The ride back to Mandalore is silent. Bo Katan pushes us through the storm clouds and into the atmosphere with ease. Grogu sits in his pram beside me, but his clawed hand is gripping my thumb tightly.
He gazes fearfully at the charred remains of the domed cities. Bo catches his look. "It didn't always look like this," she mutters. Her eyes flick to me for a brief moment.
"There." I lean forward and point to the familiar cluster of rocks we landed at. She lands her ship there and immediately lowers the ramp.
Grogu's pram hurtles down without hesitance and she slips on her helmet and follows. I make it down the ramp, but my feet freeze in place just before I can set foot on the planet's surface. My chest hitches.
Bo Katan stops, tilting her helmet at me. "What's the holdup, Vizsla?"
I swallow. I can feel the memories rushing at me again. The flames, the screams...
"Tara." Her voice is soft, almost motherly as it snaps me out of it.
I blink and look into her helmet. "I can't..."
"You can," she orders sternly. "You will. Din Djarin needs our help. It doesn't matter what happened here before. Step off the ramp, Tara."
Grogu coos at me from his pram. It's a plead. He needs me.
I pry one foot off the ramp and set it on the rock. Then the other.
"One step at a time, Vizsla," Bo says quietly. As we approach the cluster of rocks, she sighs and turns to Grogu. "Okay, kid. I'm going to need you to guide us to him. Can you do that?"
He babbles at her confidently and she sighs again, unconvinced.
I should've just gone with them the first time.
We reach the mouth of the cave and Grogu sails onward, leading us through a cave of molten rock and emerald hues. It feels so familiar. The edge of the cave overlooks the ruins of a city and a familiar one at that. Below, I can see the civic center. I used to pickpocket on those streets.
"This was once a beautiful civilization," Bo says, breaking the silence between us. "My family ruled it all."
Grogu whimpers and I let out a breath. "Now it's a tomb."
She looks over at me through the helmet. "Let's go." She holds her hand out to me and I can already tell what she wants. I peer down and groan. It's a long drop. "You're not still afraid of heights, are you?" I hear a hint of amusement in her voice and glare at her.
"No." Not even Grogu buys that lie. "It's just...it doesn't look very safe."
"It's not safe." She shrugs. Her hand grabs my arm and she pulls me to her side to get a grip around me. "But I won't drop you. There's a chance I'll need backup when we find Din Djarin."
I roll my eyes and wrap my arms around her shoulders. "I feel safer already."
A quiet snicker escapes her helmet modulator as she steps off the rock edge. The jetpack activates instantly and I gasp, wrapping myself even tighter around her as we fall. My stomach is in knots as I look over at Grogu as he floats peacefully beside us.
The ride feels endless until we reach the mines and Bo finally releases me. We land in a muddy puddle with a smell that makes me wrinkle my nose.
Bo Katan's helmet tilts. "See? I didn't drop you."
"You definitely thought about it."
"But I didn't do it."
I shoot her a pointed look as we start to move forward. She clicks the light on the side of her helmet to give us some visibility. Grogu pants in his pram and I walk closer to his side and offer him a feeling of comfort through the force. It does little to calm him. I can only imagine what he must have seen down here. Suddenly, his pram lurches to a halt. Bo and I stop with him and she sighs.
"I know that you're frightened," she says. "But we need you to guide us to him."
He looks up at me, a pitiful whimper in his throat, and I nod. "She's right, Grogu. We have to be brave now."
Without a word, he flips on the pram's light and pushes forward. Bo and I follow at his side. We fall into a tense silence as we walk. All of us are on alert, turning to check out every little sound or dark corner. Still no sign of Din.
"I knew quite a few Jedi, you know," Bo says, breaking the silence.
My mind flips back to the image of the bearded man in Mandalorian armor holding a lightsaber that I saw after Death Watch abandoned me. "You did?"
"There was a time we actually got along quite well," she replies with a shrug. "Fought side by side."
I nod. "Ahsoka Tano."
She hums in reply. "She was one. A remarkable fighter." She eyes Grogu through the helmet and glances at me. "How good is he with the force?"
"Very good," I say, shaking my head in awe. "He amazes me with what he can do."
I stop short. Something doesn't feel right through the force. Bo stops with me, pulling out her blasters.
"I can sense it, something's wrong," I say quietly.
She nods. "Movement above us. Look."
I gently push Grogu's pram to float away from us as Bo raises her blasters. I brace myself as she fires. The emerald crust of rock shatters and four of those alien creatures come tumbling down to our level. She makes quick work of two of them with her knife and crouches over the third, ready to finish him off, but the fourth is approaching behind her. Without a thought, I unsheathe my lightsaber and slice the creature in half before it can cut her down. She spins around, done with the third alien, and stares at me.
Her chest is heaving as she nods her helmet. "Thanks."
I return the gesture before moving to Grogu. "You okay kid?" He babbles in an affirmative.
"Those were Alamites," Bo says, retrieving her blasters from the fight. "And we were their next meal."
"I hardly recognized them." I frown as we start following Grogu again.
Bo hums in agreement. "It's been a long time, I suppose. If they survived, I wonder what else might have too."
"I'm not sure we want to find out," I mutter.
The walk through the mines feels endless. We fall into silence again, and this time Bo doesn't break it. I think she can feel what I feel. We're close. My suspicions are confirmed when Grogu suddenly stops and lets out a quick whimper. He points ahead and I crouch beside him on instinct. Bo follows my lead and we both creep forward.
"Stay here, Grogu, no matter what," I order in a whisper. He sits in his pram obediently as I crawl closer to the source of his fear. Bo Katan is just behind me. When I peer through the rocks and see it, my heart nearly stops.
Some mechanical life form flittering around a thin cage with tubes connected to it. I can see a familiar beskar-clad Mandalorian inside the cage. The tubes are coming from Din, pumping what looks like his blood into another machine outside the cage.
"No..."
"We need a plan," Bo says, clamping one hand on my shoulder to keep me from running out there. "I'll shoot that pump. It should stop whatever collecting process is happening to him."
"My lightsabers can get through the cage," I offer. "Can you keep that thing occupied long enough for me to free Din?"
She nods.
I look back at her, letting my eyes bore into her helmet visor. "Bo, whatever happens, don't let that thing find the kid."
She nods again, slower this time. "You have my word."
She unholsters her blaster silently and raises it by my head to aim for the pump. Just when the creature walks away from the cage, she takes her shot. The pump goes up and Din's blood comes to a sluggish halt in the tubes.
The creature whips around, but Bo Katan is already out of cover and shooting at it to keep it engaged. I take the opening she's given me and dart over to the cage.
"Din!" I wrap my fingers around the cage and give it a tug, but it doesn't budge. He groans softly and I stop. "Din, can you hear me?"
No response.
The creature notices me, though, and whips around with an electric staff in hand. It towers over me.
"Tara, get out of there!" Bo screams, laying on the ground behind the creature. It spins its staff and I let out a growl as I ignite my twin sabers.
I'll admit it, the thing's not bad at fighting. It matches most of my offensive moves and even throws in a few of its own, but after training with Ahsoka Tano and the Skywalkers, I can keep up.
I only falter when Din groans a little louder this time from his cage. I turn to check on him, and that's my mistake. The creature slams its staff into my stomach and the electricity sparks through me like burning veins of fire. I let out a scream and drop to my knees.
The creature raises its staff again and I stretch out my hand to call back one of my sabers with the force. But the one that lands in my hand isn't mine.
It's the Darksaber.
We'll deal with that later.
I slice through the creature's arm and it staggers back. Bo swoops in to take over the fight.
I run back over to Din, shaking off the lingering sting from the staff, and ignite the Darksaber again. "I'm going to get you out of here, okay? Can you move at all?"
He's practically unresponsive.
I pull in a deep breath, nodding to myself. "Okay," I breathe, "Okay. That's okay. I'll get you out of here."
A loud, mechanical thump sounds behind me and I turn to see the creature slumped lifelessly at Bo Katan's feet. She looks up at me and I jerk my head toward the way we came.
"Get the kid, I'll get this thing open," I order. She breaks into a run toward the rocky cave and disappears around the corner. I turn back to Din. "Hey, let's get you back on your feet, yeah?" He grunts a few times and looks like he's trying to lift his head. No success.
I scan the cage for any points where I can cut into it without cutting him. When I find a side that shouldn't make contact with his body, I start dragging the saber blade through the metal. It cuts like butter, but I'm deliberately slow to avoid hitting him.
A louder grunt comes from under his helmet and I pause, leaning my ear toward his head. "What?" He makes the sound again. "Din, I can't understand you. Are you trying to say something?"
The groan gets louder and stronger. His head raises. "Be...behind you."
I whip around to see the creature—very much alive, apparently—bearing down on me in an even bigger mechanical suit. I yank the saber out of the cage and use it to block his massive claws. I use the force to grab my longer saber and add it to my defense, but this thing is much bigger than before and faster. The fight turns into me rolling and dodging his blows while getting the occasional jab in.
I see Bo Katan round the corner and immediately look for Grogu. His pram is behind her and he lets out a cry. I raise my hand, using the force to push his pram back before he can rush in. Curiously, Bo finds my smaller saber on the ground, ignites it, and starts hacking at the creature.
I recognize the Mandalorian fighting maneuver she's attempting. Two-on-one and I'm meant to be the distractor. I dart forward and start slicing and jabbing at everything I can on the creature's armor to keep its attention on me. That gives Bo Katan a clear opening to its side and she slices through it. I sink the Darksaber into the creature's head and the suit powers down.
Panting, I raise an eyebrow at her. "I thought you killed it the first time."
She severs the head from the body. "Now I did."
I huff out a breath and run back to Din. He looks weaker than before, if that's possible, as I finish cutting open the cage. The metal snaps open and he rolls out, completely unable to catch himself. Bo and I quickly ease him onto the dirt ground.
"Hey, Din!" I kneel over him, clipping the sabers to my belt before tapping my fingers against the sides of his helmet. Nothing. "Din!" I press my fingers to the side of his neck and reach through the force. "He's alive," I say shakily.
Bo nods. "Okay. Let's get him somewhere safer in case there's more of these things." We both stand, but Din is still unconscious on the ground. I look at Grogu, then Bo. Bo sighs. "I'll get the feet."
We bend down and I hook my arms under his shoulders while she grabs his legs. On three, we both lift. He's heavy, that's for sure, but the joint effort makes it more bearable. We both shuffle down the rocky caves deeper into the tunnel.
She staggers to the left and bumps his hip into the wall.
"Be careful!" I hiss, readjusting my grip.
Bo scoffs. "He's not exactly light."
We stagger onward until we reach an opening in the caves that's big enough to have some airflow up to the city. It's enough for Bo to build a fire and let the smoke trail out while I work on getting Din comfortable. I set his weapons in a neat line on the rock nearby before trying to wrangle his limp body into a better position. After a few minutes of dealing with that, I give up and let his head rest in my lap. One hand rests on his chest, mostly so I can keep feeling it rise and fall and remind myself that he's breathing.
"You used the Darksaber," Bo says quietly. I pause, narrowing my eyes at her. She blinks, suddenly looking younger and smaller than the woman I know. "I...haven't really looked at it in years."
A heavy sigh leaves my lips as my gaze darts between Bo and the weapon. With the force, I lift it and send it to the space next to her. "Have a look." She stares at me and I tilt my head. "Not too closely though. He's going to wake up and when he does, he's getting it back."
Grogu waddles out of his pram and closer to the fire, watching eagerly as Bo Katan prepares two cups of liquid. When she sprinkles in a powder from her belt and the smell hits me, my lips turn up.
"Pog soup," I sigh. "I haven't had a bowl of that in years."
She chuckles as she stirs the cups. "Then today's your lucky day."
She reaches over to hand a cup to me and I shake my head. "Let him drink first," I say, gesturing to Grogu. She gives him the cup and he sips happily. I look back down at Din, picking a stray fleck of dirt from his helmet visor.
When I look up, Bo's eyes are already on me. "What?" I ask.
"You care about them quite a bit, don't you?" She tilts her head at me. I can see her face now that the helmet is resting beside her.
I shrug. "Of course I do. They're my family."
She shoots me a knowing grin. "That's very Mandalorian."
I roll my eyes at her. "Well I am a Mandalorian, aren't I? I've got the armor to prove it now." I gesture to the bits of beskar around me.
"I thought you hated our people," she says.
I sigh, shaking my head. "I did once. But...a lot has happened since the cruiser explosion."
Bo holds her arms out, gesturing to our situation. "We've got the time. Enlighten me."
"Well," I start, glancing at Grogu. "The kid and Luke Skywalker saved me after the cruiser exploded. I trained with Luke for months before I set out on my own—with the kid—and I found what was left of the Children of the Watch. The Armorer made me this for keeping a foundling safe." I gesture to Grogu as he finishes his soup. "Then we went to find the Inquisitor that was working with Gideon."
"And did you find her?" Bo asks, leaning forward with interest.
I nod. "She's in custody now. And I found him too." I dip my head toward the Mandalorian in my lap as he breathes evenly. "I guess I couldn't say goodbye."
"Because you love him." Her shoulders stiffen like this is a topic she never goes near.
With a sigh, I look down at Din's helmet. "I do."
Aside from Peli, we haven't really expressed that in front of other people. It feels a little strange, and a part of me wonders if he'd be alright with me telling Bo Katan, but I quickly shake that feeling away. It feels good to say it to someone else.
I look at her again and her eyes are soft. "What?"
"Nothing," she says quietly. "It's just...not a side of you I expected to see." I straighten and she shakes her head, chuckling. "I didn't say it was bad, Vizsla."
Grogu burps and hands Bo his empty cup and she mixes up some more soup before handing it to me. The hot liquid smells heavenly when I hold it to my lips. As I sip it, memories of sitting around a fire slurping this stuff with the other children in Death Watch hit me.
"Good?" Bo asks, a teasing grin lingering on her lips.
I nod eagerly. "Very."
With a sharp gasp, Din wakes up below me. I set my cup to the side and place both hands on his chest as he groans.
"Din?"
"What...happened?" He grunts out, lifting his head to look around.
"We saved your life, that's what happened," Bo quips as she pokes at the fire.
He looks up at me and one hand lifts to trace his knuckle across my cheek. "You're here."
I smile and reach up to take his hand in mine. "I'm here." I help him as he sits up slowly and situates himself so he's beside me. I gulp down the rest of my soup before giving the cup back to Bo so she can make him some.
"How did you find me?" He asks, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders to work some life back into his limbs.
"Grogu led us to you," I say.
Once he's finished fidgeting, Din tilts his helmet toward me. "I told him to find Bo Katan so you wouldn't have to come here."
"They're both tougher than they look," Bo remarks before I can respond. "And your kid's quite the navigator too."
She smiles at me and I nod, accepting the compliment on the kid's behalf. Din watches our exchange with interest, but he doesn't comment on it. "Thank you for rescuing me," he says to us both. Then his gaze turns to Bo. "You were right. Mandalore is not cursed."
A haunted look crosses her face as she finishes making his soup. "Was I? Look around. There's nothing left. A great society is now a memory. I once ruled here for a brief time," she says, leaning over to hand him the cup of soup. "Now, it's destroyed."
"What is this?" He grunts, holding it doubtfully.
Bo and I both look at him incredulously. "You've seriously never had pog soup?" I gasp. He shakes his head and Bo scoffs.
"Can you appreciate the irony? Any Mandalorian worth their armor was raised on this since they were his size." She points to Grogu.
Din lifts his helmet enough to sip on the liquid and I watch with bated breath as he tries it. When he lowers the helmet and looks at me, my eyebrows raise expectantly. He just shrugs.
"No way," I mumble, shaking my head. "I'm totally making you pog soup sometime. From scratch." To my surprise, a tiny chuckle escapes him and I nudge his shoulder. "I mean it, there's no way you don't love this stuff."
Instead of replying, he squeezes my knee before slowly staggering to his feet with a strained groan. I jump to my feet with him and grab his arm to steady him. "I'm fine," he says, though he doesn't push me away.
"You need to rest," I insist.
Bo hums in agreement. "We'll get you back to my ship soon enough."
He lets out an exhausted sigh. "I'm not going with you. I must continue to the mines of Mandalore."
My grip on his arm tightens and he looks down at me. I shake my head. "Din, you're still weak. It's dangerous down here."
"Come with me." His voice is eager, almost begging, giving away just how much he wanted me to get off the ship the first time. It sends a pang of guilt through me as I stare into the helmet visor with a grimace. "Please," he tacks on as he leans closer.
"I honestly think it's adorable that you actually believe these children's stories," Bo interjects, breaking his concentration. "But there is nothing magic about the waters."
Din gently slips from my hold and starts collecting his weapons from the rock. With him turned away, I share a look with Bo. We both know the water is exactly that—just water. But to Din, it's everything.
"Without the Creed, what are we?" He shoots back, slipping his many weapons into his belt and the tops of his boots. "What do we stand for? Our people are scattered like stars in the galaxy. The Creed is how we survived."
His words stir something in me. There's conviction in them that I haven't felt since Pre Vizsla breathed. But I don't follow the Creed, and I doubt I ever will, so I quickly shake my head to push aside the feelings.
Without a word, Bo lifts the Darksaber up for him to take back. He pauses a moment before taking it and putting it back on his belt. "You rescued me and I'll always be in your debt," he says to Bo. "But I can't go with you until I fulfill my obligation."
She rises to her feet and huffs out an exasperated breath as she looks between us. "Fine. I'll take you."
I blink and Din straightens. "To the Living Waters?" He sounds surprised.
"Yes," Bo says, rolling her eyes. "You'll never find them on your own. Your other tour guide never came down this far as a child." She sends me a teasing smirk and I roll my eyes at her.
"Real nice."
"Thank you," Din says, ignoring the little exchange between us.
Bo barely spares him a glance as she stamps out the fire. "Don't thank me until you see them."
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As always, until next chapter :)