Broken Soul | Din Djarin

chapter thirty-four: the dragon

"And those little rocks?"

"That's us."

"It's not to scale," Cobb says grumpily, earning himself a glare from you.

"I think it is," Din shrugs.

The two continue to bicker about the scale of the model, and you roll your eyes as you analyze the layout. Recognizing one of the hand gestures from one of the Tuskens, you tap their shoulder to gain their attention. You gesture quickly with your hands, frowning in focus as you try to remember the sign.

We need more people.

The Tusken barks in agreement, their posture straightening with pride at your attempt to communicate. Another Tusken adds more stones to the model, and you smile at them for taking your comment into mind. Din watches you start to communicate with the Tuskens, pride swelling in his chest at your beginning to make connections with the Sand People.

Din's focus leaves the conversation of plans, and he watches you continue to carefully sign to the Tuskens next to you. You're smiling as the Tuskens start to understand that you can communicate mainly through signs and not through verbal cues. He hadn't even known that you knew sign, and he observes the way you slowly contort your hands to form words and meaning. Based on the way you started off shaky, Din can tell that you haven't used sign in a significantly long time, but your movements are starting to move faster and more fluently the farther that you go into conversation.

The fact that she's trying... even though she was scared of them at first... Maker... I'm falling hard...

His mind swirls with thoughts of love and devotion, momentarily forgetting the situation at hand.

It was only when Cobb elbowed him hard in the arm did Din snap back to attention.

"What?" Din grunts, trying to shake off his surprise.

"Stop staring at her, man," Cobb murmurs. "I know she's your wife and all but we have a dragon to kill."

Din just stares at the marshal in confusion, forgetting the conversation that they had had the other night concerning his relationship with you. He's racking his mind for when he had outright told them that you were his wife... and to be honest, he kinda likes the sound of the word correlating to her relationship to him... so he's choosing not to correct him.

"Where are we gonna get those reinforcements?" Cobb grumbles, his focus returning to the scale model on the sand.

Din glances down when he sees you grunt at the Tusken closest to you, repeating back their foreign words and correlating them with signs to make sure that you're communicating correctly.

Where... where do you think we can find... more?

Din smiles as he watches you pause at the last word, trying to remember how to ask your question properly.

The Tuskens sign back with a soft grunt. More people?

You nod quickly as you speak, "Yes."

The Tusken nods in return, signing in reply. You... are... Jedi.

"Yes," you sign back.

"You kill the beast."

"I can't," you frown, signing as slowly as you're choosing your words. "Not alone."

"Weapon." They gesture to the handle on your belt and you glance down at it.

"I can't," you whisper before returning to sign. "I'm sorry."