#the-kittylorian mandomera week fics

[the-kittylorian-writes]

"Battle Scar"

Type: One-Shot

Pairing: Din Djarin x Omera

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary:

In the aftermath of a battle on Mandalore, Din is confronted by a distraught Omera as she is further acquainted with a reality where her own authority is as revered as the Manda’lor’s, as his spouse and co-ruler. Amidst the chaos of miscommunication, Omera has been forced to issue a command out of duty which nearly cost Din’s life, and Omera was not happy at all. Arguments loom, and so do regrets. (TW: One-sided marital spat)

[Written for (extended!) Mandomera Week 2022, seventh prompt: “Forgiveness”]

Read here or on Archive of Our Own

"Battle Scar"

“Mand’alor, I was told that the Lady Omera was not at the debriefing,” Din Djarin’s aide-de-camp informed him as Din limped into the modest rooms he shared with his wife. 

The Sundari Royal Palace remained grey and bleak, unpolished from debris and dust in its slow recovery from the ruin brought about by the Great Purge. The Purge was but a dreadful scar in Mandalorian history, remedied by the grueling work of reunifying clans and creeds until all arrived at the same page, and unequivocally under Din’s rule.

The Palace had only partially been rebuilt, with its construction relentlessly interrupted by reports of impending enemy attacks. Din could count past his ten fingers the instances he needed to cut quality time with his family short. Omera would be the one left to govern the Palace while Din stormed into the battlefields with his fellow seasoned warriors.

Omera had continued to coordinate with Din and his officers while she remained at her post in the Palace’s headquarters. These incidents of prolonged joint command happened more often than they thought was ideal. There seemed no trouble at first when Omera willingly learned the various forms of leadership required of Din as well as her. She was taught the necessary protocols and directives in the event that her husband could not issue them himself, for any grave reason. 

For a long and arduous streak, Din was leading the charge most of the time; Omera assisted, sometimes becoming her husband’s aide as she fastened the armor on him. That ritual had transformed into stolen moments of spiritual intimacy between them. With every component of the beskar’gam she placed upon him, their gazes would lock, intense and sublime, and little words were exchanged. Tension would always follow—and suddenly Din was off with Bo-Katan Kryze or the Armorer or Paz Vizsla into war, his cape billowing behind him like a rallying banner, the Darksaber clipped to his side. 

Din couldn’t remember the last time he had properly shared the marriage bed with Omera since their wedding night. He was always away, awake, busy… and sometimes Omera would be awake with him, would join him in briefings if only to feel his warmth at her side. The only other way she found to compensate for these growing times apart was when she made dinner for him. Even then, it was hurried, and conversation was sparse.

This most recent battle could have been the last straw, and yet it was a victory which concluded a crucial campaign, thanks to Omera’s impartial and quick thinking. It was as if all her training culminated to this one victory, and she was ready to keep to the shadows, out of everyone’s way.

And as the aide reported—Omera had opted not to attend the debriefing. To date, this only happened once, and only because she needed to see Grogu and Winta off as they were transported to safety through their Jedi ally, Master Skywalker. Din, at the time, was in the middle of the most decisive battle yet—the one to capture Sundari, Mandalore’s new capital and epicenter of authority before the Purge struck.

A knot of worry formed within Din as pain bloomed like searing coals all over his body. This latest maddening fray to recapture Keldabe, Mandalore’s ancient and former capital, had sapped him of his strength. He sustained some debilitating injuries that were treated on the field and after, in the secure confines of the med-centre tent.

He had spent an entire week away from Omera, and months away from Grogu and Winta, capped by the wars that poured themselves unto his lap one after another… Yet, in spite of it, Din kept his resolve sharp and his spirit from falling into shreds. 

But tonight, he was more than bone-weary. He was utterly exhausted, and all he wanted to do was be in his wife’s arms, hear her soothing voice, feel her soft caresses as she inspected the medic’s work. The medics may have done their best… but Omera, she would always find ways to make it better, for the wounds to somehow close faster and his pains to fade away which bacta couldn’t mend. It was not sorcerer magic, but Omera was gifted in her on way. That was why Din had always been so drawn to her.

Tonight, he was met by an empty hallway as the aide left him to his privacy—no wife to greet him or to walk astride him from a debriefing as they entered the chambers together.

Din limped further in; he looked around—the lamps were lit, the heating was on (Mandalore had cold nights this time of year), and… to his relief, the dinner was set.

No wife, however, graced the table.

Din groaned in relief as he gingerly took a seat at one end of the table. His side burned; he kept his hand there, already shed of glove and vambrace, and waited for the brief rush of agony to subside. He grimaced, closing his eyes. He leaned upon the seat’s headrest awhile, letting the harrowing memories of Keldabe melt away. Paz had offered to clean up; Bo-Katan and Fenn Rau (whose revived Skull Squadron offered air support) remained at the debriefing. It was at Paz’s urging which led Din to return to Omera halfway through the meeting. If she hadn’t shown up from the beginning, she wouldn’t do so for the rest of it—and there was an acute reason for it.

Din’s eyes flew open when he heard footsteps approach. His half-drugged vision focused on the source, and Din sighed; a weight lifted off him when Omera appeared at the other end of the dinner table.

Din stopped short of his greeting. Omera’s eyes were bloodshot as if from a thorough cry. Her beautiful raven-dark hair and clothes were disheveled. She had already shed the armor she ceremoniously wore even as she remained in the Palace as the Mand’alor took to the battlefields.

It was Omera’s grating voice which hit Din like a shard of ice. “Please eat,” she prompted him tonelessly. “Don’t mind me—I have no appetite.”

“Omera—“ Din ventured. Omera sharply turned her head away, avoiding his pleading gaze.

“I’ll sit here,” she said at length, breathing out her statement in a shuddering sob, “I’ll sit here because you’re my husband, and I still respect you…”

“Omera…” Din called to her again. He winced at how his voice sounded so fragmented and weak. He realized how more acquainted he had become with Omera’s own suffering, even before she could completely relay her side of things. 

“… and because I love you, Din, after everything—everything we’ve gone through!” Omera unleashed the words. Her voice cracked. “Especially after this… this… call I had to make.” 

A call, in this context, was a tactical decision a commanding officer had to make amidst the odds, and in some cases—because of it. 

Din was silent as he let Omera pour her enraged heart out. She shook as she spoke, visibly fighting for vestiges of self-control. Din knew this, because she could be recovering from shock. Din felt guilt wash over him, because he also knew how proud he was of his wife’s mandokar, but sadly, at her expense. Omera had carried out a decision too difficult even for a battle-born Mandalorian to execute. The responsibility behind it was crushing should things fall awry. 

Weeks beforehand, the Keldabe campaign fell into a string of countless briefings, once they had gotten word that Imperial Remnant forces were amassing an offensive to retake the old capital. Omera was present in all those meetings when they reviewed the plans over and over again… she’d joked once, when spirits were relatively high: “I’ve heard these operatives so many times, I can recite them by rote in my sleep!” She had laughed then—uneasy laughter, but Maker, his wife still smiled, wide enough so her lovely dimples showed. The radiance still lingered in her eyes.

Now, those eyes were dull, avoidant, and awash with the shackling fear of a loss which could have been, had the call she made not ended up being the staggering success it had become, to their great unfathomable fortune.

“Danger close,” Omera spat, as if drilling into Din his own awareness of the weight Omera needed to bear, of the gamble she was doing before she even realized it. “In a fatal distance from your position! Had I caught the report earlier, I wouldn’t have made the call to set an entire fire mission meant for the Imps practically right above your heads!”

Din leaned further into the headrest, studying his distraught wife. He felt disembodied as he witnessed her grief, and yet with the bond they shared between them, they both knew that Omera was duty-bound to make the call herself. There was no way out of it save for dereliction, and with it the capacity to undermine her husband’s trust.

Omera had risked an entire company when an airstrike targeted coordinates dangerously proximate to friendly troops in order to eliminate enemy forces—hence the term, danger close. “The message got to me too late!” her tirade went on. “I’ve only been informed of your situation right after I green-lit the fire mission… all I heard before the comms went down was, ‘the enemy’s in position, we got them where we need them to be!’ Comms were completely dead for a full ten minutes, the longest ten minutes of my life, and I know—I know the engineers have worked hard to get the comms back up, but… you told me, the enemy was in position. It was now or never, or retaking Keldabe would drain more of our resources; it could be lost to us for a long time. What I’ve not known until the last minute, when I had to give the order because you can’t, and because the comms were down—was that your own position hadn’t changed! You were pinned in place, and hadn’t relocated to a safe distance where artillery wouldn’t blow you all to bits! Oh Maker—Maker, Din!” 

Omera growled and stuttered; she quivered as her voice grew louder with every portion of her tale, until she was as good as hysterical. 

That was enough for Din to ignore his wounded state as he got up from his end of the table to limp his way to her—but Omera flinched. Din’s heart fell. Omera had deliberately shifted her own seat away from his reach, and Din was only clutching air mere inches atop her trembling frame. He could almost feel the heat of her turmoil emanate from her body.

Din couldn’t speak. He couldn’t find the words, or express all of them at once—he was sorry, and yet pride overtook him, knowing his wife did what she had to do even as it went against the grain she had been raised in, among the peaceful krill ponds of Sorgan and only the annual harvest to preoccupy their minds until the Klatooinian raids happened. He knew that she knew that none of this was his fault, and he wasn’t faulting her either, but logic dissolved where emotions ran high and rampant. 

This could be a long night.

“What would happen if the fire mission failed despite danger close? You knew your position, you knew the enemy’s position, you knew mine—and that was to command Captain Fenn Rau and his squadron to fire on coordinates so close to you! And even Captain Rau had hesitated… but an order was an order. Tons of firepower a small distance from where you were crouched behind nonexistent cover, just so you could wipe the enemy out… I was going to kill my own husband—look at me, Din! (and yet her eyes remained averted)… Am I Omera, widowed again, but this time, by her own hand…?”

There, she said it; she told him what was tearing her asunder from the inside. 

Omera was a fragile leaf in a gale as she strung racing emotions into thoughts, and thoughts into words as best as she could. Fresh tears and mirthless laughter wove through Omera’s feat at coherence. Din sensed that she’d finally reach the peak of her dark despondency, and the white flames of her anger were whittling to embers. Soon, he could touch her again without resistance. 

Din understood, and it hurt him deeply, yet he found Omera blameless. It was he who had kept himself and his forces in harm’s way, but the willingness to sacrifice oneself for a greater good had always been the forefront of their arsenal. From the entirely challenging first year of his marriage to Omera, Din had learned how to decipher his wife—the outbursts, the occasional moments of silent treatment, the sobs of relief when he would return to her in one piece. She would then kiss and hold him as she had when he’d first offered his heart to her. 

He deciphered Omera’s grating, terrible confusion—how silly she must feel with these arguments, knowing well what she had gotten herself into when she married him, and when he made her his Queen and co-ruler over Mandalore and its neighboring worlds. She had made that pact with him, of bringing the Mando’ade together, of leading them together, and even leading them when they were physically apart. And the Mando’ade embraced the arrangement in turn, fully accepting her as their Queen, whom the Mand’alor had chosen to spend the rest of his life with whether on the throne or when that time had run its course.

Inching closer, he engulfed her in a tender, tenuous embrace. Omera was too vulnerable right now, after hitting a new level of reality. She knew as well as himself that Mandalore and its people came first, as long as Din remained their anointed leader, as long as he kept wielding the Darksaber and no one had challenged him—and his rule—for it.

If it meant losing the one she loved the most so that Mandalore continued to rise, so be it. It may sound cruel and counterproductive, as a leader usually fell with their kingdom, but not for Din Djarin. He had already planned two steps ahead for the loved ones he would leave behind, should his life end prematurely.

Omera was folded up on the chair, racked in quiet sobs. 

“Omera,” Din rasped out; it was taking his remaining strength to console her. He hadn’t slept and eaten well in days… but he needed to see to his wife’s welfare, after this awful trial by fire he had inadvertently put her through. “Y-you have to forgive me…”

His wife ceased her weeping; as if something snapped within her, she turned to him. Her eyes brimmed with fleeting concern. “Din, your voice—It’s scratched… Are you ill?”

Din smiled. With all his heart, he wanted to kiss Omera then and there. All her training, and yet the innocence borne out of her worry for him stood out to him like a flare in the dark. 

“I’ve been… screaming for all of ten minutes,” Din explained fondly, almost jokingly. “No comms, and I couldn’t get anything past a certain distance. I was yelling orders out manually. Thankfully, they all got passed down the ranks. We pulled through. Voice still got busted, though.” He had shed his helmet already beforehand; his gaze was full on her when Omera had tried to read his eyes, the shape of light in them, the shadows and this own unspoken words. 

“You’re hurt,” Omera remarked needlessly. Her expression had softened for a moment—then, to Din’s dismay, it grew distant once more.

There was a long silence again. This time, Din felt it sink well into his gut, into his system.

“Please eat,” Omera urged him one last time before she set herself to rights—dried her tears and smoothed her tunic down before she carefully rose from her seat. “See you in the morning, Din,” she whispered, resuming her cold treatment of him, but only after her beautiful almond eyes gently gave him a once-over—her lips parted. She thought twice and said nothing more.

She left him at the table alone; she had gone to their sleeping chambers as Din heard the door swish open and close in the wake of her fading footfalls.

***

Omera was startled awake by a chill in her bones.

She opened her eyes, and out of habit, she faced the side of the bed where Din should be—had he slept beside her that night.

Automatically, and in a sudden surge of loneliness, a palm reached out to smooth the empty space where her husband should be in his usual fitful, but much needed repose. 

The chill came from a half-empty bed. While there were times when Din would stay up so late in meetings or matters that needed his attention, long enough to leave his side of the bed bare before dawn, he would always return as often as he could. The bed would dent where Din’s weight pushed it down, and Omera would wake the exact moment her husband laid next to her. In a silent treaty, their foreheads met as they both returned to slumber. In a few hours, they would be up again, despite the limited hours Din had to recuperate to face another day as sole ruler.

In the past months since reclaiming Sundari, Din had been like water through a sieve—and she was the sieve. He was there yet not fully present. He was elusive even when he kissed her, but it had become dispassionate overtime. 

Omera sighed. The pillow was still wet whereupon she had cried herself to sleep that night. She didn’t need to check the chrono to reckon that it only past two in the morning. Mandalore had nineteen-hour days, lesser than most worlds and planets, but still falling in accordance to standard. Maybe, Omera thought, that was why she had felt that days flew by so quickly, and the nights were over in the blink of an eye.

She eyed the empty side of Din’s bed. Her lips quivered. 

She bit back the urge to loath herself. 

She had been horrible to Din at the dinner table. And Din, her sweet, noble, pure-hearted husband—he was simply there for her as he took all her scathing words in. She couldn’t even remember half of what she said, the burning statements she snarled out at him; she could only remember with embarrassment the blazing anger and confusion and helplessness she had meant to reel in, but ended in taking it all out on Din.

Now, in this moment of clarity hitting her like a slap, now that she knew that she may have hurt Din irrevocably and her heart had begun to hurt in turn—she recognized the rage which grew out of frustration over the situation rather than the people behind it. She had no way of channeling all the emotions that threatened to drown her in a misery she would have trouble delivering herself from. And there was Din: his kind eyes, his beautiful face, his serene disposition despite being almost taken from her by her need to momentarily command air support and artillery while comms were still running smoothly in the Palace. He was her shock absorber. And he was there for her every step of the way. And—gods, Omera felt nauseatingly dreadful. 

She was being petulant while her husband sat there, injured, patiently listening, waiting for a window to push forward and comfort her. 

Where did Din get all this self-mastery? How has being Mand’alor changed him in such an immense way, that Din the bounty hunter, Din the hunted—now held authority not only over the Mando’ade, but over his own once-turbulent soul?

Did he have any idea of the repercussions should the fire mission wipe them out with the targets? Omera knew Din had already been updating his will and testament. It was customary, Din had told her, of Mandalorian kings and queens. She shouldn’t worry about him departing this life too soon, and yet—he almost had. At least, she had thought bitterly, it would be a coveted warrior’s death.

Din’s hurt, was all her mind pondered afterwards as Omera rose from the bed, dressed herself in a robe and tied her hair up. Din was hurt, and he’s not in bed. She had to go to him, wherever he was. He should still be in the Palace. There was no way Din was still testing the limits of his mandokar after a week in a war zone.

Her steps moving out of their sleeping chambers felt like lead. Perhaps it was the guilt, the shame over last night’s hysterics which kept her from walking with her shoulders back and head up. 

The Palace seemed empty. Where were the other Mandalorians? After the Purge, there was so little of them left. Yet she had joined them, a new Mandalorian in their fold. She wasn’t Mandalorian-born, but wed to one, and through that custom, how quickly shall Mandalore rise again and be repopulated with new spouses and children?

Five steps, seven steps, nine…

She wove aimlessly down the empty halls where her footfalls echoed.

She didn’t know when her steps finally halted, but when she lifted her eyes to determine where her feet led her, she saw it was the door to one of the officers’ meeting rooms. She was surprised, however, when the door swished open—and out came Paz Vizsla, helmet perpetually on, but through his posture was visibly tired. She heard him sigh through the modulator, laced with heavy fatigue.

“Paz…” Omera called, and the heavy infantry warrior looked up to acknowledge her.

“Omera,” he answered back, his voice muted yet affable. He nodded his visored head. “It’s late. Should you not be in bed, my lady?”

Omera blushed. She could never get used to those titles, no matter how the likes of Bo-Katan herself, once so opposed to Din’s claim to the Darksaber, had convinced her that my lady was a noble title—and Omera was worthy of it. Bo-Katan had been very sincere, and very contrite.

Omera didn’t know what to reply. Her thoughts evaporated like steam.

Paz, to his credit, was no less understanding. He had been a stalwart friend to Din despite a history of scuffles and brief resentment over Din’s transgression of breaking the Creed. Paz had since forgiven him and took his place as a trusted comrade and brother-in-arms to Din in the battlefield. It was then no surprise to Omera when Paz offered, without her saying anything, “Din’s in there, my lady.” The large man motioned to the meeting room he’d just stepped out from. His deep baritone was gentle. “I bid you good night.”

“Good night, Paz,” Omera greeted back as Paz nodded and disappeared down the long hall to his own quarters.

The sight which met Omera had set her heart alight and broken at the same time.

Din was on a chair by the heating vent, shed of armor and only in his flight suit—he had not even changed to clothes fit for longer downtimes. He sat up but his eyes were closed, and that was when Omera realized that Paz had probably caught his brother sleeping, and had decided to drape a huge blanket over the man. It looked almost comical—an oversized blanket over her husband, but it also made Din look so small. So… mortal.

Omera bit back a sob as she made her way to the slumbering warrior.

She couldn’t help but admire his features: both soft and sharp and wonderfully handsome. Din’s self-consciousness over showing his face was long gone. He now treated the helmet as Bo-Katan or Fenn Rau did, like a piece of armor to be worn only when necessity arose, and not as part of a fundamentalist religious pact.

Din’s face in his sleep made him look so serene, but it was the serenity of one confident in their own strength, and reliant on the strength of those around them. 

The Mand’alor felt secure in this room where battle plans were hatched, and yet—not secure in his marriage bed, with his wife.

Worry tore through Omera when she noted Din’s slightly labored breathing. There were bruises and minor gashes on his face, but not to an extent where he could be unrecognizable. The cut over his nose had already been bandaged. Omera smelled the faint scent of bacta underneath the huge blanket.

Unable to help herself, she willed her husband to wake with a loving kiss on his cheek, so close to his mouth. How she missed this sort of warmth she could bestow on him, when her heart was full and free of darkness.

Din slowly stirred awake. A breath escaped him, and he blinked. Immediately alerted to a familiar presence, Din turned to face her. Puzzlement filled the sea of brown in his eyes, as though he hadn’t expected Omera to be at his side in this hour.

“Omera,” Din acknowledged his wife. The fatigue was palpable in his eyes and bled through the hoarseness of his voice. “I—I need to speak to you…”

“Right now, love?” Omera marveled at how Din could switch at once to a sort of business-like air, with both of them dressed down they were almost bare. Omera felt heat course through her body when Din had drawn his gaze over her entirety before meeting the warm depths of her eyes once more.

“Paz and I talked,” Din began, and he shifted his position so he sat up more fully. Din winced and Omera empathically winced with him as he registered the dull pain shooting through his body. “I… I know you’d want to find some peace again, after a long while.”

Omera’s brows knitted, not quite sure where Din was getting at. “Love—what are you saying?”

Din’s ever-so-gentle gaze kept her in place. His eyes were sad, so sad. Omera swallowed hard.

“He’s agreed to take you back all the way to Sorgan in two days’ time. I’ll have Skywalker and the kids know. I’ll accompany you as far as the blockade before the jump. I—I need to be on Mandalore, but you… Omera, you need to rest. I’m granting you this, and you should grant yourself that, too…”

“Din,” Omera shushed him, and she kissed him again, this time full on the lips but only for an instant. “Din—no, no. I’m staying with you. I’m not going anywhere…”

Omera felt her beloved’s gloveless fingers trace her cheek, then her jaw with a reverent affection she had missed so much that it ached. “You’re in need of a home now, Omera. Mandalore isn’t home. At least, not yet. Let yourself recover… I know I’ve put you through so much.”

She meant no disrespect at all, but she had chosen to deter her husband’s entreaty from sinking into her thoughts. Din loved her—oh, Omera knew that as much. But at this moment, he was being civil.

It shattered her heart even more, knowing Din was giving her a chance to reconsider their marriage, their eternal pact to each other, and he was bearing her no ill will over it. He would not judge her for it, and he would make sure that the rest of the Mando’ade would not begrudge their Queen her right to decide for herself, out of her own free will.

Omera felt those stubborn tears again. They hadn’t left her entirely since the night before. 

She felt great relief when Din accepted her embrace, and with it, a kov’nyn with foreheads pressed so close together, it could almost seem that they read each other’s thoughts. Omera wished that was so. She wanted Din to know.

“I’m staying, my love,” she whispered again, almost pleadingly. “Din—I’m so sorry about last night…”

Din was unrelenting, yet his scratched voice was compassionate. “You had every right to let me know how you felt.”

Omera nodded helplessly. She let her wet cheek grace over Din’s own, now covered in the stubble she had loved to brush her fingers over, when they still had their nights to themselves, when their marriage was raw and young. How everything leveled so quickly; how reality had set in so dizzyingly faster than a free-fall. “I could do better, my love,” she insisted. “I’m learning, still learning. You know that.”

Din had compelled her to meet his gaze without as much as a word. 

“Your welfare means so much to me,” Din added, superfluously. “Omera—you can never be happy on Mandalore, not while the war is still upon us.”

Omera had her mind set. She would hold herself accountable to it, once she’s relayed these words to Din. 

“I don’t want to be happy all the time,” she told him pointblank, her voice surprisingly calm and resolute. “Of course, happiness is a gift. I’d want to be happy—but not at the expense of us. I was scared out of my wits with that danger close call yesterday. Yes. I was so upset and hysterical. Yes. I wanted to escape that pain for a little while. Yes. But Din—I want to experience every growing pain with you. My love—Sorgan is an old life. I would love to return there, but only if you come with me. But that won’t be after a while but it doesn’t matter. Do what you need to do—and I will always be by your side.”

Din was looking at her incredulously, truly baffled that his queen would rebuff a chance at solace, when she could still afford to do so. With that bafflement came a genuine spark of joy when he smiled—small, but with a vibrancy Omera had not seen on her husband’s face for a long time.

“Now come to bed,” Omera concluded, suppressing a grin that a dimple cratered on her cheek. 

“Smooth,” Din joked with a furrowed brow, and Omera laughed—what a freeing thing to do. 

Their foreheads met once more, and before Omera knew it, Din was kissing her again with a rekindled passion that sent Omera immediately on fire. To her slight vexation, Din cut the kiss short, only for her to realize that the culprit was his pained grimace, as he pressed a hand to his side.

“Uh-oh,” Omera riposted with her own jesting air. “Looks like someone needs some TLC.”

It didn’t take much for Din’s own dimple to emerge from his stubbly cheek. “Then you forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” Omera feigned an aghast tone. “Do you forgive me?”

Din’s airy chuckle sent her heart dancing when he leaned forward to kiss her again. She ran her hands over his curls as he entangled his fingers over the lush length of her locks in familiar playfulness. 

“I forgive you,” he muttered in between impassioned kisses.

“Then,” Omera replied, sighing in this tender exchange, as if they were saying their wedding vows again, “I forgive you too, my love.”

Soon, the sun was high on Mandalore, and another day of unmistakable challenges was at hand.

******

Author's Notes:

Mando'a:

*Mand’alor - the sole ruler of the Mandalorian people *beskar’gam - Mandalorian suit of armor (lit. “iron skin”) *mandokar - the *right stuff*, the epitome of Mando virtue - a blend of aggression, tenacity, loyalty and a lust for life. *Mando’ade - the people of Mandalore (lit. “children of Mandalore”) *kov’nyn - a head-butt; a Keldabe kiss

Wikipedia as a reference is usually frowned upon in the academe, but for fic purposes, here’s the military definition of danger close - “If the forward observer or any friendly troops are within 600 meters of the impact point, to keep themselves safe, the forward observer would declare "danger close" in this last element.” I was quite intrigued with how something like that could work in a scenario like the one in this fic. I’m not an expert but sometimes writing about Mandalorians, a people well-versed in war, has you doing a bunch of research you don’t normally do. I’m not even entirely sure if I got this right, but I was curious so I went for it. ^^ Thank you for reading!

[newpathwrites]

20 Questions of Writers 📑

Thank you so much for the tag @djarinmuse !

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Technically 19, but several of those are Mandomera week drabbles that I posted separately.

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

140,976

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Mandalorian only

4. Top Five fics by kudos:

A Marriage of Convenience

Linked

A Marriage of Convenience Ending #2

A New Creed

A Marriage of Convenience Ending #3

A bit repetitive...

5. Do you respond to comments?

Always.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I have no angsty endings. Either it ends happy, or it doesn't end at all (like I will simply never write an ending, it goes on and on...).

7. What is the fic you wrote that has the happiest ending?

All happy endings. Happiest? Probably a 3-way tie between A Marriage of Convenience, A New Creed, and Arms Wide Open.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, I've been fortunate so far.

9. Do you write smut?

Rarely, pretty non-descriptive and minimally explicit. It almost always has some sort of asexual spectrum undertones to it, too. See question #16.

10. Craziest crossover?

I haven't done any crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not. If so, I remain blissfully unaware.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, and honestly, I don't think I'm capable of doing such a thing.

14. All time favorite ship?

My first and favorite ship ever is obscure - Colleen and Andrew from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. I think I enjoyed that Andrew supported Colleen's plans to become a doctor and appreciated her skills in a time when women were not respected in medicine. Guess what I do for a living...

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The only one I may not ever find the motivation to finish is Trusted Friend which I started for a DinBo challenge - it's a stretch for me because it's planned to be a very smutty, friends-with-benefits kind of thing. It's just not quite as personal to me as my other fics which are more based in my own experiences.

16. What are your writing strengths?

For sure nonsexual and nonromantic intimacy. I started writing to represent the diversity of asexual and aromantic experiences which I don't see in this fandom, and I think I do it pretty well. My fics run the gamut from conventional romantic/sexual relationship to QPR to platonic partnership, and they all have some basis in my own life (or my own fantasy scenarios).

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I definitely rush to get it out once I start writing, and I feel some of my fics read a bit choppy. I also tend to go too heavy on dialogue.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I personally find it a little distracting, so I don't do it. Just an occasional Mando'a endearment.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

The Mandalorian

20. Favorite fic you've written?

This is hard, but I have to say A Marriage of Convenience which depicts a non-sexual, intimate QPR. This was my first fic which I literally wrote during a time of crisis IRL to portray the kind of marriage I wish I could have had (if I'd understood my aroace identity). I've explored so many aspects of asexuality in particular in that fic, especially relating to physical intimacy, and I've gotten amazingly satisfying feedback on it. I even wrote two alternate endings to explore how sex might fit into that relationship structure which was a really fun exercise, too.

That was fun!

Low pressure tags - sorry if you've already been tagged on this! @the-kittylorian-writes @sytortuga @grogusmum @aithnesroses @court-jobi

[the-kittylorian-writes]

"Priceless"

Type: One-shot

Pairing: Din Djarin x Omera

Rating: General Audiences

Summary:

Din takes Omera to one of his most memorable getaway spots, inspired by fond memories with his adoptive Mandalorian father. But once they’ve reached Niamos, Din starts to regret taking his soon-to-be-wife there… 

[Written for (extended!) Mandomera Week 2022, fifth prompt: “Vacation”]

read it here or on AO3 (with author's notes)

Priceless

“Call it a birthday present!” Greef Karga prodded, his face ruddy with elation over Din Djarin’s latest visit to Nevarro. It hadn’t escaped his attention that Din had brought a very lovely lady friend as well. 

Din’s voice was flat. “You don’t know my exact birthday.”

Greef cleared his throat, unbothered. “Well, is it today? Is it tomorrow? Was it three weeks ago or will it be three months from now?” He heartily chuckled over his own wisecrack. His beefy hand cordially patted Din so hard on the back, Din sucked in air, tightening his core to keep himself from toppling over. “It doesn’t matter. Call it an advanced or belated birthday gift. I insist! You know I’ll always be your good friend, Mando. And… won’t a good friend be further graced with the honor of an introduction?”

Karga’s grin widened and his eyes softened as Din followed the older man’s gaze, which landed on a resplendent Omera by his side. Din’s heart always did ten riotous backflips whenever he’d land his own gaze on her. Under the Nevarro heat and sky, she was as radiant as ever. Her dark hair was knotted in plaits that cascaded down her back, and her skin the shade of nutmeg was bronzed so beautifully in the fading light of day.

Din sighed. Before he could even make a move to introduce Omera, Greef had excitedly taken him aside, with a polite nod to Omera, and began singing Din his praises, how he’s missed his best bounty hunter “but that was old times,” and how he’s missed “the little green baby with the magic hand thing,” et cetera and so on. Greef was extraordinarily chatty and in very high spirits. Half a standard year had passed since they’ve had their last crime committed on Nevarro, and it hadn’t even been a grave offense. It was a miracle streak unheard of in these parts before.

“Marshall Dune’s been busy,’ exulted the magistrate earlier. “She’s wanting to extend her reach to one of Nevarro’s moons to clean up so I’ve sent her there. Cara’s stationed herself there awhile, and she’ll probably ignore my message of your visit until she’s done. Laser focus and all that good stuff. It’ll take a few days. I’m sure you’d want to preoccupy yourselves in the meantime!”

Thus, Greef Karga had offered an all-expense paid trip to anywhere among the galaxy’s hotspots; there was a ceiling to the amount and distance, of course. Even then, Din had thought it seemed too bloated an offer. While already generous, Greef was making an offer for a trip for two. Magistrate Karga was very indulgent, especially when Din had chosen to visit wearing only light armor… and with a bare face. It was a giant leap of faith and act of trust, so Greef bounced off the walls, basking under the honor the Mandalorian had chosen to bestow on him.

…Which arrived to this moment when Omera—after noting Din’s tongue-tied dilemma, naked face beet-red, and giving Greef a bright, tender smile—stepped forth, extended a hand, and introduced herself. “Omera,” she said in companionable ease, her musical voice like rich, mulled wine, “from Sorgan, magistrate Karga.”

Greef was over the moon. Omera giggled when he’d planted a gentleman’s kiss on her knuckles, and gave her hand a warm, fatherly pat. 

Din nearly choked on his own breath when Karga concluded their reunion, and sealed the deal regarding the trip with a: “All right then—I’ll call it an advanced wedding present!” 

The magistrate roared out a belly-deep laugh, sending Din further into a silent and red-faced oblivion.

****

Niamos.

It’s been more than twenty years since he’d been to the planet, and that was when he was a young teenager by his adoptive Mandalorian father’s side. 

Greef Karga had allowed him time to decide on a destination. Omera wasn’t very well-traveled, and that alone sent Din’s mind into paralysis at the presence of so many options. Din, in stark contrast, was very well-traveled, at least to the outskirts of the Mid Rim and to most of the Outer Rim. 

Din was seventeen when his buir had taken him on an exposure trip to Niamos with the Tribe’s permission (not easy to get). It was what his father dubbed a “working vacation.” While Din’s buir scouted the planet for future client prospects who could use the services of skilled warriors for tasks that needed heavily armed manpower, Din only accompanied him when needed, but mostly, Din kept to his own devices. At the end of the trip, however, they had quality time as father and son, just the two of them—and it had been such a wonderful time, a fun interlude from Fighting Corps training, that it had lingered willingly in Din’s mind. To this day, it remained one of his fondest memories with his buir, and with Niamos by association.

Din recalled the tall palm trees that skirted the beaches for miles and miles. It was paradise where only a few wealthy personages made their sojourn. There had been nothing on Niamos then that spelled the lavishness of Canto Bight or the chaotic extravagance of the likes of Coruscant. 

The air was fresh and the waves which kissed the shores were clear. There had only been two main hotels miles apart from each other, one of which Din and his father had stayed for a full week. Niamos was only beginning to flourish as a hotspot. The various fauna didn’t shy away from the vacationers; the flora sprung aplenty. Din had even felt so much grass on his toes on his way to the hotel once, when he’d taken off his boots to wade in the ocean water.

There were also mountains far away. A seeming lifetime ago, Din could see their solid outlines from where he’d stood on the beach. 

Now, the outlines of those peaks only appeared at a certain time of day, when the smog abated from the worsening traffic. 

He and Omera hadn’t set foot on Niamos for an hour, and Din was already miserable.

“It was nowhere like this the last time I’ve come here,” Din muttered, darkly disappointed.

Omera laid a compassionate hand on Din’s arm as they elbowed their way through the thick crowds of tourists milling across the cramped and noisy beaches. There was crass laughter, yelling and tomfoolery, and the blaring of loud, bludgeoning music everywhere. 

Din was devastated, tempered to remain in his best behavior while in Omera’s presence. “There’d been no trash by the shoreline,” he grunted low, appalled. “Vendors weren’t even allowed this close to the coast. You can only take food as far as the amphitheater. Hardly any garbage to sweep at the end of the day because people actually knew what they were doing. Spoiled rich kids aside—they actually cared about Niamos…” then he finally sighed, defeated. “…once.”

Omera’s voice was soft and kind when she sought conversation with her beloved. “Wasn’t that during the time of the Empire?” 

They had mustered the sacred closeness of being able to confide in matters once so sensitive to the other. 

Din shook his head once, crestfallen. “That was before the Empire had fully sequestered it. The wealthy were still able to buy the Imps off, until one day, deals didn’t fall through. Good thing my father had brought me here before things went down. I just—“ He shook his head again, sullen and speechless. 

He should have known. The brochure Din had acquired over the HoloNet was rife with false advertising, only showcasing images from when Niamos was still mostly pristine, from how Din had remembered it. He should have known before he sold the idea to Omera.

And dearest Omera… she had agreed whole-heartedly. She seemed so excited; this was a frontier experience for her. But the ugly contrast of the Niamos of his adolescence and the Niamos now, post-Empire, had crushed him. This is what happens, Din thought, when he gives in to sentiment. This was not the same place he and his father had gallivanted on, all those years ago. 

He should have known.

“Did you want to go back to the hotel, love?” Omera suggested amiably. Din flinched at how his beloved was taking everything in stride, gathering special pains to cheer him up, when it was he who should be bringing her joy during these moments of supposed solace.

Not when he’d found the courage at last to propose to her.

Here, in Niamos? In this tourist trap that was once a crystal blue paradise? He swallowed hard. 

Din released a breath, letting tension melt away. Omera’s touch was very reassuring, comforting. He draped a hand over her own which was clutching at his arm like the felt-coated claws of a sapphire-blue Niamos seagull. 

Din shook his head in response. He’d take this responsibility. Besides, it’d be disrespectful to Greef, who’d probably spent most of his own magistrate’s salary to make sure Din and Omera had a great time. They couldn’t just up and leave, cut the trip short and say that because things on their chosen destination have changed, they’d decided to give up on this gift.

“We’ll try to make the most of it,” Din whispered so close to Omera that their foreheads met, as they strolled past a group of rowdy Rodians in the middle of a toast. “If… if that’s what you want…”

Din could almost see Omera’s sweet dimple crest over her cheek as his beloved spoke. “Yes, my love,” she acquiesced. “I’d want that… as long as it’s with you.”

****

Din couldn’t find the appeal in the blaring casino chambers, or the fun in the light-up dance floor that could conjure up a seizure for the most unsuspecting and sensitive of individuals, or even the small cocktails Omera had picked for them with tiny, glimmering umbrellas, which barely had a kick. It was watered down, bland and cheerless, and it had cost twenty-five credits each.

Omera wanted to use the more well-maintained freshers; she had told Din, reluctantly, that getting into those cleaner facilities had cost her fifteen credits. Din insisted; he only ever wished to make her stay on Niamos comfortable and—by the gods—sanitary. They would have opted to return to the hotel, but the blinking fee sign at the freshers’ had caught Omera by surprise that she had been ambushed to pay by a Mon Calamari custodian before she could head back to Din.

The seventy credit’s worth of sandwiches lacked flavor. The fifty-credit dessert was too cloying; Din sadly left half of it uneaten. His palette had changed greatly over the years after long periods subsisting on ration bars.

When a waiting Toydarian doorkeeper had charged them both to pass through the back alleyway, which led to the less unruly areas of the city proper without having to go around the coast had they exited from where they’d initially come in, Din had had about enough.

��It won’t be long until they’ll start charging for the very air we breath,” he grumbled, frustrated and quite emotionally tired. Not only were they charged every step of the way, they were charged an obscenely expensive amount.

Omera shushed him, soothed him; she laid her plaited head on his arm. 

“We’ll head back to Nevarro tomorrow, love,” she suggested, bearing no judgment in her tone. “I’ll tell the good magistrate everything. In fact—“ her smile widened, pearly teeth in full view, and Din was mesmerized. “Greef might even arrange a full refund of our trip, knowing we’ve been deceived by the advertising. He’d probably even issue a rain check for another trip; he seems a man of his word where it counts, love. You’ve also told me many times that he does have powers of persuasion!”

Din sighed again, a bone-deep one. He closed his eyes. He planted a soft kiss on Omera’s head, still leaning towards him in loving proximity borne out of trust.

He didn’t deserve all of Omera’s patience, kindness, fortitude… not while all he did was complain and wail over spilled milk. 

Those amazing memories he’s had with his father—that was all they will ever be, not that his buir was long-gone. Niamos wouldn’t suddenly transform magically into the old paradise overnight just to accommodate his whims.

Only memories now… He and his buir racing the entire length of the shoreline in full Mandalorian regalia and with no one batting an eye as their booted feet added real challenge to the run… with him reaching the finish line out of breath and so revitalized, laughing until his sides ached as his father caught up, winded and jokingly growling out obscenities… And that memory of him and his father in the shooting gallery by the vibrantly lit carousel—now since dismantled—hitting each target and winning each prize, their helmets glinting under the bright crimson and spring-green lights; they’d donated the prizes to the waiting line of delighted children behind them. 

There was he and his buir locked in their hotel room distracting themselves with a game of Cubikahd as they fleetingly shoved food in their mouths with their helmets left unshed, and they’d also slept with their helmets on. One can never be too sure even within the privacy of a public resort.

But there was one particular memory which Din had held the most dear to his heart.

It couldn’t have been too sullied like the Niamos coastline, which held most of the infrastructure and bulk of activity. The sun was setting and trash piled in the amphitheaters. Din shuddered. He didn’t want to stay along this tarnished shoreline another minute longer. He’d take the gamble. He was ballasted by the solid feel of the tiny felt box buried deep in one of his trouser pockets.

“Omera,” Din offered, voice firm. “I—I’d like to take you somewhere… and cross your fingers that it’s still somehow the way it was since I’ve last seen it.”

Omera giggled. She closed the gap as their foreheads met. “Okay. Lead the way, Din.”

****

The hover-shuttle trip cost a hundred kriffing credits, and to Din’s dismay, the stop was still a mile away from the foot of the mountains—where he had gained the last of his sacrosanct memories with his buir on their final day on Niamos, before Din headed back to Fighting Corps training with Paz Vizsla and the rest.

“Upsy-daisy,” Din urged Omera with a glint in his eye as he bent low enough for her to clamber on his back for a piggy-back ride. “It’s going to be a hell of a walk, Omera, and I wouldn’t want you too tired before we reached the top.”

“Oh, quit that,” Omera chided him, blushing hard. But Din was being too endearing; with some reluctance, Omera gave in. “But just for half a mile. I’d walk through the rest,” was the bargain. Din agreed.

There was no one else around. Tiny roadside lamps were the only source of illumination that snaked from the lone shuttle station to the mountains. It seemed deserted enough… perhaps no one else had the mind to give up the creature comforts of the capital for a grueling hike in the middle of nowhere. This was a part of Niamos Din hoped the damning hand of enterprising civilization hadn’t smitten yet. 

The trek to the mountains was made in comfortable silence, with Omera resting her head on Din’s back as he diligently trudged forward. His breathing was unstrained, making Omera further realize how physically fit Din was. She herself was no dainty glass doll, and can withstand hard labor… but Din was indeed something else. He was a tank when it mattered.

Omera buried her face further into the folds of Din’s rough-spun tunic, taking in his woodsy scent. She held him closer; Din’s breathing hitched a little, and she smiled.

As promised, by the half-mile mark, Omera climbed off the piggy-back ride. She made a jest of having Din clamber on her back for a ride this time, and Din had chuckled so hard Omera wished the day wouldn’t end. The sun had already set, in fact. The brilliance of Niamos’ moons filled the expanse; the tall rock formations glowed like upturned icicles under pale moonlight.

“This mountain’s peak is called the Rainbow Shard,” Din began, breaking the silence as they plowed forward the rest of the mile, hand in hand. For Omera, this was more than she could ask for—a great improvement from a Din who would shy away from affection and touch, and now—sans helmet in the duration of the trip, welcoming of her touches and embraces—Omera only marveled at his tremendous transformation. Patiently, she listened on. How she loved her noble-hearted Mandalorian.

“My father had egged me on to race him to the top. It’s actually not a tricky hike, but it had its obstacles. He made sure I used a good amount of grappling cord before I barely beat him to the Rainbow Shard. I’ve won by six seconds.” The fondness in Din’s smooth baritone was like a calming song. Omera dared not break the spell. Din chuckled. “To this day, I still believe he let me win.”

“Why is it called the Rainbow Shard?” Omera inquired, genuinely curious and reverential to Din’s treasured memory.

There was a smile in Din’s voice. His head was bent low. “You’ll see.”

“Din,” Omera said at length, “you’re not making me piggy-back on you again while we get to the Shard…”

Din fought off a playful pinch on his side from Omera’s vengeful fingers when he’d responded with a, “…then we’d never get there.”

But they did reach the peak, with Omera holding Din close again in piggy-back as he tirelessly hiked up the mountain path which led to the Rainbow Shard. 

He set her down, and she climbed off; there was no sound but the soft whistling winds. Even at the top, the climate was mild. There was a traceable chill in the air. 

“Niamos has moons that reach their dark cycles every five years’ time,” Din explained. “And we’ve made it just in time before another dark cycle begins. When my father and I visited, the moons had just gone through their dark cycle, making way to full moonlight in turn, for a few years. It was a timely trip, and I’m pretty sure my dad scheduled it that way so I can have a glimpse of the Shard in its glory—“

As if on cue, the moons reached a majestic summit so that a huge rush of brilliance filled the place—and then, the glimmering sandstone in the rock beds began to reflect the light, and in the process, broke light apart into a thousand spectrums, and minuscule rainbows shimmered all around them.

“—just as how you see it now,” Din punctuated, and he held back a moment’s desire to preen. He did hit perfect timing, and Omera was agape in ceaseless wonder. 

She walked a few paces away from him so that she could absorb everything; she held her hands aloft as if to cradle the thousand glittering rainbow lights. They reflected on her bronze skin, over the silkiness of her hair, and when she looked up at Din—and that took Din’s breath away—those tiny rainbows danced in her eyes, enough to move Din close to tears of joy.

The last time he was ever this emotional was when he’d given up Grogu to the Jedi in the meantime for his schooling, but his son had reunited with him since then. The child and Winta were safely tucked in Sorgan; Din and Omera had time in their hands for each other, even for a little while.

Din stilled his quivering breaths as he reached for the felt box in a trouser pocket as he carefully made his way to Omera. He wanted to commit her enchanting smile to memory as she giggled like a child again, letting the lights play on her open palms. 

He had taken the box out of his pocket, and he was moving closer, closer. 

Omera continued to be blissfully distracted by the wonders of the Rainbow Shard in full force, under encompassing light of the moons.

“Omera…” Din finally called her attention.

Omera lifted her crystalline-agate eyes so that they met his… and her brows furrowed for a split-second before she discovered that Din was much lower than her eye level—as the man was on the rock, bent on one knee, and was holding up a newly opened jewelry box…

Omera’s head spun. Her world was in a standstill. She held her breath, and her heartbeat pummeled her from within with a wondrous, euphoric force.

Din had posed the question so steadily; he had built his nerves and she had rewarded him with a yes—of course it was a yes!—and suddenly she was sobbing. She flung herself into Din’s arms just as when he had slid the many-faceted bejeweled ring of mixed beskar onto a finger. He had hinted to her months before that Mandalorian wedding rings were forged from pure beskar should they choose to wear them. Many Mandalorian marriages of old had held strong and fast, wedding rings or none. When a Mandalorian had made up their mind on matrimony, it was a lifelong vow, so much like the Resol’nare in deep respect for their chosen spouse.

Omera was still sobbing, chanting her yes’es like a mantra, eyes shut as her tears flowed freely.

Then they hungrily leaned into each other for a lingering kiss, one passionate enough to render them both breathless. It was a slow and relished dance of mouths, noses, and physical maneuvers, hands boldly venturing and exploring in a tangle of sighs and quiet laugher, until Omera was gleefully in tears again. She’d embraced Din once more.

Din held Omera back ever so tightly. He’d almost completely forgotten his horrible experiences earlier over at the Niamos’ capital, where everything had a price, and one thing would cost so much more than the other.

Here, upon the Rainbow Shard, no price can ever be placed on this hallowed moment. He’d pay a billion credits ten times over for it—but thankfully, all Din had to pay was the hover-shuttle back to the capital, so he and his beautiful fiancé can celebrate quietly in their hotel room, and if he can teach Omera some makeshift Cubikahd while savoring dinner in bed—why not?

****

Greef Karga had fallen into a flurry of misty-eyed babbling that for a moment, Cara thought he’d instantaneously burst out in huge tears as soon as Omera showed him the engagement ring.

True to Omera’s word, she and Din did return to Nevarro the next day, and sincerely relayed their not-so-grand experiences on Niamos to the good magistrate. Greef had been graciously dismissive over the affair; so once more, Omera had been right—he had been issued a partial refund, at least, but that was better than nothing. Greef made a swift holo-call, and was very terse yet pleasant over the proceedings. Cara admitted she wouldn’t have kept her cool once she’s realized she’d been ripped off by a trip which a brochure boasted was completely worth the time.

In hindsight, although their Niamos trip was cut short… Omera and Din couldn’t deny that in spite of the setbacks, the trip had indeed been worth their hard-earned time, breaking away from responsibilities of krill farming and child-rearing (among many others) for a precious instant.

“Congratulations!” Cara beamed, and she’d gathered both of them in a crushing hug (much to Din’s chagrin). “So… are we having the wedding now, while we have a weeping magistrate at our disposal, you two lovebirds you?”

Din aired out a rather uneasy chuckle. Omera seemed to have understood him completely, so she replied for him with a dimpled giggle. 

“Maybe after we’ve saved up a bit more—we mean, not just for the wedding but… for married life in general.”

Cara’s own dimpled smile was aglow. “Of course. Not that I know anything about marriage and all that jazz… but really, what you and our dearest buckethead boy have with each other—it’s surreal. It’s damn priceless!”

*****

[the-kittylorian-writes]

"Starship Down"

Type: One-shot

Pairing: Din Djarin x Omera

Rating: General Audiences

Summary:

It was a dark and stormy night (uh-oh), and Din and Grogu find themselves crash-landing on familiar yet unfamiliar territory. Grogu pulls a stunt which lends his dad a hand in a most unexpected way.

(Written for Mandomera Week 2022, fourth prompt: “Rescue”)

Read here or support on AO3 (with Author's Notes)

"Starship Down"

The new ship had its advantages. Din had modified it himself and knew what he’d wanted in a smaller, handier, and much sleeker starfighter. 

And it also had its disadvantages.

“All right, kid, do me a favor and give me a seatbelt check,” Din called out to Grogu in a clenched voice. The child peered out from his bubble canopy right behind his father; Grogu cooed in affirmation. 

Din’s visor turned to his son and quickly back to the ship’s controls in relief. “Good. Now hang on. Looks like it’s gonna be a rough landing in this storm.”

“BAAHH!” said Grogu, and he hung on tightly to the built-in seatbelt, customized for a very much organic baby where an inorganic astromech should’ve been plugged in.

Din tempered the ardent desire to unleash a torrent of swear words. He knew he’d be expecting some bad weather on Sorgan by the time they entered its orbit, but little did he know that this backwater planet had weather gauging systems so antiquated, the N-1 starfighter’s more advanced system didn’t merge too well with picking up the data. 

He and Grogu weren’t facing a simple storm.

It was a maelstrom of proportions he thought he’d never encounter in an otherwise uneventful planet like Sorgan, skughole though it may be.

Din sighed and fought his frustrations with a thought which warmed his insides. Correction: a beloved skughole. It was an idea he and his son shared, during the few times he would bring Sorgan up—and only because he’d wanted to remind Grogu of his sleep cycles. The child had been very diligent with his sleep hours and waking times on Sorgan, Din wished that the child had kept it all throughout their journeys since they’ve left the planet.

However—Din had simply wanted another opportunity for the word Sorgan to play on his lips. It reminded him of so many wonderful things, things he thought he’d never have again.

That eagerness, much to Din’s dismay, had led him to miscalculate their departure and arrival times by an unfortunate fraction. So now, he was leading his “new” starfighter and his son into an extremely thick and soupy fog, coupled by unpredictable winds which rendered the starfighter off-balance for a second or two as Din tried to engage the landing sequence.

The keyword was tried.

He was close to finishing the sequence when suddenly, much to Din’s annoyance and shock, he heard something ominously and loudly creak—then disengage from underneath the ship. 

The winds had picked up speeds so dizzyingly that part of the landing gear may have been loosed and beaten apart. The strain of Din’s control over the ship and the gear being forced to cooperate amidst the burgeoning cyclones battled each other—and the gear gave way, and not with how Din anticipated it.

They were being thrown off-course.

“Dank farrik,” Din finally mumbled. That sounded like the stabilizers—if not a more significant steering component. He felt like stringing in some dark humor into their predicament, so he called to Grogu once more: “Well, kid, looks like we’ll have to start saying our prayers and hoping we wing this pretty much literally.”

Breaking into Sorgan’s atmosphere felt like being tossed in a tin can strapped to a wheel that wouldn’t stop. In addition, Din was experiencing zero visibility—if fog could be thicker than tar, this was it. They escaped the harrowing gales of the skies only to be met with the oiliest-looking fog closer to the ground.

Wherever the ground was.

Din wondered if he was still thinking straight, what with the warning lights and beeps of the craft approaching debris and other objects in their way, all erupting at once; Grogu was gurgling in the backseat bubble, and Din’s mind was too focused on getting them both to Sorgan’s earth safely to bother about prayers.

Oh well…

At least they both won’t be dying alone—

The starfighter’s anterior had hit something, and with such precarious tension without actually crashing, and a huge, muffled BAMMMM!!!! enveloped them from all sides. 

Before Din knew what was happening, his body, slung tightly in the security of the seatbelt, jackknifed forward as quickly as his back hit the seat, stealing the breath from his lungs. He grunted, and immediately checked on Grogu.

The child’s eyes were huge with fascination, but more importantly, he seemed unhurt.

The “crash” took them much by surprise, and now that they had come to a full stop, without knowing exactly where they were and what transpired, a silence reigned in the cockpit. Only the whistling winds above their heads and the pattering of hard, sporadic rain hitting the transparisteel canopy broke the strange calm.

“Are you okay?” Din asked of his son, after shortly processing their dilemma. 

“Patu,” Grogu replied, sounding brightly unaffected. Din sighed. If he had nerves of steel, Grogu had nerves of beskar.

“Damn this rain,” Din groused. Despite his helmet’s optics, he could barely make out their surroundings from where the starfighter had managed to land. He decided to do it the hard—and only—way for now.

“Sit tight in there, kid,” Din admonished as he cautiously slid the cockpit's canopy open; he braced himself for a barrage of raindrops to bounce off his armor like boulders. “It’ll take me a moment to get a sitrep and—“

Another creak and a hungry mechanical groan filled the air.

And this time, it didn’t exactly come from within the starfighter.

It came from all around them…

And then, as Din was finally able to gather most of his bearings, the N-1 began to sink into the ground.

The ship was sinking at an exponentially alarming rate that Din at once clicked Grogu’s bubble canopy open.

“We gotta evacuate stat, kid!” Din cried out, and without further ado and with a fantastic leap, Grogu was in Din’s arms.  

Din felt a rush of icy electricity in his veins when he felt the ship’s floor disappear from beneath his feet. The starfighter was further swallowed into an unknown, earthy mouth, simultaneously as Din had activated his vambrace’s grappling hook which thankfully latched onto a gargantuan tree trunk.

With an adrenaline-saturated grunt, Din swung himself and Grogu to hopefully more solid ground, and by the time his boots hit a sturdier surface, he’d looked back to discover that the N-1 had nearly fully sunken under a hideous bog, like quicksand in the marshlands. 

The ship protested with a final, metallic groan until all that visibly remained was a single wing sticking out, its spire helplessly jutting into the air like a stiff insect’s limb. 

The Mandalorian and the child sat on shore, not quite believing their fate, and thought that all was lost until the rain started to mercifully subside. 

By the time Din had risen to his feet with Grogu secure and relatively peaceful in his hold, the rain had stopped. In fact, the weather had improved considerably as if the horrors of a few minutes ago had never existed. 

A stunned silence passed between father and child until Din willed with all his might to shrug off this temporary setback.

“Well, looks like we’re gonna find help—and,” Din sighed, one he did with the most abandon yet—“we’re walking.”

He’d left his jetpack in the N-1.

Besides, soaring in the Rising Phoenix through this godsforsaken inaccurate weather report was yet another gamble Din refused to take, what with a kid in his care.

“Dank farrik,” Din muttered again. Grogu cooed and snuggled closer to his father in attempts to convince the man into a better mood.

***

“Let’s see…” 

“Baah, baaahhh!”

“No, I’m sure we’ve gone this way before.”

“Baaaahhhh…”

“And I suppose you know where we are?” 

There was a jest of a challenge in Din’s voice. He had been tapping at his vambrace’s built-in compass for what could a full hour by his estimations. The chrono seemed to have stopped working as well. Globules of tacky mud had momentarily ruined most of the gear on his person.

What a series of unfortunate events.

Din could barely feel his feet and hands, and probably the rest of his body as well. The temperatures suddenly dropped until he was close to freezing, and he’d unhooked his soiled, but otherwise very warm cape to wrap around Grogu. While he was inconvenienced with an uncharacteristic awry sense of direction, the child was chiding his father underneath his cozy duraweave cocoon.

Each step he made propelled forth a disgusting, sloshing sound. 

“Patu,” Grogu commented. He squealed matter-of-factly. He patted his father’s arm.

���Like I said kid,” Din insisted. “We’ve been on this path before…”

Din was very much engulfed in this conversation/argument he was having with his son, in all pretense that he comprehended Grogu’s intonations with ease if only to get his mind off unsavory thoughts. This distraction comforted him—

So much so that Din hadn’t noticed until now the pinpoint lights of glowing lanterns approaching them unhurriedly. 

Din halted in his tracks, uncertain if he should face these incoming strangers head-on. He’d hitchhiked in more industrialized planets before, but he couldn’t think of a time when he’d done so on a backwater world in the outskirts of nowhere.

“Oh, what the hell,” Din grumbled, and flinging all to chance, he extended an arm with a thumb up, the universal signal for a necessary free ride. “And you know what to do should things don’t work out the way we want,” Din added, and Grogu gave a mewl of reassurance.

The lanterns appeared to be emanating from a very slow-moving hover-wagon, and Din was about to pronounce whatever greeting he could muster when—

“M-Mando?” stuttered a familiar voice.

Grogu patted his father’s arm again from under the cape’s folds. Din couldn’t believe their luck. He recognized that voice.

“Stoke?” Din answered; his night vision optics finally adjusted in contrasting lantern-light and darkness.

True enough, Stoke’s face came into clear view, and the man himself work an incredulous expression. “Oh—stars! Mando!! Look at that! See, see??” Stoke incessantly elbowed his companion beside him, and Din correctly guessed when Caben’s face came into view as well. “I told you it was the Mandalorian! I mean—he’d landed a bit off from where he did before…”

“All right, all right, you made your point!” Caben whined in irritation. “We know this entire thing turns into an insufferable bog during typhoon season!”

For all it was worth, Din rather missed the bickering of this inseparable pair.

Din had allowed the two to settle for a bit before he cocked his helmeted head and cleared his throat. The two Sorgan gentlemen turned to him in full regard. 

Din didn’t beat around the bush. “How did you know that it was me? I’m in a new ship…”

The two men exchanged dubious looks a trickle apart, then they proclaimed in unison: “Omera.”

Din stiffened at the mention of the name. A million somersaults had their way in his head—he wasn’t sure he heard right. To make matters worse, Grogu was now pinching his arm with his tiny claws in elation.

“How—how did she know?”

Caben nodded once, hiding excitement. “Winta.”

Din was just about to implode, hearing all these sweet names but not getting a direct answer. 

Grogu was wriggling in his father’s hold. Din’s eyebrow twitched from underneath the visor. He looked down at the child.

“I don’t suppose this is your doing?” Din hissed at his son in amusement, only loud enough for the boy to pick up.

The child smiled a toothy smile and cooed happily.

“First, the magic hand thing? Now you have this magic—oh, I don’t know—mind thing?”

Grogu seemed ecstatic that his father was getting it. Somehow.

Din felt suspicion bloom in his belly. Were the kids linked in a way where Winta can receive distress calls borne out of sorcerer magic from his little green womp rat?

Din figured that the children had always found ways to understand each other. He’d theorized that it was easier if one was just a youngster, impressionable to the galaxy at large. In passing, Din wondered if that was the same sorcerer magic which had sent the massive yet juvenile rancor to slumber back on Mos Espa. Boba had told Din that the rancor “was just a baby.” The other man’s eyes had shimmered fondly over the huge infant beast.

An infant in its tantrum had torn an entire city apart.

Din sighed yet again and faced the Sorganite pair. “Thank you for coming to our aid. We just need a ride to your village, if that’s no trouble.”

Stoke poured out an enthusiastic stream of words. “Oh, well, we could, but she’s on her way. In fact, she’ll be here in a jiffy.” Din swallowed hard. “Who’ll be here in a jiffy?”

Caben was scratching the back of his head. “Omera,” the man solely repeated, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Din was cleanly about to utter his own stream of words, but befuddlement got the best of him. Soon and sure enough, he heard her voice and his limbs grew cold but not from the post-typhoon chill.

“Mando?”

That was music to his ears, only drowned out by the deafening sound of his own confounded heartbeat.

“Oh—bless the Maker! It is you!” Omera’s sweet voice like honey cream dripped down Din’s auditory sensors. This was very welcome stimuli and with some embarrassment, he shivered a little.

Din found his voice. “I don’t understand…” he began.

Omera leapt from the other hover-wagon. Din was unable to contain how impressed he was, for the young widow seemed to have come prepared—the hovercraft was one built to haul heavy objects across distances. Its magnetic hook nearly as huge as a fully grown rancor’s mouth tailed from a huge coil of industrial-strength grappling cord. 

The young widow’s face beamed with an ethereal light. She was breathless when she spoke to him again. “Oh—me neither! But Winta was persistent, and—and…” Omera’s beautiful face was almost too much to bear. There was evident awe glimmering in her almond-dark eyes and Din knew he was… staring. It didn’t help at all when what she said next sent a hot thrill down his spine. “I knew in my heart that it was you.”

“I—I—“

What on the four moons of Coruscant was going on?

Omera’s hand fluttered timorously over his muddied breastplate. Din let her touch him—in fact, he wished she would, and he knew that he was still staring. He was pathetically like a teenage boy again, infatuated for the first time, just like that moment when he initially beheld her striking beauty when he’d decided to help rid their village of Klatooinian raiders.

To save everyone an overly long explanation which didn’t seem to exist yet, Omera had changed the subject. “Where’s our sweet, little green baby?”

She pronounced those words with a serene playfulness which Din realized he’d missed so much.

And did she say… our little green baby…?

“Patu!!!” greeted Grogu, like a flower in bloom when, just as playfully, he’d emerge from the bundle of muddied cape and without warning—at least for Din, as Omera seemed to have anticipated it—the child had flung himself into Omera’s waiting embrace.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, my darling!” Omera cooed, and she kissed his wrinkled forehead, which Grogu enjoyed immensely. He gave an appreciative trill and drew a soft, verdant hand down the side of Omera’s face.

Din swallowed hard once more. Until then, Grogu had only done that loving gesture to him.

He decided that what he felt about it wasn’t jealousy.

Instead, it was a sense of fellow-feeling that a small child would treat them both with equal affection, and that thought sent his head reeling.

Caben and Stoke had adoring looks on their faces as they started making “baby noises” towards Grogu, and for a moment, Din felt like a bystander of his own life in a stage play that he didn’t know was running for an unseen audience.

Omera was the first to snap out of it.

“Where are my manners?” Her grin was wide that her dimples blossomed in full force, and Din barely noticed that the young widow had deposited Grogu back into his arms. “I’ve the equipment now, so we can go fetch your starship!”

Whatever it was, Din felt that the only way he could preserve his sanity was to play along. Maybe this is how the Force worked in mysterious ways, as the saying went.

“Um—this way.”

*** Everyone save Stoke who was manning the equipment wagon—and Grogu, of course, settled within the comfort of the hover-wagon’s front seat—was limbs-deep in bog water and mud.

Din was refreshed by this display of teamwork and to his own relief, as he had been taught not to rebuff help when offered, not when he knew that he was fully capable of repaying such acts of selflessness. But Sorgan—Sorgan had always been something else.

He was the only one strong enough and tall enough to reach low into the bog without wallowing in neck-deep, and hook the magnet onto the N-1’s mechanism which allowed the starfighter to be towed. “She’s all yours!” Din called out to Stoke, and the man nodded.

“Everyone—clear the area!” Din instructed; Caben crawled out of the bog at once, but Omera, weighed down by her skirts took more time with her attempts. She giggled, and Din was too far entranced that he hardly felt his dogged steps make their way towards her—and then he was offering his arm, but in mud waist-deep on where they both stood, Din realized a solitary arm was useless.

She would have to bodily cling to him as they clambered their way out of the bog.

“I won’t bite,” Din teased, swearing to himself that he’d let loose something probably suggestive. Omera hardly cared for any malice in the words he’d unleashed out of a sudden spike of manly hormones, feeling the warmth of a feminine body drape over him. 

If his breaths registered heavily on the modulator, Din didn’t wish to know, which would surely further his embarrassment. “Hold on tight,” he cautioned.

He was oozing with bravado. He quite hated it, but he couldn’t help himself. He was an eighteen-year-old again showing off to impress and gain adulation. He reactivated the grappling hook from his vambrace so that both of them were hauled back to the security of solid ground. He loved the girlish squeal Omera made when they sailed over the rest of the bog and onto shore. She was giggling again, the warmth of her cheek aglow from this tiny adventure landing upon the side of his helmet.

Omera seemed properly impressed, all right!

Instinctively, he held her closer. He shut his eyes, marveling at the sound of her laughter—fresh like a stream in spring, and pure like crystal.

Din was about to extricate himself from Omera’s embrace out of politeness, suddenly feeling modest. He didn’t want her to believe that he was taking advantage of every waking moment he found just to hold her.

However, when he turned his visor to where she stood still in his arms, he was met with her dark eyes like jewels on sandstone. Oh—Omera knew what she was doing to him. There was no other explanation when she whispered to him, so very close that her nose almost touched the part of the helmet where his own nose should be. 

“Thank you for returning to us,” she said softly, “even if it’s just for a little while.”

Din bit back an urge to cry out in surprise when the N-1 starfighter reappeared from the murky depths in a loud and magnificent tug-of-war between itself and the tow-hovercraft. A gigantic splash of muddy bogwater circled the area, drenching everyone—and when it was over, with not a single face looking like a fish bobbing in a lake, Grogu squealed sharply in utter delight, as if pronouncing the success of an important mission.

Din could hear Caben and Stoke squabbling in the background, about how Stoke didn’t at least give a heads-up before pulling the lever so everyone else could run for cover, and Stoke bawling out a counter-argument… and then there was Grogu’s joyful coos, content over the whole affair even as the night deepened, and the skies were swept of calamity and chaos. The clouds were parting, and the mud was caking on their clothes and unspeakable crevices.

Din could feel his pounding heart. He could feel Omera’s warm hand over the beskar on his cheek.

He could do it now. He’d already shamelessly broken the Creed, and he’d let so much time pass between the Armorer’s words of redemptive measures to restore him into the Covert and this sole moment, when he’d simply wanted to find tranquility again with his son in the cradle of Sorgan.

He’d do it now.

While Caben and Stoke still busily outdid each other in their reasoning which seemed to unearth old grudges in good humor, Din stole this chance.

Slowly, ever so slowly—and he could read the puzzlement in Omera’s open expression—he guided her hands over the sides of his helmet.

Omera’s eyes were frantically searching for his own—for any sign of that he was indeed permitting her this action which he had stalled her from doing so a long time ago.

“Please,” Din lured her in with the voice he knew she loved listening to. It’s about time he let her know that he knew of his effect on her, too. “It would be an honor.”

Omera laughed an airy, capricious laugh. “Are you sure? I’ll count to three—“

Din chuckled. “Just go ahead and do it,” he coaxed her fondly, good-naturedly.

And Omera did. 

Din drank in each and every sparkle in her gaze and twitch upon the lines of her lovely face, when she finally shed him off the relic of a past he was still unwilling to revisit.

“Mando,” she started to speak, her voice reverently adoring.

“Din,” Din said, finally revealing to her his name. “Just call me ‘Din.’”

When Omera suppressed her smile, her dimples buried themselves deeper, and Din was certainly staring again.

“Din,” Omera repeated. Her voice was like a will-o’-the-wisp to his senses.  “I’m so happy you’ve come back.”

Din could completely make the priority of the hour looking over his starship, figuring out which part blew up and malfunctioned and find ways to fix it, estimate the cost of repairs—yet all those practicalities had washed away like the monsoons over the marshes that seasonally flooded Sorgan.

At this moment, Din knew that the priority—was Omera. 

He’d never felt this fortunate before over a previously unlucky streak. Never in his life would he have believed that crashing onto a planet (and coming out of it unscathed), and rescued by the most unlikely people—the most unlikely person, to boot—in extraordinary circumstances was a blessing in disguise.

He leaned down to whisper into her ear his own gentle, rapturous reply: “I’m so happy to be back, too.”

*****

[the-kittylorian-writes]

🖌️ Kittylorian's Fanfiction Masterlist 🖌️

(As of 14 March 2024) **underlined words in color are links to the stories**

I. HONOR THY CLAN SERIES - AO3

Fandoms: Star Wars/The Mandalorian/Star Wars Rebels

For Only The Strongest Shall Rule - AO3 Type: Multi-chapter, longfic, part 1 of 2 in main fic Status: Ongoing; 65/77 chapters Brief description: Mand'alor Din Djarin who slowly learns he’s Force-sensitive; Purge survivors are mostly teenagers and little kids; worldbuilding; healing of traumas; facing destiny head-on for many canon characters; leads to the reclaiming of Mandalore

Perfect World - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete (but may potentially continue as a one-shot series) Brief description: A teenage OC's POV before Din Djarin enters his life and becomes his only hope.

Dinui ("Gift") Type: One-shot series Status: On-going *Dinui - AO3 || Tumblr Brief description: A "then vs now" slice of life between Din's childhood with the Tribe vs adult Din as a provider for the Covert post-Purge *No Place Like Home - AO3 || Tumblr Brief description: 17 year-old Din returns to Aq Vetina with his adoptive Mandalorian father and faces a part of his past *A Child Called Din - AO3 || Tumblr Brief description: Teen Din runs into a little big problem. Set immediately after "No Place Like Home" feat. teenage!Paz and friends

II. MANDOMERA WEEK 2022

Fandoms: Star Wars/The Mandalorian (Fanfiction centered on the Din Djarin x Omera pairing; all are rated G or Teen; some fluff and some angst)

The Routine - AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Omera's POV, set immediately after the events of Mando s01ep04

To The Letter - AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Omera's POV; Omera thinks of a way to thank the Mandalorian (don't worry, it's wholesome)

Starship Down - AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Din's POV; Din and Grogu "crash land" on Sorgan, a rescue ensues; set after BoBF s01ep07

Priceless - AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Shared POV; Din takes Omera to a memorable vacation spot, but a lot of things have changed

Battle Scar - AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Canon-divergent, shared POV; Din is Mand'alor and Omera is queen; Omera argues with Din and Din tries to set things right

IV. MISCELLANOUS FICS

Fandoms: Star Wars/The Mandalorian/The Book of Boba Fett/The Bad Batch

A Good Night's Sleep For Once - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Migs Mayfeld POV, post Mando s02ep07

Double Tap - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Din double checks if he really took Moff Gideon down; post Mando s01ep08

Putting the Weep in Sweep - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Paz Vizsla is tasked to sweep the Forge because he's a responsible adult

Fatalitea - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Fennec Shand and Boba Fett try boba tea

The Test - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Din's thoughts as he visits Grogu; during BoBF s01ep06

I'm Just A Kid - AO3 Type: Multi-chapter Status: On-going; 4/7 chapters Brief description: Din and Boba transform into kids and Paz Vizsla babysits

Heart And Mind - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Tech's POV when he and Omega have a brief talk during s02ep09

A New Age of Mandalore - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Semi-crackfic; an old scientist visits the Covert with a theory, and only Grogu understands. Set after s03ep02

V. FERRIX: A SERIES OF ONE-SHOTS - AO3

Fandoms: Star Wars/Andor

1.A Daughter Of Ferrix - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete: Brief description: Maarva Andor copes with her teenage son Cassian's arrest after he avenges the death of his father, Clem Andor

2. Alone - AO3 Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: B2EMO's POV of the night after Maarva passes away

VI. A CHILD OF THE WATCH - AO3

Fandoms: Star Wars/The Mandalorian

A Future Yet Unknown- AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Din and Grogu are greeted by an unexpected new member of the Covert. A "missing scene" in s03ep01 "The Apostate."

Only One Creed- AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Paz's son Ragnar has questions, and Paz isn't sure if he can answer them all, not where he stands with Din. Set after s03ep01 "The Apostate"

From The Ashes- AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Paz begins to teach Ragnar about the legacy of House Vizsla.

All The Little Foundlings- AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Ragnar copes with fears and loss of self-confidence as he recovers from his harrowing rescue adventure; clan Djarin step in to help. Set after s03ep4 "The Foundling."

We Are Eternal - AO3 || Tumblr Type: One-shot Status: Complete Brief description: Paz Vizsla leaves a holo-recording to his son Ragnar before he accompanies Bo-Katan to scout Mandalore, knowing well that it could be his last mission. Epistle style. (Spoilers for s03ep07 "The Spies")

In Dreams, We Wake - AO3 || Tumblr Type: Multi-chapter (2/?) Status: Ongoing Brief description: Ragnar Vizsla is Axe Woves' apprentice. Two years have passed since Mandalore's reclamation and Paz Vizsla's selfless sacrifice. Ragnar lives a double life for the sake of his father, in life or in death.

***end of list***

[the-kittylorian-writes]

"To The Letter"

Type: One-shot

Pairing: Din Djarin x Omera

Rating: General Audiences

Summary:

“The community’s grateful,” Omera told the Mandalorian one afternoon by the ponds. Indeed, the little Sorgan village is thankful for their newfound peace. Beforehand, Omera thinks that sending a heartfelt thank-you note to the silver-clad warrior is an excellent idea. Or isn’t it?

(Written for Mandomera Week 2022, second prompt: “Secrets”)

read it here or on AO3 (with author's notes)

To The Letter

“Dear Mandalorian,” Omera started speaking into one of her old, pocket-sized datapads where she logged in her thoughts. 

Until recently, all her mini datapad logs contained holiday recipes, loom weaving techniques, and instructions of handy repairs around the humble hut which she and Winta shared.

Omera released a breathy, quivering laugh. She shook out the dream-fog that plagued her head.

“Delete salutation,” Omera instructed the log. Dear Mandalorian had disappeared into a clean slate.

“To the Mandalorian,” Omera recited into the data-log device, starting anew. “T-to…”

Omera sighed. Her mind had suddenly gone blank, right from when she had erased the entire “dear”-ness towards the letter’s recipient. A bubble of frustration began to brew within her.

She cleared her throat, composed herself, and took a deep breath. Her warm voice was the solitary reverberation in the hut. She had time for herself to do this, while Winta was at school, while the Mandalorian and Cara Dune did shifts at patrol rounds, and while a village matriarch took her turn in looking after the little green child.

It’s been two standard months since Cara, the Mandalorian, and his small son were greeted by the perimeter of their farm and welcomed with open arms. Bless them—he and Cara had been very sincere in their attempts to help and uplift the village, if not for their acute pragmatism which came as a shock sometimes. They had once suggested that the villagers relocate elsewhere, as their beloved krill farm was doomed should it suffer a Klatooinian attack aided by their AT-ST assault machine. 

Omera couldn’t believe it at first, when the Mandalorian had formed a viable solution. He’d suggested with a casual air that the village can be taught how to fight, if they were willing to take up arms and train for days on end. An attempt of such a scale hadn’t befallen their village in decades—they were peaceful folk who only wished to do good business through their exceptional spotchka, which was their main means of livelihood for generations. 

The Mandalorian kept true to his word with a gravity that reflected the honor in which he had been raised. Not only had he lent his undivided attention to make sure everyone was as capable a shot as they could compared to Omera’s surprising expertise, he had lent his own weapons—dozens of hands touching the sacred objects of his religion, leaving a dozen more fingerprints upon the shiny metals from a variety of his personal munitions. 

Omera watched the way he talked, the way he moved, even the way he stood in tranquil stillness. He was precise, reserved, unpatronizing… genuine. 

His desire to help was real. He had already taken the downpayment for Cara’s own payroll, leaving nothing for himself and his child, save for food and lodging. Omera’s heart had sunken then, realizing that he had only wished for a place to lie low and think, and care for his child without the perils of the hunt and being hunted in turn—no more, and no less.

In his confidence over being able to restore the village to its post-raids state, his only valued transaction was a momentary home in exchange for his time, his blood, his sweat, his skill in the fight.

Now, in this noon hour, Omera remained stuck with her message to the Mandalorian. Cara’s had been easy; the other woman took neither flattery nor hyperbole, which Omera appreciated. She had found a friend in Cara. However, when it came to the Mandalorian…

Omera wasn’t one to curse, but this time, an ungainly swear word escaped her lips as frustration reached its peak.

“Fine,” Omera whispered to herself, relenting. “Dear Mandalorian…”

“Dearest Mandalorian and baby…”

“To our dearest Mandalorian and baby…”

“Our dearest… my dearest…”

Omera groaned, almost defeated but not quite. When she first came across the idea of a thank-you note, she thought that it was a lovely idea. She’d brought it up to Winta, and her little girl agreed with it whole-heartedly. When Omera had permitted Winta to go ahead with her own thank-yous into the log, the child went about it with an innocent ease of one unsullied by the humiliation of inadvertently saying the wrong things. 

With a tinge of good-natured envy, Omera watched and heard her child utter her own sweet words of gratitude. A child’s sincerity flowed from their heart quickly downstream, unhampered.

Then came Omera’s turn. As days passed by, dictation into the log became increasingly difficult. 

She couldn’t find the words to sort her feelings; or perhaps, she couldn’t decide on her feelings to sort out the words.

Omera was… conflicted. 

“Dearest Mandalorian…”

She remembered the way he trudged around the perimeter, unbothered like the sturdiest tree in the forest. He emanated a quiet confidence which needed no heralding or ostentation. It was ever-present like the air Sorgan breathed or the waters upon the river that shimmered under the sun, since the beginning of time. It was a confidence which inspired trust.

It was a confidence which inspired…

“Dearest Mandalorian…” Omera begun once more, for the umpteenth time.

Love. 

The Mandalorian was inspiring love… 

Omera felt discomfort and a muted horror over the epiphany, which she herself had acted as a barrier against. However, actively fighting it was affecting her clarity of mind and the serenity in her soul. If she resisted any further, she’d perceive herself a false person, unworthy of truth as she herself could not extend it. 

The truth, Omera decided, didn’t need to be paraded out in the open. If she could only be true to herself, that would be enough. All she needed to do was let all her thoughts out, starting with “Dearest Mandalorian” and all the words she wished she could tell him but couldn’t—shouldn’t. At this moment in time, it was still a very complicated thing, like a stove top too burning to the touch. 

If Omera could just let all those words out for him and yet treat all this as if no one listened, she’d find equilibrium again. The Mandalorian didn’t have to know. “To my dearest Mandalorian…

You are a force of nature, a blessing, a gift, a sign from our gods to guard our home.

When you walk around the circle of ponds, it’s as if you weave a spell of protection around it.

You keep all of us safe. You make us feel safe. We know we are safe because you made it so. You are a jewel.

And I love you for it.

I love you.”

A long silence followed as Omera felt the tears fall, as soon as she had uttered the last three words. The data-log noted it down like a faithful, automatic scribe. 

She began to feel a tremendous burden slowly lift from deep within her, but she couldn’t face herself over this tenacious, hidden confession just yet. When her many inner storms had settled, maybe she can go out in the open again and pretend she had never said those words…

Her mouth tried to utter something more. She wanted to dictate to the log… “delete last message,” but a huge part of her refused to. It was like taking her words back, her sincerity back. It would once again be a lie.

Wiping the tears, forcing out a long exhale of trapped emotions, she let her shoulders droop. She calmed the beating of her heart. It was hammering powerfully enough to knock the oxygen out of her brain, and she held her ground.

“I’ll be okay,” Omera promised herself.

Letting the draft of her secret letter to marinate in the log for a day or two, Omera stepped out of the hut to enjoy the vestiges of daylight. She had been at the log for hours. She needed to stretch her legs and check on her dearest Mandalorian and his sweet child while she’s at it.

***

“Winta!” 

Omera flitted around the hut like a caged bird all morning, flipping mats and pillows and folded laundry, tossing small household items here and there in clear search of something. “Winta, my love—have… have you seen my data-log?”

Winta was chewing porridge at the kitchen table. Her mouth was full when she replied, adding to Omera’s vexation. “Nnho, Mhama.” The little girl swallowed her food. “Mama—was that the same log with my thank-you letter in it?”

Omera wrung her hands, entangled her fingers over her braids as the plaits slowly came undone. “Y-yes. Yes. I’ve sent the log with your note to the Mandalorian. I don’t think I’ve sent mine—“ the young widow stopped short, catching her breath. 

She wouldn’t be caught telling her own daughter a lie.

Omera hadn’t been in her best mood ever since the Mandalorian, the baby, and Cara had departed the village at the same time. She and Winta had adjusted their expectations over the whole messy affair of the Mandalorian needing to be on the run again for the safety of his son. Her heart had ached so preposterously, that when she had been packing gifts for the baby which the Mandalorian took with him, she also had not been paying close attention to her actions. 

She had wanted to get over the pain of seeing father and son off, not knowing that she may have done so a little too hurriedly.

“Oh… Oh no. Maker…” Omera felt crushed as she collapsed on a wooden chair in their modest living room. Her chest heaved visibly and she seemed faint, enough for Winta to squeak and fetch her mother a tankard of water.

“Mama,” volunteered Winta at last, as Omera drank her fill, her eyes bloodshot and tired. “Mama… maybe you’ve packed it along with the baby’s gifts! It’s the tiny rectangle thing with a flap, right? I think I saw it tucked in the baby’s blanket…

Omera sat up, very attentive. Her eyes were wide as she stuttered at her daughter. “Y-yes, that one. It’s… it’s a tiny rectangle with a flap.” 

Her body turned to jelly. Her bones turned to ice.

She buried her face in her hands.

Winta was prodding at her mother. “Was your letter in there, Mama?”

Omera nodded, keeping her face shrouded in her palms, unspeaking.

Winta scooted closer to her mother. “Then why d’ya look so worried, Mama? Did you say something in the log by mistake which you weren’t able to fix?”

Omera let out a small sob; she sat still for long moments before finding the courage to peek out of her shell. 

She thought for an answer, unwittingly holding Winta close. The child, confused, simply embraced her mother back, her dark head resting under Omera’s chin. 

The young widow was learning the hard way that secrets—in one way or another—were not meant to remain so forever. Omera kissed the top of Winta’s head, resigned to her fate.

“No, my darling,” said Omera softly. “There are no mistakes.”

If Winta suddenly sported an even more baffled expression, Omera took no heed, as she felt her heart burst and she kissed her daughter’s soft crown once more.

***

The child patted his little three-fingered hands over the pocket-sized datapad with a flap on it. He wondered what that uncomfortable shape was digging into his side from among the blankets, and out of natural, immediate curiosity, the baby fished it out.

He uttered a pleasant trill which sent the Mandalorian’s visor facing towards him in the passenger’s seat. The man had been focused on the ship’s controls before then, as the Razor Crest whistled like a bolt through hyperspace.

The Mandalorian paused, intent over the object which the baby had found interest in.

“Whatcha got there, kid?” the Mandalorian inquired of the baby with ever-growing fondness. “More presents?"

The baby giggled and trilled, the magnetic pull of his huge eyes keeping the Mandalorian’s attention glued to his son.

A tiny, airy chuckle seeped through the warrior’s vocoder. “They’ve been spoiling you rotten, kid. I’ve never seen a womp rat get spoiled like you my whole life…”

The baby seemed to have other plans as his little clawed fingers played with the flap, and as soon as he pried it open, Winta’s cheerful voice filled the cockpit.

“To the dearest sweetest baby there ever was and his dad…”

The child’s ears flapped inwards and his face scrunched in delight. Winta’s thank-you message played on as the Mandalorian continued to fail at holding in a fit of tremulous laughter. That ecstatic sound was brief but tangible. The child loved his father’s laugh. He made that face again, and the Mandalorian chuckled again.

“…many many many hugs and kisses, and all the yummy frogs in the galaxy for you and all the oatcakes for your dad because you helped our village pres.. prosp… um—prosper again. That’s a big word we learned in school yesterday!”

Winta’s log-note soon came to a close, also translated in glowing little aurebesh letters as the little girl spoke her exuberant words. The child clapped, patted the little data-log once, as if to send a gesture of affection to Winta from afar.

The Mandalorian exuded one of his rare, wistful sighs (they were usually sighs of resignation). 

“That was very nice of Winta, kid. I’m sure you’d love to keep that log to tide you over while we hop around the galaxy for a little while…”

“To my dearest Mandalorian…” began a new message.

The child looked so amused when the Mandalorian’s head whipped back to the direction of the data-log, quicker than a finger snap or a flash of lightning. The man sat there on the pilot’s chair, unmoving. 

The Mandalorian had become paralyzed for an instant, his helmet tipping subtly, small movements missed if one should blink.

Then, the Mandalorian decided that hearing Omera’s voice again was a luxury he was unwilling to indulge in at the moment. He was unprepared. He swallowed hard, his breaths grew shallow, and he had sprung from his seat to carefully kneel in front of the child.

“…you keep all of us safe…” continued the young widow’s log-note, but the cockpit had grown abruptly silent when the Mandalorian had gotten hold of the device and snapped it shut.

The child cooed at his father inquisitively. He made cajoling noises of affection when the Mandalorian remained still, so still. 

Then his shoulders heaved in the wake of a tremendously strained sigh.

“I’ll be okay, kid,” said the Mandalorian at last. As an afterthought, he patted the closed log firmly with a gloved hand. 

“I know you’ll think me weird, kid,” added the man, his voice scratched with emotion. “But… I’d rather keep this a secret for a while longer…”

There was no judgment in the baby’s babbled response. The child reached out, and with surprising tenderness, laid a tiny clawed hand on top of his father’s helm.

“We’ll be okay,” the Mandalorian repeated, and the baby agreed.

****

[the-kittylorian-writes]

"The Routine"

Type: One-shot

Pairing: Din Djarin x Omera

Rating: General Audiences

Summary:

Every morning, on the clock, Omera wakes up to make breakfast for the Mandalorian and his little green child. 

(Written for Mandomera Week 2022, first prompt: “Memory”)

The Routine

It was certainly like clockwork.

Every morning for the past three months, Omera had woken up at nearly the exact same time, when the sun rays would hit the exact same spot on the thatched walls from her hut’s half-open window. 

Under the dawn’s mild and glimmering light, Omera would make the bed, freshen up, go to the kitchens and make breakfast not only for herself and Winta, but for her two other guests (probably still snug in the barn, but she knew they would be up early as well). A small, content smile played on Omera’s lips as she diligently laid out her cooking, hummed as the kettle whistled. There was a brightness in her spirit that hadn’t been there for a long time. 

She hummed some more, a little off-key, exhilarated as she arranged the steaming breakfast on the tray. It was almost muscle memory, like the ones she kept for survival, like when she first held the blaster rifle as she had been trained all those years ago, and she hadn’t forgotten.

This was a new kind of muscle memory, a new kind of path her steps took every morning, every single day, for three months.

Omera was about done with a dash of decorative garnish—would they like a little foxglove and a little thyme? A little bouquet of forget-me-nots? The green child seemed to love all those little purple flowers. When his small, green nose touched the blooms, he giggled and he sneezed.

The silver warrior would look at his son, and Omera could only pretend that she saw his own fond smile underneath the heaviness of his visor.

Her smile grew wider.

Omera continued to hum her placid song as she lifted the tray skillfully, effortlessly, as she had done so for seemingly countless days. Perfectly balanced, she strode down the stairs of her hut and into a clearing.

She was greeted with a series of “good mornings” and “lovely day!” as she made her way to the barn. She had steady and well-paced steps—and that was why she grew puzzled, indeed, when the early risers of the village whom she exchanged the usual pleasantries with were staring at her strangely, and some with visible amusement. Caben and Stoke, on the other hand, had their mouths agape as she passed them by. 

“Good morning, Caben! Hello, Stoke!” she called happily, her tone belying her slight confusion.

“Uh, Omera…” Stoke began, but Caben struck him lightly on the shoulder and they both grinned innocently, and went on their merry way to the ponds.

What’s gotten into everyone? Omera wondered, suddenly doubtful—

And when she arrived at the barn, she froze on her tracks.

“Oh…”

She had never felt so embarrassed in her life… thus far. The heat crept to her face and a wash of melancholy hit her.

So that was probably what everyone had been trying to remind her about, but had been too nice to break the enchantment which was palpable in her gaze, in her gait, in the way she carried herself.

The barn was tidied up and empty, and there were no longer any traces of their Mandalorian guardian and his little boy. 

They had already left. They’ve been gone since yesterday. 

The village had even showered them with a warm send-off. How could she have completely forgotten?

Omera wondered how foolish she looked, just standing at the foot of the platform of the barn, staring at it as if she beheld it for the first time. 

She was holding the tray of food proudly, ready to advance, to call out her usual knock knock by the threshold in permission to enter the Mandalorian’s territory. The man valued his privacy to the utmost.

But he wasn’t there. The baby wasn’t there—she could see the empty cradle from where she stood.

Stupid girl, she chastised herself. A great weight had tugged at her heart. She knew it was silly of her to feel tears forming in her eyes, but she’d taken a huge, deep breath, and the weight abated a little. The tears refuse to fall.

A full day had not even passed, and she’s already missing them so terribly.

“Mama?”

Omera was just about ready to turn heel and return to the homestead, a little angry with herself—she was half-thinking of just tossing the entire tray on the little kitchen sink, and she would find time for herself there, alone for hours, wondering how everything had suddenly changed in her world to a normalcy that refused to settle within her.

Her heart glowed for a beat and then it fell. 

She found the source of the voice to be Winta, of course; she saw her little girl already inside the hut so that her small face peeked out timidly, sadly.

“Winta…” Omera softly called out. “Winta, get down from there, please. They’re… they’re not…”

She couldn’t finish. Her voice shook and for sure, Winta would pick it up.

“I know, Mama,” Winta replied with equal dolefulness. Omera flinched. Her daughter sounded so… lost. “I forgot that they’re not here anymore. I was going to give baby a kiss on the forehead before school. I always do that.”

Omera’s throat tightened. “And… and the Mandalorian had let you?”

Winta gingerly stepped out of the barn’s shadows and into the morning dew. The little girl gave her a barely perceptible nod.

“Yep. He’d said it was okay. He’d told me the baby liked it. I think so, too!”

Omera noted the brief burst of gladness in Winta’s voice. Omera sighed; she smiled. 

“That’s very nice, sweetheart.”

Winta now was fully out of the hut and she was carefully making her way down the steps. There was a knowing look in the child’s eyes, and Omera wasn’t sure whether to meet her daughter’s gaze or to avoid it…

“You forgot that they’re not here anymore, too, haven’t you, Mama?”

Omera tempered a scoff, but it was useless. They’ve both caught each other red-handed. They would need to come into terms with the reality that their routine could no longer be.

The noble warrior and his precious child had left, now gone to follow their own path—for the father to protect the son, and the son to bring joy to his father’s heart.

Omera did find some consolation in the fact that Cara Dune had decided to linger a bit more, but after months in their village, the soldier within Cara had grown restless. She was, perhaps, miles away, back in the common house enjoying the rest of her early retirement.

However, a greater void was left deep within Omera’s heart caused by the absence of father and son.

“I miss them, Mama,” Winta openly expressed the sentiment stirring in both their souls. “I wish… I wish they didn’t have to leave.”

Omera couldn’t bear it, to see her own sweet child carry the burden of another loss. Winta may not have remembered her birth father all too well, but she had been very lucid when the Mandalorian was around. Omera’s heart had skipped a beat when she saw her daughter perpetually hovering over the Mandalorian and the baby whenever the man allowed her to. The warrior was a very patient, and an even very timid man, stoic but with a strange, beautiful softness Omera couldn’t put her finger on.

Winta stayed on the foot of the step. The girl looked back wistfully, and Omera was surprised to see tears roll down Winta’s cheeks. 

Omera felt a plan brewing. She puffed her chest in resolution.

“My darling,” Omera said endearingly with a bit of intrigue. “I’ll tell you what: Since school doesn’t start in an hour, why don’t we both stay in the barn awhile?” She held up the tray of deliciously smelling food, to hopefully tantalize Winta, even when Winta had her own usual breakfast, one unlike a grown man’s and a baby’s. 

Winta sniffed messily; she ran a hand over her face, but to Omera’s delight, she saw it—there, in Winta’s eyes, was a spark of happiness. 

“We can pretend that they’re still there!” Winta offered, figuring out her mother’s plan. She recoiled a little, hesitant. “I know it sounds silly, pretending and all that…”

Omera laughed her musical laugh. “Well, only for now. Maybe for a few days, just to wean ourselves away from… from their presence. We can’t just suddenly go Cold Grinjer, can we?”

Winta’s smile had grown enough for her dimples to show. “No… going Cold Grinjer is a bad idea, Mama!”

****

And so it was for the days that followed—Omera waking up on the clock, the rhythms of her hands and her feet and her entire body flowing to the beat of her routine, as if the Mandalorian and the child were still there. 

Sometimes, she would pray for their safety. Sometimes, she would sing—and her cheeks were on fire—as if she sang to him. Sometimes, she would be silent altogether; eyes closed in the middle of the task, she would imagine the sound of the Mandalorian’s voice, full and rich and kind, conversational yet gruff, succinct yet meaningful. 

Then she would carry the breakfast tray to the barn and meet Winta there, all spruced up for classes during the weekdays, pretty teal ribbons adorning her wavy dark hair. Her daughter would smile, dimple-wide, and they’d set up the breakfast on the low wooden table where the Mandalorian set his food down sometimes. The Mandalorian had let Omera and Winta dally for a moment, saying he’d “eat later” as he fed his son as Winta would feed the child on occasion. He’d make sure that the baby ate a “balanced meal,” and invited companionship as he asked for some pointers on child-rearing from Omera.

Winta and Omera sat around the low table. Like small children in their fantastical realm, they’d re-enact their favorite scenes which they’ve both shared with the Mandalorian and the baby. 

“Baby would be making a fuss there,” Winta recalled, pointing solemnly on the empty cradle, and she’d lift a glass of warm blue milk to drink. “Then I’d say, ‘Baby, you forgot to have your pudding!’” then the Mandalorian would take the bowl and scold Baby for neglecting his pudding…”

Omera giggled. The Mandalorian hadn’t really introduced his son by name, so in his usual gentle and patient (and amused) way, he let the village children name him, and the best they could come up was Baby. Not very creative, the children admitted, but very straightforward. And Baby seemed to appreciate it all the same.

One hour, every morning for the past week turned to two weeks… and then, to three.

Omera knew that this “make-believe” breakfast with absentee participants was finally reaching a point where it was no longer healthy. But Winta had been so wonderfully and eagerly obliging, and her daughter enjoyed it thoroughly as much as Omera did. 

She had to break out a final reality check to Winta.

“We need to stop now, my darling,” Omera truthfully advised Winta, a note as well towards her own self. She kept her tone from wavering. “I think… I think we’re ready to move on. Don’t you think?”

Winta was silent for long moments, like a Sorgan sprite with her glimmering hazel brown eyes on her sweet face framed by soft, brown curls. 

The child’s reply was barely audible, and her face grew forlorn. “Okay, Mama.”

****

Winta had begged for a compromise a few months later. 

Omera was truly stunned at how the Mandalorian and the baby had such an encompassing impact on her daughter; there was still an unmistakable sorrow in Winta which needed appeasement. It wasn’t as pronounced as it had been when Omera first encountered it in her child, but at the end of the day, it was, after all, a compromise.

“We can celebrate the breakfast ritual,” Winta suggested—as they had christened their new routine—“like, one morning every other week. Like—like an anniversary, even when it isn’t—Oh, Mama! I’d like to celebrate Mister Mando and Baby once in a while. They did help us save our village…”

Omera held back a deep sigh of resignation. Winta had small, conniving ways to convince her every now and then, and this was one such event. And her daughter was right. The Mandalorian and Baby could—and perhaps should—be celebrated, even if it’s just the two of them: Winta and Omera, together. 

The widow knew, in a flitting moment of profound sadness, that she had found the fiber in her being to move on, as she had finally lost track of time since the Mandalorian departed from their krill farm. 

On the other hand, the village was indeed grateful, but they had all moved on more easily. Omera discovered, however, that they’d drink to the Mandalorian’s health once in a while, when an excess of good spotchka was to be had.

If the village celebrated in their own ways—and Omera couldn’t possibly have spotchka with little Winta yet!—she knew she had found a reason to agree upon a compromise.

Winta hugged her hard and peppered her cheeks with kisses. 

One morning every other week: that was the arrangement. It wasn’t as stringent as the old clockwork, of course, but muscle memory was still intact—the swiftness of movements as Omera prepared the milk, the cream, the caf, the bread, the meats, and the baby’s pudding— and then a small vial of foxglove flowers and thyme blooms and forget-me-nots. 

She worked with grace. And Omera knew, even when it was not meant to be—she worked with love.

It seemed like another dewy morning with its misty sun rays and birdsong. The night before, Omera thought she’d heard the soft rumble of a faraway starship in the skies. She blinked hard in concentration as she arranged the cream pot neatly at a corner of the tray.

It couldn’t be.

It’s never going to be.

She brushed all suppositions away and wore her small smile as she made a beeline to the barn where Winta was waiting.

The village looked happier, looked livelier as they greeted her with bigger smiles—and Omera thought, it’s great to be in a good mood…

She plodded on, tray balanced perfectly in both hands, as she had always done before the compromise, and she took one step up the barn platform, and another.

“Winta, darling, here’s breakfas—“

When Omera raised her eyes after she safely found her footing through the threshold—

She froze. Her breath had caught so tightly in her throat, she thought she’d suffocate where she stood.

Before her eyes could catch up with this unlikely turn of events, her ears had caught it first—the delighted giggle of Baby, and Winta’s ecstatic response in  turn.

There, in the middle of the barn, was the Mandalorian.

He looked the same yet changed; he still wore the same silver armor, but there were new adornments on them, and Omera realized how much time had flown, and yet… now, at this very instant, it had reached a dreamy standstill.

The Mandalorian’s visor regarded her; the man nodded once, and with an audibly affectionate and playful lilt in his gruff voice, the Mandalorian greeted her: “Knock, knock.”

“Mama,” interjected Winta in overflowing excitement, adding very needlessly, “they’re back! Isn’t it too awesome? We don’t have to pretend anymore—”

Baby giggled and cooed and laughed.

Omera’s breath hitched further as she shot her daughter a look. She knew she blushed so intensely, and she couldn’t speak—

Then the Mandalorian chuckled. It sounded muffled under the helmet, transmitted by vocoder, and Omera was simply about to marvel at the sound of the man’s gentle laughter when—without as much as a warning, and perhaps, to surprise her so entirely that he probably got the reaction he wanted…

The Mandalorian had pulled the helmet off his head. He then cautiously set the shiny helm upon the low table.

Wait… wait… Omera thought in panic that morphed into bliss. What happened to their Creed… What happened to… ‘This is the Way’…??

Omera only saw the Mandalorian’s brown eyes, as depthless as a dark lake in calm afternoons, when she accidentally let the tray slip from her hands. It could have shattered noisily over the floorboards had the man not possessed quick reflexes and caught the disaster before it fractured into many pieces. 

The Mandalorian may have said his name—his real name—and baby’s real name too, but Omera seemed unhearing as she rummaged through the caverns of her mind, so new memories can set up camp and stay there for years and years. 

In that moment, she only saw the coy smile on his handsome face, and when she let out a sigh of disbelief and pure joy, Omera knew that the Mandalorian was committing her smile into memory, too.

*****

A/N: Want to support this fic on AO3 too? 💚 The link is here. TYSM loves!