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therezhikitt · 24 days ago

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The making of a Mandalorian ...

The Mandalorian: The Book of Din Djarin

by TheRezhikitt

Chapter 8: Foundling

~Aq Vetina, circa 26 BBY~

“Be brave, my son, and honorable. You are a Djarin.” Da says, his eyes glittering. Din has never seen a man cry before.

The tears roll down Mam’s face, making tracks in the dust from the explosions. She kisses him, whispering a prayer, “Oh, ye gods, be kind to my little one.” She brushes his hair from his forehead. “Remember, Ma dj’uin, that Mam loves you always, forever.”

Her arms fall away, and the doors shut, leaving him in the dark. He can’t tell if the shaking is from the shelling or if it’s him. He clutches Giddy, the stuffed rezhikitt he’s had since he was a baby. He’d shoved the toy into his shirt as the family ran from their apartment.

The armored giant who pulls him from the underground storage bunker is no less terrifying than the B2 droid poised to kill him. As inhuman appearing in armor and helmet, bristling with weapons. At least the man—he thinks it is a man��has a recognizable head. The helmet is cocked in a way that makes Din think he is being questioned. His ears are ringing, all he can do is nod and hope it’s the right response.

There are many bodies on the ground, some in pieces. His eyes are so swimmy that he can’t see well enough to tell who they are.

The giant’s arm tightens around him and whoosh, they are speeding upward to the sky, escaping the battle below. The surface falling away makes Din’s stomach lurch and what little breakfast he had—the morning was so long ago—erupts from his mouth. Mortified, Din looks up at the flying soldier, whose body jerks like he’s laughing. It’s all right then. Sort of. Maybe it is just a man underneath after all.

Din had heard his parents talking the other night that Mandalorian fighters were coming to help defend Aq Vetina against the Separatists. “It’s only right,” Da said. “Our planet pays a hefty tribute every year to support Mandalore’s combat forces. About time we got some good of it.”

“Well, anything to stop this dreadful war,’ Mam agreed. “But Mandos! They have such a terrifying—.” She noticed Din listening hard. In that too-bright voice adults get when they want to distract, she asked, “How was school today?”

They fly to a troop transport hovering within the atmosphere. More armored forms, more children--some screaming, some sobbing quietly; others are frozen, their expressions blank. Many are wounded. Where are the adults who should accompany them?

These … people? do remind him of the illustrated covers on graphic novels at the corner bookseller. Din can read the titles with a little help. Books like Mando Smash Battalion 183 or Mythosaur Rangers of Ragnar or Women of Mandalore: Babes in Beskar. Mam says they’re trash and that no one really knows anything about the Mandos. Da says they’re adventure stories that Din can enjoy when he’s older.

The soldiers go about their business on the ship, arriving with those they have airlifted, most returning to the battle below. The expressionless plates of their helmets give an aura of impenetrability, a god-like composure in the presence of danger and loss. Din works to arrange his own features in imitation. He will not yield to the fear and fatigue shaking him from inside.

The troop transport lands at last. Din is relieved to be off the cavernous ship. Several of the kids were sick on the journey, the stink can be cut with a knife. He gulps the air of the planet moon like water. It tastes … dirty, smoky.

“Was there a war here, too?” He asks the Mando who rescued him. All around, the buildings are coated with ash dust, the skies polluted. The sparse plant life is stunted and dark with soot.

“Naw,” says the man. “This is what greed looks like. Concordia is a mining colony—or was. We live here now since no one else wants it.”

Ahead is a pair of doors large and wide enough to accommodate the massive mining scoops and juggernauts. The sorrowful group of survivors are admitted through a man-sized door cut into one of the huge ones to a vast underground room. He stands in a straggling line with the other children, many of whom cry and shiver. The injured are led away.

Din doesn’t like this place. It smells of old fuel and chemicals and dirt, he can sense the weight of the planet pressing down from above. He struggles to contain the tears that keep bubbling up. He will not be like the other snivelers.

He wishes he could just go to sleep somewhere and wake up at home, before the war.

Clothing is handed out. Din is given a jerkin and vest, with a jacket to go over. He’s glad, it is cold underground. Home was warm. Along with steel-toed boots to replace his city shoes, there is a leather head covering, shaped rather like a scoop. It comes down past his ears in back, leaving his face bare except for a narrow strip between the eyes, covering part of his nose. The children all resemble one another now.

A woman, tall and commanding, strides in to stand before the remaining children. Her very presence brings an urge to stand up straight, even to the most distracted.

The view plate of her helmet is different, more suggestive of actual features, but still impersonal, imposing. Alone of all the adults Din has seen, she bears no weapons, yet her aura of power is indisputable. A half circle of armed warriors stands behind her, motionless as statues.

“You are now Foundlings of the Tribe. Our ways will be strange to you for a time, but you will learn. You are in our care until you come of age, or your families come to claim you. This is the Way.”

“This is the Way,” the soldiers say in one voice.

She waits, expectant. “This is the Way,” she repeats, making a prompting gesture of her gloved hand. The children glance amongst themselves, questioning. The motion again.

“This is the Way,” blurts Din. He can feel himself reddening as all eyes turn to him. He didn’t mean to draw attention to himself, he just … wanted to respond to the unspoken order.

She’s still waiting. A muttered chorus of, “This is the Way,” sounds, straggling and out of sync.

The woman walks the row of small figures, correcting the line, encouraging posture, bringing a sense of order to the scruffy little band. She asks each their name, repeating and nodding. She does not inquire where they are from or if they want to be there, serenely ignoring any questions.

“And you are?”

“I am a Djarin,” he says, lifting his chin and trying not to quaver. Da told him to be brave. “Din Djarin.”

She studies him, making Din want to squirm and scuff his feet.

At last, she speaks. “Welcome to the Children of the Watch, Din Djarin.”

… … … …

“Tar Delayn. Is that the one that you saved?”

“It is, Armorer. I was jetting over the combat zone and from above, I saw two individuals place the child in a below-surface bunker, then run, trying to distract the battle-droids. It didn’t work, so I stepped in to not let their sacrifice be in vain.”

“They were likely his parents. He comes of courageous stock then. This is good.”

The pair walk in silence for a score of paces before the Armorer speaks again. “So, he was most definitely under the ground?”

“Yes. Is it important?”

“There is a passage in the Great Scroll of Nadar foretelling of a hero being raised or lifted from soil that is of Mandalore, but not Mandalore. Born to wield a weapon of renown and thus be instrumental in the rebuilding of our culture.”

“That’s a prophesy? Huh. He’s just any little boy to me.”

“Prophesy and omens are … convoluted.”

“That’s why you’re the seer, not me.” Tar chuckles. “Lost his guts when we flew from the surface. Splashed the wreck of the sodding B2 that tried to kill him. A fitting goodbye.”

“Indeed. We must watch this one, guide him well.”

… … … …

Din gets through the days—if they can be called that, underground there is no difference between night and day--shuffling with the other bewildered children through a series of classes, tasks, meals, organized games and chores. They are supervised at all times by various helmeted warriors, faceless as beetles. The strangeness, the sounds, the unchanging light, the unfamiliar food, the constant company of other beings, are all draining. He longs for home, for Mam and Da.

Occasionally, he encounters Tar Delayn, the heavy infantry soldier who rescued him. Tar always sounds glad to meet him. Din wishes he could see his features, to have a connection again with a trusted, familiar adult.

By bedtime, he’s worn out, ready to fall into his bunk for the release of sleep.

The nights are rough.

The fears, the homesickness and racking grief that he suppresses during the day come boiling up after lights out. He hears the soft weeping of other foundlings, the whispered cries for parents or siblings. His world is crushed and scattered afresh. Swallowed sobs scald his throat. “Be brave, my son.” He must live up to his father’s last words.

Giddy is his only comfort. He clutches the toy through the nights, slipping her into his locker before the rising bell. He’s not ashamed, it’s just … personal. The so-called lockers are simple cabinets built into the bunks; they don’t actually lock. Who among them has anything of value?

One day, however, when he comes back from class, his locker door stands open. Giddy is gone.

“Who took it?” He demands, rounding on the other children. “Who’s been frakking with my things?” Using a word that would have gotten him punished at home.

Most won’t meet his eyes, but they know all right. Din walks around the dormitory, searching the faces. Not looking for the toy, at this moment all he can think about is finding the culprit. His fury at the trespass is a living thing inside him, sickening in its intensity.

“Paz Vizsla,” whispers one urchin, at last. Din’s heart sinks.

Older, bigger, stronger, dumb--and mean with it. All the younger children hate and fear him. At eleven, Paz won’t be old enough to swear the Creed for three years yet, but he’s as tall and broad as many of the fourteen-year-old cadets.

Paz’s favorite pastimes are bragging about his family connections--like he’s anymore responsible for that than the foundlings are for their status—and tormenting those smaller than he is. Which is just about everyone. He makes frequent appearances in the littles’ dormitory, where the pickings are easy.

Da always said, “A real man doesn’t pick fights—he doesn’t need to--but he should always be ready to defend himself and others when trouble comes.” Paz Vizsla must be called to account. That the object of defense is a battered plaything matters not at all. Giddy is family. Din takes off for the bigger kids’ dorm, not allowing himself to think.

“Little baby wants his woobie, does he?” Paz Vizsla, taunts him, dangling the toy by a leg, yanking it out of reach when Din tries to grab it.

Paz is bigger than he remembered. Din would need a ladder to land a punch on his leering bully face. Something else, nearer the ground then. His mind races.

When the war began to close in on Aq Vetina, Mam and some of the other neighborhood women took a personal defense course. Din hung out in the corner of the room with other kids as the lessons went on. Sometimes they had play fights, watching their mothers in action, until told to be quiet and sit down.

“Make your size and agility work for you,” the instructor says in memory. “Try to stay focused.”

Drawing on all the misery, the loss and rage, this act of trespass, Din darts forward, landing a sharp kick with the toe of his boot on Paz’s kneecap. The bigger boy reels from pain and surprise, his knee buckling—Din is ready, shoving up with the heel of his palm, impacting the soft under part of the nose. There’s a smushing crunch and a gush of warm blood. Paz bellows, staggering back, and Giddy is in Din’s hand as he hurtles from the room.

A stitch in his side finally stops his headlong rush through the dark corridors of the covert. Chest heaving, he sinks to the ground, rocking Giddy to him. He’s unsure where he is now, the tunnels are all so similar. He’ll probably die here; all anyone will find is a little pile of bones and …. He starts to blub. The earlier indignation dies away, leaving Din exhausted and shaking. Over and over, his right hand relives the nasty crunching of Paz’s nose breaking.

“Din Djarin. I find you at last.”

He shrinks back against the wall. It’s the Armorer. She hunkers down beside him. Her hands are brisk yet gentle as she pats him down, checking for injuries.

A cloth is pressed into his hand. As he mops his eyes and scrubs at the crusted blood on his palm, he wonders what about when they sneeze in those helmets? Or have an itch? Get something stuck in their teeth?

“Is this what caused all the fuss?” She indicates Giddy.

“No, Armorer. Paz Vizsla caused it. I … just got back what’s mine. Am—am I in trouble?”

“For redressing a personal insult? No. Especially against someone of unequal strength and size. Were you not afraid?”

He wants to claim not, but the owlish view plate won’t let him lie. “Y-yes, but that wasn’t important. If … I let it slide then no one would respect me and I--.”

The Armorer nods in understanding. “To carry on in spite of one’s own fear is the most challenging battle of all. It is well that you learn this so young. But tell me, Din Djarin, do you think such an item is suitable for a warrior?”

She wants him to give Giddy up.

His despair at being asked to relinquish his last connection with his real home almost makes him start bawling again. He’s so tired, he doesn’t know how to handle another attack, even a well-meaning one, if that’s what this is.

“Or … might I propose a trade?” The Armorer lifts something from around her neck. “Give me the little rezhikitt and in exchange, take this.”

She places an object in Din’s hand. It is a pendant in the shape of a mythosaur skull, the signet of the Children of the Watch. Of pure beskar steel, still warm from her body.

Perhaps she’s … right. Even the name ‘Giddy’ is babyish, his first attempts to say ‘rezhikitt’. Feeling like a traitor to his oldest friend, Din drops the cord of finely plaited leather over his head. The Armorer’s nod of approval is a bleak satisfaction.

“Wear it as a memento of your first battle. A badge of honor. The toy I will keep at the forge. You may come visit it, and me, whenever your other duties allow.”

She escorts him to the proper turning and directs him on his way

As he trails wearily back to the dormitory, very alone without Giddy, Tar Delayn joins him.

“Sounds like you gave that overgrown snert Paz Vizsla the comeuppance he’s been asking for. Good show, kid.” He gives Din a hearty clap on the shoulder. A gesture from one man to another. If a soldier of Tar’s renown is praising him, maybe things will be okay. Someday.

“Tar? Will … will you teach me some, y’know, hand-to-hand combat stuff a small person can do?”

“Preparing for the next battle when the enemy’s blood is still warm on your hands. That’s the stuff. We’ll make a mighty soldier of you yet.” The big man is teasing, but gently. It gives Din a welcome rush of belonging.

“I got lucky,” he explains. “I want to have more than luck on my side next time.” Because there will be a next time, he knows.

.o.o.o.o.

“Swearing the Creed in an honor, earned by an individual’s adherence to our laws, but it is not for the many.” The Armorer pauses, inspecting the assembled children standing at parade rest before her. “To walk the path of the Mandalore requires strength of character. Each postulant will be tested greatly.

“Listen and know this for truth. We alone are Mandalorians, my Children of the Watch.”

A silence falls, allowing the significance of those words to sink in.

“Even those of our blood, though they may be fine people in other respects, are dar’manda if they do not follow the Way. It is their loss--and our sorrow. They are forever barred from Manda, the afterlife that is the sole province of faithful followers of the Creed. This is the Way.”

“This is the Way,” answers the dutiful chorus of young voices.

“For those of you who come from living families, strive to set an example to your relations that they may be enlightened and cleave to the Way as set out in the Resol’nare, the core of what it means to be Mandalorian.”

How one is to demonstrate this example is unclear. The covert gets no visitors. It occurs to Din to wonder, do the non-believers know they are dar’manda? Perhaps they don’t see it that way … or care? And how come the Tribe doesn’t live in the open, where they can prove the superiority of the Way? Huddling like gall-rats in the tunnels of an abandoned mine isn’t likely to attract converts, even ten-year-old Din can see that.

Ba'jur bal beskar'gam, Ara'nov, aliit, Mando'a bal Mand'alor— An vencuyan mhi.

His lips move automatically, reciting the Resol’nare with the others —first in Mando’a, then Galactic Basic-- as his unruly thoughts churn on.

Education and armor, Self-defense, our tribe, Our language and our leader— All help us survive.

The description of Manda doesn’t do much for him either. All warriors together in some nebulous place, who … sing of valor and participate in eternal games of skill and strength. It sounds like any night in the great hall. Big deal. If they could take off the helmets, maybe …. Din is horrified at this blasphemy--at himself--not wanting to catch anyone’s eye lest they see his intransigence.

“Be ever on guard for doubt, the thin edge of the greater blade of heresy. Commit to being a weapon of righteousness. There is only one route to eternity: devotion to our Way and heroism in battle.”

Did she read his thoughts somehow?

“What is the First Tenet of the Creed?” the Armorer asks.

The children stand to attention, answering in unison, “’Live fighting in order to die fighting.’”

“Indeed. And the Second Tenet?”

“’Solidarity and loyalty to the group is the strength of the Creed.’”

“The third?”

“’The word of a Mandalorian is sacrosanct. A vow to the Creed, of the Creed, by the Creed is binding unto death.’”

“Mark these words well, young soldiers. Once one swears to the Way of the Mandalore, there is no going back. Death is the only release from this vow.”

… … … …

“Foundling.” Paz Vizsla sneers the word like a curse.

Din glances up from the blaster carbine he’s cleaning. “Did someone say something? Or is it just gas from last night’s rations?”

“Foundling scum.” Paz repeats, like the dolt he is. “Picked up off the skug heap of a world too weak to defend itself.”

“Is that supposed to upset me somehow?” Din stands, outwardly calm as adrenalin spikes inside. “At least my parents wanted to keep me. You see, Paz,” he continues with an air of sympathetic patience, “Your folks took one look at your arse-ugly mug and said, ‘Put this kid into a helmet now. Save us from our shame.’ They gave you away.”

Paz stomps toward him, fists flexing. Without visibly reacting, Din makes ready to run. He’s come a long way in hand-to-hand training, but speed is the main advantage he has over superior bulk and strength. That, and an intimate knowledge of every side passage and lay-by in four levels of the old mines.

The dormitory proctor, a soldier called The Whip because of her lightening reflexes, intervenes. “Vizsla! Out. You’re not supposed to be in the kids’ dorm. Since you can’t seem to remember, we’ll take it up with the Disciplinarian.” She grabs him by the ear and hustles him away.

Paz Vizsla is referred to thereafter as Arse-Ugly, though generally not where he can hear.

Din never speaks the words again. He doesn’t have to.

.o.o.o.o.

The war is going badly. Every day and night, shifts of warriors depart from Concordia to the surface of Mandalore, coming back depleted, with reports of the other side's dishonorable tactics. Many do not return.

Tar Delayn. His rescuer, mentor, and friend, is dead, killed in a dastardly ambush. The Armorer brings Din the news personally.

“He was as a father to you. Let your grief be tempered by the knowledge that he died well, befitting a warrior. You will meet him again someday, in the halls of Manda.”

Din will be of age in just over a year. By Creed, the foundlings have a choice to swear or not. He recognizes now that there is no such thing as choice. Tar Delayn and the millions of others who perished must be avenged. Each soldier is urgently needed, the Tribe is struggling to maintain their numbers. Besides, what else does he have?

“The pain can serve you,” the Armorer adds. “Lean into it, harness it as a weapon. Each enemy soldier you kill is another step on the path to life everlasting.”

He forcibly quiets any misgivings with ever more rigorous training.

.o.o.o.o.

The armor is waiting for him, piled on his rack. Din knows the protocol; it’s been drilled into him since he declared his intention to swear the previous year. Each piece is examined for integrity, then dedicated to the service of the Tribe and the reestablishment of an orthodox Mandalore, an ideal world devoted to the traditional interpretation of the Creed.

Flight suit on, cowl pulled up, clasps settled. Boots, cuirass, faulds, cuisses, pauldrons, gloves, vambraces, all buckled, toggled, and snapped into place. His leather helmet and chest plate, the things of childhood, he leaves on the bunk. He will not return to the dormitory.

Those sworn live in barracks; each soldier has a sliver of a room, more like a cell, with a door that locks. A place where the helmet may be doffed. A rack, a locker, a hand basin, a table and a chair for meals or study. There are no comforts within, but having never known them, Din Djarin is not expecting such.

Din steps into formation with the other bare-headed postulants as they march to the Sanctuary. The last time he will breathe freely, see with his own eyes, except in solitude.

The armor weighs on him, changing the way he carries himself. Looking at his classmates, he observes that they all have adopted the soldier’s swagger. Deliberate, confident, dangerous. Pride burns like a fire inside him. The empty blaster holster at his side flaps with each step.

They file into the Sanctuary, lining up to face the ranks of their soon to-be comrades-in-arms.

The Armorer speaks. “This is a great day, the swearing in of a new generation of Creed warriors, embarking on the path to glory eternal. May all the worlds tremble when they hear the word Mandalorian.”

The youthful voices, some cracking with adolescence, others tremulous from emotion, recite the Warrior’s Prayer. The rote words fade in and out of Din’s awareness as he speaks them.

“O, spirits of Manda, accept this follower’s offering of blood, life, and death … make me strong of limb, steady of vision, sure of aim … armed with the strength of ye warriors past … when it is my time to die … let me lie atop a mountain of the fallen, so that all who see may know … I always fought my best.”

Each postulant’s sponsor steps forward, holding a helmet and a dagger. The Armorer herself stands for Din Djarin, taking the place Tar would have held, causing a ripple through the spectators like wind through treetops. As one, the postulants take up the offered blade and use it to draw a drop of blood from the thumb. A stripe the length of the nose, one beneath each eye.

“My armor … as inseparable from me as flesh, bone and blood, without which there is no life … my helmet shall be the face I show to the world and my brethren … if ever I remove it … then all of the Way shall shun me … I will have no call upon them evermore … Thus, I give my oath. The word of a Mandalorian.”

His life is no longer his own.

Helmets are donned, closing in the vision, directing it to the sworn path only. One must turn the whole body to see around.

“This is the Way.”

The corridors are lined with warriors saluting the cadets as they march to the armory, where they are issued with standard weapons, used but in good repair. He will earn more armaments and upgrades, as rewards for outstanding action in combat and by saving his soldier’s pay, by hiring out as a mercenary.

Training, both practical and theoretical, intensifies. Din learns not only strategy, tactics and weaponry, but how to regulate his body so that days of fasting do not trouble him, much. He learns to sleep whenever the opportunity presents and how to ration his energy so he can function when those opportunities are scarce. He learns the basics of field medicine--and to give mercy to fallen comrades who have no hope of recovery, hastening them to Manda.

.o.o.o.o.

Din Djarin takes to spending much of what free time he has in the Sanctuary, a space that is established first thing everywhere the covert settles. It’s reserved for ceremonies and presumably for any warrior who wishes to commune with the mythosaur bones and relics of heroes kept there. It’s always empty, besides him. He’s no more devout than anyone else--he visits the Sanctuary for the privacy it affords.

It is a place of silence, well away from the shouts of drills, the constant bustle of the corridors and great hall, the clump of booted feet, the clanging of the foundry, the endless boasts and challenges.

The barracks are noisy as well, the partitions thin between the cells. Talking, snoring, laughing, arguing, coughing. The neighbor on one side suffers night terrors, jolting the whole enclosure awake periodically with their screams. The other side is occupied by an individual who performs Schre'eka at least twice a day, judging by the grunting Din hears with depressing regularity. He’s understanding to a point, but still. He prefers the sonic cubicle for that.

Nothing is ever said about disturbances—a soldier’s cell is as inviolable as the helmet.

Here on the planet Calixo, the room allotted to the Sanctuary has a recessed ledge running around just below the ceiling. Din’s habit is to climb up and tuck himself back, all but invisible to anyone who enters—beings seldom look up, he’s observed—but giving him a view of the door and most of the space. It’s snug, he won’t fit if he grows much more, but the Tribe will move the covert again before long. That’s been happening with increasing regularity.

He can hear his own thoughts here. Even ones that are uncomfortable. Those he learns to push into a mental compartment to be dealt with … later. That ‘later’ never arrives, he does not acknowledge.

One day, his solitude is breached.

“Ssshhh. Quiet.”

“Is anyone in here?” A whisper.

“Never is. We’re alone.”

Two voices. The individuals crowd into a corner behind the partly open door, concealed from passersby in the corridor, but from his niche near the ceiling, Din gets a flier’s eye view of the pair.

“We shouldn’t be doing this, not here. It’s too dangerous.”

“I know, Tec, but I-I had to be with you, just for a moment.”

“Yes …” It is Mel Graff and Tecto Krin, recognizable by their respective armors.

They are removing their helmets. Pulling back the cowls beneath. Din is frozen with shock.

With gasps and muffled cries, they fall on each other, kissing desperately, touching the small amounts of skin bared at face and neck, groping at the fabric-covered flesh between the armor plates.

Appalled yet fascinated, Din should … hide his eyes, leap from his hiding place and-and not be party to their folly, but he remains still.

Will they … make Ritual together, here in the Sanctuary? He’s never witnessed such acts. No one he knows has. Those who go out among civilians have stories to tell, which Din largely dismisses as so much hot air—how could those be true? To his disappointment, and deep relief, the pair stop in a few moments, their reluctance plain. Helmeted again, they take turns leaving the Sanctuary, going separate directions.

He should denounce them. Their transgression is staggering. Oath breaking is … apostasy, worse than ignorance by far. They are … no longer Mandalorians. Dar’manda.

Din Djarin says nothing, ever.

He does not forget either. Sometimes, often, he takes out the memory, puzzling over the motivations behind such an infraction. He also remembers their faces—bare, vulnerable, impassioned, so focused on each other that he could have walked through the Sanctuary without notice.

Faces.

It is some three years since Din Djarin became eligible to participate in Ritual, a rite of passage following his first recorded battle kills, as is custom. Still flying high from combat, the group encounters in the space-black room are … astonishing, mind-bending, gratifying. And yet, as time passes, he’s begun to experience a niggling dissatisfaction with the Ritual.

Often, he wonders … who’s hands? Who’s mouth? Who’s yielding openings or probing staff? He finds himself eyeing his comrades, trying to assess each through the bulky plates of armor, to no avail. The parameters of the Ritual are too well designed. These uncertainties don’t stop him from participating. It is expected. He is healthy, with the endless horniness of youth. It is a respite from the harshness of life. For a short while, through touch and taste, he can forget the underlying loneliness he has carried since his first day as a foundling.

How did Mel and Tec … find out about each other? Was it incited by an incident in the Ritual room? Did they somehow discover similar predilections in each other through conversation? Or--his mind struggles over this concept--was it some kind of magnetism, one for the other, as individuals, that led them into perfidy?

Now that his curiosity is aroused, he can’t stop thinking about it. How does one go about finding a one-to-one engagement? Careful listening, a casual question here or there, conversations subtly directed, he has the information he needs. A post on a message board, a discreet word with the steward of the Ritual rooms and an arrangement is made.

From the first clasp of a single pair of hands in the sacred dark, he is a changed man. The event, its intensity, focusing on only one other being, leaves him spinning for some days.

The awareness that he will never know with whom he shared this experience--and so may not hope to have it repeated--tarnishes his memory of the exchange. He hungers for more of the same. Another cautious occurrence, a another nameless partner. The sensations are different, but still searing, enthralling.

Frequent, almost frantic, participation in the group rituals can’t dilute the revelations from the encounters.

Th covert relocates to Bran’ar. At the first roll call, the lineup has changed. Individuals are missing. Tecto Krin and Mel Graf. No explanation is given.

Reeling with his burden of knowledge Din wonders, did they run off during the disarray of the move? Did they tell anyone they were leaving, and why? Worse, were they outed? Perhaps punished or killed? What about the Ritual room steward? That last fills him with fear and dread.

The next few doctrine lectures are revealing, based on passages from The Way of the Warrior:

‘By the Creed, all beings so sworn are equal, regardless of gender, social status, race or species. A marked preference or disdain for any beings solely due to one or any of these qualities is non-egalitarian and contrary to the Way.’

‘Ritual encounters are normal and necessary for the health and well-being of the individual and the community. As such, each Ritual occasion shall be approached with generosity toward all participants.’

‘All followers of the Way are comrades and brethren. Care shall be taken that all activities and gatherings are inclusive. Small groups or pairings are to be avoided. Be on guard for the development of exclusive personal attachments, which are divisive and may sully the purity of our path.’

Many words eddy in the torrents of gossip: disloyal, ungenerous, exclusive. Harsher ones as well: freaks, perverts, deviants.

Ashamed and guilt-ridden, Din Djarin knows what he is. A secret he must bury, even from himself. Pleasures he must forego, for the health of the community. The mind box where he suppresses uncomfortable truths is growing crowded.

He narrows his focus to duty and personal excellence, creating an additional, psychic armor against emotions. Nothing shall distract him from the great purpose of the reclaiming of a Mandalorian state.

The years pass … fighting alongside his comrades until the Tribe no longer has enough members to field a battalion. Then life as a mercenary with various factions, serving on several worlds. He is decorated and well rewarded for outstanding performance. The Armorer’s nod of approval means more than any medal or pile of credit chips. The coming of widespread peace reduces the demand for such services.

The covert moves, and moves again, until they land on Nevarro. Greef Karga, the master of the local Hunters’ Guild, offers him position, delighted to add a Mando to his stable. While it has distasteful elements—mainly the targets … and his fellow hunters—it’s work he is well suited to. Anything is better than idly moping about underground, bragging of past glories and picking fights as some (Paz Vizsla) do. Din soon commands the highest fees, allowing him to be generous in support of the Tribe and their foundling mission.

Life is all of a sameness—violence, the foul people he hunts, the dingy bars and brothels where he seeks them, the endless wrangling with Karga over payments. The too-familiar irritations of barracks life when he’s dirtside, the stringent self-denial, the relief of solitude in the star-studded black of space when on a job. As far as he can see ahead and behind him are nearly identical days stretching to infinity …

Then comes a day when Greef Karga says, “There is one job … no puck, direct commission … deep pockets.”

Once again, everything in Din Djarin’s world changes.

Notes:

So, a very deep dive! Din Djarin’s history is fascinating to me, the process of turning a person into a weapon. The show makes it obvious that he suffers from the many psychological disturbances associated with PTSD--including flashbacks, survivor guilt, emotional stuffing, depression and anxiety--and what this westernized Terran can only view as abuse. The same is tragically true of his peers. All typical of individuals raised in cults. It also seems to me that his embrace of the Creed was somewhat less than whole-hearted, more a matter of circumstance than true belief—and there’s no zealot like a doubter! I just had to explore that. Apocalyptica and Enigma made good soundtracks while writing this.

Read the full fic on AO3!

#the mandalorian #din djarin #the armorer #paz vizsla #mando culture #din djarin's history #mandalorian culture #how did din djarin get the way he is?#how do mandos have sex?#loss and growth #young din djarin #rescue from the SBD

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