Chapter Text
Mos Pelgo, upon arrival, looked as if it were on its last legs. Din understood now why Peli had thought it gone. Wiped out. Here, it sat on the edge of the Dune Sea, a small oasis of moisture vaporators and above ground dwellings that wouldn’t offer much protection against anything.
He pulled up the speeder slowly as he entered town. The people had weary and haggard looks. All were quiet. All stared at him directly. They must not receive many visitors then. He’d best keep his movements slow and steady to show that he meant no harm to them.
He came to a building with an open door. The script along the top of it spoke of a ‘cantina’ of some sorts, though, he didn’t recognize the word that came before it. A first name perhaps.
He dismounted the speeder just before it, swung his right leg off before reaching for the Child and setting him down on the ground. He could use the time to stretch his legs after such a long journey.
The Child plodded after him as Din entered the cantina. It was empty at this hour except for the Weequay proprietor. The Weequay gave him an odd look, his eyes glancing up and down Din’s armour as he approached the bar.
“I was told I might find someone like me in this town,” he said.
The Weequay looked to him. “You’re looking for the Deputy.” Then his eyes slid off behind Din, and he turned to find a Mandalorian—the Deputy?—dressed in a ill-fitting set of beskar’gam. The armour looked poorly tended to. Scuffed and dented and blasted by sand. Any self respecting Mandalorian would never allow their armour to degrade in this fashion.
“Who’s the shiny?” the Mandalorian asked as she stepped into the cantina and came up to lean against the bar. “Two snorts of spotchka?”
“Sure thing, Deputy.”
“I’ve been searching for you for many parsecs,” Din said.
“Did you now?” the Mandalorian said, and then she brought her hands up and then—
Took her helmet off.
Set it on the bar.
Her black, curly hair was tightly plaited and coiled at the back of her neck to keep it contained within her helmet, but a few strands had escaped and framed her face as she poured herself a serving of spotchka.
“I’ve never met a Mandalorian before,” the woman said, eying Din and then leaning to the side to catch sight of the Child who was clutching onto the rim of a spittoon. “Heard stories, but—” she shrugged, tossed back her drink “—I have to assume you didn’t come here just to chat.”
“I came here searching for members of my kind,” Din said. “Since you are not Mandalorian, I must demand that you return the armour to me.”
The woman smirked and shook her head lightly, then came to straighten, hands near her waist where hung a blaster. She was ready for a fight, and as much as Din didn’t want to give her one, the creed of his people dictated that the beskar’gam must be returned to its people.
“You wouldn’t be the first to try and take it from me,” the Deputy said.
“I take no enjoyment in doing so.”
Din flexed his right hand, waiting for the moment when the Deputy would reach for her blaster, but just then the floor began to rumble.
A krayt dragon passed through town, killing one of the town’s banthas before surging back underground and continuing on its path likely to its cave. The Deputy turned to Din and said, “Help me kill that thing and you can have the armour. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Din would come to know how the Deputy—Jo was her name—came to hold the set of armour.
“It was just after the destruction of the second Death Star. A mining collective had moved in and taken advantage after the death of Jabba the Hutt. Power hates a vacuum. I and many others in town were enslaved over night and only one of us got out. Cobb Vanth. Our Marshal. He returned days later with the armour and liberated the town on his own. Since then, he put the armour to use to keep it safe.”
“What happened to him then? How did you come by the armour?”
“He was called out of town. Never said where he was going, but he had me swear I’d look after the town if he weren’t to come back. He left the armour with me, and I never did understand why he didn’t take it with him if he was so worried about heading out in the first place. But he never returned. So I picked up the armour and continued on what he started. There’s not much standing between us the rest of the Galaxy, Mando. I’m one of the few people here that can do that.”
In order to take out the krayt dragon, they must partner with the local tribe of Tuskens. The partnership did not go over smoothly in the beginning. The Tuskens held a deep-seated grudge against Mos Pelgo and its previous Marshal, and they recognized that Jo wore the armour that Vanth had previously worn.
“He killed them to protect the town!” Jo said during one particularly heated moment. “And I was standing by the precedent he set!”
Before the argument could escalate further, Din ignited his flamethrower, bringing it to a close and mediating the situation between the Tuskens and Jo. He turned to the Deputy.
“Continuing a fight like this won’t solve anything,” he said. “You want my help to kill the dragon, then listen to me.”
Jo’s face was set almost in a sneer but then she threw up her hands and stepped back. “Fine. Fine.”
Din breathed out slowly. They would all be lucky if they lived throughout this entire ordeal.
“Did he teach you how to use that armour?” Din asked one night. He was curious seeing as Jo seemed adept at how to use it effectively despite it being too large for her frame.
“Who?”
“Vanth.”
“Oh. Yeah, he did, actually. He wanted me to know just in case he was incapable of using it. Jetpack was a bit of a scare.”
“It always is the first time.”
He turned to look at her where she lay reclined against the boulder where they were encamped with the Tuskens. Din had the Child in his lap, bundled in his cloak as he slept peacefully, whereas Jo had the helmet in her lap, thumb rubbing over a good-sized indent in the top of it.
“He was always good at that, you know?” she said. “Learning how to do things on his own with no instructions. He always told me to keep my eyes open. Get a good look at things before you set out.”
“He would be proud of you,” Din said, recognizing the melancholy in Jo’s words.
“I know he would be. I just wish he could’ve seen it.”
The krayt dragon turned out to be much larger than either party anticipated. It required more reinforcements, to which Din offered up the inhabitants of Mos Pelgo. Jo’s look was one of surprise, then betrayal, and then anger.
“This requires a relationship based on reciprocity,” Din said to her lowly. “It’s the least you and your people can offer in restitution.”
She breathed out heavily through her nose. “Fine. But I ain’t responsible for the backlash.”
To which there was backlash from the town. A fight nearly broke out between a Tusken who had jostled one of the explosive charges the town uses for mining, and a townsfolk had started shouting at them before Jo intervened.
“It was an accident,” she ground out between nearly gritted teeth.
The man huffed at her, used the advantage of his height to look down at her. “Marshal Vanth wouldn’t’ve let the Sand People come crawling in like this.”
“Yeah, well Vanth ain’t here. And if you got a problem with how we’re running this, then I suggest you get gone.”
The man stepped back before walking off entirely, probably to cool down Din would hope. Jo seemed unsure of her own position in town, even if she was Deputy to the Marshal at one point. It seemed Vanth had been a beloved figure here. Of course, they would take his disappearance hard and drag their feet in the sand when he wasn’t here to urge them to work alongside the Tuskens.
Din didn’t envy Jo’s position. But he did hope that once the krayt had been killed, it would give Jo more solid ground to stand on and show to her people that they could rely on her to keep them safe.
He almost felt guilty about asking for the armour. She could definitely use it. But she was walking around in the skin of another person, and the creed would not allow for that. But a peace agreement with the Tuskens would solve many of Mos Pelgo’s issues and keep them, for the most part, safe.
They laid the charges. They coaxed the krayt from its pit, but it didn’t take the bait. It was an old thing, older than living memory, that was for certain. When Din kicked off from the ground, propelled by his jetpack, Jo followed suit, following his path to a nearby out cropping so they could target the krayt with their rifles.
But the beast was too large for them to handle, and it would not go down unless something drastic happened.
He turned to Jo, and she turned to him. “Take care of the Child,” he said, before popping one of the canisters of her jetpack with the butt of his rifle, causing her to careen and correct her trajectory mid air while Din ran to the lone bantha laden with explosives and trying to escape its tether.
Din held the rope twisted around his right arm and his pulse rifle in the left and let the jaws of the krayt close around him.
He’d once been called by Greef Karga the ‘luckiest bastard in the Galaxy this side of Coruscant.’
At times like this, he supposed that had to be true.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have time to explain,” he said, wrapping up the large piece of krayt meat up firmly as payment for Peli.
“I understand it. Heat of the moment,” Jo said, groaning as she hefted the armour on top of Din’s speeder. Then she held out her hand, and Din extended his so they could shake on it.
“If you’re ever in the area, feel free to drop by. We’re usually a more friendly bunch when our livelihoods aren’t being threatened,” she said.
He nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind. I hope you find your Marshal.”
She smiled at him, but something sad lingered in her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”
Life used to be simple, Din thought. There was an order to it. Hunt or be hunted. Din has been on both ends of the spectrum, but he didn’t think he’d end up like this.
The Nite Owls.
The dark saber.
The Jedi.
The Child, Grogu.
The bounty hunter Boba Fett.
The mercenary Fennec Shand.
The Mand’alor.
The Armourer had once told Din before he took the Trials that she believed him to be destined for greatness.
He wondered how she might see him now, a reluctant ruler of a planet he didn’t have an attachment to, dar’manda for the Child he lost. Scrounging in the ash of his home. Losing all connections and most people he had ever cared for.
“Where would you like to go?” Boba Fett asked.
“There is no where to go,” Din said. Even though he had his helmet firmly in place now, he still felt as if people were looking at him. They all knew, now. They all knew who he was underneath the helmet. And even though he knew, now, that it wasn’t the only way for a Mandalorian to be, he still felt an extreme measure of discomfort just knowing that he had been seen.
“Listen, why don’t you come to Tatooine with me and Fennec?” Boba offered. “I have some unfinished business there that I’d like to see to. Might give you something to do for the time being until you find your feet.”
“That . . . that would be best.”
It was an offer and the best one at that, so Din took it.
“Din,” Bo-Katan said, calling after him just before he mounted the ramp of the Slave 1. “You can’t shirk this responsibility forever.”
“It was never my responsibility.”
He mounted the ramp, and it closed almost automatically behind him.
“What’d she want?” Fennec asked as she buckled herself in for the flight off Moff Gideon’s ship.
“Talk about the dark saber.”
“Should’ve just tossed it to her. If she’s so worried about appearing illegitimate in front of the other Mandalorians, that’s her burden. Not yours.”
Did said nothing and took his seat as Boba’s voice called down from above.
“Strap in tight. We’re hitting hyperspace in a few.”
While on the flight to Tatooine, Din held the dark saber in his lap.
Was it worth it? Was this price worth the life of his son’s? Now taken far away from someone who could actually understand him? Speak to him? Train him? Care for him in a way that Din never could?
Upon their arrival on Tatooine, they come to land before Jabba the Hutt’s palace, now managed by the Hutt’s second hand—Bib Fortuna.
“You want to kill Fortuna?” Din asks. “Make things worse for the people here?”
He recalls, distantly, a conversation he had in what feels like another lifetime ago. The Deputy of Mos Pelgo. Power hates a vacuum she said. He wonders if she picked that up from her missing Marshal.
“Oh, it won’t make things worse than they already are,” Boba said. “Fortuna was always a weak-willed man. No one ever respected him. They only did when Jabba was still alive.”
He followed Boba and Fennec out of the ship and towards the front doors of the palace. Boba and Fennec were quick to shoot the guards on their posts. Din held his own rifle loosely. He wasn’t drawn to this, only felt as if he was moving because he had to. Because he had nothing else to do.
First time in your life and you have nothing to do. Shouldn’t you be rejoicing? That you are no longer hunted?
It certainly doesn’t feel that way.
They move into the mostly deserted palace. Din had only been here once before when Jabba was still alive to ask permission to hunt a bounty on his lands, which had been readily granted. But Din hated the opulence he had been faced with then. But now, all of that life and excess is gone. Making their way through the tunnels and hallways is incredibly simple.
Boba enters the throne room first to confront Fortuna. Then Fennec slides in behind him just as Boba fires at the two guards standing behind Fortuna. Din descends the steps to catch the aftermath. Fennec shooting the chain of a poor, enslaved Twi’lek. Boba shooting Fortuna directly, pushing his body off the throne, and sitting upon it.
“Well,” Boba says, as Fennec steps up and comes to the side of the throne with a bottle of spotchka. “About as easy as I expected.”
“So, what next?” Din says.
“Now? Now, we get the word out.”
He’s standing out on the covered balcony at the top of the palace, overlooking at the lay of the land, the rise to the west of the Wastes, and the fall into the Dune Sea where its progress is held back by the natural rocky cliffs.
This is where Boba finds him.
“It is a nice view,” he says. “Are you thinking of getting out there?”
Din hums.
“Listen, Din, I . . .” He hears a soft pop, and then Boba’s unfiltered voice comes to him. “I don’t expect you to stay if you don’t want. If there is anything you need, let me know and I’ll get it for you.”
He wants to be touched by Boba’s offer, but he just feels . . .
Numb.
“Thank you. But I think I need to leave. For now. Clear my mind.”
“Where will you go?”
“I know some of the local Tusken tribes here. I might travel with them.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It’s not. But it’s what I need to do.”
Boba at least sees him fitted with a speeder with a few gallons of water lashed to it he can give to the Tuskens upon his arrival.
“And this.” He hands Din a commlink. “In case you need help.”
“Thank you.” He tucks it away in a secure pouch near where the dark saber is clipped to his belt. He considers leaving it. But maybe he shouldn’t. Not yet.
The scouts of the Ur’Or’R’R’R tribe sound the call upon his arrival, but they recognize Din, so the call is one of celebration. Of a member returning home, and in a way Din is. The Ur’Or’R’R’R tribe has been one that Din has spent many days and nights with during his travels to Tatooine. They’re the ones who taught him their language. They’re the ones who taught him how to read the land even as the sands shifted. And they have always welcomed him in.
The chief of the tribe, Ur’Krsk’Or, welcomes him in with wide open arms and wide gestures, displaying her joy that Din’s returned to them.
‘Welcome, Din Djarin, friend of Ur’Or’R’R’R.’
He inclines his head in respect and signs in return. ‘I am welcomed by the Ur’Or’R’R’R.’ He steps back and sweeps his arm over the speeder to show off the water drums. ‘Please. Accept this gift.’
Ur’Krsk’Or calls for the water drums to be carried into the camp before she steps up to Din to give him a look once over. ‘It is good to have you back, Din Djarin.’
‘It is good to be back.’
Life with the Ur’Or’R’R’R is usually an easy one for Din. He’s been with them over many seasons of life. Bantha auctions among the other tribes after the calving season. Water drives through the canyons of the Wastes. Cultivation during the Water Moons. Preservation during the Red Moons. Marriages. Funerals. Songs and stories and more.
It’s easy to fit in with them. It’s easy to work with them and help them. One day he’s handed a wriggling newborn set in a sling that he hooks over his shoulder. One mother had a set of twins, and she needs help looking after the second child while she weaves. The newborn is rather easy to care for, hidden beneath layers of cloth and a mesh mask over the head. They carry the same traditions as the Watch does. Privacy of the body. But that doesn’t mean they can’t share their identity and who they are on the inside. Dying fabrics of certain colours. Strings of glass and clay beads. Different styles of wrappings.
He knows most of the tribe members by their names. He’s popular among the kids. They like clinging onto him, being lifted off the ground by his arms when they hold on tight. They like telling him what they’ve named their massiff pups. They like it when he helps lift them onto the backs of banthas. And they want to show him how they can fight with their gaderffis and see if he can compare with his beskar spear.
They afford him his privacy when he needs to remove his helmet. They do not ask questions about his travels among the stars or what that new thing is attached to his belt. They let him be as he is, and for that he is grateful. And he serves them for as long as he is with them.
They may not be his tribe, but they are his friends, and they welcome him home regardless.
In the weeks he lives among the Ur’Or’R’R’R, he decides to travel to Mos Pelgo, if only to see how the town is doing. He asks Ur’Krsk’Or if she’s heard of the town, and she says yes.
‘They are open for trade,’ she signs, but then she hesitates a bit. ‘We are wary of their Marshal.’
‘Marshal?’ Din asks because he wants to be sure.
‘She is not the same as the old one,’ Ur’Krsk’Or amends. ‘But she is agreeable.’
‘I might visit them. I have worked with her in the past.’
‘If that is what you choose. We will leave. In two weeks to meet with the Ur’Or’Orrh at Gafsa.’
He nods. ‘I will return before then.’
‘May the sand be at your back.’
‘May the sand be at your back.’
He throws a leg over his speeder and guides it out gently of the Ur’Or’R’R’R’s encampment before speeding across the plateau region of the Wastes where he knows Mos Pelgo is. It’s easier this time to find it than his first time encountering the town, and this time when he arrives, he finds it to be thriving.
But thriving is a generous word when it comes to towns like this but still. There are a few more buildings in the area than last. New and far more sleeker water vaparators, and the people don’t seem as wary when he rolls into town. In fact, they seem to remember him.
As he pulls up in front of the cantina, he sees Jo step out to watch him come to a halt. She’s dressed in sleeker and more form fitting durasteel armour. Her hair is in a looser hold this time than the braided knot she had when wearing the armour. But she looks pleased to see him as he clambers onto the platform the cantina rests upon.
“Didn’t think you’d take me up on my offer to come back here,” she says, smiling fondly as Din approaches.
“I suddenly found myself with a bit more free time,” he says. “And seeing as I’m in the area, I thought I’d visit.”
She jerks her head back into the cantina. “Come on. Let me buy you a drink. Least I can do since you helped us.”
He comes to sit down across from her at a table with a bottle of spotchka and two glasses between them. Jo pours a serving for the both of them, and Din sets his fingers around the glass. He’s undecided if he’ll drink or not.
“What have you been up to since then?” Her eyes roam over him, and then she frowns, looks to his hip and around the floor. “Where’s the kid?”
“With his people,” Din says. He hasn’t thought of Grogu in weeks. He hopes that kid is doing well. He wishes he could see him and at least hand him the silver ball he was so fond of.
“Congrats? I don’t know what I should be saying in this moment,” she says.
“It’s good for him. There was only so much I could do for him. But I suppose I should be congratulating you for your promotion. I’ve been living with a local Tusken tribe, and they said they come to trade here every once in a while. That you are recognized as the Marshal.”
She smiles and nods, sips from her spotchka, and turns the glass slowly on the table. “It was time. Vanth has been missing for a while now. I should’ve taken up the title sooner, but we were close. I guess I wasn’t ready to let go of him.”
“I know the feeling well.”
He looks to his glass. He remembers eating with Grogu on the Razor Crest—tilting his helmet up to sip from his bone broth and catching sight of Grogu peering up at him and his exposed chin. What interest and adoration those large eyes held for him.
He tilts his helmet up and takes a healthy swallow from his glass before settling his helmet into place. Jo is looking at him directly just as Grogu once had. He feels himself flush underneath his helmet.
“So what brings you to Tatooine then?” Jo asks, and Din falls headlong into a conversation there. He doesn’t tell her all the details, but lets her know of Boba’s plans for his own empire here. How he plans on being better than the Hutts, so she won’t have to worry about anything.
In turn, he asks about Mos Pelgo and the growth of the town. She talks about a new mine shaft being opened up and the resources that’s brought into the town. How she’s looking to take on a deputy. How she’s learning Tusken sign to better negotiate with them. She’s doing a lot of good work here, and she seems to have settled into her role as Marshal. The town is thriving, and Din couldn’t be happier for them.
Jo shows him around the town. He pitches in to help with a faulty vaporator. He’s treated like a local celebrity by the townsfolk, and Din has never been good with direct praise, so he accepts it stoically and trails after Jo when she walks off.
He stays until the first sun touches the horizon. Jo says he’s welcome any time, and Din lets her know how appreciative he is of the offer and promises to return soon.
He returns to the Ur’Or’R’R’R and begins a new routine—travelling between his host Tribe and Mos Pelgo, seeking a new purpose in helping around Mos Pelgo, mitigating disputes between trading Tuskens in the area and the townsfolk. He travels with the Ur’Or’R’R’R to Gafsa for a wedding ceremony between the two tribes.
He tries not to think about the dark saber clipped to his belt, untouched other than when he must remove it. He tries not to think about Bo-Katan and the Watch, what remains of his scattered Tribe. He tries not to think about Grogu, and the heartache he felt when he had to set Grogu on his own path into the Jedi’s arms.
He has a purpose here, and for now this serves him well.
He receives a hail from Boba some weeks during his not isolation among the Ur’Or’R’R’R and Mos Pelgo.
“Do you need something?”
“Yes. For you to come back. Fennec discovered something in a storage bay in the lower levels of the palace. Someone stuck in carbonite. I need you to take a look.”
“Haven’t you worked in carbonite before?”
“Yes, but nothing to this extent and I could use your professional opinion.”
He sighs. “I’ll be there in two days.”
“I’ll expect you.”
Ur’Krsk’Or sees him off on the tribe’s behalf as he straps his gear to his speeder.
‘Shall we expect your return?’ she asks.
He nods. ‘I would like to hope so.’
‘Safe travels, Din Djarin. May the sand be at your back.’
‘May the sand be at your back.’ He inclines his head before mounting his speeder and kicking off back in the direction of Boba’s palace.