Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Through the scope of his rifle, Din could see his quarry taking what would hopefully be the last few steps of his lumpy, green existence. He could have captured him and flung him in carbonite, but this particular target—for once, not a bail jumper—had dragged the Mandalorian on a karking bantha chase down the Rimma trade route all the way to Kal'Shebbol, and Din was not feeling particularly generous. It hadn't taken him this long to catch up to a target in years.

The Ishi Tib, wanted dead or alive for his role in a botched spice smuggling operation, seemed to think he'd lost his pursuer. He walked unhurriedly through the small market area of the town, perusing the stalls of the various vendors. Din didn't like to kill out in the open like this—there were families around, potentially New Republic officials, people who knew of his reputation. All in all, far too many variables. But his Tribe needed the money from this bounty, and Din wasn't about to risk losing the bastard again.

Din centered the crosshairs at the back of the target's skull, his finger settling on the familiar curve of the Amban's trigger. He exhaled slowly, steadily pulling back...

And that was when everything got complicated.

At the moment his shot fired, Din heard an intelligible shout of warning and a blur of movement briefly obfuscated his view. The disruptor blast left a smoking, singed spot in the cement barely a foot away from the target, who'd been tackled out of the way by a young man in a blue striped poncho.

Din barely got a look at them before the poncho man was hauling Din's quarry to his feet and ushering him down the street, weaving between civilians. Din fired once, twice more—but there were too many bodies in the way, and killing bystanders would reflect poorly on the hunters' Guild. And despite what some may believe, he wasn't made of ammo.

"Dank farrik," Din swore under his breath. They were doing this the hard way, then.

He rushed down from his rooftop sniping position, swinging the Amban onto his back, and gave chase.

As he ran through the startled crowd, he scanned for his targets. Din finally caught a glimpse of the pair turning down an alley and sprinted towards them, drawing his pistol.

When he turned down the alley, however, he found himself face to face with a flat plascrete wall. Huh. No climbing that—but they'd definitely turned down this alley. There were no windows or doors they could have ducked in to, either. Maybe that man had a jetpack hidden under his poncho?

Din turned from the alley and considered his options. Clearly he'd been outmaneuvered this time, but there were only a few logical destinations. His targets would need to get off the planet soon. There was one large docking bay and four smaller ones in the area. The large one required an array of New Republic clearances to access, none of which a fugitive would have. Two of the smaller stations, one of which housed his own ship, were several klicks back the way Din came from. Of the final two, only one was operational.

Din headed calmly in the direction of the last docking bay.

-----

As Kal'Shebbol's long day cycle ended, bathing the area outside the docking bay in blue half-light, Din waited patiently for his targets to emerge, rifle once again at the ready.

At long last, two figures—one with eye stalks, one in a poncho—slunk towards the docking bay. The poncho man seemed to be whispering something. Din activated the long range audio in his helmet.

"—a big scary Mandalorian after you. I can give you a lift off this planet, anywhere you wanna go. Then you're on your own."

"That's very kind of you, my boy. I swear, I didn't know that the crew I joined would be hauling spice. I never would have...well, I suppose it doesn't matter now."

"Don't worry, my ship's just inside. We'll get you out."

No you won't, not this time, Din thought, and he pulled the trigger for the fourth time that day. But fate had other plans for his targets once again. His aim was true, but somehow, when the dust cleared, both of them were still standing there looking decidedly not-vaporized. Din wanted to yell.

"Go on! I'll be with you in a minute!" The poncho man pushed the Ishi Tib towards the entrance of the docking bay as Din prowled out of his hiding place, blaster drawn.

"Maybe we can talk this out," Poncho said to him with an unconcerned smile, one hand raised in an appeasing gesture, the other pushing thick red hair back from his face. Din fired twice, but both shots narrowly missed either side of the man's head. His aim wasn't normally that bad, was it? He wasn't a notorious bounty hunter by accident.

"Or not!"

Din didn't even see the man move. He blinked, and his blaster was flying away from him, kicked straight out of his hand. He caught the punch to his head, barely—a bold move, to punch a Mandalorian in the helmet—but he wasn't so lucky with the second kick, which caught him at a weak point in his armor. Din stumbled, recovered, and went to respond with a blow of his own—

But Poncho was gone. Completely gone. Din stared around for a moment before darting to the docking bay—but it was too late. The only ship in the hanger—a shining Latero Spaceworks S-161—was slowly ascending into the sky. Din watched it go.  

No one was that fast. If Din hadn't just been kicked in the ribs, he'd have thought Poncho was an incredibly convincing hologram.

He sighed. Perhaps it was best to let this one go. He had no idea where they could be headed, and the Razor Crest would never catch up to an S-161. If the conversation he'd listened in to was anything to go by, the Guild's client shouldn't expect trouble from his original target. The only real damage was done to Din's pride—which was, admittedly, pretty damaged.

Hopefully, he'd never run in to Poncho again.

Chapter Text

For several successful jobs and a few standard months, Din got his wish. But good luck always ran out eventually.

Din sat in a darkened corner of what may very well have been the seediest cantina in Hutt Space—and that was saying something. The yellow light of the lamps around the bar flickered and cast the room in a sickly hue. Loud, gritty rock music thrummed from the live performers across the room, almost but not quite drowning out the hodgepodge of languages—mostly Huttese, but Din caught snatches of Basic, Klatoonian, and Shyriiwook. Din wished he could say that no one spared him a glance, but his helmet's distinctive shine never failed to draw unwelcome eyes.

A waiter attempted to offer him a drink (and then death sticks), but he politely declined. He wasn't on Klatooine to relax—he was there for his next bounty.

Din turned the puck over in his hand before flipping on its tiny holoprojector. The scowling face of a Weequay pirate flickered to life. Her tracking fob was beeping in Din's pocket. She was close—he just hadn't spotted her yet.

He watched patrons mill around, some clustered by the bar, others near the small stage where the band played. Din's eyes roamed across a group of Bith, some Klatoonians, a red-haired human with wearing a garish pink poncho...

Wait. Poncho. It couldn't be—it wasn't often that Din ran into the same people twice, particularly people who managed to show him up so spectacularly. Din leaned forward—yes, it was definitely the same man. Poncho was leaning up against the wall, watching the band, his foot tapping idly in time to the song. It was too dark and there was too much distance for Din to make out his features, but the thick ginger hair was the same, and Din didn't come across many humans who were willing to wear a poncho.

Which begged the question: what was he doing here? Was it a coincidence? Was he after Din's bounty again?

Din was so wrapped up in his wondering that he almost missed the Weequay pirate enter the cantina, spot him immediately, and turn on her heel to leave. Din shot up from his seat to catch up to her, all thoughts of Poncho pushed out of his head by the task at hand.

He didn't see the green eyes that followed him with vague interest as he left.

The bounty hunter pursued the pirate through the moonlit alleys of the desert town, his visor easily identifying her deep footprints in the fine sand.

He had almost caught up with her on the outskirts, according to the heat signature readouts and the incessant beeping of the tracking fob. Din picked up his pace, drawing his pistol and checking its charges. Outside the main street, the town was silent at night—it would be a quick, clean disarming, and she'd be in carbonite before the sun rose.

Or, it would have been, if he hadn't darted around a corner and straight into a solid form. His helmet knocked against a higher chin. When Din instinctively grabbed the person he'd hit, his hands closed on pink fabric. Oh, for kriff's sake. 

"Ow! Watch where you're—" Poncho cut himself off with an oof as Din shoved him forcefully against the mud wall of the nearest house, blaster leveled at his chest.

"Hey! You ran in to me, my shiny-headed friend." Up this close, Din could see the heavy brow and full lips, as well as a generous smattering of facial scars, discolored by his visor's night vision. Poncho looked older than Din had first estimated—they were probably about the same age.

"Stop following me," Din snapped.

"I'm not following you!"

"Yes you are. You were on Kal'Shebbol, you stole my bounty. Now you're here."

"Coincidence! I don't know anything about you, man! Well, besides the fact that you're a Mandalorian bounty hunter. Because that's pretty obvious." Despite Poncho's indignant words, there was no fear in his eyes—that was a first among people Din had held at gunpoint. In fact, he seemed almost unnervingly tranquil.

Din considered. He couldn't imagine choosing to get between a bounty hunter and their prey just out of some misguided sense of righteousness. But people could be strange about such things.

"So, are you gonna let me go, or...?"

"Are you going to continue to get in my way? Maybe I should just kill you n—ouch!" Din felt the stab of an electric shock in his ankle. He looked down to see a small droid, a BD unit, trying to take another stab at his leg. Din kicked him aside. He didn't need to know binary to decipher the furious beep in his general direction as it righted itself.

"Don't kick BD! He's just trying to help! Are you okay, buddy?"

"Beep bwoo-op! Chrrp?" The droid gestured sharply at Din with an articulated foot.

"I know, I know. Don't worry, he won't hurt me."

"You don't know that," Din interjected evenly, prodding the other man's chest with the barrel of his blaster.

Poncho heaved an exaggerated sigh, then looked thoughtful for a moment, staring over Din's shoulder. "Your target's heading East towards the scrap yards. You can cut her off if you make a left after the third home on this row, head straight 'til you hit the vaporators."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Better hurry," Poncho replied with a small smile. Din released his fistful of poncho material and backed away slowly. After they turned their separate ways, Din glanced back to see the BD droid launch itself up and scuttle onto Poncho's shoulder, who reached up to delicately adjust the droid's antenna. 

-----

Miraculously, Din still found himself installing one pirate in carbonite before breakfast the next morning. Poncho's bizarre information had been good—he'd cut off the Weequay as she passed the vaporators. She'd put up a fight, but ultimately been no match for a Mandalorian.

As he began the Razor Crest's launch routine, he thought about the strange night he'd had. It occurred to him that Poncho, who'd handed Din his own shebs in hand-to-hand combat not that long ago, could easily have escaped when Din had trapped him. Maybe he'd been caught off guard, but the man seemed way too level-headed—let alone experienced, if the scars were anything to go by—to have been thrown off by such a straightforward attack. No, it was much more likely that he'd allowed himself to be caught.

If that was true, it raised far more questions than it answered. Din guided the Razor Crest out of Klatooine's upper atmosphere and began plotting his next course.

Chapter Text

Only a few weeks later, Din was sitting across from Greef Karga in the Guild's cantina, looking through the bounty pucks available for him. Karga was leaning back in his booth, looking down his nose at Din.

"You could always take some time off, Mando. You're one of my best—you pull in twice the credits of my next best hunter. Rest." The guild agent should have known him better than that by now—Din never stopped working.

"What's the highest bounty you have?" Karga chuckled. Din simply stared from behind the helmet, with a stillness that made his targets squirm, but he'd known Din too long to quail under the look.

"I don't know what I expected," he sighed. "Well, you're in luck. I was recently contacted by the Brood—apparently, they've decided that they need some help tracking down one of their more elusive debtors. The bounty is high, even by your—ah—exclusive standards."

"Just for a gambling debt? Seems like overkill."

Karga waved a hand dismissively. "They've never been able to let anything go. This one's been hiding from them for almost three decades, my perception is that it's more a matter of principle than the credits. Although the debt is substantial."

Din nodded shortly, and Karga got the message, pulling a small datapad from an interior pocket of his jacket and passing it to him.

"No puck. They gave me this to pass along to whoever took the job—pretty standard info—profile, known contacts, confirmed sightings from their sources. I'm sure you can figure it out from there."

"Thank you." Din stood to leave, and Karga dismissed him with a lazy salute.

On the way to the Tribe's covert, Din flipped through the information on the datapad. There was a lot of it—the Haxion Brood, in Din's limited experience, was nothing if not thorough. It did make him wonder how this debtor could have possibly escaped the Brood's formidable commandos for so long. They weren't Mandalorians, but they were competent.

Greez Dritus was the target's name. He was an ancient Latero, with white mutton chops and black eyes. Din was thinking that this would likely be the easiest job he'd ever taken when he scrolled a little further down and realized he'd made a terrible mistake.

Listed as the target's personal transportation was an S-161 XL named Stinger Mantis. Din never forgot a ship—the attached image confirmed that it was the same one he'd seen leaving Kal'Shebbol all those months ago. That was Poncho's ship.

Din stopped in his tracks. He could still turn back to the cantina. He could tell Greef Karga that something had come up, and that he'd have to foist the Brood on some other hapless soul.

But Din wasn't going to do that. It wasn't the way. He took the job, he was honor bound to finish it. At least he had some idea of what he was up against—he could be better prepared this time. Din sighed heavily, flicked off the datapad, and continued on to the covert.

-----

“You seem troubled.”

It wasn't a question. The Armorer had barely glanced up from the pauldron she was tempering. One consequence of growing up in a culture without faces—everyone was exceptionally good at reading body language. There was no hiding anything from his brothers and sisters in the Tribe, particularly the Armorer.

When Din didn't answer her immediately, she continued. “You will be due for new equipment soon.”

“Save it for the foundlings. My armor is fine.”

“The damage to your vambrace says otherwise.” Din looked down at his wrist. She wasn't wrong—the tarnished beskar, far from pure, was mostly decorative at that point. As the years passed, beskar only grew more scarce. Only his helmet was pure—the rest of his armor was a hodgepodge of alloys, masterfully crafted but impermanent in his line of work.

“Cui ogir'olar,” Din mumbled, but removed the vambrace and passed it to the Armorer, along with the majority of his earnings.

“Ori’jate. The Tribe thanks you.” She set to work immediately, preparing to reforge the piece.

After several minutes had passed in comfortable silence, Din cleared his throat.

“In my travels—my work—I keep meeting this man.” The Armorer stopped what she was doing and faced him.

“...Is that so?” She said, her voice strained. It took Din a moment to process her tone. His face began to heat up under his helmet and he jumped to correct her.

“Oh! No! Not...no. Not like th...no,” he finished lamely. The Armorer slowly turned back to her work, an almost inaudible huff—of laughter or exasperation, Din wasn't sure—escaping her.

“He undermined one of my jobs. And then I came across him again...I asked him if he was following me, and he denied it. Now, I believe he is connected to my next bounty. It just seems...improbable.”

“You believe this man lied to you?”

“Yes? No, I don't know. It's just, the odds—"

“There is more that ties the members of the galaxy together than bounties and misdeeds.” Din wasn't sure if that was helpful or not. The light of the furnace danced across the Armorer's golden helmet as she leaned towards it, intent on her craft.

“This vambrace will be complete within the hour. I'll include some new tools as well.” Din recognized the dismissal, bowed his head respectfully, and left the workshop.  

-----

The soft humming of the Mantis sliding through hyperspace guided Cal into the Force. He spent hours upon hours just like this, in deep meditation, listening.

He reached out—he felt the anchoring presence of Master Cere, in the galley with a stack of datapads and flimsi. He felt Greez's focus on his beloved ship's controls drifting back from the cockpit. He felt the twisting of the leaves in the planter as they bent towards their heat lamp. He heard the distant scratching of bogling claws on durasteel.

Cal missed Merrin's distinctive Force signature, but he understood that she had her own order to the rebuild.

Reaching further into the Force, Cal could sense the pull of the others—all of the Force sensitive children that were out there, needing help, all of the work they still had to do to rebuild the trust that the Empire had destroyed. When the Empire had been crippled after the Battle of Yavin, Cal had sensed the darkness receding, just like all the remaining Jedi had—but it was not gone, and no number of victories would bring back the loss of his people. Even without the Emperor hunting them down, the galaxy was not a safe place for people like Cal.

And on top of all that, the little insistent tug of awareness that the Force had plans for just for him as well.

Chapter Text

It took Din quite a while to sift through the veritable library of information in Dritus's file, and a bit longer to follow up on some of the more recent leads. The Stinger Mantis's movements over the past few standard years were utterly incomprehensible, even for someone who'd spent some time on the run. There was no pattern, no consistent point of interest—if Din didn't know any better, he'd say his target was another bounty hunter.

Din eventually caught up, as he always did. The luxury Latero ship stood out amongst the run-down ones that were common in the more remote systems, and the denizens of the port towns were always eager to talk about interesting newcomers, especially when credits were involved.

The Razor Crest coasted through the dense white clouds over the snow-covered forests of Carlac. There were no functioning spaceports out here, and only a small number of villages near the equator. Din's scans only picked up one other craft near the planet, not far ahead. He couldn't imagine what they'd be doing here of all places, but it wasn't his job to know.

Din was careful to keep his ship out of sight in the clouds. When it looked like he was directly above the Mantis, he dropped the Razor Crest below the clouds. Sure enough, the other ship—much larger, but not well armed or armored—was directly below him. It banked East and shot forward, but Din was ready for it.

It really was a beautiful ship, Din thought as he fired the laser cannons at its blue and white dorsal wing. The shots found their marks and the Mantis lurched off course, trailing smoke, before stabilizing slightly.

"Stinger Mantis. Please disarm your weapons system and prepare to land," Din called into the ship's comms.

A gravelly voice replied. "No can do. If you want money, you might as well move on, kid—I know the ship's fancy, but there ain't nothing on here but a few freaks and some ill-tempered plants."

"I'm here for Dritus. That's you, isn't it?" There was a wave of static and garbled voices in response. Din fired a volley of shots at the Mantis, which swerved neatly to avoid them. Oh, well—there was more where that came from.

"I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold."

"How 'bout you bring me in...not at all?" Dritus said with a chuckle. Din sighed and prepared to fire on the other ship again.

Then, several things happened in rapid succession. The Mantis came to a complete stop in the air, and the Razor Crest zipped past before Din could do anything about it. He yanked the flight sticks to the right to spin back around, but as he did so there was a sharp, teeth-rattling sound of grinding durasteel. Both engines stalled, and the ship began to lose altitude quickly. Din swore and attempted to control the descent, the cockpit eerily silent without the drone of the thrusters as the snow below got closer and closer. He barely registered the Mantis careening away towards Carlac's mountainous horizon.

The Razor Crest crashed into the forest, precipitating an eruption of ice and mud, snapping the trunks of red-leafed trees as it went. It was fortunate that he hadn't been far from the planet's surface—the worst of the damage would be from whatever the Mantis had done to his ship.

But, as Din observed when he left the cockpit to run diagnostics and take a look at the engines, nothing had been done to the ship at all. Aside from some scuffs from the trees he'd hit on the way down, it was in perfect condition, and when he started the launch cycle the engines roared to life without complaint.

Din sat back in his pilot's chair, baffled. He'd never seen anything like it. It was as if the engines had just stopped working, completely on their own. Even the most precise of weapons left some residual scoring. But there was nothing.

Some new kind of weapon, then? Or could it have been a fluke? The Razor Crest was hardly a new ship. Din continued to speculate as he left Carlac—he needed a new plan.

-----

Din knew that the damage he did to the Mantis, though minor, would need to be repaired before the ship could enter hyperspace. He scanned the port cities in and around Carlac's system, hunting. They wouldn't fall out of his grasp again, barring any more unforeseen acts of rebellion from his own ship.

He found the Stinger Mantis docked in a mechanic's landing pad on the fourth town he checked. This time, he gave the ship a wide birth and landed the Razor Crest in the plains just outside town. He approached on foot, the Amban and a backup pistol in tow.

The town was busy—it was early morning, but there seemed to be some sort of festival in full swing. Locals flooded the plazas, laughing and dancing, and the stone streets were littered with streamers of every color. Din walked along the fringes of the festivities towards the Mantis, grateful for the distraction.

When he was in sight of the mechanic's shop, he climbed a trellis to the roof of one of the taller houses. From up there, he could watch the ship—and, hopefully, be able to strike without anyone around to interfere. For a long time, there was no movement at all save for the skittering of the pit droids as they worked on the ship.

At midday, Din's patience was rewarded. He saw movement on the Mantis's entry ramp, and though his magnification eyepiece he could see two figures leaving the ship. One was unfamiliar to him—an older woman in unusual earth-toned robes, with dark skin and graying hair. The other was, unfortunately, quite familiar. The red haired man was wearing yet another Poncho—this one was black, with yellow sleeves. How many Ponchos could one legally own? Surely there had to be a limit. Poncho's little droid clung to his back, folded up like some a strange strapless bag.

The pair strode away from the ship and Din's position, their heads bent together conspiratorially. A scan of the Mantis yielded only one heat signature in the ship's cockpit. He had to hurry—it was unlikely that they'd leave their companion alone for long.

-----

If Cal had been flexible enough, he would have kicked himself. He'd known it was a bad idea to leave Greez alone immediately after the incident on Carlac, despite his old friend's gruff reassurances, but he'd done it anyway. He'd overestimated his senses, and vastly underestimated the Mandalorian's tracking abilities.

He and Cere had returned to the Mantis not five minutes after they left for supplies to an empty ship. Cal rested a hand on the arm of Greez's chair, sensing the tang of an unwelcome surprise and the cool, neutral presence of the Mandalorian still lingering in the Force.

Cere bustled into the cockpit, severing his connection to the memory. "If we move quickly, we might be able to cut them off before they leave the planet," she said as she slid into the pilot's chair. Cal nodded and hastily took his own seat.

It didn't take them long to track down the Mandalorian's gunship, which was preparing to take off. The Razor Crest was a distinctive, dated model, though in impressively good condition for a pre-Imperial craft.

Cere's dark eyes found his, and Cal knew she was thinking the same thing he was. They couldn't attack the other ship with Greez inside, not like they had on Carlac, when Cal had used the Force to disable the other ship's engines—too precise, too risky. Their only hope was that the Mandalorian would be willing to negotiate...something. Cal thought hard, desperately reaching for the limited amount of information he had about the Mandalorian people.

Meanwhile, Cere flew in low above the Razor Crest, close enough to keep the other ship grounded. The comms lit up with an incoming transmission, and Cal opened the channel.

"Move your ship, please, before I make you."  The Mandalorian's voice sounded almost robotic between the layers of his vocoder and the comms.

"Not until you release our friend," Cere replied.

"This doesn't have to end badly. I'm only doing my job, it's nothing personal."

"It is for us!"

"Maybe your friend should have thought about that before he accrued so much debt."

Cal pushed past Cere to half-shout into the comms. "Those debts predate the New Republic and the Empire—if you work for the Haxion Brood, you know they don't care about the money, they want to make an example of him. It's not about justice, or honor!"

"That's not my problem," was the unconcerned reply, and the Mantis's scanners picked up the Razor Crest's weapons charging. Kriff, that was it. Cal should have known it was hopeless to try to talk a Mandalorian out of doing whatever they'd been hired to do, unless they had something that was even more important...oh, wait.

Cal sprang upright and bolted from the cockpit.

“Where are you going?” Cere hissed at him.

“Just—one minute!” Cal called over his shoulder. He ran back through the galley and his quarters, to his workbench.

In all his years traveling across the galaxy, Cal had accumulated many objects of interest. Most of it was tech that he used to tinker with his saber or passed off to Greez for the Mantis, but he found artifacts as well—real, leather-bound books; carved figures, ancient and forgotten; fragments of destroyed Jedi temples, still charged by their connection to the Force.

One object—or, set of objects—Cal thought might be of interest to a Mandalorian. He hoped he was right. He rummaged through his chest of stuff until he found them, wrapped in old, ragged cloth, which he unrolled across to his workbench.

They were blades. A whole set of them, in various sizes, finely crafted and wickedly sharp. More importantly, they were made of pure beskar. Mandalorian iron was one of the strongest materials in the galaxy—not even his lightsaber could pass through it easily, nor did it rust or tarnish with age. It was also as rare—almost as rare as the Mandalorian people themselves these days. Even the small amount used to forge the knives was likely worth ten times whatever Greez was to the Brood.

Cal wrapped up the knives and returned to the cockpit just in time to see the Razor Crest start to lift from the ground. He whacked the control panel to reopen the comms.

“Wait! Uh, ke’pare!” It may have been wishful thinking, but the ship seemed to slow down slightly at Cal's (probably butchered) Mando'a. It was enough to encourage him. “We have something of yours! Something that belongs to your people.”

“I'm listening.”

“Pure beskar. Probably...eight hundred, nine hundred grams? A set of blades. I offer an exchange—the whole set for our friend."

"What's stopping me from blowing your ship out of the sky and taking both?"

"Only your honor," Cal hazarded. Silence. "I'll throw in a favor, too. Redeemable whenever the need arises," he added as an afterthought, ignoring Cere's vigorously shaking head.

For a long time, there was nothing but static. Cal's hand closed on the hilt of his lightsaber, not because it would be very helpful in this situation, but simply for the comfort of its weight in his hand. He heard the soothing clicks of BD-1's joints as the droid peered over Cal's shoulder.

The Razor Crest sank back to the ground and its engines dimmed.

"Very well." Cal released the breath he'd been holding.

"BD-1 can bring you—"

"No droids, please."

Perhaps that was for the best. Cal wouldn't have put it past BD-1 to try to pull some shenanigans, considering his droid's last encounter with the Mandalorian.

The exchange was conducted without fanfare. The Mandalorian waited, still as a statue, for Cal to drop the beskar blades at the foot of the Razor Crest’s boarding ramp and back away to Cere and the Mantis. Then the bounty hunter moved aside, releasing a disgruntled but otherwise unharmed Greez from the bowels of his ship with the slightest of nods and moving to collect his payment.

“Creepy, creepy dude. It's something about the eyes,” Greez muttered to them as Cal undid the cuffs on all four of his arms.

“You saw his eyes?”

“No, but I know they're in there ” Greez shivered. Cal thought he had a point, when the pitch black t-visor of the Mandalorian’s helmet locked on to him as the ramp of the Razor Crest closed once more, with a hiss of hydraulics.

"I can't believe you offered our services to a Mandalorian bounty hunter," Cere grumbled to him as they all piled back onto the Mantis.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

"He could ask us for anything! And we aren't as disconnected as we once were, Cal—we know things, the Order—" Cal put a reassuring hand on his former Master's shoulder.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. It was my promise, I'll handle it."

"I trust you." Cal smiled, the weight of her oft-tested faith not lost on him. Cal couldn't bring himself to be too worried. They were together, after all, and there was work to be done.

"Yeah—thanks, kid." Greez said as he passed Cal to get to the cockpit.

Without warning, a powerful impact shook the Mantis, and Cal stumbled gracelessly into the wall. BD-1 let out a shrill chirp of alarm and Cal felt the droid's feet clasp tighter onto the back of his poncho.

"What the hell?" For a second, Cal thought the Mandalorian had come back to finish his job after all. But once he regained his balance and got to a viewport, he saw another, unfamiliar ship preparing to fire on them once again. The Brood, ever thorough, must have sent multiple hunters for Greez after all.

"Greez, get us out of here!"

"What'd'ya think I'm trying to do over here, make Jawa juice?" He shouted back.

Another blast rocked the ship, and the Mantis's internal systems started to wail plaintively. They couldn't take another hit like that—and they were about to, as Cal could tell from the way the gunship's laser cannons were beginning to charge—

And then, the gunship exploded in a cloud of fire and smoke.

"Nice shot?" Cal called to Greez in the cockpit.

"Wasn't me—that Mando must be keen on that undefined future favor."

Sure enough, Cal spotted the Razor Crest swerve around the descending fireball of ex-gunship and fly away, up into the atmosphere. Fascinating. Either Greez was right, and the Mandalorian foresaw a future use for them in exchange for their friend's life, or he was very, very territorial about his bounties.

Whatever the reason, Cal was grateful.

Cere sighed heavily and flung her robe down on the table in the galley. "Let's just get off this planet before anyone else decides it's time for us to die."

Chapter Text

To say that Din had miscalculated was something of an understatement.

His desire to take on targets who were more worthy of his time than bail jumpers had finally come back to bite him. The target was dead—had been long before Din got to them, as a matter of fact, killed by the same pirate gang that was currently chasing him through the "abandoned" factory in the middle of nowhere.

Din shot a pirate straight though the chest, and spun to throw an elbow in another's face. He willfully ignored the throbbing pain of the blaster wound to his stomach as he rolled out of the way of more shots, only to watch as more pirates seemed to pour out from every corner. He took down two, only for four more to appear.

As the wall of pirates closed in around Din, it began to dawn on him that he probably wasn't going to make it out of this one alive—a notion reinforced by the thermal detonator rolling toward him, an avalanche of light and sound and pain, and the dirt floor which was suddenly much closer to his face than it had been just seconds ago...

There was a minute of blackness, then Din started to regain his senses one at a time. Vision led the way, though everything was blurry and his visor was slightly askew. The shadows around him were shifting strangely.

No one seemed to be bothering to finish him off, which didn't make sense. That's what he'd do, if he were a pirate. A vibroblade to the neck, a shot to the back of the head. Din wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.

A deafening ringing heralded the return of sound. There was shouting in Huttese, but it seemed quite far away. Din tried to sit up, but his body wouldn't cooperate. He felt...damp. Oh. he was covered in blood. A lot of blood.

Dizzy, body singing with pain, Din slumped back into the dirt. His eyes were drifting closed once again, whether he wanted them to or not. Just before they shut completely, he thought he saw thin strips of cyan light dancing through the smoke around him, and shadows falling one by one.

-----

When Din woke up, he was in some sort of cot and everything hurt. He could, thankfully, feel the usual weight of his helmet on his head and most of his armor, although his breastplate seemed to have been replaced by something cold and pointy that he could feel through his flight suit.

He cracked an eye open experimentally and nearly jumped out of his skin when he found himself staring directly into the shiny black ocular lenses of a droid, which seemed to be trying to get a look through his t-visor. Din tried to push the droid off his chest, but as he moved the pain in his abdomen and shoulder grew exponentially and all he managed was a twitch and a somewhat pitiful groan.

"BD, that's not very polite! I apologize, he's very curious—he doesn't mean anything by it."

The droid beeped and scrambled off Din's chest, and he turned his head to see Poncho sitting at a small table nearby. He seemed to be doing something to Din's breastplate. His defining garment was a dusty red this time, with some vertical yellow and white stripes. His ginger hair was falling forward into his face as he worked.

How was it that of all the people in the galaxy, this was the person he couldn't seem to shake off? Din wondered, for a moment, whether he should be worried for his life. The last time they'd met, they'd made a pact in Din's favor. But it would have been much easier for the other man to leave Din for dead, and here he was, safely...somewhere else.

"Where am I?"

"An inn, just outside the closest settlement we could find. We're a several klicks west of the site of your misadventure."

Din's brain finally caught up with what he was watching. He felt a sudden wave of panic, and he raised his head as much as he could, trying to push through the black spots that appeared in his vision. "What are you doing to my armor?"

"I'm fixing it, obviously."

Din slumped back. He didn't know. How would he know? Mandalorians were very private people, and their traditional ways were steeped in mystery to outsiders. Poncho had no way of knowing the cultural implications of doing anything at all to a Mandalorian's armor, and Din was absolutely not going to be the one to tell him.

"Why?"

"Well, I owe you at least two favors. What were you thinking, anyway? Taking on all those pirates by yourself—oh, what's that saying—all helmet, no head?"

"Ori'buyce, kih'kovid," Din translated automatically, mostly to himself. He felt like his brain was in another system. "So...you're saying we're even now?"

"Nah, I can't take the credit for this one. BD-1 and his stims did all the hard work." Ah, so that explained the grogginess. Stims could keep you alive in a pinch, but the side effects could be unpleasant. The droid in question cocked its head in Din's direction expectantly, as though expecting praise.

"You really should be in a bacta tank," Poncho continued. "But barring a visit to a medical outpost, my professional opinion is that you should avoid being shot at or any other forms of exercise for at least a couple weeks."

"I have very little control over that."

There was no reply, but Poncho's intense gaze flickered from the breastplate to Din, an amused smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Din abruptly felt very uncomfortable with the lull in conversation. "But thank you. This was unnecessary. I can reimburse you for the stims and the bandages."

Poncho shrugged and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind his ear. "It's nothing. I've got a healthy—no pun intended—stash of medical supplies."

They sat in silence for a while, Din keeping and eye on Poncho out of his peripheral vision. If the other man noticed, he gave no sign of it—he continued to put the final finishing touches on the breastplate, occasionally humming a few notes of some song Din didn't recognize. Eventually, his aches and exhaustion pulled him back into a doze.

-----

Many hours later, Din rose again to find the room empty. His injuries seemed to be healing up well—and also surprisingly fast. The blaster wound in particular looked like it was a week old, rather than a day and a half. Must've been some powerful meds in those bandages.

His repaired breastplate was propped up in the chair Poncho had been sitting in, and a small note was resting on the table. It had a crude drawing of what looked like the man's droid, BD-1, and a line of untidy writing:

Room paid for one standard day cycle. Get well soon. - CK

CK. His mind was bombarded with common human names that started with the letter C before he could swat them away. Conor, Cain, Caleb, Cody, Carter...

Din turned the note over in his hand a few times before sliding it into his pocket.

When he went to put on his breastplate, he found it in better condition than it had been even before its untimely encounter with a thermal detonator. Din sighed heavily. That was going to be an interesting conversation with the Armorer.

-----

Cal returned to the Mantis two days later than he'd said he would, tired but feeling unaccountably accomplished. Cere was waiting at the top of the entry ramp with her hands on her hips.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Thanks for the warm welcome, yes, I'm glad I'm back too." Cal grinned and walked right past her reproachful stare onto the ship. Despite it having been many years since Cal was young enough to be scolded by his Master, Cere never let go of her parental attitude towards him. Neither did Greez, for that matter. "Something came up, it's all fine."

The raised eyebrow told him that no, he was not going to be able to brush this one off without an explanation.

"I ran into a friend of ours. The Mandalorian." Cere's other eyebrow joined the first, but she restrained herself from interjecting. "I say I ran into him...I felt his pain through the Force—though I didn't know it was his at the time. It was nearby, so I went to take a look. He was almost dead when I found him—did you know there's a whole nest of pirates here? I didn't. So I dealt with the pirates, BD and I patched him up and took him to an inn. I was worried he might not make it, so I stayed and fixed up his armor, 'cause it was—"

"You fixed his armor?" Cere cut in, eyes wide.

"Well, yeah—it's not pure beskar, when the detonator went off, it got kinda mangled."

"And he let you fix it?"

"I mean, he was unconscious...but..." Cal felt like he was missing something. The Mandalorian hadn't seemed that concerned about him fixing the breastplate, but he'd also had about twelve stim injections in his system.

"Did I do something wrong? I know armor is important to them, I didn't take off his helmet or anything."

There was a war between exasperation and humor taking place on Cere's face. "That's true, but that's not all of it. You know their armor is sacred, but it also fulfills a number of important social roles. Armor is exchanged during marriage ceremonies. Sets are reforged and passed down for generations."

Cal was starting to see where this was going, and he tried to fight the blush creeping up his neck.

"The forging, fixing, and painting of armor is reserved for leaders of tribes and clans—or close family members. Either a parent or, well—a spouse." Cere finished almost apologetically.

Cal closed his eyes and hung his head slightly. "Ah. Kark. I didn't...know that."

He'd saved the Mandalorian's life, but somehow still managed to screw up. He didn't know him well, of course, but the Mandalorian seemed to be a very private person, to whom honor and dignity were important. And Cal had trampled all over that. He prided himself on being sensitive—as a Jedi, and as a member of the galaxy. But he hadn't known enough to avoid making an ass of himself and...violating someone's boundaries.

Cere, as always, seemed to know where Cal's mind had gone with that information. She patted his shoulder lightly. "I'm no expert, that's just what I've heard—it's not common knowledge. I'm sure he understood you meant well."

"Yeah...yeah, sure." He still felt awful. "Thanks for telling me. And, uh, trying to make me feel better about it."

Cere nodded and strode over to the navicomputer.

"Cultural faux pas aside, we have to check up on another Force-sensitive. Should be pretty routine. We're heading to Mon Cala." Cal exhaled, thankful that at least the uncomfortable part of the conversation was over.

 "And, please, Cal—send a comm next time you plan on being more than a day late on one of your scouting assignments, it takes half a second and it'll stop Greez from anxiously over-watering the plants."

Chapter Text

Five standard months after Din's near-death experience, he received a holo from one of his few non-Guild contacts, Ranzar Malk, about a high-paying job. He set a course for the Roost and got to work cleaning his blasters. If this was going to be anything like the other jobs he'd run with Ran, he'd need all of his equipment fully functional.

When he arrived, the space station was unusually busy. There were already two other ships in the hangar—a tricked out shuttle that belonged to the twins and an unfamiliar single pilot starfighter that looked like it might fall apart any second.

"Mando!" Ran shouted from across the hangar once Din had disembarked the Razor Crest. He jogged over to Din, a jolly grin on his round face. He was grayer than Din remembered, though he supposed it had been a few years since they'd worked with each other directly.

Ran clasped Din's gloved hand in both of his larger ones and shook it firmly. "It's good to see you again."

"And you."

"Guild been keepin' you busy?"

"Never busy enough." Ran chuckled.

"Well, then, I hope we'll be able to entertain ya."

They walked to the back end of the docking bay, where there was an old holotable nearly obscured by dozens of crates containing, undoubtedly, a vast quantity of explosives and weaponry.

Ran flicked on a projection of Alzoc III, then zoomed in on an old Imperial mining facility high in the mountains. It was a wreck; the structure had been split right down the middle, and the eastern wing was partially caved in.

"It looks abandoned," Din commented.

"It ain't. The place is swarmin' with Imps. Who knows what they're still up to out there—not my problem. But rumor has it that they've got some incredibly valuable livestock that they're holding deep in the facility."

"Livestock?" Ran nodded.

"Baby shyyyo bird, straight from Kashyyyk. I dunno what they want with it—sell it, experiment on it, cook it and eat it—but the damn thing's so rare, just one feather could buy a whole-ass ship. And we're gonna be the ones that get the profits."

It seemed like a straightforward job, and Din almost never passed up the chance to kill off a few more stormtroopers.

"When do we leave?"

"That's the spirit. I'll walk you through the details once you see the rest of the crew. Xi'an's been just dying to get her hands on you."

-----

Ran hadn't been wrong. As soon as the purple-skinned Twi'lek spotted Din, she'd squealed with glee, flung her arms around his neck, and planted a kiss on his helmet.  

Din rested a hand on her side, neither pulling away nor encouraging the attention—he knew her flirting was meant to unsettle him, even if she did genuinely like him. It was just how mercenaries communicated; they prodded and poked at each other, a constant game to see who'd break first, who had the thickest skin. Din often found that the best way to win was simply not to play.

"Hello, Xi'an. How are you?"

"'How are you?'" She giggled, mimicking Din's voice. "Always polite. So cute. Isn't he just the cutest, Qin?" She twisted in Din's arms to look at her twin brother behind her.

"Adorable," Qin agreed with a smile that was really more of a snarl.

"Well, you know the twins already—and here's Glek," Ran introduced a bulky Trandoshan, who blinked at him in greeting.

"Is that all?" Din asked. It was a small crew for a job like this, but he'd known Ran and the twins long enough that he had no doubts about their ability to take on even a whole base full of Imps.

"We've got one more—ah, there he is. This is my new friend Jaro Tapal, he's helped me out of a few spots. Real good with stealth ops, and his droid can get through any security system in the galaxy..."

Ran continued to say things that may have been important, but Din was completely distracted by the fact that none other than Poncho had appeared at Ran's side. He smiled at Din and offered him a small wave, which Din found himself reaching around Xi'an (who was still wrapped around his neck like an unusually affectionate vine snake) to mirror automatically. The man's poncho was navy and dark brown today.

Perhaps sensing that something was going on that he didn't know about, Ran cleared his throat. "You two know each other?"

"No," Din denied firmly, before Poncho—Tapal, he supposed, though Din doubted that was his real name—could say otherwise. He had no interest in explaining the circumstances of their last four meetings.

"Well, then—" Ran clapped his hands and beamed at them all. "Let's get to it, shall we?"

-----

It was a short ride to Alzoc III, and Din spent most of it sequestered in the cockpit, having made something up about the autopilot misbehaving so he had an excuse to leave the rest of the crew in the Razor Crest's hold. He fiddled unnecessarily with the internal systems, just to have something to do with his hands.

He didn't know what to make of any of it. Unless Poncho had lied about his initials on the note he'd left Din—which he had no reason to do, really—he was here under an assumed name. That wasn't unusual in this line of work, but it did beg the question of why he'd choose to give Din his real initials, when giving one's name to a bounty hunter was just as dangerous as giving it to a crew of mercenaries.

Unless, hypothetically, one planned on double-crossing the aforementioned mercenaries in the near future.

Or maybe Din was overthinking all of it. There was something strangely compelling about Poncho-Tapal-whatever, beyond the fact that he seemed to be everywhere, and Din wasn't used to paying any mind to people who weren't an immediate hazard to his health. Or didn't seem to be, anyway.

His musings were interrupted by Xi'an's entrance into the cockpit. He gave no sign that he'd heard her, and resisted the urge to kick her out when she slid into the copilot's chair and put her feet up on a control panel. One of her knives spun in her hand, deadly sharp.

"I'm bored, Mando. Are we there yet?"

Din glanced at the navicomputer readouts. "Twelve minutes, fifty-three seconds." She threw her knife in the air and caught it neatly between two slender fingers.

"What do you think of Tapal? He's almost as weird as you are."

"How so?"

"I dunno, just funny vibes. He's down there playing with that droid like it's a pet tooka."

"I'm sure he'll do his job. We all just want the payout."

Xi'an sighed put her feet down, and before Din could figure a graceful way out of the situation she'd moved to perch in his lap, her side pressed against his breastplate and her legs between his.

"You know what I want?" She whispered, her lips close enough for her breath to fog up the bottom of his t-visor. It took all of Din's willpower not to lean away, not to show vulnerability. Maybe he could have wanted this, once, but...

"I—"

"Chirrrp? Beep bop."

Din stood automatically at the sound, pushing Xi'an off, and the Twi'lek slunk away from him. Poncho's droid was standing in the doorway, rectangular head tilted inquisitively.

Xi'an giggled. "Last time I saw a droid enter this cockpit, it got vaporized instantly." The droid recoiled slightly, and Xi'an's giggling intensified.

Maybe he was just grateful for the timely intrusion, but Din found himself feeling vaguely guilty.

"Do you need something?" The droid scuttled forward tentatively and then released a lightning fast series of beeps and chirps.

"Uh, well—I don't know what that means. Um..."

He fought down his more territorial impulses when the droid, ignorant of his internal dilemma, clambered up onto the dashboard and began perusing the different panels. After a few moments of furious investigation, scanning and chirping quietly, it hopped an impressive distance down from the power allocation levers into the copilot's chair and folded itself up, content.

Had it just been curious about his ship? Pre-imperial ships were rare, and the Razor Crest was unique beyond its age. If that was the case, he didn't blame the thing. Din thought his ship was pretty interesting too.

Din heard a huff and looked up to see Xi'an's face twisted into a scowl. "What's so special about it? I'm not even allowed to touch anything up here."

"Please go down and tell everyone we'll be landing soon."

-----

In the middle of the night, Alzoc III appeared even more icy and inhospitable than it had on the holoprojector. Din snuck the Razor Crest in close, hugging the mountain bluffs to decrease the chances of detection, then landed on the far side of the building's collapsed half.

At this high altitude, the air was thin. Din was grateful for his thick cape and the thermal systems in his armor that kept his face and body from going numb, but before long the joints in his fingers and less-armored legs began to ache. There was a reason he'd only ever spent time on warmer planets.

The crew picked their way in silence through the darkened ruins. Din's night vision revealed the frozen bodies of stormtroopers, still in their dirty armor, pinned under fallen debris. Little rodent-like creatures fled under broken holotables and consoles at the sound of their footsteps.

There was a sickening crunch of bone, and Din turned to see Glek holding a fallen trooper's helmet, the skull that had been inside it crushed under his large, leathery foot. He tossed the helmet away with a clatter, and Xi'an hissed at him to be quiet.

Finally, they came to the opposite side of the building, which ended abruptly in a sheer cliff face that seemed to extend downward for miles. Din could see the lights of the still-functioning part of the facility on the other side. Spanning the gap, there were only the sparse remains of bent durasteel floor beams and torn walls that would have once reached across the chasm—nothing even remotely close to a bridge remained now.

"There's a plasma bridge that extends to the back entrance. Just gotta activate it from the other side," Ran explained when Din and the others stared blankly at him for direction.

"How the karking hell are we meant to do that?" Qin asked incredulously.

"We aren't doing anything." Ran looked to Poncho. "Go on, then."

Din failed to suppress the flinch of alarm that tore through him as, without further discussion, the man took a few steps back then leapt off the cliff. But, rather than falling to his death as Din had been certain he would, the wind seemed to push him further, as though the man weighed nothing at all. He landed in a crouch for a split-second on one of the remaining beams before springing off again towards the next with a graceful flip, then the next. When he came to one of the walls, he ran along it just as gracefully as he would have if it were the floor.

He must have magnetic shoes, or something. Yeah. That had to be it.

Din couldn't see what was happening, Poncho having vanished into the night, but after a moment a pale, semi-transparent plasma bridge hummed to life.

"Told you he'd come in handy." Ran chuckled, leading the way across the bridge. Din didn't mind heights normally, but he still resisted the temptation to look down at his his feet and the abyss below.

"Thanks, Poncho," Din said lowly once they were on the other side, eliciting an aborted laugh from the other man.

"Poncho?"

"You heard me." He pointedly did not glance back as he passed, knowing he'd see that warm smile again and unaccountably reluctant to be its recipient.

"Aren't you just a little monkey-lizard," Xi'an added snarkily, jostling Poncho's shoulder roughly as she followed Din through the blast doors and into the building.

Chapter Text

In contrast to its derelict and dark surroundings, the inside of the old mining facility was brightly lit and clean—and heavily guarded, as Cal had known it would be. Every second they spent in the old mining facility made him more anxious to leave, and more certain that this plan of his was going to go off the rails.

It had been a stroke of luck that Cal had found out the Imperials on Alzoc III and the Shyyyo bird fledgling they'd been holding there for Force-knows-what reason. In his defense, he'd tried to do the responsible thing; he'd contacted his fellow Jedi and the New Republic authorities with his concerns. Unfortunately, everyone had their hands (or hand-like appendages) filled by other obligations, and Cal was physically incapable of turning a blind eye.

He'd known that he would need help—hence his "coincidental" meeting of notable smuggler and mercenary wrangler Ranzar Malk—but he hadn't expected to end up in the middle of an operation like this, nor find himself face-to-face with the Mandalorian once again. Now, he was going to have to extract the bird from both the remains of the Empire and Ranzar Malk's formidable crew.

Cal looked on as another pair of guards were dispatched in silence by Xi'an's throwing knives, tossed with precision at the stormtroopers' vulnerable necks. He hung back from the occasional bursts of violence, avoiding the temptation of using his lightsaber in this less-than-ideal company. Not that they needed the help anyway.

"This way," Ran gestured to the left and led them deeper into the structure.

-----

The Shyyyo bird was being held in an old storeroom for whatever the Imperials had been mining down there, as evidenced by the thin coat of mineral dust coating everything. When BD-1 had gotten the door open, Cal had to quash the noise of distress that rose up in his throat—the bird was chained to the floor, grubby and unhappy. In contrast to the massive beast that Cal had befriended on Kashyyyk, this fledgling's head barely reached his chest, and its beautiful white feathers were patchy and disheveled.  

Cal approached slowly, reaching out through the Force to meet the bird's fear with calm and peace. It leaned out to him, its horned, vaguely reptilian head angled to examine him with a beady red eye. With a surreptitious wave of his hand, the chains on the bird's ankles cracked and fell away.

"Doesn't look like much," Cal heard Xi'an complain behind him.

"Doesn't have to, as long as we get paid for it," her brother replied. Cal scratched the underside of the bird's pointy chin and it took a few more steps forward, trilling softly. He gradually became aware that he was being observed, and Cal turned to see the Mandalorian close behind him, watching him and the bird.

"When he grows up, he'll be twice the length of your ship." The Mandalorian's helmet cocked to the side just slightly, not unlike a curious bird himself. "They're sacred, you know. On Kashyyyk. I met one once—it saved my life."

"I think this one likes you too." Cal smiled.

"Alright, alright, let's go." Ran shoved Cal aside and herded the disgruntled bird unceremoniously into its transportation crate, which sat open nearby.

At that moment, the facility's intruder alarm came to life. Ran and Qin pushed the crate out of the cell and started back the way they came. It was slow going, and before long the guards caught up with them. Glek, Xi'an, and the Mandalorian dealt with the stormtroopers as they appeared, but for every one they took down, more seemed to appear.

They managed to shake off the bulk of the guards after several minutes of scrambling. The crew piled into a maintenance passageway and BD-1 sealed the door against the screech of the alarms, buying them a few moments while the troopers gathered their reinforcements.

"We're not gonna be able to get out of here with this stupid thing in one piece. Let's just kill it and take the valuable parts—we'll be out of here in a quarter of the time. It'll still be worth a ton," Qin proposed. Sithspit. This was going downhill a lot faster than Cal had thought it would.

"That's not what we agreed to," the Mandalorian cut in evenly.

"You might be right," Ran nodded at Qin, reloading the charges on his blaster, and Cal felt dread settle in his chest. "Don't worry, Mando, you'll still get your cut."

"It's worth more alive," Cal interjected hopefully.

"Yeah, but that only matters if we get out alive," Qin sneered. Ran sighed.

"Well, better make a choice fast. Are we in agreement?"

There was a general nod of assent, though the Mandalorian's helmet was still. The Trandoshan drew a pistol and a hunting knife from his belt.

Part of being a Jedi was knowing when to take a leap of faith. It was something that Cal had struggled with in his youth—he'd had the instincts, but trusting them? That was something else entirely.

His logical brain told him that taking a risk and hoping a bounty hunter would betray his crew (including his banthashit crazy knife-throwing girlfriend) and sacrifice enough money to buy the weight of his arm in beskar was an absolutely terrible idea. There was nothing practical to be gained from returning an endangered species to its home planet, not for someone who killed for living.

His gut told him the exact opposite—that this Mandalorian, who'd ultimately spared the lives of two innocent people against his Creed, who'd been patient with Cal's ignorance about his culture, who'd offered to pay him back for something as trivial as bandages, might be someone that Cal could count on to do the right thing even if it was inconvenient for him.

So Cal followed his instincts.

"Sorry. We're not killing the bird," Cal asserted firmly, pivoting to stand between the Shyyyo bird's crate and the rest of the crew. He shot a meaningful glance to the Mandalorian, wishing he was good enough at Force telepathy to broadcast a vehement "HELP ME" into the beskar-covered head.

"Excuse me?" Ran turned to him. "I don't remember putting you in charge here. Glek, kill them both and we'll be on our way."

The Trandoshan raised his pistol and Cal's hand went for his saber—but he didn't need it. The Mandalorian, quick on the draw, shot Glek twice in the chest and the Trandoshan fell in a heap.

Knowing that they only had a split-second advantage, Cal lunged for Ran, and he grappled with the shorter man briefly before he managed to knock him out with a hard elbow to Ran's chin. By the time he looked up, the Twi'lek twins were down as well, the Mandalorian standing over them.

"Are they dead?"

"No." The sound of running footsteps and voices heralded the arrival of the reinforcements trying to bypass BD-1's override on the door. "But we need to move." Cal nodded and knelt by the crate, disengaging the locks and opening it.

"What are you doing?"

"Even a baby Shyyyo bird can fly over a hundred kilometers an hour; don't worry, he'll stay with us. Come on, little guy." The bird eyed him piercingly from behind its horns, then flapped out of the crate awkwardly, wings clumsy from disuse. Cal reached for its mind, pressing comfort towards it, a promise of safety—but urgency as well. It gave Cal a light squawk.

The door began to open and the three of them took off down the hallway, the Mandalorian firing the occasional shot behind them. The bird kept pace just above Cal's head, its slender white feathers beating air against Cal's cheek.

They were almost to the door they'd come in from—Cal could see it, it was just around the corner—when they were cut off by just over a half dozen troopers, blasters at the ready. The Mandalorian didn't hesitate. He pushed ahead of Cal and pressed a button on one of his vambraces. A great spout of fire plumed out from his wrist, causing the troopers to scatter.

"Get your droid to the door; I'll deal with them." Cal darted through the chaos, glancing back to watch the show.

Cal had known since they first met that the Mandalorian was a capable warrior, but that didn't fully prepare him for the bounty hunter's display of murderous skill. His style was concise, defensive, but brutal—as Cal watched, the Mandalorian rammed his head so hard into a trooper's helmet that it shattered like glass. He knew where the strongest parts of his armor were, and used them to block blaster fire with almost Jedi-like accuracy, barely flinching with the impact.

He wondered absently if the Mandalorian could be convinced to spar with him. No Force, no weapons, just hand-to-hand. Cal had confidence in his abilities, but he suspected it would be a good challenge nonetheless. He'd caught the other man off guard on Kal'Shebbol—a fair fight would likely have much more interesting results...

"Something wrong?" The bounty hunter was standing by the open door, clearly waiting for him to go through. Cal shook himself mentally.

"Nope, not at all."

They made it outside and across the plasma bridge, which the Mandalorian disabled with a couple shots to one of the emitters. The young Shyyyo bird swooped in a wide loop before returning to them, clearly pleased to feel the outside air under its wings after so long in captivity. Cal didn't let himself relax until they were back on the Razor Crest, breaking out of the atmosphere of Alzoc III at maximum speed.

Chapter Text

It took just over a week to travel from Alzoc III to Kashyyyk. Not wanting to put the other man out for so long, Cal offered to take the bird some of the way on his own, but the Mandalorian simply assured him that it wasn't any trouble and said nothing more on the matter.

They began their journey with all four of them settled in the cockpit of the Razor Crest. Once the navicomputer was set and they were sure they hadn't been followed, Cal sat back in the copilot's chair and attempted to meditate, but the whirring of the ship and the blue-white swirl of hyperspace lulled him to sleep within minutes.

He woke up an hour later, disoriented, to the sound of the Mandalorian's low voice.

"...Those are settings for the carbonite freezing chamber in the hold. Most ships this size don't have one. I had it installed. Careful, don't step on that..." Cal cracked an eye just enough to see that the other man was out of his chair, kneeling by a jumble of levers and wires under the flight console. BD-1 was trotting around him, chirping happily as the Mandalorian showed him different modifications he'd made to his ship. Cal bit back a grin and gradually fell back into a doze.

When Cal woke again, he felt much more rested. He rubbed at his sore neck—that's what he got for falling asleep slumped in a chair—and sat up stiffly.

The Mandalorian wasn't in the cockpit. BD-1 was folded up in Cal's lap, recharging, and the Shyyyo bird was asleep with its head tucked under its wing right behind his chair, a bowl of water on the floor near it. There was a nutrient bar resting by his head that hadn't been there before, and Cal tore into it eagerly. He hadn't eaten much, by his standards, since he'd left the Mantis three days ago.

He should probably call Cere, but the thought of her ire in response to the situation he'd landed himself in dissuaded him from pursuing that. He'd call her from Kashyyyk. Cal hoped that his contacts on the planet remembered him, otherwise his arrival in a pre-Imperial craft with a bounty hunter might arise some attention, if not outright suspicion.

Carefully, he lifted BD-1 from his lap and placed him in him in the chair, then left the cockpit and slid down the ladder into the hold.

The Razor Crest was immaculately clean and maintained, but sparsely furnished, as Cal had noticed before. The closest things to personal effects in clear view were the bounties frozen in carbonite, which never failed to send a chill down Cal's spine. The Mandalorian himself sat cross-legged on the floor, doing some rewiring behind a wall panel, his cape fanning out behind him. He looked up when Cal approached and nodded at him, the dim interior lights sliding across the glossy surface of his helmet.

"Thanks for letting me sleep. And for the food," Cal said, hating how tentative his voice sounded. Usually, Cal could sense the general ebb and flow of a being's emotions through the Force, but the Mandalorian felt sealed off from him, as though the beskar of his helmet hid his mind as well as his face. Everything he said to the man felt a bit like a shot into a nebula.

"We'll need to stop for supplies in a few days," the Mandalorian said, not addressing Cal's gratitude, as he reached into the wall and extracted a thick blue cable. "What does the bird eat?"

"Slyyygs, I think." The shiny head turned to stare at him again. "I'm sure it'll be fine with whatever bugs we can find, though." Another nod, and a metallic clink as he replaced the coupler on the end of the cable. He leaned back towards the wall and rummaged around in it for a moment before there was a little crack of electricity and the Mandalorian recoiled slightly.

"Dank farrik." The muffled curse seemed to come from the wall itself. Cal suppressed a laugh; nothing like getting mildly electrocuted to make a guy seem less intimidating.

"Need any help?"

"No," he grumbled, and Cal started to turn away. "Wait, yes. Sorry. If I feed this cable through, can you go over there—" he pointed to another wall panel that had been removed a few feet away "—and plug it into one of the empty sockets?"

"Sure."

-----

The travelers fell into an easy routine aboard the ship.

They slept in shifts, there being only one small cot available for sleeping. Cal used the privacy to meditate more than he actually slept, and the Mandalorian didn't seem to rest much at all. Though, admittedly, if he ever fell asleep in the pilot's chair Cal might not have noticed. He reminded Cal of the Temple guards on Coruscant from his early childhood—they'd had silence and stillness down to an art. It was impressive, really.

During the hours when they were both awake, Cal often found himself helping out with little housekeeping and mechanical tasks, particularly once the Mandalorian found out that Cal knew his way around a ship. Cal took it as a personal victory that he was trusted anywhere near the important systems, given the amount of love the man seemed to have for the Razor Crest.

"Where'd you learn to work on ships?" The Mandalorian asked abruptly on the third morning, while they were cleaning out the air recyclers and replacing their filters.

It was the first time the Mandalorian had initiated a conversation since their journey began. Cal nearly dropped the dusty filter he was holding.

"Uh—on Bracca. I was a scrapper there for a few years, a long time ago."

"Imperial ships, then?"

"Not always, they got all sorts. It was something to do," Cal paused, his memories of the grimy, treacherous junkyards floating to the forefront of his mind. He hadn't thought about Bracca in years; he'd been glad to leave it behind, though the relief was tainted by Prauf's death and chaos that had ensued immediately after he'd left.

He'd still been a child, practically. Lost in more ways than one. "It was as good a place as any to stay under the radar."

Cal expected further questions, but the Mandalorian's t-visor simply watched him. He tried to imagine what expression might be under there, but came up empty.

"That must be where you got a taste for ponchos." That startled a laugh out of Cal.

"Ah, yes, my namesake. Maybe it was."

"I don't know your real name, so I had to make one up," the Mandalorian said with a shrug, looking down slightly, abashed.

"How do you know my real name isn't Jaro Tapal? That's what I told Ranzar Malk."

"You're not dumb enough to give your real name to a bunch of mercenaries."

"No," Cal huffed another small laugh. "I guess I'm not."

They worked silently for another half an hour, Cal unable to banish a small bubble of pride from his chest in the wake of the longest friendly, completely non-confrontational conversation he'd ever had with the Mandalorian. He wasn't sure why it was so exciting, but it was.

"Cal Kestis," he said, before he could talk himself out of it. The Mandalorian looked at him under the recycler he was reinstalling in the ceiling. "That's my name."

Cal wasn't worried about his name being recognized. The Jedi were prominent figures, it was true—but the New Republic was, to say the very least, a bureaucratic nightmare. In any computer system from the Empire onward, Padawan Cal Kestis was listed as killed during the purge, and Cal hadn't bothered rectify that yet. It wasn't like he needed to open a bank account.

Cal was a ghost, and being a ghost had many advantages.

"Nice to finally meet you, Cal Kestis." There was something almost teasing in his tone, barely detectable through the vocoder. The Mandalorian brushed the dust off his hands and held one out for Cal to shake. His grip was strong, and the worn leather of his gloves was softer than Cal had thought it would be.

"The pleasure is all mine, I'm sure," Cal said with a grin and a slight bow, in what Cal thought (in his humble opinion) was a passable impression of Master Kenobi's legendary charm. "Do I get to know your name as well?"

"No," the Mandalorian replied, then turned resolutely away towards the ladder to the cockpit, but that time Cal could definitely hear the smile in his voice.

-----

Din passed over several more populated ports before bringing the Razor Crest down on a small, remote moon for food and fuel. As they drew closer to the Core and their destination, these low traffic ports became less and less common, and Din's anxiety level gradually grew. He hadn't left the Outer Rim in nearly two decades, and he preferred to keep it that way, thank you very much. For all the lawlessness of Din's territory, at least he knew how things worked out there.

He asked Poncho—Cal—to keep an eye on the ship while the owner of the hanger filled it up, and went out for supplies on his own. When he returned, the man was sitting on top of the port side engine, surveying the surrounding area as though it was completely normal to hang out on a ship's engine.

As much it pained Din to admit it, he liked having someone else on his ship. Even if that someone spent an inordinate amount of time talking to his droid, communing in thoughtful silence with the wildlife they were transporting, and eating a ridiculous number of nutrient bars. Cal was a tranquil, good-spirited presence, despite Din knowing for a fact that he was not the most entertaining person to spend idle time with.

Din had never had a real friend outside the Tribe before. The thought was intimidating. Most of Din's "friends" wouldn't hesitate to kill him at the drop of a pauldron.

He didn't even mind the droid, and that was disturbing.

When Din approached Razor Crest's ramp, Cal looked down at him and grinned in the way that made the network of faint scars on his face contort subtly, and Din definitely did not have any thoughts about that, none at all.

-----

A day after their pit stop, Cal was perched in the copilot's chair next to the Mandalorian, fiddling absent-mindedly with the radio, when he suddenly found himself unable to keep quiet on something that had been bugging him.

"I'm sorry," he blurted. The shiny helmet turned just slightly, not quite facing him. "About before, when I fixed your armor. You know, on Drexel. After the pirates." Cal winced. He knows, get to the point. "I knew your armor was...culturally significant, but I didn't know exactly what it meant until after. If I'd known, I would have left it alone. I promise, the breastplate was the only thing I messed with, even though I had a feeling you might be concussed."

"My friend was surprised you didn't kill me," Cal added with a dry laugh, when his words were met with no response. "Anyway. I'm sorry."

"It's...fine," the Mandalorian said at last, and Cal felt a little weight lift from his shoulders. "Thank you. I owe you one."

"I'm not sure who owes what now, actually."

"We can call it even."

-----

When they arrived in the atmosphere above Kashyyyk, Din was more than a little tense. This was a New Republic world, through and through. It wasn't a place for bounty hunters—or Mandalorians, for that matter. There were reasons his people lived in the shadows.

Almost as soon as they were in the atmosphere, a communications tower on the planet's surface hailed them. A Wookiee's voice growled through the channel.

Din froze. "Do you understand Shyriiwook?"

His companion grimaced. "A little. I'm rusty. Hm. Do you mind if I...?" Cal gestured at the controls, and Din hesitated. He didn't want to give up control of his ship, but something told him Cal might be better equipped to handle this situation.

He got up from the pilot's chair and instantly questioned his own sanity. He tried to sit in the copilot's chair, but it just felt wrong, so instead he hovered behind Cal and resisted the overwhelming impulse to pace.

Cal was responding nervously to the Wookiee, in basic. "I'm looking for Chieftain Tarfful. If you could put me in touch with him?"

More guttural sounds came through in reply, and Cal nodded vigorously even though there was no holoprojection of him transmitting that the Wookiee would be able to see.

"Yes! Tell him it's Cal Kestis. He knows me, he helped me the last time I was here in search of information for the Rebellion."

So, Cal had worked with the Rebellion. It didn't surprise Din at all—many had, and Cal certainly didn't come off as an Imperial sympathizer. In search of information...that sounded like a spy of some sort, or some other reconnaissance job. Din didn't know enough about the Rebellion to say for sure. He'd been as happy to see the Empire go as anyone else, but out as far as he worked, it didn't matter so much who was in charge, and bounty hunting was always in demand...

Lost in thought, Din forgot to be anxious until he realized they were descending into the atmosphere near the planet's equator. Cal was talking to a different Wookiee now—this one's voice was gravelly with age.

"We have a baby Shyyyo bird that was stolen during the occupation. With your permission, I was hoping to return it to its home in the Origin Tree," Cal explained.

There was another rush of growls and howls.

"Thank you, Chieftan Tarfful," Cal replied. They carried on for a few minutes, Din listening in the hope of picking up more tidbits from the other man's past, but nothing more was revealed.

When the Wookiee had disconnected, Cal glanced back at Din. "We have special clearance to land near the Origin Tree. There's no where to set a ship down once you get to the canopy, but we can get pretty close, and I'll take the bird the rest of the way."

Cal flew the ship low over the clouds towards a lone mass in the distance, the layers of greenery below only just visible between the puffs of whiteness. As they drew closer, Din began to realize that it wasn't a mountain, as he'd originally thought, but a massive tree surrounded by a nest of raised earth. Its trunk was the width of a city, and its leafy top looked like it must be miles and miles in circumference. The roots tangled and stretched infinitely into the distance, dwarfing their surroundings.

They landed in a clearing on one of the hills surrounding the Origin Tree.

Cal guided the Shyyyo bird out of the ship and on to the grass. The bird squawked and swooped into the air, looping around Cal, its wings stirring the mist around them into swirls of moisture.

Din stayed in the doorway of his ship, taking in the spectacular view of the jungle around them and feeling the heat soak into his armor. The air smelled alive in a way that Din couldn't really compare to anything else; it was as though the planet itself was breathing. High above, the canopy of the Origin Tree was a rich, impenetrable green, beautiful and mysterious.

Back on Alzoc III, Din remembered Cal saying that the bird would grow to be larger than a starship, but it was the scenery in front of him made him believe it.

"Tarfful invited us to his village for a meal, if you want," Cal said after a few moments of silence, admiring their surroundings as well. "I'm going to stay a few days and relax. My people will pick me up here."

It was tempting, but Din didn't think he'd be able to relax until he was back in the Outer Rim.

"Thank you, but I should be going." Din thought Cal looked the slightest bit disappointed at his choice, but the expression was gone in a blink.

"Then—" Cal turned to face him fully and bowed his head, humble. "Thank you for your help returning the Shyyyo bird to its kind. I couldn't have done it without you."

"This is the Way," Din replied, because it was. More so than stealing an endangered animal and selling it for parts would have been, anyway. This—whatever this was—had been worth any trouble on Din's part.

"You would have managed just fine without me." Cal smiled, solemnity dissolving in response to the compliment.

"I'm sure we'll meet again," Cal said, and this time the prospect didn't sound so daunting to Din.

"I'm sure we will."

As the Razor Crest coasted through the air and began its ascent through the atmosphere, Din caught a glimpse of a massive, long-necked shadow passing through the clouds below him. He thought, for a moment, that he might even have heard a low, bird-like call echoing across the treetops. Or maybe his engines just needed oil.

Chapter Text

Cal had only vague memories of the Jedi Order as it had been before the purge. He'd spent his early childhood in the Temple, like all younglings, but as the Clone Wars raged on and on, Padawans were brought out into the field earlier and earlier. Once his Master had taken him to the front lines, Cal had never gotten the chance to return to the Temple again.

What he did remember, more so than the building itself, was the warmth of other Force sensitive minds pressed against his own. The feeling of being connected, not solely to the Force, but to the Order itself, a vibrant network of support and wisdom and companionship. Once, being a Jedi had meant that one never had to be alone. But for nearly all of Cal's adult life, it'd meant the exact opposite.

It had taken years after the fall of the Empire for the remaining Jedi to tentatively organize themselves again. There was no council, no official leadership—though Cal was fairly certain that most Jedi considered Master Skywalker to be their most central figure, due to his senatorial connections and all-around hero status. It had been Master Skywalker who'd set up a summoning beacon to seek out surviving Jedi and insisted that his skittish peers meet in person annually, on a secret rotation of planets to satisfy their collective paranoia, if only to make sure they were all still alive.

This year, the "council meeting" was being held on Chandrila, in Hanna City. Cal and Cere left Greez and the Mantis in the lower districts of the city to go some shopping while the two of them made their way to the Senate Plaza. Cal felt woefully out of place among the smooth beige and white administration buildings and the immaculately dressed government officials, and the feeling only grew as they passed into the austere Senate house. It was early in the day, and the sunlight was just barely creeping into the skylights, cutting sharp lines of yellow light across the high ceilings and glossy marble walls.

They were the last to arrive at the meeting room that had been set aside for them, but Master Skywalker greeted them with a cheery grin and waved them inside with his one flesh hand. The window behind his head lit his blond hair with a golden halo, which offset his somber black robes.

"Good morning! Welcome, Master Junda, Knight Kestis. We were just talking about you."

"Oh no," Cal said automatically. A chuckle called Cal's attention to Master Quinlan Vos, a Kiffar about Cere's age, with dark skin and silvery-grey dreadlocks. He was at Skywalker's immediate left, sitting backwards in his chair. Cal nodded to him—he liked Vos, despite his rough edges. They had a lot in common, including their psychometric talents.

Skywalker laughed as well. "Nothing bad, I promise. Have a seat."

Cal sat and glanced around the circular table. The meeting was well attended this year. There were thirteen of them in total, an odd mix of Knights who'd been far enough undercover that Order 66 had missed them, like Vos; older Jedi, like Master Rancisis, who'd used their wisdom and influence to sneak off Coruscant; and very young Jedi, like Skywalker himself, who had not been on the Empire's radar in the beginning.

There were hardly any that were Cal's age. Padawans had been the easiest targets during the Purge, without the protection of their Masters, isolated in space and surrounded by troopers.

One figure, notably, was absent.

"Where's Senator Organa?" Cal asked uncertainly. Surely he would've heard about it if something had happened to the galaxy's most beloved political figure. While she'd chosen not to join the Order, Skywalker's twin had still been present at all their meetings.

To his surprise, Skywalker beamed. "I was just about to bring that up!" The Jedi was practically quivering with excitement. "She's just had a baby! His name is Ben and he weighs eight pounds and he's gonna be a Jedi and do you guys want to see this holo I took..."

Cal watched on, bemused, as Skywalker pulled a little holoprojector that looked suspiciously like a bounty puck and made it display images of a lumpy pink human child. The Jedi passed it around the table for inspection.

"Congratulations," Vos interjected through Skywalker's rapid-fire inventory of the newborn's endearing qualities. "But what does this have to do with scouting old temple sites?"

"Ah, yes." Skywalker composed himself and sighed. "I think it's about time we started thinking about the future of the Jedi Order. I've asked many of you, over the past several months, to check out some ancient Jedi temples across the galaxy—places that are safe, defensible, and closely connected to the Force. It is my intention, within the next few months, to begin gathering younglings and establish a training temple."

A murmur went around the table. Cal had suspected that Skywalker's requests would lead to this. Up until that point, Cal and the others had kept an eye on young Force-sensitive children from afar, only intervening if they were in danger. It was one thing to keep tabs on them, quite another to begin accepting younglings into the Order again.

It was a thrilling prospect, the training of a new generation—it was something Cal never thought he'd have the opportunity to participate in. He couldn't help, however, the trill of fear in the back of his mind at the thought of bringing children into the fold. If the Empire had taught them anything, it was that there was only so much the Jedi could do to protect themselves from the Dark, and the galaxy would always hold dangers for their kind.

Master Rancisis was the first to respond to Skywalker's proposal. The ancient Thisspiasian's voice was soft and whispery with age. "You are correct, young Skywalker. It is time."

"Is it really—" Cal heard his own voice leave his mouth before he'd processed his thoughts. He looked to Cere, whose own worry was etched in the lines on her face. "Uh, would it be safe? The Empire isn't gone, not completely, and having a bunch of them in one place..." Cal trailed off. He knew he wasn't alone in his fears. He knew they understood.

"I believe it's as safe as it's going to be for a long time," Skywalker considered. "But I understand your concerns. I certainly hope this will be a group effort—that will make it safer. We have a long way to go, but it is my hope that when we're gone, there will be an Order of some kind to pass down..."

The discussion continued for many hours as the group carefully considered different challenges that might arise when training new Jedi. Cal's anxiety gradually dissipated, giving way to something like hope.

-----

Cal and Cere were just leaving the meeting to make their way back to the Mantis when Cal had a thought.

"You go on ahead, Cere, I'll catch up." Cere raised an eyebrow at him.

"Where are you going? You'll miss Greez's stew."

"I've got to—" he cut himself off. "I won't be long," Cal assured her, and turned back down the hall.

The stragglers were milling about, talking in smaller groups. Cal made a beeline for Masters Skywalker and Vos, who were still in their seats, chatting.

"Back again so soon?" Vos grinned as he approached.

"Yeah," Cal said. "I was wondering if either of you knew where I might find some information about Mandalorians?"

"Oh, Force!" Skywalker looked alarmed. "Are you in some kind of trouble? Do you need help? Those bounty hunters can be a real—"

"Hang on, kid, he didn't say anything about bounty hunters," Vos interrupted. "Not all Mandos are bounty hunters. Now, Kestis, who are we talking about?"

"A bounty hunter. But—"

"I knew it!" Skywalker exclaimed, before catching Vos's withering look. "Sorry. Please continue."

"I just want to know more about Mandalorians. History, language, culture...is there, y'know, a library somewhere, or...?" Cal shifted his weight from foot to foot. His independent research had turned up very little on the subject. Information was something that the Empire had gone to great lengths to make inaccessible, and many research networks had yet to recover.

"There's the Polis Archives, not far from here," Skywalker said. "We transferred a lot of salvaged data from the Temple Archives there. Unless you want to go spelunking in the ruins on Coruscant, that's your best bet."

"I'll take you there." Vos sprung up from his seat and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, Kestis."

Cal allowed himself to be guided out of the Senate house and into bright late-afternoon sunlight.

"Thanks," Cal said. "I could have found my way there on my own, probably."

Vos ignored that. "You know, the Jedi and Mandalorians have been adversaries for a long time. Used to be a cycle of war and tense diplomacy, and the clans bicker amongst themselves constantly. They're a complicated bunch. Not very welcoming to prying eyes."

"Weren't the clones Mandalorians?" Cal asked. "They were't adversaries. Not at first, anyway." The clones he'd grown up with had spoken Mando'a to each other; that was the only reason Cal knew anything about the language at all.

"They were Mandalorians, in a way. But their father killed as many as 20 Jedi with his bare hands."

"Well, that's hardly their fault." Vos laughed.

"No, you're right. All I meant was, there's a lot of history there, and it ain't all good." Cal nodded. "Not many Jedi ever cared to bridge that gap. There was Tarre Vizsla, of course, the ancient Mandalorian Jedi. He was a neat guy. But more recently, I can only think of one Jedi who spoke Mando'a or knew anything about Mandalorian customs..."

"Oh?" Cal prompted when Vos seemed to lose his train of thought.

"Kenobi." Ah. Cal knew Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Vos had been friends. He wondered what the story behind the Kenobi's interest in Mandalorians was, but he didn't want to dredge up what might be a sore subject for Vos.

Vos continued pensively. "He'd be happy someone was...well, I don't know what you're up to, but it doesn't sound like you're picking a fight."

"Just making friends."

"Fair enough." Vos said, and stopped them in front of a domed building. "Here you are. Polis Library."

Cal turned to thank Vos, but the Kiffar was already wandering away.

-----

Cal returned to the Mantis in the middle of the night, laden with datapads, head buzzing with information. He'd speed-read through centuries of Mandalorian history in only a few hours.

Vos had been right. Mandalorians fought a lot. But for a society whose religion was centered on armor and weaponry, he supposed that was to be expected. And as far as their relationship with Jedi went, it seemed that there'd been dishonor and ignorance on both sides. The conflicts between the two peoples had been bloody and devastating and painfully unnecessary.

Cere had waited up for him in the galley, reading. She didn't look up until Cal dumped his pile of research next to her own sizable stack.

"Looks like you were successful," she commented.

"Eh, wish there'd been more." Cal met Cere's intense gaze and sighed heavily. "I'm looking into Mandalorian stuff."

"I know." Of course she did.

"I'm just curious."

"Understandable."

"He's—" Cal caught himself. "It's interesting."

"I see," Cere said, now barely containing her smile.

"...Shut up." Cere laughed, and Cal rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously.

"Just be careful," she said finally.

"I will."

Chapter Text

Din watched as the Guild assistants unloaded the backlog of carbonite-frozen bounties from the hold of the Razor Crest. It'd been quite a while since he'd checked in on Nevarro, much to Greef Karga's irritation, but the man's mood had improved when he'd seen just how many credits he was going to get out of Din's haul. The man stood beside him, hands on his hips, no doubt mentally calculating what his cut was going to be.

"Whatever happened with that bounty ordered by the Haxion Brood? I don't recall you ever bringing him in." Karga asked eventually, breaking the silence. Din's gloved fingers found the hilt of one of his beskar knives, safely sheathed at his belt.

"No idea. They broke contract, so it's not my problem anymore. Sent out another hunter of their own to do the job." Normally, such a breach wouldn't have bothered him—he'd have just killed the other hunter and taken the quarry in, maybe gotten some extra credits for the inconvenience—but Karga didn't have to know that.

His handler frowned slightly, but didn't press the issue.

"Your payment will be ready by the end of the day. You can join me at the Cantina then to pick up another round of pucks." Din nodded.

When the Razor Crest had been emptied of its prizes, Din locked the ship up from the controls on his vambrace and went on his way.

En route to the covert, he stopped by a street vendor to pick up a good-sized bag of brightly colored sweets for the foundlings. As he was passing over his credits, Din began to get the prickly, hair-raising sensation that often accompanied being watched. He turned to scan the crowd, but no one seemed to be paying any more attention to him than usual.

All the same, he thanked the vendor and hastened his pace. He wasn't nervous for his own sake—any altercations he had on this planet threatened not only him, but the Guild and his Tribe as well.

He was only a few buildings away from the alley and the secret entrance down into the underbelly of the city when someone caught up to him.

"Su Cuy'gar," a Mando'ad said behind him. Din rolled his eyes and turned to scold them for coming to the surface while Din was there, in broad daylight, and remind them how it was important for the safety of the covert that they not be seen in groups—

But it wasn't a Mandalorian, it was Cal Kestis, with BD-1 in tow. He'd been leaning against a storefront Din had just passed, and he'd completely failed to notice him.

Cal's poncho was a deep teal color today, with a broad vertical white stripe down one side. Din's eyes were drawn a long, red gash that couldn't have been more than a week or two old curling up from Cal's neckline all the way to his jaw. From a blade, if Din had to guess. It looked painful.

"Me'vaar ti gar?" Cal asked, sounding pleased with himself, as he pushed off the wall. Din turned slowly to continue down the street, and Cal fell into step beside him.

He meant to ask what Cal was doing on Nevarro, which was effectively Din's home planet while the covert remained in the sewer of its capital city, but instead he found himself saying: "Your accent has improved."

"Vor'e. You didn't answer my question, though."

"I'm fine," Din said. "Take care when you speak it. Mando'a isn't as common as it once was." He pointedly did not ask how (or, perhaps more pressingly, why) Cal had learned his language.

"I wasn't planning on incorporating it into my everyday vocabulary," Cal replied. "Although some of the insults are catchy." Din smiled behind his helmet.

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." Din couldn't help the way his footfalls stuttered in the dirt. "There's a lot of Hunters' Guild activity here, I figured you had to turn up eventually."

"How long have you been waiting?" Din asked, alarmed.

"Only a few days." Din breathed a sigh of relief that fortunately wasn't picked up by his vocoder.

"I haven't been back in months. You have good timing."

Cal laughed lightly. "So I've been told."

They were nearly at Din's destination, and he couldn't be seen loitering there. He stepped neatly in front of his companion and placed a hand on his shoulder gently, halting him. Green eyes widened slightly in innocent interest.

"Look—I can't talk here, and I need to take care of something," Din hesitated. "Where's your ship?"

"Just on the other side of town," Cal replied. "Meet me there later?"

Din nodded, then reluctantly released the man's poncho-clad shoulder.

Shortly after they parted, Din descended into the darkness and damp air of the covert. His palm still felt warm from the brief contact. He looked down at his hand and flexed his fingers experimentally, hoping to banish the sensation. It was so rare that he touched someone without the intent to injure them, he figured. That was all.

"Still got 'em all?" A voice grumbled, modulated by a helmet. It was Paz Vizsla. His large, blue-armored tribemate was blocking his way, head cocked to the side.

"What?"

"You fingers. Or did you leave some with your burc'ya up there?" Ah. Paz must have seen Cal on the security system. The Tribe had the whole area monitored.

"He's not my friend." The lie tasted bad in Din's mouth. Paz huffed.

"Whatever. Move, I've got an appointment." He pushed by without waiting for Din to move out of the way, knocking their pauldrons together, then stomped heavily up the narrow stairs to the surface. Din watched after Paz until his large shadow vanished around the bend in the staircase.

-----

Cal loitered after the Mandalorian had turned down his dark alley, pretending to check out a display of pottery a little way down the street. He didn't mean to snoop, not really, but the Mandalorian had seemed anxious, and it was in Cal's nature to worry.

He waited until, barely a minute later, someone emerged from the same alley. A Mandalorian, but not Cal's Mandalorian—this one was taller, bulkier, with dark blue armor and a heavy blaster cannon strapped to his back.

Maybe that was why his Mandalorian had made them part ways so abruptly. His family, or tribe, must live in hiding not far from here. He hadn't wanted to draw attention to them.

The blue Mandalorian looked around, surveying. Then his t-visor locked on Cal.

Cal didn't have time to decide whether or not to slink away and escape the situation before the Mandalorian was directly in front of him. He towered over Cal, and was twice his width as well.

"Tion'ad cuyir gar?"

"I'm nobody," Cal replied before realizing, belatedly, that it might have been wiser to feign incomprehension.

The Mandalorian hummed, producing a low, mechanical rumble through his helmet. He looked Cal up and down. Cal stared back.

"Nobody, huh?"

There was something knowing in his tone that made Cal wonder, not for the first time, if his Mandalorian had guessed what Cal was. Had, perhaps, even told his fellow Mandalorians. Cal hadn't really been hiding that he was a Jedi—he was never without his lightsaber, though it stayed tucked in the folds of his many ponchos. He'd used the Force in his friend's presence several times now, and even though in more subtle ways than the stereotypical lifting of rocks, it wouldn't be the hardest deduction.

"Look," Cal said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. If he did know, he had every right to be suspicious of Cal. "I mean no harm to your people, and I'm certainly no threat to your tribemate. I swear it."

The blue Mandalorian grunted. "I should think not. You are too small to be a threat to him."

Cal forced him self not to bristle at the words. He was a perfectly average height for a humanoid, thank you very much. And he had the Force.

"We'll be watching you, Nobody." The blue Mandalorian said. He took one last step forward into Cal's space—a warning—then turned away, down the street in the opposite direction, leaving Cal alone with his speculations.

-----

Din found the Mantis late in the afternoon, after he'd finished his business at the covert and met with Karga. The ship's entry ramp was lowered and the doors were open, but he approached cautiously, not wanting to startle the occupants. The last time he'd been near the Mantis, he'd abducted the pilot.

He was saved from wondering if he should wait outside by one of Cal's companions, the older woman, appearing in the doorway. She was wearing the same layered robes Din had seen her in before, and her face was a mask of impassivity.

"Come in," she said. "We've been expecting you."

Din hadn't had time to take in the interior of the Mantis before. It was a well-equipped ship, much more suited to long stretches of travel than his own. Though clearly cared for, the worn seating and scuffed floors indicated years of continual use. Someone on board really liked houseplants—there was a large overgrown planter, and then several smaller terrariums scattered alongside holopics and stacks of reading material in the common area. Towards the back of the ship, there was a raised galley with a dining table littered with caf mugs and datapads.

Much like the Razor Crest, Din could tell that this ship was a home to its occupants, rather than just a means of transportation.  

In the common area, the old Latero, Dritus, in his red flight jacket sat on a sofa that curved around a table, gathering a pile of sabacc cards together with two of his hands.

"You," he said sternly, crossing both pairs of arms, "are not allowed in the cockpit."

"That's fair," Din replied.

"You're damn right it's fair."

"I'm...sorry. For what it's worth." Din shifted awkwardly. The Latero huffed, but unfolded his arms and finished putting the deck away in its box.

"Well, that's Greez, as you know," the woman said, moving past Din and locking up the ship before turning to him again. "I'm Cere."

"Thank you for having me," Din said with a nod, grateful that they did seem to expect his name in return. "Cal said he needed to talk?"

"Yes, we—" Cere started, but cut herself off when Cal came jogging up from the back of the ship, followed by his droid and a pale, silver-haired woman in a red and black tunic.

"Sorry, I just had to replace—hey!" Cal beamed when he saw Din. "You're here!"'

"You invited me."

"Right! Yeah. Thanks," Cal ran a hand through his hair, then gestured towards the woman beside him. "This is my friend Merrin, she travels with us sometimes." Merrin inclined her head.

"I have heard far too much about you," she said. She had a thick accent that was unfamiliar to Din.

"Really?" Din asked, puzzled.

"Really—"

"Okay!" Cal interrupted, his cheeks slightly pink. "Well, I'm sure you're curious about why you're here." He paused to take a seat at the end of the sofa. "The short answer is, we'd like to hire you for a job."

Din was grateful that his helmet hid his surprise. Sure, Cal seemed to get himself into trouble, but neither he nor his family seemed the type to hire a bounty hunter. And, even if they did need to take someone out, Din was fairly certain that Cal would be as efficient as him, if not more so.

"...Why?"

Cal looked like he was about to reply, but Cere beat him to it. "We can't disclose any details until you accept the job." Cal closed his mouth and looked apologetically at Din, who hesitated.

"I'm expensive," he said finally. He detected an amused sniff from the pale woman, Merrin, but the rest looked unfazed.

"Don't worry about that," Cere said. "We can settle your fee later, we have access to plenty of credits."

If it had been anyone else, the deal would have been too ambiguous for Din. But it was Cal, and, inexplicably, Din trusted him.

"Alright, I accept. What's the job?"

"You'll be travelling with us to Bahryn, a moon of Geonosis. You're going to help us find a valuable artifact," Cal said. Then, his face twisted into a grimace. "We tried to get it ourselves, just Cere and I, but it's well protected."

Din eyed the Cal's fresh injury. "Protected by what?"

"Droids," Cal replied. "A lot of droids."

Chapter Text

The energy level aboard the Mantis was high throughout the short trip. Din, unaccustomed to being on a ship that he wasn't flying, wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself. He spent some time tending to the weapons he'd picked up from the Razor Crest before they'd left Nevarro—his ship would be safe there, the Guild wouldn't dare allow anyone to mess with it—and listening to Cal and Merrin's banter around the holotable nearby, only occasionally audible over the music playing over the ship's internal comms.

"How can you listen to this? It sounds like there's a nydak snoring in the background," Merrin commented, her nose scrunched in distaste.

"Oh, right, I forgot—you only listen to wind chimes and the wails of the eternally damned on Dathomir," Cal replied with a roll of his eyes.

"Mm. Perhaps you would like to join the reanimated choir?"

"That's a very kind offer, but no." Cal said, laughter bubbling in his voice. Then he turned to Din. "What do Mandalorians listen to?"

"It depends," Din replied, not expecting to be addressed. He was going to leave it at that, but Cal was still looking at him expectantly, so he continued. "Our traditional songs are battle hymns. More...spoken poetry than anything else."

"You know any of them?" Merrin asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Not off the top of my head," Din admitted. "And you don't want to hear me sing.

"That's too bad," Merrin said, then turned to Cal with a lopsided grin on her face. "I'm sure Cal would have liked that. Maybe you can convince him to play his hallikset for you."

Cal tried to kick her shins, but she stepped away gracefully, and the two resumed their familial bickering in tones too low for Din to pick out. Eventually, both vanished into the back of the ship.

Not long before they were due to drop out of hyperspace, Din wandered back to look for the refresher. He poked his head in through the only open door, which turned out to be some combination of Cal's quarters and an engine room. There was a workbench facing the door, nearly buried under a mountain of mechanical components, tools, and circuitry. A narrow cot was pressed up against the wall, along with a chest that Din could only assume contained a vast number of ponchos.

Apart from that, Din saw no personal possessions. The only reason he knew they were Cal's quarters was that the man himself was kneeling on a woven rug on the floor, his hands resting on his thighs, head bowed, as though he was praying.

Cal had to have heard him walk in, but he gave no sign. Din felt like he was intruding, but it was strangely difficult to look away. He could just barely see the rise and fall of Cal's chest and shoulders, slow and even. BD-1 sat patiently across from his master, waiting.

Din allowed himself to stand there for a second longer before stepping, as lightly as he could in his heavy boots, back out of the door.

-----

Bahryn was a frozen moon. The Mantis's initial scans of it yielded nothing of interest. No structures of any kind, no energy signatures, and only a few (non-sentient) life signs. Din was surprised—it would take a massive amount of energy to conceal even a small battalion of droids. And for what purpose?

Greez seemed to know where he was going, though, and eventually they landed a few hundred yards away from a shadowy hole in the moon's glaciers; Din guessed that it was as close as they could get where the ice would support the ship's weight.

"I can't believe I'm dropping you crazies off on this frigid wasteland again," the Latero grumbled, then looked over his shoulder at Cal. "Especially after one of those metal murderers tried to take your face off."

"Don't worry, we have backup this time. It'll be fun," Cal reassured him.

"You got a weird idea of what's fun, kid."

Din followed Cal, Merrin, and Cere away from the ship. It was bitterly cold, and the wind bit at his gloved hands. Within seconds, he could see frost start to crystallize at the corners of his t-visor.

At the edge of the hole in the glacier, a rope ladder had been secured, leading down into the caverns below. They took turns descending the ladder—Din went last, as the heaviest of them. It swung ominously as he climbed down, and the ice creaked. He wished, once again, that he had a jetpack.

"What is this?" Merrin was saying as he reached the bottom, approaching something half encased in the ice.

"Oh, it's an old Imperial escape pod," Cal said. "And the only reason we don't have to walk an extra fifteen miles through the caves. Busted right through the network of tunnels, gave us a lucky shortcut."

"Not so lucky for the people in the pod," Din commented, imagining being stranded down there. Whenever night fell, it was going to get fatally cold, even if the initial crash hadn't killed the occupants.

Cal's boots crunched on the ice as he walked over to the broken pod. He placed a hand on its durasteel shell. The tiniest of smiles flickered across his features.

"They survived."

"How do you know?"

Cal seemed to hesitate. "No skeletons."

Privately, Din thought it was likely that the occupants of the pod were frozen elsewhere in the caves, but he didn't want to step on Cal's optimism.

"Let's get moving," Cere called, already in the dark blue maw of one of the larger tunnels though the ice. "We don't want to be here when it gets dark."

-----

They weaved their way though the tunnels, dimly lit by the thin sunlight passing though the ice above, for about an hour before Din saw any evidence of their destination. Cere led them down the left side of a split in the path—she must have memorized a map; Din had long since lost track of the twists and turns, though he could always follow the thermal imprints of their footprints. They proceeded with caution, speaking only in hushed tones, though there didn't seem to be anyone around to hear them. BD-1 occasionally hopped down from Cal's shoulder to scan things, but even the droid seemed unusually wary.

Eventually, the tunnel widened slightly and Din saw the fallen carcasses of a half dozen battle droids.

He knelt by the top half of one that had been sliced in half, one hand resting on the comforting grip of his blaster. These weren't just any droids. They were BX-series commandos, the same models used by the CIS during the Clone Wars.

Din felt a chill go down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. He stood and continued down the tunnel, catching up to his companions.

Not long after, the tunnel widened into a larger, brighter cave, not unlike the one they'd entered into, though there was no hole in the ice above them here. Many dark tunnels sprouted from the clearing. Towards the far wall, there was a pile of frost-covered crates and some old, clearly non-functioning consoles. Once, this must have been a small military base, or at least a waystation of some kind.

"Get ready," Cal said, and before Din could ask, one of the consoles that he'd thought couldn't possibly still work began to beep, and he heard the sound of clanking footsteps from all around them.

They closed ranks. Cal reached into the folds of his poncho and produced some sort of metallic device. Din only had a second to wonder what it was before Cal flipped a switch with his thumb and two brilliant blades of blue-white light hummed to life on either end of the device. It was a sword, but not like any Din had ever seen. He watched, momentarily transfixed, as Cal spun the dual blades smoothly and took a defensive stance.

Beside Cal, Cere had produced a similar weapon, although hers only had a single green blade. When his eyes slid to Merrin, he did a double-take—she had neither blade or blaster, but her pale hands seemed to weave smokey, electric green energy out of thin air. When the first commando droid emerged from the tunnel to their left, eyes shining eerily in the dark, Merrin made a sharp gesture and the energy shot out of her hands like a whip, smacking the droid back into the ice.

Din couldn't make heads or tails of it, but anyway, he had to get busy. The droids came in waves, pouring out from the tunnels. Din used his whipcord launcher to pull three B1's into one another, decapitating one with a yank of the cord. He shot one metal head after another in quick succession, always minding the others with his peripheral vision.

If Din's specialty as a warrior was firearms, he thought, Cal's must be that laser sword. His movements were seamless and almost untraceably fast, the two blades blurring, deflecting blaster shots and cutting down droids with the practiced ease that only came from a lifetime of experience. Only Din's anxiety about being in a room full of his mechanical sworn enemies kept him from getting distracted by the light show.

Din glanced through the chaos at one point just in time to see Cal throw his sword in a wide arc. It spun as it turned through the air, slicing a slew of droids at once. Cal caught it and stabbed another in the chest in one fluid motion, then had the nerve to grin and give Din a hasty thumbs-up before carrying on.

The majority of the droids had been dispatched when it happened. Din turned and found himself face to face with the huge, broad-chested form of a B2 battle droid. He fired his blaster, but missed, and then it was knocked out of his hand. He needed to fire his whipcord, or throw one of his knives, or—

But suddenly he was six years old, no armor to speak of, staring up at a B2's massive blaster, the size of his whole body, as it prepared to fire on him. He wanted to call for his parents, but is parents were the smell of burnt flesh seeping into the hatch...

Din barely felt his back hit the ice, but he could feel the air leaving his lungs as the droid held him there. Din needed to do something, he thought, as spots bloomed across his vision and the screams of villagers long dead filled his ears.

-----

The Mandalorian's panic was like a dam breaking, and Cal was standing downriver. It was so rare that he sensed anything at all from his mind that Cal had a hard time filtering through the fear, disentangling it from his own feelings. He pulled his lightsaber out of a commando droid and searched for his friend.

Cal spotted the Mandalorian across the clearing, a B2 battle droid bearing down on him. His blaster had been knocked out of his hand, but he made no move to reach for his rifle or one of the many knives at his belt.

The Mandalorian was stationary for a moment too long, and the droid charged him, pinning him by the neck against the icy wall of the cave. Cal moved on autopilot, crossing the clearing in a moment. In one sweeping slice and a shower of sparks, Cal cut the droid down.

The droid released the Mandalorian as it fell. He was breathing heavily enough that Cal could hear it rattling though his helmet's vocoder, and he was bracing himself against the ice.

Cal put a steadying hand on the Mandalorian's arm, just above his vambrace. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He sounded far away. "Yeah, I'm fine." Cal looked down at the broken B2, and then back at the Mandalorian. He could still feel the little throb of raw panic, gradually subsiding. He tried to reflect only his calmness, but it was hard to say if the Mandalorian felt it.

"You've faced...this kind before?" Cal asked, knowing the answer. The Mandalorian seemed to come back to himself a bit, but didn't respond. Gently, he removed Cal's hand from his arm and knelt to get his blaster.

-----

Din hung back from the group, now hunting through the crates, trying to purge the thoughts of the B2 from his mind. Its hulking, oddly top-heavy metallic body was burned into his retinas, paralleled by his memories of the attack on his childhood home.

His gratitude towards Cal barely outweighed his embarrassment about freezing up over something as silly as a battle droid. They were stupid machines, and if Din hadn't lost his senses, it would have been no match for him. And yet...

He was pulled out of his thoughts by Cere's voice, now on the far side of the  former battleground. "Cal, it's here."

Cal jogged over to Cere. BD-1 undid the locks on the durasteel vessel Cere was inspecting, but the two humans still had to yank the frozen lid off with some effort.

Eventually, it did open, and a small pyramid tumbled out onto the ice. Din stepped forward to get a better look, but it didn't help him figure out what it was. The artifact was red, and it radiated a dim light. Its points were decorated with golden patterns. All in all, it wasn't especially impressive.

"Can you open it?" Merrin asked. Wisps of green light still lingered around her, curling and fading, evidence of her...whatever it was.

"No," Cere replied, her voice strangely tight. "And we don't want to. Cal, do you want to do it?"

Cal nodded, stony-faced. Din looked on, perplexed, as Cal kicked the pyramid gingerly, a few feet at a time, into the center of the clearing.

"Oh, come on, it's not going to bite you," Merrin quipped.

"We don't know that!" Cal replied indignantly. "I've seen these things do some weird shit." Merrin huffed.

Then, very quickly, as though he was afraid the little pyramid might sprout legs and run away, Cal activated one blade of his sword and plunged it into the artifact. There was a short, ear-splitting screech and a pulse of red light as the pyramid was crushed. The sound continued to echo in Din's helmet, and he wished he could press his hands over his ears.

When the moment was over, nothing of the pyramid remained but a mangled gold shell and a shock of black ash staining the ice.

"Well, that's that," Cal said. Din stared. They'd fought a battalion of droids just to destroy some old ornament?

Apparently, they had. Cal retracted his sword and tucked the hilt back into the folds of his poncho, then rubbed at the dark patch of ground with his boot until it was obscured by snow.

-----

They made their way back through the empty tunnels, picking their way around disabled droids. Without the eerie pull of the Sith holocron nagging at Cal's mind, insistently sinister, the place seemed less dismal and it was easier to gather his thoughts.

"I wasn't born on Mandalore," the Mandalorian said beside him, when they were about halfway back to the hole in the ice with the abandoned escape pod. The Mandalorian had been quiet since the incident with the battle droid. Not that he wasn't always quiet, but Cal knew that this was a different kind of quiet.

"If my understanding is correct, most of you weren't," Cal prompted, when the Mandalorian didn't immediately elaborate.

"I was born on Aq Vetina, a few years before the Clone Wars. I was a child when the droids came to my family's settlement. They tried to hide me, but they were killed." The Mandalorian recited the information without inflection. "Then the Mandalorians came and took me in."

"I'm sorry," Cal said, because there was nothing else to say. The Mandalorian sighed.

"It was a long time ago. I'm sorry I froze up."

"It's not your fault," Cal said. "I grew up in one war, then went on to fight in another. None of it ever really goes away, does it?"

"No," the Mandalorian agreed. "It doesn't."

-----

The four of them climbed out of the cave just as the sunlight began to fade. The temperature on the surface, uninsulated by layers of ice, had plummeted dramatically. As they stumbled through the wind back to the Mantis, Cal shivered and drew his arms close to his chest.

Something heavy settled over his shoulders, and Cal reached to pull it around himself instinctively. It was the Mandalorian's dark wool cape. It smelled like blaster oil and, rather enticingly, some kind of shaving soap.

"Aren't you cold?" Cal asked, looking over at the Mandalorian next to him, whose visor was pointed towards the ship as though nothing had changed.

"Thermal regulators," the Mandalorian replied, tapping on his helmet with a gloved knuckle. "You need thicker ponchos, Poncho."

"Ha," he said, suddenly quite warm. "I guess I do."

Cal didn't remove the cape when they got to the Mantis, even though he was quite sure it looked ridiculous over his other clothes. When Merrin caught him arranging the folds of it around himself as he sat on the sofa, he responded to her wicked grin with a glare.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," Merrin said. Cal narrowed his eyes at her. "'Poncho' is a cute nickname. Can I call you that too?"

"Absolutely not," Cal bit out, grateful that the Mandalorian was out of earshot.

"Only strong, mysterious, presumably handsome bounty hunters are allowed to call you that. Got it."

"Cere, Merrin's bullying me!"

"You probably deserve it!" Cere shouted back from the cockpit. Merrin cackled.

Chapter Text

Cal approached the Temple of Eedit not from the main road that led straight to the main staircase, but from the back, cutting through the jungle. The two rounded gray towers—one thin and simple, the other much larger and topped with three points that radiated outward—were the largest structures for miles around. Once, that had not been the case, but years of war had left the region overgrown and mostly abandoned.

The jungle surrounding it was wild and full of life. Cal could imagine himself spending weeks out there with BD-1, documenting every bug and lichen, climbing trees and scavenging for lost tech and artifacts. But he’d been sent here with a purpose, and had a feeling his visit was going to be a productive one.  

The back entrance to the smaller of the two towers was blocked by a number of massive boulders (someone would have to deal with that, but not Cal) so he climbed a vine-laden tree and balanced out on a limb reaching toward the tower, then leapt through a round window. He landed neatly in a narrow passage, dark except for the pale light creeping in through the cracks in the walls.

He moved silently through the temple, a phantom, using his saber to light the way ahead as he moved deeper into the structure. He passed classrooms, overgrown with leafy plants and moss, and dormitories filled with capsized bunks and gutted, moldy bedding. The air smelled of moisture and greenery.

Finally, he reached the huge, sunlit grand hall, and he remembered what Cere had once said about this temple in particular. She had mentioned that, before the temple's occupants had been forced to abandon it, it had once been one of her favorite places to visit. It was a built on the site of a nexus in the Force, and was therefore a place of great lightness, where one could be as close to the Force as any entity could be—a place of renewal and connection. 

Despite the crumbling walls and roots jutting through the mosaic tiled floor, Cal felt it too.

-----

It was a long time before Din saw any of the Mantis crew after they dropped him off on Nevarro. They'd wired him a good number of credits for his trouble—New Republic ones, interestingly, a rarity in the Outer Rim—and gone on their way.

(Din had "forgotten" his cape where he'd draped it over a chair in the Mantis's galley. It was a presumptuous move on Din's part, perhaps, but there'd been something wistful in Cal's expression as he'd handed it back to him, and Din had a lot of capes, he could spare that one).

As the weeks dragged on, Din found himself noticing, for the first time, just how much time he spent alone. He'd never been lonely before—not exactly. It wasn't like he wanted to hire a crew or spend more time at the covert or take time off from hunting to make friends, he just...

He missed Cal.

If someone had told Din a year ago that Poncho would be an important enough figure in his life that he'd actually notice his absence, let alone miss him, Din would have shot them. He probably still would have—no one needed to know that much about his personal life.

Din wished that he'd established some way of contacting Cal. It was against incredible odds that they'd managed to find each other so many times to begin with, and Din doubted Cal would go through the trouble of waiting for his occasional return to Nevarro again. But there was nothing that could be done about it now.

Din worked, endlessly and relentlessly. His reputation bloomed in response, and he couldn't complain about that, even if he knew his performance had more to do with him trying in vain to distract himself from his own thoughts rather than any real ambition.

He wasn't even sure what he wanted; he only knew that he did want something, and that was enough to throw him for a loop. Mando'ade did not forge lasting connections with outsiders, apart from the induction of foundlings like himself. It wasn't a rule, it just wasn't done—an inherent consequence of living a life bound to a creed that few ever bothered to understand.

But Cal had bothered, and he did understand. They were similar, in many ways; both outsiders, unbound to any one planet. They'd fought, grieved, lost—Din didn't need to see his scars to know that—and survived.

Din knew Cal was curious about him too, in some way. He wouldn't have made an attempt at learning Din's language if he wasn't. Though Din wasn't sure if that was a product of their friendship or of Cal's insatiable curiosity about everything around him, rivaled only by that of his droid.

Either way, it was nice. Din could find it in himself to admit that. And if jumped at every random glimpse of a red-haired humanoid, well, that was his business.

Time passed. Din worked. The galaxy trudged onward.

And then, there was the kid.

-----

"New Republic intelligence has been picking up a lot of activity on old Imperial frequencies out your end...don't want to freak you out or anything, but you should be cautious..."

The hologram of Master Skywalker was grainy, and the audio crackled and sputtered, threatening to cut out entirely. Greez thumped the communications console with one of his hands.

"Kriffin' thing's been on the fritz lately," he said. Cal rubbed his face with his hands. He had a bad feeling about this.

"...Might...nothing, but we recently intercepted a transmission....Imperial faction on....about a missing asset...don't know enough.......the Force be with you. Skywalker out." 

The holo vanished, and Cal let out a long breath through his nose. Behind him, Cere shifted, her stress prickling through the Force.

"You think one of these remnant factions are causing interference? Wouldn't be the first time they'd tried to cut the Outer Rim off from the Core. It's hard enough to transmit out here," She speculated.

"I don't know," Cal replied. "But I don't like it."

That was the last they heard about it for a while. Cal's dreams were disturbed, hazy impressions of blasterfire, blood, and silver gleaming in the sun, punctuated by his own nightmares of red blades and black armor. He meditated, but the Force was withholding its usual clarity—or perhaps he was the one reluctant to open up.

His thoughts were inevitably pulled back to the Mandalorian. Cal hoped he was okay—Imperial activity in the Outer Rim wasn't good for anyone. He kept the Mandalorian's cape close, rather than stowing it away, comforted by the impressions of memory that it offered. He saw a dark forge, lit by molten beskar and sparks. He saw foundlings eating sweets. He saw a competent, honorable warrior, who was perfectly capable of keeping himself safe.

Unfortunately, none of this mitigated the fear Cal felt when the crew of the Mantis received intelligence that the Empire had occupied Nevarro.

-----

When the verd and his crew of three, plus the little green foundling, passed through the abandoned covert on their way off Nevarro, the Armorer stayed behind. Though the rest of her followers were dead or gone, she still had work to do. There was beskar'gam to be salvaged, and the dead had to be laid to rest with honor. This was the Way.

She worked in solitude, melting down pauldrons, helmets, and chestplates alike. The raw beskar and its various alloys would be smuggled off-world over time, so as not to attract attention, and redistributed through the network of tribes. There was a system in place, even for such a devastating attack. Mando'ade were always prepared. This was the Way.

When the occasional stragglers in their ugly white plastoid shells found their way into her workshop, she killed them and burned their bodies in the furnace. This, too, was the Way.

As weeks passed after Gideon's assault on the planet, fewer and fewer intruders came down into the sewer. The Armorer was nearly done with her tasks; hardly any evidence of the tribe remained.

She was packing away her tools when she heard steps in the passage outside.  Silently, she hefted her beskar sledgehammer into her hands and left her workshop. It was pitch-black in the sewer system—she'd removed the lanterns that had once illuminated the covert and sealed up the cracks that let in daylight. The night vision in her helmet dyed her surroundings shades of electric green.

The Armorer stalked the intruder down the passage as they tiptoed around. They weren't a stormtrooper, but it hardly mattered if they were down here. They were a liability. When she was within range of the figure, she drew back her sledgehammer with both hands and swung in a wide arc towards their head.

Her strike was blocked, barely, by the bright shock of a lightsaber's blade.

"Jetii," she hissed, throwing her weight forward, pushing the blade away. She swung again, and again, the contact point on her hammer glowing orange with the heat of the blade. Her blows were parried neatly, but she was stronger, and the intruder knew it.

"Wait! Gedet'ye, pare," the intruder yelped when her hammer made contact with his hand and the hilt of his blade, which deactivated and flew down the passage. She kicked the sorcerer hard in the sternum and they fell back into a puddle of murky water.

"I'm looking for my friend, please!" They gasped up from the ground.

"Gar ganar nayc burc'yase olar," the Armorer growled. You have no friends here. She stepped forward, hammer raised.

"I do! Or, I did—I just want to know what happened, I was worried—kark, I guess I don't know his name. His helmet is really shiny! That's probably not helpful. Uh—"

The Armorer hesitated, looming over the intruder. He was wearing a dark, striped poncho. Something about all this seemed familiar, somehow.

She remembered her verd standing in her workshop, feet scuffing idly at the stone floor, telling her about some man he'd met. Months later, he'd brought him up again in passing, in connection with some job.

The same verd had asked her, nonchalantly, if it was a violation of the Creed for outsiders to speak Mando'a. She'd told him, quite honestly, that she didn't know. It wasn't an issue that came up very often.

"Are you Poncho?" She asked.

"Yes." The jetii heaved a heavy sigh, equal parts exasperation and relief. "I'm Poncho."

The Armorer lowered her sledgehammer a little.

"Come," she said, turning on her heel and striding back to her workshop. Behind her, she heard splashing that told her the sorcerer was scrambling to his feet to follow her.

The forge was dimly lit, allowing her to take in the man's ginger hair and scarred features. The Armorer was not used to reading faces, but he had kind, slightly haunted eyes. He seemed trustworthy, but looks were so often deceptive.

"If I had known what you were, I would not have encouraged such a friendship. For his safety."

"I wouldn't hurt him," the jetii said, defensive.

"I worry not about you, but the Order you serve."

"They wouldn't either. We—the Jedi suffered at the hands of the Empire too, you know. We would be stronger together." He paused. "And besides, I was beginning to think he didn't know what a Jedi was."

"He didn't," the Armorer confirmed. "Though he does now."

The man's brow furrowed. "What happened here? Wasn't this—"

"Our home, yes. We were raided during the occupation. My verde either moved on, or were killed. Yours was not here at the time, although he has returned since then."

"Is he okay?"

The Armorer considered. "He's been worse." At the man's grimace, she continued. "He will need help, soon. It is not my place to tell his story, but I am willing to give you a way of contacting him."

"Thank you. I swear, I'll only use it to help."

She shrugged a broad shoulder. "No matter. If you become a threat to the safety of my people, I will crush your skull and burn your corpse in my furnace."

"You may have to wait in line," the jetii said with a nervous laugh. The Armorer ejected a data chip from her vambrace and handed it to him. It contained only a few lines of code and numbers. He would have to figure it out from there.

"Leave now. I am busy." He bowed and turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway for a moment. The Armorer had watched her tribemates do the same often enough to know that there was something else he wanted to say, but he was not sure how to say it.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry for the ones you lost," he said.

"Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la," the Armorer replied. "They died with honor. This is the Way."

Chapter Text

For the second time since the kid came to be in his care, Din's priorities had undergone a dramatic shift. At first, his only goal had been to keep him safe from the onslaught of bounty hunters and Imps that sought him; now, he was the one doing the seeking.

It was a return to normalcy, in some ways. Din was used to looking for people. However, usually the people he was looking for were neither experts at concealing themselves nor enemy sorcerers.

He embarked on the journey gladly. For the kid.

Din had never seen himself as a parent. He'd enjoyed the bubbly company of the foundlings that had lived at the covert, but he never imagined actually having one as his own responsibility.

It was profoundly stressful. Din killed for a living—he was not even remotely qualified to keep a helpless (well, mostly helpless) baby alive. There were the people actively trying to steal the child, of course, but there were also the day-to-day hazards as well, like stopping the kid from putting live wires in his big green ears or eating poisonous fauna. And, despite the fact that the kid seemed to eat everything, Din didn't know anything about the nutritional needs of his species. If he wasn't getting something he needed, or if he got sick, would Din even be able to tell? How would he fix it?

Hopefully, the child's people would know the answers to all these questions. But Din didn't like that prospect either. Finding the sorcerers meant surrendering the kid. The little creature his life had come to pivot around in the last months would be gone, and Din would never see him again. The thought made his chest tighten.

Because, despite all the insanity, the kid had his whole heart in his tiny three-fingered hands. Every coo and smile and wiggle of his ears made Din happier than he'd ever thought possible.

They left Tatooine late at night, after the krayt dragon was dead and Din had acquired the tarnished beskar'gam, a new lead on where to find his people, and (much to his chagrin) a passenger. The frog lady was asleep almost before they broke the atmosphere, slumped in the copilot's chair.

The kid was not asleep. He was perched in Din's lap, cooing to himself as he so often did. Din would pay many credits to know what he was saying. It was probably fascinating.

Din was just about to set the autopilot and try to doze himself when the ship's comms beeped lightly at him, indicating a new message. He looked at the readout and did a double-take—the recorded transmission had been sent from one of the Armorer's old frequencies, one that shouldn't be accessible since the covert was no more.

Apprehensive, Din accepted the transmission. The child gave a soft "waah" of interest as the holo came through. It was Cal. The holo only showed him from the waist up. His brow was furrowed and his hair was askew. He seemed to be fiddling with the transmitter on his side.

"I'm not sure if this is...Force, these instructions are vague. I'm not even sure you could slice this transmission, BD—"

There was a chirp somewhere on Cal's end and he started, pushing his hair back hastily. One piece stayed stuck out with determination, and Din's fingers twitched, as though he would be able to put it back in place through the recording.

"Oh, it's working now? Wait. Uh. Hello? I hope this message finds you well—although I'd settle for it finding you at all, at this point—ha.

"I hope it's okay for me to contact you this way—wait, actually, I should apologize first. I wasn't straightforward with you about what I was—I honestly assumed that you knew, but then I realized...well, it doesn't matter. Now you know.

"I heard about the occupation on Nevarro, and I was worried that something had happened to you and your Tribe. I guess I was right. Your leader said that you'd be needing help, I guess I just wanted to make sure you know that I'm here if you want me. Or, um, need me. Anything from me, I mean. Yeah. The same goes for the rest of the Mantis. They were worried about you too, although Greez would never ever admit it.  

"Anyway, if you can, let me know that you're okay. You don't have to, obviously, I'm sure you're busy. But, um, yeah. See you soon, I hope. Now, how do I—ah, I see. Poncho out!"

Din sat in silence for a minute, processing the many things he was feeling. Apart from the concern in Cal's tone (no one ever worried about him), one thing in particular stuck out to him. The apology. What was Cal sorry about? And what was it that Din was supposed to know now?

He mentally inventoried the small amount of information he had on the man, particularly anything that would have come up with the Armorer. The only thing he could figure was that it had something to do with Cal's ambiguous work with the Rebellion, but frankly Din didn't know enough about rebel politics to know what that could possibly have to do with him.

As for the offer of assistance...he didn't know what to think. On one hand, the idea filled him with a strange warm feeling. He wanted to accept, though not for the reasons he should. But did he really want to drag Cal into this mess? How could Din even begin to explain everything that had happened to him in the past few months?

In his lap, the kid was staring fixedly at the place where Cal's face had been, mouth slightly open. Din reached out and held the rewind button on the transmission, and watched it again.

-----

The crew of the Mantis spent much of their time gathering what information they could on the Imperial factions operating in the Outer Rim. What they found was worrying, to say the least, and they'd only managed to get in touch with the Core a couple times to relay their intel. The New Republic's forces were stretched thin, as usual—it was unfortunate, but there just wasn't much that could be done.

They could contact Master Skywalker, at least, who had relocated to Devaron to refurbish the Temple of Eedit with the help of a few Jedi and some new students. Cal was glad they'd chosen that place for the training temple—he'd had a good feeling about the place when he'd visited, despite its decrepit state. He wished he could be there,  protecting them and helping with the repairs and scrambling around the old ruins, but this was more urgent. The temple would still be there when the threat in the Outer Rim was gone. Hopefully.

When not preoccupied by the ghosts of the Empire or the Order, Cal wondered about the Mandalorian. He hovered around the communications module so often that someone (probably Cere) had left a blanket on the floor next to it so that he didn't have to sit on the cold floor.

He prayed to the Force that his message had gotten through, but if it hadn't, there wasn't much he could do about it. Maybe the Mandalorian had gotten the transmission and didn't want to respond. Days passed in a haze of tension and vague concern.

Finally it happened, in the middle of the ship's night cycle. Cal, sleepless, had been meditating when he was called back to himself by the sound of a transmission coming through.

The image of the Mandalorian that came through was not what Cal expected. His helmet was the same, but the rest of the armor that Cal could see had been swapped out with pure, unpainted beskar. It shone brightly even through the holo. On his right pauldron, the likeness of some creature (a mudhorn?) had been engraved. A signet.

"Thank you for your message," the holo of the Mandalorian was saying. "I'm quite surprised you got the Armorer to give you this frequency. You must have made an impression on her. She does not take such things lightly.

"We're fine. A lot has happened since we spoke last—I'll have to fill you in sometime. I'm about to leave Nevarro, which is, as of today, Imperial-free. The covert will not return there, but the survivors will move on through the network and live. This is the Way."

There was an odd, garbled squeak and a thump in the background, and the Mandalorian whipped around suddenly. There was a jetpack on his back—that was also new. What the hell had happened to him? Who did he mean by "we"?

The Mandalorian sighed. "I'm sorry, I have to go. Be well. K'oyacyi." The transmission ended quickly.

A day later, Cal learned that the last Imperial base on Nevarro was gone. Not abandoned—gone. Completely destroyed.

Cal couldn't help but be impressed, though it was not without a small sting of regret. He could have helped. He'd offered to help. While the Mandalorian hadn't exactly said no, he hadn't accepted either, and he wished he knew why.

-----

After some deliberation, Din returned planetside to ask a favor of Marshal Cara Dune before he left Nevarro.

"What name did you want me to look up again?" She asked, clicking around her New Republic console. As a marshal, she had access to the most complete database of Republic citizens in existence, but Din's own absence from the directory was evidence that it wasn't complete. The only people listed with any reliability were criminals, government officials, or military.

"Cal Kestis."

"Cal Kestis..." Cara repeated, plugging in the letters. "Who's that?"

"Uh...a friend." There must have been something telling in his voice, because Cara looked up from the monitor, disbelief etched on her face.

"Tell me you didn't just ask me to use my credentials to do a background check on some hook-up."

"That's not what I—" The console beeped, indicating that it'd found a match, and Cara turned to squint at the readout.

"That's weird," she said.

"What does it say?"

"Well, I got a match, but it says here that Cal Kestis served in the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars, and died in action aboard a Star Destroyer."

Din sighed, a little disappointed. "Must be someone with the same name."

"Wait, it gets weirder—if this information is right, he made the rank of commander at age twelve, and died shortly after." Din did some mental math. If that child had lived, he'd be about Din's age. Was it possible that this was Cal's file, and it simply wasn't up to date? Though, that didn't explain how a child could have ended up as a military officer.

"Is there a picture?"

"It's been redacted. Along with half his file. Who the hell are you dating, Mando?"

"We're not dating," Din insisted, his face flushed under his helmet.

-----

Inbox (1): Playback / Reply / Delete

To: RC2349:334-5

From: AN593-0

"...I'm glad you got my message. I like your new armor! You're very, uh, shiny. Is that a mudhorn on your pauldron? I once met a mudhorn on Dantooine. Nearly gored me, it was not my finest moment...

Anyway, I saw what happened on Nevarro. You'll have to tell me the whole story sometime, no one seems to know exactly what happened.

We—the Mantis and its crew, that is—have been running surveillance on Imperial activity in the Outer Rim. We don't know what's going on yet, but something's about to happen, I can feel it. If you can, you should lie low for a while..."

-----

Inbox (1): Playback / Reply / Delete

To: AN593-0

From: RC2349:334-5

"...I appreciate your concern. I wish it were possible for me to lie low, but I...I have been tasked with a quest. There are people I need to find, things I need to take care of. I can handle dregs of the Empire, though.

Yes, it's a mudhorn. This one I met on Arvala-7. A while back, some Jawas stripped my ship and I had to buy the parts back with an egg. It was, uh, an ordeal. That's another story I'll have to tell you sometime.

It sounds like you're the one that needs to be told to stay safe, if you're keeping tabs on the Empire. I know for a fact they don't take kindly to interference..."

-----

Din met what he thought was his first Jedi on the dismal planet of Corvus. Ahsoka Tano was a strange being, but he couldn't help but see a little of the kid—Grogu, he knew the name now, he must use it—in her clever eyes and mysterious power.

He had to admit that he was a little surprised she wasn't green or have giant ears. Being a Jedi must be more like being a Mandalorian than a species.

This revelation was accompanied by a moment of recognition when he saw the Jedi's weapons. Twin blades of light, pure white, elegant. Familiar. He asked her about them as the three of them sat around the lantern at her campsite. Din hoped he was not bothering her with his questions, but he felt it was his right to ask them considering he would, eventually, leave his kid with these people.

"Do only Jedi have laser swords?"

"Lightsabers. And not only Jedi, no. The Sith have them, and I have seen others with similar weapons, though it is rare." Ahsoka reached a slender orange finger out to Grogu beside her, who grabbed hold of it and brought it close to his large, dark brown eyes. "The Force aides us, guides our blades. My lightsabers are a part of me, as much as my arms and legs are."

Din thought of dual cyan blades, whirring and slicing in the icy half-light of the caverns on Bahryn, and the effortless fluidity of Cal's movements as he wielded them.

He also thought of the way Ahsoka moved, as though weightless. The mental connection between her and Grogu that he couldn't imagine. The first time they'd met, Cal had seemed almost inhumanly skilled, and he'd continued to pull off impossible stunts every time their paths had crossed. The parallels were there, had been there the whole time—he just hadn't had the perspective to see them.

Was it possible that he'd known a Jedi this whole karking time?

He felt an unidentifiable ache in his chest. He thought he should be angry. He was, sort of. If the Mandalorians and the Jedi were natural enemies, he could understand why Cal might not have told him directly, but Cal was also the closest thing to a friend that Din had. He'd trusted him, nearly as much as he trusted his own kind. He'd travelled with him, fought alongside him, watched him laugh...

But, if Din was right, Cal was actually a member of Grogu's people. And if attachments were bad for Grogu, what did that mean for Cal?

------

On Tython, the Razor Crest waited for the return of its captain. Only a moment after Din and Grogu left to visit the seeing stone, a transmission came through.

"Hey—I don't know what's going on, but we just intercepted a coded message from Moff Gideon's cruiser, and it was about you. They're tracking your ship, I don't know why. You need to get somewhere safe, immediately. Disable the tracking beacon if you can. I'll find you. Please, be careful."

Din never heard it. About an hour later, Din watched in horror as his home was destroyed right before his eyes, immediately after his child was taken. He had nothing left but his armor and the spear at his back.

It wasn't much, but it was going to have to be enough.

-----

Grogu's call through the Force was similar to what Cal imagined being hit over the head with the Armorer's sledgehammer would feel like. One minute he was walking down the hall towards his quarters, minding his own business, and the next he was somewhere (and someone) else.

Tython, rocky and green, was overrun with Imperial troops. In the distance, two men in armor and a woman were fending them off, but there were more on the way. He felt deep, visceral fear—not for himself, not of the Dark Troopers descending on him, but for his buir down the hill below. He did not want to cause his buir pain again. He did not want to people who want his blood to hurt his buir. He wanted to go back to how things were, just the two of them on the ship, his buir singing to him in a language Grogu sort of knew, safe, loved, so very loved—

"Cal! Kid, wake up!" Cal was on the floor. His head hurt. People were crouched around him.

"Grrhhg. Wh?"

"Oh Force, he's broken."

"He's fine, Greez. Just give him a minute."

Cal began to regain his mental faculties. It was hard work. Then he shot up to his feet—big mistake, the ground was made of goo—and made his way haltingly down the hall.

"Cal, what's going on?" Cere's voice cut through his brain fog. He didn't have time to answer questions, he had to get to Tython, he had to find his Mandalorian, he had to—

"Gotta go find Yoda but small," he muttered deliriously. Cere looked at him like he'd grown another head.

"I hate to break it to you, but Master Yoda's been dead for a good ten years."

"No," Cal said, frustrated. Force, his head was killing him. "The other one."

Chapter Text

The assault on the blast doors protecting the bridge of Gideon's light cruiser seemed like it would be short-lived. Already, the durasteel was denting and buckling inward as the droids pounded their fists into it, the sound echoing forebodingly in the silence. Their blasters were all aimed at the doors, for whatever good it would do them.

They all jumped at the sound of the proximity alert and turned to the viewport. One X-wing was turning through space towards them.

"An X-wing," Bo-Katan said, moving to look at the security monitors.

"One X-wing? Great. We're saved." Cara deadpanned with a roll of her eyes. Din silently agreed, and Bo-Katan fruitlessly attempted to hail the ship now docked in the cruiser's hanger.

Then, the pounding stopped. Gideon, bound on the floor, looked more unsettled than he had when Din had been holding a blade to his throat not fifteen minutes prior.  Until this moment, in fact, he'd been remarkably calm.

Near the security monitors, Grogu cooed, the sole spirit of contentment on the bridge.

"A Jedi?" Din heard Bo-Katan say quietly. Din felt his heart stutter. He looked back, just for a moment, but he couldn't see the security feed from where he stood.

He didn't ask which Jedi.

-----

In the end, Cal appropriated an X-wing and intercepted Moff Gideon's ship on his own, the very minute they figured out where it was. Master Skywalker wanted to send a brigade of Jedi to the rescue, but Cal knew in his gut that it would take too much time to organize. He could still feel the kid's fear through the Force. A little thread connected them—a budding bond formed by the child reaching, all the way from Tython, across the galaxy to Cal.

So, while his fellow Jedi were standing around the holotable, plotting, Cal just left.

He found Grogu and the others in quite a state, barricaded on the bridge of the light cruiser, about to be swarmed by Dark Troopers. Cal landed in the hanger and jumped out of the cockpit, pulling up the hood of his poncho so it was less likely that he'd be identified. BD-1 trailed behind him obediently as Cal cut the droids down or crushed them with the Force.

All of the Dark Troopers' attention was on him, as Cal had intended. Hopefully, the ones at the bridge would be making their way to him, rather than their prey. He spun his blade, deflecting a volley of blaster bolts, then flung two of them into the wall with a lazy flick of his wrist. These things were meant to kill Jedi? Not likely.

Just before he got in the elevator, he saw a security camera turn to watch him in the corner. He waved at it.

The last ten droids were defeated with ease. Cal coughed a little when the passage filled with smoke from the disabled machines, but then the very dented blast doors slid open and the smoke filtered out. He stepped onto the bridge.

There were quite a few people spread out across the deck—two Mandalorians in blue armor, a muscular woman with the tattoos of a rebel soldier, another woman with a sniper rifle pointed at him, and the Moff, who was unconscious on the floor.

But Cal's attention found the only familiar face—well, helmet—in the room. His Mandalorian was standing frozen, armor gleaming, visor locked on Cal.

"Seems like I was a little late to the party," Cal said, pushing back his hood and smiling tentatively at him. There were so many emotions radiating at Cal from all directions, he was having trouble parsing them all. He could tell he'd walked in at the end of a very complicated drama, and he was quite certain he didn't have enough information to understand the plot yet.

"Nah, man, you were right on time," the soldier said, when the Mandalorian said nothing.

Quiet babble pulled Cal's awareness down to the floor, where a very short being was waddling towards him, hands outstretched. Cal dropped low immediately to properly greet Grogu. 

"Hi," Cal said quietly to the kid. "I'm Cal. Or Poncho. Do you...remember me?"

"Patu," Grogu said, but through the Force Cal could feel the child's delight, gratitude for his timely arrival, and a request for snacks.

"Regretfully, I have no snacks." Cal informed him, reaching out to shake the tiny hand offered to him. His dark eyes were so large and shiny that Cal could see his own reflection in them, as if he was looking at the back of a polished spoon. "You know, you're a lot cuter than Master Yoda."

"Ba?"

"Indeed."

BD-1's head popped out from behind Cal and scanned Grogu, causing the child to giggle manically when the blue light fanned across his little face. The droid's antenna wiggled excitedly; he was always happy to meet new friends.

"You are a Jedi." Cal stood and stared at the Mandalorian, who was a few steps closer now. He could see the dark smudges of blasterfire on his armor and the grime on his flight suit. His shoulders were slumped in exhaustion, and he seemed to be favoring one leg just slightly.

"You...I thought you knew," Cal confirmed lamely, rubbing the back of his neck. He'd really miscalculated that one, hadn't he?

"Not for sure," the Mandalorian said. Force, he sounded exhausted too. "Not until now."

"Wait," the soldier said. "Do you two know each other?"

Cal had quite forgotten that there were other people here, still. One of the blue-armored Mandalorians was eyeing him suspiciously.

He nodded, and the soldier spun to face the Mandalorian, her expression pure incredulity.

"What the hell? You knew a Jedi this whole time and we—"

"It's not his fault," Cal interjected, closed his eyes. Turned to the Mandalorian. "I can explain why this happened, but I think we should maybe...deal with some other things first?" The Mandalorian nodded stiffly.

"Okay. Now, does anyone have a ship somewhere between the sizes of an X-wing and an Imperial light cruiser?"

-----

The mood aboard Slave I was...tense.

Cal felt a little bad about leaving the X-wing to drift in space, but it was hardly the first time he'd "borrowed" a ship with no intention of returning it. At least it was in one piece this time—if the New Republic wanted to send someone all the way out there to get it, there was nothing stopping them.

"Alright, where am I dropping everyone off? This isn't a karking taxi and I don't have all day," another Mandalorian, this one with green and red armor, yelled back to the group as a whole once they were all aboard.

Everyone looked at Cal, who cleared his throat. "Uh, Devaron?"

"Devaron? Seriously? You're paying for fuel."

"Sure! Thank you." He got a grunt in response.

"And we're going to Krownest," the Mandalorian in blue and silver, Bo-Katan, called up to the pilot.

"I am not going one parsec farther than Corellia for you, princess. You'll make your own way to the Mandalore sector."

"Fine," Bo-Katan replied with a roll of her eyes. Her helmet was tucked under her arm—a strange sight for Cal, who had never seen the face of the only Mandalorian he'd ever known, despite the fact that he'd done enough (purely educational) research to know that very few of them actually followed the helmet rule.

Grogu was asleep in his father's arms within minutes. It was a charming sight, despite the circumstances. The bond between them was as close as if they were truly related. If Cal hadn't seen the Mandalorian's decidedly human skin when he'd stitched him up on Drexel (and known Master Yoda), he would have thought he was hiding massive green ears under his helmet somehow.

For the first hour of the journey, Cal gave them space, taking a seat apart from the rest. There was a wariness radiating off the Mandalorian that hadn't been there since they'd first met. Cal hated that he'd caused it, even inadvertently.

Two hours in, Bo-Katan started talking to the Mandalorian about something. Cal didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it was a small ship. As their conversation became contentious, the two Mandalorians' voices got louder.

"Just take the damn thing, Bo-Katan." He was holding something out to her that Cal couldn't see.

"I can't," she replied through gritted teeth. "It is not the Way. You of all people should understand that."

"For once, I don't care. Please take it."

"No. It's yours."

"Then fight me, and I'll lose."

"You're missing the karking point."

"Take. It."

"I. Can't."

Cal fought the urge to crane his neck to see what they were talking about, but the temptation was removed abruptly by the soldier, Cara, moving to sit beside him.

"So you're that Cal." She grinned widely at him. Cal was instantly concerned.  "How'd you meet our friend?"

"It's kind of a long story," he replied evasively.

"We've got..." She checked the chronometer on her vambrace, "Eleven hours and forty-five minutes. Go."

Cal sighed, resigned to his fate, and started at the beginning. His storytelling drew a crowd—by the time he was explaining the job on Alzoc III, everyone (except his Mandalorian and Bo-Katan) was listening, including the surly pilot, though he seemed to be pretending not to. Perhaps it was the boredom of the long flight, but they were an attentive audience.

When he'd finished, Cara leaned towards him a bit. The mildly unsettling smile hadn't left her face the whole time he'd been telling his story. "I can see why he likes you," she said, and then she stood and returned to her previous seat, leaving a pink-faced Cal to ponder that one on his own.

-----

As they neared the Devaron system, Din felt his dread grow more and more overwhelming. Grogu fussed quietly, as though sensing his distress.

He knew that once they landed, he'd have to hand off the kid to the Jedi. He might never see the kid again. As grateful as he was that Cal had come to their aid, Din couldn't help the bitterness that welled up inside him. Would Cal stay at this Jedi place with Grogu? Would he be one to train him, or would he be passed off to another?

Sooner than Din would have liked, Slave I was preparing to touch down in a clearing near a pair of enormous stone towers surrounded by jungle. They looked old—not as ancient as the monument on Tython, but still old. Grogu fidgeted in his lap, straining to see out the viewport, and Din held him up.

"He can sense the vergence."

"The what?" Din asked, turning to see Cal behind him, looking out the viewport as well.

"The Force is very powerful here."

"Will it keep him safe?" Din heard his voice crack, and hated it. Cal smiled, a little sadly.

"If the Force could keep a Jedi safe, a lot of things would be different now. But with training, he will learn to protect himself, and there is no Jedi who would not give their life for the future of the Order." Din nodded, even though the answer wasn't very satisfying.

Grogu made a sharp sound and reached toward Cal, and Din reluctantly passed the child to the Jedi. Din supposed he remembered Cal from the holomessages he'd sent them that they'd watched together. The sadness fled Cal's face as he held Grogu—at the very least, Din knew that he'd be loved.

Once they'd landed, Din followed Cal to the ship's exit, but he stopped at the top of the ramp, unable to step forward.

"W-wait, hang on." Cal stopped and turned, green eyes bright and kind. Din wished there were fewer people here. "May I...have a minute to say goodbye?"

Cal's expression morphed into confusion. In Cal's arms, the kid's ears flattened. "You aren't staying?"

Now Din was confused. "I can't. Can I?"

"I mean, the temple still needs a lot of work, but as long as you don't eat any of the flowers growing out of the floor," Cal laughed, "you should be fine. There's way too much room, there's only fifteen other students and the older Jedi come and go..."

He trailed off, and Din watched the gears turn in the Jedi's mind. Then his eyes widened in alarm. "Oh! Oh no, we—we aren't going to take him from you. They don't do that anymore. Force, I'm so sorry, no wonder..."

"But Ahsoka said that he had too much, uh, fear. That he was too attached to me."

"Which is something he will have to learn to manage, as we all must."

"Oh," Din said, dumbly. The relief he felt almost brought tears to his eyes under his helmet. "I—" he started, but then realized he didn't have words for what he was feeling, so he closed his mouth.

Cal smiled warmly, then strode back up the ramp and held Grogu out for Din to take back. He put his hand on Din's shoulder, gently tugging, guiding him off the ship and towards the temple.

"So, I never got a chance to ask, how the hell did you end up with a Force-sensitive kid anyway?"

Chapter Text

The state of the temple had improved greatly since Cal had last visited. He led the Mandalorian through the main entrance this time, which was now usable, though grand hall beyond it hadn't gotten much attention yet.

"What is this place?" The Mandalorian asked. His helmet was angled towards the high arched ceiling, taking in the trees growing through the windows and the symbols and decorative reliefs carved into the stone walls. Cal walked slowly towards the stairway that would lead them to the dormitories, makeshift offices, and training rooms.

"It's known as the Temple of Eedit," Cal said. "Centuries ago, it served as a training temple, as it does now. As the number of Jedi dwindled, they started keeping all the younglings on Coruscant where it was safer, so there wasn't much going on here. During the Clone Wars, it was a Republic military outpost, and then of course it was abandoned after Order 66. Hopefully, we'll be able to restore it to its former glory over the next few years." That was assuming no one problematic found out where they were and wiped them all out before then.

The Mandalorian looked down, back at Cal. "Order 66?"

"You really haven't heard any of this before?" The Mandalorian shook his head. "The Jedi were once closely tied to the Republic. We were peacekeepers, healers, and scholars. When the Clone Wars broke out, we were compelled into service as the leaders of the military."

"So you really were a child soldier."

Cal laughed, humorlessly. "You looked me up. Yes, I was made a commander when my Master took me on, not long before the end of the war." Cal sighed, fixing his gaze on the floor. "Then, the Republic became the Empire and the Jedi were killed. That was Order 66. Very few of us survived. My Master gave his life so I could escape our ship, and then I was alone for a long time—until Cere and Greez took me in. Apart from aiding the rebellion from time to time, we lived in hiding until the Empire fell."

The Mandalorian watched him steadily, his attention intense, even from behind the helmet. "You're not used to not having to hide."

"None of us are," Cal admitted, grateful that the Mandalorian had picked up what he was getting at. "It's not that I didn't trust you enough to talk about it—I just..." Cal made a vague, uncertain gesture with his hand. They'd stopped walking at the foot of the staircase. Grogu shifted impatiently in his father's arms.

"I know," the Mandalorian said. "I...think I understand. As much as I can."

Cal smiled, genuinely this time. "I know you do."

He turned to take the first step up the staircase, but a hand on his wrist held him back. Cal looked back at the Mandalorian, who was looking at his own hand as though offended that it had moved without his permission. He released Cal's wrist, and Cal felt rather bereft.

"Din Djarin." He said it quietly, but firmly. Distracted, Cal didn't understand.

"Huh?"

"That's my name."

"Oh!" Cal sucked in a breath. He hadn't thought he'd ever have the honor of knowing it. "Really?"

The Mandalorian—Din Djarin, what a lovely name—actually laughed at that. Or maybe it was at whatever undoubtedly ridiculous expression Cal had on his face. "Yes, really."

"Thank you."

"Don't tell anyone."

Cal nodded, more emphatically than necessary. "I promise."

-----

That day, Din met more Jedi than he had ever wanted to. Despite the temple's abandoned-looking exterior, the more central areas were buzzing with activity. A diverse array of young Jedi bustled around and a few older Jedi greeted them warmly as Cal led him through the stone passages.

Though they were endlessly welcoming and grateful that Din had kept Grogu safe, Din was always acutely aware that most of them, even some of the younglings, could kill him if the mood struck. He felt more than a little out of his depth.

The leader of the temple, who the Jedi called "master" even though he had to be a decade younger than Cal, was a blond man in dark robes named Luke Skywalker. He had a friendly smile and a metal hand, as Din noticed when he shook it.

"I'm glad you're here!" Skywalker exclaimed once they'd been introduced. "Please, make yourself at home. You're a bounty hunter, right? That's cool, by the way! No judgement. Do you know Boba Fett?"

"Uh," Din said intelligently, not expecting the non sequitur. "I do? Why?"

"Oh, no reason. Damn, I really thought that sarlacc had gotten him..." Skywalker trailed off thoughtfully. Cal, to Din's left, rubbed his face with a hand.

"What's going to happen to Grogu?" Din prompted. Skywalker's attention shifted abruptly back to him.

"Right! We'll have a rotation of knights and mind-healers work with him to restore the balance in his mind, as is customary for most younglings. He's been through a lot since Coruscant. Since it was Cal that he reached out to, perhaps you'd like to manage that?" Skywalker turned to Cal, who nodded.

"Of course."

-----

True to his word, Cal took a break from running odd Jedi errands and travelling aboard the Mantis to coordinate Grogu's training and make sure they were settled in. Din trusted Cal to look after Grogu's interests, and that was exactly what he did.

Before long, Din's guard began to lower, and his other concerns began to creep back in. He still had the Darksaber, despite his best efforts, and if he wasn't prepared to fight Bo-Katan soon, he'd still be stuck with it. He didn't have a ship, either, and despite the comforts of the temple, he was quickly becoming antsy. He helped out here and there with the renovations on the temple, but he needed to get back to doing what he was best at.

One of those problems, at least, he could solve easily.

From the long-range comms room at the top of the main tower of the temple, Din opened a familiar channel back to Nevarro. A few minutes of waiting passed, and then Greef Karga's pleased voice boomed through the speakers, fuzzy from the distance.

"Mando! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Any chance you've got any Guild contacts in the Duluur sector?"

"I might. You looking for work? Marshal Dune said you'd settled into domestic bliss," Greef said with a chuckle. Din ignored the jab completely.

"Any information you could give me would be helpful."

"I'll see what I can do, old friend."

"Thank you. Oh, and one other thing—I'm going to need a new ship."

-----

Much like his Mandalorian friend, Cal was not used to staying in once place for long. Since he'd been a padawan not much older than the ones being trained at the Temple of Eedit, being on any planet for more than a couple days had meant certain death. He almost envied Master Skywalker's seamless adjustment to temple life, though he supposed growing up on Tatooine would make a guy pretty easy to please.

He kept busy, though. He liked training Grogu, even though most of his work with him was devoted to meditating through the years of strain on the child's strong connection to the Force. Grogu had clearly been trained before—by many Jedi more talented and experienced than Cal—but his youth and the stress of the years since the purge had taken its toll on his skill and discipline. His mind was clouded with fear and confusion.

Grogu was a lot like Cal had been, in that way.

Cal found that they had many other things in common as well—they both preferred meditating outside, for one thing. He'd taken to carrying Grogu out to the focus stones a few meters into the jungle surrounding the temple, where they could feel the fresh air on their skin and listen to the sounds of the broad leaves rustling overhead. When they took breaks, Grogu would bring BD-1 small amphibians to scan and add to his database.

On several occasions, Grogu found rocks that he insisted Cal bring back to Din. He would press the rock against whatever part of Cal was closest—often his ankle, or his knee if he was sitting—and project a mental image of the Mandalorian into Cal's mind until Cal pocketed it and promised he'd deliver it.

It was very cute.

Apparently Din thought so too, since he kept each rock in a little row on a shelf in his quarters. Whenever Cal brought him one, he'd accept it reverently and place it next to the last one, as though it were made of a precious material.

Grogu would watch Cal meaningfully while this happened, eyes wide, as if to say "I told you he'd like that one," and really, there was only so much pure love and affection Cal could take.

-----

Din's new ship was a small Kom'rk-class starfighter, not unlike the one Bo-Katan and her clique travelled on. His ship was a much older model, though—it couldn't have been manufactured more than a few years later than the Razor Crest had been.

It looked much older. The ship hadn't been well cared for, and its rusty brown paint was peeling off in sheets. Carbon scoring had blackened both wings. Every  sudden movement made the ship's abused frame shudder ominously, and landing on the surface of Devaron had been done almost entirely without the help of the gunked-up proximity sensors. The landing gear screeched like a shriek-hawk when it was lowered.

No matter. Din didn't mind a challenge, and it would give him time to adjust to the unfamiliar craft. Once it was fixed up, the ship would technically be an upgrade, but Din wasn't convinced.

"Either you're flying under the influence, or your stabilizers are absolutely farkled," Cal commented by way of a greeting, once Din had landed and painstakingly extended the ornery boarding ramp.

"The latter," Din confirmed, already in the process of appraising the neglected hull from the outside. He yanked on the bent edge of a titanium panel, which did not give way. That was something.

"Do you think you'll like it? Once it's fixed up?"

"It's well-equipped. Two forward laser cannons, two rear—that's more than the Crest—decent hyperdrive. The navicomputer database is remarkably up to date. Reinforced hull, Class-5 shield emitters..."

"Yeah, but do you like it."

Din pondered that. He'd had the Razor Crest since he took his first bounty. There would never be another like her. Despite the gunship's venerable age, it had seen him through more shootouts than he could count and gotten him wherever he needed to go. It had been loyally waiting for him after every successful job and every catastrophic failure, until the end. The Razor Crest had been his safe haven, his home.

"I don't know yet," he said. He stole a glance at Cal, leaning against the thrusters planted in the ground while the ship's wings were in their vertical landing position, looking fondly back at him. Din felt his face heat up.

"You're going to get carbon dust on your poncho."

"It was bound to happen eventually, since I'll be helping you make this thing less of a death trap."

"Is that so?"

"It is." Then, Cal's soft smile widened into something more playful. "And while we're at it, you'll get to hear all the names I've already come up with."

A breath of laughter escaped Din. He'd never been one for naming ships—the Razor Crest had come with its name—but there was a first time for everything. "Such as?"

"Rust Bucket. The Beskarmobile. Crash Landing. Razor Crest 2. Droid's Bane. Carbonite Cruiser.  The Green Baby, but only if you paint it the same color as Grogu..."

Chapter Text

Cal, unable to sleep once again, wandered the dark halls of the temple. Cal, Cere, and Greez had just returned from a three-day mission; he often found it harder to sleep planetside after spending so much time dozing off to the white noise of the Mantis's engines. Good thing he didn't need much sleep anyway.

He passed by the closed door of Din's room. Strangely, he couldn't sense the Mandalorian's presence—only the child's, and Grogu was fast asleep.

Cal pushed the sudden stream of worries out of his mind. If something were wrong, Grogu would have noticed and summoned Cal through their bond. Perhaps Din was also experiencing some insomnia and had gone to work on his ship, as he spent much of his time on the project these days. Cal turned his feet in the direction of the courtyard and the landing area.

It had been almost a full two months since they'd first come to Devaron, but it felt like no time at all. They had something of a routine down, by now—Grogu stayed at the temple, where he benefited from the stability and support of the Order, and Din and Cal stayed at the temple when they weren't working. Cal was selective about the missions he took so he was never away too long, and he suspected Din made the same calculations about the jobs he took.

It was nice to have a place to come back to. He hoped Din would agree. Even though they'd known each other for quite a while now, Cal still felt at a loss when he tried to guess at the Mandalorian's mental state.

He thought it might have a little to do with him wanting Din to feel...certain ways, and doubting his own ability to be objective about what he was actually feeling.

Cal stepped out of the temple and into the crisp night air. The moons were bright in the sky, and the lack of sentient civilization nearby allowed the stars to shine brightly. Cal was only just beginning to learn their many patterns on this planet.

The training courtyard was quiet, but not, as Cal had initially thought, completely vacant. Across the way, near the treeline, a lone figure was moving through some basic lightsaber forms. The beskar glinting in the moonlight told Cal that the figure was Din, and the precision with which he moved told him that the Mandalorian had been watching the Jedi train closely, and had been practicing for a while. However, there was a stiffness about him that Cal figured came from a lack of familiarity with the unusual flow of a lightsaber duel, so unlike any other kind of combat.

He watched from afar for a minute before he registered the lightsaber Din was using. Or rather, the Darksaber.

Cal knew what the Darksaber was. He'd seen illustrations of Tarre Vizsla's unique saber and heard stories about its journey through history. It was an ancient weapon of great cultural importance. And somehow, it had fallen into Din's hands.

He'd have to ask about it, but not right now.

"You're a little heavy on your lead foot," Cal called over to him.

Din jumped like he'd been electrocuted. He deactivated the Darksaber as he spun to face Cal, as though he was going to pretend he hadn’t been doing anything.

“You’re allowed to train out here during the day, you know. It’s not like it’s busy.”

“It’s not—I...” Din started haltingly, his visor not quite looking Cal in the eye.

“Middle of the night’s fine too though, if that’s more comfortable.” Cal took a few more steps forward into sparring range. “Ready?”

“Ready for what?” Din asked, confused out of his embarrassment.

“Come on, let’s see what you’ve been working on.”

“I am not fighting you, Poncho.”

Cal laughed. “Not fighting, sparring! It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“It’ll be fun until I get my arm cut off,” the Mandalorian grumbled, but he settled into a neutral stance and activated his saber nonetheless.

“Have more faith in your abilities. And my restraint.” Cal ignited one side of his own lightsaber. The light from the pale blade was more intense than the dim aura of the Darksaber; it cast a cyan glow over the grass and stone around them and bounced off Din’s armor.

Cal spun the hilt into a defensive grip and waited for Din to make the first move.

-----

...Assuming you accept my challenge, which I insist you do, you will come to Knownest on the eve of Aay'han Tuur to face me.

If I defeat you, you will surrender the Darksaber and swear fealty to House Kryze. If you win, I will challenge you again—or one of my competitors will, if they are given the opportunity. Some will not be as gracious with your life, should you lose.

I hope you are prepared. It will not do for this to be an unequal fight.

Bo-Katan's transmission ended with no sign off. Din watched it several times to make sure he wasn't missing any important information. If she was asking him to swear his allegiance, hopefully that meant she didn't intend to kill him when she won, which was somewhat consoling.

Aay'han Tuur—Remembrance Day—was a Mandalorian holiday that celebrated the lives of Mando'ade who'd passed on. In the covert, it had always been a somber occasion. Even foundlings like himself had lost people in the Great Purge. It wasn't uncommon to schedule important functions around Aay'han Tuur, since it was guaranteed that people would be available to observe it.

The holiday was still a few standard weeks away. Hopefully, this whole mess would be over then, and he could go back to happily living life in blissful ignorance of house politics, with no claim at all to the title of Mand'alor.

Din looked up at the sound of light knocking on the frame of the open door to his quarters. It was Cal, with one plate of food in his hand and another balanced on his forearm.

"You hungry?"

"I am, thank you."

"There's some extra meat for Grogu too." Din accepted the proffered plate. Cal took the other and sat, as he often did, in the hallway just outside the threshold of the door.

Before the Cal had started joining him for meals, Din hadn't eaten with anyone since he was a child. He found the change pleasant, if a bit unsettling at first. Talking to someone without the consoling barrier of the helmet made him feel vulnerable, and he found himself pointlessly worried about what his voice sounded like. Did he speak too loudly, compensating for the modulation of vocoder? Too softly? Was his intonation weird?

If any of that was the case, Cal never mentioned it. Din did find himself wishing that he could see the other man's face, rather than just his knee and the corner of whatever brightly colored poncho he was wearing, when they ate together. But that wasn't allowed.

Not yet, anyway.

"Was that Bo-Katan?" Cal asked, pointing without looking back through Din's doorway at the bluish figure of Bo-Katan frozen above the table. "What did she want? I meant to ask before, you guys don't seem to get along too well."

Din shrugged, before remembering Cal couldn't see him. "Mandalorians fight, it's just what we do. There's no real bad blood between us. She's going to challenge me for the Darksaber." He sighed. "Wish she'd just taken the damn thing."

"Why didn't she?"

"Apparently that's 'not how it works' and 'a disrespect to our traditions.' It must be won for her claim to be legitimate."

"Her claim...to the saber?"

"Oh, I don't think she cares about the blade itself. She wants the throne."

"Wh..." Cal had stopped eating. "The throne?"

It began to dawn on Din that Cal, while knowledgeable about a great many things, might not know just how significant Din had unwittingly made himself by winning the Darksaber.

"I also did not know the two things were connected when I took the Darksaber from Gideon."

"So you're the ruler of your people, right now?"

"Not...exactly. I just have a claim to the title."

"Damn."

"Yeah."

They ate in heavy silence for a moment, before the sound of fussing from Grogu's crib told Din that he was awake and hungry. Din finished his own food quickly and shoved his helmet back on, then stood to get the kid.

"You can come in now," he called back to Cal.

"How gracious of you, your majesty." When Din turned back, Grogu in his arms, Cal was bowing dramatically towards him, a mischievous grin on his face.

"Kark off, Poncho," Din muttered, but he was unable to muster any real irritation.

-----

Din continued to train with Cal, more often now that Cal knew why exactly Din learning how to use the Darksaber was important. By the next week, Cal was hauling him out into the courtyard in the dark pre-dawn hours of the morning almost every single day.

"If we've been sparring for over a month and you lose to Bo-Katan, I won't have done a very good job teaching you," Cal asserted.

"But I want to lose," Din protested weakly.

He couldn't really complain, though, because sparring with Cal was actually fun. Terrifying, at times, but undeniably fun. And the longer they went, the less Din felt the Jedi was pulling his punches. Din might not have Force-speed or Cal's acrobatic abilities, but he did have armor and as many years of experience.

They traded strikes slowly at first, gradually building up momentum. They danced around each other to the staccato rhythm of the blades clashing, black on pale blue.

Din had to admit to himself that Cal was beautiful like this. In his element, his green eyes lit with focus and his cheeks tinged pink with exertion. It motivated him to work harder, move faster, be more of a challenge to the Jedi in front of him.

Din went to sweep the blade in an arc towards Cal's middle and clipped the edge of his poncho, but was blocked. He parried the strike that followed, then pivoted out of the way. A lesser fighter would have been unbalanced, but Cal compensated easily and nearly tripped Din up with a low strike.

He feinted to the left, not expecting Cal to fall for it, but he did. Instead of a blade blocking him, Din found his whole body quite suddenly fixed in place, his arm immobile in the air about a foot from Cal's shoulder.

Din had never felt the Force used on him like this before. It was a bizarre feeling—the closest thing he could think to relate it to was being in a dream, where you didn't entirely have control of your own actions. Din only had a few seconds to consider it before he was released and he was allowed to pull his arm back.

"Sorry!" Cal exclaimed. He looked mortified. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to do that, it was just a reflex. Sorry. Are you okay?" Cal put his hand on Din's half-extended forearm. He was standing very close.

"It's okay," Din assured him. "Weird feeling, though."

"I know, I know—I panicked. Sorry."

"Really, it's fine." Because it felt like the thing to do, Din reached his free hand around to the back of Cal's neck and pulled forward, knocking their foreheads gently together. "I'll take it as a compliment," Din added.

"I..." Cal started, voice slightly choked. "Oh."

Din leaned back, gloved fingers sliding out of red hair, and stepped out of their little moment. "Sorry I nicked your poncho," he said, gesturing to a scrap of orange and white fabric on the grass.

"What?" Cal looked a bit dazed. He felt around for the torn hem of his poncho. "Oh, I have two of this one."

"Of course you do."

"Because it matches my hair."

"Right."

-----

When they were done sparring for the morning, Cal followed Din back across the courtyard to the temple. Cere sat on a rock not far from the door, nursing a mug of caf, looking a little bit smug.

Din nodded to her and went through into the temple, but Cal lingered.

"You two looked cozy," Cere said, without preamble. Cal rubbed the back of his neck, which was still very warm.

"Well, y'know. I'm just doing what I can to help him learn how to use the Darksaber." But the Darksaber was the last thing on Cal's mind as he remembered the cool press of beskar against his forehead and the intimacy of being so close to the Mandalorian, close enough to...

"Uh huh. And how's that going?"

"How's what going?" Cere released a snort of laughter, and Cal's brain caught up. "Oh! Good. It's going good. Well, it's going well." Cere laughed harder.

"...I'm going to go get breakfast."

Chapter Text

Grogu was having a dream.

In Grogu's dream, he was very old. By the standards of most sentient life, he was ancient, but even by his own he knew he was nearing his maximum natural lifespan. Centuries of knowledge and folly in equal measure weighed heavily on his mind. His joints ached. His body was hunched over the gnarled wooden handle of his walking stick. He moved slowly around his home in the swamp, eating and walking and sleeping and thinking. Waiting.

The Force kept him alive. That part of him, at least, was as strong as it ever had been. If he reached out, he could cast his awareness systems away, feel the threads of the universe weave between each other, follow each strand of it. He could forge connections to minds completely dissimilar to his own.

He did not do any of those things, but he could have. Once he died—once he rejoined the Force—he would still be able to do most of those things. Because a Jedi that had lived and learned for as long as he had could never truly be gone.

But he could not restore balance to the Force. He could not restore the hope of a shattered galaxy. For that, he had to wait. So, Yoda waited.

-----

When Grogu woke up, he was in a cot, nestled under the arm of his sleeping buir. It was very warm and comfortable, but unfortunately his buir had to wake up now. Grogu had to speak with Master Cal about a matter of great importance, and he was sure his buir would want to be awake when Master Cal arrived.

"Patu," Grogu said. He crawled up his buir and reached for the fabric at his neck. Disturbances in this area resulted in consciousness on most occasions.

"Wa!" Grogu shouted, flapping his hand right below the chin of the shiny helmet. His buir awoke with a start, but was careful not to jostle him. Grogu's buir was considerate like that.

"Hm?" His buir asked groggily. "Want food, womp rat?"

That was not the point of this, but Grogu couldn't say no to food.

-----

Cal was woken up by Grogu that morning, well before dawn. He was tugging impatiently on their training bond, which was odd enough that Cal bypassed his morning routine in favor of pulling on the nearest poncho—dark green—over his shirt and trousers from the day before and bolting down the hall towards Din's quarters.

When he arrived, however, he was greeted by the typical morning scene of the Mandalorian at the little dining table, feeding slices of breakfast meat to Gogu.

Din looked up when Cal skidded into the room. "Good morning," Din said. Then, undoubtedly noticing Cal's disheveled appearance—Cal was trying very hard not to think about the state of his hair—he asked: "Are you okay?"

"Grogu said he needed to see me immediately." They both looked at the kid, who was focused entirely on a piece of meat.

At Cal's mental prodding, Grogu's big eyes turned on him. Through their bond, Cal saw a strange swampy landscape and a rounded hut tucked in the roots of a scraggly, mud-covered tree.

Grogu wanted to go there. The only problem was that Cal didn't know where "there" was.

"He had a vision last night," Cal informed Din, who was looking back and forth between them anxiously. "He needs to go somewhere. Know any dark, swampy planets with huts?"

"None come to mind."

"I'll see what I can dig up." Cal yawned. The adrenaline boost of waking up in a panic had worn off. "Then maybe we'll go for a little field trip. How does that sound?"

"Bagoo," Grogu agreed.

"Great. I'm gonna..." Cal gestured vaguely at himself. "Go wake up. Or go back to sleep. I haven't decided yet."

-----

"That sounds like Dagobah," Master Skywalker said when Cal told him about Grogu's vision, at a more respectable hour of the morning. They stood just outside the temple, watching Skywalker's students lift rocks in the courtyard with varying degrees of success. "Master Yoda was living there when I found him," the other Jedi explained. Skywalker's cheerful demeanor became abruptly sullen. "He died there, before I officially finished my training."

"Grogu wants to go there. I guess that makes sense. None of us know of any others of his kind. They probably knew each other, at least a little, before the Empire."

"Alright, then," Skywalker agreed. "A word of warning, though—do not land your ship anywhere near the bogs. Anywhere near them. Seriously. Don't let your droid poke around in there either."

"Noted."

-----

It didn't take Din long to decide that Dagobah was not his favorite planet.

The swamplands they flew over were covered in a layer of low-hanging fog so thick that Din could only see the brownish-green tips of the trees poking through. He had to attempt the landing three times before he found a patch of ground that was solid and dry enough to bear the weight of the ship without it sinking. Din had only just gotten the thing fixed up, he wasn't keen on excavating it from the mud.

"Skywalker's old flight data seems to indicate that we're a few klicks away," Din said to his companions, checking their coordinates on the inside of his visor and comparing them with the holomap that Skywalker had given BD-1. "We still have a few hours of daylight. Let's find the place and make camp, then check it out in the morning."

"Sounds good," Cal said, swinging a small pack onto his shoulders. "BD, you wanna lead the way?"

The droid scuttled off the ship, beeping lightly to itself, only pausing for a moment to test the wet ground before darting off.

They made their way east, listening out for potentially unsavory lifeforms, though it would have been hard to hear the movement of a predator over the calls of insects and the squelching sounds of their own footsteps. The air was hot and humid, and they'd barely been walking half an hour when Din started to feel an unpleasant dampness under his armor.

"Why couldn't you have had a Force vision about, I don't know, Cloud City? Or Bogano? Hell, even Dathomir is nicer this time of the year," Cal complained as he unstuck his boot from some suspicious looking muck. His red hair was damp with condensation and sweat, and the edges of his poncho were becoming more brown than green.

In Din's arms, Grogu chirped delightedly. The kid, for one, seemed utterly content. His ears wiggled with every sound of the jungle, and his wide eyes stared around excitedly, no doubt looking for frogs.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have to walk," Cal said. Sometimes, Din wasn't sure if Cal replied aloud to Grogu's thoughts for Din's benefit, or if he wasn't reading the kid's thoughts at all and simply guessing at what his many little baby sounds meant, just as Din did.

"I could carry both of you," Din said, holding up a wayward vine for Cal to duck under. Cal laughed as he brushed by Din, closer than strictly necessary.

"I'm heavier than I look, you know."

"Oh, is that one of your magic powers?"

"Actually, it's muscle mass I've built up trying to keep you out of trouble."

"I think it's just the weight of your ponchos."

"Har-har."

Despite the uncomfortable hike, Din's cheeks ached from smiling behind his helmet by the time they reached a small clearing beside a mist-covered lagoon, just as the patches of grey sky overhead were beginning to darken. His feet felt heavy from the layers of grime on his boots and the long afternoon of walking.

"We're here," Cal said. "Sense anything, little one?" He asked Grogu, whose eyes were narrowed thoughtfully.

"He thinks it's the right place, but he's tired. Once we rest, we can poke around for Yoda's hut."

Din nodded and set Grogu down on a tree stump so he could slide his bag off his shoulder and unpack. A bedroll, two canteens of water, some nutrient bars, a lantern...

"I'd stay away from the water. Master Skywalker was right, BD says there's something big in there. Big and tentacle-y."

"You hear that, womp-rat? No swimming in the lagoon," Din said.

"Do you think—" Din started to say, but cut himself off when he glanced up at Cal, who'd pulled his poncho over his head and was trying to scrape some of the mud off.

The thing about ponchos was that they were utterly shapeless. Since Din had only ever seen Cal wearing a poncho, he found his mind completely sidetracked by the sight of him out of it. He seemed—not smaller, exactly, but slighter. The dark shirt he wore under his poncho was slightly loose around his waist, but the thin material clung in patches where sweat adhered it to Cal's skin, hinting at the compact, tightly-wound muscle no doubt hiding underneath.

"Never gonna get that clean," Cal muttered to his poncho. "Oh well. It's too warm for it anyway. Sorry, what were you saying?"

Din wrenched his thoughts back to the conversation. "Do you think that whatever's in the lagoon can reach us over here?"

Cal tossed his poncho on the ground beside his own bedroll and looked back at the water. "Nah, I'm sure it's fine."

-----

Grogu, once again, was the first to wake up the next morning. It was still dark, but felt that he had places to be.

He crawled to his feet slowly, making sure not to disturb his buir and Master Cal. Below where he'd slept securely between the two of them, their hands reached towards each other, fingers just centimeters apart.

Grogu heard the croak of something scaly and probably delicious. He tottered around the deeply sleeping forms and made his way towards the sound. The two humans slept, but Grogu did wake BD-1. The droid unfolded itself and flexed his joints, beeping quietly at Grogu. Fine, then—BD-1 could follow, as long as he didn't interfere with the hunt.

Up ahead, the delicious thing hopped out from behind a mossy log, away from him. It was a little brown frog. Grogu followed it. The frog hopped unhurriedly along the treeline, around the lagoon, neither wanting to be eaten nor making a convincing effort to escape. Grogu was many things, but he was not fast. BD-1 obediently kept pace behind him.

At last, the frog allowed Grogu to catch up. But just as his hands were about to close around its slimy middle, Grogu heard a friendly voice.

"Nutrition bars not interesting enough prey, are they, hmm?" In front of Grogu, where there had been no one before, stood the ghost of a sentient that looked a lot like Grogu, except for that he was very old. Grogu knew that he was a ghost because he could see right through him like a holophoto, and because he was Grand Master Yoda, and Grand Master Yoda was dead.

"Remember me, do you?" Grogu did remember him. Yoda sensed this, and smiled down at Grogu fondly, just as he had once done at the Temple. Grogu remembered their interactions vividly, because they were the only times he'd ever interacted with someone of his own species.

"Too much you have seen, little one. Sorry for it, I am."

"Ba," Grogu said, and Yoda chuckled.

"Come, come. I see you have found my old home. Things to show you, I have." Indeed, the frog had led Grogu to an abandoned mud hut. It looked a bit creepy, but Grogu was with BD-1 and the ghost of Yoda, so he was not especially concerned.

-----

Cal shook Din's shoulder gently. The Mandalorian groaned sleepily.

"Don't panic, because I can sense that they're okay, but I'm not entirely sure where Grogu and BD-1 went."

Din was up instantly. "Where?"

"Not far, I don't think."

Cal followed his senses around the lagoon, reaching to feel for danger, but there were only the morning stirrings of critters in the jungle and the dripping of the damp leaves. No darkness, only balance. Beside him, the Mandalorian's stress was palpable.

Soon, they came upon the hut that Cal recognized from Grogu's dream. Yoda's hut. It was very short, which made sense, and was craftily constructed under the roots of a gnarltree. Through the little round windows, Cal could see a light moving around.

BD-1's head poked out of the doorway, summoning them with a shrill series of beeps. Grogu joined him a moment later, holding a small pouch in his hands.

"There you are," Din said, already kneeling by his kid. "Please don't run off like that again." Grogu cooed in reply.

"What have you got there?" Cal asked, gesturing to the pouch. Grogu reached inside with one hand and produced—

"...Is that a tiny lightsaber?"

"Yeah, uh, maybe I should hold on to that for now?"

-----

Late that afternoon, they started back to the ship. Cal turned Yoda's lightsaber over in the palm of his hand as they trudged through the mud. It was untarnished, despite the years it spent alone in the moist environment.

He wondered what the Grand Master intended by calling Grogu here now, of all times, considering that Cal would likely be an old man by the time Grogu was ready for real lightsaber training. Was it a warning of danger coming the kid's way? Or was there some other message that Cal was missing? Perhaps he wasn't even meant to know. It was Grogu who'd been summoned here, after all, not him.

The back of Din's gloved hand pressed gently against his own, guiding him away from his worries. Tentatively, Cal reached for it, gradually threading their fingers together. He didn't release the breath he was holding until the Mandalorian squeezed his hand in response, a small reassurance.

"What was Yoda like?" Din asked, not quite turning his helmet to look directly at Cal.

"I didn't know him well," Cal admitted. "But every Jedi knew him at least a little. He was very wise and powerful, of course—he was the Grand Master of the Jedi Council. Everyone looked up to him. But he never seemed proud or inaccessible. He spent a lot of time with the younglings, which is what I was when I knew him. He'd help us play pranks on the knights, like stealing their robes and making them chase them around the Temple. Silly stuff like that." Cal replayed the hazy memory in his mind for Grogu's benefit, and was rewarded with a little open-mouthed baby smile.

"He always seemed so interested in everything, eager to learn new things, even though he was almost a thousand years old and probably had more information in his head than the rest of the High Council combined."

"A thousand years old?" Din echoed, hollow-voiced.

"Probably more like eight or nine hundred. Pretty damn old, anyway."

Din was silent for a while. Their hands stayed clasped, even when they had to climb over fallen trees that blocked their path, or go around a patch of waterlogged ground.

"Do you think he'll remember me when he's that old?" Din asked, quiet and sad.

"He will," Cal said. "You're his dad."

"But I'll have been in his life for, maybe forty years? Probably less than that, with my track record. Forty years, as a baby, followed by centuries..."

Cal was already shaking his head. "That doesn't matter. Love—family—and our memories of it will always be stronger than the passage of time. We remember what's important to us, and right now, there is nothing more important to him than you."

Din fell silent once again. Not long after that, they arrived back at the ship, which had already been covered with leaves and vines in their brief absence. Cal released Din's hand to help remove snakes from where they'd taken up residence on the wing joints using a long stick.

"Thank you," Din said.

"No worries. It's just snakes." The bright yellow one Cal was relocating to a nearby fern hissed threateningly, and Cal raised an indignant eyebrow at it. "Don't hiss at me. You don't want to go to Devaron."

"For what you said, I mean."

"Oh. Well, it's true." Cal tossed the stick back into the jungle and strode back to the ship. He smiled warmly at the Mandalorian, taking his hand again when he passed him.

"Come on, let's go home."

Chapter Text

In the days that preceded Aay'han Tuur and Bo-Katan's challenge, Din's nerves were at an all-time high. He took job after job for the Guild just to keep his mind occupied, bringing in bail jumpers and smugglers and thieves, diving into each hunt with the single-minded drive of someone who really, really didn't want to be left alone with their thoughts.

On the rare occasion that Din wasn't working, he spent his mornings sparring with Cal at the temple. He felt like he was getting better with the Darksaber, for what it was worth. He could keep up with the rapid blows of Cal's dual-bladed saber, and had even caught the Jedi off-guard a few more times, much to Cal's delight.

If he returned from the challenge in one piece, he hoped they could still train together. Din still had the beskar spear, which he knew for a fact could hold its own against a lightsaber.

But Din wasn't convinced that he would make it back in one piece. Despite Bo-Katan's assurances, Din wasn't sure she intended keep her word about sparing his life. Not with the pressure of the other Mandalorians around to watch, all expecting her to kill him. And in the unlikely event that he won the duel, he'd just have to face someone else. Someone who'd made him no promises about his life at all.

All too soon, it was time to leave for Krownest. On the night of his departure, Din left Grogu in the attentive care of the Jedi. He didn't sneak away from the temple, but he didn't draw attention to himself either—this was his mess that he'd gotten himself into, and he'd get himself out of it (or not), alone.

Or so he thought. When he got to his ship, there was a shadow waiting for him.

"Poncho?" Din inquired, when the shadow resolved itself into the shape of Cal.  He was wearing a thick, pale blue poncho with a hood, perfect for the perpetual winter of Krownest. "What are you doing?"

"Coming with you, obviously." Din's heart did a backflip in his chest.

"You shouldn't. I...doubt this will end well." There was a very real possibility that he was going to his death. If they were strictly abiding by the traditions, he certainly would be.

Cal didn't need to see that.

"All the more reason I should be there," Cal said, undeterred. "I don't have to abide by Mandalorian rules, so if someone needs to save your ass—I mean, shebs—it's gonna be me."

"I don't know these Mandalorians well. They will likely be hostile if they think the Jedi are interfering with their politics."

"And we all know how good Mandalorians are at spotting Jedi." Cal said it with a smile, his green eyes sparkling, but the sarcasm was not lost on Din.

Maybe one day, he'd gain the mental fortitude to say "no" to Cal. Today was not that day.

Din sighed heavily and opened up the ship. But before Cal could board, Din stepped forward, took his arm, and pulled him back until he could rest their foreheads together like he had a few weeks ago. He felt Cal's arms come up around his neck, so he took that as permission to rest his own hands on Cal's waist. He radiated warmth like an engine that'd been running for a few hours, solid and full of potential energy.

Din saw Cal bite his own lip slightly, his eyes drawn to the movement. He wondered if Cal could read his thoughts well enough to know what Din wanted, how much even this small amount of contact made his head spin.

But now was not the time for such thoughts.

"If you really want to come with me, promise me something?"

"Anything."

"If something happens to me, you have to leave immediately." Cal leaned back slightly, about to protest, but Din kept talking. "Please. You have to be there for Grogu. I trust you with him more than anyone else."

Cal's eyes softened again, and he nodded. "Of course. He'll be well looked after, no matter what."

On the ship, Din and BD-1 calculated the hyperspace routes and plugged in the coordinates for the stronghold that Bo-Katan's people were using as a base. He spared a moment to consider the fact that he was travelling, for the first time, to his adopted ancestral territory. Not Manda'yaim—their true homeworld had been lost to them, and despite Bo-Katan's ambitions it would be safest if it remained that way—but Krownest was still within Mandalorian space. It would be as close to Mandalore as Din would ever get, that was for sure.

Din disengaged the landing gear and fired up the thrusters. The wings and body of the starfighter pivoted in sync, leveling out into flight position, and off they went.

When they dropped out of hyperspace several hours later, the ship was immediately flanked by two blue and white A-wings. Cal looked down at the world below them, the atmosphere all swirling blues and whites. It looked less war-torn than the images Cal had seen of its sibling planets of Concord Dawn and Mandalore.

A ping on the ship's comms told them that they were being hailed, and Din reached over to open a channel.

"Tion'cuy! Identify yourself." A female voice commanded through the comms.

"I'm here to see Bo-Katan," Din said. There were a few minutes of silence while the A-wings orbited them menacingly, then:

"Unnamed Kom'rk class transport, you are cleared to land on platform B of the Wren Stronghold, sector 9. Do not deviate from your flight path." The transmission ended with a click.

"Very welcoming," Din muttered, but Cal wasn't listening. As they drew closer, he'd begun to notice something tickling at the edge of his awareness. He reached out, but the more he pursued the feeling, the faster it shrunk away. When he relaxed, the presence intensified, like a tooka creeping out from an alley, curious, but not wanting to be seen.

"Hm."

"What is it?" Din glanced over his shoulder at him.

"There's another Jedi down there," Cal said, this being the only explanation he could think of. "I can sense them."

"That's...unexpected. Are they friendly?"

"I don't know," Cal admitted. It was odd—there were very few adult Jedi that Cal wouldn't be able to identify. So either this one had done an impressive job of staying under the radar, or they were not a Jedi at all. These speculations did nothing to soothe the worry Cal was already steeping in.

They were escorted down to the surface, through mountain valleys and above dark forests. Finally, they came to a large transparisteel and durasteel palace, nestled in amongst evergreen trees—beautiful, in a chilly, severe kind of way. It was positioned at the edge of a frozen lake, and there seemed to be a gathering of people on the shore, standing around in the snow.

The ships landed on a platform connected to the side of the palace. Waiting on the duracrete were a group of several Mandalorians, including Bo-Katan. Most wore their helmets, although Bo-Katan and the tall, silver-haired woman in yellow and gray armor beside her did not. Din strode forward to greet them, but Cal followed more slowly, pulling his hood up against the cold and looking around for the person he'd sensed from the upper atmosphere. No luck.

"What's he doing here?" Bo-Katan shot a glare at Cal as he approached. Her gaze flickered between the two of them. "If both of you are here, where's the baby?"

"He's safe," Din said, his voice tinged with hostility. "And Cal's only here to observe. I thought you were fine with Jedi, anyway. You kept in touch with Tano."

Bo-Katan's scowl deepened. "I have no opinion of the Order." Her tone suggested that she very much did have an opinion. "Ahsoka Tano is an exception."

"I'll do my best not to get in the way," Cal said, arranging his features into his most guileless smile. He was used to being met with suspicion, though he still appreciated Din's protective hand settling briefly on his shoulder.

"In any case," Bo-Katan said, shifting her attention back to Din. "Thank you for coming. Allow me to introduce our host, Countess Ursa Wren; she is an old ally of mine." The woman in yellow and grey armor, the countess, nodded curtly to them. Her gaze was cool but not wholly unfriendly.

"Join us in the stronghold," Bo-Katan continued. "We have much to discuss. But I must insist that your...associate remains outside." Din and Cal exchanged a look, and Cal sensed the Mandalorian's hesitation.

"It's fine. I'll be here if you need me," Cal said. He wished he could meet Din's eyes directly. It was hard to tell if Din was reassured, just by staring into the dark visor.

"I'll behave, I promise." Cal's levity was rewarded with the slight puff of air through the Mandalorian's helmet, which he now knew to be an aborted laugh.

When Din and the others had vanished into the imposing structure of the stronghold, Cal followed the sound of chatter off the landing platform and around to the front of the building, his boots sinking several inches into the powdery snow as he walked.

There were more Mandalorians grouped on the shore of the lake than it had looked like from the sky. Cal stopped for a moment to take in the scene, a sea of shining, elaborately painted armor, talking and arguing over one another, a chaotic mash-up of Basic and Mando'a.

It wasn't just adults there, either—children were playing among them as well, some in full armor, some of the youngest still without. They tussled and threw snowballs at each other, weaving through the legs of the older Mandalorians, who stepped out of the way to make room for them without pausing their conversations. Cal smiled, imagining Din as one of those foundlings, chasing his tribemates around the covert.

He meandered around the edge of the gathering, scanning the crowd for the presence he could still sense. They were close, he could feel it, and the other Jedi—if they were a Jedi—knew it too. Some of the Mandalorians looked up at him suspiciously as he passed, a conspicuous outsider in his soft poncho among these hard-edged warriors. At least he'd had the good sense to make sure his lightsaber was concealed.

Cal was squinting through the crowd at a figure that he thought might be wearing a Jedi's brown robe when something heavy and hard as a rock thumped on his shoulder, embedding his boots another inch deeper into the snow.

"Well, if it isn't Nobody," rumbled a voice above his head. Cal looked up to see the massive dark blue helmet of the Mandalorian that had confronted him on Nevarro, outside the covert. It felt like a century ago, even though it had to have been less than a year. Cal realized he'd never thought to ask Din who he was.

"It's Cal, actually."

"I thought it was Poncho."

"That works too," Cal sighed. He really wanted to know how many Mandalorians new him as Poncho because of Din.

Beside him, the blue Mandalorian laughed, a bark-like, rattling sound. Then, to Cal's astonishment, he held out a massive hand for Cal to shake. It was sort of like shaking hands with the hull of a ship.

"Paz Vizsla," he said.

"I thought you were planning on murdering me?"

Vizsla shrugged. "He said it wasn't allowed." Cal didn't have to ask who "he" was.

"Very reassuring," Cal said, though his heart warmed at the knowledge that Din had defended him to his Tribemates at some point. "Does he know you're here?"

"Nah." Vizsla started walking towards a group of Mandalorians with matching armor, standing at the very edge of the frozen lake, and gestured for Cal to follow. "When the covert got blown, I went to the Protectors. They're real into politics, otherwise I wouldn't have known about any of this." He shook his head. "I can't believe that di'kut got the karking Darksaber."

"He didn't mean to," Cal said defensively.

"That's even worse," Vizsla grumbled. "Always been like that, though."

Cal watched a pair of unarmored children slide around on the ice, laughing and colliding with each other. He had so many questions, but most of them should probably be saved for Din. But who knew when he'd ever be able to talk to someone who knew Din as well as Vizsla surely did?

"Did...you grow up together?" Cal asked cautiously.

"He's my vod'ika. We trained together from the time he swore the Creed until he started hunting on his own. Always been a recluse, but he used to have more of a temper than he's got now." He paused and leveled his visor at Cal, scrutinizing him. "And no, I don't know what he looks like."

Cal sputtered. "I wasn't gonna ask that!" Vizsla laughed again, loudly, and Cal blushed as a few members of Vizsla's cohort glanced over at them curiously.

"Ah! But you were wondering." It was true, though Cal wouldn't admit it. It seemed...like a violation, somehow, to wonder.

Vizsla's laughter trailed off gradually. "Come on, Poncho. I'll introduce you to some people, and you can tell me what else my brother's been up to."

Bo-Katan talked Din's ear off about Mandalore's leadership and her clan's status, her words laced with thinly veiled threats and presumptions, so by the time they made their way out of the Wren Stronghold and down the main steps to the frozen lake where the fight would take place, Din almost wanted to win the challenge out of spite. Almost.

The crowd parted for them easily, and Din kept his gaze fixed forward so he wouldn't have to see the many pairs of eyes (and visors) on them. There were more Mandalorians here to watch the fight than he'd ever seen in one place before. Didn't they have anything better to do?

When they reached the front of the crowd and the frozen lake, he chanced a glance around to see if he could spot Cal. He felt terrible leaving him to the mercy of the Mandalorians, but he trusted the Jedi to take care of himself.

Din finally spotted him in the front row, towards the edge of the group, standing next to—was that Paz?

Cal waved at him, encouraging smile firmly in place, and Paz gave a sort of mock-salute that might have incorporated a rude gesture.

That was a mystery for later.

He turned to face Bo-Katan. Instead of her twin pistols, she was wielding a curved, flat-bladed sword of pure beskar, one of the few weapons that wouldn't be sliced to pieces by the Darksaber. Her helmet was in place, and the angular slits of her visor were fixed on him.

As they squared off, waiting for the moderator's signal, Din's awareness of the crowd fell away. He grasped the now-familiar hilt of the Darksaber and unhooked it from his belt. The blade whirred to life, a thin, mechanical sound like tuneless whistling through a vocoder.

Several long seconds passed, and then the sound of a blaster echoed through the valley, and Bo-Katan lunged for him. He parried, but nearly lost his balance on the ice. It was an interesting trade-off—there were no obstacles, fighting on the smooth expanse of the frozen lake, but the ground was slippery and he didn't know how thick the ice was.

Bo-Katan swung at him again and again, and Din blocked her strikes, easily mirroring her pace. She was playing to his strengths, without knowing it—Din's defense had always been better than his offense, and she didn't have Cal's speed to make up the difference.

He didn't want to win this fight, but he didn't want to throw it either. He took a more aggressive stance and went to slash the Darksaber across Bo-Katan's middle, and her blade met his with the solid clanging sound of energy-on-beskar. She tried to force the Darksaber down, but Din pressed back, testing his strength against hers.

"I can tell you've been learning from that Jedi," Bo-Katan growled, only for him to hear. "They've slaughtered thousands of us, you know."

Din knew she was trying to rile him up, catch him off guard. He withdrew and reset his stance, waiting for her to strike again.

"You have betrayed your honor by associating yourself with them," she hissed. Din ignored her, but his eye twitched involuntarily. She couldn't have picked anything else to jab at him about?

"They're arrogant politicians, they don't care for their allies or the people they serve."

Din could feel the irritation starting to bubble up. He knew what she was trying to do, and he wasn't going to let it happen, he was just going to stick it out until she managed to disarm him and this would all be—

"Jedi are selfish traitors."

Din struck out with the Darksaber, a vicious swipe, and Bo-Katan barely deflected it. She responded with blows of her own, but Din was faster. In her effort to spur him to carelessness, all she'd done was convince him that he didn't want to lose to her. He blocked one last strike, grabbed her arm with his other hand, and swept her feet out from under her.

Bo-Katan fell back onto the ice and slid a few inches, and Din leveled the Darksaber under her chin, its edge a hair's width from her throat.

She reached up and pulled off her helmet.

"Just kill me," Bo-Katan said through gritted teeth, her tone more annoyed than defeated. She knew what Din's answer would be.

"I'm not doing that," Din replied with a sigh, lowering the blade. Really, he was as disappointed as she was. Bo-Katan slumped into the ice a little. Distantly, he heard the moderator announce the victor, and the voices of Mandalorians talking over one another.

Din had faced his first challenger, and he was still stuck with the Darksaber.

Chapter Text

“He’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, we—“ Cal cut himself off when he realized it was not Paz that had spoken. He tore his gaze away from Bo-Katan’s unsurprising surrender and Din’s unwelcome victory.

Paz Vizsla had been replaced by a young man in Jedi robes, with light brown skin and long, blue-black hair tied away from his face. He had a pale scar on his cheek. Cal knew immediately that this was the person that he’d sensed earlier—this was the unfamiliar Jedi. Cal had been so absorbed in the duel that he hadn't noticed his approach.

Cal’s eyes narrowed and his hand drifted automatically to his lightsaber.

“Who are you?” Cal asked. “You aren’t with the Order. I would have met you.”

“Jabba the Hutt," he replied with a roguish grin.

Cal resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “You're a little short for a Hutt. And you can call me Poncho.”

“Jabba” laughed brightly. He looked back at the frozen lake, where Bo-Katan was getting to her feet, her helmet hanging despondently from where her fingers hooked its brim. Din was still, the Darksaber held out slightly, as though he was hoping she might take it off his hands anyway.

Cal felt for him, he really did, but Bo-Katan hadn’t been particularly kind to Din (or Cal, for that matter). She had shown none of the diplomacy that Cal would have expected from the future leader of a people recovering from genocide.

Perhaps this was for the best.

“Your Mandalorian is pretty good, but I think mine can beat him,” the Jedi said, still smiling.

“Is that so?” Cal asked. “And which of them would that be?”

Din was just about to follow Bo-Katan off the ice, anxious to get out of the tractor-beam of attention, when the crowd parted to reveal a new figure.

A young, green-haired woman strode out onto the frozen lake, her shoulders back and her head held high. Her armor was a rainbow of colors, red, green, blue, orange, purple, bound together in detailed designs like graffiti, more intricate than any decorations on beskar than Din had ever seen. A rebel starbird was placed prominently on her breastplate, and the tell-tale stylized eyes of Bo-Katan's Nite Owls were stenciled onto her helmet.

She stepped out in front of Din. Instead of raising one of the blasters on her hips, she leveled the green blade of a lightsaber at him.

“I, Sabine Wren of Clan Wren and House Vizsla, challenge you for possession of the Darksaber!”

"I accept," Din replied, careful to keep his voice neutral. If Bo-Katan hadn't beaten him, he doubted this much younger and smaller opponent could either, even with a lightsaber. Though not for lack of determination, he thought, as steeled brown eyes vanished behind their helmet. And far be it from him to turn down a chance to rid himself of this wretched weapon.

The crowd got quiet again as they circled each other. Even quieter, perhaps, than when he'd fought Bo-Katan.

Wren struck out first, her blow accelerated by the jetpack strapped to her back. He side-stepped, but she anticipated his move and the green lightsaber nicked his side, just under his armor and above his belt. He could feel the heat of the blade through his whole body, like he'd leaned against a ship's thruster at takeoff.

He fought through the pain, more cautiously now that he knew he'd underestimated his opponent. Wren was fast, faster than Bo-Katan, and clearly had experience with lightsaber combat.

The duel stretched on, and while Wren's strikes lost no momentum, Din could feel himself slowing down. He parried the green blade, redirecting it into the ice, producing a hissing cloud of steam that collected on his visor. Wren landed a kick in his side, right where the lightsaber had burned him, and it was then that she managed to disarm him.

The moment he felt the hilt of the Darksaber slip through his fingers, Din's heart leapt, although the feeling was immediately soured by the pain of his wrist bending the wrong way. Wren caught the Darksaber in her lightsaber-free hand and both blades were at his chest before he would have been able to draw his blaster, even if he'd wanted to.

"I yield," Din said, raising his hands slightly, his wrist stinging. He could feel blood sticking his flight suit to the immediately-cauterized-then-reopened wound on his side, the cold emphasizing the unpleasant wetness.  Dimly, he was aware of the noises of the crowd, shouting and hollering, to them or each other, he had no idea. "You have your sword, let me go in peace."

The colorful helmet cocked slightly to the side. "I suppose Bo-Katan already asked if you wanted to help retake Mandalore."

"She did." Although Bo-Katan had actually demanded his support—there had been no asking. "I'd rather not get involved," he admitted.

To his surprise, Wren simply nodded and lowered the two sabers.

"Then—well fought," she said. She stowed her weapons and they clasped arms briefly. "I do hope you'll stay for the feast."

"Uj'alayi."

"Uj'aly-ee."

"Uj-ah-lie-ee," Din repeated, more slowly.

"Uj'alayi," Cal repeated, the word falling awkwardly off his tongue. "Is that not what I said?"

"It's definitely not."

Cal wasn't surprised Din had elected to stay for the holiday feast, even though he could sense his friend's exhaustion rolling off him in waves, and he was glad for the rare opportunity to see Din among his people.

He didn't see Bo-Katan again, though he did catch glimpses of the Mandalorian who'd won the Darksaber from Din, always shadowed by the other Jedi whose lightsaber she'd borrowed to fight with. It was strange, knowing that there were Jedi out there functioning outside the Order, Cal having grown up in the rigid structure that had existed during the Clone Wars, but he supposed it made sense. No two Jedi had the same concept of what the Order had been, or could be, anymore. And the Mandalorians were no different, it would seem.

The great hall of the Wren Stronghold was encased in glistening transparisteel, looking out over the snowy valley, dyed purple in the sunset. Exquisite statues and displays of ancient armor lined the walls like sentries, watching over the feast. Long tables were placed around the room, piled high with a variety of foods and beverages Cal had never seen before. The Mandalorians who could remove them stood around with their helmets tucked under their arms, plates and cups in hand, conversing.

Since neither Din nor Paz could eat in front of people, they alternated between catching up with each other and experimenting on Cal, with varying results. He enjoyed the fruit-and-nut-filled uj'alayi (though not trying to pronounce the word "uj'alayi") and the spicy tiingilar, but when Paz brought him a cup of mysterious dark ale, it was so strong and bitter that Cal was convinced he could feel his brain cells dying.

"Ack! What the hell is that?"

"Kri'gee," Paz said. "It's not so bad."

"You could clean an engine with that," Din took the offending cup away and replaced it with another, filled with an even darker, thicker liquid. "Here, try this."

Cal eyed the murky liquid, then tentatively raised the cup to his lips. The consistency was bizarre, but the flavor was deliciously sweet, smoky and warm, like drinking a sugar-filled campfire. He took a long sip, purging the bitter aftertaste of the other ale.

"Careful, it's still—alcoholic," Din said, his voice slightly strained.

Cal waved his hand dismissively, but he lowered the cup from his mouth anyway. "Don't worry, Jedi don't get intoxicated."

"How's that possible?"

"Well, technically we can, but we can also make ourselves sober at will." Cal stared off into space, trying to find words to explain detoxification. "The alcohol just kind of...goes away, if you need it to. Works with poison, too."

"Aw, that's no fun," Paz grumbled, and Din turned to stare at him.

"Were you trying to get him drunk?" He asked, scandalized.

"You weren't?"

"No!" Din snapped back indignantly, and Cal failed to suppress his rather undignified giggle. It was sweet, seeing Din behave to familiarly with someone else—even if they were arguing. Cal often worried that, although Din seemed relatively at ease at the training temple, he was lonely without other Mandalorians around. The Jedi were welcoming, but Cal would be the first to admit that they were an odd group.

Paz said something in Mando'a, thumping Din on the shoulder, and Cal saw him stiffen. He looked his friend up and down for injuries again, and spotted a tear in his flight suit, partially concealed by the edge of his breastplate and the shadow of his cape, that he hadn't noticed before.

"You're hurt."

"It's nothing," Din said soothingly. "Just a graze."

If it was enough of a graze to make Din wince, it was worth checking.

"You've got more bacta in here than a medical frigate. How often do you think I get shot?"

"Too often," Cal said from the floor as he pulled supplies from a crate he'd stashed in the cockpit of Din's ship weeks ago. He couldn't convince the Mandalorian to carry bandages on him, but at least there'd be some in the ship when he'd inevitably need them. Like now.

He turned to see Din standing behind him, watching him line up bacta, bandages and sutures. "Why are still up there? Sit."

Din sat on another crate, leaning up against the durasteel wall of the ship, so his injury was about at Cal's eye level from where he knelt. Cal reached for the wound, but hesitated.

"It might be easier, if you, uh—"

"Oh right, yeah."

Cal pretended to be very interested in the label on the jar of bacta as Din removed some of his layers—cape, breastplate, left pauldron, left vambrace. By the time he was shrugging off his flight suit on his injured side to reveal a thin short-sleeved undershirt, Cal's mouth was completely dry.

"Better?"

"M-hm," Cal confirmed wordlessly. The last time he'd seen Din missing some piece of his armor, the Mandalorian had been at death's door, unconscious, and covered in blood and shrapnel. Hardly the time or place to appreciate anyone's physical attributes. He also hadn't known Din as well, back then.

"Lift your arm?" Din complied, and Cal picked up a disinfecting cloth. With his other hand, he lifted up the soft fabric of Din's undershirt to expose the area around the wound, as well as an expanse of tan skin and powerful musculature.

He bit his tongue and tried to distract himself with remembering Cere's first aid lessons, even though he could probably clean and dress a wound in his sleep at this point. The gash in Din's side was superficial, but Cal knew from experience that even small injuries from a lightsaber could be tortuously painful, cutting and roasting flesh wherever the blade touched, rather than having the decency to just do one or the other.

Cal finished cleaning the wound and started with the bacta. Din twitched slightly when the gel touched his skin and Cal winced sympathetically.

"Sorry, I know it's cold."

"It's fine," he replied. "Thank you."

"Of course," Cal said. His eyes flickered up to the dark visor, still watching him.

"They—Bo-Katan and Wren, I mean—both asked me to help them retake Mandalore," Din said after a long beat of silence. Cal thought about the statement, trying to discern how he was meant to respond to it.

"Is that what you want to do?"  

Din sighed. "Not really."

"What do you want to do? Now that you're free of the Darksaber, and the Empire's no longer after you? You could do anything you want." Cal was almost done with the wound's dressing by the time Din spoke again.

"Be with you and Grogu," he said, softly but firmly. Cal's breath caught in his throat. Din's injury dealt with, he allowed his undershirt to fall back into place, but he didn't move away from him. "If you'll have me."

Cal couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth, or the way his grip tightened on the hem of Din's shirt.

"You know I...you know that I love you, right?"

"Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum." 

"...Does that mean—"

"Yes," Din interrupted with a little laugh. Cal pulled himself up onto the crate beside Din. The helmet, shining in the dim interior lights of the ship, followed his movement intently.

Cal leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Din's. It wasn't quite a kiss, but it got his point across. His hand wandered to Din's chest and the rapid beat of his heart.

"Should we go back to the feast, or—" Cal cut himself off as Din's un-gloved hand came to rest on the side of Cal's face, fingers just barely in his hair. All his focus narrowed in on the warmth of his palm.

"Or we could stay here," Din said.

"Or we could stay here."

Chapter Text

It was midday on Devaron when Din returned to the temple after completing his most recent job. Many of the temple's occupants were out in the courtyard, enjoying the pleasant weather while they worked on their forms and meditated. Normally at this time of the day, Cal and Grogu would be meditating, so Din took a detour around the courtyard and into the jungle, to the secluded focus stones that the pair favored.

Sure enough, when he came to the clearing, there they were. Cal and Grogu sat  on adjacent large grey stones marked with runes, eyes closed. Cal's thin sand-colored poncho fluttered softly in the breeze. Din tried to approach silently, but Grogu couldn't be fooled. His big eyes locked on Din and he squealed with delight.

Knowing there was no use hiding now, Din came forward to greet Grogu, leaning down to gently press his forehead to the little one's.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you," Din said as he turned to Cal, who was smiling warmly at him.

"We were just finishing up anyway. Welcome home! How were the bail-jumpers this week?"

"Oh, you know. Jumpy." Cal laughed and unfolded his legs from underneath himself so he could stand and embrace Din. He was warm from sitting in the sun.

Cal leaned back slightly, still in his arms. "We've been working on Grogu's mental barriers. He's doing well, but he's always more productive when you're around," he said, then kissed the side of his helmet. Then, quietly: "Force, I want to actually kiss you."

It was an offhand comment, more to himself than to Din, but he still froze for a second. They were alone—none of the other Jedi came out this far into the jungle very often, and Din would be lying if he said he hadn't been thinking about this for a while anyway. His son had seen his face before. Cal was part of his family too. The rule was that members of his immediate family were allowed to see him without his helmet, and while he can Cal weren't technically married...

He knew he was only rationalizing it as much as he was because he wanted to do it. Had wanted to for over a year now.

So, he did. But as he reached up to lift the edge of his helmet, Cal's hand came up to stop him.

"I-I didn't mean—you don't have to do that," Cal said, even as he stared fixedly at the spot where Din's chin would appear if he let go of his hand. "I don't want you to compromise your creed, not for me. It's too important."

"You're important," Din said, and was rewarded with Cal's lopsided smile and a slight blush. "And I want you to see me."

"I don't have to look at you to see you, Din."

"If that's the case, then this won't be much of a change at all."

"That's not exactly what I—" Cal started, but he stopped because Din had displaced his hand and removed his helmet the rest of the way. The only sounds were Grogu's thoughtful cooing from spot on the meditation rock and the soft thump of beskar on stone as Din placed his helmet beside him.

The air tickled his skin and whispered in his ears, but it didn't feel as weird as he thought it would. Perhaps there'd been something to Cal's words after all.

He looked back at Cal, carefully noting the exact colors of his hair and the pinkness of his cheeks without the desaturation of his visor. Cal's wide, sea-green eyes darted back and forth across his face, as though he wouldn't get a chance to see it again. Din was glad he'd shaved that morning, although there wasn't much he could have done about his helmet hair.

When Cal's transfixed silence had stretched longer than a minute, Din finally spoke up. "Are you gonna kiss me or what, Poncho?"