Title: Compromise(d)
Author: Jordanna Morgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author's consent.
Rating/Warnings: Mild PG for angst.
Characters: Din Djarin.
Setting: Postscript to Chapter Fifteen: The Believer.
Summary: To protect the child, he would commit any sin, and accept whatever he became in the reckoning.
Disclaimer: "The Mandalorian" belongs to LucasFilm and Disney. I'm just playing with it.
Notes: Written for the prompts of "Wrap" at Fan Flashworks, and "Sleeplessness/Insomnia" at Genprompt Bingo. I am fascinated beyond belief by Din's moral conflict in Chapter Fifteen, and all of the implications I see in it. This is only the first result of my abundant thoughts on the subject.
In a darkened compartment aboard the Slave I, Din Djarin started awake, his heart pounding almost painfully beneath his cuirass.
Amidst that first instant of sleep-fogged confusion, he felt his gloved fingertips bump against something hard; he had unconsciously raised a hand to his helmet. The contact confirmed that it was safely in place, as was the rest of his armor. Upon grudgingly consenting to sleep for a few hours at Cara Dune's insistence, he had not removed a single piece of beskar from his person. A part of him felt almost childishly as if he never wanted to take it off again, never lose the sense of security it offered him for even a moment… but another part of him whispered viciously that he no longer deserved to wear it at all.
There had been good reason for his reluctance to sleep. When he closed his eyes, the memories of every loss he had suffered were waiting to crowd into his mind. Again and again, he heard Grogu's small cry as the kid was snatched up by metal-clad monsters: troopers that somehow looked terrifyingly like the things Din had long ago lost his parents to. He saw the Razor Crest, his home and his very means of survival, reduced to ashes in the space of a heartbeat. He felt the skin of his exposed face burning under the gaze of Imperial enemies.
Din shuddered and swallowed, feeling his flesh try to crawl away from his bones all over again.
Although this equally antique ship was in a much better condition than his Crest had been for years, he felt colder here and now than he ever had in his own familiar cramped space. He breathed out a sigh and wrapped his frayed cape more closely around his body, but he knew it would not help. The chill that gripped him came entirely from within.
Just now it was that final loss which haunted him most insidiously, sitting alone in the dark with no company but the ghosts in his head. He would soon rescue Grogu—of that there was absolutely no question—and the Razor Crest was after all a material thing that could be replaced. …However, what could not be undone was the choice to remove his helmet in the sight of others, breaking his creed as a Mandalorian. His persistent consciousness of that act was a gash in his soul, bleeding out his very identity. Even if the transgression was never revealed to others of his kind, he would always sense in himself that he was now… changed.
A mere pretender, unworthy of beskar forged by those more faithful than he.
Because he knew he would do it again, without hesitation. To protect the child, he would commit any sin, and accept whatever he became in the reckoning. This imperative was born from something deeper within him than everything he had ever believed, driving him forward with a power that both frightened and awed him.
Yet the same creed that commanded him never to reveal his face had also bound him as the guardian of his foundling. Surely his people understood that if those laws should ever conflict, the only choice was the one that would save the life in his care.
To do anything less could not be The Way.
His hand crept down to his belt, seeking the shiny metal knob that had always so enthralled Grogu. He rolled it gently between his fingers, and felt the calm, focused stillness that came with certainty: like the moment when he sighted a target through his rifle scope, and knew a single squeeze of the trigger would end a life.
Foundlings are the future… and to save mine, I will pay any price.
Slowly Din drew in a breath and held it. Like bandaging a wound, he willfully wrapped the aching hole in his soul with that resolve, tying it off tightly with knots of There's no time to think about my own fate now and This matter must wait for another day. If not cared for properly in due time, the damage beneath would still fester and poison him slowly; but for the present, it was enough to stop the bleeding. It was enough to hold him together, to keep him moving and fighting until he had done what he needed to do.
Once more he allowed his head to tilt back into a resting position where he sat. Grogu's metal ball clinked softly against beskar as he pressed it over his heart.
If this "Force" you can sense is worth anything, let it carry this promise to you, his mind whispered toward the lonely vastness of the galaxy beyond the ship's hull. I know where you are now—and I will save you.
I'm coming for you, kid. Just hold on.
He didn't know whether the Force would grant him this one mercy, and let Grogu hear those thoughts reaching out to him; but the one thing he was sure of was that soon enough, the kid would hear his voice instead. He would feel Din's arms holding him, protecting him once more.
Din closed his eyes and slept.
2020 Jordanna Morgan