Light in the Dark
By Rey

Some time before Din ever receives the fateful bounty assignment on a child, he already meets an unusual child.

Very unusual.

Author's notes:
Well, happy birthday to me! Here is a gift to you all to celebrate my birthday. Hope you'll like it! Although, again, for a birthday gift, it's a grim story…. I don't know why I seem to be unable to present you with un-grim gifts during my birthdays….
In any case, here's a one-shot for you, which can be more – as in, lengthened here, not in a separate story in a series – depending on if you like this premise and this particular story. And, if you're curious how I got this idea, well, I kept wondering if a lightsabre is so intimate to a Jedi as an individual, how would Tarre Vizsla feel, having his/her/their lightsabre passed on from person to person in centuries, probably without their say-so?
Oh, and if the ending seems rushed… well, it's indeed rushed. Hehe. Comments, criticisms, suggestions and all are welcome!

Started on: 21st September 2021 at 11:09 AM
Finished on: 15th October 2021 at 10:29 PM

O-O-O-O

"Mando, your kid is a fierce little thing," is what Karga remarks, amusedly, right after communicating with his people about concluding the offload of the carbonited bounties.

Din fights not to stiffen up, not to display any readable or even noticeable body language. `What? My kid? There's not even a kid near the Crest when I went here! Nevarro doesn't even have unattended kids running round! But if those people harassed a kid….`

"What did your people do to the kid?" This time he leans forward, deliberately relaxed, ready to spring into action.

It's a threat, and Karga knows it.

"Calm down, Mando. The spitfire's all right. Can't say much about some of my people, though. But that's their fault for being nosy."

Din doesn't let his alertness go. But he does nod tightly and scoop the credit chips off the table and into his money pouch.

It's a promise, and Karga knows this, too, judging by how uneasy the other man tries not to look.

`Good.`

He strides out of the cantina seemingly without a second glance at anything and anybody. Through his HUD's feed, he notes the wide-eyed, bleeding, hastily patched, ruffled or just glaring underlings of the Guild, newly returned from offloading the carbonite blocks from his ship.

`What did they try to do? Why was the kid there? Where is the kid now?`

He speeds up once the cantina is out of view, slipping in and out of the crowds in the market, then breaks into a run once he is out of the town proper.

He slows down only when the Crest is paces away. He never stops. A button on his left vambrace lowers the ramp for him, and he jumps on without breaking his stride when it is half-way down.

His HUD has just informed him of a cooler-than-most-species life-sign aboard.

"Kid?" he calls into the cargo bay that is his living space once he is properly inside. "Hey, come out. You injured? Come on. I won't be mad at you."

No response.

No surprise, that. Bounty hunting is oftentimes a rough job, and the people related to it likewise. The kid is most likely either too injured, too traumatised or both to answer.

He does need to talk with and probably check the intruder over, though. Without the said intruder's paranoia kicking in. And he cannot do either well without looking at the individual. But he can't even really track where the life-sign originates, now that he is inside the ship, as it mingles so well with the general more-than-standard heat generated by the planet that has been pooling round and amplified in here with the environment controls turned off.

`Might regret this,` he thinks. But, still, he closes the hatch behind him and suddenly turns on the light at a max, dimming the light input of his helmet at the same time, in hope of smoking the kid out or at least eliciting a reaction he can use to pinpoint their location.

And, indeed, a tiny, young-sounding cry bursts out from far off to his left, in response.

Right beside the ladder up to the cockpit.

His bunk.

His hidden bunk. Hidden behind a wall panel. With hidden activation button.

Not the food cabinet. Not the armoury. Not the cockpit. Not even the fresher.

`Why there? This doesn't make sense.`

He approaches. Slowly. Purposefully stompy.

The bunk's door is a quarter open, perhaps to provide a quick if hard way out. A bad judgement on the kid's part, in this case. But then, the kid may not have thought of this attack vector at all.

People rarely do, bounty or not. It is what makes Din a successful – and alive – bounty hunter thus far, even though Mandalorians are worth a good sum in the slave market and their Beskar likewise in the black market.

But this is a child.

"Hey, kid? Sorry for the light. I just don't want you jumping at me. I'm turning it down now. I just needed to know where you are. I'm coming there, okay? Need to check on you before you go. Did they hurt you? Please, I just want to know, and help."

He is already feeling guilty.

But the bunk's door is still kidless even when the light is back to normal.

The kid isn't enticed with dimmer-than-normal illumination, either.

"Kid? I know you're there. Come on, come out. I don't mean you harm. I swear it."

He isn't used to dealing with younglings after he has reached adulthood… or even before, really. He was too busy training after the Mandalorians had taken him in when he was little. The Purge fell on Mandalorian Space only a few years after he had sworn the Resol'nare at the end of his training and proceeded to test himself against the universe. The Armourer – who was not his leader, then, and in fact yet a stranger, albeit a forceful and commanding one, wreathed in a mix of confident authority and fierce protectiveness that he has never seen in any other before or since – barged into the barracks where he still lived in, after the first bombs had fallen, and gathered all the people that she could – mostly younglings, also new warriors like him – and fled. And he took to providing for the covert she set up afterwards, until now, and thus he is rarely home with the clanborn younglings and foundlings. But the Creed bids him stay his hand against a child, and indeed, however unclean some of his jobs have been, he has never hurt a child. It's in line with his personal preferences, too.

He truly hopes this won't be the exception. It's not even a job! Just a nosy or hungry or tired or afraid kid accidentally crossing ways with Karga's goons, most likely.

Still, with how roughed up Karga's goons looked, caution is warranted. So he stops a few paces away from the bunk's door and announces himself, "Hey, I'm here now. Gonna open the door, okay?"

He darts forward right after, aiming right for the door's controls, hopefully before the kid can formulate a plan to ambush him, then just as quickly returns to his previous spot.

And, there, on his bed tucked in the alcove behind the panel, a little child with dark, messy waves for hair, huge, frightened blue eyes and pale, almost glowing skin is crouched – or perhaps standing – at a ready, holding a knife that's more like a short sword for them in one hand and propping up a… back plate?… with the other in front of them, like an awkward, unwieldy shield.

And the blade of the sharp, sharp knife has a Beskar sheen to it.

The makeshift shield, too, even through its worn-and-peeling black-and-blue paint.

And neither are his own.

Din sucks in a breath.

"Where did you get those, kid?" He tries not to be accusing, not to be angry, not to be offended, but a sliver of it still leaks through his overly loud, overly sharp voice. He winces at it even as the little one draws back, further into the bunk, further into themself.

And then he notices the pile of armour pieces set beside the child, nearer the head of the bed, just below his – untouched – pillow and folded blanket.

The neat pile of Beskar armour pieces of the same colouring and quality, stacked pair by pair on top of each other, overlain by a few folded layers of clothes.

And, at the very top, sits a blue Mandalorian helmet with black lining, bearing the symbol of Clan Vizsla above the visor, done in green.

`Stars! A Vizsla child?! How did they get here? Why did they come here? When? Where is their guardian? Why did nobody ever tell me this? I never saw this one down in the covert, either. And whose armour is this? Their parent's? Does this mean their parent is dead, then? Before ever reaching the covert? Told the kid to come here before that?`

His heart sinks. But it's an old, tired grief.

`Well, this changes things, if it's true.`

He crouches low, loose, relaxed, hands away from any weapons and activation buttons.

"Udesii, ad'ika," he croons. "Gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc. Naak. Gar morut'yc."

The child's eyes pierce right through the visor, right into his own.

He continues crooning, babbling, pleading. He never moves, never shifts, never looks away.

He was this child, once upon a time. If he can save even this one soul, deliver them to the covert, find them a good parent….

"Udesii, ad'ika. Gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc ti ni, ori'haat."

His throat and mouth dry fast. He isn't used to talking this much. He has never talked this much for years. But it's worth it. It's worth it.

He keeps talking.

And, slowly, slowly, slowly, the knife lowers.

The makeshift shield stays, but the knife lowers.

He fight snot to grin, not to crow, not to move, not to acknowledge this development in any way.

His body protests the posture, the longer he stays unmoving. It aches, throbs, begs to move. But it's worth it. He keeps talking, ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;keeps crouching low, keeps the eye contact.

And, an eternity after, the knife vanishes from view.

It's time for the next step.

"Yai'ut'reeyah, ad'ika? Ni ganar kai'tome. Par gar."

And, unbelievably, the child answers. With hand-sign, but it's still an answer.

`Thirsty.`

"Pirun," he acknowledges, then forces his stiff legs to bring him scuttling backward on a crouch till he is reasonably out of reach of the bunk's door.

The child's gaze burns him even through his armour, it feels, when he rises to his feet and rummages in one of the rations crates for a few bite-pouches of water. Knowing it, he makes himself narrate everything that he is doing – taking three of the bite-pouches, putting them in the refrigeration unit on a high setting for flash-chilling, retrieving two ration bars in case the child wants something later, everything.

He is rewarded with a slight softening of the child's eyes when he returns to the bunk's door and, again from a relaxed crouch not so near as not to crowd them, extends one of the chilled pouches by the bottom towards the child's centre mass – let them choose how they will take it, let them grab it without having to go too near to his hand.

And the sheer relief – no, ecstacy – in those eyes are unmistakable, when the child bites down on the pouch's nozzle and sucks in the chilled water.

Din looks away. Private moments deserve to remain private, even for a child.

No, especially for a child.

A child like this, even more.

So much has been taken from them. If he could spare them – give them, even – this little thing….

"Ni ganar ori'sol," he offers-promises-coaxes when the empty pouch plops on the bunk on the other side of the makeshift shield. He shows the child the two other pouches on his either hand, then extends the one in his right hand to them. "Par gar. Liser ven'cir ashise par gar."

A mixture of doubt, caution and suspicion is directed at him, now, but he stands – well, crouches – firm, with the pouches still proffered to the child.

Because, behind all that, longing peeks through.

`When did the little one last drink anything? How did they survive in this heat, if this body temperature is their baseline? If I had any cooling blanket – I will have to buy one, first, if they are to stay on Nevarro. But how if they're feeling chilled instead? But, no, they relished the water. No adverse effects, as far as I can see.`

"Ni ganar luubid par gar bal ni," he tries again when the child only stares at him and does nothing else. "Jate, jate."

He surprises himself with how happy he feels when the child plucks the second pouch from his hand and drains it, even though they refuse the third one.

He gives it to them, anyway, then proffers them one of the ration bars.

And they tuck it away, after just a bite, after plucking it from his hand, but with no indication that they find the flavour overly offensive or outright disagreeable with their system.

`Oh! Trying to spare food already? How long have they been alone, then? Where were they before coming here? How did they cart all the armour here without getting noticed? Why didn't I notice another Mandalorian in these parts, especially if someone managed to kill them some time ago?`

He feels sick.

Alone in their clearly traumatic grief, hiding, running, no doubt also fending off Beskar looters, hungry, thirsty, probably overheated – it is no life for any child, let alone a fellow Mandalorian's.

`If only I knew….`

It's just another old, bitter chant, by this point. But he can't wallow in it, right now. He must rectify this matter right now. A child's wellfare is on the line. a Mandalorian child, no less.

"Ni ganar ori'sol, par gar," he coaxes, he vows. The child needs not fend for themself alone anymore. "Ibic par gar." He proffers them the next ration bar. "Liser hiibir ashise teh tayat par gar." He waves at the general direction of the rations crates in emphasis. "Jate."

He nods approvingly when, after a long, tense pause, the ration bar is also taken and secreted away, although the child doesn't resume eating as he hoped. Because it means there will be a "later" for the child, there will be enough food for their peace of mind…

…And, in however small measure, the child trusts him.

Recovering from something traumatic and heart-breaking like this is a long, hard, tiring journey, full of setbacks and stalling. He knows it very well. Progress like this, it's already amazing. He can't expect more. He shan't expect more.

Now, he will just have to buy the child a pack to store rations and other necessities, so they will know those are theirs for certain.

Oh, also a sturdy, secure crate to store the child's inherited armour, with the child as the only person who knows the passcode.

`Or passcodes, if I can secure a truly good one.`

And then, he will have a 'delightful' time trying to coax the child away from their makeshift shield and other pieces of the armour.

Well, it's the problem of future Din. For now, he just informs the child that he will be gone for a little while, buying a few necessities, and that the child is welcome either to go with him or to stay in the Crest, which he will lock and secure against any tampering and snooping from outside.

Unsurprisingly, the child chooses the latter, by not moving at all – let alone budging over towards him – when he extends his arms and offers to carry them for a looksie at the market.

But, surprisingly – no, shockingly – the Crest is… clean, when he comes back, toting a hover-crate topped with a small, sturdy pack with lots of pockets, a few packets of cooling blankets, also necessities such as a few children's clothes and accessories of the child's rough size, a customised medkit for just in case, and more rations for the two of them.

The Crest is relatively well-maintained and clean enough for his purposes, but it's never this… spotless. The living space, at least. And it even smells clean, fresh, though the sulfuric air wafting from outside ruins it a little.

"Ad'ika?" he calls out as he steps into the cargo hold and closes the hatch behind him, mirroring their initial meeting.

But, unlike before, the bunk's door is wide open, now, armourless, and also kidless.

"Ad'ika? – Oh."

He turns round, hastily, worriedly. And, there, the child's head peeks cautiously over one of the crates stacked beside the carbonite system all across the hold, showing just the top of their wavy mop of black hair and half of a large blue eye.

"Ad'ika? Gar ru'cinarin ibic me'sen?"

He slowly approaches the stack of crates and, like before, halts a small distance away.

His heart sinks when the child lifts a hand and waves it in a wide, horizontal circle, indicating the whole interior of the hold.

That tiny hand clutches the ration bar the child took a single bite from.

And then, deliberately, the little one crunches into the ration bar, taking yet another bite.

The child means the thorough cleaning as paying a debt for the water and food, paltry as those offerings were.

`Damn it!`

"N'entye, ad'ika," he croacks out after a few tries. "Ni vor entye teh gar. Ibac'e par gar."

And, to that, the little one looks away.

`Stubborn one,` he thinks, caught between rueful admiration, pitty and sorrow.

Well, he can be stubborn, too.

So, slowly, patiently, stubbornly, he coaxes-wheedles-begs-entices the child to come down and out from behind the stack of crates, to inspect the pack and the new hover-crate, to put their store of rations in the pack, to accept more rations and the customised medkit and at least one of the cooling blankets for the store, to put their inherited paraphernalia in the hover-crate, to wear the clothes and one of the cooling blankets he bought them without considering those as debt to be paid later since the child turns out to be naked, to eat and drink some more, and to please-just-(damn)-sleep-he-swears-he-will-guard-them-in-their-sleep.

By the time he – barely – manages to get the child to sleep – in a nest of his spare blankets, wrapped in two of their cooling blankets, with their Beskar-bladed sword-knife in hand – in his bunk, it's been a full local day, and Din himself is thoroughly exhausted. He did promise the child he's going to guard their sleep, though, so, as stubbornly as he dealt with the stubborn, suspicious, skittish, fearful little one, he seats himself on a crate just outside of the bunk, cleaning and rechecking his weapon store, with caffe in his largest mug perched on another crate nearby.

Well, he may not be able to parent anybody, nor does he desire to do so, but he is rather good at guarding, if he says so himself. The alone time is rather soothing, as well, after his intense interaction with a small child of all beings.

He doesn't know how to guard someone from nightmares, still.

And, barely an hour into the child's slumber, he can hear distressed sounds from inside the bunk through the turned-up audio receivers in his helmet.

He tries to ignore the noise. `I can barely comfort myself through my own nightmares!`

But… well… the noise makes his insides wriggle uncomfortably, it feels, and the sensation only intensifies the longer he stays still, which coincides with the louder the child's cries and babbling and struggling get.

So, sighing and steeling himself, he packs up his cleaning kit and the rifle he is taking care of, knocks softly but firmly at the door panel of the bunk with increasing loudness, then announces himself and his intention to open the door.

The child flies out, sword-knife first, eyes blank and terrified and desperate, when he slides open the door panel.

He lets the blade strike his helmet, the only Beskar piece of his armour, hoping that the unique ring will wake them up.

Well, they do wake up.

But they get more terrified, instead of calming down. And none of his attempts – talking to them, patting and rubbing their back, even picking their flailing little body up into his arms – works to calm them down.

Cuddling them close to him does work, at length. But… well… it's his turn to be terrified, instead, as he is yanked into and trapped in something that feels so alien and yet intimately familiar: being ambushed and subdued in his sleep, being delivered as a conscious-but-thoroughly-subdued package to enemies that he – no, they – has spent long years fighting against, having part of his soul ripped off and stuffed into the crystal of… his?… lightsabre?! And spending centuries upon centuries trapped in a state of limbo with his body preserved elsewhere and part of his soul imprisoned in a weapon he used to defend himself and his family and his people, taking lives that he does not mean to take, sparing lives that he does not mean to spare, being coveted and lorded and used and sullied with the touch of other souls that he does not mean to interact with, let alone so intimately as is the nature of soul-touch through the crystal. And the only reprieve he finds is after he has fallen into the hand of one who managed to purge most of his people from the galaxy, when the holder's life blinks out in an explosion that also takes out that part of him trapped in the crystal, that also sends his ever-shrinking body and remaining soul elsewhere and out of the stasis through the power of the death of that ripped-away part of his identity-life-eternity-existence, to here, wherever here is, whoever his current holder – literal holder – is, though hopefully he'll get a quick death instead of more centuries trapped as a trophy or a weapon.

His holder can do that. Give him a quick death, that is. He knows that. And it will be a mercy. He looks forward to it, to reuniting with that bit of his soul, with the family who kept wondering where he was and if they could save him until their deaths.

There is a little spark of starlight in the darkness, now, and he longs for it.

He's so tired.

And, with that last, ringing, potant emotion-sensation-thought-hope-wish-want, he comes back to himself: human, adult-sized, familiar in his own way.

But who is he, truly? Din Djarin or Tarre Vizsla? Who is Din Djarin or Tarre Vizsla in truth, anyway? And who is the child in his arms, if he is neither, or if he is both?

They are both total wrecks, in any case, at present.

And the far larger of the two is more of a wreck when the tiny one summons their briefly discarded sword-knife to their hand via an invisible pull and presents it to the far larger one, hilt first, blade placed right at the side of their neck.

`A mercy kill. Light in the dark.`

When the far larger one regains some of their presence of mind, the blade is grasped and flung away by a twitchy, disgusted hand.

`No. no. never. A chance. There is still a chance. Not like this.`

Their foreheads meet in a gentle but firm and prolonged kiss, Beskar against pale skin, initiated by the far larger one, as they gather the tiny one even closer to them.

`Light in the dark.`

But this is their version. Their vow.

`You are not alone.`

Whoever they are, whatever they are to the tiny one, they will do their best to fulfil this vow, this aim, their new station.

`Light in the dark.`

O-O-O-O

Translation of Mando'a Dialogues

"Udesii, ad'ika. Gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc. Naak. Gar morut'yc." :: "Calm down, little one. You are safe, you are safe. Peace. You are safe."

"Udesii, ad'ika. Gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc, gar morut'yc ti ni, ori'haat." :: "Calm down, little one. You are safe, you are safe, you are safe, you are safe with me, I swear."

"Yai'ut'reeyah, ad'ika? Ni ganar kai'tome. Par gar." :: "Hungry, little one? I have food. For you."

"Pirun." :: "Water."

"Ni ganar ori'sol. Par gar. Liser ven'cir ashise par gar." :: "I have many (of this). For you. Can chill others later for you."

"Ni ganar luubid par gar bal ni. Jate, jate." :: "I have enough for you and me. It's okay, it's okay."

"Ni ganar ori'sol, par gar." :: "I have many (of this), for you."

"Ibic par gar." :: "This (is) for you."

"Liser hiibir ashise teh tayat par gar. Jate." :: "Can fetch others from storage for you. It's okay."

"Ad'ika?" :: "Little one?"

"Ad'ika? – Oh." :: "Little one? – Oh."

"Ad'ika? Gar ru'cinarin ibic me'sen?" :: "Little one? You (are the one who) cleaned this ship?"

"N'entye, ad'ika. Ni vor entye teh gar. Ibac'e par gar." ::

"(There is) no debt (between us), little one. I am indebted to you (instead). Those (were) for/(given to) you."