#mandothon2020

[rogueninja]

Three Embraces

Three times Din Djarin got a hug.

AO3

Written for the @mandothon Day 28 prompts: embrace; remembrance.

------

It’s been so long, too long, Din realizes, since he has felt anything like this. The last time, he wasn’t wearing armor. Because last time he was still a child. It feels different now. But good, still good.

Omera’s arms have encircled him now, gripping him tight around his middle, her head resting against his shoulder. At first he isn’t sure what to do with his hands before he finally rests them against her back. One by one, his muscles relax, and he even squeezes her a little, his chin coming to rest against her head.

With the armor, it’s a little clunky and awkward as they stand alone in the hut. But he can still feel her, even through the armor. Feel her softness and warmth. Feel her breathing as she rises and falls against his embrace. And she, he realizes, can feel his breathing.

“We’re going to miss you Din,” she murmurs. And he can feel the vibration of her voice against him. He’s never felt that before. Never been close enough to. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’m going to miss you.”

Din’s heart skips and subsequently drops at her words. At what he’s doing, and what it means for them. Leaving.

He can’t find any words, so he just holds her tighter. He has no idea how much time has passed before they finally break apart.

------

“Din.”

Cara’s voice cracks with relief when she finally sees him. His armor is tarnished with ash and soot, but he’s okay. He begins to tell her as much, but before he can say anything, she takes his hand and pulls her against him.

Din freezes for a moment, unsure what to do. Cara is gripping him tight. This is different than with Omera. Cara is squeezing him so hard that even with the armor, breathing is becoming difficult.

“Damn you, Djarin,” Cara curses over his shoulder, and her voice breaks. “I thought you were a goner.”

Din lets out a breath and finally wraps his arms around her torso, matching her tight hold and patting her on the back.

“I’m okay,” he murmurs. “I’m alright.”

Unlike Omera, it’s only a couple of moments before Cara releases him. Once they’re face-to-face, she nods and gives him a self-conscious pat on the shoulder before turning and striding away, calling for him to come on. Din follows without a word.

------

Din has already tried the usual things. Offering bone broth, rocking the kid’s cradle. But the wailing persists. Din is holding the child in his hands a short distance away from himself, staring into those deep black eyes that are wet with tears as the child continues his distressed wailing. 

“What do you need?” Din implores, but the child only answers with more crying.

Din tries to think for a moment, mind foggy with chronic exhaustion. He wishes he had some way to let the child know he’s okay, everything’s okay. Buir will take care of him.

Din sits down, setting the kid in his lap with a sigh. The kid, finally free from Din’s grasp, shifts toward his armored torso, tiny hands clawing at his cuirass.

Din freezes.

He takes hold of the child again, but now, hesitantly, brings him to his chest until the baby is flush against it. Those tiny clawed hands do what they can to grip onto Din’s shoulders as he wraps his arms around the baby. Sure enough, the cries quiet almost immediately as the kid’s breathing becomes slower and finally more even.

Din’s heart swells, and he reminds himself that he can’t hold the kid too tight, even though he wants to. He settles for stroking a thumb against his smock as he counts every tiny breath the kid makes. It isn’t long before there, seated in his cockpit with the child in his arms, sleep claims Din too.

[woahpip]

honey i’m a target too

Mandothon day 1: target/child Rated T

title from the trampled by turtles song “i’m a target too”

*

He’s been thinking on it. Her shooting.

Everybody’s got a past, so he knows not to ask any questions.

(When he saw her shot, he let out a cool nod. Never gladder about the helmet masking his face. He’s thought that a lot since landing on Sorgan, coming to this village. Meeting her.)

Omera makes him want to ask question after question after question. He can’t remember the last time he wanted to know someone. Sometimes her face looks like she wants to know him too— she only seems to have a few tells, but she wears them openly. Languages have always come easy to him. He learns hers.

One night she’s come to his barn-room, collecting his supper plate. He decides to ask.

“How did you learn to shoot?”

She gives him a normal smile, eyes slightly crinkled. This is one of her tells— a part truth to keep the rest secret. She does it when the children asks for sweets. There is what’s kept, and what’s spoken of. The children know of only the latter.

Din doesn’t want to be a child. But he gives her room to start.

“I was taught, by someone who didn’t think I’d end up better than they were.”

“On Sorgan?”

“No,” Omera shrugs. She sits down on a wicker chair lingering at the door, drops his plate to her lap. “No, I haven’t shot here until you came. I learned off world, somewhere else in the outer rim. It was cold there, the kind that can’t be solved by lighting a fire. It seeped into your bones, made them ache anytime you moved. We staved off frostbite every time we ventured out of the city, to investigate or meet a contact.”

He thought asking would quell the need in him, for a moment. Instead new questions pile up, his mind swimming through them, sorting what she’s most likely to answer and what will need to wait and what he should never, ever ask at all.

What comes feels dumb; it plots heavy out of his mouth. “Must be hard, learning to shoot on an icy planet.”

“Target’s the same Din, no matter where you are when you hit it.” She interrupts herself with a yawn; her open mouth makes him look away. “I learned there because I had someone else to protect. I had to learn if I wanted us to live together happily. Ask me now if my blaster training made me happy, I would say no. Until I remember those moments. When I was young and in love and willing to kill for it.

“I would still kill for those I love though it would weigh heavier on me.”

She then gathers herself up, nods, and rushes through the door, still sliding it back into place for him.

The child coos in his bed and Din listens to him.

Willing to kill for it.

Just another thing they have in common.

[mandos-little-friend]

Primary Directive

IG-11's POV of the scene in 1.08, you know the one.

Inspired by a conversation with @swimmingbyrd about Din’s injuries in episode 1.08. 

Using the @mandothon Day 7 prompt, sleep, recovery

--------

“You make sure the Child is safe. Here. When you get to the Mandalorian covert you show them that. You tell them it’s from Din...Djarin. You tell them the foundling was in my protection, and they’ll help you.”

IG-11 continued cutting the sewer grate as it listened to the conversation. The human female designated CARA DUNE argued with the one designated THE MANDALORIAN. She wished him to accompany them, however THE MANDALORIAN clearly believed himself to be beyond repair and refused any further assistance.

An Imperial trooper began to assault their position with a flame cannon. IG-11 had no protections against such an attack and therefore followed its last command.

“I can hold them back long enough for you to escape,” THE MANDALORIAN explained to the human female. “Let me have a warrior’s death.” IG-11 thought his was logically sound. If THE MANDALORIAN were to perish, using that event to protect THE CHILD was acceptable.

Fire blasted through the door again, followed by the trooper. THE CHILD stood in the path of the trooper and IG-11 was about to abandon its current action to follow its Primary Directive when the trooper fired again. However the fire ball that shot of the cannon did not reach its destination. THE CHILD stopped it, willed it backwards into the trooper. Master had spoken of THE CHILD’S abilities in “The Force” but IG-11 had no frame of reference to understand it. It did not matter. The humans and THE CHILD were safe, though THE CHILD had exerted too much energy and passed into unconsciousness. IG-11 finished cutting the grate and kicked it open before going to assess its charge. A quick scan indicated no long-term damage, so IG-11 scooped THE CHILD into the bag and handed him to CARA DUNE.

As a nurse droid, its secondary functions included providing care to the sick or injured. Master had been very clear on this protocol; no one in need must be left to suffer. It had heard THE MANDALORIAN’S request to CARA DUNE regarding THE CHILD and took the words as an acceptable reason to forgo its Primary Directive. “ESCAPE AND PROTECT THIS CHILD,” IG instructed the human female. “I WILL STAY WITH THE MANDALORIAN.”

“Promise me you’ll bring him!” CARA DUNE shouted at him. The order was well within IG-11’s parameters; it was more than capable of carrying the weight of human male, alive or deceased.

“YOU HAVE MY WORD,” IG-11 responded.

Continued at AO3

[leofrith]

hideaway

Written for the @mandothon day 1 prompt target/child.

AO3

Protected by the dark, he waits.

In his rather limited amount of experience for someone of his age, he has found that having a comfortable hiding place is important.

Patience is a necessity when you’re being hunted, after all.

A swarm of children barrels past his hideaway, giggling all the while. He can see their limbs flail with a childlike lack of control through the holes formed by the imperfect weave of the basket. Their voices fade and he waits, silently.

His self control is truly astonishing. Until it isn’t.

He grows impatient. The children have occupied themselves with something else several huts away, already having been found by the hunter. Suddenly, the pride of having found the best hiding spot in the village seems less important when faced with the prospect of being left behind by his friends.

The child begins to squirm.

He can’t help himself. He raises one tiny, three-fingered hand to the edge of the basket lid and lifts so he can peek through the gap—

—but the lid is promptly thrown open. The child squeaks in shock.

“Shh!” Winta hushes as she promptly scoops him up into her arms.

“We’re the only ones left. I know a spot where he’ll never find us,” she whispers.

The child coos.

Winta peaks around the corner of the shed and, upon finding the Mandalorian nowhere in sight, breaks into a sprint to duck behind the next building over as fast as she can without jostling the child too much. She runs and ducks and hides and repeats until they have reached an unoccupied pond at the edge of the village.

Winta crouches down at the water’s edge and takes one last sweep of their surroundings before she scoots feet first into the pond. The child squeals and slaps his tiny hands over the surface and Winta shushes him as she ducks under an overturned basket.

The child quiets. They wait.

----- 

Din is not panicking. He isn’t.

Sure, he’s managed to lose—not lost, just very well hidden, he reminds himself—a kid during a totally innocent game of hide and seek. That doesn’t mean the worry he feels is making him want to crawl out of his skin or scream or panic. Not at all.

The kid is just being competitive, is all. Competitive and very small, which lends itself well to being great at hiding. That’s all there is to it. No need to worry. The rest of the children were easy enough to find, and his—this kid should be no different.

Except this kid is a quarter the size of the rest and twice as quick when he needs to be. Not for the first time today, Din regrets agreeing to play this game. But the tender smile Omera had directed his way as she watched him be dragged away by the throng of children had almost made his reluctant concession made it seem worth it at the time.

As he jogs—walks fast—weaving between villagers and houses and ponds, Din thinks he should probably tell the kid to lighten up when it comes to hide and seek. As soon as he finds him, that is.

The spaces he searches shrink in size with every pass through the village: an overturned garbage pail, a basket of laundry, the gaps between stacked baskets of krill. There are only so many places for the little womp rat to hide. This is fine.

Unless…?

All the while his panic grows. Has something happened to him? Has he gotten stuck somewhere? Is he hurt? Did he fall into a pond and drown? Did he and Cara miss some of the raiders when they were clearing out their camp? Have they come back to even the score? Where is he? It’s getting late and now and the sun will be setting soon. He’s a bounty hunter! This should be easy—

“Are you okay?”

Din spins around, jerked out of his internal spiral of horror by Omera’s voice.

“I lost the kid,” he sputters, and then winces. That’s not what he meant to say. He’s not sure what he meant to say, but it wasn’t that.

Omera, unexpectedly, smirks up at him in amusement.

“You lost him?”

Din pauses, thinking this time before he speaks.

“I don’t know where he is,” he settles on, though that doesn’t sound much better.

“Did you find Winta?” Omera asks, catching him off guard.

Oh, shit.

“I…”

Internally, Din is already beginning to rehearse his apologies. He’s ready to grovel on his knees and beg forgiveness for losing her child as well as his own (well, not his, per say) when Omera, seeming to sense his hysteria, cuts in once again.

“Check the ponds,” she suggests, wryly. “Winta is very serious about hide and seek. I’ve had to hang her clothes on the line three times this week because she keeps wearing them into the water.”

Oh.

Din nods almost hesitantly and exhales, thankful that Omera knows her daughter better than he knows his own young charge.

“Thank you.”

Omera nods, amused, and he resumes his search, this time paying extra attention to the ponds.

-----

In their makeshift hideaway, Winta and the child grow cold and impatient.

The sun is setting. In its absence, the water temperature drops and leeches the warmth from their bones. The light is dimmer now and Winta can barely see the straw weave three inches in front of her. The children shiver, but they both refuse to move.

They mean to win this game, so in the rapidly cooling pond they remain.

On the gravel path next to them, Winta hears heavy footfalls and the jangling of armor.

“Kid?”

Reflexively, Winta claps a hand over the child’s mouth as he coos at the sound of the Mandalorian’s voice, but her sudden movement makes a splash. She freezes.

The footsteps halt.

“Winta?” the Mandalorian calls. Silence.

The baby shrieks through her fingers.

“You can come out now. You’ve won the game,” he appeals now, “…by a landslide,” he adds, sounding almost relieved.

Immediately Winta drops her hand from the baby’s mouth and uses it to hoist the basket from over their heads. On the water bank stands the Mandalorian with his hands on his hips. Winta thinks if she could see his face, he would be scowling.

Freed from their confined hiding space, Winta yelps when the child immediately starts splashing as much water as his tiny hands will allow. Then the baby is holding his arms out to his caregiver, who scoops up the boy and holds out his free hand for Winta to pull her out of the pond.

Back on solid ground Mando regards the two children, both dripping wet, shivering forcefully, teeth chattering. He sighs, unclipping his cloak from his cuirass and settling it around the girl’s shoulders. As he holds the child snugly in the crook of his arm, the boy nuzzles closer in search of warmth. Din sets a hand over his cloak on Winta’s shoulder.

“You really shouldn’t take hide and seek so seriously, you know.”

“Can we play again?” she asks, instead of acknowledging what he just sad, Din notes. His shoulders droop as he finally allows the tension to drain from his body, allows himself to smile at the girl even though she can’t see it. In his arm, the child’s eyes are already drooping closed in sleep.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

[hauntedfalcon]

Mandothon Day Six

A vignette for the day six prompts - fingerprint; daydream

- - - 

She’s always been a pragmatic woman, but Omera isn’t above a daydream in the afternoon sun, when the pond warms around her. The whole village tends to get lethargic around then. Only when Winta calls her a third time does she realize she’s tuned out, the basket still in her hands. 

“What is it, Winta?” 

“Zivi’s going to the edge of the woods to pull tubers. Can I go?” Her daughter’s dark eyes plead with her. 

“Just the edge,” Omera warns. The woods are safer than they’ve been in months, but they’re still not safe. 

“Okay! I’ll be careful!” 

The girl is gone between one breath and the next. Omera looks back down at her basket and gives it a shake. Most of the krill are undersize, immature despite the season. They could stand to go another month, but she tries to sort a few keepers before she’s lost in the glint on the water’s surface again. 

The first time she touched the Mandalorian’s helmet, she left fingerprints. She didn’t notice until he was packing to leave. By then she didn’t have the heart to try to touch him again, and he didn’t hold still long enough, so the trace of her touch was still there when he rode off. 

She wondered, in the time since, whether he found the marks before polishing them away. She wondered if he had thought of her in the time after, or if subsequent adventures had wiped clean the impression she left on him. 

In her loneliest moments when sleep eluded her, she felt a sting of guilt for marring the beskar. Guilt for hanging her own happiness on him, and guising it as care for his child. Guilt that even then she wondered what it would have been like if he stayed, dreamed of it sometimes. 

She, a grown woman, mooning for a man worlds away, whose face she’d never seen and never would. 

“Are you all right?” 

She looks up and shades her eyes against the glare. “I’m fine,” she assures him. 

The quizzical tilt of his head doesn’t change, but his shoulders ease a bit. 

Omera sets the basket aside and holds up a hand, and Din grasps it and helps her out of the pond. She looks him over from this angle. “Hold still.” She doesn’t have a dry rag on her, so she takes the edge of his cape and burnishes a smudge on his helmet--from her fingers or his, it’s impossible to say. 

He leans into her hand like he can feel her touch through the steel, which of course undoes her work. Omera huffs a laugh, and she leaves the marks where they are. 

She hasn’t wondered in a while now, hasn’t felt the guilt. Not since he came back to her. 

[amukmuk]

Mirroring

Omera rises from bed first, as per usual. She’s always enjoyed rising early to watch the sun make its ascent. Sometimes, Din joins her, and other times she sits out here by herself with a cup of tea and enjoys the sounds of the wilderness around her. This morning, she sits outside alone, a shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders, with a cup of tea in hand. She should probably wake them soon, her little family, but they are both sleeping so peacefully. When she had checked on them, Din, as per usual, was sleeping on his back, hands folded neatly upon his chest and Winta was splayed out across her bed, feet hanging off one side, arms the other. However, they have errands to run today and if they have any intentions of making it back before dinner they should probably get started.

Keep Reading

[asunachinadoll]

i don’t have a home (but i do have you)

Ahhhh threw this together super quickly because I wanted to participate in the Mandalorian Ficathon and it’s technically not May yet so here you go. Hope you enjoy! :)) @mandothon

Day 30: home

Pairing: Din/Omera

Read on AO3

She didn’t dare hope.

Hope was dangerous, fuel to the fire she thought had long been extinguished, the blood pumping through her foolish heart. 

Even when he left, knowing the way things had ended between them, the flame in her chest never quite flickered out of existence. 

So she didn’t dare hope.

Instead, she convinced herself that he would never come back. She had accepted it.

He proved her wrong.

Their moment of reunion was short-lived.

Their eyes locked and they stilled, the rest of the world fading away. They scanned one another. Looking for what, she didn’t know. Maybe to see what the lost years gave them.

He looked a little more worn, a little more rough-hewn. But his solid presence was the same, his quiet demeanor just as she remembered. The weight of his gaze felt no different, and still made her heart thud against her sternum.

She wanted to reach out to him. Feel his bicep beneath her hand, know for certain that he was whole and alive in front of her. Ask all the questions running through her mind. 

Instead, she took a breath and murmured, “I’ll get the barn ready.”

She stepped away. 

She could feel his eyes on her back.

---

He wants to see her.

Rather, he wants her to see him.

Ask her if they can stay. If he can stay.

Feel her hands against his helmet again. Let her slip it off this time.

If she wants what he wants, too.

He knows it can’t be that simple. It’s been too long. Surely, the years between then and now won’t allow them to pick up where they left off. 

So he wants instead. 

He lingers outside the familiar barn, watching Omera prepare his cot with deft hands. When she finishes, she turns to him, a smile on her face. He takes that as his cue to enter, placing his belongings on the table.

“It’s as if I never left,” he comments, before immediately regretting it. Was it too soon? Or was he too late?

Something flashes across her eyes, but her smile never wavers, reassuring.

“It’s all yours,” she says. He thinks he catches something in her voice, but he can’t place it.

“Thank you,” he tells her. She nods. 

He looks at her, taking in the streaks of grey through her hair and the crows feet in the corners of her eyes. He has so much he wants to say to her. He opens his mouth to try, but It collects into a lump at the back of his throat, and nothing comes out at all. 

Someone calls Omera’s name, and she dismisses herself. The room goes cold.

---

He finds her the next day, after their work is complete. The sun had vanished beneath the treeline, threatening to dip below the horizon and pitch the world into darkness.

His hand latches around her wrist, loose but earnest. 

“Would you walk with me?” He asks.

The corner of her mouth curls up. “Of course.”

They fall in step together as they follow a trail into the woods, nothing but the soft, golden touch of the setting sun to light their path. 

Her elbow brushes against his arm. The touch is not quite jolting but he inhales as warmth spreads through him. 

She lifts her hand, looping it with his arm, gentle and deliberate. He swallows, the action stirring up his heart, her fingers perfectly placed in the crook of his arm. It’s a kind gesture and he relaxes, leaning into her touch, her orbit. He doesn’t catch her smile.

They engage in small talk, speaking of their children, as they had always circled back to. It was simple and familiar. Their safe topic to ignore the tension between them, even now.

He wants to break it.

She’s already ahead of him.

“How long are you staying?” She asks. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts.

“How long can we stay?” He glances at her, tilting his helmet.

She looks at him, a slight crease between her brows.

“You can stay for as long as you need,” she answers, her voice resolute. It makes the corner of his mouth twitch upwards.

“And beyond that?” He ventures, keeping his voice even and light. An attempt at hiding something akin to hope. 

She pauses, considering. 

“If you want to,” she settles on.

The soil is soft beneath their feet, the trees cutting the sun’s rays into splinters across the ground. He watches as some land on Omera, her skin turning into gold at the contact, and he can’t help but think that she is as beautiful as he remembers her. Even moreso. 

He takes a breath.

“I stopped looking for his people,” he says, letting the thought settle between them. “He decided that I was enough.”

The thought of his child makes him smile, fond and loving. 

Sorgan couldn’t be more perfect for him.

“You agreed,” she concludes. He nods.

“He… chose me,” he continues, his voice having gone gentle with affection. “To be his home. It scared me, at the time. It made me realize that I haven’t known a home in a long time.”

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Omera understands, squeezing his arm. He stops walking, turning his body towards her, taking her hands in his. Her dark eyes search his visor, and he wants nothing more than to rip off his helmet right then and there. 

He inhales, feels the solid warmth of her hands in his. 

“Sorgan is not my home,” he murmurs. 

“But it could be,” she finishes, a small smile on her face, something sparkling and good behind her eyes.

“Yes.”

You could be, too.

Then, he takes her hands and places them against his helmet, an echo of a memory long since ingrained into his mind. 

Her eyes never leave him, but her fingers are hesitant. He nods.

She removes his helmet.

[mandothon]

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