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Chapter Text

20 ABY

There was something burrowed in the snow.

Beneath the marine sky of a crisp dusk on Krownest, Grogu waded through fluffy white, on the trail of some type of creature with small paws. Its tracks pointed to where it had disappeared a moment ago, but the kid knew better; he could feel where it had dug its way through to another snowy patch.

He toddled that way in hopes of catching it. Trekking through all of this snow was hard with little legs, though, and he tripped into a snowbank before long. Grogu snorted into the ice, annoyed. Then he pushed himself up again, continuing on once he had shaken the stray flakes from between his ears.

Finally, there it was, staring back at him from its makeshift cavern with beady eyes. Grogu didn’t know what it was, but it was smaller than him and, naturally, he wanted to hug it. So he waited for his opportunity, before abruptly pouncing on the creature, only for it to escape down its hole and leave him whining with frustration.

If only the Force would breathe through his fingertips.

Blaster casings tinged against armor once his dad came looking for him, having wrapped up his nearby conversation with another Mandalorian.

“Come on,” Din called. “This way, Grogu.”

The kid obeyed for a moment, shuffling over. He was excited to attend the ceremony, but he was about done with all the walking. When Din realized he was missing his little shadow, he glanced back to find Grogu cooing with lifted arms. Wordlessly, he stepped over to pick him up.

The pair scaled the steps up to the stronghold. This one belonged to Clan Wren, Din explained, and it was one of the few ancestral Mandalorian homes that had survived the reign of the Galactic Empire. Grogu turned his head back toward the rumble of engines in the distance, where Mandalorians were disembarking their ships and approaching in small groups.

Grogu angled toward the entrance of the stronghold, from which heat was dissipating and murmurs carried out. On either side, soldiers guarded and announced the arrival of clan representatives.

A Mandalorian ahead of them turned to salute Din with a fist across his chest. “Mand’alor,” he said. His two children followed suit.

“Clan Lers,” Din acknowledged, recognizing the fragmented bird of their signet.

“We were relieved to hear of your foundling’s recovery,” the Lers father remarked.

It was a statement Din had heard many times in the last couple of weeks. He offered a solitary nod in return. “Thank you.”

“Tankoo,” Grogu echoed. The two children stifled adoring laughs behind their helmets.

The man with the red helmet continued, “My clan is indebted to you for returning my niece Farr from Ithor.”

This was admiration Din didn’t mind being on the receiving end of, one Mandalorian to another. This was something he had done, not some respect aimed at his title. “She’s a Mandalorian,” he returned. “There is no debt.”

The two fathers shared a nod. Just then, another Mandalorian caught the attention of the Lers family. Din and Grogu looked to see Bo-Katan marching up the steps, seemingly tense and huffing against the cold.

“Long journey?” Din asked knowingly. He shifted down a step to make room for her in the line ahead of him, and she was too riled to deny his kindness of letting her into shelter first.

She scoffed. “You wouldn’t believe.” What began as a routine flight back to the sector turned into an intense dogfight with Imperials targeting shipments of the Mandalorian Trade Federation. They warded them off fine, but one of their ships was critically damaged and lost a good portion of its cargo. It was the closest to their sector the Mandalorians had been hit since the Reclamation of Mandalore.

Neither of them wanted to alert the clans around them to the unsettling event. This would be discussed behind closed doors to not rouse another uproar so soon after the previous one. So Din was quiet when he said, “They told me no casualties.”

The Lers clan was announced next as they walked inside as one unit.

“None,” Bo-Katan confirmed. “We finished them off before our reinforcements could even arrive.”

Still, a grave insinuation hung in the air. She crossed the threshold, fixing her head straight as she did and momentarily dropping their conversation.

“Duchess Bo-Katan Kryze of Clan Kryze.”

Mandalorians lining the hall turned at the sound of the prominent name, lowering their volumes to a rumble. Din strode in after her.

“Mand’alor Din Djarin and Grogu Djarin of Clan Mudhorn.”

They were greeted with salutes that briefly paused all chatter, but Din barely noticed it, failing to heed all of the stares. Grogu’s ears quirked to the sound of his name.

“It’s custom,” Din explained lowly, “for at least one representative of each clan to attend these ceremonies. Others can come too—everyone did in my covert.” But on this large of a scale? It wasn’t feasible, not like it had been with his tightly-knit Tribe, with so few of them.

Grogu tipped his head back to look up at him, piercing his visor with an unsaid question. They fell in line beside Bo-Katan, and Din picked up where they left off.

“I don’t like how close it was,” he admitted in a murmur.

“I don’t either,” she whispered back. “I thought the Empire was becoming more stupid, throwing everything they had at us as their domain receded, but now it’s almost like they’re…”

“Bolder?” Din suggested.

Bo-Katan looked over. There was a sobering expression to her visor. They didn’t know what this meant; they were in agreement that it could not be good.

“General Paz Vizsla—“ the booming voice continued.

“We’ll convene with the others tomorrow,” Bo-Katan assured.

Din accepted the postponement. It could wait. This was not the time or place.

Grogu held onto his dad’s bandolier as they filed through the stronghold and outside with the other Mandalorians. Gathering around the hot spring, the Mandalorians fell into reverent silence. The kid glanced around at the five different banners being carried, matching them to the five different Mandalorian children who were knee-deep in the water. It was certainly warmer here than it was on the opposite side of the stronghold, with steam curling around the bodies distributed on the edges of the pond, trapped in by the tall pines.

“Armorers are the ones who swear you to the Creed,” Din whispered over Grogu’s ear. “You repeat the words they say to you. Then you don your helmet, and the armorer baptizes you. In my covert, you would swear to never take your helmet off.”

Drumming began, somewhere. It was consuming, how it rippled through the Mandalorians, who beat their chestplates to its example. An absorbed expression crossed Grogu’s face as he watched two armorers step out into the cold to perform the sacred ceremony. One of them was the Armorer, of the Tribe. Grogu wondered if she was there to swear his dad to the Creed a long time ago; she must have been.

The armorers bore five beskar helmets, all ordered on a hovercart, freshly forged and painted to signify the clans that the children belonged to. When they reached the children, they halted, and so did the reverberating rhythm of fists on steel.

“I swear on my name,” the armorers began in unison, “and the names of the ancestors…”

The five returned the words in earnest. “I swear on my name and the names of the ancestors…”

“That I shall walk the Way of the Mand’alor…”

“That I shall walk the Way of the Mand’alor…”

The parents of the children looked on proudly. Every Mandalorian felt the words sing in their hearts, fresh as the day they took the Creed themselves, no matter which variation they adhered to.

“And the words of the Creed shall be forever forged in my heart.”

“And the words of the Creed shall be forever forged in my heart.”

Determinedly, the children and foundlings accepted the helmets sealing onto their heads, following in the mighty footsteps of their clans. It felt unbelievably right to each of them, to live up to their common duty, to be accepted into the roles they were meant for since the very day they joined their families.

“This is the Way,” the armorers said.

“This is the Way,” repeated the children, modulated.

All Mandalorians repeated the phrase with beskar strength. Grogu was fascinated by the exchange, tried to eke out his own attempt at the words. Din’s mouth tugged into the slightest grin, and he placed a hand on his chest, just letting him know that he heard him try.

The armorers were each handed a bowl, with which they bent over to collect water from the hot spring, warm against the biting freeze.

“If you wish to walk the Ancient Way, speak now,” the Armorer implored.

One of the five, a headstrong girl who had decided to live as her buir did, answered, “I do.” It was a formality; the Armorer was here to carry out the ritual solely for her, given that she had the power to seal prospective Mandalorians to the old Way.

The Armorer addressed only the girl as she said, “From this moment on, I shall never remove my helmet.”

“From this moment on,” the girl breathed, “I shall never remove my helmet.”

The water was poured over the children’s helmets, all in a row, split between each armorer. It wasn’t how it used to be; these ceremonies used to be for one foundling at a time in Din’s covert, with no need to distribute the water.

But there were some things that were universal, no matter how many years of exile had divided up each sect. The genuine intensity that resulted from the honoring moment was felt in all Mandalorians, sparking a thrill that was reminiscent of their own oath-taking. While Din’s thoughts were of the day he swore the Creed, he was also proud of his people, that they had progressed from zealous altercations over who was more of a Mandalorian to this—this picture of solidarity that he had taken years to paint, where they could be baptized side by side to their varying religion.

“We welcome five new Mandalorians,” the progressive armorer said. Applause did not wait for him to finish. “Congratulations.”

The newly sworn children accepted everyone’s cheers with warm cheeks and exhilarated smiles. They were quickly surrounded by their parents, and others soon gathered to offer their own praise.

Din hung back, thinking of moonlit waters on Concordia and a second chance, of adopting who he was meant to be as soon as that visor was over his eyes. Grogu noticed a twinge of discord rippling around him, like the hot spring as the new Mandalorians waded out onto its bank. He cooed an inquiry up at his dad.

“It’s strange,” Din hummed. “I remember that day well. I remember how it felt.” There had been destiny smelting in his bones, a determination in repeating the words that would seal the beskar onto him forever, so that it would be his very face, the only face the galaxy would ever get to see.

Well, he couldn’t blame himself for overlooking a tiny part of the galaxy.

“I never would have thought about removing my helmet.” Din tilted his gaze down, a smile prompted by Grogu’s curious eyes. “Then I met you.”

The Mand’alor soon found the opportunity to slip into the sectioned crowd to personally clasp the forearm of each child. They and their families thanked him, expressing their honor for his presence.

Then the festivities moved inside the Wren stronghold, where most Mandalorians removed their helmets to enjoy a feast and discuss rumors of clans and altercations with enemies on the Rim and new milestones for their own children. When it became clear that there were enough congratulations and helmet-butting and pauldron pats to go around, and that Din had shown his helmet, he and Grogu saw their brief window of escape from it all. So they found themselves wandering out to the terrace, where Grogu tilted his head back to catch sparse snowflakes and Din reveled in the quiet after a busy day.

Bo-Katan had the same idea. With her helmet tucked under her arm, she broke away from the social event and stepped outside for some space from her subjects and cool air on her face. What was meant to be a moment of solitude, however, was intruded on. Or, perhaps she was the intruder.

Standing beside the railing, she watched the figures in the valley of deep snow just outside, illuminated by the yellow light spilling out of the stronghold. Din and Grogu were engaged in some kind of game of their own, with the taller Mandalorian tossing his son into a snowbank and laughing at his airborne shrieks before he was engulfed in the pile. Grogu dug himself out of the snow with clawing grumbles and glared at his dad for being amused.

He shot a hand out, determined to win this play-fight. With no result. His hand was suspended as the Force ignored him. But something crestfallen could only cross his face for a second before Din was throwing himself backward into the powdery snow with an exaggerated groan as if an unstoppable power had knocked him off his feet. Grogu brightened immediately, rushing in to attack with squeals.

“I yield, I yield,” Din protested. The kid on his armored chest patted his helmet in the most adorable of assaults.

Bo-Katan didn’t realize she was smiling until she was caught red-handed by the Mand’alor’s visor. Something about her induced rigidity felt incriminating, like she wasn’t supposed to be finding joy in the father and son’s interaction. Maybe…she needed to slacken her warrior role occasionally. Even Djarin could set that part of himself aside and indulge in this little splinter of rapture he had.

But it was ingrained; she knew what letting her guard down meant. She knew that these castles they had built and rebuilt in their corner of the galaxy were only as invulnerable as the Mandalorians inhabiting them were.

Din then turned back to Grogu, poking him in the side so that he squeaked and flopped back into the snow. He unburied himself from the pile and stood to brush off the rest of the ice clinging to his flight suit. Bo-Katan had things on her mind, clearly, and she had that talent of steering people where she wanted them with nothing but a stern aura.

They never did talk about what was weighing on Din.

It seemed like that conversation had come for its reaping. So, as Grogu began finding his own entertainment in hopping through the snow, Din went to sit next to Bo-Katan, who had stationed herself on the stairs of the stronghold.

“I don’t know how I didn’t notice that you still cared about him,” she commented, reflecting on their years of driving into the Mandalore sector and establishing their home. It was so absurd now. All that time she had fought alongside him and she had had no insight into the talons entrapping his heart. It had taken until they recovered the location of the cloning lab for her to become aware.

It had taken her until the kid’s recent tangle with death to understand. And she never would, fully. She was not intent on taking in any foundlings.

A low hum came from beside her. Contented, Din watched his son roam. “We were both distracted. Besides,” he said, “I was trying not to think about it.” It was a…light explanation. It didn’t account for what he had suffered in the absence of the kid.

“Still.” How had she not seen what in particular made the Darksaber and its attached power nothing in his eyes? It was laughably obvious now, as she studied how fondly the visor followed the movements of the boy.

Unfortunately, the role that Din had been tasked with fulfilling clashed with the one he wanted. He had made it work for quite a while, running Mandalore with his kid by his side. Until recently. War was not merciful to the gentlest of things.

And they had enemies everywhere.

Din may have eliminated the immediate threat to Grogu, but the Mandalorians had plenty more adversaries to take Vero Kordall’s place. Pirates, syndicates, the Empire. While the New Republic hadn’t reached out yet, it was only a matter of time before they expressed their displeasure with his belligerent actions in one way or another.

The picture of sheer concentration, Grogu was shaping something in the snow with his hands. Din sighed, his visible breath escaping out from beneath his helmet and into the cold night.

“I worry about him.”

Bo-Katan tucked her hands into the crooks of her arms to warm them. “I know,” she said.

But it wasn’t simply because Grogu had nearly died and there were nights when Din still battled insomnia. Din wanted her to know that. This was…more pervasive. This was a myriad of deep fears that had swirled into some sick concoction, imploring him to acknowledge what was actually keeping him up, hovering over Grogu’s hammock.

“I’m worried because he can’t defend himself anymore.” He swallowed, and it felt like fiberplast was lining his throat. “He went with the Jedi for ten years, and now he can’t defend himself.”

What if Grogu’s powers didn’t return? Din couldn’t fathom that. If this was a permanent consequence, then it would make their decade of hollowing separation null and void. Pointless. It would mean that when Din was gone, along with the precious years they had sacrificed, Grogu would be left to the beasts of the galaxy with no means of fighting back.

Bo-Katan heard his thoughts of the future in his words, rather than the present. “He may not be able to defend himself, but he’s not defenseless,” she countered, in an attempt to assure him. “He has our entire people at his beck and call.” All of Mandalore was prepared to go to war several weeks ago in the little one’s name.

A pull of Din’s face beneath his helmet was lost on her. He shook his head and explained, “That’s just another problem. I worry what will happen to him when I’m gone and I leave him with…” Bo-Katan’s eyes were drawn to the Darksaber on his tactical belt, until he nodded star-ward with his helmet, presumably at the rest of the sector. “All of this.”

Because whenever Din died, whether it be in a day or a decade, the Darksaber would pass to Grogu. It was a preservative factor; it would ensure that the Mandalorians remained loyal to their little ruler until he came of age. It was also the most broad of targets that attracted opponents from the far expanse of the Outer Rim to the inner Core, if the assassination attempt within the last several weeks had proven anything.

And. Grogu couldn’t wield the Force anymore.

Din never enjoyed considering his line of succession—when he did, he unrealistically blew it off with the intention of challenging someone and losing at an older age if he made it that long—but it was all he had been able to think about lately. Grogu’s near-death had been the most staggering of wake-up calls.

The kid busied himself with his snow piles so that he wouldn’t feel the dread that had burdened his father for weeks—oddly, he seemed to be more sensitive to the Force tunes in the life around him as of late, and that meant that his dad’s emotions were only amplified. His claws pushed the snowflakes into a sticky bundle, and the grave conversation continued at a distance while he babbled to himself.

Unsure of how to proceed, Bo-Katan gazed off into the pines and listened to the silence of the snowfall. There would be no convincing Djarin that wielding the Darksaber would come without its risks; he knew better. Mandalorians were married to war, and there wouldn’t come a day when their ruler could be shielded from it.

“I never should have revealed myself,” Din eventually remarked. Unveiling his regal position might have been strategic in the height of New Republic negotiations, but now it had caused strife in his family in the worst possible way. At the time, he hadn’t even been considering the ramifications for Grogu. Grogu wasn’t there.

“It was the best option. We didn’t have much of a choice,” Bo-Katan defended. It had been a joint decision, after all.

“I just didn’t care at the time,” Din admitted. “I was prepared to take the heat, and I didn’t think it through.”

He didn’t realize an unhinged politician would bring his lost son into it. He had been naive to lend even that sliver of trust to the New Republic. Although, this was more than one simple anomaly.

Din’s eyes fell to a patch of ice creeping up the stairs as the truth came forward. “As long as I wield the Darksaber, he won’t ever be safe.”

But, as Bo-Katan pointed out, “He would be even less safe if you weren’t Mand’alor.” There would be no special power to use, no orders to call in for Grogu’s protection if he relinquished his hard-earned advantage.

It was true. Din knew it. The mission to Delrakkin to destroy the Imperial cloning lab, for one, would not have been half as enticing to his fire team if his word hadn’t carried so much weight. And while all Mandalorians would rally to avenge the death of any of their children, he could admit that Grogu’s position as the Mand’alor’s son had made him that much more influential.

Still. Cycles upon cycles meant more public exposures and more officials collaborating gossip to deduce the true identity of the mysterious Mand’alor. The Core was losing its grip on the hushed rumors of the Hosnian Prime negotiations, especially given the latest Mandalorian standoff on Suurja II that ended in shocking violence. Speculation had already started leaking into the Mid and Outer Rims to imbed in the minds of trade partners of Mandalore. Of Imperial adversaries. Of other corrupt galactic senators.

It had been easier, when Bo-Katan was the face of their people. She didn’t have evident weaknesses. Her heart didn’t have endearingly enormous ears, and it didn’t go toddling out from beneath the protection served by her chestplate.

“You’ve dealt with the recent threat. He’s safe within the sector,” Bo-Katan finally remarked. She lounged back, undeterred by the cold stone biting into her unarmored elbows. “I don’t know the first thing about being a parent, but…it seems to me that that fear doesn’t ever go away. And I don’t think giving up the Darksaber will have any effect on it.”

The words had more merit than Din realized, since it felt like weeks of strain had fled into the forest ahead at the first sign of reason. Of course he was going to be worried for Grogu, Mand’alor or not. It was only natural.

But lingering in his chest was that feeling of exhaustion from when he admitted to Grogu that he didn’t want this anymore, and though he played her game, he couldn’t quite believe her.

For now, no drastic decision was to be made. There was too much to tackle at hand.

The acceptance was eased over when Din was surprised with a handful of snow being dumped on his lap. Grogu smiled up at him proudly, and it was suddenly effortless to forget about sleepless days in the medcenter and those awful alarm wailings that haunted him.

Maybe it also had to do with the freeze seeping through his beskar.

“Thanks for that, kid,” Din said sarcastically, and Grogu babbled something absolutely purposeful before hopping back down the steps again.

Bo-Katan tried to fight the amusement from her expression, but it was a losing battle. The heavy conversation had been dampened by the little guy; he seemed to have a habit of cheering up a lot of dismal situations.

While she hadn’t always been the friendliest to Grogu—out of uncertainty of how to interact with him more than anything—she was relieved that he had pulled through. The near loss had made her more…fond of him, in an unfamiliar way.

“You know, he did something unheard of. Perhaps you should gift him a new piece of armor,” she suggested. It was custom that young Mandalorians earn beskar by completing levels of their training or defeating enemies in the field, so it seemed appropriate here. If it would help Din sleep at night, even better.

Din liked the idea. He was disappointed that he hadn’t thought of it himself. What better way to honor what Grogu had done, the unbelievable feat he had accomplished by healing himself, than with a next addition to his armor? The kid was mending in more ways than one since his traumatic ordeal, and it would be a positive thing. He deserved it.

“I think you’re right,” the Mand’alor agreed.

Another handful of snow was added to the growing pile on his lap. His thighs were beginning to go numb, yet he had no interest in disturbing whatever the kid was building.

Din tilted his helmet as he watched Grogu work. “I’m taking him to Xolov after the debrief tomorrow. Shouldn’t be a long journey.”

It was best to leave him to his own while he worked through the rest of his inhibitions. In the meantime, he seemed committed enough to ruling. Bo-Katan acknowledged his plans with a nod. “I’ll keep you updated on the Bandomeer surveillance. I’ll be monitoring from Kalevala,” she told him.

“If all looks good,” Din said, “we should move in within the week. We’ve delayed far too long.” The longer they waited, the higher the chances of the beskar cache on Bandomeer being moved or raided by another party who got the tip. Hopefully Trapper Wolf’s intel was still valid.

“Agreed.”

Once Grogu had partially covered his father’s legs in a thick layer of white, Din caught him by his romper before he could scamper away. “Hey, come here. Aren’t your hands cold?” he wondered, taking the kid’s frostbitten claws between his gloves.

Grogu stared at his swallowed hands while they warmed. Then he grew restless, snorting in playful defiance, and he wriggled out of his dad’s grip so that he could return back to the drifts.

Din sighed, but Bo-Katan was strangely enjoying this time with them, even as an outlier to their little clan. Sometimes it felt like Djarin was the closest thing she had to a friend; he understood her motives and her duties in a way that nobody else quite could, from their positions of lesser responsibilities. Sometimes, lately, she just wanted the galaxy to feel as small as a father and his son, mock-fighting on the steps of a stronghold on an obscure world, away from the reach of reality.

“You remind me of my father,” she found herself commenting unexpectedly. It wasn’t often that she and Djarin had exchanged personal confessions or regrets of the past during their reign together; sure, he knew bits of Satine and her father that she sprinkled him during rather uncertain nights at camp before risky operations—while she knew nothing of his history aside from him being raised as a foundling on Concordia. But at times like this, she missed her clan.

Din glanced over to let her know that he was listening. Patient, until she was willing to offer more.

“He was tough on my sister and I. ’Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya’, (Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger.) and all that,” Bo-Katan recited with an affectionate curl of her mouth and a wistful shake of her head. “He did his best to prepare us for what was ahead. But…there were gentler parts of him too. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I remember.”

She had pulled her knees close to her chest, and though it might have been to huddle against the frigid air, Din noted how childlike the action was. The armor wasn’t filled by her as it normally was. With her chin on her knees, she looked less like the Duchess of Mandalore and more like she was searching for a parent’s approval.

She once described her father as a great man, who died defending Mandalore, and he earned the respect of Din with those few words. Bo-Katan was now the last of her line, and it must have been intimidating to live up to the Kryze name, to honor her fallen family.

“I didn’t know him. I would have liked to,” Din decided to say. “But I know that he would be proud.” For there would be no Mandalore without Bo-Katan Kryze.

His confidence stung more than the Krownest climate did. Bo-Katan turned her head away, equally moved and unreasonably cross with him for stirring those emotions.

It got a response from Grogu, with her sad song dancing between snowflakes. From the step beside his father, he whimpered with concern in her direction. Din set a calming hand on his head to deter the noises.

“Thank you,” she finally muttered. It meant a lot coming from someone with so little to say, from someone who had endured her inflexible personality and her failures from the beginning. And, maybe it meant a lot coming from a father.

Distractedly, Din merely nodded. Grogu had finally become cognizant to the unkind temperature, and his shivers could no longer be bravely suppressed. The pinks in his face were now prominent as he pressed against his dad’s side.

The Mand’alor scooped him up when he rose, dusting the snow from his thigh armor. Comfortably, Grogu hummed as he was wrapped in Din’s cloak and burrowed away from the frozen planet’s breath.

“Cowd,” the kid huffed.

“Told you,” Din teased. Though he tucked his ears under the fabric anyway. The night was frigid, but he was warm, with his kid held close.

Grogu’s big eyes peered over the bundle at Bo-Katan, determined to see if she was still upset. Din followed his gaze.

Picking up the conversation, Bo-Katan commented, “My dad would have been proud to see these Creed ceremonies.” What was once a spectacle for their subjects now bore its original significance. Those who once mocked the Children of the Watch and similar zealous factions found themselves believing in the ceremony with equal amounts of fervor, for the Reclamation of Mandalore had stoked their Mandalorian dignity.

Adonai Kryze would not have believed his eyes were he here tonight to witness Mandalorians of all houses and religious codes, gathered to watch children and foundlings take the Creed side by side. Mandalorians, who once hunted each other for their differences, now boasted their solidarity.

“But he was proud enough to be there for mine,” she added, closing her eyes briefly to soak in the memory. She swore the Creed for him more than anything, because she was expected to, but she was grateful that he had guided her along through her royal duties. They were invaluable to her now.

“In the Living Waters,” Din remembered. The Mines of Mandalore were gone, having been buried by the destruction of the Purge, so the Waters remained inaccessible. Excavation projects had been unsuccessful and much less prioritized. It was likely all crumbled ruins down there. He would have liked to see the ancient halls of Mandalore once in his life.

“Yes.” Bo-Katan dragged her eyes up to his visor when she guessed, “And yours was on Concordia.”

Din answered with a hum. “Mine wasn’t nearly as extravagant.” But it was one of the most important moments of his life. He hadn’t needed a hushed royal hall or a thousand observing subjects for it to touch him with a unique inspiration he would likely never experience again.

The day he became the Mandalorian.

How far he had come. The Mand’alor who returned his people to their home. The Song would boast of his rise from an orphaned boy to the ruler of the Mandalorians for thousands of years. Din liked the idea of leaving such an impact.

So why, then, did he shy from his title?

Perhaps because he saw no use in lasting thousands of years if he couldn’t have the life he wanted when he existed. His son was the integral part of that life. And with the way things were, Grogu would be the ultimate cost of being Mand’alor.

Clan Mudhorn could not have a legacy if Grogu wasn’t there to honor it.

“How old were you?” Bo-Katan’s voice jarred him from his thoughts. The age at which Creed ceremonies took place often varied between subcultures; she had been a young teenager for hers.

“Twelve,” Din answered. So, not far off.

“And it wasn’t a difficult decision for you?” she asked out of genuine curiosity. She had never seen the other side of it. While she was born to be Mandalorian—and while she wouldn’t have had it any other way—others had chosen this life. Din, for one, had been a child when he agreed to walk the Way despite what he believed was a permanent vow to never show his face.

His helmet turned to search for something in the iced-over lake nearby. “There was no decision to be made.” When he had nothing, the Mandalorians gave him everything: a home, an identity, the means to defend himself. Belonging.

What divergent paths they had traversed. Bo-Katan stared up at him like she was starting to see him for the first time, with each fragment of information he was willing to lend hammering him into his true shape. He was a foundling, so that meant that no parent had been present when he swore the Creed—unless he had been adopted by a buir. (Parent) The Children of the Watch were his family, then, and they were all he had ever known after…whatever tragedy came before.

A story she might have spat on once out of ignorance—a cult raising its influential members to follow the wrong Way—was suddenly heart-wrenchingly real—a boy being taken in by Mandalorians and dedicating himself to their culture.

Bo-Katan wondered if others knew of these confidences, if she had been too blinded by her duties by looking too far ahead to see the commander beside her for who he was. Fate had thrusted them together to retake Mandalore, and they hadn’t had the time for her to come to know the man she compelled into the Mand’alor.

Din Djarin had begun making sense to her, with the return of his son. In a way that had nothing to do with weapons or authority.

A call came through Din’s comlink, then. He expertly shifted Grogu to his other arm so that he could answer it. “Yes?”

“Sir,” the voice on the other end began. “Senator Organa is returning your holocall.”

Well, at least the New Republic was willing to talk. It was the best Din could have hoped for after weeks of silence from his end. “I’m on my way,” he said, cutting communications. He turned to shrug a shoulder at Bo-Katan.

“I’m heading back to Sundari for the night,” she declared, rising tiredly with her helmet tucked under her arm. It had been a long day, and she wasn’t keen on ending it with bad news from the Galactic Senate. “Let me know how it went tomorrow.”

“I will,” Din promised. She stepped down the stairs, but there was something he wanted to acknowledge before they parted ways, so he called, “Bo-Katan.”

She paused at the first sink of snow beneath her boots to cast a glance back up at the Mand’alor and his cradled kid.

“You know that I never would have hurt you.”

They had had their fair share of grievances and misunderstandings with each other during their rule, some they worried would interfere with their government’s direction, but Din wanted her to know. He needed her to be assured that even when he had been behaving irrationally in the slow hours building toward Grogu’s demise, his intention when he unleashed the Darksaber hadn’t been to mutilate his complicated friend.

Bo-Katan was too headstrong to ever take it personally. “I know,” she returned. “Besides, who says you would have been able to?”

At the challenging quirk of her eyebrow, Din shook his head and turned to head inside the stronghold. He supposed they would never find out who would have prevailed in that called-off duel.

On his way to answer the holocall, Din dropped Grogu off to run along with the other children frequenting the stronghold. Then he was directed to the Wrens’ war room, where the holotable flashed a light to signal the incoming ping. The unnecessary Mandalorian guards left him with the door hissing shut behind them.

Despite having anticipated this discussion, he found himself hesitating to answer. Senator Organa had attempted to reach out to him plenty of times since Suurja II was first blockaded by the Mandalorians. During those unreturned calls, Din had murdered a New Republic citizen in front of their military, pulled his troops back once the damage was done, decapitated a former galactic senator, and fled Coruscanti patrols. To say their governments were on uncertain ground at his hand was an understatement, and he expected Mandalore to be held accountable.

But while he had no room to procure any favors for his people, he refused to let them be walked over. The goal of this meeting was to outlast the Senate’s criticisms in order to wear their badge of shame, not to be berated into submission.

There was another aspect of this holocall that was important to Din. The best way to go about this, he had decided, was to not mention Grogu. Surely, Skywalker had filled Senator Organa in by now—surely, she wasn’t stupid—so she must have inferred Din’s rationale, and it was probably the only reason she was still willing to deal with him after he had broken many unsigned treaties with what he did. She…seemed to care about the kid, from what he gathered on Hosnian Prime.

Yet, Grogu was going to be kept out of any Galactic Senate associations going forward. Din would trust nobody to harbor his secrets.

With this in mind, he pressed a button to display Senator Organa’s holo-form on the projector.

“Mand’alor,” she flatly greeted. Her braided buns were pulled taut to her head, enhancing her severe look.

“Senator Organa.”

“Are you now willing to discuss Mandalore’s actions on Suurja II?” Leia snarked. “I really don’t appreciate your untimely evasion of the Galactic Senate on this matter.”

In fact, had it not been for the two ambassadors-in-training touring the sector, she would have had no indication as to where Mandalore stood with the galactic government in the last weeks.

Cara had not been able to count on the Maduel brothers’ discretion. As expected, once they left her ship, they detailed the events on Mandalore in a hologram to Senator Organa, telling her of the targeted child and how he survived and how the Mandalorians still held scathing contempt for the New Republic—or so they gathered during their stay.

This news came after the standoff on Suurja II, well after the damage had been done.

And it didn’t change anything. It shouldn’t have, because Leia would have ordered the troops not to engage the Mandalorians either way. However, now she was privy to the motives of the Mand’alor, and it tugged her sympathy—wouldn’t any parent do the same for his or her child? She had faith in the justice system of the New Republic, but if the culprit admitted his guilt before his death, then surely justice was dealt in other appropriate ways—to be fair though, from what she heard, the death could have entailed less suffering.

To speak on these sentiments would have been treason. The Core’s outrage was enlivened by the fact that a mob of Mandalorians had barricaded a planet and murdered a citizen of the New Republic in cold blood, meeting no retaliation from their government. Since Leia spearheaded the expunged negotiations, senators and citizens alike were looking to her to handle this new conflict. They wondered why the Mandalorians were allowed to run things unchecked in the Outer Rim, and when the next attack on the Alliance would be. Supporters were looking to her for swift punishment, while her political adversaries were hoping for her to show leniency to the Mandalorians so that they could twist it against her.

It was a good thing that the Mand’alor hadn’t filled her in on the assassination attempt on Grogu. She might have sided with the warriors of the Outer Rim in this instance, since the killing of innocent children was one of the most heinous crimes in her eyes—it was Empire-level debauchery. It was also the worst choice of action, for Leia could have collaborated with the Mandalorians to catch the perpetrator instead of shifting these optics into such dark territory.

The dilemma was that, with all of the animosity between their two governments, she had not been able prove that a New Republic official wasn’t responsible. And the Mand’alor had been unwilling to communicate to confirm or deny it.

So here they were, with a capital crime on their hands and billions of people expecting justice.

“My reasons for not consulting the Galactic Senate are my own,” was all Din had to offer.

Leia’s disbelieving stare was unmatched. “If there is to be any preservation of this fragile relationship between our two governments going forward,” she said, “then there needs to be honesty.”

Realistically, it boiled down to this: if she couldn’t get the Mandalorians to cooperate, then there would be pressure from the Galactic Senate to take mediations off the table entirely. Just as she had advocated for every planet represented in the Senate, this was a situation she meant to protect the Mandalorians from.

Din defaulted to the spun truth, since it was the one presented to the New Republic soldiers on Suurja II. “A Mandalorian child was murdered on that planet. I took measures to prevent the culprit from escaping until he could be dealt with.”

Though Leia knew bits of the real story—and her heart sided with him—she couldn’t help interrupting, “And yet, you failed to let us know of your intentions. We would have helped locate and arrest this assailant—“

“So he could face the possibility of escape from a New Republic prison?” Din fired back. Nobody was fooled by their lack of security, least of all the Mandalorians. They had let Moff Gideon slip away from a max-security transport and allowed him to return to whatever it was Imperial warlords did these days. Up until Din put an end to him.

Leia couldn’t defend against that point. Although, she heard the personal interest in his tone, knew for a fact that none of his actions likely had any political thought behind them. It must have been why he had refused correspondence for almost a standard month, because what he did was crippling to the peace they had secured.

But, evidently, it gave the Mandalorian leadership the time they needed to conjure up their excuses. Din continued, “My people were furious when they heard the news. They blamed the New Republic. I handled it the best that I could to satisfy them.” Without starting a war, was what he didn’t mention. The stakes were escalated quite enough without drudging up that sensitive word.

“And would you consider them satisfied now?” Leia asked impatiently.

“As much as they can be,” Din returned. A Mandalorian never forgets, after all.

“Good.” She clasped her hands, so that her flowing sleeves draped over them. “Because my people are far from satisfied with the outcome. In their eyes, the Mandalorians held a planet under siege for days with no justification to Senate officials. You murdered an accused citizen of the New Republic with no evidence, and very few are aware that the ruler of Mandalore himself is responsible for this. Do you deny these crimes?”

The Mand’alor merely shifted his weight. “I do not,” he declared.

Leia masked her sigh with an exhale. Truthfully, she agreed with some of his methods. All she had wanted during those days of waiting without chatter was some transparency. She supposed she should have expected this level of secretive dealing when in discussions with a people who were forced to live in underground networks for decades.

“This is what is going to happen. Tomorrow, I will go before the Senate with my colleagues and issue a decree that bans Mandalorian government officials from conducting any business on a New Republic world,” she stated firmly.

A formality, for Core optics. The Mandalorians operated in the shadows, anyway.

“Your profile, unfortunately, will be restored to the Wanted Register, and you will be arrested on sight in any New Republic territory. There was nothing I could do about that one.”

A slap on the wrist. To the Core, it was a death sentence. To Din…well, half of bounty hunting was avoiding New Republic pilots and anyone else who wanted him captured for his crimes. He had been arrested only once by complete accident on Vandor when nailed to the Wanted Register over a standard year ago, and he had managed his way out of that one. As long as he wasn’t being spied on by any more senseless investigators, then he could take the negligible attention again.

“Fair enough,” he responded, verbally and visually unfazed.

Behind him, the door whooshed open. He went incredibly still when he felt a noticeable change in his tethered mind. Grogu pattered farther into the room, and Din waved him away with a hand he had shifted behind his back. If the kid caught the hint, he didn’t heed it.

“As for where Mandalore stands…” she indirectly questioned.

Din didn’t mince words. “Mandalorians value their children more than they value the restrictions of politics. Let this be a warning to any who might lay a hand on one of our own.” He was willing to play nice with the galactic government, for the sake of them turning a blind eye on their sector, but he was not willing to let the Mandalorians be tread on in this matter.

Leia didn’t particularly consider this underlying threat reassuring for the future. While she understood the sentiment, galactic senators would have been wincing if they heard this response. “Mand’alor—“

“So long as the New Republic acknowledges our stance and is willing to let this punishment be the end of this…misunderstanding,” Din added, stumbling into the proper word, “then we would like a continuation of our agreement to coexist.” It wasn’t the best way to patch this up, but it was about all he was capable of.

Beneath the holotable, Grogu pulled on the strapped blaster casings lining his boot to get his attention. He had it, alright. Without looking down, Din one-handedly signed, “Stop.”

For once, the kid obeyed, his movements stalling.

Leia seemed to accept his attempt at smoothing over the latest New Republic-Mandalorian conflict. There was one promise she wanted, however. “Can I count on more reliable communication going forward?” she prodded. Beneath the hologram, Grogu’s ears perked at the familiar, authoritative voice.

Even if she was completely in the dark, Din didn’t appreciate the way Organa was insinuating that his lack of communication had been thoughtless. “This was time-sensitive and required discretion. I did what I had to,” he defended.

“Regardless,” Leia asserted, “we could have resolved this much differently had I been involved.”

As opposed as Din was to working with the New Republic in any capacity—should it seem like there was any contract between their two governments—he relented with a sigh. “It won’t happen again.”

Grogu made a cooing noise that prompted his dad’s next hand motion. “Quiet.”  Fortunately, Organa didn’t seem to catch it.

“Good. With that out of the way…” Leia nodded, her face losing its cool, businesslike demeanor to take on something more expressive. “Is Grogu all right?”

So, she did know. The kid stared up at the table’s edge at the sound of his name. Din feigned ignorance, when it really sounded defensively standoffish. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Not expecting that answer, Leia raised her eyebrows. “Your son?”

“I don’t have a son.” Below his knee, Grogu growled at him, and Din swatted the air to urge him away.

“This is an encrypted call.” The senator was starting to find this amusing.

“And?”

Deciding that she wasn’t going to be able to convince him to trust her, especially given the recent assassination attempt, Leia explained her knowledge of the situation. “My brother didn’t tell me much, but he told me enough. I only wanted to make sure that Grogu is okay.”

This time, when the kid heard his name, he babbled, “Ayuh!”

Senator Organa definitely caught that one, if the growing smile on her face was any indication. Din sighed, having given up. Well, if Skywalker trusted his sister enough to share what happened, he supposed he could rely on her as well; the Jedi didn’t take risks when it came to the Academy.

When Grogu pawed up at his dad, he was finally lifted into view of the hologram.

“Hello, little one,” Leia fawned. “Was that my name I heard?”

“Hi,” Grogu said.

“I’m glad to see that you’re better.” The family of two was a relieving sight to behold after what Luke told her of the child nearly losing his life and the father having to cope with the nightmare. The horrible ordeal reminded her that no matter the public backlash she had received because of the Mand’alor, he had been through much worse. Though it was necessary that she considered his crimes through the eyes of the New Republic, she could believe his actions to be warranted, privately.

Han had been quick to side with the Mand’alor too, when she confided in him. Her rebellious spark sometimes had to be suppressed in the face of politics, but his never could be.

This holocall wasn’t exactly helping Din keep Grogu out of the reach of the New Republic and its associated potential enemies. It felt like each second of exposure even with supposed allies was far too much. Alas, his kid had a habit of making friends instantly and often.

With her talent of reading others, Leia found it easy to discern that the Mand’alor was restless to end this call, perhaps because he was swift to move to the next order of business. “One last thing,” she said. “You haven’t visited the Core recently, have you?”

“No,” Din lied.

“I don’t know if the news made it to the Outer Rim, but Vero Kordall was murdered last week, before his trial could continue.”

“A tragedy.”

“Hmm.” While Leia wasn’t going to celebrate her troublesome colleague’s death, partly since he would serve no time for his crooked dealings, she wasn’t going to pretend that it wasn’t a relief to have the stain on the Senate gone. Better to remain neutral. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the circumstances surrounding his death, would you?”

“I wouldn’t,” Din told her, his voice an uninterested rasp. “I wasn’t aware of it until now.”

He had a helmet to hide his reaction behind, but she knew better. She was nearly certain that he was the assassin. It was all there: the body was dismembered by a unique weapon that could cauterize flesh, the assailant had leapt off the building with a flight device, and the ship used for escape was an N-1 starfighter. The few pieces of evidence gathered from witnesses—officers—at the Coruscant crime scene had all the hallmarks of the Mand’alor, if one knew where to look.

In Leia’s book, there was a time to stick to the law, and there was a time when it was right to let things go.

“Well. I thought it might interest you anyway, given the conflict he had with you and your fellow leaders.” To wrap up the meeting, she smoothed her hands over her dress and stated, “I’ll be in contact.”

Din acknowledged her with a nod. Strange that she herself was going to be taking over ambassadorial duties. Maybe Cara had her hands full on Nevarro; he would have to reach out.

Leia waved adoringly to Grogu in goodbye. The kid was delighted to wave back with a squeak from his dad’s arms. “May the Force be with you both.”

“And with you,” the Mand’alor said.

The hologram cut off, leaving the war room dim and mellow. Din aimed his visor down at Grogu, determined to rattle off a lecture that wouldn’t be listened to, but ultimately found himself deflating at the sight of happy-set ears.

“Bedtime,” he grumbled, tapping the kid’s tiny nose. Grogu latched onto his finger and gurgled contently as they strode out. “Atin’ika.” (Little menace.)

Inside an Imperial base situated in an undisclosed location at the edge of the Outer Rim, a sharply-attired officer strode through the door of the command center. Praetorian guards stationed at either side of the door allowed him to approach.

“Moff Crobis,” he said.

The Moff turned from the holograms projected on his holotables. Comms officers didn’t even glance at the interruption, absorbed in their work.

“An unexpected visitor from the Kanz sector has just landed in the hangar.”

An unnamed visitor, of a sector that Moff Crobis had assumed control of after the death of Moff Gideon. He scoffed. “Did you tell this visitor that I have enough to concern myself with at the moment?”

“Yes, sir, but—“

“Who would dare to demand an audience with me without ample notice?” Moff Crobis complained aloud. The officer lowered his gaze and sealed his lips. “Bring this visitor to me at once so that he may face his punishm—“

If it were possible for the face of Moff Crobis to become any more ghastly, then the sight of said visitor striding into his command center backed by two death troopers certainly would do it. Tipping forward in a bow, he gasped, “Moff Gideon.”

All officers paused their hastened tasks to gaze upon the assassinated Moff himself in all his glory. Immediately, they snapped to attention. Gideon didn’t seem flattered to be treated with such respect from the room. If anything, the twist of his mouth said that it was taking up too much of his time.

“Sir,” Moff Crobis began, unexpectedly humbled. “They told us you were gone, but I didn’t believe them. If there was ever anyone resourceful enough to have escaped a hijacking…”

But oh, there was no slipping out from beneath a Mandalorian spear. Gideon had been killed on his light cruiser on that fateful day in the year 19 ABY.

Here, standing before the groveling Moff, was Gideon’s clone, fit with previously unseen fourth-generation design Dark Trooper armor, dwarfing the base with his presence.

Moff Crobis continued his astonished rambling. “I’ve been continuing your work, Moff Gideon. I’ve been successful in—“

“Successful in what, exactly?” Moff Gideon finally spoke. His expression was of eerie condescension. “Running my sectors into the ground? Allowing my last standing cloning lab to be destroyed?”

Hearing this, Moff Crobis was troubled. He thought his mentor would be pleased by his accomplishments, especially by his ongoing focus on cloning and the Jedi, something he had managed to secure funding for from an Empire that was slowly gaining traction and had no interest in entertaining its failures of the past. “No, I’ve managed to—“

“Your sectors are in shambles, and that weakness has spread into mine like an infestation,” Gideon spat. His mockery morphed into utter darkness. “What you’ve done is allowed the New Republic to back us to the edges of our territories. You’ve allowed Mandalorians to traipse all over my sectors and raid my bases. Despite recruiting bounty hunters, a small military, and one of the last remaining Inquisitors, you allowed a fledgling Jedi to escape your clutches.”

Though they bore the same title, there was no question that Moff Gideon held the ultimate power here. Moff Crobis was terrifying in his own right, but Moff Gideon had the talent of turning soldiers into puddles of unbelievable dread. The officers in the room felt the blood trickle from the surface of their skin at the emergence of Gideon’s true anger.

But. They understood the sentiments. The Empire was gaining influence again, yet there was no capacity for it to grow under the jurisdiction of lesser men like Crobis, who had retreated from success far too many times.

Moff Gideon, on the other hand, was legendary. From Operation Scorch to the Great Purge of Mandalore, they knew that he had the vision and the determination to lead the Empire into its original prestige.

It was no longer acceptable to Moff Crobis to stand here and be ridiculed before his inferiors. “I was here, at the very least,” he bit back. “Where have you been?”

Gideon was no longer willing to listen to the failure, an annoying nackhawn chirping in his ear with one last attempt to undermine him and save his hide. “You will disappoint the Empire no longer,” he declared, nodding at his death trooper guards.

The death troopers dropped Moff Crobis with a total of four blaster shots. The command center fell into shocked silence. Nobody, not even the Praetorian guards, made a move toward Gideon.

The resurrected Moff’s lip curled at the smoking body. “Get it out of here,” he demanded quietly. A static affirmation sounded from the helmets of the death troopers, and they moved to fulfill the order.

All eyes were trained forward onto nothing. The officers were sweating, trapped in the usually steel-cold base with no escape. There was no telling who Moff Gideon would target next. He rotated to scan their reverent appearances into his head. Among the disorganized plans, he recognized capable officers in his midst.

“I will now be assuming the sectors that were once under the control of Moff Crobis, as well as reclaiming my own,” he announced. “I will be stamping out whatever remains of the scattered, witless leadership of this territory’s former Moff. It is time to move forward and take what is rightfully ours.”

The officers found themselves invigorated by the prospect. No longer would they be held back from their full potential. They were going to be innovators under this new authority, to lead the Empire in restoring its magnificence.

“Long live the Empire!” Moff Gideon boomed.

“Long live the Empire!” they echoed, any fear masked by hardened enthusiasm.

Gideon approached the holograms, his gaze hopping across planets that he had many plans for in the days to come.

There was one sector in particular that he had unfinished business with.