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"No."
Din stared at him. He had yet to even ask, but Boba could see the question in the very tilt of his helmet.
He had just walked into the palace kitchens to have a sip of spotchka and a warm meal after a long day in court to find Din Djarin, a bounty hunter of some renown, suspiciously sneaking food under one of the tables.
He guessed Grogu, at first. But the womp rat was still with the jetii.
Instead of a toddling green babe, an anooba came running to him, tablecloth billowing around its lanky form like a cape. It did not think Boba was any different from the other Mandalorian it had already befriended, it seemed.
"Absolutely not," Boba grumbled, putting his foot down emphatically.
The anooba pawed his boot, then left its foot there. On top of his prosthetic, albeit covered as it was.
Boba scowled beneath his helmet. The mutt was unphased. Wagged its tail, even.
"I didn't say anything," Din defended, raising his hands disarmingly.
Boba crossed his arms. "Why," he drawled, "is there an anooba in my kitchen?" The creature sat - sat - in front of his knee, paw still on his boot. He resisted the urge to tap his unoccupied toe.
Din’s chest plate shook with laughter, but his vocoder did not dare betray him. “It followed me from Mos Eisley,” Din explained, voice clipped by static. “I couldn’t make it go away.”
A long-suffering sigh escaped Boba. “What do you intend to name it?” he carefully inquired.
“I thought Nu would be suitable,” Din replied.
“Couldn’t make it leave, or just didn’t want to?” grumped Boba, though the question was purely rhetorical. Din reeled. Hook, line, and sinker, he had been made. “And that’s a terrible name.”
Din was taken aback by that, captured in the exasperated inclination of the helmet. “What would you suggest instead?”
Boba hummed thoughtfully. Considered the mongrel before him. It might have looked almost intimidating were it not for the massive tusk on its lower jaw, giving it one hefty underbite. Its ears twitched idly as it stared back at Boba, sand-kissed fur spasming from the influence of unsteady muscles.
In lieu of answering Din, the daimyo of Tatooine glowered at the fiend on his foot. Two pale, blue orbs judged him from below, almost innocent in their naïveté.
Several tense seconds passed between them.
It was the canine who caved, finally giving in to the urge to scratch its skin, just below its right ear. Boba took the opportunity to retrieve his foot, yanking it out from under the beast. It teetered forward precariously but caught itself with ease, watching him with simple, empty eyes.
Its audacity reminded him of a similarly ballsy creature. “We could call it Marrok,” he offered, glaring daggers into the anooba’s hide as it licked its paw and patted down frizzy hairs, utterly unaware.
Din laughed. It was a husky, raucous sound in desperate need of saturation that made Boba feel quite warm under his helm, but quite confounded, too.
“What?”
“You come up with names fast for someone who doesn’t want pets,” came the singsong voice of Fennec Shand from the doorway. Boba spun around to shoot her a look, but she sent it ricocheting with the nonchalant wave of a hand. She smirked, eyes all too knowing. “I see you’ve met Nu.”
The anooba preened as she spoke its name, jauntily sitting up on its haunches. It shifted from a lazy slump to sitting ramrod straight at a speed that would have given Boba whiplash if he had been paying any closer attention.
Maker help them, she already had the thing vying for her praise.
Fennec batoned its fur into divisions, creating sparse mohawks in the ridge down its back, as she swept her hand through its hair. A fond smile spread across her features as she gazed upon the canid.
“You knew about this dustbag?”
The assassin sauntered over to the table, promptly taking a seat on it and obscuring Boba’s view of Din, who only leaned further into her shadow. Fennec patted her thigh, beckoning the anooba.
Boba barely dodged the swoop of its massive tail as it turned and padded over to her, jumping up onto her knees with care not to cause her harm. She looked at Boba as she petted it, scratching the side of its stocky head. “Nu’s been here since this morning,” she claimed, very matter-of-factly.
Ah. No wonder Din was hiding behind her.
Nu’s tail dusted the floor as it stood there, perfectly ignorant of Boba’s radiant aggravation.
“Djarin,” Fett growled, feeling his brow twitch.
Amazing how a man in full beskar could completely hide behind Shand’s unarmed frame.
Sighing, he reiterated, “We are not keeping it, Djarin!” before finally heading into the kitchen.
Boba stared up at the ceiling and sighed, furrowing his brow as he scrutinized a crack in the old stone.
“You’re just mad because she saved your life,” Din said, snickering off to his left. “Admit it, she’s here to stay.”
Boba gave him a half-hearted side eye before he finally caved. “She was... helpful. But jury’s still out on whether she’s to stay here.”
He did not have to see the man’s face to know a grin was worming its way onto Din’s mug, could sense it. It sounded something like the sheets lightly rustling and felt like the warm sun splashing against his unguarded face.
“Can I convince you otherwise?”
He mulled it over briefly. “You might,” he rumbled.
And just as the man leaned over, dipping his head to meet Boba’s, the breath was knocked out of Fett not by the keldabe that never quite connected, but by a massive paw as Nu vaulted from the floor, hurtled across the bedsheets, and landed on his stomach to eagerly press the side of her pronged forehead to Boba’s.
“Get off me, you cur!” Boba snarled. Din fell back into the headboard, cackling all the while.