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"Are you doing this for Grogu or are you doing this for yourself?"
Din stopped in his tracks. The words pierced the beskar in ways no pointed end of a blade or blaster bolts from a pistol could — they cut through the metal, the fabric, his skin; the words burrowed into his flesh, seeped into his bones, and left him raw, exposed like a nerve.
Was he?
Did he really leave his allies behind to face the looming war on Tatooine by themselves and travel between the stars for Grogu?
Even after he had told himself the job was done; the kid was safe, reunited with his kind who'd give him the care and nurturing that a lone bounty hunter like Din never could. Skywalker could offer Grogu a proper home to sink his roots, and along with it, peace, and stability away from the violence and the lawlessness of the Outer Rim. He didn't even have a proper ship anymore, let alone a planet to call his own.
"I just...I wanna give him this."
The armour looked small and brittle on his palm, but beskar had never let a Mandalorian down. He held up the wrapped bundle at Ahsoka Tano. Whatever she thought or felt, she hid behind her listless — almost amused — expression.
"Why? So he will remember you?"
Grogu doesn't need armour to remember me, Din wanted to say but held his tongue. Though he wasn't there to pick a fight, the suggestion irked him. What would a Jedi, one who had refused to train the kid in the first place, know about everything the two of them had endured while on the run from the Empire? The lengths to which Din went, and was still willing to go, to keep the kid safe?
"No," Din said. He willed his voice to remain firm as the familiar suffocation he once felt in his chest aboard Gideon's ship returned. There would be time later to let his emotions run free from under the beskar, in muffled sobs that echoed inside his new ship — for now, he needed to be the stoic bounty hunter who, only days ago, had mutilated his uncooperative target without a shred of guilt.
"As a Mandalorian foundling, he should have this. It's his right."
Din looked up. On the distant hill, he saw Skywalker crouched in front of Grogu; the kid looked healthy, perhaps even happy to finally be among people who understood him. Closing his eyes, Din remembered the delighted coos and the stream of incoherent babbles that reverberated off the walls of the Razorcrest — all he had left now were the memories.
"Foundling." Ahsoka Tano hesitated for a second to weigh her words. "Perhaps he is a Padawan now."
Din didn't need to understand what a Padawan was to know she meant Grogu was one of them now — one of the Jedi, the natural enemies of Mandalorians, except, only recently he learned of a Tarre Vizsla, who was both Mandalorian and Jedi.
The darksaber weighed on his waist, Din resisted reaching for it. Ahsoka Tano was a skilled Jedi who fought against the Imperial forces, while he almost took his leg off with his blade the last time he tried to use it. The fight would be over before it started, and Din would have lost his chance to see the kid for good, if he still lived.
His hand closed around the beskar. If Grogu was destined to become a Jedi, there was nothing Din could do to stop it. He refused to take the choice away from the kid the same way the Empire had taken one from him years ago. But Grogu needed to learn to protect himself either way because he wouldn't be around forever to watch the kid's back; neither would Skywalker or Ahsoka Tano, and the galaxy was a dangerous place.
Din wouldn't put it past what was left of the Empire to still hunt for Grogu—their reach extended deep into the Outer Rim, their influence thrived in every nook and cranny of a planet or a cantina that the New Republic wouldn't bother to look.
"Well, either way, this armour will protect him," Din said. He knew when he was beaten. The Jedi wouldn't let Grogu go without a fight because the kid was their future, and Din's place among his people was tenuous at best.
"If you are set on it, then allow me to deliver it," Ahsoka Tano said.
It was a peace offering; they both knew Din wouldn't stand a chance against her if they came to blows. From what he had learned of her and Skywalker through the HoloNet after Grogu left, they were battle-hardened soldiers who worked tirelessly to topple the Empire, losing countless friends and family in the process. The same way—
Din willed the thoughts away before they surfaced. More than three decades later, he still wasn't ready to relive them. Looking ahead, he saw Grogu flail his arms at Skywalker and imagined the excited babbling from memory. The kid looked like he belonged, and—did he even remember Din?
"I came all this way," Din said and paused. Did he make a mistake coming here? The decision had been hasty, taken as he reeled from the covert's rejection. Part of him had hoped if he saw Grogu again, it would lessen the sting and ease the magnitude of his loss. If the kid no longer remembered him—after losing his religion and his tribe, Din wasn't sure if he could handle losing Grogu.
"He's right there."
The tremble in his voice must have been obvious as Ahsoka Tano moved closer. With a gentle hand on his arm, just under the pauldron, she said, "Grogu misses you a great deal."
She may have intended the revelation to offer him comfort, but Din waited for the other shoe to drop.
"If he sees you, it will only make things more difficult for him."
And there it was—finally out in the open, the reality Din refused to face since he took off from Tatooine. The journey, the rationale, the facade had been all for him, to ease his pain, not Grogu's; he had lost his creed, his religion, his ship, his foundling, and his people. He had nothing else left to give Grogu, only the beskar in his palm.
When Ahsoka Tano told him there was no place in the galaxy where Grogu would be safer than here, on this lush green, uninhabited planet under the radar from prying eyes, Din had resented the thinking. How could a simple man with a laser sword and a useless droid offer the kid better protection than him? He was a bounty hunter, a formidable one with a reputation that had taken years to build. He was a Mandalorian, and by creed, his tribe would protect a foundling left in his care. He—
He was none of that anymore.
Even the bounty hunting jobs dried up, and more than once in recent months, Din had to call in old favours to be able to afford food and find a place to rest the night. He had become a pauper in a prince's clothing.
Din straightened. The road ahead of him became clear, he finally understood what needed to be done, what Bo-Katan had said to him once. Mandalorians are stronger together. After he helped Boba Fett, he would journey to the mines beneath Mandalore, and one way or another, he'd redeem himself and find clan Kryze. He'd re-join the fight to retake the planet and help rebuild it as a haven, not just for his people but for all who had been left in the lurch from decades of bloodshed throughout the galaxy.
And, one day, Din would return with the full might of Mandalore behind him and offer Grogu the choice: to remain a Jedi or to come home.
He held up the wrapped beskar at Ahsoka Tano. "Make sure he's protected," he said as he walked away in long, determined strides. There was work to be done before Din could bring the kid back to where he belonged.
--FIN--