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Din made three circles of Yavin VI before finally slowing down to a trotting idle. The Republic fighter that had been following them for ages had unfortunately met their end in the debris field that made up the planet's outer gravitational field. Din had hoped that the pilot would have cut their looses and fall back after they entered the dark zone.
The Jedi had been very particular when he was picking which planet to inhabit as the new center for his kind, and Din had only been to Yavin VI once before to see how his kid was adjusting to the new training. Upon entering Yavin VI's orbit his instrument had all spun out of control.
The only reason the Razor Chest (a different ship as a gift from Boba for helping him out on Tatooine) hadn't go died in the water was because many of its systems relied on data collected from before the Jedi' inhabitation. Any of the systems that used active scanning or environmental measurements to navigate and regulate the ship had failed due to a extreme dissonance between readings that didn't make sense to the digital network.
It was no small amount of quick thinking on Din's part to pilot through what was once just a difficult flight course turned into a trail by fire. The cockpit controls had been rendered useless once the navigation started registering the Razor Crest as entering Naboo orbital space. At the time the only connection between the two planets that Din was aware of was that they were both Mid-rim planets.
It had taken Din hours of traversing back and forth between view ports and the gas exchange tanks to gently and painstakingly work his way through the debris flied as trying to fly through it would have surely resulted in death.
Having now traveled to the planet's surface multiple times Din was able to rely more on muscle memory to make his way across the field as well as with a few adjustments to his ship's internal systems.
Din looked back at the shattered remains of the Republic ship. His hands clenched at the Razor Chest's controls and his heart felt weighted behind his breastplate. Din can't say one thing or another about how he felt about the New Republic. It was certainly better than the Empire but the Republic would still see Din imprisoned than free if given the chance.
Still, the pilot should have been better training to know that continuing to follow when all of his instruments were failing was a bad idea. There was no body floating among the debris so hopefully initial explosion had incinerated the body before the pilot had felt the burning heat of Yavin's sun.
Din tore his eyes away from the ship that no doubt would be indistinguishable from the rest of the broken machines by the time he returned to open space. Din flicked off the booster jets to let them cool as he lined up the primary booster to take over. He thought about turning around to look for a Republic beckon but even if it had survived the crash, Din knew all too well that Yavin VI was restricted air space enforce directly by the imperial senate.
Din had never actually spoken directly with the supreme chancellor after all politics was Bo-katan's area of expertise. She had won the black saber from him on the very same sands of Mandalore when it was originally lost from Mandalorian hands by a sith. It was honestly a relief for Din when she did, no shame at all when she had forced him to yield in front of his people.
Bo-Katan's corps had cheered for her and armor clashing together in welcome of the new leader was deafening behind the blood rushing in Din's ears. He could still recall how the desert winds had twisted around them, dust kicked up into his helmet to pierce his lungs, and the string of clean cuts littering his body were the beskar couldn't cover.
Din rose from his knees to kneel before his new Mandalor but he couldn't help the slight smirk beneath his helmet as he proclaimed, "Kote Darasuum Mandalor Kryze." Din may not have been raised the same creed as Bo-Katan but she was a sister none the less and it showed in how quickly she had caught his faint sarcasm in his decree.
She rolled her eyes but a smile was also present on her unmasked face as she flung a hand out to him. "Rise," She said heavily as she was trying to regain her breath from the fight, "You fought well, Din Djarin."
Din took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. The breeze around them picked up and with it a slight chill fell over the clearing where the other mandalorians were still giving them their space.
It was extremely uncommon for a former Mandalor to survive a battle for the throne, it was seen as a disgrace to lose such a fight so it was better to die with the saber still in hand than to have it ripped from you. Neither Din or Bo-Katan had such views over the throne, not anymore. They both represented different sides of their cultures and over the months spent together protecting the child, fighting Empire remnants, and uncovering the whereabouts of other underground converts they had reached an understanding.
Which is why he had been so surprised when Bo-Katan had announced that Din would be a member of her high guard. Obviously, she had asked more privately afterwards if that was a position Din would seriously consider and he admitted that it was never a possibly in his mind. He had lost the dark saber to a member not of his creed; the best he was hoping for was for there to not by an immediate call for his banishment.
"We may have come to an agreement on who should see this new Mandalor by way of the dark saber. But we also agreed that we- as people, as individuals needed to work together if we were to succeed. You and your son showed me that. Our people have all changed so the more trusted people I have by my side, the more our people will believe in me to lead them," Bo-Katan explained.
In the end, Din had accepted the position on the condition that he was allowed to continue his own work. Din may represent many of the mandalorians who had no tries to the original planet but he knew he would not last a month in an unchanging station.
Bo-Katan had shrugged and leaned back against what used to be a banquet table in the remains of the great hall. "Of course. Don't think I didn't notice how the shadows clung to you in our fight. I've seen it once before and I don't intent to repeat history by separating a Jedi from one of their own."
Din held back a shiver as that familiar shadow rolled over him and the razor chest, gently pulling the ship through the debris field towards the sunlit side of the planet. The shadow wasn't visible pre see, or at least not to Din. The besker dulled much of the sensation so the feeling of the foreign power washing over him was comparable to jumping into a frozen lake.
As he got closer to the surface Din started to curl and uncurl his fingers and toes to keep the blood flowing. The heating system in his suit thankfully kicked on once they hit the atmosphere and the Razor Chest's navigation equalized with the external sensors, finally blinking to life as Yavin's fourth moon and not the variety of other mid- and outer-rim planets.
The jungle-covered moon was peaceful from the outside but the feeling of someone watching was persist in a way that had every one of Din's hard earned instinct howl and scratch at the confines of his mind to run, to flee, to do something to get away. The debris field surrounding Yavin VI was the first line of defense but not for the inhabitants of the planet.
Din let out a loud sigh of relief and allowed himself to shake off the cold as his internal heating kicked on in his suit. The cold shadow reeled back offended by having been shaken off by its comfortable arm rest, and a cold invisible hand pressed against the center of Din's chest.
Din was forced into the back of his chair with his still hands stubbornly wrapped around the flight controls, keeping his course steady. The Force couldn't make it through the besker but Din knew that if he had been wearing his armor that hand would have left burns under his clothes.
His mind was screaming at him, primal instincts beyond his normal bounty hunter skills telling him that he shouldn't be here and now he was trapped, contained like a host. The feeling of terrified prey being chased into a corner only to realize that is where its hunter was all along. Din was more familiar with being on the hunter side of the equation but refusing to admit who was stronger when in enemy territory was the fastest way to getting killed.
"Your Force signature is a bit… fuzzy. It's weird though, considering how well we know each other so please forgive me if I become invasive of your space."
Din focused on relaxing into the invisible hand, trying to take past advice and thought about his kid and last time he visited him and his teacher. Tiny little clawed hands wrapped around his fingers, a warm fire blazing in front of him with a sleepy cool body pressed up against his right and another sitting in the crook of his arm, the rush of adrenaline as he sparred hand-to-hand with a trained fighter.
Gradually, Din felt the cold thorns digging into his clothes retreat, going back to cautiously grazing over his armor in curiosity, and the invisible hand on his chest stopped crushing his ribs. It eased off of him and Din took a deep breath to refill his lungs with much needed air, even though his body was still fighting against him in the battle to calm down.
The hand caressed his breastplate before traveling up and up until wrapped around the edge of his helmet. Din's hand snapped up to hold it in place out of instinct. "Don't," he said strangled.
The not-quite fingers released his helmet and Din felt an apologetic flick of cold against his neck before sliding around to the back of his neck. The chill settled over his shoulders, lounging across him all fuzzy and content, and the pounding Din's ears finally started to quiet.
"Never a dull moment," Din mutter to himself as the last of his misplaced anxiety dissipated into the wind.
The Razor Chest flew over the forest until it came to the next disruption zone and Din quickly landed the ship. The area where Grogu and his teacher were living had some kind of ship scrambler equipment that the Empire would have been jealous of when it existed.
The teacher had tried explaining to Din how it was not a machine but an unconscious extension of the Force into the surrounding area around the academy that acted as both a trap and defense against any unwanted visitors. Din just continued to believe it was a machine.
Leaves whipped through the clearing and the grass beneath the ship burned as the thrusters were slow to cool down. Din flipped off as many systems as he could and decided to leave some of the essential programs running. They would need to be manually turned off but he could do that later.
Right now there were people waiting for him.
Din stood up from the pilot's seat and climb down into the hanger. The chill circled around his head and shoulders but his suit was properly warmed now so the whirlwind was less threatening and more curious. It pulled at the recent tears in his cloak and yanked him in the direction of the hanger ramp.
Din dropped down onto the floor and a stinging warmth raced up his calves the moment his feet made contact with the floor. A smile broke out across his face. Even though Din knew Grogu was safer on Yavin VI than anywhere else in the galaxy, it still filled his heart with relief to felt his kid's magic after so long.
There were a few burns along his arm were his kid had lost control before and the wrinkled skin tingled as the sparks continued to nudge and pull at him. Grogu's power was still growing but his control had definitely improved from the last time he had visited. A side-effect of him being around his two force user for too long was a killer headache. Grogu hadn't been able to control how much of his "sparks" he would let off but Din honestly hadn't noticed until he met Cara.
Headaches and insomnia was normal for new parents so he had been genuinely surprised when the Jedi Ashoka had commented on his unassailable mind. She spoke about how he must have trained in the Mind as to avoid going mad by being near an unregulated force-sensitive for so long. He couldn't tell if she had believed him when he said he'd never come across another force-sensitive before Grogu.
Grogu's spark-like magic could not reach higher than his knees and the space-like chill of his teacher's shadow remained around around him like a second cloak.
The ramp lowered slowly to reveal a brightly lit clearing. It was picture perfect if it wasn't for the fact that there wasn't a single life form in it. The razor chest landing would have scared off a lot of the larger wildlife but a scan from his helmet showed there may not have even been a tiny insect among the grass blades.
The ambagious black void which engulfed all sides of the clear may have also been to blame.
Din walked off the ship, his steps light but confident because if he let himself put up his guard again it would take ages for his clan to pull him out of the resulting fainting and hallucinations. So long has he kept walking forward and remembering who was in front of him in the shadows he should be fine.
The void was completely black and was solid layer of blue and purple in Din's thermal vision, but he knew two people stood within it, probably right in front of him.
Din walked up to the edge of the void and cocked his head to the side, "No 'welcome back's"
Immediately there was a high pitch screeched from the dark and Din lurched forward blindly towards the sound. The void surrounded him and everything became muffled, a metallic taste appearing in the back of his mouth. His hands were numbed but he would never mistake the familiar bundle of his squirmy kid in his arm.
"Hey kid. I've missed you," Din said, not being able to keep the smile out of his voice (not that he was trying to) as he hugged the little one closer to his face.
Tiny claws tapped feverishly against his beskar as little chirps and coos filled his ears. It was the most wonderful sound in the world.
Din's senses were all over the place but he still registered when a second person walked up beside him. The cold radiating off of them matched the void around them, yet was lightened around Din. "We both did," a gentle voice said.
Din reluctantly turned his head away from Grogu's little hands to look in the direction of the voice. His words were breathy, "Luke."
The name echoed across the void and a headache bloomed in the front of his skull despite having said it multiple times before. Saying Luke Skywalker's name also seemed to more or less piss off the magical Force osik that he and his son could control, but it was worth it for the void to slunk away from the three of them.
Both of his Jedi were close to him. Luke's shoulder almost touched his and one of his hands had raised like he was going to touch him but was hesitating. Luke was always thinking of how his actions would effect others and while that was often a show of willpower that Din admired, restraint was not what he wanted after not seeing his clan of three for over a month.
Din adjusted Grogu in his arms to free up one hand and grabbed Luke hovering one, bring it up to his face. The beskar helmet was still in the way- and even if it wasn't, Luke still had his gloves on (a history Din was still waiting for him to share) so they wouldn't be able to touch. It felt good to imagine though and Din could see that longing reflected back at him in Luke's eyes.
This bond between them was unspoken and didn't yet have a name but Din would never deny it.
Luke's hand rested against his covered cheek and he boldly leaned forward to press his forehead to the Jedi master's. "I missed you as well, mesh'la."
Luke's eyes widened in surprise. The wind whipped around them, causing Din's cloak to be pulled to and fro, and Grogu giggled in his arms. He was easily assumed by anything that embarrassed or flustered either Din or Luke but the kid obviously had a favorite when it came to the reactions.
When Luke didn't relax into the touch Din thought for a moment that he had made a major mis-step. His vocalizer cracked as he tried to put together an apology but Luke cut him off. The cold hand settled again at the back of his neck only this time it was solid and Luke pressed further into the embrace.
"Relax, Din. I was only surprised. Usually Grogu is the only one receiving special mando greetings," Luke said.
Din's shoulders rolled back into the regrowing chill. "It is a greeting for those among a shared clan," he said. He couldn't bring himself to speak the full truth out loud but Luke let it slid, taking his word for now.
Luke hummed, "Well then I am honored to be consider as a friend to your clan and as a member of your clan, I don't suppose it would be too much trouble to assist us in some hunting for supper."
Din winced and his whole body shivered. "No frogs this time please," he half-teased half-pleaded. It wasn't that he was squeamish but he was still not quite to the point where he could watch his son and possible courtship eat so many raw amphibians together without blinking an eye. He'd tried to convince them to at least cook them first but that conversation had not ended in his favor.
Both Grogu and Luke chuckled and Din felt whatever little hope he had left in his heart die. Bloody frog legs over an evening diner it was, but Din wouldn't trade it for a million credits.