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the-kittylorian-writes · 2 years ago

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"No Place Like Home"

This fic is the second story of an “anthology,” and this anthology is part of a longfic series (please see links below). However, this fic can be read as a standalone. Note that I have given a headcanon name and traits to Din's adoptive father. Thank you and enjoy. :)

Support this fic with original author's notes - AO3 Links to the previous fic of this anthology - AO3 || Tumblr Link to the main WIP of this ficverse - AO3 Link to the main longfic series - A03

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warnings: Some light adult themes (mentions of child and partner abandonment) Word Count: 13k

Anthology Summary:

Dinui means “gift” in Mandoa.

Din was christened with this nickname by his peers in the Tribe since they were children. It was a name used on him sarcastically, to get him to be a “blessing to everyone” even when he felt far from it. If only Din knew what a blessing he truly was, he would not have struggled too hard to find his place as a Mandalorian foundling, caught between an old life and the new.

This is a series of "Life Day" one-shots that explore the nature of Din’s heart as he grows older into the Creed, between what is real and what is a facade.

Story Summary: Din, 17 years old and in the midst of growing pains, returns to Aq Vetina with his Mandalorian father years after his rescue from certain death. What Din finds there is nothing short of a challenge when he faces an unexpected remnant of his childhood.

No Place Like Home

i. Din Djarin didn’t like it one bit when Paz Vizsla and the others told him that he’s “changed.”

It didn’t help that they’ve said it a week before Life Day and were purposefully avoiding him out of good-humored spite. Only Din didn’t find the good in it, and only felt isolation. Paz and the boys had all turned seventeen. Din was among the last to reach that age.

It didn’t help either that Fighting Corps training was no longer at the forefront of these youths’ minds. Priorities shifted from weapons studies and combat drills to… courtship dances, to flirting and finding excuses to spend more time with the ones that have caught their eye. Din turned his back on these things and his friends mocked him. His buir had told him that it was normal; most teenagers go through a stage when their concerns move to conjuring a self-image that would impress. And it was—his father chuckled at the metaphor—a different kind of battlefield.

Din shook his head. He refused to understand.

They were all in a crucial stage of their training. A year hence, they would officially begin their internships, first shadowing their superiors, and then making it on their own in mission squads. These missions were to gauge their worthiness of each piece of armor, a higher symbolic rite of passage even as they wore a complete set of beskar’gam during drills. It was all about honor, Raald reminded him. It was all about principle. The missions would surely change a budding warrior more than what can be perceived by the naked eye.

Raald Movan, his adoptive father, had stressed the importance of being seventeen, in preparation for another huge step in their young Mandalorian lives—and yet all this, wasted on idling idiots too lovestruck with each other to care. Many potential engagements were broken off by their own parents after determining the maturity levels in their children. In older days, a Mandalorian can wed as young as sixteen. Now, it would be considered parental negligence to have their child enter marriage at sixteen when neither spouse could keep on their toes during marches. One who couldn’t follow the rhythms of cadences wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate life’s responsibilities.

Soon, however, pressure among his peers got to Din’s head. He knew that he liked a young girl named Yselli, but he hadn’t considered thoughts of romance and open courtship. They were friends; they were fond of each other. Din loved making her laugh, which sounded like the tinkle of fine crystal in spite of the modulator. Yselli and her buire had settled among their Tribe after the verd’goten, where they’d sworn the Creed and donned the buy'ce at thirteen years old. Din had never seen Yselli’s face… but that face didn’t matter. What he deeply admired in Yselli was beyond the confines of the helm.

He had convinced himself that he couldn’t possibly be in love with Yselli. When he was with her, he acted natural—unlike Paz or Tarlo who faked their way into wooing two or three girls at a time. It was sport for the likes of Paz and Tarlo. They made sport of others as others made sport of them. All that sporting held no appeal to Din.

“It’s stupid,” Din had told Yselli, “to let yourself to be treated like a plaything. If you really care about someone, you don’t turn them into something to pass time by when you’re bored…”

Yselli respected the thought.

Din had friends like Saoul and Cedrik who were neutral to it all. To his frustration, while neither boy participated in those shenanigans, they both agreed to his father’s sentiments about adolescent pastimes.

“As long as you outgrow it in a few years,” Raald concluded in amusement, when Din broached the subject. “This behavior is unacceptable in adulthood. So Din, ad’ika—you can live a little.”

Din couldn’t believe that his own father encouraged this sort of “socialization.” It further irritated him when Raald promptly confronted him about his feelings for Yselli as soon as Din had turned sixteen. Raald offered him his first shots of tihaar, certain that his son’s usual uptight demeanor would loosen as well as his tongue.

“I love her, Pa,” Din had confessed within the security of their enclosed shelter—just him and his father with expressions unhampered by beskar, in a much-needed conversation over matters of growing up. “But… but not like that. Yselli isn’t sport. I love her. I won’t ever treat her as sport.” Din hiccuped, bawled a little in his inebriation, and was soon knocked out by his final glass of alcohol for the night. The last thing Din heard was Raald’s overly pleased and quiet laughter. Din decided to hate his father a little the next morning as he nursed a hangover.

Still, Din remained stern that his love for Yselli wasn’t the kind Paz and the rest made themselves fools over. He inadvertently saw his friends through the eyes of contempt, so when Din finally realized that he was chest-deep in his own feelings for Yselli at seventeen, and Paz pointed out that Din was not the Din of their childhood, the other youth was quick to expose Din’s hypocrisy. He was no longer the Din who spent waking hours “with the other kids” chasing adventure in the hills or hunting in the forests. Din had unwittingly removed himself from his friends to spend time with Yselli more and more.

“You’ve changed,” chortled Paz at him one day. Paz Vizsla was the tallest, most well-built among the boys, considered very handsome being clad from head to toe in leather and armor. He had the deepest voice which registered splendidly through the vocoder. Admirers flocked to him for that alone. “You think you’re better than us, Dinui.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Din of the larger boy. He pretended not to be too affected, yet Paz’s words stung him to the marrow, because Paz was right.

Not only did Paz tease him with that stupid nickname, but his best friend had also insulted him for his burgeoning snobbery. This hurt Din more than he let on; it was known that the Vizslas were the snobs, and even more so: the elitists. These were rumors Din had gathered from Lir Vizsla’s—Paz’s adoptive father—old life. For a Vizsla foundling to highlight that flaw in Din awfully grated at his nerves.

Paz had his own knack for leadership as he egged their circle of friends to rub it in Din’s face. It was petty and juvenile—but that was the dynamic shared among the young people of the Tribe. The worse thing was that Din couldn’t even make himself hate Paz. If anything, Din had come to hate himself instead, for falling prey to Paz’s accurate judgment. Thankfully, Yselli wasn’t dragged into this. It was Din’s mess to clean up after alienating his friends over the most natural phenomena of teenagers fawning over each other.

A week into Life Day found Din kicking up dust on his lonesome as he made his way to the shipyard behind a massive rock clearing a distance from their settlement. His father was there, working on a small transport ship which periodically shuttled supplies from offworld.

When the time came, the generation after Raald’s would man the supply crews.

Din was silent, his head down as he made his way to Raald. The older Mandalorian’s armor-plated back was turned to him, and he was hunched over a splay of circuitry.

And as always, in his father’s keen perception, Raald knew it was him without needing to look.

“Help me for a bit here, son.” Raald spoke with trademark calmness, one which Din aspired to instill within himself, but had equally ruffled him as well. It’s as if his father seemed incapable of outward anger, despite being a hardened warrior.

Wordlessly, the youth obeyed. In his work as he aided Raald, Din sighed expressively in quick intervals. The older man had noticed.

If only his father saw the displeased glower on his face. Raald often chuckled his way through Din’s troubles. Din wished Raald didn’t sound dismissive, even when he knew that his father was being exactly the opposite. He’d gradually figured out the manner in which his buir was trying to raise him, a responsibility he accepted in accordance to the Way.

“What’s so funny, Pa?” Din inquired of his father at last, sounding piqued and sullen.

“Don’t take it against Paz and the others, kid,” Raald said in genial spirits. “You know that it’s—“

“—part of growing up,” Din finished the statement with him, growing too comfortable with Raald’s own brand of light reprimand. Another sigh.

There was a hint of a smile in Raald’s voice as he continued. “I hope I didn’t set a bad example for you, Din, when I decided to remain unattached ever since I broke my own engagement with Vhaasti…”

“It’s your life, Pa,” Din grumbled, not unkindly. He let his mind wander to his work, and not to his father’s personal affairs. Then the boy grimaced, realizing that his dark mood had transmuted into rudeness. “I-I’m sorry, I—“

Raald cut him off good-naturedly with a gesture. “It’s all right. I’ve become the butt of Lir’s and the others’ crass jokes after that. There will always be a side of the story they’d fail to understand, a story which we’d rather keep to ourselves… because the reasons are unique to us.”

Din remained silent. This had encouraged Raald to keep the lecture going; silence meant that Din was willing to listen to, if not tolerate his father’s guidance.

The boy pursed his lips underneath the helmet, reluctant at first to ask. “Pa, did you… did you love Vhaasti, after all?”

Raald laughed lightly. “Well, I do love her curry buns.”

Din choked and Raald’s laughter echoed louder. “Now, I don’t mean anything perverse with that, kid.” Din sputtered an incoherent protest as the man spoke over it. “You know you kids loved those curry buns, too. And yes… yes, I did love her. I told you before. I couldn’t afford to have my attention split between riduur and ad. It’s just how I discovered I’ve been wired to function. It was either you or Vhaasti, and you know—I’d never give you up. You’re stuck with me for eternity, ner Dinui.”

“Pa!” Din grumbled over Raald’s use of that stupid nickname.

Raald pretended to ignore him. “Vhaasti understood, and we parted in good terms. That’s all that matters. Now,” the man huffed on without pause. “I’ll be going offworld in a few hours. I’ve got the comms set up at the homestead. I’ll be back in a couple of days. It shouldn’t be a problem since it’d be a weekend, so you be good. All right?”

“Where are you going?” Din asked before he could stop himself. The boy gulped hard. If Raald or any of the adults didn’t give full details of their travels and absences, it was for a reason. If the reason was hefty enough, Raald would have told Din days in advance. The boy knew his father left for solo missions once in a while. This seemed to be one of them.

This time, Raald held off his answer for much longer. The man paused in his work, as though in momentary deep thought; then his hands proceeded to move again in uneasy silence.

However, Din decided to be a bit more bold and adamant this time. If Paz and the others kids wanted to shirk their duties, it’s on them. He’d want to spend some time away from their mean-spirited teasing, even if it meant sacrificing time with Yselli. She’d know his heart far more than the rest.

“Pa, please—can I go with you?”

It was beseeching Din couldn’t take back, and would be unwilling to take back. Raald would have to drag him back to the homestead kicking and screaming. That was beneath the both of them, though…

Raald kept silent.

“Pa?”

“I’m off to Aq Vetina,” whispered the man suddenly. Raald quickly moved in greater hurry after that. “I�� I believe you’re still not ready to go back there, Din.”

A hundred and one questions tumbled viciously in Din’s mind. “Well, Pa, that depends. Why are you going back to Aq Vetina?”

Raald stilled in his steps. He turned to his son, and let Din marinate underneath the overbearing gaze of his dark-tinted visor.

A long silence reigned, and Din held his ground. The man sighed—breathy and pained.

“Ever since the Separatist attack, the surviving people of Aq Vetina had spent most of their credits in treating the wounded, then rebuilding what’s left of their world. They’ve only paid half of the commission for… for our services of emergency aid to counter-assault the battle droids and their ships. I’ll be picking up the other half of the amount now.”

Din was dumbstruck, but the knowledge wasn’t entirely new to him. Mandalorians don’t just descend from the sky like saviors on charitable and gallant whims. Din has heard more sordid versions of such tales, but he’d always known that the clean-up work his father and the rest of his team had been doing was noble—but it was still paid work. It was even a wonder that warriors of his father’s calibre would allow payment in installments. Perhaps… and this was where Din abruptly ended his train of thought.

—Perhaps he had been part of the price, the unexpected bargain, that was why they’d accepted downpayment without interest, and would return for the rest when it was ready.

Raald cleared his throat, reluctant over his next words. “I was meaning to take you back one day, if only to make peace with your past, if that was what you wanted. Many foundlings still sought closure in spite of Cin Vhetin, and depending on the conditions, that’s almost always allowed by the Way, as long as the warrior doesn't stray.”

Din hadn’t realized how tightly he was clenching his fists at his sides until his palms ached from the digging force of his fingers.

“You can take me, Pa,” Din said softly, letting his vocoder amplify the words.

Raald beheld his son serenely.

“I believe I’m ready,” said Din at last, and the older man nodded once, acceding.

ii. Din’s hands trembled. They were clammy and cold in his gloves.

He’d sat in silence for nearly the entire trip, even after they had jumped to hyperspace and his father had clambered down the cockpit for some caf. Din insisted he’d stay on the passenger’s seat until they landed (unless his help was needed elsewhere on the ship). This wasn’t exactly a vessel his father owned; it was shared among him and his team, including Lir Vizsla. Whoever took the ship last, and whoever took it next would be in charge of maintenance and needed repairs. That had always been the routine. In the Tribe, most possessions were communal investments, and so the labors involved were distributed.

His father didn’t take this nervousness against him. Din was perpetually in awe at how Raald took things in stride. If there had been a word for hero in Mando'a, he’d most certainly be worshipping his father as one. Raald was a great fighter, but it was the man’s enigmatic self-contained yet inoffensive ways which kept Din wide-eyed in the wake of the man’s steps.

To keep his mind busy and under control, Din mumbled the Resol’nare rhyme over and over, and as also suggested by Raald himself. After a while, it seemed like a comforting prayer, and Din had mumbled his way to slumber. When he awoke, it was because of the wild rattle of the ship exiting hyperspace.

The lurch and sway of the ship further aggravated the nausea he’d been keeping at bay—for there, right before him, was the full, lush aquamarine outline of the world he’d once called home, the world he’d been born in, of parents who’d given up their lives for him…

“You okay, son?” Raald called.

Din gave a start when he felt the man’s firm and warm grip on his shoulder.

The boy nodded once. He’d gathered enough courage for when the ship landed. As soon as the gangway hissed its metallic tongue upon Aq Vetina soil, Din stepped off with little hesitation.

The sight that greeted him, Din realized, was nothing he had found familiar about his birth home.

After seven years, the space port remained half-built. Only a few personnel kept the port in order. There was something so provincially diminutive about the whole thing. Din could hardly recognize the sprawling city which was the capital where the attacks had happened.

In total, five humans and three individuals of various species were at the port gates, asking little questions as he and Raald strode past the flimsy-looking durasteel archways. These folk seemed to have been previously informed of a Mandalorian’s visit. Din had tried to keep composure as their gazes lingered on his person after Raald had briefly spoken to them.

Din had his helmet on. He had grown many inches taller since his ten-year-old self. He was lanky youth—did his physique give him away? His mind swirled with dizzying suppositions. Raald had gripped him on the shoulder again; Din appreciated this wordless reassurance.

Aq Vetina may have since long forgotten about little Din Djarin. His mother and father were gone, perhaps long buried in tombs he’d thought over twice before visiting. He was just another Mandalorian accompanying a comrade, sent to this simple task of collecting payment.

Din subtly let his gaze wander around underneath the helm. The proud city no longer existed. It was just squat homes now, bungalows with unadorned roofs and swish-doors that creaked in premature age. Din fought the urge to believe that these folk needed to keep their funds for longer, especially in time for Life Day. However, if his father was here to collect—then there would be no issues attached to it.

As father and son wove their way through the near-empty streets despite the noontime hour, Din felt a disquieting stillness take over his being. He closed his eyes for a bit—what did he feel now? Yet, it was not about what he felt. It was about the city and the people around him—how defeated they seemed, and yet they kept their heads up. How their eyes seemed dull, but not empty. A light still shone in them. There was still a shred of hopelessness in the manner they carried themselves… but it was only temporary.

Din’s heart quivered. Aq Vetina would one day see better days. Maybe, it would even rise to its former glory, if everyone was industrious and patient enough.

The magistrate’s hall was a threadbare thing to behold, and Din did not recognize the woman who greeted them in limping approach. She was past middle age with a kind, weary look to her, but it was not the same magistrate in charge of the city when it fell under Separatist siege.

“Ad’ika,” Raald whispered to him, cutting through his meandering thoughts. Among aruetii, the Tribe never gave their real names. It would come in code or call signs. In this instance, it was Raald simply referring to him as his child. His father no longer wore the same colors on his armor from when he’d done the cleanup over the city. He no longer wore the so-called Viszla crest, and painted everything anew with muted colors of forest green and a dark ocean blue, and melding together they were a shade a deep twilight. There where white trimmings on his buy'ce.

Din had a dash of lighter colors on his set, particularly his vambraces and thigh plates. It was a pale rusty orange. Because of his youth, his father did encourage a splash of color, and Din obliged.

“Lek, buir?” Din replied in Mando'a. Yes, father? He felt strangely more secure in his second language, to add to his attempts in keeping his once-identity of being Aq Vetina’s own from non-existent prying ears.

Humoring him, Raald continuously spoke in Mando'a throughout the conversation.

“I’d like you to have a look around, son,” the man said. “I’ll be here in the hall. I won’t budge. The magistrate’s informed me that the payment should come by the end of day. Don’t worry. There’s no threat. They’re still in hard times and finances are clearing out, but… they needed to keep their word to the Mandalorians. The city was spared from complete annihilation because of our intervention.”

“Buir,” Din repeated in his cracking adolescent voice, if only to hear the word roll through his modulator.

Raald patted his son’s arm, and sharply motioned him to do as he was bid. “Make peace with your past, son. And if you need me, I’m a comm away. I know you’d keep out of trouble. All right?”

Din stepped out into the open, hearing his father’s fading remark in Basic that his son would like a look around, and the magistrate graciously gave her permission. What irked Din a little was that the older man revealed that he was a teenage boy and wouldn’t do anything drastic without permission from authorities—namely, Raald. What if Raald were dropping hints, seeking his own sort of closure regarding Din’s origins? The magistrate continued pleasant conversation, however, away from Din being the topic.

The boy felt almost proud over how he was taking it well so far. He glanced around, here and there, and even stooped to pet a small Tooka indulgently by the side of the street. That small, sweet gesture had tiny heads bop out of windows, and Din perceived the hushed voices of children. They remained indoors, and Din shrugged, resuming his stroll.

Din knew that this was the same city, but everything seemed unfamiliar and vastly transformed. The old roads were no longer there. Reconstructions sprang from awkward corners and rows. It was as though everything had been demolished flat, like how farmers weed out the land to till it before planting new seeds. The houses were new, but the materials weren’t holding. If these houses were but five years old, they were slowly adopting the decrepit appearance of structures weathered three times over.

He wondered if it was numbness which got to him, after strolling for half an hour and not finding the pain he almost expected that would resurface from this visit, the pain which his buir had wanted him to face before giving it up forever and looking only forward. He would then honor Cin Vhetin once and for all.

“Guess this isn’t so bad,” Din whispered to himself in full Basic. He flinched and looked around, wishing no one had heard. Did he even keep a traceable accent which Aq Vetinians possessed? There was none that he knew off.

Din suddenly felt the need to stop at a bend. A rush of wind sped through the alley that began from where he stood, and deeper into a canal punctured by the elements. It was large enough for a grown human to walk through, and before Din knew it, he was following the canal’s path.

The soothing song of trickling water met his helm-ears; Din couldn’t remember if a stream flowed through the city, once upon a time. It existed here and now, and Din accepted it all. He finally reached the end of the canal. He had surfaced upon a massive wall, twice his height and spiraled in a stretch of several long meters across. Beyond the wall was a burst of open sky. Tendrils of sunlight warmed the polished slabs.

The boy stepped closer to the wall.

He held in a choked breath. Was it a sob? He couldn’t tell…

What he beheld were small markings in Aurebesh on the marbled surfaces. Unbidden, he lifted a gloved hand to trace the markings.

Names. They were names.

His visored gaze trailed the length of these markings as far as his built-in rangefinder took him.

This was, Din most certainly discovered, Aq Vetina’s Memorial Wall.

Everyone who had ever perished in that unfortunate siege seven years ago had their names etched on marbled stone, mixed with granite and other minerals. These materials didn’t come cheap. Din wondered if most of their credits had actually gone to the Wall which honored the dead, rather than the homes which sheltered the living.

Din’s heart beat wildly in his chest, almost achingly so. Maybe that was the pain he was looking for, and it was all amassed in mixed emotions. He followed the names, glancing at them quickly, upwards then downwards—

He knew that he was looking for his deceased parents’ names.

All his mind could conjure was Djarin, Djarin, Djarin.

Did Raald let Din keep his birth name, the same one his adoptive father had submitted to the registers of Mandalore, so Din wouldn’t ever forget? Raald relayed to him once in fevered half-sleep that he had witnessed Din’s parents’ selflessness and sacrifice with his own eyes. Din was certain that was a primary motivation.

While the nightmares slowly ceased and Din had more restful sleep in the years before this day, he thought that perhaps Raald had his own nightmares about Aq Vetina. Some battles and missions gave a more profound impact than most.

Djarin, Djarin…

Din felt peeved. The sun was suddenly an oppressive ball of heat overhead, seeping through his flight suit and armor.

He couldn’t find his parents’ names. There were a few Djarins, which he did recall were relatives.

But his parents’ names…. Din craned his neck, stood on tiptoe, wishing he had his jetpack so he could at least lift himself off and survey the names on the Wall’s portion that towered above him. Ever since a childhood friend from the Tribe, Caelan Shar, had lost his life to a fatal accident with the Rising Phoenix two years ago, many of the kids including Din had developed a reportedly treatable phobia towards the jetpack. As much as possible, they went about their teenage lives without it, and only continued training with little complaint when it had become absolutely necessary as deemed by Fighting Corps’ standards.

“Dank farrik,” Din hissingly swore, and immediately apologized to the names of departed souls before him. “I don’t think this is a good day after all.”

With forlorn airs, Din had decided to make his way back to the magistrate’s hall and let his father know that he’d seen enough, and was ready to head back to the Tribe with fuller conviction.

But the sight which met him as he stepped out of the canal’s entrance filled him with second thoughts and a strange curiosity.

He spotted a young woman bent over with much effort beside a sadly upturned hover-cart. She grunted softly as she made her way around the ruined cart. She started to pick up the fallen fruit which had toppled off their baskets and rolled unto the cobblestone streets.

Din couldn’t take his gaze off, and he felt very intrusive for doing so. One reason was that this young woman was very beautiful. The other was that she was heavily pregnant.

The poor girl had stopped midway from picking a few more fruit when Din felt magnetized to this soul in need.

“Let me help you, miss,” were his words before he realized that he was bending over around the cart as well, gathering what looked like tiny fragrant nectarines carefully in his gloved grip. Din corrected himself, noting again that the woman was big with child. “Uh… missus…”

The girl had not yet turned to the person who’d decided to lend a helping hand. Din heard a bitter chuckle escape this exquisite young lady’s throat. “Don’t worry, I’m not married so you’re right the first time—“ and then she faced him.

Her eyes had gone so huge, Din felt instinctively terrified that she’d let out a scream that would alert the entire city in a heartbeat—and then he’d shame his father for posing as an accidental threat to a helpless, pregnant young woman.

Instead, a suppressed, breathless squeal emerged from her lips. She went pale and quivered a little, but she couldn’t somehow find the strength to outright shriek and wail as distressed people often do.

“W-what—why… why—?“ the girl stammered, and Din’s heart immediately fell at how confused she was. She saw before her a Mandalorian—the same kind of warriors who helped salvage what remained of their city not long ago. And yet, Mandalorians carried a centuries-long reputation across the galaxy that didn’t exactly inspire warm and fuzzy feelings.

Din found this an opportunity to explain his stance. He held both hands high up to mark himself harmless—if that could even be possible, considering how decked he was, despite being a young Fighting Corps cadet. “Don’t be afraid, miss,” Din said amiably. “I’m just here to help you with the fruit and the cart.”

He felt relief when the woman seemed to consider his young voice—it was obvious that he sounded very much a teenager—and she had begun to calm down. She breathed once, twice, and finally relaxed. After a moment, she had boldly looked at him, straight into his visor, and bravely offered a feeble smile.

“T-thank you,” she uttered. She groaned as she struggled to stand. With quick permission, Din was by her side in the blink of an eye as he aided her up.

The boy inwardly scoffed. While this girl was indeed as beautiful as a bloom, Din knew what pulled him towards her was her defenseless state—a lone woman practically bursting at the seams, carrying life but still in the middle of a hard day’s chores.

Besides, he had Yselli. A physical human face and the beauty it held was fleeting, and what Yselli possessed was far more permanent than that. Din smiled at the thought—a smile he’d withheld for hours, and no one could even see it.

“Just don’t move. I’ll fix this up in a jiffy,” Din advised the girl—she could be no older than twenty—as Din braced himself to set the cart to rights; he did so, almost effortlessly. At his HUD’s periphery, he caught a very much impressed look on the young woman’s face. He was a young man not immune to preening… and he felt heat on his cheeks when the girl flashed a smile in gratitude.

He was methodically collecting the spilled out nectarines and redepositing them into the cart baskets when something dawned on him. Subtly, Din doubled back and peered through the other side of the cart to glimpse at the girl.

Din felt the heat on his cheeks get replaced by a chill in his spine.

He recognized this young woman.

Seven years had passed and they both had indeed grown. Din couldn’t get past the fact that this girl was among the fortunate few who survived. A wave of both comfort and melancholy washed over him.

She was from the same neighborhood he grew up in, a neighborhood that had evaporated from Aq Vetina’s new landscape upon where Din presently stood.

Din was nine years old when he’d last seen her, months before the attacks. This young woman had been all of twelve years old, and yet he couldn’t mistake her features. She still had the same silky, russet-colored hair styled in small braided knots that caressed her neck; she still had that pouty look to her, when her face supposedly held a neutral expression. She still had the same dark green eyes, but they now held less shine.

Anita, Din said her name in his mind. As children, she had only been very kind to him.

In fact, Din had been so small—he was a child small for his age—that this probably triggered Anita’s protective streak when the bigger kids from school bullied him. Some things never change, Din thought grumpily. Bullied then, and bullied now—except, this time, he had more agency over the disrespect he’d allow from anyone.

With some embarrassment, Din recalled crying so piteously from fright over the flashy threats the older kids threw at him, and suddenly Anita was there, yelling at those awful children, and didn’t pay an ounce of heed as the bullies taunted her back. She’d offered Din a nectarine to cheer him up.

Din absently turned the small, plump fruit in his hands as he pondered over a piece of the past.

He blinked rapidly underneath the helm as though waking from tiny slaps to the face.

Now, Anita was not only grown up—she seemed to be in a pickle: pregnant and due anytime soon, unmarried, alone—with seemingly no partner in sight. Din didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but even back then, in his small child’s understanding, he’d heard of men taking off into the mists, disappearing the moment they discovered their lovers were pregnant. In his small child’s mind, he’d felt to his core that that was wrong. No one had to tell him that; he couldn’t confide yet about such things to his parents, who only believed that their only son was in his blissful little bubble of joy.

Din felt his mood rapidly crash as he gently placed the last of the spilled nectarines in its woven cradle.

Anita approached him in her lumbering, pregnant woman’s gait. A shimmer in her eyes that wasn’t there before had begun to unfurl.

Din strongly suppressed the urge to embrace her, to thank her after all this time, for defending him from the cruel inclinations of older children back in the day, and making sure his tears were dry after.

Anita. He couldn’t even dare let her know who he was, and that he knew her from old days when life was simple and whole, before he was rescued and now being bred for battle and violence.

Anita continued to wear her bright smile of gratitude. “I think you’ve done more than your share, uh—I’m sorry, I don’t know your name…”

Din felt at loss for a while. “That’s okay,” he assured her, his voice cracking once again. “We… we don’t usually give our names out. It’s custom.”

Anita’s beautiful smile was unwavering. “I understand,” she assured him in turn. “That’s no problem for me at all. I think I’ll just call you Mando. I believe that’s what everyone calls your people, anyway… um, if you don’t mind, of course.”

Din let out a breath, between relief and worry. “Mando is fine, miss.”

Din hardly felt the initial awkwardness when he’d provided Anita company and incidental escort as he led the hover-cart back to the central plaza, where the girl had intended to take her edible wares in the first place.

“So what brings you here, Mando?” Anita was making easy conversation, oblivious to the impertinence of the question. Her voice was music; Din had to answer.

“Just my dad and me traveling.” It was a no-brainer reply, and it was, without further explanation, the simple truth.

“You travel a lot?”

“Not a lot, but I will. My dad’s taking me places.”

Anita sighed wistfully. “That is so nice! It’d be great to travel. But… I guess my place is here. Bad things happened here, and yet we stay, because it’s home.”

“Home,” Din echoed. The word didn’t seem to sink in, and it lay suspended at the periphery of his thoughts.

The pair walked further on.

But the awkwardness returned when Anita lightly jerked forward with a huff; a subdued hiss escaped her as she cupped a full hand over her belly. Din froze.

“Oh—“ Anita giggled, surprisingly catching Din’s slightly alarmed body language. “No… no. The baby just kicked, that’s all. I’m not due until next month. Wanna… wanna feel my—“

“Oh no,” Din stuttered at once, feeling heat creep tenfold all over his face. “No, no. I’d never, miss. Please pardon me. And um… I’m sure it’ll be a beautiful baby…”

The young woman’s giggle sounded so much like Yselli’s, but without the barrier of a helmet, it rang more pronounced and unalloyed. Din couldn’t look at her straight in the eye until she said, “Anita.”

“What’s that?” Din said, in full pretense that he was hearing her name for the first time.

“My name,” Anita clarified. Din wondered if the glimmer in her eyes was of his doing. Her deep green irises glowed with an inner light that definitely wasn’t there a few minutes ago. “And… it’s a baby girl. I’m having a baby girl.” With a flourish, she ran a hand tenderly down her huge belly. That simple deed carried so much love that Din felt the stirrings of audacity within him. A plan was brewing in his mind, but he couldn’t find its solid form yet.

“Nice to meet you, Anita,” Din countered in gentle formality. “She’ll be a beautiful baby.”

A few moments later saw him and Anita halting right in front of a particular abode. The address upon the plaque over the metal doors was so faded that its fine details were practically erased.

“This is my stop,” she informed Din, who stood stiffly a few paces behind her. He found it too impudent of him to strut right up to her side, close enough to tap the doorbell himself for her, as though he were her equal. Din felt foolish; little did he realize that he had placed Anita on a pedestal—she, a savior of his younger childhood, when he had felt alone one day when the world ganged up on him.

“I was going to sell the nectarines,” Anita added as she turned to him, “but I’d like to give some to you, Mando. I—I don’t know how to repay your kindness.”

Din’s words were struck in his throat. Was he accurately representing his warrior creed with traits such as kindness? While they weren’t exactly trained to be cold-hearted, kind was a word he’d unlikely find in a Mandalorian’s everyday vocabulary.

“It’s all right. No need for payment, miss, um, Anita…”

“I’ll feel bad if you don’t take at least an entire basket,” the girl teased. Din found the fiber in him to finally look straight into her eyes without evading her gaze after a second or two. The dark tint of his visor would never give him away. It would always be his voice, or the smallest twitch of his limbs.

Anita looked so exhausted. Her spirit had been hanging on by a fine thread as she fought an inner battle which threatened to swallow her whole. Perhaps the hover-cart toppled over by the canal because she handled the tiny craft with a drifting mind. Anita was plodding on not for herself, but for her unborn child… and who knows what would become of sweet Anita, once she’d brought the baby forth into the world? Did she have relatives to help her out? Where was that bastard partner of hers who set off like a blaster bolt in the dark, incapable of any accountability towards what could’ve been a wonderful family?

“Where is he?” Din asked this so abruptly; he grunted at his recklessness as Anita’s brows knitted in confusion. Din knew better than to let his mouth run alongside the ferocity of his emotions.

“Where is… who, Mando?” The change of subject had rattled her so, but after a moment… her comprehension.

“The baby’s father,” Din deadpanned. He quickly added, knowing that he’d gone into a fast lane he’d rather not hit the reverse pedal on, “If you don’t know where he is… I can find him. If you want me to,” Din breathed, “Anita.”

Anita was speechless. Her face was like stone, frozen in disbelief. She ran a hand through her belly again; she sported a distant look for long moments, as though wrestling with her conscience, with a promise she may have made to herself long ago, but couldn’t carry through. The cart of nectarines lay forgotten in the late afternoon air. A chill had settled itself all around the district.

“I know it’s none of my business…” Din admitted.

Anita’s tone was ambivalent. “No, it’s not,” she whispered. She opened her mouth again, her parched and ashen lips cracking with the effort. She’d finally found the words. “But I won’t lie, Mando. I want him to know what he’ll be missing. If only he’d be back for the birth of his daughter.”

Din couldn’t stand the weight of unshed tears in Anita’s voice. His thoughts, the raging fire that had suddenly lit his being couldn’t be stopped. He now saw before him the plan which had tried to make itself known to him, when Anita had revealed her name and her baby’s gender with an open trust Din thought he barely deserved.

“I can find him,” Din persisted with his offer. His head was drumming with purpose and an eagerness he hadn’t felt in a long time. “I’m being trained in bounty hunting—No, not like that, no (Anita’s face crumpled in deep worry)—I mean, tracking. It’ll be good exercise for me. And I won’t… I won’t hurt him; again, if that’s what you want.” There was a slyness to his tone which Anita seemed to catch. Din could almost hear her thoughts:

She had a young, skilled warrior-in-training at her disposal, who only needed her to say the word.

“All I have are nectarines to pay you with,” Anita said helplessly. Her voice was beginning to break. “I… I have no credits to spare.” For an instant, Din wondered if she’d thought him a timely sort of fortune to fall upon her lap.

“Nectarines are fine,” Din convinced Anita with the same gentle, prodding tone. “I’ll take the whole cart, if you feel that’d be fair enough payment.” He hoped she’d picked up the good-natured smile in his voice.

Anita seemed genuinely conflicted in spite of her initial declarations. She bowed her head. Her wounded sigh permeated deep into Din’s bones.

Din knew he was being brazen, even cruel, when he compelled her to face the music. “Do you still love him, Anita?”

Anita gasped. Her eyes darted to him and pinned him in place; she looked like she was about to tell him off, but she thought better of it. She decided to relent.

“I still love him,” Anita said, so softly Din could hardly decipher her avowal.

This time, Din had let kindness coat every syllable of his pact. He began to sound older than his years. “Then it’s settled.”

iii. Raald was unceremoniously and comfortably sitting upon the magistrate hall’s stone steps, still awaiting the payment, when Din had returned to him.

The older Mandalorian looked much at ease—until the moment Din dropped the bomb about his self-imposed mission concerning Anita, her unborn daughter, and the despicable man that left them out in the cold, whom he was more than willing to seek out.

“No,” Raald told him point-blank. He sounded very testy and the word emerged as a low growl.

“Pa—“ Din began. Raald’s rejection of his plan felt like a punch to the gut.

Raald stood to his full height. His posture was unmistakably regal, and Din was all the more awed but refused to be intimidated. However, his father fell quiet, with only the sound of his sharp breathing through the modulator which broke the gloom.

“You should’ve consulted me first,” Raald finally disclosed. Din puffed out his teenaged chest in anticipation. This condition could have been better arranged had Din not been so impulsive. Din did sense a trickle of pride in the man’s bearing. While the older man felt slighted that his son had bypassed him in favor of his whims, Raald was coming to the conclusion that Din was indeed growing up, no longer too malleable by the iron will of his elders.

Young people, sooner or later, would crave independence. Din had always been the reluctant fledgling, unable to leave the nest and had always clung to Raald like sturdy twine. The boy would always count the minutes while he was out in the barracks training with fellow cadets, until he could visit the homestead during days off and be at his father’s side.

Now… Din felt Raald’s irritation, but he also felt the man’s willingness to negotiate.

“I’m really sorry, Pa,” Din expressed, and he was indeed penitent; at the back of his mind, he promised to make up for it when he could. As the saying went—sometimes, it’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. “I’ve given Anita my word.”

Raald let out an amused scoff. He sounded vaguely intrigued. “You’ve tied my hands with this one, kid,” he said. “It’s only right that you never back out on your word. But, son—“

“Yes, Pa?” The boy was winded by the hammering of his heart.

“—Please never trap me like this again,” Raald chided in his authoritative grunt. The man was really fighting hard to sound disappointed, but it never came to fruition. There was even keen excitement in the older man. “It’s manipulative and discourteous. But all right—I want to trust you, ad’ika. I’ll let you do this once. Once, mind you. After that, I’d appreciate it if you’d consult me first. What if we didn’t have the time and the credits, or the equipment? You’d have your sorry ass breaking the contract you’ve made with a client. Ad’ika—you have to update me through the comms every step of the way.”

Din felt like a child about to ricochet off the walls in glee. “I will.”

Raald rested his hands on his hips. He looked dramatic, shaking his helmeted head in exaggeration. He held up a finger that wagged to punctuate every word. “You say that he’s still somewhere on Aq Vetina, planet-side. I’d like you to test your instincts about the information your clients provide, so go with that. However—I’ll be certainly strict about this, kid—if you find out that your quarry has gone offworld, let me know. Don’t just go after him. You don’t have a ship on you. And I certainly won’t lend mind, unless…” he sighed, “I go with you. I have to accompany you if this hunt has to happen offworld. It’s protocol, and I’d rather we not break it. Understand?”

Din thought that a whole new, wide world of possibilities opened for him when he unequivocally agreed to his father’s compromise. “I understand, Pa.”

iv. There was more to the mission which drove Din to pursue it without hesitation.

Anita had revealed to Din who the child’s father was, and the name had set his teeth on edge.

Gael.

Din remembered the owner of that name, when Gael was fifteen years old, very much older than Din’s nine years, when the youth lunged at him with the excuse that Din had bumped into him deliberately. Din had, but only very lightly, a mere brush of their school uniform tunics against each other’s.

But Gael had a taste for belligerence and loved to gaslight those whom he deemed weak. Gael did not come from a stable family; he himself had a father who upped and left when his mother had divulged her pregnancy to him. That was when Din had been introduced to the world of adult foibles and machinations; he had become aware of the reality that being grown up did not mean you had it all together.

The youth had collared little Din and hurled insults at him in sing-song. Gael and his equally resentful peers were with him, enabling his appalling behavior towards smaller children. Gael had carved himself a reputation for being insufferable towards kids younger than himself. They were easier to lord over. It was a blatantly shameful enterprise, and very much a dishonorable one when viewed through the lens of a Mandalorian.

Din’s breath was hot in his helmet when he further recalled the hurtful things Gael had flung at his nine-year-old mind, bearing down upon him while his friends chanted their encouragement in derisive rhythm. Little Din cried. Huge tears had streamed down his doe-eyed face. He couldn’t even wipe them away. Gael had forbidden him to move a muscle. Snot had begun to form with Din’s tears—humiliation which lacerated his child’s pride, a horrid memory which he’d brought with him long after.

Then like a scythe-sharp breeze, Anita was there.

All of her twelve-year-old fury coagulated into a tempest which feistily pulled Gael by the ear away from Din, and she’d slapped Gael right in front of the other boys. Anita yelled at him, hurled his own insults back at him, but Gael—smug Gael, unwilling to go down brawling with a little girl who fought back—made threats to return for Anita so she’d better watch out. Anita snickered, but the fight was over. The girl donned an overbearing aura, as though she’d wound herself up to specifically defend the little ones Gael had set out to torture.

Anita had consoled Din afterwards; she’d taken her own handkerchief to wipe his tears, and then offered him the sweetest nectarine from her lunch box.

Din never forgot that. When Anita spoke to him earlier about kindness, Din knew that he was simply repaying Anita for her own.

Anita didn’t owe Din anything, but the young woman shouldn’t have known that, not when Din would ever reveal his true identity to her.

It truly baffled Din how Anita and Gael ended up together in a relationship so fierily intimate that it had borne fruit—a child out of wedlock. Then again, Din had also become aware of the desire of a good heart for taming the beast. It was quite the cliche: a good soul trying to temper a misguided one into repentance, into compliance, into being molded with the same goodness thriving in the former. Anita’s downfall had been her benevolence.

It embittered Din to think that Gael may not have even loved Anita at all, or if he did, the young man didn’t convince himself well enough. Eventually, he’d chosen to slip away from the consequences like an eel coiling through smooth rock.

Din had only comfortably simmered in his dark thoughts after his father had passed him credits to rent a speeder bike.

“That money was supposed to be a gift for Life Day,” Raald had revealed, but let the matter go in resignation over his son’s determination. “I guess you can say that it’s become an investment. Now, git. I wanna hear the comms with your voice once in a while, or else.”

There was yet another checkpoint of civilization some miles away from Aq Vetina’s main district.

It was a rickety town which had also been ravaged by Separatist attacks, but wasn’t so lucky with its restoration. The Mandalorian cleanup units never really made their way to that part of the planet. The droid armies simply mauled the district down in one fell swoop, and convened in fuller force towards the capital. To ravage this pathetic town was just a taster. The real battle had been fought in the city.

The town had become a refuge for outcasts, of vagrants and lost souls uncertain of the futures before them.

Din chuckled over the irony. What a fitting place for the likes of Gael—the dregs of society.

Anita had sent him to this wretched place, knowing where Gael may have run off to and hid, only because Aq Vetinian laws were loosely upheld here. It was a haven for miscreants who eluded authorities; moreover, the worthier ones were protected by local gangsters.

Din had taken the gamble of stepping into such territory without a formal membership in the Guild yet. Din can only fall back on the fact that he was a Mandalorian, and he had his father with him merely a comms call away, a man who was a far better and experienced warrior whom no one in their right mind dared to mess with.

Raald had instructed him to take the camouflage cloak, so when the sun had set and darkness enveloped the planet, Din moved through the miserable town like a waif well-versed in stealth. The cloak hid anything shiny from view, and that included a few grav charges and his blaster pistol.

The town was a poor man’s red light district. The boy turned his eyes away from the degradation and rot around him. He’d sighted more species in this decrepit rogue sanctuary more than he’d seen in one place thus far, most of them skin and bones, sagging and sad.

Over here, there was little room for pity in his heart. He had a culprit to find. Anita’s baby daughter should at least know of her father, even if that father was Gael, a bastard in every sense of the word. Gael may not have known his real father; that did not mean he would deprive his own daughter of one.

Din had comm’ed Raald six times since taking off with the speeder bike, and his father only graced him with monosyllabic replies.

The boy listened to the sermon Raald had unleashed after his latest update. “Now, adi’ka, if your quarry resists, restrain him but don’t shoot. If he is armed, use the blaster at your own prerogative. Warning shot first before a wounding shot. You promised to bring in the quarry alive, so do everything in your power so that remains the case.”

“Yes, Pa.” “Be careful, buddy. Good luck.”

The young Mandalorian merged with the shadows after he’d reviewed his father’s messages and a sole holo-image. Anita had but one hologram of Gael to show Din as a visual guide, kept in a tiny locket with a delicate hissing projector. The boy had to hand it to Gael that his childhood bully grew up to be strikingly handsome, albeit with a nose that seemed too huge for his chiseled face. The holo-image failed at registering color, but Din recalled the fifteen-year-old Gael with his dirty blond hair, unkempt and always due for a barber’s visit; pale blue eyes that had flashed as monstrously as his insults, and a voice that carried a lilt sharper than a butcher’s blade.

Just thinking about it made Din’s skin crawl. He had a feeling that if he did see Gael, he’ll know right away. Gael was like a poisonous weed sullying a cradle of plump green grass. It would be funny if Gael managed to stick out somehow despite being surrounded by a hundred ruined scoundrels.

Boisterous laughter and ribald talk filled the oily, smoky air. The district was claustrophobically cramped; there would always be a piece of junk jutting out, a stray limb half-blocking the path from an unconscious drunk, bodies pressed together as they reveled in their cheaply made death sticks—it was decay and desolation where evil had diluted to say its last words, and die.

To them, Din could be no more than another lost soul. Sometimes he made a pretense of looking disoriented, stumbling about like his mind took a hit from spice.

But no one seemed to care. Everyone was submerged in drowning their dark sorrows, transitioning from a life of crime to a life of indolence, or forming vaporous plans of a comeback to polite society that would never materialize.

A moment of perplexity came over Din. In a young boy’s mind, this scum hole seemed a fate worse than facing the fact that you’re a new father, even if it came with a ton of responsibilities, of answering to faults, of looking into Anita’s eyes and staying. Gael would rather flee and end up here. How was his old bully’s state of sanity these days?

If anyone noticed that Din wore a T-shaped visor that Mandalorians were notorious for, no one gave indication. Din shrugged. Perhaps this would make his job easier. He was still disguised by the cloak, a passing wraith and nothing more.

An equivalent of happy hour had commenced. More drunks poured in and out of the rundown pubs. Laughter. Music played from a broken jukebox, sounding sepulchral. Faces, and more faces, many species, many scents and skins and eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, via his HUD.

None of them were Gael’s.

Din wondered about the state of camaraderie among these vagabonds; if he bribed for information, how fast would word snake through that someone was looking for Gael? If he paid handsomely enough as bribes in the Outer Rim go, would they keep to themselves after laying out a juicy hint or two, or alert the quarry?

“I’m looking for this guy,” Din finally closed in on a small, drunk Ugnaught, its features so warped from a failed lifestyle. Din presented the holo-image and forty gleaming credits. The creature's attention moved from Gael's likeness to eagerly paw at the amount from Din’s open palm, but Din withdrew right away.

The Ugnaught rasped heavily. “You want him?” Its accent was thick or perhaps its tongue had bloated out from the spice. “He’s useless. Been blundering about. Could already be dead…”

Din swallowed hard. So the district knew of Gael, but not in the best ways, enough to land him in a place where he can never emerge from. This was taking a turn Din didn’t think he’d loathe.

“Yes,” Din replied. He jangled the credits again, and the Ugnaught eyed the chips greedily. “Dead or alive, I’ll take him in.” Din was lying, but if in any way taking Gael out of their hair would fetch something…

The Ugnaught pointed with its stubby arm to a slum a few blocks away. Aq Vetina’s rising moons couldn’t even pierce its mildly open streets. Everywhere there were shadows.

“Take your pick, stranger,” mumbled the creature. “It could either be Gambler’s Row or the undertaker’s cell. If no one’s claimed a body for five days, they’re charred out and discarded. To where, no one knows and no one cares.”

The Ugnaught spewed a disgustingly shrill squeal when Din handed the creature its reward.

v. An ambiguous stir of emotions swept Din when he’d discovered that Gambler’s Row was the place he ended up finding Gael. He wouldn’t have known what to say to Anita without landing a hard blow if he found out that Gael was already dead.

Yet, Din felt revolted. He pitied Gael and he hated him all the more…

The man was only twenty-three, once a charmer, but he now appeared older than his years. His eyes were bloodshot and when Gael roared out his reactions with every roll of the dice, his voice was hoarse, pathetic, like an old man’s. He’d grown an unruly scruff, patchy in places that might have been singed by burns from brawls he’d fought to keep himself standing.

What value Gael possessed was lost to every credit he’d wagered as the dice rolled over and over.

Din couldn’t believe it. This cruel boy from years ago had turned into a hollow man.

Hardly anyone saw him make his way to the man. Every eye in the crowded, hazy room twinkled with inebriation and the dust of dead dreams.

Din was now so close to Gael that his olfactory sensors picked up the heady waft of cheap whiskey in the man’s breath. The pauldron under Din’s cloak chipped Gael’s shoulder gently as he placed himself between man and gambling table.

“Gael Lorik,” Din whispered, low and gruff, disguising his young voice, forcing himself to sound at least a decade older.

The gamblers around the table slowly took the hint, one by one, and fell backwards in tremulous retreat until the game was as good as stalled. The boisterous noises of Gambler’s Row muffled this one incident; perhaps a man seeking out another to settle debts was normal occurrence, and no one would dare meddle with that.

Gael, on the other hand, wondered with his red-rimmed glare why everyone had ceased to roll their turn of the dice.

“Gael,” Din said the name again. Just this one name.

Then the man turned to him snappily, as though a harsh wind blew his gaze towards Din.

Din finally noted Gael’s pale eyes amidst a veiny web of red rivulets.

Time seemed to stand still. The staredown seemed to last forever.

Gael took off in a frantic run.

Din cursed under his breath, and initiated quick pursuit.

There were suddenly voices everywhere. Oddly melodious voices, scratched voices, booming voices of amusement.

“Get him!” called the unison of cries. “Get that good-for-nothing Gael Lorik!”

Din panted as he ran. He wondered for a moment if the words he heard were real or were just in his head, echoing his own thoughts.

He’d already spotted the man, targeting him down, trying his best to keep him within sight amidst the hubbub and general chaos both caused by the chase and as part of its usual atmosphere.

Gael toppled more than once but he caught himself quickly. Din could almost hear the man’s desperate breaths, sucking in air with every deafening beat of his heart.

What a wretch, Din thought, like a broken record. What a wretch, what a wretch. What a coward.

Din hissed in annoyance when he realized that Gael had been making his way to an equally decrepit space port.

No, Din cried in his mind. If Gael grabs himself a ship to escape, and launches offworld…

Din wouldn’t have the time to contact Raald and provide an update and a plea for help. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure how quickly his father could get here, Raald’s proclivity for calculations aside. Gael would have already jumped to hyperspace—but what if Din used a tracker?

Dank farrik.

That was one thing he may have needed the most, but had forgotten to take with him.

What a sloppy bounty hunter-in-training he’s being. Raald would be on his case for days.

He had no choice but to redouble his efforts to the chase.

The space port was loud and clamorous, a mechanical nerf-sty filled with rusting droids and worn-out vessels and ships with horribly chipping names and numbers.

It was the droids which made Din freeze over; suddenly his legs cooperated like prisoners being taken out to execution.

He didn’t want to bump into any of those revolting little machines, pretending like they’re sentient even if it’s just all programming. They have disgusting little mechanical brains and disgusting little mechanical limbs and their voices were dead. All dead. They never were living creatures.

Gael was drifting farther away. Din kept cursing under his breath. If Anita heard him, she’d wondered over asking for his help in the first place.

I still love him, echoed Anita’s confession in Din’s memory. Anita and her sweet face, and her darling unborn daughter who both deserve so much better.

Gael didn’t deserve a single ounce of Anita’s love. How could he? How could he… he’s a man running away, already dead. Maybe he should tell Anita that Gael was dead after all…

Din caught up.

Gael had abruptly stopped and doubled over to retch.

Din almost slammed into him. The boy’s momentum was already building up by the time Gael suddenly halted.

With a swift motion, Din had snatched Gael by the collar of his tunic stained and drenched in sweat. Din could almost feel the sickening dampness through his gloves.

“Please, please—!” Gael babbled like a creature unused to speech. The words slurred and swirled unto each other. He hacked and breathed like a fish out of water. “I have no money. I tried to win it all back. I have nothing. I’m nothing—I’m no use to you…”

Din shook the pathetic son of a mudscuffer one-handedly.

Gael was light as an empty sack of potatoes. The man wasn’t exactly emaciated; there was still muscle to him. Gael still had fight in him when it came to the streets or the corners fending off wretches like himself. Din tested his grip again and Gael swayed helplessly.

I’m stronger now, Din yelled at his childhood bully internally. I’m taller, much bigger now. I can overpower you. It doesn’t matter how slack you pretend to be… I’m stronger now.

A string of Mando'a escaped Din’s lips before he realized that the growls came from within his helm.

“You pig!” Din told the hapless form of Gael in his grip. Din shook him for emphasis, and Gael only folded over and whined, shielding his face with scarred arms and sobbing like a small child—

Just how Din had sobbed, all those years ago, and he had felt so alone in the world.

“You pig, you swine, you filth! You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve your little girl. They are not playthings! She isn’t a plaything, you swine!”

“What do you want?” Gael finally wailed in broken outbursts, not understanding Mando'a at all. “What do you want? I’m nothing. I’m no one. I’m not worth the bounty—you’re a bounty hunter, right? Just kill me. Just kill me!”

Something cold had taken over Din. Something dark and cold, like a cavernous mouth that fell into endlessness.

Din had taken his blaster out. This was an overly familiar sound to Gael, it seemed, as the man’s demeanor further whittled into a slobbering mess.

He wants to die, Din thought, strangely calm. And yet he recoils from death.

“You coward,” Din growled out once more in Mando'a; he had raised the blaster until the tip was pressed close to Gael’s sweaty forehead. His blond hair was dirtier than ever, wiry and limp.

Din could clearly see the fear in Gael’s eyes, as plain as day. He could also see the resignation, the willingness to finally give up the ghost. He had been living in misery for too long, living with demons and savages and whispers of guilt and a deep, terrible sadness.

“Yeah—do it, sir!” called a voice from the other side of the port. Without missing a beat, Din took stock of its source before pinning his gaze back on Gael, pale and shivering in defeat.

It was a Mon Calamari in a soiled jumpsuit worn by a port employee.

“Just dispose of the garbage in here,” remarked the Mon Calamari, almost dismissively. “We don’t need the likes of him.”

Din couldn’t move further to carry out the Mon Calamari’s all-too-casual suggestion. His finger was on the trigger but the blood ceased to boil. Din heaved one breath, and another, until there was a stark contrast between his breaths and Gael’s, who trembled and cried in gasps.

“No,” Din said at last, finding his voice. He winced when he now sounded like his young self—not anymore a child, but not yet a full-grown human. “No. Get up. Move and come with me. I’ll take you to her.”

Gael’s gaze was suddenly far away. His face looked different, transformed over what Din had said, over what Din was getting at.

“She doesn’t need me,” Gael replied; his voice was surprisingly steady. “I’m no good.”

Din shook him once, roughly. “You’re alive. As long as there’s breath in you, you can change things. You can change for her. You can change for your daughter…”

Gael was incredulous, his eyes wild, the pupils roaming in halls only he can see. “H-how much has she told you? About… us? Who are you?”

Din didn’t reply. He’d stopped all conversation with his quarry, finally caught. His heart beat crazily underneath the beskar mix.

In about fifteen minutes, he had slung a cuffed Gael onto the speeder bike, although the man had lost all initiative to resist. He seemed like dead weight, his eyes glazed. Through the comms, Din told Raald everything in Mando'a.

By the time Din had returned to the main district, Raald was by a pomegranate tree orchard very close to the magistrate’s hall. Din never recalled a pomegranate orchard in the city.

His father nodded to him, told him the magistrate’s made the full payment.

“Get your quarry where he needs to go,” said Raald in Mando'a. “I’ll be waiting outside for you, son. Do what you need to do.”

vi. The day hadn’t run out of surprises.

Anita had already given birth while Din was out in the hunt.

The young woman had already been showing signs of early labor, and when she’d frozen to cup her belly that morning as Din stared on, not knowing what to do should Anita reveal that she really was due at this moment… Anita was already in throes of intermittent pain.

Din wasn’t very versed in the cycles of human gestation. He hadn’t been paying attention. Maybe Paz and the others boys have; the information taught to them differed slightly from the girls’. There had only been embarrassing one-liners and crude remarks from the class where such lessons were taught. Din had been bored and was doodling nonsense on his datapad to pass the time.

And now, the fruit of such acts were right before him—a baby colored with the plump pinkness of a newborn, tulip-dainty in her first hours of life. Anita, flushed from fatigue, had shot up from the midwife’s bed with strength suddenly restored when she caught sight of the young Mandalorian dragging an unwashed, dejected human in the form of Gael Lorik with him.

A Pantoran midwife stood agape at the bedside, all sterile sheets and antiseptic; she seemed just about ready to take an unholy swipe at the men who had entered this sacred facility built for childbirth.

Yet, there was a boy-child who sat close to Anita; he looked about eleven years old, and he was wiping the young woman’s forehead gently with a cooling cloth.

A tiny gurgle emerged from a bundle held protectively against Anita’s cradling bosom.

The boy-child seemed adamant to ignore the whole commotion that was about to explode. He proceeded to wipe Anita’s brow despite her jolting movements when Din and Gael had stridden into the birthing house.

“Gael…?” where Anita’s first words as soon as Din had arrived. She sounded weak, much to Din’s worry, but she also sounded… hopeful.

She sounded almost overjoyed.

The baby began to wail louder. Anita shushed her.

Din felt the bones hold within Gael. He had unshackled the man and set him where he was; Gael now stood on his own. His frame no longer shook.

It was as though the sight of Anita and the baby filled him with resolve like fuel to a ship. It poured in slowly and steadily in bubbling gulps.

“Do you… want to hold her?” Anita’s voice had cracked. It wouldn’t take much before she began her weeping. The little boy at her bedside looked a little panicked. The Pantoran midwife’s eyes were wide, feline-like with their yellow glow. She had thankfully made no move to harass bounty hunter and quarry out from under her roof.

Din felt that he was no longer needed in this room. He had reunited Anita with this vagrant soul.

All his anger for Gael had dissipated. The fury had died the moment Gael pleaded for mercy, the moment he wished his life would end, and he had finally found a permanent way out that was not by his own hand. Gael had reached the end of a line when a bounty hunter finally came for him.

Gael doesn’t need to die; Din decided. Gael needs to fix this. He has to stop running away.

Or I’ll have Anita call me to go after you, should you run away again.

Gael had moved like a moth to a lamp when Anita lifted their tiny, swaddled daughter to him so their fingers touched.

Din had to get out of here. He nodded his leave and turned heel to step out of the birthing house.

“Din?”

A huge wind was knocked out of him. Anita had called his name.

“Yeah, sis?”

Din drew out a long, pained, and shuddering sigh. His head stopped throbbing and his vision stopped dimming.

It was the boy-child who responded to the name. The child was his namesake, and Din thought he had lost his mind. Moreover, the child seemed to be Anita’s little brother.

“Din—come on, you little brat, show the nice young man where the cart of nectarines are. I told you—remember? We have to pay him…”

“Okay, okay! No need to get bossy.”

Din stifled a chuckle hearing the exchange. This little boy with his name had a feisty attitude skimming the surface. Anita had been a feisty little girl. They’re siblings, all right.

The little boy called Din practically skipped to teenage Din’s side. Teenage Din couldn’t even turn back to face Anita again—he wasn’t sure he’d like what he’d see… maybe it was Gael holding the daughter he had strongly refused to claim with eyes sparking in acceptance. Gael holding a woman who had never ceased to love him in spite of his detestable ways.

Little Din was boldly tugging at his exposed flight suit sleeve. There was a hungry sort of admiration in the child’s eyes, which bothered Teenage Din a bit.

“Come on, mister,” said the child, sounding oh-so-polite and pleasant. “I’ll show you where the nectarines are, sir.”

vii.

Din saw that Raald Movan was already by their ship when he and Little Din had trailed out in the semi-darkness of Aq Vetina at midnight. The child was proudly steering the hover-cart as Din sat in the back among baskets and baskets of lovely-smelling nectarines.

The scent would always remind him of Aq Vetina… no; it will remind him of Anita and her kindness, of what he was capable of doing to repay such kindness, more precious—even more so—than beskar.

Little Din was happily inconsolable with his awe and excitement over the ship.

“It’s like those legends in story holo-books!” the child said, his eyes like bejeweled saucers.

Din wondered if Little Din had ever witnessed the Separatist attack on the city. Little Din could have been no more than four standard years of age. Perhaps… perhaps he had been taken to safety, more successfully so than ten-year-old Din of not-so-long ago, where he needed the aid of his birth parents and the Mandalorians to survive and thrive.

Raald was fondly motioning Din to send the little one off after father and son had filled their cargo bay with the baskets. Little Din was sitting on a crate, his stubby feet dangling as he watched the Mandalorians work in buzzing delight.

“They say you’re heroes,” the child said suddenly.

Din sighed and handed Little Din a couple of credits for the boy’s troubles.

“All right! A tip! First one in my life!” exulted the child. Raald was chuckling. “Perfect for Life Day!” added Little Din. “I know what to do with these.”

“There’s no word for ‘hero’ from where I’m from,” Din informed the child, a little discomfited by the kid’s earlier pronouncement. Little Din then looked perplexed.

“What does that mean, mister? That’s weird. Um… no offense. But I don’t understand.”

Teenage Din turned to his father for guidance. Raald only shrugged, every so subtly. How Din would reply to the little boy was entirely up to him.

“I’ll give you one credit more if you stop asking questions,” blurted Din, all with a joking air.

Little Din blew out a tiny raspberry at the cargo bay air in particular. “No fair! But all right. Anita did tell me you Mandalorians like to keep to yourselves. I don’t wanna get pounded to the ground just ‘coz I’m nosy.”

Soon enough, Little Din had his three earned credits and was heading back to the city with a single floodlight hung over its space port arcs. The child almost refused to leave and wanted a look around the ship, but Din didn’t want to reward a cheeky little boy with further credits lest he opened the child’s eyes to the world of bribes.

Father and son watched the hover-cart drift away peacefully on Aq Vetinian soil. A port officer greeted the little boy as the cart wafted through the arcs.

“Well, good evening again, tiny master Din Brenshaw! Chores this late?”

Raald chuckled even louder, now that the child was out of earshot. Raald’s heckling had drowned out the young boy’s shrill reply to the port officer.

“Is ‘Din’ a popular name around here? Didn’t know there are two of you on Aq Vetina!”

But Teenage Din was unhearing. He had balled his hands into tight fists to his sides. He was suddenly famished and weary, and he felt traces of the dark coldness that knocked on his figurative door, back at Gambler’s Row space port in the filth of the evening.

“Son?”

Din was sobbing.

It was a foreign, clipped sound as it reverberated in his helm. Oftentimes, when he cried, and he had already sworn the Creed and couldn’t take off the helmet just to shed tears, he would lock himself in the fresher, unsheathe his face off the buy’ce and cry there… silently, like a distant ghost, where no one could hear his sadness or frustration or exhaustion from a grueling day of training.

Raald had come close to his side.

“Hey, buddy…” the older man’s voice was salient with compassion that it simply encouraged Din to just let all his tears out. Tears and their salt and how they’d make a mess of the wiring should they get too drenched.

Din shoved his dignity out the window when his father held him tight and he held Raald tightly back. His father had always been his balustrade. When he’d fought with Paz bitterly for the first time as ten-year-olds; when he’d passed the Verd’goten and Raald revealed his face to him as fair compensation among clan, and there had been great pride on the man’s face; when Caelan had died and Din felt that he had nowhere to go in his mind, lost in shock and grief; when he’d confessed his feelings for Yselli to him just so Raald could bombard him with a good-natured tirade about falling in love…

And now, when he’d return to Aq Vetina to embark on an untimely adventure, this world that was his home in a past life but in the same lifetime—Raald had been there every step of the way.

He’d gone back to Aq Vetina, only to arrive at a final conclusion on where his true home lay. He knew his birth parents’ names were on the Memorial Wall. He felt the heat of the letters even when he lost the chance to find the etched markings on granite and marble.

“Just the one,” Din whispered, but loud enough for Raald to pick up. He had stopped his sobbing and his words were no longer garbled.

“What’s that, kid?” Raald still had his embrace over Din, and Din didn’t want to let go—he, a big boy and almost a man at seventeen, but he’d never want his father’s bear hug to end.

“Just one ‘Din’ on Aq Vetina now,” Din clarified. He thumped his helmet over his father’s once, lightly but with a huge weight of emotion. A gesture of affection shared among kin and loved ones in Mandalorian culture. “This ‘Din’ is going back home with you, Pa.”

Raald stilled for a moment.

“Dinui… you know that if you ever need me, I’ll always be here.”

Din didn’t even care that his father had used the nickname with its usefulness he so questioned, after his peers had kept slinging it at him to tease him.

Din let out a breath, now filled with a peculiar and beautiful serenity.

“I know, buir.”

“This is the Way?”

Din nodded in his father’s embrace.

“This is the Way.”

******

Next fic in this series - AO3 or Tumblr *****

Author's Notes: *Verd’goten - Mandalorian coming-of-age ceremony taken when a child usually turns thirteen (lit. warrior-birth) *beskar’gam - set of Mandalorian armor (lit. iron skin) *buy’ce - helmet *riduur - spouse, husband, wife (gender neutral) *ad - child, son, daughter (gender neutral) *Cin Vhetin - fresh start, clean slate (lit. white field, virgin snow - term indicating the erasing of a person's past when they become Mandalorian, and that they will only be judged by what they do from that point onwards) *aruetii - outsider, foreigner *tihaar - Mandalorian alcoholic beverage made from fruit *Resol’nare - Six Actions, the tenets of Mandalorian life 1. There’s some world-building canon divergent details here which are further explored in my longfic, such as Paz being a foundling, Din’s rescuer adopting him formally as his son, and Din being Force-sensitive (which vaguely manifests in this fic). However, this fic, like the first one of this anthology entitled “Dinui,” can be read as a stand-alone to the longfic. 2. My headcanon Din is demisexual!Din. He’s really not interested in being emotionally attached (but when he does, he gets it really bad). 3. I was thinking of mentioning that the Separatist attacks happened on Life Day as that seems to have become headcanon, but I’m holding that back… maybe for a future fic, or maybe I’ll just leave it as it is, and think up something else to explain why the Djarins were wearing “Life Day red” robes during the attack. Happy Belated Life Day 2022, everyone! ^^