I’m watching The Mandalorian 2x05 “Chapter 13: The Jedi”
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Chapter XII - The New Wisdom (part ii)
Mostly family time here; Din and his lightsaber; Force things
Grogu wanted to meditate for a bit while they waited for the suns to get warmer, and excused himself to his room, leaving Din alone. As he had done lately when he found himself between tasks, he stepped to the turret to try again. He was trying not to get frustrated by his continued inability to open the hatch, but it was difficult to overcome. He was beyond irritated that the trick of it still eluded him. He could sometimes hear a metallic scrape or two when he was sure he sensed the mechanism, but still he struggled to master this most basic skill he employed without thinking when he was a child.
[[MORE]]Unlocking this hatch had become a mission. He didn’t tell Aldor, but she knew. In her typical fashion, she chose to let him find out for himself. It was more necessary in this case than most, because she was right that this block was tied to his childhood. It didn’t help that old, buried memories continued to flood his mind as he advanced through his awakening. They were simultaneously painful and precious, because they always reminded him of those few instances when he couldn’t contain his ability, and his parents chided him while sorrow filled their eyes. He would have done anything not to see that look on their faces, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. Something would upset or surprise him, then his parents had to explain away some strange occurrence in the Bizarre and he’d see those agonizing expressions again.
He hoped new wisdom would assuage the guilt that accompanied these memories, but all he could see was his parents’ faces panicked and pained. He just couldn’t shake that feeling of dread. It had to be some sort of test the Force engineered for him. A final exam before he could graduate to something greater. Because every time he made another attempt at opening the hatch, he heard the call from underneath. He was sure it was linked somehow to the call he continued to hear from the Iris, and as soon as he could open this hatch, it would be the right time to follow the voices.
Din’s thoughts were routed from the task at hand when two warm arms wrapped around him from behind.
You’re trying too hard, my Love.
She was still damp and hot from her shower as she gave him an affectionate squeeze. Din murmured in pleasure when the steam from her flesh filled his nostrils with her herbal scent. She felt so good around him. Warm and soft and so sweet. Delicious as he took her hand from his chest and tenderly kissed her palm. A precious distraction from things that could drive him mad. He turned around and kissed her indulgently, teasing himself for the night to come. “Mmm..” he murmured, burying his face in her hair to overwhelm himself with more of her cool fragrance. “Tonight, my Lady,” he whispered in her ear. “Tonight, I’m yours. And you are mine.”
She dragged her tongue under his jaw as he huffed and whimpered at once, trembling under the seductive caress. “Promise you won’t leave me empty.”
“Nothing will take me from you.”
“This is the Way,” she concluded with a beautiful smile.
Everything in him wanted to throw her on the bed, but Grogu’s mind had awakened from meditation. So Din resigned himself to one more quick kiss before they headed back to the kitchen, and rounded the turret together to see Grogu perched on the table, ready to go in his coat and gloves.
The cold still hung heavy in the air when they set out for the Maze, but once they got there and started going through their forms, all were sufficiently warm to practice some combinations. After at least two hours of this, Din began to feel this morning’s wisdom creeping into his muscle as he took a swift Mandalorian sweep at the leg of a pseudo-sentient sparring droid and finished it off with an elegant swoop of his blade through its neck. Having vented some of his frustration with droids, he turned and disengaged his blade to watch Grogu’s progress with a wooden dummy, but his boy’s wide brown eyes were locked on him and staring in awe. “What?” Din asked.
“That was beautiful, my Love,” Aldor said with a tone of heat in her voice. When he looked from brown eyes to blue ones, a quiver of silken ribbons rushed over his skin, but they quickly withdrew as she cleared her throat. “That move… a perfect combination for you. Remember that. How it came together. In your mind and in your heart. Your muscle and nerves.”
“This morning,” Din explained. “I was going on what I felt this morning… thinking about this saber. How things tie together.” He paused as Aldor stepped closer, keeping his eyes on hers as he went on. “How I’m tied to you, my Lady… our son to both of us. Me to this saber. Mando… what people called me before… how he… how I… can tie all of it to the Force. All I knew before and all I’ve learned. Made sense all of a sudden while I was looking at this saber… feeling it in my hand. How to… bring Din and Mando together… different elements… like this lightsaber. Didn’t think… wasn’t sure… I wanted to be Mando anymore. I don’t really. Not the way I was. Just a hunter with no purpose. An empty heart. Now that I have a son and a woman who loves me, I don’t want to give them up. But if not for Mando, I wouldn’t have either of them. I guess I forget that.” He sighed and shook his head. “Not sure why it was so difficult to understand until this morning. Looking back on things, it seems like I’ve always kind of been… both.”
“A Mandalorian heart and a Jedi mind, my Love. The Force may have awakened in you, but you are still Mandalorian. The entity wronged you, but the ideal remains central to who you are. Even if your village was never attacked and you were never a Mandalorian Foundling. Even if you went to train at the Jedi Temple as a child. No matter what your life may have been, you have a beskar heart, my Love. The things that made you so comfortable in your armor are characteristics you come by naturally. But the things that make you powerful in the Force also come naturally. After what happened to you on Mandalore, I think you forced those two aspects of your nature apart to make it easier to process. Now you’ve processed it, and your mind is free to put yourself back together.” She smiled, taking a moment to lovingly caress his cheek with feather-soft fingertips. “A good thing. Because your beskar heart is what I love most about you, my Mandalorian.”
“Like your zillo hide and silk, my Lady.” He brushed his fingers into her hair and traced her lip with his thumb as a joyous swell of pure, resounding affection stole his voice. For a moment, all he could do was look at her in awe and gratitude. Just because she was brilliant and beautiful and thought so much of him. “Your hydro engine,” he whispered. “The thing I love most about you. How you’re… dark and light… brutal but… so sweet…” He kissed her deeply, but withdrew abruptly when he remembered Grogu was there. Din acknowledged him apologetically. “Sorry, Kid. You’re gonna see that sometimes.”
Grogu merely shrugged and said, “Okay.”
“You see how concerned he was, my Love,” Aldor teased.
Din’s lips pitched into a wide smile as he looked down to hide his face, bashful for some reason and completely in love with this woman who always reminded him to laugh at himself. He said nothing, but she felt it, and he pressed another kiss to her mouth before he looked up at the Maze and heaved a deep sigh. “What do you think, my Lady?”
“Yes, my Love. I’d like to see what new wisdom has done for your speed through the Maze.”
“You’ve reprogrammed it since the last time?” he asked.
“I have,” she said with a beautiful, fierce curl at her lip. “I think it will be challenge enough for one as powerful as you.”
Din stretched and gave his saber an encouraging twirl while Aldor brought her wrist up to her eyes to set a timer on her communicator. He crouched into position, determined to lick this bastard in under a minute, no matter what sinister traps she conjured for him. He gave a quick nod, and quietly uttered, “Start.”
Din jumped between the giant cubes of weathered rock to quickly discover Aldor had vastly reprogrammed the remotes and reset the obstacles. There were projectiles and a constant barrage of weak blaster fire. The remotes expelled sub-remotes that chased him through the narrow pathways and into dead ends, but he was able to escape them all. He found himself switching back and forth between Mandalorian brawn and Jedi subtlety, and about halfway through, he hit a stride where he managed to unite them without thinking. The Force created a leverage between him and all things that he felt instinctively, and he used it to execute Mandalorian tactics and moves, striking out at remotes and dodging traps, running up and across walls to leap huge distances and heights he never managed before. He was moving with more agility and precision, far surpassing even his younger self. He took comfort in knowing he could certainly move himself with the Force if nothing else, and he was through the Maze before he even realized it, landing beside Aldor on the other side with barely a thud from his feet as she stopped the timer on her wrist.
“Fifty-six seconds,” she announced. “Impressive, my Love. Under a minute that time.” Her face pitched up into a facetious smile. “I didn’t once have to tell you to go less Mando and more Jedi… or vice versa.”
Din chuckled at the family joke that began his first week of training, when her most rudimentary traps had him smarting under his bruises. He got most of them when Mando instinct told him to barrel through when he should have skirted past. As the weeks passed, her repeated suggestion to “go less Mando and more Jedi” served its purpose as a reminder to listen to the Force rather than make demands of it. Now it was an affectionate jab, and a hint to remember his new wisdom. So he bent down to thank her with an equally affectionate kiss.
He looked down at the Old Republic saber in his hand when their kiss produced the typical spark. He noticed lately that the saber always ran a shot of static through him if he kissed her while it was in his hand. As if it approved of his affection. He still felt half crazy for thinking of a weapon as sentient, but he couldn’t deny his feelings. Something kept this saber attached to him. It felt like an old friend who witnessed Din’s love for his family with something like satisfaction. Maybe even a little relief. It was a familial feeling that kept Din equally attached to the saber. He felt naked if he didn’t carry it, and lately started to leave his blaster by their bunk more often than not, and favored the light saber as his primary weapon. It was all so natural, he didn’t really notice or think about it until now.
Din disengaged the blade and regarded the hilt a moment longer before he looked back at Aldor and asked, “Is it common for a light saber to… bond… with someone other than its maker?”
“Not to the extent this one is bound to you, my Love,” she answered. “At least not that I’ve seen. But you are rather an anomalous Force wielder. And this blade… it’s strange… it seems to know you. Like it’s been in your hand before.”
“Maybe it has,” Din mused. “When it shows me its maker, he looks familiar. I know he must have died eons ago, but… some part of him still lives in the Force. And in this saber I think. I always see bloody beskar and… a child… when I think of him.” He closed his eyes and saw the swarthy human Jedi in his mind, one hand clasped to this saber, and the other tenderly guiding a young human boy. “Every time,” he murmured. “I see this man and I feel like I know him. I think he was a good man… but he made some sort of mistake… something catastrophic… something that changed more than him.” Din opened his eyes again and sighed deeply, looking from the black stone hilt up to Aldor’s face, deep in reflection. “Tell me, my Lady, do you know anything else about this light saber… or its maker? Do you know who he was?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, my Love. I only know he served in the first war between the Mandalorians and the Jedi. It always caught my attention when I passed by the display, so I asked Madame Jocasta about it once, but I don’t remember the name she told me and she didn’t tell me anything more. Except that Master Yoda had it placed in the display only recently. I doubt she knew why, but Madame Jocasta was an expert at making you believe she knew everything.“ Aldor paused to smile pleasantly at a memory Din couldn’t see, but she quickly came to again and shrugged. "Maybe Master Yoda knew something of its maker. I may even have some information on him somewhere, but without a name, I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Aldor sighed regretfully. “I wish I could remember his name. The only other thing I know is this light saber desperately wanted me to save it. Specifically me. It pulled so hard on my heart, I had to get it down or die trying. When I first had a moment to study it a little, I half expected it to favor me. Because this specific weapon has always pulled on my heart and respected me. I’m sure it would have served me well if I ever decided to wield it, but I could tell it was waiting for something.” She turned her eyes back to him, catching his gaze with a sober expression. “Waiting for you, my Mandalorian. I know now that’s why it called to me. It knew the man I was destined to love would be its new wielder. I believe it felt your presence in the Force from the moment you were born, and it will remain loyal to you until you draw your last breath.”
“I don’t know why,” Din murmured. “I don’t know why it favors me so. Why I favor it. All I know is… it reacts to my feelings. Almost seems to encourage me.”
“You did swear you would use it to protect your family, my Love,” Aldor reminded him. “Perhaps it’s happy to be of service to such a noble goal.”
Din nodded. “Maybe. But I sense… shame… for its past. The mistakes its master made. Maybe it feels my purpose is the same as this Jedi’s, and maybe it thinks I’m capable of something he wasn’t.” Din trailed off, thinking about the first morning he hung it on his belt. “And… that morning,” he continued quietly. “That morning after we made love and… we knew… saw our destiny… when I picked it up thinking nothing would take it from us… seeing so many pasts and futures… all with you and Grogu beside me… this saber felt redeemed… and… I felt like something started… something significant.”
“I felt it too, my Love.” In her voice was a softness of remembrance. A small smile settled on her lips as she lifted herself with her toes to press a gentle kiss to his lips. “After a morning like that, I’m inclined to believe it’s a good thing you started.”
Din nodded, taking her face in his hand as his mind turned from heavier thoughts to bask in all the things he loved about her. “Me too,” he agreed through a small smile. “Let’s just hope I’m as strong as you and this saber think I am, my Lady.”
Grogu turned from the dummy he’d been at war with and looked up at his father. “Strong,” he said reassuringly as he patted Din’s knee.
Din smiled down at his boy. “I’m glad you think so, Son.”
“Well, my Love,” Aldor said brightly. “You’ve mastered Soresu remarkably quickly, so I have no doubt of your strength either. But it won’t be as easy going forward. Before I start showing you the Ataru forms, I think you should run the Gauntlet by the sea. Both with and without your armor. It will be a good way for you to tie everything together before we add more.”
Din nodded. “You’re probably right, my Lady. New wisdom takes time to sink in.”
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Chapter XII - The New Wisdom (part i)
Chapter XII Warnings: Explicit Sexual content; hunting; animal resources; explicit language
Din settles in to life on the Eye and advances through light-saber training while Grogu grows stronger. An important revelation enhances Din’s growing skill, but the Solstice is drawing near and he has found himself deeply distracted by the Thermal Solstice’s effects on himself and Aldor.
**More about the Old Republic Saber; some sweet Grogu stuff I rather like.**
Most assuredly 18+/MA; pinv; creampie (obvious PSAs); no age gap; graphic; fluff; fingering; there’s a mirror
but also
family time, sweet Grogu things, Din and his lightsaber
There were mornings when all Din could think about was getting to the Maze to practice, and there were others when he only wanted to stay in bed with Aldor. As autumn wore on and the Solstice came near, the latter had become his most common desire when he woke with her soft in his arms. This morning he was inclined toward staying in bed when he opened his eyes to hers, and saw that sweet pale crimson bow already in place on her beautiful face. She buried her face in the bend of his neck, nipping softly under his jaw as he sighed indulgently, wanting nothing more than to stay like this throughout the winter.
[[MORE]]“What do you think, my Lady,” he murmured, brushing his nose across her forehead as his fingers tangled in her hair. “It’s cold outside, and you’re so warm.” He distracted her with a deep sweep of his tongue into her delicious mouth, and smoothed his hand over the silken curve of her hip. In no hurry and already hard, he eased his fingers up her inner thigh, and slipped one digit between the damp folds, and into the soft heat that beckoned. “And so wet,” he whispered into her ear.
She rolled her face into the hollow of his throat, purring as he teased her with his fingers, stroking her slowly as he watched her expression bloom through a thousand attitudes of pleasure. He became so preoccupied with producing more of them, he almost forgot he asked a question until she answered. “I think… you should… should make love to me,” she whispered brokenly. “We’ll figure it out… from there.”
Din left her empty only long enough to shift his weight, then levered his hips to bury himself in the only place he wanted to be lately. He closed his eyes to savor it, holding her close and just feeling that precious hug. The completion. But he needed more, and rolled her flat to her back, sinking into her depths until he was sheathed to the hilt in silk. “So good,” he whispered, basking in all her sweet sounds. Her fingers raking through his hair and haphazardly across his face as he reared back and plunged deeper into the heart of zillo hide. He closed his eyes, letting all of it pour over him as he moved slowly inside her. Drenched in her and already tripping near the boundaries of control. “Always feels so good, my Lady,” he murmured into her ear. “Tied up in your ribbons…”
For what could have been hours, he lost himself in the feel of her body, falling into a steady rhythm that gave him every opportunity to study all her folds and furrows. The sound of her pleasure. The way her scent bloomed from her skin as she whimpered and sighed his name. He wanted all of it. To sense it and feel it flow between them. Whatever it was. This bond. This… connection.
The thought of it excited him, and he needed more. He wrangled his forearm under her hips and held on, keeping her close as he ached to purge himself. He strained against it, but her body squeezed around him, and ache advanced into pain. His voice caught in his throat as she rolled her hips into his, taking him deeper as that beautiful sound sighed through her lips. “Ahh…” Her eyes squeezed closed, and her mouth opened wide on a silent cry he felt in every cell of his body.
Din bared his teeth as her womb quaked with gathering fire, surrounding him in resonant waves that trembled through her as the tempest spun itself into a frenzy. That’s it my Lady. Cum for me… cum hard… take me with you… don’t ever leave me behind… “Ngh!”
His desperate grunt mingled with her quiet “Ahhh…” as her womb opened wide, expelling all her gathered plasma and unleashing the tempest at once, quaking with the force of her fall. “Din!” He took every inch of her in a torrent of fire while his heart pumped her Spirit through his veins like a ritual drum. A breath of lightning shot through his very soul when his seed ripped out of him. Her nails bit into his scalp and she followed him through the black hole and out the other side, where they landed in a heap of heaving flesh, tangled in golden bands and silken ribbons, barely conscious of anything but how good it felt.
Din never knew how long they spent in these moments of afterglow. When he couldn’t leave her empty or take his lips from her skin. When he knew the deepest peace he could possibly know. He never wanted to leave it, but it seemed especially difficult this morning as a quiet rumble resounded gently over the Eye. “Stay in bed with me today,” he whispered seductively against her temple, gently rocking into her in hopes he could persuade her. “I don’t want to leave you empty, my Lady.”
Aldor whimpered as she briefly arced against him, but then settled and pulled him closer. She rolled her face into his chest and pressed a deep kiss over his pounding heart. “We may need the energy for the days to come,” she whispered against his nipple before she took a moment to sweep her tongue over it, drawing sparks from his flesh that shot through his spine, manifesting in a deep shiver as he drew his lover closer. “I sense we will, my Love, if the last week has been any indication of how the Solstice will go for us.”
Din smiled into her hair, and shifted to slide out of her, and then toward the foot of the bed. He took her breast deep into his mouth, then gently nibbled the hard, hungry nipple before he released her again. It had its intended effect, and Aldor sighed indulgently and rubbed her mound against his thigh, already wanting him back just seconds after he left her. For a moment he thought she’d buckle. He was more than ready to bury his face in her for a while, but she grumbled against her own desire. “You’re much too good at tempting me, my Mandalorian.”
“Is there such a thing… to be too good at it?”
“When there’s a little green 56-year-old Foundling to feed, I believe there may be, my Love. And we should make use of this clear day, I’m afraid.”
Din chuckled at the pout in her voice and shifted again to bring their eyes level. She gave in to one more deep kiss, then he sighed and planted his forehead against hers. “What should we do then, my Lady?”
“We probably have time for a couple quick runs through the Maze,” she answered. “And Grogu needs to expend some energy.” She rolled to her side and levered herself up to one elbow. Din could hardly keep his attention on her words as he smoothed his hand over her gorgeous slopes and rises, so prominent and sexy in this position close beside him. But he fought the rumble in his belly, and managed to hear her as she ruminated on Grogu. “Have you noticed lately he’s been at meditation longer?” she asked.
“I have,” Din answered, rolling to his back as he tucked his arm behind his head, his mind finally brought forth from the haze of lust. “I think it may be how the Solstice affects him. Force knows we already feel it, so I’m sure he does too. His mind has been… quiet… but… busy.” A short chuckle huffed from his lips. “Maybe doesn’t make sense, but he’s more focused lately and his thoughts are broader. Maybe the seismic activity enhances the Cosmic Force in him. Puts him more… in tune. Makes him more reflective. I believe it’s good for him.”
“You’re a quick study, my Love,” Aldor said with a proud smile. “I knew some Jedi Knights at the Temple who struggled to understand the difference between the Cosmic and the Living Force, yet my astute Mandalorian has grasped it in just a few months.”
“Maybe you’re just that good a teacher, my Lady,” he replied with a small smile. “Maybe I should call you Master Aldor.”
An adorable expression of disgust at the pronouncement of this title twisted her features like he knew it would. She scrunched up her sweet face like a little girl tasting something bitter and begged him, “Please don’t, my Love. How odious! Perfect proof that I would never have become a proper Jedi in the old way.”
“To me, that makes you more of a Master, my Lady.”
“How so?”
“You have a better understanding of what you teach because you taught yourself,” he answered.
“You would think so, wouldn’t you, my Mandalorian?”
Din chuckled. “I guess I would. Either way, my Lady, you will always be my Master in all things. And I am entirely subject to you.”
“If you insist,” Aldor teased. “I’ll try not to take advantage of it.”
As badly as Din wanted her again and however keenly he felt the same desire in his lover, the morning had advanced and Grogu was stirring in his room. It wouldn’t be long before he came out in search of breakfast. Din pulled on his clothes and offered to throw some rashers on the hob. He could put them on as soon as he gathered some of the dark blue stone fruits from the trees by the pond. It had become his favorite breakfast as the trees fruited, and he made it a point to carefully watch her prepare the rashers so he might be of some help to her. But somehow, she always managed to take care of it before he could even start. He was determined this morning, though, and gave Aldor a significant look as he shrugged into his rayskin coat, asking her to let him try. She only grinned and kissed him, then draped a scarf around his neck, begging him not to forget it as the days grew colder. It was the only answer she would give him as he shook his head and opened the hatch to step out into a frigid morning.
She was right of course. Maybe not about his ability over the hob, but certainly about the Maze. And the scarf. Even though he would have gladly forgone training to stay in bed with her today, he had to agree they should take every opportunity to advance their skills before the weather turned. Autumn mornings on the Eye were bitterly cold, but within an hour or two, the suns would be well up, and between these astral comrades and the increasingly warm ground, it would be comfortable enough to make the short journey to the Maze.
Din and Grogu had trained tirelessly for weeks now, and both of them thrived under their Master’s guidance. Grogu was a rapt pupil by nature, and Aldor cleverly used Din’s experience with weaponry and combat to inform his growth in the Force. Through her wisdom and his own determination, Din advanced through the first three light saber forms quickly. Aldor declared he had all but mastered them already. He was sure she was biased in that opinion, but Din was quite proud of how easily he took to it. The Old Republic saber responded to him loyally, and as he learned how to control his abilities and use them, light saber combat started to feel like second nature. It was amazing how different his experience had been with the Dark Saber.
While he gathered fruit from the trees, training was foremost in his mind as he continued to ruminate over the saber hanging from his belt, the one that hung there before it, and the difference between them. The difference in him as a wielder. The Dark Saber never would have come to Din, and the Old Republic saber wouldn’t have summoned Mando. He knew he chose wisely and he was glad to be Din Djarin, but the brooding bounty hunter he used to be was the architect of Din Djarin, and Mando would always be a large part of him. Even through Force training and upheaval, his heart remained irrevocably Mandalorian. A small voice in his head sometimes told him to leave his beskar behind, but Din knew it would never be possible, and probably not advisable. If he left Mando out of his training, it would be to his own detriment. The only way to advance was to bring the two sides of himself together.
A Mandalorian heart and a Jedi mind, my Love. Living and Cosmic in one. It’s a powerful thing. Something elemental.
Elemental. The word rang in his head like he’d never heard it before. It brought to mind how often he called on the suns or the Eye or the rocks to help him through his exercises. How Aldor spoke of her own ability in terms of water and fire. How Grogu could call on anything to partake of its power. The words she whispered to him months ago popped through his memory. He was rock, she was water, and they shared the same fire. Grogu united them with wind, and was quickly becoming all four. You’re right, my Lady. That’s how we are, isn’t it. The three of us. Does that set us apart from other Force wielders? How we use Elements? You’ve never mentioned it before.
I’ve never thought of it until now, but I believe it may.
Din looked back at the YT to see Aldor at the top of the dugout, watching him. A perfect silhouette of warmth and light through the mist of a frosty morning. He tilted a nod to her and let her know he’d be along soon. He needed a moment to consider this new wisdom.
Aldor nodded back. I’ll put the rashers on, my Love. Take your time.
Din took the Old Republic saber from his belt and looked at it in his hand. Smooth black stone carved into a natural curve that fit his grip comfortably. The beskar inlay flourished through tight channels finished so seamlessly, he couldn’t feel the junction of metal and stone. Power radiated from the crystal within. A warm, gentle thrum that vibrated with strength. Stone and fire. Metal and plasma. Perhaps this was the thing that bound him to the saber and its maker. What bound him to Aldor and Grogu. Even the Eye. The nature of the Force in all of them. Elemental.
Din extended the blade and listened to it hum in the quiet morning. The rumble from the heart of the Eye flowed up his legs and arms, and through the tips of his fingers to combine with his own golden warmth. They coiled around the blade as one, back and forth in a spiral up the orange-yellow beam and back into him. Every now and then, an ice crystal floated into the plasma field to produce a whispered hiss, and the elemental Force answered this destruction with the creation of cooler impulses. Like a caress of Aldor’s fingers across his cheek, they trickled down the spiral to collide with fire, remade into steam as his heart swelled with purpose.
This was the key to his training. The key to everything. This amalgamation of elements that had come to define his entire life. The man he’d become and the man he was before, melting together to create the man he would be for the sake of his family.
He looked back at the YT. Aldor had retreated inside, but he felt her there. Felt Grogu with her. He never could have found his path without them. They were his path. He vowed never to forget that as he focused again on the emitted blade, and remembered it only consented to serve him when he told it his purpose was to protect his family. The blade trembled in response to Din’s reflections, and he could almost hear a distant, ancient voice telling him, “This is the Way.”
“Nothing will take it from us,” Din murmured in response. “Thank you, my friend, for showing me the Way.”
The blade seemed satisfied, so Din retracted it and hung it back on his belt before he turned to walk home, headed in for breakfast while he looked forward to running the Maze with new wisdom and renewed purpose.
After they ate and took a few moments to finish their tea, Aldor excused herself to the fresher with a light in her eyes that suggested she was looking forward to the Maze as much as he was. While she was occupied, Din gave Grogu an affectionate pat and asked him how he felt about his light saber training so far. “Strong,” Grogu answered. “Easier now.”
“Yeah,” Din agreed. “Me too, Kid.”
“Solstice some. Mostly us.”
Din chuckled and took a nose bump while Grogu giggled. “Yeah, we’re badasses, aren’t we?”
“A-wee-pa.”
“When I say ‘we’ now, I mean all of us.”
“Good.”
Din smiled at his son and gave his head a little scratch. “Do you like training? I know you want a light saber, but… you know… your mother’s right. Still, I want to make sure you’re enjoying it. That it’s not… too easy.”
Grogu grinned and gave Din’s shoulder a little pat. “Not yet.”
“I’m sure your mother will know when it is. Imagine I will too. But you know, Son… I always like to check in.”
Grogu stretched in his chair to give Din another nose rub in response. Din smiled and nodded, and Grogu finished a second helping of rashers and fruit.
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Aldor’s Eye, Part II (Djarin Cycle, Book I)
A few things:
~~I’m not a fan of AI, so I don’t use it. Ever. I don’t even use Grammerly for editing.~~
Warnings: All my work should be considered MA. Mature Audiences, 18+. Mostly for spicy reasons, but there is occasional violence. I always have warnings at the beginning of each chapter.
Summary:
Now that the Eye is home, Din Djarin and his adopted son focus on learning the ways of the Force under Aldor’s careful instruction. At peace and free at last, Din is able to focus and grow in the Force. But as he advances through a long-overdue awakening, Din is faced with revelations from the deep past while old acquaintances come calling. Yet determined to thrive and sure of their purpose, Din, Aldor, and Grogu continue to work toward shared visions of their future together, if only the Galaxy would leave them alone.
(Read Aldor’s Eye Part I here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49528234/chapters/125002468)
**ALDOR’S EYE PART III COMING SOON.**
Notes:
[[MORE]]Chapter XII Warnings: Explicit Sexual content; hunting; animal resources; explicit language
Din settles in to life on the Eye and advances through light-saber training while Grogu grows stronger. An important revelation enhances Din’s growing skill, but the Solstice is drawing near and he has found himself deeply distracted by the Thermal Solstice’s effects on himself and Aldor.
**More about the Old Republic Saber; some sweet Grogu stuff I rather like.**
I haven’t figured out how y'all do masterlists yet, but you can find Aldor’s Eye Part I farther down. You can also read it on AO3 here.
You can read all of Part II on AO3 as well here:
Will post Chapter XII here in a few.
Tidbits:
Fics: This is my only fic at the moment, but it’s kind of epic. I called it the Djarin Cycle with works like the Ulster Cycle and Eddas in mind. (I haven’t read them yet, but it’s on the bucket list.) This will probably keep going for many years because I’m a slow writer and a meticulous editor. That and I have two more “Books” in mind which will probably include at least two “Parts” each.
However, I’m fascinated with folklore and fairy tales, so I may write a few little side pieces here and there. Also considering Austen and maybe Bronte fics when I get a good idea.
Much more of this story is posted on AO3. It will always be ahead of what I’m posting here.
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Six years after its finale, #TheCloneWars remains the creative foundation for modern #StarWars, from #TheMandalorian to #Ahsoka
6 Years Later, George Lucas’ Sci-Fi Masterpiece Is Still the Only Reason Modern Star Wars Works
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Before the movie announcement, #TheMandalorian already proved its cinematic potential – but #StarWars fans appear to have forgotten.
Star Wars Fans Keep Forgetting the Mandalorian Already Proved It’s Ready for the Big Screen
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Chapter VII - The Power (part i)
So many feels, and still my favorite chapter.
Summary:
Din takes another hit, but Aldor is there to help him up.
**I went super indulgent here, but it’s absolutely my favorite chapter so far.**
Notes:
Chapter VII Warnings: Emotional upheaval; sensual language; bloodshed; animal death; animal violence; explicit language
Stunned and unable to process any of it just yet, Din stood staring at the dead ray for a good half hour. Everything he knew about the physical world now lay in shambles. It should not have been possible for him to penetrate the ray’s hide with his vibroblade, but there it was, still sunk to the hilt in the ray’s head. After his mind battled with this for a while, he finally went back to the carcass to pull the blade out. He had to take both hands to it and struggled to pull it out until he cast his mind back up to the suns to ask for a boost. As soon as he asked it of them, the blade came out easily with one upward jerk of one hand. For another ten minutes, he sat on the ray’s shoulder and studied the blade, then the wound he pulled it from. The ray’s blood was slimy and smelled like phosphorus and salt. It was a strange, luminescent shade of pale pink. He’d never seen anything like it, and he wondered how many uses Aldor had discovered for it.
[[MORE]]The thought of her brought him back from bewilderment. He remembered this was his tribute to her, and finally stood from the ray’s shoulder and walked back toward the glen. When he got there, he put his armor back on and called R5 to bring the sledge to the beach where he left the ray. He had time, so he sat down by the stream, and passively watched the small silvery fish that swam upstream in sparse schools through the shimmering water, half in a trance while the ground trembled underneath him.
After a while, Din grew restless enough to walk back to the beach, but all he could do was sit and stare a bit longer at the ray, trying to replay the brief battle in his mind and failing. He had no memory of it. It was like he’d been blinded. Or overtaken. Possessed by the elements. That much he remembered. Images of the suns and the gas giant. The springs underground and the sea. All serving him through an awakened instinct.
Don’t use it. Forget it’s there. The voice again, drifting from a deep chasm in his memory, prodding at his brain. Din knew he should be anxious, but he couldn’t rouse himself to it anymore. The voice was reduced to a whispered curiosity he noted, but didn’t heed. Whatever he was meant to forget, he already used it. There was no holstering it now.
Within a couple hours, R5 arrived with the sledge, beeping and whirring and asking Din how he would get the ray onto the hovering platform. “For an astromech, you don’t use your logic engine very much,” Din grunted. “Just disengage the repulsorlifts and we’ll drag or push it on. We can extend the panels if it’s too big.” R5 bristled at Din’s jab, but did as he asked, and after a good fifteen minutes of pushing and hefting, they had the ray on the sledge, and headed back home.
As he walked away from the sea, Din came back to himself, and remembered where he was and where he was going. Pale crimson lips and nose bumps. Companionship and peace. Nothing sounded better right now than to spend an evening at the table with his son and the woman he loved, swapping thoughts and tending to little tasks. He heaved a sigh that pushed through his lungs from the very ground under his feet, and finally made himself admit that this was exactly what he wanted. What he always wanted. He just never let himself ask those questions until now. When he cycled through all the possible responses, he couldn’t come up with a single good reason to leave the Eye. The things that meant the most to him were right here with him.
A rumble from the core of the planet took issue with this conclusion. It didn’t think he’d proven himself just yet. If he meant to stay even one more night, the Eye would demand another toll. Din looked up at the gas giant, larger in the sky than he’d ever seen it, looming over him in judgment. But Din wasn’t concerned. He knew his worth, and he knew the lengths he would go to for his family.
Bring it on.
It was Din’s only thought when he sensed malice from above. Not the gas giant, but the foul, greedy vultures that always unnerved him. They caught a whiff of the ray’s corpse, and wanted a piece of it. They looked spitefully down on him with their menacing white eyes when he raised his head to get the measure of them. “Fuck,” he grunted flatly when one enormous, ghostly bird swooped lower in the sky, circling overhead in calculated loops, cawing and screaming in turns.
Din sighed heavily, waiting for the strike. Just another mark. Another hurdle. He’d managed hundreds of them already, and wanted nothing more than to get it over with.
Bring it on you white-eyed bastard. Get on with it so I can go home.
A loud clap of thunder answered the challenge, and drew his eyes toward the Pupil. “Fuck.”
The oath was barely out of his mouth when he felt the air overhead give way under the razor precision of the diving vulture. It was faster than he anticipated, and before he could take a shot, he was set upon by a pair of dirty serrated talons within a storm of shimmering blue-green feathers and leathery black flesh. The bird madly brandished its talons and massive beak, fighting to get at Din’s flesh through the beskar. When none of its weapons found purchase, it became frustrated and slammed its huge feet into Din’s cuirass in one hard, hateful push. Knocked down and rattled, but unscathed, he jumped back up again and started blasting. He missed his shot at the sinister white eye in the featherless black head as the raptor screeched and snapped its beak, changing direction over Din’s head before it came at him again from behind. Before he could turn, one giant talon ripped into his side. It missed the beskar entirely, and tore both fabric and flesh as Din spun around and blasted the beast in its bony chest, then again in the head for good measure, and it finally fell to the ground in a whirlwind of desperately beating wings and ghastly keening cries.
Fucking finally.
Din sighed with this weary thought, and holstered his blaster. He ordered R5 forward again despite the droid’s protests. He knew he was wounded and he knew he was tired, but he couldn’t think of it right now. Better things to think of were waiting for him at the end of the trail.
The table.
Small tasks.
Pale crimson lips.
Affectionate nose bumps.
It was these things that kept him upright when the storm finally hit their sector of the Eye. They were barely underway again when a bolt of lightning ripped through the clouds overhead to announce its arrival. The tear in his side was wet before it started raining, and Din knew he was losing a lot of blood. This storm wasn’t making it any easier. The longer he walked, the more it throbbed, and the harder it was to continue forward. Luckily, they weren’t far from the YT, and he breathed a labored sigh of relief when he crested a gentle slope that brought the settlement into view. He ordered R5 to take the sledge to the shielded outbuilding, and continued on through the perimeter, resolved to dress the ray tomorrow.
Before he took two steps past the disengaged ray shield, Aldor was running toward him like a frantic bird, shielded from the rain by one of her ingenious little droids hovering over her head. “That would’ve come in handy,” Din called over the roar of the wind.
“We were getting so worried!You’ve been gone all day and when R5 left, I didn’t know what to think. I was… I was scared you…” Her tone pitched lower and she sighed, looking down at the ground under her bare feet as she spoke. “I don’t know what I was afraid of… oh Din, come inside…”
While she hurried him through the raging storm, zillo hide and silk reigned again. She stuttered baseless apologies in one moment, then questioned him for switching off his comm in the next. When he struggled to keep up with her, she hooked her elbow through his to keep him under the warming shield the droid emitted around them. “I had no idea what to think. Can’t believe you left your comm off. Terrible visions in my head of what might have happened to you…” As they ascended the ramp into the warmth of the hull, all her frustration faded.
She quickly caught the droid in her hand to set it aside, commanding Din to the workshop so he could warm up and get out of his wet clothes. Worry crept into the sweet alto as she spoke. “It’s the warmest room in the hull… I’ll get you some towels and dry clothes… the rain is colder than you realize, my Love, and it’s dangerous to linger too long in the damp…” All of this while she opened the door and practically shoved him into the workshop, then floated off toward a storage cube. Soon her voice returned as she padded back into the room, telling him he could have free reign over the hull tonight if he wanted to go without his beskar for a while. She could busy herself in the cockpit for a few hours. “I have some little jobs that need to be done in there so it wouldn’t be an imposition. I know you’ve had a hard few days, my Love…” She set some towels down on the workbench. “I’ll run and get you some dry clothes. I’ll be right back.” And then she was gone again before Din could protest.
He hated that she was so frantic. Hated that he made her worry this much. It only just dawned on him that his “hard few days” may have been as hard on her. She would have sensed his heart reaching for her while he kept his mind and body away. It must have been infuriating, but from what he could tell, she forgave him before she could even get angry. Like all of it was her own fault. He always hated to hear her apologize for things that weren’t her fault. Now that he’d come to these overdue understandings, it practically broke his heart.
He collapsed into the one chair in the room with the weight of it, his body too spent to support itself while he tried to unwind his cape from around his neck. When a bolt of pain in his side nearly tore him in half, he finally gave up and slumped back into the chair.
While he sat there waiting for her to return, her words finally registered in his addled brain. She would give him free reign to go without his helmet for a while, she said. She would take herself off in her own home to accommodate a belief she knew he was in doubt of. It never occurred to her to question it, and he was sure she never once tried to sneak a look. She didn’t even glance at his hands when courtesy commanded him to wash a dish for her the first night he spent here. Everybody tried to look. Everybody wanted to know what Mando looked like under his beskar. Everyone but her. She didn’t care because it didn’t matter. Because she knew his heart. His Spirit. She knew them as well as Grogu did.
These thoughts still lingered in his mind when Aldor knocked. “You can come in,” Din said, too tired to go to the door but unwilling to refuse anything that would give him more of her company. Aldor slipped into the room to set his clothes down on the workbench, and was about to depart after she shot a timid glance at him, as if she was worried he would be angry with her. But Din didn’t want that. None of it. Aldor sensed it and stopped, watching him expectantly.
“Could you help me, Aldor?” he asked quietly. “I’m… having trouble… with my cape…”
“Of course… of course…”
Din winced through the pain as he stood up, and Aldor rushed to his side, immediately setting her nimble fingers to work on his sopping wet cape, pulling gently at the tucks and knots that he couldn’t navigate right now. “What happened, Din?” Anxiety tightened her voice as she unwound the fabric from his neck to let the cape fall at his feet with a heavy, loud splat. “You’re exhausted, my Love… last night you were so… and then this morning, I didn’t know…”
A loud grunt burst through the modulator unchecked when her fingers brushed over the wound in his side he’d almost forgotten.
“Oh!” she gasped when she looked down at the blood on her hand. Her face went chalk white and she swallowed hard, like she was about to be sick. But she recovered herself quickly, asking him, “Why didn’t you say something?! Oh, I should have sensed it…” Without thinking, she bent to the gaping wound in his left side. She had just laid trembling hands on him when she froze. “Oh… forgive me, Din, but…”
“Help me… with my armor…”
She went quickly to work at the fittings under his left pauldron as Din managed to get at the vambrace through another wave of pain in his side. The word “stubborn” ran through Aldor’s head when he grunted. Din heard it as if she said it, and it extended to everything. Last night and this morning. Now and yesterday. Once he got his right thigh plate off, he finally gave in to both the pain and the remark on his character, allowing her to remove the rest until he was down to his underfittings.
“Din,” she said gently. “We’ll need to get your vest off. I’m not sure it will come off over your helmet…”
“It won’t.”
“Then tell me how to proceed, my Love.”
The request was exactly what he expected from her, and exactly the one he would answer. He wanted to show himself to her at least half a dozen times already, and now Din was too tired to resist it anymore. There was no reason to. In this moment he only wanted to be closer. As close as he could. To finally learn her fragrance and watch her worry over him with his own eyes. He lifted the helmet over his head with his right hand without ceremony, grunting as he let it drop into the seat of the chair behind him. He was relieved to be rid of it. “It’s fine,” he told her, settling his eyes on her face to take in her unfiltered features. So vivid and so much closer. The deep blue eyes betrayed only a hint of surprise as she looked back at him. “You asked in the only way I could yield to.“
Aldor studied his eyes for only a moment, looking intently into them. But she was more intent on tending his wound, and almost immediately turned her focus back to his vest. “Then… then let’s get this off you… and to the medical bay, my Love.”
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Chapter VI - The Trial (part v)
Din had no idea what his mission was this morning. He just knew he had to walk. Follow the springs to the sea and just… walk. Walk it off. Walk it through. Whatever it was. He had to get out of there. Away from the angry red slashes across her beloved skin and the visions that sent him so far over the edge. Over the edge of what, he didn’t know. He only knew what he saw, and that it almost came true.
[[MORE]]After he sequestered himself in the cockpit last night, he had to get his helmet off right away because it was suffocating him again. As soon as it was off, he was able to breathe, and the anger burned away as he slumped to the floor and lay there spread-eagle, looking up at the storm that raged outside the transparisteel, trying not to think anymore until he sensed her thoughts. Why she blamed herself for his weakness, he would never know, but easing her mind successfully eased his, and he finally fell asleep where he lay. This morning when he woke, he hated himself for snapping at her, and just knew he had to get away to work out what to say to her. He knew he would have to say something. If they were to continue in silence, it would kill them both, and it was his turn to speak up. He owed it to her.
However much she blamed herself, none of this was her fault. Din knew he was the culprit. The barriers he built over so many years of fighting were crumbling one by one, and he didn’t know how to live without them yet. He almost forgot how intensely he could feel. About anything. Everything. It was too much to process too quickly. Too powerful to restrain within his crumbling barriers. Every day since he came here, the rumble beneath his feet continued to shake them loose. At last they came down in a crash of chaos and he ended up here in the rubble, trying to dig himself out. The final wall came thundering down when he saw the blood on her clothes, and realized just how precious she was to him. Her and every drop of her blood. He didn’t know how to navigate without barriers, so fear manifested as rage he directed at the very thing he feared to lose.
After walking through these thoughts for a while, Din came to a hidden glen by the tributary he’d been following since it branched off from their pond. When it occurred to him he had no idea where he was, he made a quick assessment of his surroundings. The trees had thinned out, and mostly willows and grasses encroached on the creek. Several other tributaries flowed nearby, forming a small delta he knew would lead him straight to the shallow sea. He wanted to keep going, but he liked this glen, and he felt heavy. He might as well leave his armor for a while. It seemed to hinder him here anyway, and he needed to feel something besides this chaos of crumbling barriers.
When he took his helmet off, the breeze wafted into his face as if it waited for that moment to breathe through the glen. The salt in the air was cleansing. Perfect. As soon as Din stripped himself down to just his tunic and trousers, he let out a sigh of relief. He sank down to the ground to sit cross-legged by the shallow, sparkling stream, and finally took some time to learn how to breathe again.
For a while he just sat there rubbing his temples, massaging away the tension that had built up over more than 30 years of wearing a beskar helmet. Not thinking, just smelling the air. Feeling the ground under him and the sky above him. The planet core and the gas giant. The Eye and the suns. His chaos of crumbling barriers sank into the ground, and he focused on the trinary stars because they felt familiar.
Entirely by instinct, he pushed chaos deeper into the rock, and immediately felt lighter. Light enough to meet the suns with his mind. In a communion of old soldiers like him, he felt a camaraderie with them and stayed there for a while. With his mind floating between the suns while they all floated through space, Din began to feel the invisible connection between them and himself. Between all of them and the planet. The System. The Galaxy. The Universe. Din savored the stability of this connection, and found himself seeking more. Specifically, the two that had him looking down from the suns to the Eye. The two who were bound to every drop of his blood. He didn’t want to be long away from them, so he slowly let himself retract back into his body by the stream.
Upon his return, the springs underground took the chaos he left there, and thanked him for it. In exchange, they offered a softer energy. He humbly accepted it, and heaved a long, deep breath as this subtler passion settled inside him. He instantly felt the difference while his thoughts harmonized in a gentle symphony of notions that sounded like purpose. While the song played through his soul, the rubble of broken barriers rearranged itself into peaceful compartments and open corrals that made it easier to put everything in its proper place. He gathered his assets effortlessly in this climate of order, and continued forward as soon as the suns and springs reminded him he still had work to do. Driven only by this thought and not thinking beyond it, Din strapped his holster and belt around his unarmored waist and followed the stream toward the sea. Even though he had no idea what he was meant to do, his mind remained bent on it as another half-hour’s hike brought him through the trees to the shore.
The beach was narrow and the sea maybe a hundred meters away from the tree line. Both the shore and the shallow waters were scattered with remnants of rock shelves that had long been pulverized and broken by ancient glaciers, salt water, and wind. On the beach, these massive fossils of early upheaval stood in state between long stretches of white sand and scant patches of pale purple reeds. Rough and bittersweet. Achingly beautiful under a steel sky. A landscape created by the same crumbling chaos he gave to the springs. The same chaos that must have built the entire system.
Din barely had a moment to enjoy these reflections before he felt a rumble from the sea, and was compelled to find the source. So he continued across the sand, and saw them before he came to the surf. Huge black backs streaked with scant furrows of dark blood-red cut through the choppy waters in an agitated dance. The rays knew he was there. Almost as soon as his boot met the surf, one of them breached the surface with a massive, wide maw full of sharp teeth that smiled maliciously at him.
For half a second, it looked like the Armorer. Why she came to his mind, he didn’t know, but there she was, laughing at him.
The ray pounded it’s broad body into the water in some territorial display that produced thunder from the sea and shook the ground. The rumble dislodged a rage of cloistered images and emotions that no longer had a place inside him. Unleashed and unchecked, they scattered through his blood like cellular waste, never to return to the place they’d fallen from. They filled him with wordless sensations full of dogs and blood and blue silk. Memories of betrayal and Mandalore. Battle droids and Jedi. Bounty hunters and lawmen. The Empire and the Republic. The ray took all of it from him, only to regurgitate it back from the gaping black throat that could swallow a buck whole. It made him hate it. This belligerent, mocking beast needed to die along with everything it tried to use against him. It would be his gift to his family. A peace offering to make up for his failures.
The ray sensed his intent, and screamed a ghostly ultrasonic call to arms. Din drew his blaster and blade, and let a savage cry rip from his throat. It echoed over the rock and sea as he ran headlong at the advancing ray, bent on conquering a new enemy that mocked him with all that came before.
Something told him to jump, and he heeded the call, leaping from the sand as the ground pushed him and the sky pulled him up, arcing over the ray’s back, blasting as he went until he landed on top of it. The blaster fire only riled the beast to desperation as it bucked wildly, trying to get Din off its back. He sensed its panic. Sensed its power. Sensed it wanting to dive. Then brandishing his blade as he sprang up from the ray’s back, he summoned his static of useless energy, and commanded it to collect everything it could into his body and blade. It yielded to his wishes and went to work, pulling power into the blade from the ornery ray beneath him, along with the water and ground that created it. At the same time, it drew the gravity of the gas giant and the fire of the suns into his muscles and bone. With the elements coursing through him and his heart on fire, he landed hard and hatefully on the ray’s spine. It went rigid with shock at the force of Din’s blow, and screamed out a terrifying, rumbling cry as he drove all the elements into one savage thrust of his blade deep into the beast’s brain. The ray shuddered and lurched, and fell dead halfway in the surf as Din landed in a roll in front of it, and brought himself immediately back to his feet to stare in awe of what he’d just done.
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Chapter VI - The Trial (part iv)
She tried not to let him see it, but Aldor was moving much slower than usual while they made their way home. The scratches down her back from a particularly nasty female were still wet and burning, and she felt a bruise forming all around it from the force of the blow. Even though she knew Din could feel all of it, she bit back every gasp of pain that tried to escape her lips, and tried to convince him that the biggest hurt she took was from using the Dark Side.
[[MORE]]She hadn’t used it to such a degree in many years, and she forgot how taxing it could be. She resolved to build up her stamina again because she also forgot how effective it could be. She was glad it served some good. When she saw Din swarmed and nearly overwhelmed in the midst of battle, it drove her into a rage that decimated half the pack. Between past hurts and present threats, she succumbed to the fear that even beskar might not be enough to save him. She wouldn’t lose him like that. She wouldn’t lose him ever. Not if she could help it.
She was grateful the darkness served her well enough to save the man she loved, but she still felt cold and empty. She looked forward to seeing Grogu, because his sweet face was sure to rally her exhausted spirit. She hoped Din would spend some time with her after dinner this evening too. In silence if he wanted. It didn’t matter. But she knew him all too well, and was sure he would keep his distance again tonight, even though his feelings shot out at her like blaster bolts. Under such a barrage of confused anger and vehement concern, all she could do was promise again, “I’m only tired, my Love. Don’t worry about me.”
She hoped he would relax a little once they got home, but he remained in a shambles of confused feelings and troubled thoughts. All through the evening, Din rumbled. He took it upon himself to warm some leftover stew for dinner while Aldor tended to her wounds. She sensed his frustration when she insisted on doctoring herself, and promised him again that she was fine, even going so far as to show him the scratches weren’t deep. But he turned his helmet away in disgust and merely went back to the kitchen to oversee their dinner. All she could do then was excuse herself to the medical bay in the engine room.
Dinner was ready by the time she returned, and she found Grogu alone with his bowl of stew and a grossly oversized serving waiting at her usual place on the table. Grogu pointed toward the cockpit and quietly informed her, “Mad.”
“Do you know why?”
Grogu shook his head. Pointing again at the door, he added, “Doesn’t either.”
Din remained in the cockpit long after Aldor finished her enormous serving of stew, and when he finally emerged, he only gave her a curt nod when she thanked him for seeing to dinner, then made a bee line for the fresher, where he spent another long time, avoiding both of them. Still rumbling.
Grogu went to bed before Din came out of the fresher. Left alone, Aldor got up because she couldn’t sit still any longer. She had almost finished washing their dinner dishes when Din walked back into the kitchen from wishing Grogu pleasant dreams. True to a new habit of the last several weeks, he’d shed all his armor but his helmet, and now shifted on his feet like he didn’t know what to do. At first he merely leaned against the wall at the end of the counter, watching her intently while she worked. She thought it wisest to say nothing, and merely continued with her task, knowing he would speak the words when he knew them.
His anger had abated slightly, but there was flame still trapped in the static that jumped chaotically through his chest, and while she was rinsing the final dish, huge fingers of lava and smoke broke free. They lashed out directly at her as his breath kicked up and the ground under their feet began to vibrate with the eruption she knew was coming. She turned away from the sink as she dried her hands, watching him carefully. “Din… did I…”
“I told you,” he murmured, deathly quiet as the liberated strands of smoke wrapped themselves around her. Aldor struggled to maintain her composure when these solid strands of Force energy physically pulled her toward him in small increments. She dared not acknowledge it, and only let him pull her along while she stared into his eyes, watching them shatter behind the beskar when he continued in the same ambiguous tone. “I told you I had a bad feeling, Aldor. Why?”
“Din, I…” Aldor stuttered, truly perplexed. “I… sensed something was happening to you, and I… I had to get to you… because…”
“Why?!” he roared, lurching forward at the same time she was jerked half a meter closer. They were face to face as he stared down into her eyes, the black visor so close, she could smell the metal and see wild brown irises screaming at her in his native tongue. They told her everything she needed to know. This wasn’t anger. Not really. It was pain. Panic. As soon as she came to this conclusion, he sensed it, and pushed all his feelings into her in an overwhelming conflagration of static and fire that stripped her down to nothing, trembling when she saw the image that possessed him. Need you to see… It was a ghastly picture of herself, ripped apart and dying. She saw herself in his arms, lifeless and cold, clutched to his chest as he wept over her. She could almost feel his stomach turn when he saw that all her blood had soaked through beskar and leather to his skin. This image tortured him for weeks, and he knew this was the day when he woke in a cold sweat this morning, before the proximity alert.
Do you see now, Aldor? Didn’t you know?!
“My Love…I can't…”
“I told you, Aldor, I had a bad feeling, told you… but still you… you…” He stopped short as his visor remained locked on her face. Lava and smoke squeezed her uncomfortably tight as his breath escalated. His chest shook with the ground beneath them, and something gave way inside. He released her from her bonds, then a barb of molten gold pierced her heart when the Mandalorian seized her in a tight embrace. “Don’t you know what I saw, Aldor?” The words were trembling and breathless as he cradled her closer with possessive hands clamped around her waist and in her hair, so tight against him, she could almost feel his skin under his clothes. The beskar helmet dropped over her shoulder and turned to repeat purposefully into her ear, “Don’t you know what I saw… my Lady?”
He showed it to her again. Blue silk and blood. It was almost spiteful, but that wasn’t its intent. It was a confession. Debilitating fear and a gaping emptiness that consumed every thought and feeling when he saw that image in his dreams. So painful, it drew tears from her eyes as she whispered into the warm black fabric crushed against her cheek. “I’m so sorry, my Love…I didn’t realize…”
“No…” he growled, setting her away from him with his hands on her shoulders. “No… Don’t do that. It’s not your fault. Not yours… no… I need… need to…”
Din could say nothing more, and dropped his hands from her shoulders before he surged past her and into the cockpit again, closing the door behind him as she heard a clunk of metal hitting the floor.
He stayed there in silence for the rest of the night.
Aldor lay awake well into the wee hours. He was still rumbling from the cockpit, and every quake of his spirit shook right into her. The only insight it provided into his state of mind was static mixed with wordless sensations. Perhaps it was as it should be. After she failed him so catastrophically, she may not be worthy of insight. She was sure she was to blame for this turmoil. Their bond awakened a power in him beyond anything she could have imagined, and she should have sensed it. She should have been training him all this time instead of letting him find out for himself. Power of that magnitude needed careful training, but because of her shortsightedness, she might never get close enough to help him.
Stupid. Blind. Selfish. Maybe the old Masters were right. She shouldn’t allow herself to love him. If she looked at him more as a student or a friend in need, she might have seen it more clearly. But she couldn’t help it. She’d become dependent on his familiar Spirit, and got too greedy for his company to risk any introduction of heavier talk into their symphonies of notions.
Not your fault, my Lady… don’t know how to live like this… don’t know what to do with everything I feel… I need…
…time… take your time, my Love… do what you must…
Don’t know what that is yet.
You will, my Love.
Rest, my Lady… both of us… too much… too much for now… just… just need you to know what you mean to me… always will… now you know… how much I care for you…
And then he was gone, back into the beskar shell. But it was enough to ease her mind, and after a while, she finally drifted off into a fitful sleep.
It felt like less than a minute later when she woke first thing in the morning, just as a glint of beskar moved toward the hatch. He sensed her waking, and turned the helmet back into the room to look at her. “I’ll be back,” he promised. “I’ll be back.”
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George R.R. Martin’s #AKnightoftheSevenKingdoms refines the lone wolf-and-cub dynamic with more balance than #TheMandalorian ’s Din and Grogu pairing.
The Game of Thrones franchise just nailed a dynamic Star Wars has struggled with
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STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN - JANUARY 18, 2026 - YOU TUBE MUSIC VIDEO
From December 19, 2020.
Song is “We Will Rock You,” by The Triple Killers.
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#NEW! This adorable Warmer features Grogu in festive attire enjoying an iconic snack! Fans will love the details on display, from the wax-dish backpack to the Rebel-inspired frosting on the cookie. 🎅🏼💚
https://momercurio.scentsy.us/shop/p/105869/the-mandalorian-grogu-holiday-cheer-scentsy-warmer
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#SkeletonCrew has just collected an impressive 17 Emmy nominations from the Children and Family programs, which is more Emmy nominations than any other #StarWars show, except for #TheMandalorian
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2019’s STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN - TV SERIES - SEPTEMBER 24, 2025 - YOU TUBE VIDEO: TRAILER
From August 13. 2019.
After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe.
“The Mandalorian” is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.
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✨ Is Gina Carano Coming Back to Star Wars After Her Lawsuit? ✨
The Star Wars fandom is buzzing again. After Gina Carano filed a lawsuit against Disney, rumors are swirling that Lucasfilm may actually bring her back. Could Cara Dune return in The Mandalorian or another series? Or has that chapter already closed?
In our latest episode of Hyperspace Hangout: A Star Wars Podcast, we dive into the controversy, the lawsuit, and what this means for the galaxy far, far away.
💬 What do you think? Should Disney bring Gina Carano back — or move on?
