“I know. Your reputation had reached these shores and my old ears before events transpired on Nevarro that set you on your path.”
He huffs. His fingertips press tightly together, recalling that empty space where the Razor Crest’s round control knob should’ve been. “I made a choice that day, and it led me here. It destroyed my covert. It brought me to Bo-Katan and her cause. It… placed the Darksaber in my hands.”
Maz hums thoughtfully. “You regret what transpired that led to the loss of your old ways. But given the chance, you would make the same choice every time.”
He thought about it many, many times. Would he have ever walked away, leaving Grogu in Gideon’s clutches? Would his covert be alive and well under the city? Would they have answered Bo-Katan’s call to Mandalore? Would he have ever crossed paths with Luke Skywalker?
“Yes,” he says. He looks down at the hilt at his belt and lifts it up in his left palm. It is cool to the touch but he swears it thrums like a tooka, waiting for him to activate it. “I couldn’t live with myself if I chose differently.”
“Even if it meant losing what once defined you, and becoming Mand’alor?”
He twitches. “I’m not-” “Accept that you earned the right to lead us. Accept that this is the way.” “Yes. This is the way.”
They lapse into silence, listening to the rippling water and the festivities spilling out of Maz’s castle. He shifts from foot to foot, wondering what she might say if he asks. The pirate queen reigned for over a thousand years and her wisdom must be incomprehensible. She is also not a Mandalorian. She will not judge him.
“You have questions,” she says. “Perhaps this old woman can answer them.”
Stunned, he says the first thing on his mind. “Are you a Jedi?”
Maz arches her brow at him, then laughs. Peals of it spill out of her short frame as she doubles over, slapping her thigh. “Oh… oh, surely you jest! Why do you think that? Do I act like one?”
“You seem to… know things that no one should.”
She wipes her face, straightens herself, and then takes another look at him. Her eyes narrow as they search him from head to toe, and they linger on his left side. “I am no Jedi, but I know the ways of the Force. So is the one who gave you that favor.”
She watches him closely and he finally gives in. He nods and raises his hand to it. “Yes.”
“There are very few left in the galaxy. Most no longer say they are Jedi.”
“I met two during my travels,” Din says. “One chooses to walk alone. I don’t know where she is now.”
Maz is still looking at him, and her smile is kindly and warm. She waves an arm at the star-filled sky. “And the other is out there on some distant world, far out of your reach. You wish to follow, but you cannot.”
How does she know? He swallows hard, his fingers curling around the knotted fabric. It pained him to walk away from Luke and Grogu, but what choice did he have? “I… promised I would find him once my duty was done, but I don’t know if it ever will be.”
He lifts up the Darksaber hilt again. It gleams in the moonlight and he looks at it for a moment too long before letting it drop back to his side. “The creed may never allow it.”
“The creed has protected and guided you for years,” Maz says, “but it is not the only way.”
He opens his mouth to deny it, but wavers. Does he need to defend his creed to her? Instead, he says, “It's not that simple.”
She steps forward and presses a finger to his chest. It is the very same spot where Paz had pushed and prodded him days earlier. “Then ask yourself what it is that you seek. As long as there is a storm inside you, nothing you say or do will ring true. Find yourself first, before others do.”
He frowns, trying to parse the meaning behind her words. “Others?”
Maz looks pointedly at the Darksaber. “Many eyes are watching you. Whatever happens next, Mandalorian, do not lose yourself to them.”
She pats his arm and steps back. He realizes he’d been holding his breath and breathes; the air filtering into his helmet is cold and clear and clarifying. He looks at the dark hilt, at the piece of Luke’s cloak tied around his arm, and then at the pirate queen. He swallows and it hurts; his throat is so dry.
“I could use a drink,” he ventures.
Maz smiles. “You can eat in one of the guest rooms. When your companions are ready to leave, I will send for you.”
He nods. “Thank you. For… your wisdom, and for giving us the location of the beskar.”
“Don’t mention it. You did me a favor by getting rid of those Imps. A fair trade.”
She starts walking back to her castle and beckons for him to follow. She sets a leisurely pace, and he guesses she has more to say.
“The Jedi,” she says. “What is he to you?”
Din looks down at the top of her head, wary of her intentions. “Why do you ask?”
“The first time we met, I felt a presence about you and wondered how a Mandalorian bound by creed crossed paths with a Jedi. I didn't ask you then because you were not ready to talk."
He remembers now her curious glances at him while talking to Bo-Katan and the members of the covert that she housed. He thought the questions she wanted to ask were about the Darksaber, which he wouldn't have answered. That was why he fled the planet after the dust settled and the covert pledged themselves to Bo-Katan’s cause.
"I remember," he says.
"So, I waited to ask. I don't need you to tell me the story. I just have the one simple question.”
Din sighs. Nothing about Luke is simple and has never been. He says as much. “I don’t have a simple answer.”
He waits for her to prompt him again but Maz only nods and continues walking. “You can be a hard man to read, Mandalorian, but your love for him is not. Hold it close. Where you are going, your creed may not be enough to get you through to the other side.”
Dread shivers up his spine. He stops in his tracks and, after two steps, so does she.
“What do you know?” he asks.
“I know enough. I have seen enough. As I’ve said, it’s time for Mandalorians to return home. If you are to carry that Darksaber and lead your people back to Mandalore, you need all the help you can get.”
She doesn’t say but he knows now that the pirate queen and her home will always be a safe haven. He nods. “Thank you.”
Maz beams and turns to continue back to the castle. “I know Cookie has been wanting to test his tiingilar recipe on Mandalorians. It wasn’t ready when you and Bo-Katan came here months before. You could give it a taste and tell him what you think.”
Din blinks and tilts his head while following her. “Cookie?”
“My chef. Strono Tuggs, but we call him ‘Cookie’. What do you say?”
Din hasn’t had tiingilar or any traditional dishes in years. He’ll take what he can get. “Fine.”
“Excellent,” Maz says. “This could be the start of a profitable partnership.”
He huffs, the corners of his mouth curling upward in a smile. He feels a little lighter and his footsteps aren’t so heavy as he follows her back to the glowing golden lights of her castle. Still, he looks over his shoulder at Takodana’s night sky and he wonders.
The last words he spoke to Luke and Grogu fall from the tip of his tongue, a murmur lost to the wind. “Ret’urcye mhi.”
Maybe they’ll meet again.