A.N.

For anyone expecting this to be an update or addition to my Rogue One series, never fear, I know it's been a long time, but I have not abandoned that story. I'm actively working on it, but got sidetracked with this story which demanded to be written...

...Because I binge-watched the Mandalorian in two days, and fell in love with Din, Cara, and of course, the kid. But I especially fell in love with the blossoming parent-child dynamic between Din and Baby Yoda, and Cara's potential with them, and wanted to expand upon and explore that more. So, in this story, we get both an outsider's perspective looking in, as well as Din and Cara's points of view (POVs switch off every chapter).

Plus, I wanted more Baby Yoda being adorable, and more Din whump, and awesome Cara, and more of them all being protective of one another, because that is how I roll.

And thus, 48 hours after I completed the show, what I had intended to be a quick, 1,000 word one shot morphed into a 10,000+ word multi-chapter monster…. Apparently I had a lot to say.

This takes place post season/series 1. It is almost entirely written—only a few tweaks here and there are needed—and I intend for it to be 4, maybe stretching it to 5 chapters so each chapter isn't so overwhelmingly long.

I hope you enjoy!

Additionally, I'd say it's cannon typical violence, and there are mentions of blood and descriptions of injury, but nothing overly gory. Also I own nothing (except Garen). Cross listed on AO3.

.

.

.

.

Garen was not a superstitious person… But fifteen minutes ago, the sky had roared and sent the ground shuddering, and Garen had thought the heavens were falling; the old stories he'd always laughed away as myths at last coming true and showing how wrong he was to doubt them. Instinct had forced him to throw himself to the dirt next to the wall of the slot canyon he was currently hunting in, and wait helplessly for the thundering to crash down around him as the sound echoed, vast and all encompassing. Then, within seconds, it had focused in a direction and sped away down the slot canyon, and mere seconds after the heavens first seemed about to crash to the ground, all fell silent. And the sky had held, though for a moment in the echoing quiet, it had felt like a cascade of rocks was on the precipice of descending from the cliffs to bury him alive, but they made no move.

After several moments, Garen had pushed himself to his feet, dusted the red dirt off of his clothes—grumbling when some of it smeared and promised to stain—and stared in the direction that the sound had gone, curious at what had caused the noise. But, as both sky and ground had remained intact, he'd shaken himself off with a laugh at how easily he'd startled, and resumed skinning the raivor he'd brought down the day before, dismissing the noise as nothing to concern himself with yet. Beyond the startle, it had had no immediate direct effect on him, and with his occupation, you kept your head down and survived by focusing on the here and now. If whatever the sound was ended up crossing paths with him later, he'd deal with it then, but only then. There'd been no use wasting anymore thought or time on it than he already had.

But then the wailing had started ten minutes ago. It started as no more than a mournful whisper, so soft at first that he'd convinced himself it was only his ears, still ringing from the earlier thundering. But the whisper grew to pitiful cries, echoing down the slot canyon, twisting and turning through the caverns and clawing their way into Garen's ears, setting his nerves on edge. And they'd kept getting closer.

And now, Garen's knife was still, and his eyes were riveted on the place in the narrow slot canyon that bent and curved out of sight. Fascination and curiosity held him still, waiting for the source of the sound to appear around that bend, though his instincts screamed at him to run. His parents had always warned him of the haunted canyon out in the wastes, one where moans could be heard, where people entered and never returned. But when pressed about it, they could never remember which canyon it was. As with the sky falling legend, he'd dismissed it. But now, now he wondered if this legend was real, and if he'd just stumbled upon the canyon which held it.

Nonsense, don't be ridiculous. The canyon isn't haunted, it's a creature in distress. He shook himself, angry that he'd let such ridiculous thoughts gain purchase in his head. Wiping his knife off, he sheathed it and rose from his crouch over the raivor, picking up his crossbow instead. Normally, it was a weapon unsuitable for hunts within the slot canyons of the wastes, given how short the lines of sight were between bends in the canyons—it was more suited for aiming up into the open air to fell flying prey, the shade of the slot canyon used as cover to shoot from—but here there was a good distance between Garen and the bend in the canyon around which the source of the noise would no doubt eventually appear. If it was a creature in distress bent on striking out at whatever living thing it encountered next, he would strike first. So, he waited.

But, as he waited and heard the cries grow louder and closer, with less echoing to twist and distort the wails, they sounded less and less fearsome and more and more… like a child.

But what would a child be doing all the way out here in the wastes?

It took him a moment to realize that the cries were no longer growing louder, no longer getting closer. In fact, they'd dimmed, as if the creature were losing hope along with its voice.

Well, if it is a child, it won't last long out here… not without help. And if it's a trap? He knew of no reason why it would be a trap. No creature he knew of on this planet lured in prey by using young, and he didn't have enough of value for bandits to go to all of this trouble to steal—not to mention that it was unheard of to encounter bandits this far out in the wastes.

He told himself it was curiosity more than any sense of protectiveness that propelled him forward, but he knew he was lying to himself.

He stepped quietly forward, crossbow still at the ready, feet sliding silently in the soft dirt. Ten paces, twenty, and he rounded the corner.

He didn't know what he'd expected to see. While his brain had been interpreting the sounds as a child's cries, he hadn't actually expected to see a child sitting in the middle of the narrow canyon. At least, he thought it was a child.

The tiny figure plunked on the ground, clearly unable to go any farther, was an almost indiscernible puddle of brown cloth and green… ears? Yes, ears, he quickly determined, taking a few more steps forward to get a better look.

The creature turned its head at the sound of Garen's footsteps and he was immediately struck by the large dark eyes that brimmed with tears, framed by ears which drooped downwards in dejection and fear. The moment those eyes landed on him, Garen only had a quick moment to think, Oh no, in the face of the adorable figure before him, before the child's eyes widened impossibly further, its ears popped up and it scrambled to its feet and began tottering towards him, arms outstretched and so much hope in its eyes.

And Garen was a goner. Resistance was futile.

He'd never considered himself a sentimental person, but there was no way he could stay detached and distant when faced with those wide, hopeful eyes and exhausted, uncertain steps.

He rapidly walked forward to meet the creature—not too quickly, in order to keep from scaring it—and noticed its robes and hands were covered in the red dirt of the canyon floor, a story of the trials it no doubt went through to walk here.

At his feet, it still reached upwards towards him, in a universal sign even he understood. Pick me up.

Scooping the little creature into his arms, he held it close to his face in order to get a closer look at it, and was rewarded by a soft burble of happiness as it peered right back at him, dark eyes seeming to see to his soul. One of its hands reached towards his face and gently touched the stubble that had grown on his chin over the past few days. He didn't even care that it was probably unintentionally rubbing dirt on his face, so charmed was he by the innocence and calm of the creature, its cries having ceased the moment it saw him.

That is, until Garen turned around and took a step back towards where he'd come from. The child immediately uttered a sound of such dismay that he felt his stomach drop and heart stutter. It cried again and squirmed, clearly trying to get out of his grasp.

Afraid to let it go, he took another step, but that only increased the little creature's frenzy. Confused, he turned back around to face the way the child had come from, scanning the ground to see if it had left a prized treasure on the ground. When he saw nothing, he turned his gaze back to the creature, who now sat still in his arms, staring at him. When it saw that it now had his full attention, it turned to look back the way it came and stretched out a red hand.

Garen's gaze traveled the short length of the creature's arm, out to its dirty clawed hand, and continued down the canyon where it was pointing, but he saw nothing. A small voice whispered at the back of his mind that he'd missed something, and he narrowed his eyes and brought his gaze back from the end of the canyon and to the child's hand. And that's when he froze.

The child's hand was indeed dirty and red, but not from the red dirt of the planet. It was red with blood.

Eyes widening, he immediately held the child out at arms-length, realizing belatedly that the dark stains he'd seen on its robes and attributed to dirt were also blood. A quick examination of the child, however, revealed that the blood could not have come from it.

And still the child reached towards the end of the canyon, back the way it had come, small hiccups now shaking its body as a tear spilled down its face once more.

Kriff.

The look of betrayal on the creature's face when he placed it back on the ground made him shrivel up inside. But the cries of anguish that echoed after him as he raced back to his small camp made him feel like the worse scum in the galaxy.

I'm coming back, I promise!

He hated leaving it, but if someone was hurt, he needed supplies in order to be of any help to that person—and by extension, the child.

Racing into his small camp, he snatched his satchel, threw a few items inside of it, and took off running again.

When he returned to the creature, it had crawled a few feet back the way it had come before collapsing in exhaustion, having worn itself out trying to get help.

Damn, whoever is hurt, this kid cares a lot about them. It both touched and hurt his heart. Touched it, because to give all of oneself in an effort just to try to help someone? That kind of devotion was practically unheard of on this unforgiving planet, and all he could do was shake his head in wonderment. Hurt it, because the prospect of this creature losing the person it cared so much about seemed so very high, and he did not wish that sort of pain on anyone.

Garen was going to do everything in his power to make sure that fate did not befall this innocent child. Which meant, given the amount of blood on the child's robes, and how long he'd been hearing its cries before he found it, time was of the essence. Barely breaking his stride, he scooped the child up, eliciting a surprised squeak, and kept running down the slot canyon. He didn't have to worry about going the wrong way, as there were no turn offs in the canyon path. Plus, he figured if he did end up going the wrong way, the child would let him know. Loudly.

It didn't take him long to find where the creature had come from. What had taken the creature near a quarter of an hour, he traversed in a matter of minutes. Rounding a bend in the path, the slot canyon opened up into a true canyon, walls no longer arms-width apart, with a large flat area. And in the middle of it sat an enormous silver machine.

A ship! He almost slapped himself in exasperation. He'd seen a few as a child, on one of his rare visits to the one port on the planet, but none since then—his planet was remote to begin with, and he largely kept to the most remote areas of it in order to earn his living. It had therefore not occurred to him that the sound that roared across the sky a little while ago might be a ship, so unfamiliar a sound it was to his ears. Instead, he'd let superstition rule him.

The ship's ramp was down and he set foot on it, intending to hurry inside, but then he hesitated, realizing he had no idea what he would find.

The creature clearly sensed his hesitation and growled a protest, squirming enough in his arms that he nearly dropped it. In order to avoid such an incident, he quickly set it down and watched as it did not hesitate to quickly totter up the ramp and disappear into the shadowed depths.

Ah, what the hell. He'd come this far, and there was no way he was going to abandon the kid now.

Making his way cautiously up the ramp, he made it to the top and stepped into the heart of the ship. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but once they did, he immediately searched for the child; he found someone else first, though. His gaze landed on the form of an armor-clad figure, sprawled on their back near a ladder. He did not have to look much further in order to locate the child, for it was now pressed up close to the figure, nestled in the crook of the person's neck, gently prodding the helmet clad head. When it elicited no response from the fallen figure, the child chirped in dismay and looked back at Garen with imploring eyes.

Galvanized into action by the child's need, he scrambled to the pair's side, falling to his knees and preparing to assess the armored man, when caution once again forced him to stop and still. With only a cursory glance he could tell that the armor was of exceedingly high quality, and on this planet, you didn't get something of that quality through purely justifiable means. And while that by itself should not lead him to believe he understood this stranger, it did make him realize that he had no idea who this was, and whether or not the man was a good person who even deserved to be saved. In his hesitation, he looked towards the figure's masked face, as if he could make some sort of determination of the caliber of the person by looking at it, and instead was given an entirely different measure by which to judge the injured man; his eyes landed on the child, gently stroking the impassive visor of the man's helmet, murmuring and muttering in an encouraging tone.

And he decided that no one truly evil could earn the trust and devotion of such an innocent soul. At least, he hoped not.

Mind made up, his first task was to determine if the man was even breathing, as the armor obstructing his view of the person's chest made it difficult to determine visually, and given the amount of blood pooled on the floor, he was worried he was too late. Reaching towards the man's neck in order to feel for a pulse, he saw the child's movements cease and it turned its head to look at him, before becoming unnaturally still and quiet. The child's eyes bored into him as his hand got closer and closer to the man's neck, and he couldn't help but feel like he was on the precipice of doing something very, very wrong, but for the life of him had had no idea what that might be. His fingers landed on the man's neck and he sagged in relief when he felt the man's pulse—fast and faint, but there—through the thin cloth of the man's cowl. He pulled his hand away and breathed a second sigh of relief when the child's gaze relaxed and it resumed stroking the man's helmet; clearly, he was no longer in danger of committing whatever unforgivable sin he'd been about to commit.

"Okay, first things first," he started muttering aloud, "we've got to get this off of you." He worked at the clasps of the armor plating at the figure's collar, quickly removing the shoulder and chest pieces in order to provide better access to the man's wounds, and ease the man's labored breathing. Because now that he knew the man was alive, he could hear the man's breath rasping ever so slightly through the helmet's modulator.

Ripping the fabric of the clothes across the man's abdomen where most of the blood was coming from, he first discovered with surprise that the man's skin was not green like the child's, which is what he'd been expecting, as he'd been certain that the person was the child's father, given how the creature had been acting. But blood doesn't always make a family, Garen, he reminded himself. Moving past the surprise of the man's skin tone, he discovered a hastily slapped on bacta patch that was half falling off, and after pulling it away—as it was clearly no longer serving its purpose—saw what appeared to be a cluster of deep stab wounds in close quarters on the man's right side. Palpating the wounds gently, he sucked in a breath; the damage was extensive.

"I don't know, little one," he murmured softly to the creature. "I don't know if I can save him."

His uncertainty was met only with wide, trusting eyes. And by all the Ancient Ones, he was going to do everything he could not to let that trust be misplaced.

Reaching into his pack, he pulled out several disinfectant and coagulant powders that he'd saved up for moons in order to afford, and poured them on the man's wounds without a second thought. He took a closer look in order to ensure the powders were working—and was relieved to see they were—but something else caught his eye. "Huh, that's curious. It almost looks like they've started to heal around the edges, but these can't be more than an hour old." He sat back, perplexed at the conundrum this presented.

A small sight caught his attention, pulling his gaze to the child, who stared at the wounds in what Garen could only describe as dejection, shoulders slumped and ears drooped.

"It's okay, I'm sure it's not your fault," he quickly reassured.

The child frowned and looked away.

He turned his attention back to the wounds, covering them with a bandage and pressing down hard. It disturbed him that the man had no reaction, but, then again, perhaps it was for the best, given what he needed to do next. The coagulant would buy them a little time by temporarily stopping the bleeding—the thing most imperiling the man at the present—but it would not save him.

With the most obvious wounds temporarily taken care of, he began examining the rest of the man's body to make sure he hadn't missed something, removing the man's arm and leg bracers as he went. It turned out he had, though the remaining injuries were relatively mild compared to the wounds on the man's abdomen, and certainly not immediately life threatening. There was a good-sized slice along the man's outer left thigh, and more minor lacerations high on the man's left side, along with what Garen was pretty sure were several broken ribs.

"Damn," he looked at the expressionless face of the metal mask and wondered at the person beneath it. "What the hell happened to you?"

.

.

.

.

A.N.2.

The answer to that question coming up next chapter!