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Strays who Find Home: Chapter 1

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Din Djarin:

Grogu was tired and he had made enough credits to last for quite a while, so he had planned to go back to his cabin on Nevarro for a bit. He had not planned to ferry someone across the way with him, and certainly did not expect that someone to be you. 

“What the hell is that?!” 

Din looked down at what you were pointing at. In his arms the little womp rat sat with eyes wider than saucers and a death grip on his finger. “Grogu.”

“What is a Grogu?” Did you have to sound so incredulous? 

“It’s not what. It’s um…” A lump formed in his throat, or rather it had finally got caught in it. The lump had started forming the second he saw the blasted Loth-Cat lounging around the Coruscant shipyard. “It’s his name. His name is Grogu.” 

“What kind of name is Grogu?” You're shifting on your feet, hand absentmindedly playing with the strap of the bag on your hip. “Actually scratch that, what the hell even is he?”

In truth, Djarin didn’t know, so he skipped right over the question. “You need a ride to Nevarro?” 

“I…” Your voice fell and something took over your eyes. It seemed a vague expression, just a minor flick of the eyes. But Din knew it, he knew you. It was sadness, hurt, confusion. It was an awful sight on your normally bright face. 

For a second you two stay staring at each other in silence. It might have only been thirty seconds to a minute, but with that expression on your face, it seemed like hours. 

Maker, how did you still look so beautiful? It had been a year, yet everything about you seemed the same. The same bright clear eyes sat in your face, the same ones that he would always be able to pick out from across the room. Soon enough Din found his eyes tracing over every part of your face: your brows, the slope of your nose, the slight downward quirk at the edges of your mouth. Why did you have to frown? You look awful when you frown, or maybe he just didn’t like to see you frown. Either way he wanted you to smile. Din was sure if you just smiled he’d be able to see the smile that captivated so many times. The smile with just a hint of mischievous, as if you were always on the edge of a joke. He’d give anything to hear you crack a joke right now.

Eventually Grogu began to fuss, and he had to snap out of it. He has things to do. 

With one hand settling on the kid’s head, he cleared his throat. “I’ll take you.” Din hated having other people on his ship. He never agreed to carrying anyone across space, much less not for some scoundrel he’d made the mistake of helping last time he was on Coruscant. What that scoundrel had left out was who he was carrying. For you, he’d bring you all the way to the edge of the known Galaxy and back. Hell, he used to. 

There’s a slight jingle as you shift on your feet, no doubt coming from the bag on your hip. You open it. He stands there like an idiot staring at you, waiting for you to say something. Maker please say yes, just say yes. 

All he can do is just watch as you rummage through the bag, it’s the same one you’ve always had: the same one you had two years ago. He stared at it for a bit, not quite sure why he was shocked you still had it, after all you’d gotten long before he even met you and would probably keep it for another fifty years if it didn’t get too damaged. It was a simple bag. One made of leather with a tie to sit around your waist and was probably the only expensive thing you owned. It held your necessities, and the things you could never bear to part with. In contrast, the bag your hand had a death grip around was a cheap felt, and probably only held a spare pair of clothes.

After what was in Din’s opinion, too long a time of shuffling around in your bag you sigh. “Fine, but only because I’m fairly certain I don’t have enough credits for anything else.” 

He’d take that. Even if you don’t really want to, and he can tell by your face that you don’t want to, he’d take getting you on his ship just because he was desperate. All he needed was a couple days, just enough to know you again. 

You:

Within just an hour or two of quite possibly the worst sentence of your life, you were off. Din’s new ship wasn’t much bigger than the old RazorCrest, but it seems like it. Entering from the ramp there’s a decent sized space with a small living area and a  kitchenette, not a storage area with a stovetop to heat ration packs up, but an actual kitchenette. Complete with an oven. Maker knows how he afforded a ship like this. Last time you saw him he’d been just barely less desperate for money than you were.

With a low whistle you turn around in the ship. The cockpit is somewhere at the front, with a small ladder leading up to it. A short hallway leads somewhere to the back, there’d be time to explore that later. “So… what happened to the RazorCrest?”

“Blew up.” Din’s setting down Grogu on a chair, it’s a strangely domestic sight for a man in full armor. The words shock you, and he just had to say it with such a straight face. Well you couldn’t actually see his face, but it was in his tone– was it a straight tone then? It didn't matter, whatever it was, it was for the best that the RazorCrest wasn’t here. You weren’t sure how’d you survive getting on that ship again.

“Blew up?”

“Yes, an imperial cruiser threw a missile at it. Things don’t tend to survive that.” 

Something tells you you don’t want to know why an Imperial Cruiser launched a missile at him. “So I guess that means there’s no way I’m getting my blanket it back.” 

Din stays silent from underneath his visor. Typical.  You had actually really liked that blanket. It was hand crocheted and made out of some special fluffy yarn that you could never find again. You were damn proud of it.

You sigh. “Whatever, I’m going to go put my stuff down,” you look around the ship to figure out where the hell you could do that. Din is still fussing with Grogu, the kid who is now trying to grab something from the table, although it was more than a foot away so you really didn’t know what the kid was attempting. He waves vaguely at the small hallway. 

You followed it. The hallway was cramped, as most things on a ship are, and the metal clicked under your boots. At the end lay three metallic doors. 

Opening one, there’s a small room. A bed is pushed against the wall and a little dresser sits opposite it. Even a tiny little hammock hangs over the bed. Cute is your first thought, but then you realize. Despite the bare appearance of the room at first glance, it’s pretty apparent ..someone stays in here. The bed is unmade and drawers are not exactly closed all the way. On top of the small desk in the corner lays gun parts. Guess he still loves that pulse blaster. That’s when you realize.

Your face starts to burn as red creeps into your cheeks. It isn’t that big of a deal. Really it’s not like you saw anything. You've seen much way more intimate parts of Din  than just his bedroom. Still, after all this time, seeing or even hearing the bare minimum about him makes your mind spin as pleasant memories surface then quickly turn sour. 

Trying to shake the memories of sleepless nights and kisses in the pitch black out of your head, you go to the second door, and let out an audible sigh of relief at the normalcy of the room. It’s much neater than the other but has generally the same set up. The bed is against the wall, although with a dark blue cover instead of red, and an oak dresser takes up the rest of the space. You wouldn’t need the dresser, but it’s nice nonetheless. The third door must be the refresher.

You set down the cheap bag in your hand, which holds the sum total of all your hobbies and clothes. It’s not a lot, only the bare minimum things. You’ve just begun to unpack when a chirp sounds at the door. 

Resti plods into the small room and jumps right onto the bed, immediately making herself at home the way only felines can really do. Despite everything, a smile overtakes your face. At least in all your struggles Resti has never once not come back. She hasn;t changed since she was a little kitten. A loyal feline companion is what she is, and one who loves toys. You throw a cheap sparkle ball onto the floor and watch her run at it.

Resti was here and you’d get to Nevarro. Everything will be fine. Just a couple days to Nevarro. A couple days until the next job. Just focus on that and not on the cute kid and bounty hunter turned dad only a couple walls over. You had Resti, a ride, and a job lined up. Who cares if you have to face the man who shattered your heart into a million little pieces? 

Strays who Find Home

Prologue

Two years ago

The agreement was one you had made a thousand times. Even if it was always unspoken, you trusted it. You’d work on whatever Maker forsaken planet for a couple weeks while he chased down a bounty. After the bounty caught and cashed in, he’d pick you up and it’d be off to the next place. So where was he? 

It’d been four weeks, an entire week past when he was supposed to arrive. You had to leave the hotel three days ago. Now desert sand blew past your tent, ever so gently scraping at the sides. You kept telling yourself it wasn’t worth getting a room somewhere because he would come tonight despite the zero answers to your 30 comm calls telling you something different.

The mission wasn’t particularly dangerous or difficult. There was no indication he wasn’t okay. The bounty could’ve been in a different place or his ship would have broken down. There were so many possibilities that could easily explain away the absence. Still, you worried. How couldn’t you? He could be dead, that was always a possibility in this world. Nothing ever stayed safe or protected for long. But, you couldn’t think like that. He’d come. He had to. 

So, you stayed exactly as you were, hand stroking the loth-cat curled against your side and eyes fixed on the stars hoping to catch a glimpse of the silver shine of a Razor Crest.

Four months passed on that planet. That was the longest you had ever stayed anywhere since being a babe. It was a coincidence, you had just wanted to stop by the cantina for a moment of warmth. It was a coincidence that a New Republic officer was there, a coincidence when he talked about a Mandalorian that had helped a prisoner escape. It was only that series of coincidences that led you to discover he hadn’t been held up, his ship hadn’t broken down, nor was he dead. He had just abandoned you.

There was nothing to do except go back to before, to being a wanderer who traveled from planet to planet in search of odd jobs. You went back to having no home, often no idea where your next meal would come from, and all you owned located in a bag around your waist. You were a stray again.

Present day

Nevarro, that was the next destination. It was some sort of service job, you really should’ve gotten more details before signing the contract. No matter what it was, it lasted three months and guaranteed housing, a reprieve compared to some other places you had worked.. If you had planned better you wouldn’t have been searching for a ride not even a week before you were supposed to be on the planet. If you were smarter you would’ve not agreed to let a wayward friend hook you up with a ride.

But you weren’t smarter, so now you stood face to face with him. Only he was different now. He had a new ship, new armor, and even a tiny green thing. The noise of Coruscant seemed far more distant than just outside the shipyard. Every sound dulled and vision dimmed to the scene in front of you. Everything screamed to turn away, to not let yourself be hurt again. 

“Din Djarin?"

I don’t have anyone to tag but I did want to participate!

Quick: create yourself in this maker!

I'll start:

(I'll tag... @almost-an-artist @kiwi-der-vogel @whyoneartheven @turdofanerd ?)

Oh, and anyone who wants to is invited too!

Imagination

The human mind is a fascinating thing

It births the core of all arts

Interpretations, lessons, stories beyond wonder

It is a sad day when one’s imagination turns on them

Children conjure monsters from the dark

Paralysis demons haunt slumbering adults

But it’s when you imagine yourself that hurts the most

When you imagine yourself broken and bloody

When you imagine yourself lying in your own grave

That’s when you know your imagination truly harms you

That is when it no longer brings forth hope, joy, and comfort

That is when it brings forth only death and despair

Questions for My Mother

Mother why?

Do you forget you’re our teacher?

Do you forget you chose to bring us into this world?

Are we your greatest or your biggest gift?

We can never tell.

I know you’ve been through a lot

My daddy wasn’t always nice

But aren’t we yours more than his?

If we’re not up to your standards is it our fault or yours?

“Working”

Open me up and look inside

Slice open my chest and watch my organs move

Watch my heart beats

Bum bum, bum bum

Watch my lungs rise

Up down, up down

Look closer

Look much closer

No blood moves through my veins

No oxygen flows into my lungs

On the surface everything is working

In truth, I’m broken