The Wanderer and the Seer

by aiden_ng

Summary:

Din Djarin is temporarily relieved of a single dad's responsibilities, only to be saddled with the much greater responsibilities of Mand'alor. Temporarily. Hopefully.

This is not the story of a great man becoming king; it's the story of some dude finding his place in the galaxy, freedom, and personal happiness through having some goddamn decency and good manners. Also the power of love, or whatever.

Notes:

• For Door.

Fic cover created by ace_din_djarin, the best surprise I've ever had: permalink (alternate version)

Fic soundtrack here.

Chapter 1

Notes:

CW: canon-typical descriptions of death/dead bodies

With a tremor, Din put his helmet back on. His back was to the others in the control room; none of them had seen his face. When he turned, Fennec gave him the small nod which was her one and only show of approval.

‘I’m fine,’ he said distantly, in response to Cara’s soft ‘You okay?’ He felt very tired. Cara hoisted Gideon’s unconscious body over her shoulders in an easy, pantherish motion, and Din watched without sympathy as the man drooped like a rag doll. There was an empty place on Gideon’s belt where the Darksaber had once hung—a place so obvious that Din could tell the Moff had enjoyed flashing it around.

Din touched the old tobacco pouch on his own hip. It could be repurposed for carrying ammo, or a water flask which was more likely to replicate Grogu’s weight. He still had the Darksaber on him. He didn’t like wearing it the way Gideon had, with relish and contempt. He held out the hilt towards Bo-Katan, saying: ‘Please.’

Bo-Katan, leaning heavily against the console, would not look at him. It was Koska who asked Din, not unkindly, ‘Do you have anywhere else to go?’

He didn’t.

---

They threw the stormtroopers’ bodies out through the airlock. Prickling beneath his armour, Din dragged the burned and bisected remains of battle droids to the airlock in their turn. There was this heaviness inside him, weighty and solid as a stone, but fragile; he feared it’d break and spill beyond his control, flooding the spaces in his armour, rusting the joints. Corpses floated outside the windows, where the deathless void of space met their silence with silence.

Koska paced up and down the whole cruiser, helmetless, scorching Gideon’s insignia off every furnishing. It would take more than flamethrowers to burn out the Imperial stench. Occasionally she spat on the floor of some hallway, which Din found unnecessary. Then he read some of the plaques on the doors he walked past and retracted that notion.

They didn’t speak. Bo-Katan kept the cruiser on course and knocked back shots of tihaar as she sulked in the pilot’s seat, cleaning the blistered flesh where Gideon had shot her. Not even beskar could have held up at that range, but she wouldn’t let anyone else tend to her. Din left her looking sullen and imperious as only a Mandalorian could, and followed Fennec down to the hangar.

Cara, with her high-value prisoner and an air of grim Alderaanian satisfaction, had already taken a shuttle to the nearest New Republic outpost. Once Fennec left, the light cruiser would be crewed solely by Mandalorians. Fennec stood beside the only remaining shuttle and said to Din, ‘Don’t stay with Bo-Katan too long.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You’re welcome on Tatooine whenever you’re passing by.’

‘Thank you.’

She studied him with a sniper’s uncanny precision, seeming to find his eyes even through the visor. She wasn’t the type to make conversation, and Din let the silence stretch. When it became unbearable, he said (out of politeness, for he didn’t much feel like explaining himself): ‘My ship is gone. I want to stay offworld for a while.’ With a wry note in his voice he added, ‘Go adventuring.’

Fennec’s eyebrows rose. ‘On an Imperial cruiser?’

‘Well, it’s not Imperial now.’

Here was the difference between Bo-Katan and Fennec: Bo-Katan could abide living on an ex-Imperial ship. This made her more pragmatic than most mercenaries. Fennec shook her leather-plaited head and clapped Din’s shoulder firmly, just once. ‘Safe travels,’ she said.

‘Give my regards to Fett.’

Fennec gave him her tiny, cunning smile. ‘Our deal is fulfilled,’ she told Din, and they weren’t exactly friends but they shook hands all the same.

Koska was still stalking the corridors like a hungry revenant when Fennec departed on the cruiser’s last shuttle. Then it was only Din—with his empty hands and his empty heart, and the new companions unlike any Mandalorians he’d ever known, and that heavy, heavy weight inside him.

---

Bo-Katan and Koska argued briefly over the cruiser as they travelled to collect their friend Axe. Koska wanted the Imperial emblems torn off and the hull painted over; Bo-Katan insisted they needed the camouflage for stealth missions. As they entered Trask’s airspace without issue from the port controllers, Bo-Katan said triumphantly: ‘See?’

‘I can’t bear it,’ Koska muttered. ‘Djarin, can you bear it?’

He had allowed Koska to learn his surname only to stop her from calling him Mand’alor. ‘I don’t mind either way. I’ve pretended to be an Imp before.’

Bo-Katan turned from the controls, curious. ‘Go on.’

‘Ever wonder how I found Gideon’s coordinates?’

‘Huh.’

‘Morak,’ Din said. ‘In an officer’s uniform. By the way, my face is now in an Imperial database.’

‘Oh, so you do take off your helmet,’ said Koska, because there was nothing more Mandalorian than petty pedantry.

Din shrugged. The scene was a distant memory; he felt as though it had happened to another man. ‘Everyone who was in that room with me is now dead.’

For the first time since they’d defeated Gideon, Bo-Katan smirked. ‘I’ll watch my back.’

It was the sort of edgy, semi-friendly banter that could put Din somewhat at ease. He’d worked with genuinely awful people in the past. These were Mandalorians—not his covert, not the comrades he had grown up with in the Fighting Corps, but close enough. And if there were as many Mandalorians scattered throughout the galaxy as Bo-Katan claimed, Din wanted to meet them.

‘I’m training the new Mand’alor,’ Bo-Katan told Axe by way of explanation when he boarded the cruiser.

Axe, who had three makeshift bags of fishing-nets stuffed with medpacks and rations, dropped all his groceries in shock. ‘What did I miss?’

---

Here was the thing about Mandalorians: they recycled everything. No scrap went to waste. They carried their pasts with them; their armour proclaimed the length of their memories, their losses and triumphs recorded in every coat of paint. They spoke an old language in which they told and retold stories. Entire lifetimes were lived anew when they stepped into their armour, for the smell and feel of metal brought back images as sharp as a knife’s edge. Every sigil was potent with pride. Honour. Tragedy. To remember fallen friends, fragments of their armour—too damaged to salvage or reuse—might be reforged into instruments, so that music resounded from the shells which had once held their bodies: dirges and praise hymns, songs of love and songs of mourning, all carried away into the cavern of an uncaring galaxy.

Bo-Katan claimed her armour had been in House Kryze for generations. Din didn’t have the luxury of ancestry. Any connection to family heritage had been severed on Aq Vetina. He kept his history, short and poor as it was, nestled protectively to his heart. That was why a stranger in Mandalorian armour felt so shocking and repulsive to him, like a serial killer wearing somebody else’s skin.

‘I have no connection to Mandalore,’ he insisted for what seemed like the millionth time. ‘I have no feelings associated with it.’

Bo-Katan bit her lip, and the ripple of a shadow passed over her aristocratic face. ‘You will.’

‘It’s not that I don’t care—’ Din gestured at the ship’s kitchen they were standing in, at Axe and Koska brooding over their supper, at the black windows speckled with stars. ‘—about Mandalorians. About us. But I have no part in your cause, and I don’t belong on Mandalore.’

Bo-Katan closed her eyes and seemed to take a great, steadying breath. ‘Mandalore,’ she said as if the words hurt her, ‘is the home of all Mandalorians, and will exclude no one. And my cause is the cause of all Mandalorians.’

‘No. Just you.’

He could not take the whole ocean of history that Bo-Katan’s quest brought. The burden of accumulated grief. The legends handed down and twisted beyond recognition. The bitter warfare, the legacy of devastation passing from Mand’alor to Mand’alor to Mand’alor. He couldn’t carry these stories. He couldn’t keep them. He would burst. There was no space inside him for their terrible, implacable weight.

He might have mattered to somebody, once. He had grown up in a community where knowing your family name was all you needed to have family. But his story began and ended with his own life. He had no inheritance and no proud ancestors. They were two: Clan Djarin, a name destined to be forgotten.

Time passed in flashes. He slept in a small room near the freshers, blocked off by a canvas curtain so he could clean his armour in privacy. Koska and Axe mostly left him alone; Bo-Katan gave him a slight nod when they met in the corridors. Otherwise, Din saw his companions only when they ran missions together. Bo-Katan was evidently putting together a fleet—they stole weapons and equipment from Imperial bases, stole ships and parked them on strategic planets for future use. It was no different from living bounty to bounty. It was no different from Din’s past life. Only he was lonely, and lost, and he did not know what else to do.

Din had no interest in his companions’ plans to retake Mandalore, so he never asked who was going to crew all those ships. Soon, he didn’t have to. There were Mandalorians on some of the planets they visited: Mandalorians in exile, Mandalorians in disguise, Mandalorians who hid their armour and Mandalorians who wore no armour at all. There were never more than two or three in one place. Usually there was only one. They ignored Koska and Axe and greeted Bo-Katan grudgingly, armed and unsmiling. They never offered Din their names, and he didn’t trust them with his.

‘Have you seen a Mandalorian with a gold helmet?’ he asked them every time. ‘She has horns on her helmet and a fur cape. She’s about this tall.’ And when that failed, ‘Or a man who looks like me, but bigger? Heavy infantry? You seen either of them?’

No one ever had. After four hundred parsecs, Din stopped asking.

---

We span the galaxy, Din recited mentally, the night after he had made those fruitless enquiries for the last time. Alone in his room, the other Mandalorians sleeping in what had once been Imperial officers’ quarters, Din was a child again; he was a foundling at his buir’s knee. He could quote the old stories in his sleep, with a blaster to his head, with eight shots of tihaar in his stomach. Like every other child in the covert, he had committed the classic speeches to memory. We need no commanders so we cannot be destroyed. We have no species so we can rebuild our ranks. We are more than a people. We are a culture, an idea, and you can’t kill ideas.

This was all very inspirational if your standard for mandokar was merely not being killed.

Din said out loud into the darkness: ‘I can’t go back to bounty hunting.’

So he sat on the edge of his bed and allowed himself to feel the pain of missing Grogu. He let it fill him, flood his armour, and he had to take his helmet off; he couldn’t keep it all in. He thought of his vanished covert and his vanished clan, and he listened to the small, awful, lying voice that said, You have no family. You have no one in the galaxy. You are no one, and then he had to put his helmet back on and he had to—he had to carry on.

He picked up the Darksaber, not because he wanted to, but because he could not avoid thinking about it any longer. He had kept it in the small weapons locker that held all his belongings, just as he had kept his missing-Grogu feelings in a terrible, tight knot of longing and loss; he could not go on pretending that everything was normal. He had seen too much. He’d seen the old stories come to life, and he’d had more dealings with Imperials than he had ever wanted. He’d been small and stagnant in the safety of his covert and now he had joined a great ocean of Mandalorians and there was no turning back.

He did not want to be Mand’alor. But he wanted to be able to face Mandalorians who neither knew nor cared about Din Djarin. He wanted to look them in the eye and say: This is the Darksaber. This is our heritage, and I know who I am.

Din wrapped his cape around himself, so that he wouldn’t look stupid in only his helmet and pajamas, and went to find Bo-Katan.

She opened the door to her quarters with her hair wrapped in a towel. Behind her, the fresher’s cubicle was thick with steam, and a jukebox softly played music that hadn’t been in style since Din was about thirteen.

Din tapped the Darksaber but kept it hanging from his belt, so she wouldn’t assume he was begging her to take it again. ‘Teach me how to use this thing.’

‘No,’ said Bo-Katan, peeling off a slime-rich sheet mask. She had a green gel patch under each eye and looked irritated to have her skincare routine cut short. Then something in his posture must have showed her how desperately he wanted a purpose, because her expression softened. ‘All right. But,’ and she did her smug little head-tilt, a habit Din hated, ‘I get to use the beskar spear. And if I disarm you while sparring, you will not try to give me the Darksaber. It doesn’t count.’

Din nodded. ‘Because of the story.’

‘See,’ she said with that infuriating smirk, ‘you’re learning,’ and she went to pat more anti-aging serum onto her high cheekbones.

The next day, they fought in the hangar between empty ship berths. Axe tried to place bets and then, when no one took him up on it, called out imaginary score points. Koska said, ‘You need to use that jetpack as a proper weapon,’ and demonstrated this by abruptly picking Din up in the middle of a bout and dropping him off the bridge. He climbed back up with some difficulty and kicked her into a window, as a sign of respect.

---

‘Mandalorians are everywhere,’ Bo-Katan intoned. ‘That means the Mand’alor has responsibilities everywhere. A Mand’alor must visit their people, care for and defend all their people if it means crossing the galaxy to do it—pay attention, Mand’alor.’

‘I am paying attention,’ said Din, who was brewing caf with his back to the kitchen table. ‘And I’m not the Mand’alor. Cream and sugar?’

‘No sugar, thanks. Let us be very clear. Until—unless somebody bests you in combat and wins that sword, you are both servant and leader of all Mando’ade whether you like it or not.’

‘Why don’t you shoot me now and take it off my corpse?’

Bo-Katan’s face morphed into a perfect mask of righteous indignation. ‘I would never assassinate the ruler of my planet.’

Koska’s eye twitched. She always reacted in some way when her leader told a bald-faced lie, but this time Din didn’t even have to look at Koska for a tell; Bo-Katan was so obviously the kind of woman who instigated conspiracy and sedition before breakfast. He set three mugs down on the table.

‘Spiced?’ asked Koska, inspecting her black caf suspiciously.

‘Yeah.’

‘I hope it’s strong,’ she grumbled. Din had not yet managed to make a drink which pleased Koska, but he figured the endless complaints were her way of saying thank you.

Axe tapped his datapad and pulled up a holomap of their system. He swiped once, to show Din the other systems they were planning to visit; then he swiped twice more, revealing the route he and Bo-Katan had plotted that morning. It was ambitious, to say the least.

‘Quite the itinerary,’ Bo-Katan remarked. She took a sip of her milk-sweetened caf and delicately suppressed a grimace.

‘A tour,’ said Din in resignation. ‘You’re taking me on a tour of the entire kriffing galaxy.’

‘We call it the Mand’alor tour,’ she replied, putting her nose up in the air. Din wished he had not stuck so firmly to his principle of never eating and drinking in front of the others. He could have prepared a fourth mug, possibly containing something stronger than caf.

Axe took over the informal little briefing with the ease of a longtime colleague. ‘That Darksaber’s worth nothing if other Mando’ade don’t recognise it. You understand?’ Axe had taken to treating Din like a slightly feral adopted sibling, poking at his defences with a kind of wary, masculine jocularity. Din wasn’t particularly keen on that, but he couldn’t be bothered to object. ‘You need to make yourself known to all the Mandalorians we can find, and you’d better make a damn good impression because—oh, kark, you know, because you’re one of them.’

‘One of them?’ Din repeated, propping his elbows on his knees. Across the table, Koska sucked her teeth with sharp amusement.

‘One of…’ Axe trailed off. ‘Don’t make me say it.’

‘Make him say it,’ Koska goaded, since she thrived on conflict.

‘One of the Watch, all right? Being a cultist doesn’t exactly endear you to most Mandalorians.’

Din glanced between him and Koska, and then at Bo-Katan, who steadfastly avoided meeting his gaze. ‘Have you all just assumed I agree with you about the cult thing?’

‘Well.’ Axe’s brows made a puzzled little furrow in the middle. He wasn’t used to someone so coolly immune to other people’s judgment. ‘Bo-Katan did tell you to your face—’

‘I know she said that,’ interjected Din, thoroughly bored of explaining that he was a grown-ass man who could not be manipulated. ‘I never said I believed her.’

‘Focus,’ Bo-Katan said, and Axe deflated at once. When she finally looked at Din, there was a spark of grudging respect in her flinty eyes, but she didn’t press the issue. ‘First we’re heading to Vetine in the Merrick sector. There we will find a Jedi if our luck holds, or a Senator if our luck improves further. They are figures whose recognition carries real weight in the galaxy.’

‘Axe’s informant says that at least one of those two will be on Vetine this week,’ Koska added. ‘It’s important, you see, to link up with those New Republic hotshots who go around rebuilding ruined worlds.’ Her tone showed exactly what she thought of the New Republic’s best efforts. ‘And we don’t want an alliance with the New Republic—I couldn’t give less of a kark about them, personally—but it would be very useful if they spread the word about a new, legitimate Mand’alor. And Mandalorians hate being beaten to the punch by outsiders. Think how mad they’ll be when they have to hear the news from a Senate source. They’ll come running to acknowledge you.’

Din heaved a very long tired sigh.

Bo-Katan’s eyes were alight with the joy of politicking; she had the slick shining viciousness of a born schemer, and she turned to Din like a tooka-cat bringing him a dead lizard as a gift. ‘Here’s the kicker. We’ll be meeting your Jedi. The guardian of your child. Who knows? Maybe he’ll even have the foundling with him.’

Din said nothing. It was so transparently a reward for his cooperation that he did not permit himself to hope.

Dryly, Axe muttered to Din: ‘The Jedi destroyed two Death Stars, defeated the Emperor and brought Vader himself to his knees, but of course all she cares about is the political clout.’

‘Right,’ said Din, frowning. ‘Is he good with children?’

Axe’s eyes crinkled at the corners with his laughter. He slapped the table with his palm instead of smacking Din. ‘You’re one of a kind, Djarin.’

Chapter 2

Throughout the next seventy-odd standard hours, Din’s companions worked with well-greased efficiency. He had witnessed this for the first time on Trask: they were a hit squad of three that made him look like the litter’s slowest pup. And Din was not slow. It took him some time, nonetheless, to grasp the relentless rhythms of all the logistics involved—charting a route, plotting rest stops, transferring supplies, and of course Bo-Katan was fond of over-complicating things.

Here Bo & Co. were just as coordinated as they were in a fight. Axe negotiated with his contacts to secure safe passage to the Vetine system, while Bo-Katan fed him lines through an earpiece. To offload some weight, Koska reshuffled weapons and equipment between the various transports she controlled—Din counted at least a dozen, and there must have been more. Not all their ships were in rotation at the same time, Bo-Katan explained to Din as they sipped black ale on the bridge one evening. All were cloaked in layers upon layers of secrecy, rerouted through aliases and fake bank accounts, managed by stealth operatives and ex-commandos and ordinary folk who didn’t know they were working for Bo-Katan.

Din found this complexity maddening. But Bo-Katan had a lot of colour-coded spreadsheets and seemed very pleased with herself.

There was something ridiculous about four Mandalorians inhabiting a light cruiser built for hundreds. To conserve energy they kept the batteries humming on low power, just enough that the laser cannons could be swiftly reactivated in a firefight. Frankly, Din thought the cost and effort of maintenance made Gideon’s cruiser more trouble than it was worth. They only managed through dogged spite (Koska), creative engineering (Axe), daily labour (everyone), and pure bull-headed banthashit (Bo-Katan). Din did what little he could to help, mainly refuelling and cosmetic repairs. He couldn’t bring himself to care much about this hulking, hateful ship, corpse-grey on the outside and sallow on the inside, seared by the crimes of its past occupants. A decaying fortress left by a wrecked empire. If it’d been up to Din, he’d have the whole thing incinerated. Let it fall as a burned-out husk into deep space, to scatter eternal debris until no one could remember where it came from.

But things were not up to Din anymore, so he didn’t say anything. He never remembered how quiet he normally was until people drew him into conversation.

Ever since that day in the kitchen, Axe and Koska had started making more aggressive efforts to engage Din. He could not shake the feeling that they had been waiting for him to be ready. All these past months he had not mentioned the Darksaber, had not done so much as touch it; and in their own rude way, they had respected the barrier of his desolate silence. Now that Din had broken the seal himself, they sprang into action—like droids roused suddenly from sleep mode—with an air of kriffing finally, took him long enough. For Axe, this newfound aggression took the form of uncomfortable barbs (as in, Axe sounded uncomfortable delivering them). He acted like he wasn’t sure what would make his laser-brained cultist brother finally snap. Din did not snap, because he knew it would drive Axe mad when he didn’t.

Koska took a more literal approach. Especially when they were passing through difficult space, and there was nothing to do except wear down the floors with her pacing.

‘No,’ said Din somewhere over the Metharian Nebula, hearing the telltale flare of a flamethrower behind him. ‘No sparring. I’m making tea.’

‘Come on.’ Koska bounced on the balls of her feet; her plait bounced too. ‘Come at me, Djarin. You know you want to. C’mon.’

Din did want to. ‘Ugh.’

‘Use the jetpack. You still treat it like a parachute—you need practice.’

‘With these low ceilings?’ Din turned down the burner and set his rooibos tea aside to steep. The Imperial officers’ mess looked increasingly spartan, now that everyone on board periodically raided it for chocolate pods and tins of carababba tabac. ‘Jetpack or Darksaber, Reeves. Pick one.’

‘What, you think you need to go easy on me?’

Din would never have insulted another Mandalorian like that. But he held up one finger lamely, feeling that he was already losing an argument. ‘I haven’t agreed to go at all.’

Koska just smirked.

Din hit her like a charging mudhorn. She was stronger, but he fought faster, and he grabbed her boots as she rose with a fiery blast of jet fuel. His weight wasn’t enough to keep Koska down; she dragged Din out of the kitchen as she flew, making his beskar scrape up a perfectly good wall. Since the ship was ex-Imperial, they weren’t too fussed about marring the paint job. Gouges and burn-holes did not bother Din when he knew how they had gotten there.

Still, the ceilings were too low for two jetpacks. Only Koska’s ample experience with hers kept them both from causing serious damage. Din bounced off many, many corners as they barrelled down a once-ghastly corridor. Somehow, the Empire’s lingering stench seemed to fade—even while he wrestled Koska opposite the cell where Grogu had been kept.

‘Good!’ she gasped, shoving him headfirst into an unused storage cabinet. (This move was fair; he’d just sliced off her holster with the Darksaber.) ‘Use that thing like a Mandalorian, not like a Jedi.’

Din ignited the Darksaber long enough to slice into the cabinet’s hinges, and then extinguished it instantly. The cabinet door swung open, bashed Koska (gently) in the face, and rebounded.  He stopped the backswing just in time with the Darksaber’s blunt hilt. ‘You think it’s magic?’

Koska spat and wiped her mouth on the back of her glove. ‘In a Jedi’s hands, it’s magic. In Mandalorian hands, it’s tech.’

Din thought about this. He flipped the Darksaber hilt as though it were a knife. He used it to block one of Koska’s vibroblade stabs. Why, it was still a piece of metal. It could be tossed and caught. It felt good.

They experimented, loudly and viciously, with turning the Darksaber on and off again until Bo-Katan stuck her head into the now-smoking corridor. ‘Will you please keep it down!’

‘We’re sorry, Bo,’ said Koska, not looking sorry at all.

‘I’m not,’ said Din, who was at least honest.

‘You see what I put up with?’ said Bo-Katan to Din. ‘Ten years I’ve travelled with her!’ And her head vanished once again.

Din shrugged at the empty doorway she’d left behind. Unexpectedly, he found himself almost smiling. ‘I guess it passes the time.’

He was not sleeping well; he’d lost track of time months ago. Weeks and days meant practically nothing offworld, with only the chronometer to bleakly count out hours in the thousands. They were not even in the Unknown Regions, where space was wild and unfettered, but all sense of direction had left him. There was his windowless room near the cargo hold and there was the vacuum vivid with stars. Bounded by unseen suns. Whenever Din woke after an abortive attempt at sleep, he could tell himself it was morning on some far-off planet. His surroundings made everything more eerie. Most of the ship had been powered down, except for the comms centre and their modest living quarters; it was far too big for Din and his three companions. Who knew what ghosts wandered the darkened areas they’d shut off?

Sometimes—lying awake when it wasn’t his turn to pilot—Din thought he could hear footsteps on the floor above him. Probably Koska, he told himself every time. He never asked her about it. He didn’t want to be wrong.

Halfway to Vetine they docked at an abandoned space station. Din disembarked with caution, feeling as though he’d become unmoored on a spacewalk. With so little in his new environment to ground him—only the anonymous safety warnings, the deactivated droids—this might as well have been true. His footsteps were soundless, weightless, in the long shadows cast by stark and silent metal towers.

‘What is this place?’ said Din at last, when nobody offered to explain anything. He clung to the nearest safety rail as they descended into a bunker-like structure. ‘It doesn’t look Imperial.’

‘That’s because it isn’t.’ Stowing his blaster, Axe stepped over a dislodged hunk of duracrete. Din spotted a few escape pods still resting in their berths, eerily pristine. ‘It’s Old Republic-era.’

Though they had clearly been here several times, the other Mandalorians looked rattled. Jumping from secret base to secret base for years would take a toll on anyone. Din had been suffering acute side-effects from living on a ship for so long; and although Bo-Katan’s squad bore up well, they were still only human. Bo-Katan did her usual scan for heat signatures, said, ‘All clear,’ and then nudged Koska with her foot. ‘Sit down and put your head between your knees. It’ll pass.’

Koska slid to the floor, her back against a steep-curved wall which provided less support than it should. Axe moved deeper into the bunker, and Din followed—he watched as Bo-Katan meditatively walked the perimeter, up and down and up and down. He could sense the heaviness of their strange, sacramental silence.

It was the lack of lifeforms, he thought. It was the way nothing ever decayed in space. The artificially oxygenated air tasted stale, clogging Din’s throat; he wondered who had breathed these dust particles before his time. Where they were now, or how they had died. He knew little of the Old Republic. He was standing in a skeleton and he had no connection to what it’d been when it was alive. There were no fresh tracks that he could recognise, no signs of recent life. There was only the feather-light touch of recycled ghosts.

Bo-Katan stopped her pacing, apparently satisfied with whatever she had been monitoring. Din went to her side because he didn’t know where else to stand.

‘Obviously,’ said Bo-Katan, breaking the silence to explain things to Din, ‘we won’t be approaching Vetine in an Imperial vessel. We’ll take one of the shuttles from here instead. We’ve broken in the cruiser; now it’s time to let it rest.’

‘You gonna rename it?’

‘Hmm.’ She took off her helmet. Beneath the old-fashioned headband she wore, her eyes were haunted. ‘The Duchess.’

Axe chimed in, although Din hadn’t thought he was listening. ‘We already have multiple ships named after the Duchess.’

‘The Satine, then.’

‘Also taken.’

These names meant nothing to Din. Axe was rummaging in one of the small niches behind a dust-choked sink; he withdrew a packet of t’bac and promptly lit up.

Across the room, Koska grimaced at him. ‘Can you open a window?’

Axe lifted the cigarra away from his mouth. ‘We’re in space.’

Sighing, Bo-Katan shifted away from the sloping window-panel she’d been looking through. Whether they were standing vertically or horizontally relative to the gravitational centre, Din didn’t know. ‘Come see the rest of the station,’ she told Din.

Din followed her helplessly. A pair of pneumatic doors slid open, revealing archway after archway lit by still-working glowpanels. The technology looked ancient. Transparisteel screens and databanks lined each of the labs they entered, once-glossy surfaces clouded from decades of neglect. The Old Republic’s legacy meant more to veterans much older than Din. Aging survivors of the galaxy’s endless wars. He could see that this had been an unarmed space station, perhaps manned by civilian researchers—but beyond that, what held rich and bitter associations for Bo-Katan was only foreign and disorienting to Din. He felt like he was being led through a museum of her past. He could not tell Bo-Katan that he was not the right person to offer her absolution. Besides, he suspected that it wasn’t what she wanted from him.

She stepped over a cluster of wiring—the cords still unstraightened, to be left in a tangle for all eternity—and hovered her palm over a sensor to make the next door slide open. The temptation to drag her fingers through layers of accumulated grime must’ve been overwhelming. ‘Would you like to hear about old Mandalore?’

Din blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that question. ‘I’ve heard enough.’

‘It was a shithole,’ she said bluntly. Her boots stamped little eddies of dust into spiral shapes. ‘The surface was worse than Tatooine. But below the surface—oh, you can’t imagine its magnificence. There were cubist murals of the great crusades…’

‘I’ve heard of them.’

‘We loved our planet.’ Her tongue flicked against her teeth with the force of her consonants. ‘You’ll come to love it too.’

He didn’t feel like objecting.

There wasn’t much else to see; she walked him in a tight circle through the corridors surrounding the bunker, durasteel-coated and bleak. He kept pace with her in companionable silence. But on their way back (through the oval-shaped entrance, he could see Koska and Axe refitting a shuttle for travel), Din stopped at a patch of wall which bore graffiti.

Graffiti was a rare sight in space. He touched the contours of the spray-painted emblem: the spiked wings and the watchful, predatory head. Din knew it was the Death Watch symbol but he did not know how it had gotten here. He could not process how he felt about finding traces, even here, of Mandalorian creeds and crimes. He only wanted to feel the imprint of other lives like his—to feel something home-like, something real.

Behind him, Bo-Katan came up to the wall with a poorly concealed intake of breath. She might have forgotten about the graffiti, or this might be a deliberate test to see how Din would react. Really, with Bo-Katan it could go either way. She was such a natural dissembler that Din simply did not concern himself with trying to read her emotions.

(He was mildly interested in Bo-Katan’s opinions on modern art, but this wasn’t the time.)

‘I don’t know a lot about our history.’ Again, Din traced the crude jai’galaar sigil. Besides their respect for one another, there was one fact that put him and Bo-Katan on equal footing: Din’s helmet masked him completely. Through his visor, through his vocoder, he was as opaque to her as her naked face was to him. ‘But I do recognise the Watch.’

‘As you know,’ Bo-Katan murmured, picking her words carefully, ‘some Mandalorians went to war with the Old Republic.’ She didn’t add, I led Death Watch. They both knew who she had been.

‘Yes.’

Her cold profile was very still—her arched brows, her haughty nose. She was waiting for him to accuse her of terrorist actions. When he did not speak again, Bo-Katan said with a politician’s precision: ‘I no longer endorse the methods of Death Watch.’

‘Death Watch rescued me from droids on Aq Vetina.’

She turned and stared at him.

‘Separatist forces attacked my home planet.’ Once Din started telling his own story, he could never stop; he had to bite back the flood before it overtook him. He jerked his chin at the shriek-hawk painted on the ferrocrete. ‘The Mandalorians who saved me wore that symbol.’

‘You… fought in the Clone Wars,’ said Bo-Katan slowly, as if recognising an old comrade in a new guise.

‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘I was born during the Clone Wars.’

Bo-Katan’s expression was very complicated. She looked Din up and down, clearly reassessing her view of him based on his age, and then she gave him a curt nod which showed she could not bring herself to speak. And they walked together towards the shuttle, shadowed by all the phantoms that remained.

---

Vetine had once been beautiful. Axe hopped off the landing ramp, choked out a rueful little laugh at Din’s body language, and clapped Din on the shoulder. ‘Cheer up. You’ll get used to dead planets.’

Din did not want to get used to sights like this. Coughing into his helmet, he used the fabric parts of his glove to wipe smog from his visor. ‘What happened here? Mining?’

‘Fuel pollution,’ Bo-Katan answered. She and Koska were unloading two double-seated speeders from the hold. Din blinked: how much equipment had they managed to squeeze onto that shuttle? ‘It isn’t all like this. I’ve parked us far away from the former Imperial base.’

Bo-Katan rode with Axe. Din rode with Koska. The wasteland had a sour sort of beauty: he could see cracked-open hillsides in the distance, the low banks and terraces of spoiled earth peeking through pale mists. Fog turned to rain and then to hail. They skirted the edge of foul, sucking mire and dodged the acid leaking out of bogs—fortunately, the breathing apparatus in each of their helmets neutralised harmful gases. Sometimes Axe would point out a deep impression stamped into solidified muck, or part of a massive footprint coming out of a swamp. The skies were charcoal and violet. The bones of great amphibian creatures, wiped out before democracy’s birth, lay encased in mud so hostile it would not even permit life to decompose.

When the peat turned to grassland Din’s mood lifted. They climbed higher in altitude, taking turns to sip mineral-rich water from their vacuum-sealed packs. Here the topsoil was striated with fossilised remains, and from this height Din could make out things which had once, perhaps, been trees. Even a ruined planet had variety in its ruined landscapes. Koska was almost dozing in her seat behind him, and jerked awake when Bo-Katan said abruptly: ‘Let’s make camp.’

Din brought the speeder to a shuddering halt. ‘Anyone around?’ It was a good campsite—unobscured view, decent shelter, cradled in the broad cup of an emptied lake.

‘Not yet,’ replied Axe, uncharacteristically cryptic. He checked something on his comlink’s holoprojector. ‘Bo-Katan’s set up an important meeting. Sorry, there’s a lot of waiting in this game.’

‘I’m a bounty hunter,’ Din said. ‘I don’t mind waiting.’

With her macrobinoculars slung around her neck, Bo-Katan looked ridiculously like a tourist. Koska sat down on a calcified ledge to rebraid her hair. Since there wasn’t much else to do, Din helped Axe inflate a couple of plastents and then wandered off in a vaguely northwestern direction.

He heard Bo-Katan shout behind him, ‘Don’t get lost!’ and waved without looking at her. He had his compass and his hunter’s unerring sense of terrain. Besides, where could he possibly go?

Din listened for bird calls, scanning the dead countryside repeatedly. Safe and alone beneath overcast skies, he removed his helmet and shook it vigorously to get the musty smell out. The grey air felt gritty on his skin. He’d already opened one of his water packs, so he drank the remainder and washed his face with a few extra handfuls. This planet couldn’t all be homogeneous (surely the area near the Imperial base looked very different), but every body of water in sight had either dried up or turned toxic. It was enough to make him miss Trask, and Din hated water planets.

He was leaving plenty of his own tracks, a message to no one but himself: I was here, I lived, I explored, I’m still alive. Mysterious goop clung to his boots. As curious as a small child, Din poked at leafy formations and turned over rocks with the point of his spear. He was almost happy. He thought of Grogu flinching away from big alien cats and had to tamp down the sudden heartsickness.

He heard the Jedi before he saw him. Din was not alarmed: they had been walking alongside each other for some time, separated by poisoned tree-growth three metres high. He followed the pace of those quiet, even footsteps for a few minutes—then he checked his wrist chronometer for the time, decided to double back to camp, and came face to face with Grogu’s guardian.

‘Hi,’ said the Jedi, with a small apologetic smile.

Din loosened his grip on the beskar spear, which he had instinctively clutched tighter. One look at the Jedi’s placid figure told him that Grogu was not on Vetine. He squashed down the disappointment which was more than disappointment; for some reason it hurt. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to hope.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring him.’ The Jedi’s pale gaze flickered across Din’s visor. There was a kind of understanding in his face, even though Din hadn’t said a word. ‘Your child is safe. He’s offworld with some trusted friends of mine. I didn’t want to expose him to the elements here.’

Din considered all the times he had left Grogu with acquaintances, or almost-friends, or strangers whose main qualification was that they could kick Din’s ass in a fight. He could not object to Grogu being babysat. He brushed dirt off the knees of his trousers, feeling self-conscious; the Jedi was watching him with the shuttered, lonely expression of someone who’d forgotten how normal people talked.

Din did not know the man’s exact age. To Din he seemed immortal—a Jedi with a soft voice and the lightless eyes of one who walked side by side with death. He was dressed in brown this time, under a soft rust-coloured cloak, and his trousers were damp to the knee with the telltale grime of having trekked a very long way.

When Din cleared his throat and spoke, what came out was not how’s Grogu, or how are you, or is he eating well, or any of the hundred other things he wanted to say at once. Instead he found himself asking: ‘What’s Luke Skywalker doing on Vetine?’

‘Ah, so you do know my name.’ Luke’s eyes brightened just slightly. ‘I was worried you wouldn’t know how to find me.’

This was not an answer.

‘I’ve been here before. Shortly after the battle of Endor—with a friend named Shara Bey.’

This was still not an answer.

‘Come with me,’ said Luke, with the quiet composure he had shown while calling Grogu little one. ‘Let’s get back to your friends.’

He stepped over a hollowed-out log and held out his gloved hand to Din, beckoning more than expecting Din to take it. He withdrew it only a second later and tucked both hands into his cloak as if he felt cold. Din could not help but follow him, he was so gentle.

‘How is Grogu?’ said Din, almost shy. Something about Luke Skywalker made him afraid to ask too many questions. Luke had the subdued, faraway air that Din had only seen with very old men on the brink of death. Din couldn’t imagine what someone under thirty could have experienced to make them look like that.

‘I got him some new clothes, if you don’t mind.’ Luke darted a quick glance at Din as though he, too, felt awkward about this whole situation. ‘He said he wanted to be shiny like you.’

Din stopped dead in his tracks. His heart turned over very, very fast. ‘He talks?’

There was a pause, and Luke’s face went all soft and lightless again. ‘Not out loud. We can hear each other’s thoughts, that’s all. He won’t… I’m afraid he won’t be speaking full words for a while. He’s still very young.’ This time, he turned his head fully to study Din. The weight of his gaze was somehow both reassuring and unsettling. ‘He tells me about you, though. He calls you buir.’

Din was having a lot of feelings at the same time. He trod in a slurry of plant matter that came up to his ankles, covering up the footprints he’d left on his way here. ‘My name’s Din,’ he told Luke at last, hardly believing himself. His voice sounded hoarse even through his helmet. ‘Din Djarin.’

Luke must have met thousands of people on his journeys doing important Jedi stuff. Yet there was real warmth in his voice when he replied: ‘It’s nice to properly meet you, Din.’

Din quickened his pace so that Axe and Koska wouldn’t catch him trailing after the pretty Jedi like a loth-cat lured by flowers. Here the ground sloped downwards; the hike up from the campsite had been more difficult than this return trip. Luke skidded a little bit, turned his sweet face up to Din with a self-deprecating chuckle, then immediately grabbed Din when Din slipped too.

‘Your cape’s getting muddy.’

‘It’s always muddy.’

Luke made a face but didn’t say anything about it. ‘By the way, I didn’t see you landing. Has your transport been comfortable?’

‘I—it’s not ideal,’ Din admitted. ‘I’ve been travelling on Moff Gideon’s light cruiser.’

‘Oh. Are you used to sleeping on your ship?’

‘Lost my ship,’ said Din gruffly. ‘Couldn’t bring myself to find another one.’

‘Yeah, I know how men get about their ships,’ Luke murmured, and did not elaborate. Din held out a hand to help him navigate the treacherous mud-slick of a path before them.

They didn’t speak again for the next few hundred yards. Luke never mentioned having seen Din’s face; Din did his best to forget that he’d unmasked himself for this man. Luke stood in the slippery border-zone between clan and not-clan, a status so strange to Din that he could not think about it for too long. Besides—when he had met Luke’s eyes with his own—Din had been thinking that if something ever happened to him, he didn’t want Grogu to be the one identifying his body.

It did not have to happen like that. With Grogu in another’s care, with Bo-Katan implacably dragging Din into inter-world politics, Din’s future could play out very differently. And he might live longer than his parents had. The thought made his stomach clench, and he had to stop and pretend to shuffle some interesting mud when Luke shot him a look of concern.

He was not terribly afraid of dying. He had grown up with beloved Mandalorians who’d died before reaching middle age. He just thought—with what Luke had said about Grogu’s speech abilities—that he might be gone before Grogu matured. And he might be irreversibly changed before that: perhaps tottering with age, before Grogu was waist-height; perhaps losing his own mental faculties, before Grogu could string together full sentences. And how many children remembered their years of babyhood? How many adults had cause, in daily life’s turbulent currents, to recall their first babysitters—the nurse droids that swaddled them—the vanished elders who doted on them?

In a way, this prospect was comforting to Din, because he hadn’t pictured himself living to be an old man before.

(It still hurt. Children were supposed to forget their parents. You were supposed to raise them to be strong and good-hearted and able to live freely. You could not trap them with you, that would be selfish. But it still hurt.)

Din thought that it was much too early in the day to be contemplating his own mortality.

Luke broke the silence first. He bent down to pick up a glowrod he’d dropped, and as he straightened, he glanced at Din’s belt and commented, ‘You’ve got a lightsaber.’

Din blinked. ‘It’s a Darksaber, actually.’

Luke’s eyes crinkled at the corners, making him look five years younger all of a sudden. ‘Lightsabers, Darksabers, they all go swoosh.’ He mimed a starship’s movement and made laser-fire noises, which should not have been as charming as they were. ‘Where’d you get it?’

‘Long story.’

‘Mmm, tell me about it,’ said Luke with feeling. ‘I got my first one on Tatooine. It’s where I grew up.’

Din did not know how to respond to that. Everything Luke said sounded like it was part of several different conversations at once; he seemed so happy to be able to just make small talk with somebody.

‘I’ve been there a lot,’ he said finally, and tried not to flinch at how Luke whipped around to look at him. ‘We’re a long way from Tatooine.’

‘We are, aren’t we?’ The campsite was coming into view, though they still had to pick their way through dense undergrowth the colour of uj cake. Luke regarded the unimposing sight—Bo-Katan napping, Axe playing games on his datapad, Koska badly whistling songs of the old world—with calm acceptance, and then asked Din casually: ‘When you were on Tatooine, did you ever meet a man named Ben Kenobi?’

‘Didn’t pay much attention. I was too busy getting bullied by Jawas.’

Luke grimaced. ‘Fair.’

Din ducked between two twisted ex-trees and wiped their unpleasant juices from his helmet. He waved to get Koska’s attention, feeling oddly apprehensive about bringing the Jedi into a nest of Mandalorians; he liked the bizarre quietness he and Luke had between them.

But then he saw Luke’s expression and said gently, ‘I’m sure I would have liked him.’

‘Yeah.’ Luke gave Din a small, wistful smile. ‘He died a long time ago.’

Chapter 3

When Din led Luke out of the undergrowth, Axe and Koska stepped forward to meet Luke with their blasters half-raised. It was more a cursory show of strength than a threat, really; it looked almost respectful. Din put out an arm towards them, palm turned down, and they both lowered their weapons readily. Bo-Katan stood between them, cool and unbothered as anything, her feet a few hands’ width apart. She looked Luke over as though she saw somebody else in his face.

Luke’s hands instinctively moved to the hood of his cloak, before he seemed to remember he’d already pulled it down. ‘Hello there.’

Bo-Katan’s mouth quirked. ‘General Skywalker.’

‘I’m not a general anymore,’ said Luke, and Din noticed that his gloved hand gave an unconscious twitch. ‘I resigned my commission after Mindor.’

‘I see,’ hummed Bo-Katan, not appearing to recognise the name. She nodded to Axe, who relaxed his stance with an awkward cough. As Axe shifted Luke appeared to see him for the first time; then his pale eyes darted to Koska, cocking her hip in a show of iron-cool bravado. She and Luke regarded each other with the wary mutual respect of people who were solely attracted to their own genders.

‘Sorry I’m not my sister,’ Luke said. It occurred to Din that Luke Skywalker spent a lot of time apologising to people for not being who they expected. ‘But I did get your message, Lady Kryze. You needn’t have been so sophisticated about it. A simple brush pass would have sufficed.’

‘Can’t be too careful.’ Axe shrugged. ‘Our agents operate under secure conditions. Needless to say, we won’t use the same cipher if we ever need to contact you again.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve already forgotten it.’

Din found himself drawing closer to Luke, though he wasn’t sure why he felt protective of a Jedi who could slaughter a platoon without breaking stride. The lightsaber Din remembered was hanging on Luke’s belt; he had his hands tucked demurely into his sleeves; his expression seemed mild and clouded, like he was forever waiting for somebody else to direct him.

‘I came to tell you there’s a safer refuge ahead,’ said Luke. ‘Your camp looks secure, but after nightfall—well, when the wildlife come out of their burrows, it’s a different story. Let me show you to the New Republic settlement. You’re welcome to spend as many nights there as you wish. It’s not far; we can be there in under an hour.’

‘We know the coordinates,’ Bo-Katan answered, giving Luke a tiny superior smile. ‘Settlement is a bit bold, don’t you think? It’s hardly more than a few buildings.’

Luke did not take the bait, which immediately increased Din’s respect for him. Instead of taking offence at a remark clearly designed to raise his hackles, he said: ‘That’s true. I should have known that making camp just outside the Republic-controlled area was a choice… Oh, I see. You need me to escort you into the village, don’t you?’ He studied Bo-Katan with the remote patience he seemed to show everybody who wasn’t Din. ‘I’d be delighted. Don’t be afraid. I can guarantee your safety.’

On anyone else’s lips this would have been a remarkably passive-aggressive retort. But Luke was incapable of the cold condescension Bo-Katan fought her battles with; she cocked her head, as though somebody so sincere left even her at a loss.

‘Where is your transport?’ she asked Luke, because being an unrepentant asshole didn’t stop Bo-Katan from looking out for her allies.

‘I walked here.’

‘You walked?’ Bo-Katan closed her eyes, seemingly baffled by the Jedi’s lack of survival instincts. ‘Fine, we’ll accompany you to your village.’

‘The Jedi can take my seat,’ Koska suggested. She jerked her chin at the two speeders parked behind her tent; Axe was already beginning to scoop power cells into the compact insulated packs they transported equipment in. ‘I’ll follow you with my jetpack.’

Din had been about to offer his own seat on the speeder, but he’d reconsidered at the last second. He didn’t feel right about leaving the Jedi alone with three nasty Mandalorians. They were his nasty Mandalorians, and he had to be responsible for them.

‘Thank you,’ said Luke, looking very tired. He turned to Din with his sweet lightless smile. ‘Let me fix your speeder while you pack up.’

‘It’s not mine,’ Din said on reflex; then his brain caught up with the words. ‘What’s wrong with the speeders?’

Luke, unbelievably, blew a raspberry. ‘They’re quite slow, don’t you think?’

Din was beginning to suspect that the Jedi had once been a reckless flyboy. Obviously (as a man who’d once stormed an Imperial base alone with no plan), Din was not in a position to judge. The thought only added more confusing ingredients to the stew of Grogu’s cabur—someone trustworthy and strong, who nevertheless looked as lost as Din felt.

Din stowed his compass and his chrono, and used the beskar spear to help Koska collapse their plastents. Bo-Katan and Axe stacked their comms equipment neatly and wrapped fragile antennae in plasti-foil. They moved with silent efficiency, gesturing more than talking; still, Din could not stop being aware of Luke gracefully picking his way through the disintegrating camp. He tried to see the campsite through Luke’s eyes—well-hidden and precisely placed and so easy to dismantle. Being a Mandalorian meant carrying most of your possessions on your back, meant rolling up your two spare flightsuits and squashing balled-up socks into breakable containers. It meant you could pack up your entire life in a few hours at most, and you didn’t even need plastifoam padding or storage cubes. Into the packs went extra glowrods, water rations, the medkit, the portable heater and cooling unit, the tiny collapsible stove, the antibac wipes they used to clean their armour between stops, cassius tea leaves in a flat tin, vacuum-sealed bags of uj’alayi to be devoured with sticky fingers.

The packing was horribly simple. It made them all look as if they had very little. Din had spent his whole life setting up and tearing down camps within the same day, and the task still made something heavy settle in the hollow of his sternum.

When they were done, Luke sat down on the speeder Din and Koska had been using. He tucked his cloak around himself; his eyelashes sat brown and slanting on his cheeks. His hair was darker than honey and distractingly tousled. As Din approached him, he glanced up and said in that light voice of his: ‘I take it you’re in charge of this expedition.’

Din would not have described this trip as an expedition or himself as in charge of anything, but a cheerful ‘Yep!’ came from behind him before he could foist responsibility off on Bo-Katan.

‘Okay.’ Luke’s gaze flickered to Axe, the one who had spoken, and then back to Din’s visor. ‘I’ll ride with you, then.’ He had a knack for making whoever he addressed feel worthy of his attention. ‘Years ago I came to Vetine to get something from the Imperial base. The Great Tree of Coruscant was brought here when the first Jedi Temple fell; I found two samples which survived. Both have now grown into healthy trees, and their shoots can be grafted as new saplings in their turn. I want to plant one, here, as a symbol of New Republic unity and hope.’

Din was struck by the concise, even way he spoke: a good storyteller. ‘That’s why you’re here?’

‘That’s why I’m here.’ Luke swung his leg over the bike’s forward seat, his left hand dropping to the ignition. ‘There’s a small ceremony scheduled in the village square. It’ll be recorded and the footage sent to Chandrila—this is important for the future of the Jedi Order. I’m sure the locals would love to meet you, Din.’

‘He’s the reason we’re here.’ Axe came up behind Din, clapping his shoulder in a nervy, overprotective way in front of the outsider. Luke did not seem to realise that he had just given Din’s first name to the other Mandalorians; and why hadn’t Din done so himself, after all this time? Luke’s presence had upset the balance Din had with his travel companions, so he couldn’t tell which one of them felt more like a stranger. ‘He might not be much to look at—’ (Here Din caught Luke giving Axe an incredulous glance.) ‘—but he’s our Mand’alor.’

‘Are you now,’ said Luke, in the benign tone of somebody who had absolutely no idea what a Mand’alor was. ‘Well, I’m happy to be of service. Tell me what to say and I’ll pass it on to the Senate.’

Axe shook himself, patted his pockets, and finally produced a crumpled durasheet he must’ve filled out while Din was gone. ‘Here’s the speech I drafted. It’s not exactly a speech, just some key points we need you to convey. Can you record this as a holo for Organa? She’ll know what to do from there.’

Luke took the slip of paper with his gloved hand. ‘Of course.’

Bo-Katan watched Luke glance over his script with a hard, fractured expression, her mouth as thin as a blade. She did a decent job of looking deceptively casual, but Din was standing close enough to sense the tension in her shoulders.

‘What is it?’ he whispered.

Bo-Katan glanced at him like a startled deer. ‘He looks like his father.’

She didn’t give Din the chance to ask more questions. She strode to Axe’s side, and Din got onto the other speeder behind Luke. Something about the weight felt different, the swoop of the steering vane and the sensors; he hadn’t noticed the Jedi carrying any mechanic’s gear, and yet…

‘What did you do to this?’

Luke just pushed down on the gears with a half-smile. ‘Put on your seatbelt, big boy.’

‘I don’t have a seatbelt—Luke!’

Jetpack flaring, Koska shot into the air behind them. Beneath them, the bike leapt forward with approximately the same speed and power. Din grasped his spear with one hand and put the other on his utility belt to make sure he didn’t drop anything. He heard Axe swear in disbelief, and Bo-Katan snapped in the tone of an exasperated crèche nurse, ‘This is not a race!’

Din was grateful for his helmet’s shelter against windburn. Grappling for steadiness, he put his gloved hands on the Jedi’s waist and tried not to think about how Luke shivered at the touch. ‘How are your eyes not hurting without goggles?’

‘Oh, I don’t need goggles,’ Luke replied blithely, and it took Din an embarrassingly high number of seconds to realise what he meant.

‘Are you steering with your eyes closed?’

Through the soft rust-brown cloak, Luke’s shoulders looked supple and strong. The cloth rippled with his laughter. ‘Trust in the Force, Din!’

‘Skywalker,’ said Din, some hot and vivid emotion bursting in his chest, ‘so help me Maker, I will turn this bike around!’

‘You can’t!’ Luke chirped. ‘I’m controlling the handlebars—’

‘And I,’ Din finished triumphantly, ‘am controlling the foot pedals. Slow down or I won’t stop to pick you up when you fall off.’

Luke mumbled something which sounded like ‘What if I begged,’ but he did slow down; he glided upwards to evade the treacherous bog below, and shifted gears as if they’d been made for his deft hands. At this time of day, Vetine’s clouds had begun to lift. The sky was turning red and lavender in places, like Luke had brought the sunshine with him, and the air filtering through Din’s helmet smelled almost sweet.

---

It was always a little nerve-wracking to approach settlers on unfamiliar planets. Din liked hunting in the wilderness, with no other beings around except his hapless bounties as he closed the distance. When he crossed paths with townsfolk or villagers—any group with territorial notions of occupying a planet, or drawing borders, or demanding fees and favours for untroubled passage—things could go south very quickly. He was conscious of his beskar shell, its paradox of making him both hidden and incredibly conspicuous. Din’s throat hurt. He held down the decelerator pedal as Luke brought their speeder to a lower altitude, descending smoothly into the New Republic settlement.

The village looked as small as Bo-Katan had described it, but its scattered buildings lay along a spine of well-built infrastructure. Din glimpsed water purifiers and filter tanks, a few scraggly yet persistent garden plots, the blue plastoid of portable freshers. They alighted just outside a cantina too tiny to merit the name. Luke’s hair was a mess, and the ride had left him with high colour in his cheeks; he hopped off the speeder all windblown and wind-flushed and beautiful, and promptly ruined Din’s mood by turning to him and asking, ‘What’s a Mand’alor?’

Din’s sigh was quiet enough that it couldn’t be heard through his helmet. ‘The ruler of the Mandalorian homeworld, a planet called Mandalore.’

‘The ruler of Mandalore,’ said Luke slowly, ‘is also called Mand’alor.’

Din did not point out that the two Mando’a words were slightly different. ‘Yes.’

‘And the people are called Mandalorians.’

Din didn’t think this was the right time to explain the Creed. ‘Yes.’

Luke wandered off muttering Mand’alor of Mandalore of Mandalorians over and over again under his breath, and Din stood watching him, helplessly transfixed, until Koska landed beside them.

‘Tell me what I’m doing here,’ Din hissed. Moss grew over the village’s shallow drains; he could see a couple of well-tended bushes laden with muja fruit, the heartbreaking signs of a community trying to scrape comfort out of a desolate planet.

At the anxiety in his voice, Koska gave him an incredulous look. ‘Mand’alor, this is seriously the easiest first stop on the diplomatic tour. All you have to do is show your face—in a manner of speaking—and try not to offend anybody.’

Din’s hand itched to find his blaster. ‘So what I usually do, but without the income.’

‘You make it sound so pointless.’ She shook her head. ‘You’re not… doing nothing, Mand’alor. You’re here to be seen, and that’s doing something. Bo-Katan could explain it better.’ A brawny Lasat had come out of the village cantina to stare at them, and Din gave him a small, not-quite-friendly nod. ‘Look, not all Mandos believe in the legend of the Darksaber. Some won’t follow you just because you’ve got a magic sword.’

Din was very sure he did not want them to follow him. ‘Thought you said it wasn’t magic.’

‘I never said that.’ Koska had taken off her helmet when she landed, and she rubbed her eyes like a tired child. Axe and Bo-Katan’s speeder was only a short distance behind her; she looked like she wanted to finish this conversation before they got within earshot. ‘In your hands it’s a lethal plasma blade, and what’s more Mandalorian than that? But it’s still tainted with all that…’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Jedi stuff.’

‘Bo-Katan doesn’t believe in it.’

‘Of course not. She’s too practical. But she respects the power of a story, and there’s no better story than you winning the Darksaber from Moff Gideon.’ Koska pursed her lips and said with awful, merciful frankness what Din had already guessed. ‘Bo will never challenge you for the Darksaber. It’d look terrible for her. Predatory, power-hungry, you name it. Until you manage to lose it—or you finish your tour of duty and retire with honour—you’re stuck with this. This burden, this responsibility. To care for our people and unite us.’

Ever since rescuing Grogu, Din had felt like a spacewalker whose tether had been cut. Spinning madly, lost in freefall; desperate and unheard in the galaxy’s oppressive silence. The feeling came and went. It lessened when he bantered with his companions and when he submerged himself in the busywork of running a ship. It gave way to the solid, but equally unbearable, weight of grief when he allowed himself to miss his covert. It was back in full force now.

‘And what do you believe?’ he asked through the choking sensation in his chest.

‘Do I value the Darksaber?’ Koska made a face. ‘I’m just a career soldier with a grudge against Imperials.’

Luke emerged from a small, flat-roofed bakery—was that where he stayed?—in a jacket and clean trousers which seemed to be his dress uniform, clearly modelled on a Rebel Alliance pilot’s orange flightsuit. He must’ve been well-decorated, but Luke seemed like the type to avoid wearing his medals if he could get away with it. He had a seedling in a terracotta pot cradled in the crook of one arm. Luke joined them just as the other two Mandalorians arrived; he turned to Bo-Katan with his usual beatific expression, flapping the scribbled information sheet Axe had given him.

‘It’s done,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I get a response from the Senate. Or anyone, really.’

‘Thank you, Commander Skywalker.’ Bo-Katan’s eyes darkened with her honeyed satisfaction. She checked her comlink for confirmation. ‘Your voice will go a long way towards gaining recognition of Mandalorian sovereignty.’

Her voice sounded rich and elegant, with the trained enunciation of a seasoned public speaker. But Luke merely said in response: ‘I’m not a commander anymore, either.’

Din had to turn away; he felt too unmoored to watch any longer. Koska was waiting just behind him with a datapad and stylus.

‘Sign this,’ she told him briskly. ‘We’ve had the press statement ready to go for some time. You have no idea how long we’ve been waiting for you, Djarin.’

‘Bo-Katan…’ Din began, helpless, but she was speaking to Luke and didn’t hear him. Everything was moving very quickly. The bilingual text was in Mando’a and Basic, with archaic phrases stirring memories of the epics he’d heard at bedtime. He had never seen Mando’a written anywhere outside his covert. Characters swam before Din’s eyes. He could not read all of them. Some were too old, too complicated, using traditional letter-forms which had been stylised into plain simplicity centuries before Din’s birth. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand. He had to look at the Basic for a translation. His eyes stung; he could hardly breathe; he was a foundling again, curled up against Paz’s side in the flickering firelight. He was listening to the Armourer’s predecessor recite the Dha Werda Verda. He was trying to envision the godlike Taungs without the music which brought them to life, or the glorious art which had existed on Mandalore. He knew his elders were taking a great risk by singing their culture’s stories, and they could not all sing together at once for fear of betraying their hiding place. He was a child in the sewers, learning Mando’a from those who had never seen Mandalore—those who had only their grandparents’ stories to draw upon. Looking up every so often, his baji’buir instinctively clutching Din tighter, at the imagined thump of Imperial boots. He could not miss the earth-shaking rhythms of Mandalorian drums because he’d never been safe enough to hear them.

‘Mand’alor?’ Koska prompted.

He could not be Mand’alor.

Axe cleared his throat and tried to explain the datapad’s contents as if explanations helped at all. ‘Now that Skywalker’s released the news to the Senate, we need to put out our own narrative before they try to spin it.’ Such canny, oil-slick intelligence yanked Din from the swamps of his own memories with an unpleasant jolt, and Axe clapped his shoulder in a misguided attempt at reassurance. ‘Don’t worry, brother. We’ve prepped all the moves. They’ll run like clockwork. You just need to sign off on this to get things finally moving.’

Din let out a long exhale. He reread the Basic text, which seemed straightforward enough. The difficult, poetic Mando’a version was probably intended to appease traditionalists and legitimise Din’s claim with references to classical culture. He turned to Koska for honesty, since she didn’t know that she was Din’s favourite. ‘Tell me this isn’t a trick.’

Koska met his gaze with a fierceness which told Din she would’ve never agreed to deceive him. ‘I swear on my honour as a Nite Owl.’

Din took the stylus from her ready fingers. He had not put his name down in writing since signing his Guild contract. And only his covert knew the exact spelling. Only the registers of Mandalore had recorded it, and now Mandalore was nothing but glass, and his parents were nothing but dust, and he was a nobody sending out his name to echo for light-years in an indifferent universe.

With a feeling of utter helplessness he signed: Din Djarin.

As Koska and Axe retreated to Bo-Katan’s side, holding the datapad aloft like a trophy, Din had no time to think about what he’d done. Luke was winding his way towards Din just as a massiff might rush to pet its human when it sensed distress. He put out his gloved hand, and Din took it automatically.

Luke’s blue eyes were wide and calm. He showed Din to the village square where the tree-planting ceremony was meant to take place—no more than a tidy patch of hard-packed soil, surrounded by shops and unpaved streets. The other Mandalorians trailed some distance behind them, munching on muja fruit from the bushes. Din did not lift his helmet to eat and Luke didn’t ask. Instead he said lightly, tucking his comlink into a pocket of his uniform, ‘Try saying “Mandalore’s Mandalorian Mand’alor” ten times very quickly. It’s real fun, isn’t it?’

Din glanced around the tiny village, conscious of curious eyes on his armour. He wondered whether it was normal for Mandalorians and Jedi to hold hands. ‘I’m sorry for making you do this.’

This: a favour for Bo-Katan. Getting wrapped up in her careful, intricate, high-level plotting, just as Din was now bound to the duties of Mand’alor. This: saving Grogu. Accepting responsibility for a Jedi foundling, with all the accompanying dangers too horrific for Din to know. This: showing kindness to a lonely man with no expectation of reward.

‘It makes sense, you know,’ Luke told Din. ‘Mandalore, Mandalorians, having sort-of the same name.’ He adjusted his grip on the potted seedling. ‘I suppose it’s only strange to somebody who’s not from there. D’you think so? You must have gotten used to it. After all, the Jedi came from Jedha. Force ghosts told me so.’

Din was lost.

‘Now Hutts, on the other hand,’ said Luke almost to himself, ‘their homeworld is Nal Hutta, but I haven’t heard of a Hutt ruler called Hutta… Hutta the Hutt? Jabba the Hutt. Maybe Hutt isn’t a species, it’s a title…’

‘What?’

‘Ah. Sorry.’ Luke smiled at Din, and he looked so handsome that Din forgot to be confused. ‘I got a little distracted. Could you hold my tree for a second?’

Din held the seedling while Luke stooped to tie his shoelace. Villagers were beginning to crowd into the square, including the Lasat who’d watched Din curiously from the cantina’s doorway. Din tensed beneath the weight of their collective gazes—he felt Bo-Katan step closer to him so that the Mandalorians formed a protective little knot. A purplish-red sun sank sluggishly towards the horizon. Luke stood, scooping the precious Jedi seedling back into his arms. He strode towards the waiting group, which parted reverently around him.

The Mandalorians hung back. This ceremony was meant to be observed by watchful strangers, not shared. As the day tipped over into sunset, everyone in the tiny village gathered around Luke like rings encircling a bright planet. Somebody handed him a trowel; two Trandoshans squatted down and began to disturb the packed earth. The ritual was very humble, like children reenacting a dance they had only heard about and never seen. Making a new meaning out of real or imagined traditions that had been destroyed. Luke lifted the frail seedling from the pot, and several villagers put their reptilian and humanoid hands on his as he lowered tangled roots into the hole.

He was only an inch or two shorter than Din, but he had a way of making himself look smaller—his hands clasped at his waist like he knew how deadly they were, his boyish height turning almost to slenderness. His voice was so low Din could hardly hear him from the back of the crowd. He spoke of rebirth, and healing, and living to honour the dead. He talked about the Jedi Order, at which point Koska discreetly stifled a yawn.

The tiny tree had been planted directly in the middle of the village square. One squat building off to the side seemed like a courthouse, or a meeting hall. At one corner stood a memorial to all the victims of the Imperial occupation on Vetine. Din could not look at it too long, or he began to feel sick. Every post-Imperial settlement in the galaxy was built on a massive graveyard.

‘Good stage presence. Great optics,’ Axe remarked at the end. ‘Thought you said the Jedi twin was no good at statecraft, Bo.’

Bo-Katan had the gall to look self-righteous. ‘Just because that little display looked good doesn’t mean it was calculated. Don’t be so cynical. Some of us are earnest about our ideals.’

‘Dank farrik,’ said Axe, delighted, ‘if it isn’t the Quacta calling the Stifling slimy—’

‘Leave off!’ Koska said fiercely. ‘Don’t show disunity in front of the outsiders.’

Din was suddenly very weary of them. Their acidic sharpness was usually reassuring, like poking an old bruise to make sure it was still there; but now it had become tiresome. He left their little group and wandered towards Luke, who didn’t have the Mandalorians’ air of having been steeped in sour preservatives.

Luke greeted Din with a nod that was instantly soothing, although his eyes seemed strangely flat. ‘Have I passed your test?’

Din blinked at him. ‘What?’

Luke took his hand a second time. ‘To take care of Grogu.’

Din couldn’t imagine how anyone could find Luke wanting. He was troubled by how the brightness he’d seen on the speeder had faded from Luke’s face, leaving only that distant calm. The expression Luke wore was somehow unreadable and painfully, horribly transparent at the same time. He had such a serene presence and yet his eyes were like black holes.

‘You passed it as soon as you showed up,’ he replied, and Luke’s fingers tightened involuntarily in his.

Chapter 4

Notes:

TW: dissociation, mild suicidal ideation, implied use of alcohol to cope with depression, brief drowning imagery, brief food mention

Sometimes Luke could not feel his fingers. That was part of the price he paid for using the Force—a swimmer, mortal and small, plumbing its implacable depths. When you spent so much time reaching for other beings within the Force, extending yourself like a thin ribbon of blood leaking into water, you might start to feel removed from your own body. He was pretty sure that was normal. Nobody had ever told him otherwise. The Force flowed through every living thing in the galaxy, true, but Luke was also in the Force. Anchored by the slender rope of his consciousness, calling out to Force-sensitives and echoing like a lonely whale’s song until he finally surfaced, kicking and gasping, with only the dim froth of his own thoughts.

Any Jedi could plunge into darkness. It took someone like Luke or Leia to sink into the terrible ocean of the Force and come back. He was cold sometimes, that was all. And he couldn’t feel his extremities. That was fine. He would keep searching the Force for others like Grogu till the end of his days, and the Force would still be there after Luke was gone. Ancient, mindless, comforting. He was holding Din’s hand for comfort now. He wanted to feel it but he couldn’t. In place of comfort—and companionship—and touch—there were all the Jedi of millennia swimming with Luke, their eyes tranquil and blank, their filigree hands trailing in dark water. There were no new voices except for ghosts, and even the ghosts were mostly silent.

Din was so quiet and observant that Luke guessed he rarely started conversations. So he must’ve been trying to get Luke’s attention for a while before he prompted, ‘Where are we going?’

Luke felt his head swivel to regard Din placidly. ‘To the cantina. Your friends need a drink, don’t they?’

Din did not seem to know what to do with Luke. That was fine, most people didn’t. Luke brought him to the tiny cantina, letting the other three Mandos follow them, letting the villagers’ gazes float away from Din before Din got uncomfortable. Din kept looking over his shoulder, like he couldn’t decide whether to be scared or merely wary. It was the easiest thing in the world to gently turn people’s attention from the stranger in silver armour.

(Luke let them gawk at Din’s companions to their heart’s content, though, because those Mandos seemed like they’d enjoy it.)

The cantina was really more of a tapcafe-cum-diner-cum-lodge, complete with a porter who looked after any unattended parcels. The porter, a dark-skinned human woman with dense curls, held the door open for him. ‘Coming in, Master Skywalker?’

‘I have not been granted the rank of master,’ Luke said automatically, so that Anakin’s ghost would stop making faces at him over her shoulder. ‘Is it okay if the others—’

‘No Mandos!’ barked the porter, obviously noticing Din for the first time. Luke considered the possibility that he had slightly overdone granting Din’s desire to be inconspicuous. With an affronted shake of her curls the porter retreated behind the cantina door, half-closing it in their faces. Two seconds later she opened it again, sighed, ‘Oh, what the hell. He looks very polite,’ and ushered them in.

Luke instinctively made space at the counter for Ben’s ghost, but Ben wasn’t with him today. The absence hurt Luke like a pull at his gut. He held on to Din instead—somewhere else his feet were kicking, untethered, under cubic miles of freezing water—and ordered a drink like everything was perfectly normal.

Din was watching Luke with his head tilted to one side, like everything wasn’t perfectly normal.

‘Oh, sorry,’ said Luke’s mouth, very casual. ‘Forgot I took your hand. Should I let go?’

Din made a low, puzzled sound from some tender place in his throat. ‘No. I don’t mind.’

Then the other three Mandalorians arrived and, thankfully, disrupted the fragile atmosphere between them. ‘All right, all right,’ said Koska with brash relief, snapping her fingers at Din. ‘Djarin, you’re buying.’

‘I don’t have any credits,’ Din replied.

‘You’re wearing pure beskar!’

‘And I don’t have any credits.’

Axe shook his head incredulously. ‘Kriff’s sake, Mand’alor. I’ll buy this round. Bo, you’re paying for the next.’

‘Fine by me.’ Bo-Katan leaned her elbows on the counter—really it could not be called a bar—with the air of somebody who’d run a marathon. The five or six other patrons took in the cantina’s growing Mandalorian presence with palpable alarm. ‘What would you like, Skywalker?’

‘He’s already ordered,’ said Din, who clearly did not intend to order anything for himself.

Luke released Din’s hand before anyone could notice he was holding it. The tapcafe smelled too nice, too clean and unused, without Mos Eisley’s perpetual stink of sweat and Marcan herb smoke. He missed Han. He missed Chewie. The bartender, a heavily scarred widow who doted on Luke, surveyed his armoured companions a little nervously as she slid him a glass of Corellian whiskey.

Luke pulled the glass to himself with the Force, earning a low whistle from Axe. He glanced at the elderly couple drowsing over their ale, the blind veteran contentedly puffing his way through a Shento cigar; the low roof, the damp patch on the floor which never fully dried; the children kicking their feet on a window ledge as they played cards. This was not a place for well-armed strangers. It was not a place for Jedi either, if he was being honest with himself. Distantly he remembered the wide-eyed nineteen-year-old he had once been, spoiled and talkative and getting called ‘little one’ by a man long dead. Luke’s prosthetic hand spasmed despite his best efforts to keep it still. Sometimes his presence attracted Imperial Remnants’ attention, and now this peaceful place had five times as many targets. The grass should have withered with every step he took, with the destruction that followed Luke everywhere. He should have died with Vader.

Focus, he thought, furious at himself. No one had time for Luke’s darkness.

‘Let’s go grab some seats,’ he told the others, since their presence was scaring people away from the counter. The bartender shot him a grateful smile, which made her napalm scars pull her mouth crooked. ‘They’ll come to us for our orders. You can get food too, if you want.’

Axe brightened. ‘Food that doesn’t come out of a ration pack? You bet I want.’

The porter’s wife—who had been a chef before multiple firebombings destroyed her restaurant—hobbled out of the back with stir-fried noodles for the old couple. Behind the counter, a pre-Empire droid mixed carbonated water and concentrate to make juice for the children. The sight was heartbreakingly domestic. Bo-Katan led their little group to a corner booth, her boots distressingly loud on the tiles, and let her cool gaze rove over the civilians like an unconvincing We come in peace signal.

There were three chairs in the booth. There were four Mandalorians.

‘Last one to sit down’s the Mand’alor,’ Axe said, and made a mad dash for the table.

‘You’re such a fucking child,’ whined Koska as she shoved a very offended-looking Bo-Katan out of her way. She made it to one of the chairs just in time, nearly tripping over Axe’s outstretched legs, and Din dropped into the last seat seconds before Bo-Katan reached it.

‘I won’t play your Little Games,’ said Bo-Katan in a tone which somehow made the capitalisation obvious.

Din raised a gloved hand to flag down the server, his helmet somehow radiating satisfaction. ‘Okay, Mand’alor.’

She vibrated in place.

‘All right,’ Luke said, laughing, and levitated two barstools over from the counter. Then a sleepy-looking Rodian arrived to take orders, and all four Mandalorians immediately transformed back into proud, taciturn menaces. Unmasking didn’t make the blue-clad Mandos any less intimidating, especially when they hung their helmets on the booth’s coat hooks like stormtroopers’ heads on spikes. Din was armoured from head to toe and still managed to look the most personable.

Bo-Katan and her two friends had healthy appetites; they ordered plenty of protein, more flavourful and less practical than the high-calorie field rations designed for nourishment rather than enjoyment. A bottle of Mandallian narcolethe was delivered to their table, and Bo-Katan filled three mugs with a satisfied pout. Although Din still didn’t order anything, he did take off his gloves and flex his fingers to relieve muscle ache. His flightsuit sleeve revealed a sliver of bare wrist. Luke tore his eyes away from Din’s hands as another server teetered across the floor, bearing a bantha rump roast on her tray.

Never one to miss anything, Bo-Katan raised her perfect eyebrows at Luke. ‘Not hungry?’

The problem with cooking red meat, Luke thought, was how easily it could smell like human flesh. ‘I’ve already eaten.’

Din tensed beside him as if sensing the lie but didn’t call Luke out on it. Luke sent a careful tendril of thanks towards him in the Force, since Din responded well to gentleness. There were few other beings in the galaxy who made Luke feel so ordinary and safe. He thought of Grogu’s habitual half-blink, his fuzzy and expressive ears, and hoped the child was enjoying hearty meals in Cloud City. Knowing Lando, Grogu was probably better fed than Luke or Din had ever managed.

Luke was desperately homesick.

‘So what’s it like on Chandrila, Jedi,’ Koska began, her tone silky but dangerous, ‘now that the war’s over?’

Luke swirled the whiskey in his glass. ‘No idea. I haven’t been to Chandrila in ages.’ He smiled at her to take the sting out of his words. ‘I’d like to visit Nakadia in the Mid Rim—there are crops and farms I’m curious about, the kind of farms we didn’t have on Tatooine.’

Koska did not take the bait. ‘I hear Chandrila is almost entirely human-inhabited. Ninety-something percent human, in fact. Wonder what it’s like for minorities.’

‘Their immigration policy has not gone uncontested,’ Bo-Katan murmured into her glass.

‘What, like, “Chandrila for the Chandrilans” type of assholes?’

Luke glanced subtly at Din, who couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable if he’d tried. ‘I’m not up to date on Core World politics, I’m afraid. I go to that region maybe once a year.’ Luke was, perhaps, the worst possible candidate to represent the New Republic to these shrewd Mandos with preconceived notions of snooty Core Worlders. ‘Most of the time I’m…’ Peacekeeping. Begging for guidance. Trying not to lose himself. ‘I’m searching for Jedi artefacts,’ he finished, ‘and Force-sensitive children. Not much luck so far, but I’ll keep looking.’

For the first time, Bo-Katan’s eyes sharpened with real interest. ‘And then what? You’ll build a new Jedi Order?’

‘I’ll keep them safe,’ he corrected, ‘until they’re grown up. And help them gain control of their abilities. I’m not stealing children from their parents.’ (Axe snorted at this.) ‘And I don’t intend to bind them to any Jedi code before they’re old enough to decide that’s what they want.’

The tension at the table felt as fine as a spider’s web. Din broke it with his shaky exhale. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t need to, for Luke was already turning to him.

‘I promise to bring Grogu the next time we meet,’ said Luke. ‘I’m sorry I can’t… I don’t…’ He swallowed, wondering how to explain that he didn’t have a temple location to give Din. He could not give out such classified information in a cantina, no matter how quiet, and certainly not with three foreign dignitaries studying his every move. ‘We move around a lot. To be safe.’

There was a delicate silence, during which the Rodian server brought three hot meals to the table. Axe tucked in happily, muttering about nothing tasting as good as tiingilar; the women didn’t touch their food, instead keeping their hawk-like gazes trained on Luke and Din.

Din said in a low, broken voice: ‘I thought he’d be safe with you.’

Luke felt a stab of guilt he welcomed for its familiarity. ‘Grogu’s as safe as he can be,’ he assured Din, knowing how inadequate the response sounded as he gave it. ‘It’s just…’ Pressure built behind his eyelids. He spread out his hands, flesh and cybernetic alike. ‘I have missions, dangerous jobs I can’t bring him on. I swear to you he is protected. He’s with trusted friends.’ Luke was not about to disclose to Bo-Katan Kryze that a Force-sensitive youngling could be found on Bespin, in the care of one General Calrissian. ‘He’s learning to search his feelings and confront the darkness in his memory. He’s starting to understand Wookiee. He can’t speak beyond baby noises, but he draws—I should have brought you one of his pictures, I’m sorry.’ Everything he said was a poor apology for the betrayal of being Luke Skywalker. He was babbling; there were ghosts in the corners of his vision, a throb from the Force in his skull, and he tried very hard not to slip away from the present. He’d already said too much. What if somebody overheard and decided to harm Grogu? What if the clues were enough—the name, why’d he gone and said Grogu’s name in public—to track down Luke’s friends, kill Chewie, kill Lando, take the kid? ‘I don’t have a secure base where the child can stay in one place. I don’t really have a home.’

Koska, her eyes wide, slowly sucked a dumpling into her mouth.

‘Luke.’ Din’s voice sounded odd through his helmet’s modulator. ‘It’s okay. I’m not mad at you. I understand.’

Standing in a dim spot beside the kitchen’s smoky entrance, the ghost of Master Yoda looked on with folded hands. Yoda’s ears, unlike Grogu’s, were neither fuzzy nor expressive. Luke could not meet his master’s gaze. He was doing a lot of things Yoda didn’t approve of all at once.

Fortunately, the Mandalorians fell into conversation as the narcolethe began working on their systems. They ate with zealous efficiency, like people who never knew where their next meal would come from. Luke could tell from the dubious-coloured vegetables (imported, like all foodstuffs on ruined Vetine) and unseasoned-looking meat that the food was not good; but any sit-down meal was a luxury in place of rehydrated rations. He knew how they felt. He recognised how they ate. He’d eaten like that once.

The server had been bringing them a steady stream of refills, and Luke had just polished off his latest drink when Koska tipped the Mandalorians’ second bottle of narcolethe towards him. ‘Want some?’

Din had his chin propped in his palm, still not eating or drinking but soaking up the cantina’s soft chatter, its liquor-golden warmth as evening melted into night. After a careful glance his way, Luke accepted Koska’s slightly unsteady pour and knocked back the shot with only a little bit of grimacing. ‘Is this ship fuel?’

‘Yes,’ said Koska.

‘No,’ said Bo-Katan.

‘You could probably use it for that purpose,’ Axe said thoughtfully, ‘but what a waste of alcohol.’

In the long term, drinking with Mandos on an empty stomach ranked rather low on Luke’s list of bad decisions. Yoda had disappeared from the shadows, and Luke could not find his father in Yoda’s place. Instead, all he found was the perpetual feeling tugging at the base of his skull—his own mute helplessness—as if everything he’d ever done had made him regress further into infancy. Luke often felt like he’d grown smaller with every deed: a young man flying in his first battle, a rash boy falling from Cloud City, a child casting aside his only protection and saying, I will not fight you, Father. And now he was twenty-eight, in standard years if not in spirit, and he had no more knowledge or purpose than when he’d let go on Bespin and plunged willingly into the abyss.

All he could do was listen to the Force. And the Force was only as articulate as Luke himself. If the Force had a voice, to Luke it sounded like this: the thin animal wail of a creature in pain. Luke could not fix every broken thing he came across. He could only land his X-wing on bleeding worlds and try not to deepen the wounds.

Axe spoke to him, perhaps realising that both Din and Luke had gone silent for some time, and Luke’s thoughts flattened into a distant hum. ‘Where are you headed after this?’

‘I’ve picked up the trail of possible Force-sensitives,’ Luke said, and again he pictured the shadow of a solitary whale passing beneath an ocean’s surface. Of course he couldn’t mention which planet for security reasons, but he named the sector. ‘Will that be convenient for where you’re going?’

Bo-Katan held a rapid conversation in glances with her companions. ‘Sure, it’s a little out of the way but we can drop you off. Still riding in that X-wing?’

He nodded. ‘It’s in disputed territory, so I might see combat.’ Hence, no Grogu—and he wasn’t about to reveal the child’s existence to potentially the entire galaxy at his public appearances. With a pained smile, Luke reached over the table to refill his glass. ‘I try to keep the peace, but you know how it is.’

Bo-Katan’s answering smirk said she had been well-trained in the Padmé Amidala school of aggressive negotiation. ‘I do indeed.’

Din’s helmet turned suddenly towards Luke, making Luke’s mind go quiet. Through the black visor Luke could almost sense his eyes. ‘If I pick you up afterwards, can we go see Grogu?’

His voice held so much loving eagerness that some hungry and invisible creature clutched at Luke’s throat. Even Anakin had never spoken to Luke this way. ‘Yes. Of course.’

Koska sneered over the rim of her mug. ‘Have you really got time to indulge our Mand’alor, hero of the Rebellion?’

Luke did not notice he had made the napkins levitate until Din gently touched his knee. He lowered them back onto the tabletop, and everybody pretended not to notice. ‘It’s the New Republic now, actually.’

‘Not that the name change makes any difference,’ Axe muttered. ‘Bunch of heroes on the Core Worlds, patting themselves on the backs and doing fuck-all for anyone else…’

‘Is this how you usually talk politics?’ Din asked. ‘Over your shitty dinners in shitty little cantinas?’

His tone was neutral, but Axe winced and the nastiness in the air dissipated.

‘Forgive us, Jedi,’ said Bo-Katan civilly. ‘No offence intended.’

Luke did not take offence at anything these days. It was hard to refuse blame from living beings who’d experienced untold suffering. Harder still to appease the ghosts who watched Luke sleepwalk through the galaxy, a man haloed by death, and demanded: How many lives had you taken by the time you turned twenty-five? How many thousands—with their own desires, destinies, dreams—breathed their last so that you could fight on?

He’d been keeping to himself more and more often, so that others (especially Leia, who could feel his thoughts) wouldn’t have to deal with such bleakness. Long before Grogu, Luke had already known that something had irreversibly changed him. How could he not know, when he was haunted by millions of planetary souls? Two months ago he’d been diving for coral-crusted Jedi treasures on a solemn waterworld, and some undying echo of the Force had stilled his limbs. He’d come back to himself hanging upside down in the deepest cave, his blood icy, his body full of water, spirits whispering in his lungs; he had seen himself from outside his own body and known his eyes were open and dull. The welcoming Force had swirled its currents around him. He had looked very small, and very cold.

It was always harder to come back than to let yourself slip away. To let yourself join with the Force and its inhuman eternal tides.

Everything had been fine. He’d pulled himself out, or the Force had pulled him out, and a healing trance that lasted for six days had taken care of the after-effects. But Luke had known in the still and ancient depths of that ocean that nobody could reach him—not Leia, nor Lando, nor Han. There was no one in the galaxy who could save Luke. He was shatteringly alone.

Axe cursed appreciatively, dragging Luke back to the present. ‘Trying to out-drink Mandalorians, are we? Do you want to die?’

Yes. ‘No,’ Luke said, amused. ‘I’m from Tatooine, I can hold my liquor.’

Bo-Katan snorted. ‘Don’t let him bait you, Skywalker. If you value your liver at all, you won’t get drawn into a competition.’

‘Oh, I’ve been to cantinas on Tatooine,’ said Din. ‘You’ll excuse me for betting on Skywalker.’

Axe made an affronted noise. ‘You’ve been travelling with us for what, months, and now you decide to run off with a Jedi?’

‘I like him more than you.’

‘He’s keeping up, all right,’ said Bo-Katan dryly through Koska’s raucous bark of laughter. ‘Wouldn’t have thought it to look at him, but the little Jedi fits in with us just fine.’

It had been such a long time since anyone had called Luke little. He wanted Ben very badly now; he wanted Aunt Beru to pet his hair, as she had often done when she was alive. He swallowed down the sudden unbearable pain of longing. No one will come to save you, he thought, and reminded himself to release his feelings into the numbing Force.

‘Is it okay with you, though?’ Din asked. His soft voice was the rasp of somebody who rarely allowed himself to hope. ‘Can I go with him?’

‘Oh fuck you,’ said Bo-Katan, which was the first indication she’d given of not being entirely sober. ‘You don’t need my permission. You’re the Mand’alor. I don’t want to hear you asking me whether your little friend Luke can come over to play.’

‘Don’t take it to heart,’ Koska told them both, patting Bo-Katan’s breastplate consolingly. ‘She treats everyone like a child once she’s had a couple of pints.’

Bo-Katan took Koska’s hand and moved it away from her left tit. ‘Yes, you can see your son. Kark’s sake. I trust you’ll come back promptly to fulfil your duty—you wouldn’t be a Mandalorian otherwise.’

Din’s shoulders relaxed with a rush of relief. ‘This is the Way.’

‘This is the Way!’ Koska repeated, raising her glass in triumph. ‘Cheers, we’ll drink to that. Drink to seeing your son again… oh, you’re not drinking. Cheers, Jedi.’

Whatever sneering suspicions she’d nursed initially, they seemed to have subsided when Luke didn’t snipe back at her. ‘You can call me Luke,’ he told Koska, clinking their glasses together.

‘Thanks, I won’t.’

Luke looked at Din through damp eyelashes. At some point he’d begun leaning on Din’s shoulder, and Din’s arm came up protectively to encircle him now. ‘Are you often the sober one among them?’

‘Yes,’ Din said in a tone that spoke volumes.

Two hours later they were stumbling across the square towards the bakery, Koska a happy, mumbling mess, Axe yawning every few seconds. Luke was explaining how the bakery had guest rooms on the second floor—how the bakers wanted to open an inn, had been renovating for months—when Bo-Katan shoved him backwards. He’d been about to cross the road without looking both ways.

‘Watch out for speeding hovercraft!’

‘Kryze, there are no speeding hovercraft,’ Din said behind her, sounding extremely tired. ‘There are no hovercraft. I’m not sure there are any vehicles.’

‘You have to look both ways at a pedestrian crossing,’ said Bo-Katan grouchily, ‘it’s the law.’

‘I don’t think they have traffic laws here.’

‘Huh.’ Axe screwed up his booze-flushed face. ‘Do you think they have electricity?’

‘You city scuffers are the worst,’ Luke complained, marching them across the road with a huff. ‘Yes, sir, we do have electricity in the countryside. We even have running water, isn’t that incredible? You can clean your teeth in the sink before bed.’

‘What, no sonic showers?’ Axe demanded.

‘Don’t engage,’ Din muttered, though there was an unmistakable smile in his voice. ‘They’re messing with you. This is their idea of being friendly.’

‘Axe is messing with him,’ Koska pointed out. ‘I’m staying out of it.’

‘Like hell you are. Take the sprigs off his jacket.’

‘What?’ Luke patted his own back, dislodging several sprays of feathery leaves Koska had somehow stuck on without him noticing. ‘Oh, come on!’

Amidst the general cries of Din not being any fun, Luke managed to lead them up the bakery’s back stairs with only minimal use of the Force. ‘You can keep your shoes on,’ he assured them, when all four Mandalorians began lining up their boots on the staircase landing.

‘We absolutely cannot,’ squawked Koska. ‘Maker, who raised you?’

‘Enough.’ Din had his helmet leaning heavily against the doorframe, one hand on his hip. ‘Two rooms. Five guests. Split up.’

‘I’ve been keeping my stuff in the smaller room,’ Luke began apologetically, ‘but I can move if you’d rather—’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

Axe and Bo-Katan pushed their way into the bigger room on the left, though not before Bo-Katan warned everyone else: ‘The Mand’alor must sleep alone.’

Luke thought this was just another of her grand gestures until Koska echoed, ‘Oh, yeah, ‘cause of his helmet and whatever.’

‘Hmm?’ Luke turned to Din, who looked solemn and sweet and breathtakingly lovely in the dust-streaked corridor. ‘Are you okay?’

Din’s helmet tilted quizzically. ‘Yeah.’

‘Come on in, Jedi,’ Koska said, tugging at Luke’s wrist. ‘Give the Mand’alor his privacy.’

Din spoke with the grim assurance of a tired dad. ‘I don’t want the Jedi sharing with three Mandos.’

‘Four to one room is tight,’ Luke admitted, ‘but I don’t mind.’

‘Mand’alor, it’s fine. We sleep on our ship for kriff’s sake.’ Axe wrinkled his nose. ‘You scared he’ll murder us in our sleep? I think we can take him.’

‘I’m more concerned that you’ll annoy him to death,’ Din retorted, ‘and then I’ll have to go through the hassle of finding my kid a new teacher.’ Then to Luke, with some alarm, ‘Where do you want to sleep?’

He was so polite that Luke did not know how to handle him. ‘My stuff is in the smaller room,’ Luke repeated dumbly, lurching towards Din. ‘So…’

‘Okay.’ For the second time that night, Din’s arm came up to support Luke. ‘Three to the big room, two to the small room. Fair? Everybody happy?’

‘But Mand’alor,’ Koska whined. At the same time, the other two Mandos stuck their heads into the corridor: Bo-Katan to ask, ‘What’s the rush?’ and Axe to hiss in a poor attempt at a whisper, ‘Hey Din, you sure you wanna let him raise your kid? He wears shoes inside!’

‘Enough,’ said Din again, now with an edge of desperation. He propped his chin, or the helmeted equivalent, on top of Luke’s head. ‘It’s late. Everyone to bed now, no arguing. I’ll sleep with Luke and that’s final.’

Everything about this situation was so bewilderingly human that Luke felt like a star collapsing. He turned his face briefly into Din’s shoulder, feeling normal for the first time in months; he could smell cumin and the warm musk of sweat, and this sensation was so real that Luke forgot to look for ghosts in the corners of the landing. As he led Din into the smaller guest room, the other Mandos vanished, too, in a flurry of whispers. Luke overheard ‘Whoa, that’s the most Mand’alor-like he’s acted all year,’ and ‘Who knew the way to make Djarin embrace leadership was to get pissed and act like children?’

Din ignored their hushed voices with the resolve of a very, very patient man. He sat down on the edge of the futon and began removing his vambraces, and his blaster, and other weapons and weaponised armour Luke was too drunk to catalogue. Luke slumped to the floor, hot liquid rising in his stomach.

‘You can’t take off your helmet around me,’ he said, feeling stupid.

The visor turned towards him. ‘It’s okay.’

Luke could not apologise enough for showing up armed and Grogu-less, not when Din was being so nice to him. He scooted over to the futon’s other side and began unlacing his shoes. At least the mattress was more than big enough for them both. ‘I’m sorry you have to share.’

Din said mildly, ‘I like having a roommate.’

‘You can’t stand the other Mandalorians,’ Luke translated.

There was a soft huff of a laugh. ‘They have their moments.’ Din lifted his helmet just a little to drink water from his hip flask. He set the flask down on the floor instead of replacing it on his utility belt, and Luke watched, jealous of the metal which had known Din’s mouth. ‘I’ve slept in my armour before.’

‘I’ll turn my back,’ Luke promised, caught up in the way Din’s hair could be seen curling sweetly at the base of his helmet. After twenty-eight years of life there was no Luke, not any longer; there was only a black hole of yearning. ‘You won’t even notice I’m here.’

At this Din turned around sharply, but Luke was already padding across the mat-covered floor in his socks to switch off the light. He felt his way back in the darkness, which was difficult when he couldn’t feel his feet; he was starting to go away again.

‘Luke,’ Din said, sounding upset for reasons Luke couldn’t determine. ‘You can take up all the space you like.’

Luke drifted towards the window, using two fingers and the Force to open the blinds. Moonlight streamed into the room. Somewhere in the galaxy—somewhere very far away—people were watching their own moons, breathing their own silver-lit air, tucking themselves into bed with friends and lovers and families.

‘I didn’t think Jedi were like this,’ Din said quietly to himself, and then: ‘Ahsoka wasn’t.’

Something awful cracked inside Luke. ‘Who is Ahsoka?’

Din made a sound like he’d been slapped. ‘Bo-Katan can explain.’

Din was still mostly armoured, but he’d shed several small (possibly explosive) parts in a tidy pile beside the mattress. He stood and came over to touch Luke’s shoulder, rather carefully, as if Luke might fall apart at a tap.

‘Come back. You need to sleep and there’s enough room on the mattress for two people.’

‘I’m not a person,’ Luke explained patiently. It was a common mistake. ‘I’m a Jedi.’

Din’s hands came up to grip both his arms, holding him in place. ‘Please come to bed.’

Luke floated back down to the ground—whether physically or figuratively, he couldn’t be sure. It was always hard to tell with the Force. He followed Din to the centre of the room, blind and trusting, and snuggled down on his side of the futon. There was a whisper of fabric: Din had taken off his cape to use as a blanket. Oh, Luke thought.

‘Kiss,’ said Luke, tilting his face up, and Din obediently bonked their heads together. This seemed to make sense, so Luke tucked the cape around them both and went to sleep.

---

In the morning Din woke first, dressed as quietly as he could, and went downstairs to the bakery. He bought roti prata from a kindly breakfast cook and hiked out of the village to a little clearing he’d spotted from the speeder. Seated on the fossil of a fallen trunk, he unwrapped his parcel and dipped each piece in the accompanying tin of vegetable curry. The food was good. The frothy tea, which came in a small tin cup with a hinged lid, tasted sweet and strong. By the time he put his helmet back on, he was nearly full.

On some jobs, Din had gone hungry for days when he couldn’t find the chance to eat in complete solitude. He sucked his fingers clean and told himself he had endured worse hunger hunting for the Guild; in the sewers of Nevarro; on war-battered and ration-poor Aq Vetina. Here, he was at no one’s mercy save his own. Nobody was starving him.

He still couldn’t bring himself to fill his stomach to capacity. It felt wrong, somehow.

When he got back, the Mandos were eating on the steps outside the bakery, and Luke’s dark gold head was gleaming in the weak sunlight as Bo-Katan distributed napkins. She seemed to be telling Luke stories about somebody named Obi-Wan.

Axe raised a lazy hand in greeting as Din drew nearer. Din found a cleaner droid scrubbing dishes in a huge pail of soapy water, and returned the bakery’s tiffin carrier to the appropriate plastoid tray. He could hear Luke asking with the wistfulness of a very young child, ‘Did you know my mother? Did she… did she ever visit Mandalore?’

There was so much longing in Luke’s voice that Din hesitated. He wasn’t supposed to overhear this. But Luke saw him, and turned with a faint smile; and then there was no going back.

Notes:

I had to split this planned chapter multiple times for pacing, sorry! Making fic promises and not delivering them, name a more iconic duo

Chapter 5

Notes:

On desktop, hover over italicised Mando'a words to see translations (though meanings should be clear from context)

They stayed four days on Vetine. Din found a family willing to lend out their fresher and took frequent showers, blissfully undisturbed, until he felt guilty and made Bo-Katan pay their water bill. Koska repotted flowers for a beautiful widow. Axe did glitterstim with the elderly, to everyone’s utter bewilderment. Luke mostly sat listening to lonely neighbours, rocking in an old wicker chair outside the cigarra store, his features softened by smoky air as he endured their rambling stories.

On their third and final night, Luke came to fetch Din after supper. ‘I’m fixing up something in our room,’ he told Din. They were seated around a firepit on the edge of the village. Luke hadn’t joined them, and Din was acutely aware that he had never seen Luke eat. ‘Do you wanna come see? I meant to have it finished before our last night, truly I did, but I’m twenty-eight years old and my backaches have backaches.’

Din followed him into the village, baffled and hopelessly charmed. The humble buildings looked squat and homely beneath wrecked skies; the main street ran thin and winding like a river. Luke’s footsteps were so light and his gait so even that Din couldn’t tell if he was walking or floating. With shelter and protection from nocturnal beasts, Din could almost pretend they were safe on Vetine. He could almost get used to the faraway rumblings which woke him just before sunrise; he wanted to believe they were storms, but they sounded less like thunder than the growling of a massive subterranean dragon. Din had had quite enough of dragons.

(Last night, when he’d been rattled enough to get up and stand uneasily by the window, Luke had not tried to persuade him that the noises were only thunder. Luke had just made a soft, rhythmic shushing sound, one arm flung out across the futon, and Din had returned to bed with a little less anxiety than before. He couldn’t be sure whether Luke had even been awake. He wasn’t sure whether the villagers were protecting Luke from the elements by letting him sleep there, or if Luke was protecting them.)

Now he pictured villages springing up on ruined Mandalore, just as this one had emerged on ruined Vetine. He didn’t harbour much hope of ever seeing the city domes—surely Mandalore’s greatest monuments had been flattened by the Empire—but he could imagine the fossilised remains of obscure settlements too tiny to nuke. He wondered whether any refugees had returned to Mandalore. Surely some had. If any group was obstinate enough to eke out a living on a glassed planet, it was the Mandalorians.

The way Din felt about Mandalore was the way Luke felt about his unseen mother. Giants of legend had walked upon that planet’s surface before its destruction. Neighbours had feasted together in vheh'yaime larger than Din’s whole covert; families had had time to prepare dishes more complicated than haashun. There had been art and ballads lost in the Purge, poems which hadn’t escaped offworld, stories no one had been able to tell Din. Under star-filled heavens and the watchful eyes of the Ka’ra, Mandalorians might have gathered in greater numbers than Din had ever seen. They might have cooed over their sleeping children and entertained the waking ones with holovids. They might have sung merry songs and beaten metal-plated fists on metal-plated knees, making their armour sing with them, so that the clear night rang with the music of beskar.

He had only the vaguest idea of what a Mandalorian homeworld might look like. When you had lost so much history, you did not even know enough to realise what you had lost.

Up the stairs, and through the entrance to the landing, and Luke was leading him forward like a silent house-ghost. ‘Come on,’ Luke said, beckoning Din with one hand. Then his lips thinned; his gaze fixed itself on a point somewhere over Din’s shoulder. Din turned around to look, but he didn’t see anything and Luke didn’t offer an explanation.

Their room above the bakery smelled of fresh wood shavings. Spices from the cooking downstairs had not yet soaked into the walls. In the years to come, this room might begin to smell like steamed buns and curries, and guests would curse the aromas they couldn’t wash out of their clothing. The thought made Din unbelievably sad. He wouldn’t be here for that; he would never stay in one place long enough to see it change.

As a poor sort of consolation, he tried to commit the window view to memory. A fine mist covered the whole village: the arch of the cantina, the desolate war memorial in the central square. He could see specks of ash or dust swirling in the perpetually musty air, tiny motes as lightless as fireflies were bright. No music, or young and happy life. No light sources except the dim gleam of moonlight—two moons tonight, pale and uncanny. Even the rough noises of the Nevarro Guild would have been welcome. This place felt like a raised scar on the planet’s surface.

Luke’s serene gaze had skated all around the room, as if checking for intruders, and come to rest on Din with a tiny, absent smile. The way he looked at Din was steady and sure, and it made something grow warm in Din’s stomach.

‘Notice anything different?’

‘There’s a double moon,’ Din said. ‘Did you do that?’

Luke’s smile blossomed into a blinding eclipse. ‘I don’t control the weather, Din.’

‘Okay,’ said Din, noting that Luke had not specified whether he could. ‘What am I looking at?’

Luke reached over the windowsill and tugged on the blinds’ pull cord. He drew them closed, shutting out the subtle flare of moonlight, and at once the room was plunged into blackness. Din blinked hard, then shook his head a little. It was far darker than he remembered. Granted, he’d spent the past two nights concentrating on Luke’s habit of throwing a leg over Din in his sleep.

‘Blackout curtains,’ Luke explained. ‘Good, there aren’t any gaps. I was worried about that.’ He opened the blinds again, letting wan moonlight back into the room, and then sat down on the dusty floor to untwist the pull cord. ‘I pleated the fabric to make it fan over the existing blinds. So you can shut out the light with one easy step… See?’ He demonstrated once more, his eyelashes fluttering from the rapid shift from visibility to darkness to light. ‘This way, you should be able to sleep without your armour.’

Din watched Luke’s clever fingers untangle a knot in the cord. His skin prickled with the fantasy of touch. Din knew he did not belong here, on a planet still struggling to recover from Imperial occupation, and he didn’t know where he did; he only wished to settle down in a place that felt less lonely than himself. And now he wasn’t thinking about places at all. He was looking at Luke, at that patient expression, and wondering if Luke had been made compassionate by a lifetime of sleeping rough.

‘Is this okay?’ Luke craned his neck to gaze up at Din, sweet and upturned like a flower rising to the sun. ‘I thought you’d like to be more comfortable. Does this work for your Creed?’

Inside his armour, Din’s bones had turned to liquid. He wanted to touch Luke’s cheek, dirty flight gloves and all; he wanted to ask what Luke dreamed about at night. ‘It works,’ he answered gruffly. He’d slept in a narrow bunk on the Razor Crest for so long that sharing his bed with a kindly Jedi was luxury. He thought this must be what home felt like: knowing that your comfort was special to someone else.

‘That’s good.’ Luke finished straightening the blinds and let his capable, pretty hands go still in his lap. His hair whiskey-coloured in the low light, his eyes calm as the dawn, he regarded Din searchingly from his seated position. Din couldn’t tell what he was looking for, but he seemed to find it in Din’s body language or posture. Apparently satisfied, he leaned his head against Din’s knee for just a moment and said, ‘Boop.’

Din contemplated marriage.

Since it was their last night on Vetine, they turned in early. There was something weighty yet fragile in the air between them, like a shared secret. Din did not like the village and yet he could hardly bear to leave—to let this brief breathing space come to an end. The blackout curtains were no joke. Even when his eyes got used to the darkness, the most Din could make out was Luke’s blurry outline moving around their small room, rearranging the pile of blankets he’d somehow amassed over two days.

Shielded from the moons outside, Din undid the clasps of his armour by touch.

He was familiar enough with his own body that he could have gone through the steps in his sleep. Peeling off these protective parts of himself was a ritual, sacred, sweet; it drew its sweetness from the safety of the Creed. With his chestplate’s gentle pressure and support, with all his armour to shape him, Din did not need a binder. There was his armour and then there was his flesh. Secret and beloved: a holy body remade each time he took his armour off and put it back on. Din’s armour did not conceal him, it created him. He liked the sequence of layers that formed himself. He liked how sleekly his armour fit him—a single shell which nevertheless came away in pieces—and he liked how the makers had always left out a crotch plate. He liked the quiet, unhurried process it took to remove his shell in fragments, the shell which made Din look exactly the way he wanted, and he liked brushing a hand down his front after everything was off and knowing that this body was still Din.

The room’s stale air was comforting, in that its discomfort was familiar from countless nights underground and in space. Nonetheless, he shivered when it brushed his skin: when he was down to his thin singlet and undershorts. Helmetless, yet hidden still. Here were all these tender places, these unseen parts of him, safe under cover of darkness. Luke couldn’t see them and wouldn’t have looked if he could have.

Din had taken so long to undress that he thought Luke must be asleep when he slid into bed. But Luke rolled over and whispered, ‘Hey.’

‘Hey,’ Din whispered back. He slipped further down into their shared cocoon of blankets. It was slightly too warm here, with the telltale scent of cheap bedding in a poorly ventilated space. He could feel tension unspooling in inky tendrils from his lungs—escaping, with a hiss of released air, into the placid night.

‘I told the ghosts to go away,’ Luke confided. ‘I don’t like them watching me sleep.’

His voice was the placid, almost singsong murmur of someone barely awake. Din took a second or two to digest what Luke was saying. He tried to picture Luke’s profile in the perfect blackness, blankets pulled over his head, pupils dilated: fine lashes and lovely eyes lost to the night.

‘Do you see ghosts often?’

‘Mm-hmm.’

Din had been very careful not to sound shocked or worse, disbelieving. When Luke spoke again, Din knew he had succeeded.

‘Force ghosts,’ said Luke simply, sleepily. ‘They talk to me a lot. Well. They talk at me.’

Din sensed that Luke could not tell these things to people who knew Luke better; that he felt safe telling them to Din. They were not strangers to each other, but they didn’t have the closeness which rose like a barrier between family and friends: the years, the baggage that kept you from sharing your darkest self. Blindly, Din reached out in the darkness. His hand found Luke’s in the small sheltered space between them. ‘That must bother you.’

Luke was silent for so long that Din assumed he’d finally fallen asleep. But he moved at last, with a rustle and a sigh, and said: ‘No. It’s the ones I don’t see that bother me.’

Din could not guess why Luke had chosen him to hear this. He had no right to question it, to do anything that might push Luke away. All he could do was hold Luke’s hand as gently as he knew how and ask, ‘Who?’

‘Lots of people,’ Luke said distantly. ‘My Aunt Beru, and my Uncle Owen. Biggs, and… and my mother Padmé, whom I never knew, and all the others gone forever, the ones who don’t come to me in the Force.’

Din did not know what to say. He had had no contact with his own dead. It would not be helpful—it would not be right—to mention that most people didn’t have Force ghosts and that Luke was merely experiencing loss in the ordinary way, like everybody else. There was nothing ordinary about grief.

He exhaled, and knew Luke could feel his exhale. Luke had unknowingly done them both a favour by fixing the blinds. Darkness masked him as well as Din; otherwise Din might have looked and looked at him all night.

‘It’s good that you say their names.’ Din’s mouth was very dry. He swallowed thickly. ‘You have to say their names.’

‘To remember losing them?’

‘No,’ Din said. ‘To keep them with you.’

Luke squeezed his hand. Din could not breathe.

‘You know about the Death Stars?’ Luke whispered, and Din hummed assent. Each word sounded like the breath being punched out of his lungs. ‘When thousands of beings die all at once—like Alderaan, or Mindor—their spirits cry out. And I can feel it. A wound in the living Force.’

Din moved closer. He didn’t understand how the Force worked and didn’t think he ever would. Still, he was trying to understand something—not the Force, nor anything that could be numbered in the thousands, but the lone dark voice of a Jedi with nowhere else to turn.

‘What does it feel like?’

Fabric rustled as Luke shifted against the mattress. He didn’t answer directly. Instead he murmured, mostly to Din but partly to himself, ‘I don’t know how my sister copes. The Death Star destroyed her planet.’

Din didn’t have time to puzzle this out, knowing that Tatooine was very much intact. If Luke and his sister were from different planets—well, Din’s most immediate frame of reference was the remote Outer Rim. ‘Scarif?’

Luke’s tone sharpened with horror. ‘Alderaan. There were more?’

Din clutched at him instinctively, feeling a wild kind of fear. There was no way Din could talk about what had happened to Scarif. He wasn’t equipped for this at all. He could only cup his free hand over the back of Luke’s neck, thinking frantically: Don’t go away. ‘Luke.’

‘Like a black hole,’ Luke said, and Din struggled to follow for an instant before realising he’d picked up the thread of Din’s question. It was concerning how Luke slipped from one thing to the next, like a man groping at boundary stones in a thick and endless fog. ‘Like a wound where their lights should be. Because it’s not just darkness. It’s growing, and it’s eating away at itself, and it never stops; it goes and it goes. In the whole galaxy. Because nothing ever stops or decays, you know, in space. Just stays there. Forever. A hole torn open and it can’t be closed up again.’

Din held steady, thumb sweeping along the slant of Luke’s jaw, his cheekbone. Luke didn’t react to the touch. Din could not reach him when he got like this, and it was awful and worrying, and Din couldn’t just come out and say That’s incredibly fucked up, even though it was.

‘You’re not a wound,’ he said at last. He could not talk about the Force or the scale of mass destruction. There was nothing he could say that Luke didn’t already know. But he could find Luke somewhere in that terrible vastness, and insist that it was okay to be human-sized. ‘You’re not… death, or a black hole. I’ve seen you, and you’re not.’

Luke’s voice was quiet, fragile. ‘No?’

‘You’re a person,’ Din said, surer now. He felt skin under his palm, the tickle of baby hairs, and his other hand held securely to Luke’s own. ‘I can feel you. You’re solid, you’re real.’

Luke turned his face into the pillow but didn’t dislodge Din’s grasp. Din let his palm rest against the back of Luke’s head; he felt somehow comforted, even though he was the one giving comfort. He always took much better care of himself when he was caring for someone else.

He put his cheek against the pillow too, and felt its coarse cool weave. For the first time, he managed to recall Grogu sleeping (cuddled up to Din’s chest, on a blanket thrown over the armour so it wouldn’t feel so hard) without tears prickling behind his eyelids.

For the first time, too, Din noticed that Luke’s hand felt slightly different from his own. He smoothed a thumb over Luke’s palm, recognising the subtle give of synthskin. This must be the hand Luke kept gloved—for warmth, maybe, or just because Luke liked to control how it looked.

‘Cybernetic,’ Luke mumbled, reading his thoughts. ‘My father cut my hand off six years ago.’

Din tensed, thinking ferociously of Grogu. He remembered how he’d reacted when a bandit had held a knife to Grogu’s throat, and kept silent so as not to be impolite.

‘It’s okay,’ whispered Luke, even though it was very much not okay. ‘In fairness, I was trying to kill him at the time.’

Din intertwined their fingers, burning with furious affection. ‘Luke.’

‘Aw, pfassk, don’t sound like that. I can joke about it now.’

There were choices to be made in such a surreal intimacy as this—fragments of stories, fragments of sentences, alight and alive in the overheated dark. Two forlorn people on a forlorn planet. Luke had made a choice, tonight, to open up to Din; and now Din made his choice. He reached over Luke’s waist and pulled him roughly into a sideways hug. Luke made a soft choking sound, like he hadn’t expected that, and his lips brushed Din’s ear. Din could almost hear him thinking, or not-thinking, as he slid from broken memory to memory.

‘They were burned up,’ Luke whispered. ‘I was nineteen.’

Din didn’t ask who they were. Everybody had a they. He did not need to know which loved ones, specifically, had died.

‘Was away.’ Again that choked sob. ‘From the farm.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘Came home and—’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I saw. The bodies.’

For several seconds Din could not breathe, or speak. ‘For me it was…’ He almost couldn’t get the words out. He had not said their names aloud for years. ‘I never saw my parents’ bodies.’

Luke held him close. ‘Nothing left?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come here,’ Luke commanded, so Din nestled right up to him. Surely Luke could feel Din’s chest through the singlet, could feel that Din’s body was not like his; yet nothing in his embrace betrayed any reaction. He rested his forehead on Din’s shoulder with a contented sigh.

Din wondered whether Luke believed that touching your forehead to anything constituted a Mandalorian kiss. He pictured Luke going around bonking his head on things and put his mouth to Luke’s fluffy hair, thinking, cyar'ika.

(Din woke in the night to the warm weight of Luke’s arm slung over his waist, cybernetic hand curled protectively near his collarbone. Luke had tucked his face into the crook of Din’s neck, and his breathing ruffled the hairs there. He was deeply asleep.

Din tried to move, but Luke grumbled without waking and clung to him. So he snuggled up against Luke, feeling small and beloved, safe.)

---

Next morning Luke said, bright and cheerful as anything, ‘So who’s covering the inn bill?’

Bo-Katan stared daggers at him. He didn’t appear to notice.

Leaning against the landing’s balustrade as he put on his boots, Din smirked at her from the safety of his helmet. The other Mandos, unlike Din and Luke, had not turned in early the previous night. ‘Hungover?’

‘Epar ner shebs,’ she replied, though without vitriol.

Axe raked one hand through his greasy hair. The dark circles beneath his eyes had deepened. ‘Who are we paying exactly?’

‘Wait, we have to pay for the rooms?’ Koska demanded, before Bo-Katan smacked her arm and muttered something about supporting the local economy. ‘Did they warn us they were charging rent? I didn’t know we were paying for the rooms.’

Luke tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe. ‘Well, credits are usually exchanged for goods and services.’

‘We don’t need your sass, Skywalker.’ Bo-Katan screwed up her face. She patted her pockets; a vein pulsed in her temple. ‘Do you have any credits?’

‘I’m a Jedi.’

‘That is not an answer.’

‘I’m a Jedi.’

Bo-Katan inhaled loudly, closed her eyes in exasperation, and then picked up her helmet and shoved it into her armpit. ‘Come with me.’

Luke followed her down the stairs towards the bakery’s cash register. Everybody else trooped after them, footsteps noisy in the hushed morning. Unexpectedly Din felt excited to be back on the move; it was wondrous what a good night’s sleep did for him.

‘I can’t believe you got by without enough credits for even a round of booze,’ Axe muttered in Din’s direction as Luke floated a door open. ‘How’d you pay for bed and board?’

Din shrugged. ‘Killed a krayt dragon.’

In despair, Axe raised his eyes to the low ceiling. ‘This fucking guy.’

Behind the bakery counter stood a lavender-skinned Mirialan, plump and hearty-looking with a pot belly. He greeted them genially as he dusted off his floury hands on his apron. ‘I know you,’ he said, nodding at Luke, ‘but if you don’t mind me asking, who have we had the pleasure of hosting these past three nights?’

‘The ruler of Mandalore and his entourage,’ Bo-Katan replied coolly, being clever enough to cut Din off before he could say something stupid like She’s in charge or She bullied me into this field trip or We don’t have any credits.

‘An honour, an honour!’ said the baker-cum-innkeeper, beaming. The old-fashioned register coughed, shuddered, and eventually spat out a printed rectangle of actual paper. Din watched it flutter, fascinated. ‘Here’s your bill for the accommodation. If you wouldn’t mind checking that everything’s in order…’

Bo-Katan looked at the number of credits listed on the bill. She glanced away for a second, and then looked at it again incredulously. The number did not get any smaller. Next to her, Din also looked at it. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

‘Perhaps,’ Luke suggested, ‘we might give you a cheque instead of paying upfront.’

‘Sure!’ With the delighted flourish of somebody who rarely had guests, the Mirialan began programming his bank details into a little hexagonal plastoid token. ‘Take this to any IGBC outlet within the next ten standard days so their agents don’t come looking for you. If you’ll please input your chain code…’

‘You need our chain codes?’ asked Bo-Katan, her jaw clenching.

‘Just one of you!’ said the baker pleasantly, not noticing that this was anything unusual. ‘It’s standard procedure for identification purposes. Also, comlink details!’

‘Is this legal?’ Koska whispered out of the baker’s earshot. ‘It’s all so… above board.’

Axe scowled. ‘Think so. Horrid, right? I don’t think there’s even any fraud involved.’

‘If this is what the straight and narrow looks like, I don’t enjoy it one bit.’

‘Quiet, you,’ Din said mildly. He stood beside Bo-Katan in wordless camaraderie as the little token vibrated across the counter, beeping oppressively. When neither of them moved to take it, he hissed out of the corner of his mouth: ‘You’re responsible for this.’

Bo-Katan’s lashes fluttered in resentment. ‘No, you are.’

‘No, you.’

‘Not me. You.’

‘Nope.’

‘I’ll deal with this if none of the Mandos can,’ Luke chirped, and Bo-Katan’s hand shot out to grab the token at once. Behind her back, Luke and Din exchanged glances of triumph and gratitude respectively.

They strolled out onto the sunlit street in a loose-knit group, after Bo-Katan had sullenly submitted her contact information to be synced to IGBC’s holonet provider. Clouds were already settling on the horizon’s jagged mountains; Din could tell that the day’s pale sunshine would not survive much longer. The Darksaber hung on his hip, plainly visible, and his armour and spear glittered like a challenge. He had the feeling of emerging from a secure burrow into the light.

‘What’s gonna happen when the bank runs your chain code?’ Din asked.

Bo-Katan pursed her lips, undoubtedly recalling decades of armed lawbreaking. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

‘Is that supposed to reassure me?’

Luke had stopped on the pavement outside the bakery, his hands slipping from his robe’s sleeves, his eyes going wide. And then he broke into a sprint. Ahead of them, a civilian A-24 Sleuth vessel with New Republic markings was parked on an empty stretch of field, and a small regal woman in black garments was just disembarking from the little scout ship.

‘Leia!’

The woman turned around. Her flight helmet was tucked under her arm, half-hidden by the leather vest she wore over her practical dark tunic; then it dropped to the ground as Luke crashed into her. They hugged with the vicious, unmistakable roughhousing energy of siblings.

Din hastened to join them, his heart clenching painfully at the sight. He’d tried for months to avoid missing Paz.

Behind him, the three other Mandalorians closed ranks like a kingsguard. Leia, whose body language was alert and energetic, beckoned to Din as he approached. She had a little blue-and-white astromech droid that chattered at them noisily, and Luke was crouching down to talk to it. Leia gave Din a brisk authoritative smile but didn’t address him immediately; instead, she turned back to Luke with the air of someone who had several dozen items on her to-do list.

‘I’m sorry, can I keep Artoo a little longer? He’s been very helpful navigating these systems.’

‘Of course,’ said her brother warmly, ‘borrow him for as long as you like.’ He placed a fond hand on the droid’s dome. ‘You’d rather stay with Leia, wouldn’t you, buddy?’

Like a furious loth-cat, the droid immediately began rattling off what sounded like rapid-fire complaints. Luke chuckled (Din realised abruptly that he had never heard Luke laugh before) and sat down cross-legged to talk to it, right there on the fog-damp grass with the hood of his robe falling to his shoulders.

‘Mand’alor,’ said Leia, making Din jump, ‘it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I came as soon as I could.’ She picked up her helmet again and set it on the ship’s hull. The breeze she’d cast by her landing made her flyaways dance around her temples. ‘Apologies for the delay. I meant to respond to your announcement at once, but I’ve been a bit tied up on Coruscant.’

‘You didn’t have to come in person,’ said Din, overwhelmed. Now that she was speaking to him he could see the resemblance to Luke, even though they didn’t look much alike at first glance. They had the same eyes in different faces.

‘Please. Even I need a break from the Core Worlds every now and then.’ She had a squarish bag made of tough-looking synthleather, secured with a bronzium clasp in the shape of the New Republic’s seal. Even as Leia began fumbling to undo the clasp, no Mando escaped the torchlight of her attention; she turned to greet Bo-Katan in turn. ‘Lady Kryze of Mandalore, what an honour. We missed your battle expertise in the days of the Rebellion.’

Bo-Katan tensed almost imperceptibly. ‘Princess… Amidala-Skywalker, is it?’

‘It’s Senator Organa, actually.’ Leia’s smile was all dangerous civility. ‘Now, am I to understand that the Mandalorian state seeks recognition from the New Republic?’

‘There is no Mandalorian state,’ Din said uncomfortably. An instant later he remembered to look to Bo-Katan for guidance, but her face was perfectly blank: a politician’s mask of graciousness. ‘We’re… we’re scattered. It’s too soon for me to speak for all Mandalorians.’

‘Do not put that on record,’ Axe interjected crisply before anyone else could speak, as if they hadn’t all just caught Din floundering. ‘Of course the Mand’alor speaks for our people.’

‘Does he?’ Leia’s quicksilver smile did not waver. ‘Relax, you don’t have to lie to me. I don’t expect Din here to represent all the Mandalorians in the galaxy, any more than I represent the Galactic Senate.’

The tension which ran through the other Mandos felt heavy yet precarious, like a slow-gathering lava stream about to ignite. There was something explosive in Leia’s unerring ability to cut straight to the truth, and while Bo-Katan and Axe had gone rigid at her insinuation of intra-Senate strife, Din was still recovering from how she’d used his first name.

He glanced at Luke for… reassurance, maybe, or comfort, but Luke had straightened up and was waiting beside the droid with his hands folded, and Din saw that he had become unreachable again.

From the synthleather diplomatic bag, Leia withdrew a sleek sealed packet seemingly made of acid-free polythin. ‘Here’s a set of New Republic passes for you and your crew.’ She handed Din the packet. ‘Fully authorised, fully legal. Ticket-chips, datapackets with access information for passenger liners, you know the drill.’ (Din did not. He handed it off to Koska for safekeeping.) ‘There’s a mem-stik you should plug into your ship’s navicomputer; it will upload a clearance code which automatically modifies your transponder signal to pass inspection scans. This should help you handle any New Republic patrols you run into, since I know you’ve been riding on stolen transports.’

Bo-Katan raised her chin with well-disguised panic. ‘We claimed Moff Gideon’s cruiser as the spoils of battle.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I don’t care about that,’ Leia said. ‘I was talking about your other stolen transports. Believe me, I’ve done my share of sedition and sabotage.’ Behind her, Luke hid a smile. ‘I am not here to judge you or blackmail you. Just show me you can be trusted—I’d like to vouch for you to the Senate—and I won’t ask how you gained access to your intel.’

She seemed so quick-witted and frank that Din was two steps away from begging her to tell him what to do, though he didn’t, because… because public relations, or whatever. He was already sick of all this posturing, and it’d only been a week.

But there was such warmth in Leia’s face that Din knew she could be trusted. As she stalked forward, the black flaps of her split skirt fluttering over sensible boots, he saw how she shone: Luke looked so clouded, Leia so bright and uncompromising. She had braided her hair in a spiral pattern around her head, coiling it into progressively smaller circles which were pinned flat to her crown. She must’ve had a lot of hair to make such a long plait, and yet it all looked as compact as a pine cone. Din trailed after her, captivated.

‘Right, tell me where we’re at,’ said Leia, nodding at Bo-Katan and Koska. They’d brought the shuttle back to the village the previous afternoon, and it sat beside Luke’s X-wing on their makeshift landing strip. ‘What requests do you wish to put before the Senate? Am I right to assume you don’t currently have a secure comlink channel for official correspondence?’

‘Yeah, we don’t,’ Koska admitted reluctantly, and Din saw that she tasted to the dregs the shame of their predicament: no embassy, no real government-in-exile, certainly no planet. Meeting on neutral territory on another wrecked world. Confined to this nameless tiny settlement in the middle of nowhere. Helmet in her hands, she leaned against the hull of Leia’s A-24, looking uncharacteristically defeated.

‘Senate recognition of Din Djarin as Mand’alor,’ said Bo-Katan, who had known defeat several times and pushed on doggedly all the same. Koska and Axe both straightened a little and looked to her with gratitude. ‘A declaration acknowledging Mandalorian sovereignty. When that’s all done, we can talk about establishing diplomatic relations.’

Leia glanced at Bo-Katan with sudden bright recognition: she had identified an opponent worthy of the skirmish. Leaving his little droid behind, Luke came to stand at her side as he sensed the building tension. His face was calm and unreadable, as it had been when Din had first met him; but he looked much better now that Leia was here. His eyes weren’t so empty.

Helmet tucked into the crook of her arm, hip cocked, Bo-Katan shared Leia’s relish for conflict. A smile of anticipation tugged at her lips. ‘Those,’ she said in a lovely satiny voice, her teeth and tongue shaping every word with care, ‘are our expectations.’

‘They’re very reasonable expectations,’ Leia responded, ‘as long as you agree to join the New Republic.’ At once her eyes darted to Din, obviously the least-informed and most vulnerable member of their party. ‘Mand’alor?’

‘I don’t think…’

‘You don’t want peace with the New Republic?’

Din winced. ‘This conversation isn’t being recorded, is it?’

‘Of course not,’ Bo-Katan said firmly, tilting her head as she skewered Luke with a glance. ‘The Jedi would tell us if we were being watched, wouldn’t he? He’d tell us the truth, wouldn’t he?’ Eyes wide, Luke nodded at her. ‘It’d be quite dishonourable to monitor and publish hypothetical debating points raised in an interplanetary dialogue.’

‘Right, right.’ Leia tucked her bag under her arm. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she looked at Din, to show that there was no real force behind her aggression. ‘I trust I don’t need to talk up the benefits of New Republic membership? Legal protection, votes in the Senate, duty-free exports and preferential tariffs within the common market…’

‘Save us the sales pitch, princess,’ Axe said in disgust. Koska elbowed him in the side.

At the same time Din chimed in, ‘We Mandalorians are independent.’ He turned swiftly to Bo-Katan, unsure whether to press this course; she gave him a tiny nod of approval. ‘We don’t—thank you, ma’am, but that’s not an option.’

‘Shame,’ Leia sighed without missing a beat. ‘It’s the hope of bringing you into the confederation which has led me to overlook your party’s numerous counts of espionage! Frankly, I’m a little disturbed by Mandalorian agents’ continued use of Imperial-era surveillance tech.’

Bo-Katan’s nostrils flared. Completely out of his depth, Din glanced between her and Leia several times and shifted closer to Luke as subtly as he could.

Bo-Katan’s fingers drummed languidly against her thigh. ‘Well, princess—’ A bold form of address coming from Bo-Katan, Din thought. He almost admired the cheek. ‘—Mandalore predates the Empire by some four thousand years. You know your galactic history, yes?’

Leia’s thin eyebrows rose. ‘Intimately.’

Din took a very small step backwards. He reached for Luke without looking, and Luke’s hand darted out to hold Din’s own just as Bo-Katan continued, ‘So you don’t need to be reminded of our historic independence.’

‘Of course, of course. Joining the New Republic would, however, entail protection of your historic independence—namely, it’d determine whether we interfere with your planned Mandalore expedition.’ When Bo-Katan stiffened, Leia’s smile began to show teeth. ‘Yes, we’re aware of your ambition to retake Mandalore! Did you think your mobilisation efforts would go unnoticed for decades? In the Outer Rim? In former Imperial space? Even, and I hate to bring this up, in violation of New Republic neutrality?’

‘Leia,’ Luke began, but she ignored him.

‘How can I promise not to intervene if an armed entity with extensive spy networks, potentially hostile to my Republic, occupies Mandalore?’

‘It won’t just be any occupation, princess. Mandalorians belong on Mandalore. It’s our home. It’s our past and our future. No people can have a future without their planet.’ Bo-Katan’s lips trembled; her voice had turned dark and stormy with emotion. There were three wars’ worth of humiliation behind her stony gaze when she gritted out, ‘It—means—everything to us. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

‘Can’t I understand?’ Leia looked at Bo-Katan head-on, her face vivid with pain. ‘I’m from Alderaan. We have no planet. Do you mean to say Alderaanian refugees haven’t got a future? Would you like to say that to my face, princess?’

‘Please,’ Din said quietly. ‘Please stop.’

Luke’s fingers were tight and reassuring around his own. He looked at Leia, pleading, and her eyes softened as she met Din’s gaze. She still had a high flush in her cheeks, but she nodded and turned to Bo-Katan with an audible exhale.

‘’Scuse me,’ Leia told her. ‘My temper is occasionally a hindrance on the debate floor.’

‘Now Bo-Katan,’ said Din, in a tone which brooked no argument.

To her credit, Bo-Katan rose to the occasion beautifully. ‘I beg your pardon, Senator.’ Her enunciation had gone all rich and deep and polished again. ‘Forgive me for being insensitive. I meant no disrespect.’

Leia gave her a tight smile. ‘We’re good.’

‘I’ll get my X-wing ready,’ Luke whispered, and gave Din’s arm a reassuring squeeze before leaving his side. Din only watched him walk away for a second or two: Luke had his missions, just as Din had his.

When he tuned back into the conversation, Bo-Katan was saying: ‘Picture yourself in my place. If you could get Alderaan back—if you knew that its loss was your fault, that you were responsible for what happened…’

‘I was,’ Leia said, dry-eyed and implacable. ‘I am.’

‘Wouldn’t you do anything to get it back?’ Bo-Katan asked. ‘Wouldn’t you fight for thirty years and more, if you thought you could gain redemption?’

Leia cast her gaze down—at the grass, slowly drying in the daylight, at the soil saturated with Imperial dust. She wasn’t crying, but when she finally raised her eyes, her expression was very old and very tired.

‘I can’t single-handedly convince the Senate.’ Leia looked at Din too, as open and pleading as he had been. She was rewarding Bo-Katan’s once-in-a-blue-moon sincerity with a little honesty of her own. ‘Queen Soruna is on my side, but…’ She gave a shuddering sigh. ‘I’ll try my best. I can’t make any promises. It would be far easier if you committed to membership talks with the New Republic, but I respect that you’re not going to agree.’

Bo-Katan shifted her weight from foot to foot, gaze sharpening with her sudden realisation. ‘You wish to bring us into the New Republic to lift yourself out of political disgrace.’ She smiled a little, joyless, when Leia not-quite-visibly flinched. ‘Yes, I see it now. You’re not doing well in the New Republic, are you? You wear your guilt more openly than your brother.’

‘More openly? Are you kidding me?’ Incredulous, Leia shook her head. ‘Luke tried to have himself prosecuted for war crimes after the battle of Mindor. Don’t make assumptions, princess. Peacetime has changed us all.’

‘I can see that,’ said Bo-Katan. ‘So tell me, child of Anakin, how do you keep all that anger—all that pain, all that loss—from possessing you?’

Leia’s lips thinned. She was quiet for a long moment. ‘I choose not to.’

‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘It isn’t.’

Bo-Katan’s eyes were ablaze with suppressed emotion. ‘Do tell.’

‘My career has stalled ever since word spread that I am Vader’s daughter. I’ve read a million tabloid headlines attacking my alleged lust for power. And that’s not all. They go after my expenses, my sexual habits, my hairstyles… I am mistrusted in the Senate and slandered on the holonet. Yet I haven’t turned to bitterness. Have you?’

Bo-Katan’s practised smile betrayed nothing but bitterness. ‘Give yourself time,’ she replied silkily, and then she turned her back on Leia and walked away.

---

They said goodbye beside Luke’s X-wing. ‘We’re twins, did you know?’ said Luke, dangling one arm into the cockpit with a pilot’s easy posture. ‘Can’t keep secrets from Leia, she’s that Force-sensitive. She can feel my thoughts.’

‘Is that a twin thing,’ Din said, ‘or a Force thing?’

Luke smiled a real smile. It was a rare, precious sight, and Din memorised it for later. ‘Take care, Din.’

‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘You have the coordinates to pick me up when you’re done.’ Very casually, Luke put his palm to the side of Din’s helmet just for a second. He withdrew his hand before Din had time to react. ‘For Grogu. We’ll go visit him together.’

Din could hardly breathe. They were both so incredibly touch-starved, Din knew, that if he hugged Luke now at least one of them might cry. He closed his eyes behind the visor, and hoped that Luke could read him well enough to know how he felt.

Luke could, and Luke did. He looked at Din through his thick lashes, grave and earnest, so that Din was anchored by his regard. ‘There is a great sadness within you.’ Din didn’t know whether Luke had discovered this through a Force thing or a Luke-and-Din thing; either way, his tone was extraordinarily gentle. ‘It feels heavy, doesn’t it?’

It took a few seconds for Din to be able to speak. ‘Like a stone.’

‘Good way of thinking about it,’ Luke said, and his smile almost reached his eyes. ‘You need to turn it into water. Let the stone dissolve; let it run through you, let it melt into the restfulness of true peace.’

‘How do I do that?’

Luke chuckled ruefully. He glanced down and then up again, a very Leia-like mannerism. ‘When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.’

---

As soon as they were in hyperspace, Bo-Katan asked Din: ‘How’s your Mando’a?’

Between hiding from Imperials and constantly moving safehouses, he hadn’t had many chances to practise his adopted mother tongue. ‘Rusty.’

Bo-Katan sighed. ‘Okay, foundling. I’ll endeavour to shield you from the language purists. But don’t say I didn’t warn you: they’re snobbish and stubborn.’

Din lifted his helmet to sip the netra'gal they’d brought onto the ship with them. ‘More stubborn than me?’

From his co-pilot seat, Axe snorted. ‘You have no idea.’

They landed on Kinyen, a lush agriworld which had once held Separatist sympathies. Axe parked their vessel in the shade of a gigantic tree; silvergrass crackled and popped beneath Din’s boots, releasing sweet bubbles of its fragrance. Din could see meadows spread out at the base of the mountain, bright-speckled with fruit. He could see the long clear river flowing from the cradle of the mountains to some unknown sea. He tasted cool air, so clean and pure at this high altitude that his helmet filter barely needed to work; he counted jogan trees dotting the landscape below. He was incomparably jealous.

‘I haven’t brought you here before, have I?’ said Bo-Katan. She was tugging off her boots to tread with open pleasure on the scented silvergrass. Koska had already done the same. ‘Our siblings on Kinyen are not usually in need of aid. They formed part of my royal—I mean, my Mand’alor circuit only a few times in all these years.’ Her speech had unconsciously gotten slower, more refined, and with an owlish blink and a sort of happy sigh she switched from Basic to fluent Mando’a. ‘You see, the Mand’alor’s responsibilities are centred on protecting our people. In the absence of a homeworld we travel, like the nomads our ancestors were, to all the planets of the diaspora. And we solve whatever problems our people have. But the ruler imposes a tax in their own way, so that all is fair and equal. Just as the Mand’alor must visit their scattered people and fight their enemies, so too must the people feed and house the Mand’alor when they come. Protection for hospitality. Care in exchange for care. Without Mandalorians to care for, the Mand’alor has no purpose.’ She shot Din a quick assessing glance and asked in Basic, ‘You understand?’

‘I understand fine,’ Din told her. ‘It’s the speaking that I might not…’ He hesitated. There were incidents in his covert’s past—a lifetime of running and hiding, always hunted, periodically discovered—that he did not wish to dwell on. ‘We couldn’t speak Mando’a freely when I was growing up. It put us all in danger.’

Axe looked at Din with the kindest expression Din had ever seen him wear. ‘That’s no fault of yours, Mand’alor.’

‘Whole planet’s fertile and they chose to settle in the kriffing mountains,’ Koska complained as she put her boots back on. She shielded her eyes with one hand; a lone figure could be seen approaching them, warmly dressed in furs and carrying a walking stick. ‘Is that her? Is that Ruusaan Velt? Of course she’s gonna make us hike to the settlement. Classic Mandalorian.’

Axe grinned. ‘We wouldn’t be Mandos if we didn’t pick the hardest possible path at every turn.’

Now the figure became identifiable: an olive-skinned woman with thick wavy hair in a single braid, dark-eyed and impassive, wearing a durasteel chestplate over her sturdy denym clothing. Koska stuck her index finger and thumb into her mouth and whistled across the mountainside, and after a moment, the woman responded with the same whistle. Bo-Katan slid her feet hurriedly into her boots and rolled her shoulders, teeth bared in silent satisfaction.

‘So,’ said Bo-Katan in Mando’a, ‘you’re still alive.’

‘I got lucky.’ Ruusaan Velt was perhaps in her late forties, with strong aquiline features. She leaned her walking stick against a nearby dead tree, sighing contentedly as she cracked her back and neck. The fur cloak looked old, but good-quality, and it made Din miss the Armourer with a heady rush of loss. ‘What brings you to Kinyen, my fallen queen?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Bo-Katan replied through her teeth.

‘As you wish. Clan Eldar still stands with you, Bo-Katan.’ Ruusaan turned to Din curiously, doubtless enticed by the sight of beskar—but she still spoke to Bo-Katan out of the corner of her mouth, her tone neutral. ‘What’s left of us.’

Bo-Katan closed her eyes, her facial muscles working from some inward pain. ‘Any luck finding Ursa Wren?’

Ruusaan shook her head. ‘We’ll keep searching.’ Her Mando’a had a broad Mid Rim twang which was near-incomprehensible to Din, but fortunately her manner of speaking was blunt enough that he could more or less follow. There was no guile in her. ‘She must be alive. I’ll not mourn her yet.’

‘Good,’ Koska said grimly. ‘This is the Way.’

‘This is the Way.’ Now Ruusaan jerked her chin at Din, her gaze darting to the Darksaber on his hip. ‘Mand’alor?’

Din swallowed. Ruusaan’s bare face was lined from her years of life, years of fighting; harsh mountain winds had left her cheeks and lips chapped. ‘Din Djarin.’

She squinted at him, taking in his non-Mandalore name, and immediately slipped into Basic. ‘Foundling?’

He nodded.

‘Where from?’ she asked curtly. ‘Who rescued you?’

‘Aq Vetina. Death Watch.’

‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘My riduur fought there. You wouldn’t know her. She’s dead. Welcome, Mand’alor the Adopted.’

---

They spoke Basic on the hike to the Mandalorian settlement, having agreed that Din was quiet enough that if they forced him into a language he was uncomfortable with, there was a real risk he’d never speak at all. Ruusaan banished Bo-Katan to go walk ahead, and spent most of the journey briefing Din about the kind of people he was about to meet.

‘Win one Mando over and you win them all,’ she advised as they climbed a staggeringly steep mountain path. ‘We’re very hive-minded people. I mean us, not us-us: just the Mandos living on this planet, you know. Other groups are going to be different. Once the Mandalorians of Kinyen stand with you, others may follow—though I wouldn’t count on it.’ She thrust her walking stick into a soft spot of dirt, pausing to take a few deep breaths of the thinly oxygenated air. ‘You seem likeable enough, I’ll say that for you. Not like that one—’ Ruusaan pointed at Bo-Katan several steps in front of them, a smirk tugging at her wide mouth. ‘—who shows up on some unlucky planet once a month and fights her ex-girlfriends in a parking lot.’

‘I can hear you,’ Bo-Katan called over her shoulder.

Ruusaan ignored her. ‘And for pfassk’s sake, act like a man with an ego. Swagger in as if you own the place.’

‘But I don’t want to own the place.’

‘Oh, sweetie,’ she snapped, resuming the climb and striding decisively past Din. To Koska and Axe: ‘He is pure of heart. That’s to your disadvantage. You’ll have trouble convincing others to follow you when he’s not got… well, frankly, an air of smug entitlement and authority.’

‘He has a cape,’ Koska pointed out reasonably.

‘That pathetic dishrag? Don’t make me laugh. It’s more holes than cloth.’

‘I’m right here,’ said Din.

‘Capes don’t automatically equal authority,’ Axe argued. ‘It’s how you wear the cape that matters.’

‘Whatever. The point is, I don’t see this one walk in and go, “That asshole’s the Mand’alor.” I see him and I think that’s a nice boy I’d send to pick up some power converters.’

‘Again, I’m right here.’

‘He’ll be fine, Ruusaan,’ Koska insisted, and Din abruptly felt very fond of her, hot temper and all. ‘Punch a few people. Blast a few people. Start a fight and he earns everybody’s respect in seconds.’ Din’s fondness for her dissipated just as abruptly.

When the settlement finally heaved into view Din had to stop, breathless from more than the hike; he braced himself with his hands on his knees. He did not know Kinyen. He had not gone further than Corellia for a long, long time. Here was this vast unconquerable galaxy, this network of Mandalorians seen and unseen, Mandalorians suffering and Mandalorians prosperous, all variously embittered by experiences Din could never know. Mandalorians who had nothing in common with him, nothing at all. These Mandalorians had fled a homeworld he’d never known, years before he’d even sworn the Creed, and found safety on a rich, tranquil planet populated mostly by Grans while Din’s covert got hunted for sport by Imperial troops.

‘Din,’ said Axe very softly, his face blotchy from exertion and windburn. ‘C’mon, there’s company and a hot meal waiting for us. It’s going to be fine.’

Din fought down the nausea of remembering the hunts. His armour held him close, and his clan signet mattered more than the Darksaber. ‘Yeah, let’s head down there,’ he replied in Mando’a; and as he and Axe set off on the winding downward path together, Ruusaan clicked her tongue with such grumpy familiarity that Din had to smile.

‘Oh, you have got to be kidding me.’ She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, ‘At least try to strut! Swing your hips!’

Chapter 6

Notes:

Again, mouse over Mando’a to see translations, but since several phrases appear in this chapter they are also given in the end notes.

At thirteen, Din had been allowed into the forge for the first time while it was in use. The Armourer—then in her twenties, newly inducted into her role—had been over-cautious, as you might expect from one unused to so much responsibility. She wouldn’t let Din anywhere near the hearth or even the table where she kept her smith’s tools, mysterious objects which were endlessly fascinating to him. The most she permitted him to do was take cooled metal out of the quenching tub sometimes. He’d been out all day fishing with Paz and the girls, and Din suspected this was why she’d let him watch at all: they’d worked off enough kid energy to be less hyperactive than usual. Once, in his excitement to help, Din had gotten too close to the anvil without face protection, and that was the only time the Armourer had ever raised her voice at him.

In this period it was still safe for multiple members to leave the covert at one time. The adults had worked above ground as skilled labourers and hunters, and there’d been enough of them to support the covert and have resources left over to raise strong, healthy, happy children, communally parented and universally loved. The Poet had been alive back then, and his husband the Sculptor, and all the teachers and Mando’a scribes. After their deaths, no one had been able to replace them.

Covert children had worn assorted coverings—welding masks, old pilot helmets—whenever they wanted, since it was important to try things before committing to them for a lifetime. You had to get used to the feeling of covering your face if you wished to take the Creed. The tribe’s elders, back when they had had surviving elders, wouldn’t have let sixteen-year-olds bind themselves for life otherwise. Some of Din’s old playmates (not the ones raised in the Fighting Corps, who’d known the joy and challenge of battle) had chosen not to give their lives to the covert, and they had been allowed to walk away without resentment on either side. There was no word in Mando’a for ex-child, or ex-foundling. When you had been raised by Mandos you owed them nothing. The Creed bound comrades into mutual protection, of course, but the lack of a Creed was no curse on outsiders. You didn’t need the bonds of faith and fellowship to treat others with common decency.

Creed or no Creed, the kids weren’t supposed to hide their faces for more than a few hours each day. The smallest ones were too little for anything heavier than plastoid, and grown-ups were forever shooing Din’s friends out of the tunnels, nagging them to go get some sunlight and fresh air on their skin. Besides, a helmeted child attracted uncomfortable levels of attention, which defeated the whole purpose of their covert. You were supposed to know your child’s face; you were meant to pet their hair and kiss their forehead when they cried, and they should be able to rest their cheek on your shoulder as you rocked them to sleep. When they got older, they should be able to kiss their friends. It was cruel to deny them that. So Din had known his friends’ faces, and he kept the precious memory of each one safe behind his eyelids. That was the image he chose, not their cynical and wounded adult selves, not their empty helmets piled in empty tunnels, not their twisted bodies no one had been able to bury.

Before an unlucky thermal detonator had put an end to the hunting life, old Vizsla had salvaged enough iron scraps to make a whole helmet. This was the workpiece the Armourer had going, too small a job to fill the forge with nightmarish reminders of light and smoke; so Din was happy watching her. She had the person’s head measurements down in writing, and she checked them against the cooled parts Din brought her. With a sigh, the Armourer put her calipers down. She’d miscalculated some step in the forging, maybe, or metal had expanded where it shouldn’t. Whatever the reason, the piece would have to be melted down and remade.

‘Let me try it on,’ Din begged. He’d never have asked if he hadn’t known that it was about to be reforged. Wearing someone else’s helmet was taboo without their explicit permission. Would you try on another person’s underwear?

But this piece of armour wasn’t real yet. It was still a practice piece, a mistake. So the Armourer said, ‘Fine, fine.’ (Her manner of speech had been much more casual when she was younger.) ‘Only for a short while, Din’ika. This needs to be ready by morning.’

She lifted the half-formed helmet with great care. Even as a work-in-progress, as a crude shell, the piece was worthy of reverence. She helped Din tuck his hair out of the way as he got the helm over his forehead. Obviously the visor hadn’t been installed yet, and he looked through a rough T-shaped hole instead of transparisteel, but he felt some imagined filter settle over his vision all the same. The weight was familiar to him. The smell of new, fresh metal was not. He looked up at the Armourer in wonder; he felt her gaze settle on him, heavy and fond. Saw himself in the reflection of her helmet, saw his own brown eyes.

It was a Mandalorian helmet. But it was not his. When she eventually made one for him, it would feel different: it would be special. On Din’s head, the helmet felt big and sure of itself. It didn’t fit him, though he hadn’t expected it to. It bumped against him and made him self-conscious. He had not considered the shape of his skull before. Wearing the misshapen helmet, armour which would go to somebody else when it was ready, Din felt an odd, sensitive mixture of recognition and alienation. He was impatient for his own iron skin, which would soothe and transform him; he longed to feel held by his body, to feel right. The ill-fitting thing was not exactly uncomfortable, and he could tolerate wearing it—but not for long. He was hyper-aware that it did not belong to him.

That was how Din felt walking into the Kinyen settlement as Mand’alor.

---

‘Well, aren’t you bright and shiny?’ barked the last living chieftain of Clan Awaud. A scrawny, liver-spotted man well over six feet tall, he fisted both prosthetic hands in the woollen kaftan he wore for warmth. Like Ruusaan, he wore a chestplate as his only piece of armour: his was painted the rusty red which symbolised honouring one’s parents. ‘So you’re Din, huh? Dinui means gift. Maybe you’ll be our gift to us, dral’verd.’

‘I’m not… My name isn’t Mando’a,’ Din said, feeling unmoored. His Mandalorians had clustered around him protectively. Ruusaan stood a little way off, breathing hard from the climb. Bo-Katan, who’d reached the settlement earlier to gather surviving clan representatives, balanced her helmet on her hip as she surveyed the welcome party she’d assembled for Din. Her eyes moved from face to grizzled face, silently head-counting the Kinyen Mandos.

‘Makes no difference to me. It can still mean something if you let it.’ Old Awaud showed his teeth in a grin and nodded at Bo-Katan. He added in Mando’a, ‘I’m pleased this one has brought you to us. She hasn’t always been so friendly.’ (Ruusaan snickered at this.) ‘Come into the Great Hall, Mand’alor the Humble.’

Rechristened, Din passed into the vheh’yaim. The Mandalorians of Kinyen had carved their largest building directly into the mountainside: stone naturally fortified and supported cavernous chambers, while the mountain’s slope helped to redistribute weight. Exploiting what they’d been given was a very Mandalorian feat. The only difference between them and Din’s covert was that these immigrants had found a peaceful home rich in resources, and Din’s covert had had sewers and Imperial neighbours.

Yes, he was feeling bitter.

‘We left Arumorut when the Galactic War reached Vlemoth Port,’ old Awaud explained, still in Mando’a. Din enjoyed the man’s Outer Rim lilt; he rolled his r’s pleasantly. ‘Clan Awaud wasn’t sure about the Expansion Region at first—like all Mandos, we’re Outer Rim folk through and through—but Coruscant corporations have left us in peace for the most part. We’ve even benefited from living right where the Corellian Trade Spine meets the Great Gran Run; and we get along fabulously with local Grans, just like we got on with the Talz on Vlemoth Port.’ He shed his kaftan as soon as they entered the atrium, which was heated by a large earthen hearth. Coals glowed beneath the flat stones where loaves of bread were baking; smoke escaped up a wide chimney, and Din smelled the rich aroma of roasting meat. Everything about this rock-hewn vheh’yaim screamed prosperity. Awaud winked at Din, clearly proud of the home he had built with the other clans. ‘Impressive, huh? Who knew Mandos could get lucky?’

No one in Din’s past had had the privilege of flight when war came to their homeworlds. He bit his tongue and said nothing.

Through the atrium’s small archway, he could see the long rectangular feasting hall. It was dark but not musty; airways kept the place well-ventilated. Again Din caught the scent of cooking, of fresh chopped chillies and seared meat, and as he entered the feasting hall he spotted numerous tunnels leading deeper into the mountain. This warren extended far beyond its entrance cut into the mountainside. It could hold a few hundred people, easily. At his side, he sensed Bo-Katan—stolid, arrogant, stubborn woman—looking at all this abundance and doubtless recalling the Purge and her own Death Watch violence, and pointedly saying nothing.

Kinyen’s welcome party had accompanied him into the dimly lit but comfortable hall.  They spoke Mando’a with an easy, chattering cadence. Another Mandalorian with close-cropped hair and facial tattoos remarked: ‘Quiet, isn’t he?’

‘Probably for the best,’ replied an elegant third. This one’s accent was distinctly Coruscanti. ‘Loudmouths have never fared well. We don’t need a Mand’alor who’s all helmet and no head, do we?’

Din was not fond of them talking about him like he wasn’t there, especially when he lacked confidence speaking Mando’a. He fought down an ugly surge of anger, thinking: They’ve had their share of hardship, don’t be jealous. They deserve safety, don’t be jealous, don’t be jealous, it’s not their fault they’re all still alive.

But their numbers rankled like an old wound.

‘I call the folkmoot!’ cried the tattooed Mando, pitching their high voice loud and clear. At a gesture from Clan Awaud’s chieftain, one of the boys who’d been playing cu’bikad in a corner got up. There was a bronzium gong in the middle of the hall, with a mallet hanging ready beside it, and the boy ran up and struck it a resounding four times.

Wooden feast tables formed a partial ring around the hall, with gaps for easy access. Unseen fires lent the rough-hewn stone walls a hearty glow, so that Din could picture this place coming alive with music and celebration. From the passageways leading out of the hall, Mandos emerged in even greater numbers, young and old: they took their seats with unsurprising Mandalorian efficiency. Formplast chairs were brought for those who could not swing their legs over a bench. He saw crutches, and more than one person in a wheelchair. There were Mandos of all genders with their hair in practical braids, like Ruusaan and Koska, as well as several other helmet-ready styles. He saw some individuals in full armour, but the majority wore various statement pieces over their softer cold-weather padding—bandoliers, great plastiplate belts, thigh armour and dignified leather kamas. There was pride and strength in the way they carried themselves; they had healthy elderly people among them; the brooches pinning cloaks in place were authentic Mandalorian ironwork, not the knockoff mythosaur pendants he’d seen at kitschy market stalls.

Mandalorians did not care for social hierarchies. Nonetheless, there was a place of honour reserved for guests, and this seat was offered to Din now: carved from ferrostone and draped with Gherlian fur. He could not tell how old the carvings were. Rough wear had chipped away at the armrests’ scrolled edges and rubbed thin patches into the big, soft fur cloak. The chair looked well-loved—it’d seen regular use. The people here had loved their home long enough and successfully enough to hold ceremonies.

He sat down. He leaned his spear against the armrest.

Axe and Koska slid quietly onto a bench near him. Din whispered anxiously, ‘Bo-Katan,’ and with leonine grace she lowered herself into a seat at his right, close enough that they could confer under their breaths. The din of scraping chairs and shuffling feet had already begun to die down.

When the hall finally grew quiet, old Awaud announced in his deep, musical Mando’a: ‘We’re pleased to welcome the Mand’alor into our home away from home.’

He hardly needed to raise his voice to be heard. Murmurs of assent ran around the feast tables.

But Mandos didn’t waste time on pleasantries. ‘I see a familiar face in your party,’ said the Mandalorian whose cool, precise lilt smacked of Coruscant. ‘Care to explain your presence, Lady Kryze?’

Din tensed, ready to reach for his spear, but Bo-Katan could handle herself.

‘I fought in the battle which saw the Darksaber pass from enemy hands into Din Djarin’s,’ she replied. Her Mando’a pronunciation was pure as beskar, her voice held enough superiority to outdo the poshest Imperial officer, and Din thanked every deity he knew that Bo-Katan Kryze could be counted on to win a condescension contest. ‘My companions and I stand as witnesses.’

‘Yet you yourself served as Mand’alor.’

‘As you may have guessed,’ Bo-Katan said sweetly, ‘I no longer fill that position.’

‘What is your relationship to the current Mand’alor?’ asked a one-eyed woman with carnelian beads woven into her cornrows.

Bo-Katan turned her head just slightly to meet Din’s eyes through his visor. Under the mass scrutiny of this great council, they could not speak—all they had time to do was exchange glances. Din’s glance said, Please, for the love of Mandalore, take the heat. Bo-Katan’s said, I’m doing my damn best here.

Completely unplanned, they both said at the same time: ‘Co-workers.’

The woman now turned her hawkish stare on Din. ‘So,’ she continued in a dangerous tone, ‘you support Bo-Katan’s futile quest to retake Mandalore?’

A stir passed around the entire gathering. The Mandalorian with facial tattoos shouted, ‘Quiet, quiet!’ and when that failed, one of the wheelchair-bound Mandos rolled over to the gong and sounded it once. The hush took some moments to settle, and of course Bo-Katan immediately broke it.

‘My quest is our quest and it is not futile,’ she said hotly. ‘Our planet lies waiting for our return. Are we not homeless without Mandalore? Don’t you tire of wandering from world to world, fighting and scavenging just for the right to live? How dare you call this place home away from home, you who call yourself Mandalorians?’

Even in her most formal Mando'a diction, she struck a nerve: the hall went up in an uproar. ‘That planet is nothing but glass!’ somebody bellowed, with several others joining in the sentiment; and there were multiple voices denouncing Bo-Katan and defending their own Mandalorian-ness. Din shivered beneath his armour. He could not add to the yelling. He hadn’t been born on Mandalore. He had no right to decide whether Mandalorians belonged there or not. 

Din did not rise or try to shout over the racket. Instead he ignited the Darksaber, and everyone in the massive chamber fell silent as if their throats had been cut.

The hum of the Darksaber felt good in his hand. He spread his knees, trying to find purchase with his boots on the rough granite floor, trying to feel anchored, and rasped: ‘One at a time.’

Shockingly, it was Ruusaan who spoke first. ‘We’re safe on Kinyen,’ she said in her bouncy Mid Rim twang, and heads nodded all around the table. Bo-Katan turned with a betrayed look on her face—Din was seated close enough to see the whites of Bo-Katan’s eyes and the spots of colour appearing on her cheekbones. ‘And you’d ask us to go to war again, Bo-Katan, for a burned-out wreck of a planet? After all we’ve been through? After all that we’ve lost?’ At this, dozens of fists beat against the tabletops in agreement. Ruusaan’s dark eyes darted from seat to seat, over each of her neighbours’ faces in turn. ‘Don’t we deserve a life of peace?’

Someone else chimed in with their argument. Din turned off the Darksaber. He felt the familiar emptiness crawling up his throat and seizing every rib in his chest. He heard a man cry, ‘Need I remind you what happened in the last war we fought, and if you’ll recall, under your leadership?’ and Bo-Katan rose to her feet in majestic indignation, and then Din’s mind had drifted out of the discussion entirely. 

He could feel Axe and Koska looking at him, silently urging him to speak. They didn’t say a word, because the Mand’alor could not be seen to be swayed by others, but their stares bored hot and urgent into the side of his helmet. Din was sick with grief. He was overwhelmed by the numbers of these Mandalorians, many scarred and disabled but living; by the fact that their old people had survived to grow old; by the precious bits of clan identity they wore with fierce pride and with valour. Of course they’d paid dearly for their peace, and yet safety was a luxury Din’s covert had never had the chance to earn. Such envious fury was not like him. He wanted hopelessly to demand: Where were you when young Vizsla died wheezing for breath because we could not afford medicine? Where were you when the widow T’uran gave her life saving us from fire? Where were you when my covert was massacred?

He had begun to see where Bo-Katan was coming from. If he’d been involved in Mandalorian politics for as long as she had, Din would probably be an asshole too.

What he did say was, ‘I see. You will accept a leader as long as they never ask you to do anything.’

Though he hadn’t touched the Darksaber, every single person who’d been shouting fell into stunned silence.

‘Mand’alor,’ began the woman with cornrows. Wide-eyed, she ran her tongue over her chapped lips. ‘Din. Hear me out.’

‘I’ve heard enough.’

‘You understand my viewpoint,’ she persisted anyway, pleading and earnest, and he couldn’t refuse to listen because of course he understood. ‘Is it so selfish to want a quiet life to raise children?’

And it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. Loving your children and protecting the vulnerable were tenets of the Creed deeper and older than any mountain pass. A being who’d never worn armour, and yet cared for others, had more in common with Din than a Mandalorian who cared only for themselves. It was not their martial culture which had kept Mandalorians alive, fleeing from world to world; it wasn’t access to beskar which had preserved the Way for thousands of years. It was their communal will to live, not for battle-glory or reckless feats of heroism, but for each other. It was a conviction that their future was worth fighting for, that sacrifice gained meaning from the lives it saved, and that—if necessary—the old should die defending the young. For Din’s covert had loved him, and raised him well even in their suffering. They had pooled their knowledge and resources to find him a good, safe hormone doctor with experience and quality care. They had come out of hiding to help him against the Guild, knowing it would end in their deaths, and they had done it without hesitation. For one of their own. For Din.

To the best of their limited abilities, they had protected Din all his life—just as Din had tried his best to protect Grogu, despite them both being in mortal danger every minute they were together. Yet Din could not keep Grogu with him forever. He’d have been a bad father if he’d refused to give up his child, putting his selfish wants ahead of Grogu’s needs and safety. His covert had not died for Din so that he could subordinate his child’s life to his own. Grogu faced forces no mere man could withstand. Only the Jedi could keep Grogu alive.

Sometimes, it was all Din could do to keep himself alive. He was so exhausted and lonely and stressed that he could not go on.

He said at last, feeling the burden of everyone hanging on his words even as he sounded them out in his curt, hesitant Mando’a: ‘I decide what is to be done about Mandalore. I have not yet made that decision.’

‘You’d better make the decision soon, Mand’alor the Patient,’ growled a broad woman with a prosthetic leg and a heavy Dathomiri accent. ‘You’re travelling with a ticking time bomb at your side.’

---

They gave Din the best bedchamber in the Great Hall. This being a Mandalorian building, the best room was still simply furnished—a sturdy plasteel bed lined with syncloth, coarseweave draperies on the walls, an ewer of spring water and a washbasin. From Arumorut somebody had brought over a conifer wardrobe and desk, which both clashed terribly with the plastiflex storage crates stacked in a corner. The mattress was thick and soft. The uncarpeted stone floor felt cold beneath his bare feet. The desk had a thermajug beside a basket of cassius teabags, rolls of slickplast and mesh tape, energy cells, napkin wipes in a family-size box, bacta bandages, wrapped bars of honeyblossom soap, and cleaning solution for his armour.

For the first time in his life he felt spoiled.

He undressed carefully and took a sponge bath before climbing into bed. Din was very, very tired; his dreams that night were murmuring and vague. The next morning he took his clothes down to the river to be washed. There was a waterfall on the other side of the mountain where he could bathe, people told him, and he did so happily, with Axe guarding the cave’s entrance to make sure no one entered.

‘Brunch is in the feast hall when you’re ready,’ Axe told him, when Din emerged flapping his towel to dry it in the arid air. ‘Clan Eldar’s feeding you today, and tomorrow Clan Awaud—they’re all fighting over the privilege of hosting you, Mand’alor.’

‘Brunch?’

‘The laundry lady’s wife sent you multivitamins, by the way, for nutrients.’

‘Multivitamins?’

‘A couple of young ones offered to clean your room while you’re out, but I told them you wouldn’t like them near your stuff—was it okay for me to say that?’ At Din’s nod, Axe exhaled heavily through his nose. ‘They’re very fond of you.’

Din could not imagine why. ‘That’s nice, I guess.’

‘Are you kidding me? It sure is.’ Axe moved as if to touch Din’s shoulder but stopped himself just in time. ‘Vod, you don’t know what it was like living with you those first few months on the cruiser. It was like you couldn’t speak. You almost couldn’t move. We all saw you were hurting.’ He scratched at the nape of his own neck. ‘I thought that if I cut you open, you know, peeled away all that beskar—there’d be nothing there. No body. Just darkness.’

---

The folkmoot sat in session without Din for two days. On the third day Ruusaan came hurrying to meet him, hiking up her baggy steelcloth trousers to cross the mountain terraces more easily. Din had just been to see the smithy, a squat brick building located near the settlement’s greenhouses. Tayan falcons were still out even though it was getting late, making good use of what little daylight they had left to hunt—Din could hear their harsh shrieks and glimpse the flash of amber feathers in Kinyen’s wild skies. The Dal Forest was just barely visible in the distance, dense tree cover furring the earth’s gentler slopes like moss. He felt shockingly well-rested. There were enough gamwidges on this planet for Mandalorians to eat meat every day. He’d had fresh fruit and vegetables for three meals straight, and no one had tried to kill him in months, and the smithy was more of a workshop than an armoury: spears were turned into shovels, pikes into scythes.

‘They’ve accepted you!’ Ruusaan panted, adjusting her grey surcoat as she caught her breath.  When Bo-Katan emerged from the forge’s entrance, Ruusaan met her too with a grin of ferocious triumph. ‘Well done, Bo-Katan, you’ve kriffing done it. Kinyen recognises Din Djarin as Mand’alor.’

Bo-Katan closed her eyes and let out a long, satisfied exhale.

Wearily, Din leaned on his spear. ‘So what happens now?’

‘It’s up to you! You’re calling the shots now, vod.’ Ruusaan had a keen set of eyes, however, and even as she elbowed Din jubilantly her face was dead serious. ‘Do you want to be Mand’alor?’

‘Does it matter what I want?’

‘So dutiful!’ she teased. ‘Spoken like a true Mandalorian.’ 

Her expression didn’t match her tone. She gave Din a small commiserating nod.

He could not bear her sympathy. He wanted to ask, ‘Can I go now?’ He didn’t, though. Instead he scanned the quiet dwellings that dotted the mountainside, locating each of his friends in turn—Axe never far from Din’s side, Koska still munching on goatgrass spring rolls from supper, Bo-Katan a dark reliable presence behind him. Houjix, the sweet-tempered lizards which were pets on Kinyen, scuttled from pebble to pebble in the communal rock garden. Beside the infirmary, several people stood around a simmering cauldron of yak butter tea, chattering excitedly and taking turns to churn it. The settlement was unbearably tranquil.

‘Is there anyone important that I haven’t met yet?’

Ruusaan and Bo-Katan gave each other long looks. In the low light of dusk, Bo-Katan’s eyes were almost grey. At last Ruusaan said with clear reluctance, ‘There’s old Govik. He lives with his grandchild Temeri; they’re a good kid. They take care of him. But he’s a bitter and unpleasant man, Din.’

‘Seems like somebody I should know.’

‘He’s been through a lot. He doesn’t… We’re not all like him, Mand’alor.’

‘Well, if I’m officially Mand’alor to you lot,’ Din said resignedly, ‘he can’t do anything about it, can he?’

Bo-Katan sighed, her short hair windblown beyond all hope of tidiness, and nodded at Ruusaan. She had borrowed Ruusaan’s furs because of how chilly it got at night; Din could not help noticing that she pulled them close, now, to hide her armour’s distinctive Nite Owl markings. ‘We’ll take you to him.’

Old Govik shared one of the timber akaata’yaime with another Mando family on the settlement’s outskirts. The dome was sturdy and well-built, like all Mando houses, only less prosperous-looking than those constructed from brick and masonry. Ruusaan led Din, Bo-Katan, and Axe down the little staircase to the dome’s underground entrance, Koska having vehemently refused to participate. Din was not afraid. He wanted to see all types of Mandalorians, including those who did not cover their faces; he could look them in the eye without feeling threatened. 

In contrast to Bo-Katan, Ruusaan had opened her surcoat a little to show more of her chestplate—both were grey, the colour of mourning a lost love. None of these details escaped Din. When you were Mand’alor you had to notice the little tics and hidden hurts of those under your care, as nominal as that care might be. He was under no illusions of being somehow in charge of Ruusaan, or Axe, or (Maker forbid) Boba Fett. Nothing as insulting as that. Din had not been raised in a hierarchical environment. It was just that as Mand’alor, and he hated being Mand’alor, he was responsible for his people’s masses of pain. He knew his duty: to remember the name of every Mandalorian who would ever die because of him. All Mandalorians in the galaxy could call upon Din, and he would take the blame for their actions, which would be recorded on a slate he hadn’t written, and their lives and deaths would weigh upon him. To forget even a single brave soldier would be to fail them personally. His life had to honour the countless dead—all the neglected, the accursed, the forgotten—because letting them slip from memory was tantamount to causing their deaths a second time. He had to take the fate of all Mandalorians into his heart, no matter how impossible to bear, until it killed him too. 

From this point on, none of Din’s feelings belonged to him alone.

So when he greeted old Govik in Mando’a, he wasn’t particularly bothered by Govik choking out a laugh and going, ‘What the pfassk is that accent? You some inbred backwoods nerfherder?’

‘Don’t make fun of him,’ growled Axe, who spent a lot of time making fun of Din. ‘He was raised in a cult.’

‘I don’t know if you think that little tidbit will help, but it won’t,’ Ruusaan told Axe under her breath. ‘Din, are you going to challenge that?’

‘I don’t really care what Axe thinks,’ Din replied.

‘What’s that?’ said Govik. He had the sort of voice which crackled like a bushfire. ‘Whispering about me? Speak up!’

‘They’re actually whispering about me,’ Din said. He had a horrible feeling that Bo-Katan was attempting to hide behind him, for whatever reason. He shot her a warning glare.

‘Lots to whisper about, eh?’ Govik thumped his cane on the cold hearthstones beside his chair, making everybody except Ruusaan jump. ‘Where you from?’

‘Aq Vetina.’

‘Bah.’

‘I like you,’ said Din, surprising even himself. He hadn’t had a good sparring with a grumpy elderly person since his teenage years in the covert, and he automatically had great respect for any Mandalorian who lived long enough to see their grandchildren. Said grandchild, Temeri, had gotten up with an annoyed sigh to make tea for their unexpected guests. ‘What did you use to do?’

Govik whipped around to skewer Din with his incensed stare. ‘Use to? What did I do? You’re a real cheeky bastard.’ Nobody else in Din’s entire life had thought him cheeky. ‘Why’d you assume past tense?’

‘Because if you were still up and about,’ Din replied, unoffended, ‘I’d have seen you at the folkmoot.’

Govik’s glare swept over the other three adults with Din. ‘Perhaps you didn’t notice me.’

‘I’d have remembered you.’

Govik curled his lip, but Din saw how his gnarled hands trembled. ‘I don’t waste my breath with those fools in the Great Hall. So they think you can lead us? Huh? You call yourself Mand’alor, boy? You’re nothing but a child playing dress-up. Did you even fight in the Purge?’

‘Watch yourself, Govik,’ Ruusaan warned.

Din said quietly, ‘I wasn’t old enough.’

‘No?’ Govik’s knuckles went white where he was gripping the armrest. ‘You presume to rule me—us, our people—we who fought in a war you never knew?’

‘He presumes nothing,’ Bo-Katan interjected, her crisp intonation pitch-perfect. By this point, she’d ceased trying to avoid Govik’s blistering attention; she stepped out from behind Din, albeit reluctantly, to come to his defence. ‘He is the Mand’alor. I legitimised and groomed him myself. You’ll only hurt yourself if you refuse to recognise reality, Govik.’

‘Aye, and what higher authority than Bo-Katan Kryze?’ Govik’s voice had gained so much venom that Din took a step back, startled, and nearly bumped into Temeri emerging from the kitchen. Temeri—a snub-nosed young teenager with a shock of dark curls—squeaked and adjusted their grip on the tray. ‘I refuse to recognise him. I refuse to recognise you. Your reign is over, Lady Death Watch, and no one tells me what to do anymore.’

‘I’m not here to tell you what to do,’ Din said.

‘Then what are you here for?’ Govik raised his chin, revealing beard-growth patchy over scarred brown skin. ‘I’ve heard tales of you, dragon-slayer. You think being a good fighter is enough to be a good king? Make one mistake too many, lose not once but twice, and you’ll go down in history as Mand’alor the Unready.’ With a nasty smile, he let his gaze drift over to Bo-Katan. ‘But we already have one by that name, don’t we?’

‘This isn’t about me,’ Bo-Katan replied tightly.

‘Everything’s always about you.’

Temeri glanced between their grandfather and the four guests, irritation warring in their brown eyes with a wary, hunted look. Din gave them a cautionary hand gesture below Govik’s eye-line, half-calming and half-shooing; they finished filling the little celadon-glazed teacups, and retreated hastily into some inner room.

‘What’s your problem?’ Axe demanded. ‘Say your piece and let’s have no more of these barbs.’

Govik glanced at Axe, then at Ruusaan’s studiedly neutral expression, and finally at Din. He fell back in his chair with a heavy sigh. ‘He can’t sit on the throne of Mandalore.’

‘Can’t he?’ Axe snapped. ‘Maul sat on it.’

‘Aye, and how’d that work out for everybody?’ Pointedly ignoring Din, Govik addressed Bo-Katan instead. ‘His Mando’a isn’t good enough. Remember the Resol’nare.’

Bo-Katan turned her face aside, though not before Din had glimpsed her sudden blaze of contempt. ‘You cling too closely to tradition, old man.’ (The Resol’nare also stipulated rallying to the Mand’alor, but for a multitude of reasons Din did not feel like bringing this up.) ‘Mandalorians adapt to survive. We always have. It’s what makes us strong.’

Govik rose to his feet with difficulty, disdaining his cane—he slapped Din’s hand away when Din reached out to help him. Quivering from the strain on his ruined leg, pressing his lips together so hard that the thin line of his mouth blanched white, he was a magnificent and pathetic sight. In a guttural voice he said: ‘Going down the slippery slope again, are we?’

Bo-Katan drew herself up straight, nostrils flaring as her mouth twitched with the remarkable effort of holding herself back. Not a single person in the room had touched their tea.

‘Mandalorians adapt, do we? Aye, we’ve been here before, you old terrorist.’ Govik lurched forward, unstoppable, while Bo-Katan stayed perfectly still with what Din considered laudable self-restraint. ‘Adapting led your sister to abandon the Way, while you—’

‘Be careful, brother—’

‘While you,’ Govik repeated, stabbing her in the chest with a vicious index finger, ‘worked with the Sith and killed innocents!’

Bo-Katan hit him so hard that he stumbled backwards. The chair toppled over, wood splintering as it crashed to the floor, and Ruusaan moved in a swift, graceful sidestep to catch Govik before he fell. He pushed her away furiously and swayed towards Bo-Katan, raising his fists, but Din had already put himself between them.

‘I was a foundling,’ Din said evenly. Both Govik and Bo-Katan looked at him. ‘I saved and cared for a foundling in my turn. Is that Mandalorian enough for you, Govik?’

Govik sneered at him and seemed about to speak; then Temeri, who’d run into the room at the first sounds of violence, rushed to his side. He allowed them to right the fallen chair and ease him back into his seat, resolutely not meeting their eyes. Temeri straightened up with a nervous sigh, as if this happened all the time, and checked that the teacups were safely intact.

‘Nice work punching an elderly man,’ they mumbled as they passed Bo-Katan.

Bo-Katan barely spared them a glance. ‘We’re the same age.’

‘Oh, wow,’ Temeri said. ‘What’s your skincare routine?’

Govik spoke in tones so clear and bitter that the room fell silent. He was looking straight at Din—and, as the ultimate insult, he had switched to speaking Basic. ‘I witnessed the deeds of both jetii and dar’jetii. I survived the Great Clan Wars.’ They’d been conversing in Mando’a with little trouble this whole time; was he going to speak Basic to Din (with scattered Mando’a words) and Mando’a to everybody else? ‘I saw the Old Republic fall and Imperial darkness hook its tendrils into our system. I remember Mandalore as it was, not as it is now.’ His black eyes seemed to scorch Din’s skull even through beskar. ‘You may be a Mandalorian, little one, but you’ll never be Mandalorian enough for me.’

‘Call me “little one” again and you’ll see how Mandalorian I can get.’

Govik gave a rattling, awful, crow-like laugh. ‘You’ve got mettle. I see why the others accepted you. Still, I’d prefer a Mand’alor who hasn’t failed before they’ve even begun—’

‘Copaani mirshmure’cye?’

‘No thanks, I already got a smack from her.’ Govik jerked a thumb at Bo-Katan, his teeth bared in spiteful mirth. ‘Appreciate you asking first, though.’

---

The settlement presented Din with an armed MandalMotors shuttle for his personal transport. Tiny as it was, it had been retrofitted with twin laser cannons and a hyperdrive; it was a sleek, manoeuvrable, deadly little thing. Din passed his gloved hand over the stripes freshly painted on the side—green for duty, black for justice, and the ominous dull gold which signified vengeance. He missed the Razor Crest. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to name this ship. He knew very well that the gift had been more for the Kinyen Mandalorians’ sake than for his.

‘Very tacky,’ Bo-Katan commented, pursing her lips at the mythosaur skull painted on each upright wing. ‘Then again, what else do you expect from Mandos who live on Kinyen?’

‘A suitable vessel for the Mand’alor.’ Koska gave Ruusaan a knowing look, which was returned in kind. ‘Somehow, I doubt those markings were designed for stealth.’

‘I’m grateful for the ship,’ Din told Ruusaan.

Ruusaan grinned broadly, leaning on Bo-Katan’s shoulder. ‘I’ll pass on your thanks.’

‘I mean,’ said Axe diplomatically, ‘it’s way better than riding on Moff Gideon’s cruiser.’

‘Former cruiser! Former cruiser,’ Bo-Katan corrected, but Ruusaan’s eyebrows had already shot to her hairline.

Ruusaan let out a low whistle. ‘You’ve been using a ship from the man who oversaw the Purge?’ She regarded Bo-Katan with new delight and horror, although Bo-Katan was determinedly staring straight ahead. ‘That’s impressively fucked up, even for you.’

Bo-Katan scrunched up her face. ‘I call it reparations.’

‘I call it disgraceful,’ Koska mumbled.

Bo-Katan rolled her eyes, even as Ruusaan chuckled behind her hand. ‘Koska, if we fight, I’ll win.’

‘I know,’ Koska replied gruffly. ‘That’s why we don’t fight.’

Din checked the coordinates he’d stored on his comlink and began programming his route into the ship’s navicomputer. He did all his hyperspace calculations himself; it was easier than dealing with droids. The settlement’s mechanics had been shocked when Din had told them not to bother finding him an astromech, but he figured they weren’t used to people trying to make their lives easier.

‘Bo-Katan,’ he hissed as quietly as he could, and she came over to him with one eyebrow raised. When he was sure no one else could hear them speaking, Din confessed: ‘I speak better Tusken than Mando’a.’

Bo-Katan sighed so loudly and dramatically that Din had to shush her. ‘Din,’ she said, and it was still startling to hear his name spoken so casually. ‘I’ve been playing this game longer than you’ve been alive. It doesn’t matter. Trust me. You’re as Mandalorian as the rest of us.’

Bo-Katan Kryze telling other people to trust her was hilarious every time it happened, but Din had to admire the shamelessness. He whispered, ‘Everyone has different opinions on what makes a Mandalorian.’

‘Uh-huh. But I’m the only one who’s right.’

Din snorted before he could stop himself. She was horrible. He liked her. ‘I’ll meet you at our next stop.’

‘Take your time seeing your son,’ she replied, leaning her elbow on the hull. ‘But don’t take too much time, you understand?’

‘Of course.’

‘You know how to reach me.’ She stepped out of the way to let him power up the engines, a small smirk playing around her lips, and added in Mando’a: ‘Stay alive, Mand’alor the Wanderer.’

‘K’oyacyi,’ Din echoed in farewell.

---

He’d never been to the sector Luke had asked Din to pick him up from. Din did not know exactly how Luke travelled—his X-wing only seated one, and he’d left the little R2 unit with Leia, and he packed almost as lightly as Din. When they’d exchanged messages via comlink transmissions, he had sounded relieved to hear that Din was bringing a ship with passenger capacity. Most likely Luke was collecting foundlings with Grogu’s abilities, which seemed like a huge undertaking for anyone who wasn’t a professional bounty hunter. In the cold silence of space, in his new ship which smelled as rubbery and sanitised as a Coruscant subway station, Din finally let his knotted-up muscles begin to relax.

He was on vacation, he told himself. It was impossible to think of his time with Luke and Grogu as anything other than a stolen rest, a few clear days of summer hurriedly snatched between storms; every hour had to be sweetened by the knowledge that it would end. He couldn’t help feeling like he was playing hooky whenever he did something for himself. Grogu, he thought, might not even remember him—how many Jedi had the kid met by now, each one more interesting and magical than Din?

He wasn’t sure what to expect when he landed on a clouded, muddy little moon at the coordinates Luke had given him. From Corvus and Tython, Din had learned that no rendezvous was predictable when Jedi powers got involved. There was no point disembarking with any sort of tactical plan, the way Din usually did on strange planets. All he could do was make a few routine scans, wistfully mourn his Amban rifle, and go into whatever situation awaited him with blind trust in Luke Skywalker.

Pink soil shifted beneath Din’s boots. The atmosphere was breathable, if somewhat dank, and he could find no signs of life. There were clear tracks leading away from the spot where he’d parked his ship, though. Din checked his comlink for new messages and sent Luke a little beeping reminder. He’d imagined combat at worst, and at best, Luke already waiting at the rendezvous point with a gaggle of new foundlings. 

He had not expected what he saw: Luke striding towards him across muddy ground with the green lightsaber alive and humming in one hand, and a face like a contained storm.

Din did not stop breathing, but it was a close shave. Some stony weight had dropped a very great distance within his own chest.

‘What happened?’

‘Dead,’ Luke said shortly.

Din shifted from foot to foot. He could not bring himself to ask. He didn’t wish to make Luke say, I was too late; he was not cruel enough to force an explanation out loud. There were some secrets Din had no right to know.

Luke extinguished his lightsaber and then, with uncharacteristic abruptness, took hold of Din’s wrist and began examining the vambrace. Startled into compliance, Din let him. ‘I need your flamethrowers.’

‘What?’

‘Can-you-take-off-your-flamethrowers,’ Luke said in a very clipped voice, not looking directly at Din but through Din instead, as if he wasn’t quite present, as if he stood poised on the threshold between the living and the dead.

Din fumbled with his vambraces and managed at last to detach the wrist-mounted flamethrowers. It was such a little thing he could do to bring Luke back from that threshold. Luke had not been too late to save Grogu; and Din had never enquired about his success rate. Fortunately Din did not have to ask any questions. His heart stuttered wildly in his chest. He was so primed and ready to absorb his Mandalorians’ pain that he easily recognised the same awfulness in somebody else. 

Luke tested the flamethrowers briefly, his mouth a flat line, and when Din tilted his head towards him in wordless concern, he looked up at Din with veiled despair. ‘I have to burn them.’

‘Luke.’

‘I have to take care of the bodies.’

‘You don’t…’ Din put up his hands like he was soothing a skittish blurrg. In a vivid flash of imagination, he pictured Luke’s aunt and uncle turning to charred bone on a Tatooine moisture farm. ‘You don’t have to do this alone. I’ll help you build the pyres.’

Luke’s eyes flicked from Din to the garishly painted ship behind him. With the same grace Din had shown him, he didn’t force Din to explicitly acknowledge what they both understood—that Din had experience building funeral pyres, that Luke did not need his help. In a distant murmur, a phantom voice, he said: ‘You should take a nap on your ship.’

Din blinked. He was sleep-deprived as hell, but he knew when he was being gently dismissed. Again he moved to speak, to show that he wasn’t trying to stop Luke, and this time Luke cut him off.

‘Just wait there. I’ll pilot it when I get back.’

‘Luke—’

‘Thank you for offering to help,’ said Luke quickly, as if he couldn’t speak any slower or he would break, ‘but you can’t; you’re not a Jedi.’ And he put his hood up and vanished.

Luke was gone for a very long time. Din woke when they were already in hyperspace—he’d waited outside the ship until heavy rainfall drove him inside, and then he’d waited in the pilot’s seat, and sleep had overtaken him at last. He had no idea how Luke had moved him from the cockpit into a bunk without waking him, but either Din was a sounder sleeper than he’d thought or Luke was very, very quiet. It occurred to Din that they were both remarkably stubborn people.

He did not know what time it was. Night had fallen long before Din had lost the fight to stay awake. As softly as possible, he crept to the bridge and peered into the cockpit. Still no droid. The controls glowed dimly, as did the display screens; the stars’ paths streaked wild and endless beyond the sloping viewports. Luke sat in the pilot’s seat, calmly monitoring the hyperdrive, even though the ship was perfectly capable of staying on course by itself.

Din did not want to startle his Jedi, but it seemed that no one else could. He was almost afraid to touch Luke. Somehow this ghostly peace was worse than Govik’s wounded lashings. He could not stand back and allow it to continue. He leaned in the doorway to the cockpit and spoke Luke’s name, gentle, but Luke was drifting like a man in a permanent fog—placid, unresponsive—and did not seem capable of hearing a human voice.

Notes:

dral’verd — bright one (literally ‘bright soldier’)
‘All helmet, no head’ (Ori’buyce, kih’kovid) is a common phrase of derision, given in English here as the characters are already said in-text to be speaking Mando’a.
cu’bikad — game of stabbing darts into a checkered board
kama — kilt-like Mandalorian garment popularised by clone troopers
akaata’yaime (plural) — small vheh’yaime (traditional Mandalorian dwellings)
Resol’nare — Six Actions: wearing armour, speaking Mando’a, defending loved ones, raising children as Mandos, contributing to communal welfare, rallying to the Mand’alor
jetii and dar'jetii — Jedi and Sith
Copaani mirshmure’cye? — Are you looking for a smack in the face?
K'oyacyi — Hang in there/Come back safely (literally ‘Stay alive’)

Chapter 7

Notes:

CW: PTSD symptoms

When Din touched his arm, Luke reacted with a drowner’s panic. Although he didn’t exactly flail, the eerie film over his eyes gave way to horrified awareness, and Din was flung across the cockpit by an unseen gust of wind. Din slid to the floor and sat up with no harm done, except a faint ringing in his ears where his helmet had smacked against the wall; he’d taken worse hits sparring with Cara. Then Luke was at Din’s side (how fast did the man move?), gasping, ‘Sorry, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine.’ Din took Luke’s hand to pull himself up. Luke looked more shaken than he was. Din had grasped Luke’s prosthetic hand, the one wearing the black leather glove, and Luke blinked down at it as though he could not believe it was solid. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, just—’

‘I’m so sorry.’ 

Din finished: ‘You weren’t blinking enough.’

Luke had reflexively ignited his lightsaber when Din jolted him out of sleepless nightmares, and he switched it off just as quickly. It still steamed in the cockpit’s stale air. His hair was a mess. He looked terrible. ‘I don’t do this around Grogu, Din, I would never—sometimes I wake up holding my lightsaber but I never—I wouldn’t ever scare him like that, I swear.’

Din put the backs of his fingers to Luke’s cheek, only briefly, and wondered at how Luke’s eyes followed them as they moved away. He did not know—or care, frankly—how the mysterious Force passed through all living things. It was enough for Din that he could understand the strong and breakable structures of the body, the orbital bones, the delicate inner ear. The cavities and canals of skull and spine. He could understand how blood coursed through vessels just below the skin, explaining breakage and bruising; he knew how to splint a fracture and reset a dislocated joint. He knew how muscles could betray you, how reflexes worked against your brain.

He didn’t blame Luke. He wasn’t doubting Luke. He just understood very, very intimately how someone who’d been fighting since adolescence might occasionally experience a loss of control. 

‘What makes you so sure?’

Whatever Din had been expecting, it wasn’t Luke answering swiftly and reassuringly, like his solution was fucking healthy, ‘Well, I don’t sleep around Grogu.’

And now Din’s muscles acted faster than his brain. He pulled Luke roughly to him. Luke made a shocked little sound as he leaned into the hug; he didn’t seem to know what to do with his arms. Through his own rush of loving fury, Din told Luke, ‘Once we get to Bespin you’re taking a nice long nap.’

‘But Grogu—’

‘I’ll watch him. I’m wearing beskar, aren’t I?’ Din drew back just a little, keeping his arms around Luke to show he wasn’t going to go far, and studied Luke’s shadowed, frantic eyes with growing incredulity. ‘You do know about beskar being lightsaber-proof, right?’

‘Um.’

Din pressed his helmet into Luke’s shoulder. He wanted to trace Luke’s jaw, the shell of his ear; he wanted to put both hands on Luke’s waist and walk him backwards until he could press him into the wall. He had never wanted so badly to bury his bare face in somebody’s neck before. Standing this close, Din could tell even through his helmet’s filters that Luke smelled of sweat and fear and that a blood-salted streak of mud remained near his eyebrows, mostly hidden by his bangs. Luke’s hands fluttered over Din’s back, worshipful, and finally came to settle somewhere near his shoulders.

‘I should tell you.’ Luke cleared his throat; he still sounded stunned. His fingers knotted themselves in Din’s cape. ‘Now that we’re safe.’ His sentences were small, shocked stubs. ‘The Jedi academy is on Yavin Four. So you know where it is, and you can come visit any time… I shouldn’t keep calling it an academy, it’s not a Jedi temple, it’s more of a shelter for refugees, really…’

‘Who takes care of the place while you’re gone?’

And Luke said, ‘There is no one else.’

Din tightened his embrace. He felt hotly angry—only a little, an almost-pleasant itch that he could do something about. He wasn’t a Jedi, but it was well within his abilities to care for one. If Din could look after a toddler, he could certainly help a grown man.

He was too old and tired to bother with being shy. Din, and to some extent Luke, lived the kind of life that didn’t nurture slow relationships; he had no room for treasured uncertainties, for agonising over the meaning of a kiss or the touch of a hand. He’d spent nearly twenty years jumping between planets, doing jobs that required him to size up people in a couple of minutes at most. Encounters with people Din actually liked were so rare, so memorable, that the opportunities they presented had to be seized. You couldn’t wait to act on your feelings if you didn’t know when you would ever see someone again. He did not have the luxury of taking his sweet time to fall in love.

So he could hear the decisive tone of his own voice when he offered, ‘If you’re ever feeling unsafe, you can come sleep with me and Grogu. You can be part of the clan.’

Luke’s hand came up to cup Din’s helmet reverently, almost in wonder at its existence. Din let him do this because he wouldn’t try to pry the helmet off, and because Luke hugged in a way that few beings hugged Din—like he knew Din’s armour was as much a part of him as Din’s flesh. Like this contact was sacred and satisfying enough, without digging into metal grooves in search of skin. Outside his covert, hardly anyone had ever treated Din with such precious gentleness. Besides, Din sensed that Luke touched Din the way Luke himself wanted to be touched.

‘Okay, sweetheart,’ said Luke, a little helplessly. He sniffled and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. And then, with a rueful but lovely smile, he continued in a rather different tone: ‘Wait, if you’re taking care of me, and I’m taking care of Grogu—’

‘And Grogu’s taking care of me—’ said Din, getting into the flow.

‘Yeah, and so am I, come to think of it—’

‘So we’re all looking after each other—’

‘—then who’s flying the starship?’ Luke finished.

They both looked at the autopilot controls. Din sighed quite heavily. ‘I’ll go put the kettle on.’

‘Blue milk if you have it,’ said Luke, looking much happier than he had been a minute ago. Yet when Din began heading towards the tiny kitchenette near the ship’s cargo hold, Luke said almost in a whisper, ‘Din.’

Din turned around. ‘Hmm?’

Luke’s mouth twisted in the way that meant he was trying to sacrifice something. ‘You shouldn’t risk…’ 

Din, who’d spent his life working in a dangerous profession to support his covert and was still very much alive, thank you, did not believe that he was putting himself at risk. He tried to convey this with the unimpressed stare he gave Luke, but Luke clearly thought his own comfort was worth less than other people’s. 

‘I don’t want you to have to sleep in your armour around me.’

‘So I won’t sleep in my armour.’

‘But I’m a Jedi,’ Luke protested, something terrible sitting just behind his eyes, as if Din hadn’t spent their entire time together treating Luke like a normal fucking person. ‘Without the beskar… I could accidentally hurt you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Din said. ‘I’m a big boy, I can handle it.’

---

Cloud City’s air traffic control had known to expect them. Din landed with no issue, permitting the hangar’s maintenance droids to swarm his ship as he alighted. The platform was connected to a steel-reinforced ferrocrete bridge, where an unrealistically handsome man strode towards them and swept Luke into a hug.

‘I’ve been tasked to deliver kisses,’ he declared. ‘That’s from Han.’ With a flourish of his cream cape, he planted a loud, smacking kiss on Luke’s forehead. ‘That’s from Leia.’ A gentler peck on the cheek. ‘That’s from Threepio—’ Luke squirmed, laughing, as the man’s moustache tickled his ear. ‘—and this is from me!’

Turning to Din, he produced a tiny flower from somewhere in his tailored yellow jacket and held it out. ‘Welcome to Cloud City, Mand’alor. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Entranced, Din took the flower. The man was so good-looking that Din kept staring at him, thinking: That can’t be right.

‘Din, this is Lando Calrissian,’ Luke said, his cheeks still slightly flushed because Lando had dipped him. ‘Baron Administrator. Smuggler gone straight. By far the most well-adjusted adult in my family.’

‘I’ve never been straight in my life.’

‘I know, pal, I realised as soon as I said that.’

‘Now.’ Lando struck his palms together with brisk competent charm. ‘My people will show you to your quarters. You’ll find clean clothes and water showers in your rooms, and Grogu’s waiting for you in his playroom; he’s been very well-behaved.’ Luke snorted at this extremely obvious polite untruth. ‘You’re both invited to supper in my quarters, of course—although I understand you don’t eat with other people, Mand’alor, so we’re happy to bring food to your rooms privately if you so desire.’ 

‘Thank you,’ said Din, who was thinking mainly of Grogu. Luke put a hand at the small of Din’s back, easy and protective, and Din felt his whole body tilt towards Luke like oceanic tides being pulled by a moon.

The one time he’d been to Bespin before this, Din had mainly stuck to Ugnorgrad and the mining facilities where workers processed tibanna gas. He didn’t feel particularly comfortable in a pleasure city for wealthy tourists, though he was glad to see Ugnaughts mingling with humans in the upper-level casinos. With a pang, Din missed Kuiil terribly; the old man might have liked seeing so many of his people free from servitude.

Somebody had been very thoughtful about allocating their rooms. Each spacious though simply furnished apartment had a door to Grogu’s playroom, flanking it with adult supervision from either side. As he walked through their connected quarters, Din didn’t miss how he and Luke had both been given a child’s crib beside the bed. And on a playroom floor padded with soft washable mats, strewn with toys and striped with cheerful colours, sat a chattering toddler with very large ears.

Din ran. 

Grogu also ran. 

They caught each other in the ball pit near the doorway, where Grogu’s feet sank into spongy gel-foam and he toppled over face-first. He’d gotten new clothing, a tiny silver jumpsuit with holes in the hood for those long ears, and Din abruptly remembered Luke talking about how Grogu wanted to be Mando-shiny. Din scooped him up—breathless, bright-eyed, squeaking little one—and cuddled him close.

‘Oh, sir, I am so glad you’re here,’ babbled a nervous golden droid. ‘I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. Protocol droid at your service. I am fluent in over six million forms of communication, sir, and if you’ll pardon me saying this, he listens to me in none of them!’

‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ Din wanted to take off his helmet so the kid could touch his face—Grogu was patting his visor very insistently. But he’d have to wait until they were alone. Nestled against Din’s shoulder, Grogu cooed at the sight of Luke, and Din had to pretend that didn’t cause a powerful twinge in his chest. ‘What have you been up to, you little womp rat?’

Grogu’s ears went up so fast that Din nearly got whiplash. Before Din could think to squeeze him tighter, he hopped out of Din’s arms and catapulted himself all the way to the (admittedly well-padded) floor, landing with preternatural grace.

‘Hey! Kid—’

‘I taught him to do that,’ said Luke apologetically, resting his arm on Din’s shoulder. ‘Force agility.’

Din sighed, and bent down to take off his boots before following Grogu across the room. He wasn’t quick enough for Grogu’s whims, being a mere clumsy adult, and Grogu zipped back and forth several times to pat his ankles impatiently until Din finally finished. ‘You could warn a guy.’

He sat down with a grunt to accept the toys Grogu brought him. Grogu had gotten much more vocal and active in the months since he’d last seen Din; he insisted on showing Din everything he had, picture books and plushies and big wooden puzzles. Beside the door leading to Luke’s quarters,  a powder-blue wall was lined with sturdy shelves. The topmost shelves had clearly been designed to be child-proof, but Grogu used his Force powers to pull out more toy boxes and send a cascade of plastoid vehicles crashing to the floor, that little shit.

‘I’m not getting up to chase you,’ said Din, fonder and grumpier than he had heard himself sound for a very long time. His hips had creaked ominously when he’d sat down. He rolled his shoulders and stretched out his legs, groaning in contentment. ‘Your other dad can deal with you when you cheat.’

In his peripheral vision, Din could see Luke hugging C-3PO and chatting with the droid in soothing undertones, pulling off his glove to run his cybernetic hand through tousled hair. He looked comfortable and happy; he also looked very tired, although that could be fixed. Seeing both Grogu and Luke so relaxed in this place made Din relax, too. Then Grogu smacked his thigh (quite hard, actually!) and Din said: ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll pay attention to only you, I promise.’

Grogu, who was not old enough to understand sarcasm, scurried away to levitate an entire swing set several feet off the floor.

---

After supper—when Grogu had been (gently) prevented from stealing dessert trays, (gently) led to Din’s quarters so that he could eat with his father, and (less gently) scolded for screeching with demonic jealousy whenever Din talked to somebody who wasn’t him—Luke retired early. Grogu had already had a bath, so there was nothing left for Luke to do except tend to his own needs. In any case, the kid clung possessively to Din and wouldn’t permit anyone else to claim his attention. Even Luke, who was a close second favourite, got an earful for offering to hold Grogu so that Din could take a shower.

‘Yeah, me too, buddy,’ Luke sighed as Grogu emphatically stomped into the fresher after Din. He considered nagging Grogu about getting his teeth cleaned, but figured Din would handle it. If Din managed to shampoo his hair at all with the kid underfoot, though, he was a stronger man than Luke.

Luke showered in his own fresher and luxuriated in the privacy, the temperature-controlled comfort, the abundance of water. There was a sonic toothbrush he investigated with mild curiosity before deciding he preferred the manual method. His skin smelled of real soap. He’d gotten the blood and dirt out of his hair with proper, frothy, fancy shampoo, the kind they probably gave to resort guests. It felt good to be in his friend’s domain. It felt good to be safe.

He found cool drinks and candy in a mini-conservator outside the bedroom and filled an ice tray to freeze overnight, fighting every Tatooine instinct which called this an extravagant waste of water. Wearing the linen pajamas he’d found in a terrifyingly well-stocked closet, Luke sat on the edge of his bed to apply ointment to old wounds. He rarely remembered to do this before going to bed, mainly because he rarely went to bed. And because Luke was Luke, he still found the gall to be irritated at his body for not healing itself, even though he never cared for it and hardly bothered with Force healing except to aid efficiency in combat. There were all these inconveniences trailing up his torso: shrapnel from metal bullets he’d stupidly deflected like regular blaster fire, acid burns from destroying the xenomorph nest on LV-426. Purplish scarring encircled his right wrist where deep sores had scabbed over—after Jabba’s palace, his stump had gotten infected a few times. Whatever. Luke was still young enough to get away with treating himself worse than the hardest-worked droid. The Emperor’s lightning hadn’t left so much as a mark on him. The damage had been internal, mostly, and he’d been a lot better at looking after his own body back then.

Sleep was difficult to come by. He hadn’t eaten for a few days, and the rich meal Lando had provided sat uneasily as a result. He woke several times that night, curled around the pain in his belly and trying uselessly to calm the ghosts screaming at him. But they would not be soothed. There seemed to be more of them every time Luke killed someone; and he knew there wasn’t a direct correlation, which didn’t make it any easier to endure.

The sixth or seventh time Luke shot upright, his lightsaber already emitting a sinister drone, he heard voices talking softly outside his door. Luke wearily turned off his lightsaber—how many times was this going to happen?—and stowed it under the bedside table, weighting down the drawers as best as he could. Not that it ever helped. He’d stopped trying to secure all weaponry out of reach after destroying three padlocks in his sleep.

Rubbing his forehead, Luke checked his surroundings to make sure he hadn’t sliced through anything. It took a few seconds to confirm that there were indeed voices outside—human, and… and whatever species Yoda was. There were also multiple spectral presences in the corners of his room, but Luke didn’t want to look at them directly.

He got up, pushing resolutely past the blue-tinged figures, and leaned his whole body against the doorframe. Yes, Din and Grogu were definitely up; they were at the door, from the sound of it. Luke could make out Grogu’s determined coos and Din whispering, ‘Leave it alone, kid, you’re making too much noise…’

Luke knocked on the inside of his own door. Both of them fell silent, startled. He didn’t want to open it right away, in case he surprised Din bare-faced. ‘You good?’ he asked.

There was a decidedly incredulous rustle of clothing. ‘Yes,’ Din responded, and then Grogu’s little nails began scraping at the door. ‘He’s been trying to get to you all night. Sorry, I told him not to wake you up.’

Fuck. Luke scrubbed the back of his hand over his stinging eyes. This was why he tried not to sleep where Grogu could sense his unconscious mind. Well, that, and… the other thing. ‘It’s all right, I was awake anyway,’ he said, and reached down to unlock his bedroom door. Grogu squealed in anticipation. ‘Stand back. It opens outwards.’

As soon as the door opened, Grogu leaned so far towards Luke that he almost slipped from Din’s arms. Luke took the kid gladly and rubbed noses with him, blinking back the tears which threatened to come. ‘I’m sorry, little one.’ Their fluttering mental contact showed Luke Grogu’s most recent memories—a thin wail of sympathetic distress, followed by pattering little feet. ‘Were you sharing my dreams?’

Din was dressed in blue pajamas matching Grogu’s, although he’d hurriedly put on his helmet at some point. He looked ridiculous, and ridiculously huggable, with that as his only piece of armour. Luke could hear the frown in Din’s voice when he spoke. ‘It’s nearly morning. Have you slept at all?’

Luke said, ‘Yes,’ which wasn’t technically a lie. He let Grogu poke his cheeks. Having a toddler attempt to comfort you was… a lot. Grogu tilted back a little bit and then knocked his forehead into Luke’s chin, tiny hands clawing at Luke’s neck, and this time Luke had to squeeze his eyes shut to stop himself from crying. He’d be turning thirty soon, dammit. He was supposed to be stronger than this. No one would trust Luke to do anything if he couldn’t be stronger than this.

Din reached towards him—to take Grogu back, Luke thought, but Din’s hands settled on his waist. They were gloveless, of course. So was Luke’s cybernetic hand. He fought the wild urge to collapse against Din with his whole body, to put his lips to Din’s exposed throat and beg for the warmth of skin on skin. Instead Luke adjusted his hold on Grogu, kissing the top of Grogu’s head. He didn’t want the baby to see him cry.

‘How long has it been like this,’ said Din, with a severity which made the words a statement rather than a question.

Luke could not bring himself to explain to Din that he slept much, much better when he was in the field. Din had seen some bad shit, which made it fucked-up that Luke found missions comforting, plus Din wasn’t a military guy. He could not put that kind of burden on Din.

Still, he didn’t want to make his situation sound worse than it was. Luke had spent a lot of time on Mako-Ta and Hoth fucking strangers to forget about Red Squadron, so he generously shaved the first three years off his count. ‘Six years, give or take?’

Someday Din would have to tell Luke how he managed to convey intense disapproval through a transparisteel visor. Luke figured now wasn’t the time. 

‘Okay. I don’t want you out here by yourself,’ Din said. His tone made a cushy room in Cloud City sound like Hoth’s inhospitable wastes. ‘Come sleep in our room. I’ll move the crib to my side of the bed so there’s no chance of you hurting Grogu. I’ll make sure I lie between you two. Do you sleepwalk?’

Luke could feel his mouth hanging open. How was he supposed to process the brusque authority that a helmeted, armour-less Din radiated from every pore while looking like a chicken defeathered from the neck down? ‘Never.’

‘So it’s settled then.’ Absently, Din’s thumbs stroked the jut of Luke’s hipbones through his clothing. If Din touched his face again, Luke thought, he really would burst into exhausted tears, and nobody wanted that.

Grogu twisted around in Luke’s arms to glance at each grown-up in turn. Father and son regarded Luke with the same grave, earnest gaze. Now that he’d been invited into their clan, Luke could not stave off angry ghosts much longer. He could not outrun his own darkness. Luckily, that darkness had saved Luke the trouble of warning Din about it before they entered into a relationship. Din had seen nearly the worst of Luke. He wanted to reassure Din that he’d never endanger the kid, that he hadn’t been lying when he said he’d give his life for Grogu—yet Din seemed to understand that already. He wanted to say, I didn’t grow up a Jedi; they got me too late, after I had already formed attachments. He could have said: No one told me I wasn’t supposed to get attached. I loved you from the moment I saw you.

But Luke knew he did not have to explain himself.

‘It’s settled,’ Din repeated, cupping Grogu’s whole head in one broad hand. He tilted his helmet towards his son, murmured some lovely phrase in a language Luke didn’t know, and then translated for Luke’s benefit: ‘I know your name as my child. Grogu Djarin-Skywalker.’

‘Aw, sweetheart,’ said Luke, who had learned all his endearments from Han, ‘you don’t have to—’

‘I know I don’t have to,’ Din interrupted, obviously wondering whether Luke was a bit thick. Which, to be fair… ‘I want to. Will you come to bed or not?’

Luke finally gave in to his body’s instincts and slumped towards Din, armful of Grogu and all. He didn’t really know what any of this meant—if it was a vow, a ritual—but Din was so serious about everything that he didn’t need a verbal commitment to love Luke. All Luke knew was that he trusted Din, he was very sleepy, and he felt safe. 

Hugging Din was easy. He could smell the same fragrant hotel soap on Din’s skin and his. Din hugged him back just as tightly, just as desperately, like a man starved, while Grogu burbled happily between them to let them know he was getting squashed.

---

Later that afternoon, Din drew his blaster at the sight of Han Solo on their apartments’ shared balcony. Grogu’s ears perked up in interest; he was sitting on Luke’s shoulders, tugging at Luke’s hair and occasionally kicking when Luke held his feet a little too securely. As Solo’s Wookiee companion roared a warning, Luke shot Din an amused look and said: ‘Stand down, he’s my best friend.’

‘Who’s the Mando?’ Solo demanded. He’d frozen on the threshold just as he and Lando came in together from the drinks area. Behind him, the Wookiee growled something extremely rude.

Lando took a cocktail straw out of his mouth to laugh, warm and hearty, at the expression on Solo’s face. ‘He’s the king of Mandos, so do try to get along.’

Din put an arm out to curb his kid’s more bloodthirsty impulses. ‘What the hell are you doing here? There are bounties on your head in every Outer Rim system.’

Solo hooked his thumbs into his belt. ‘Han Solo is a dead man. I’m Han Organa now.’

‘Okay,’ said Din, unfazed. ‘Wanna give me a reason to cancel the bounty pucks I’ve kept inactive for years? Name change doesn’t count.’

‘How’s this?’ Solo—Han—raised his hands in mock-surrender. He was looking very cocky (which he’d earned, to be fair, as the only bounty to successfully evade Din for Din’s entire career). ‘If you lay a finger on me, my wife Leia will kick your ass.’

The Wookiee gave a raucous bark of assent. Luke and Din exchanged glances.

‘Good enough,’ Din said, holstering his blaster.

Luke gently but firmly lowered Grogu into his high chair—Grogu fought and clung to Luke, whining—and went to hug his friend. Han shook him like a dog with a chew toy, messed up Luke’s hair, and said, ‘How you doing, kid?’

Luke scrunched up his nose. ‘Quit calling me kid.’

‘You’re a kid to me and you’ll be a kid in your sixties.’ Han turned to scan the balcony, pale-pillared and airy and perfectly placed to view Bespin’s two-hour-long sunsets. He made psst-psst noises at Grogu, who looked puzzled at being treated like a tooka kitten. ‘Hey, what happened to the other Force-sensitive kids you said you’d—’

‘Dead.’

‘Oh.’ Han looked stricken. ‘Okay. Okay, never mind, kiddo.’

Din and Han spent several hours playing with Grogu while Luke, completely worn out, fell into a deep and hopefully dreamless sleep on Din’s—their—mattress. Han, who was better with children than he looked, did voices for all the plastoid figures and manfully allowed Grogu to walk on his belly. When he was comfortable enough, Din lifted his helmet a little to sip some iced caf. It was sweet and slightly too milky, with a lush vanilla aftertaste. Cloud City really was pure luxury.

He set down his drink to find Han watching him with a pilot’s sharp eyes, missing nothing, even though Han was currently sprawled across four mats with his socked feet on a rocking horse.

‘The helmet never comes off, huh?’

‘Only for family,’ Din said gruffly.

‘You got family?’

‘None living. There’s clan,’ he said, fumbling to explain the fine differences between family you inherited and family you created—and why should Din have to explain them, anyway? ‘We can choose to add to our clans. Then we are aliit, bound together.’

‘Sounds like a lot of responsibility.’ Han tried halfheartedly, and with mixed success, to make Grogu stop chewing on his fingers. ‘What if you change your mind?’

Din said with contempt he could not hide, ‘I’m a Mandalorian.’

Thankfully, Leia ended the awkwardness by appearing unexpectedly in the doorway.  Din sat up very quickly, earning himself a snort from Han. She was taking hairpins out of her braid with a quiet, contented sigh, and she had engine grease stains all down the front of her flightsuit.

‘Hi, Han, hi, Din—yes, the Falcon is fine,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Landing was no trouble. Hello, little one,’ she added as Grogu rolled down his swing set’s slide towards her. ‘Everything good on Yavin? I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Din, I want to have a bath and put my feet up.’

‘Of course, ma’am,’ said Din, although his gut twisted at the thought of news concerning him.

Leia smiled tiredly. ‘Don’t call me ma’am,’ she told him, then scowled when Han’s bark of laughter rang loud enough to bring a bleary-eyed Luke traipsing into the playroom. ‘No, I take that back. Please call me ma’am only to annoy my husband.’

‘Leia,’ Luke said with a kind of grateful relief, and then he settled on the floor beside Din and lifted Grogu back to the top of the slide. He seemed better when he was surrounded by family, Din thought—how simple, how impossible it was to ease life’s ills with life’s ordinary comforts.

‘Been looking after Luke and Mando’s kid all day,’ Han reported with audible pride. He kissed Leia as tenderly as he could manage in front of three other people. ‘Not bad for your old Han, eh, princess?’ He nudged Din with an elbow. ‘Not bad for a scoundrel, huh?’

‘I’m more of a scoundrel than you’ll ever be.’

Luke laughed hard enough that his shoulders shook. Han looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be furious at Din or furiously infatuated, and Leia patted his arm not-quite-soothingly and said, ‘You’ll get over it.’

---

Luke, Han, and Leia spent the rest of that week doing maintenance work on the Falcon, while Din—more carefree than he’d felt in ages—got Grogu used to his new ship. He had decided to name it after Kuiil. In a city built by Ugnaughts, this seemed appropriate.

‘Heard about your old ship,’ Han called to Din, hanging halfway off a ladder beneath the Falcon’s engineering station. Din had parked himself and Grogu in the hangar’s sparse seating area, leaving the Kuiitaylir to cool down after a Cloud City joyride. ‘Sorry for your loss, Mando. What’d you call her?’

Busy cutting up Corellian buckwheat noodles with a pair of kitchen scissors, Din hadn’t realised Han was talking to him at first. ‘Who?’

Han waggled his eyebrows. ‘Every man’s got to name his pretty lady.’ Then he yelled over his shoulder, ‘Don’t oil that, kid! I like it creaky!’

‘I know!’ Luke yelled back, sounding every bit as exasperated as Han was.

Grogu beat his little hands impatiently on the tray of his high chair, and Din attempted to pacify him with a glove. He reconsidered when the kid began eating the glove. ‘What pretty lady?’

Han squinted at a switch he was too far away to reach, then wound up and threw one of his tools at it. The switch flipped on; the tool plummeted to the hangar’s floor, earning Han a curse from Leia. ‘Your Razor Crest! What did you name her?’

Din didn’t assign arbitrary genders to his spacecraft. ‘The Razor Crest.’

Han hopped off the ladder with a baffled squeak. Din finally finished cutting up the noodles and tipped them into a bowl for Grogu, who attacked the meal with indiscriminate fervour. ‘Slow down,’ Din warned, narrowly preventing his son from choking on a shrimp. Grogu’s water bottle remained distressingly full. Din flicked the straw into position and tried to coax Grogu to drink. ‘One sip of water for every mouthful. One sip. Don’t make that face at me, I’m your father.’

‘Chew, then swallow! Chew, then swallow!’ Luke shouted.

Grogu ignored them both.

Leia, who’d been dangling headfirst into an open exterior section while Chewbacca held her ankles, pulled Han’s fallen pliers into her hand with the Force. ‘Luke, do you need to go wrangle your kid?’

‘I’m wrangling! I’m wrangling!’

‘What, like, mentally?’

‘I’ve got it handled,’ Din told them both, but Luke climbed down the ladder and came to help him anyway. Din’s heart did a flip.

‘Being a little terror, are we?’ asked Luke with incomparable fondness. He used the Force to catch the toys Grogu pushed off his tray, placing them on a nearby workbench with finality. ‘You’ll drink your water and chew your food properly before you get those back.’ Scowling, Grogu tried to summon his toys; Luke put a stop to that before he’d really begun. ‘Buddy, whatever tricks you know, I promise you I am better at them.’

‘Great to know the Jedi come in useful,’ Din said. Luke planted a kiss on the top of his helmet. He stood, placing a grateful hand on Luke’s waist, and cracked his sore neck. Grogu eyed the streaks of grease on Luke’s work clothes with disturbing interest, and Din held up a finger. ‘No. No!’

Luke dodged skilfully before Grogu could lick grease off his shirt. ‘Not as tasty as it looks, bud,’ he told Grogu, and at Din’s look, ‘What, you’ve never gotten engine oil in your mouth before?’

Din added another item to his long list of benefits of wearing a helmet.

Leia came down the ramp towards them, wiping her palms on the sides of her trousers. She had dirt on her nose and looked wonderfully happy. ‘All right,’ she said to Din as she got within earshot, ‘stop making moon eyes at my brother and hand me that wrench.’

‘You can’t even see my eyes,’ said Din.

Leia smirked. ‘You’re a very transparent man, Din Djarin.’

After Grogu had polished his bowl clean and been convinced to hydrate through persuasion (Din) and threats (Luke), Lando came to collect him. ‘Didn’t expect you to be the strict one,’ Lando told Luke with laughter in his eyes as he lifted Grogu out of the chair. Grogu went willingly into Lando’s arms, making Din feel very warm inside all of a sudden. ‘Do you and Mando take turns?’

‘Yeah, we toss a coin every morning,’ Luke replied flippantly. ‘Careful with him now.’

‘Don’t worry, honey. I’m a great babysitter.’

Luke’s gaze followed Lando’s retreating figure all the way to the pneumatic doors, while Din learned that perhaps you were not meant to hold a baby like a large sandwich. He watched closely how Lando supported the kid’s back and neck, and tried to memorise the placement of Lando’s hands for future reference.

‘Relax, flyboy,’ said Leia, flicking Luke’s temple affectionately. ‘We know Lando. He’ll be okay. It’s sweet, though—you love that kid more than the sun.’

‘The what?’ Luke tossed his screwdriver onto the workbench. ‘That’s not much. Dammit, Leia. I’m from Tatooine. I hate the sun.’

‘Luke,’ Din said, laughing.

‘Suntan this, sunshine that. You know what’s great? Air-conditioning.’ Luke opened another toolbox with a huff. ‘I do not understand tourists. People here love the beach, but you know what’s way better? Waterworlds! Where there’s no sand and I can fucking swim!’

‘I know,’ Leia soothed.

‘We farmed for moisture, Leia! I didn’t take a bath for nineteen years!’

‘You can tell he’s doing better when he’s complaining,’ Han muttered, coming up behind Din with a box of spare parts. ‘Used to drive me crazy. Hell, he still does. But nowadays I’d sell my left leg to hear him whine for an hour.’

---

Luke bathed Grogu and put him to bed, while Leia and Din sat up talking in her quarters. She often had supper late, and had stopped making polite apologies for eating in front of Din after the first night. Laying her chopsticks carefully across the top of her bowl, she talked with her mouth full; Din listened attentively, grateful that she didn’t test him on his knowledge of high-level conflicts, glad that she felt comfortable enough to yawn openly around him.

‘I don’t know,’ he said in answer to some question or other. He found a wild freedom in being able to admit just how out of his depth he was. ‘There’s Mos Pelgo, I suppose. On Tatooine. Last I heard, they’re still keeping up the peace treaty I brokered with the Tuskens.’

Leia tapped her chopsticks against the table to even their height. ‘Interesting. Have you considered a career in grassroots diplomacy?’

‘No, ma’am.’ He couldn’t shake the habit even in Han’s absence.

‘Do me a favour and think about it. Your kind of intelligence is rare in the galaxy.’

Din sat quietly and waited for her to gather her thoughts.

Leia had unpinned her plaits for bed, which was her only outward sign of relaxation even at this hour. She buried her face in her hands for a moment, then raised her head and began massaging her temples.

‘They’re all so…’ she began in a different tone, then stopped and shook her head, then started again. ‘The Senate, they’re so…’

Din nodded. Even though she had trailed off a second time, he kind of understood what she was saying.

‘When you choose to serve in government,’ Leia mumbled. She rested one elbow on the table, thumb and index finger cupping her forehead. ‘When you choose this life… Din, it’s not a life. You sign your life away. You say goodbye to privacy, to family, to friends.’

Din waited. She hated being felt sorry for, and she clearly had a point she was trying to make. He was content to sit and listen.

‘I know you didn’t choose this burden,’ she said. ‘This thankless job. It was pushed on you under circumstances beyond your control. Now, I chose it—I’m more fortunate than you in that way. I’ve been a senator since I was eighteen years old.’

Din frowned. ‘That’s very young.’

‘Members of my family grow up fast, what can I say?’ She reached over the table and squeezed Din’s hand. ‘You may not feel in control of your own destiny, Din, but you are. We all are. Sooner or later, you’ll get the chance to choose; a choice will come. Eventually. Even if you feel like you’re trapped forever. When the time comes, you can choose to walk away.’

Din breathed out, a long stuttering exhale. He could not allow himself to hope. He was not the sort of man who could afford to dream.

(But he’d hoped to see Grogu, hadn’t he? He’d craved this week of delicious rest and freedom to spend time with his son, and the universe had granted him that.)

Leia said, ‘I want you to know that it’s not selfish to choose yourself and your loved ones over duty—over the public good.’

Din smiled, tired and small, within his helmet. ‘A Mandalorian’s duty is to their loved ones. There’s no conflict there.’

‘How lovely. The Senate could learn a lot from Mandalorians, don’t you think?’ Leia picked up a beansprout which had fallen onto the table, then licked her fingers clean with a sigh. ‘Hardest lesson of my life was when I learned that I can’t solve all my problems with a blaster.’

‘You can. You just create a few more problems in the process.’

Leia let out a short laugh, surprised and real.

Din helped her wash and dry the dishes and then excused himself to his and Luke’s quarters, waving back at a drowsy, half-dressed Han on his way out. He found Grogu snoring blissfully in his crib, the baby mobile turning slowly in a gentle breeze. The playroom was dark and mostly tidy; Luke had made Grogu put away his toys before going to bed.

‘Getting spoiled,’ Din whispered to Grogu as he took off his helmet. ‘After all this luxury, you’ll never want to travel with me again, will you?’

Grogu slept on.

Din removed his armour piece by piece as he wound his way towards the bedroom. He liked leaving a trail behind him, liked stamping his presence on these rooms as tangibly as he could. He always gloried in the things he didn’t get to enjoy for long.

The bedroom was pitch black, but he didn’t hear the deep even breathing which meant Luke had fallen asleep. ‘Still awake?’

Luke hummed.

Slipping under the covers, Din rubbed his cheek against the pillow and luxuriated in having somebody to watch his back as he slept.

‘Everything okay?’ Luke whispered. ‘How’s Leia?’

‘Strong.’ Din thought about it. ‘Exhausted.’

Luke sighed. ‘Yeah.’

Din did not mind Luke’s closeness, the brush of their clothing when he moved. He could picture exactly how Luke was lying beside him, arm tucked under his head, body a long arc curving away from the wall—curving towards and around Din, like the embrace of a small moon. He could picture Luke’s face in the dark: his sweetly curved right ear, the distinctive shape of his chin, his strange and lovely mouth.

‘Gonna have to leave soon,’ Luke whispered, and he sounded as sad as Din felt. ‘Back to work.’

Din reached out and felt Luke reach for him at the same time, their hands finding each other beneath the duvet. ‘Me too.’

‘Wish you didn’t have to go.’ Luke’s voice was warm, regretful. ‘You’re so much happier here.’

He had not known how obvious that was until now.

‘Yeah.’ Din swallowed; his throat was desert-dry. ‘I can’t stay. It can’t last.’

Luke put an arm over Din to hug him. Din shifted closer, wondering how to say all the things he could not put into words. Luke could read Din just fine without them—he was so kind, so observant—but he deserved more than their unspoken understanding.

‘Clocks change tomorrow. We’re moving out of daylight savings time.’

‘That’s nice,’ Din murmured.

‘Means the sun will rise early.’ Luke’s palm fitted beautifully against Din’s ear and neck; his fingers combed through Din’s curls. ‘I’ll be gone before it gets light.’

‘I know.’

‘I won’t look at you,’ Luke promised, and he didn’t need to offer any more reassurances, because at that moment Din kissed him.

Notes:

‘I know your name as my child’ (Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad) — adoption vow
Kuiitaylir was coined by Vanniard, actual Mando’a expert to whom I owe my life. It comes from Kuiil’s name and the Mando’a word taylir, which means hold/keep/preserve.
My brain wouldn’t let me rest until I checked whether dogs exist in Star Wars for a throwaway detail. I hate what I’ve become. (They do.)
Thank you to everyone who's been reading and following this fic! As always, your comments are much appreciated!

Chapter 8

Notes:

Content warnings for this chapter: minor violence, references to child abuse. Mouse over for translations (works on desktop only, sorry)

In the next two months, Din saw Grogu four more times. He saw Luke thrice. He memorised the coordinates of Yavin IV and got quite good at calculating jumps from his various locations—it was a fun little problem, a mathematical puzzle, to distract himself from the knowledge that leaving hurt more and more every time. Since he and Luke had become lovers he could no longer suppress the sadness. He deliberately didn’t think about how New Republic patrols let the Kuiitaylir pass without comment and how the hyperspace lanes were always suspiciously clear. If this was the Senate’s version of a royal welcome, Din wasn’t sure he wanted VIP passes that won him solitude.

Those two months brought Din’s time with the Darksaber to a full standard year. He still hardly used it, being far more comfortable with his spear and whipcord throwers. Din was a traditionalist at heart; privately he thought nothing could beat a quick draw and a good blaster. The Darksaber was great in non-combat situations, though, and after that council on Kinyen, Din had fully embraced igniting it as a signal to make everybody shut up. He’d once suggested passing it around assemblies, so that whoever was currently holding the big sword got to speak, but Bo-Katan had puffed up like an indignant porg while Axe and Koska snickered into their caf.

The next time he could snatch a free day between stops, Din flew the Kuiitaylir to Arvala-7 to honour his friend’s memory. Kuiil’s moisture farm had fallen into disrepair; the blurrgs had knocked down their fences and escaped to make their own way in the wilderness. There was nothing Din could do. He was relieved he hadn’t found a pen full of emaciated carcasses. He sat on a toppled fence post and thought of Kuiil’s fantasies, his slow wisdom, his simple wish to meet a Mandalorian. Had Kuiil, like Din, heard poems as a child about mythosaurs and Mand’alor the Great? Had his eyes grown large in campfire light as the storyteller made hand shadows against the wall?

The Mand’alor circuit wore Din out. Leia was right: he’d given his life away. His already-healthy respect for Bo-Katan increased threefold. He preferred flying alone, so that he didn’t feel so much like a king with a travelling court; and after making some fussy noises about royal security, Axe agreed to separately pilot one of Bo-Katan’s disguised vessels with the other two Mandos. Together they hopped from moon to moon and planet to planet. They charted the whole Mandalorian diaspora, a constellation of secret stars; they updated codenames, retired some informants and recruited new ones. They fiercely defended their supply routes and sacrificed more ships to claim a strategic port. Din slept worse and worse. Hawkers on Norval II sold relics labelled as mythosaur bones, though Din could clearly see that they weren’t. A horrible cutesy figure of Kad Ha’rangir being marketed as a child’s toy made him so angry he had to walk away. He dreamed that night of tiny blurrgs fighting a mythosaur-sized Armourer, and woke with a splitting headache.

Headaches became part of Din’s daily experience. He met with the last living Mandalorian Protector and gained the old veteran’s endorsement. He killed six bandits who had been harassing a farmer, then listened politely as she narrated her youthful exploits. He snatched sleep in hammocks strung between strangely curved trees, alternating watches with his three companions, so that a small group of refugees could finally build their shared vheh’yaim in peace under the Mand’alor’s protection. After Din left, Axe reported, the refugees’ neighbours did not resume their earlier harassment.

Just after the one-year mark, Bo-Katan picked up a distress signal using a defunct Mandalorian frequency. She and Axe argued quietly in their ship’s communications centre—a trap, a ghost echo?—while Koska bullied an engine into cooperation and Din caught a few minutes’ sleep in their cargo hold. He woke to Axe’s unshaven face hovering over him, and let his helmeted head fall back to plonk pathetically on the floor.

‘We don’t use this channel anymore,’ Bo-Katan explained to Din in the control room. ‘That doesn’t mean we should ignore it. Given the nature of most Mandalorians’ circumstances, it’s plausible that the sender simply isn’t up to date on our comms situation. They did sound desperate.’

‘So it’s a call for help,’ Din said, ‘broadcast to any Mandalorians who might be listening.’

‘I’m not saying it is a trap.’ Koska handed him a mug of caf gone cold. ‘Let’s just… not dismiss the possibility, however slim, that we’re gonna land at these coordinates and find a fucking clone army or whatever the pfassk they’ve come up with. I’ve never been to Wild Space.’

Din looked at Axe, indicating that it was his turn to speak, and Axe said: ‘The sender used Bo-Katan’s Mand’alor call sign. They don’t seem to know we have a new Mand’alor. In my opinion, they’d be better-informed if they were trying to lure us there to be wiped out.’

‘They called on the Mand’alor specifically?’

He glanced around the control room. Out of the three, only Bo-Katan held Din’s gaze steadily. Her hand rested on the console, and Din saw that she had already punched in their route to the Wild Space planet and was awaiting his decision.

‘Yeah,’ Koska admitted, ‘they begged the Mand’alor to save them.’

‘We go,’ Din said.

In Wild Space they found a lawless and vicious polity which practised trial by combat. The Mandalorian sender—armour-less, helmet-less, half-starved and half-mad in their cell—had transmitted the signal as their one permitted comms call. They were resigned to death long before Din and the others arrived; their disabilities meant they could not fight, and the opposing side’s champion was a mountain of a warrior with a reputation for brutality.

Bo-Katan forced her way into the cell, holding her wrist blade to a guard’s throat when he tried to bar entry. The prisoner swore their innocence three times—once to Din, once to Bo-Katan, once to the Darksaber with their split and scabbed-over lips pressed to its hilt. 

‘I will be your champion,’ Din said.

The trial lasted five minutes. He left the other fighter’s headless body convulsing on the arena floor, and went to help his Mandalorian up the wheelchair ramp to their freedom.

Din had used the Darksaber to heat his real favourite weapon—the beskar spear—until it glowed as red and deadly as the Armourer’s smithing tools. When he stalked back to the spectators’ gazebo, still simmering at the injustice of the whole situation, he found the other Mandos waiting  for him. Their expressions were very peculiar: pride, and surprise, and irritation at their own surprise, for it was expected of a Mand’alor to do this. Bo-Katan regarded Din with her arms crossed, her green eyes as sharp and strange as a shriek-hawk’s.

He tilted his helmet at her. She had watched the fight with the cold impassive judgement of Mandalore’s ancient poets, who had recorded martial feats with mockery or praise; with the bloodlust of old legends’ implacable women, whose approval was coveted and whose scorn was worse than death.

She curled her mouth into a sardonic grin. ‘Happy anniversary, Mand’alor.’

---

Now that he had been Mand’alor for over a year, Din cared for the Kuiitaylir, cared for his Mandalorians, and tried not to visit Yavin too often. He could no longer afford to take weeks off. Neither could Luke. Having been to Yavin, Din understood what Luke meant: the orphanage-cum-refugee-shelter was not a school. It was not even strictly Jedi. Luke was the only able-bodied adult there. And when Luke went offworld on other missions, he had to leave his people defenceless.

So Din kept his comlink in good condition and their private channel open, saved every holomessage, and snatched hours together when he and Luke could get them. He kept each stolen moment until its lingering sweetness faded, till he forgot how fast Grogu had gotten or how thoroughly Luke kissed—making small, desperate noises of adoration—or how luxurious a clean bed felt in the mornings when he had nothing to do that day. He could never shake the feeling that he was betraying his Mand’alor duties by being happy.

He kept their bond alive by trying to show Grogu he was thinking of him. He hadn’t the time to knit, so he relied on market stalls to bring the child clothing and gifts—tiny bantha stuffed toys, a bracelet with a dozen dangling charms, two shrill turtle-shaped whistles which Luke confiscated instantly upon hearing their piercing shrieks. He agonised over a fluffy jacket with a lined hood. Din couldn’t bear to cut ear-holes in the precious lining, even though it was secondhand. Koska, who’d always been surprisingly gentle with the kid, caught on and took to carrying a measuring tape in her backpack, reminding Din of Grogu’s dimensions and pointing out robes he’d have to hem.

He wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t as lost as he’d been before. He’d found a point to come back to that made him feel like a person; sadness was the price you paid for that anchor.

(‘Fucking shit,’ he’d spat out, one night on Yavin two weeks after the trial by combat, when he’d gotten up to pee and found Luke floating in a corner of the ceiling like some cave goblin.

‘Oops!’ said Luke, looking genuinely sorry, the bastard. His eyes, which had been frighteningly rolled back, righted themselves in his head.

Din had pissed, washed his hands, and tucked himself back into bed to complain to Grogu about their Jedi having no concept of normality. It wasn’t until he’d left the next morning that he’d realised he had shown Luke his face and they had both found that completely normal.)

He spent the anniversary of his covert’s liquidation in the Mid Rim, tracking an informant who’d missed a meeting with their handler. In his companions’ eyes, this assignment was far too lowly for the Mand’alor; but it was so rare for Din’s bounty hunter past to come in useful that he’d seized the chance. He knew as little about their intelligence networks as he could get away with, so that the Mand’alor couldn’t be held accountable. Possibly the agent had betrayed them. More likely they were dead. According to Bo-Katan, they were a scion of Corellian gentry who’d gone rogue and wandered into the Mandalorian fold. Din took only the information he needed, namely their chain code. He was content to skim the surface of turbulent political seas and let Bo-Katan plumb the murkiest depths—she knew what she was doing. And he had less and less patience these days for learning about other people’s rarefied, complicated bloodlines. He did not need to remember with mute bitterness that Luke had never known his grandparents, that Din could not count more than two generations back in his family tree.

As he’d predicted, the trail had grown cold by the time he landed on a dense, warm planet. Humidity made his neck itch, where the tucked-in edges of his cape grew damp; the soil was as sticky as uj’alayi. He knew by the time he’d walked its scarlet surface that the base was abandoned. 

He found the Mandalorian memorial while he was crossing a shallow, pebbled stream back to his ship. Water sloshed over his boots, brilliant with rainbow flashes of fish. He wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings before he saw the glint of iron. His mind had been savouring a recent Yavin memory of a river very much like this stream—children splashing in the shallows and Luke guarding them with his pants rolled up, helping Grogu build a stepping-stone pathway until he noticed Din’s eyes on him and promptly took off his shirt.

The memorial lay nestled in a rock-studded crevice, partially embedded in the bank just where foam seethed over a rotting log. Hidden. A secret shared. Deep in the vibrant wet earth stood an iron plaque—not beskar, of course, but black poor-quality metal—with a small domed foundation of raw clay. When he bent close to the shadowed niche, he could still see the impression of the hands which had shaped it. It was no bigger than a human head.

Cradled in the clay mound was a twisted, badly scorched fragment, perhaps part of a vambrace. There was a signet Din didn’t recognise. It could have been fifty years old or five hundred. He had seen Mandalorians stripped and buried in unmarked graves; more common were the tombstones erected for individuals whose bodies could not be recovered.

He took off his gloves. It felt right to touch this sacred place with his bare hands.

The plaque was caked in mud. He scooped up some water to wash it clean. Laboured but unmistakable Mando’a characters had been inscribed—poorly, clumsily, by fleeing Mandalorians with no tools but their failing weapons—on the surface. Din lifted his hand away, reverent. The markings were vivid with rust.

Varak

Tos

Malon

Bersha

Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la.

The names were unfamiliar. The scrap of ruined armour was all that remained of four whole people.

There was no one to honour these fallen strangers. The mourners who had made this poor untended site were long gone. And standing ankle-deep in froth, hearing the echoes of their grief, Din knew what it meant to be Mand’alor.

‘Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum,’ he told the vanished spirits, and tried not to be sorry that his most fluent Mando’a was the liturgy for the dead.

---

He took a mission he shouldn’t have taken. Every Mand’alor had a gimmick, Koska had told him during one of their late-night pantry visits, her face twitching in wry mirth. The ancient ones had been conquerors, imperialists—the kind of legacy Mandalorians now rejected. Mand’alor the Corrupter, who had disdained even the title in favour of styling herself Duchess, was considered dar’manda (a very touchy subject, depending on whom you asked). Bo-Katan had been Leia’s counterpart in the Mandalorian Resistance, a war leader all would follow without question. Maul didn’t count. Fenn Shysa, who the fuck knew what that was about. Jaster Mereel’s deal had been rebuilding the Mandalorian honour code from the ground up. And Din’s deal, according to Koska, was defending the weak.

Koska was a less-than-reliable source, which didn’t make Din enjoy her any less.

The issue, Ruusaan explained via holo, was a vicious custody battle between biological and adoptive parents. She wanted to go in fast and stealthy at night, break the children out of the basement before their dar’buire woke; but the risk was great, and the biological parents holding these foundlings captive were tough, nasty fighters. They were not Mandalorian. They were outsiders, and—here she broke off, her expression twisting into ugly contempt—a disgrace to parenthood.

‘Explain,’ Din said as he stood in the middle of a suburban neighbourhood, all four of his party crowded around Koska’s holoprojector.

Beside him, Bo-Katan’s lip curled. ‘Utre’gaid ad bal yaih’ep buir.’

‘What?’

And Ruusaan said: ‘A parent who feasts while their child’s plate sits empty.’

Din nodded at her tiny, grainy blue figure over the live hololink. ‘I’ll go with you. It’s too difficult a job for one person.’

For their part, the Mandalorian adoptive parents were too damaged by war to retrieve their foundlings themselves. Combat made their fingers spasm on blaster triggers; they feared the sound of bombs, even the whiplike crack of thunder. They would not draw weapons around children. ‘Wise,’ Din said, hearing this from Ruusaan.

‘Let me go,’ Bo-Katan said. ‘We can’t have the Mand’alor slandered as a child-stealer.’

Din looked at her incredulously. ‘You’re a Mand’alor.’

‘The Mand’alor. The Mand’alor, Din,’ she corrected, rising magnificently to this heroic opportunity and then crushing Din’s bubble of goodwill towards her just as magnificently. This was a feat only Bo-Katan could accomplish, and she did so regularly and with aplomb.

‘I’ll take Koska,’ Ruusaan said through the hololink, ‘and I understand Axe’s busy with spy stuff, and I’m definitely going to help my friends, but… Din, I have to be honest with you, Bo’s better in a fight—’

‘I know,’ said Din.

‘—and her reputation can’t get much worse.’ Ruusaan chortled when Din put out a hand without looking to quiet Bo-Katan’s sputtering. ‘You sure you want to do this yourself, Mand’alor?’

He shrugged. ‘Darksaber’s intimidating. We can fight if we have to, but hopefully it won’t come to that. You say they’re legally adopted?’

‘Yes, with multiple witnesses.’

‘And they chose their new parents?’

‘Yes, they chose to live with my friends, and when we get into that basement we can ask them again to make sure. What their bio-parents did was wrong. It’s just…’ She threw up her hands, making the hologram flicker with static. ‘They’re rich enough to hire mercenaries, Din. They sent bounty hunters to take the kids.’

‘Great. I know how bounties work.’

Bo-Katan said darkly, ‘This could bring down a lot of heat on the Mand’alor.’

‘So I’ll take the heat.’

Five hours later, Din cut down a reinforced steel door and stood back as Ruusaan, Koska, and Bo-Katan burst into the windowless concrete vault. Ruusaan made a noise of disgust—she had smelled the piss and vomit—but she took off her helmet anyway, letting the children see her face. The other women did the same. Din, obviously, did not.

By the light of Bo-Katan’s torch, he could see the eldest girl curled around her siblings. He came into the basement, breathing shallowly through his mouth, and registered her awe and disbelief as he stepped over the fallen barrier. ‘Water for the foundlings,’ he whispered to Koska, and she turned around so the other two could help unload her backpack. 

For some reason the eldest girl could not take her eyes off the goddamn sword. 

‘Mand’alor?’ she breathed. A bright childlike wonder had returned to her face—which was old, prematurely and heartbreakingly so. ‘I thought you were a myth.’

Exasperated, Din turned off the Darksaber. ‘My name is Din Djarin. I’m here to rescue you.’

---

‘How fucked are we?’ he groaned the next evening, when the kids had run wailing into their parents’ arms and Bo-Katan had been sufficiently nasty to the town’s sheriff. They were drinking on a mountain ridge with their legs stretched out; Ruusaan had somehow obtained a picnic mat, because she was that sort of person.

‘Bit fucked,’ Bo-Katan answered, swigging tihaar straight from the bottle because she was that sort of person. ‘Not very fucked. Not as fucked as we could be. You’re welcome.’

‘Thank you, Bo,’ Koska and Ruusaan chorused with about the same amount of eye-rolling.

‘It wasn’t kidnapping,’ Din reminded them. ‘They’re under my protection. They can leave at any time.’

‘We know that,’ Ruusaan muttered, ‘but Din, I’m forty-eight and what I’ve learned the hard way is: doing the right thing doesn’t mean people won’t blame you for it.’

‘I should have died on Nevarro,’ Din sighed. He winced when Ruusaan punched his arm. ‘Joke! Joke.’

Koska shook her plaited head. She rubbed her eyes; her already-impressive dark circles had deepened. ‘Axe can deal with the public relations fallout. Serves him right for not coming along.’

‘To Axe getting the shit job,’ Ruusaan agreed, raising her glass in a toast.

Only somewhat reluctantly, Din clinked bottles with Bo-Katan. ‘You’re a pain in the ass,’ she told him.

Din lifted his helmet to take a sip of kri’gee, which immediately gave him a coughing fit. ‘I,’ he gasped through the burn of liquor, ‘am a Mandalorian.’

Bo-Katan snorted ruefully. ‘Don’t I know it.’

Two days later they’d killed ten assassins and Din had developed a constant migraine. ‘I’ll stay on this planet for a bit and look after them,’ Ruusaan promised him, leaning against the side of the Kuiitaylir. ‘Don't worry, Mand’alor. After the show we gave them in today’s encounter, I doubt the Guild will be rushing to send any more mercenaries.’

Din sighed. ‘Thank you, Ruusaan.’

‘Don’t see what else we could have done. You know what they’re saying about us in town?’ Koska spat venomously on the ground beside Din’s ship. ‘Unhealthy family environment. Exposing children to violence.’

‘They can go fuck themselves,’ Din said with a force that surprised even himself. Both Koska and Ruusaan looked impressed. ‘That’s exactly what people said about my covert, never mind that those same people were the ones attacking us. My grown-ups were only protecting me.’

He finished checking the engines for possible sabotage and, satisfied, began punching in the code to open his ship’s door. He could hear Bo-Katan circling the upright wings, scrutinising every inch of the Kuiitaylir because she didn’t think Din had checked it well enough; still, he jumped when she walked up beside him.

‘Jumpy,’ she remarked disapprovingly. ‘It’s the migraine. Take some painkillers.’

‘I will.’

‘Din,’ she said then, and her change in tone was so abrupt that Din turned to face her head-on, blinking through the throbbing pain in his skull. ‘You see why we must return to Mandalore.’ When he didn’t respond at once, Bo-Katan pressed: ‘Do you see? Do you see how there is no safe haven for Mandalorians except on our homeworld?’ Her face looked white and pinched with the intensity of her passion. ‘Do you understand now, Din?’

‘I think,’ Din said wearily, ‘you and I have had very different takeaways from our life experiences.’

---

By the time Din arrived on Naboo he no longer felt like a person. He felt hollowed out by more than the endless travels, more than the stops for refuelling and repairs and occasional fighting—he’d been fighting all his life. He had not shaved or cared for himself properly for weeks, and he might have gone on for weeks more if he hadn’t cleaned himself up to set a good example for Grogu. No one had seen him without his armour for months, and he did not want to worry Luke; if Din could not love himself right now, he could at least remember that others loved him.

He had been Mand’alor for a year and six months. He had put himself between Mandalorians and their enemies nearly every minute of every day. He stretched his sore muscles in the cockpit, trying to remember the names of important Senate figures and who was on bad terms with whom, and told the Darksaber almost fondly: ‘You’ll be the death of me.’

He was afraid to meet Sosha Soruna. She was a real queen, and Din was a very tired man.

But Queen Soruna wasn’t the person waiting for him in the Theed Hangar when he landed the Kuiitaylir.

Din blinked. He wasn’t exhausted enough to be hallucinating. That usually happened after forty-eight hours without sleep, and he was still at only twenty-four.

‘I came as soon as I heard.’ Paz lumbered forward, all the familiar heavy-infantry bulk of him, and clasped Din in a ribcage-squeezing hug. ‘Welcome to Naboo. Fucking Gungans, am I right? What have you gotten yourself into, vod?’

Din could not make himself speak.

‘You’re not crying, are you?’ Paz demanded, and Din reconsidered every kind thought he had ever had about Paz Vizsla. He raised his head from Paz’s shoulder. Koska, Axe, and Bo-Katan were just landing their shuttle in the bay beside Din’s, and a woman Din didn’t know stood watching from the shadows. Paz jerked a thumb towards her. ‘That one saved me and some of the foundlings. We were offworld, running out of oxygen, running out of fuel, and there she was swooping out of nowhere in a rescue vessel and the best disguise you ever saw.’

‘I’ll make sure to thank her.’

The unknown woman, whose red-gold braid was held in place by wooden hair sticks, stepped forward to greet Din’s companions as they alighted. Koska squeaked; Axe, unbelievably, did finger guns. 

Bo-Katan slid languidly to one side, evading Koska’s sudden sprint with the ease of someone who’d been through this many times, and dragged Axe away from them both.

‘Are you missing someone?’ Din asked Bo-Katan—he couldn’t help himself—while they both looked away respectfully from Koska kissing the woman like her life depended on it.

‘Fuck off,’ Bo-Katan replied, but with the slight raise of her eyebrows that passed for amusement.

Axe grinned. ‘All hail the Mand’alor.’

Paz rounded on him. ‘And who the fuck are you?’

‘Whoa, stranger.’ Axe put his hands up placatingly. ‘Mind your language.’ 

‘He’s no stranger,’ Din told them. ‘He’s from my covert.’

‘Oh?’ Bo-Katan turned to Paz with her faint superior smile. ‘So what do you think of your brother becoming the Mand’alor?’

‘You fucked up a perfectly good foundling, that’s what I think.’ Paz threw a heavy arm over Din’s shoulders. ‘Look at him. He's got stress tremors.’

‘I’m thirty-six years old,’ Din pointed out weakly.

‘Shut up, you’re still short enough I can use your head as an armrest.’

‘You cannot.’

Koska came over to join them then, flushed and smiling and holding hands with her partner, and Din gathered his wits before Paz could think to do anything stupid like getting him in a headlock. He heard Bo-Katan murmur, ‘All good?’ and Koska answered in the affirmative and a brighter tone than Din had ever heard her use.

‘Mara Jade,’ the woman said crisply when Din tried to thank her and ask for her name. She had a long, serious face, and she smiled with her eyes rather than her mouth. ‘Are you ready, Mand’alor? The Queen and the Armourer are waiting for you.’

Notes:

uj’alayi — syrupy Mandalorian fruit cake
Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la. — Not gone, merely marching far away. (Tribute to fallen comrades)
Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum. — I’m still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal. (Traditional saying in remembrance of the dead)
Kad Ha’rangir — ancient destroyer god, still a mythological figure in secular Mandalorian culture
dar’manda — no longer Mandalorian
dar’buir — parent disowned by child
Thanks again to Vanniard for coining the wonderful phrase Utre’gaid ad bal yaih’ep buir, which is translated immediately after it appears.

Chapter 9

Notes:

We're entering the final stretch, exciting! Lol the planned chapter count went from 3 to 5 to 7 to 10 to 12, and this chapter's word count SOARED. I'll probably be stepping back from fandom to focus on original fiction after this story is complete, but it's a pleasure to write. Plus I have peppered in SO MANY LESBIANS

According to an inscribed obelisk in Tapalo’s Garden, the Theed Royal Palace had been continuously inhabited for over eight hundred years. Din, whose frame of reference included no buildings even a century old, followed Mara’s easy footsteps through the cliffside Hanging Gardens. Paz had declined to follow them into the palace grounds, claiming the extravagance gave him hives—Din could see why, although Mara’s face betrayed a flicker of amusement which meant this planet was nothing compared to the Core. Theed’s colonnades, lined with Selosian marble busts of past rulers, stood serene and untouched beside bubbling artificial pools. Fountains piped nutrients into the rich soil where muja trees grew. The rotundas were domed with dull emerald tiles; the flowers crushed underfoot released a crisp citrus scent. Even Imperial occupation troops had not defaced the Plaza.

No monuments on Mandalore had been so lucky.

‘After assassinating Queen Apailana, the Empire seized this city,’ Mara said dispassionately. Din wasn’t bothered by her eerie calm. He’d narrated atrocities committed against his people in exactly the same tone. ‘Palpatine stripped their mosaic pavements and took their sculptures to his Imperial Palace. The Emperor was from Naboo, did you know? Obviously, people here don’t want to be associated with his reign. They’re still trying to get the Plaza statues back.’ 

At least the statues still exist, Din thought but did not say. At least they still have stuff to be repatriated. Sculptures and mosaics? The Empire turned our art to powder.

Though he had gotten better at controlling his body language, Mara glanced back at him with a dry, bitter mouth-smile. ‘Yeah, I know. I get you.’

He wondered if she, like Luke, could sense other people’s thoughts.

‘I can,’ she said.

!!!!, he said.

She slid her hands into her trouser pockets, and nodded without a word at the palace staff emerging from a portico. These well-coiffed women all curtsied, making Din instinctively take a step back, and then they moved past him with balletic grace to take charge of his companions.

‘The king enters alone,’ explained one of the staff. Bo-Katan accepted this with a gracious nod which showed her aristocratic upbringing. Axe, to Din’s relief, looked about as uncomfortable as Din felt.

‘They’ll show you to the residential hall,’ Mara said. ‘Nice rooms, quite spacious. You’ll like them.’

‘I sleep with Mara,’ said Koska instantly, making Mara throw her a fond look.

Bo-Katan’s mouth curled into one of her rare genuine smiles. ‘Of course.’

As Din’s friends were led away, Mara brought him through the Triumphal Arch towards the palace. He was perspiring beneath his armour. She wore a practical dark green vest over her long-sleeved shirt, and he could see humidity curling the baby hairs at the nape of her neck. While they climbed the palace steps, she told him, ‘I suggested they dispense with the ceremonial welcome. Usually there’s a procession for foreign diplomats, especially one as high-status as yourself.’

Din had never been called high-status before. ‘Is it always this…’ He caught himself just in time. ‘Have you been here long?’

Mara twisted around to give him her real smile, the one that sat in her eyes and not on her lips. ‘Off and on. I travel.’ She pointed at the square sandstone pillars framing the palace entrance. ‘Those are carved with classical scenes from Naboo mythology. Look up—up there, Din—and you can see friezes of their great philosophers.’

Obediently, Din looked up. ‘I bet they weren’t actually that good-looking.’

‘You’re damn right,’ she said.

On their way to the throne room, they passed cavernous council chambers and private dining rooms carpeted in qashmel. Maintenance workers bustled about, making frescoed ceilings echo with the creak of ladders—all the endless busywork of keeping a huge complex running. Through lancet windows, Din could see the small shapes of ducks and golden pheasants in the gardens outside. Faint music drifted across ponds from canopied pavilions. He felt odd in his dirty flightsuit, in his warrior’s beskar, walking past these soft pleasures. At least nobody stopped Mara; she had a knack for blending into her surroundings, which she used to shield Din too.

Two Gungan representatives jostled past them. Nearby somebody was singing casually, in a clear glittering voice. Mara led Din through a confusing maze of twists and turns, round a dozen identical corners and finally into a long, straight corridor. Here the white alabas walls were crowded with images in all mediums—Mara walked too quickly for Din to get a good look, but he glimpsed chammian ivory icons in deep niches and tiny, red-lacquered figurines forming a funereal tableau. There was an altar, small and unobtrusive, bearing twin oranges as offerings. There were shrines to royal saints, and plaques to dead and living heroes of the Alliance alike. A gilded reliquary hung between unlit incense burners. Mara had spared Din the procession; here was a ceremonial welcome all on its own, a holy pilgrimage to the foot of Naboo’s throne.

He did not grasp the corridor’s full splendour till they were nearly out of it. As they entered a reception hall just outside the throne room, both Din and Mara turned to look back. At the opposite end of the corridor, the lunar goddess Shiraya gleamed in vivid azure and pink transparisteel. Her crescent moon headdress connected at each end to her brilliant upraised wings, forming a circular window with her serene visage at its centre. Daylight streaming through her image turned the floor to radiant amber. She stood on such a scale that Din could only really recognise her from a distance. 

Crowding beneath the deity’s outstretched arms, a secondary group of stained-glass panels was backlit by the afternoon sun. And there in the place of honour were the Rebellion saints—the twins immortalised in windows, haloed by divine stars, and their mother shining between them.

Mara looked at Luke and Leia and Padmé in their glass majesty, her green eyes unreadable. She turned her face from the saints’ blinding glow and pointed Din towards the great doors of the throne room. ‘Go on in. I’m not coming with you.’

‘Are you a Jedi?’ he asked her.

Mara seemed caught off guard, even though he’d been mentally telegraphing the question for the past ten minutes. She opened her mouth to reply, closed it, glanced at a kaadu-headed god beside them as if that might provide answers, and finally contorted her lips into her false smile. ‘Depends on how I’m feeling each day.’

He left her standing in the reception hall with her arms folded, leaning against a fambaa-shaped stone pedestal that definitely wasn’t supposed to be leaned on.

The throne room’s doors swung open before he could touch them. Din’s stomach was an uneasy pit, oily-sick with fatigue; he strode forward and trusted in his armour to speak for itself. He did not have to attempt a regal entrance when the Mandalorian silhouette cut an imposing figure all on its own.

Still, he’d never felt more like a lowly bounty hunter than at this moment.

‘Mand’alor,’ said the queen warmly, albeit formally, behind her desk of office. She had a light, delicate voice, unaffected by the weight of her enormous headdress, and she pronounced Mand’alor perfectly. The Armourer, who sat on a high-backed chair slightly apart from the Naboo councillors, must’ve briefed her well. ‘It is with great joy that I welcome you to Naboo on behalf of my people, and with deep shame that I beg your forgiveness for Palpatine’s crimes.’

Din, who’d had zero knowledge of the Emperor’s heritage until Mara mentioned it, said nothing. She interpreted his lack of response as stony silence.

‘Though I cannot undo the harm inflicted on your planet,’ she continued, ‘be assured that Theed’s security and support are at your disposal so long as you are my guest, with all the royal comforts accorded to—am I to address you as your highness?’

‘I have no idea,’ Din said.

His visor filtered royal dignity through transparisteel, blessedly separating him from the whole throne room—great pillars’ lacquered gleam, impassive councillors transformed into heat signatures on his helmet display, floor-to-ceiling windows framing the enthroned queen in white-lit glory. He wished for Luke. He wished for Bo-Katan. He wished for his beskar, which held his soft and weary flesh in place like a puppet’s frame, to turn sentient and take over his voice.

Soruna sat immobile, as serene as the carved and painted highnesses watching over Naboo. He wasn’t sure if she had actually breathed at all since he’d entered her presence. ‘Much has changed since galactic upheaval laid waste to our traditions,’ she agreed, tactfully smoothing over his blunt reply. This, Din had realised, was a trademark of true privilege: the courtly grace to make others’ errors seem like they weren’t errors. ‘It was customary for a long time for queens to serve a two-year term. The Clone Wars, and the Imperial age after that, sharpened the need for stability in crisis. Queen Amidala,’ and at this name the councillors lowered their heads in deference, ‘was offered a constitutional amendment to allow her to stay in office more than the maximum period. She declined the honour. I did not.’

With the unpleasant twinge that always accompanied him remembering its presence, Din felt the Darksaber’s solidity at his hip. He wondered if Mandalorians would ever have allowed their leader to retire after two years.

‘I would be honoured if you called me Sosha, Mand’alor.’

‘I physically cannot do that.’

Sosha Soruna threw back her head and laughed. A half-second later, her councillors echoed her with polite chuckles. When she looked at Din again, her red-striped lower lip seemed fuller somehow, more relaxed, and tiny cracks in her white makeup had appeared in her smile lines.

‘My wife’s writing a comparative history of monarchies,’ she said in a much more casual cadence. ‘Clytem enjoys learning about other cultures, and I encourage scholarly curiosity. Perhaps she’ll want to interview you.’

Din hid his anticipatory wince. ‘I would be honoured to meet your wife.’

‘But you must be eager to catch up with your compatriots,’ said Sosha. Her brown eyes swivelled sideways to regard the Armourer; she must’ve been used to moving her heavily encumbered head as little as possible. Din noted this with interest, since his own vision was so limited that he had to turn his helmeted head side to side. ‘It’s been my personal pleasure to host Paz Vizsla and Mirad of Nevarro.’ He saw the Armourer twitch and knew that she, like Din, was unused to her name being bandied about. ‘Please enjoy some relaxation after your journey. I shall arrange for them to visit your residence after you are rested.’

He left without bowing, and didn’t wonder whether he had committed a grave sin or asserted Mandalorian pride till he was too far away to do anything about it.

---

Din slept for several hours. He must have snored quite loudly, because his dreams rumbled with Dune Sea earthquakes and maglev trains; he was vaguely aware of a weight on his chest, little claws patting his face, and a low, shushing adult voice. He woke to an empty bedroom and a pleasantly silly ceiling fresco populated by puffy blowfish.

Din brushed his teeth, used the toilet, and took a water shower in the attached fresher. Standing on a bathroom rug made of absorbent fiberweave, he towelled off and put on a fresh set of underclothes. The undershirt had mesh and elastic stitched into its lining, flattening his chest; he shaved using the steamed-up mirror and was happy.

His rooms included a well-stocked kitchenette where dark, rich aromas wafted through the arched doorway. Helmetless and unhampered, Din followed his nose and found Luke standing at the counter, filling a mug with freshly brewed caf.

Din stood there in his underclothes and gaped.

‘Hi, Din,’ said Luke with his small apologetic smile.

Din made a wordless sound, rough because of his dry throat, and moved. He wasn’t sure if he said anything out loud. Luke was here with his soft hair and soft mouth, and everything was going to be okay. He crossed the kitchenette very fast—Luke met Din halfway, arms opening, blue eyes warm with welcome—and walked Luke backwards while kissing him, steering Luke by the hips until the backs of Luke’s legs hit a chair. Their noses and chins bumped gracelessly. Luke laughed, and his cybernetic fingers cradled Din’s head with the safe sweet confidence of that fresh undershirt, well-shaped, right, and his tongue poked out to swipe across Din’s lips. He moaned when Din returned the favour. He tasted clean and a little salty; his skin smelled like basil, just at the tender spot behind his earlobe. Arriving just where Din wanted him, Luke sat down on the chair with a comical squeak, and Din settled in his lap immediately.

Luke’s strong arms came up to support Din’s thighs on either side of the seat. ‘I’m going to have to carry you everywhere now, aren’t I?’

Din rubbed his cheek against the stubble-sharp side of Luke’s jaw. ‘Yep.’

‘Still sleepy?’

‘Mm-hmm. You?’

‘Not too bad,’ Luke lied shamelessly. Din cupped Luke’s face, sallow beneath his tan, and frowned at the shadows beneath his bloodshot eyes. ‘I napped for a bit when I got here, too. Grogu wouldn’t leave your side.’

‘Good kid.’

‘Yeah.’ Luke smiled beautifully, deepening the faint crow’s feet beginning to emerge at the corners of his eyes. ‘He’s asleep in the cot by the big window. Your friends are doing sheet masks and watching holothrillers with Mara Jade.’

‘That’ll keep them out of trouble.’

Luke grinned. ‘Yeah, Mara loves finding things to criticise in the spy scenes.’ He stroked Din’s forearms absent-mindedly, then grew serious. ‘I have to head to the Outer Rim after this stop, to the planet of Bogano. There’ve been rumours about the old Zeffo tombs—research conducted by a Jedi named Cordova. A holocron with sensitive information. The trail’s been cold for decades, it’s probably a dead end but—’

‘You have to follow every lead,’ Din finished. He understood; he’d been a bounty hunter.

Luke hummed in agreement, something rueful in the set of his mouth. He reached out and Force-pulled his mug of steaming caf towards his hand. Din began to stand up, giving him room to drink it, but Luke tugged him close and said, ‘Oh, you’re not getting away that easy.’ Din chuckled and Luke kissed his temple. ‘I don’t keep every Jedi artefact I find. They’re not all useful to rebuilding the Order. Or sometimes using a thing means you have to destroy it… Maybe it’s already been destroyed… You don’t care, probably.’

‘No, I do,’ Din insisted. ‘I don’t understand but I do.’ At this, Luke rested his forehead against Din’s shoulder. Din could feel his affection through the thin warmth of fabric. ‘So you can’t stay long?’

Luke shook his head, not raising it. He had the mug floating in mid-air to avoid scalding Din by accident. ‘Wish I could. Three days. I’ve put Tionne and Madurrin in charge of the others on Yavin, but I shouldn’t leave them long, they’re too young, and factoring in travel times this is the most I can stretch it, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

Luke lifted his tousled head and settled his cybernetic hand somewhere on Din’s hip. His eyes were dark and earnest. ‘Listen, about removing your helmet—’

Din tensed. ‘You don’t want…?’

‘No, no, it’s not that,’ Luke said hurriedly. His arm tightened around Din’s waist in reassurance. ‘I just need to know about us, what it means, because people ask about you and me and I don’t… I don’t know what to say.’ Din put a gentle finger beneath his chin, lifting it to study Luke’s expression. He tilted his head up with pliant sweetness. ‘I like seeing your face. You’re very handsome.’

‘All right, flyboy, ease off on the flattery.’

Luke smiled the sunlike smile which brought light to his whole face. Din could see why Naboo artists had put his image into stained glass, illuminated by celestial hope; but he seemed so much happier when he was allowed to be flesh and blood. 

This time, when Din tried to get off his lap (it felt like a conversation he should have while standing), Luke let him. Din scratched the back of his head and felt warmed by the possessive way Luke’s gaze trailed down his body, the worn-soft undershirt fraying at the armpits, the dark hair on his legs.

‘As far as I’m concerned, you are part of my clan,’ Din said slowly. ‘I’m not sure whether there are special traditions, rituals, for a Mandalorian and a Jedi. I need to ask the Armourer about that. I want to do things right by you—I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we Mandalorians mate for life.’

Luke beamed, cradling his mug against his chest like he was squeezing his own heart. ‘Yeah. I kind of put that together.’

Din put his knuckles to the slope of Luke’s cheekbone, the way Luke liked to be touched, and Luke’s eyes fluttered shut. ‘Are you happy?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Luke answered without opening his eyes. ‘When I’m with you, I feel like a person.’

Din stopped stroking his cheek with the knuckle of an index finger. ‘Luke.’

The tips of Luke’s dust-brown eyelashes brushed his hand. ‘Hmm?’

‘You’re allowed to be a person.’

Now Luke opened his eyes, still a little sad but glinting with mischief. ‘Can you write that down for me? So I remember it?’ When Din moved to go find a pen, he grabbed Din’s wrist, stroking the underside with his thumb. ‘Joke, joke!’

Din found a coarseweave tunic and leggings and pulled them on. As he poked his head into the next room in search of Grogu—cot beside the big window, Luke had said—Luke called from the kitchenette, ‘I’ll get some food ready.’

‘All right.’ Din spotted the cot at once and tiptoed over to it, rich warmth surging in his chest. He didn’t want to wake Grogu. Softly he touched the baby mobile hanging from the ceiling and whispered, ‘Hey, buddy.’

‘Your Armourer commed, by the way.’ Luke’s clatter of pans floated pleasantly towards Din’s ears as he squatted down beside the cot, watching the kid’s chest rise and fall. ‘She wants to come by in three hours, okay?’

Din leaned his forehead against the cot’s wooden bars, fascinated by how Grogu’s tiny hands curled and uncurled in sleep. ‘Yeah. I’ll put my armour on after we eat.’

‘Grogu needs to eat too. I thought…’ Luke came to stand in the doorway, drying his hands with a dishcloth. ‘I thought I’d take him to see Mara after dinner. She’s been wanting to meet the kid. Is that all right with you?’

‘Of course.’ Din put one finger through the bars, brushing Grogu’s open palm, and Grogu clutched it reflexively without waking. His heart swelled. ‘I trust anyone you trust.’

‘I’ll get out of your hair when the Armourer comes,’ Luke added, and this time his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘Let me and Grogu give you some space.’

Din glanced up sharply at that, still letting Grogu cling to his finger. ‘Luke, you’re not my dirty secret.’

Luke’s gaze shifted, but at least his eyes had not gone lightless again—at least he knew he was a person, with a person’s bonds and shallow needs. He held the dishcloth in his hands and glanced down at Grogu’s small sleeping form, and then at Din, with a shocked sort of tenderness on his face.

‘Okay,’ he said, tentative at first and then firmer, fonder. ‘Okay.’

---

‘What is governance,’ the Armourer said, ‘but relationships between people? What is a government but the institution of—no, the codification of those relationships?’

Din sat listening, captivated as always by her wisdom. He had his hands resting on his knees, the attentive pose he’d adopted with her as a little boy, and she was seated on a formplast stool opposite him. Despite the discomfort of a backless seat her posture was impeccable. She kept her fur cape on despite Naboo’s warm climate, and he had lowered the room’s thermostat in deference to her layers. No one else was present in Din’s quarters.

‘Tell me, Din’ika,’ she said. ‘What makes a ruler?’

He looked at the Darksaber hanging from his belt.

‘No,’ she said before he could speak. Behind her helmet, three watery moons had just become visible through the keyhole-shaped windows, but he didn’t take his eyes off her—her owl-like gaze was too compelling. ‘The sword itself has no meaning. Let me ask you a different question. What is the significance of the Darksaber?’

He thought back to Moff Gideon’s condescending explanation. ‘The story.’

‘Correct. The weapon is plasma and crystal, nothing more. Beskar has more value in my eyes. The story of the Darksaber is what convinces Mando’ade to follow you. Now, what gives the story its power?’

This was more difficult. Din struggled for a second, then said: ‘People believing it?’

‘Exactly,’ she answered, pleased. ‘From the smallest desert town to the highest galactic council, laws become effective through the compliance of their subjects. All stories gain their meaning, and their power to sway opinion, from people. And which people are those? Not the storytellers, though they have their place; the story-hearers. Understand this. It is the witnesses who make the court. A king can pass an edict, a judge can pass a sentence; but if they’ve not won the respect of their people, they’re wasting their breath. No one will uphold their decisions. Their words will disintegrate like ashes in the wind.’

‘But—’ Din cut himself off, feeling too stupid to ask questions. She was so much more eloquent than him.

‘But?’ she prompted.

‘A king has warriors around him,’ Din said, fumbling with hypotheticals. ‘A judge has bailiffs.’ The Armourer was nodding along, nodding in agreement and encouragement, so he went on with greater confidence. ‘How could people disregard their rulings? They’d be jailed for disobedience.’

‘You are right,’ she told him warmly. ‘And now we come to the second tenet of power. The answer to my question—what makes a ruler—is twofold. Power comes from the people, yes, from every dancer rotating in an endless ritual procession. Yet power must also have its enforcement, its threats, its punishment of treason or, as you say, disobedience. Power is the monopoly of violence.’

‘I took the Darksaber from Gideon,’ he said, clenching and reopening his fists. ‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘You didn’t have to, Din’ika. Defeat does not mean death.’ The Armourer sighed and shifted on her stool. ‘Nevertheless, you won it in combat, as all legitimate rulers must do. And there lies the flaw in the Darksaber tradition. It is unsustainable and violent, and I wish I knew another way. It makes conflict essential to the transfer of power.’ 

‘What should I do?’ he asked her.

To his unspeakable gratitude, she didn’t reject the question straight away. Din did not know what he’d do if she replied that there was no authority left save his own. Cry, most likely.

‘You honour our traditions,’ she answered at last, her words as slow and meticulous as the pouring of molten iron. Her wisdom was all the greater because she didn’t always have answers. ‘You honour yourself.’

‘I don’t think I can do both.’

For the first time in the thirty years he’d known her, the Armourer seemed puzzled. Her great horned helmet tilted to one side. ‘Why not?’

Din shifted slightly to mirror her posture, an act of non-verbal reassurance. He did not like seeing her disturbed, though he knew he’d cause that disturbance by telling her the truth. There was no one else he could tell. There was no one else who knew him like she did—not even Paz, not even Luke—and would understand when he said he was cracking under the weight of Mandalorian rule. That the Darksaber would chase him to his grave. That he dreamed of being buried with it still, a metal hilt strapped to a metal corpse, no flesh remaining in that armour hollowed out by duty.

‘Being Mand’alor makes it hard to care for myself,’ he confessed almost in a whisper. It was very difficult to say this. He could hardly breathe, and he wondered whether this was what Luke meant when he talked about the Force drowning him. With a great effort against the phantom fluid filling his lungs, he finished: ‘It will eat me alive.’ 

The Armourer stiffened. He caught a thread of disapproval in her voice when she said, ‘There is no clause in the Creed that the Mand’alor should kill themselves for their people.’

‘But I don’t want to be a bad Mand’alor.’

She was silent.

He continued after a long moment, fighting through the choking tears in his throat, ‘I just don’t want to be Mand’alor.’

The owlish helmet gave a slow, grave nod.

Din took a huge breath. He found himself shaking; the admission made him feel lighter than before. He was dizzy with the adrenaline rush of making it. When he had collected himself he added, steadying his voice: ‘You see my struggle.’

‘You feel trapped,’ she ventured.

‘Yes.’

‘You see no way out except death.’

‘Yes.’

The Armourer’s breathing went very quiet all of a sudden. ‘Do you want to die?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Good, Din’ika, that’s…’ She flexed her hands in her lap, and he saw that they had been trembling with her trepidation. ‘Good.’

Unconsciously, Din patted his own knees. He was sorry he had worried her. But he had needed to say it.

She looked down at her hands and clasped them, squeezing tight as though she wanted to squeeze his hands instead. ‘You are one of my tribe,’ she said finally, and her voice was stronger now but no less imbued with emotion. ‘Health must be balanced with duty. As long as it is within my power to help you, I will free you from this burden.’

‘Thank you.’ Din did not know how else to respond. He curled his hands into each other, fingernails scraping his palms, and uncurled them—very Grogu-like, he thought. ‘Do we…’

‘Yes?’ she said a little too quickly, a dead giveaway that she had been very concerned.

He cocked his head to one side to tell her that he was fine. ‘Do we need a Mand’alor?’

‘I think not,’ replied the Armourer, after a thoughtful beat or two. ‘We are a community of equals. We need no rule except the Creed.’

He nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. Only there are other Mandalorians, and they…’

‘All Mandalorians are united in one trait,’ she told him, ‘our violent difference of opinion.’ She chuckled, softly, when he did too. ‘The Way takes many forms. Each Mandalorian follows their interpretation of the Way. Mine is the Way of our covert. So is yours—as far as I know. Now you have met many Mandalorians, more than I ever have. You have seen parts of the galaxy that I never managed to visit. In this area you know more than me.’ He twitched, and she continued before he could protest. ‘When you have seen enough, Din’ika, you can make a decision. Perhaps you still prefer the Way as we know it. Perhaps some other version calls to you. This you must determine. I do not control you any more than Bo-Katan Kryze.’

‘Yes,’ said Din.

And she added gently, ‘My counsel is not meant as a restriction.’

On some molecular level Din had always known this. He had known her nearly all his life—all his Mandalorian life, if you considered cin vhetin. They didn’t in his covert, not really. They did not ever destroy traces of foundlings’ previous lives, or try to erase the past. They had taken him as one of their own but never pretended they were all he had. The Armourer was not his mother. He had had a mother and a father, who had died for his sake, and the covert had honoured them with all the other parents whose deaths had sent foundlings to them. They had let him keep his ties to his old world and go out to explore new worlds. They had respected his changing body. They had never tried to control him. They were not his family because the word for covert was different from tribe, which was different from clan, which was different from biological nuclear family.

That was why Din gave zero fucks about his covert being called a cult. He knew precisely who he was. Aruetiise could not understand bonds which weren’t parent-child, brother-sister, husband-wife; but Mandalorians knew. He was proud to be Mandalorian.

‘I am grateful,’ he said at last, not knowing what else he could say, ‘to see you again.’

He couldn’t convey the depths of their mutual feeling in mere language, but it didn’t matter: that was not their way. She understood him. He saw the joy in her posture, in the tiny breaths and motions imperceptible to outsiders, when he said those words.

‘I will leave you now,’ she agreed. Somehow it was agreement, even though her words were very different from his. ‘Be well.’

‘Be well,’ he responded.

---

Grogu brought both Luke and Mara back to Din’s quarters that night. He rode in Luke’s arms, but he kept reaching over Luke’s shoulder to poke Mara’s nose with firm little claws, and she watched him with the fond steady expression Ahsoka had worn while chatting telepathically.

‘Was he good?’ Din asked, taking Grogu into his arms when Grogu toppled towards him. The kid was going through a phase where he clung to Luke like slickplast and fussed when they were separated, though Din remained a favourite alternative. This development left Luke equal parts smug and distressed. Din held the kid up to eye level, squinting suspiciously through the visor. ‘Did you behave yourself, pal?’

Grogu sneezed in his face.

‘All right.’ Din checked the kid’s diaper and carried him off towards the fresher. ‘I’ll give him his bath. Make yourselves comfortable,’ he called.

After Din had bathed Grogu and put him to bed with the horrible bedtime song both Luke and Din were sick of (‘Seagulls! Stop it now!’), he went into the kitchenette. Mara and Luke were sitting at the small central table, each nursing a mug of something sweet, and Luke lifted his eyes to meet Din’s.

‘Can he sleep without that goddamn song yet?’

‘Nope.’

Luke groaned. ‘Can’t catch a fucking break.’

Mara glanced from him to Din, puzzling out this new dynamic. ‘Quite a mouth on you, Skywalker,’ she remarked with the neutral dry humour Din had begun associating with her.

‘Always had it. Nothing to do on Tatooine except fuck, shoot womp rats, and drink. Not my fault I turned out a hick.’

‘That explains a lot, actually.’ She patted the empty chair beside her to prompt Din to join them.

‘Mara’s from the Core,’ Luke told Din as he sat down.

Din smiled at the memory of her obvious familiarity with royal trappings. ‘I noticed.’

Mara rested her fist against her mouth, curving her other hand around her mug of blue cocoa. She had wide, troubled eyes and a redhead’s typical pallor; her thin brows were so fair as to be nearly invisible. ‘Listen, Din,’ she began. ‘I used to be…’

Din waited, but she had trailed off. Luke did that thing—that thing with his eyelashes—while he sat there patiently, conveying wordless reassurance.

‘What’s done is done,’ Din said when she didn’t continue. ‘Whatever it is, don’t worry about it.’

She leaned her cheek on her hand. ‘The Empire hurt you, Din.’

‘The Empire hurt everyone.’

Luke sipped his own cocoa as Mara sighed and started to remove her hairpins, placing them on the table in a tidy pile. There must’ve been at least a dozen of them. ‘How do you two know each other?’ Din asked, sliding a napkin towards her when she spilled some cocoa.

‘Tried to kill him. Many times.’

‘Yeah, that’s how I met most of my friends too.’ He wondered how best to assuage the guilt she was carrying. ‘It’s great that the kid gets more than one Jedi to play with him.’

‘I’m not technically a—’ Mara scrubbed a hand over her face. ‘Never mind.’

Din did not wish to pry. He changed the subject. ‘Ruusaan Velt is coming to Naboo in the next few days for the New Republic conference. Maybe Koska could introduce you.’ He glanced at Luke. ‘Don’t think Paz wants to attend the conference, but he’d enjoy meeting Luke.’

‘I won’t be here for the conference anyway,’ Luke said regretfully.

Din hummed his acknowledgement, permitting himself a private grimace. It was so difficult to find time to forge the bonds they both valued. Connecting Din’s loved ones to each other made everybody happy, and he could never quite manage to get those chances.

‘I’ve only been with Koska for a couple of months,’ said Mara. ‘I’d like to meet her friends, too. Can we get drinks tomorrow evening maybe?’

‘Sure. I’ll check out the cantina, get Paz to come.’ Again Din glanced at Luke, who was looking more grounded and comfortable by the minute. ‘I’m sure Luke will get along with my people.’

Mara nodded. ‘He collects friends.’

‘I don’t…’ Luke had to swallow his mouthful before speaking, and he wiped a blue milk moustache from his upper lip. ‘People aren’t items you can just…’

She was unmoved. ‘He collects friends.’

Din smiled at her, although she could not see it. And she smiled back—not with her mouth, with her eyes, pressing her curled fingers to her lips as her elbow rested on the tabletop.

---

The next morning, Din rolled out of bed and put some water on to boil, yawning and scratching his chest as the thermajug whirred on its stovetop. Since the palace staff had mentioned bringing them breakfast, he headed back into the bedroom to put his helmet on. He let Luke snore softly on—bare legs hooked over the mussed-up covers, face sticky from sleep—while he dressed in the room’s dim privacy. From the kitchenette outside, the thermajug gave a loud ping to signal its readiness. He poked his head into what they called the baby’s room (really a cosy nook curtained off from sunlight), checking that the noise of boiling water hadn’t roused Grogu from sleep.

When he was fully armoured, Din reentered the kitchenette to find a very familiar leather-clad figure removing her orange helmet.

‘Fennec?’ Din reared back to avoid hitting her with the door. ‘Did you break in?’

‘Didn’t have to.’ She waved a stolen keycard between two fingers. ‘Kark, I’m jetlagged. Do you have any spotchka?’

Din paused, hand hovering over an open tin of tarine leaves. ‘It’s ten in the morning.’

‘Yes, and?’

Shaking his head, Din poured himself some tarine tea and set it down to steep. ‘I’ll fetch you some netra’gal.’

‘Thanks.’ She tossed her helmet aside, and—not for the first time—Din wondered how Fennec managed to ooze cunning menace while wearing a recycling bin on her head. ‘Should have commed you beforehand, but I got into some trouble on the way. It’s been too long, Djarin. I’ve missed hanging out with you.’

‘Oh,’ said Din, who still wasn’t sure if she would one day decide to murder him.

‘Besides,’ Fennec continued, settling down at the table to unlace her boots, ‘I wanted to see Skywalker.’ Din did not dare object to her feet being placed on his furniture. ‘He and Boba have… a history, shall we say.’

‘Do I want to know?’

‘Probably not. My advice? Break the news that Boba’s alive and then leave immediately. I’ll handle him until he cools down.’

‘Right.’ Din checked to make sure he was wearing his jetpack. He opened the kitchenette’s overhead cupboard, took down an ale tankard, and filled it with black froth. ‘Any word from Fett?’

Fennec grinned, extending her hand for the netra’gal. ‘He laughed very hard and said, “Tell him he’s on his own.”’

‘Yeah, sounds like Fett.’ Din turned away to lift his helmet slightly and then blew on the surface of his tea.

‘Sorry,’ said Fennec, not very apologetically. ‘I’m here to help with anything you need, if that’s a consolation. Think of it as my mandatory annual leave. I’ve been temp-banned from the palace—Boba claims I can’t just shoot his enemies when I feel like it.’

Din choked on his tea. ‘That’s rich coming from him.’

‘I know, right?’ She sighed, scratching at the base of her head. ‘Disturbing the balance of power, gang wars, whatever. Apparently, consolidating a criminal empire is delicate work.’

‘Who would’ve thought?’

‘We’ve run the slavers offworld; we do have standards. He’s no Hutt. Still, we both thought it would be best for me to stay away for a while, till Mos Espa gets a little less tense. So here I am. From the king of Tatooine to the king of Mandalore, greetings.’

‘Please don’t remind me.’ Throwing himself down on a chair, Din wilted a little at her smirk. ‘What other news from that dustball?’

‘Hmm.’ Fennec held out her tankard and they clinked their drinks together. ‘Cheers. How much do you want to know? Let’s stick to what’s safe for the Mand’alor’s ears. Peli’s shop is making a killing now that Tatooine gets more traffic. She charges Boba parking fees to keep the Slave One under her protection from vandals.’

Din laughed. ‘Bet he loves that.’

‘He’s terrified of her.’

They chatted until Luke wandered in all sleepy and well-fucked, his hair sticking up in the back, hands fisted in the cream-coloured tunic he wore to bed. He looked unbearably lovely. Inhaling deeply, Din backed out of the kitchenette onto the balcony, where there was a clear flight path to a safe landing. 

Luke blinked at Fennec a few times, smiling drowsily, and then turned to Din with his sweet, curious look. ‘Din?’

Fennec gave Luke a lazy once-over through her eyelashes. ‘Fennec Shand.’

‘She works for Boba Fett,’ Din said, and jumped off the balcony before Luke had time to react.

He walked around the city centre for an hour. When he got back, his rooms hadn’t been torn apart, both Fennec and Luke were still alive, and there was even a plate of Trandoshani flatcakes on the table between them. Din opened the conservator in search of chilled water, trailing his fingers through Luke’s hair as he passed. ‘Everything okay?’

Luke spoke to Fennec without raising his head from his hands. ‘No, I won’t give you Han’s com code so your boss can frighten him for fun.’

Fennec smirked. ‘Worth a shot.’

Luke sat up straight with a sigh, obviously realising that he and Fennec had the same taste in clothing and he might as well make an overture of friendship. ‘I like your skirt. Where’d you get it?’

She looked at him with newfound respect.

Unseen, Din grinned while he unscrewed the top of a water bottle. He took a long draught, cleared his throat in satisfaction, and sauntered off to take a shower.

---

Din did not have to attend the New Republic conference, Axe explained, but a gathering like this offered invaluable social opportunities. Leia would be present. Mon Mothma would be presiding. Ruusaan would work the banquet as a caterer, her sharp eyes picking out potential allies, her formidable reflexes shielding Din from hostility.

‘Watch this!’ said Ruusaan cheerfully, standing in the shared living space attached to Bo-Katan and Axe’s quarters. She’d come straight from Kashyyyk on some unrelated mission and still bore a spider bite on her unarmoured neck. That didn’t bother her, however, as she pulled a tray of nerf nuggets from the communal kitchen oven. ‘Pretend Axe is a Chandrilan delegate pressuring you to join the Republic.’ Axe obligingly stuck his nose in the air. ‘Here’s how I’ll distract him.’ She sidestepped around Axe, looking disturbingly convincing in her borrowed server’s uniform, then tottered and pretended to drop her tray. She righted herself a heartbeat before disaster and popped a nugget into her mouth, wincing and blowing on her burned fingers. ‘See? Nobody pays attention to servers. I’ll get myself fired twice, maybe thrice, no biggie. I’ll have visual on you at all times, Mand’alor…’ She placed the tray on one of the common area’s long tables. Both Koska and Bo-Katan pounced on it at once. ‘Now here’s how I’ll spill rancor sauce down your front…’

Din took a hasty step back. ‘Okay, no need to enjoy yourself too much.’

‘What? Armour’s waterproof.’ Ruusaan scowled at the tray, which had sat unguarded for two seconds and was already being polished clean. ‘Wow, help yourselves.’

Koska shrugged. ‘We’re hungry.’

‘At least leave some for me! I made them, you ungrateful shavit.’

‘Yeah, no, we do appreciate you,’ said Bo-Katan, deadpan. ‘Workers in the food industry provide an essential service.’ Ruusaan threw a wadded-up napkin at her. Unfazed, she let the napkin bounce off, sucking her fingers clean as she ignored its landing on the pristine floor (Din sighed and went to put it in the bin). ‘You sure you don’t want a vibroblade?’

Ruusaan stared at her. ‘I’ll be working in the kitchens.’

‘How is that relevant?’

‘Kitchens have knives.’

Bo-Katan blinked a couple of times, then pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘They don’t vibrate.’

Ruusaan shook her head resignedly. ‘Unbelievable. I could attack you with a meat cleaver, Bo, and you’d hold me off with one hand while giving pointers on my form.’ She threw a quick glance in Din’s direction. ‘You see why you’ll do well, Mand’alor?’

‘At what?’ said Din, instantly panicky.

She let out a tauntaun-like snort. ‘At not jumping straight to murder. You keep a cool head, Din Djarin, and I think you’ll be just fine mingling with New Republic dignitaries.’

‘I have to mingle?’

At the same time Bo-Katan asked, ‘You have access to a… a food flamethrower, yes? What’s it called, a blowtorch?’

Ruusaan gaped. ‘Remind me not to let you near the palace kitchens. You’ll jeopardise my whole operation. Flamethrowers and vibroblades, Maker save us! Please remember the goal is to not end up killing six ministers with a barbecue grill!’

‘I need to make sure you can defend yourself undercover!’

‘I can defend myself perfectly well,’ Ruusaan bellowed. ‘By being nice to people. You might try it sometime!’

Din fled before the Mandos could rope him into their shouting match. Making his way out of the residential hall, he walked between towering statues of monarchs riding guarlaras. Atrium walls bore murals depicting falconry and other aristocratic sports. Painted on vivid plaster he saw twirrls diving for their prey, greysors running in the wild hunt, white and dappled gualama herds. A few mounted queens carried some ceremonial staff of office; he clutched the beskar spear at his side and tried to feel calm.

In the shadow of the city’s great university, he sat down at a tapcafe and asked for iced tea. He could see the needle-like tip of some tall monument peeking above its neighbours. Well-dressed Theedites of all species passed his table, hardly glancing at his beskar, for which he was grateful. They were too preoccupied with their comings and goings—the market square, the spaceport, the art museum popular with tourists and locals alike—to notice another stranger. He was glad of it. There seemed so much life in this city.

Now that Din had seen Naboo, a survivor planet with a proud history, he tasted Mandalore’s bitterness to the dregs. He knew firsthand the beauty of old Theed, thriving not just with industry but with learning and leisure. They had known upheaval, here, and endured destruction; yet they’d had enough left intact to rebuild upon their foundations. Only now did he truly grasp the malice of the Great Purge. He could sit and look around him, at the heart of an ancient capital, and wonder how anyone could bring themselves to raze cities to the ground. He could picture ISB forces burning buildings as old as these, systematically flattening people and pillars, taking sledgehammers to frescoes and faces, mowing every house down to its foundations and then going back to dig up the rubble.

He should have killed Gideon when he’d had the chance.

The loud thrum of a repulsorlift ripped him from his thoughts, and Din steadied his glass of Moogan tea as an open-roofed airspeeder halted beside him. Luke, who’d manoeuvred the airspeeder into a safe position away from customers, hopped out of it beaming. In the passenger seat, Mara Jade crawled over to seize the controls and snapped, ‘Get back in, farmboy.’

Luke’s expression had stilled when he got a better look at Din. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, hands coming up to cradle Din’s helmet. Din shook his head; he was too old to make a big deal about feeling upset. 

Luke had always taken him seriously. Golden-tinged by the sandstone buildings, Luke tipped his face upwards to address Mara—who, with Luke, had completely dropped the careful politeness she’d shown Din. ‘Can you park the speeder, please?’

‘Why,’ Mara said flatly.

Luke tore off his flight goggles to match her with an identical deadpan expression. ‘Because it would make me happy.’

‘Now I doubly don’t want to do it,’ she muttered, yanking the keys out of his hand with the Force. As the airspeeder roared away (Mara’s piloting was even more terrifying than Luke’s), Luke settled into the seat opposite Din and blew his dust-clogged nose on a napkin.

‘You’re sure you’re okay?’

Din put both his hands on the table. ‘Yeah.’ He slid his Moogan tea towards Luke, silently offering; Luke took a sip and smacked his lips delightedly at the cinnamon sweetness. ‘Just Mand’alor stuff.’

Luke lifted his grave, sweet eyes to examine Din, the effect somewhat undermined by a dab of whipped cream on his nose. ‘Can I help?’

Din thought about it, then shook his head again. ‘It’s all right.’ He turned his palm up towards Luke. With unerring ease, Luke found the narrow strip of skin between Din’s sleeve and his glove, and stroked a thumb along his bare wrist. ‘Thank you.’

Mara, having gotten rid of the speeder entirely too fast for Din’s comfort, stalked over to them while Luke was finishing the iced tea. ‘Are you bailing on me, Skywalker?’ She greeted Din with a nod, then sniffed and wiped Luke’s cream-tipped nose with her sleeve. ‘Royal boathouse. D-11 waterspeeders. Koska’s meeting us there. You’re welcome to come along, Mand’alor.’

‘I…’ said Din, trying to process many things besides the fact that he was being invited on a double date. ‘Can I join you later? Pub at the head of the river? It’s called—’

‘I know the one.’ She squinted down at Luke. ‘Okay, farmboy. Last chance to join me and Koska or we will fuck on the boat.’

Luke smirked over the rim of Din’s glass. ‘By all means, fuck on the boat.’

‘Right!’ Mara tossed her keys in the air and caught them. ‘He’s an enabler!’ she said to Din. ‘I handed your child off to Han, by the way. He just landed at the spaceport and hasn’t stopped talking about Grogu since he arrived. I think he’s imprinted on the little one—do smugglers imprint?’

‘I don’t know, Mara, you tell me,’ Luke replied with unmistakable fondness.

‘Leia?’ Din asked.

‘On her way.’ Mara put one hand on her cocked hip, where Din noticed both a blaster and a lightsaber. ‘With me and Leia, and her smuggler husband, and the Wookiee, and this one here,’ at which point she nudged the leg of Luke’s chair with her foot, ‘Grogu’s got a lot of adults on Naboo. He’s in safe hands with the family, Mand’alor.’

Din could not respond immediately. He was still taking in everything which had happened this morning alone. He felt a little overwhelmed by his world and Luke’s world colliding so gloriously, and their various friendships scraping up against each other with chaotic sparks, and how Grogu’s communal caretaking arrangements were very, very Mandalorian.

Luke was having some revelations of his own. He’d just checked his comlink and frowned, apparently seeing no new messages from his sister. ‘How did you know Leia is close by?’ Mara instinctively bristled as Luke’s mouth fell open in surprised pleasure. ‘Did you feel her through the Force?’ He turned his reckless pilot’s grin on Mara. ‘Did you call us family? I am so proud of you.’

‘I’m going to murder you in your sleep.’

‘Okay, have fun on the boat ride, I love you!’ Luke chirped so sincerely that Mara huffed and turned away.

Still, she didn’t leave without whispering to Din, ‘You sure you want this one? Seriously?’

Yes, he was.

‘No accounting for taste.’ But she patted Luke’s arm with a kind of sneaky feline affection, and they all pretended not to notice.

Notes:

cin vhetin — the wiping of a person's slate when they become Mandalorian, indicating that they will only be judged by what they do from that point onwards
aruetiise (plural) — outsiders/traitors
coming soon: things go terribly wrong, Din attends and attempts to escape a fancy dinner, and wlw/mlm hostility reigns supreme

Chapter 10

Notes:

hello, yes, i have looked after toddlers. i am also a lesbian. please accept this lengthy update drawn from my own experiences and written for my own enjoyment. mouse over for translations

Leia arrived on Naboo the afternoon before Luke’s departure. She flew a diplomatic vessel this time, plated in royal chromium, and Theed’s dockworkers flocked to receive the starship as it landed. She wore a white cloak over her flightsuit and looked very stately; still, even from a distance as Leia was ushered through spaceport security, Din could sense her agitation.

She didn’t allow herself to look upset until Din and Luke had escorted her to a waiting air taxi. On the airspeeder Leia sat ramrod-straight, her lips white from how hard she was pressing them together, not speaking in case their pilot overheard. Once they alighted at the Hall of Perri-Teeka, she gave the EasyRide pilot some credits (‘The taxi’s been paid for,’ said Luke, surprised) and blindly made her way towards the trees.

In the relative privacy of Ellié Lane, Luke bent towards his sister protectively. With Luke and Din on either side, Leia was shielded by their heights; she seemed to withdraw into herself, shrinking so that they hid her from the Theed public’s curious eyes. ‘Leia?’

She finally opened her mouth with a pop, bloodless lips turning bruise-like. ‘I failed.’

Din angled his body to conceal her as they entered a courtyard, where Han could be seen bravely jousting with a loth-cat that was terrorising Grogu. ‘Your motion for Mandalorian statehood didn’t go well…?’

‘I tried. I tried. They hate me there. They called me Lady Vader. Accused me of shoring up a rival power base for future assaults on democracy.’ She didn’t seem to hear Din’s choked-off noise of protest. ‘Can you believe how fast they turned on me after the war?’ Her voice cracked on the last word, which only made her angrier. She sniffled and then wiped her nose furiously, her vehement face blotchy with emotion. ‘I hate them too. This is outrageous. It’s unfair. How can I be on the Senate and not be trusted? I should quit politics and go back into the army.’

Luke put a hand to her elbow, gentle, and didn’t scowl when she shook him off. ‘Leia, whenever you want to talk about our father…’

‘I don’t give a fuck. My father was Bail Organa.’

Luke glanced around wildly, and when he spotted Han his expression changed to open relief. He made a small motion with his head, though Han didn’t need to be told—he was already crossing the courtyard towards them. Passing Grogu to Din without a word, Han took Leia into his arms and kissed her forehead.

Din, as well as Luke, turned away respectfully so that Leia wouldn’t be seen crying.

He snuggled Grogu to his pauldron and shushed the kid’s whimpers. Grogu’s ears went down as Din carried him away, stopping him from interfering with Leia and Han. ‘I know,’ Din whispered, ‘but you can’t Force-heal that, buddy.’

While Luke shooed the stray cats out of Grogu-scaring range, Din sat down on a nearby bench. He checked the kid’s diaper (clean, good job Han) and the kid’s toes (disgusting), and, sighing, began to scrub Grogu’s feet with a baby wipe. Grogu shrieked. He never wanted to be cleaned up during daytime activities. Din struggled equally hard against Grogu’s resistance and the temptation to simply flip him upside down for easier wiping.

Fortunately, just when Din was considering a dunk in the nearest fountain, Luke came back to help. He held Grogu up to eye level and kissed his tiny nose. ‘How are you so stinky already?’ Luke demanded. ‘I gave you a bath this morning! What have you been doing, you little monster?’

Nearby, Han looked shifty.

Leia walked over the cobblestones to join them, looking somewhat better although her eyes were red-rimmed. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said to Grogu, stroking his head with her fingertip. His ears perked up. To Din: ‘I suppose you don’t know a lot about my background.’ She held up a hand when he began to apologise. ‘No, no, that’s fine. I don’t know much about yours either—I’ve only dressed up as a bounty hunter once, and that didn’t go well.’

At her side, Han gave a twitch which Din had learned to associate with carbonite-related trauma, so Din didn’t probe.

‘What would you like me to know?’ he asked instead.

‘Um…’ She glanced away briefly, wiping her face. Her nose was running. ‘I grew up in Aldera. Both my mothers were queens of their planets. My childhood nickname was Lelila.’

‘That’s very pretty,’ Din said.

She let out a shaky exhale. ‘Someday I’ll tell you about the royal palace of Alderaan. Not now—I can’t right now. It didn’t look like Naboo.’

‘Cheer up, princess,’ said Han, touching her nose. When she smiled up at Han, Luke smiled too. ‘Why don’t we go for a ride? Take you to see the sights here. Think we can visit all three moons by nightfall?’

‘You can borrow my ship,’ Din offered. ‘It’s nicer than the Falcon.’ When Han began inflating like a blowfish, he held up one index finger. ‘No.’

‘She’s the fastest ship in the—’

‘Nicer, I said. Not faster. When you’re on a pleasure cruise you want to cover more parsecs!’

‘Din,’ Luke interjected, adjusting Grogu’s position on his hip as the kid cooed, ‘you’re not wrong, but—’

‘Don’t take his side, kid!’

‘—have you ever even gone on vacation?’

Din opened his mouth.

‘Boys,’ Leia said, laughing now, and then they were satisfied with what they’d accomplished.

After Han had gone off to the hangar to prepare more distractions, Leia claimed her turn to hold Grogu and led them all indoors. The atrium had a sunken pool for rainfall collected through the roof’s opening. Beside the pool, Koska and Mara were sipping cocktails, having just returned from a fishing trip down the Solleu. The yellow-glazed shapes of aquanna and Naboo whales glimmered on mosaic tiles. Leia kissed Mara on both cheeks, but refused to surrender Grogu before her allotted time was up.

‘Little goblin,’ Mara murmured fondly, levitating her spicebrew out of Grogu’s reach. ‘He won’t ride in his hoverpram anymore, did you know? Yes, gremlin, we’re talking about you. He wants to be carried all the time now. He knows there’s a line of grown-ups begging to hold him.’

‘Grogu,’ Din sighed. Grogu squeaked in the way he did whenever Din spoke his name.

‘Spoiled little prince,’ Luke agreed. He swiped Mara’s drink as it floated past him.

‘You won’t like it,’ she warned before he could steal a sip, ‘it’s not sweet enough for you.’

He took a big gulp out of spite.

‘How was your trip?’ Leia asked. Below Mara’s eyeline, she formed a fist and gently thumped Luke’s back. He turned his head so Mara couldn’t see him grimacing at the taste.

Koska, who had missed none of this interaction, grinned widely. ‘We caught blackfish for supper.’

‘Nice,’ Leia said. ‘Can you cook?’

‘Nope.’

‘Oh.’ Luke eyed Koska’s Spiran caf wistfully, and for perhaps the thirteenth time, Din wondered whether Grogu and Luke were rubbing off on each other more than he’d thought. ‘You could release them back into the river?’

‘No dice,’ said Mara, ‘they’re already dead,’ and under her breath she added, ‘you kriffing hippie.’

Luke whined. Din, acting before his brain caught up with his body, put his arms round Luke from behind and hugged him very tightly.

Luke tilted his sweet face towards Din, smelling of nutmeg. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’ Din rested his helmet on Luke’s clavicle. ‘I’m happy, that’s all.’

Luke beamed.

Leia seemed about to say something when Fennec traipsed down a spiral staircase in the corner, still towelling her hair dry. She clicked her tongue at them in greeting, then looked slowly around the atrium with parted lips. ‘Huh. I’m more a fan of brutalist architecture.’

Din, who could never tell whether Fennec was joking and was too afraid to ask, just nodded politely.

‘Ah!’ Luke brightened, having evidently forgotten all about his plans. ‘I’ll see you later, Mara; Fennec and I are heading into town for the afternoon.’ Wordlessly, Din handed him a blaster. He looked down at it in confusion. ‘I don’t need… I have a lightsaber… Din, we’re going shopping.’

‘With Fennec, you never know.’

‘Din, who do you think is more notorious?’ Fennec asked offhandedly. ‘Her?’ She cocked her head in Leia’s direction, clearly unsure of the correct title and therefore not addressing Leia at all. ‘Or me?’

‘Uh,’ said Din, hyper-aware of the throwing knife concealed in her sleeve, ‘I think women should not have to compete with each other?’

Fennec didn’t look satisfied.

‘Hang on.’ Mara set her drink down beside a vase. ‘Let me get this straight. You knew of Han and Leia Organa, or Huttslayer Leia as you call her, but not Luke Skywalker?’

‘She’s better known as the Scourge of Hutt Space,’ Koska pointed out helpfully.

‘What’s so surprising about that?’ Fennec asked at the same time. ‘We don’t run in your fancy-schmancy circles.’

‘But you met,’ said Mara disbelievingly, sounding more and more Core Worlds by the syllable, ‘you all met Luke Skywalker—’

‘I’m really just a farmboy,’ Luke mumbled.

Mara shook her head. Her Core accent had thickened considerably. ‘Incredible. What else do they call Leia in the Outer Rim?’

‘The Terror,’ said Din, only partly joking. ‘The Dreaded.’

Luke grinned. ‘The Avenger.’

Fennec added, ‘I’ve heard She-who-strangled-the-Enslaver-with-his-own-chain, but it seems to roll off the tongue better in Huttese.’

‘It does,’ Din confirmed. ‘What else is there?’

She smiled at him. ‘Some poetic Mando’a title about wrath, I think.’

‘Now you’re just making things up,’ Mara said crossly. ‘Doesn’t Skywalker get a title too?’

Koska patted her arm. ‘We just call him Din’s boyfriend.’

‘I’m very happy with this,’ Luke announced.

Fennec studied Luke for a long moment, draping her towel over a pelikki sculpture without taking her eyes off him. She had a precise, sly tilt of the head when she was observing, and Din recalled how long she’d taken to lower her rifle when Luke had walked through Gideon’s blast doors. ‘You’re all right, Skywalker.’ 

Both Din and Leia tensed. From Fennec, those words amounted to signing a blood pact.

‘Please don’t hire a Jedi to do organised crime,’ said Leia, sounding horrified.

‘I doubt I’d have to pay him. Hey, whenever you’re feeling reckless—’

‘I cannot hear this,’ Leia moaned. ‘Like, legally.’

‘—when cabin fever has you scratching the walls like a tooka in heat—’

‘I’m not listening! I can’t be held accountable for his actions!’

‘—you have my com code,’ Fennec finished, eyebrows arched, ‘and you know where to find me.’

Luke jerked his chin at her in an unmistakable salute. What have I done? Din thought, but he felt utterly contented.

---

A conference room in the Hall of Perri-Teeka was booked for Bo-Katan and the Armourer. Din found it strangely fitting, somehow, that Mandalorian leaders should meet in a building named after a statesman. Although dignified, this location was far less sumptuous than the palace; it lay beside a power generator supplying Theed’s plasma energy. It had practical functions and simple beige walls. Din climbed the spiral staircase with greater confidence than he’d felt before. He was klicks away from undocumented meetings on Vetine.

As usual, Din preferred to fade into the background, but as he punched in the door’s security code he noticed Bo-Katan looking queasy. This was the only meeting she had not permitted Axe and Koska to attend.

Din turned his head. ‘Bo-Katan?’

She stiffened her already-military posture even further, seeming to steel herself. ‘Let’s go,’ she muttered, and added sardonically: ‘Oya manda.’

Din pushed the door open. The Armourer sat at the head of a curved, plain table, artificial light glinting off her helmet—which, as long as he’d known her, had always been painted gold for vengeance.

‘Bo-Katan Kryze,’ the Armourer said. Din could not decipher her tone. ‘You haven’t aged a day.’

Bo-Katan’s mouth compressed into a line. Her cheekbones seemed to stand out more starkly in the indoor light. ‘You witnessed the Purge.’

‘Yes.’

Bo-Katan laid down her weapons. She clenched her fists, looking nauseated; then, to Din’s complete shock, she lowered herself onto one knee and said, ‘Ni ceta.’

‘Rise,’ said the Armourer, sounding just as stunned as Din felt.

Bo-Katan raised her head with high colour in her cheeks. ‘I am sorry for losing our planet.’

The Armourer held out a gloved hand to help her to her feet—Bo-Katan gazed at it, stormy-eyed and implacable. ‘That is in the past.’

‘Not to me,’ she said harshly.

Nonplussed, the Armourer withdrew her proffered hand. She laid it, palm up, on her knee as Bo-Katan levered herself up with a fist against the icy floor and straightened. Din looked around the sparsely furnished room, and finally settled into the nearest available seat. Bo-Katan took a seat, too. She had set her helmet down on the table along with her two blasters. She froze halfway to her chair when the Armourer intoned evenly, ‘I absolve you of your guilt.’

Chair legs scraped against the floor. ‘You can’t.’

Din placed his hands on the tabletop because he did not know where else to put them.

The Armourer glanced his way, checking in, and accepted his silent nod. With her customary air of grave comfort she took charge. ‘I cannot support your quest,’ she told Bo-Katan bluntly. ‘There is no future for us on Mandalore.’

‘There is no future without Mandalore,’ Bo-Katan countered. ‘Our home—’

‘Our home is not a planet or a place.’ She spoke much slower than Bo-Katan, who (surprisingly) allowed her to interrupt. ‘Our home stands wherever Mandalorians stand. The Empire could not take it from us, and the Republic never will.’ At Bo-Katan’s silence, she continued, ‘The foundlings—’

‘Foundlings who have never been to Mandalore. Would you rob them of that? The chance to see our homeworld with their own eyes?’

Din flinched; he wasn’t sure he wanted to see Mandalore in its ruined state. He had witnessed Aq Vetina being bombed, and he could not bear the image of a second homeworld which had fared worse. His memories of droid attacks were bright-edged and vivid enough.

‘I sense that we agree on certain issues,’ the Armourer was saying when he came back to the present. ‘The Darksaber legend means little to me. I can take it or leave it; I will accept a Mand’alor; but at heart I believe, as I think you do, that we need only be governed by shared wisdom.’

‘Sure,’ Bo-Katan replied, ‘but we’re a stubborn, egotistical, disunited people. I have watched over scattered Mandalorians for decades. Without the Darksaber, I cannot lead them. You think they would follow a Child of the Watch? There would be civil war.’ She avoided Din’s gaze even though he looked at her sharply. She’d hidden this issue from him for over a year; now he was hearing of it for the first time. ‘Again.’

The Armourer sighed softly, but didn’t contest that. ‘Your warlike nature is Mandalorian through and through,’ she remarked after a short pause. ‘You speak of following a leader into battle. Are you certain we must fight?’

‘To reoccupy our planet.’

‘For whose sake, Bo-Katan?’

Bo-Katan’s jaw clenched—the Armourer’s question had speared her to the core. But she lifted her chin, as terrible and indomitable as a destroyer god. ‘I have a higher purpose.’

‘There is no shame,’ the Armourer answered, ‘in admitting that your purpose is to restore your own honour.’

Bo-Katan’s stony gaze showed very plainly that she would die before exposing herself to sympathy.

‘My proposal is this.’ The Armourer inclined her head in Din’s direction, bringing him into the conversation for the first time. ‘As a triumvirate, we could guide Mandalorians into a softer future. Intercessor,’ and she tilted her helmet at Din, ‘judge,’ touching her own breastplate, ‘and commander of troops.’ She opened her hands towards Bo-Katan.

‘Like an Imperial council? Like aruetiise?’ Bo-Katan shook her head. ‘That won’t work. You’ve lived under foreign rule for too long.’

The Armourer said quietly, ‘Do not presume to describe my experiences.’

Bo-Katan didn’t wince, but it was a close call. She bit her lip.

‘I offer this alternative.’ Once again, the Armourer held out her open hands above the tabletop. ‘Not to grant myself power, far from that, but to share responsibility between Mandalorians.’

‘It’s a good idea,’ Bo-Katan admitted. Her green eyes squeezed shut. ‘I see why you suggest it. The resistance is not mine, you understand?’ Visibly she relaxed when the Armourer nodded. ‘I serve a scattered people. I crave their endorsement. Tradition—for the Darksaber is tradition, and that alone—has rooted itself in the hearts of Mando’ade. When we lost everything, we clung to the old ways: they were all we had left. Can we risk splintering the diaspora by seeming to spurn tradition? You know that my sister was a pacifist. She alienated so many that we failed to unite against the Empire. I fear your gentler future is too soft a path, too strange a proposal, for Mandalorians maimed by the destruction of our culture.’ She glanced at Din fleetingly, like she couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. ‘Look at him. He’s miserable.’

Din could not breathe. He’d thought he was fronting so well.

‘If I could find a just cause to challenge him,’ Bo-Katan said, ‘I would have done it months ago. Why do you think I’ve accompanied him for so long? I have been testing him. Alas, he’s too good a leader. I see no way out of his predicament.’

---

Din got home to find Paz guarding the entrance to his quarters, while Han—still removing his shoes—hopped down the narrow hallway impatiently. ‘Where’s the baby?’ Han asked as soon as he reached the kitchenette.

‘Hi, Han, I’m fine, thank you, Han, nice to see you too, Han,’ said Luke resignedly. ‘Baby is sleeping. Please do not disturb.’

‘I’ll be quiet as a slug,’ Han promised, and disappeared into the bedroom. Luke turned from the sink with his welcome-home smile, absently drying a paring knife. He had a new black tunic with forest-green accents, and Din noticed a cut on his forehead which hadn’t been there earlier.

For the second time in two days since Fennec had reentered his life, Din asked: ‘Do I want to know?’

‘Nope.’ Luke kissed his cheek. ‘The blaster came in handy, actually.’

‘I won’t say I told you so.’

‘You don’t have to. I can hear it loud and clear in your thoughts.’

Din carried Luke’s plate to the table for dinner. Since Din had returned safely, Paz retired from his self-appointed post at the entrance. He lined up his enormous boots beside Din’s, stepped over Han’s discarded shoes without bothering to straighten them, and filled the kitchenette’s doorway like an unwelcome spectre. As Paz’s shadow fell over the linoleum, Din warned, ‘You’re blocking the light.’

‘Get better eyes.’

Sullenly, Din yanked out a chair and sat.

Paz tipped his heavy helmet in Luke’s direction. ‘Do you drink, Jedi?’ He radiated ominous, awful joy when Luke nodded. ‘Excellent.’

Dread began to surge in Din’s stomach. ‘Oh boy.’

Paz ignored him. ‘Meet me at the cantina after you’ve eaten. I’ll tell you all about the time Din kissed—’

‘I’ll decapitate you with the Darksaber,’ Din threatened.

‘Can you even reach my neck?’

Mara saved Din and Paz from coming to blows by simply appearing. Paz whirled towards the intruder, hand flying to his sidearm, and Din reached out to stop him. ‘Hi, Mara.’

‘Hi, Din. Fennec’s in the hallway; she’s come to eat.’ At his questioning look, Mara smiled. ‘No thanks, I’m not hungry.’

‘Fennec’s come to eat?’ Luke repeated irritably. ‘I invited you to dinner. I didn’t invite her.’

Fennec strolled in behind Mara, who stepped aside to give her a clear sightline to her target. ‘You wanna say that to my face, Jedi?’

‘Yes,’ Luke said.

Din quickly stood and put himself between them. ‘Are we going out with Koska later?’ he asked Mara.

She nodded. ‘I’ve checked with the cantina owners. There’s some royal security nonsense—I kept telling them you can look after yourself, but it seems Soruna gave explicit instructions. Anyway, what that means is Paz has to stand guard as long as we’re there.’ She made a commiserating sound as she sensed Din’s annoyance. ‘I know, right? At least I convinced them not to send their own security. Protocol’s protocol, especially for guests,’ and her tone warmed, ‘and they really like the Mand’alor.’

‘What, the amoral bounty hunter?’ Paz guffawed, getting Din in a headlock before Din’s reflexes could save him. ‘Elusive bad boy Din Djarin? No-nonsense loner Din Djarin? Broke several people’s hearts by being too busy to call them? That Din Djarin?’

‘Shut up, Paz!’ Din struggled futilely to break free. To Mara, his face hot, he said: ‘Sorry, he’s always like this.’

‘Oh, your Din’s had a real checkered past,’ Paz continued with horrible glee, ‘leaving a trail of scorned lovers everywhere he goes—’

Fennec chimed in with her head halfway into the well-stocked conservator. ‘It’s called having commitment issues and I won’t have anyone shamed for that.’

‘Commitment issues? That’s a nice take on it. Why, they still gossip about this one in Ranzar Malk’s circles. The Mand’alor, you call him? He’s been a very naughty boy!’

‘I am a thirty-six-year-old man,’ Din said furiously.

‘Yeah, you’re a baby,’ said Paz, undeterred. ‘Fresh out of diapers, you are. What are you, younger than your own son? Coward.’

Luke, poorly hiding his mirth, made a dishcloth flap towards Paz while he ate with the other hand. Startled, Paz let Din go; he growled when he realised what he’d done.

‘Are you finished?’ Koska called from the hallway. She stomped in, packing yet another person into the tiny kitchenette. ‘Blackfish tasted like shit. Can’t believe I fucked up fish and chips of all things. I want a pub dinner, Djarin, grab the twink and let’s be on our way.’

Din did not grab the twink as instructed, because he respected Luke’s bodily autonomy. ‘I still need to eat in the bedroom.’

Luke ate at a pace which plainly showed he’d never had siblings eyeing unattended food, ready to pounce at the slightest gap in defences. ‘Yeah, give us an hour.’

Koska had come to the same conclusion as Din. She poked Luke’s chair with her foot, pouting in dissatisfaction. ‘Can you eat faster? I could gobble up ten rations in that time.’

‘You’re a menace to society,’ Mara said.

‘And a coward,’ said Luke. ‘Do twenty.’

Smirking, Koska pulled off her leather headbands and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I’m a woman who only likes other women,’ she told him. ‘It’s my Maker-given duty to bully you.’

‘A job you take too much pleasure in,’ Luke sighed.

She grinned. ‘You know what they say. Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.’

Edging past all those elbows, Din reached the stovetop (the kitchenette had really not been designed for so many people) to scoop some claypot rice for himself. Fennec was tucking in quite happily as she stood at the counter. She kept frowning at her comlink, though, and Din didn’t want to ask but felt like he had to.

‘Something from Boba?’

‘Hmm? No.’ She shook her plaited head. ‘Some nuisance at the public hangar.’

Din blew out a short breath. He knew what it felt like trying to park on upscale Naboo. ‘Anything I can do?’

‘There’s a manager trying to give me a parking ticket,’ Fennec told him. ‘Do you have a bitchy Mandalorian I could borrow to chase them off?’

‘Ah.’ Din leaned out of the kitchenette’s open window, which faced the other Mandalorians’ common area. ‘Bo-Katan!’ he called.

In the stucco-adorned corridor between their rooms, Fennec explained the mission (‘Weaponise your innate nastiness,’ was how she put it) and Bo-Katan became an affronted porg, while Din checked his comlink and Koska mouthed every word of her rant along with her. When she’d gotten through her theatrics, she turned to Fennec with a long-suffering sigh and said quite sincerely, ‘I would be delighted.’

Din watched them swagger off like mismatched tusk cats, vicious and smug, and felt centred. He was at his most comfortable surrounded by horrible women.

---

Luke’s last night on Naboo felt like a tipping point. When Din ate in the Mand’alor’s quarters that evening, he had the sense of a convor poised for flight; he watched his people mix with Luke’s as though he were a guardian owl perched on the cliff outside Theed Palace. He dined in the privacy of his and Luke’s bedroom, as before, but he could look directly into the common area from there—and their chatter was loud enough to be heard from his open window. This, Din thought, was almost as homey as his covert: Leia playing sarbacc with Mandos, Mara and Luke cry-laughing over some holonovel erotica (Pounded in the Butt by My Sentient Bacta Patch, by Chuck T’ingl), Grogu kicking and cooing under Han’s doting supervision. He was nourished by their presence. He did not want it to ever end. 

Nevertheless, Din went into the common area to interrupt, for Luke had an airbus to catch the next morning and they were both working dads. He placed a hand gently on Luke’s head and found him flushed from laughter and good company, golden-brown hair soft between Din’s fingers. Mara had clipped her hairpins to his collar for safekeeping. Din thought he was unfairly handsome.

‘Yeah, I know.’ Luke reached up to touch Din’s helmet. ‘I’ll sleep soon. You can use the fresher before me.’

‘Are you going to be here for a while?’

‘Yeah,’ said Luke, smiling up at him in a way that made Din almost want to cry. ‘Go ahead and take your shower. I’ll watch the door.’

Din felt safe enough to remove his helmet, even with ten people coming and going in his vicinity. He disinfected his armour, laying it piece by piece on the rack they’d found in a wardrobe. He washed off the day’s grime, eyes closed, basking in the fresher’s high-pressure spray. Luke (who enjoyed icy cold showers for incomprehensible, Tatooine-related reasons) always told Din to use all the hot water, he didn’t mind. Din always left a little in the tank for him anyway. Each of them thought that the other deserved luxury.

Luke came out wet-haired after his shower and hugged Din from behind, hooking his chin over Din’s bare shoulder. They rocked from side to side, swaying to inaudible music, until Luke spun Din around and danced him into the hallway. Din knew he could have said Stay, and Luke would have stayed—would’ve given up his great and terrible responsibilities for Din and Grogu’s sakes, if Din had asked.

That was why Din didn’t ask.

They kissed in the hallway next to the shoes, Din hitching Luke up against the wall by his thighs, and Luke didn’t say he wanted to leave the next morning. Neither did he say he wanted Din to ask him not to. Instead he brushed Din’s ear with his lips, tender and a little swollen, and asked, ‘Who’s watching Grogu while I’m gone?’

‘Everybody. Mainly Koska and Mara, he’ll stay with them while I’m in meetings, I’ll move the cot into their quarters tomorrow.’

‘You’ll be too busy. Get the staff to do it.’

‘I’m sure I can manage.’ Din lowered Luke to the floor very gently, notwithstanding the fact that Luke could throw him across a room with minimal effort. It wasn’t that Din feared hurting Luke. He just didn’t want to pull a muscle. 

Luke leaned his head against the plaster-smooth wall, gazing at Din in contentment. This close, Din could see the tiny lines feathering at the corners of his eyes. ‘Koska seems very fond of Grogu.’

‘She is,’ Din agreed, ‘always has been. I’m glad Mara is there to temper her; she’s a bit young…’

Luke snorted. ‘Koska’s my age. Mara’s younger.’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Din, getting sleepier by the minute. ‘Jedi age faster than most people.’

‘Hey!’

Din kissed his mouth, then his haggard-looking cheek, then touched noses with him. ‘Still handsome, don’t you worry.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ said Luke. He yawned a second after Din did—it was contagious—and shook himself a little. ‘Mmm. I’m looking forward to getting into my forties with you.’

Din had never thought about growing older before. He put a hand to Luke’s waist. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I guess…’ Luke chuckled. ‘I wanna see what my dad would’ve looked like if he hadn’t gotten dunked in lava aged twenty-two.’

‘What?’

Luke smiled ruefully. ‘Tell you another time.’

‘Your kriffing family,’ Din mumbled, pressing his face into Luke’s hair.

‘Right? It keeps getting bigger, too.’ He rubbed his cheek against Din’s shoulder. Din pictured his own parents, and then his nearly extinct covert, and wondered at their child’s good fortune now—to be attended to and adored by a horde of caretakers—and the adults themselves, spoiled by having only one foundling to fuss over. ‘Can’t ever put a lid on it. Like the universe, endlessly expanding…’

‘Okay,’ Din said, ‘while you get philosophical I’ll put the kettle on.’

Luke took his empty teacup off the boiler cupboard and handed it to Din. ‘Thanks.’

Din ducked into the kitchenette with Luke’s cup, closing the door behind him when he heard additional footsteps. There was shuffling in the hallway and a muttered curse, and Luke’s calm voice came through the door: ‘Grogu needs to go to bed. Han, wanna come? I could use another grown-up for that kriffing bedtime song. It has character voices.’

Din could hear Han scratching his chest through his open shirt. ‘Kid, if you’re so sick of “Seagulls”—’

‘You don’t understand, he only wants “Seagulls”…’

‘—why don’t you sing “Bushes of Love” instead?’

‘That’s not appropriate for children!’

‘Okay! Okay! My bad. I’ll get him changed into his sleep clothes.’

At some point in the past few months, Din’s mouth had gotten used to smiling. It would be more painful, probably, when he lost that habit.

While Han pottered about in the bedroom, opening drawers and humming to himself, somebody else entered the hall. Luke barred their way, and through the door, Din heard Fennec’s low rich chuckle. 

‘Do not enter the kitchen. He’s not wearing his helmet.’

‘Cool it, Skywalker, I’m not about to shoot my way in.’ Fennec knocked on the other side of the closed door. ‘Hey—’

‘Wait, wait, I’m coming out.’ Din grabbed his helmet from a hook above the sink (he’d splashed it while washing the dishes) and put it on, suds and all. Fennec’s mouth lengthened into her foxlike smile as he emerged. ‘What is it?’

‘You need anything? I’m about to turn in for the night. Could take a message to Bo-Katan.’

‘Right. No, I’m fine. Mand’alor business is done for today. Thank you,’ Din said. He glanced at Luke over Fennec’s shoulder, meeting Luke’s narrowed eyes, and cocked his head in their shared suspicion. ‘What are you doing with Bo-Katan?’

Without breaking eye contact, Fennec slowly raised her index and middle fingers in a V shape and wiggled her tongue between them.

‘Okay!’ Luke squeaked, scurrying away towards Grogu’s room.

---

And the next morning, Luke was gone. He’d left without waking Din; there was a note to the hall staff in neat Aurebesh script, and another, private note to Din in scratchy Outer Rim Basic. It said, among other sweeter things, Do not worry about Grogu! Make other people move the cot!

Din did intend to settle Grogu’s arrangements himself, but Luke was right—he forgot. With a dizzying parade of yellow-cloaked councillors who wanted to meet him, Din had no time to himself until the afternoon; when he slipped back into his quarters, the cot was already gone. He thanked the housekeeping staff for shifting it. They were cleaning the rooms and seemed perplexed by his presence. They hadn’t made the bed yet, though, and while he was trying to stay out of their way, Din slunk into his bedroom and checked the fresher. Luke’s toothbrush had vanished from its holder beside the sink. The air still smelled like him, fragrance lingering after a shower. 

Din wanted to smooth the bedsheets, pick strands of light hair off the pillow, touch the indentation where Grogu liked to snuggle between him and Luke before being put to bed. Then a cleaner came in to do the bedroom, and there was no time.

The next week passed in a blur. Din, the Armourer, and Bo-Katan negotiated an asylum treaty with Soruna, insisting—patiently and with careful gratitude—that they had no use for generous gifts of chromium they could not transport. He arranged for the intake of Mandalorian refugees by the Jamillia Foundation. He dodged Soruna’s consort, a gentle bespectacled historian standing eye-level with his chest, and successfully pawned her off on Bo-Katan (an actual princess) more than once. Clytem Nestra said she was writing about non-hereditary monarchies, however, and wished to interview Din because he hadn’t been born royal. This made Din put extra effort into escaping her. 

He felt horribly guilty for having no time for Grogu, especially after spoiling him the past few days; he didn’t want the child to find his love inconsistent. But Grogu was playing happily with Mara’s hair sticks the first night Din visited (‘You cannot ask to trade shifts with me, we are not tapcaf workers,’ Bo-Katan had bellowed before Din jumped out a window), and did not seem to hold it against him. Exhausted, relieved, Din sat down with Grogu to help him build a tower of blocks, and was thankful he was in safe hands.

As an apology, Din sacrificed himself the next evening so Bo-Katan could sleep with Fennec. Nestra was very sweet, he just… wasn’t remotely equipped to answer her questions. Whenever she lowered her magnifocals, gazing at him with mild brown eyes as she pressed him about some detail he’d never heard of, Din sat in baffled silence until she moved on.

After two hours, Koska rescued him with some excuse about an incoming call. They walked down the corridor as swiftly as they could manage whilst remaining polite, leaving Clytem Nestra to coo over her notes. Koska offered him her Black Spire Brew. Din was too old to drink caf at night, even though its honeyed coldness looked tempting, so she shrugged and slurped it herself.

‘There wasn’t really an emergency, was there?’

‘Obviously not. You good?’

‘Just checking.’

‘Okay.’ Now Koska narrowed her eyes. ‘When you say Bo and Fennec are spending the night together, do you mean—’

‘Yep.’

Her eyes went moon-sized in an instant. ‘Tell. Me. Everything.’

‘I don’t know the details! I don’t want to!’

She began hopping on one foot and then the other, and Din grabbed her iced caf to keep it from spilling. ‘I’ll find out!’

‘Please don’t tell me!’

Despite Din’s best efforts, she managed to corner Fennec two days later. Afternoon sunlight passed through the Amidala Window. They were waiting by the shrine to go in to see Soruna, and Bo-Katan had excused herself to piss, missing the glint in Koska’s eye. Din’s hands itched to pull Koska back as she swaggered right up to Fennec, looking for all the world like a pup antagonising a tusk cat. She’d fired a flamethrower at Boba Fett, so he could be excused for feeling concerned.

‘Hey, you. Bo-Katan is a huge bitch, but she’s our huge bitch. Hurt her and I’ll kill you.’

‘I am fifty-seven and I can fuck whoever I want,’ Fennec said calmly. ‘Relax, little one. I won’t do anything to make her any less likeable than she already is.’

Koska crossed her arms. ‘Don’t make me fight you.’

‘You should fight her,’ Din said. ‘She treats it as a bonding experience.’

‘Piss off, Djarin.’

The doors to Soruna’s throne room opened. Satisfied that his friends were doing fine, he left the women to their posturing.

---

Din did not plan to avoid the gala, but it stressed him out. He drank narcolethe in Han and Leia’s apartment to calm his nerves until Leia took the bottle away. Han began to defend Din, protesting, but she pointed at them both and said: ‘The gala will have better booze.’

Din downed a glass of water.

Axe had impressed upon him that these occasions were where the real work got done—cocktail, not conference-room, diplomacy. He did not have to eat. He did not even have to talk (‘Stoic is a good look on you,’ Ruusaan had chimed in). He only had to be there, and make himself available.

This didn’t relieve Din’s anxiety. He was spent enough from absorbing Mandalorian needs without letting other groups access him, too. He laid his helmeted head on Han’s knee—Han chortled at the sight of him, the Mand’alor sitting tiredly on the floor with legs straight out—and groaned when the doorbell rang.

Leia, who’d been changing her insoles and swapping her daytime shoes for sturdy silver heels, padded barefoot into the hallway. She looked through the peephole, padded back just as silently, and whispered, ‘It’s Koska.’

Han patted Din’s head, and only the fear of Wookiee vengeance kept Din from ending him then and there. ‘Send her away.’

‘Can’t.’ Leia leaned against a bookshelf to finish rubbing balm on her sore feet. ‘I think she’s come to fetch Din.’

‘Fuck,’ Din said blankly. ‘I have to piss.’

Han muffled his snicker. ‘Go on then. Be quick, the princess needs a shower and she takes forever in there.’

‘Like you don’t spend an hour admiring your reflection every morning,’ Leia replied. ‘Din, I need to let her in. C’mon, up. It’s okay.’

The doorbell went off again. Din heaved himself to his feet, grumbling at the strain on his hips. He hadn’t thought his backache could get any worse, and yet…

‘Coming!’ Leia called.

‘Leia,’ Din said softly, ‘please.’

Han and Leia exchanged glances. ‘Climb out the window of the fresher,’ Han told him. ‘We’ll stall.’

‘Thank you—’

Leia steered him towards the master bedroom. ‘Into the fresher, buckaroo!’

The door banged open, courtesy of Han’s usual grace. Peeking out of Leia and Han’s bedroom, Din could see him standing in the doorway with hands on hips, attempting to sweet-talk a tough audience. ‘Don’t you look finer than a Trandoshani flatcake.’

Koska batted him aside. ‘Out of my way, smuggler.’

Leia took a more direct approach. ‘He’s petting a dog, come back later.’

‘That’s not important Mand’alor business.’

Leia switched tactics without missing a beat. ‘He’s doing his taxes.’

This gave Koska pause. ‘The Mand’alor pays taxes?’

‘What?’ said Leia, instantly diverted. ‘Of course he pays taxes, what kind of corrupt bureaucratic—’

Emerging from the fresher, Din put a hand on Leia’s shoulder before the situation could escalate. ‘It’s okay.’ She smiled up at him. ‘You tried.’

‘Knew he was hiding from me. State dinner tonight. Seven o’clock in the lower second ballroom. Free food. Lots of ambassadors.’ Koska pointed at Din ominously, then at Leia. ‘You’re invited too. Wear something nice.’

Leia grinned. ‘You bet I will.’

‘Am I invited?’ Han asked behind her, and when Koska ignored him, ‘Can I come? Hey, can I come?’

‘You’re my plus-one,’ Leia soothed.

‘Djarin,’ Koska warned, ‘you’re expected to dress well too. I have little hope of you ever embracing a king’s regalia—’

‘Ugh.’

‘—but we’ll get you in a fur cloak yet!’

‘You can try,’ Din said darkly.

Koska left to arrange their transport. Leia took two hours getting ready, while Han and Din raced back and forth with cologne and shoe polish. Han was taking his turn in the fresher when Leia came out of the bedroom, sighing contentedly, dressed in cool lavender robes with her hair loose. Din had never seen Leia with her hair down before. She was stuffing it all into a sort of paste-stiffened headpiece—scooping the dark waves into a fineweave veil, pinning a half-moon-shaped headband just above her ears.

‘Do you need help?’

‘Yeah, can you hold the coif?’ He didn’t know what a coif was. She patted his elbow, moving him into position. ‘This thing. This white thing.’

He assisted her as best as he could. She shook out her trailing sleeves, which were daintily embroidered with gold thread. ‘Fleuréline weave,’ she muttered. ‘Hope it doesn’t stain…’ The veil tickled her nose, and she sneezed twice. ‘Excuse me.’

‘May the Force be with you,’ Din replied politely.

The look Leia gave him was loaded with affection.

The next person to ring their doorbell was Bo-Katan. ‘I’ll get it!’ Din called, turning this way and that as Han tried to spritz him. ‘Save your expensive cologne. It’s wasted on me.’ He grabbed Han’s towel before it dropped to the floor. ‘Beskar doesn’t hold a scent. Do not smell me, dickhead.’

When Din opened the door, Bo-Katan walked blithely inside and almost walked out again when she saw Han naked. ‘Usen’ye,’ she moaned, turning her back hastily. ‘Can you dismiss your emotional support smuggler?’

‘We can’t be parted.’

‘It’s my house,’ Han said.

‘It’s your wife’s apartment,’ she retorted without looking at him. ‘Din, ten-minute warning. Axe and Ruusaan are already there. Mara is bringing the speeder around. There’s room for two more.’

‘Is Mara coming to the gala?’

‘Nope.’

‘Fennec?’

‘Absolutely not.’

She had put on a high-collared overdress, which softened her silhouette considerably; but through translucent panels in the pale green dreamsilk, Din noticed that she was still wearing armour. The split skirt billowed over her thigh guards—he suspected that it came off easily to allow her to run if needed. A tiara-like chalcedony headband echoed her helmet’s owl design. She looked stunning.

Din didn’t feel qualified to comment on her style, so he gave her a manly nod. She chuckled.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Leia, reappearing with silver-gold jewellery she was pinning to her wrists and earlobes. ‘No bomb threats, I hope?’

‘Not that I know of,’ Bo-Katan answered. ‘Should we be worried?’

‘Oh! No, no, we’ve not had terrorist attacks for a long time… Unless you count Operation Cinder…’

‘Ah.’ Bo-Katan’s lips thinned in disapproval. ‘I do not condone the use of violence against civilians for political ends.’

Leia shook her head incredulously, almost impressed. ‘You are a hypocrite, Bo-Katan Kryze. I have never met anyone so shameless.’

She smirked. ‘This is the Way.’

Mara honked beneath the open window, and Han got dressed with extraordinary rapidity before darting downstairs to fetch Grogu. Din consulted Leia about the propriety of bearing arms, reluctantly unloaded his visible weaponry on their kitchen table, and then laughed when she showed him the blaster strapped to her leg.

‘You’re good,’ she said, looking him over. ‘Just try to look more… smug. Think of Bo-Katan, then dial down her level of smugness—’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’re excused,’ Leia told her breezily.

Han returned with Grogu in a baby carrier and grabbed his snack bag. Grogu waved his hands, squealing in anticipation. ‘We’re ready!’

Leia had a glint in her eye that Din didn’t like at all. ‘Will Grogu be with us all evening?’

‘Leia, I respect you very much,’ said Din, ‘but please don’t use my child as a public relations asset.’

She blushed. ‘Yes, of course not.’

‘He needs a wash anyway,’ muttered Han (who had none of Din’s qualms about dangling children headfirst). ‘Kriff, kid, you’re filthy. No time for a bath…’

‘Oh dear,’ Bo-Katan responded politely. ‘Can he fit in the dishwasher?’

‘Do not machine-wash my child!’

---

‘You’re a fucking disgrace,’ Koska said when she saw Din, although she said it fondly. She stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to Leia and Han’s apartment. ‘Can you at least try to look special? Switch out your cape for one that doesn’t have holes in it?’

‘I’ve darned the holes,’ Din argued, ‘since I’ve had time to mend my clothing while I’m not preoccupied with Mand’alor nonsense.’ He pointed indignantly at Han. ‘He’s wearing his usual shirt with the top buttons done up!’

‘Well, he’s not the king of a planet!’ Koska threw up her hands. ‘Come on, just a fur cape. Pretty please? Please?’

Din put his hands on his hips. ‘I’ll not wear a fur cape unless the Armourer puts it on me herself.’

‘It’s not that bad… You’re the Mand’alor, Din, you need to dress appropriately! You should be able to stand out in a room full of diplomats!’

‘Oh, is head-to-toe beskar not enough to stand out? Should I wear a glowlamp too? Maybe some neon stickers? A flimsicard sign saying “Kick me”?’

Koska released her breath in an aggravated exhale. ‘You are such a dad. It drives me crazy.’ She spun on her heel, elbowing the front door open. ‘Oh, there’s Mara. Mara, here!’

Mara pulled up in a sleek landspeeder Din wasn’t sure whether she’d stolen. ‘Hi, hello, no need to thank me. This is your getaway car.’

‘The royal limousine,’ Koska corrected.

‘It’s your getaway car.’

Koska hopped into the front passenger seat without bothering to argue further. Bo-Katan entered the back much more sedately; Din sat beside her, and Grogu and Han and Leia, who were heading to the gala separately, all waved at the departing vehicle. 

Mara had her pilot’s goggles pulled down over her eyes, elastic strap squeezing her hair against her scalp.  She checked her wrist chrono frequently. As tempting as it was to show up late, she told Din, a conspicuous entrance would draw more attention. Despite himself Din was having fun. Bo-Katan closed her eyes and tipped her head back, unable to get used to Mara’s speed, and Koska yelped when Mara veered off the flightpath into a bold shortcut.

‘Stay on the road, love!’

‘Roads, like gender, are a social construct.’ Mara changed gears.

‘You—okay, that tracks. Use your turn signal!’

‘There’s nobody here!’

‘Right,’ Din said, tapping the transparisteel barrier, ‘I’m driving. Pull over. Both of you, out.’

‘That’s lesbophobic,’ Mara said, while at the same time Koska protested: ‘The Mand’alor can’t drive himself!’

Din took a few steadying breaths. ‘I will refuse to go to the gala,’ he warned her.

‘Please. I can out-sulk Grogu on his worst days. I think I can handle you if you pull that one.’

He tugged on the seatbelt he’d insisted she wear. Koska poked him with the end of her plait in retaliation. ‘Any help?’ he asked Bo-Katan. 

She didn’t even open her eyes. ‘No.’

With Din finally at the wheel, they arrived just in time to slip inside before the great doors closed. Mara took the speeder and vanished. Koska handed their invitations to the concierge, then slid behind a shadowed pillar and was gone when Din looked again—just like on Trask.

He stood in the Theed Palace ballroom and was overawed. Sculptures of ikopis and motts and other large, gentle creatures cast their long-legged shadows on an ivory floor smooth as a lake. The visiting delegations included several species Din didn’t recognise; human and Gungan staff swerved gracefully between them, exchanging empty phattro glasses for full ones. ‘Fuzzy Tauntaun?’ a cocktail server asked him.

Din glanced at the animal sculptures, making the server burst out laughing. ‘It’s a type of beverage,’ they explained. ‘Want one?’

Din accepted a glass, befuddled. A dusting of gold flakes on the foam showed why this drink was fancy enough to be served in palaces. Turning aside, he lifted his helmet a little and drank, then delicately set down the glass. He’d tasted better.

Classical musicians played merrily on a dais. White-draped buffet tables were rolled out and food trays uncovered. Han could be seen beside a royal portrait, bouncing Grogu and devouring shrimp. Queen Soruna—gowned in brocade patterned with gold medallions—was explaining the symbolism of five-clawed dragons to a Kel Dor envoy. Din stuck as closely as possible to Bo-Katan, who at least knew how to swagger, till she jabbed him in the back and hissed, ‘Go be your own person!’

Untethered, Din parked himself beside Ruusaan’s buffet and tried to be inconspicuous.

It took all of five minutes for a Senator to corner him. Din furtively looked around for aid, and saw Leia standing beside Bo-Katan in a sort of wary princess solidarity; he didn’t know if Leia was on speaking terms with this Senator, and he didn’t want to upset her, and then he had to turn his attention back to the assailant. Leia, nursing a Coruscant Cooler, stood well within earshot.

‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Mand’alor,’ began the Senator, whose species Din could not identify. ‘Now I understand that Mandalore is going through a lot right now, but you do owe my government a great deal of money since Satine ran up your planetary deficit…’

‘Deficit?’

‘And I hope you have a robust fiscal policy, preferably with a generous stimulus to pump-prime the sector economy—’

‘Stimulus?’

‘You going to go save him?’ Leia asked out of the corner of her mouth.

Bo-Katan had her arms folded across her chest. ‘No, he needs to learn.’

Din twitched. He could not risk sideways glances because his helmet cut off his peripheral vision, and the Senator would surely notice Din turning his head. He was painfully aware of an increasingly noisy Grogu, who chose that moment to puke all down Han’s front.

‘Kriff, kriff, kriff…’ Han veered towards the bathroom signs and handed the fussing baby to Bo-Katan, who was unfortunately standing the closest. ‘Drop him and you’ll wish you were dead.’

Bo-Katan held Grogu like a holocron and then very carefully lowered him into a nearby armchair. She looked down the length of her nose and screwed up her face in thought, clearly recalling that infants were pleased when adults sang to them.

‘Would you like to hear some war chants?’ she asked.

Reappearing like a conjured spirit, Koska intervened to save them both. ‘No bloodlust! No battle hymns about killing Jedi! Do not sing him “Gra’tua Cuun”!’

‘Seems like he’d enjoy it,’ Bo-Katan replied defensively. In fairness, she was not wrong.

Coming just in time to catch the tail of the conversation, Clytem Nestra looked interested. ‘What do the lyrics mean, Lady Kryze?’

‘Um,’ said Bo-Katan, ‘that one translates to “Our Vengeance”. Every last traitor shall fall… Forged like a saber in the fires of death…’

Koska put her hands over Grogu’s ears. ‘Bo, I’ll watch the baby.’

‘Thank the Maker,’ she breathed, and was gone. Din wished he could follow.

---

Hiding in a distressingly lavish toilet, Din poked his head into the corridor. Koska, hands in the pockets of her chromasheath trousers, was strolling out of the ladies’ bathroom a short distance away.

‘Koska!’ 

She looked surprised to see him, which made no sense—he was in the men’s toilet. As soon as she got within whispering range, Din hissed: ‘Some hotshot wants to know if I plan to nationalise the banks.’

Koska blinked. ‘Do we even have banks?’

‘Okay, I’ll ask someone else.’ Din slipped out of the bathroom just as Han wandered in, sending Din a puzzled look as he passed. Din flattened himself against the wall so beings wouldn’t spot him from the ballroom entrance. He saw Ruusaan heading past with a stack of empty buffet trays, beckoned frantically, and got her attention just in time. ‘Ruusaan!’

‘Stressful, isn’t it?’ Han said sympathetically, turning on the tap to wash his hands. ‘You know, the problem with you and Luke—’

‘Not the time, Han!’

‘—is that you each think you’re the trophy husband,’ Han continued as if Din hadn’t spoken. He squirted antibacterial foam into his palm. ‘Now me—’

In the corridor beside Din, Koska snorted. ‘Solo, nobody doubts that you’re Leia’s trophy husband.’

‘Hey! I’m no longer Solo!’

‘What’s the matter, Din?’ Ruusaan dumped her trays unceremoniously on the floor. She wiped her hands on the apron tied round her waist. ‘I’m busy.’

‘I need help,’ Din pleaded. ‘I’m being grilled about Mandalore by an aruetii.’

‘Aruetii? Bah!’ said Ruusaan, with more Mandalore-born snobbery than Din had ever heard from her. ‘Who cares what they think? Make something up!’

‘I don’t want to lie—’

‘Then you shouldn’t have a problem.’ She put her big hands on her hips. ‘Don’t you know our history? The Great Clan Wars? Satine’s reforms?’

‘Of course I do, but I didn’t grow up with the different factions…’

‘C’mon, it’s not that complicated. We had New Mandalorians, Old Mandalorians, True Mandalorians, Maul’s Mandalorians, Mandalore Resistance, Death Watch, and Children of the Watch. What’s confusing about that?’ She slapped Din’s back cheerfully. ‘All right. Off you go. Knock ‘em dead, cowboy.’

‘What the hell’s a cow?’ Han whispered, drying his freshly washed hands on Din’s cape.

‘I think it’s a kind of ugly bantha,’ Din whispered back. Koska slapped Han’s hands away before he could do it himself. ‘Wait!’ he called desperately, when Ruusaan picked up her trays again and turned to go. ‘The banks!’

‘Huh?’

‘They want to know if we’re nationalising the banks!’

‘Who’s they? You know what,’ and she exhaled loudly through flared nostrils, ‘just tell them to fuck off! Bye, Din!’

Din leaned anxiously towards her. ‘Am I allowed to tell diplomats to fuck off?’

‘Bye, Din!’ 

---

He didn’t have much time to be further interrogated by politicians. He was holding an untouched mist-cocktail, watching Grogu droop against Han’s shoulder as Han carried the sleepy baby off to bed, when Axe stepped out of the shadows. One look at his face made Din put the drink down blindly on a vacant table.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Kinyen.’ Axe swallowed. ‘Imperial Remnant assault. The Mandos are pinned down.’

Din’s heart stopped for a moment. ‘Fetch the Armourer and Paz Vizsla. Palace hangar. Bay thirty-one.’

Axe darted from the ballroom, breaking into a sprint once he was out of the diplomats’ sight. Din followed him with his eyes; meanwhile, Din’s comlink buzzed with a series of messages, and he knew the other Mandos were hurrying to his side.

Bo-Katan reached him first. Her expression perfectly composed, she put ring-adorned fingers to his elbow. They left the gala together at a studiedly casual pace, Ruusaan falling into step beside them.

When they’d gotten off the turbolift which was closest to the hangar, Bo-Katan demanded: ‘How long to Kinyen?’

Ruusaan had discarded her server’s uniform and put on the first nondescript set of clothing she could find—a loose sackcloth robe with a utility belt and hood. She must’ve changed immediately, switching disguises with ease, so that people wouldn’t question why a server was leaving their shift. ‘Twelve hours, give or take.’

Din cursed. ‘Can they hold out that long? How many fighters do they have?’

‘Most surviving Mandos are fighters. But I wouldn’t call traumatised veterans combatants,’ Ruusaan warned. ‘They’re more a liability than an asset. Me, too. I have a bad leg.’

‘Then you’ll stay on my ship when we land. Man the guns. Two forward cannons, two rear.’

‘Will do!’

‘We have the security clearance Leia gave us on Vetine.’ Bo-Katan pulled off her overdress without breaking stride and turned it inside out, revealing polyweave netting that could be tied into a silk-lined clothing bag. Ever practical, she stuffed her finery out of sight. ‘We can take the swiftest route. No patrols will stop us.’

Din was glad he hadn’t put on anything he didn’t normally wear. Bo-Katan snapped her headband in two—Ruusaan started, thinking she’d broken it, but it came away in magnetised halves, each concealing a vibroblade. She unsheathed the twin blades and smirked.

‘Blasters,’ Koska called, sprinting towards the Kuiitaylir’s bay from the other end of the hangar. Din was surprised to see Fennec and Mara at her heels; Fennec had her MK rifle strapped to her back, and Mara broke open a weapons cache she’d hidden behind a false door. Koska heaved herself over a railing, catching sight of Din’s vambraces. ‘You brought your whistling birds to the gala?’

Din shrugged. ‘They look like bracelets.’

Opposite, the turbolift doors slid open. The Armourer stepped out, followed closely by Axe and Paz, who both ran to board the Kuiitaylir and start its engines. Din did a swift headcount. Kinyen’s Mandalorians had given him a vessel large enough to transport soldiers; little had they known they’d need it to come help them.

‘Bo-Katan, your fleet…’ he began, and she was nodding before he’d finished. ‘What’s nearest? Gauntlet and Fang starfighters?’

‘We don’t have the pilots… I’ll coordinate movement with my allies so we can actually use them…’

‘Good.’ He was thankful for Bo-Katan and her logistics spreadsheets. As the hatch to the troop bay opened, the Armourer tested the heft of her hand-axe and gave Din a grim nod.

‘We have agents on neighbouring Vandelhelm,’ Bo-Katan added, already using her comlink. ‘If they mobilise their whole covert, they can reach Kinyen before us—but they’re metalworkers, Din, not warriors.’

Bo-Katan had been deadly for so long that she forgot the average Mandalorian was a warrior, too, at some base level. Din did not mention this. ‘Send them anyway. You have my authorisation.’

‘On it!’

By the time Din boarded, Axe had transmitted alerts to all Mandalorian contacts in his directory. ‘Let’s test whether you uphold the Resol’nare,’ he was muttering resentfully, ‘and rally to the Mand’alor, fucking gatekeepers…’

Din glanced up when Fennec joined him at the console. ‘Fennec, you don’t have to… You work for Boba, not me…’

She looked at him. ‘Din. I crave violence.’

‘Okay.’ Whatever made her happy.

Coldly efficient as usual, Fennec rolled down her leggings and began taking out concealed weapons. ‘Shavit, we could use a Jedi. If Skywalker were here…’

Right on cue, Mara pulled herself up from a floor hatch, her biceps bulging as she clambered out. ‘These are Imperials you’re fighting?’

Din made room for her at the control centre. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ll help you.’ She checked to make sure her lightsaber was stowed in her satchel. Although Din didn’t challenge her, she turned to him with her haunted green eyes. ‘I worked for the Emperor.’ The confession sounded like it’d been ripped from her core. ‘I want to obliterate his legacy.’

‘Thank you,’ Din said; there was nothing else meaningful that he could say.

Coming up beside him, Bo-Katan tilted her head at Mara. ‘Have you heard of the sword-and-shield manoeuvre?’

Interest sparked in Mara’s eyes. ‘You’ve fought with Force users?’

‘“With” being the operative word,’ she replied, a wry smile playing about her lips. ‘And not quite. Clones once fought alongside Jedi knights; we are neither of those things, you and I, but I sense you’re as adaptable as I am.’

Din stripped off his gloves for greater dexterity with the controls. He could see, quite clearly, the path they’d charted through hyperspace. He could see the cost of his own wasted time, the days he’d squandered being happy, when he could’ve been closer to Kinyen and any Mandalorians who needed him.

‘I shouldn’t have stayed on Naboo. I shouldn’t have had fun.’

‘Din, I love you, kriffing shut up,’ Axe said. ‘You can’t possibly spread yourself over the whole galaxy. You’re not a type of margarine.’

‘Mar-Djarin,’ Koska snickered, and fist-bumped Mara while she punched in coordinates with her other hand.

Din could not continue feeling guilty when he had beings around him making awful puns. He sat down in the pilot’s chair and resigned himself to being beloved.

Notes:

actual media referenced in this chapter:
- Seagulls! (Stop It Now)
- Bushes of Love
- Gra'tua Cuun (from the games)
- Chuck Tingle's work (NSFW)

Oya manda! — expression of Mandalorian solidarity, triumphant/assertive
Ni ceta — rare grovelling apology (literally 'I kneel')
Usen'ye — Go away (impolite)

every time some clown claims Luke stole a child I add another paragraph about queer communal parenting and non-nuclear families ❤️

Chapter 11

Notes:

CW: violence, PTSD symptoms

‘Initiating landing sequence,’ said Ruusaan, who’d taken over the controls in the last leg of their journey. Axe, kneeling at her side, gently lifted her stiff leg as he helped strap her into her armour.

Mara secured her hair in a bun and then rolled up her sleeves to the elbows, unbuttoning her cuffs for greater ease of movement. She swung her arms, testing the freedom sleeves gave her, and turned her lightsaber on and off again to make sure it was working. Her sleeve holster concealed a hold-out pistol that Din thought was much too small. His posture must’ve given something away, because she pointed at him and said: ‘Do not nag me, Mand’alor.’

‘I still think you should wear a helmet,’ mumbled Koska.

Unmoved, Mara wedged her goggles more firmly around her neck. ‘Kriffing Mandalorians.’

‘Connecting to ground frequencies,’ Bo-Katan announced from the comms centre. Din made his way over to her. A fierce buzz of static accompanied the signals they were picking up; Fennec turned away, wincing.

He caught distorted screams and heavy fire over the comms, and then a voice sounding very young: ‘Mand’alor? Mand’alor?’

‘Don’t worry, child, we’re coming!’ said Bo-Katan, leaning in urgently. Din saw the exact moment she remembered she was no longer Mand’alor. He gave her a small nod to show he didn’t mind.

There was a loud blast and the drumbeat of returning fire, and a gravelly older voice spoke in clipped tones. ‘Reinforcements arrived early on. We have sustained twelve hours’ fighting. They cannot break into the bunkers. Oya manda.’

‘Oya manda! Is everyone underground?’

‘Elek. We’re surrounded. That means we can attack ‘em from all sides.’

It was the kind of bravado that only Mandalorians could pull off. Din glanced out the viewport, where mist streaked the upper atmosphere, and held down the comm button. ‘We’ll strafe them from above.’

‘Hit the—have an E-Web—’ The connection sputtered and gave out.

‘They have an E-Web!’ Koska shouted at Paz, who was preparing his thermal detonators in the hold. ‘Take that out first!’

‘Wait,’ Axe called, ‘“they” as in Imps, or “they” as in Mandos?’

Ruusaan threw the ship into its downward trajectory. ‘That’ll be ours! Do not blow up our E-Web!’

Fennec grabbed a ceiling strap for support as the Kuiitaylir veered sharply. ‘How the pfassk does your lot have an E-Web?’

‘Clone Wars souvenir! We used it for farming!’

‘I have so many questions,’ Mara muttered, leaning heavily against a wall. ‘Din! Stop trying to give me parachutes, I use the Force!’

Chastened, Din retreated to the cargo hold. Paz had moved on to checking his ammunition; the craggy hulk of his helmet lifted to give Din a cool nod. Din walked towards him, feeling small and strange and seared. Paz had known him before they’d both worn helmets; Paz had loved, kissed, tussled with him; Paz had carried Din on his back when he’d shattered a femur, and Paz had hated Din for a while after he’d taken Imperial bounties. They had gone through more than even the Armourer could know. She and Din had never fought and made up. 

The Armourer was seated in a corner of the hold, oiling her vibrospear’s collapsible joints so it could be carried in its compact form. The head of her axe gleamed bright and deadly in the shadows.

‘Paz,’ Din said, ‘our covert—what happened to the foundlings?’

Paz looked up. Din noticed that his chestplate had been cracked and mended at some point during the past year. His pauldron, emblazoned with a mythosaur skull, was big enough to be a mess tin. Din had regularly removed his own pauldron to rock Grogu to sleep on his shoulder; he could not picture Paz doing the same.

‘The other grown-ups died defending them. We left the children in the care of outsiders. They had a better chance of survival without the Creed.’ Paz had to pause to collect himself, and Din watched the rise and fall of his great chest. When he spoke again, his voice was tear-choked. ‘We couldn’t protect them all—only me and the Armourer left—too many…’ He clutched Din’s cape, the action forceful enough to make Din sway forward. ‘We had to give them away. Forgive me, Mand’alor.’

‘Don’t be sorry. You made the right choice.’

‘We feared for their lives if they stayed with us.’ Paz was weeping openly now, and Din turned to find the Armourer’s eyes; but she sat impassive, watching over their small, sad scene. ‘I would gladly have died for the foundlings.’

‘This way, you didn’t have to.’ 

‘We could not house the little ones… We were on the run…’ Paz grabbed Din’s helmet and brought their foreheads together. ‘I failed them.’

Din put his hands on Paz’s shoulders and shook him as roughly as he could, which was not a lot, and spoke more of Din’s lesser strength than any gentleness. 

‘How can you think you’ve failed them,’ he asked hoarsely, ‘when they are still alive?’

Paz took several deep, rasping breaths. He lifted his head and gazed up at the ship’s ceiling. The Armourer, rising soundlessly to her feet, came and laid her bare hand on his pauldron.

Now Din had to lean on his spear for support. ‘Two adults survived? Out of the whole covert?’

‘Three,’ said Paz firmly, gripping Din’s shoulder.

‘I believed I was alone in the tunnels,’ the Armourer murmured. ‘Then you returned to me.’ She turned her calm moonlike gaze on Din. ‘After some time, so did you.’ She nodded at Paz. ‘We will grow again, and prosper. First,’ and her voice became stronger, ‘we will save the Kinyen covert from sharing our fate. This is the Way.’

‘This is the Way,’ they replied. 

Paz turned his head aside. The Armourer pointed towards the ship’s cramped fresher, saying, ‘Wash your face,’ and he went off obediently. When the fresher door had closed behind Paz, Din heard the pneumatic hiss of a helmet being removed, and then running water.

Din returned to the bridge. The others were crowded around the viewports, discussing what little they could see while Axe projected a holomap of the settlement.

‘ISB. They must have tracked us to Kinyen after a new Mand’alor showed up on the holonet.’ Bo-Katan glanced at Din, her cold face hollowed out and thin. ‘Officers from the Purge. They’ve come to finish the job.’

Mara frowned. ‘If it took that long to get on their radar…’

‘They’re called the Imperial Remnant for a reason. Out of resources. Losing their touch.’

‘Not to be underestimated,’ Din said softly. 

Bo-Katan’s knifelike expression went from smug to stony in an instant. ‘The press tour led them here. Kinyen was a haven for decades before we came.’ She squinted, trying to get a read on him. ‘Din, it’s not your fault. It’s mine.’

Din glanced down at his hands. He had his spear; he had his Darksaber. He had his share of the blame. He didn’t think a Mand’alor could ever not be at fault.

Turning away from the holomap, Bo-Katan gestured for the others to continue their strategising. She stepped out of earshot, tilted her head with that glinting intelligence Din had come to expect, and switched to Mando’a.

‘Rulership is not a reward,’ she told him. ‘It is constant redemption. You go through each year correcting last year’s mistakes. This is the Way.’ She had the Armourer’s blunt-tongued eloquence; then again, Din had rarely heard the Armourer speak Mando’a, whereas Bo-Katan dipped into their native language with erudite ease. Standing face to face with her, Din felt more inadequate than ever before. ‘There is always a chance to atone. To make things right. You only have to fight for it—well, it’s hard to find a good reason to fight you…’

‘I see,’ said Din. ‘You want me to fall in battle so that you can nobly take the Darksaber from my killer.’

‘What? No!’ Somehow her pale face blanched even whiter. ‘Din Djarin.’ It was very complicated, that look—shock, outrage, even hurt. ‘Is that what you think of me?’

‘I don’t judge you,’ he said truthfully. ‘You are a cunning warrior.’

Bo-Katan stared at him. ‘When I called the Watch a cult of religious zealots,’ she said, ‘I was overcompensating for having been in Death Watch.’

‘Yeah. I figured.’

‘I do not despise you!’ She spread out her hands, turning the calloused palms upwards. ‘I have considered the path you name—because I consider all paths—but it is never, never my first choice to betray my allies. To knowingly send soldiers to their deaths? What am I, Imperial? Never! I swear to you.’

‘Again,’ Din said, trying to placate her, ‘I wasn’t judging you.’

‘Your Armourer once asked me, in private, what lesson I took from the fall of Mandalore. What I learned is this. Infighting is a greater threat than the Empire ever was.’ Bo-Katan pointed at him for emphasis. ‘You are a Mandalorian. Grogu is a foundling. To save the child, I cooperated with Boba Fett. I have fixed beliefs and so do you. We disagree on many fronts. Still, we are Mandalorians. And I would kill for my people—I would do anything—I would commit massacres, if I thought it would do us good.’

Din gave her a slow nod of acknowledgement. She was all volcanic passion and simmering guilt. You could count on a cold-blooded liar to lie when it served them; Bo-Katan didn’t do herself any favours. She was not lying now.

‘If you cannot trust me, trust in the Creed.’ As the ship slanted sideways, both of them shifted and braced themselves. Bo-Katan gripped the edge of a table with white-knuckled but steady hands. ‘I am a Mandalorian, like my buir before me.’

Din looked into her blazing eyes and knew he could not reject that. ‘Thank you for your sincerity.’ He couldn’t absolve her of her guilt. He did not have the Armourer’s wisdom. He could only say, ‘I endorse you as the next Mand’alor.’

She looked at him in whip-sharp shock; then Axe called, ‘Get ready to drop, it’s gonna be a rough one,’ and Bo-Katan had to run grab her helmet. Din leaned against the computer station, feeling like he’d run fifty miles without breathing at all.

The other Mandalorians didn’t say anything. They had more pressing matters on their minds.

‘Three minutes to landing. No visual yet. Too choppy.’ Fennec chewed the leather ties on her plait. ‘Mara?’

‘Yes, I can see them.’ At Koska’s side, Mara closed her eyes, pinpointing life signatures in the Force; then she craned her neck to stare incredulously out of a viewport. ‘Is that tractor a tank?’

‘We demilitarised,’ snapped Ruusaan from the pilot’s seat. ‘We didn’t discard our equipment. Get to the troop bay!’

Mara ran. So did everyone else except Ruusaan. Tight-lipped, they gathered beneath an exit hatch, which allowed jetpack-wearers to engage before the ship even landed. Din quickly appraised their capabilities—Fennec (sniper), the Armourer (no jetpack), Mara (Force?)—and said: ‘Bo-Katan, Koska, go out with the Rising Phoenix. Axe and I will follow once the hatch is clear. Paz, you leave last. Cover the others until they’ve made it down the ramp.’

‘Got it,’ said Paz, kicking some empty crates out of the way.

Axe glanced around the troop bay. ‘Din—I’m sorry, but—’ 

‘No, tell me what to do.’

Axe’s helmeted head bobbed in relief. ‘The Mand’alor must disembark first. Din, come forward. Be seen on the ground before any of us.’

Nodding, the others fanned out in a V formation with Din at their head. Paz and the Armourer flanked the others like a starfighter’s upright wings. Din had only seen the Armourer remove her cape once—to swaddle a small body in soft fur for burial. She kept it on now.

‘Sixty seconds to drop,’ said Koska.

Din readied his blasters. He recalled Bo-Katan, Axe, and Koska storming the Trask freighter. They must’ve had thousands of combat drops between them; an efficient battle unit, they had made Din look like a tagalong. They’d been relaxed enough to nap on this journey. He was content to let his teammates take the lead—he had no real pride—but he was Mand’alor now, and could not be seen falling behind.

‘Thirty seconds!’

Bo-Katan cocked her head, her mouth a sleek curve. In Mando’a, she told them: ‘Today is a good day for someone else to die.’

It was as good a line as any.

---

‘Come on,’ Koska screamed over the cacophony, reaching into a bunker, ‘get up, ad’ika, get up and follow me!’ 

‘I can’t…’

‘Don’t be afraid!’

‘He can’t,’ someone else shouted. ‘Mij was born without the use of his legs, he needs—’

Koska powered up her jetpack. ‘Cover me!’ she yelled. Durasteel-clad and grim, the Mandos from Vandelhelm backed towards the air raid shelter, fending off attackers with their gauntlets’ powerful sonic blasts. Some of them had fallen while escorting evacuees to the ships—their comrades used their corpses as shields, armoured bodies offering protection even in death.

Mij climbed into Koska’s arms, clinging to her neck. Two additional Mandalorians jumped in front of him. 

‘Shield wall,’ the Armourer cried, and plasma shields erupted from vambraces as Koska took flight behind Mandalorian lines. Din soared to help her, guiding Mij to a waiting Aka’jor shuttle while crossfire peppered the field.

They badly needed more air support. Din landed with a grunt, having just thrown his spear through an ISB commander’s skull. ‘I don’t suppose we can expect the Slave One?’ he asked Fennec without much hope.

Tucked behind the blackened ruins of the Kinyen community’s rock garden, Fennec burst out laughing. ‘Boba leaves my messages on read half the time. You think he’d come running when Axe called?’

He might have if Din had sent the emergency signal, but Din couldn’t be sure of that either. He retrieved his spear, then darted back to block Fennec from return fire. New starfighters screeched overhead; there was the roar of engines and of cannons, and then the roar of voices as Mandalorian reinforcements poured from the troop bays. 

All around them, a ragged cheer went up: ‘Commander Rex!’

‘Where’s Cody?’ somebody yelled behind Din.

‘Approaching from the west!’ the new troopers yelled back.

An explosion went off—Din dived behind a crag—and baradium’s hot, sour chemical scent drenched the air. The bunkers were tempersteel and plastone. The wooden buildings burned freely, timbers crackling and falling on white-heaped ash. He hoped the pet houjix had fled. At his feet, pebbles jumped with the boom of artillery: Kinyen Mandos had rolled out their anti-aircraft guns. Above him, the sky looked black with smoke and TIE fighters. He did not want to throw up in his helmet. He could have taken better cover but he did not want to be underground. He did not want to look up. It was too much like being a child again.

Paz marched backwards until he reached Din, felling black-armoured troopers with his hand cannon. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine, how are you?’ Din replied through his teeth.

‘I’m good, thanks. Mind your feet.’

Din hopped back when Paz tossed a pair of thermal detonators into enemy lines. His ears rang nonetheless; his vision went black; he was back on Nevarro, dizzy after Gideon had blown up those charges, bleeding from the head. Then Paz knocked him sideways, covering him, and Din was back in the present. He used his grappling hooks to drag death troopers into blaster range.

Across a reddened stream where poor dead things floated in the water, Mara was slicing her way through an AT-AT. Din saw it buckle at the knees, totter, and finally drop. The purple slash of her blade was controlled and aggressive; she dropped to her knees to heal someone, a shudder going through her. Then her head jerked up as she sensed something in the Force. Seconds later, a howl of fury came from the Mandalorians when incinerator troopers began surrounding the shelters.

Din dropped his opponent and ran. Mara, too, was racing towards the bunkers from the opposite direction. But before either of them got there, a red-armoured Mando bearing the Death Watch sigil tore off his helmet, pulled the pin on a grenade, and charged the incinerator troopers with a Concordian battle cry.

‘No, don’t!’

Whipcords shot out to yank the man back. It was a jetpacker who managed to seize him—he was dragged up into the air before it was too late, the grenade tumbling from his hands. Incinerator troopers disappeared in the explosion. 

Standing next to Din, Axe shook his head. ‘His brain cell is lonely.’

‘No suicide bombings!’ the commander was roaring. ‘You are banned from self-destruction! I’ll jail your fucking corpse!’

‘Whoever that man is,’ Din told Axe, ‘put him in charge,’ and he ducked into the nearest bunker.

Underground memories swallowed him. He didn’t look up, because he didn’t need to; he could already see the trapdoor sliding over his small self and shutting out his parents. He heard the blast destroy them. He felt the ground shake. He saw the droid aim its—then somebody else’s cries were filling his ears, and Din dry-heaved and came back to himself.

Temeri’s tear-streaked face was peering into his. Din felt for his blaster. Taking his cue from Paz’s sardonic greeting, he asked dryly: ‘Me’vaar ti gar?’

‘Naas,’ Temeri gasped. ‘Grandpa can’t run!’

Din looked behind them, where old Govik and several others lined the cold, hard benches. ‘Can he drive?’

Temeri nodded. 

‘We’ll get him to a landspeeder.’

Propped against the shelter wall, Govik curled his lip. He had exactly the kind of poisonous pride which could not bear being rescued. ‘I’m not leaving. This is my home. I’d be glad to die here.’

‘Don’t say that,’ his grandchild pleaded. 

Still a piece of work, Din thought. ‘You’re welcome.’ He put Temeri behind him and began fixing whipcord around his spear to improvise a makeshift harpoon.

‘Get out the Darksaber, boy, and let’s see whether you know how to use it.’

‘I don’t need your approval.’ Now Din did something his younger self could never have done; he stuck his head out of the bunker. He peered from the ground entrance, blaster bolts ricocheting off beskar, and yelled at the nearest group of troopers: ‘We need a speeder!’

‘Roger, roger,’ they chorused inexplicably. 

Din didn’t waste time trying to understand these people. He took down an Imperial before they could rush him—the body toppled down the ladder into the bunker, making children scream, and Din was sorry. He slammed the hatch shut. It juddered with the force of explosions.

The Imperial had wielded a rifle. Din was out of whistling birds, and he could use another long-range weapon. He checked the rifle, which turned out to be empty; he found some ammunition and passed the rifle to Temeri, who was the nearest able-bodied person. ‘Can you reload this?’

They began changing the cartridge with shaky but experienced hands. With his blasters, Din fired upwards through the hatch, killing an officer who was directing troops to aim at Mara’s lightsaber. Unfortunately this drew the troops’ attention. They charged the hatch and Din jumped down, knocking the ladder aside.

‘Mand’alor,’ wailed Temeri, fumbling in a panic as long, hooked metal poles began battering the hatch.

Din could not afford to panic too. ‘It’s okay! You’re doing fine!’

The rifle was handed back to him just in time. Temeri pointed it at Din while doing so, which was a big no-no, but this wasn’t the moment to teach them about gun safety. He shot, missed, shot again, and threw whipcord at the poles to entangle them; then they fell to the shelter’s floor with a terrifying clatter as somebody attacked their wielders. Soon the hatch was opened by Mandalorian commandos, climbing down into the bunker to help Govik and the others to waiting speeders.

Din went last, putting himself between the escaping individuals and blaster bolts. The first speeder whizzed away—Govik drove like a maniac. Those with jetpacks flew alongside, directing the speeders towards departing ships. Perhaps sixty percent of Kinyen’s Mandalorians had been evacuated so far. Din could see deep wounds raking the fields they’d tended, and scattered farming equipment they had converted into weapons. The armoury had been bombed first. Fallen pillars lay in the rubble of the Great Hall. The settlement was littered with allied and enemy dead.

Bo-Katan dropped into a predatory crouch beside him. ‘We should counter-attack. Diversion while the others escape. What do you say? There’s too few of us to beat them all, but they can have Kinyen; this isn’t our real home anyway.’

It was a classic Bo-Katan move to completely disregard the Grans who lived on Kinyen too. She had a point, though; the settlement was lost. A successful evacuation would be their only victory.

On the next speeder, a screaming infant was being buckled into place on their buir’s lap, and Din turned sideways to cover them both. Others clustered around him and Bo-Katan, their duraplast helmets blackened with battlefield grime.

‘Mand’alor?’

Din glanced round. He could lead the counter-attack, claiming glory and conspicuous leadership, or he could stay to help shield the remaining evacuees with his beskar. Though Din had been in countless fights, he had never commanded troops; he could besiege bases and win skirmishes, but this wasn’t the same type of combat. This was a battle, and he was no soldier. 

They were all looking to him for instructions. They all had more military experience than him.

Din made his decision. ‘I’ll protect the younglings. Go!’

Bo-Katan launched herself into flight, a flock of Nite Owls rising in her wake. ‘Bombers to my right! Repeating blasters to my left! Flank their ships, burn them out!’

Jetpackers soared after her. Ground command was held by the Armourer, striding like a war god across a field strewn with corpses. Din saw Paz fire on an Imperial ship’s doors, trying to blast them open; the Armourer stood waiting to charge the troop hatch as other warriors rallied to her. Covered by Paz’s cannon fire, one managed to evade Imperials long enough to attach an explosive charge to the doors. In five seconds the barrier was demolished. The Armourer raised her arms in parallel, with a flick of her wrists, and Mandalorians surged forward around her.

The worst of the fighting ended shortly afterwards. It was delicious indulgence, Din thought, to believe that one Jedi and seven warriors could have turned the tide—but he knew their luck had changed because he’d brought two field commanders with him. Civilian shuttles and troop transports climbed high, preparing to make the jump to hyperspace, and below them lay nothing but smouldering remains.

---

Din commed Soruna and settled the evacuees on Naboo, in refugee housing funded by Queen Jamillia’s endowment. Though he hadn’t been optimistic, the Jamillia Foundation surprised him—the big ugly tenements looked solid, with no leaks, and they didn’t find any roaches. It was kind of Naboo to shelter Mandalorians. He stood talking to the estate manager, interrogating her about fire safety, until Axe touched Din’s shoulder and told him: ‘Rest.’

‘They need access to shower facilities.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll get the water running right away,’ said somebody from maintenance.

Din was glad to be wearing his helmet, because Axe’s face looked awful. ‘Do we have space for them all?’

Axe nodded. ‘I’m giving up my quarters to the buire with babies. There’s a boiler where they can sterilise milk bottles.’

‘Then where will you sleep?’

‘Don’t worry about me, Mand’alor.’

‘Okay,’ said Din, extraordinarily relieved. ‘Should I take them to—’

‘Airbus is here!’ Ruusaan called. ‘Children heading to the palace, can you line up in twos? Stand here, darling. Parents, can you please—’

Din let out the long breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. ‘Thanks for chartering a bus,’ he said to Axe.

Axe rubbed his filthy hand over his filthy forehead. ‘Kriff, I don’t even remember doing that.’

The pilot didn’t understand Mando’a and some toddlers couldn’t understand Basic, so Din went on the airbus to reassure them. Several buire, worn out from the day’s fighting, piled into the backseat and immediately passed out. Their children fought over who got to sit on Din’s lap. Din (who hadn’t planned to accompany them) said, ‘Well, I guess I’m coming too,’ and plonked himself down. Mandalorian snores followed him all the way to the palatial complex.

Soruna was waiting for them in the hangar. Din woke his charges as gently as he could, looked at the drool on his glove from one child, wiped his glove on another child, and glanced around furtively to make sure nobody had seen that. Soruna wore regular clothes instead of her usual regalia, and she directed her staff to lead refugees to the allocated rooms. Din wished he’d remembered to do a head count on the bus. The idea had completely slipped his mind.

‘I think you should put in a grant funding application to the Galactic Asylum Committee,’ Soruna told him while they walked towards the residential halls. ‘I’d suggest doing it as soon as possible, because the approval process can take months… This counts as a Class B crisis. You’ll need to include a budget for planned expenses, and show how supporting Mandalorian refugees meets their strategic objectives…’

‘I don’t… I don’t know how to do that,’ he said in exhaustion.

She looked at him with great kindness. ‘That’s okay, Mand’alor. I’ll send someone to assist you.’

The palace accommodation was spacious, though there weren’t enough unoccupied rooms to lodge everyone separately. Mandalorians spilled out into a securely guarded foyer, which had been lined with cots and bedrolls before their arrival. At Din’s request, screens and other makeshift partitions were put up for privacy. He learned that the swimming pool’s freshers and changing facilities had been cordoned off for their use; attendants helped him fill tin baths for buire too fatigued to carry their infants there. Eventually, he slept.

He woke feeling grimy, still in his armour, which had crusted the pallet with dirt and worse. Groaning, Din kicked a tarp over the pallet and decided to deal with it later. He’d fallen asleep in the storeroom, safe behind boxes of bottled water and packaged buns. Three kids around Grogu’s age shared a mattress just outside the doorway. Several Mandalorians had had the same idea of using capes as blankets. He stepped carefully over sleeping bodies and went to the freshers to clean up.

Used towels had been folded neatly and draped over a heating rack to dry. Din could sense his people’s pride in tidiness—they would not accept hospitality and then leave a mess behind. He didn’t know where Bo-Katan was. Tenements, probably. He checked the door was shut behind him, finished drying his hair, and called Luke. Happily, Luke was around to answer his comlink.

‘Are you able to come to Naboo soon? It’s okay if you can’t.’

‘Sure,’ said Luke, tinny through the holoprojector. His posture changed as he picked up on something in Din’s voice; the connection was too poor to show each other’s facial expressions clearly.  His tone became soothing. ‘Let’s see… I’ll finish up here, that’ll be—no, I can take a few days off before I have to get back to work. I’ll start packing Grogu’s things tonight.’ Luke leaned out of sight and called, ‘Grogu, we’re going to visit buir!’ and Din smiled at the answering shriek. 

He rested his head in his hands, soaking up the sound.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah. Just tired.’

Luke gave a soft hum of understanding. ‘Get some sleep when you can. We’ll be on Naboo the day after tomorrow, okay?’

‘No hurry. I’ll be here for some time.’

Luke extended a hand in one of his sweet gestures, and Din pretended to touch the hologram in return. ‘Wanna talk to Grogu?’

‘Yes, please.’

By the time Din hung up and got dressed, his heart felt lighter. He’d put his armour through the steamer while he bathed, and it’d come out smelling fresh. Grogu had shown him incomprehensible drawings—Din made a note to ask Bo-Katan for her views on modern art. He would’ve framed every one if he’d had a place to hang them. He added his towel to the precise rows drying on the rack.

Interplanetary travel left you with little sense of day or night. While thin morning clouds fragmented on the horizon, the Mandalorians were served dinner. Soruna, Maker bless her, had brought in several vendors to give refugees the dignity of choice. Somebody set up a bar for drinks, and the young ones feasted while their grown-ups took smaller portions.

Din got in line for his food. Several men (who all had the same face) insisted on shoving him to the front. Din, feeling very uncomfortable, accepted his portion of bak kut teh, and then quietly pawned it off on a nearby family. He went back to the end of the line, where he found himself shoulder to shoulder with the commander who’d come to their aid.

‘We’re clones of Jango Fett,’ the bearded man explained, smiling. ‘How’s the kid?’

Din automatically looked around for Grogu. ‘Who?’

‘Boba, obviously.’

It was not obvious.

‘Old.’ Din pondered for a moment. ‘Bald. Surly.’

The commander laughed. ‘That’s my baby brother.’

Din, reeling from the idea of Boba Fett having ever been a baby, leaned against the counter. Someone handed him a tray and he held it awkwardly.

‘They tell me you’re partnered with a Jedi.’

‘Luke Skywalker.’ Din blinked. This grizzled old commander seemed to know everything. ‘He’s on his way here.’

‘Yes, Anakin’s son. Tell him…’ The man exhaled heavily. ‘Tell him to ask Cody about Obi-Wan.’

‘I will,’ said Din, who had no idea who these people were.

After he’d eaten in the storeroom, he came back into the dining hall to return his tray. Near the row of sinks where Din washed his hands, small children were making a mess of the snack table; their happiness made him glad, too. A few were enjoying dessert bowls that Din found suspicious-looking. He stopped beside one toddler, lifted his helmet, and tasted a spoonful. ‘The milk’s gone off. I’ll get you something else.’

The toddler banged his spoon against the bowl. Somebody else caught him before he could knock it over.

‘I like sour milk,’ argued a slightly older child when Din tried taking her bowl. ‘It tastes nice.’

‘Nope.’

‘I like how it changes my poo.’

‘No.’

When the bowl could not be carried away from the child, he carried the child away from the bowl. Four squares of kaya toast were set down before her; he managed to amuse her by cracking soft-boiled eggs into a saucer. At the next table, some kids were throwing ikan bilis at each other. One of the dried anchovies struck Din’s helmet. He turned around. They squeaked. Din picked it up off the floor and ate it.

‘Have you considered becoming a childcare worker?’ Axe asked when Din chased him and his smoking habit outside.

‘Don’t even start,’ said Din.

Notes:

Mando’a sayings given here in English:
Ib’tuur jatne tuur ash’ad kyr’amur – Today is a good day for someone else to die
Kaysh mirsh solus – They’re an idiot (literally ‘Their brain cell is lonely’)

Mando’a:
elek – yes
ad’ika – little child
Me’vaar ti gar? / Naas – How are you? (literally ‘What’s new with you?’) / Fine (literally ‘Nothing’)

Chapter 12

Notes:

hi! i am so sorry for disappearing for months and not even posting a lengthy update to make up for that. real life truly is just....one thing after another huh? i think i've got back in my groove and well, i've known where this story was going right from the beginning, so hopefully we will get back to some kind of regular writing schedule. see you soon x

Luke arrived in the middle of the night, carrying Grogu in a sling over his chest. Grogu was sound asleep—Han had taken him from Naboo on a routine transport job, and dropped him off with Luke along the way. At some point after the Mandos’ departure, it’d become clear Din wouldn’t be back from Kinyen before Han’s next job started, so Han had simply brought the kid to work. The Senate was already in session and Leia could not possibly be asked to take on more responsibilities. By now Grogu had eight to twelve additional carers, depending on how you counted. They all loved Grogu and they were all intensely busy. It took a lot of coordination, but Grogu seemed so happy.

He looked happy even in sleep, snuggled into the synthfur lining. His cheek was squished against Luke’s shoulder, and Luke, adjusting the sling, looked equally placid. But in the silence of the palace hangar Din could hear Luke whispering: ‘Dev, Kiro, Flint, Vila, Jem, Rayf, Kirana…’

‘Luke?’

Luke cupped one hand over the kid’s eyes so that the glare of floodlights wouldn’t wake him. ‘All tuckered out. Couldn’t get him to nap earlier. Poor thing.’

No one was more patient than Luke when Grogu refused naptime and fussed tiredly all evening instead. Din trailed his fingers down the sling’s polyweave strap where it cut into Luke’s flightsuit, over the fringed edge clutched tightly in Grogu’s tiny fist; and as he did so, he noticed that Luke’s fingernails were filthy but the child was very clean.

He glanced at Luke’s X-wing parked beside them, wondering at the droid’s absence. ‘Where’s Artoo?’

‘Artoo?’ echoed Luke, his voice distant and curious. The whites of his eyes were showing. ‘Leia needed him more.’

Din thought that Luke’s needs were grossly underestimated, but this wasn’t the time to bring it up. Glowpanels flickered to life as they headed towards the Mand’alor’s quarters, a ghostly procession of three. Din had to walk ahead to swipe his keycard at each door. He could hear the murmur of Luke’s voice behind him, low enough not to wake Grogu, hardly audible beneath the night’s soft noises—the crackle of electronics, the chatter of flewts in unseen trees. Din guessed that Jedi names were being recited, but couldn’t tell whether they belonged to the dead or the living.

He turned. From the gentle, absent smile Luke gave him, he saw that Luke did not know where they were.

‘Are you okay?’

Luke blinked for the first time, seeming to come back to himself. ‘Yeah. Just tired.’

It was exactly the response Din had given Luke a few days ago, and it wasn’t any more truthful now. They climbed the stairs to Din’s rooms in silence, which was how he knew that Luke hadn’t been consciously speaking aloud.

Let me take you home, Din thought. Come home to me.

He unlocked the front door as quietly as he could. Luke repositioned the sling to cradle Grogu one-handed, using his other arm to wedge the door open while Din pulled off his boots. Something was wrong with Luke’s right hand: the joints weren’t moving properly. Luke followed the direction of Din’s gaze and said tonelessly, ‘Yeah. I need to fix that.’

‘Let me take him.’

Grogu was lifted gently into Din’s arms. He carried the child to bed; outside, he could hear Luke making his way to the kitchen, eerily graceful with the Force in semi-darkness. Din set Grogu down in his crib and knelt to tuck his fuzzy blanket into place. Din’s armour creaked as it always did, but this noise seemed to soothe Grogu: his breathing grew deep and even. His little hands curled, then uncurled. His eyelids were long untroubled creases. Din put his palm over the crown of the kid’s head, careful, barely a touch, and then got creakily to his feet and went outside.

Luke sat at the kitchen table, working on his hand with a screwdriver. The contents of a toolkit littered the tabletop. Din lifted off his helmet and hung it on a coat hook, studying Luke’s tranquil blank expression; then he walked over and cupped Luke’s face in his hands.

Luke let his head be tilted upwards like a doll’s. On the table lay scattered and vulnerable cybernetic remains—exposed metal, peeled-back synthskin. ‘Hmm?’

‘Let me help you.’

Luke’s gaze drifted past Din, settling on some shadowed corner of the kitchen. The splayed interior parts of his hand hissed softly. ‘Okay.’

He was still staring off at something only he could see when Din took the screwdriver from his slack fingers. Thankfully, the repairs were only mechanical; no neural connections had been damaged. It was mindless, tedious work. It shouldn’t have been difficult. The wiring issues could’ve been avoided with regular maintenance. Luke, like Din, had taken better care of their son than himself.

By the time Din fixed the last strips of synthflesh into place, Luke’s eyes had closed, and his head began to loll against the armrest. Din thought he had gone someplace far away again—until his breathing evened out, ragged and real, and he didn’t wake when Din pressed sand-dry lips to his brow.

---

In the morning Din woke to a crash and a shriek. He rolled out of bed, wordlessly grumbling. At his side, Luke stirred and mumbled under the blankets, but Din pushed him back down and said: ‘Stay. I’ll deal with it.’

Pinkish sunlight sifted through the apartment’s long windows. Din went to scoop up Grogu, who had overturned his crib and lay kicking his feet merrily. Grogu batted at his face (‘Yes, yes,’ said Din, cuddling the kid to his shoulder) and launched into a babbling account of everything he’d been up to while Din was away. ‘Did you really?’ Din responded, not understanding a single squeak. He yawned loudly and scratched his chest. ‘Interesting. I’ll take note of your feedback.’

Grogu tweaked his nose.

It was a bit of a process, but eventually Din deposited Grogu in his high chair, and then deposited breakfast in front of him. With a sigh Din checked his comlink. He had a backlog of messages, and he leaned against the kitchen counter to deal with them; so he only noticed Luke was awake when Grogu’s ears perked up. Seconds later, Luke himself came into the kitchen.

‘Morning,’ Luke said, and to Grogu, ‘Hi, baby,’ and then their heads bent close together in silent conversation. When Luke straightened up, a pencil and a few sheets of flimsiplast lay on the kitchen table, and he held up a very Han-like finger and warned: ‘After you finish eating. After.’

‘He won’t wait,’ Din muttered.

‘Worth a shot.’ Luke came and put his arms around Din from behind. ‘Mand’alor duties?’

‘Easing up, I think. A little.’ Din leaned back into Luke’s embrace: it was safe, and good. He sounded better this morning, Din thought. ‘Stressful, these past few days. Better now you’re here.’

‘I’ll come when you call me. Any time.’

‘You don’t have to do anything,’ said Din, trying to convey his meaning—that Luke helped just by being there, being himself—and knowing he was understood.

‘I know.’ Luke kissed the side of his neck. ‘Caf?’

‘Please.’

Sure enough, by the time Din turned around, Grogu had seized the flimsiplast and was scribbling enthusiastically. Luke sighed his most long-suffering sigh. Din hip-checked the cutlery drawer shut and gave Luke a meaningful look.

‘Chew and swallow,’ droned Luke, settling into the nearest chair with his mug of caf. The pencil screeched across the flimsiplast. The spoon hovered towards Grogu’s resolutely shut mouth. ‘Chew and swallow. Mouth empty? Next spoonful. Open. Open mouth.’

Luke brewed their caf strong and rich, sweetened with tang bark—it was always a pain to wash out the thermajug afterwards. Din took his mug off the counter and sat down at Grogu’s other side, the better to coax him into eating. Grogu squealed. He held up his drawing to show Din, crinkling the edges with his claws and completely ignoring the remains of his breakfast. Luke’s sighs had become more and more dramatic.

‘Impressionistic,’ said Din, who had added new words to his artistic vocabulary.

Grogu cooed at him.

Later, they brought Grogu more flimsiplast and a fistful of coloured markers. His breakfast had gone decidedly cold and his buire, defeated, cleared the table in a mutual sulk. At the sink, Din caught the back of Luke’s neck and brought their foreheads together. His eyelashes brushed Luke’s cheek, his nose bumped Luke’s, his palm dripped soap suds down the back of Luke’s well-darned sleep shirt. And he confessed, ‘I missed you both.’

Luke’s hand traced the point of Din’s elbow. He didn’t say anything in reply, because he didn’t need to.

---

Bo-Katan was on her comlink when Din found her, lounging on the palace balcony which overlooked Broadberry Meadow. She held up a stubby-nailed finger to tell him to wait. ‘Yes, we need fresh towels and underclothing. And cleaning supplies for our armour. Polish and lubricant, antibac sprays and wipes, the lot… No, this is basic maintenance. We take care of our our armour. We’re not stormtroopers.’

Din tilted his head at her. She frowned back at him, resting her elbows on the ferrostone balustrade, and then rolled her eyes and added grudgingly: ‘Please.’

Din confronted the notion that he was a positive influence on Bo-Katan Kryze. He stuffed this, along with all unsettling thoughts of Boba Fett as an adorable small child, into a mental compartment and locked the door.

At last Bo-Katan ended the call and turned to face him. Her hair, still damp from a shower, curled softly at the ends; her hollow cheeks were pale as cold cream. ‘We can’t stay here.’

‘Good morning to you too,’ said Din, but with only mild sarcasm. He hadn’t the heart to be snappish while Luke was here.

‘Mandalorians will not be guests of the Queen of Naboo.’ She put her comlink away, haughty gaze roving over the island park down below. ‘Soruna’s goodwill puts us in her debt, and as long as we live on her charity, we remain in her power. Call me cynical if you like. I have seen enough in my time to make me so.’

‘No, I agree. This was always going to be temporary.’ He leaned on the balustrade too, then slouched full-body against it and rested his head on folded arms. She didn’t comment on his weakness. Her armour must’ve been too filthy to wear any longer: she was clad in plain diaphaneel shirt and trousers, and the lack of armour made her seem quieter, less critical.

‘Disgusting,’ she said, jerking her chin at Broadberry Meadow beneath them, and Din immediately reconsidered his judgement. ‘Opulent.’

‘I thought you liked Naboo.’ Her tastes were aristocratic, after all.

‘I don’t know Naboo.’

He peered down at the manicured meadow, threaded with ribbon-thin footpaths. ‘Did Mandalore look like this?’

Bo-Katan was silent for a long moment. Then she said with bitter finality, ‘Mandalore was like nothing else.’

They walked down to the Plaza together. A bright sun had risen, and Din felt its rays glancing off his beskar; beings stared as he passed by, but Din was just happy that his armour was clean enough to reflect light. At his side, Bo-Katan lifted her chin a little higher, as if she thought splendour suited the Mand’alor.

Din didn’t have much of an opinion either way.

‘Welcome, wanderer,’ said a very old Mandalorian propped within one of the Plaza’s arches. Her age had made her tiny, and her spotted hands shook as she laid them on Din’s forearm. As she rose to her feet, she nearly collapsed onto him, and both Din and Bo-Katan lurched forward to grasp her. ‘Old soldier,’ she acknowledged, nodding at Bo-Katan—who looked relieved that she had been given no worse nickname. ‘Our people await your decision.’

Supported between them, she tottered through the sunlit archway. Theed’s courtyards had sparked bitterness in Din not so very long ago, reminding him of all his people had lost. Now he found himself somehow indifferent. For there were Mandalorians standing beside the ancient fountains, strolling along the colonnades adorned with strange heroes; he heard the chatter of many voices raised in argument or laughter, tinged with wildly different accents from all over the galaxy, and he knew he was among his own kind. They had rallied to him. From unknown systems and ravaged worlds, from tribes that had lived and died without ever seeing Mandalore, the diaspora had heard his call and answered.

‘No Mandalorian,’ whispered his tiny neighbour, ‘is ever alone.’ She spoke a thick Concordian dialect which made Bo-Katan’s eyes glisten in recognition, and she had the bard-like cadence of a generation long gone. She touched Din’s arm again, as though gracing him with sacred knowledge. ‘My name is Kartuun dál Rena. My clan went extinct before the final Purge. I am the last of my line.’

Assembled before them were hundreds of Mandalorians. Din found he could not speak. He’d never imagined lineages more ancient than Bo-Katan’s, dying and dead well before the Empire had even begun. He couldn’t comprehend a memory so long that it counted the Purge as merely the latest in a string of many. In Din’s lifetime, family histories had stopped and started at the Imperial era—lopped off, like so many halved tree limbs, by each galaxy-wide swing of the axe. Records had vanished. Entire traditions had been excised. But Mandalorians had aged and flourished and dwindled for millennia before Din’s birth, and they would grow and die again in the millennia after his death. They were not the poor shorn-off branches, the stumps he had thought they were, when Theed’s intact monuments had filled him with bitterness for lost history. Here was their history standing before him. Living Mandalorians. And by the might of their survival they made the Empire small. 

‘The Darksaber,’ Kartuun rasped, ‘do you have it?’

He reached for the Darksaber, but her trembling fingers halted him.

‘I don’t need to see it,’ she confided. Her voice was thin as a thread; Din had to lean in to hear her. ‘I… I always believed it was real.’

‘It’s real,’ Bo-Katan said fiercely. ‘I wielded it, and I’m still here.’ 

She and Din met each other’s eyes and felt more like peers than ever before.

Kartuun looked up at them with reverence, which made something wild turn over near Din’s sternum. He had not offered up his name in response to hers, and abruptly, he realised she wouldn’t have been able to remember it if he’d told her. Yet she had given hers freely, with no thought of exchange or debt. Was this what it meant to grow old? To give out something as precious as a family name, because you had no other beings to share it with?

He was a foundling. He was a Mand’alor. He was a part of them all. 

He would never feel alone again.

Din Djarin lit the Darksaber and let the meeting begin.

Chapter 13

Notes:

TW: suicidal ideation, severe dissociation, minor character death

vode – brothers
Cyar’ika – sweetheart
Mesh’la – beautiful
mir’sheb – smartass

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

On one dust-dry afternoon a lifetime ago, Din Djarin and Boba Fett had walked into a cantina together. There they had found other Mandalorians, and the conversation had lasted about five minutes before a fight broke out. 

Four Mandalorians had been at that meeting. Here were four hundred. 

Yet it’d been over an hour and nobody had drawn their weapons. Din, leaning on his spear in the sun-soaked sheen of the palace courtyard, had to admit he’d kept the peace. This was an unsettling thought, which came dangerously close to praising his own leadership. He chose to be thankful that someone had had the common sense to get a voice amplifier. Only one Mandalorian could speak at a time—Din decided who got to hold the device—and quarrelsome voices were neutralised by simply being inaudible.

‘It’s not the loudhailer keeping them civil, Mand’alor,’ muttered Axe beside him. ‘It’s you.’

‘I am physically unable to accept that information,’ Din said.

‘Too bad.’

By some common instinct the Mandalorians had formed a loose semicircle around Din, very democratic. It had become clear that nobody wanted to live on Naboo indefinitely, but there the consensus ended. Bo-Katan, of course, had been passionately arguing in favour of Mandalore; and she wasn’t alone. Those of similar views had unconsciously drifted into their own groups, so Din got to witness clan heads and clone troopers united by their shared intransigence. At present, one clone was roaring at his brothers: ‘For the love of Jango, will you shut up about Mandalore?’

‘He would’ve wanted us to live there! How dare you invoke his—’

‘Oh, kark off, you never even met the man!’

Din found it very Mandalorian that the clones’ identical genetic codes hadn’t come with identical opinions. He intervened for the fourteenth time, raising his voice to be heard above the shouting. 

‘Whoever holds the loudhailer gets to speak. Nobody else. Don’t make me say it again!’ said Din, knowing full well that he would have to say it again. ‘Wait your turn!’

‘Why?’ somebody else demanded.

‘Because I said so,’ hollered Din.

There was a brief, blissful pause as everyone silently appreciated his tone, and then the moment passed. Standing at Din’s elbow, Koska put a fist to her mouth to hide her grin. With his friends at his side, with all the strength of his people singing in his blood, Din motioned for the amplifier to be handed to the next speaker. He no longer needed the Darksaber to command Mandalorians’ attention.

‘Why can’t we just go back to Kinyen?’ asked a man of Clan Awaud. Din did not see their clan’s tall chieftain, the kaftan-clad elder who had named him Mand’alor the Humble. So, Din thought, old Awaud had fallen in battle. ‘We lived there for years without issue.’

A cry of dissent came from the courtyard’s opposite side, and the man lowered the loudhailer in surprise. Since he didn’t seem to have anything else to say, Din gave him a curt nod. He let the device be taken from his hands without resisting. Heads turned in search of the new speaker as Din crossed the courtyard, hearing his own boots click on Coruscanti duracrete.

The Mandalorian who’d objected was someone Din recognised, the intense hawkish woman with carnelian-beaded cornrows. She had lost her eyepatch at some point, leaving the socket bare and uncompromising, and she spoke now with cold authority. 

‘We are no longer welcome on that world. We broke our agreement with the Grans.’ Stepping forward, she took stock of her neighbours—those in armour, those in borrowed clothes, those who had fought with farming tools and left their rusted weapons burning in their homes. ‘Do you not recall the bombing of Malthee? Grans were battered into submission by the Empire, and in the wake of that massacre, they renounced violence. We have brought invaders to their home a second time. Our presence has been a blight on their planet. We can never go back.’

‘Noble words, Bakcin,’ sneered another scarred woman. Bakcin turned towards her challenger with a flash of anger on her proud face. ‘Your sympathy for the Grans might be better spent on your own people. Where are we supposed to go, huh? Mandalorians fared no better than Grans.’

‘Don’t explain to me what we’ve been through!’

‘Enough.’ The high-pitched hum of the Darksaber cooled their voices’ rising heat. Borrowing the amplifier from Bakcin, Din told the crowd: ‘There are several places we can go. We’re not short on options. It’s just a question of whether you’re willing to accept them.’

‘I won’t be displaced again.’ The second woman’s voice trembled. ‘I won’t.’

Somewhere behind Din, Bo-Katan Kryze spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘Give me the loudhailer, Mand’alor.’

He turned and gave it to her.

With that gesture, a fleeting symbolic power passed to Lady Kryze—lieutenant of Death Watch—Mand’alor the Unready—leader of the Mandalore Resistance, captain of the Nite Owls, disgraced queen of a desolate planet. Her eyes were volcanic. She looked first at Bakcin, and then at the woman Din didn’t know, cataloguing facial scars as white and twisted as Boba’s. And in her native Mando’a she asked, ‘What is your name?’

‘Zanav of Kyrimorut.’

Bo-Katan’s gaze sharpened. ‘You followed Clan Skirata?’

‘I give my allegiance to no one,’ the woman answered sharply.

‘Give me yours.’ Bo-Katan lifted the amplifier to her lips. ‘I swear to you, Zanav of Kyrimorut, you will never be displaced again.’ When people began groaning in anticipation of her Mandalore spiel, she snapped, ‘Let me speak! Let me speak!’

The Mandalorians quietened down quickly, if sullenly. Without her armour Bo-Katan looked pallid and vulnerable, a hollow queen; she still had the presence to silence a crowd.

‘I am almost sixty years old,’ she said. ‘And I will never die. As long as there are Mandalorians, each of us lives eternal. First we were Taungs and we walked side by side with giants. Now we are humans, and our enemies are small. What weapons could they have raised against our ancestors who tamed mythosaurs? Empires rise and fall but Mandalore is forever. I will undo what has been done,’ and as Bo-Katan spat out those words, Din knew that he was the lesser zealot between them. ‘I will remake the Mandalore that was unmade. I am the last living scion of House Kryze, I am the last living commander who fought in the Purge, and I say to you all: I will reverse the tides themselves! I will take the moon in hand, and I will alter the movement of the seas! This is my will; this is our destiny; this is the Way.’

She drew a shuddering, smouldering breath, and in that moment Din believed her—he believed the story she was telling herself. There was the weight of millennia behind her voice, which was somehow both lush and guttural at the same time. Bo-Katan’s accent in Mando’a was like no other accent. Hers was the language of a poet and a warrior, a hero and a dark god: she’d grown up on Mandalore, breathing and consuming the old legends, and now they came spewing out of her mouth like black fire. For the first time, he realised that she had written her own story in a classical Mando’a he would never fully understand. It was a great poem, like the lost epics which Din’s covert had inherited only in fragments. It was the saga of a flawed but noble hero who rose to power, lost it, endured humiliation after humiliation, and after many trials won redemption for herself and the people she had failed.

The fallen Mand’alor said, ‘What has been melted can be reforged—so long as there are smiths to work it.’ Din saw the Armourer incline her head in acknowledgement, if not agreement. ‘Glass can be broken. Stone can be chiselled. We are made of sterner stuff; we are stronger than mountains. Together, we will restore our planet.’

Din said nothing. He saw that no Mandalorian in the crowd remained unmoved.

‘I will follow you to Mandalore,’ Zanav declared after only an instant’s hesitation.

‘I, too, will fight at your side,’ said a scruffy-bearded clone who had not spoken before. Din observed the other clones’ shifting expressions: some came to stand beside their brother, while many more stayed at a distance. ‘Those who besieged Mandalore should help to rebuild it.’

Koska recoiled. Din turned instinctively to catch her eye, but she shook her head and smoothed her grimace into careful neutrality. 

Fortunately for everyone, Bo-Katan showed more grace now than she had shown Boba. She was too pragmatic to reject clones who wanted to work with her. She glanced searchingly across the courtyard, her politician’s face betraying not a flicker of prejudice, and prompted in a tone almost respectful: ‘Captain Rex?’

‘It’s Commander, actually.’ The old commander, with his great white beard and his kind eyes, pushed his way to the front (where his brothers immediately gathered around him). ‘I’ll lead as many of my men as are willing to go. The decision lies with each of you personally.’ Unhurried and confident, he met his brothers’ eyes one by one, then turned to Bo-Katan with a very un-Boba-like grin. ‘I won’t tell any man to go or stay, but I will be there to make sure nobody bosses my family around. No offence.’ 

Bo-Katan’s smirk showed teeth. ‘I’ll accept that.’

‘I don’t… I don’t want to be a soldier again,’ said another clone anxiously.

‘That’s your choice,’ Rex assured him.

‘What do you say, Mand’alor?’ called Ruusaan from somewhere on the left.

Din took a half-step in the direction of her voice, and Bo-Katan handed over the loudhailer without looking at him. ‘I’ll take care of everyone who isn’t interested in Mandalore.’ Under his breath, he asked Bo-Katan in Basic: ‘You have experience in terraforming?’

‘Mandalore is a star system, idiot,’ she hissed back. ‘It contains multiple planets. Why do people assume I’m talking about Mandalore the planet? Do you take me for a fool? It’s elementary fucking cosmography. The planet is hopeless rubble, but there remains the Mandalore system. The Mandalore sector has nearly a thousand worlds. Dank farrik, how does nobody else get this?’

‘Well, they do all have the same name,’ he replied mildly.

The former Mand’alor of Mandalore’s Mandalorians turned her back on him in exasperation.

But they were not to reach a resolution so easily. Murmurs and scuffling drew Din’s attention, and then the crowd parted as Govik limped into view. He didn’t bother with the voice amplifier; he levered himself up to his full height, his cane a weapon in his rope-veined hand. Looking straight at Bo-Katan as if Din wasn’t even there, Govik pointed an accusatory finger at her. 

‘This is exactly what you wanted, isn’t it?’

Govik gave none of his listeners time to react. He was elderly, he was a grandfather, and nobody had ever been able to tell him to be quiet. His cane struck the ground as he lumbered forward. ‘You could never convince enough of us to follow you to Mandalore, so you forced our hand. You led the Imps to our covert!’ 

‘It was no one’s fault,’ cried the Armourer, speaking for the first time. Her voice, Din noticed, sounded higher-pitched in Mando’a.

Govik ignored the Armourer completely, which angered Din. ‘You wanted to drive us out of hiding so you made them do your dirty work. You made it so we had no choice but to fight.’ When Bo-Katan began objecting, he slammed his cane down onto the duracrete once more. ‘Didn’t you destroy our home on purpose? Didn’t you?’

‘That’s enough!’

Axe had tried to hit Govik; the Darksaber’s black blade sang between them, separating the two men. Ruusaan, Din noted with some shock, had sprung forward too. Clearly surprised at herself, she let her fists fall to her sides. Every Mandalorian, Din realised, was now considering where they stood. Would they strike a bitter old man whose tongue was his only defence, or turn on a woman they neither loved nor feared?

The Darksaber was not a weapon. It was a barrier between opponents. It was a tool of silence and of peace. It could halt the onset of civil war.

The Mand’alor held his people’s future in the palm of his hand.

‘I’m not fond of ingratitude,’ Din said. ‘I find it un-Mandalorian. Who summoned early reinforcements so you could hold out until we arrived? Who led the counter-attack to cover our escape? Who helped bring you to safety?’ He stared Govik down, demanding eye contact, till he had to recognise that here was one elder who would never respect anyone. ‘Would anybody else like to pick a fight?’

He was met with silence.

Din had the sword in his hand still. He looked at Bo-Katan last, afraid of the tension that stretched thin as a wire. There was horror in her death-white face, first at being suspected of treachery, and then—and this was the greater horror—at being the sort of person who might conceivably be guilty. 

She stared back at him with naked loss and grief. The sword pointed at her heart.

He didn’t retract the blade.

Din spoke slowly and deliberately, knowing that the words he chose now would be the most important Mando’a he’d ever use. ‘Did you intentionally cause the deaths of Mandalorians to sway survivors to your cause?’

Bo-Katan’s answer was like the shattering of glass. ‘No.’

‘Give me your oath.’

Din would’ve sworn by the Creed; the Armourer would have sworn on, well, her armour. Koska, when pressed on Vetine, had sworn on her honour as a Nite Owl. No Mandalorian would ever take an oath on the memory of their dead. It was disrespectful.

Bo-Katan did not swear by the Darksaber, or Death Watch, or any of the volatile things in her history. Instead she said: ‘I swear by the blood we shed on Mandalore. I swear as the last heir to the fallen house of Kryze, which dies with me, and may the Ka’ra strike me down if I speak false!’

Din extinguished the Darksaber. His sensations returned; he had forgotten to breathe, or think. He did not know, in hindsight, whether he had believed the accusation at all. He could not remember having an opinion. All sense of himself had faded in that crucial moment, which might have lasted a minute or an hour. He had become only the calm Mand’alor—arbitrator, judge—and now Din Djarin came flooding back in.

‘The matter is settled. I’ll hear no more of this.’

He forgot whether he had been standing or sitting. Bo-Katan leaned against a nearby pillar, looking as if she’d taken an injury, and Koska joined her there. She was still white-lipped with suppressed emotion. She gave Din a complicated glance, which neither of them could articulate but both perfectly understood.

It occurred to Din that for the first time, perhaps in his whole life, he had known what to do without thinking of the Armourer. Searching now for her beloved, grounding figure, he found her; and suddenly he realised that she’d been mostly silent because he had not needed her guidance. She was glowing. She nodded at him, with pride suffusing her whole posture, and then all was well.

---

BIG BOOGER, said Grogu.

Luke cracked an eye open. Grogu lay on his chest, lovingly investigating Luke’s left nostril.

To Grogu, it was very curious that his parents’ nostrils were larger and hairier than his own. Luke had explained with diagrams how their species differed, which Grogu understood on an intellectual but not an emotional level. He inspected Luke with his huge, sea-black eyes; and, coming out of an uneasy sleep, Luke loved Grogu so much he could’ve burst.

I dig your nose! Grogu chirped into their Force bond.

NO, THANK YOU! said Luke, removing a little claw from his face. Grogu, no!

See teeth! Grogu poked him in the mouth, which kriffing hurt. Open! Open!

‘No, thank you!’ Luke repeated, this time out loud. Grogu needed good examples of verbal communication. ‘No need to check my teeth! Very kind of you!’

His tiny dentist crawled forward and stuck a finger in Luke’s ear. Luke removed them both from the situation, which meant rolling out of bed and Force-catching Grogu to cushion his landing. Sprawled on the rug by Din’s side of the bed, Luke lifted Grogu to his eye level. ‘Good morning.’

Grogu returned the greeting. Not in words, but speech would be a long time coming. In the meantime his babbling was wonderful. He’d grown so fast since Luke had first met him—growing more vocal, more physically active—that Luke hardly recognised Din’s descriptions of the lethargic little creature he’d hunted. Together Din and Luke had kept Grogu safe, making him bolder, and Grogu had started expressing himself in loud, confident coos and terrible scribbles. The three of them couldn’t have accomplished this without each other.

Grogu toddled out of the bedroom and Luke lumbered after him, a slow and clumsy adult. Din’s helmet lay on the hallway table. Grogu reached for it, got the helmet over his head and shoulders like an oversized bucket, and waddled in distressed circles until Luke rescued him. Freed, he scooted off towards his playpen, while Luke went in search of Din.

The apartment wasn’t large. Luke found Din easily, following traces of his steady presence to the man himself—there was never any suspense with Din. He was drooping over a bowl of gi dumpling soup in his favourite armchair, and he raised sleepy eyes to blink a slow, Grogu-like greeting at Luke.

‘You okay?’

Din’s reply became a huge yawn before he could get the first word out, and within seconds, Luke yawned too. When they were both done, Din only answered in a sigh: ‘Tired.’

Luke chuckled. ‘I can tell.’ He leaned against the back of the armchair to scratch Din’s head the way Din liked it. ‘Want your armour off?’

Din hummed instead of shaking his head, not wanting to dislodge Luke’s fingers. He was moments away from purring like a loth-cat. ‘Got another meeting soon. Can you rub there?’

Luke pressed into Din’s scalp a little harder. ‘Here?’

‘No, to the left. There. Yes.’

Luke dropped a kiss on Din’s forehead. Din made a sound which Luke, had he been feeling mischievous, might’ve called cooing. ‘Grogu slept well.’

‘I know,’ Din replied. ‘He was snoring just like you when I left this morning.’

‘I don’t snore,’ said Luke indignantly. ‘You do.’

‘Believe what you want.’ The smile in Din’s voice, as calm as an evening star, faded then into something more serious. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘No.’

Din tilted his head back to study Luke’s face upside down. Luke did not want to let himself collapse, as he knew he would if he looked too long into those brown eyes; there was simply no time. Too many beings depended on Luke for him to crumble guilt-free. He put his forehead to Din’s, thinking of the hundred thousand ghosts that followed him everywhere—the casualties of the first and second Death Stars, of Endor and Mindor and more—a line which stretched for light-years unending. Their cold corpses stood behind him now, implacable. Their breath prickled the hairs on his neck.

Grogu, climbing out of his playpen, saw them and screamed.

---

Once he’d finally gotten Grogu to calm down, Din marched into the bedroom. Luke, who was seated on the bed with his head in his hands, looked up with an expression Din never wanted to see again.

‘Is he better?’

‘He’s fine. Cyar’ika—’

‘He’s hiding from me.’

‘No!’ said Din far more forcefully than he had intended, and he was relieved that Luke didn’t flinch. ‘Stop that. He loves you. He’s not afraid of you.’

‘He should be, though.’ Luke’s eyes rolled back in his head, exposing the sick blank white of sclera; then his irises came back into view, blue as death and twice as lightless. Looking at something—someone—just over Din’s shoulder, he said impatiently: ‘I know, Father.’

Din turned to look behind him. No one was there.

He sat down heavily on the bed beside Luke. He took Luke into his arms.

‘Tell me,’ Din said with some difficulty, because of all the love burning inside him, ‘what is happening to you. I promise I will try to understand.’

Luke was quiet for a little while. Then he began in a soft voice, like he was reading a bedtime story, ‘I was on Bogano…’

Din waited, but no continuation came. He saw that Luke was a man hanging together by the thinnest of threads. So he prompted as gently as possible, ‘What did you find?’

‘The Force.’ After saying those two small words Luke drifted again, incomparably remote, and Din held him with growing worry. When Din shook him just a little, just to get his attention, Luke shivered out of his trance and asked in surprise, ‘Sorry—did I not say any of that out loud?’

‘I’m very worried about you.’

‘Don’t worry. I protect Grogu,’ said Luke, who was making no sense. He was so obviously unaware that he made no sense that Din’s heart broke for him. ‘I keep the ghosts off him… I keep Grogu away from them… There’s great darkness in his mind, and I put myself between him and the darkness.’ Blinking with an unnatural slowness, with those lovely empty eyes, he went on, ‘So I opened a vault on Bogano. I was looking for knowledge of the old Jedi Order, and instead I found something far more ancient. There were many beings in that vault. They’re very old—their species was old before humans existed. I think they followed me home.’ Luke seemed to assume that there was a logical transition from his previous topic to his current topic. His voice was very calm. ‘I’ve spent five years searching for others strong in the Force, and I’m prepared to spend fifty more. Because I’m not the last Jedi, if you count those who are dead.’

Din gave Luke all the honesty he could give, which was: ‘I don’t understand.’

‘But I learned it from you,’ said Luke simply. ‘I remember all their names. I remember all of them, and I keep them safe. I hold the millions of Jedi who came before me. And the people who died because of me… No one’s ever truly gone.’ His voice, at last, began to crack. ‘As long as I can see their ghosts, they’re not lost forever. Sometimes they hate me for being alive; but that’s not their fault.’

‘You’re not…’ Din struggled to find the words. Jedi worked in a world of abstractions that Din couldn’t see with mortal eyes. It was impossible not to compare Luke’s haunted ramblings to Bo-Katan’s speech that morning—the difference was that Bo-Katan had an ego and a purpose, and a desperate kind of pragmatism, and a steadfast desire to stay alive. ‘Beloved, you’re not a vessel for millions of souls. You don’t have to be… You’re a person. Not a punching bag for angry ghosts.’ He stopped, catching sight of Luke’s face. ‘They’re angry at you now, aren’t they?’

Luke looked upset, although Din would take that over tranquil emptiness any day. He scrubbed a sleeve over his eyes. ‘Sorry. They’re very noisy.’

In quiet, loving fury Din told him, ‘You can’t go on like this.’

‘I’m not hallucinating,’ Luke insisted. ‘I know when I’m hallucinating.’

Din began to feel like crying. ‘I don’t doubt that.’

‘They’re real.’

‘I believe you.’

Luke slumped forward, tucking his face into Din’s shoulder. His breath made mist form on the cold beskar of Din’s pauldron. Din noted the warmth of Luke’s body with some shock; on many days Luke seemed as incorporeal as the disembodied voices he heard.

‘It wasn’t even supposed to be me,’ Luke whispered. ‘It was supposed to be Leia.’

This, Din realised, was the worst and heaviest conviction Luke had carried for nearly a decade. ‘Why do you think so?’

‘She was raised by Bail and Breha Organa with the finest education in the Core,’ Luke explained, sounding very reasonable indeed. ‘I was raised on a dustball in the middle of fuck knows where. Doesn’t it seem like they thought she would grow up to be the Jedi war hero?’

‘Have you ever mentioned this to Leia?’

‘I can’t.’ Luke shook his head. ‘This isn’t something we can talk about.’

Din did not know how to respond. He and Paz had always confronted their issues head-on; often they had done this by literally butting heads. Yet Luke and Leia were not fighting, which left Din at a loss. How could siblings have tension which wasn’t born out of conflict? Between vode there was no self-effacing silence, no unspoken guilt. You did things without expecting repayment. No resentment or debt could be accrued by the sacrifices you made out of love. You made sacrifices because that was the Way. You could not blame others for you loving them, or blame yourself for being loved. That was out of the question. That would be like a parent feeding and sheltering their offspring, and then presenting each child with the bill.

‘She makes her own peace,’ he said at last. ‘Meanwhile you make yours.’

Luke gave him a watery smile. ‘It’s okay. If she ever resents me—which she certainly has the right to—I know she feels as guilty about it as I do, if not more.’

‘Cyar’ika, you can’t take responsibility for others’ peace.’

‘Then,’ said Luke in a gentle, puzzled tone, ‘what is the point of the Jedi?’

---

Reluctantly, after some time, Din emerged from the apartment to deal with his responsibilities. Technically his responsibilities came to him. Grogu and Luke had tearfully reunited, and Din was hugging them goodbye in the doorway when a little voice piped up: ‘Hi, Mand’alor!’

Luke cupped Din’s head in his palm. ‘Don’t turn around.’ He Force-pulled Din’s helmet towards him, saying pleasantly to the intruder, ‘Can you give us a second?’

Footsteps scampered off; it sounded like a young child. In the corridor outside, Din heard them chirp, ‘He’s got dark hair!’ and an older voice respond, ‘Aye but don’t tell me that, pet.’ 

Din sighed a very complex sigh. He kissed Grogu’s wrinkly forehead one more time, then rested his own forehead against Luke’s. ‘Will you come and meet my people when you’re ready?’

Grogu cooed softly at them both. Luke looked at Din with sea-stormy eyes, his tired mouth crumpling into some awful emotion. Din did not need to say in words that he trusted—no, that he wanted Luke to mix with Mandalorians, ghostly madness and all. The invitation was enough, and Luke understood it. And then he just nodded, unable to speak.

As Din headed towards the Hall of Perri-Teeka, he was baffled to find himself attacked by a squadron of small children. The little one who’d come to pester him held Din’s hand, eyes filling with tears the first (and last) time Din pulled away. Others wanted to show Din their toys, or demonstrate feats of athleticism (jumping no more than two inches off the ground, jetpackers in the making). He could neither rebuff nor escape them. He was remembering the village on Sorgan and Omera’s clear bright eyes; and he was realising, with a thrill and a pang, that Grogu now had plenty of potential playmates.

His attention was dragged back to the present by someone tugging his cape.

‘Stop that,’ he said gently. The kid only tugged harder. ‘Let go,’ Din scolded as he scooped her into his arms, ‘you little womp rat,’ and the small girl hooted with delight at being carried by the Mand’alor. Too late Din recognised his mistake. He could not put her down now. ‘Where’s your buir?’ he asked her helplessly, and she banged her head on his chestplate.

Resigned to his fate, Din trailed upstairs towards the conference room. One kid began hanging off the bannister—‘No! Stop it!’ said Din, alarmed lest others follow her example. Some were too small to climb the stairs without getting on their hands and knees. Din dreaded the things Grogu would teach them. He released the child he was carrying (thank the Maker) when he reached the top of the stairs and she started wriggling free. He was running late, of course, and it didn’t help that the kid holding Din’s hand tugged hard to get his attention now.

‘Mand’alor?’

Din, who could not refuse any child after two years of Grogu walking all over him, glanced down. The kid’s kriffing shoelaces had come undone. Din cursed the buire who thought it a good idea to give children under the age of five shoes with laces. Velcrofibre strips, in Din’s private opinion, were the most advanced fasteners they should receive. Better yet, rubber slippers.

He got down on one knee. ‘Can you tie your laces yourself?’

Cogs visibly turned in the little boy’s head. ‘No. You must help me.’

Din knew when he was being played for the sucker he was. He couldn’t do anything about it, though. Utterly defeated, Din did as he was told and got his head patted for his trouble.

‘It’s so nice,’ said the child, cuddling Din’s helmet while Din fought with his stinky shoes.

‘Thank you,’ Din said flatly.

‘You’re welcome,’ the child said sincerely.

Din looked up to find Koska leaning in the conference room’s doorway and grinning at him. He pointed at her, said, ‘Do not,’ and stomped inside to be bossed around by more Mandalorians.

---

After a few abortive attempts at meditation, Luke abandoned training for the day. He couldn’t be sure that he would not put Grogu in danger. He wasn’t the reckless boy he’d once been, going into a trap on Bespin with his eyes wide open. When he was all that stood between Grogu and the darkest tides of the Force, Luke could not afford to take risks; he was a dam about to break. A generation of fallen Padawans—Inquisitors—torture victims kept pulling at Luke, ordering him to walk up to the highest point on Theed and fall, and he was near-frantic trying to stop Grogu’s ears.

‘I’m sorry, little one,’ he told Grogu, shifting the child’s focus away from their Force bond as kindly as he could. ‘Don’t touch me.’

Grogu whimpered in confusion. Luke did not know what to do, so he commed Mara. Fortunately Din came home just then and distracted Grogu, while Luke leaned against the closed bedroom door with his comlink and his millions of voices. He wasn’t pushing Din away. He wasn’t pushing Grogu away. He was… he was only… he was an adult, a parent, so he could not be in need of assistance.

When he was sure he had the ghosts contained, the Force—no, Luke—opened the door to his family. Just as he’d hoped, they had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Din was fumbling his way to the bathroom, almost too fatigued to walk, and Grogu waddled after Din, cooing. He patted at Din’s boots until Din shut himself into the fresher, and then he stuck his head under the cubicle door and squeaked, ‘Patoo!’

‘Hi,’ said Din in a very tired voice which conveyed various emotions.

‘Let your father take a dump in peace,’ Luke scolded. ‘C’mon, let’s go get Auntie Mara.’

Mara gleamed in the Force like a large cool moonstone. She was not at all like Leia, who shone brighter than a thousand candles together, or Han with his sullen spark of awareness. Luke would’ve known her anywhere. The Force—Luke found her somewhere in Theed, and she sifted through his thoughts with keen fingers and said, ‘Right. Let me hold the kid. Come here, sweetheart.’

Grogu reached for Mara fearlessly. Luke was glad. Mara handed him a lidded cup of hot chocolate and stood watching him as she sipped her own drink.

‘Do you know where you are?’

Her crisp voice was layered double and triple in the Force. He answered her without words.

‘Shavit,’ she said softly, not even bothering to conceal the profanity from Grogu. With care she lowered Grogu to the ground—were they outdoors?—and told him, ‘We need a minute. Go play with the Mandalorian children for a little while, please.’

Mara always treated Grogu with a colleague’s respect. Knowing that Grogu faced no immediate threats, the Force was content to let him slip beyond its human range of vision.

‘What’s my name?’ she asked it.

‘Mara,’ it answered without missing a beat.

‘What’s yours?’

The Force took a little longer to respond. She cursed, and then it felt her draw her blaster, which melted like slime from her human hands.

‘Dank farrik, that worked the last time,’ she muttered to herself. She stooped and picked up the blaster which the Force had knocked away. ‘Look at me, damn you. How did we meet?’

‘I tried to kill you?’

‘No.’ She crossed her arms. ‘Try again. Grogu… Grogu, no, darling. Not now.’ A pained expression flashed across her face, and at that familiar grimace Luke knew suddenly who they both were. ‘That’s right,’ said Mara Jade encouragingly—well, as encouraging as she ever got. ‘That’s you. That wasn’t so hard.’

It had been hard, actually, but Mara was strong in the Force. He opened his mouth to say this, and she cut him off before he even began.

‘It’s not my job to cure you. No one—no matter how powerful they are, no one can do that. In my experience, whoever tries to fix someone ends up making them worse.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘All I did just now was pull you out, the way you once pulled me out, and you need to learn to pull yourself out the next time, because I won’t always be around. You hear me?’

They were in Theed. They were in the shadow of Queen Yram’s Needle, at the heart of his mother’s homeworld, and children played gloriously in the street beside them. A split-open drainpipe had been positioned at an angle against the nearest permacrete wall, and the kids were rolling plastifoam balls down the pipe into the gutter, over and over. It looked like great fun. Grogu had joined in without hesitation, and they’d accepted him into their game without question. The Force sensed all this in the comfort of its vast and roiling depths.

‘Fuck me, you are fucked up,’ observed Mara, almost with admiration. ‘Didn’t you use to be the well-adjusted one? What happened?’

‘We swapped,’ said Luke. ‘When we met, you needed me to be…’ He trailed off. ‘Happy?’ At her derisive snort, he wilted. ‘Healthy? By comparison, at least…’

‘By comparison,’ Mara agreed. ‘Well, the fact that you’re admitting you’re fucked up means you’re on the path to recovery. Do not roll your eyes at me, farmboy. Here,’ and she dug around in her pockets and handed him a Cavaellin spiced cream, ‘have a sweetie.’

‘I feel patronised,’ Luke said.

‘That’s because I’m patronising you. Eat your candy.’

He ate the candy. There was a tug from the Force at his left hand; no, it was a real tug, tiny yet real, and Luke swayed as he returned wholly to his body. He looked down. The small being who gazed back at him resembled nothing so much as a dumpling on legs.

‘Hello there,’ said Luke.

‘Mesh’la,’ said the dumpling.

He was gently but insistently led into the street and made to join some toddlers scooping sand and debris out of a dried-up fountain with improvised spades. Luke could only assume that they viewed him as a large, lost child. He didn’t wish to correct them.

With her arms folded and her thick braid dangling its frayed ends over her collarbone, Mara asked wryly, ‘Are they wrong?’

---

The Mandalore camp kept bothering Din in cantinas while he was organising transport for his non-combatants. All Nite Owl-related matters he directed to Koska, who perched on a barstool beside him looking glamorously gloomy; all questions of strategy he referred to Commander Rex. Yet the recruits liked coming to Din for approval, no matter how many times he repeated that his background was in bounty hunting.

‘So are we to take orders from Bo-Katan as if they come from you, Mand’alor?’

‘I don’t give orders.’ Din tried to hide his whole face in a mug of lukewarm caf, helmet and all.

‘I mean—just to clarify, sir—‘

‘Please don’t call me sir.’

‘—are you appointing her as your second-in-command?’

‘Co-workers,’ Din bellowed. ‘You want hierarchy? Make up your own! Just do as she says, mir’sheb. When Rex and Bo-Katan inevitably start fighting, I’ll be there to mediate. That is the extent of my authority, you understand?’

‘Yes, Mand’alor,’ they chorused.

‘Also,’ Din continued, warming to the unmitigated joy of delegating his problems, ‘the Armourer outranks us both.’

‘Oh, Maker,’ grumbled Koska into her tiingilar. ‘Just what we needed. More leaders. You proud of yourself, Din?’

‘I am.’

‘Wipe that smug look off your face,’ she ordered, even though she couldn’t see it. ‘You and your son. Cheeky bastards, the both of you. I’m not real jizzed about fighting alongside a legion of men with the same face, but I’m sucking it up for you. And you won’t even take the credit. Mudscuffer, you’re the best we never had.’

‘You don’t like clones,’ Din guessed.

‘Axe is the son of a clone, so my prejudice doesn’t extend that far.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I can’t forgive anyone who attacked Mandalore. I don’t care whether they had a choice. They still did it.’

She was young, Din thought. Mara hadn’t had a choice either, and Koska held no grudges against her lover because she hadn’t been personally affected by Mara’s deeds. They were all so full of contradictions. He bought her a Batuu Brew. 

Behind him, someone had put tokens into the cantina’s big jukebox, and with an unexpected throb of nostalgia Din remembered the jukebox on Moff Gideon’s cruiser. When he had first brought the Darksaber to Bo-Katan’s quarters, a lost and lonely man, he hadn’t been able to tell if the tunes on her jukebox were Mandalorian songs—only that they were old, old tunes in a style no longer fashionable. Had that been the last time he’d heard music? Surely not, Din thought. Surely he had witnessed dancing and singing in all his months as Mand’alor between that time and now. Yet he could not recall ever being so contented.

After a stiff and wary start, the cantina’s local regulars had warmed up to Din’s people (the Mando habit of drinking out of their helmets didn’t hurt). Now Ruusaan, heedless of her bad leg, had just hopped onto a tabletop to the raucous cheers of Theedites and Mandalorians alike. She and Bakcin linked arms and danced gracelessly to the wild spinning of the jukebox. Din spotted Temeri clambering up to join them. He saw Axe and the man they called Cody beating time on their cuirasses, then on each other’s pauldrons, and he found that his mouth hurt from smiling.

Mara came up to the counter and hooked her chin over Koska’s shoulder. ‘Are all Mandalorians this rowdy?’

At the sound of her voice, the clouds cleared from Koska’s expression. ‘Yeah. Our Din’s just unusually quiet.’

Mara kissed Koska’s temple, nodded politely at Din, then turned on her heel and walked straight out. Din lifted a hand to wave goodbye.

‘She can’t take it,’ said Koska. Din wasn’t sure whether she was gloating over or disappointed in Mara. Knowing Koska, it was some mixture of both.

‘Can’t blame her.’ Din paid for Koska’s next round and then slid off his barstool. ‘We’re Mandalorians.’

She scowled at him, unmoved by the quiet pride in his voice. ‘And now you’re leaving.’

Din didn’t glance back as he strode towards the exit. ‘Yep!’

He found the Armourer in a cool green pavilion near Bassa Bridge, the old river crossing. In the fading twilight, Grogu and Paz were hunting for curious stones along the banks of the Solleu. Water lapped at Din’s mud-flecked boots. He could see Luke playing with Bakcin’s children further down the riverbank, and Fennec dozing on a picnic blanket while three Naboo teenagers meticulously covered her in damp leaves. They were doing a poor job of muffling their giggles. Din knew very well that this was not his city, or even his planet; but he wasn’t a wanderer crying out for a home. Not any longer. His home was right here with him.

The Armourer was listening respectfully to Kartuun dál Rena, her helmet tilted towards the tiny old woman at a deferential angle. Nobody else sat up with Kartuun on these long, chilly evenings. She was advanced in age and difficult to understand. It took a lot of patience to even catch what she was saying, in that near-inaudible murmur of hers—and the Armourer had patience in abundance. Seeing Din as he approached, the Armourer gestured for him to join them.

‘Are you the Armourer of your tribe?’ asked Din.

Kartuun’s benign unseeing eyes shone at him. ‘I was the Carpenter.’

He looked at her hands. They were swollen with arthritis.

The Armourer must’ve noticed something in his body language, because her impassive golden gaze came to rest on his face. She switched to Basic when she addressed Din. ‘Speak.’

The Armourer, Din realised, was better at understanding Mando’a than conversing in it. That was why she spoke so little and listened so well. He couldn’t imagine how she felt—after decades in hiding, afraid to use her mother tongue for fear of exposure, slowly losing fluency against her will—to be surrounded now by Mandos who had never stopped speaking it.

‘There is one I would add to my clan.’

Owl-like eyes regarded him. ‘You know the words. Why have you not already done so?’

Din hesitated, feeling like an errant child. Every admission made him more fearful. ‘He is not Mandalorian.’

‘Many walk the Way of the Mandalore without knowing it by that name.’ She rested her hands on her spread knees. Beside her, Kartuun gazed placidly upon them both. ‘Who is he?’

‘A Jedi.’ He couldn’t delay her rejection any longer, and so he blurted out: ‘He’s seen my face. I took off my helmet.’

She only faltered for an instant. ‘Since you have… chosen a Jedi, he is welcome in our tribe.’ Her horned head turned towards the frothing river. ‘Point him out.’

There was none of the anger and disgust he had dreaded. Din could not breathe. All the memories of aeons past swam in his lungs. He couldn’t explain how it’d felt to hear her mention a race of enemy sorcerers in the same breath as Mand’alor the Great, to witness strange magic from that lost age of myth-history, and then… and then… to see a living Jedi, full-grown, clad in the colour of justice, and believe that the legends were real.

Maybe she already knew.

Din took a step forward, and then another. ‘He’s wearing a black cloak.’

‘Ah,’ she breathed. ‘The shining one.’

Din knew then that the Armourer would never have cast him out.

‘Bring him to me after the evening meal.’ Her voice was slow and contemplative. ‘He cannot wear beskar, but I will make him a fine signet.’

‘Thank you,’ said Din. It came out in a rush, a frantic exhale. He glanced wildly at Kartuun. ‘Thank you.’

Then, and only then, the Armourer lifted a hand to stroke the side of his helmet. Din turned his cheek into the touch. His eyes stung with unshed tears.

‘Din’ika,’ she murmured just as he was about to go. 

He turned.

‘I am proud to know your name.’

---

Theed cantinas were far too nice for Luke. This was Mara’s territory, not his, and the price of a bantha blaster here gave him hives. He’d never have made it undercover in the Imperial court. His Tatooine roots would have sprung out before you could say yeehaw, and they weren’t the kind of roots he could dye blond.

This particular place was so clean that he was sweating. Luke surveyed the bar patrons, noting every Mandalorian who wasn’t Din. He tried not to draw too much attention to himself, and he thought he was succeeding—until one barrel-chested Mando caught sight of Luke and promptly spat out his ale.

‘Who’s the posh twink?’ he demanded. ‘This isn’t your daddy’s cantina.’

‘I’m looking for Din Djarin,’ said Luke as inoffensively as he knew how. ‘Can you lead me to him?’

The bar’s Mandalorians clustered together like a living shield wall, radiating suspicion. Somebody else, who evidently recognised Luke, said: ‘I don’t know where you think you’re going, Skywalker, but you aren’t on Tatooine anymore. Pick a fight with the Mand’alor and you’ll have a fight with all of us.’

‘I’m not here to fight him.’

‘That’s what they always say,’ sighed the first Mando. ‘Look, kid, you’ll excuse us for not simply trusting you on sight. Our people and yours are ancestral enemies.’

Luke stared. ‘I have ancestral enemies?’

‘Oh, Maker, he doesn’t even know,’ they all groaned. Someone waved the cantina owner away when she tried to ask for Luke’s order. Luke threw her a sympathetic glance. There was no malice radiating off the Mandalorians, but they were many in number and tended to be very, very tall. A ring of Mandos had begun compressing around him, and Luke resigned himself to introductions via combat. 

‘You watch the child?’ asked a greying woman with skin as pale as Fennec’s. Her dark eyes narrowed when Luke nodded. ‘So where is the child?’

Luke held up his hands placatingly, more than a little affronted that she thought he’d abandoned Grogu. ‘With Paz Vizsla. You know Paz Vizsla?’

An unimpressed rumble told Luke that she didn’t think much of Paz’s child-minding abilities.

‘How old even are you?’

‘Twenty-eight, going twenty-nine—’

‘Youngling!’ the Mandalorians remarked disapprovingly, and, ‘Very small!’ and, ‘Needs more protein.’ (This, Luke had to admit, was a fair point.) He was approached by a curly-haired teenager, ruddy from dancing, who took a much more direct line of attack.

‘You and the Mand’alor?’ they demanded.

‘Who? Oh, Din! Yeah, we—’

‘What makes you think you’re good enough for him?’

‘I don’t,’ said Luke.

Mandalorians conferred amongst themselves and seemed to conclude that this was the right answer. They still squinted at him with suspicion, however, and Luke was just bracing himself for another round when Din appeared edging his way through the crowd. Luke started towards him automatically, and someone grabbed Luke to hold him back.

‘Hands off,’ Din barked. The next moment he looked deeply embarrassed at himself, and told Luke in a much softer tone, ‘You’re being very nice. You’re welcome to throw them across the room with the Force, or whatever.’ Under his breath: ‘Goodness knows I wish I could.’

‘Oh, they aren’t bothering me,’ said Luke. There was an offended stir from the Mandalorians hearing this. ‘They’re your friends.’

‘Fuck yeah we are,’ said the youngest Mando, who looked barely fifteen.

‘Keep this up and you won’t be,’ Din grumbled. ‘Anything else to say? Any more comments before we go? Last chance.’

The teenager gave Luke a beatific smile with a few too many teeth. ‘We’ll save it for later. When you aren’t here, Mand’alor.’

Din made an aggrieved noise and held tight to Luke’s hand. Luke patted him comfortingly.

‘They like you,’ Din remarked as they walked down the river outside the cantina, hand in hand. Up ahead, Naboo’s solitary sun had settled fat and contented on the horizon. ‘My second worst fear was that they wouldn’t like you.’

‘What was your worst fear?’

Din sighed. ‘That they would.’

Luke hid a smile. ‘You poor thing. They adore you.’

‘Wish they didn’t.’

‘I know, darling.’

‘I’m trying very hard to be unpopular.’

‘Aw, I like it. I like seeing you like this.’ Luke touched Din’s shoulder. ‘You’re much more talkative than when we first met.’

‘I cried when we first met,’ said Din. Absent-mindedly, he lifted his helmet halfway and rubbed the most precious nose in the galaxy, then sneezed a very middle-aged sneeze. ‘So glad this is entertaining you, by the way. Can you pretend to not be laughing at me? Just for a little bit?’

‘Sure, but I won’t try very hard.’

The Armourer had set up her forge in a former boathouse beside the river, where metal and bright fire clashed and cooled under running water. Luke had never trained as a blacksmith and didn’t know how she made any of this stuff work. Spellbound, he ventured towards the anvil, and was halted by her outstretched arm as she murmured: ‘Careful.’

She had a nice voice, Luke thought. He leaned against one of the building’s old pillars, content to witness her sorcery from afar.

‘We were many, once.’ She laid down her tools and then moved them again restlessly; and as she arranged and rearranged her worktable, Luke saw that she was nervous. ‘Now we are few and we welcome those who share our values. Have you ever knowingly hurt a child?’

‘No!’

‘Have you betrayed or abandoned those who trusted you?’

‘Never,’ Luke said forcefully.

‘This is the Way.’

At Luke’s side, Din repeated, ‘This is the Way.’

‘You are not one of the Mando’ade; but you are like-Mandalorian, Jedi. No member of our tribe shall harm you.’ She looked Luke up and down, clearly displeased by his lack of armour. ‘Give me the belt where you hang your sword.’

After a few seconds’ fumbling, he handed it over. She examined it closely, and he was honoured by her care.

‘In the old days we shared our one resource more freely. We have not enough beskar, now, even for our own people. The Empire took it from us; the Empire robbed us of everything. Our lives were not sufficient.’

‘I understand.’

She gave him a small, deliberate nod. ‘Din Djarin’s signet is the mudhorn, but you must not lose your own heritage when you join the clan. On which planet were you born?’

‘Tatooine.’

‘The Outer Rim.’ There was a flicker of surprise. ‘Not what I expected.’

‘I couldn’t wait to get off that trash heap when I was a boy,’ Luke said apologetically.

‘Still, it was your home in your boyhood. Does it hold bitter memories for you?’

Luke thought of his aunt’s blue cheese, his escapades in Beggar’s Canyon, his uncle’s calloused hands. He felt Din’s steady warmth at his side. ‘Not bitter, no.’

‘Then you may allow it to shape you. Each of us controls our past in one way or another. You must decide how it changes you. We all make that decision. We may embrace our history, or we may strive to move beyond it—many of us do. Nevertheless, we cannot control our pain if we do not acknowledge its place in our lives. Do you understand?’

‘I do.’

Din leaned his solid weight against Luke’s shoulder. As the Armourer turned to her work, he confirmed in a whisper what Luke had already guessed. ‘She doesn’t know what you’ve done.’

‘About the Death Star?’

‘About anything,’ whispered Din. ‘Should I tell her?’

It was good of him to ask; he knew Luke very well. Luke shook his head. The answer was easy. ‘Never.’

Under the Armourer’s level gaze he felt free. She returned his belt after some time, pointing with a befuddled air at his lightsaber hilt until he hooked it back into place. The mudhorn was embossed on Luke’s belt buckle, and behind its head shone the interlocking rings of two suns.

‘Thank you,’ Luke breathed; there was no need to say anything more.

‘Thank you,’ Din echoed, and then he told Luke in his blunt and beloved way, ‘I love you.’

‘I know,’ said Luke on reflex. ‘I love you too.’

‘Thanks,’ replied Din dryly, ‘I was beginning to wonder.’

Luke threw his arms around Din and hugged him very tightly. ‘Can I hug you too?’ he asked the Armourer.

The Armourer was so surprised that she turned to see if he was speaking to someone behind her. He wasn’t. So she opened her arms to him, saying, ‘You may.’

---

Kartuun dál Rena died in her sleep a week later. Luke had not known her; he did not know most of the Mandalorians, and he only learned her name as it passed from breath to breath like a flickering breeze, like the last sigh of a deflating corpse. She was one of the few beings Luke had ever known to die of old age. It was explained to him that she had not sustained injuries in the battle of Kinyen. Being Mandalorian, she had taken up a wooden staff to defend her home at the age of ninety-six—but she’d been among the first to be evacuated, and she had been happy in her final days of refuge. Her friends had found her in their shared apartment on the Jamillia Foundation estate, her small frame somehow even smaller in death.

‘Did she have family?’ he asked them.

‘All of us were her family,’ they answered. Mando’a was their first language, Basic their second or even third—these old, old grey-eyed people—and, like most beings speaking an unfamiliar tongue, they expressed a pure and plain truth. He understood the expansiveness of that us. ‘Her memory will be a blessing.’

Since she had been a carpenter, the Mandalorians built her a wooden boat using her own tools. Luke had never seen such an old-fashioned vessel. They took her armour out of its fibrous wrappings and put it on her. This was done on the docks of the Solleu boathouse, well below the temple where Theed’s dead were laid to rest—Mandalorians would not use the Naboo temple. It was not their way.

Out in the open air, Luke didn’t know where to stand. There were no visible boundaries to overstep, whereas he could’ve stayed outside the temple. In his arms Grogu was uncharacteristically subdued, understanding the gravity of what was happening. The Mandalorians worked mostly in silence. A few with fur cloaks had brought them to cover the body until the armour was put on. When the furs were removed from her, Luke tried to turn away (he didn’t want to intrude on the dead woman’s privacy), but her comrades looked at him and said, ‘The child will watch. You stay too.’

In Basic, everything they said was very simple. Luke and Grogu stayed.

They placed her on a wooden pallet within the boat and surrounded it with straw. There were no songs or speeches, or signals given by a single individual. Instead, the adult Mandalorians—who were all wearing their armour—put on their helmets, seemingly by some unspoken collective decision. Then they began pushing the boat out onto the water. Their younglings splashed into the shallows to help, tugging at the prow for all the good that would do. Luke set Grogu down so he could run and join them. 

The teenagers were stoic and sober; the little ones were delighted to be involved. Luke saw, then, that Mandalorian children were raised to have no fear of death. No one shushed or chastised them for laughing, for pushing each other and climbing up on the sides. The boat wouldn’t budge. He began to spiral.

He had burned his father alone. He had not been able to bury his burned aunt and uncle, failing them a second time.

In their quiet acceptance of him, his Mandalorian neighbours—through no fault of theirs—were unable to see that Luke was having an episode. He couldn’t pull himself out, which was his fault as well. If he had been self-sufficient, he would’ve deserved to live.

The bottom of the boat had become stuck in riverbank mud. The Armourer stepped forward to help; but before she could touch the hull, Luke saw and felt it loosen. Grogu, cherished child of a Mandalorian and a Jedi, stood in the knee-high brown foam and wrestled with his concentration. A push, a give, and then the funeral boat slid free. No one said anything. No one cried sorcery, even though everyone must’ve seen what Grogu had done. With an unmistakable ripple of pleasure rising from them, the adults drew their children back to the safety of the shore. 

Luke laid his hand on Grogu’s head. The Mandalorians swirled around them while he tried to stay anchored, and to not call Grogu’s attention to anything being wrong. Don’t lose Grogu, he thought fiercely. It was fine if he lost himself.

On the banks of his mother’s river, he watched Din emerge from the gathered crowd. Although Luke was too far away to even see Din’s visor, he knew exactly what expression Din wore underneath it. 

The Mand’alor aimed his vambrace at the pallet. One or two fiery blasts were not enough, so Din used both flamethrowers in a continuous stream. Straw crackled and snapped as it ignited; bright flecks sizzled orange against the darkening sky, and at last the pyre was in flames. At Din’s back, the Mandalorians began to edge away to a safe distance. Luke heard a thin wail and he turned: no one was there. An echo of the past, perhaps, or of the future. Not that Luke could tell the difference.

Fuel turned to heat and ash. Smoke blurred the brownish water. And the boat slid away on its first and final voyage, flames soldering the armour’s joints and sealing the body into its metal sarcophagus, holy and inviolable. No enemy would ever desecrate it by viewing the face within. 

Along the riverbank, helmets lowered abruptly as the Mandalorians went down on their knees. Bo-Katan knelt, and the Armourer too; and then there was only the Mand’alor left standing, watching the wind carry a pillar of smoke out to a hushed sea.

Luke felt for the spark of Kartuun dál Rena’s spirit fluttering within the river, but he could not find her. There was only sweet, dark water. 

‘Where are the ghosts?’ he asked—or thought. He didn’t think he spoke out loud, because nobody heard him. Luke drifted outwards, off a high cliff and onto the pebbled riverbed beneath smoke-ribboned skies, dissolving into the water’s currents; and he reached for his Force ghosts, but they had left him.

He had been fine just a few days ago.

The currents of the living Force carried Luke into the apartment’s bedroom, safe in an eddy behind blood-dark waves. He put Grogu to bed; suddenly it was nightfall. The walls dissolved and lapped at him, but he never let the child slip below water. He was just tethered enough to get his child to shore. Once Grogu was securely settled in his crib, Luke felt the tether snap.

From mind to mind, Grogu chirped his good night. Luke gave him something to hold, as was their habit. Through heavy, comforting darkness he could hear Grogu cuddling and cooing over it, whatever it was (Baba glove! Baba glove!), and this was good. The child’s thoughts reached for Luke like a thin sinew through deep and lightless ocean. 

It was nice to be underwater. It was nice to be unlit, unheard, and know he had made his family safe. He could disappear into the seabed now.

In the stillness, his masters were with him. He felt the Force shifting around their presence, great masses of water balancing, gaps opening to house their bodies. But they had no bodies. And he saw them as their bodiless selves: Ben, Yoda, his own longed-for father. He saw them with nonexistent eyes.

Jedi were divers. As Grogu floated up, Luke sank willingly down.

Mixing with the pleasant current, his form barely holding as he dissolved into shapeless peace, Obi-Wan Kenobi said: ‘Luke, it’s time to say goodbye.’

---

Luke disappeared from Grogu’s training bond shortly after leaving Naboo on another Jedi mission. Din discovered this because Grogu would not stop crying.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ he soothed, rocking the kid against his chest. ‘Don’t worry. Baba’s a grown-up, he can take care of himself.’

Neither of them were convinced. Din knew enough to realise that this was not normal. He had known when they’d said goodbye, Grogu tucked under Din’s chin and Luke tucked into the Artoo-less X-wing—but, like a fool, he’d thought Luke would be all right. He’d thought Luke had believed him when he swore the dead had no claim on Luke.

‘There are no more ghosts,’ Luke had said. ‘There is only me.’ 

‘Is that good?’ Din had tried, and then: ‘Can we find others?’

‘Yeah, I’m going to find others,’ Luke said lightly, as easy and cool-headed as the pilot he’d once been. ‘I’m chasing a Sith holocron from Darth Maul’s time. It holds great knowledge—and power, if you choose to use it… If there are no other Jedi, they're dead because of me. Because I couldn’t get to them in time. Because I couldn’t save them; because I couldn’t save more like Grogu.’ 

A long heartbeat passed. 

‘No,’ said Din with such decisiveness that Luke looked at him like his last spar of solid ground. He had no fucking idea what Luke was on about, except for the sentiment he recognised and knew how to defeat.

‘No?’

‘I am the Mand’alor,’ Din said. ‘So take it from me. Whoever saves one life saves the whole galaxy.’

That had been four days ago. And perhaps Luke had kept the strange tether of his awareness lashed to Grogu after all, only protecting Grogu from seeing whatever Luke was seeing, because he’d commed Din while Din was busy securing his Mandalorians’ safe passage to the Concord Dawn system. 

Luke’s message was uncharacteristically terse. 

Got into trouble. Grogu trying to reach out to me. Please don’t let him worry. I love you.

Din stared at the blinking characters with a slow magma flow of dread beginning to gather in his stomach. Where are you? he typed out.

The answer came immediately, even though Din had left his comlink unchecked for hours—hours in which anything could’ve happened. 

Malachor V. Chorlian sector. Outer Rim S-4.

Din, for once, did not seriously consider bringing his toddler to do the job.

Notes:

you write the coming-out scenes you wish had happened to you in real life

ETA 19/01/22: I JUST remembered Luke wasn't actually born on Tatooine asjkdnfka;ldjsf;kj cancel my AO3 account I'm a fake fan

Chapter 14

Notes:

Edited to add translations when you hover over Mando’a words (desktop users only), though honestly they don’t matter; it’s just Bo-Katan being condescending

Mandalorians believed in power, even if they did not believe in magic. They recognised the pull of the Darksaber. They loved their kin with a ferocity rivalling the gods’. They had their legends, their traditional war chants, and they knew the Creed in many tongues. Though they were scattered, they traced their lineage—not through blood, which made it all the stronger—to prehistoric beings twice the height of humans. From this knowledge, they drew their strength. As Mand’alor Din had seen them all. He knew his people: their sensible honour, their stupid pride. They despised cowardice and recklessness in equal measure. Their beskar had been stripped from them, their armour punctured or destroyed (how poor, how shameful the materials compared to what once was!), their bodies maimed; still they survived. They told their terse, unchanging stories in their terse, unchanging language. They irritated the fuck out of him.

Dispassionately, without condemnation, Din’s covert had recited the deeds of the vanished Taungs: the glory-seeking crusaders. Parallels between their conquests and the Empire’s crimes were not lost on any Mandalorian present, but the storytellers refused to moralise. Memory was memory. History needed no exegesis. This was the Way. You owed your ancestors nothing. You lived for the generations to come. Din knew this with a rich and bitter certainty he had not felt when he began his journey—when he first set foot, alone and overwhelmed, on the path of the Mand’alor. And so he knew what he must do.

‘I’m going to help Luke,’ he promised Grogu, holding the child up to his face. ‘Thank you for telling me, pal. You did good.’

In a swift sure motion Din raised his helmet. Grogu put a hand to his stubbled cheek, unhesitating, and despite everything Din smiled. They nodded at each other. In his own capacity, Grogu had done what he could to help; and now it was Din’s turn. They were a clan. Like Mandalorians, they were indomitable. Like their Jedi, they loved without end.

Four thousand years ago, the planet Malachor had died a horrific death. There sorcerers had fought against Din’s monstrous predecessors, and the battlefield remained so cursed that no Mandalorian would go near the system. If—if—the legends were true, a Jedi could easily have been overcome. But Din was no Jedi. He was only a man, and unburdened by extraordinary powers he would walk unafraid into the house of death.

He wasn’t a fool. He knew he had to prepare for the chance that he would not return. Yes, he’d been swallowed by a krayt dragon and lived, but anybody with common sense knew what a stomach contained: acid, and partially digested chunks, and sensitive, flammable tissue. No one alive could tell him what lay on Malachor V.

Still Din did not falter. Lowering his helmet again, he shifted Grogu so that the kid could sit on his shoulders. Grogu was so big now; he’d grow and grow and be rich in love. Recalling Luke’s first words to Grogu those many, many rotations ago, Din murmured, ‘Come, little one.’

Grogu patted the sides of his head. Together they left Din’s guest quarters in the Turret Room, rode the slideramp to ground level, and exited the palace through the royal gardens. With his child riding on his shoulders, Din didn’t feel like a man going to his death. He felt only pride. He headed straight for the enormous hangar which housed Naboo’s royal air force command as well as the starships Bo-Katan had assembled. Among those ships, Din knew, would be the Mand’alor’s personal transport—the gift of his own people—the Kuiitaylir, named after a friend who’d given his life protecting the child. It was Kuiil’s legacy that Din sought to honour now.

The entrance courtyard boomed with voices. The neighbouring roar of Theed’s power generator faded to a background hum, outshouted by Din’s family and friends: his galaxy-spanning, immortal, infuriating people. His clone brothers, whom Din had finally persuaded to stop saluting him, smiled at them both as he walked by, and Grogu returned the greetings raucously. And at an outdoor mess table, Paz was arm-wrestling Axe while Temeri hopped around and pestered them both, whining, ‘Stop hogging the big guy! I can take him!’

Grogu scraped Din’s helmet with his little claws, so Din took the hint and set him down gently. ‘All right, buddy. Where do you want to go?’

Grogu waddled straight towards Paz. Din followed, his heart very full, remembering how Paz had believed he’d failed the covert’s foundlings by letting them go. There was no failure in Din’s eyes: Grogu had made his choice. The gathered Mandalorians parted around Din as he approached the mess table, but didn’t take their attention off the contest.

‘We find the mad lad taking on the entire Bounty Hunters’ Guild,’ Paz was telling the onlookers. ‘From the sewers we watch them. “He’s pinned down,” someone says, “we should save him.” “No!” says another one, “give him time. He’ll break free yet.” Our faith in the idiot is unshakable. We won’t insult him by helping till there’s plainly no other way. A warrior alone should be permitted to fight alone up to death’s door. But then we spot something unusual through a rangefinder… We zoom in… Oh kriff, there’s a baby! Oya! Oya!’

Axe burst out laughing—he was looking at Paz with something akin to infatuation. Then Paz caught sight of Din, and Grogu poked his knees, and without further ado he slammed Axe’s wrist to the tabletop and turned.

‘Mand’alor?’

‘Our clanmate is in danger,’ Din told Paz in an undertone, leaning their helmets together. Grogu whined his agreement between them. ‘By Creed, I entrust the child to your care.’

‘What, your Jedi? Kriff. I will protect this little one with my life.’ Paz put his big hand to the back of Grogu’s head, as though shielding him from imaginary blows. ‘What more do you need?’

For the first time, Din found himself able to look into Paz’s eyes. Paz had always been bigger, except one glorious year of adolescence when Din’s (short-lived) growth spurt had exceeded his; and now, with Paz seated, they were just about the same height. Paz had not added until you get back to his promise, which meant… which meant that he understood.

‘Cover me. Some others might try to stop me, and I’d rather not come to blows.’

‘I got your back.’

Mandalorians occupied the smaller of the facility’s two anterooms: a marble-pillared hall overlooking the Solleu. With Naboo pilots training on the simulators next door, with durasteel-veined stone walls soaring to a reinforced ceiling, the clones declared that they felt at home. Din spotted Rex first, pointing out Kamino on a holomap; then Koska, who looked strangely vulnerable with her hair loose, speaking to him in low tones. It was a large, cold, important room, a place for high politics and decisions. Many clones had never been included in strategy meetings before; they wore varying expressions of lost excitement and eagerness. Blue-tinged figures spoke from a dozen holoprojectors, and at the centre of them all sat Bo-Katan Kryze.

She looked happier than Din had ever seen her before. She’d put her feet up. She was tapping away on a datapad as she and Rex discussed flight plans, and for warmth she’d wrapped herself in a silk weave dusk cloak shot through with silver thread. It was not lost on Din that silver signified redemption, or that she must’ve owned the garment for years before allowing herself to wear it.

‘Where are you going?’ she called, glancing up when he passed the strategy table without breaking his stride.

Great things tended to happen around Din Djarin. He just didn’t give a fuck. ‘Luke’s in trouble. I’m mounting a rescue.’

‘By yourself?’ Bo-Katan took off her reading spectacles. ‘Wait. Wait. We can help.’ She rose to her feet, shucking off the shimmering cloak like it cost nothing. ‘Where exactly is he?’

Say what you want about Mandalorians, Din thought grimly, they never let a higher purpose distract them from side missions. There was always a smaller fish to gut. He quickened his pace ever so slightly; undaunted, she followed him halfway to the blast doors. Electrostatic grates filtered out pollution from the nearby flight deck, and the polished black floor rang with the boots of everyone he’d have to get past to reach his ship.

Bo-Katan’s movements had attracted the attention of numerous other Mandalorians. Din cursed the concept of charismatic leadership.

‘Malachor,’ he answered.

Bo-Katan blanched. Other members of her Mandalore council had trailed after her: Rex, Clans Wren and Awaud, even Ruusaan (who’d changed her mind about Mandalore, but loudly assured everyone she was going to be a bitch about it). Din saw his chance to flee before Bo-Katan made this into a big deal, and promptly missed it when she clapped one hand over the door controls.

‘Malachor still exists? Maker bless you. You’re not going.’

‘That’s not up to you.’

‘Oh, please,’ snapped Bo-Katan, loud enough that every remaining head in the room turned to her. ‘You think we’ll stand by and let you run off to that hell-world? A planet worse than Mandalore? Let me tell you a story, ad’ika. There is a place in the galaxy where Jedi sorcery runs strong. It is fuelled by war, and it corrupts all that walk on its surface—it corrupts all life, and it feeds on death. You won’t last an hour.’

‘You know,’ said Din, frustrated into bluntness at long last, ‘just because you’re right doesn’t make you any less unpleasant.’

Bo-Katan smiled broadly. It had taken her nearly two years to annoy Din into speaking his mind, and she seemed pleased that she’d finally succeeded.

‘So you admit that I’m right. You won’t go to Malachor.’

‘Excuse me, princess,’ Din said through his teeth, summoning all of Boba Fett’s sass, ‘but I will.’ He took a step towards the controls.

From the other end of the anteroom, Paz had emerged with Grogu in his arms. He looked ridiculous wearing a synfleece shawl as a makeshift baby carrier; the kid was the size of his head. Nonetheless, he caught Din’s gaze and gave him a nod, and Din knew that he did not stand alone.

‘Din,’ Koska said, sounding stunned. ‘Be reasonable.’

He turned to her in mindless desperation. He’d thought she of all people would understand. ‘It’s Luke.’

‘We grew up hearing these stories…’ Koska looked at the others for confirmation, and continued only when Bo-Katan nodded. ‘We’ve told stories of the Cataclysm for four thousand years. There are storm beasts, animals twisted by sorcery into monsters. There’s gravity so unstable it’ll pull your ship from the atmosphere and smash it to pieces on the cliffs. I don’t… I don’t want you to die.’

Din glanced away. He couldn’t meet her eyes. Instead he asked Bo-Katan, ‘Do you believe that?’

‘No.’ She didn’t blink. ‘That’s not the point. We create legends for a reason. After everything you’ve learned—about power, about the Darksaber—you should understand what matters about stories! They are told to warn us away. To keep us alive!’

Rex’s voice sounded clear and strident behind them. ‘Ahsoka landed on Malachor without issue.’

‘Ahsoka is a Jedi,’ cried Bo-Katan, raising her voice for the first time, ‘and still she almost died! I don’t care—do you hear me, I don’t care whether the tales are true. They serve their purpose, which has always been to keep Mandalorians from venturing near that system. Look at me. Look at me, shabuir. You are not a private individual. You don’t get to be selfish. You are the Mand’alor, and you owe it to all of us to stay alive.’

‘I won’t die—’

‘Shut up,’ Bo-Katan replied shortly. Her face was blotchy red and white; her eyes blazed green fire. Din had never seen her so angry. ‘Listen very carefully. You. Cannot. Bring. The Darksaber to that haunted planet. You will be walking into a storm with a lightning rod. You will get kriffing possessed.’

‘I see an obvious solution here,’ Din said.

Bo-Katan was so upset that she flung her hands in the air, heedless of how she looked. ‘Are you fucking kidding me,’ she spat. ‘This banthashit again? Now of all times? Listen, laser-brain, I don’t give a fuck whether you are the rightful wielder of the Darksaber. I cannot in good conscience allow you to go to your death on Malachor.’

In another time, on another world, Leia had promised Din he would one day get to choose between freedom and duty; she had taken his hand and counselled him like an elder. With all the remaining fervour in her tired eyes she’d said, When the time comes, you can choose to walk away. Din made his choice now.

It felt incredible.

He told them all quietly, ‘I did not choose to be Mand’alor. I choose to help my partner who needs me. I hear your warnings, and I know the risks. I’m choosing to go anyway. Let me go; you can’t stop me.’

Bo-Katan raised her chin, baring her teeth. Koska and Ruusaan had rallied to her, and more came to join them; in a great wall of love and stubbornness they stood between him and the blast doors. Yet there were others at Din’s side, too, so that Mandalorians were disunited even now. Grogu watched intently from his perch. Paz moved forward and Din held out his hand, palm down, telling Paz to hold. He did not want to strike any Mandalorians. He saw in Bo-Katan’s face the culmination of their travels together, of her crimes in Death Watch and her failures as Mand’alor, and he saw that in her ferocity she was beautiful.

‘I am a Mandalorian,’ she said. ‘It is my duty to preserve Mandalorian life.’

‘Suck it up, Mand’alor,’ Koska added beside her. ‘This is the Way.’

Din closed his eyes. He could not breathe. He could not argue with them, either. They loved each other too much. ‘We’re wasting time. Let me pass.’

‘Axe,’ Bo-Katan exclaimed when Axe chanced a swipe at the door controls, ‘you support this madness?’

‘Sorry, Bo,’ said Axe, looking shamefaced. ‘I usually defer to your judgement, but… he’s the Mand’alor.’

‘And that is exactly why he should not go,’ cried Ruusaan. Din looked at her. She said helplessly, ‘You’re my friend.’

‘Young Vizsla, will you stand by and permit this?’

Paz stiffened. He was being called upon as a rare surviving member of Mandalore’s aristocracy, and he answered her in a grimmer tone than Din had ever heard from him.

‘I spurn the ideology of Pre Vizsla,’ he said gruffly. ‘I am shamed by my clan’s misdeeds. I choose my brother and my Mand’alor, and I say we let him go.’

Bo-Katan’s mouth crumpled like a dying star. She pressed her lips together for what seemed a very long moment, then said in a broken voice: ‘I will not see another Mand’alor go on a suicide mission.’

‘Luke’s my partner.’

‘Fuck off, I know,’ Bo-Katan shouted, losing her patience at last. ‘You think you’re being noble? You think you’re being… what, heroic? I have news for you. Your sacrifice is not selfless. It’s senseless. Do not walk away from our people who need you! You are a Mandalorian! There are too few of us left to waste lives! Do you want to make your child an orphan?’

Din flinched, and across the room he caught Grogu’s eye. ‘As long as there are Mandalorians,’ he said as evenly as he could manage, ‘Grogu will never be alone.’

All around the room, Mandalorians nodded in agreement.

Bo-Katan’s hand hovered over her holster. Din’s thumb was on the Darksaber hilt.

‘You going to shoot first?’

‘No, fuck you,’ she replied. She had shifted near-imperceptibly so that she was now blocking the exit with her whole body, and those at her side had fallen away into a loose circle. ‘Try to get through me. See what happens.’

Din lit the Darksaber—after all, it was a symbol of power and of consensus. ‘Step aside, Bo-Katan.’

‘No.’

‘Step aside.’ He moved towards her, and in a gesture so sleek it was almost contemptuous, she put her helmet on. ‘We’re really about to fight over whether I can board my ship?’

‘No. We’re arguing over whether you get to die for nothing. Let me make the hard decision for you: you don’t.’ Through the helmet’s modulator, her voice flattened into cold pragmatism. ‘Listen. I’m not saying this to be cruel. There is no point throwing your life away for Luke Skywalker. If he hasn’t returned by now, he’s dead.’

The anger that shot through Din was so poisonous that he understood, just for an instant, how people could do evil for the sake of love. He tamped it down and held his tongue, breathing slowly in and out, and when he had mastered himself, he shifted the Darksaber in his grip from a sceptre to a weapon.

‘I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that.’

‘I did say it!’ yelled Bo-Katan, finally abandoning all hope of keeping her temper. ‘I’ll say it again! You’re a fucking moron. You’ve got a fucking death wish. I can’t believe I am putting myself in harm’s way to save you from self-destruction. Dank farrik, I don’t even like you!’

‘You do,’ several voices objected at once. Din and Bo-Katan both ignored them.

The Darksaber hummed in his hand. Bo-Katan hesitated. Even with her helmet on, Din read her emotions with no effort at all. He saw her noting the dozens of witnesses around them, calculating the weight of what she was about to do; he saw her tense and then assure herself that, as Din had already known, her cause was honourable in Mandalorians’ sight.

‘Dammit, foundling,’ she muttered, ‘you were among our best.’ And she cocked both her blaster pistols beside her head. ‘Don’t make me do this.’

‘Go ahead,’ Din whispered.

Bo-Katan drew herself up to her full height. Watching her through Mandalorian eyes, Din saw her gather all the dignity of disgraced aristocracy; all the nobility of a warrior; and all the laconic courage of a Mandalorian. And he sensed, as if it were tangible, her needle-fine awareness that all political acts consisted of performance. Din and Bo-Katan began their performance now.

She addressed him in Mando’a with perfect clarity.

‘Mand’alor the Wanderer,’ she said, ‘I challenge you to single combat.’

‘Oh thank the fucking stars, kriffing finally, let’s go,’ Din said all in one breath, and charged.

---

The Force held all things, living and dead. You could drag the bed of that ocean for an eternity and not discover its secrets: its blind, soft-eyed, noiseless bottom-dwellers. To dive amongst them was to surrender the chance of ever surfacing for air. Here was the Force’s greatest secret. The Dark Side was not diametrically opposed to the Light. It was dark in the sense that deeper waters were more opaque than the shallows; it was dark because you could not see or feel yourself. Jedi had cautioned their young to avoid the depths for millennia, and built their Padawans mental buoys to keep them afloat, and now Luke sank and sank.

He did not know where he was. He found himself on his knees, prostrating like a worshipper, before a huge black pillar inscribed in ur-Kittât; his mouth was full of ash. He rolled to one side and retched empty air.

‘I can’t stand,’ said Luke. ‘I can’t…’

And he was on his feet. He could not remember how he’d gotten there. He had come in a ship, hadn’t he? He turned and he looked out over the field of petrified bodies, and he called out to his droid—his—he couldn’t remember the droid’s name. And the air, which had not felt a wind in four thousand years, took Luke’s voice and consumed it with a contemptuous gulp.

The second greatest secret was that Luke did not move things with the Force. The Force simply warped around him. If objects floated into his one remaining hand, they had always been there; rifts opened and knitted themselves back together in his presence, joining in one endless energy transfer.

‘A wound in the Force,’ said a voice beside him. ‘This planet is an open wound, and so are you.’

Luke felt her silent scream before he saw her. She turned her white head very slowly to meet his gaze, and her parted lips (colourless, like the rest of her face) let no breath escape from them. The severed being that she was could not countenance death. She had been bisected, it seemed, by some massive blow an aeon ago, and her soul still convulsed from the shock. Luke didn’t know how to describe her because he did not perceive her physically. He felt her presence in the Force, or he felt the ragged hole where her life had been, and he felt the long scream which time preserved forever in the vacuum of space.

‘How long have you been standing there?’

‘Four thousand years,’ she replied immediately. ‘How long have you?’

---

Bo-Katan hit the vaulted ceiling with a hiss of jetpack fuel. Din lunged at the controls, aiming to make a run for it while the exit stood exposed, but she’d predicted that: she lashed out at him with whipcord. Din slid backwards across the shining bare floor, bound feet kicking out at nothing, and then he snagged her with his own cord. Distinctly he heard Bo-Katan yell, ‘Oh, come on!’

Tit for tat, thought Din. He cut his bonds with a flick of his vibroknife, and turned just in time to get Bo-Katan’s wrist-mounted blade to the visor. With a muffled curse Din kicked her halfway across the hall. The onlookers had solidified into a tight, silent ring of Mandalorians, bright-eyed and impassive.

The roof was high enough for jetpack use: this was one of the hangar’s many advantages. As Bo-Katan rolled to her feet and sprang back into a fighting stance, Din soared. He didn’t make it all the way to the doors before he met enough blaster fire to knock him off balance. Din swung the Darksaber clumsily—he wasn’t a Jedi, he did not need to deflect blaster bolts since he had his beskar’gam, and he’d always used the accursed sword just like a Mandalorian would use it. This was fine, because Bo-Katan anticipated it like a Mandalorian. She wasn’t shooting to hit him. She was shooting to drive him back, and in the heartbeat after the impact had Din stumbling, Bo-Katan swooped in like a shriek-hawk and kicked him in the face.

Din slashed at her ankles. The durasteel alloy wouldn’t hold up against the Darksaber, and neither would her boots. It was much harder to fight someone when you did not want to kill or maim them. Bo-Katan was struggling with this too: Din saw her reach for a thermal detonator before stopping herself. Instead she risked her weaker armour by attacking him at close range. Ducking with a muffled curse, Din extinguished the Darksaber. She wrenched his arm so hard that it nearly dislocated, and Din countered with a Keldabe kiss which sent them both reeling.

Din didn’t stop to think. He was very good, but she was a veteran of the Mandalorian wars. And no one could fend off the Darksaber as well as someone who’d wielded it. He dropped the hilt from his right hand to his left, ignited the sword again, and brought it up to meet… beskar, white-hot and unyielding. She’d disarmed him of his favourite weapon when he wasn’t looking. His spear was in Bo-Katan’s hands. His back was solidly to the blast doors.

Din glanced over his shoulder at his exit, and in this fatal opening, Bo-Katan attacked.

The Darksaber hissed against the beskar spear. The plasma blade sliced glowing cuts into the floor. Din forced her backwards, chasing as she gave ground, only to realise that he was being lured in the wrong direction: away from the flight deck. The second he noticed this, Bo-Katan stopped retreating. She flipped herself high into the air using her jetpack, landed behind Din, and stabbed him in the back of the knee with his own spear.

Din fired behind him without looking. She cried out, and he whirled around right on cue for Bo-Katan to slam the butt of the spear into his helmet. Fair enough, Din thought, staggering to one side. His ears were ringing, but not that badly; he was feigning dizziness, and she knew he was feigning, because she followed up fiercely enough that he had to fend her off with crossed vambraces.

---

‘You’re like me,’ Luke whispered.

‘No,’ said the Exile. ‘I cut myself off from the Force. You are the Force—with all the death-energy that the Force absorbs. Tell me, how did you manage to live after destroying the Death Stars?’

Luke breathed the stagnant air of Malachor, just as it had been the day Jedi and Sith had died in their thousands. He was surrounded by their foetal corpses: coated in ash, undisturbed by wind or water or any movement at all.

‘I accepted,’ he answered quietly, ‘that every being on that station was an enemy.’

‘So you were always broken,’ said the broken Jedi.

---

Din and Bo-Katan corralled each other like massiffs. He felt the Armourer’s gaze on him (he wasn’t sure when she had arrived), and he knew Grogu was watching; he knew that everything he’d chosen depended on this one conflict. He knew that Bo-Katan had chosen too, in her way—that she loved him as she loved all Mandalorians—and he demonstrated his immense respect for her by elbowing her in the throat.

She flew backwards and opened her flamethrower on him from above. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ bawled Din, rolling away from the gust of fire and smoke. Once he’d skidded out of range, he launched himself into the air, came down behind her—her own flames had obscured her vision, so she didn’t notice till it was too late—and ruined her jetpack with one swift Darksaber stroke.

Bo-Katan plummeted, but didn’t let that stop her. She seized Din’s boots and yanked him down. Anchoring himself with a gloved hand on durasteel ribbing, Din fought to gain momentum, for she was pulling him back like a leashed storm. He kicked furiously, unable to shake her off. She was pushing the spear against the Darksaber, keeping it from hurting her.

‘Let go,’ Din shouted.

‘Never!’

Remembering his sparring match with Koska on the ex-Imperial cruiser, Din knew that Bo-Katan could not weigh him down for long. He drove the Darksaber hard against the beskar spear, forcing tension into Bo-Katan’s forearms; then he went unexpectedly limp. In her surprise, she wasn’t prepared for Din to deactivate the blade abruptly. As the spear swung towards him unimpeded, Din slid the Darksaber hilt behind it to find purchase and twisted it out of Bo-Katan’s hands.

The spear dropped to the floor several feet below them. The Darksaber sang loud and lethal again. Defenceless, she still refused to let go.

Din kicked harder. ‘Stay down!’

Bo-Katan snarled something in Mando’a which was far coarser than her usual vocabulary.

In his frustration, Din dragged her against the hangar wall on his way to the blast doors, wincing in sympathy as her helmet struck durasteel. ‘I don’t want to give you brain damage!’

‘I’d say the same,’ she screeched, ‘if you had a brain!’

Fucking Mandalorians. Din shook her off at last—no, she had let go, she’d feinted with the same tactic he’d used to disarm her. Bo-Katan plunged into freefall, having forgotten about her wrecked jetpack, and hit the floor with a groan. Swaying drunkenly, she lumbered to her feet and blocked the control pad with one arm just before Din punched it. And then… and then Bo-Katan made a suicidal lunge at the active Darksaber.

Din hit the trigger just in time to save her life. ‘You can take the lady out of Death Watch,’ he wheezed. ‘You can’t take Death Watch out of—’

She socked him in the throat. Coughing, Din stumbled. Bo-Katan ducked under his arm and—oh, she had known he’d deactivate the blade, she had done it on purpose—with brutal, predatory grace, she twisted his wrist back painfully and wrested the empty hilt from him. The momentum sent them tumbling on top of each other. Bo-Katan crashed to the floor beneath Din, reflexively igniting the Darksaber at his throat, and Din reared back. He lost his balance and fell, half-collapsing at her side. Bo-Katan struggled to her feet, breathing in harsh gasps, and held Din at arm’s length with the Darksaber so that he could not stand.

The Armourer’s hammer came down between them.

Din froze. Bo-Katan tore off her helmet as though it stifled her; she was bleeding heavily from cuts on her temple, and bruises mottled her redhead pallor. She stood panting, the blade held to Din’s neck.

‘The fight is over,’ said the Armourer into the sudden chilled silence. ‘It goes to Bo-Katan.’

The blast doors were in full view. The Kuiitaylir lay just out of Din’s reach. He knelt—he was on his knees—in defeat and humiliation, in the sharp slicing loss that split him in half at this moment. And he thought, Luke will die because I failed.

He looked up. He met Grogu’s eyes. And Bo-Katan extinguished the Darksaber.

‘Get up, Din Djarin,’ she said. ‘Mandalorians look one another in the eye.’

Din stood—feeling sick, drugged. He did not know how he managed to stand. Yet he was a Mandalorian, and his body moved despite himself.

‘Hold him,’ Bo-Katan ordered, and the Armourer stepped forward and put her strong arms around Din from behind. ‘He’s not going to leave. This madness will pass like all the others.’ In a kinder tone, so soft that only Din could hear, she added: ‘Don’t despair. You fought bravely.’

Grogu stood by the control pad and gazed at Din with his terrible clear eyes. Din thought: You will die—your other parent will die, leaving you without a Jedi to protect you—and so you will die because of me. Because of me. Because of me.

He remained standing, and he wished Bo-Katan had beheaded him with the Darksaber.

And then the Armourer shifted. The fur of her well-worn cloak, with its familiar heartbreaking scent, brushed Din’s shoulders. She held him close. Her helmet leaned against his—as though she could see him weep. He shook in her blessed embrace.

The Armourer turned her visor against the side of his helmet and whispered, conspiratorial and holy, ‘Din’ika, you are free.’

And in a soaring clear voice she proclaimed, ‘All hail the Mand’alor!’

Bo-Katan turned. The Darksaber hilt dangled from her slack grip. Her eyes were liquid and wide.

Rising like a small sun from the gathered crowd, Koska took up the chant. ‘All hail the Mand’alor!’

And then Mandalorian voices rang out to the very roof of the great hall, to the heavens and to the moons and all the stars beyond them, indomitable and true: ‘All hail the Mand’alor! All hail the Mand’alor!’

Bo-Katan’s mouth worked with some indescribable emotion. Her face shone; her hollow cheeks were wet. She curled her thumb around the hilt (and though she trembled, her fingers never faltered), and she ignited the Darksaber once again.

Coming to stand at Grogu’s side, Paz laid his hand a second time upon the child’s small, beloved head. Then he lifted Grogu into his arms, and Grogu reached out.

Moving subtly away from Din, the Armourer swept off her fur cloak. With a theatrical flourish, she walked straight into the heart of the Mandalorian audience and draped the cloak over Bo-Katan’s shoulders.

‘Mand’alor the Atoner,’ she said.

Christened and acclaimed, Bo-Katan could not speak. She held the shining Darksaber and she surveyed her shining Mandalorians. She stood motionless: a holostatue, a demigod, her face to her people and her back to the control pad. She looked ethereal in her triumph. And with a quick little blink, with almost a smile, Grogu looked Din dead in the eye and pressed the button.

‘Mand’alor the Atoner!’ roared Paz. In what Din considered a more dramatic gesture than necessary, he dropped to one knee. Heedless of the blast doors sliding open, Mandalorians echoed the name to the rafters. With a great, crashing tide of joy they bellowed their approval; and before all the Mandalorians had finished falling to their knees, Din had already slipped through the doors.

Turning her blood-damp and dishevelled head, Mand’alor the Atoner (flawed, hated, the redeemed, the fallen and the ascendant) spoke in a queenly voice as she caught sight of the doors closing behind Din.

She said: ‘What the fuck?’

Chapter 15

Notes:

Major TW: intense suicidal ideation and dissociation, nightmare ghosts, graphic descriptions of dead bodies, generally Very Bad Vibes

I have no knowledge of caving except rewatching The Descent regularly. Please accept Malachor as a ~spooky location~ and close one eye to improbabilities.

At the foot of the black pillar, Luke doubled over as all the air escaped his lungs. He crumpled like a ship collapsing in on itself. Oxygen, moisture, life were sucked out of him, and then his body pushed back against the vacuum. His bronchi filled and swelled. His heart unfolded into warm, flushed muscle. He breathed again, and he felt his blood moving, and he was acutely aware that he was alive.

It felt horrible.

‘Get up!’ said his companion. ‘Like it or not, you will be my witness.’

Against his better instincts, Luke braced himself with one hand on the pillar. He expected a shudder and a crack when he touched it, or a red glow illuminating the ancient Sith characters. Neither of those things happened. Instead, his vision flickered and changed, as though some distorting filter had been removed, and he saw Malachor as it really was. He saw the wreckage of Old Republic cruisers thrust like stalactites into the crust; he felt the surface shatter as some enormous, invisible fist compressed the atmosphere and all lifeforms. He heard the blast splintering across four millennia. He sensed the reverberations of a voiceless cry, the sonic boom of a battlefield when both sides were destroyed at once.

The power released by mass death was intoxicating. Luke buckled, swayed, steadied. The black stone felt cool beneath his palm.

‘I destroyed this planet.’ The Exile sounded meditative but not calm, far from it. Her unhurried monotone was the death of all hope. ‘As General, I gave the order. I crushed our own troops and enemies in the vortex of the Mass Shadow Generator. Here I remain with their corpses—as caretaker.’

‘What was your name?’ he asked her.

‘It is gone,’ she answered. ‘I have forgotten it. I cannot affect the future. I cannot change the past.’ She was so unnaturally still that Luke (seeing her not through his eyes, but with some inhuman sense) knew she was no Force ghost. She was a rift in space where there had once been a person. ‘I will never become one with the Force. All I can do is mourn.’

‘Let me help you,’ Luke pleaded.

‘You cannot,’ replied the Exile. ‘You cannot even help yourself.’

Luke would not have kept breathing if it’d been up to him. His heart would not have pumped blood if he’d had control over the thing. He felt his companion’s wan presence stretch and shiver in relief as he absorbed her pain: thousands upon thousands of mortal deaths, four thousand years of immortal suffering. An echo. A convulsing scream. An explosion trapped in place.

And at last he looked into the terrible abyss of her eyes.

‘I am what you will become,’ she said.

And the crust beneath them gave way. Luke fell for an aeon, or a heartbeat. The Force moved to wrap around him, pulling the thread of great distance into a tight little stitch; and stone crackled like burning wood when he so much as looked at it. Pinpricks of light pierced the ashy ground above him. To Luke, it was as thin as flimsiplast.

He raised a hand. Columns as wide as AT-ATs shifted out of his way. It was easy—like moving lava. Softening stone. Dust motes trembled in the dim light, fragments and crumbs of the millions who’d once breathed this air.

‘Where are you?’ he asked the empty cavern.

Nobody answered, which was fair enough, because Luke didn’t know who he was looking for. His ghosts had left him and joined with the Force. They were finally at peace—Yoda, Anakin, Ben—and they were infinitesimal drops in an infinite ocean and they had said goodbye and they were gone and now there was only Luke. Alive.

He wanted to die.

---

Din woke from a vague and troubled sleep, his arms folded over his chestplate. You have to stop sleeping like a dad, Luke said, laughing, and against his will Din twisted round to glance behind him; the voice in his head had sounded so real.

His vision had gone completely grey. Din fought against his nightmare-heavy brain, blinking furiously until the cockpit’s windows came into focus. Before him, the planet Malachor loomed large enough to block out all other sights. Its grey mass had confused his eyes.

Din grabbed the controls. Static danced along his glove; he withdrew his hand, shook it out, took hold of the joystick again. His fingers felt leaden. ‘Dank farrik,’ said Din, mostly to hear the sound of his own voice. ‘We could’ve crashed if I hadn’t woken up.’

He wasn’t sure why he had said we. Grogu was safe at home with Paz and the other Mandos, and Din had never been a man who talked to his ship. He hadn’t been a man who talked much at all until… until Grogu, and everybody else he’d met and loved, and Luke.

Din dragged his powers of concentration back together, like reassembling a collection of frayed threads. He set the Kuiitaylir safely on its descent path. The planet’s atmosphere was cloudless—dark and clear, somehow dormant—and he saw no sign of the lightning storms from Mandalorian tall tales. Din spared a second to mourn the Razor Crest, his beloved hulk of garbage, which malfunctioned whenever a strong wind looked at it sideways. He was almost grateful it had never met Luke, because Luke would’ve called it ugly and then Din would’ve had to fight him on the spot.

Perhaps Din had more in common with Han than he’d thought.

He circled the wastes below him, looking for distinctive geographical markers. There were very, very few. Dreary stone slopes, low hills, a crater rimmed with dark spires. It was at the edge of this crater that Din chose to land his ship.

He stood warily on the landing ramp, his heads-up display showing no lifeforms in the vicinity. He’d tended to his scrapes and small cuts on the ride over, spraying bacta onto the shallow spear-wound on the inside of his left knee, keeping his hands and mind busy. Efficient. Productive. You got stabbed? he heard Luke say, those expressive eyes going wide with outrage, and responded: Lightly stabbed!

Din shook himself. This planet was getting to him. He’d spent enough rotations on Tatooine to know that barren landscapes, be they dunes or dust, tempted the mind to play tricks. You imagined voices purely to break the monotony. You saw illusions because no being could cope with this degree of loneliness; all you had to do was glance away and back again. He just had to regain his focus. It was simple. It was survival. And Din, like all Mandalorians, was a survivor.

Tracking a quarry was very easy when the rest of the world lay dead. He didn’t take long to pick up Luke’s trail. This expanse of ash had settled for so long that the slightest motion disturbed it. Din felt no breeze. The still air was unbearably bleak. He stooped to sift the ground’s topmost layer through gloved fingers, wondered briefly how much ash he was inhaling, and kicked dust over his own tracks before he continued. Just to be safe.

He found the crashed X-wing after an hour or so. Luke, ace pilot of the Rebellion, had buried it nose-first into the ground; its wings had already gathered a fine layer of dust. Din swept his palm through the coating immediately, wiping clean streaks down the hull and hatch. He refused to let Luke’s ship become a relic.

A cursory investigation confirmed that the hyperdrive was still operational. Din logged the location’s coordinates on his vambrace, setting his teeth against a sudden wave of unease. He didn’t worry about repositioning the X-wing. When they returned, Luke could use the Force to pull it out of the ground. Why hadn’t he done so already?

Surveying the wasteland around him, Din thanked all the stars in the universe that he wasn’t Force-sensitive. He could guess how heavily this silence weighed on someone alone and vulnerable; someone who had difficulty asking for help; someone who believed their friends would only be burdened by them.

‘Oh, Luke,’ Din said aloud. ‘Why the pfassk didn’t you bring your droid?’

---

In the cave system, Luke found himself trapped. Artoo could have scanned for exits if he’d been here, but Artoo hadn’t been able to come. Leia was fighting her own battles alone on Coruscant, and Luke could not rob her of her most trusted helper. A Jedi should—should—have been able to cope without a little astromech, no matter how beloved, who was more urgently needed to carry classified Senate proposals.

Alone, Luke struggled to his hands and knees. Malachor had been a place of worship once. The ruins of the subterranean Sith temple forced stinging moisture to his eyes. It’d been blown up not so very long ago, in the grand scheme of millennia, and massive chunks of debris still glittered red-gold. The scent of hatred was overpowering. The contorted bodies of devotees knelt like statues beside Luke. In the temple’s doomed cremains, he locked his hands behind his nape and bent his head and keened.

When he came back to himself, he was shaking so hard he could barely see. Fingernails scrabbled in the dust, a madman’s—his own. Oh. He tasted blood. There was froth gathering on his lips. Luke buried his face in his hands. All this did was smear grime and ash across his cheeks, anointing them with the powdered dead.

‘Get up,’ said the Force. ‘Get up, get up, get up.’

Its tiny human vessel tottered upright. What a small, insignificant being. Hardly the size of a planet.

‘Climb the steps. Find the holocron.’

The Sith holocron. Mission. Knowledge. Oh, right.

Discarded lightsaber hilts littered the stairs leading to the temple obelisk. Jump, whispered the Force, and its human jumped. Pillars—big—moved out of its way. Dead Force-users below, below, below, below. Don’t touch their lightsabers. Don’t look at them.

The obelisk had been shattered by some past explosion. The small dais stood empty. There was no holocron. Someone else had taken it from the Sith, years and years ago.

Without the holocron… no key, no way to open doors, no path to the surface, no escape.

The Force said in an endless animal wail: ‘No, no, no, no, no, no…’

---

A series of massive basalt columns marked the planet’s central latitude. Din scanned them idly from above, wondering whether Malachor had once been a volcanic world. His thermal scans showed no unusual activity. Yet something about the flat, overhanging tops stirred a feeling of primal unease. The sides of each pillar were too curved, the base far too narrow; he couldn’t determine how the monoliths stayed upright. They should not have been able to balance. He wasn’t sure if they had ever borne sculptures—perhaps bizarre stone giants, as huge and disorienting as their plinths.

Din landed beside one of the pillars and powered down his jetpack. The inscription on the Din-facing side was as pristine as if it’d been carved yesterday. He passed a hand over the old writing, glancing at it without much interest or comprehension. He was looking for traces of movement, and he found none.

At his touch, the faintest hint of a breeze skittered across the column’s surface. Din stepped back instantly, hand going to his blaster. Seconds later he abandoned the thought; anything stirring on this blasted planet wasn’t the sort of enemy he could shoot. Din might not know much about the Jedi, but he wasn’t stupid. In any case, he didn’t need Force sensitivity to know that something—someone had just appeared behind him.

Phantom or not, they were a fool to think they could sneak up on a bounty hunter. Din did not believe in ghosts. He did not disbelieve, either. He believed in the manda, and he trusted the Jedi’s mystical powers as much as he trusted his own child. If he’d been asked, he would’ve said that he considered hauntings a mixture of imagination and genuine spiritual power. But no one had ever asked Din for his opinion.

With no defences save for his wits and his singular purpose, Din turned fearlessly to meet the newcomer. Behind him was a presence: a short, unimposing figure cloaked in coal-black. The two of them faced each other with calm regard. Neither reached for a weapon.

The stranger’s body language did not seem hostile. Their mask was Mandalorian in style, although very archaic, and their loose robe concealed all gendered characteristics. For this reason, Din trusted them without logic.

‘Can you speak?’ he asked them.

They remained silent. Makes no difference, Din thought. He wouldn’t have been able to understand a dialect four thousand years old. He twisted around as the revenant circled him. Their hood rippled in unseen wind, and through the mask’s thin strip of a visor, Din felt an unbearably powerful gaze.

‘I’m looking for a Jedi,’ he told the dead sorcerer. ‘Have you seen one recently?’

Anticipation pricked at his sternum. A near-inaudible rumbling betrayed the ground’s weakness, and Din realised all of a sudden that this planet’s crust was hollow. He reacted without thinking. When the surface split open at his feet, Din let himself fall, launching a grappling hook at newly exposed underground columns to anchor his weight. His companion slid down the collapsing shaft beside him—lithe, utterly noiseless—and landed in a predatory flourish at the bottom.

Together, they both looked up. The surface of Malachor had opened like an eggshell, and let Din into its bottomless depths. He thought the masked revenant might’ve had something to do with that. He guessed that he was being guided.

So Din did what he had always done when inexplicable things happened to him: he rolled with it.

With his helmet’s enhanced vision, he could make out the dim shapes of tunnels eroded into the rock. Experimentally, Din took a step towards one entrance, and stopped when the revenant made a sudden abortive motion.

Din met their blistering gaze head-on. ‘Well, show me.’

He followed the figure into a different, wider passage which sloped gently downwards. Clear-headed and secure in his armour, Din felt no prickling fear. His equipment was working and his faith was unshakable. On a world so saturated with magic that even Din, ordinary and sensible, saw visions—why, then, he had a better grasp of what Luke went through every day.

He did not know how long they travelled in silence. Often the path was blocked by red doors cast from some unknown metal, which Din’s companion cut down with a contemptuous slash. Din couldn’t tell whether their feet touched the ground as they walked. In the tempered elegance of their strides, in the precision which surpassed even Luke’s, he caught traces of a cool and forceful personality.

The final door collapsed in three pieces. The revenant led Din into the largest chamber he’d seen so far—well-lit, pillared like a Naboo throne room, home to a destroyed temple complex. The stone pyramid before them had split down the middle into clean, smooth-edged halves, geometrically and unnaturally perfect. Despite himself, Din shuddered.

His companion spread their graceful arms, welcoming Din to the ruins; and as they whirled to face him, Din noticed two lightsabers, dull red and violet. He flinched away instinctively. Yet he needn’t have worried. Both spectral blades vanished, and the gloved fist which had clenched with such strength came open.

In the hand of the ancient presence lay a ceremonial war mask.

It was far too large to have been hidden in that fist all along. Like a bad smell, like the earthquake earlier, his phantom friend had manifested it. A faint, alien light made the thing gleam dull gold. Dust motes hung suspended in the air around it. It seemed as stagnant and malodorous as the rest of this place. Bone comprised most of the mask’s structure—mythosaur bone, Din realised with a sudden chill. Crusader emblems sat just above the brow, making revulsion heat his stomach.

He was looking directly at a relic of the Taungs.

The revenant stirred, and offered it to him insistently. They perceived that he was Mandalorian. They did not know the Darksaber; theirs was a symbol of leadership far, far older.

‘I am no longer Mand’alor,’ he explained. He wasn’t sure they understood.

The Mask of Mand’alor the First shared the shape of Din’s visor. He could not touch it, just as he would not have dared to touch the stranger before him. He was half-convinced that any wearer would feel the bone fuse with their own features. Nominally it belonged to Din’s culture, but its age was so far removed from his own that it was foreign to him. The sight strangely repelled Din: the conquest-hunger, the war-glory that it symbolised. He had been Mand’alor of a different people, living in a very different time.

His guide twitched impatiently when Din made no move to respond. Something imperceptible shifted then, in the stale air between them, and the vision changed. Now a massive Taung warrior lay slain at the revenant’s feet. Innumerable knights stood in neat ranks behind them. His companion holstered their lightsabers with an unmistakable swagger, as if to say: Look at all the beings I convinced to follow me.

‘No, thank you,’ said Din. ‘Where can I find my Jedi? None of these are mine.’

His guide seemed bewildered, but pointed downwards. Far from the broken stairs of the temple, a winding passage led away down a soft incline. It certainly hadn’t been there when Din had entered the cave a moment ago. Touching his helmet, Din ran a quick scan of the area; he could see at least two exits. Both clear.

With swift steps Din crossed the chamber towards the passage’s entrance, then paused. He glanced back at the unknown sorcerer—slight of frame compared to the giant Taungs, masked from head to toe, mute and yet somehow magnetic.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Din told them. He did not know who this being was and likely never would. Still, Din had been raised to be polite.

---

Luke ducked between black columns that glimmered with an oily sheen. Despite everything, this world was beautiful. All life came from the Force and all death returned to it. There was no rot in the tunnels’ stable, perfect air, and even the murmurs kept him company.

Keep moving, hissed the Force. Look for a way out. Have no fear. Feel no pain.

Insofar as the Force had wants, the Force didn’t want its human to die. It wasn’t too fussed about averting that, though. A life, a death, what difference did it make to the cosmos? Force ghosts served just as well.

Up ahead, a chasm in the oily stone narrowed to a ribbon, then a thread. The Force vaulted over the remaining gap easily. Its palms were shredded from some earlier obstacle, and with the whisper of a zipper closing, the flesh sewed itself back together. Blood speckled the cavern floor, lit by mineral deposits along both walls and ceiling. Crouched in the cavity of a glittering rock formation, the Force pressed its body to the crystalline surface and listened for echoes.

There was one.

Luke’s lightsaber switched on before he was conscious of touching it. Plasma steamed the pristine air. Behind the blade’s green mist stood a tall woman, her short hair slick with grease, her yellow irises dramatically highlighted by dark bags under her eyes.

‘Look at this,’ said the phantom. She carried a sleek black helmet under one arm, like a decapitated person cradling their own head. ‘A lightsaber! Outstanding.’

Luke thrust her backwards. He dropped to the ground and slid away from her, down a tunnel almost too narrow to fit his body; he didn’t hear her come after him. Yet when he spun around in the next cave’s total blackness, all his senses tingling with danger, the figure was waiting for him.

‘You’ll never make it out of this place alive!’

He crossed blades with her. Her red lightsaber was double-bladed, lethal, and he ducked and jumped to evade its heavy swings. As Luke retreated further into the cave, mineral-crusted skeletons crunched beneath his heels. He was treading on the last traces of the dead. Stamping them out.

Where are your Padawans, Jedi? one of them whispered. Did you leave them behind like all the others?

When a skull splintered under his boot Luke nearly screamed. He shoved the poor, broken thing out of his destructive path, gasping, ‘I’m sorry.’

In his distraction, his opponent lashed out at him relentlessly, forcing him down a steep incline. ‘Their new master harbours great darkness,’ she agreed. Her voice was deep and mesmerising. ‘How long before he cracks and betrays them too?’

‘I won’t… I won’t,’ said Luke frantically.

Those foolish parents, cackled a torso petrified to the wall. Trusting him with their children. Believing his lies about rebuilding the Jedi Order.

‘Granting him access to a legion of impressionable students.’

‘I wouldn’t ever—’

As she lunged, Luke dropped his lightsaber. ‘Your pride has cost you the lives of all the Force-sensitive children in the galaxy!’

What’s next? Murdering a nephew in his sleep? Slaughtering innocents, like your father before you?

Unarmed and breathless, Luke extended his hand towards his opponent. ‘I sense great pain in you,’ he told her, only half-aware of what he was saying. Most of his concentration went to blocking out the ghastly whispers. ‘Let me help you. It’s not too late to let it go.’

‘Let go?’ she snarled. ‘I’m stronger now because of the pain!’

The venom in her voice seemed to affect their surroundings, for the rocks beneath him parted with a horrific crack. Luke summoned his lightsaber to his hand and fell, rolling over and over again till he came to a sudden halt. Enormous piles of cooled magma hedged him in, bricking him into the bottom of a tapering passage. He thought he heard the splashes of an underground lake. With his head full of screaming, Luke struggled to his feet.

Millions of years ago, a river had flowed down these subterranean routes; he’d skidded into one of its smaller basins, bursting into the dried-up chamber like water forced through a pinhole. His opponent could not cut through solid rock. Luke rested his forehead against the natural barrier, catching his breath. He was in no shape to duel. He could glimpse her hook-nosed profile as she stalked back and forth, her lightsaber humming in her gloved hand. She wasn’t a Force ghost. She wasn’t a living being. She was… a manifestation of raw suffering, summoned or created by Luke’s accursed presence in this place.

‘What’s your name?’ he called out to her. When that got no response, he tried: ‘Who was your master?’

The scoff that question produced was bitter enough to scorch glass. ‘She was weak. Cracked in an Imperial torture chair.’ Luke slid along the misshapen wall, grasping blindly for purchase. Through a gap in the rock formations, he could look straight into those incandescent eyes. ‘Surrendered the location of her naïve Padawan. They would never have found me if it wasn’t for her.’

‘Trilla Suduri?’ Luke said in slow recognition. The shadowed face went still. ‘I know you, Trilla. Your master Cere told me about you before she passed. You let go of your hate at the end, didn’t you? You returned to yourself. You’re not really here. You’re one with the Force. This is a poor imitation of you, spouting recycled lines.’

The spectre gave a rancor-like howl and disappeared.

Panting, Luke slid to the floor and holstered his lightsaber. He knew very clearly, now, that he was not well. But he was alive—and he remembered who he was.

As if you deserve to live, said a head and arms embedded in the wall beside him.

Too worn out to argue, Luke just nodded.

You should have died years ago.

‘Kriff, tell me about it,’ said Luke lightly, though with feeling.

And how many more will die because of you? You are the greatest danger to your own students. They would be in far less peril if you died.

Luke let his head rest against the bare rock, pathetically grateful for companionship. He was at the point where he regarded any ghostly voice as friendly.

‘Ben?’ he called without hope, cringing at the thin high sound of his own voice. ‘Master Yoda?’ And finally, in desperation, ‘Father, please.’

Of course, they were long gone. They could not hear him; an ocean didn’t have ears. Only insensate bliss. And Luke resented them, was furious at them, for dissolving into prehistoric waters and leaving him to carry their weight. He envied them bitterly for being dead.

Wouldn’t it be nice to join them?

This wasn’t a safe place to meditate. The most it would do was transform Luke into a portal for more darkness.

Use that lightsaber on yourself, crooned his half-formed friend, confirming Luke’s hypothesis. You’ve wanted to do that for a long time.

Exhausted beyond words, Luke gave the thing an unimpressed look. He understood precisely what was happening here. Malachor’s grimmest spectres could not convince Luke that his compassion was weakness, so they were trying to turn him against himself. A solid tactic. It was working.

At least he wasn’t alone. He closed his eyes, then opened them reluctantly. With his vision adjusting to the lack of light, Luke realised that the cavern was pillared with corpses. Not all of them had been petrified. Some remained recognisable enough for him to see how they’d died: burned, bisected, blasted. He could not tell whether they were tangible or spectral bodies. It made no difference anymore.

If you weren’t weak you’d have acted long ago. Have you even planned your death?

‘Of course I’ve made plans.’

‘And you couldn’t even carry out one of them,’ sighed a charred figure prone on the cavern floor. The voice was real—Luke heard it with his ears—and horribly, unmistakably familiar.

Against every rational thought shouting at him not to look, Luke got to his feet. He crossed the lumpy floor where organic matter had fused with rock, bent down, and gazed with sick certainty into the face of the corpse. Yes, it was his Uncle Owen.

Luke reached for his lightsaber. He didn’t know why, but he did it. And he knew his Aunt Beru was behind him, he felt her sulphuric breath on his neck, he could not look at her burned-off features, he could not spoil the memory of her last smile, and Luke ran—ran like a frightened child—as her wild shriek of ‘Coward!’ echoed forever and forever and forever.

‘It’s not you, it’s not you,’ he sobbed. ‘It’s an illusion. The real you is gone. You’re at peace. I miss you.’

He didn’t care—he had to see them both one last time. He had to. Luke turned around to look.

Then Biggs Darklighter walked directly through him, and Luke sat down very, very hard on the jagged floor.

TURN ON THE LIGHTSABER, roared a triple-fused carcass hanging from the ceiling. TURN THE LIGHTSABER ON YOURSELF.

He turned it on.

---

Din activated a glowrod, lighting his path as the passage narrowed and then widened again. His display showed him everything there was to find—scooped-out cavities, erosion through natural or unnatural means, a complete lack of lifeforms. Surprisingly, he was not afraid. He wasn’t even anxious. Every step of Din’s journey had led him to this moment.

All the same, Din bit back a startled cry when something pale and distorted flung itself against his visor. He blasted it with fire on pure instinct, stopping when he remembered he should save his fuel. He’d detonate his grenades if he had to. By the light of his glowrod, the white, wrinkled shape resolved into a distinctly humanoid form, standing plain as day in Din’s path.

Din felt for his blaster. ‘Have you seen a Jedi come in here?’

‘Fulfil your destiny, young one,’ hissed the hooded figure, not answering his question. ‘How would you like… unlimited power?’

‘No, thanks.’ Din attempted to squeeze past them. Static stung his whole left side when he made contact, and he jumped back. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Then you will pay the price for your lack of vision.’ The ghoul’s voice was a sinister drone. Din despised them instantly. ‘Your whole life has been meaningless. Your death will be meaningless too.’ Within the shadowy hood, their eyes looked sickly yellow. ‘You will be destroyed, and so will your friends.’

Din’s contempt only grew. ‘Am I supposed to recognise you?’

‘I,’ said the ghoul with some wounded dignity, ‘am the Emperor of the Universe.’

‘Sounds fake, but okay.’ Bracing himself for the shock, Din clenched his jaw and then shoved his whole body through the sputtering form. It hurt all over; it was like being struck by lightning; still Din staggered free, clutching his sides, and found himself tumbling into a blessedly wide chamber.

He had his grappling hooks, and he had plenty of whipcord. He was agile despite the weight of his beskar. He didn’t need to worry about meeting dead ends; he just ignited his flamethrower and noted the direction of airflow. Once he caught up to Luke, all they had to do was get out of here. A Mandalorian and a Jedi were unstoppable.

‘Wait!’ the foul thing cried after him. ‘You are a nobody. You are nothing. I can make you more—’

‘Look, your Highness,’ said Din without stopping, ‘fuck off. I know who I am.’

---

Luke—on his feet, swaying, near-catatonic—was soothed by the undying ripples of the Force. The Force knew him, passed through him. It had always been with him. It always would be.

‘It will be okay,’ his mouth said. ‘It will be just like living.’

He was at peace.

In the darkness, corpses chattered and hummed. He let their company be a comfort to him. After all, his own phantoms were gone for good; even when he died, he would not be in their presence. He would never, ever see them again.

Let go, coaxed the Force. Its waves and tides were a balm, a kindness. Let go, let go, let go.

‘It won’t hurt,’ said Luke, who had sustained enormous bodily pain in the Emperor’s Tower and thought everything after that was minor.

Courage, murmured his bloodless friends. Courage, dear one.

But Luke had never lacked courage. Momentarily confused, he opened his eyes. The glow of his lightsaber blurred his vision with faint smoke.

Everyone will be happier once you’re dead.

‘What?’ said Luke. The chittering stopped at once. ‘No… That’s not true.’ He wavered and righted himself, and he felt the weight of the hilt in his hand. ‘You don’t know that. You don’t know me at all.’

Above him, the rocks began to shift. He heard an ominous rumble, and then a crack. Dust spilled downwards, freshly ground and new, caking Luke’s hair and forehead.

‘Why would you say that? Din loves me. And Leia, Han, Chewie, Threepio, Artoo, Lando, Mara… Grogu needs me, how could I leave him? And Tionne and Madurrin and all the young ones who look to me for guidance? Of course they wouldn’t rejoice at my death. I’ve saved their lives before, and they’ve saved mine.’

Ghosts could not cope with resistance. The dead had fallen silent. Luke deactivated his lightsaber, teetering as he caught his balance; and with a single motion, with a thought, he reached up and held the collapsing roof in place. Just as Mara had instructed him, just as she’d wanted him to learn, Luke pulled himself out.

‘There are people who’d grieve for me,’ he said. ‘There are people who’d want me to live. You’re all talk. You can’t do anything to hurt me. You almost had me, I’ll admit… You failed the minute you mentioned my friends. Your malice is long dead. But I’m not, and I know I’m alive because I am loved.’

The columns of the cavern gave way. Luke made a wild leap for the nearest spar of solid rock, Force-agility buoying him to inhuman heights. He landed securely on one disintegrating cliff, then another. Now that Luke was no longer seduced by death, the rocks had ceased to melt beneath his fingertips. Now he wanted to get out, so Malachor was trying to bury him alive in its depths.

He reached out in blind faith. He felt the tender gaps in porous stone, then layers and layers of tight-packed sediment. He sensed pale lances of light puncturing the planet’s crust, and he saw… he saw the way out.

A flare and a muted explosion snapped Luke’s attention back to his surroundings. Shaking his head to clear it, he clung to the cliff’s face. There was a great chasm beneath his body, deep and dark and wide as an open wound; and on the other side of it stood Din Djarin.

Luke’s fingernails were bloodied to the quick. He pressed his forehead against the rough rock, heart’s blood convulsing and pumping in waves. ‘Din!’ he shouted.

‘Luke!’

Din was far beneath him. He’d blasted the way clear with a thermal detonator. Luke saw at once the difficulty Din faced. He could not swing his way to Luke across such a gaping chasm—not with a bounty hunter’s grappling hooks and a length of whipcord designed for fighting, not climbing.

Calm and practical and steady, Din looked up at Luke. ‘Drop towards me,’ he called.

The trust in Din’s voice was heart-wrenching. He believed Luke to be capable of any physical feat, mainly because he didn’t understand how the Force worked.

‘Come on,’ yelled Din when Luke didn’t immediately respond. ‘I’ll catch you with my jetpack!’

On Bespin a long, long time ago, Luke had fallen from Cloud City because he had wanted to die. He fell now because he wanted to live.

---

Din caught Luke—caught and clutched him, desperate, breathless—and launched them both skywards. Luke’s head lolled against Din’s shoulder. Limestone powdered his face so ghastly white that he looked dead, but he was lucid enough to shove falling hunks of rock out of their way; and Din loved him, loved him, loved him.

‘Luke,’ said Din, rendered utterly incoherent. ‘Luke.’

‘Din,’ Luke gasped. His fingernails raked down the crumbling rock with a force that made Din wince. ‘You came.’

Of course I came for you, thought Din. He held Luke as close as he possibly could. He wanted to weld them together—to press Luke heart to heart, mouth to mouth, and assure him that they were forever bound.

‘We’ll go out the way I came. You crashed your X-wing.’

‘What?’ said Luke distantly. Supporting him under the armpits, Din hauled him up just enough to rest their foreheads together. Millennia-old supports buckled and crashed all around them. Din wasn’t afraid. Luke could keep a planet from imploding if the whim struck him, and Din would be there to love him through it.

‘Your X-wing,’ Din shouted over the cries of collapsing stone. ‘Don’t you remember?’

Luke held back the cascading rubble with scarcely a glance. His eyes were blank. ‘The Force crashed the ship.’

Din swore. He pulled Luke right to his chest, staggering under the weight of Luke, and locked his whistling birds onto the blocked shaft before them. With a shudder and a dull boom, the passage cleared. Luke raised a hand and moved the remaining debris out of their way without blinking, his muscled arms taut and strong around Din’s waist, his irises the colour of death.

Din dragged them both to what little remained of the ancient temple, kicking fiercely to free his boots from the tunnel’s narrow mouth. ‘Let’s get out of here, yeah, cyar’ika?’ He shot whipcord at the nearest anchor while passageways crumbled and closed behinnd them. ‘Grogu’s waiting for us at home.’

Crawling forward on his elbows, his fair eyelashes dusted bone-white, Luke was unearthly to behold. The rubble seemed to melt and dissipate around him.

‘Are you sure,’ he said slowly, ‘that you wouldn’t rather leave me here?’

Din cursed a galaxy which had taught Luke to valourise self-sacrifice. Furious and furiously gentle, he grabbed Luke by the forearms and pulled. Luke, bless him, didn’t resist; his expression was remote.

‘After I came all this way?’

Luke shivered violently then, and seemed to come apart at last. He spoke in almost a sob.

‘You could…’ whispered Luke. He reached out to bat a shower of falling pebbles away from Din’s jetpack. This deep underground, projectiles obeyed Luke and the Force, rather than the laws of rudimentary physics. ‘You could leave me here. Save yourself. Tell Grogu—’

‘No,’ hissed Din, heaving Luke up so that they could both stand. ‘You’re coming with me. I’ll not leave you here, I’ve got to save you.’

That line must’ve stirred some old pain—some memory of Luke saying the same words himself, once upon a time—because he was crying in earnest now. Din waited to see if he was going to say anything else, and when he didn’t, Din cradled Luke’s precious head against his shoulder.

‘You’re a person, you’re a real person,’ he soothed. ‘You’re mine. Luke, let’s get out of here. This place isn’t good for you. It’s feeding you lies.’

Luke sniffled, making filthy lines of moisture run from his dust-clogged nose. ‘I’m a wound in the Force.’

‘I really don’t care,’ Din said. ‘You’re my partner and my child’s beloved parent and I’ve come to fetch you home.’

Hand in hand, they stumbled up the widening passage which the revenant had shown Din. Luke held tightly to Din, keeping him safe; pillars bent and bowed when Luke so much as glanced in their direction. It was Luke who said clearly at the end of it all, ‘I can see starlight.’

Din checked his equipment. He had enough slack left in his whipcord to make the final spring to the surface; and Luke, obviously, had the Force.

Nevertheless, Din was nearly forty years old. He knew that he was badly winded from the climb, and Luke wasn’t doing much better. Din put his gloved hands on either side of Luke’s face, watching the dizzy motion of Luke’s pupils. Not to be outdone, Luke reached out automatically and cupped Din’s helmet. The gesture was so sweet that Din closed his eyes, cheeks suddenly feeling wet. He could not ever tell Luke or Grogu how much he loved them both.

‘Luke,’ said Din slowly. ‘Do you want to get married?’

Luke blinked. Dust scattered from his pale lashes. ‘Now?’ He stared at Din for a long second, his dirt-streaked face alight with wonder. ‘You’re serious.’

‘I’m always serious.’ Din tossed a thermal detonator into the opening some distance ahead of them. ‘We just have to say the words. They don’t have to be in Mando’a. I’ll teach you.’

Luke sucked in a trembling breath. Blood seeped from a cut in his lower lip. His pupils were so dilated that the irises looked almost black. ‘I don’t deserve…’

‘No one deserves love,’ Din told him harshly. ‘It’s a gift freely given. The joy’s in the giving.’

Luke made a low, broken sound. The black columns closing in on them split in two, and shattered, and fell harmlessly away. And then, and then—with a feral kind of love shining in his battered and tear-stained face—he answered, ‘Sure.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I am,’ said Luke quietly, fiercely. He wiped his eyes, and then his mouth, on the back of one hand. ‘I’m Luke the last Jedi and I can do what I want.’

They shared the Mandalorian vows without wasting breath. Without glorying in the sound of their own voices. This speech act was simple, intimate. There were no Jedi wedding customs. By the time they reached the surface, clawing their way through dirt and foul-tasting ash into the lifeless air, Din was getting lightheaded. So Luke slung Din’s arm over his shoulders, and half-carried him the rest of the way.

‘Your X-wing,’ Din wheezed. He pressed the edge of his helmet deep into Luke’s neck and basked in its realness. ‘It’s in the opposite direction…’

‘Fuck the X-wing,’ said Luke, making pride burn so hot within Din’s chest that he thought he might burst. ‘Let’s go!’

Both of them were shaking hard from adrenaline and some indescribable emotion. Even though Din could feel the tremors racking Luke’s whole body, Luke helped them get to the Kuiitaylir without stumbling over their own feet. His arm around Din’s waist was solid and sure, and Din leaned guiltlessly upon it, just as Luke had leaned on him earlier.

‘Don’t look back,’ Din began to say, and then was seized by a dust-induced coughing fit. He tucked his face into the crook of Luke’s neck and shoulder. He could have wept with relief, if he’d wanted to. ‘Actually, no. Take a good long look. This is what you’re leaving behind.’

And they pulled each other up the landing ramp to safety.

---

When they returned, Fennec was dozing beside the hangar exit with her boots propped up on a desk. Next to her rifle and a stack of datapads, a holoprojector played old Twi’lek dramas. It was well past Grogu’s bedtime. They’d hoped to sneak home without waking anybody.

Washed and well-cuddled and wrapped in a therma-blanket Din had insisted on giving him, Luke whispered: ‘Stay close. We can get past…’

Not a chance. Fennec’s heavy-lidded eyes sprang open. Din froze, hand on the small of Luke’s back.

‘Looking good, Skywalker,’ Fennec observed with a wry eyebrow raise. She acknowledged Din’s presence with a slight nod, carefully reserved in her welcome—and then, like a traitor, she stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled. ‘Baby girl!’

‘I told you to stop calling me that,’ groused Bo-Katan, stomping out of a nearby security booth. The artificial lights made her wince and blink hard. Behind her, Koska shuffled into view, rubbing her eyes and mumbling to herself. They were both in pajama trousers. The Darksaber sat in its holster on Bo-Katan’s ever-present utility belt, as though it’d been made to hang there. Koska had her hair in clingsilk wrappers for bed.

Din braced himself as the Mand’alor laid eyes on him, and all her sleep-grumpiness melted away into something far more aggressive.

‘You!’ she bellowed. ‘You’re in big trouble.’

‘I can’t be in trouble, I’m no longer the Mand’alor,’ Din said comfortably. He felt Luke slip an arm around his waist.

‘That’s… That’s not how it works,’ Bo-Katan spluttered. ‘And you!’ She whirled on Luke, who smiled back at her drowsily. ‘Oh, whatever. I’ve had enough of Jedi.’

‘We are a troublesome bunch,’ Luke admitted.

‘Do you have any idea of the shitshow you caused? How bad would it have looked if my first act as Mand’alor was letting my predecessor get killed?’ Bo-Katan flung out her hands. ‘I’ve already been accused of three assassinations in my lifetime. For one of them, I wasn’t even there!’

‘Still self-absorbed,’ replied Din, ‘good to know you’re consistent.’

Luke snickered behind his hand. Koska was staring at Luke, stunned; she touched his shoulder as though she needed to make sure he was solid.

‘You went to Malachor.’ Her dark eyes were round and serious. ‘You’re alive… You came back.’

A few more Mandalorians had begun emerging from the darkened mess hall: Temeri, Axe, Ruusaan yawning and hugging a hot-water bottle. Bo-Katan snapped, ‘You should not be up this late,’ and was blithely ignored.

‘The stories aren’t true,’ Din reassured Koska. ‘There were no storm beasts. The gravity seemed normal. It wasn’t a big deal.’

Koska gave a helpless little wail.

‘Did he just say,’ began Axe, while Din experienced a sensation of creeping dread, ‘that he survived the site of Ani’la Akaan and it wasn’t that hard?’

‘No, you don’t…’ said Din, increasingly distressed as it dawned on him what they all thought. ‘I landed my ship and…’

‘I heard he killed a krayt dragon too,’ Temeri whispered.

Ruusaan’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Did he?’

Din turned to correct them. ‘That wasn’t a big deal either! Axe, what have you been telling them?’

‘Not much,’ said Axe, looking guilty.

‘It wasn’t—stop looking at me like that—I just let it eat me and then burned my way out—’

‘Sweetheart?’ Luke murmured then, rubbing a soothing hand all along Din’s side. ‘Stop talking.’

Din looked at him in gratitude and leaned his weight on Luke’s shoulder.

‘Excuse me,’ Luke said, although his placid tone couldn’t mask the amusement in his eyes. ‘Thank you for being here when we got back, but you didn’t have to. We need to go now.’

Din bent his helmet towards Luke. ‘Should we wake up Grogu to tell him we’re husbands?’

‘Nah, it can wait till morning.’

‘Sorry, what?’ asked Bo-Katan from beside Fennec’s stolen desk. ‘You’re what now?’

Fennec, who had resumed watching her Twi’lek holodramas on mute with subtitles on, gave Bo-Katan a long, assessing look.

Din said gruffly, ‘Got married on Malachor.’

Bo-Katan poked her aquiline nose over Fennec’s shoulder, and Fennec pushed her face out of the way without taking her eyes off the holoprojector. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Got married on Malachor,’ Luke echoed.

Bo-Katan closed her eyes, then shook her head like she thought she was dreaming. ‘You went into the ancient wastes of the Mandalorian-Jedi wars, to the heart of a system glutted with death, and survived… You escaped…’

‘And rescued my husband.’

‘Rescued your…’ Bo-Katan pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘You got married.’

‘On Malachor,’ Luke agreed.

‘You got married on Malachor.’

‘Why do you keep saying those words?’ Fennec asked, clicking onto the holodrama’s next episode.

Bo-Katan spun on her heel and grabbed her lover’s elbow. ‘They… He…’ She pointed at Luke, then at Din. ‘He…’

‘Take your time.’

Bo-Katan’s hands had begun to flap. ‘He went! To Malachor! And came back! Got himself a husband! On Malachor!’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Fennec, patient and uncomprehending. ‘Is that not normal?’

‘Come on,’ Luke whispered. With a gentle hand on Koska’s forearm, he slid past the Mandalorians and touched the hangar doors’ control pad. And Din followed Luke as he’d always done: blissful, comforted, utterly content.

‘And the Mand’alor needs to—’ Axe cut himself off when he noticed them leaving. ‘Seriously, Djarin? Are you already out the door? Wait, there’s a transition process…’

‘I can’t hear you,’ Din said. ‘I’m going to go fuck my husband.’

---

Four months later, the Armourer poured blue milk very carefully into three glasses and handed them out. ‘Baba, buir, and baby,’ she explained with as much care as she showed her own metalworking. The seriousness in her level voice made Din grow warm and hold his glass tighter.

Grogu held up two sweet-sand cookies and screeched.

‘You dunk them in the milk,’ Din told him. ‘Like that, see? Slowly, not both at the same time… No…’

‘Cook your own meals,’ roared Han, chasing Lando out of the long kitchen with a spatula. A pot of root tea sat simmering on the wood stove beside him. The newly built vheh’yaim on Lothal was surrounded by spine trees, old seeds re-planted and coaxed into flourishing after the end of Imperial rule. In the chill of young winter, snow still sat lightly on their branches and cones. With Mandalorians pestering them at every step, the Jedi refugees had picked and preserved jogan blossoms before the last ones withered. Dried flowers released their scents, now, amidst the herbs and ghoba rice hanging in the kitchen doorway.

Lando cooed something near-inaudible, his hands spread in slick diplomacy, and then stepped neatly out of Han’s range.

‘Because I don’t like mounder potato rice! If you want it, you’ll have to cook it yourself!’

‘I’m busy,’ said Luke, wiping milk off his upper lip, before Han could even try roping him into the evening meal’s preparations. ‘You should put an apron on, by the way. Your shirt’s getting dirty.’

‘He has twenty identical shirts to spare,’ Din pointed out.

‘Grogu?’

Luke put out a hand to quell Grogu’s answering squeak. ‘Do not bring our toddler into the kitchen!’

‘Unbelievable,’ Han muttered, and ducked into the pantry where Paz was chopping onions with a hand-axe. ‘Don’t need your help. I’m better at peeling potatoes than Din, anyway.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m faster on the draw,’ Din said easily. Han inflated. Din held up a warning finger. Han deflated.

‘I think I hear your Mandalorians fighting.’ Luke drained his own glass, then stopped Grogu from knocking the milk over. ‘Do you want to get involved?’

‘No,’ replied Din and the Armourer at the same time. Luke shrugged, smiled, and gave Grogu his finger to play with. Grogu tugged restlessly at Luke’s hand, though, meaning that he needed the toilet; so Luke helped him out of his high chair and followed Grogu to the freshers, while Din continued knitting Grogu’s ear hats.

On her way back from the freshers, Leia paused to drop a kiss on Din’s helmet. ‘What do you mean by ear hats?’

‘Hats for ears.’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the explanation.’

‘Mind how you speak to me, lad,’ somebody bawled from the other room. Leia quickened her pace, zooming straight towards the source of the conflict. Din added another stitch to his knitting.

With a harried air, Bo-Katan came into the hallway just as Leia was exiting. Briefly and amicably, the two women grasped each other’s forearms in a soldier’s handshake; then Bo-Katan came over to see what Din was up to. She stood in silence for a bit, cleared her throat, and regarded his work with a look of blank incomprehension. ‘What is that supposed to be?’

Din didn’t glance up. ‘His ears get cold.’

Bo-Katan very obviously decided not to pursue this line of questioning. ‘Leia…’ She caught herself, although not fast enough to escape Din’s notice. ‘Senator Organa and I are beginning the delicate work of negotiating Republic-Mandalorian relations.’

‘Not my problem,’ said Din. He had never been happier. ‘Tea?’

‘No, thanks. Anyway, Mandalore needs a foreign minister—’

‘Nope.’ Din was on the prowl for new jobs, to be sure, and Luke was starting a vegetable garden. They both were busy. They both had standards.

Bo-Katan rolled her eyes. ‘Ambassador, then.’

‘That’s the same job with fewer benefits.’

‘It’s… You know what, I’m not going to argue.’ She massaged her temples. ‘Look, sometimes I need contacts in the Outer Rim that I trust. Access to networks that I’ve… burned bridges with, sorry to say.’

Din said tranquilly, ‘I’m not going to ask Boba Fett to acknowledge you as Mand’alor.’

Fennec strode out of the other room, a smirk playing on her lips as raised voices drifted after her. Din lifted a hand in greeting. ‘I might be able to mediate between you,’ he admitted, smiling unseen when Fennec shot him a knowing look, ‘but I think it’s funnier this way.’

Bo-Katan ignored him with gritted teeth. ‘I may occasionally need to ask for a favour,’ she warned. ‘No commitments. No long-term responsibility. You won’t be held accountable for anything I ask you to do. How does that sound?’

‘Sure, but I won’t engage in corporate espionage.’

‘Dank farrik. You got me.’ She sighed. ‘You annoy me intensely, do you know that?’

‘Can’t imagine why.’

‘I resent your morals and your in-built banthashit detector.’

‘If you haven’t gotten used to them by now, I don’t know what to say to you.’

They parted as Fennec slid an arm around Bo-Katan’s hips, coaxing her back into the fray. From the hall behind him, Din heard Leia’s voice raised in exasperation. There was the crash of a datapad hitting the floor, and then Koska reeled into the room with a rolled-up flimsiplast map of the Mandalore sector. Rex stomped after her, still arguing his case.

‘Mind the vase,’ Din said mildly as Rex punched Bo-Katan square in the face. A shriek of outrage accompanied this latest political development.

Koska slid behind a cupboard and then into the open corridor, gracefully dodging furious feet. ‘Sorry, Din!’ she panted. ‘Should we take it outside?’

‘I think I’ve never been more at peace.’ He glanced back at Fennec. ‘You good? That’s your partner getting shoved around…’

Serenely, Fennec nodded. ‘Her incoherent screeching calms me.’

Koska and Din exchanged baffled glances.

Later, Mara and Chewie came home with several bags of fresh cocoa and a dozen trashy holomags. The Armourer took the rest of their groceries from them, inclining her head in thanks; Artoo zipped back and forth and beeped at the Armourer until she allowed him to watch her unpacking. As Mara put on a pan of cocoa for the younglings and Leia began taking down mugs, Bo-Katan joined them both in the kitchen. Din heard Leia say something too low for him to catch, and Bo-Katan reply: ‘What the fuck are ear hats?’

They shooed the young ones outdoors so that dinner could be plated without a horde of hungry children underfoot, Force-sensitive or not. In the crisp air, spine tree needles smelled sweet even through the wind’s nose-burning chill. Din was happy. Luke chased a couple of small Jedi around the courtyard, shouting, ‘No, you can’t play in the snow until you get your wellies on,’ and nearby one of Bakcin’s daughters was telling her friends a story.

Grogu patted Din’s knee, then clambered into his lap with ease. He was so agile and quick, and his nose was so very cold. Din rubbed the kid’s feet. He caught the tail end of the story, only half-listening to the girl’s light voice: ‘And then the doors slid open, and there he stood. The shining one. Mand’alor the Beloved.’

Din wondered who that was. He’d never heard this story. He scooped Grogu into his arms and carried him outside to play.

Notes:

manda – collective Mandalorian spiritual state of being

All references:
We are a culture, an idea, and you can’t kill ideas. (ch1) – Mand’alor the Destroyer
‘Hello there’ / ‘General Skywalker’ (Luke & Bo-Katan, ch3) – Obi-Wan & Grievous, Revenge of the Sith
the Padmé Amidala school of aggressive negotiation (ch4) – Attack of the Clones
Shara Bey (ch2), Vetine + Jedi Tree (ch3), Sosha Soruna (ch9), Operation Cinder (ch10) – Shattered Empire
Taungs + Dha Werda Verda (ch3), “Gra’tua Cuun” (ch10), Clan Skirata + Kyrimorut (ch13) – Republic Commando
Mindor (ch3, 5, 13) – Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor
‘I have not been granted the rank of master,’ Luke said automatically, so that Anakin’s ghost would stop making faces at him (ch4) + ‘This is outrageous. It’s unfair’ (Leia, ch10) – Anakin, Revenge of the Sith
Scarif (ch5) – Rogue One
Royal circuit (ch5, 8), folkmoot (ch6) – early medieval German kingship, Anglo-Saxon assembly
‘a nice boy I’d send to pick up power converters’ (ch5) – A New Hope
Clan Awaud + Arumorut (ch6), bombing of Malthee (ch13) – Edge of Empire & Age of Rebellion RPG sourcebooks
the xenomorph nest on LV-426 (ch7) – Alien
‘I will be your champion’ (Din, ch8) – Pedro Pascal as Oberyn Martell
‘My name is Din Djarin. I’m here to rescue you.’ (Din, ch8) – Luke, A New Hope
Jaster Mereel + Fenn Shysa (ch8), Tionne + Madurrin (ch9), Lelila (ch10), Dev + Kiro etc. (ch12) – Legends & related material
Amidala Window (ch9) – Princess Leia, Battlefront II
King Tapalo, Queen Apailana, Theed Palace, guarlaras, twirrling, gualama herds, Parnelli Museum of Art, Theed Hangar, royal boathouse, chromium, EasyRide air taxi, Ellié Arcadium, Hall of Perri-Teeka, Solleu River, Bassa Bridge, Queen Jamillia, Queen Yram’s Needle, Turret Room (ch9–14) – prequels & concept art
Cordova + Zeffo + Bogano (ch9), Trilla + Cere (ch15) – Jedi: Fallen Order (Trilla’s lines are direct quotes)
Pounded in the Butt by ___ (ch10) – Chuck Tingle
Name of Sosha Soruna’s wife (ch10) – Clytemnestra, Greek literature
‘Into the fresher, buckaroo!’ (Leia, ch10) – Leia (‘Into the garbage chute, flyboy!’), A New Hope
Leia’s gala headdress (ch10) – French hood (1500s)
‘I am a Mandalorian, like my buir before me’ (Bo-Katan, ch11) – Luke, Return of the Jedi
Vibrospears, sonic gauntlets, energy shields (ch11) – Black Panther
‘I give my allegiance to no one’ (Zanav, ch13) – Boba, The Mandalorian
‘No one’s ever truly gone’ (Luke, ch13), murdering a nephew in his sleep (ch15) – sequels (ugh)
‘Her memory will be a blessing’ (ch13) – adapted from Jewish saying ‘May their memory be a blessing’
‘Whoever saves one life…’ (Din, ch13) – Talmud
how people could do evil for the sake of love (ch14) – Anakin, obviously
‘There is a place in the galaxy […] it feeds on death.’ (Bo-Katan, ch14) – Kreia (paraphrased), KOTOR II
Ahsoka on Malachor, Sith temple, Presence (ch14–15) – Rebels
The Exile, Mass Shadow Generator, Revan, Ani’la Akaan (‘Great Last Battle’) (ch14–15) – KOTOR
‘No. You’re coming with me. I’ll not leave you here, I’ve got to save you.’ (Din to Luke, ch15) – Luke to Vader, Return of the Jedi

Various Mand’alor titles are ordered differently in Mando’a (e.g. KOTOR’s Mand’alor the Preserver = Te Taylir Mand’alor), where they sound more natural than the characters' dialogue here (given in English when they are speaking Mando'a to each other).

Mirad, my made-up name for the Armourer (ch9), means ‘child of wisdom’ in Mando’a.

Chapter 16: Deleted Scenes

‘You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid,’ muttered Bo-Katan.

With exaggerated politeness, Fennec looked up from her holonovel. ‘Sorry, did you say something?’

---

‘You’re being so annoying right now,’ hissed Luke, aligning the controls with more force than strictly necessary. ‘I can’t believe we share genetic material. I hate you.’

Leia put her hands on her hips, seeing that Luke had just thrown down the gauntlet. ‘You didn’t hate me when we kissed on the Falcon.’

Luke slapped the console. ‘Oh, kark me, Leia! Why did you have to bring that up?’

‘I have to remind you what we’ve been through together when you’re being a brat!’

‘I am not a brat! I’m twenty-eight years old!’

‘Well, I’m older than you!’

‘Banthashit, we both know I’m the older twin!’ 

‘They don’t actually know who’s older,’ Han confided. ‘Their mother died when they were born. I’m pretty sure “older twin” is their code for who’s currently in the right.’

By the console, Luke was still shouting—and Leia, who was very short, was standing on tiptoe so she could yell directly into her brother’s face.

‘And you kissed me to get back at Han! Don’t drag me into your lovers’ tiffs!’

‘It doesn’t matter who kissed whom! You kissed back!’

‘I was going through a phase!’

‘Can we focus? Can we focus?’ asked Din repeatedly, to no avail.

‘They’re always like this,’ Han told him. ‘You an only child?’

Din didn’t know how to explain the intricacies of Mandalorian familial relations to a man like Han, so he just nodded.

Han regarded his wife and brother-in-law with an expression of bottomless weariness. ‘Me too.’

---

‘Mandalorians are self-sufficient,’ Bo-Katan announced as snootily as she could manage with a mouthful of mallow, which was impressive. ‘We need nourishment and shelter to keep us alive, no more. Anything beyond that is bourgeois indulgence.’

‘You’re drinking a pumpkin spice foamcaf,’ Luke pointed out.

‘What’s your point?’

---

Luke and Mara conversed quickly, silently, in half-aborted hand gestures and what must have been Force telepathy, and then slid onto barstools on either side of Din. Din wondered whether they thought they were protecting him, but this was so ridiculous he dismissed it at once.

‘Later, if you’re comfortable enough, you might like to show Mara the Darksaber,’ Luke suggested, his mild tone conflicting with the mischievous spark in his eyes. Din briefly contemplated the fact that all three of them carried laser swords and he was the least interested in his. ‘She loves spooky things. Make her tell you about the time she—’

‘I will kill you, Skywalker,’ Mara said amiably. She glanced at Din. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘I’m good, thank you.’

‘Suit yourself.’ She leaned her elbows on the bar. ‘Hot chocolate for Skywalker. Jorgan juice for me.’

‘Coming right up, miss.’

---

He thought he had never seen Mara so happy. She took to subterfuge the way Din took to petting Tusken massiffs. He was surprised she didn’t bounce up and down in excitement.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m her bodyguard,’ Din replied. 

To her credit, Mara kept a straight face. She signed CELINA MARNISS in a flowing script with her non-dominant hand, then craned her neck towards Luke, who called: ‘Owen Biggs!’

DYN JARREN, wrote Din, who was bad at lying under pressure.

Mara huffed out a soft laugh as she took the datapad from him. ‘You’re lucky you’re pretty.’

‘You don’t even know what I look like.’ He didn’t think Luke was the type to kiss and tell.

‘I can tell from your voice.’

---

Din frowned in concern as Mara shucked off her jacket, revealing a tight black tank top tucked into her coarseweave trousers. ‘Do you have a knife in your boot?’

He thought she should stow weapons in her underclothes, too, but didn’t want to be the one to suggest it.

Mara rolled her eyes, untying her ponytail and stuffing the elastic band into her pocket. ‘Relax. I have a whole other skillset.’ She fluffed her hair with her fingers, sniffed her own armpits, and patted her breasts to check if she’d remembered a bra. As Luke trotted into the room with a pair of loaded blasters, she snapped her fingers to direct his attention to her body. ‘Sexy? Not sexy?’

‘Um,’ said Luke.

‘Right, you’re not my target audience.’ Mara rotated her shoulders and felt around in her back pockets. When she spoke again, it was in a much higher voice with a melodious Inner Rim lilt. ‘I’m off to exploit men’s libido for information. Mind yerselves.’

‘Good luck! I respect you!’ Luke called after her, sounding perplexed and a little distressed.

Mara adjusted her walk slightly to emphasise her hips. ‘Look after your boyfriend!’

‘Was she talking to you or me?’ Din asked Luke as Mara swaggered off. Luke shrugged.

---

‘Luke,’ he said carefully, steadily. ‘You’re scaring me.’

Luke’s brows drew together. He placed his lightsaber on the table out of reach, as if Din didn’t know perfectly well Luke could kill him with his mind. ‘I am so sorry, Din.’

‘No.’ Din shook his head. ‘I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid for you.’

---

‘Aru’buir,’ Din explained to the gathered Mandalorians. ‘He tried to kill his child.’

Luke ducked his head with an embarrassed smile. ‘To be fair, he wasn’t trying to kill me after the first time.’

There was a flare of barely suppressed anger beneath Din’s helmet. ‘He drew a weapon on his child more than once.’

Luke felt very cold, and guilty. ‘He was trying to get me to join him! He could have killed me; he only cut off my hand.’

Din switched to Mando’a, translating rapidly. The Mandalorians received this information in enraged silence.

‘You make it sound way worse than it was,’ said Luke helplessly, half-laughing. Several helmets turned towards him. 

‘Buruk’buir?’ said the tall Mandalorian in a voice like a firestorm.

Luke had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t sound complimentary. ‘He wasn’t… he was good in the end, I swear. He didn’t even know I was his son for many years, because we were taken away from him—’

‘Demagol’buir!’ exclaimed the smallest Mando to cries of agreement.

‘—and it’s not his fault I was struck by lightning—’

‘I’m not even going to translate that,’ Din growled.

‘Look.’ Luke raised his hands, placating. ‘He was redeemed. I saved him. I love him. He died.’

The Mandalorians consulted in low voices, and then Din nodded and turned back to Luke. ‘She asks if you’re looking for another parent.’

At this, Luke had to laugh outright. He wiped his eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m older than her.’

Din glanced at the Mandalorian who had just spoken. ‘She says it makes no difference.’

---

‘Hush,’ Bakcin chided. ‘A great Jedi has just arrived.’

Paz reared back, looking like he’d just discovered his childhood stories were real. ‘Ahsoka Tano is here?’

‘No, no, that Jedi was a Togruta. This is Din Djarin’s Jedi.’

All heads turned to Luke, who looked like he was considering getting that title tattooed on his forehead.

Every vestige of reverence disappeared from Paz’s bulky frame. ‘The boy,’ he hollered, and sprinted towards Luke.

‘Paz doesn’t care what Luke is,’ said Mara, laughing. ‘He heard the words “Din has a boyfriend” and lit up like a pyrocracker.’

Din groaned. ‘How long till the novelty wears off?’

‘I give it another month.’

Luke turned to Din, smiling. ‘Did you know we’re supposed to hate each other?’

‘He’s just happy to be learning about his own culture,’ cooed Ruusaan, who looked about two seconds away from pinching Luke’s cheeks. ‘Are you keeping this one, Din? Can I fight you for him?’

‘That’s up to Luke—wait,’ Din said, his entire perspective shifting. ‘You’re attracted to men?’

‘Nope. I wanna brag about getting my ass kicked by the Mand’alor.’

Din turned on his heel and left.

---

‘As your sister, I wish you all marital happiness. As a Senator, I’m really mourning the potential—the diplomatic potency—of the Mand’alor marrying a Jedi.’ She sighed. ‘Imagine what Padmé could have done with that seating chart.’

Luke put his hand on the back of Din’s neck. ‘You’ll manage.’

‘Of course I will.’

Din leaned into Luke’s touch with gratitude. ‘Ahsoka Tano’s still around.’

Leia’s eyes sharpened like a predator scenting a kill. ‘Who?’

‘I’m not marrying anyone,’ said Bo-Katan crossly.

Fennec gave her a long look. ‘Yeah. You’re not.’

‘Let’s leave them to it,’ Luke whispered, and they slunk towards the door together. He glanced back at the two nastiest women in the room, glanced away just as quickly, and decided to defer to his husband’s expertise. ‘Are they kissing?’

Din checked over his shoulder. ‘Yep.’

‘Walk faster.’

---

‘I haven’t—’ Luke panted, ‘—done this in a decade.’ He flapped his transpariplast-gloved hands, sending tiny droplets of hair dye splattering everywhere. ‘Sorry, did I get your armour?’

‘It’s fine,’ said Din, already spattered head to toe with buttery yellow flecks. ‘Hand me that comb.’ He stooped over Luke, gently peeling back the first of many foil wrappers. ‘Is it time yet?’

‘Leave it a little while longer. The colour needs to set.’ Luke looked up at Din, happy as a tooka. ‘Thanks for helping with this. I wouldn’t let the younglings go near a bottle of bleach.’

‘Smart choice.’

‘Needs a trim,’ Din said critically, snapping the scissor blades together a few times. ‘You sure you want to keep the bangs?’

‘What? I’ve always had bangs, why not?’ Luke looked up at him, suddenly self-conscious. ‘What’s wrong with bangs?’

‘Less of your face to see.’ 

Din stroked the hair back from Luke’s forehead, smoothing it down with the comb. And then they both said at the same time, ‘No. No, keep the bangs.’

‘Give me a minute before shampooing. I wanna fix that plumbing, and then we can get the sink dirt out of my hair.’

‘Sure.’

‘I’d like to heat-style it.’ When Din went to activate his flamethrowers, Luke added: ‘Ah—maybe not a good idea.’

He tilted the mirror towards himself and studied his hair, which had gone from Leia’s rich brown to the golden flush of sandy Tatooine. Din gazed down at his own newly polka-dotted beskar, and allowed himself to heave a small sigh.

‘Let me go dry off in the sonic. I’ll be right back.’ He bounced into the fresher, while Din sat down with a napkin and a little rubbing alcohol to get the dye splashes off his armour. He had mostly finished when Luke returned.

‘Yes,’ said Luke, deeply satisfied. ‘Yes, finally.’ He did a little twirl, haloed by the sunlight. ‘How do I look?’

He looked lovely.

‘Not that different,’ Din said at last. ‘It suits you.’

(‘You stupid twink,’ Leia said when she holoed Luke that evening and saw him back to the hair colour he’d had at nineteen. The twins, who were mature and dignified adults when they were kept apart, immediately began yelling at each other. Din hid in the kitchen.)

Notes:

Thank you for reading this story!

Fic playlist breakdown:
Chapter 1: “A Thousand Tears” – The Mandalorian, “The Wanderer” – Jedi: Fallen Order
Chapter 2: “Detritus” – It Follows (the cruiser), “Vode An” (the Old Republic station), “You Shall Not Enter Valhalla” - Vikings (Vetine)
Chapters 3–5: “A Friend” – The Mandalorian & “The Will of the Force” – Jedi: Fallen Order (Luke), “Landscapes” – Macbeth (Vetine), “Princess Leia's Theme” & “Luke and Leia” (Leia arrives), “Dha Werda Verda” (Leia & Bo-Katan)
Chapter 6: “The Yellow Leaf” – Macbeth & “Vode An” (Kinyen)
Chapter 7: “For Those That Follow” – Annihilation (Luke), “Lando's Palace” – ESB (Lando), “Reunited” – The Mandalorian (Grogu & Din), “Memories of Days Past” – Jedi: Fallen Order (Luke & Grogu), “The City in the Clouds” – ESB (the gang chills on Bespin), “You Are a Mandalorian” (Din)
Chapter 8: “Into Eternity” – Thor & “Aliit Ori'shya Tal'din” – TBOBF (the Mand'alor)
Chapters 9–10: “Yelena Belova“ – Black Widow (Mara Jade), “Queen Amidala and the Naboo Palace” – TPM (Sosha Soruna), “Mandalore Way” (Armourer), “Hungarian Dance in G minor” – Brahms (the gala), “Ship a hoj, Mandalorians!” – The Mandalorian (flight to Kinyen)
Chapter 11: “Vikings Retreat” – Vikings & “Evacuation” - Chernobyl (battle)
Chapter 12: “Back Together” – The Mandalorian (Luke & Grogu & Din), “Victory and Death” – Clone Wars (Mandalorians)
Chapter 13: “Approaching the Shimmer” – Annihilation (Luke), “Signet Forging” – The Mandalorian (Armourer), “Vikings Mourn Their Dead” – Vikings (funeral), “Second Apparition” – Macbeth (Grogu warns Din about Luke)
Chapter 14: “Ragnar Fights the Earl” – Vikings (duel), “Annihilation” (Malachor)
Chapter 15: “Lothlorien” – LOTR (Malachor), “Darth Revan”, “Trilla” – Jedi: Fallen Order, “The Return Home” – ANH (Owen & Beru), “The Emperor” – ROTJ, “Ascendant” – WandaVision (Luke), “Open the Door” & “Mando Rescue” (Din & Luke), “Where is the Horse and the Rider?” – LOTR (ending)