Chapter Text
“Patoo!”
“Yeah, that’s right, ad'ika,”[1] Din says, glancing down at the small child sitting in his lap. The foundling’s hands reach for the planet that hangs beyond the viewscreen. “That’s Patulan.”
“Patoo!” Grogu repeats, giggling.
“Do you want to help with landing?” Din asks and Grogu tears his eyes away from the planet to look up at Din, trilling. The foundling hammers his tiny claws against Din’s chest, scraping against the armor. Din chuckles. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
As they descend he guides Grogu through the landing procedures. He points out the sensors measuring atmospheric conditions, gravity and altitude. Grogu watches it all with curiosity, but he is far happier once Din lets him push the buttons. They steer the ship to a small spaceport on the outskirts of a mid-sized town, one just big enough for a handful of personal ships.
The instant the ship settles to the surface, the repulsorlift softening the impact of the landing gear, Grogu is squirming, begging for release. Din obliges, setting his child down. He stands, stretching as he follows Grogu out of the ship.
The spaceport is quiet as they step onto the surface of the planet. There are only a handful of port attendants, who do little to hide their stares. It’s hardly a surprise. Patulan is an isolated system in the Outer Rim and fairly unnoteworthy by all accounts. The planet’s sapient inhabitants number under a billion, scattered across the planet’s surface. It’s very self sufficient, with only a bare minimum of off-planet imports or exports.
As far as Din knows, it never picked up more than a passing Imperial presence. Not even the Rebellion or any smugglers bothered with it. The number of hyperlane transfers needed to get here was a deterrent all on its own.
Grogu chitters at Din’s feet, eyes sweeping over the new sights. Before he can go running off into the spaceport, Din plucks his foundling off the ground. He settles the child into the crook of his arm. Grogu coos, waving at the port attendants, whose lower jaws and mandibles are in a losing battle with gravity.
Ignoring them, Din taps his vambrace and looks at the coordinates he was given. It hasn’t changed since he looked last, not that he expected it to, but his intel is scarce. He was only given the name of the planet and this spaceport, nothing further. He is far from any of Patulan’s major cities; the town attached to this spaceport is rural by comparison. He has no name, and no tracker.
But he isn’t a renowned bounty hunter for nothing. Din turns on his heel, striding toward the gawking port attendants. They straighten with alarm as he approaches, a few even shuffling backward.
“Uh… sir?” asks a young Twi’lek, sounding slightly strangled.
“Where’s the main market?” Din asks.
Another of the attendants squeaks, repeating: “Market?”
“Yes.”
When they fail to answer, Din shifts his helmet, visor training on a third. “Where’s the market?”
“W-which one?”
It takes several more minutes until Din manages to get an answer out of the unreasonably terrified sapients. They never stop gawking at the many weapons on Din or at his ship – another model of gunship he’d gotten off Fett and then jury rigged with Peli until it was unrecognizable. (It isn’t a Razor Crest, and Din does miss the speed of the starfighter, but at least he and Grogu aren’t stuck planet hopping.)
Finally, Din gets coherent directions and sets off for the city, Grogu relocated to the satchel on his hip. While the approach is the same as bounty hunting, Din is not here chasing a bounty. No, he is here for one thing: spice.
It isn’t the kind of spice that the Pykes traded or that left sapients hollowed and addicted… It’s something even rarer and far more prized, at least by those looking for it. While once it was far more abundant, now it is relegated to backwater planets in the years since the entire Mandalore system was turned to glass.
Hetikleyc.[2] Food seasoning.
While Patulan was only a footnote in the Empire and New Republic registries, it had something very special about it, at least to Mandalorians. A handful of the native plant species could be used to make a Mandalorian seasoning called hetikleyc , which burned like a Mandalorian’s rage.
Traditional Mandalorian cuisine was very flexible, the ingredients as diverse as the species that took up the Creed. But one of the few commonalities across dishes was hetikleyc, spices that left your mouth burning for hours after. Some of the Covert’s elders said that hetikleyc was meant to represent the shared Mandalorian spirit. Din wasn’t much for philosophy or cooking, but trying to handle the strongest hetikleyc cuisine was definitely a test of willpower.
Tiingilar was perhaps the most infamous to include hetikleyc , a curry-like dish so spicy that it was said it could keep you sweating even if you were naked on an ice planet. The first time Din had eaten it, he’d nearly passed out. Even now, he could feel the phantom heat on his tongue. Yet, even with the prevalence of hetikleyc in Mandalorian dishes, Din had only had it a handful of times since childhood.
After the Purge, the market for hetikleyc -grade spices had plunged. Anything on Mandalore was glassed and those who grew the spices off planet no longer had anyone to sell to. Though Din’s covert occasionally made traditional dishes, their cache of hetikleyc was slim, and survival trumped such indulgence, even if it meant losing another piece of their heritage. Between prioritizing their credits and Din constantly being away chasing bounties, it had been years since Din enjoyed hetikleyc in a meal. But now that more Mandalorians are stepping out of hiding, and Grogu was officially part of Din’s clan and in training, Din is determined to see that his son will not miss out.
(Perhaps Din could even make a special tiingilar with frogs.)
It is Bo-Katan who told him of Patulan, after she learned he and the Covert hadn’t been able to resupply hetikleyc for decades.
“Patulan, that’s ours come from,” she’d said as she gave Din the coordinates. “We usually buy from Patulan vendors at larger markets, but you won’t know them. Better to go straight to the source.” She paused, then, a wistful smile crossing her face. “It gives the tiingilar the best burn of anything I’ve tasted since the Purge.”
Bo-Katan locked eyes with him through the helmet, as only another Mandalorian can. “We’ve already lost enough of our culture and history. We won’t lose this.” A smirk, a glint of mischief in her shadowed eyes. “Plus, I have to see how you can handle your spice.”
Of course, to do that, first Din has to find the merchants selling the stuff.
Unfortunately, his directions are not, exactly, superb. The city doesn’t have much in the way of main thoroughfares, nor is it laid out in any repeating geometric pattern. Din has navigated worse, but it’s no less tiresome. At the very least, he’s confident the port attendants haven't intentionally gotten him lost. Their reactions to his weapons alone made it clear they wouldn’t risk his anger.
Din lets one hand drift to Grogu’s satchel, tucked safely against his side, under his cloak. If he focuses, turning up the sensitivity of the audio processors in his helmet, Din can hear the soft breaths of his foundling in sleep.
“Get some rest, ad’ika,” Din murmurs, glancing at the darkening sky overhead. He holds back a sigh. This planet has a short rotation and night fell quicker than he expected. “We’ll come looking again tomorrow.”
Getting back to the spaceport is only slightly easier. Din is considering using his jetpack to skip the streets and be done with the matter when he picks up raised voices, not far from his position. Din pauses, weighing his options for a moment, then follows the sound to a narrow side street.
Softening his steps, Din leans around a wall, accessing the situation.
A handful of sapients are clustered together. A Human or Near-Human is levelling a blaster at another pair of elderly Human-approximates, whose voices are pitched high, pleading. A Twi’lek who must be associated with Blaster-Human has one of the elders held hostage, a blaster pointed at her skull. A mugging.
He hesitates.
Din has seen no shortage of muggings in his years of bounty hunting. At this point, they were hardly noticeable. Compared to the horrors Din has seen on the Outer Rim, in the pits of the Imperials or along the slave paths, it's more of a tussle between children. With all the things sapients can do to each other, that Din has done, a mugging is comparatively harmless. He has no business interfering.
And yet.
Blaster fire hisses across the alleyway. The Twi’lek screeches in pain and drops the hostage, hands going to the new hole in their thigh. All the sapients whirl, eyes locking on Din where he looms at the end of the alley, a faint wisp trailing from the barrel of his blaster.
“Leave them alone,” Din growls.
The Human with the blaster trains it on Din, but Din can see how the man’s hands are shaking. The Twi’lek whimpers, hands gripping their thigh and lekku quivering. The pair of older humans look at him with wide, nervous eyes.
“Y-you’ll pay for that!” Blaster-Human snarls, but there is fear beneath the bold words and bravado. “Put the blaster down, Mando!”
Din shoots the blaster from the man’s hand.
The Human gives a bitten off yelp, one hand clutching the other, which now sports simmering burns. Din takes a step forward and the Human scrambles back. “Leave,” Din growls, gesturing with his blaster. The Human and Twi’lek rush to obey, clutching their wounds as they limp into the night.
Din watches them go until they’re beyond his sensors, then turns his helmet to the elders. The two are embraced, frantic murmurings and reassurances passing between them. Din keeps his distance, all too aware how intimidating most sapients find him, and assesses the pair.
While a bit scuffed, they seem unharmed. The two are on the older side, maybe 70 standard years if they age as most Humans and Near-Humans do. Both have hair that is gray with age and are dressed in plain red-brown cloth tunics. On one side of the alley sits an overturned hovercart with goods spilling out, which the muggers had evidently been rifling through before Din arrived.
After a few minutes more, the Humans turn towards Din, clutching each other as if afraid their partner will vanish. “Thank you, Mandalorian,” one of them says, his voice breathless with relief.
“You saved our lives,” his partner echoes and she gives Din a weak smile.
The pair still shake with tension, but it is not the fight-or-flight strain of before. Instead, they look at him with… it’s not quite awe. Relief, perhaps. Nervousness, but Din would be more surprised if it wasn’t there. Still, something feels… off.
Something is scratching at his mind as he looks at the two, some vague familiarity.
It puts Din on edge, ever so slightly. Familiarity is not necessarily a good thing, with him. Most of the friendly faces he knows wear helmets and those that don’t, he knows well enough not to forget. While the two elders hardly look like hunters, Din has taken in an uncountable number of bounties over the years. He shifts his weight, the nagging sense of something whispering in his mind.
Din dips his helmet in a nod, acknowledging. “What are you doing out this time of night?”
The pair wilt, hands clasping tighter. “We stayed too late,” the bearded elder murmurs quietly, the lines of his face deepening. “Didn’t finish at the market fast enough, had to take the side streets. Blast, I should’ve–”
“Should’ve nothing,” his partner snaps, but her ire drains quickly and she clutches her partner’s hand tighter. “Neither of us are young anymore, dear. Don’t blame yourself.”
The man sighs, eyes flicking back to Din’s visor. “Thank you,” he says again, the pained expression easing. “I… I don’t know how we can repay you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Din rumbles. “But I’d appreciate it if you could point me back to the spaceport.”
The woman laughs, her eyes crinkling. “This city is quite a maze, isn’t it?” She pauses, eyes drifting in thought, then glances at her partner. “Por qué no lo traemos a casa?” she asks and her partner squints. “Les debemos la vida.” [1]
Din only understands half of what is said. He’s fluent in over six languages and passable in another dozen, but the number for which he speaks a handful of phrases or knows the language but cannot speak it is even higher. He’s not sure what language this one is, can’t disentangle it from the countless others, but the meanings rise to mind readily enough.
Take them home? We owe our life.
The man narrows his eyes at his partner, glancing toward Din before he replies: “Nosotros no lo conocemos.”
We don’t know them.
“Nos salvó.”
Saved us.
The two speak further, presumably debating the merit of inviting a heavily armed Mandalorian back home. Din is still struggling to piece together their meaning, as they use phrases and words he doesn’t know of this language he only half remembers.
Eventually the man sighs with the resignation of one who had been begrudgingly defeated, and turns to Din. “Do you have a place to stay?” he asks in Basic.
Din pauses, but he sees no harm in answering. “I have my ship.”
“Our home is past the spaceport,” the other elder explains as she waves a hand into the night. “If you want, you could rest your feet? It’s the least we can do.”
Din considers the offer. He doesn’t think these two are dangerous and he’s confident they can’t harm him or Grogu, but that itching sense of something still unsettles him. On the other hand, it’s been awhile since he or Grogu stayed planetside for more than a few hours. Spending some time on the ground would be good for the kid, instead of in the cold metal and recycled air of the ship.
As if sensing his thoughts, the satchel on his hip shifts. Din brushes a hand over it, drawing back his cape as Grogu pokes his head out, looking at the three figures standing over him. Grogu’s ears swivel to Din and perk up, one hand reaching for him. “Ba!” Grogu declares. “Baur!”
Din complies, gently removing Grogu from the satchel and letting the child curl in his arms. Grogu snuggles against Din’s beskar chestplate with a purr. As the child does, Din watches the pair of Humans closely, assessing their reactions and ready to draw a blaster at a moment’s notice. He relaxes marginally when the pair’s expressions of surprise morph to delight and affection.
“Hello, little one,” the woman says softly, wiggling her fingers at the child. Grogu turns to the pair and then looks back to Din, ears flicking in a silent question.
“I helped them with some thieves,” Din murmurs quietly.
Grogu looks back at the pair of humans, head tilted and eyes squinted in the way Din knows the child is poking at them with his magic. Din trusts his gut instincts, but his foundling’s magic seems to give even greater ability at sensing danger and intention. An excellent skill to have that will serve him well. After a moment, Grogu trills with excitement.
“Baur!” he exclaims, the modified form of buir[3] making Din’s heart warm. His child is learning so fast. Grogu whips his head between Din and the pair of humans, nothing short of delighted. “Ba! Ba! Ba!”
Din chuckles, smile hidden beneath his helmet, while the pair of humans watch on in no little amusement. “He’s adorable,” the man says softly, eyes crinkling as he watches Grogu.
Din considers the pair of Humans and their uncertain familiarity, and how they soften for Grogu. He gives a hum. “I will take you up on your offer,” he decides. “It will also ensure you return home safely.”
The two humans smile at that, and nod. “We should get going,” the woman says, looking up at the sky, which has faded to the void of space, countless worlds sprinkled across the black. She glances back to Din. “Oh! I’m Etta, by the way. She/her.”
“Rus, he/him,” her partner offers.
Din inclines his head. “Most call me Mando.”
The two look a bit puzzled over the lack of name but don’t question it. As they go to collect their hovercart and scattered belongings, Din strides over to pick up the blasters the muggers left behind. Grogu gives a curious coo as Din inspects the weapons, which are substandard with none of the power of Din’s own. Still, he pockets them. He can dismantle the blasters for parts later.
The walk back to Etta and Rus’ place is without further incident, now that Din has a guide and they have an escort. In little time they pass the spaceport and reach the couple’s home on the city outskirts. The main building is small – smaller than the Razor Crest – and sits on a property covered in rows of trees and nameless shrubs. Farmers, perhaps?
While Rus takes the hovercart to a storage room around the side of the house, Etta leads Din and Grogu inside. Din ducks through the door frame as he follows her, helmet swivelling as he takes in the interior. The few furnishings are evidently second-hand, a mismatch of metal, wood, cloth and synth, remade and repaired instead of being replaced. A small heating unit thrums in a corner and what Din recognizes as a small shrine sits on a shelf.
“Please, sit,” Etta says, waving a hand. “Feel free to let your child down, if they want to play.”
Feeling rather out of place, Din slowly obeys. He sits in a corner, back to the wall, and balances a squirming Grogu on his knee. Etta is busying herself in a kitchen and glances over once he’s settled. “Can I get some food for you and the child?” Etta asks. “What are your diets?”
Din pauses, then dips his helmet toward Grogu. “He’s a carnivore, but he’ll eat almost anything. Unfortunately.”
Much to Din’s eternal anguish, he’s never quite certain if Grogu is actually capable of consuming something. Is he hunting, as is natural for his species? Or is he sticking anything and everything in his mouth and has made it this far because his stomach is made of beskar? At this point, Din has accepted frogs as diet-appropriate. He’s had little choice.
“Kids,” Rus agrees, slipping inside.
The couple start chatting with each other in the neighboring room. Din ignores them, focusing his attention on Grogu. The child is wriggling, wanting to be put down. “Patience, ad’ika,” Din mutters. “We are guests, make sure to behave.” Din gives Grogu a look, which hopefully conveys ‘no magic.’ Grogu chirps and Din takes it as an affirmative. He sets his child on the floor and Grogu promptly starts exploring the furniture.
As his foundling does, Din shifts through the satchel to pull out a datapad. Grogu, recognizing the device, trills with delight and immediately abandons his previous quest. Din offers the datapad and Grogu grabs it, pressing buttons with fervor.
“Buir, Buir, Buir,” the synthesized voice of the datapad intones in Mando’a as Grogu pats Din furiously on his boot.
“What’s that?” Etta asks as she walks over, a small plate in hand.
“If he speaks, I don’t know the language,” Din answers. “But he understands, and this lets him communicate.”
After seeing Grogu use the yes/no buttons on the modified droid, Greef Karga had offered Grogu the datapad and the child spent the next hour hugging Karga’s leg. In between the stream of “thank you,” Grogu had proclaimed: “father, mando, name.” Once Din finally understood the request, the datapad was shortly declaring “Buir!” while Din was swallowing back the tightness in his throat, hugging his son.
“That’s so clever,” Etta smiles, looking down at Grogu. Grogu looks back up at her, sniffing the air. His ears perk up, zeroing in on the plate in her hands.
“Food, food, food,” the datapad demands in Basic.
“That’s right, it’s food,” Etta chuckles and passes Din the plate and a cup of liquid. “There’s some dried jerky and a cookie, and the tea is for you, Mando. It’s a spicy blend, be warned.”
“Food!” Grogu exclaims via the datapad, hands reaching for the plate. Din lifts the child up to his lap and Grogu immediately snatches the cookie and stuffs it in his mouth. “Food, food, thank you.”
Din smiles and then looks at the cup of tea he was given. He cannot remove his helmet, but it would be rude to refuse… He glances at his hosts, who have both taken seats in the visiting room, and asks, “Do you have a straw?” The Human couple can’t quite hide their incredulity, and Din sighs. “I do not remove my helmet. This is the Way.”
“Way!” the datapad chirps and pride blooms in Din’s chest.
The elders exchange a glance but comply, fetching him a straw. Din releases the pressurized seal on his helmet and sticks the straw up, taking a sip. The tea is mildly spicy, just enough for him to register, a warmth that sits on his tongue long after he’s swallowed. He nods to his hosts. “Thank you, it’s good.”
“Enjoying the heat?” Rus smiles. “Yeah, the spice is a local thing.”
Din nods. “That’s why I came… to buy some.”
Etta’s eyes widen. “Really?” She exchanges a glance with Rus. “…We know people who sell some, if you’re in need. Though I have to ask, why come all the way here to buy spices? There must be other, easier places to buy it.”
“Mandalorian cooking uses particular spices… very hot spices. There aren’t many who make it, and it’s been years since I found anyone who sells it. A friend sent me here, so I can make him,” Din nods to Grogu, who has finished stuffing himself and is now perched in Din’s lap, “our traditionally seasoned meals.”
Din has never been good at what Cara and Greef call “small talk.” He doesn’t see the point and he spends most time alone anyways. But talking to Grogu in idle hours to keep the child entertained or to protest whatever mischief he’s gotten into has loosened Din’s tongue. He silently pats himself on the back for his success.
“He is your son?” Rus asks, glancing at Grogu.
“Yes,” Din says, warmth unfurling in his chest. His. His child. His clan. “He is my foundling.”
Grogu perks up at that, glancing over to the Human elders. He squirms in Din’s arms and Din lets him down, watching as Grogu scrambles over to the pair. He sits at Etta’s feet and reaches upward with clear desire, a request underscored by his pleading tooka eyes. Etta glances at Din in permission, and once he nods, she wastes no time in hefting Grogu up to her lap.
“Hello, little one,” she coos, a beaming smile on her face. Grogu burbles, snuggling against her hand as Rus reaches over to scratch one of Grogu’s ears. Din’s foundling practically melts under the attention.
After a minute, Grogu shifts, looking between Din and the pair of humans. “Baur!” he declares, reaching for the humans and then toward Din. “Du? Toto!” Din recognizes the request and passes Grogu the datapad. The child immediately begins hammering buttons. “Buir! Buir! Buir!” the datapad intones, almost unable to keep up with Grogu’s relentless assault on the buttons.
Rus and Etta look a touch startled and Etta starts to shift to set Grogu down, but the child whines in protest. “Buir, no, see, buir,” Grogu insists. Etta sends Din a pleading look, utterly confused.
“Sorry, ad’ika,” Din murmurs, reaching over to stroke Grogu’s ears. “We’re not sure what you’re saying.”
“Buir!” Grogu says again, pressing the button.
“What is… boo-er?” Rus asks, eyes flicking between Grogu and Din.
“…It means parent,” Din says after a moment. He’s hesitant to share anything on Mandalorians with strangers, but this at least, is innocent enough. Another “ Buir!” warbles from the datapad, and Grogu gestures toward the elders. Din tilts his head. Elders, Buir… Was Grogu looking for a playmate, like with Omera’s daughter Winta on Sorgan?
“Perhaps, ad’ika, ” Din says gently, stroking his thumb over Grogu’s head. “They could be buire. ”
Silence follows, and Din glances at the pair. They look… devastated.
Realization hits him with the force of an ion cannon and Din silently curses himself. After all, he had battled the same fear and pain that is now written on faces, with Grogu. Except in his case… Grogu was still here.
“We… had a son,” Etta murmurs and Rus takes her hand, leaning against his partner. From their lap, Grogu whines, his ears flattening. Din cannot feel others’ emotions as those touched by the ka’ra can, like his child can, but the couple’s grief is palatable.
“It was during the Clone Wars,” Rus says softly, glancing at Din. “Our planet was attacked by droids, Separatists. We… we tried to hide him, but instead of protecting him, instead it…” Rus swallows, taking a shuddering breath. “He didn’t make it out.” Grief and guilt line his face. Whether or not it's the truth, it’s clear Rus blames himself.
Din’s heart clenches painfully. It’s a story so similar to his own, a tragedy that played out countless times during the Clone Wars and the reign of the Empire.
“I’m sorry,” Din rasps, because what else can he say?
Grogu emits a plaintive whine from Etta’s lap, tugging on her sleeve. “Sad, why sad?” he asks, the datapad’s modulated voice breaking the silence.
Etta’s answering smile is small, pained. “We are sad because our son is not here,” she explains patiently to Grogu, even as tears shine in her eyes. “We are sad we can no longer see him.”
“Why sad?” Grogu repeats, giving a questioning chirp. “ Buir here! No hurt!”
“It’s not a hurt I can fix, ad’ika,” Din says softly. Grogu’s faith in him is… terrifying, sometimes. His foundling thinks so much of him, of what he can do. Din fears when he’ll be unable to fulfill that trust. Like now, where Grogu’s ears have flattened in protest.
“Buir here!” Grogu repeats and releases the datapad. Din’s child tries to stand, nearly falling off Etta’s lap, but the woman is quick to balance him. The child chirps, reaching towards Rus. The adults exchange confused glances, but abide by Grogu’s request, shuffling him over. Once on Rus’ lap, Grogu braces himself and slaps both clawed hands on the surprised man’s face.
“Ba’baur!” Grogu chirps.
Rus sends Din a lost look, but Din is equally confused. The gesture… Grogu does that to Din on the rare occasion he removes his helmet in his foundling’s presence. The child will give inquisitive coos as he pokes at Din’s beard and mustache, like he’s trying to figure out why the face is hairy.
“Ad’ika,” Din tries, reaching for his child, but Grogu squeaks a protest.
“Ba’baur,” Grogu insists. “Ba’baur!”
Ba’baur… it sounds like Grogu’s trying to say ba’buir, or grandparent. Din’s eyes flick to Rus’ face, trying to find whatever Grogu sees. A man with a beard, dark eyes, black hair turned silver… Something in Din’s chest seizes. Rus looks like him . That’s why Grogu’s so attached, why Din felt that passing sense of familiarity. The man has Din’s face, though aged several decades.
And Grogu thinks the man is his grandparent, his ba’buir, because of that resemblance.
“Ad’ika,” Din murmurs, shaking his head. He stands, collecting Grogu from Rus despite Grogu’s plaintive cries. Din lifts his foundling up, gently pressing the forehead of his helmet to his foundling’s own. “I’m sorry, ad’ika,” Din whispers. “He’s not– they’re not…”
Grogu gives a sad whine, battering his claws against Din’s helmet. “Boo!” he demands. Boo, buy'ce, helmet.
“You know I can’t, ad,” Din says as he sits back down, cradling the child in his arms. He might remove his helmet for Grogu, but he won’t do it in the presence of these strangers. Even if Grogu seems to think them… related to Din.
Grogu flails. When Din moves a hand to try and calm him, Grogu’s tiny hands catch on his glove. The foundling coos and pulls, claws tugging on the glove. Din sighs. At least it’s better than the child wanting his helmet off. He obliges with the request, disconnecting the seal and pulling the glove off. The air is warm against Din’s skin as he offers his bare hand to his child. Grogu chirps, two small hands wrapping around one of Din’s fingers.
buirloveseelookfeellikebuirfeelhavesenseseesee
If Din hadn’t been already sitting down, he would have staggered. A tidal wave of emotions and images and feeling hits him like a charging mudhorn and then…
A shining silver helmet and strange-familiar faces stand over him. The strange-familiar faces are not ones he knows but he does, a face so much like the one under shining silver, but weathered. In the sense of space between them there is something –
(He doesn’t have words to name it, this sense of space he does not have. It’s the pull of gravity, the eternal spiraling fall around a planet, the attraction between things on opposite sides of the galaxy.)
–threads tie between them, twisting in the something, singing of things ages past but oh so young in the weave of space . He reaches for it, exploring the threads, and they sing of once tied together , echoes of each on the others. Not gone, not forgotten, just oh so far away–
(The planet has echoes of the moon that was once in its orbit, in the wobble of its axis, in the easing of its tides–)
Ba’buire, that’s what the one beneath shining silver had taught, with warm-love-strength-safety shining from between silver plates. Parents of my parents.
Din surfaces from the ocean of his foundling’s making with a gasp, jerking in place. His breath echoes inside his helmet. What… What was that? Grogu? Din grasps at the fading alien feelings. He grasps for the cavernous space – once overwhelming fullness – left behind by that… that thing-like-gravity that Din cannot sense but that his foundling could trace the path of.
His child’s magic… or something of it.
Din’s heart hammers against the inside of his chestplate. Echoes of Grogu, for it cannot be any other, still drift in his mind– threads, once tied together, ba’buire, parents of my parents. Grogu, his hands on Rus’ face, declaring: ba’buir! Grandparent.
It’s… it can’t be true.
The galaxy contains quadrillions of sapients. It’s not so strange that a few look alike. Din’s parents are dead , they have been for three decades. It is impossible.
(And yet, a few years earlier he would have said Grogu was impossible. A child so small could not lift a mudhorn with his mind, could not weave space to his whims. Jedi were a myth, a spacer tale, nothing more than Imperial propaganda and justification for genocide. You could not blow up a planet, yet Alderaan is nothing more than dust.)
It’s impossible. It has to be.
Grogu whines and Din’s helmet snaps to look down at his foundling. The child has both hands planted against Din’s breastplate and is staring up into his visor, giving a keening cry. Osik. He can sense Din’s distress.
Din cups a hand around the child, murmuring reassurances so quiet Din doesn’t know if they make it past his vocoder. He feels weightless, trying to regain some sense of gravity. His only brace is the small being in his arms.
Maybe Din got it wrong and this planet is known for the other kind of spice… maybe he’s deep in a spice dream right now, and that’s why he’s even considering this as a possibility. It’s madness. It’s impossible. And yet.
“Mando? Señor? Mierda, Etta, no sé qué les pasa,”[2] Rus’ voice grates against his ears in that language, foreign yet familiar.
That language…
Din only remembers pieces of his first language. In the years since his Finding, he’s slowly lost it to the shrouded mists of memory. He had no one to use it with except for ghosts. Except now the ghosts are in the room with him, and the tongue they are speaking, Din realizes with sudden painful clarity, is Aq Vetinian.
It is another knife in the chest of his doubt.
Suddenly, Din is scrambling, trying to remember everything he can from a time shrouded in pain and grief. He only has pieces. It’s been decades. Everything that was familiar from that time was burned to ash and left behind on Aq Vetina. The only things Din took with him were his name, the clothes on his back, and fragments of language and memory.
Now, he barely has that to determine if these ghosts are real or not.
Din groans, helmet dipping down towards his chest. He’s aware of his hosts startling, then approaching, hands hesitantly raised towards him. “Mandalorian?” Rus asks and Din lifts his helmet. The man’s face is twisted in worry, in confusion. “Are you alright?”
He is not. Din dips his helmet in a nod anyways.
“Here,” Etta says, another cup of tea in her outstretched hands.
Din takes it. Grogu is in his lap, curled against his armor and watching him with an intent, almost apologetic, gaze. Din looks down at the ceramic cup clutched in one hand, watching fragments of leaves and powdered spice swirl like nebulae. It’s impossible. The whole thing is a spice dream. He should get on his ship and never come back to this planet.
“Gracias,”[3] Din says, instead.
The two humans hovering over him startle. Din tips his visor up, watching the pair. Rus looks shocked, eyes wide as he stares at Din. “You know Aq Vetinian?” the man asks, hesitant.
“A little,” Din admits, inclining his helmet in a small nod. “Not as much, now. I… I was originally from Aq Vetina, before I became a Mandalorian.” He pauses, weighing how much he wants to say. “I am a foundling. They took me in, after my parents died.”
“You…” Etta trails off. She slowly sits back down, tugging her partner along with her. “I’m sorry.”
Din shrugs. It happened a long time ago. Some of the anger from that time still burns – anger at the injustice, at the droids, at the power hungry sapients who involved his planet in their karking war – but he has made his peace with it.
Whether or not he is in a room of ghosts.
“We were originally from Aq Vetina,” Rus hums after a moment. “We came here after the Separatists’ armies attacked, the attack we lost our son in. We lived in the southern hemisphere, near the city of Firenza. You know it?”
Din inclines his head. He keeps his breaths measured, even as his heart skips a beat.
“Who were your parents?” Etta asks. She’s watching him with a greater sort of interest, now that they know he once hailed from their planet. “Perhaps we knew them?”
Din hesitates, then lets his shoulders slump slightly. “I… can’t remember their names. I was very young at the time.” He gives a dry smile, not that they can see it. “I only know them as madre[4] and padre[5], in my remembrances.”
“What is…” Etta stops, visibly steels herself, then pushes forward. “What was your name?”
It is not against the Creed to share your true name, Din knows, but it is not encouraged either. A name is another way enemies can track you, so they are kept close and given only sparingly. Instead, aliases are used. “Mando” is a name applied to many, the shared identity outsiders gave to Mandalorians. Din should not… but, worse people have known. Moff Gideon for one.
And if anything will test the validity of his outlandish theory…
“Din Djarin,” he says softly and from within the safety of his helmet, he watches the pair of humans freeze .
They go still, confusion and shock and denial and hope warring on their faces. Etta’s fingers tangle in the fabric of her sleeves. Rus grips the couch so tight his knuckles are pale and bloodless. Then, a whisper:
“Hijo?”
Son?
It’s a trick, it’s impossible, it’s a mistake, his mind screams.
Aq Vetina was never a big planet, his heart argues.
“There was a man, el hombre, who ran a bakery,” Din says, focusing on the pair of Humans seated across from him. Rus. Etta. He doesn’t remember his parent’s names, they had no names other than madre and padre. “What was his name?”
A neighbor. He’d played with the man’s daughter. He can’t remember the daughter’s name. But his parents had made him thank the baker by name every time the man had given him an extra sweet roll. They went to the bakery often.
“Mikal,” Rus whispers. “His name was Mikal. He gave yo–” the man hesitates. “He gave the kids extra conchas every time we visited.” Conchas. That’s what those sweet rolls were called.
Din closes his eyes, taking a breath that rasps through his vocoder. “Gracias, señor Mikal,”[6] he whispers, nearly forgotten oft-repeated words. He opens his eyes, staring at the two humans across from him, cradling Grogu closer to his chest.
“When the droids came, my parents hid me in a cellar,” Din says softly. “I didn’t think they survived.”
It is forgotten history and a confession. It is still a grief he carries, but the edge of it has long been dulled. A scar rather than a wound. What remains are two names he spoke alongside others in his remembrances.
Rus and Etta flinch. “Mierda,” Rus whispers, a word Din never learned. They are clutching each other like a lifeline, their eyes fixated on him. “It… it is you.”
“… Madre? Padre?”
Etta chokes. “Mi niño,”[7] she breathes. Her hand hovers in the air, reaching for him. “Mi niño.”
Din shifts Grogu in his lap then reaches forward with his still bare hand and entwines his fingers with Etta’s. Her hand is warm, fingers slightly crooked with age, and they grip onto him like a lifeline. “Madre…” Din’s voice is barely a whisper. “Su cuy'gar.”[4]
You’re still alive.
“Hijo,” Rus is weeping now, silent tears running down his face. “Please, can… can we…” Rus’ voice falters, but the way he stares into Din’s visor says the rest. Can we see you? Can we see your face? Can we know it is you?
He hesitates.
It is against the Creed. But the Creed has grown stricter with time, the need for secrecy pushing Din’s covert to more absolute anonymity, even with each other. It worked, and they survived. But there are other Mandalorians and other Creeds, and the Armorer will no longer declare them as exiles.
It is against the Creed. But the Creed also states that family is more than blood and blood need not remain family. Children can divorce themselves from their parents if they wish. And just as a parent can adopt a child and name them as their own, so too can a child adopt a parent.
Until his adoption of Grogu, Din was a clan of one for many years. The Armorer still tells him he needs to accept more into his aliit. She’s right.
“I accept you as my clan,” Din murmurs quietly.“Ni kyr'tayl sa'aliit.”
An oath and a promise, to Madre, to Padre , to Grogu, and to the ka’ra .
Din tugs his fingers free from Etta’s. With shaking hands, a roaring unease that he doesn’t think will ever leave him, Din takes hold of his helmet… and pulls. Metal falls away and he blinks, eyes scanning the room. Without the intermediary of his HUD, the colors of the room are a little brighter, the shadows a little darker. He takes a breath. It tastes of spices and earth and smells of familiar, an aching recognition that uncurls from the deepest depths of his mind.
Din looks to his madre and padre, shows them his face, his soul, bared of his metal skin.
Etta slowly stands and steps towards him, hand outstretched. Din stands as well, keeping Grogu tucked in the crook of one arm. He’s so much taller than them, Din realizes with a start. The top of his padre’s head is only just above Din’s chin.
His madre’s outstretched hand lands on the smooth metal of his pauldron, tracing it towards his neck until her hand finds skin. She cups his face with a gentleness Din has not had the privilege of in years. Rus’ hand finds his other shoulder, fingers twisting in the fabric of Din’s cape.
“Hijo,” Din’s parents whisper, and Din leans into their touch. Son. He has not gotten to be that for a very long time. Not since Aq Vetina. Not since his buir .
“Baur,” Grogu coos. “Ba’baur.”
Din swallows around the tightness in his throat, heat prickling behind his eyes. Slowly, he reaches a hand forward, slipping it behind Etta’s head and gently, oh so gently, bringing their foreheads together. “Su cuy'gar, Madre, Padre.”
Hello.