Chapter Text
“Grogu, put that down!”
“Eh?”
A bucket of blue paint hangs suspended in the air over the new rug on the floor of Grogu’s bedroom. They had been painting the walls all morning, a task that really shouldn’t have been that time consuming, but Grogu’s insistence on helping had really slowed things down. Din should have noticed the kid was getting bored, but he really wanted to finish it today and hadn’t been paying enough attention. He figured the kid could go find something else to entertain himself if he wanted to, but he didn’t think Grogu would start playing with the paint bucket.
“Put it back on the floor. Slowly. Not on the rug! Here, on this cloth.”
Grogu frowns. The bucket wobbles. Gradually, it starts floating back to the cloth Din laid down to protect the floor.
“That’s right,” he says. “Good job.”
Din’s comm beeps - not the one in his helmet, but the one with speakers in the house. It startles Grogu, and the paint bucket drops.
“No!”
It doesn’t land right on the rug, but blue paint splashes over half of it and all over Grogu’s robes. The bucket tips over when it hits the floor, pouring out paint profusely before Din can right it. He takes in the mess and sighs. Grogu’s ears fall to his shoulders and he blinks up at Din with big, mournful eyes.
“I hope you like blue, because that’s not gonna come out of your rug,” Din says. Grogu lets out a squawk of protest and immediately starts rubbing at the paint. Din promptly picks him up, careful not to step in the blue puddle. “You’ll make it worse doing that.” He carries Grogu to the ‘fresher and puts him in the child sized bathtub. “You stay here and think about what you did. I’ll clean up what I can.”
He goes back to the bedroom and starts scooping paint back into the bucket. Once most of it’s cleaned up, he goes into the front room to play the message that caused all this mess.
Greef Karga’s blue holographic form appears, dressed in what looks like a new magistrate’s robe - grander than the last one - grinning widely.
“Mando! I hope you and the little one are well and enjoying some peace and quiet at home. There’s a woman here to see you - she’s got a job for you. I don’t think you’ve met, but she says her name is Vizsla.” Greef’s holographic face raises its eyebrows as if he isn't quite sure what the significance of that is, but is hoping Din will. “Come meet us in my office when you get the chance. She says she’s happy to wait if you’re busy.”
The message ends there, and Din stares at the spot the miniature Greef had been standing. Vizsla? Was someone playing the galaxy’s most tasteless practical joke? The only Vizsla still alive is Ragnar - unless…? No, if she were Mandalorian, Greef would have said so.
He goes back to Grogu’s room feeling unsettled. He needs to stick this rug in the laundering unit and hope for the best. The kid’s robe could do with a wash, too. He really needs to get him some spare clothes.
He returns to the ‘fresher to find Grogu has already run a bath for himself and is busy scrubbing the paint off his face and feet. Din picks the stained robe up from the floor.
“I’m going to wash this, and then we’re going into town, ok?”
Grogu coos at him, not looking up from his blue stained feet. He needs to get the kid wearing shoes, too.
****
Greef’s protocol droid leads him to the magistrate’s office, and he hears his friend’s booming laughter through the closed doors. He looks at the droid as if he’d be able to glean any information from its expressionless face. He might be imagining it, but he could swear the droid pauses before opening the door as if bracing itself. He isn’t sure what to make of that.
With the doors open, Greef’s laughter is at full volume. He’s sat on a low seat beside a coffee table opposite a woman with a mass of unruly blonde curls. Neither seems to have noticed Din’s entrance or Grogu’s floating pod, and he suspects it has something to do with the half empty bottle of liquor on the table.
“No, really, you should have seen his face,” the woman says in a clipped Core accent, fighting her own laughter. “I’ve never seen a man so red!”
“I’ll never be able to look at him the same way again,” Greef wheezes, and finally spots Din. He immediately stands (with a little wobble) and greets him with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “Mando! You took your time. Our guest here was regaling me with some wonderful stories from her visit to Yvel Prime last year. She knows Magistrate Belmy!”
Din has no idea who Magistrate Belmy is.
The guest in question has also stood up and is making her way towards Din with a much more reserved smile now on her face. It’s evident that most of the liquor was consumed by Greef.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’m Varia Vizsla.”
Din claps her forearm and studies her face. He’s not sure what he’s looking for - he has no idea what Paz looked like under his helmet, having not seen his face past the age of twelve, so has no frame of reference for what another Vizsla might look like. She’s a lot shorter than any Vizsla he’s ever seen, and he can’t imagine Paz looking that friendly. “That’s a Mandalorian name,” he says, watching for any reaction.
She’s unfazed. “That’s right.”
“Wait,” Greef says, looking at the woman like he’s seeing her for the first time. “You’re Mandalorian? Where’s your armour?”
She shrugs, and her expression cracks - just a little. “I’m a scholar. I don’t need armour.”
Greef seems quite happy to accept this answer, but Din’s not convinced. “There was a Vizsla in my tribe,” he says. “He thought he was the last one.”
Varia’s smile drops entirely now, and she scans his armour as if looking for something. Her gaze is sharp, and he tries not to react to it. “I’m not surprised - I barely met any of the extended family. They didn’t really like us.”
Well that’s believable at least. Paz would absolutely not have recognised this woman as family. She’s not wearing any armour at all, not even durasteel. He’s tried very hard over the last few years to wrap his head around the idea that not all Mandalorians keep their faces covered, but this? Honestly, Din’s not sure if he believes her. Maybe she’s from a family of apostates, or maybe she’s not really a Vizsla at all.
There is a coo from behind him, and Grogu’s pod floats over to Varia. Her smile comes back, wider than before. “Hello! What’s your name?”
Grogu babbles at her, grinning. Looks like Grogu doesn’t have the same reservations Din does.
“This is Grogu,” he says. He doesn’t offer any more details.
“Hi, Grogu,” she reaches out and clasps a hand gently around his tiny forearm, much to Greef’s amusement. Grogu can’t reach her forearm, obviously, so he grips her thumb. “I’m Varia. It’s nice to meet you.”
It’s cute, but he’s not sure he likes this stranger touching his kid.
Trying not to laugh, Greef claps his hands and glances at each of them in turn. “Now that we’re all introduced, why don’t we get down to business?”
He leads them to his desk, taking a seat. Grogu follows close behind him and hops onto his lap, no doubt knowing he’ll get a snack if he cosies up to Greef.
Varia follows him, pulling a holopad out of her back pocket and placing it down on the desk. She turns to Din.
“As I said, I’m a scholar. I’ve been working with the New Republic on implementing their Repatriation Act - returning items of cultural and historical importance to the people they belong to,” she says. “The empire stripped everything of value from the cultures it sought to destroy, and while we’re making good progress, there are still Imperial warehouses full of stolen artefacts all over the galaxy, and even more locked away in private collections.”
Din glances at Greef without moving his helmet, trying to gauge his reaction to what Varia is saying. He doesn’t know anything about this Repatriation Act.
“For obvious reasons,” she continues, “I’ve been heavily involved with reclaiming Mandalorian artefacts - especially beskar.”
He sees Greef lean forward in his seat, presumably smelling money. “Relax, Greef,” Din says. “I doubt she’s planning on giving you any.”
Greef bristles. “How dare you? I would never dream of taking beskar from your people.”
Din lets out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, ok.”
“I mean,” Greef says, leaning back in his chair and hoisting Grogu up a bit higher, “if it was a gift, maybe.”
“I’m sorry, grand magistrate,” Varia says with a wry smile. “You don’t meet the criteria to receive any beskar.”
Greef throws his hands up in the air playfully and motions for her to continue. He grabs some squishy pink sweets from a drawer in his desk and starts feeding them to a delighted Grogu.
Varia shakes her head and continues. “It’s been a challenge, but we’re getting there. I’ve won enough ownership disputes by now that most people don’t want to argue with me.” She taps the holopad sitting on Greef’s desk and a holographic head and shoulders flashes into being. “This guy is a notable exception.”
Din studies the hologram. It depicts a human male, maybe just a little younger than he is. The man is handsome, well-groomed, and clearly rich, if the smug arch of his eyebrows and arrogant twist of his mouth is any indication.
“Yoular Misk,” she says, wrinkling her nose as if the name tastes bad. “He has a huge stash of beskar and other Mandalorian artefacts hidden away in his ugly mansion on Dero. I have proof. I’ve presented that proof in court and he was ordered to hand it over, but he’s rich. Wildly rich. He appealed the decision five times. I don’t know if he bribed the judge or what, but eventually the decision was overturned. I nearly got him last year - I had him tried as an accessory to genocide since he’s hoarding spoils from the purge, but it didn’t stick. People like him always manage to slither out of trouble.”
“I remember that!” Greef declares, midway through handing a snack to Grogu. Little green claws reach desperately towards the treat held just out of reach. “His company’s stocks hit an all time low because of the bad publicity.”
Varia nods, but doesn’t share Greef’s amusement. “They did, but they’re back up now, and he’s twice as smug as before.”
Din feels a little out of the loop, having never heard of this guy at all, but he’s pretty sure he knows where this is going. “You want my help retrieving the beskar.”
Varia’s gaze is intense when she turns back to him. “Exactly.”
“You have a plan?" He’s had a few run-ins with rich people during his career. They like to think their security systems are the best around, but in his experience they’re usually pretty sub-par. Still, you don’t want to go in blind.
“I do,” Varia says with a deep sigh. “He’s invited me to a party at his mansion.”
“What?” Din and Greef say in unison. Even Grogu makes a disbelieving sound, though he doesn’t seem to be following the conversation until that moment.
Varia crosses her arms. “He’s doing it to taunt me. He doesn’t expect me to actually show up.”
“Ok,” Din says. That will work to get them inside the mansion. Getting into the vault (presuming Misk has a vault) will be another matter, but he's happy to figure that out later. He considers the hologram of Misk’s face, then looks at Varia’s without turning his helmet.
Something about this seems off. Someone he’s never seen before shows up using the name Vizsla and wants him to help with a beskar heist? “Why me?”
Varia looks at him like he’s just asked something stupid. “You’re the best person for the job.”
“We just met today. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Word travels,” she says with a shrug. “You’re pretty well-known as a bounty hunter, and I’ve read your guild file. Most entries written by this guy here,” she thumbs over her shoulder at Greef. “It seems you come highly recommended.”
“Why not hire a thief? This isn’t a bounty - it’s not strictly what I do.”
She shakes her head. “It needs to be a Mandalorian. I can’t trust anyone else with this much beskar.”
It makes sense. All the same, he watches her for any indication of a lie. “All right,” he says, sure she’s not lying but still not entirely convinced about the job. “What’s the pay?”
“My entire stash of beskar, plus whatever we can get from Misk. I’ve got about 5 tons altogether. You can have all of it.”
****
They part ways outside the magistrate’s office, having agreed to head out in the morning. They’ll take Varia’s ship, since it has space for multiple passengers. Din would have been happy to leave later on tonight, but Varia said she needed time to clear out the guest quarters, and he wasn’t going to argue with that. They shake hands and he watches her walk towards the spaceport before turning to Grogu.
“What do you think?” he asks the kid, and gets a tilted head in response. “Is this a good idea?”
Grogu seems to think about it for a moment, then points at Din’s chest plate with a coo. Din looks down and spots a little blue handprint right next to the kar’ta beskar in the centre of his chest. He sighs.
“You couldn’t have pointed that out before we left home?”
Well, there’s not much he can do about it at this point. Instead of heading straight back to their cabin, Din turns towards Nevarro’s library. There’s something he needs to check before he can head out on this job.
When he enters the round duracrete building, the librarian behind the welcome desk nearly jumps out of her skin. Grogu scoots towards her in his pod and seems to calm the Nautolan woman somewhat - librarians expect to see kids come though their doors, even if they’re not always prepared for that kid’s beskar-clad warrior father to walk in first.
“I’d like to use an archive terminal, please” he says to her, deliberately being extra polite to put her more at ease.
“Are you a member?” she asks in a tiny voice.
“No. Do I need to be a member?”
She shakes her head, her tentacles flapping. “I need to scan your chain code if you’re not a member.”
Din sighs heavily. He’ll have to talk to Greef about not keeping that on file. “Fine.”
After scanning his chain code (which seems like massive overkill for a public library), the librarian shows Din to a terminal and quickly runs through how to use it. It’s not exactly complicated, and he doesn’t think he needed any help, but he doesn’t want to scare the woman any more by telling her to go away.
Once she’s safely back out at the welcome desk, Din types ‘Varia Vizsla’ into the search bar.
There’s thousands of results, separated into several tabs - public records, news, scholarly articles, books, and holograms. He chooses holograms first, just to make sure it’s the same woman.
A selection of thumbnail-sized holo previews pop up, and he opens a few. Varia Vizsla behind a large wooden desk. Varia Vizsla shaking hands with a snooty-looking mon calamari in fancy robes. Varia Vizsla being presented with some kind of award. Yes, that’s definitely her. Not lying about her name then.
He leaves the holograms tab and opens public records. It’s not very exciting - a dry document stating that she lives on Coruscant, is employed by the university, has never been married, and has no children. It also states her nationality as ‘Mandalorian’, but place of birth as ‘unknown’. Her parents are listed as Riz Vizsla and Ndara Reeves, both deceased. He wonders if this means Varia its related to Koska as well as Paz. They look nothing alike, but that’s not saying much in a culture where adoption is just as, if not more common than having biological children.
He opens the news tab, and is prompted to choose between sorting by date or popularity. He hits popularity, and scans the headlines.
Yoular Misk Found Not Guilty of Genocide is the top article, which at least backs up that story. The next one is Yoular Misk Charged as Accessory to Genocide, and under that, University Professor Accuses Misk of Genocide, and Misk Mining Corp Stocks Hit Record Low. Maybe he should make more of an effort to keep up with the news. It seems like this should have been hard to miss.
It isn’t really the kind of information he’s looking for, though, so he skims over any headlines that sound related to Misk or the Repatriation Act and tries to focus on the things he doesn’t already know. There’s a few headlines that stand out. New Republic Medal of Bravery Laureates 5 ABY - A Comprehensive List, Author of ‘The Sun Will Rise’ is Revealed, Controversial Scholar Awarded Professorship, Mandalorian Ambassador Ndara Reeves Executed for Treason.
He hovers over the last one. The publication date is 8 BBY - eleven years into the Empire’s reign. Thirteen before it falls. He feels like he probably shouldn’t read it, but he’s opened it before he can think better of it.
There’s an image of a woman in green-painted Mandalorian armour, helmet removed and held by a nearby Stormtrooper, kneeling on a raised platform outside a very grand but very grey building.
Mandalorian Ambassador Ndara Reeves was arrested and executed earlier today after being discovered sending classified material to an anti-Imperial terrorist organisation. Her husband, Professor Riz Vizsla (University of Coruscant) has also been arrested, and insiders report that he is being interrogated in connection with similar allegations of treason. Their daughter, Varia Vizsla, currently based on Chandrila, has not been seen since the arrests.
There’s a holo. He’s not going to play it. He’s fully aware of what an Imperial execution looks like and doesn’t need Grogu to see one.
Feeling slightly awkward about the article he’s just read, he swaps to the books tab. The first entry is ‘The Sun Will Rise’, and he recognises the title from the article in the news tab. Apparently it’s a fictional work, written as propaganda for the Rebel Alliance. He skims the other titles and can immediately see why the storybook is the most popular publication. The rest seem to be quite dry academic books - there’s one about the rise of fascism in different eras of galactic history, one about various cultures destroyed by Imperialism, one about the economics of the clone wars… honestly, even just the titles are boring, and this is coming from a man who spent a large portion of his life alone on a cramped gunship with only carbonate slabs for company.
He hesitates over the scholarly articles tab, but figures that will be more of the same. He’s got what he came for - looks like Varia Vizsla is who she says she is.
He closes the terminal, erasing his search history as best he can, and turns to tell Grogu they’re leaving.
The kid is fast asleep, cosied up under his soft blue blanket and clutching his Mudhorn plushie. He’s so cute it’s verging on ridiculous. Not wanting to wake him up, Din closes the pod with a tap on his vambrace.
****
The next day, the manager of the city’s modest spaceport leads him and Grogu to a rickety clunker of a ship. It’s a reasonable size - large enough to have a guest cabin, he supposes - looks very old, and has has clearly been cheaply patched up numerous times over the years. The hull is a patchwork of greys and blues, and could do with a wash. He doesn’t see any weapons, though that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t any. The ramp is down, and he can see a few haphazardly stacked crates and a basket of cleaning supplies just inside the ship.
The manager gestures to the ship. “This is the one,” he says.
“Thank you,” Din replies, and the man walks away, leaving them in the shadow of the rust bucket. Grogu makes a disgruntled sound, eyeing the ramp with distaste. Din can’t help but huff a quiet laugh. “I’m sure it’s better on the inside.”
There’s a clatter inside the ship and Varia comes striding down the ramp, grinning.
“Good morning! You guys ready to go?” she beams. She’s looking a bit dishevelled, a grey smudge on her forehead. She’s clearly been tidying the ship this morning as well as last night.
“Yes,” he says, dipping his helmet into a nod. “Is there room for our supplies?”
There’s a crate floating behind them, stuffed with weapons, ammunition, a spare flight suit, armour polish, Grogu’s toys, rations, med packs, and everything else they might need. He’s sure Varia has food and water, but there’s no harm in packing more of it.
“Of course, there’s plenty of space,” she says, and turns to walk back up, gesturing for them to follow.
The ramp leads to a modest cargo bay, absolutely crammed with crates. Everything has that squeaky shine of having been recently and hurriedly cleaned, dust still lingering in corners and hard to reach spots. Din and Grogu’s crate floats up behind them, and it takes a moment to find a spot for it where it won’t be in the way.
“Sorry for all the crates,” Varia says, not sounding particularly sorry. “I use this ship for work so I’ve got a lot of stuff - normally I keep some of it in the guest cabin but obviously I’ve had to clear that out. Someone’s coming to pick these up in a minute to store them here on Nevarro while we’re gone. We’ll need all the space we can get after Dero. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
She makes her way towards the bow of the ship and they follow, Grogu still looking very dubious. They reach a ladder, flanked by two doors. Varia opens one of them to reveal a small kitchen area.
“Kitchen, obviously,” she says. “It’s small but works fine. Lots of meals already prepared and stored, so we won’t go hungry.”
The other door leads to the ‘fresher, which is pretty standard. Up the ladder is the cockpit, a modest sitting area with a table, some seating, a small sofa and a shelf with actual paper books on it. Two doors at the far end lead to two cabins of equal size. Varia’s cabin is an absolute mess - stacks of papers, datapads, strange artefacts and objects Din doesn’t recognise strewn around the place, the only furniture a dishevelled bed, an overflowing desk and a rickety chair. The guest cabin, however, is pristine. A neatly made bed with a side table next to it, a cabinet, a small rug, a lamp, and no peculiar unidentifiable objects to be seen.
“I took all my stuff out of there, but if you find anything I’ve left behind, let me know and I’ll move it,” Varia says. “The cabinet’s empty, so feel free to put any of your things in there.”
Din walks to the centre of the room and takes a look around, getting a feel for the space. Grogu immediately leaps onto the bed and bounces a few times before turning to give Varia a toothy smile.
“Thank you,” Din says. “This is very generous.”
Varia shrugs. “It’s really the least I could do. Well, we should get going as soon as the crates are picked up. Do you need anything before we take off?”
“No, thank you,” Din says.
She leaves them to get settled in, heading back down to the cargo bay. Din sits on the bed and pulls Grogu onto his lap. The mattress feels similar to the one he has in his home on the lava flats, so he’s sure it will be comfortable - though any mattress is comfortable compared to the rack in his compartment on the Crest. His chest tightens a little bit at the thought of his old ship, but he shakes it off.
“This isn’t too bad,” he says to Grogu. The kid coos and looks up at him, and he can see the glint of beskar under the child’s collar.
If this works out, they’ll have enough of their sacred metal to armour everyone on Mandalore head to toe in one hundred percent pure beskar. Would Varia really just give him that much beskar? There has to be a catch.
Grogu pats his father’s chest plate decisively and then wriggles out of his hold to drop onto the cold metal floor. He shuffles over to the supposedly empty cabinet and pulls out an ornately decorated dodecahedron that looks to have rolled to the back of the bottom shelf. The child grins, brandishing the no doubt priceless artefact like he’s just found a new toy. Luckily Din manages to pluck it out of the child’s hand before he can break it.
“Hey,” Din says, stern in the face of Grogu’s tooka eyes. “Good guests don’t play with stuff that isn’t theirs.”
The child huffs but doesn’t argue. Hopefully this is the only object that escaped Varia’s tidying or this could be a very long journey.