Author's note:

Thank you for clicking on my story! I hope you enjoy it.

This is set right after Din is kicked out by the Armorer in the Book of Boba Fett. I felt the show glossed over Din's anguish over his loss of the Razor Crest, his Mandalorian tribe, and (most importantly) Grogu in such a short amount a time. I wrote this to correct that.

The story strongly incorporates an OC; however, it's more of a Din v OC situation than a Din x OC situation. The main OC was made to get in his way. Their opposition to one another catalyzes the conflict in many of the chapters, but at its heart, this story is about Din working through trauma and loss.

-LPB

Prologue

Grogu reached out with the force. Eyes closed. Ears relaxed. The coldness of the floor beneath him began to fade; the sound of birds and insects singing among the bamboo thickets outside grew fainter too.

His ear twitched.

The swirling of anxiety. Strange patterns. Stranger feelings. Cold feelings. Something else, some… some other feeling.

The Child's ears flatted with frustration as he felt the already fuzzy connection grow blurrier. Furrowing his brow, he struggled to isolate Din through the fog: recalling his gruff yet gentle voice, remembering the shininess of his armor, imagining the kindness in his face. His head pounded with the effort. Yet, the pain was irrelevant to Grogu; he had to at least try get through to Din, no matter how difficult.

Grogu needed to warn him.

Grogu thought if he could call out to a stranger in another galaxy, as he had done at the Seeing Stones, it might be possible to reach out to Din. Maybe it didn't matter that the Mandalorian did not wield the Force like Master Luke. After all, Luke said the Force was in and around everything. If it connected all things and all beings, it meant the Force tethered him to his former companion no matter how far away he was. Grogu believed it; he felt it, or at least thought he did.

However, his sense of connection to Din had grown more difficult to isolate with each passing day. It used to be so easy to feel every nuance of his mood and emotion when they traveled together. Threads of the Force had bound them tightly together during their journey, but ever since their separation, the threads quickly frayed and snapped. Grogu hadn't realized it would be this hard.

He began to tremble with the strain of quelling his emotions while trying to concentrate on the Force.

Maybe Din was simply physically moving farther away, but Grogu worried that Din grew more distant in other ways too. He feared that Din had begun to care less about him. The Mandalorian felt so, so far away. Grogu wasn't even sure if this cold, anxious being he had just connected with was really Din, or even if this being was benevolent.

Grogu didn't want to think about that.

He put in one last effort and willed all of his concentration towards the presence of Din, straining to send to him the warning. Dizzying, blinding light flickered through his head while his skin tingled and prickled. The feeling almost became too much to bear, but then-

There!

He had isolated something again.

Lonely feelings. Angry feelings. Very angry feelings, and-

And just like that, the sensation disappeared completely. He could hear the birds and the insects again, as well as the coolness of the stone floor. The Child's frown deepened as he realized something, someone, was intentionally eclipsing his efforts. He peeked open an eye. A shadow stretched over his head and climbed up the wall of his hut. Grogu's little heart sank as he recognized the shape of the shadow.

Master Luke.

He'd been caught.

"Grogu. We've talked about this," Luke said in a firm tone, but not one unsympathetic.

Grogu squeezed his eyes close and angled his head away. The child's face puckered with frustration as he tried to circumvent the Jedi's attempts to cut him off, but he couldn't. Grogu could only sense Luke stepping closer. Fabric rustled and shifted as his Master sat down beside him.

"He is a capable warrior, Grogu. He doesn't need you to protect him."

Grogu opened his eyes again and stared up at the Jedi, not quite meeting his gaze. The Child tried to hide the sudden surge of guilt and resentment. He doubted he succeeded. Luke's command of the Force far exceeded his own, at the moment, anyways. Grogu bowed his head.

The two, Master and Padawan, remained in silence for some time. Side by side, as the sun progressed in its arc across the sky, they listened to birdsong, breezes meandering through bamboo, and the babble of a nearby brook. It should have calmed Grogu more than it did.

Eventually, Luke rose. The Jedi nodded towards the doorway. "Come, now, little one. We have training to do this morning…"

The Child followed Luke out of the hut with wobbly steps, downcast ears, and a sense of foreboding welling in his mind. Luke said something about attachments while Grogu's thoughts wandered back to the Mandalorian.

He just couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen.

If only he could have warned Din.