Ever Seen Snow
The child wakes up in the middle of the night, crying, and the Mandalorian in chrome knocks his head on the ceiling in response. His skull rings, turning the child’s cries fuzzy around the edges. It is a strange kind of alarmed sympathy, and the Mandalorian shoves it away.
There is a moment of silence, today’s nameless world stepping back to take a breath. But the child starts crying again, and his blanket rustles with fervent, misplaced energy, and the Mandalorian sighs before he slides his feet to the floor. The cold metal tingles against his skin, but the shock is pointless. He is already awake.
But the child’s mouth is open, and his eyes are wide, crinkling at the edges, and all the Mandalorian can think is how it could be possible for a being to look so innocuous and so omniscient all at once. And yet, he is smiling, for some reason - at the middle of the night, hidden with a faceless custodian in a place without a location, tucked away on a nameless world the galaxy has forgotten to remember.
The kid giggles at him.
Despite himself, it’s sweet.
But it’s also the middle of the night, so the Mandalorian sighs again, and picks up the kid like it’ll help. Is there even a problem? He’s happy, right?
The Mandalorian ignores his heart slowing down, pretends not to hear the slackening patter of what happened is he okay I thought he could sleep through the night -
He’s killed things that should have killed him, survived things that shouldn’t be survived, sees adrenaline as a side effect. Children are not so threatening. This child is not so threatening.
And the kid looks up at him, and giggles again, like it’s a joke. His eyes are huge, luminescent, lit by something the Mandalorian can’t see, and the custodian in chrome can’t bring himself to sigh again. His jaw aches. He tamps back a yawn.
“You wanna see the stars?”
The kid coos, spiritedly content, and the Mandalorian slides open the door to the cockpit.
“You ever seen snow before, kid?”
Fat flakes drift past the window, almost lazily, and a snowdrift has begun to bury the laser cannons along the sides of the cockpit. It glows palely in the moonlight, soft and modulated. The luminosity reflects in the kid’s eyes, a memory, untouched, unbothered.
The child reaches for the window. A puff of condensation blossoms under his palm, and the snowflakes dash faintly against the glass on the other side.
They’re snowed in, of course, and the engines will be half-swamped in the stuff, and for a little while flying will be impossible. The cold seeps through the ship, a mild passivity that feels harmless but pervasive, and the Mandalorian wishes he’d brought their blankets with him when the child woke. The tips of the kid’s ears have lost some of their vibrancy, and who knows if that’s dangerous?
But the kid seems happy, chasing snowflakes across the pilot’s window as the sky begins to brighten.
Maybe they’ll go outside, in the morning. Maybe they’ll pile themselves in blankets, and the Mandalorian will heat up a ration of hot water and dig up that packet of chocolate he’s had since the Empire. Maybe he’ll try to cook something that constitutes a meal, one of those fluffy cakes he used to bury his face in as a kid, and he’ll probably screw it up and waste their rations, but the kid will laugh at him and the Mandalorian’s face will hurt from trying so hard not to smile.
And maybe not, but maybe one day.
So the Mandalorian doesn’t mind the cold, and he rocks back in the pilot’s chair until the faulty screw creaks. He’s content to watch, as the kid squeals delightedly at the icy fractals and trips over his own feet to follow them. He comes back up and laughs and runs to pursue the next one, and his eyes, for some reason, are brighter than before.
*******
written for @darthrevcn during the holiday Secret Santa organized by @starwarsfandomfests (aka @lilhawkeye3 , who deserves so much credit and love for running this thing!!).
Erin, this thing screwed me up so bad. I actually abandoned it partway through to write a different one, which I thusly abandoned to return to this one. And yet, I had an unhealthy amount of fun writing it - thank you for giving me the opportunity to get to know our best boys Din and Grogu a little better! A very happy holidays to you, my friend, and I truly hope you enjoyed this.
Sending you some love 💕
this is so incredibly sweet – thank you so much!!! i was smiling from ear to ear the whole time reading it 🥺
the happiest holidays to you as well! i hope you have the most wonderful time 💖
