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mgparker · 3 months

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the bodyguard- din djarin

din djarin x f!royal!reader

summary: the princess makes it her mission to know what’s really behind that rigid suit of beskar.

warnings: fluff, mando/princess bonding, nothing crazy happens tbh, hopefully not too ooc, unedited as fuck

<<last chapter! | masterlist!

ੈ✩‧₊˚. iii. a suspect *.ੈ✩‧₊˚.

You step out of your meeting with a relieved sigh, resting your forehead against your palm, leaning back against the double doors of the great hall.

Inside, you could hear the Council quietly disputing their next topic of concern, some trade with a far-off planet.

Between your fingers, you see the Mandalorian standing a small distance away. Straight with a hand on his belt, dutifully aware.

“You didn’t tell Phex about the other night, thank you,” you tell him gratefully.

The Mandalorian nods as always.

You take the lead, breezing past him and heading through the passageway. It held large open windows, from which you could see the village and your people.

A child suddenly stops with a bucket of water, staring right at you with wide eyes and you give him a graceful smile.

Then you make a show of waving in a very childish manner.

It was unladylike of you, but it made the child wave back with triple the enthusiasm. A wide toothy smile on his young face.

He tugs on the dress of who you assume belongs to his guardian. The woman looks down before following his little pointer finger to you. Her eyes widen just as the little boy’s did and she instantly drops into a curtsy.

You nod your head softly, still smiling.

A hand on the base of your spine makes you jump and tear your eyes away from the village. You almost glance behind you but a voice speaks close to your ear.

You freeze.

“Your Highness, we should keep going.”

A flash of irritation makes you purse your lips. But you do as the Mandalorian says, the spot where his hand was touching you beginning to burn.

Your cheeks feel warm, not used to physical touch from anyone in this way.

Maker, you feel delusional.

“Why must you usher me away from my people?” You ask hotly, as soon as he shuts the door to your quarters.

“I—”

In a very uncharacteristic manner, the Mandalorian suddenly stumbles over his words. Seemingly looking for an excuse.

Eyebrows knitting together, you attempt to put two and two together.

“Do you… do you have a suspect? Is that why you don’t want me lingering around others?”

He’s silent.

“You believe it’s one of my people? But why—?”

“I have many names to cross before I can determine who wishes to inflict harm upon you. For now, we must take every precaution necessary,” his raspy voice modulator replies. His stance shifts, hip jutting out a bit. You follow the movement despite yourself.

To your surprise, your sharp tongue fails you.

Retreating into your private quarters, you half expect him to follow you but he stays put in the antechamber. In your position by the vanity, you can still see him clearly.

“You know, I don’t really know much about you,” you pick up a journal and pen. “We spend nearly every waking moment together and I don’t even know if you’re human.”

The Mandalorian makes a sound you can only perceive as a huff. “I can assure you we’re both made of the same flesh and bone.”

You can’t spot a single spot of revealed skin on his person. Every inch is covered by beskar or fabric.

You bite the inside of your cheek. “I’ve heard of few warriors on Mandalore that choose to conceal their faces to any other living being. Do you belong to this group?”

“You mean the Children of the Watch,” he rasps through his modulator. You make your way further into the antechamber, sitting upon the settee. The Mandalorian stands by the foyer.

“Mhm,” you confirm.

“I simply choose to wear my helmet because it makes my work a lot easier. It keeps my identity concealed.”

“Doesn’t it make you stand out more?”

“Does it?”

Furrowing your eyebrows, you think this is a trick question to boost his ego.

“I’d say so. I can’t go anywhere without whispers following behind.”

“Maybe they’re about you.”

You shake your head. “Oh, I doubt it. I am to be their queen but I’ve only ever lived in the shadows since-since—”

There’s a heaviness in your gut as you think about your parents. You try your best not to, dismissing any reminder of them so that you can try to maintain a level head.

It upset you too much.

“You said it yourself,” injects the Mandalorian, sensing your struggle. “You’re to be queen soon. You were born to be their ruler. And you’re kind.” He says it as though it’s the most shocking thing above all. “Perhaps too kind.”

“Are you suggesting that a ruler should be cruel to their people?”

“No,” the Mandalorian rasps. “But it can make you more vulnerable. You see the good in people. It can blind you to the bad.”

You eye him for a few moments, wishing you could read any part of him. But it’s like trying to identify feelings in a brick wall.

You think over your response and begin slowly. “I’m aware many rulers across the Galaxy are tyrants. Leaders of their worlds, but terrorists to their people. Like ants under the shadow of a boot. But I refuse to be like that. And if it means there will be more attempts over my head, then I’m glad you’re here.” You sigh. “I won’t change. Not for anyone.”

The Mandalorian is silent for a minute.

“Then maybe you’re what this Republic needs.”

You stare at him, trying to see past that pitch black helmet. You wonder if he truly means what he said, wishing you were better at handling more serious topics like these.

“Don’t say that around Phex,” you joke as you fight off the warmth blossoming in your cheeks at his comment. “He’ll try to rope me into the Senate more than royal duties require.”

There’s a puff of air that catches onto the modulator of his helmet. Like a chuckle.

It makes you smile a bit.

“You’re still upset with the Senator.”

Your smile drops. You briefly wonder how he knew about your ire, before realizing he had heard your confession in the abandoned tower nights ago.

“No. No, I know why he did what he did.” A certain blacksmith had something to do with that. “But you must know I’m not trying to be difficult. I just—all this fuss, it’s rather complicated seeing as I haven’t been harmed... it is those around me that have met the fate Phex believes is intended for me. My last guard still lies in the infirmary and my handmaiden barely survived an attack outside these quarters mere months ago…”

He squares his shoulders. “I’m quite good at my job, Princess.”

“Yes, but don’t you see? I’m not worried about myself,” you urge desperately. The twinges of discomfort are impossible to hide, you want to outright say it but you find yourself too humiliated.

He reads between the lines. “Princess… it’s not your job to worry about me. I’m skilled in every form of hand-to-hand combat, I wield the strongest armor in all the galaxies. There’s few that have gained the upper hand against me. It hasn’t happened in years.”

Something builds in the room. It gets more serious than you would like. You swallow the lump in your throat.

“Is that a hint of smugness I sense in you, Mandalorian?” You ask as cheekily as you can manage, trying to ease the tension before it gets more uncomfortable.

He stays silent, as if he hadn’t just said more words to you in the last few minutes than he had in the two weeks since he’d been assigned your protector.

You sigh, a small part of you wants to get him to talk again. “In years?” You try.

The Mandalorian bows his head. “Well, as children, you have to fall before you can learn to stand. In combat, the same applies.”

You fight a scoff. “You haven’t lost since you were a child?”

“In training,” he nods.

You knew of the rumors. The Mandalorian was a formidable force, undefeated in his fights. He had deep scarlet red in his ledger, gushing and flowing from his past. Something you’d only managed to learn about through hushed gossip in the village. Nights, before the threats began, when you would dress in a disguise, hidden beneath layers of cloaks, slowly gliding through the marketplace with sharp eyes and even sharper ears.

Even now, as a work-for-hire bodyguard, the Mandalorian managed to rack up quite a reputation. Hefty in price but matchless in his service.

There’s no one better in the field.

Apparently.

You suppose he’s already proven his skill in tracking, staying hidden in the shadows, keeping a watchful eye on you. But you’ve never seen him fight…

Hopefully, you’d never have to.

The soft glow of the sun catches your attention through your windows. They’re sealed shut again, the rope tied beneath your bed reluctantly discarded but you didn’t want the Mandalorian to watch you more than he did already.

You suddenly remember the journal and pen in your grasp and open the book gently.

Flipping to the next empty page, you scribble a few things you’d discussed with Senator Dameron this morning. It’s important for your future plans once you are crowned…

You don’t realize how long you’ve been writing until your hand begins to ache and your eyes have to squint from the lack of light to your parchment. As if he’d been watching your every single minuscule movement, the Mandalorian suddenly crosses the room and lights a wall torch with a device you hadn’t noticed he had strapped to his arm.

The heat of the flames lick at your skin even from the distance between you… the dusk pulls a yawn from deep within your chest. The long meeting with the Council exhausted you.

You longingly eye your bed and then turn to face the Mandalorian again. He stands there like a statue.

“I think…” you’re hesitant to end this comfortable silence you’ve both fallen into so soon. “I think I’ll retire for the night. I’m exhausted.”

The Mandalorian simply nods.

You stand from the settee and glance around the antechamber. Everything was in place, just as you’ve always left it. Nothing out of the ordinary other than the disarray of pillows from where you’d been sitting for the better part of an hour.

Curiosity got the better of you. “Erm— where do you sleep?”

He’s silent.

You absolutely hate it and you knew you couldn’t go back to the stoic figure of beskar you’d been living with before.

You push again. “Do you sleep?”

“It’s my duty to ensure no harm comes to you, your Highness.”

The heavy weight of guilt settles deep within your gut. You frown at him, feeling quite bad about the fact that he was sacrificing his own well being just because you couldn’t be trusted.

Because of your rebellious nature.

In this entire day, you’ve learned a few things about the Mandalorian. Mostly, that he’s attentive. He thinks, despite the lack of sleep you’ve caused him, that you’re kind. He knows about your ire with the Senator despite the mask you’ve carefully constructed around others… and he was able to decipher the words you couldn’t bring yourself to say.

Despite the fact that technically he was forced to be with you, he still cares enough to get to know little bits of you.

And you feel a deep desire to know him.

“I won’t be sneaking out in the middle of the night, I can assure you. I won’t be making that silly mistake again,” you try to assuage any doubts he had. You want him to rest.

His stance shifts apprehensively.

You take a few steps closer to him, ignoring the childish temptation to hold out your pinky finger.

“I promise,” you tell him genuinely. “Which is a big deal. I don’t tend to make those.”

And slowly, he seems to relax just a bit, his shoulders falling slightly from where they’d been standing tall. His hand leaving its usual spot on his belt. A small puff of air escaping the modulator of his helmet.

“Feel free to make this room your own,” you motion toward the settee which could expand into a decent sized bed.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

You back up a few steps before spinning around and heading toward your bedroom, only stopping before the archway.

“I wish you a good night. Please do get some rest,” you say genuinely, loosening the ties that held your curtains apart. It separated your private chambers from the rest of your quarters.

“You too, Princess.” There’s a new warmth in his tone even the modulator couldn’t filter out.

Satisfaction blossoms in your chest.

A mischievous thought comes to mind, a perfect way to end your night.

“I don’t suppose you’d want to become a bit more acquainted now? Maybe take off your helmet?” You smirk, half joking.

You keep a cheeky smile on your face so he doesn’t feel uncomfortable.

Surprisingly… he gives you a warm chuckle, full bodied and his chest moves up and down.

You shake your head with a small laugh, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks and ears. The small nerves that came with a new friendship rising in your tummy.

As you shut the curtains and climb into your bed giddily, you don’t fight the elated smile that’s been threatening to spread across your lips all evening.

And it’s only then that you realize how suggestive your comment might’ve sounded to the Mandalorian and you stare at the wall with wide embarrassed eyes. You try to dismiss the thought, hoping he didn’t think anything of it…

Just as you begin to doze off, the small click of beskar echoes from the antechamber, followed by a hiss and then an unfiltered sigh.

Your heart stops, clinging to the sound of your protector’s voice. Or rather the air leaving his lungs.

The raw sound of it sends a chill up your spine.

It replays in your head until you fall asleep.

don’t worry, pals. the next chapter is where the real drama starts. ;)

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#mgparker #din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #pedro pascal #star wars #din djarin imagine #pedro pascal x reader #the bodyguard #the bodyguard din djarin #star wars royal au #star wars au #din djarin x princess!reader #the mandalorian x princess!reader #the mandalorian au #the mandalorian imagine #the mandalorian series #the mandalorian/reader #the mandalorian x reader

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drawingdroid · 3 months

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I noticed a concerning lack of Din suspenders in this fandom and I find it unforgivable! Let's write/draw Din on them!

#din on suspenders agenda #suspenders are sexy #bring back suspenders #din djarin imagine #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin #the mandalorian series #the mandalorian

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jreads · 11 months

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Unexpected Constellations (Part 15)

Rating: M (18+, Minors DNI)

Word Count: 9K

Warnings: Foul language, Fluff oh my god so much fluff can you believe it, Smut, Angst if you squint

A/N: The end. AAAAAHHHH?! I started this fic in the depths of my illness and it's been with me as I navigated my way through a horrible horrible time in my life. But good god does it hold such a special place in my heart, especially as my first piece of proper fic writing. Thank you and I love you to all the people who have joined the journey along the way and left comments and support, you guys are the best. I might go cry now, but please keep an eye out for more of my work in the future! 🩶🤍 masterlist.

“Entering the Adega system.”

The navicomputer’s sudden robotic timbre jolted you from where you sat, straddling Din’s lap in the open cockpit. Contrary to your behaviour, he barely even flinched, licking a stripe up your neck before kissing back down and pulling the strap of your top off one shoulder. Things were not going according to plan. How fortunate.

“We should… We’re going to be… there soon… we should—oh, stars.” Your head lolled back, granting him easier access; he took it greedily. One palm had a handful of your hip, the other scaled up your back to cradle your neck.

“Need you,” he grunted into your chest. Animalistic almost.

Oh, fuck. Yes.

You fumbled with his belt as he unhooked the button on your trousers. There was no time to undress, to do anything past the minimum. But neither of you cared much in the moment. You had come into the flight deck to ask him if he wanted caf; what the hell had happened? Not that you could find it in yourself to complain, especially as you raised your weight just a fraction so he could tug your pants down, pull your panties to the side, line himself up easier and—

Your moan was embarrassingly loud and he—ever the strategist—tried to silence it with a sloppy kiss. He bottomed out, hitting something unfathomably deep inside you.

“Quiet.” His eyes were squeezed in concentration. “We can’t wake Grogu.”

Shit, Grogu. He was still asleep in a closed pram, but of course the cockpit door didn’t shut. You would both have to be very quiet. But as Din drove his hips upward, unable to keep still, you realised it might be more of a challenge than you had bargained for.

He drew back down before thrusting again. “I don’t think… I can’t… Din!” He slapped a hand over your mouth then, and something about it was so hot that you clenched around him, hard. It was his turn to make too much noise.

It turned into a game of reckless abandon, Din’s movements sharp, the circle of your hips deliberate, a test to see who could keep it together. And you were both losing.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. He had reprimanded you for being too loud, but he wasn’t faring much better. You were pulsing around him, eyes rolling back, and he could feel your mouth agape under his hand. You had liked it when he covered your mouth, he had felt it. He wondered if you would also like his hand around your throat, your hands tied behind your back. He wondered just how dirty you could get.

The green circle of Ossus loomed closer in his periphery, but what really mattered was the way your body jerked with each drive of his cock. The choked whines that managed to escape his muffling. Din gripped you by the waist, practically pulling you down onto him.

He had wanted you to himself—just for a little bit—before Skywalker inevitably stole you away. It wouldn’t be forever, he hoped it wouldn’t be for very long at all, but any minute spent far from your side suddenly felt unbearable. He’d stay inside you forever if it meant you never left him.

‘Learn to be selfish sometimes, Djarin. It’s the one thing you’ll never regret.’ Maybe the man had a point because holy shit this was amazing. You were amazing.

He was getting sloppy, nearing that dangerous edge that seemed to come all too quickly when he was with you. And you opened your eyes, refocusing on him, as if you could feel it too. You looked fucked out, drunk, eyes hooded and so dark he could see his own reflection in them. He hoped Luke Sykwalker was a merciful man.

You both came at the same time, and he struck deep, turning his own moan into a gasping exhale instead. You whispered a quiet ‘Oh’ beneath his palm before succumbing to the tremors of your orgasm.

Moments passed, and when he finally uncovered your mouth, he realised that you were laughing. Breathless and giggling.

“What just happened? I came in to ask if you wanted caf.” And then you were collapsing again into a fit.

He chuckled with you, suddenly sheepish. “Sorry.”

“No. Don’t say sorry. That was… fuck.” Another shaky giggle. Stars, it was so good to see you laugh. He brushed a stray hair back from your face, trailed a thumb over your cheekbone and your features cleared, going soft. “What is it?” you asked, as if his thoughts were written in the creases between his brows. Maybe they were.

He whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

Your eyes widened, mouth parting. “What?” Hands cupped his face. So smooth against the roughness of his stubble. “I’m not… Din, I’m not leaving.”

He said nothing, afraid his words might betray him.

Understanding passed over your face. “You thought I wanted to go to Ossus to ask him to train me?”

He couldn’t look you in the eyes. Because yes, that’s exactly what he had thought. You lifted his chin.

“He won’t.” You said it with such surety, as if anyone wouldn’t kill to keep you close. “And even if he would…” You were shaking your head. “…I have something much more important right here.”

It was dizzying, this relief.

“I just need some guidance… a few questions answered. That’s all.” You leaned in to kiss him, sweet and innocent and far too chaste. “I would never leave you.”

The two of you sat there for a moment, the Razor Crest gaining steadily on the planet, his cock softening inside you. Your presence so permeating that he forgot, just for a moment, that he actually had to land the ship.

Luke was waiting for you as the Crest touched down, dressed in immaculate black, as if he was expecting you. Grass swayed in the ship’s wake, but you had little time to focus on the flora. He captivated your attention immediately; your preparation having done absolutely nothing to assuage your anxiety. In addition, the wisdom that emanated from him only served to remind you of your own training, your inferiority. But Din was just behind you, and Grogu, squealing at the sight of him, launched his small body down the ramp.

“Well, it’s very good to see you too, Grogu,” Luke addressed the child before regarding you. Grogu had already busied himself with a passing butterfly, easily distracted. He extended a hand. “I was wondering when I would get to meet you.” You were hyperaware of the clamminess of your palms when he clasped yours in his own. However, he only offered a smile. You were a bit starstruck.

“Mandalorian.” He inclined his head in greeting towards Din. Din returned the gesture. “When I saw the ship circling, I thought perhaps Grogu had reason to return. But I sense that I was wrong.”

For hours you had pondered over what to say, picked apart the small meanings of each specific word, but suddenly it seemed your entire vocabulary had emptied from your mind. You started to speak and then trailed off, suddenly unsure of how to word your reasons for coming. What if he couldn’t help? Was this stupid? Were you stupid to come here?

“It’s all right. Conversation is only a formality, really. I know why you’re here. I can feel it.” You noticed the lightsaber hilt at his side, the way it caught the light. He seemed to track your gaze. “I’m not sure if I can be of much more help, but I’ll certainly try my best.”

You hadn’t expected him to be so… kind? Willing? Maker, what a relief. “Thank you.”

But Luke only motioned to the treed hills behind him. “Walk with me.” To Din he said, “There’s a lagoon just beyond those saplings. Grogu is well acquainted with the aquatic life there. We will rejoin you soon.” There was little room left for discussion. But still, before you parted ways you cast Din a heavy look, one you could tell he returned. It said don’t worry and I love you and I’ll be back soon. You could imagine his eyes under the visor, firm and yet understanding. You loved him so much that the force of it might cleave you in half.

He angled his helmet toward where Skywalker was already walking, a way of saying get going. And so you turned, rushing to keep up with him, noting the calm posture of hands clasped behind his back. And the way the impending forest seemed to part and whisper around him.

You ambled for quite a while, in silence through the greenery. The air of the planet smelled sweet, buzzing and alive, quite like Rishi. But more powerful.

“What do you feel?” Luke’s voice broke the quiet, soothing although sudden.

“Life.”

He seemed satisfied with the vague answer. “Good. That’s the Force. It resides in all living things, and you recognize it. That’s why you connect the way you do.”

“It’s strong.”

He nodded. “Yes. Ossus has a rich history with the Jedi. The power of it resides in the very soil of the planet. That’s why I chose to stay here. To teach.”

So much power. Such potential. But pure, uncorrupted, all of it.

“Something troubles you.”

You hummed at the ground. “It’s hard to explain.”

It was silly of you to think that he might resent you, cast you out. Because he stopped you in your path, a look of real comprehension on his face. “I can imagine.” Luke gestured to the side, a pile of flat rocks arranged in a circle. “It may be easier not to talk.”

Nerves gripped at you again, sending pins and needles down your legs. “I… I’m not trained in Jedi meditation—”

He had already lowered himself and crossed his legs atop one of the makeshift seats. “That’s alright, I will guide you. Sit.”

He seemed so sure. Momentarily, you were glad for his assertiveness. Especially as you fumbled for words and picked at your fingernails, fumbled with your beskar vambraces. You followed his direction, mimicking his own body language.

“Don’t dwell on what you were taught before. Listen to my direction and don’t try to force it… it should come naturally.” Luke’s posture was commanding, and you found your own spine straightening in self-consciousness.

He had already closed his eyes, seemingly oblivious to your inner dialogue. “Let yourself drift. Feel the nature around you. The leaves… the way they move. The animals, the insects. Don’t worry about me; I’ll find you.”

Connecting with the planet was easy enough. You had done it before on Sorgan. Though you felt you were the clunky, uncoordinated counterpart to Luke’s polished and refined technique. When you meditated with Grogu, sometimes you could see things, images, memories that belonged to him. Was Luke going to be able to see those things? You suddenly found yourself racking your brain for moments of guilt, embarrassment, things you would rather he didn’t witness—

“Focus,” he reprimanded, a hint of humor beneath his words.

You shrunk a little, mumbling a quick sorry under your breath. Okay. Whatever. You were here for guidance, and it could only be effective if he understood what he was dealing with. Who he was dealing with.

The sun was peeking through holes in the forest canopy, dappling your skin and the surrounding bamboo shoots with glowing warmth. The flowers, hidden within tall grasses, seemed to rise on tiptoes towards its light. A fat insect swooped low over their vibrant colours before shooting up, up, up. You went with it, feeling the ground fall out from beneath you. In the distance there were shimmers of light off the reflection of a calm pond. Ripples disturbed its surface, caused by a devious little green hand… a shriek of delight. Behind it, a gruff voice, shining silver, weapons laid in a pile on the ground. Love. Oh, such love. I radiated from them, so strong that it seemed to emanate from all around. So strong that it emanated from you.

You felt the moment that Luke joined you, distantly aware of his consciousness. He beckoned to you, and you turned from the scene, toward something much more serious. It was as if he opened himself to you, willing you to imitate his own action. The connection was so strong that it caused your pupils to flicker beneath closed eyelids. His life passed in flashing images.

Endless sands of the Tatooine desert, Jawa Sandcrawlers, an astromech unit, black smoke from a scorching fire. A hooded figure, the blur of hyperspace stars, a loud and affectionate Wookie, the cozy interior of a rounded ship. A beautiful woman with long brown hair. Headstrong and fearless. The Cloud City, dazzling in shades of white and gold. Memories began to overlap, and you gasped both in shock and familiarity. The Death Star, its ghostly halls, a black cape sweeping over them. The sound of heavy boots. Lightsabers, blue, green, red, yellow eyes and cracking skin. Explosions. Death and sorrow and jubilation and fear and loss and learning. Grogu. No, that couldn’t be right. An older Grogu, wrinkled and hunched over in a house of mud and sticks. A planet of brilliant white snow. War and hate and redemption and love and family. The legends, the stories you had read about on the web, they were nothing compared to this. You could feel what he felt, the complication of it all. You were barely aware of the cool slide of tears down your cheeks. Your physical body felt a whole planetary system away. Months could have passed, and you would have been none the wiser. Some time later, there was a phantom hand on your shoulder, Luke’s voice steady behind you.

“Come back.”

You tried, but it was impossible. Like grasping at clouds. At dispersing smoke. Who were you in comparison to this vast existence? Irrelevance. No one. Nothing.

“Use my memories. Find yourself.”

You floated through his consciousness like a wraith, searching desperately for a sense of belonging, pulling at threads on a tapestry. There was a particularly strong one down a darkened hallway, littered with fallen droids. They were felled by lightsaber strokes, the melted metal still glowing from the heat of the blade. Shouldn’t you be afraid?

But you weren’t, not at all. Because somehow, impossibly, you knew that at the end of this hall was home.

The door of the ship’s bridge slid open smoothly and you saw the back of Luke’s cloak, the dirty blonde of his hair. But then he stepped to the side and looked at you—really looked at you. But you weren’t there. This was his memory.

In that moment, you understood why you were drawn to it.

Helmet held at his side, Din held Grogu, the beginnings of silvery tears lining his beautiful eyes. “It’s time to go,” he said softly, and the child’s ears drooped. “Don’t be afraid.”

You opened your eyes, lashes clotted with tears of your own.

Luke was smiling at you faintly. “Interesting… that out of all my memories you would choose that one. That should answer your question, shouldn’t it?”

“My question?”

“You could have chosen a memory of the Empire… of the Death Star… of Palpatine… but you didn’t. You shied away from fear or anger as a tether and moved towards love.”

Huh. It had seemed such an obvious choice that you hadn’t even bothered to frame it that way. “But, I thought that attachment was forbidden for the Jedi.”

Luke looked pensive. “It’s been written that way in the texts, but I’ve been giving it much thought lately.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well…” He clasped his hands in his lap. “I don’t think it’s so black and white. I think the volatility of attachment is what made the Jedi implement the rule and enforce it so vehemently, but that doesn’t mean it’s innately bad.” Luke seemed lost in thought for another moment. “My father… attachment to my mother is what drove him to the dark side of the Force.”

Oh. You hadn’t known that.

“…But attachment to me is what brought him back.” He lifted a pebble from the ground, spinning it. “It’s a complicated concept.” Then, he laughed lightly to himself. “I can’t train you.”

“I figured you would say that. I didn’t come to ask to be trained.”

“I know.” He nodded. “But I want you to know all the same. It’s not because of what you were taught, or how you were taught it. It’s not even really about attachment either. It’s only because, in a matter of time, I would lose you for the same reason I lost Grogu.”

To Din.

“He seems to attract force sensitives,” Luke said, a handsome smile gracing his features.

You shook your head. “No… No, he just attracts trouble.”

“I can feel how much you love them, and how much they love you. Something like that… it’s rare.” He stood, extending a hand to help you up as well.

You took it, knees aching. How long had you been sitting there? Hours maybe? The sun was much lower.

“I understand you have a crystal in your possession.”

“Yes, I do.” You were surprised by how little it bothered you now.

Walking with you, Luke offered: “I could help you with it, if you’d like?”

“Yes. I would like that.”

The walk back through the forest was one of renewed peace, Luke’s insights having soothed some long-jagged edge inside you. You could hear Grogu’s voice echo through the treeline as you finally approached the Crest. How you longed to go to them.

“Your apprehension has waned,” Luke noted as you climbed the ramp.

You nodded.

“I only told you what you already knew. What your family has already made clear.”

“It helps to hear it from someone like you.” The storage compartment opened easily, and you found the box that Din had referenced, the same old wood, the same paranormal feel. Though it wasn’t nearly as intimidating anymore. You reached in to retrieve it, standing and turning back to Luke.

“Don’t doubt yourself. Internal conflict can lead you down a darker path. No one decides who you are… only you.”

His words reminded you of similar ones heard only days before. They think they know who I am, but they won’t give me the chance to show them who I want to be. A Twi’lek surrounded by swirling fabrics.

He led you to a rounded stone hut atop a steep hill. The interior was cool, simple. He sat once more and you followed, placing the box on the soft ground beneath you. You flipped the lid.

The red of the crystal was angry, the fissured lines etched into its surface somehow impossibly deeper. It seemed so at odds with the soft green of this planet. But nestled beside it was that small piece of piping, bent in at one end from where you had clutched it. Din must have pried it from your grasp while you were unconscious.

Luke smiled at it. “Thoughtful,” he mused. “It will be useful.” Fingers fluttering through air, he lifted the crystal, turning it in the dim light of the den. “Did you know that no crystal is naturally created red?”

No, you hadn’t known that.

“In the presence of a Sith, particularly a powerful one, it becomes corrupted… it bleeds. That is why the blade becomes scarlet. Sometimes, because of the unstable nature of it, the saber will flicker, whereas those of the Jedi are often still and calm.”

“What about D— The Mandalorian’s saber?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about the creation of the darksaber. I feel that is a story better told by the Mandalorians.”

The kyber crystal came to rest back in its box, and Luke rose to retrieve a bundle from across the room. Within it were a number of strange pieces of metal, each of varying shapes and sizes.

“Your piece will make most of the hilt, but you will need a power cell… stabilizers… an activation lever. Pick what speaks to you; I will supply the rest.”

You moved—comfortably quiet—in tandem, similar to the arts and crafts you had done with the children on Sorgan. I made you want to laugh, comparing the creation of a weapon to such innocent fun. But before long, you had a line-up of materials in front of you, springs and screws and things you couldn’t even name, spaced out and flat on the ground. In the center of it all was the crystal, glowing faintly as if in anticipation.

“When you’re ready…” Luke began, “…close your eyes and connect. You’ll feel all the components around it, the way they interact. It will feel a bit like a puzzle.” He looked wistful. “All you have to do is solve it.”

He said it as if it was easy. Maybe it was. Didn’t you want to find out?

Your eyes fluttered shut, and the room around you faded to black.

It was similar to the dream you had had of the crystal before, a sort of limbo. Except it didn’t speak to you anymore. It beckoned as always, but seemed to heave with effort, giving the impression of being sick or injured. When you reached out to it, it sighed.

The parts of the saber came into focus, making an odd sort of mental sense. Like trying to chart a hyperspace lane, careful of obstructions and aware of where all the stars fell. Clicks and twists. Overtop of it all, the casing of metal pipe fit into place. Like it was made for this. The surface puckered and folded, and you let it do as it pleased. The was a final pop, a miniscule hiss, and the work was done. A bead of sweat was traveling its way down your brow.

Luke was assessing you with a look of satisfaction. “Very good.” You took in your creation.

Interesting and perhaps symbolic, that a piece of your captivity would be used for this. Reclaimed. It had bent itself into creases as if it had been squeezed.

“It’s quite unique. Representative of its owner.” He cast a glance behind you.

Was it?

“Ignite it.”

The command had you looking at Luke. The nervousness must have been evident in your eyes because he nodded once in encouragement.

You felt around for the activation lever. Felt, because your eyes had squeezed themselves closed. Each heartbeat reverberated through your bones; each breath was too loud. There was no doubt anymore, no fear, and yet a kernel of hesitation still crawled its way into your stomach.

Fuck it. You had what you wanted. This wouldn’t change anything.

The blade hummed to life.

Its searing light burned the backs of your eyelids.

Luke was silent.

Oh, stars.

But when you finally gathered the courage to look, what you saw stunned you to silence as well. Parted your lips and somehow forced an exhale from already empty lungs.

It was white. Pure white, like starlight.

“How is this even possible?”

Skywalker was smiling in a way you hadn’t yet witnessed. “I’ve seen it once before. With a close friend. A great warrior, and a good person.”

Unbelievable.

You swung it experimentally, low and then high, angled perpendicular above your forehead. It was lighter than Din’s and the handling was different. It moved in smooth arcs, cutting through the resistance of air. The crystal within felt sated; it hummed in synchronicity with the blade… contented purrs. You laughed, carefree and airy.

“You’ve been given this to protect and defend. Use it wisely.” You wished there were words to convey your level of gratitude to Luke. As you extinguished the blade, all you could do was thank him and assure him that you would.

A squeak of excitement sounded from the archway behind you. Din was there, a fascinated Grogu in his arms.

You felt like a child, running into his arms. “Did you see that?” Someone needed to clarify that you weren’t just hallucinating.

He smoothed your brow, the child clawing at the folds of your clothing. “I never doubted you, cyar’ika.”

He hadn’t, had he? Since the beginning, since bringing you aboard the ship, in matters of life or death, even since learning the truth about your past. What a magical thing it was to have someone see all of you, every dark and twisted crevice, every scar you tried so hard to hide away, and still find such beauty in it.

Luke had to clear his throat. “I won’t keep you. But I would like to thank you for gathering up the courage to come here. I know it was not an easy feat.” He surveyed Din. Despite being much shorter, Luke stood with a poise that exuded power. “I know that I’m in no position to ask you for anything, but I will ask that you take good care of them. Such power attracts attention… and danger. I hate to refer to your family as such, but in the eyes of many… they are weapons. It is imperative that they stay protected.”

“I’d sooner fall on my own blade then let anything happen to them.”

Luke’s seemed to share an unspoken thought with Din. “I know.”

Something about the way he said it was unnerving. Because you knew he meant every word.

The place Din had picked was shrouded in darkness by the time the Crest landed. Miles away from the closest tourist spot, it was secluded and quiet. Breathtakingly beautiful.

A sprawling lake sparkled with bright moonlight, stretching far into the distance, where it was lined by tall trees of the lushest green. The ship’s ramp descended just a few metres from the shoreline, soft sand and small pebbles that shifted with the light lapping of the water. Aside from the comforting noises of nature and the small ticks of the cooling Crest, all was quiet.

Grogu had drifted off hours ago and would likely sleep until morning. Din had tucked him in to the pram with gentle movements, smoothing the small bit of hair that was starting to appear on the top of his head. Such tender care. He was a good father. Though he’d likely never admit it.

“You’re staring,” he remarked as he closed the pram lid.

“Am I not allowed to?” You rose from where you leaned against the ladder, saber hilt hitting your thigh. Its weight would take some getting used to. “You get to see me all the time. I have to look at you far longer to read you beneath all the armour. It’s hardly fair.”

He motioned to the open ramp and the world that waited beyond it. “You want to even the playing field?” Din offered you his arm.

The night was clear and the air was warm, alive with a breeze that felt almost like a caress. There was no need for a fire, and so you sat on the sand, bare feet flirting with the fresh water of the lake. Din had removed his helmet, and you had helped him with the armour plates so he could lay back on the sandbank, stretching out, arms beneath his head.

“The stars look different from here,” he mused. You took in his features, bathed in cool light, and the sparkle of constellations in his eyes.

“How so?”

He dragged an arm through the sand and around your waist, pulling you down and into his side. Took your chin between his fingers and tilted it toward the sky. “Look.”

Colours bled like a watercolour painting across the dark night, the auras of each star so bright that it reminded you fleetingly of the halo of your lightsaber blade. A rippling curtain of turquoise green floated from horizon to horizon, ghostlike in its movements.

“Woah.” You couldn’t help the breathless exclamation, the laugh, and the smile that it left behind. Never before had you seen anything like it. It was stunning.

Naboo was everything you had hoped it would be. Otherworldly allure. A sanctuary in the midst of a dangerous galaxy. Somewhere the three of you could come to just relax for a moment. Be no one beyond yourselves. No responsibilities, no judgements.

The wave of heartache was unavoidable. “He would have loved this.” Your father. Who talked of coming here over and over and over. An unreachable dream encased in four walls of dark durasteel. Who talked of wishes and magic and fairy tales of brave knights in impenetrable armour. He had been right about so many things. “I think he would have loved you.”

Din turned his eyes away from the sky, his shaky breath unmissable. “I wish I could have met him.” He pressed a kiss to your hair. “…thanked him for raising such a strong woman… wish I could tell him that I’ll take care of you now.”

Simple words… but a galaxy of meaning.

“I’ll take care of you,” he murmured again.

Din kissed you, and it felt like a thousand words melded into one moment. Breaths mingled, hand wandered. There was sand in his hair, and probably in yours too. Once you broke away you said just that, brain short-circuiting.

He said it was easy enough to wash out. He wasn’t referring to the fresher.

“You’re kidding.”

“Am I?” His smiled turned to a stupid grin. “Want to go swimming?”

Drunk on him, you agreed. How would he feel in the cool stillness of the water? You wanted to find out. Stars, he was unbuttoning your shirt with talented fingers and your mind was going a pleasant sort of fuzzy. He pushed the sleeves off of your shoulders. Threw your top to the side. Unhooked your saber hilt. Dove into the soft part of your neck.

“Not sure if your father would have approved of this,” he mumbled into your shoulder and you giggled, giggled, like a little girl. His hands were hot on your bare skin, sliding down to the waistband of your pants. You hadn’t even started on his flight suit yet.

“I do want to go swimming,” you admitted to him. “You’re distracting me.”

He continued his ministrations. “Focus then.”

Fine. His zipper slid down with little resistance. Every time you undressed him it felt so thrilling, erotic. A memory floated back, Omera’s whispered words on Sorgan, like some forbidden secret.

‘He’s so hot.’

You had found such a sentiment silly at the time, especially in the face of such violent conflict. But even then—just a little, maybe a lot—you had agreed with her. And even more so now. He was.

Din had managed to work your trousers down just as you slid the top of his suit off. He was smiling at you, cheekily before standing, shucking the rest of it off and offering you a hand.

The water was cold. Not enough to change your mind about going in, but certainly enough to elicit a sharp squeal. Din seemed unfazed, wading a distance in before diving under the surface.

“It’s nice,” he said upon emerging. Appalled, you could only gape at him. “Come on.” He splashed you once and you sent a loathing glare back. One which he only laughed at. “I’ll pull you in…”

“You wouldn’t dare.” You sent a flicker of Force outward, enough to make your eyes glow, just for theatrical effect.

Din smiled, wading up the shore to where you stood, dripping lake water. “I’m not scared of you.” He looked like a god.

When he lunged for you, you let him.

The water felt like sharp, cold silk. You were gasping down gulps of air to overcome the shock and he held you through it, chuckling lightly at your dramaticism. “See?” But after a few short-lived seconds of crisp panic, you began to adjust and found that—temperature aside—he was right. Though the night was dark, the moonlight only just enough to highlight the chiseled angles of Din’s face, you could feel that the water was clear. Fresh and glassy. But you weren’t letting the sudden assault go so easily. You splashed at him playfully and watched the water drip down the muscle of his jaw. The way he looked at you… it might as well have been a kiss.

It was your first time swimming, or at least fully submerged in water that wasn’t a tank. What a marvel, the way it made your body feel so light. You hadn’t even considered to be afraid of the lake, not with Din right beside you. “I’ve never done this before,” you confessed, suddenly giddy.

Din placed a hand under your back, tipping your legs up. “Watch this.” You were falling onto your back in slow motion, the water and Din’s arms supporting you to stay above the surface. As the sky became visible you realized that you were floating… like an idle ship in space. Suspended in midair, water tickling at your sides. You laughed, eyes full of multicoloured stars. Such a wonderful feeling. “They should make bacta tanks like this.”

You didn’t have to look at him to tell that he was smiling. Grinning. Again, that whispered utterance of Mando’a syllables that was becoming increasingly familiar yet still remained a mystery.

Curiosity got the best of you. Without looking him in the eyes, you dared to ask, “What does that mean?”

He didn’t hesitate. “It means beautiful… means you’re beautiful.”

“Will you teach me?”

“Mando’a, or how to swim?”

“Both?”

“Of course.” He was supporting you lightly by the waist. “How about I teach you one right now.”

You smiled at the night sky. “Okay.”

“Close your eyes. Listen to the way the words sound.” His mouth was by your ear then, and the phrase he uttered sent goosebumps along your skin.

“It sounds familiar.”

“That’s because I’ve said it to you once before.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means I love you. Literally, it means I will know you forever.” His fingertips tapped along the length of your spine, under the water. He was barely even touching you anymore and yet you were still afloat in serene stillness.

You tried it out, tongue stumbling over some of the pronunciation. Despite what was probably a butchery of the sentence, Din leaned over your floating figure to press his lips to your forehead.

“I love you.” You righted yourself, moving closer to him. “I love swimming… I love the water.”

“I wanted to fuck you in that pool on Rishi,” he admitted.

Oh. Holy shit.

“I spent way too long in there thinking eventually you’d say ‘to hell with it’ and come and join me.” His hands were frictionless under the surface, sliding up your thighs. “Rishi was torture. Your fucking shirt, your hair…”

You thought back to it, the stifling weather, the meeting with Castann, the way he had fallen so sternly silent afterwards. Ah. “That’s why you were so quiet. In the cantina… you were jealous.” Your words had held a hint of humor, but when he dragged his eyes up to yours there was only dark seriousness there.

You softened. “Oh, Din.” The water rippled as he adjusted his hold on you, bringing your bodies impossibly closer.

“It wasn’t anything that you did, just…” He paused, and you brushed a wet curl back from his face. “…with him, with the Marshall, there’ve been others too… I could never touch you the way they could, I couldn’t connect with you that way. It just frustrated me.”

“That’s not true.” The sparkling glare off the lake lit up his skin, the broadness of his shoulders. “I didn’t need to touch you or kiss you to know how I felt. Maker knows I wanted to, but that wasn’t what did it. It was just you.”

“And if I couldn’t have given you anything more?” There was such vulnerability in his voice. In the question.

You cupped his face, drops of water falling from your wrists to his collarbones. “You’re enough. You’re so much more than enough.” When you kissed him, you could have sworn that a tear mixed with the lake water running down his face.

It was sweet. Sweet and soft and lazy and he smelled like the trees. You felt weightless in the water, cocooned in his arms and the warmth of his body heat. He took his time against your mouth, moving like the soft ripples of the lake before nipping lightly at your bottom lip. Hiking your legs up to wind around his hips.

It felt like fireworks every time he touched you. Like you had dared to move too close to a flame and caught alight. But you would be happy to burn like this. The water didn’t feel cold anymore.

“Can I?”

You nodded. He always asked. As if he expected the answer to suddenly change.

Din unclasped your wet undershirt with deft fingers, throwing it as far as he could onto the sandy shore. Your chest rose and fell against his own, lake water swirling in the space between.

You felt surreal under his palms. Powerful and alive and thrumming with energy. He wanted to make this good, really good. It was something he had discovered with you recently and was still learning to take advantage of. It drove him crazy to make you feel good. He had to see it, to hear your moans, to soak up your praises shamelessly. Stars, it made him hard.

And he was starting to learn what you liked. But there was such opportunity, so many doors he had yet to open. He couldn’t fucking wait. You were kissing along his jawline and he was trying to remember all the things he wanted to try but dank farrik it was difficult especially since he was kind of still staring at the way water trickled down the valley between your bare breasts.

“Stop thinking so hard,” you whispered against his neck. So you could read minds. “Just let go.” Your hands were roaming over his pecs, and he was forgetting which way was up and which way was down because the sky was reflected so perfectly in the water’s surface and all he could feel was you.

He strode up the sandbank, out of the water, the chill of the breeze making you shudder as you clung to him and lay you down on your pile of discarded clothes. Your skin was glistening and on impulse alone he licked up the center of your chest, tasting saltwater and desire. Gasping, you lifted your hips up, searching desperately for some sort of friction. Needy, always.

Din went to pull at your underwear, but the water had stuck them to you like a second skin. Usually he could take his time, but right now…

He reached for his weapons belt, withdrawing the blade. Watched your eyes widen. Not with fear, though. Shit. He slid the edge under the fabric at your hip and sliced—hearing it come away with a clean rip. You hissed, arching needily toward the blade’s edge.

“Careful,” he chided.

Your eyes had darkened. “I trust you.” Oh, you liked it. You fucking liked it.

“Do you?” He was going to combust. Because as he pressed the flat length of the blade to your neck, you bared it to him. “You know I would never hurt you.”

“Not unless I asked you to?” The innocent tone of the question made his cock twitch. For just a moment, he was robbed of the ability to speak. “Or not unless I begged you to,” you urged him. Buffering, reloading, knife still at your neck.

“Come on, Mando.”

Mando. You lay your hand over his own, tilting the angle of the blade until its sharpest edge rested over your skin. You were breathing heavy, but he was breathing heavier. You arched further into him, a desperate sound escaping you, and something in him snapped.

He had your hips pinned in an instant, trailing the knife over the rise and fall of your chest and down, down, down, through your breasts, past your navel and back to where your underwear sat, half torn off your body. “This what you want?” He cut the fabric around your other hip and pulled the ruined garment free. You gasped. “I was going to be gentle tonight.” Farrik, he could see the sheen of your arousal and it was making some primal part of him go a little feral.

Your hands were wandering, grasping aimlessly at him. But a hunter’s instinct had taken over, a strange combination of a need to capture with a desire to please. He had your wrists trapped in one palm, winding the wet material of your panties around them, and tying them off before raising them up above your head. There was a rock to the side of him and he retrieved it, placing it in between your hands, over the knot of your bindings digging into the sand. It would hold if you didn’t strain too hard. He pulled back once the work was done just to look at you, completely bare before him, writhing and completely at his mercy. And stars, he was focused. So hyperaware. On the clench of your trapped fists, the peaks of your nipples, the softness of your skin, the way your scars seemed to glow in the light, the way your thighs clenched together.

“You want me to fuck you, pretty girl?” A broad palm travelled up from your waist to cup your breast. He rolled a nipple between his fingers and watched the way you panted. Would you like it if he put his mouth there?

You did like it. You liked it a lot.

“Oh. Fuck.” Your moans were music to his ears, and he alternated sides, keen to keep them going.

“I should tie you up like a bounty…” He was blabbering, almost incoherent, drunk off the feel of you. “…let you loose in the forest and hunt you down. Would you like that?” Judging by the mess he found between your legs, he figured the answer was yes. “Lucky for you, I’m not feeling very patient.”

You choked when he slid two fingers inside of you. How fast could he make you come? He was getting awfully good at it. The movements of his hand were sharp, deliberate, the heel of his palm brushing up against your clit with each repetition. You started to tug at your makeshift binding but it held, mercifully. You were getting loud, trying to muffle the pleasured cries in the flesh of your shoulder. Oh, this was fucking addicting.

Sliding his free hand up your torso, he tested a flex of his fingers around your throat and felt you tighten around him in response. “You’re mine.” Tighter. “Only mine.” Faster. You were seconds away, bucking your hips up into his hand, chanting in agreement.

“I’m yours. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.” Din slid his hands free at the last moment. “No.” It felt evil to laugh at your groan of anguish, but he couldn’t help it.

Your hands had come free, but it didn’t matter. He flipped you by your waist to lay on your stomach, arching your hips up and flattening himself over your spine. Reaching down to line himself up and pausing… just long enough for you let out another desperate whine. “Didn’t you say something about begging?”

You pushed your ass back against him and he almost lost it. Almost. But you were just as stubborn, refusing to give him the satisfaction. That wouldn’t do. “Beg me, cyare.”

You caved so easily that it broke his character, made him smile. “Please… Din please.”

“Please what?”

“Please, fuck me. Please.”

“My wife. So polite.” He pushed in, all the way, in one powerful motion, stealing the air from both of your lungs. It’s like you were made for him, greedily taking everything he was willing to give. He was punching sobs out of you with each thrust and your bound hands were grasping for purchase on the beach, handfuls of wet sand. “Never going to get enough of you.”

Din snaked both hands around your body, one up to circle around your neck and one down, past your stomach where he could feel the blunt head of him poking through, all the way to your clit. The vibrations in your throat traveled through his palm as you moaned and cried out, and each circle of his fingers had you clenching down on him, so tight that the pleasure was burning hot.

He had used to fist his own dick thinking of taking you from behind, yet his imagination had done it no justice. Every arch of your spine, every tremble, every kriffing pulse of your cunt had him reeling, desperately trying to keep a hold on the brutal pace he had set. He wanted to mold you to the shape of him, selfishly, so that you fit him—and only him—for the rest of time. Imprint his name down your spine, leave purple marks on your neck that would last for days. This sort of love was brutal, possessive, like a wild animal. Oh, he wanted you to be able to feel the ghost of him between your legs when you walked.

You met him, thrust for thrust, mumbling words between every sharp breath. “Feels… so… fucking… good…” It felt better than good. It was the most blinding sensation he had ever experienced. “So… close… don’t stop.” He could tell. From the way every muscle in you was tensing, from the way you were gripping him. And thank the stars for it because he certainly wasn’t going to last much longer. “Want you to… come inside and… watch it leak out… then… fuck it back… into me.”

Din collapsed, spilling into you with a low groan. It felt never ending, wave after wave after wave and just as he thought he was coming down, you clamped down on him like a vise, whimpering and shuddering through your own orgasm and only prolonging his own. It was all he could do to prop his weight up and keep from crushing you.

For a long moment, the only sound was lapping water and the uneven heaves of breath as you both fought to recover. He released your neck, watched your head slump forward, trailed a palm over the dips in your back. Did as you asked, leaned back and watched pearls of his own come drip into the sand. With two fingers he swiped up the excess and pushed it back into you, soaking up your weakened whimper like music.

“You okay?” Because he had been hard, unforgiving. If he had hurt you…

“Am I oka—” You huffed an exhausted laugh. Din flipped you over onto your back and drank in the disarray of your hair, the softness of your eyes, the satisfied smile. “That was… wow.” You lifted your hands to him, bashfully. “Can you untie me?”

It was his turn to laugh as he reached for the panties around your wrists, still damp and now coated with sand. You were watching him as he worked, eyes trailing from his face down his chest and stomach, lower. He stared back and you looked away sharply, as if you had been caught doing something you shouldn’t. Adorable.

“Don’t get shy on me.” The knot on your wrists came free.

“M’not.”

He leaned down to whisper at your ear. “Especially not after you told me to fuck my c—”

“Okay!” You slapped him playfully on the chest. He liked to tease you, if only to see you flustered and melting. Din was suddenly overcome by the urge to hold you. And in doing so, was struck dumb just by the fact that he could.

Under the stars, in the sand, between a copse of trees and the expanse of lake, you curled into each other.

“I might fall asleep,” you warned.

He traced the vertebrae of your spine with a fingertip. “I can carry you.”

“Kay.” When your lips met his shoulder, he smiled. “Do you think Grogu will want to swim? Tomorrow?”

The idea was laughable. “He’d probably much prefer to terrorize the tadpoles.”

“Poor things.”

You stayed along that lake for 5 days, adventuring and playing with the kid during the day and fucking like wild creatures at night. One evening, skin still slick with sweat from riding him for what had felt like hours, you asked what he wanted to do next. Never before had the galaxy felt so open, so full of possibility. And never before had you had someone to explore it with. A family.

“We need to visit the covert. Thank the Armourer and…” Din trailed off.

“You want to go back to Mandalore.” He had spoken of a plan to redeem himself, to rediscover the mines below his people’s home world. You refrained from recalling what the Imp had said, he did too. But the curiosity, the need to know, it was palpable.

His fingers threaded through your hair. “Only if you’re okay with it.”

“Of course. I know it’s important to you and I want to help. In any way that I can.”

Din struggled to ask you for help, or for favours, and that was something that only got slightly better over time. But you were by his side anyways, as he wielded the darksaber as a symbol, united long-estranged factions of Mandalorians, and eventually retook the planet.

It hadn’t been easy; in fact, it had been terrifying. Moments when you had been separated were torturous, so much more frightening because now you knew the depth of what you stood to lose. But against all odds, and yet another run-in with the Empire, you and Din and Grogu had mercifully made it out unscathed.

Victorious and now hidden away on a small parcel of land just outside of Nevarro City, a generous gift from Greef Karga. Or rather, a piece offering after Din threatened to kill him for sending you into the jaws of your captor. He had claimed to have no knowledge of the supposed ‘buyer’ and you believed him. But Din had not been so quick to forgive.

The Clan Mudhorn cabin was a quaint place, small, but somehow the perfect size for your peculiar little family. There were frogs for Grogu to play with, and the sun rose and set every day. And thank the maker, there was finally a proper bed. Just the one, but the three of you had made it work. A hammock had been fashioned just beside the kitchen for Grogu to sleep in, though more often than not, you would wake to find him snoozing happily between you and Din. On those nights, neither of you would have the heart to move him back.

It was so easy to fall into domesticity with them; to hide away the weapons for a time and just be. But the past was not so easily forgotten. And the future was imminent.

You woke from the dream with a choking sob, hand covering your mouth on instinct to keep from waking them. But it was too late. Din brushed a lock of hair back from your face, brown eyes concerned. “I thought they were getting better.” You hadn’t found your voice just yet. “It’s okay, take deep breaths.” He breathed with you until the muscles in your body slowly started to release. “That’s it. Good girl.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Shh. Don’t apologize.” Having his arms around you was easing the lingering panic better than any medicine. “You want to talk about it? One of the usuals?”

The usuals referred to dreams of captivity, of your father’s death, of the buried traumatic memories associated with your upbringing. But this… this had been different. It came trickling back in bits and pieces.

“No, I… I saw Skywalker. But he was older, much older.” How strange. “His hair was turning grey. There was a boy, young, with raven black hair.” Din was rubbing comforting circles on your curved spine. “I don’t understand, it was all just disjointed images.” But you knew what had roused you from the dream with such urgency.

The master needs an apprentice.

Din knew better than to discount your visons. Even so, part of you wished he would. Wished he would tell you it was just a dream and to go back to sleep.

“You’re safe. We’re here.” As if he sensed himself being referred to, Grogu’s green claws fought their way up the bedspread. “We can stay up if—”

“No, no, it’s alright. It’s probably nothing.” Din’s eyes looked sad. “Just… can you… hold me?”

“Come here.” He pulled you down and tucked your head under his chin, arms winding securely around your back. The child managed to wriggle his way under Din’s elbow, collapsing with a satisfied sight between your chests. You kissed him on the head.

An ex-Sith, a Mandalorian, and a very small, basically Jedi. The stars must have a sense of humour. But perhaps they were also merciful. You clung to that hope, almost as hard as you clung to Din, Grogu sandwiched between the two of you.

The galaxy was loud, but Nevarro was quiet. People were suffering but now, for this fleeting moment you could be ignorantly happy.

In your secluded constellation, safe from the rest of the supernovas, you could breathe and succumb once more to a peaceful slumber. If only for just a while longer.

THE END

thank you for reading ❤️‍🩹

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I added some tags that slipped through the cracks too (totally my bad)

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atinylittlepain · 1 year

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Your Creed, My Quest - Chapter 1

Din Djarin x jedi!reader/jedi!oc

series masterlist

Traveling the galaxy being chased by bounty hunters is starting to wear her patience. Will they be able to put an end to the hunt for the kid? Or will her newfound powers unfurl greater destruction?

warnings | 18+ canon-typical violence, angst, eventual smut

..........................

She’s getting tired of bounty hunters. It seems like it will never end, this relentless stream of people seeking the child, all carrying one of those damn tracking beacons. It would be foolish to travel to her master now, with mercenaries constantly hot on their trail, so they’ve been switchbacking through the outer reaches of the galaxy, dealing with danger as it arises. While she and Din have no problem dispatching these hunters, it’s getting more and more difficult for her to resist the whispers of power, to resist using the Force in this newfound and reckless way.

It was one of the last things her master advised her on. A Jedi must not get attached to anyone or anything, lest their emotions muddle the clarity of their relationship to the Force, the only relationship they are allowed to maintain. Emotion breeds disorder when it is not restrained, but she is struggling to do just that whenever the child or Din are in danger. It’s like a live wire of electricity running through her, jolting her into action before she can even think, the energy in her body amalgamating with the sole intention to protect those who had been mere strangers not too many moons ago.

She knows that she is making herself a target, such concentrated Force is easily tracked, and in turn is putting her companions in greater danger. This is perhaps the only thing giving her some restraint in her powers, but she has still slipped up many times, Din always seeming to watch in quiet shock when she does lose control.

Something has changed in her, something unsettling itself, and during their long jaunts through hyperspace, her mind swims in worry, eyes darting between Din’s sleeping figure in the pilot’s seat and the child dozing in the bassinet.

It’s during such a moment that she’s startled out of her thoughts by an incoming comms message, Din shuffling awake to the sound just as the holovid begins.The last person she wanted to see on the comm was Greef Karga, but even she has to admit that his proposition is intriguing, to return to Nevarro and put an end to all the bounty hunters seeking out the child. By the way Din tilts his helmet to look at her, it’s clear that he feels the same, already charting a course back to Nevarro on his nav system.

She knows this won’t be easy. Whoever the client is who so desperately wants the child, she knows he is part of what remains of the imperial forces, and that if she reveals her powers in Nevarro, she will become just as big of a target as the child is.

“You should get some rest. We’ll be in Nevarro before long.” Din has twisted in his seat to look at her, snapping her out of her swimming head. She clears her throat, nodding as she stands and shuffles over to the child’s bassinet to take him with her for a nap, but Din interrupts her movements.

“You can leave him with me. I’ll watch him. It’s hard to sleep when he’s crawling all over you.” That makes her smile as she turns from the bassinet back to Din. It was nearly impossible to sleep for long with the child in her bunk, constantly being woken up by searching hands and fussy coos.

“Um, alright. Thank you– I’ll just sleep for a little while. You should get some rest too.” He nods at her words, and she goes to exit the cockpit, but he clears his throat and stops her in her tracks.

“Are you– feeling ok?” Her heart seizes at that.

They had a tough run-in the day before, and she had killed another man. It had scared her, and she thinks it had scared Din too, how she had willed the man’s body into a rockface, slamming him into it so hard that his neck snapped on impact. He had Din on the ground, his boot pressing into his neck and a blaster aimed right at him, and that whisper had moved her to a violence she had never known. She had crumpled down to her knees immediately after, shaking all over in shock, but also something else, something righteous. It terrified her, and she didn’t speak the rest of the day, only sending a comms link to her master late in the night, begging for guidance.

“I’m fine. Just tired. But ready to put a stop to these bounty hunters.” She tries to sound convincing, squaring up her shoulders as best she can, and Din seems to accept her answer, nodding before turning back around in his seat.

In her bunk, her sleep is light and fitful. She dreams only of the dead.

…

“Hey. I just told you to stop that. You need to stay put.” The kid stills in his movements, Din having caught him about to hop out of his bassinet, again. He had nearly made it all the way to the ladder down to the hull, twice, and Din had picked him up both times and tucked him back in his spot in the cockpit, telling him firmly that they needed to let her rest, alone.

The truth is, he’s worried about her, a feeling Din is not used to having about other people. There are newly dark circles under her eyes, and she seems constantly distracted, until they’re in combat, and then she finds some new way to shock him every time with her power.

Din didn’t think that he could really like people. Sure, he could tolerate folks long enough to get a job done, and he could respect others for their skill or position. But this is different. He’s grown to enjoy her company in the cockpit, her presence puts him at ease, even if they are both sparse talkers. And watching her take care of the kid sets a feeling off in his chest that he has trouble even defining. He likes her, and he’s worried about her, and he knows this will probably be a huge mistake.

The kid tilts his head at him, letting out a high-pitched “eh?” Din sighs.

“You really like her, don’t you, kid?” The child blows a raspberry at that, slumping back in his bassinet with a huff.

“She’ll be up soon. Can you wait here with me until then?” It becomes clear that the kid cannot wait when, a few minutes later, Din’s attention is jerked around by the sound of a muffled thud, followed by the kid’s light whimpers that threaten to turn into full blown cries. He’s quick to pick up the child where he had tipped right out of his bassinet, shushing him as he’s already walking over to the ladder down to the hold. At least she got some rest alone.

As he reaches the bottom rung of the ladder, he stops, his ears pricking at the sound of another voice, one that isn’t hers. The hatch to her bunk is cracked just slightly, and he can see the glow of a holovid from the opening.

“It is natural for you to make these mistakes. You are young, and still a student. But you must not let mistakes bloom into darkness. These feelings will come, but you must not get attached to them, or violence is sure to follow.”

“I understand, master Tano. But it is unlike anything I have experienced before. It doesn’t feel like darkness exactly, but it still scares me.”

“It never feels like darkness at first. Trust me, this is a slippery path you find yourself on. Take care of the child, of course. You may even protect your new companion. But do so from a pure intention of duty, not from the tangled web of affection.”

“Yes, master Tano, I will not fail you. May the Force be with you.” “And with you, my student.” With the soft click of the transmission ending, Din rushes back up the ladder, the child making questioning grunts still held in his arms. His mind is a haze as he gets back into the cockpit, ignoring the child’s indignant whines as he tucks him back into the bassinet. She had been talking with her master, and it didn’t sound good to him.

A few words stand out to him, the way they both talked about a darkness, was that what he was seeing happening to her? Was it like a kind of illness for Jedis? But then his mind darts to their discussion of feelings, and the affection her master referenced. Affection for the kid? For him? She’s a tough one to read, as quiet and reserved as he is, but could she be feeling the same thing that he is? And why would that be so bad? Is there some rule against Jedis liking people?

He has to shake his head to clear these troubling questions away. He should never have listened to her conversation in the first place, and shame creeps hot up his neck that he did. He doesn’t have much time to roll all this over in his mind before she’s rejoining them in the cockpit, immediately moving over to the bassinet where the kid is doing little hops at the sight of her. She scoops him up in one arm before sitting down in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Did he give you any trouble?” He swears the kid cocks a wispy eyebrow at him before he answers her question.

“No, not at all. He slept almost the whole time.”

“Patu.” She breathes out a laugh at the kid’s babbling. Din didn’t know a baby could be such a smartass.

“Well, I can take care of things up here now if you wanna go get some rest too.” He glances again at the kid, who’s looking all too smug as he nuzzles his tiny cheek into her arm. He nods, checking the nav system one more time before standing from the pilot’s seat to head down to the hull.

“Din?” He stops in the doorway. He’s still not used to it, hearing his name in her voice.

“Thank you. For, uh, babysitting.” He huffs out a small laugh at that.

“It was no trouble. Come get me if any problems arise, alright?” There’s a ghost of a smile on her lips as she nods.

When he lays down in his bunk, he dreams only of that smile.

…

She doesn’t like the way the ugnaught looks at her, like he knows what she is without her having to give anything away. She supposes that he would be able to tell, given that he served under the imperial order during the time of the Great Jedi Purge. She holds no animosity toward him, knowing that he was enslaved, another pawn in that insidious game. But she still doesn’t like the clear recognition she sees beneath his bushy brows as they cross the barren plains of Nevarro, being led by Greef and two of his lackeys.

The night before had been restless, reptavians wreaking havoc on their encampment in the blank darkness. It had caused her physical pain, restraining herself from giving in to the whisper to use her power, uselessly shooting her blaster into the air like the rest of them. It almost felt like a sick joke when, immediately after, the child exposed his own abilities in healing a gash across Greef’s arm. She had felt Din’s attention on her the whole time, but she didn’t dare acknowledge it for fear of what her face might give away.

Now, in the bleak light of day, she feels dizzy with the power she refuses to tap into, her lack of sleep certainly not helping anything as she shuffles limply toward the town, toward the client, and toward an end to the constant danger the child has been in.

As they reach a crested hill and see the town before them, the plan is laid for she and Greef to present Din to the client as a captured bounty, before taking care of what Greef has assured them will only be a few guards. Kuiil is already bounding back to the Crest with the child as they survey the town.

She can’t believe that she didn’t catch it. Foresight had never been her strong suit, but she was usually able to anticipate next moves, so when Greef’s two grunts turn on them, she’s lucky that Greef has a change of heart and guns them down before they can shoot while she stands there, slack-jawed and shocked at her own unresponsiveness. She can feel Din’s focus on her again, but she keeps her eyes on his wrists as she cuffs him, willing herself to pull the loose threads inside her back together.

“You ok?” It’s a crackly whisper coming through the voice modulator of his helmet. The cuffs click into place with a hiss, and her nostrils flare as she tries to calm herself, Din’s concerned question doing nothing to help. She huffs, finally looking at him and nodding tightly.

“I’m fine. Ready to get this done.”

As they move through the city, it’s clear to her that Greef had been undershooting his estimate of “just a few guards” by a considerable amount. The streets are teeming with troopers and it’s doing nothing to help the crackling she was already feeling under her skin.

It shocks her, to see the man, the client, in his full imperial regalia, emblems of an order that all but destroyed her kind. The whisper gets louder as they enter the tavern, a fierce flame crawling up her spine.

“I have not seen you before, girl. From where do you come?” She struggles to find an answer to the old man’s question, but Greef is quick to save her.

“She’s one of the best hunters around. I had her on an assignment on Tattoine for quite some time. She has only just returned to this neck of the galaxy. And lucky for us, seeing as she managed to finally bag this one.” Greef motions to Din who is sitting next to him in the booth, his cuffed hands in his lap. Luckily, his words draw the client’s attention away from her and onto her so-called “bounty.”

“Yes. Lucky for us indeed. But what a shame things must go this way. Mandalorians are such a noble race, but I fear it has been their downfall.” To anyone else, it would appear that Din doesn’t react at all to the man’s words, but from where she’s standing next to the booth, she can see the way his gloved fingers flex.

The man finally shifts his attention to the closed pram hovering alongside her, the pram that she knows is empty. But before he can examine it, one of the troopers comes to let him know there is a call for him. As he moves over to the bar to take the message, Din slips his wrists out of the cuffs, Greef handing him his blaster. Her own gun sits in the holster belted around her tac pants. She hopes it will not come to this, but, for the first time in a while, she has brought out her sabers, tucking them inside her vest to keep them hidden. It is a comfort to her to have them with her, but she knows that wielding them must only be her last resort.

“We have the baby. It is sleeping.”

“Are you certain? I would, perhaps, check again.” Her blood runs cold at the man’s words coming through over the holovid, but there’s little time to think on it before blaster fire is bombarding the tavern, bursting the windows and killing the man and several of the troopers as they all scatter for cover.

It’s over as soon as it begins, silence descending on the bodies strewn over the tavern floor. She and Din press up against the wall along the now blasted-through windows, Greef sidled up across from them. She glances out, seeing a blurred array of stormtroopers in the town square.

“You have something that I want.” Her eyes dart to Din. It’s the same voice from the holovid.

The man continues speaking, of the child’s power, of how they cannot fathom what that power means to him, of how he knows who they are, first identifying Greef, and then Din. She’s surprised that the man knows his name, and from the looks of it, so is Din.

“Yes, Din Djarin, I am quite familiar with you. And your unique distaste for droids. Though it’s my understanding your parents weren’t fond of them either.” She turns back to Din, who has gone completely still at the man’s words.

“But there is one more among you, is there not? It embarrasses me to admit, I do not know who this one is. But certainly, she must be a formidable woman to have garnered the affection of a Mandalorian hunter. I’d rather not have to kill such an intriguing individual without first making her acquaintance.” Her stomach twists at his echoing words, heat rising to her face at his insinuation. She can’t look at Din, not now, or she really will unravel.

“The reason you are all still alive is simple. I still require you to give me what I want. If you come out and comply, you will be spared. If you do not, you will leave me no choice but to bring your lives to an insignificant end. I will give you till nightfall to decide.” Her mind races as she looks to Greef, and then to Din.

“Is the child safe?” Din sighs.

“I wasn’t able to patch over to Kuiil. But we’d be dead by now if he had already taken the kid.” Greef huffs.

“Who is he? And where did he get all this firepower?” She presses her lips into a thin line, having no answer to his question.

“It’s Moff Gideon.” The name means nothing to her, but Greef scoffs at Din’s words.

“Moff Gideon was executed as a war criminal.”

“No, he wasn’t. It has to be him. He knows my name. The only record of that name was in the records of Mandalore when I was pledged to the Creed as a foundling. Gideon was a soldier during the Great Purge, when the temple of Mandalore was seized, and all the records with it. That’s how he knows my name. It has to be him.” It’s a great deal of information coming at her all at once. She had assumed Din was born a Mandalorian, he certainly adhered to the tenets strictly enough. It shocks her to find out that he was a foundling, much like she was.

She takes a deep breath, breaking out of her swirling thoughts to come back to their dire situation.

“Are we sure the kid is safe? Try to hail Kuiil again.”

“Come in, Kuiil. Kuiil, do you copy?” Din looks to her as silence falls over the comms link, both of them jumping when a crackly, high-pitched gurgle patches through.

“Kuiil has been terminated.” Her heart sinks. It’s the voice of that damn, refurbished droid. Din visibly tenses as he holds his comms link closer to his helmet.

“What did you do, droid?” More crackling, and then that tinny voice.

“I did what I am programmed to do. Nurse and protect.” The comm clicks, leaving them in silence, but not for long, as her ears prick to a faint whirring sound that seems to be getting louder and closer.

The explosion sends all of them staggering on their feet. She cocks her blaster, peering out the window, and her heart clenches at the sight. IG-11 is laying down troopers hard, with the child strapped to its metal chest. The whispers she had been tamping down are rolling over her, every fiber of her being lit up. Her head whips around to Din.

“I have to get him. Cover me.” She shoulders out into the fray, Din and Greef hot on her tail as they start taking out troopers left and right. It’s a messy swirl of blaster fire as she tries to get to the droid, though she has to admit it seems to be holding its own pretty well all while keeping the child safe against its chest.

She focuses on picking off troopers on the periphery of the droid, but her fingers are itching at how useless she feels, the whisper becoming a constant thrum in her head. Then she sees Din struggling against a dark trooper, and she can hold herself back no longer. She drops her blaster, pulling out both her sabers as she darts toward him. It’s a faint noticing in the back of her mind as she slices clean through the dark trooper. What once were her clear, brilliant, blue blades are now a dark, violent, purple.

The whisper becomes a scream.

…

He hears her before he sees her. A whirring woosh like rushing electricity, and then a purple flare as the dark trooper before him is toppled to the ground, split in half. She stands before him, wielding dual sabers, something Din didn’t know was possible. He had never seen a lightsaber before now, and the sight stills him only for a moment, before she’s whirling away to run down more troopers.

He mounts one of the artillery blasters, unleashing a rain of gunfire around him, but he can’t help how his eyes keep darting back to find her form. It isn’t human, the way she’s moving. Impossible speed as she cuts through the fray and impossible precision as she takes down more troopers, a blur of violet light all the while. A dark trooper sets its sights on her, and Din aims to take it down, but she’s already leaping over its head, flipping through the air as she lands behind it with a clean slice right down its middle. Well, now she’s just showing off.

A trooper dings him in the shoulder of his armor, knocking him off the artillery blaster and into the sand. He scrambles back onto his feet, pulling out his blaster and taking out the trooper who hit him, but is knocked back again by a hit to his helmet. Gideon is coming toward him, blaster cocked just as Din aims his at him. Before Din can fire, Gideon points his gun at an ammo box near Din’s feet.

The explosion knocks him flat onto his back, his ears ringing as he grapples for consciousness. His vision is blurred, just making out the hazy figure of Gideon coming closer to where he’s laid out, gun pointed at him. He braces for the blow at the sound of the blaster firing, eyes scrunched shut. But it never comes, and when he opens his eyes, vision coming clearer, he sees something extraordinary. Gideon is continuing to fire at him, but the blaster shots, as they rush toward Din, are getting bent off course, swinging down into the ground or off to the side. Gideon looks beyond perplexed, but then his eyes dart away from Din.

He cranes his neck from where he’s crumpled on the ground, his breath stuttering when he sees her, now holding only one of her sabers, her other hand held up, palm open. Gideon points his blaster at her, firing once, but with a wave of her wrist she crooks the gunfire off course, instead hitting another trooper. He goes to fire at her again, but this time she closes her palm into a fist and Gideon cries out, dropping his blaster and cradling his now bent hand to his chest as he keels over in pain.

Din feels like time stops as he watches her moving singularly toward Gideon, flicking away oncoming troopers with the smallest twitch of her fingers. When she comes upon the bent over form of Gideon, her arm stretches out toward him, palm closing into a crook as Gideon is forced to stand up straight before her.

He thinks to himself that it’s impossible, something of lore, but he can come up with no other explanation to what he sees. Gideon’s eyes are bulging out of his skull as he claws at his neck. Din glances down and sees that his feet are barely on the ground, the toes of his boots skittering to find purchase. She raises her outstretched arm just slightly, and Gideon is lifted a bit further into the air, struggling for breath. Troopers try to come to their master’s aid, but with a tilt of her head, they’re sent hurtling away. Din has heard enough myths, enough history, to know that what she is doing is forbidden, an action that left Jedis exiled and stripped of their title. He also knows that what she is doing demands an unfathomable amount of power, a power not many people know of, a power on the edge of darkness. He is witnessing her do something he didn’t think he’d ever witness in his lifetime.

He is witnessing a Force choke.

…

There is nothing else but the power she feels coursing through her, like flames licking at her skin, coaxing her to push further, to see the light leave Gideon’s eyes. Part of her still screams against this power, this darkness closing in, but there is too much anger flowing through her to fight it.

It’s his shout that finally breaks through the darkness, through to her. She snaps out of it immediately, releasing Gideon to fall to the ground, heaving in the dust as she turns around to see Din getting hauled up by his neck by a stray dark trooper. She’s on them in a flash, saber dragging hot through the trooper as Din falls to the ground on his hands and knees. Though she feels completely drained, she helps him up, slinging under his shoulder to get him back into the relative cover of the tavern, the droid and Greef close behind.

IG-11 bolts the door shut as she props Din against the back wall, his head lolling to the side in his helmet.

“There’s a grate behind that couch. It should lead down to the sewers and you can tunnel your way out of the city.” His words are labored, fits and starts of breaths in between, but she nods, turning to look at IG-11.

“Droid, get that grate open!” The child still strapped firmly to its chest, IG-11 effortlessly moves the booth out of the way, starting to kick in the grate that seems unwilling to budge. Her attention is brought back to Din when he wraps a gloved hand around her wrist.

“You have to go without me. I’m done. I’ll just slow you down.” Just then, a hard pounding begins on the door of the tavern. She struggles to keep her focus on Din.

“You’re not done. I’m not going to leave you here.” The door busts open, a burst of flames coming through into the tavern. Din squeezes her wrist.

“Take the child. I can hold them off for you to escape. This is how I am meant to die. This is the way.” Another swath of flames blows into the tavern, a trooper coming into the doorway. She’s afraid to use her own abilities to fight him off, afraid of getting pulled back under a current of darkness.

“I’m not leaving you, Din.” They all freeze as the trooper opens fire again, flamethrower blowing a blinding plume of fire toward them, and she braces for their end. But it doesn’t come. The flames are being held off, but not by her. She looks down and sees that somehow the kid has slipped his pack, standing in front of her and Din with his small hands outstretched toward the flames. With a minute sway of his hands, the flames are suddenly being sent back the way they came, triggering an explosion that shakes the building. The kid, meanwhile, has slumped down into himself, eyes barely open from the exertion. She’s quick to pick him up, moving over to the droid that has just busted open the grate.

“Take him and go. We’ll catch up to you.” She slips the child back into the droid’s pack, looking between it and Greef one more time before they’re ducking into the grate opening and she’s turning back around to DIn.

“You should go.” She kneels down next to him.

“Stop saying that. Where are you injured?” He lets out a pained sigh.

“It’s my head– I think. I can feel the blood pooling in my helmet.” She immediately brings her hands to lift off his helmet, but he stops her with firm fingers wrapping around both her wrists.

“Din.”

“No. I must never show my face to another living being. This is the way.” She’s getting really tired of this way he keeps talking about.

“Would you rather die than break this damn vow?” She realizes it’s a dumb question, because of course he would choose death. She huffs before he can answer.

“Well I’m not giving you that choice. I won’t tell anyone I saw a Mandalorian’s face. But I won’t let you die if I can help it.” His hands slacken around her wrists, seeming to give in to her will as she carefully lifts off his helmet. She takes a sharp inhale when their eyes meet for the first time. Deep brown eyes, strong nose, scruffy jaw. She has to blink her eyes a few times to refocus as she checks over his skull for bleeding.

There’s something new rising in her. It’s not a whisper, more like a tide of energy, something less volatile, something she knows isn’t darkness. She closes her eyes, her palms cupping his skull as she lets the tide wash over her. This power isn’t the same lashing that she had let take her before, frantic and demanding. This is steady, pulsing, moving like flaming waves through her body. When she opens her eyes again, Din’s breathing has steadied, the bleeding across the back of his head has stopped, the gash completely healed. Where his eyes had been hazy and unfocused, they’re now clear, searching her face.

Neither of them speak as he puts his helmet back on and she helps him get to his feet, both of them dropping down through the grate and into the sewers. Greef and the droid have not made it far, and they hurry to catch up with them.

“The covert is this way, I think. They’ll be able to direct us out of here.” He is clearly still weak, but Din’s voice is firm as he starts to lead them down one of the tunnels.

All that’s left of the Mandalorian covert are abandoned helmets, and the armorer who is salvaging the scraps.

“I see you have made friends of our people’s enemies. A Mandalorian traveling with Jedis. It is a new galaxy afterall.” Her jaw ticks at the armorer’s pointed words.

She is familiar with the Mandalorian-Jedi War, the conflict that destroyed the planet of Mandalore and swore Jedis and Mandalorians as eternal foe. It was part of the reason why she concealed her identity from Din in the first place. Truthfully, when he had discovered what she is, she had been entirely prepared to kill him, anticipating that historic animosity, and instead being surprised by his willingness to continue traveling with her and the child. But that is not what bothers her most about the armorer’s words. She had called her a Jedi, a title she now knows she will never bear, not after what she did to Moff Gideon.

“This creature is a foundling. He must remain in your care until you return him to his own kind.” The armorer’s words snap her back to the present moment and she steps forward to address her.

“That is my quest. I am to bring the child to my master so he may begin his training.” The armorer’s helmet tilts slightly between her and Din.

“You must work together then. It is your quest, and his creed.” With that, the armorer fuses a beskar emblem, a signet, into the shoulder of Din’s armor. A mudhorn skull. He had told her about that day, how the child had suspended the beast in the air, saving him from death.

“Follow the descending tunnel, it will lead to the underground river that flows out to the lava flats.”

…

He places one more rock over Kuiil’s grave before standing with a sigh and walking back to the hull of the Crest. They managed to escape, barely. Not without losing the droid, it sacrificing itself in the face of ambushing troopers, and not without sending Moff Gideon’s aircraft spiraling to the plains of Nevarro. Watching the explosion had brought a bit of peace to Din as they began their trek back to the Crest, Greef staying behind to clean up the mess they left in the city.

She’s hardly spoken since they’ve gotten back to the Crest, only quiet murmurs to the child here and there. Din still can’t quite believe what he saw, what she did to Gideon, and what she did for him, trying to reconcile the dark and the light of her.

As he enters the hull, he stops immediately at the sight of her putting on her pack, the child watching her with a crumpled expression of worry.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it looks like you’re leaving.” She stills in her movements, turning around to look at him, her expression set and steeled.

“I am. I must leave the child with you. My quest is over. I have failed.” He can’t believe her words, and lets out a breathy laugh. Surely she must be kidding.

“What are you talking about? The kid is finally safe! You have to bring him to your–”

“I can never face my master again. Not after what I did today. Din, there is a darkness in me. A darkness I cannot control.” He moves before he really knows what he’s doing, striding toward her and taking her downturned face into his hands, forcing her to look up into his visor.

“There is darkness in everyone. But you– you saved me today, multiple times. And you saved the kid too.” She shakes her head in his hold.

“That may be true. But what I did to Gideon– it is unforgivable to my kind. If these were the high times of the Jedi, I would be exiled for performing such an act, or worse. It is something only the darkest wielders of the Force do.”

“Maybe that’s true. But you said it yourself. These aren’t those times. And maybe what you did came from darkness, but I can tell you it also came from something else, something burning so bright inside of you.” He’s not sure where his words come from, just that he means them as he continues to speak.

“What you did– you did for me. That wasn’t darkness. That was– I don’t know what– but it wasn’t darkness.” He does know what it was, but he’s too afraid to say it out loud.

“The way you healed me? You can’t tell me that was darkness.” She’s still silent, but her expression softens at that. He holds her face a little firmer.

“That kid needs you. Jedi or not, your quest isn’t over.” She sighs, curling her hands around his wrists as he still cups her face.

“Your creed, my quest. Right?” His heart kicks up in his chest at her words, and he nods.

“That’s right. We’re in this together.” Her next move deeply surprises him, drawing a breathy “oof” out of him as she wraps her arms around his torso, tugging him into a hard hug, a feeling he hasn’t experienced since before he started wearing the Mandalorian armor. He tentatively brings his palms to her back, her cheek pressed against his chest plate as she quietly murmurs to him.

“At least we won’t have to be apostates alone.” All he can do is let out a tight laugh at that, tamping down the simmering anxiety at the truth of her words as he holds her a little closer.

The moment is quickly over, however, as they’re interrupted by the sound of whiny gurgles. She pulls away from him with a sigh, both of them looking down to see the kid grabbing at her pants leg, eyes wide as he huffs at her. She laughs lightly, crouching down to scoop the kid up, his tiny hand going to her cheek as she rights herself. The kid tilts his head at her, ears twitching as he lets out what sounds to Din like a questioning babble.

“Not going anywhere, kid. I promise. We’re going to get you where you need to be.” She glances up at Din after speaking, and the kid’s eyes follow, his head craning around to look up into his visor. They’re still standing close enough that when the kid removes his hand from her cheek, he can easily reach out and pat Din’s chest plate, a small “eh?” leaving his wobbling mouth.

“She’s right, kid. We’ll take care of you. Together.”

................................

taglist: @totallynotastanacc @mymindfuckery @wrathofcats

#din djarin angst #din djarin x oc #din djarin x female reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin series #din djarin fluff #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian angst #the mandalorian fluff #the mandalorian #the mandalorian series

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aestheticpearl · 1 year

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𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 — 𝐝𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐣𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧

(no use of y/n)

a/n: everytime i rewatch the mandalorian i think about if din had a friend that was also a mandalorian, so here are some headcanons

first meeting

you were the apprentice to the armorer and had met din when he first brought the case of beskar to her so she could forge it into something of great purpose. you struck up a conversation with him asking about his armor and the damage that it seem to have.

“so who rocked your shit?”

“mud horn”

“woahhhh that’s so cool”

you were definitely younger then him and he easily picked up on that, you had so much energy. he thought it was funny how bright eyed and bushy tailed you were for the armorers apprentice. it was nice to meet someone who had a little more positive outlook on life.

how you started traveling together

after din returned to the underground tunnels clearly injured with a small group of people. he asked for the armored to come with them. she declined and told him to take you instead, much to your shock.

“what? i’m not leaving you!” she turned to you.

“you must. i will stall them, if you remain with me i can’t protect you. you must go with din djarin.” she says, at the end you hear her voice soften. “i will be fine” you nod and turn to the small group.

“we have to go now”

life on the razor crest

din wouldn’t admit it out loud but you traveling with him made his life so much more easier. you helped a lot looking after the kid and your forging skills came in handy every now and then. he trained with you in hand to hand to brush up on both of your skills.

“you’re pretty good at this” he says bluntly.

“i’m better at defense but thank you for the compliment” you say as you block another one of his strikes.

the small child watches both of you closely with his big eyes. he sure is funny looking.

babysitting

“remind me why i can’t go with you again?”

“cause someone has to watch the kid, it’s far too dangerous for both of you”

you’re practically pouting at the statement and so his the child in your lap. you pet his small head with your gloved hand and he coos out at you, telling you that he enjoys the affection you’re giving him.

“i could handle it”

“i’m not risking it, plus the kid likes you”

you let out a sigh and look down at the small child smiling up at you, dang it he is too cute. you give your pinky that he grips tightly with his little three fingers hand.

“he’s lucky i like him too”

patching each other up

“you need to focus on patching yourself up”

“you are in far worse condition than me”

you point to the large gash in his side that you’re trying to tend to but he seems to think the cut on your leg is far more important than the near fatal injury he possesses currently.

“din please just let me help you so i can’t help myself” you say through gritted teeth, you hope that your voice modulator doesn’t pick up that you sound in pain.

“fine but you’re letting me help you after”

“deal”

getting separated

maybe you should’ve stayed on the ship this time, you’re definitely lost and your com isn’t working due to the distance at least that’s what you’ve pegged the problem as.

this is honestly really embarrassing, you could’ve sworn that the ship was parked here in this now empty spot. there’s no way din would leave you here though, right? well if you think about it, there’s plenty of reasons for him to leave you behind. maybe this was cause you told him he need to eat something that wasn’t just a quick meal.

“hey can you hear me? i’m landing near your location” oh thank god.

“thought you left me behind tin head” he scoffs.

“you’re one to talk, i was out looking for you cause you didn’t stay put”

feelings towards you

din hated to admit it but he had grown a fond attachment to you and so had the kid. you just seemed to fit so nicely in their lives, it felt natural to have you around and it was nice to have someone to bounce strategies off of plus you knew your way around the ship and welded most damage that was done to it.

“hey you’re staring off into nothingness again” you tap his helmet lightly and he shakes himself back to reality to face you.

you’re hold the kid on your lap as he looks at din with his big eyes. he coos and tilts his head to the side and smiles up at din.

for the first time in a while din felt comfortable with someone else’s presence and he liked being around you.

without the helmet

when din had to revealed his face to further your mission to rescue the child you didn’t say a word to him about anything that he did. you didn’t tell him how he broke the creed that you both were suppose to be up holding and he certainly didn’t tell him about how attractive he looked.

“i didn’t see anything.” din doesn’t respond, he just nods at you and walks back into the ship silently.

you feel bad for him, he had to sacrifice the creeds laws to rescue this child that clearly means a lot to him. it’s quite touching if you really think about it.

please reblog to show support ✧·˚ ༘ * ༄

in honor of season three coming out

.love always <3 pearl

.masterlist

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #din djarin #mando #mando fic #mando x reader #mando x y/n #mando x you #din djarin x you #din djarin x y/n #din djarin x gender neutral reader #din dijarin x reader #din dijarn #din djarin x mandalorian!reader #din dijarin fanfiction #the mandalorian series

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cissyenthusiast010155 · 3 months

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~𝓑𝓸-𝓚𝓪𝓽𝓪𝓷 𝓚𝓻𝔂𝔃𝓮 (𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓪𝓵𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓪𝓷) 𝓢𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓸𝓷 2 & 3

#appearance appreciation #bo katan kryze #bo-Katan Kryze #katee sackhoff #the mandalorian #the mandalorian season 2 #the mandalorian season 3 #the mandalorian s3 #the mandalorian series #the mandolarian #the mandolorian s3 #star wars #star wars series #star wars fandom

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thevibraniumveterans · 1 year

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(From her Instagram)

#star wars #the mandalorian series #the mandalorian season finale #bo katan kryze #katee sackhoff #instagram #behind the scenes

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joels6string · 1 year

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My favorite official still from Chapter 19.

Big dumb metal man forgets he has jet pack until he almost face plants in free fall.

#the Mandalorian #din Djarin #the mandalorian spoilers #the Mandalorian series

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lisasstars · 2 years

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Can’t wait to see Season 3 of the Mandalorian and his child. 😍🥰

Din and Grogu

forever travelling together. ❤️

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midnightdjarin · 18 days

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din having the time of his life teasing you because you get jealous (din djarin x female reader)

i’ve been thinking a LOT about the episode in s1 called “the prisoner” where din meets up with that group and it’s hinted at that he (most likely) had a romantic relationship with xi’an… like imagine if you were with him at that moment…

you’ve been super irritated and crabby ever since it let slip that din had a past with xi’an. it was ridiculous and you would NEVER admit it to din, but wow, were you jealous.

you were convinced that the ex-imperial sharpshooter, mayfield was his name, was trying to instigate a fight, because man was he not helping things.

the two of you were looking at din and xi’an from across the room. she decided that it was a good idea to get real close and touchy. when her hand landed on his chest plate, you thought were about to tussle with a stranger.

“you’re just gonna let them do that?”, is what came out of mayfields mouth.

you cut a nasty glance at him, “i don’t need you as an instigator, imp.”

he just laughed, amused at how riled up you are, “no need for the attitude, princess.”

you didn’t even look at him as you deadpanned, “i’ll kill you.”

you had just about enough of this situation when you heard xi’an laugh, so you got up and walked towards them.

“are we ready for the mission, or do i need to set up a dinner table and candles for the two of you?”

you regretted saying it almost immediately. the internal cringe you were experiencing was intense. you were so incredibly jealous.

everyone got on the ship except for you and din. he hasn’t said a word to you. he had just stared silently at his surroundings until the two of you were alone.

you awkwardly nodded and looked at the ground, “so, xi’an huh?”

you thought for sure that he would be angry or embarrassed at your little tantrum moment, seeing as how he still hasn’t said a word. after a few seconds you see- his shoulders shaking? is he- is he laughing?

your suspicions are confirmed as soon as his laugh can be audibly heard, and you were puzzled to say the least.

“are you seriously laughing?”

he puts his hands on his hips and levels his visor at you, nodding his head, “yes.”

you thought for second to perhaps throttle him, but he was needed for this mission after all.

you grew frustrated, “I’m so glad that you think this is funny, din.”

his hands didn’t leave his hips, “cyare, listen to yourself. are you serious?”

you look at him, no amusement in your expression whatsoever.

he sighs, “look, mesh’la, yes, we have a past together, but not a good one. she was not and never will be right for me. you are right for me. you. only you.”

it’s your turn to sigh, “i’m sorry-“

dins hand goes to your chin, “don’t apologize. you getting all jealous and worked up over her was very entertaining. i love that little scrunch that your nose gets-“

you slap his hand away and roll your eyes but he keeps talking, “every woman in this galaxy could be standing in front of me, and i would spot you first, cyare, every time.”

you put on a small smile, “because of my huge forehead?”

“the biggest and prettiest forehead in the galaxy, really.”

“very funny.”

he lets out a soft chuckle then puts a hand on your shoulder, “i will love you and your big forehead even through death. now, let’s get this mission over with, and try not to kill xi’an, no matter how tempting.”

you chuckle as well, “okay, just make sure not to kill mayfield. he did refer to me as a princess earlier-“

his head whips in your direction, and you put on an innocent smile, “what? are you jealous?”

#din djarin #star wars #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mandalorian x reader #star wars fanfiction #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin one shot #din djarin imagine #din djarin drabble #jealousy #the mandalorian series #din djarin x female reader #din djarin fluff

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softiedingo · 6 months

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DIN DJARIN and JOEL MILLER, two guys with big and sad brown eyes, grieving the reality of losing the child they were supposed to give away but decided to keep, separated only by a galaxy far, far away.

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mgparker · 1 year

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the bodyguard [din djarin]

based on the mandalorian (din djarin x f!reader)

“i hope you understand… that i have to keep you alive at any cost.”

*ੈ✩‧₊˚. “your life is worth more than a damn job!”

“to me, your life is worth everything.”

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ summary:

in the midst of turmoil within the galactic senate, the appointed council of the utopian planet Eiria receives word of dangerous threats to the only living heir to the throne— you. despite all your protests, you find yourself under the protection of the finest defender in all the galaxy. and you’ll be damned if you didn’t fight it with all your power.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ warnings: pre-empire, angst, bratty reader, serious bodyguard 1992 vibes, slow burn, eventual fluff, violence, lots of plot, mature themes

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ no, the reader is not underage. despite her princess status, she is of age but not eligible to take the throne just yet. this will be explained in detail.

IN PROGRESS!

i. a stranger in my room

tensions rise as the princess of the dystopian planet eiria finally approaches the age in which she will take the throne. despite her reluctance, she finds herself under the protection of the infamous mandalorian.

ii. a warning

the princess quickly learns just how skilled her protector is.

iii. a suspect

the princess makes it her mission to get to know a bit more about the mandalorian

add yourself to the taglist!

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as-artrat-racik · 2 years

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"The Mandalorian" 🌌⭐

(Acrylic and gouache on canvas)

#the mandalorian #mandalorian fanart #star wars #star wars fanart #star wars series #disney plus series #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanart #acrylic #gouache #painting #art #fanart #the mandalorian fanart #the mandalorian series

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jreads · 1 year

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Unexpected Constellations (Part 14)

Rating: No crazy stuff

Word Count: 6.8K

Warnings: Warnings: Angst, Mentions of blood, Canon-level violence, Dark themes, Foul language, Din being a cutie

A/N: Sorry I pushed this back for so long! It was giving me such grief but I think I am okay with posting it now. I was overwhelmed with the love from the previous part and I am so so happy that everyone liked it. As it stands, this is the penultimate part! As always, comment on this post or the masterlist to get added to the taglist. So much love 🤍

Waking up next to him was bliss. Your body felt tired and achy and sore, but his head was resting on your chest, curls tickling your chin, body pressed possessively against your own. Breathing even. It was so new to see him like this, and it had quickly become one of your favourite things. You ran fingers through his hair, nails scraping against his scalp and his sleepy groan was so deep that it might have been a purr.

“You’re so beautiful.” It sort of slipped out. You were becoming loose lipped around him.

“You keep saying that.”

“It’s true.” Maker, and his voice. Rich like sweet candy.

He huffed into your skin, arms tightening around you like a band.

You stilled your fingers in his hair. “You don’t believe me?”

No answer. But he lifted his head, brows raising quizzically, eyes still heavy with sleep. It was impossible. Intolerable.

“I mean… Have you looked at yourself?”

Din answered too matter-of-factly. “Yes. In the fresher sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“I don’t look at my reflection a lot.”

“Why not?”

He seemed to get fed up with your line of questioning, collapsing back against you and nuzzling into your stomach to avoid an answer. But you weren’t letting it go so easily.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

“I think you’re biased.” He kissed your navel.

You tried to ignore the flutter that went through you. “I think you’re insufferable.”

He pressed you to the bed then, hovering over you just slightly. “I guess you’ll have to suffer then. You’re stuck with me now.”

Snarky, gorgeous, unbelievable. “Can’t imagine how I’m ever going to survive—”

“Shut up.” He captured your laugh in a kiss, slow and sensual and lazy, and you lost yourself in it. You let him guide your wrists above your head, where he pinned them with a broad palm. You let him trail the other hand down your side, over the curve of your waist.

You let him, you let him, you let him.

It took the both of you far too long to make it out of Boba’s guest suite. Din had even quipped about him starting to charge rent. But eventually, and quite unfortunately, you were reminded that a galaxy existed outside of each other, and that you needed to get back to it.

Din had only told you about the Imp that morning, reluctantly. And perhaps that was lucky, because if you had known earlier, there was little chance you would have been able to sleep let alone focus on anything else. Focus on Din.

But you knew now.

What Din had done wasn’t lost on you. He could have killed the man himself; he had had plenty of time while you were still unconscious. He could have drawn it out, made it bloody. You knew he enjoyed that sometimes… when given the right circumstances… when the victim was deserving. But he had captured him instead, left him alive. Not just so you could kill him yourself if you pleased, but because he knew you needed closure. Thus, the day’s responsibilities would be far from easy and would also take some time.

A quick comm chat with Peli had ended with the lady practically demanding that she take Grogu to a podrace, and that if you two were early to Mos Eisley this evening, you ‘would just have to park your asses down in the hangar and wait.’ It was so good to hear the child’s coos from the other end of the line, though it only eased your trepidation by a fraction.

“You don’t have to do this.” Din’s presence was unyielding behind you as you made your way down darkened sandstone steps. “Say the word, and I can—”

You silenced the rest of his sentence, stopping abruptly on the staircase and spinning on him. A step above, he towered over you. Ever the protector. “As much as I’m sure you’d love to…” You rose onto the tips of your toes and caressed the indents in his helmet. “…I have to handle this myself.”

He nodded once. “I’ll be here. If you need anything—” Before he could finish, another voice sounded from behind you.

“You’re awake. I was getting worried.”

It was enough to make you reconsider the rest of the descent into the Rancor’s cave. Truthfully, you might have preferred coming face-to-face with the Rancor instead. Powerless. You had to remind yourself. He has no power here. Over you. Over anything.

With a shaky breath, you reached the bottom of the pit, advancing on a menacing portcullis. Though he was silent, you knew Din followed.

He was grasping onto the gate bars with white knuckles. He looked a sight. Usually pristine Imperial uniform now torn and singed, he was covered in dirt and dried blood. A nasty gash had crusted over on the top of his head, staining his hair. You wondered who had done it. Your money was on Boba. If it had been Din, he wouldn’t have stopped there.

“Leaving you alone with two Mandalorians and a bounty hunter?” He scoffed, as if the idea were preposterous. “Their kind are ravagers. I’m relieved you’re alright.”

To act as if he was concerned about your well-being at all was almost insulting. What was worse was the assumption that the ones who had cared for you would have put you in harm’s way. A reversal of roles… a projection.

You tried to summon an air of phony assertiveness, though your hands were shaking. Fear? Anxiety? Rage? It was anyone’s guess. “Here’s how this is going to work. You don’t insult my friends. In fact, don’t speak unless you’re answering a question. Are we clear?”

He seemed to pay you no mind. “Look at you! So confident. Perhaps those years apart were a blessing in disguise.” He seemed comfortable, assured even, but his knuckles, blanched against the gate metal, gave him away.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you… what you did in that control room. It was amazing. Magnificent.”

The control room? When you knocked him out?

“I always knew you had it in you.” His eyes were glazing over with some sort of sick admiration. “Your master would be so proud.”

The control room. The water, the cables. The electricity. Oh. Stars. He thought you had summoned lightning.

“I don’t… I didn’t.” You suddenly felt the need to defend yourself. Not to him, but to the man behind you. The one you were trying to convince that you were good. The one you were trying to convince yourself that you were deserving of.

“You don’t need to be afraid.” His smile made you feel sick, whatever calm mask you had put in place quickly slipping. “This is what you were meant for. Don’t you see? Everything we—” He was quick to correct himself. “Everything they did was for this… And look how strong you are now.” Dirty fingers reached past the bars, grasping for you. You stumbled back into Din’s chest.

He ran a hand over you side, squeezing at your hip, barely a featherlight touch but grounding nonetheless. You breathed a few times, timing your inhales with the rise and fall of his chest.

However, the Imp was now surveying the Mandalorian with a repulsed expression. Looking from him to you… and back again. He sneered. “Wow, really?” He waited, as if for an answer. “You could conquer worlds, topple governments. The galaxy would bow at your feet.” That petulant entitlement had found its way back into his cadence. “Is this what you’d throw it all away for? A trivial romance?” Disgust dripped from his words. “You could be a god.”

When you broke his eye contact, he turned to Din instead. “And you could be rich.”

“I’m not interested in credits.” There was a sharp edge in his modulated voice, a promise of violence.

“No, I’m sure you’re not. It’s power you’re after.” The hatred between the two men hung so thick in the air that it was starting to suffocate. “What is it? Planning on using her to retake your home world?” Din stilled. “Who would dare to stand against you with a Sith at your side?”

“Enough.” Your tone was sharp, but not sharp enough.

“How long has it been since your people have even seen Mandalore? Set foot on the scorched soil? I wonder what they’ll find beneath its surface.” His tone was all too knowing. Din’s mind roared like a wildfire behind you.

“I said enough.” Your raised voice finally seemed to break their murderous concentration on one another. “You don’t get to ask questions. But you can answer mine.”

His energy changed immediately. “Anything you want to know. I’ve only ever been honest with you.” A flicker of a glare over your shoulder. “But your bodyguard will have to leave.”

You could feel Din reach for his blaster. No, not the blaster… that was on the other side of his hip.

You spun, a hand on his own to halt him. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” There was a beat of silence as he considered. Rage, violence, bloodlust. This wasn’t Din; there was nothing of the man you knew in him. This was The Mandalorian.

“You don’t open the gate; you stay away from the bars.” His voice was hushed, steady, lethal. “He tries anything, or you sense anything, you call for me.” You nodded. Still, he hesitated.

“I’ve got this.” You ran a thumb under the edge of his glove, over the soft skin of his inner wrist. Over the pulse point. It was jumping rapidly, a sign of him. “Go.”

With what you could tell was one more glance at the man behind you, he turned, footfalls heavy, and made his way back up the steps. Before he could disappear from sight, the man spoke.

“Good. Now we can stop pretending.” You knew Din had heard it. He was egging him on. Did he not understand that you were the only thing stopping Din from shoving the saber through his throat? Or maybe that was the whole point.

Without Din’s protective presence, you instantly felt more unpredictable. You needed a moment to calm, recenter yourself. You paced in a circle. However, the Imp had other plans.

“So, this is the company you’re keeping nowadays? Bounty hunters and criminals?”

Focus. Don’t get carried away.

“You understand it, right? They’re not on our level. Nowhere near it. Completely inferior. I suppose it’s my own fault for letting you go.”

Letting you go. As if you hadn’t tried to remove his head from his shoulders in your fight for an escape pod.

“Won’t you say something? As much as I’m glad you’re okay, I’m not overly fond of the hospitality here and would like for us to get going as soon as possible.”

What?

“You think I’m going anywhere with you?” You practically hissed it. Only once he smiled did you realize you had given him what he wanted… engagement.

His head tilted. “Aren’t you? What life do you have here, amongst the rabble?”

You have one. You have one. A place, a purpose.

“Don’t you remember?” You hate his smile. You could slice lines up his face, from the corners of his mouth to his hairline. “You were made to serve.”

There’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop the onslaught of memories, the mere utterance of those words enough to shake them loose. Even through the haze of repression.

You’re shaking, so weak that you can barely keep your head from drooping. Your hands are tied with binders to the ceiling, so high that you have to rise on your toes to release the strain from your shoulder. A rib might be broken, maybe two. Not that it mattered; the droid would patch you up anyway. It always did, after every round, over and over and over…

“Let me go.” It was a pathetic wheeze, croaky and quiet.

Two of the men leer. “Sorry? What was that?” One caresses your face before rearing back and throwing a fist. You’ve numbed to the pain a bit, but you still feel the sharp sting of your own teeth cutting into the inside of your cheek. You lose purchase on the floor and hang, the impact brutal on your shoulders.

“Please.” You would beg, on your knees if you needed to. “Please, let me go.”

He’s there. Lifting your head with an iron grip on your chin. “And where would you go, dear?”

You have no ship, you can’t fly, your knowledge of planets is minimal. You have nowhere to go.

“What life could you have outside of this?”

Your head is throbbing. You might pass out.

“This is your purpose. You were made to serve. Don’t ever forget that.”

Your vision goes black.

Perhaps it’s because you were squeezing your eyelids shut, trying so hard to block out the vivid recollection. You shook your head like a crazed person, grabbing at your scalp. Like you could feel the pain. The pounding ache of having been hit too many times. Oh maker, the pain.

Breathe. You’re out. Din’s just outside the stairwell. Listen. You can hear his heartbeat. He’s right there. Breathe with him.

He was solid as a stone when you sensed him, leaned against the wall. You wondered if he could hear—probably not. You could remember what it was like to kiss him, feel his skin against your own, his hair, trace the angles of his jaw. It was so recent, so fresh. Not like the other memories. You could forget the agony, replace it with pleasure. Softness and warm pressure.

Your eyes opened in their natural hue. The Imp was clapping, a slow, sharp staccato. “Impressive. Is that a Jedi technique? Does it help to play pretend?”

Get the info. Get it done and get out. You took another deep breath.

“You answer my questions, or I walk.”

He didn’t reply, just assessed you. It wasn’t a yes, but it also wasn’t a no. But you could feel that he wanted to answer—or rather, he wanted to talk—but either way, he didn’t want you to leave. It was beyond unsettling.

“Have you found him?” Please no, please no, please—

“So, you believe me now?”

“No. I just want to make sure Palpatine stays dead.”

His smile was absolutely vile. “There are more ways than one to ensure that that doesn’t happen.”

He could be lying. Trying to extend his relevance, his usefulness. Half truths. Half answers. Always cryptic. You were so tired of this. Of the worry, the fear, of looking behind you anytime the light dimmed and the dark intensified, just in case.

You stepped closer. “What do you know?”

There was a sparkle of crazed excitement in his eyes. “I know that it’s inevitable. There’s not a single thing you can do to stop it from happening. All you can do is be ready.”

“Ready for what?” But he was already on the uncontrolled ramble of a zealot.

“I’ve made you ready. I’ll be a hero. I’ll get what I was promised. We—”

“We what?” Every muscle in your body was tensing dangerously. Warning alarms. “What were you promised?”

“Look at you.” He was breathless. “You’re perfect. I crafted you—”

He believed it. All of it. It may be bullshit, but it was the truth from his tongue. There was a pain in your chest. You wouldn’t go back. Couldn’t. Because if he was right and Palpatine did come for you, you knew that Dinwouldn’t stand aside. Grogu wouldn’t. And you knew what he would do to them, what he would make you watch him do. Din was a powerful warrior, but he wouldn’t stand a chance against the Emperor. Palpatine would break him apart.

“What were you promised?” You didn’t notice the walls start to tremble. The loose sandstone start to fall in small puffs of dust.

“The Force. I was promised the Force.” His eyes were blown wide, rimmed with red. “We would be equals. We will be.”

Shaking. Your bones, your eyes, the very structure of the palace around you. “That’s not possible.”

“Times are changing. Why do you think Gideon wanted the child so badly?”

Grogu. Everything stilled. He looked triumphant.

“I could just kill you right now.”

“You won’t do that.” He reached an arm through the bars, as if he expected you to take his hand. “Because if you do, you prove me right. If you do, you become everything you insist you aren’t.”

That was it. That was all you could take. Because as you turned for the steps, blocking out the voice behind you, you knew that he had a point. You wanted to kill him. You wanted to take your time with it. Make it hurt. And what did that make you?

You made it to the top of the steps and turned the corner too sharply, bumping into a wall of beskar. He didn’t say a word, just held you. You couldn’t find the energy to hold him back. You were still seeing flashes of imagined images. His helmet, splattered with blood. The handsome head you were just starting to become familiar with severed from his broad shoulders. Grogu’s cry of anguish. There was something numbing about the information he had given, a sense of futility to every action you had taken and would take. What if none of it mattered?

“I’m going to get some air.” You pushed away from him, and he let you go.

He had seen you through many moods recently, but never such empty hopelessness. And he felt hollow himself, watching you walk away, because he had no idea what to say to make any of it better. Din could tell you what he believed, but this wasn’t up to him. There was, however, one thing he could do. Maybe it was petty and stupid, but Din descended the stone staircase with a muted smile on his face.

The Imp was facing the back wall of the Rancor pit, kicking at a pile of picked-clean bones in the corner. They might have been human; Din wasn’t sure. He must have heard the footfalls because he called out without turning: “Made up your mind that quickly?”

“Oh, my mind’s made up.” It was satisfying to catch him off guard. “My mind was made up the second she told me about you.”

“She told you, did she?” Din had no mind-reading abilities, but he could easily sense just how much this man despised him. And he had a nauseating hunch as to why. “What, exactly, did she tell you Mandalorian? I’m curious as to which parts she conveniently left out.” He pulled down the dirty collar of his uniform. “Did she tell you about this?”

You hadn’t. But he found himself smiling wider. The pale pink scar practically stretched from ear to ear. You had tried to slit his throat. Good girl.

“Did she tell you about how she slaughtered my men? How she left a trail of blood to the escape pod? She was still young then. She murdered them like animals. Did she tell you about that?”

Din crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. He was actually quite enjoying this story.

“What about the choke? I doubt she’s learned to control it.” He cocked his head. “But, then again, maybe you’re into that sort of thing.”

Ah. “That’s it, isn’t it?” Din could tell he had struck a nerve. “It’s jealousy.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

He pushed off, stepped forward a touch, into the light of the opening above. “You wish you were me. You wish she saw you the way she sees me. As an ally, a protector…” A vein was starting to bulge in the Imp’s forhead. “…a lover.”

He threw a fist against the bars. “You’re fooling yourself, Mandalorian. You’re like a child holding a blaster. You have no idea how dangerous she is. She’s some pretty girl to you… a trophy.” He spat at Din’s feet. “You make me sick.”

Struck a nerve. He had to laugh, though it was humorless. He still believed in your superiority, truly; next to him you were practically royalty. But you had chosen him… and that was enough. His riduur.

He pondered for a moment, about telling the Imp of the vows you had made last night, the depth of them. If only just to piss him off. But it was none of his business. He didn’t need to prove himself. So instead, he said: “You’re going to die here. And maybe she won’t be the one to kill you, but if she doesn’t then I will. And if she doesn’t want me to, then Fett will, or Shand. You won’t leave this palace alive; you’ll bleed out in that cell. That’s a promise.”

“What’s your point, Mandalorian?”

“My point is that I suggest you make peace with the things you did to an innocent girl.” He turned to leave. “And I sincerely hope you don’t believe in the afterlife.”

It was a scorching day on Tatooine, but you had been lucky enough to catch an edge of the rounded palace walls that welcomed both shade and a light breeze. It was there that you had sat for the past hour, staring out over the dunes, lost in an endless free fall of thoughts.

Since the day you escaped and crashed onto Sorgan, you had taken part in a never-ceasing internal battle between light and dark. Trying to prove to yourself that you weren’t the culmination of your history. And this—the decision to kill him or leave him alive—it played directly into that conflict. He was right. But he had to die. And it was no one’s responsibility but your own.

You heard him coming, you always did. But Din still didn’t say a word, just sat cross-legged to your left. You were both silent for a long time, the hiss of shifting sand the only sound. But you eventually leaned closer, like magnets drawn together, until your head met his shoulder.

“He’s right, you know. About me.”

“Bantha shit.”

“Din…”

He straightened and you moved your head, already loathing the loss of contact. “No. Stop. You don’t get to do this now. I know you.”

“You know who I am since I met you, that’s different.” You pulled at your scalp in frustration. “Who I was before, the things that I did—”

“You did to survive. You didn’t have a choice. With me, you do.”

“So then what about the Weequay in Mos Eisley? The crystal, Din. And on the Razor Crest when I had that nightmare, and you woke me?”

“Stop it.” His tone was harsh in a way you hadn’t heard from him very often. “I have never…” He trailed off, voice straining. “I have never met anyone like you. Who acts for others, cares so strongly, even after what you’ve been through.” You can hear his shaky inhale. “Cyare, you’re a fucking miracle.”

You were trying so damn hard to keep your bottom lip from trembling.

“Killing him won’t change that. It won’t change a damn thing. Not to me.” He cupped your jaw, turning it to face him. “You’re still you. You always will be.” A light laugh. “Even with yellow eyes.”

You managed a smile through the few tears that had already fallen. He wiped at one with a gloved thumb.

“He might be right about some things, but the depth of your character is not one of them.”

That got your attention.

“What do you mean?” He didn’t reply. “Din. What did he say to you?”

He kept stroking a thumb absentmindedly over your cheekbone. When he finally spoke, it was only a breathy whisper. “You are. Above me. I don’t deserve to touch you; I don’t even deserve to breathe your air.” It felt like you were being gutted. “I don’t deserve to want you. He’s right about that.” He huffed a mirthless laugh. “As if I could even help it.”

Oh, stars. What a fucking pair the two of you made, both so convinced you were unworthy of the other. It was almost hilarious. “This is stupid,” you said as if it was an epiphany. “That is so stupid.” You punched him, square on the breastplate. He barely even moved, but your hand hurt so badly that you had to shake it out.

That eclipsed your problems. Din Djarin, singlehandedly responsible for teaching you to trust again, for bringing you back from the brink maker knows how many times, for making you feel love and pleasure so strong it burned a hole in your chest. He thought himself unworthy of you.

“I’m going to kill him.” Din’s helmet cocked to one side at your quick change of heart. “And then I’m going to show you why that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

“I love you.” Those three words, the way they rolled off his tongue, crackled through the vocoder, they were so charged with emotion that they singed through you like a blaster bolt.

He stood and then offered a hand down. “Do you want me with you?” You took it, rising to your feet and brushing sand off of your trousers.

“Yes. Please.” Always.

He only nodded. Waited for you to make the first move. And when you finally stepped ahead of him, walking back to the mouth of the palace, he had a hand on the small of your back, as if he knew the depth of comfort that it offered.

You didn’t want to keep looking over your shoulder. Because you would. If you left him alive now, no matter where the three of you went in the galaxy, there would always be the possibility of him looming, of Palpatinelooming, just around the corner. And it wasn’t just about you. This was about keeping Grogu safe too. And you would do absolutely anything to protect him, even if it meant… whatever it meant.

The roughly hewn rock cavern was cool, mercifully. Though it did little to stifle the heat of your nerves, the sweat rolling between your shoulder blades. The clamminess of your hands. Din stayed a few paces behind.

“So, what’s it going to be?” His ability to remain unruffled in the face of possible death was almost admirable. You throat was too dry to reply, so you focused instead on the gate control panel. It rose up with an unpleasant screech. You could see him assessing your own features, Din’s stance. He didn’t believe you would do it, but he was smart enough to realise he wasn’t escaping.

“Really?” His eyebrows rose. “You’re going to make him do it for you? At least have the decency to kill me yourself.” A last ditch attempt. If only he knew that your mind was made up. You reached a hand behind you, not taking your eyes off the Imp. You weren’t taking any chances. Din understood; he always did.

But you had expected the blaster. A single shot to the head and it would be over. That wasn’t what Din handed you. The handle was smooth, heavier than you expected, all sharp angles and cool steel. Harsh? Maybe. But people had been known to survive a blaster bolt.

It ignited smoothly. You swung it low, experimental. The blade hummed in response.

And suddenly there was fear—real fear—in his eyes. And oh, how it made your blood sing.

“You won’t.” I sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He gaped at you, mouth opening and closing, searching desperately for words that might spare his worthless life. “He’ll come for you!”

You advanced, rolling the darksaber’s hilt in your grasp. Palms slick with sweat. “You’re delusional.” You wish you believed it more. There was no fanfare, no grand moment. You drove the darksaber through his chest without pause, without hesitation. And it didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel evil. You were glad to see the light leave his eyes. But the words he uttered in his last breaths would stay with you for a long time, rousing you from nightmares for years to come.

“The master… needs an apprentice.”

You looked majestic holding the saber. It didn’t seem as heavy for you as it did for him, perhaps because you were already used to the weight of power. Din felt pride swell in his chest like a blooming flower.

The symbolism that the Imp had put upon his own death was bullshit, but he had known it would affect you, cloud your judgement. The truth? It was that he deserved to die, brutally, and that regardless of who made the killing blow, it was justified. Din only thought, fleetingly, that it was too easy. That he deserved a slower demise, more painful. That perhaps your actions had even been merciful. Maker knows that if Din had been the one to do it, his methods may have blanched even Fett’s already Sarlacc-bleached skin.

He had crumpled to the floor, the edges of his wound glowing slightly as the skin cauterized. You were heaving, lost in the moment of death. So he brought you back, and hand on your elbow snaking to your hand, helping you to extinguish the darksaber. You let it happen, leaned into his touch. Turned to him and smiled, because it was over, because this time he wasn’t coming back. He loved being the one to center you. That smile was haunted, tinged with some far-reaching darkness that he knew wouldn’t pass easily. But it wouldpass. With time.

“Let’s go get our kid.”

You nodded, and he watched the stiffness ease from your shoulders. You looked tired. So tired. Din pulled you into his chest.

“It’ll be okay.” He would burn the galaxy down to ensure it.

You went to take a shower. You had stumbled over your words, trying to explain why. Din had stopped you, knowing the reason innately, having experienced it himself. A need to wash the deed off, to clean the blood that hadn’t even stained your hands. He sought out Fett while you were gone, thanked him, refueled the Crest.

They were both quiet as they worked, a lack of words available to describe what they wished to say. Finally, Boba broke the silence.

“Take care of her. Protect her. She needs you. They both do.”

Din nodded in acknowledgement, not trusting himself to speak stably. Boba seemed to catch on quite easily, stopping his tinkering with one of the hull’s new outer panels.

“I know what it’s like… to feel like you don’t deserve happiness. After everything you’ve done.” Din stilled, hand hovering over the fuel tank lid. “Learn to be selfish sometimes, Djarin. It’s the one thing you’ll never regret.”

Fett didn’t wait for a reply, clapping him once on the back before moving to exit the hanger. “You’ve always got a landing pad with us. Don’t forget that.” His murmur of thanks came too late; Boba had already left.

The shower had only half helped, but seeing Din again, bent over and fussing with wiring, was much more effective.

“Need a hand?” He jumped a little; you must have been too quiet on approach. “Sorry.”

He rose to full height, and you shrunk under what you could tell was an assessing look, even with the helmet. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now.”

His head tilted. “Be honest with me, please.”

You sighed, because of course he could read you. “I’ll be okay.” He was too quiet, probably running through ideas of how to put a smile on your face. The idea of it was enough to do just that. You swore that you could see his stature loosen. “Let me help with the cables. Your hands are too big.” You swatted Din to the side, crouching over the panel he had been studying.

“The ramp’s been fussing. I came in too hard when I landed, probably shorted something. And the cockpit door doesn’t close. Um. It’s dented.” You knew why. But the information made you study him, looking up into the dark T of the visor. Fennec had told you briefly about how he had practically stormed the palace, leaving a trail of incapacitated Gamorreans in his wake in his rush to get to the throne room. ‘Panicked,’ Shand had said. You had never seen him panicked before, even when the kid had been taken. Always cool and calculated.

Wires momentarily forgotten, you rose steadily and circled your arms around his middle, cheek resting against that divot in his breastplate. He stiffened at the suddenness of your movement.

“Thank you. I haven’t said it… I don’t say it nearly enough.” His body felt nice in the circle of your arms, warm and sure and real. You could feel the shudder of his inhale as he hugged you back.

You had pushed your boundaries with him recently, physically. But this… the simplicity of being able to curl your arms around each other, share breath, feel his heartbeat on the other side of a beskar plate, and know what it meant; you wouldn’t trade it for a single thing.

And to think that you thought you might never experience this. Such an all-consuming type of love, a fierce protectiveness, a family.

Maybe the stories had been right; perhaps the stars did align sometimes.

Even with all the events of the day, Din and you were early to Mos Eisley. The suns were getting low, but only enough to cast that warm reddish glow upon the sand. You both sat on the ship’s extended ramp, looking out towards the street. It regaled you with memories of only a few days prior. And how impossible it seemed that so much had happened in such a short period of time.

Din had kissed you before opening the Crest, once… twice… more times than you could count. Your lips felt swollen, but you doubted you would ever get enough of him. The crowds were getting louder as spectators made their way back from the podracing track, their ruckus travelling into the landing bay and echoing off the walls. It was… nice. Really nice. One thing could make it perfect.

A shrill cry stood out over the commotion. One that you knew all too well. He tried his best to run towards you, short legs tripping over the long fabric of his cloak. You and Din met him halfway, scooping him up from the sand, dusting it off his clawed feet. Grogu cried out in joy, and you tried and failed to stop the wave of emotion before it crested. Because from him you felt such love that it bore a hole straight through your heart. Love and happiness and bone-crushing relief.

“He was worried about us,” you told Din, laughing through blurred vision. You were holding the child in your arms, and Din was holding you in his. Grogu messed with your earlobe with one clawed hand, and the fabric of Din’s cowl with the other.

So this was what home felt like.

“We’re good, Grogu. We’re okay.” Din was fussing with his ears, such a tender motion. “Hope you minded your manners, kid.”

Peli’s high pitched voice cut through the moment. “Well, what am I? Chopped liver?” All three of you looked up at the same time.

The tiny woman had both hands on her hips, a fond smirk across her lips. She closed the distance between you. “Kid’s an absolute joy. A menace… but a joy. You two sure you don’t have any more galaxy-wide adventures you need to take care of?”

Din squeezed your waist. “We’re on sabbatical. Extended leave.”

She nodded in appreciation. “Good. Take them both somewhere real nice then. Five-star resort, renowned chefs, the works.” She muttered under breath: “Maker knows you can afford it.”

Grogu cooed. You wondered if he was starting to recognize the word chef, given its association with his absolute favourite word, food.

“Something like that,” Din answered. You hadn’t really discussed you plans to follow this, your priority having been getting the kid back. It didn’t matter too much to you, not really, not as long as you had the two of them at your side.

He had already punched in the coordinates when you came up behind him, Grogu on your shoulder, your hand on his own.

“Can I ask something of you?” You were wearing the vambraces. He was momentarily speechless, forgetting you had just posed a question. They fit perfectly. He wondered, awestruck, just how the Armourer did it. She had once said that each piece speaks of its wearer as she strikes it into shape. He wondered if she saw you.

Beautiful. And all his.

“Din?”

“Anything you want.” His voice was breathy, caught off guard. Your bashful smile was heavenly. He wanted to kiss you… kiss the beskar… fuck you with nothing but the gauntlets on. Grogu squawked sharply at the both of you, as if to say ‘Get on with it.’

You laughed, before the smile faded into something more muted. Apprehension, curiosity.

“I want…” You fiddled with the tattered edge of his cape, toying with a hole in it, taking a deep breath before meeting his eyes again. “I want to go see Skywalker.”

“I thought you might say that.” He noted your look of well-camouflaged surprise. “There’s a box for you in hull storage, when you’re ready.” He knew that you knew what was in it. He was going to get choked up if you kept looking at him like that. Din spun back around to face the dash. “I’ve got to redo my calculations now.”

“I’m sorry.” He had to smile at the dismayed tone of your voice.

He was quick to reassure. “Don’t be. It’s the right choice. I’m proud of you.” He let the words settle and it was quiet in the cockpit for a time, apart from Grogu’s occasional babble, which was starting to sound concerningly more like actual words. Maker, forbid.

As he circled Tatooine and emerged into the inky blackness of space, you asked: “Where were we going to go?”

He grinned under the helmet. “I’d rather keep that a surprise for now, if that’s alright with you?” You probably knew anyways; you could probably guess.

You slept with him.

Not like that; you were both a little apprehensive with Grogu only metres away. The pram was closed, as was the door to the cot, but it was still new. Simply sharing a bed with Din, however, was just as nice.

He snored—albeit lightly—but it made you smile. He had tugged the helmet off once the kid was asleep and had let you run your fingers through his tamped-down hair. He had said you were fussing. You had told him to shut it. So he had fallen asleep with his head on your lap, a broad hand curled over your knee. He had bent his spine at an impossible angle, but you could wake and shift him as soon as you put this damn datapad down.

You were looking up Luke Skywalker, ‘doing your homework,’ as Din had said earlier in a gruff and sleepy voice. However, it had only worsened your nervousness. He was a hero, known across the galaxy for his role in the defeat of the Empire… of the Emperor. He stood against everything you were taught, a figure of unyielding good in the face of what was once impending darkness. Practically a deity. Would he loathe you? Because you might remind him of his past, what he fought against, what he lost. Or would he be sympathetic? Vader was his father, after all. Would he understand corruption, a turn to the dark for survival, because there was no other choice? Would he see you as someone who could be redeemed?

You sighed, sweeping a hand across your face. Your vision was starting to go unfocused, eyelids getting heavy as you fought against your own fatigue.

“Put it down,” he mumbled, squeezing your knee. “I can hear you overthinking; it woke me up.”

That made you laugh. “No, it didn’t. Liar.”

Din grunted and rose on his elbows, plucking the tech from your hands and depositing it in the makeshift hammock above. He then grabbed you by the hips and dragged you down, until you were flat on your back. You yelped. “Sleep.” It was a command.

You couldn’t have resisted even if you wanted to. Because he had caged you into him, arms winding around your waist and tightening. You melted to fit his body.

“Love you.” It was barely intelligible, just a string of syllables muttered into your neck, but it was enough. More than enough. It was everything.

“I love you, Din,” you replied. He hummed in satisfaction.

You left your worries behind for another night.

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