Chapter Text
The clap of thunder and the roaring of waves accompanied the sound of rain hitting armor, like rain hitting the tin shingles of Papa’s bakery roof during the wet season. Din groaned, struggling to sit up on shaking arms. He frowned, rubbing a finger over the strange fabric that swamped his thin frame. The shirt was soaked from the relentless downpour of rain overhead, and his skin prickled with goosebumps. His body felt strange, tingly all over, but lighter and foreign in a way he had never experienced.
Slowly, he sat up and started taking note of his surroundings. Din was on the edge of a circular platform that stood above dark, turbulent waves, an endless ocean as far as the eye could see before him. The sky was covered with dark gray clouds, and flashes of lightning struck in the distance. Din scrounged his memory, trying to remember how he had gotten there, but he was, alarmingly, drawing a blank.
The last thing he remembered felt strange to recall, as if it hadn’t been the last thing he could remember. The memories felt distant and out of reach, like a film covering the surface. He had been walking home from school, something had upset him, and he had almost run into Kai and his gang, opting to take a shortcut through the alley to get home. After that, there was nothing but the impression of memories ripped from his grasp, nothing to indicate how Din had gotten onto the landing pad of a storm-ridden planet, surrounded by an endless ocean. Besides the stark white, circular buildings surrounding him on other platforms like the one he was currently on, there wasn’t a speck of land to be seen.
Where the kriff am I?
A voice called out from across the landing pad, piercing through the noise of the storm surrounding Din.
“ Oy! ”
The figure of a man stood at the doors of the building connected to the platform Din was sprawled on. He was too far away for Din to get a better look, not helped by the rushing rainwater falling in sheets down his face — wait, he realized with a jolt and reached up to his face, I'm wearing a helmet? It was made out of a strange material that Din had never experienced. The gauntlets on his wrist were too big and slipped down his thin arms, and when they hit the metal of his helmet, it sounded like a bell ringing through the night.
As he stood up, Din stumbled over his feet as a wave of nausea hit him like a punch to the gut. He struggled to stand, realizing that the strange suit was practically falling off his shoulders. He almost toppled over, fear bearing down like a heavy weight on his chest and the foreign armor strapped to his body.
“Are you okay?”
The voice was closer this time, the man appeared to have hastily thrown pieces of white plastoid armor over his sleep clothes, a hood pulled over his face to block out the rain overhead as he slowly approached Din, who was now shaking like a leaf where he stood.
“Where’s your ship? How’d you get here, burc’ya ?”
“You–” Din froze, suddenly placing the familiar lilt of the man’s voice, “you’re a clone ?”
Din couldn’t place the feeling of surprise, why the sight of this clone trooper had the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, that something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t as it was supposed to be, as he had been on his home planet of Aq Vetina last he remembered — now he was left with the feeling that he was an impostor in his skin and shocked at the sight of an actual clone trooper.
The posters never showed their faces back home, Din realized, they are so human beneath the intimidating armor.
The closest that the war had gotten to Aq Vetina was through gossip and the word of travelers coming through their flight center. The biggest threat that had taken precedence was the rumor of a Mandalorian cult sweeping through Mandalorian space under Lady Kryze’s nose. Aq Vetina bordered along Mandalorian and Hutt space, an unremarkable planet in the eyes of the galaxy, but not to those of Death Watch.
Din finally placed the metal of the armor he was wearing, so used to seeing the dark blues, reds, and blacks of Death Watch beskar’gam.
The man stopped just in front of Din, tilting his head so that the hood fell back. Din barely stopped himself from physically startling, the clone staring quizzically at him. He could distantly feel the trooper’s emotions, like the lingering aftertaste of one of his papa’s jorgenberry fruit tarts; a whirlwind of confusion, worry, and distrust warring in the clone’s mind.
“You live under a rock or something?” The trooper snapped, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, clearly cataloging Din’s frame for any obvious weapons, “There’s a war going on across the galaxy. I'd be a little concerned if I weren’t a clone and shared this ugly mug with a million others.”
Din scowled, his face flushed in equal parts embarrassment and defensiveness.
“I’m not stupid, I know about the war!” Din crossed his arms over his chest, growling as the armor clanged together and threatened to fall off Din’s arms.
“Who are you and how did you get here?” The trooper asked again, the urge to sigh was audibly apparent in his voice and expression.
“Din,” he hesitantly answered after a long silence, “Din Djarin. I-I don’t know how I got here or where I am.”
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and Din rapidly tried to blink them away, stamping down the urge to give in to the rising swell of fear and anxiety.
“Where are you from, Din Djarin?”
Before Din could respond, a sudden burst of pain spiked behind his eyes. He cried out, unaware of his armored knees hitting the deck of the landing pad beneath him, grasping his head as the pain swept through his head in pulsing waves.
As sudden as the pain had come, it was gone in an instant, leaving Din gasping and breathing hard, blinking away the tears pooling in his eyes.
“....Kid? Din?” The trooper gently placed a hand on Din’s shoulder, shaking him out of his stupor.
“I-I—” Din froze, unable to speak over the lump in his throat. He squeezed his eyes together, really not wanting to cry in front of this man.
“Why don’t we get you inside and into some clothes your size? Does that sound good, kid?”
The hand on Din’s shoulder pressed more intently, fingers wrapping around his bicep more surely as the clone moved to step closer to Din’s suddenly shaking frame. Din could only nod, frowning as the helmet wobbled disjointedly on his head.
“I’m CT-66-3238,” the trooper said, wincing as he bent down to be eye level with Din, “My brothers call me Colt. May I take off some of this armor? Might be easier to move around if we get it off and can tie the ends of these blacks so they aren’t falling off of you.”
“Yes, please,” Din whispered hoarsely, watching Colt smoothly unhook the pieces on his arms before tackling the pieces covering his legs.
“My General will know how to help with whatever has happened to you,” Colt kept speaking as he worked, setting each piece of beskar armor in a pile next to him, “She’s a Jedi and I’m sure that she could reach out to the Jedi Council to see about getting you home.”
The buzzing sensation from before ramped up once again. His head still pounded, the sensation almost felt like his mind was stretching outwards as if it had been locked away for far too long, but didn’t overtake his senses as intensely as before.
Jetti. Jedi. Jetti. Jedi. Jetti.
The words were whispered in the back of Din’s brain on a constant loop. It scared Din how natural that voice felt intertwined with his very being; it was like a missing piece had been slotted into place, and he was whole now.
Din internally shook himself out of the sensation, the voice humming contentedly deep within him, just as Colt finished undoing the buckle for the heavy chest piece over Din’s torso. Din lifted his helmet off with shaky hands, the rain pelting against his bare face.
Ben, the voice in his mind wasn’t alone this time, another voice harmonizing seamlessly alongside it that felt so familiar and not at the same time, Ben Kenobi. Find Ben.
“I’d like to speak with your General,” Din agreed.
“Come along, kid.” Colt stood up, offering Din his hand, his other holding the bundle of Din’s armor wrapped in the torn cape he had also been wearing. “Let’s get you warmed up, and I’ll have some of my brothers wake the General up.”
“I don’t want to intrude if they are asleep —”
“Nonsense,” Colt waved a hand at him, gently urging him inside the automatic doors, a series of stark white halls looming ahead, “she’s most likely already awake as it is.”
Din sighed, nodding his head slowly as a wave of tiredness hit him out of the blue, his limbs felt like jelly as he continued to move forward.
“We’ll get you home one way or another, kid, my General will make sure of it.”
Din smiled to himself. Colt’s words rang true, that little voice in the back of his head humming its approval. The sensation of something unfurling in his chest startled him awake as the voice spoke more clearly than it had previously.
Hello, young one, it's so good to meet you again.