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It starts like this.
Din Djarin is in the core. He doesn’t go here a lot, at any level. The Mand’alor is too busy on Mandalore, getting ready to join the republic, and Bounty Hunters steer clear unless they’ve got some real good contacts in the city. He does not. And yet, here he is, boots down on the streets of Republic City, attracting eyes from all angles.
Mandalorians are a thing of legend in the core. Sure, after The Siege and The Great Purge, refugees did crawl into the core, rebuilding their lives in these seats of power. But they did not come as Mandalorians, having to strip that away in order to survive under the Empire. But they are of the pacifists, unarmoured and barefaced.
He is a true Mandalorian warrior, the thing that really is a legend in these parts. And these people, so untouched by the true horrors of war and The Empire’s poison, all watch him like he’s just stepped straight off the pages of their history books.
But he doesn’t have time for eyes or to be weighed down by the weight of these core world-er’s stares. His own eyes watch the shadows, scanning the crowd for the beggars, scanning the beggars for his target. A bounty, much below his own normal rates. A bounty who he knows.
She’s grown in the last 20 years, no doubt. The hologram in his pocket shows a woman whose hair is streaked with silver and her inner face is sadder and more worn than he remembers, but it’s her. It’s her eyes, that he remembers holding fire, it’s the same set of her lips, pressed thin like she’s going to open her mouth and tell him stories, just like the old days.
It’s her name, beside her. The name is familiar, heavy on his lips as he whispers it to himself all the way to Hosnian Prime. He remembers her brown hair and how it would turn gold in the light of the sun. He remembers her eyes, sad as she recounts the horrors of the Purge. He remembers his own grief, holding… his hand as she told them what she knew.
He remembers them finding their covert again, hidden away on Navarro and how her grief overcame her when the dead’s names were read, how she held Din’s shoulders and pressed her Buy’ce to his and whispered so softly that he couldn’t hear her words. He remembers so many hushed conversations.
They’d left their first sect before they found Din. Found the covert that they raised him in, secluded in the wastelands of Mandalore. He doesn’t remember much of that place, much of Mandalore, because just two years after being found, The Siege came and they left. He remembers the next hiding spot only a bit. It was on…Concordia. Then the Great Purge happened, and everything falls apart from there.
He remembers her face on that final night, looking at him across the dinner table with a sad smile. He remembers tiingilar and how they’d always cook it so spicy that no one else could eat it, so the three of them could hoard their perfected food to themselves.
He remembers her leaving. He remembers them both leaving. He remembers waking up to empty beds and no notes, and his and her pauldrons all that was left, the symbols on them scratched at angrily. He remembers watching the Beskar be melted down and he remembers never taking his helmet off in front of someone else for nearly 20 years after that.
He remembers the New Republic officer’s tracking fob and he remembers almost refusing it, wanting to tell the man that he can find her in a haystack. He takes it still, and it beeps as he scans the crowd, but not enough. He takes the puck and turns away. So here he is, hunting the woman who taught him how to.
There’s another reason he never takes core world jobs. There are so many people, and tracking fobs don’t work the same way they do in the wilds of the outer rim here in cities with twisting paths. The fob would beep the same throughout most of the city. It may not even ping that he was close until he was looking right at her.
The streets are crowded with people, but the oceans part for him. These people may not get many a Mandalorian in their city, but the whole galaxy knows you move when one walks your way, lest they be a bit more vengeful than you realised. That was her first lesson to him, never to be pushed around, and never forget those who try. Mando'ad draar digu.
His head turns left and right, looking for that familiar Buy’ce, the white and gold and brilliant blue of her paint. The mimicry of the Naboo paint he remembers her sliding across her lips and eyes, remembers him kissing away while Din giggles and covers his eyes. So young and beautiful. He’s older than she is in those gold-washed memories. He’s older than they were when they left him.
Mando'ad draar digu.
He steps on a train, having scanned this area enough. People give him as wide a berth as possible on a crowded train, whispering around him in a flurry of languages. There is not one he doesn’t speak.
Outside, the city flies by, the spires gleaming in the midday sun. All around, this city is alive, bustling in a way only core world cities can genuinely manage. He thinks of Sundari, of her own struggling heartbeat, and the Ghosts in her shadows, the fires that are still trapped in her memory. This city has none of that. The Republic City looks forward, and all Din finds Sundari can do is echo the past.
Mando'ad draar digu. Te oriya draar digu.
A mother and her child are at the platform of the next stop. They move forward when the train slides in, but when the doors hiss open, and she sees him standing there, she turns up her nose and ushers her sticky-faced child to the compartment over. Commuters press in through all other doors, but no one comes to his. Something aches in him.
Doesn’t the Galaxy know that there is nothing a Mandalorian warrior values more than the life of her children? He does not know that child, but had something happened on that platform, he would have put himself in the line of fire just to get them out of there. Gar’re jareor, something whispers within him. He shakes the thought away, as the train presses on through the city.
Two stops later and he’s boots down again, in a part of town he doesn’t think many people find all too appealing, judging by the looks on the commuter's faces as they pull into the station.
The streets are tighter and more crowded here, dark and wet with substances that Din has no intention of identifying. Fewer people move out of the way for him here, and the eyes that watch him are far less scared and far more analytical and hostile. He’s amongst…not warriors, but the harnessed and jaded. The people who think the world owes them something for putting them here. The people who think they’re warriors, but have none of the courage to back it up.
Mando'ad draar digu. Mirshko cuyir te ara be te Mando’ade.
He remembers, most of all, her lessons.
He makes his way through the crowd, accidentally shouldering a tall Devaronian as he does. The Devaronian turns, a Pantoran woman on his arm. “Hey!” The Devaronian barks at Din, and he pauses, turning to face them with a blank look. “You hit me and the lady here. You gonna apologise, Mando? ”
“You would know if I hit you,” he says. Two pairs of yellow eyes narrow at him, and The Devaronian shucks his lady’s arm off his shoulders, coming up to Din with malice in his beady eyes. Behind him, the woman crosses her arms and stares at Din, chewing gum loudly.
“I said, you are gonna apologise to the Lady, Mando, ” he shoves Din a bit, growling when Din doesn’t react, rather choosing to turn on his heel and try and walk away. “Hey!” He yells, grabbing his shoulder.
Din reacts accordingly, grabbing the accusing hand, turning, and breaking at least three of the son of a bitches fingers just as fast as he draws his blaster, pointing it at the now wailing Devaronian. All around them, folks stare. “Nah,” Din says, “I don’t think I’m going to.”
“Fucking Mando! You’ll get what’s coming for ya!” The rest of The Devaronians words are swallowed up by the crowd as Din blends back into it. Around him, more and more people press near him, and he resists the urge to curl in on himself at the amount of contact.
He walks for a while, allowing himself to meander at the few stalls around, touching the wares with gentle hands and engaging the few vendors brave enough to talk to him in light conversation. While he talks to them, he still scans the shadows, but they’re empty. The whole city feels empty.
He’s surrounded by the dangerous people of this city. He doesn’t doubt that there are people here who are wanted by The New Republic, people who have blood on their hands. But a dangerous criminal is not a warrior. That’s where everyone is always confused with Mandalorians; They are Warriors by Creed, not some common backwater criminals. They live and breathe violence, find religion in the use of weapons, and find clarity in the chaos of battle. They swear themselves to defending their home and people at all costs, even life.
But criminals know the difference, at least to some extent. It makes them angry, wary, and hostile to those who they know are better than them. The people who stare at Din here are all of those, fingers on their blasters. He just hopes that none of them have itchy trigger fingers. Blunt force trauma wounds from blaster shots are pains in the ass.
“Hey, Mando!” A voice calls from his left.
He startles, turning to find the source of the voice, only to see no one even looking at him. Pushing through the crowd, he veers left, as the voice calls again. “Yeah, you! How about you and I go for a spin out back?”
His lips purse into a thin line. Kriffin’ aruetiise and their Mando’ade centred perversions. He pushes his way through the crowd to find a scene that sends his stomach rolling. A tall human man, dressed in clothes that suggest he’s from the wealthier part of town, has a Mandalorian by their upper arm, pulling them close to his body.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” They insist. Something jolts from within Din. It can’t…“I am not a Mandalorian!”
“Then why are you wearing Mando armour, sweetheart?” The man pulls back her loose cloak, revealing Beskar that Din would know from a mile away. He rips off the bag slung across her shoulders, dumping the contents out onto the floor.
Her buy’ce falls out, clattering to the floor and rolling over to a stop at Din’s feet. The man doesn’t even glance his way as he picks the familiar helmet up, pulling the struggling woman to his chest again and kissing her forcefully. She pushes him away once more, yelling in a voice that Din remembers being used to command curious children, “Usen’ye! ”
He can’t breathe, can barely hear the man's laugh and oily reply, “Come on, honey, I’m just looking for a bit of fun!”
“She said, go away,” Din finally cuts in. The man’s eyes snap towards him. He looks at the Beskar, the T-visor, the helmet cradled gently in his hands, and goes very very pale.
“Hey, man, we were just having a bit of fun, weren’t we?” He grabs her arm again as she tries to slip away. Her face is bare, and it takes everything in Din to not look at her face, to keep his eyes steady on the man in front of him. The man is smiling, and while he looks terrified, Din can see the anticipation and adrenaline in his eyes, the amount to which he is enjoying this.
His blaster is in his hands before he realises, and pressed to the man’s chest only seconds later. “Let her go. Now. ” The man glances at her, before dropping her arm with a scoff. He glances once more at the black expanse of Din’s visor, turns tail and runs off into the crowd.
Din looks at her, her name on his lips, but the words die when he sees her familiar face once more. But before he can say anything, explain himself, she’s already seen the fob on his belt, and she’s already running. “No!” He cries, running after her the second she bolts. Around them, the crowds part as they tear through the winding streets and narrow walkways.
But for a woman in her 50’s, she is fast. She ducks and weaves, and he’s starting to lose sight of her. But she’s already here, already so close, and he’s not letting her slip away again, not after so long without her, without answers for why she left. He unholsters his blaster, and ignites his jetpack. It’s not going to be a fair fight. He wishes it was. She deserves the honour of one.
She stops in her tracks and looks up when she hears the ignition, but he’s already hidden in the shadows of the rooftops. She pulls her own blaster, aiming it upwards with an eye he knows is better than his, but she can’t see him, and he can see her, so he aims.
But right before he pulls the trigger, he whispers softly, “Ni ceta, Trika Oguur,” his voice shakes, around her name, “Ni vaabir na copad at vaabir ibic, a ni enteyor. ”
He fires, wincing when he hears her scream as the shot tears through her leg, the scream growing louder as another shot hits her arm, knocking the blaster out of her hand. A third, and final shot tears through her abdomen, where the Beskar doesn’t cover her, and her screams echo through his ears.
She drops to her knees, forehead pressed to the floor, shaking as her blood pools around her. People watch, too scared to do anything as he jets down, rushing over to her side, dropping to his knees as he helps her up a bit. She looks up at him with teary eyes, as he speaks softly.
“Ni ceta. Ni ceta. Olar's gar buy’ce, ” he hands her the painted Beskar he’d shoved into his bag, and she takes it with shaking, bloody, hands. He remembers this sight well, remembers her cleaning her buy’ce with him by her side. He remembers the stinging smell of the polish and armour paint, remembers how entrancing it was to watch the dirt and grime of battle be washed away.
He presses a hand to her shoulder, but she flinches away, speaking venomously, “Shi kyr'amur ni, beroya! ” Her face softens, and she looks at him once more, face streaked with tears, “Kyr'amur ni, gedet'ye. ”
He shakes his head, reaching out again and helping her up, speaking softly, “ Kemir ti ni. Ni kelir na hurt gar. ” She does not trust him, he can tell by the set of her shoulders, by the look in her eyes, but she walks with him all the same, allowing him to guide her to a dark alleyway, where he sets her gently against the wall.
“Who–who are you?” She gasps out, as he presses his hands against the wound in her stomach. “Do I know you?”
His visor meets her eyes, voice raw as he speaks softly, “You don’t remember?” Her dark eyes dig into him, wide and confused, some echoes of remembrance filling her as she brushes her bloody hands over the unpainted Beskar. “It’s me, buir. It’s Din.”
“Din?” she echoes, voice distant, chest rising and falling rapidly as the tears pour out of her, as she sees the child she left behind in the man in front of her, “Oh, Din’ika, baby, look at you. You’re so grown.” Her hands cup his buy’ce again, and suddenly it feels wrong to be wearing it, so he tugs it off without a care, whispering I’m sorry over and over again as they bundle each other into a hug, their bare foreheads pressing together in a kov'nyn.
He’s gasping for breath, his lungs are submerged a mile deep in the waters of the world. He remembers the mines, the cold water, the redemption and the rebirth. He remembers the feeling of drowning as he threw himself into the waters, and this is what drowning feels like. He can’t breathe, can’t get enough apologies out to make it right.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers still as he pulls away, “I’m going to fix this, I didn’t want to hurt you, Ka’ra, I’m so sorry– ”
“Din.” He looks at her, eyes wide as she smiles carefully, her shaking hand coming up to brush away his hair from his face, “Ad'ika, baby. You could never hurt me.” He nods and wipes his face of tears, gathering his cape in front of him and using his vibroblade to cut a few long strips of the fabric.
“They were clean shots,” she compliments as he wraps her leg and hand, “Seems like I taught you well.” He nods mutely, wrapping the final wound with precision. Her breaths still shake with pain, but her eyes shine brightly as she looks at him.
“I have a bounty on you,” he admits once he’s done, pulling away a bit so he can help her stand.
“I know,” she says, as she leans against him. “I saw the fob. I assumed you were some random hunter, so I ran, but I will go with you, Din. You must provide for the covert.”
He looks away at the mention, “I’m not turning you in, Buir. I didn’t take this job to provide for the covert…I did it because I recognised you.”
“Din?” She asks as he slides on his helmet, her own still tucked under her arm. “Why aren’t you providing for the covert? Has something happened? Where are they?”
“Why do you care?” He hisses, all ecstasy of being with her again fading as the old wounds are flayed open, shoving a finger into her cuirass, “You left us. You and…you and Kyra left me. Left me to be the only fully trained hunter, left us to live off of scraps. We were family, and you left. ”
“Din,” she whispers, “ Ni ceta. I know it doesn’t change anything, but Kyra and I had to go. We were being hunted by our pasts, and we couldn’t take you, we couldn’t jeopardise the safety of the covert. We couldn’t risk your life being taken for our mistakes. You don’t understand, Din, what we were against.”
“I’m not a child anymore, Trika,” he says, “I deserve to know why you two left in the middle of the night with no note and left nothing but scratched at Pauldrons! What happened, Trika? What aren’t you telling me?”
She looks away, shame filling her features. He doesn’t know if he wants to scream and sob at her in fury, shaking the answers out of her, or if he just wants to hug her and pretend that he’s a little boy again. “You have a ship?” She asks after a moment.
He nods, “Good. I will tell you there.”
◜❀◝
She looks around the space carefully as he brings his bottle of tihaar out, pouting out two generous cups of the stuff and handing one to her before sitting across from her in his meagre dining space. They bare their inner faces to one another, their two helmets resting nearby, the black visors staring deeply at them.
“The covert we raised you in was not the sect that Kyra and I first owed our allegiance to, this you know,” she says after a long moment. He nods, “When Kyra found you, he and I finally ran. They were…violent. Extremists. They hated the Duchess at the time and her pacifism, and while I do not think it served Mandalore at all, we could not agree on their terrorist ways. So we fled into the night and joined the covert.”
“I…” he says, “I don’t remember that.”
“I’m not surprised. When you were found, your village had been starving for months. You were so tiny and slept so much. But we also did our best to make sure you were not awake for the action and trauma of moving coverts. As far as you knew, we had left our previous sect long before we found you.”
“You…”
“We drugged you, yes. Are you mad?”
“No,” he says after a long pause, his dark eyes digging into hers. “I would have done the same.”
“But around when you turned 18, our previous sect was closing in on us. We were traitors, and the Great Purge had already desecrated us, and they were angry, Din’ika. We knew that if they found the covert, they would slaughter them in cold blood for harbouring us, so we fled. The elders knew.”
He raises his head to hers, anger coiling low in his stomach, “They knew? They…they pretended they didn’t! They told me that there was nothing we could do, that you two had become dar’manda! They lied to me?”
“Because Kyra and I asked them to,” she says, standing as he stands, grabbing his hands. He shoves them off, but she grabs them again, catching his eyes. “I know it hurts to hear, and it hurt to tell them to lie to you, but I know you. You are wild and reckless, and you would go to the ends of the world for those you love. We could not have you following us, not when you were the only Beyora left.”
“We could have fought your sect off!” He shoots back, angry tears choking him. “You didn’t have to leave!”
“No, we couldn't have!” She yells back, “Nothing can escape The Death Watch, Din!”
He freezes, memories of that name flooding him. Kryze snarling as she calls him a Child of The Watch, some of the older council members remembering their terrorism with angry stares as they glare at him. He had never heard the term in his childhood, but everyone's assumed he’s a part of the watch, because of his traditionalism, so he even began to think the same.
“What?” He says, “But everyone says I am a Child of the Watch when I tell them my creed. And Kyra always had their symbol on his pauldron, you too and…oh. That’s why you left them behind. That’s why you scratched them away.” She nods.
“Many people confuse the more traditional sects of Mandalorians as immediately being Watch. But make no mistake, Din, you are no Child of the Watch. Kyra and I were, once, but we raised you better. You are a son of Mandalore, trained in The Fighting Corps. And those who assume not removing their helms is a sign of Death Watch, know little of the leader of the Watch–Pre Vizsla. His men may have never removed their buy’ce, but he certainly did.”
“The one Paz’s related to,” she nods. “Buir, I–I need to tell you something. It’s related to him, and Mandalore, and Bo-Katan Kryze–”
“Kryze?” She snarls. “She’s still around? Make no mistake, Din, she is Death Watch.”
He shakes his head, “She left. She won the Darksaber, but she lost it in the purge, and now…” he reaches for his belt, and he can see her eyes widen as she registers what he’s holding in his hands. “I have it.”
“You…” she looks at him, “You’re the Mand’alor.” He looks away with a slow nod. He doesn’t have to look at her to know the shock that paints her face, to see the pieces drawn together with whatever stories she must have heard, trying to line them up next to the man in front of her. “Then why aren’t you on Mandalore?”
He laughs, “I…I don’t really want to be. I won the sabre by accident, and even with Kryze’s help and The Council, I barely know what I’m doing, and we haven’t entered the New Republic yet at all, and it’s all a mess. I needed to get away, and this was just the perfect opportunity.”
She catches his eye, reaching up to brush his hair away, “I may be dar’manda, but I will follow you, Din. As my Mand’alor, my ade, my aliit. You have my allegiance.”
“Dar’manda? ” He echoes. “That wasn’t a lie too?”
“It was, in the beginning. But after…after I lost Kyra, I couldn’t roam around in visible Beskar’gam. I hide most of it under my clothes, but my buy’ce can not be hidden. I have forsaken my creed and my duties to my clan. I am dar’manda .”
“No,” he says with a shake of his head, “I have shown my face, too, Trika. I did it to save lives, and to protect my family and myself. You don’t wear the buy’ce out because it will endanger you, so you are protecting yourself. That does not break the Resol’nare .”
She looks at him for a long moment, “That is a much looser version of the covert’s teachings,” she says, causing him to wince. “Which is okay. I suppose that abject adherence to traditionalism isn’t the only way to be a Mandalorian. And you carry the dha’kad. No one could ever say you aren’t Mandalorian.”
He curls in on himself a bit, the memory of that first exile, the shame that came with it still buried deep within him, still gnawing at his heart. The weight of being Dar’manda in the eyes of all that was left of a ruined family. “No…” she whispers, drawing close to him. “Who?”
“The covert,” he admits, and it feels wrong to admit this when these wounds have been soothed over and his sins have been atoned for in the waters of Mandalore. She shucks in a breath, but he presses on. “I did it to save my child. I don’t regret what I did, but they didn’t bother to ask why. I know that Paz and Asa were there in place of the elders, I know more people survived the massacre than they were letting on, I know that they didn’t mean it, that they were speaking for the elders and not themselves, and that I’ve repented–”
“Massacre?”
He closes his eyes. If he thinks hard enough, maybe the sound of blasters hitting his Beskar will fade, maybe the light of their shots in Grogu’s eyes will disappear, maybe the drone of jetpacks will fade from his mind. Maybe the guilt will wash away just a bit more, as he remembers telling Paz, begging for this to be a nightmare, that they'll have to relocate the covert, losing everything they’ve worked for since The Purge. This is The Way, Paz always replies, and it’s never a nightmare. It’s reality, and the Covert is gone.
If he thinks hard enough, maybe he’ll stop seeing the Beskar’gam of his vod piled high, and the anger at the Imperials will fade away until it’s a dull ache once more. “I…I found a child. a foundling, as a bounty for some Imperials.” He knows she’s angry at that. “I know, I know. But they had Beskar, Buir. So much. I couldn’t…I couldn’t not take it, let them make off with Beskar they stole from our people, so I took the job.”
“They said he was 50. I thought I was hunting an adult, but it was a Jetti child, barely past infancy. I turned him in, and I got the Beskar, and then…I broke Guild code. I retrieved the child again, and the Guild in Nevarro turned. The covert exposed themselves to save my life. When I returned, The Goran, Asa, she told me…that the Imperials came in after I left, looking for me and the child. They massacred us. There’s only 20 or so of us left.”
He looks at her finally. Her eyes are wide and soft. “Because of my own recklessness. And there’s so few Mandalorians left, and there’s so much strife over different views of the creed, and many of the people who survived and were from Sundari are under the impression that we’ll go back to the pacifist ways of The Before. And I’m in charge of all of that.”
She guides him to sit back down, taking his hands in hers, “You have always been a leader, Din. You will face this challenge too, and you will guide us through the dark. I know I wasn’t there, that I left, that it’s been years, but I raised you as my own. I know the strength that lies within you. You will always do what's right.”
He nods, “Which is why I can’t turn you in,” he says softly. “I saw your rap sheet. They want you for thief and murder without a bounty, but I have a feeling that there’s more to that, no?”
She nods, “I have just been trying to survive. The murders were either of Imperial sympathisers or those who got a little too lost in their perversions. The theft was because this Republic doesn’t care about the refugees of the last 30 years.”
“That’s what I thought. Surviving is not a crime.”
“No, it is not. But I found my refuge on a Core World planet. I suppose it’s to be expected.”
“It doesn’t make it fair, though,” he reminds her. “I will do everything I can to get you off this planet. That is my oath to you, Buir. Haat, ijaa, haa'it. ”
“You cannot make these promises, Din’ika, cyare. You are not a one-man army, you alone cannot bear the weight of The New Republic’s scrutiny. You will die.”
“This is the Way,” he reminds her, causing her to smile a bit, casting her eyes downward as she softly echoes the sentiment. “The New Republic does not scare me. They should not scare you.”
“So reckless and proud,” she says softly, hand drifting out to brush his hair out of his face. It’s long and dark, hanging in his face. He looks so old now, with the scruffy and ill-kept moustache and beard, the 1,000-yard stare, the sure set of his jaw. “Kyra would be proud. I am proud.”
He dips his head in acknowledgement, “Kyra…what happened to him?” He remembers him even more. Sandy blonde hair, eyes that sparkled when he told Din the ancient stories, eyes that were sharper than sharp. Steady hands that taught him how to stand in a way that would make him a warrior, that pointed out the standard weaknesses in a body.
Trika taught him how to fight. She taught him how to aim and fire and told him the stories of the ancient warrior kings and battles long past. Kyra taught him how to think and act like a Mandalorian, how to be a Mandalorian. He told him history lessons in the same breath that he told him how to find the weaknesses in a body. When he slid Din’s buy’ce on his head, he would be the last non-family member to see his face for almost 25 years.
He remembers Mayfield. He shakes the memory away. He remembers Skywalker, and he banishes memory to the back of his mind.
Mando'ad draar digu. Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la.
“I don’t know,” Trika says after a long moment, tears shining in her eyes. “We lost each other. I ended up here. He…I don’t know.”
“Do you think he’s still alive?” Din asks gently.
“I don’t know. But I hope for…for our family’s sake, that he is.” Din nods, trying to swallow the lump in his throat as he finally stands again, squeezing her shoulder.
“I’m going to go to the cockpit, I’ll be right back. Let me know if something happens.”
◜❀◝
“Din! There’s someone here! I think they’re a hunter!”
“Dank Farrik!” He snarls, slamming his holopad shut, before climbing down to the cargo hold where he can hear someone pounding on the ramp of his ship. “Go up to the cockpit,” he says, “I’ll deal with this.”
When he’s sure that she’s out of sight, he lowers the ramp, staring down whoever is disturbing him. The sight that greets him is not a bounty hunter, but rather a New Republic officer, and he feels his heart leap into his throat. Oh, lovely.
“Are you the hunter assigned to this bounty?” The man asks, pulling up a hologram of Trika. He nods, and the man sighs, “Thought so. We have reports of you apprehending Ms. Oguur earlier today, and yet, you haven’t called in the bounty. Care to explain why?”
Din remains silent, and the officer begins to crawl closer, up the ramp. “I’ve looked at your rap sheet as well, Mando. Got quite the history there. I know you mainly crawl around The Outer Rim, and I know things are a bit looser out there, but this is The Core, and this is a New Republic bounty. You have to call her in as soon as you’ve got her, so we can pick her up. This was told to you. So why haven’t you called her in?”
He remains silent. “You know, it’s curious. You’re A Mandalorian bounty hunter who's famous for being very expensive and yet, you took a bounty that’s not even close to your normal rates. Why? There’s not a shortage of high-paying clients in these parts if he’s looking to stick around here, but you choose the bounty of a petty thief. There’s something else here, isn’t there? You’re protecting her, aren’t you Mando?”
“She’s a Mandalorian,” he says.
The man blanches a bit, “Pardon?”
“Trika Oguur is a Mandalorian. And by Creed, I do not attack other Mandalorians without proclamation, especially when they’re family.”
“You’re related to Oguur?” The man queries, hand itching to his blaster.
“Isn’t that what I just said? So, sorry, you’re not getting Oguur. Happy trails!” He begins to close the ramp, much to the protest of the officer, who manages to scramble off quickly, throwing insults all the way down. Din just watches him go with a smile.
The second the door is closed, he sprints to the cockpit, sliding into his chair just as fast as he can turn on the engines. From her chair, he can see Trika is giving him a long look. “We have to go. It was a New Republic officer, coming to ask why I haven’t turned you in. I told them I wouldn’t be doing that, thus breaking our deal, and thus making me eligible to be chased after.”
“They’ll catch you, Din,” she says testily, “And then they’ll catch me and we’ll both be under arrest.”
“Who said they would be catching you along with me?” he asks in an amused tone as they lift off, taking off as soon as they’re clear of the buildings.
“Din’ika?”
“Please just trust me,” he sighs.
“Din. ”
“I called in some help from some Mando friends. I am going to drop you off with them in the upper atmosphere, before leading whoever follows us on a wild goose chase, allowing you to be taken back to Mandalore. Now, let me focus. We don’t have much time before there are X-Wings after us, and they can’t see the transfer. There’s an escape pod in the back.”
She nods and stands, before pausing in the doorway, “Din,” she says, voice raw, “I’m so proud of you, ad’ika. Thank you for helping me.”
There’s so much he wants to say. He wants to talk with her over tiingilar, he wants to tell her of his adventures and of her bu’ad. He wants to talk about Kyra, the only missing piece of his first client. He wants to bring her to Mandalore himself and have her advise him through joining the Republic. He wants to remember the way her eyes shine with pride for the rest of his life.
“Mando'ad draar digu, ad’ika. A Mandalorian never forgets. We never forget our family or those who have hurt us. We never forget where we came from, and we never forget where we are going. We never forget ourselves and our duty to our people. And most of all, we never forget the Way of Mandalore. We never forget the Resol’nare, and why we take it.”
“This is The Way. Don’t forget your buy’ce.”
“This is The Way. So bossy!”
She’s gone. He can see the friendly ship now, The Mythosaur on its side staring him down. He pulls as close as he dares, nodding when he hears the alert that the escape pod has detached, turning as fast as he can and diving back into the clouds. In the corner of his vision, he sees her pod latch onto the ship, and he smiles, before taking a nosedive.
He sees the X-Wings almost immediately, and swerves right to avoid them, still practically in a nose dive. Trika’s right. He can’t outrun them in the end, but he sure as hell can outmanoeuvre them and have a lot more fun than they’re going to.
He brushes the tree line, before going almost vertical, climbing quickly into the atmosphere. Crestfallen may not be his N-1, but Pelli’s done her fair share of repairs on the beauty. She can move faster than people will assume for a ship of her age, which is good because these men definitely want them alive, and any shots they do aren’t going to be with the intention to kill.
He looks down. The closest planet is Cardota. The biggest city is Keylight. He can probably hole himself up in there for a few days, dodging these officers long enough for Trika to get off-world and get in the hands of medics who have supplies beyond bacta patches and steady hands. Setting course, he jumps into hyperspace, The X-Wings fading behind him.
It won’t last forever. He’s still got the tracking fob on him, and that’s no doubt got a tracker on it. But he doesn’t care what happens to him, so long as they’re chasing him, not Trika and the men he sent her to. He’s a much higher catch, no doubt.
The officer who came to his ship has read his rap sheet. He knows what’s on it, the crimes displayed there. Helping prisoners escape. Corroboration with the Fett crime syndicate. Murder without bounty. Resisting arrest. All under no known name, under a picture of an impenetrable Beskar buy’ce. The Mandalorian, they call him.
Moff Gideon knew his name. Moff Gideon took a name that he was last called by the second parents who left and spoke it aloud like it was a prize to be won. He wasn’t lying when he told Greef and Cara that he hadn’t heard it since he was a boy. He’d been barely 18 when they’d left him, still a little wide-eyed, and suddenly thrown into a world without them. He’d been angry and foolish and stupid for a good long while. He’d been an angry kid.
He’s only been arrested once when he was young and stupid and angry at the world and at his buirs for leaving him behind. He’d gone to some backwater planet he couldn’t remember the name of, bought as much alcohol as he could, and got blackout drunk in some back alleyway. When he’d come to, it had been in a prison cell, and a less than happy Prison magistrate told him that he’d gotten into a brawl with some people in the city. He had not won.
Two nights later, the magistrate kicked him out with a slap on the wrists and he’d trudged his way back to the covert, where many of the older vod had sent him knowing looks as he tried to get the smell of alcohol off of him.
Well, there’s a second time for everything, he thinks as he starts to hurtle towards the floor of the forest that surrounds the city. He doesn’t know what’s coming, or how long he has till they find him here, but he knows that he’s gotta make it enough time for Trika to get home. So he levels his controls, lowers the power, and hits the ground. The world goes black, and he begins to dream.
◜❀◝
It ends like this.
Din Djarin does not remember his mother or father. He does not remember their names beyond the last name he shares, and their faces are just half-distant memories of the past. He doesn’t remember his mother's laugh or his father's smile. He does not remember the precise colour of his father’s eyes, nor does he remember the exact feel of his mother’s hand in his.
He remembers their kisses though, still burning hot over his skin, still wet with their tears. He remembers their touch, the feeling they left behind even after they were gone.
But he remembers every inch of the faces of his buirs. He could pinpoint Trika’s laugh amongst thousands. He would recognise the way Kyra stood against a hundred other Mandalorians. He remembers their kisses too, their hugs and guiding hands. He remembers their voices, he remembers the way they burned through the world with light and fury.
He doesn’t know who he would have been had Aq Vetina never been destroyed. Din Djarin would have grown up to be big and strong all the same probably, but he would have had hands calloused for baking like his mother and father, not from a centuries-old war. His clothes and hands would never have known the stick hot mess that was blood, but they would have known the softness of dough.
Din Djarin would have grown up a lot happier, all things considered. He wouldn’t be making his way through the galaxy with a whole host of chips on his shoulders. He would know the names of his fathers and mother, and people would know his face. He’d be a son of Aq Vetina of the Naboo System, not a son of Mandalore. Not Mand’alor, father to all. Sole ruler.
There are a thousand things he remembers about being a Mandalorian. He remembers the feeling that they call shereshoy burning through his veins. He remembers the spice of tiingilar and the feeling of Beskar on his body. He remembers the six tenets of the Resol’nare and remembers the cool water of The Mines of Mandalore.
Rebirth, a second time. Rise and live again. Mand’alor! Oya Manda! I yield. You are the Mand’alor, and I pledge my sword to you. Haat, ijaa, haa'it.
He remembers being a Mandalorian, the life he has lived as one. He remembers where he came from, where his journey as one started. But he does not remember the life of Din Djarin, the boy whose parents were killed. Din Djarin was a human boy who died with his parents and was reborn a Mandalorian. Humans forget easily, their memory slipping away like water through a syphon.
But Mandalorians? The thing he has become? The man who has two parents who left as well, but never died, whose buir forgave him for putting a hole in her gut because she knew he didn’t mean it, he is one of those.
And it always ends the same for a Mandalorian.
Mando'ad draar digu.