Chapter Text
Luke gave the Mandalorian the coordinates, and they met up again on the small isolated planet he had staked out for his own. A small Jedi temple still stood tucked away in one of the forests, coated in a thick layer of vines. Luke had constructed a temporary habitat for himself nearby, until he was sure the temple was structurally sound and safe to live in. There was another temp-hab folded up amongst his supplies: he would have to install it for the Mandalorian and his child.
He surveyed the space with his hands on his hips, thinking about ideal placement, as the Mandalorian’s ship descended to land next to his X-wing. R2 beeped at him and rolled off to go charge. There was a good flat patch of ground there, once he cleared some of the undergrowth away. Behind him, the ship’s ramp opened. He turned to greet them, a welcoming smile on his face.
The little green child-- Grogu-- was nestled cozily in the crook of his father’s arm. He made the intersection of various pieces of armor look like the most comfortable seat in the world. He was luminous with the Force, glowing with life and excitement. His greeting to Luke was twofold: a cheerful squeak that met his ears and a resounding shout through the Force. Luke fought back a laugh but couldn’t help his smile from growing wider. “Welcome to Yavin-4,” he told them both.
The Mandalorian inclined his head in a nod. Everything about him was in stark counterpoint to his son. Hard shining armor next to Grogu’s soft greens and browns. Silent, restrained, with a line of tension running through him from helmet to boots. And the Force moved...strangely around him. That piqued his curiosity, but didn't seem dangerous, so it would have to wait.
He gave them the brief tour, firmly warning Grogu off of exploring the temple until he was sure it was safe. He pointed out the nearby river, and oriented the Mandalorian to the nearest settlement: a day-and-a-half ride by speeder to the east.
“It’s not much yet,” he told them, trying to convey hopeful and assured rather than apologetic. “Once I’ve renovated the temple I think it can easily hold at least six or seven students and their families. In the meantime, I have a temp-hab I can set up for the two of you. I hope that’s okay.”
“That will be just fine,” the Mandalorian replied. “Thank you.” He had all the stiff formality of Leia at a state function. Grogu was gumming idly on one of his gloved fingers, staining it with drool. Luke stifled another laugh. The kid was too damn cute, but his dad was coiled tight as if waiting for a trap to spring at any moment. There was a time to be boisterous, and it wasn’t right now.
“If you two want to wander around and stretch your legs, I can get that hab set up for you,” Luke said.
“Allow me to help,” the Mandalorian replied, more statement than question. So Luke acquiesced, pointing him towards the underbrush to be cleared away while he dug the temp-hab out of his storage bins.
He glanced up from a bin when a bright flash of light bounced off the side of his face. It was the sunlight shifting across the Mandalorian’s armor as he moved. He crouched to set the child down on a nearby stump, and placed him with such fragile gentleness that Luke felt something in his heart clench.
Reflected sunlight lit the Mandalorian like a minor star. Luke shifted his initial perception of the child and his father. Perhaps they weren’t so different from one another after all. They were both luminous.
***
The three of them sat around a small campfire outside the front of the temple. R2 had parked himself nearby. The night air was pleasantly cool in Luke’s hair, the heat of the fire comforting on his shins and face. The bowl in his hands was nearly empty. Grogu had emptied his own in record time, despite his father’s admonishments to slow down. Now he was trying and failing to stay awake, his big eyes blinking sleepily. The Mandalorian had declined to eat but had sat with them anyway. The shifting patterns of firelight made his implacable helmet seem almost alive.
His responses to Luke’s attempts at conversation had been polite but minimal, so they had lapsed into silence. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but the un-Jedi-like part of him chafed at the quiet. He made himself breathe and focus his attention on the flames.
“Grogu is your first student.” Luke’s eyes rose to the Mandalorian’s visor, sunspots dancing in his vision. Again, it was not quite a statement or a question.
“Yes,” Luke replied, withholding the flow of words that wanted to follow. This was the first time the Mandalorian had initiated any conversation, and some tremor in the Force told Luke to wait.
He was silent for a long moment, helmet pointed toward the fire. A log snapped in a puff of sparks. Grogu had finally succumbed to sleep, curled against his father’s thigh armor. “People have been hunting him,” he said. “Some may still be hunting him. I don’t know.”
Another pause. Luke waited.
“I need to know that he’ll be safe.” Luke didn’t need the Force to feel the mountain of unspoken words behind that simple sentence.
“They were hunting him because of his connection to the Force?” Luke asked.
A nod of the helmet, a burnished orange in the firelight. “Yes.”
“To what end?” Luke asked, more to himself than the Mandalorian. He watched a gloved hand curl into a fist, saw the helmet angle just slightly towards him. Some image not quite a memory rose in his mind: the astringent smell of chemical disinfectant, a row of labeled tubes full of blood.
“I don’ t know,” the Mandalorian answered, and Luke knew it was a lie.
You can trust me, he wanted to say, but knew that had never convinced anyone of anything. The Mandalorian clearly didn’t mind stretches of silence, so Luke allowed himself a moment to gather his thoughts. “I can’t promise him complete safety,” he finally said. “The path of a Jedi is a dangerous one. But I promise you that this planet is secure, and that I will give my life to protect him if need be.”
The Mandalorian seemed to absorb this with equanimity. “And can you teach him to defend himself?”
“I can.”
The helmet was pointed in his direction. Stark highlights and shadows played over its hard angles. Luke felt, or imagined, that the spots of light flickering across the darkened visor were eyes carefully searching his face.
Then it nodded and turned back to the fire. Luke blinked, feeling like a pinned insect that had just been set free. “Good,” the Mandalorian said, mostly to himself. He rested a hand against his child’s back. One long green ear twitched in sleep. Louder, to Luke, he said “thank you.”
Luke, who didn’t feel he’d done much of anything yet, tried to project assurance again as he answered “of course.”
***
Luke awoke early in the morning to the awareness that he was, in fact, the last one up. Grogu’s radiant Force signature was shining near the river, accompanied by his father’s confusing and muted swirl.
He busied himself with his own tasks, R2 trundling along at his side, and soon enough the two returned. Grogu projected an air of gluttonous satisfaction to Luke, stomach full of delicious frogs he’d caught himself. Luke couldn’t help but laugh. “Congratulations on your successful hunt!”
The child burped, and made a gesture with one hand. Luke cocked his head.
“That means ‘thank you’,” the Mandalorian said. “I think he’s too young to speak, so I’ve been teaching him to sign.”
Luke thought he seemed slightly less tense than yesterday, but had to concede it could be wishful thinking on his part. He wasn’t entirely sure how well the concepts of relaxation or safety meshed with a person clad in a full suit of armor.
“That’s a great idea,” he enthused. “I hope you’ll teach me some of it as well.”
Grogu chirped and made another gesture.
“That means ‘yes,’” the Mandalorian translated.
***
After breakfast and a brief introduction to Tusken sign language-- led with childish enthusiasm by Grogu and corrected with infinite patience by his father-- Luke was able to turn Grogu’s attention to his own training.
There was a short flight of steps leading up to the temple, and Luke led the duo there. He and Grogu settled cross-legged on the top step, facing each other. The Mandalorian stood a couple meters away, leaning against a tree.
“You can join us here if you like,” Luke called to him. The Mandalorian acknowledged him with a nod and stayed where he was.
He turned back to the child, who was looking up at him sweetly with those big dark eyes. He took a breath, aware he was about to jump headfirst into his first foray at teaching, aware also of the scrutinizing parental gaze at his back. “Okay, Grogu. I’m aware you’ve had training in the Force before. I’d like you to tell me about it, please.”
Grogu’s head tilted and his eyes narrowed in concentration. Luke felt the bubble of communication being rolled slowly towards him through the Force, and allowed himself to drift inside.
His earliest memories were formless sensations that gradually shaped into meaning: gentle voices, being cradled and held, eyes and smiles that grew into familiar faces, colors and lights that transformed into the rooms of a temple. Instructions in the use of his abilities that were so inextricably tied into daily life that they barely registered as lessons. Others that were games, painted the sunny haze of fun in his mind. Bouncing thoughts back and forth with the other children, who grew so rapidly they seemed to stretch before his very eyes.
Days and days of peace, routine and comfort, until a time when the air was heavy. The familiar hum of a lightsaber, turned sour. The familiar feeling of being carried pressed against a chest, except they were running, heartbeat too fast against his ear.
Darkness, isolation, the important lesson that not everyone can communicate in thought. The second important lesson: how to close himself off from the Force and hide. The third: how to sleep, in something like stasis or hibernation. It conserves energy, and makes the long periods of darkness feel much shorter. Metal that glows blue around the edges, that hurts his arms and cuts off his connection to the Force on its own.
Sitting on a rock in a foggy, mostly-dead forest. Ahsoka levitating a pebble. Making his favorite toy fly out of his father’s hand and zip across the clearing.
Luke felt Grogu’s insistence that he’d learned other things worth sharing too. The crucial difference between red and blue wires, and his dad teaching him colors. Sign language. That we can pet some animals but we do not put our hands in their mouths.
Joyful and horrifying alike, it was all presented to Luke with a child’s blunt sincerity. Luke thanked him, and was told it was his turn to share something. He gave the child an image of himself on Dagobah, training by doing a handstand with Master Yoda balanced on his feet and R2-D2 and various rocks hovering in the air. He let the memory play out to the point where he got distracted and they all fell into a pile. He knew it would make the child laugh, and it did.
When Luke opened his eyes, he saw the Mandalorian had changed locations. He was seated on a fallen log nearby, cleaning the pieces of a disassembled blaster. The sun was at a different point in the sky. “How long…” Luke asked.
“About an hour.” The Mandalorian snapped a piece of the blaster efficiently back into place. His helmet fixed attentively on Grogu as he signed something, although his hands didn’t slow in their reassembling process. “Ask your teacher,” he said.
Luke turned back to Grogu, who signed again with an accompanying translation in the Force: “Go play.” It was a request. His big ears twitched hopefully.
Luke dismissed him with a smile. He scampered down the steps and over to his father, who scooped him onto his lap. Luke stood and stretched his back. He watched the Mandalorian reach into a pouch at his waist and deposit something into Grogu’s outstretched hand. It twinkled in the morning light, and Luke recognized the favored toy from Grogu’s memories. The child turned it over in his little palms, enraptured.
“What did you do?” the Mandalorian asked Luke. “Were you...talking?”
“Yes. We were communicating through the Force. It’s similar to talking, but not exactly.”
A brief nod of the helmet. The voice that emerged from it next was hesitant, hopeful: at odds with the imposing armored figure. “What did he say?”
“I asked him to tell me about his previous education in the Force. “ Luke smiled. “He’s also very proud to have learned the colors you taught him. Sign language and other things as well.”
The Mandalorian’s shoulders raised in a way that might have been pleased or embarrassed. He absently smoothed at the peach fuzz on Grogu’s head, and Luke felt another clench around his heart.
***
They fell into a routine quickly from that point; one built around Grogu’s toddler attention-span. One dedicated period of focus in the morning and one in the afternoon, with lengthy breaks and lunch in between. Taking the idea from Grogu’s own memories, Luke also tried to weave lessons about the Force into other activities. Sometimes it seemed to work. Other times Grogu fixed him with a flatly unimpressed look that said you will not trick me into learning when I am trying to have fun.
His father seemed compelled to stay busy at all times. Luke tried to helpfully point him towards tasks that needed doing, after he noticed the Mandalorian taking apart the same panels in his ship for maintenance again.
He always brought something to mend or clean as he observed Luke and Grogu’s lessons. He never missed them, although Luke thought it must be intensely boring for someone not attuned to the Force. Making things float was one thing, but they were more often still and silent, seated in meditative poses.
“You don’t always have to sit nearby if you don’t want to,” Luke told him after about a week.
The Mandalorian responded with his customary stiff nod. “Thank you. I don’t mind.” He was there as usual the next time, and Luke wondered to himself about the benefits and drawbacks of anxious parenting.
***
Luke tried a different tactic the next morning. He patted the temple steps next to himself and Grogu. “Come sit with us.”
The Mandalorian cocked his head but did as he was told. He seated himself cross-legged by the two of them. Grogu signed “hello!” and wiggled his ears happily. The Mandalorian extended a finger for him to hold.
“Grogu and I are practicing expanding his awareness in the Force,” Luke explained. “As you sit, just try to be aware of the living energy of everything around you.”
“I don’t have your powers.” HIs voice was flat.
“That’s okay,” Luke said. “Just notice the world with your senses. I don’t expect anything. But I think it will help Grogu focus longer to see you doing it too.”
The sigh that escaped the helmet was barely audible, but he nodded. Luke felt the corners of his mouth twitch.
“Okay, Grogu,” Luke said. “Just like we’ve been practicing.” He watched Grogu close his eyes before closing his own. He took a deep breath and allowed his mind to expand into the Force.
It was always like wading into an ocean. There was Grogu’s unmistakable radiance, bobbing along nearby. His father’s steady presence, muted by his armor. And still, that odd ribbon of the Force that wove around him. Beyond the three of them was the rest of Yavin-4: the plant and animal life, the distant settlements. Beyond that, the expanse of the galaxy. Leia’s presence glittered like a star, far away in the Core. It was comforting to see her, though he didn’t try to extend himself enough to say hello.
Instead, he pulled himself back down toward that peculiar ribbon around the Mandalorian. His curiosity about it had itched at his brain since they’d first landed on the planet.
He checked in first with Grogu, who was floating cheerfully along waves in the Force over Yavin-4’s southern hemisphere. Satisfied he was okay for now, Luke focused his attention on the Mandalorian’s signature.
All living things exuded the Force. In every other respect, the Mandalorian’s presence in it was entirely ordinary. Dampened significantly by the material of his armor, to be sure, but even that felt natural in a way. Balanced. Like even something as ubiquitous as the Force needed something antithetical to itself.
But that disturbance that clung to him...the image that came to Luke’s mind was a skin graft. Sloppily attached to the underlying tissue, rejected by the host body and yet stitched in place. He thought about necrosis, about infection taking hold in the space between his prosthetic and his arm, and suppressed a shudder.
And, Luke had to admit after further study, a skin graft wasn’t quite right. Because the Mandalorian had somehow been able to use the Force that had been grafted to him.
He had more questions than answers, but he was also hurtling perilously close to violating the Mandalorian’s privacy. If he hadn’t already.
Just one more thing and then he would withdraw for now.
He called to Grogu, and they both began to settle back towards regular awareness. Before they reopened their eyes, Luke asked Grogu about the oddity in his father’s Force signature. He surely must have noticed it himself.
Grogu imparted that it had been normal, always normal. And then--
A flinch away from glowing-blue-metal-strangers-needles-
And then afterwards, it was there. It was different. But everything had been different. And not in a bad way.
A distant image of a man sitting in the shade of a lush garden. The pleasantly scratchy feeling of rubbing one’s cheek against rough facial hair. Exploring rooms and hallways that seemed to go on forever, and seemed oddly familiar to Luke...
Luke blinked heavily in the midmorning sun. The Mandalorian still sat, unperturbed, as Grogu blinked back at Luke and yawned.
Luke commended him on his excellent progress expanding his awareness, and chuckled as his pupil harangued his father back to the river to hunt for frogs. But in the back of his mind he wondered what horror the two had been forced to endure. He worried about Grogu’s lightning-fast ability to shove aside uncomfortable memories. And he wondered if he might be able to untangle the Mandalorian from his unnatural snag in the Force.