I love Koa with my whole heart. I'm wondering: is Grogu jealous at first?
At first yes! Din finds Koa while Grogu is away with Luke at Jedi preschool, so ofc when Grogu comes back and sees dad holding another baby he’s like “WHOMST?!?!?!!”
But this quickly passes as Koa immediately latches onto Grogu and follows him around everywhere and Grogu realizes he likes having the attention of a younger sibling. Koa is also Force-Sensitive but Din doesn’t send him to Luke bc he realizes “man that SUCKED not having my baby with me, not making that mistake again”
ofc since Koa does everything Grogu does, Grogu teaches him to do things he can’t do himself. Like Grogu can’t push over the shelf with the cookie jar on it, but Koa can!! this results in Baby Crimes >:)
Also Grogu loves Koa bc he is soft and cuddly and they prefer to nap/sleep while cuddling each other!!
Inspired by this post by thecyndimistuff (@thecyndimistuff ), apollonkondric , and floatingearth about Peli Motto taking Din to a support group for empty nesters post S2.
Warnings/Notes: None, possible a single swear word slipped by. Angsty, introspective Din and space mom Peli Motto taking charge. No romantic pairings, not beta’d please excuse any mistakes until I find them. Couldn’t help to slip a nod my other Mando fic Bird of Prey, Way of War in at the end.
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He’s tried being useful around – what were they calling it now? Fett’s Palace? – the palace; taking stock of weapons and resources left behind by Jabba and Fortuna. Weapons he’s familiar with; taking them apart, servicing them, and testing them gives him something to keep him busy and keep his mind occupied.
He even took to sometimes mirroring Fennec’s imposing, protective place – on the left on Fett, never the right that was Fennec’s earned spot – on the dais when Fett had meetings because no, you should not fuck with the legendary bounty hunter but especially when he’s got a sharp shooting assassin on one shoulder and another infamous bounty hunter clad head to toe in beskar on the other.
He’s done perimeter sweeps with Fennec, who chooses to humor his morose silence, and with Fett, who also allows the silence but is far less indulgent about it. Oh, Fett never calls him out on it. Quite the contrary, bounty hunter to bounty hunter he can read Din like a book and knew from the moment he returned to the Slave that he was not ok. Still wasn’t ok but that doesn’t stop the occasional long drawn sigh from the older man.
All in all, it took a week for Din to be sent to Mos Eisley to ‘pick up supplies’. He wasn’t stupid; he knew Fett could’ve sent anyone working for him to go on a supply run. He initially welcomed the change of scenery before remembering he’d have to travel hours around the Great Mesra Plateau and his only options of landscape were either endless sand or the red rock formations and canyons.
So Din dutifully took a land speeder and set off to Mos Eisley, trying to ignore the repetitive backdrop that allowed him far too much time to think about his foundling and his accidental acquisition of the darksaber with Fett’s warning still ringing in his ears ‘make sure you take that thing with you’.
---
The supplies, or rather supply, in question was a tiny compressor part for the climate control unit that could fit in his pocket. The vendor had taken one long look at his beskar and held up a bin of the teeny components after Din asked about it and he was done within half an hour.
…Now what?
He found himself following the by now well-known path to Peli Motto’s hanger. She was familiar territory, she was easy to talk to and almost painfully transparent. Perhaps most importantly in this moment; she wanted nothing from him.
The door to Peli’s outbuilding slid open for him and he wandered in, hands painfully empty, and let the pit droids fuss over him. Tatooine’s hot suns greeted him as he stepped into the hanger bay, eyes scanning for the mechanic. The hanger was empty, no parked ship in sight, and the mechanic was elbow deep in a pile of scrap muttering to herself and passing parts and pieces to a pit droid.
Din smiled under his helmet when she tossed a piece of scrap away from her with a huff and it landed near his feet. She turned her head briefly to see where it landed and then whipped it back towards him, hand flying to her heart.
“Stars Mando!” She sat back on her heels and blew out a breath. The mechanic frowned, “Where’s your ship?” Peli stood, dusting her knees and palms off, and took a few steps towards him with a hand pressed above her eyes to block the suns. She looked him over and then stopped dead in her tracks, “Where’s…where is the baby?”
He felt his throat close around any words he was going to say. Peli’s eyes darted around his body; around his hips for the bag, his feet for the little one to pop out around him at any second. She opened her mouth to say something, her face drawn tight, when he simply couldn’t keep up his stoic façade any longer.
A short hiccup, somewhat garbled by the vocoder of the helmet, slipped out followed by a low keen he couldn’t bear to swallow. Din shut his mouth with a snap, a flush creeping up his neck while his hands closed opened and closed around nothing – empty. Peli’s eyebrows rose in concern momentarily before she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth before slowly extending her hand towards him. Her fingers closed around his elbow, shoulders losing their tense line when he didn’t protest, and guided him back towards the outbuilding.
Din let her steer him to a small table in the corner and ease him into a chair. She disappeared around the corner momentarily and was back with a bottle of boga noga and two small cups. Peli sank into the chair opposite him and poured a couple fingers the Hutt ale. She curled her hands around her drink and looked up at him, face pinched.
“Just tell me first; is he ok?”
He took a deep breath that sounded strained through the beskar, “Yes.”
Peli visibly deflated as her shoulders sagged in relief, “Oh thank the Force.” She muttered before taking a sip of her ale, wincing a bit.
Despite the lump in his throat, he felt the corners of his mouth quirk upwards in the beginnings of a fond grin. Din swallowed, “His name is Grogu.”
She cocked her head, thinking on the name, and smiled. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes and watched the pit droids scurry about the hanger through the viewport. Eventually, she flicked her eyes back up the Mandalorian and asked, “What happened?”
He paused and wondered if it was safe to tell her more than sparse nonspecific details. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her; quite the opposite she’d shown herself to be a loyal friend and Din had already entrusted Fett and Shand with the whole story. But Peli was different – she wasn’t a fighter. Still, Moff Gideon was in the custody of the New Republic and Grogu was safe with Skywalker. He supposed it was safe enough.
So he laid it all out for her and once he started he found that he couldn’t stop. He talked about the bounty from the remnant Imperials on Grogu and how the kid had saved his life with the Mudhorn, how he took on the task of keeping him safe as his foundling and out of the hands of those who would hurt him and use him. To their short time on Sorgan and how Grogu terrorized the local wildlife, how he was tasked by his alor to reunite him with other Jedi. Din told her of his meetings with the Jedi Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan, interspersed with a quick and bastardized history of the Mandalore.
He had to pause when he got to Tython. His voice was caught in a steel trap in his throat.
Din considered the shot of ale and tipped the helmet back just enough to not spill it all over himself before downing it. He immediately understood Peli’s grimace when she sipped on hers; it was sweeter and fruiter than he was used to but it was unbearably strong. His eyes watered at the burn. Her gaze flicked to his exposed chin momentarily before darting away and she finished hers too, coughing a little.
She rose her eyebrows at him and he knew what she was thinking; I didn’t think you were allowed to do that.
He continued quietly – Tython, Grogu’s capture, and the Razor Crest getting destroyed. Din covered Morak as clinically as he could and felt the need to explain a bit more about his creed to the mechanic. She watched him carefully and frowned when he began to get hung up. Din gestured uselessly next to her, “I – it should have been a bigger deal. It should have meant everything but I – the kid –“
Peli gently laid her hand on his forearm. His helmet slowly turned to look back at her but she held her ground and patted his arm. Din pressed on and spoke of Gideon’s cruiser, the rescue, and his accidental acquisition of the darksaber. He haltingly recounted his goodbye to his foundling and slumped back in his chair when it was over.
The mechanic was silent next to him, her hand light on his arm, before she turned to him thoughtfully. “Mando—“
Why the hell not. “Din. My name is Din.”
“Din, you did what you had to do for the little one.” She looked nostalgic, “Parent’s sacrifice for their kids. You can’t understand it, can’t know what you are willing to do until you have one. He needed you and you stepped up. I don’t claim to know to know much about your people but it sounds like you fulfilled your mission.”
Peli stood then, collecting the empty glasses. “You say you’re out near the Northern Dune Sea? How long will you be here?”
He nodded absently, “No more than a few days. I’m returning to the palace soon—“
She whirled back around horrified, one of the glasses slipping from her fingers, “Jabba’s Palace?”
Din caught it quickly, “Fett’s Palace.”
Peli wasn’t appeased. “Fett? Boba Fett?”
“Yes—“
“That bantha brain owes me money!”
Din chuckled, realizing she more annoyed than afraid. Fett owed her money? That sounded like a story. Peli headed back towards the kitchenette with a huff and Din dutifully followed with the other glass. Peli sighed exasperatedly, “I was the only one willing to work on that ship of his for years! No one else would touch it, it sat in that hanger for years and no mechanic was willing to do any maintenance on it – oh Peli what if he comes back – well, what’s he gonna be more mad about? That someone was poking around keeping it running or that we just let it sit and get taken by the sands?’
She took the glass from him and deposited it in the sink, “I spent five years taking care of that rust bucket! He comes back looking like hell with no credits and says he’ll pay me ‘soon’. When is ‘soon’?”
He didn’t give it a second thought; Fett had given him way more credits than he’d needed to pay for the part and he knew that she would be a good resource for Fett – she wasn’t afraid of him. He reached into his pocket and held the bag of credits out to her. Peli slowly stretched out her hand and took it, inhaling at the weight of it.
“If that doesn’t cover it let me know. I can pass along that you are willing to work on the Slave, it’d be a regular job.”
Peli passed the heavy bag of credits back and forth between her hands, smiling, and then said, “You know…he can wait a little longer.”
---
Why did he agree to this?
Peli turned from the small table housing drinks and snacks and held out a cup of chilled caf to him. Din slowly turned his head and shoulders towards her and, despite not seeing his face, she read his tone.
She frowned, “Oh right.”
The mechanic turned away for a moment, fiddling with something he couldn’t see, and twisted back with a triumphant grin. Peli brandished a long straw and poked him in the shoulder with it when he didn’t move.
“Come on Mando, just take it.”
With a sigh, Din took the straw and caf before reluctantly following Peli into the other room. All the chatter immediately ceased and six pairs of eyes snapped to him as he rounded the corner with her. He didn’t know what he expected, it was the normal reaction to beskar – still his insides felt hollowed out after his talk and something about it stung a little.
Peli, however, paid it no mind and all but dragged him to a seat next to her. The other occupants, some human and some not, stared and waited for an explanation. The mechanic took a bite of her snack, a large cookie, and chewed slowly. She met the confused and frankly frightened looks of the group and took her time to chew and swallow, all the while rolling her eyes at the over the top reaction.
She was never given a reason to be afraid of her Mandalorian, or even Fett despite his reputation, and he’d always been fair and polite. Oh, she knew their reputation – bloodthirsty, ruthless, and unfeeling. But after seeing Mando with the baby, she had done some digging. Tatooine might be in the backwaters of the galaxy but it had a long history and many colorful inhabitants; between the HoloNet and asking around she’d learned a bit.
That child was never in any danger from the Mandalorian, in fact there was scarcely a safer place to be. Mando – Din – had taken him in and done right be him. Still, she knew he had to be uncomfortable in a place like this. She picked a spot facing the door and had already decided on the way in that she’d do the talking.
She brushed the crumbs off her hands, “Sorry we’re late. This is my friend, Mando.” The silence was deafening but she continued, “He doesn’t say much.”
His helmet turned almost unnoticeably towards her and she met his visor. Peli shrugged and rose her eyebrows; am I wrong? The Mandalorian cocked his head in agreement and leaned back into his seat. She sipped her chilled caf and settled in as a human across from them began to speak. She hadn’t brought him here to talk, she brought him here to listen.
He stiffened when she mentioned it back at the hanger, thinking it was a support group for parents whose children had passed on. But when she clarified that it was for parents without their children with them, whether it be they had simply grown up or were temporarily away, he hadn’t seemed any less rigid.
“I – I’m not his father.”
It was the softest she’d ever heard him and she felt her heart clench at the melancholy tone. His fingers twitched anxiously at his sides, opening and closing.
She countered, “You are in all the ways that matter.”
In the end, Mando tentatively agreed to go with her. The pair listened as the group went around with updates or things they did to alleviate the ache of missing their loved ones; some were grown with families of their own, others had moved off-planet, and some were off training at various academies. They talked about how they kept in contact and how they kept busy. Some tended hydroponic gardens, others kept meticulous journals, and still others traveled. He snorted; one sent his alien foundling with a Jedi across the galaxy and took up being a menacing beskar statue behind an infamous bounty hunter who may or may not be the ruler of Mandalore.
Din retreated into his own thoughts, wondering how Grogu was doing with his training. He could almost picture it in his mind; Grogu’s little brow wrinkled in concentration, maybe with his eyes closed if he was really trying, and the Jedi directing him. He imagined the little womp rat chasing – terrorizing – the local fauna and pouting about not being able to eat all the time. Would he still have his mythosaur pendant? Was he happy?
He blinked back to attention when Peli plucked the straw from his fingers and slid it into his caf with a small clink. People were looking at him expectantly, he swallowed nervously before realizing it was actually Peli there were waiting on.
She stood to get another cookie and Mando took the groups distraction to slip the long straw under his helmet. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but a cold drink was too tempting to pass up. Peli settled back in next to him and began to speak, “Well I have some updates,”
Peli broke the cookie in half and continued, “Corjul still hasn’t left Endor. After all that time on Hoth, he just decided that Endor was ‘perfect’ and he volunteered to monitor the shields. I’m not sure there’s much of anything out there but the natives…but he seems happy.”
Din stared under his helmet – Peli Motto had a kid. He supposed it made sense now he thought about it; why else would she be coming to these meetings? The mechanic finished a bite and folded her arms, “I am glad he’s just an analyst, not running around after Empire remnants. “
He sipped at his now lukewarm caf and wondered what her son looked like. Her voice flitted over his head, "Now Briell—“ Din inhaled sharply and his caf slurped loudly through the straw. Two children? Peli glanced at him, amused, “Briell has been settled nicely on Ord Mantell for a while now with her husband. I’m heading there in a couple weeks, my granddaughter is turning two.”
There was a murmur of appreciation from the group, some congratulating and some asking for a holo. He smiled, happy for her. It seemed the meeting was winding down and he took a long drink of his caf to finish it. “And as for Savi—“ Din choked on his caf, coughing and yanking the straw out from under his helmet to press an ineffectual hand against his chest.
Three. Three children Peli Motto had and Din knew nothing about it. Sure, it hadn’t come up in casual conversation, not that he was much of a conversationalist anyway, but certainly it would have come up? Grogu took to her so quickly and he hadn’t really questioned it but now he could see the pieces fitting together. The way she’d fussed over how to hold Grogu, was he getting enough to eat.
“Anyway, Savi is still planet hopping. He sends a holo when he remembers to. Last I heard he was heading to Coruscant to stay with a friend who’s a lobbyist. Still trying to ‘find himself’.” Peli patted his shoulder, “I’ve got this one to keep me busy and he just hooked me up with a steady new client.”
He took Peli’s cup and his own, following her nodded direction, and went to clean them. It was a simple kitchenette and he used as little of the moisture farmed water as he could to wash them out. His mind wandered again and he palmed the metal knob in his pocket; Fett, in between gasping peals of laughter, telling him that he knew exactly who the Jedi was and that Grogu would be safe with him. He wondered if the kid was pulling all kinds of things out of the air by now – Din smiled – he was going to be a menace once he could grab whatever he wanted regardless of where it was.
Peli’s head poked around the corner, “Hey Mando, you ready to head back?”
The Mandalorian nodded and followed his friend back onto the dusty streets of Mos Eisley. They walked in companionable silence, Din’s head on a swivel watching the road as the twin suns began to set. He fingered the comm unit in his pocket, wondering for the umpteenth time when Skywalker was going to contact him about Grogu’s progress. The man said he’d be allowed to visit, that he wasn’t a believer in separating families but still Din wondered.
“You know, Mando, you’re allowed to miss him and be proud of him.” Peli said next to him.
He looked down to her, “Am I?”
She sighed and stuffed her hands into her pockets, “Yeah. My kids all left Tatooine to do bigger, better things. Of course I miss them, sometimes I miss them more than I can stand but I’m so proud of them. I couldn’t hold onto them forever but it doesn’t mean they are gone for good.”
Din sighed, “I understand that. But he’s – he’s so young what if he doesn’t remember me? What if he’d rather stay with his teacher forever? What if—“
Peli grabbed his elbow, stopping them just outside of her hanger. “He adores you, Din. Anyone can see it, he won’t forget you. He’ll do what he needs to and then you and him will decide what’s next. It isn’t forever.”
He blew out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and swallowed the lump in his throat. It isn’t forever, we will decide what to do next. Din followed her into the outbuilding and stopped when he caught the mischievous look on her face. He slowly tilted his head at her, almost afraid to ask.
“You’ve done me a favor with Fett, Mando. I might have a ship you’d be interested in.”
Currently searching for Zam Wesell content- wondering if you have any recommendations/ must-reads/ anything like that?
sure thing! my recommendations for zam wesell content are the zam wesell and jango fett two-parter comics from dark horse, star wars adventures 5: the shapeshifter strikes, and the game star wars bounty hunter. sadly, they don’t get the attention they deserve in the EU, so they don’t have many other appearances aside from as a side character in other characters’ properties.
i’m gonna be honest i don’t think a lot abt jango but when i do i am a shameless apologist. this is particularly because young me, not understanding the plot of the prequels but having good taste, saw any character with temuera morrison’s face and immediately trusted them
my personal characterisation of jango is that he did not understand what the clones were going to be like. and that by the time he did it was too late. everything in aotc gives the impression to me that he’s under duress. the way the kaminoans say “we keep him here”, and the way at the start of aotc in an extremely short conversation with zam he keeps saying stuff like “my client is getting impatient” “there can be no mistakes this time” . which is even worse remembering that his son is probably by himself with the kaminoans as they speak
it’s not unreasonable to me that if the kaminoans said they were going to create an army from his dna that was edited to be perfect obedient soldiers, jango would assume that they wouldn’t really be, like, people. he asks for an unedited clone for a reason, because he thinks only that one will be like an actual son. and then the clones are people, and what is jango going to do about it? what even could he do about it? so he just does his best to shut off that thought in his brain and pretend they aren’t people and focus on protecting boba
i’m not saying like jango never did anything wrong, because he should have tried to do something and hey he probably shouldn’t have given his dna to make an army under any circumstances, but i think he was coming from a very fucked up background into a very fucked up situation and he made the choices he felt he had to make. anyway read the jango & boba blood ties comic
mandalorians peaked here. this is easily the most fascinating rendition of mandalorian culture we see in canon. and yet i cannot say anything about them conclusively because we are given SO little to work with. the star wars disease of give the audience as little information as possible for no reason. i hate it here
uhh what else. oh i love the theory that the armourer is tusken and the covert’s culture is influenced by that. very cool
The caption on your latest art post made me realize that if din doesn’t pull him out of school soon, grogu will be a survivor of TWO jedi youngling massacres
whether or not grogu is actually present at the time of the skywalker massacre 2.0 is irrelevant, Din would pull Grogu out of school either way. like either grogu survives again and Din pulls him out, or they both happen to be on vacation when the event happens and Din still pulls him out of school.
Either way, this is the exact reason why Din never interacts or helps in the sequel trilogy bc Luke absolutely burned that bridge and Din burned it again just to be safe
first of all you can see here for my opinions about the writing of tcw mandalore because i’m always angry about this
okay tcw mandalore where to even start. i’m going to move on from the racist implications and the anti new mandalorian arguments because that’s been covered by much more coherent people than me. instead we’re going to talk about how boring it is
like... when i started tcw, i had no idea what a mandalorian was apart from what i’d seen in the mandalorian. and i got to satine’s episodes and i was like... huh? like of all the opportunities dave filoni had to introduce a really brilliant new set of characters with an outsider’s perspective on the conflict. and we got satine kryze and pre vizsla, who have some of the blandest political opinions in star wars, and neither of whom have cool character designs to make up for it
why are the mandalorians interesting? because they’re a culture outside of what we normally see in our protagonists, and therefore they can deepen the worldbuilding. but between satine actively wanting to get rid of her culture, pre wanting to preserve it but not having anything to say about it except he wants killing people to be cool again, and the absolute disregard for any legends content—for example trimming off plot threads like the fetts being mandalorian to actually take away plot—tcw really gave us nothing. obi-wan and maul were easily the most interesting part of any of those episodes and we see them all the time!
it wasn’t until ages later when i read open seasons and rewatched the mandalorian that i could actually appreciate mandalorians might be worth thinking about more
