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Chapter Text

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The Korriban is still hurtling through the extra-dimensional highway of hyperspace by the time Imperial High Prince Skywalker exits the starship’s main holochamber. 

“Have the recording sent to my father in Bothan Space,” Luke instructs his subordinates, pinning one of the waiting commanders with his gaze. Human, male, middle-aged – not anyone he recalls from the assault on the Mandalorian’s ST-70, but interchangeable enough. “Mark it as being of moderate importance only, Commander. Not high.” He quirks both brows, tone sharpened. “The Emperor has more urgent matters to attend to than the successful apprehension of a lone Force sensitive, don’t you think?”

Not quite alone.

He dismisses the thought as quickly as it came to him. 

“Yessir,” the commander answers. No stutter, but all together. “I’ll – see to it, sir.”

“Good,” Luke declares, already striding from the room. “I’m retiring.” White-armored bodies – his standard security detail – follow the flick of his long black cape like inverted shadows. 

“Sir?” A woman’s voice calls out behind him, and Luke pauses mid-step, turning to look over his shoulder with again-raised eyebrows. A captain, by her insignia, gray-green of her uniform hat and collar not entirely covering the non-human spines at her jaw and throat, intimidated but pressing onward. Luke deliberately relaxes the tightening clutch of his gloved fist and waits with clear impatience. “What do you want us to say if Emperor Vader –” she hesitates – “asks why we didn’t follow his orders?”

Acquire the Force-sensitive, Vader had demanded – in public, not private. A directive from Emperor to Fleet Admiral, Sith Master to Sith Lord – not father to son. Kill anyone you find on board. 

Luke allows the silence to drag on as he contemplates his answer.

“You tell him, captain,” Luke says, a sharp edge to his voice intended to intimidate and reassure in the same measure, “to speak to me.”

She nods her head, head ducking. An appropriate show of submission. 

He turns away, the clack of boots against floor dominating the corridor. 

The walk to his quarters is short and decisive. He is a fully trained Sith; he is the third most powerful being in the galaxy. 

He is a TIE-fighter still in the air, not yet landed. 

Double doors slide shut at his back, and Luke lets out a measured sigh, audible, but ultimately farcical. The seam of the closed doors presses against his spine as he leans back and waits, listening as the unseen nameless Stormtroopers dare each other – silent for most people at least, but not for him – to get close enough to listen at their High Prince’s door. 

Cooler heads carry the day. Security disperses, tramping off to safer harbors and, no doubt, a tale to tell the other TKs at their next shared meal.

The true sigh, one of rampant self-reflection, only escapes once he’s alone, and it is guttural. 

Leia’s gonna give him the worst third-degree ever when he gets back to the flagship. 

The weight of the day’s decisions settles heavy on his shoulders, the extent of his own impulsiveness only just starting to hit home. He feels more bone tired than he has in a long time. 

It’s difficult, in retrospect, to pinpoint the exact moment Luke lost his entire mind. Was it the moment his Force presence first collided with the child’s in that space between where minds and bodies live, stunning in the most literal sense? That rush of sudden understanding that had hit his gut like a shot of hard liquor – it’s his son it’s his son he’s just trying to save his son – while the defeated father radiated raw sorrow outward, a beacon of grief.

Perhaps when he first laid eyes on Din Djarin’s face. 

It’s not even that Luke demanded to take an apprentice. He just… took one, with no permissions asked, sought, or granted as part of the process. 

The political ramifications seemed less… well, galactic, at the time. The further death knells of the old Rule of Two a vague afterthought compared to the weight and urgency of finding a way to keep father and son here. 

With him. 

Together, his mind suggests unhelpfully, and Luke ruthlessly discards the thought as both indulgent and unfeasible. Separation is a consequence for the Mandalorian’s misbehavior, should he exhibit any. Luke can’t get too precious; can’t give the man what he wants too lightly.

The disgusting sniveling weakness of it grates at him until he tamps all that down into the crackling mass of passion and anger and hate that lives at his center. Reconnecting with that primal source of power as much as keeping it contained. 

I can hurt him, a vicious, deep-down part of him says, in-built since childhood. If I have to. Luke draws away from the doors with a steadying breath. If I want to. 

In Luke’s experience, it’s vital to know who can be crushed beneath your boot heel in the present and whose you may later find yourself licking in turn. 

The quarters he always stays in whenever the New Empire’s business leads him to the Korriban are large enough to be considered luxurious onboard a military craft, but in practice still amount to four walls, a floor, and a ceiling in varying shades of Imperial gray. There are a few minor accents of interest – a jagged red star of the ancient Sith Empire hung in tapestry on the wall, the deep black cushions of the largely-untouched seating area – but by and large its stark militarism remains sterile and unlived in. Two sets of doors lead to other rooms – a private study and bedroom with adjoining ‘fresher, respectively. 

It’s quiet, empty. Even the small black sweeper droid sits powered down in the far corner. 

Luke keeps his boots and cloak on as he enters, striding aimlessly through the space several times before he realizes he’s pacing. He continues to move throughout the room without purpose, black cape swishing at his heels, then pauses at the viewport. 

Outside the starship, the infinite tunnel of hyperspeed streaks by the room’s only window. The humming vibrations make for a pseudomotion Luke feels in his teeth and associates, specifically, with the hyperlane of the Corellian Run. A hunk of metal, detached, careening from one point in the universe to another, every being on board somehow amplified in the isolation. 

It aches, how aware Luke is of both child and Mandalorian. A pair of separate points where they’re being held on opposite sides of the starship, one’s Force-brightness dampened and the other Force-null. Both yearning for each other in a way that pulsates outward; child frightened, father devastated.

Something twinges in Luke’s insides. A shake of his head sends golden-blond hair flying – and he realizes, belatedly, he’s been standing in the middle of the living area unmoving for… he isn’t sure for how long. 

His fingers flex at his sides with pent-up electricity. 

It’s not the actions themselves that are at the heart of the problem, or even giving into impulsivity. It’s the wildness. The cavalier approach to parts of his life that come so close to overlapping the personal. Two beings claimed for his own, on the spot and unprompted – a direct opposition to Father’s directives. 

It’s the prioritization of his own petty wants and weaknesses that he finds so… discomfiting. 

Disturbing.   

If you wanted to fuck him so badly, Luke thinks at himself, mouth pursed in self-derision, you could’ve just done it, then had him killed afterward.  An easier path. Cleaner – even, perhaps, kinder. 

Revulsion-repulsion-disgust-dismay- refusal grips at him, tugs at his chest, and Luke’s wordless snarl rips out at the same time he lashes out with the Force, ungloved hand moving in a vicious arc. 

On the other side of the room the black sofa shudders, cut almost diagonally in half, white cushion filling abruptly visible and a tower of datapads on a nearby side table clattering to the floor. Luke grits his teeth, hefting hard and heaving breaths through his nose, trying very hard to keep himself from going somewhere like a spiral downward. 

And for what? For some backwater bounty-hunter so thrice-damned mulish he can’t recognize defeat when it’s square in his face?

For a desperate father in gleaming beskar. A face unseen, a holoreel of thoughts and inner feelings.

A spike of learned, white-hot calm pierces his building thunderhead of anger. He forcibly centers himself, slows his own breathing. 

Makes himself regain awareness of his place on this ship, in the galaxy, in this universe. 

Yes, Luke disobeyed orders. He took what he wanted.

Like his father before him, who brought down two galactic orders in twenty years for the sake of his wife and children. Like Leia, who defied Emperor and Empire alike to lay claim to her precious smuggler. 

Power, Luke knows, determines outcomes. He learned that a long time ago, in too many wretched ways to mention. 

The only difference now is that now he’s the apex predator, the top of the food chain. 

Luke has spent over half his life building and being rebuilt in Father’s image. Quite literally. Doing everything that was ever asked of him as soon as he was back up on his feet, as the three of them carefully set restoration in motion, clearing away the musty rubble of Palpatine’s destruction. Spending years working with Leia to push and pull their Emperor-father from the shadows, to ensure the galaxy views him in the best, most positive light.

There is no one left living for Luke to fear anymore. Father made sure of that. No repercussions from which he cannot exempt himself, be it through status, abilities, or military rank. No one who can or will stop him from doing, from taking, whatever he wants. 

He hesitates. 

Almost no one. 

He corrects himself, lurching towards the doors that lead to the study before he’s even put name to the imperative.

He all but crashes into the swiveling seat before the built-in holoprojector, hands unsteady as he taps in a passcode so familiar his fingers remember the rhythm.

An upward slide of wavered sound and beeping marks the initiation of transmission. Luke flurries his fingers idly at the sound it makes as it tunes, urging patience by imagining the low tone indicating an incoming call on the other end, ringing out in the well-defended confines of the lakeside homestead he’d purchased for her with Imperial credits. Rural Naboo – only a few minutes by boat from the estate of the Naberrie family, their weekend getaway for generations.

There’s a crackle of connection, and Aunt Beru’s concerned face blinks into existence in a bluish holo-glow, leaning over with her hand still outreached to receive the call. She’s wearing a plush dressing gown, infinitely nicer than anything she would have had access to back home on Tatooine, and her face has acquired a few new lines since the last time they spoke.

“Luke?”

The familiar intonation, so deeply known to him since childhood, brings Luke back to center.

“Aunt Beru?” Luke says, voice hitching upward on the last syllable. He slumps in his seat, a forced smile on his face as he stares back into her flicking, pale blue image. He tries to imagine her in context, surrounded by lush fabrics and homey comforts. Tucked safely away in a creamy edifice topped with oxidized copper domes nestled against one of many hills that swell from Naboo’s vast lake system.

These days, Beru Whitesun Lars exists surrounded by more space, excess, and comfort than any individual being could ever truly need. Luke’s aunt wants for nothing; not anymore. No expense spared, no luxury denied her. 

Luke just wishes her eyes didn’t always look so sad.

“Uh,” Luke starts, suddenly twelve years old again with his aunt leaning over him, shrewd and dust-swept and suspicious after whatever mischief he’d been up to. His mouth is dry, and when he speaks again the words sound oddly high and fragile. “H-how are you doing?”

Aunt Beru frowns, surveying him in a way that means she’s seen through all his layers and then some. There may be no shared blood to their relation, but his aunt has always been uniquely able to cut right through to the crux of him. 

Her expression softens kindly. “Luke.” Her voice is soft, compelling. The closest to a mother he has in living memory. “It’s halfway through the night. Tell me what’s the matter.”

Ah, kark, the time difference. Luke bites the side of his tongue to keep from swearing. It’s been a long time – longer than he can even be sure of – since he’d forgotten to do a quick conversion before calling. 

“Sorry, Aunt Beru,” he says, and means it. “I’m –” He hefts a loud sigh, raising a hand to clutch at the side of his face. Code-switching between Imperial High Prince Skywalker and Luke, just Luke is an active and deliberate effort. 

I disobeyed my father. I didn’t kill when I should’ve. I took what I wanted and now I don’t know what to do with it. All unlikely to result in a productive outcome in this context. 

The sigh that escapes him feels almost childish. “How can you tell if you’ve done the right thing?” 

Before she can say a word, Luke starts going off, letting loose on an earnest, slapdash recollection of the events of the past few hours.  

The version he finds himself telling her is true, if not strictly candid. Carefully pruned in places – Aunt Beru doesn’t have to hear about every sordid detail of his life out in deep space, after all – but he hits on all the important beats. Apprehending a wild warrior of a father, desperate to protect his infant child; his decision to take the child on as his apprentice, to keep the Mandalorian father on in his service. The shocking abruptness with which he’d taken two such strange and irreplaceable creatures under his personal protection.

She lets him get through his account without interruption, the shifts in her microexpressions her only running commentary. 

“So, uh, so now we’re on our way back,” Luke says as he stumbles to a finish, head in one hand and posture completely shot. A Mandalorian in the brig, a very special child in the force-sensitive holding bay. Seven hours until they’re set to arrive back at the Executor. He kicks his feet against the floor, feeling, pathetically, like the fraught sixteen year old he never had a chance to be. “And I don’t – I don’t know if it was worth it. Or why I –”

He cuts himself off, heaving a sigh with hands tangling in his tawny hair once again. Avoids looking at her, even in faint blue replicate. 

The question hangs in the air and strangles him all at once.

“... Luke,” Aunt Beru says at last, her voice low and comforting. “... I’m going to ask you a question. Promise you’ll really think about it and not just answer.” Head cocked, she levels him with her gaze. 

Luke is far too full-grown to squirm in his seat. “... sure,” Luke hazards, dubious.

Beru purses her lips, and her pause lasts an eon. “Have you been… lonely, lately?”

A galaxy away, and her words cut just as deep.

Luke freezes even as his mind recoils at the thought, visceral. Loneliness is – it’s the absence of something, a weakness. One he doesn’t have the luxury to contemplate. How can he be something as trite and pathetic as lonely when he has the galaxy at his fingertips? When he’s been handed so much. Freedom, family, wealth and fame and power beyond his wildest imaginings are his, everything he ever wanted and then some, so why – 

There’s a strange buzzing sound in his ears. Luke can’t tell if it’s from the transmission or whether the hollowness of his bare and empty quarters has begun to swallow him whole. 

“I…” Luke says, but it’s a false start. “I guess so?” he says, but it’s more question than answer. Out of sight, his foot taps a low persistent rhythm. He sighs, heavy. “I shouldn’t be, I know. I have Leia now, and –”

“And Leia has Han.” Beru cuts him off evenly, somehow managing to speak over him despite the not-insignificant time and space delay between them. Uninvited heat begins to rise in Luke’s cheeks at the comparison, and he finds himself very grateful for the blue filter. It’s not the same thing at all, of course, but – 

“Your father has… his regrets,” she continues, voice laden with only a hint of tight bitterness before her expression softens. “I can’t say I’m surprised that you’ve been… searching for someone of your own, Luke. And from what you’ve told me, those two sound like a pair well met.”

Something tightly knotted in Luke’s neck and shoulders tenses before releasing all at once, exhaling the worst of it into the Force. His aunt’s permission, her blessing, her understanding – all things he technically has no need for that he still, in essence, craves.  

She’s always had the bearings of him. Even when he was too small to realize it. 

“Sometimes,” Beru remarks, her knowing demeanor tangible even in hologram, “the most important people in our lives are the ones who enter them without any warning.” Her mouth crooks upward, echoed by laugh lines. 

Or leave without warning, Luke thinks, remembering. A charred and smoking skeleton on a cave floor; his aunt’s unconscious body hanging, suspended in mid-air. The chilling sound of mechanized breathing coming from the figure of death incarnate. Luke hadn’t known, then, this nightmare of a man was to be his true salvation. 

For the umpteenth time, Luke sends a prayer of thanks into the Force for leaving her, at least, yet living. 

When Beru breaks the silence, her voice has shifted, turned stern.

“Now you mustn’t be too harsh on either of them, Luke Skywalker,” she almost-scolds him. A raised index finger swims into frame, and he can tell without seeing the rest of her that she has her other hand on her hip. A fond smile tugs at his lips. “I mean it! Those two have been through a lot, and they must be scared sick of you. You give them some time to get used to this big change.” After a moment, she adds, more kindly, “I’m glad you found both of them, Luke. That father and his boy.”

Din Djarin, Luke suspects, doesn’t yet share that opinion. Luke snorts a breath.

He’ll just have to get used to it, won’t he. 

“... I am too,” says Luke, only afterwards realizing just how much he means it.  A moment later, he sends her the empty shadow of a grin. “There are worse fates to be suffered in the universe.”

His aunt’s warm smiles fractures, just a little, at the edges. 

“There are,” Beru agrees, kindly but pained. She gathers herself, pulling the dressing gown close around her shoulders. “Good night, Luke. Take good care.”

“You too,” says Luke, meaning it. “And thanks for – for picking up. I know it’s late.” 

She smiles at him in encouragement, and then her image blinks, and is gone. 

All Luke is left with is the quiet hum of the air control system in the background and the sense-shape of his two new charges elsewhere on board. The room remains; left with the faint impression of love and care that fades so quickly. The silence of his aunt’s absence all but deafening. Agonizing stillness yawns like a gaping chasm in every darkened shadow. A deep, dank void. One that lived inside him for years after he was unchained. 

It threatens to swallow him. 

Shakily, he gets to his feet to meditate instead. Back to the uncarpeted living space, where Luke drops himself down to sit  cross-legged on the floor. Spine straight and a hand draped over each knee, resolute not to falter. 

Instead, Luke inhales… and breathes. 

Just… breathes. 

He draws into himself, filling both lungs with air – and then releases. 

His awareness expands outwards in all directions, covering every square centimeter of the destroyer until he hits hyperspace. Until he can taste each and every lifeform on board, hold their shared thoughts as murmurs in his mind, chasing away the painful silence. Grasping tight to the composite lifeforce of all the hundreds of souls aboard the cruiser, from his Admiral on the command deck to the wounded in the med-bay to each and every pilot and trooper and mechanic and technician. Their small hopes, private dreams. 

Ah. The father, privately agonized; the child, curiously alert.

“There is only passion,” Luke murmurs to himself –  words that have been his mantra now for over a decade. He’d clung to them so desperately in the years after his father dragged him out of that pit of needless suffering; as he got back on his feet and became reacquainted with his own freedom.

Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory.

Through victory my chains are broken.

The Force shall free me. 

Luke’s pulled under all in an instant, the way his father trained him.

The landscape of his mind is in one breath barren and overflowing.

The pools of darkened marshland surround him on all sides, sounds of living things moving in the water rippling across the liquid landscape. Luke’s eyes open, as much as he has eyes like this; twin slits of light shine from him, outward, into the encroaching bleakness. Great grasping trees reach up to an unseen sky, vines hanging downward. Dampness clings to his skin in a way that's so lifelike it's difficult, for a moment, to remember where he is.

The low groan of long-dead Sith echo deep in the undergrowth and morass. The smell of mud-thick water and mildew fills his nose. 

He’d be muddy and wet but for his seat, cross-legged, in mid-air.

Glimpses of his true form in the Force make themselves known to him as he unfurls and gets to his feet, the writhing churn of red-black flames that fuel and sustain giving way to smooth and polished skin, an obsidian black in some lights yet pale blue in others. His right hand remains stark and screaming white in its fulsome absence. Dark waters wrap around his feet like fog as he steps forward and down.

Luke feels like he should know this place.

He’s never seen its equal. Not in the waking world. 

Hello? He calls out, but finds he doesn’t have a voice yet. Words and rumbling hymns from extant dynasties roll over him from everywhere. Luke steps onward into the dark and coiling fog. 

It’s hard to say how long he walks through the gnarled and yawning wetness before the first firefly appears. 

Faintly warm and flickering, the sight of its bright body still captivates him utterly the second it appears to him. He raises his left hand and it circles slowly downward, perching on one finger for a few long seconds that Luke holds in his chest like a held breath. 

Its pale light spills down minutely onto the shining blue-black of his fingers, twining leisurely. An uplifting, foreign tug at Luke’s chest has him looking around wildly, straining to seek out anything remotely similar. 

A small and dampened presence flickers to life behind one of old-growth trees, glimmering like a half-hidden lantern, persistent through the darkness. 

Huh, Luke thinks, staring ahead at Grogu’s stifled Force-presence. 

The child appears to have entered his meditation.

It’s not… impossible for the child to have found him in here, certainly. The smallest set of Force-dampening cuffs in the Korriban’s arsenal had been set to dampen rather than cut off connection to the Force completely, a small kindness that Luke had insisted on, being all too familiar with that particular trauma. Cruel, he'd thought, to subject one so young to such needless distress. 

Perhaps not so needless, if this was what his new apprentice is capable of. 

“Hi,” Luke says to him, and finds he has a voice again. The warm light shrinks back, then pauses, straining with childish curiosity. “Hello again, little one.”

An uncertain pause later, Grogu sends him a murmur of impression and acknowledgement. The world sways, and two more flickering fireflies split outward from the hidden figure, flying aimlessly. Luke sucks in breath without lungs to hold it. 

You, the child insists, giving an impression of a great but tentative hope. … know?

For a moment, Luke is at a loss. It’s… strange, encountering a being who’s seen so much but is still so innately infant. Luke holds himself close to himself for long moments, working to find the right balance between what he means and what he can say. 

The water around and beneath them ripples and swishes. The flickering in the dark that is Grogu saves him, adding: Like me?

There’s only one right way to answer that kind of question. 

“Yes,” Luke assures him, and the rush of answering joy that clutches at his heart from all sides is enough to justify every action Luke’s taken in the intervening hours. Parts of Luke feel right he never knew could be anything other than painful. 

The flickering light of another firefly perches on his right shoulder. He turns his flaming head, and sees that where it touches, warm light bleeds into shining blue.

He sucks in a gasp, falling backward, and – 

– Luke’s eyes fly open, his inhale sharp and violent as he finds himself rudely punted back outward from the Force-landscape of his being, landing hard into his waking flesh and finite form. 

By an infant. 

On the other side of the cruiser. 

It’s with unsteady limbs and an oddly lighter heart that Luke gets back up on his feet, candidly considering.

Long minutes later he leaves his quarters to walk, deliberate, through the branching halls. 

The rank and file guarding the starboard-side holding cells are suitably slack-jawed at his arrival, but quickly scramble to grant him entry. A human male in Imperial grays leads him to Grogu’s cell, unknowingly breaking some swirling tension by oh please oh please hoping bursting STRAINING at the thought of talking to The Luke Skywalker. 

Luke allows himself a flash of a tight-lipped smile. 

“He’s in that one, sir.” The security officer – younger than Luke thought at first – gestures at  a set of reinforced blast doors behind which lies a now-familiar flicker of Grogu’s Force presence, attentive but unobtrusive. The man’s mouth twitches, awkward and earnest, but when he speaks it’s not to burst forth with admiration, but to add context. “We, ah. Didn’t expect a baby, sir. But – we did what we could.”

Luke considers him with eyes that have bested gods and kings. They dip down briefly to take in his code cylinders and insignia.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Luke tells him, each word thick with meaning. He glances, pointed, at the doors and then back again. “Open that up for me, will you?”

The yes sir that rings out into eternity goes unspoken: the boy, beyond starstruck, has wisely surmised he can’t trust himself to speak. 

Open? the flicker of warm light asks, a hiccup of small optimism that hitches at Luke’s insides.

The doors open. 

Eyes, large and curious and shining, peer up at Luke in the half-dark as the doors rumble shut at his back. From the small confines of a shipping container left sitting on the plastisteel detention bench, Grogu stands and stares at him, small three-clawed hands hooked on the makeshift-crib’s rim. The homespun cloth of his robes stands out against the shiny shock blankets, a lining only distantly appropriate for an infant. 

You? Grogu asks, urgent and yearning.

“Oa?” he asks aloud, a coo of pure noise. 

His intent shines clear. Luke steps inside, doors closing behind him. 

“Yes,” Luke says, remembering fireflies of pure light in the dank and darkened gray. “Me.”

The torrent of thoughts and images the child pushes at him then, one after the other, come so hard and fast and quickly they soon begin looping. 

Safe daddy safe safe daddy please safe –?

“He’s fine,” Luke assures him, pushing calm and care and affirmation in the child’s direction. To Luke’s initial bemusement, then growing desolation, Grogu guzzles down each feeling greedily, parched for the touch of others in the Force in a way that feels far too familiar. Even with only the barest touch of his mental fingertips to the child’s beleaguered psyche, Luke finds himself once again painfully willing to put this utmost intuition above any kind of common sense. His expression softens. “Really, your father’s fine. I saw him less than two hours ago.” Luke pauses, contemplative. “He’s not the happiest at the moment, I’ll give you that. But he’ll live to fight another day.”

It’s unclear whether the child grasps the nuances of the words as spoken, but the ripple of cautious acknowledgement through the Force translates completely. 

Weighing his options, Luke steps closer and takes a seat next to the child on the detention bench, sweeping his cloak to one side. The movement catches the infant’s interest – not quite an infant, Luke thinks, more a toddler – for only a moment before his large black eyes return to Luke.

“Grogu.” Speaking his name out loud yields immediate response; Grogu’s undivided attention fixates on him at once, emanating sheer joy and recognition as he exclaims in unfairly adorable startlement. 

Luke gives him what he thinks of, in private, as his real smile.

The circumstances of Luke’s life have not afforded or allowed much time with children. In his youth, there had been the younger children and infants of families living in neighboring homesteads: the Darklighters, the Marstraps. That time had been so brief in his life for all the outsized space it occupies within his memory – Biggs’ sister in his lap, Cami giggling as he jostled his knee playfully for her. He’d only lived thirteen namedays by the time the slavers came, and after that he’d been in Jabba’s menagerie, where anything resembling an infant was a short-lived tragedy. And after that –

All these years later a visceral shudder still grips him, sliding and dripping down his spine. 

After his rescue he’d been a High Prince, one of a long-lost matched set. The closest he’s been to babies since has been for a quick photo opportunity, or his brief assessments of young Force-sensitives to determine if they warranted sequestration. Spending prolonged amounts of time with infants requires a skillset he simply hasn’t prioritized developing.

Well, Luke thinks with a smirk. At least I acquired the father with the son. 

“Do you want me to show you what I did before?” Luke asks, and the child cocks his small head. Scooting in closer to his makeshift-crib, Luke raises his gloved prosthetic hand. Without a twitch in his expression, he summons a contained storm of telekinetic energy in the palm of his hand – and contains it there with a conscious barrier. Grogu watches, wide-eyed. “This is what I did on your father’s ship earlier. Neutralized your blast; held it in my hand.”

Twin tiny versions of the kinetic vortex reflect in large black pupils.

The pure childlike awe Grogu emanates is like fuel to feast upon, and with a sucked-back breath Luke concentrates. The held maelstrom disperses lightly in all directions with a thought, like a planetside breeze. 

Grogu’s childlike thoughts are an oscillating sway of want and uncertainty. 

How? the child asks, heartfelt and earnest. And – 

An image of a familiar beskar helmet is pushed weakly into his mind along with a faint impression of strong good help him, and Luke remembers the Force restraints. Luke looks down at them sharply, something distant jangling at his center at how tiny the gray mag-cuffs are. They’re unmagnetized, thankfully, as they glow a faint blue at his wrists. 

The sense-memory of his old collar from Hutt custody sits heavy at his throat; that accompanying loss of something so unknown and fundamental to him he never knew how to mourn it.  

It’s both the opportunity Luke needs and a reminder he doesn’t wish for. He pauses, considering his next words with care. 

“Your daddy said he’s going to protect me,” Luke explains to him both out loud and through their slowly-mingling Force presences, crossing his ankles as he settles back down into his seat. With unanticipated certainty, he knows in an instant where it is he’s going with this. Luke gives Grogu a look. “Now, I can’t promise he’ll always be safe – he does a lot of dangerous stuff.” 

Amusingly, Grogu seems to accept this with the equivalent of a sage nod. The child tries a few more times to push echoes-of-memories Luke’s way, but they’re too faint to reach him as anything more than faint impressions. Tiny expression gone drawn, Grogu wavers – and sits down hard in the lined confines of his shipping container, looking disproportionately exhausted. 

Luke has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from reaching with flesh or mental hands to catch or soothe him. Patience, a voice says in the depths of his head, and for a moment, it's hard to tell whether the word is spoken in the mechanized rasp of his father's life-support system or the sick-slither vileness of his worst enduring nightmares.

“But,” Luke enunciates, “if you agree to train under me – to be my new apprentice, and you’re very good and don’t cause trouble or try to run away – then I can let you out of those Force cuffs.” If ever Grogu’s attention had wavered, it returns to him in full force, pleading with childlike need. Luke frowns at him. “I know, it’s awful. But if you become my apprentice, if you let me train you - then I’ll let you two be together, most of the time.” He feels his own expression grow somber and steely. “And I’ll do what I can to keep your father safe.”

Small ears droop as the child ruminates, a long ponderous period of childlike thought.

Yes, Grogu thinks at him, then raises up his tiny cuff-bound hands. 

Luke unlatches them one after the other.

“There,” Luke coos as he puts the second cuff aside. And –

And the warm bright light of Grogu’s Force presence has already re-ignited in front of his eyes, back to that warm lantern light in the darkness that Luke glimpsed too briefly. “Isn’t that better.”

Grogu raises his little hands, a sign to be lifted, and Luke is reaching to take him in his hands before it’s even occurred to him to wonder if he should.

"We'll arrive at the flagship soon enough," Luke hums to him, already becoming accustomed to the particular weight and heft of Grogu, held in both hands. Confidently, Luke pushes a sense of support-and-love-and-calm towards this small, strange treasure. Assured in this moment that he made the right choice; spared the right man, no matter what he may have to suffer later to prove so in the eyes of others. Luke gives him a sideways eye. “And if your father behaves, it won’t be long until you see him again.

With a low noise, Grogu sends his dubiousness through the Force – Luke gets the distinct impression the child isn’t accustomed to his father behaving for almost anyone.  

“Well,” Luke says, with a huffed breath and a sly eye. “He’s never met me before, has he?”

-

They exit hyperspace in view of Father’s flagship. 

Its gargantuan scale is, as ever, awe-inspiring. Easily one hundred times again the size of a standard Star Destroyer, the Sith-class Executor dwarfs the scattered surrounding crafts like planets their moons. Ninety thousand meters long and equipped with over five thousand turboblasters and ion cannons apiece, the immense flagship’s existence is threat incarnate. A sleek arrowhead against star-studded space, azure lights in innumerable multitudes line its vast flanks. The center of its great hull gleams, topped with a city-like superstructure. 

It was here where Luke and his sister spent jags of time during the years following Vader’s success in his world-sundering effort to reclaim his own; he traces a finger idly against the viewport as the spacedock swims into view, a great circular ring holding two dozen ships identical to the Korriban. The steady back and forth flow of servicecrafts and droids between the dock and the flagship’s primary hangars evokes thoughts of blood cells traveling along arteries.

Chandrila in the distance completes the picture, the swirl of land, sea and clouds a visual punctuation mark at the end of the Executor ’s looming presence. In the background, subservient, as it should be.

All around him on the Korriban ’s bridge, the command crew shares non-verbal echoes of his own pride and awe. 

The fundamental truth of Leia’s presence in the vicinity – the sheer energy of her coming from the direction of the flagship – looms as large in his awareness of the Executor before him. 

As though summoned, the unmistakable weight and shape of his sister’s presence in the Force reaches out to him in greeting. 

Welcome back, she sends, as though the remaining distance between them is of utterly no consequence. She pauses, considering, then says, no question in her tone: You have something to show to me. 

“All clear for our arrival, Fleet Admiral,” says the Sullustan in the nav seat, their large jowls set and black eyes gleaming. “Should I take her in to spacedock?”

“Proceed,” Luke commands, and seconds later they’re moving in towards the main entry hangar.

As they complete the docking sequence, Luke verbally relinquishes control of the craft to his Admiral and exits the bridge, prickles of anticipation running up his spine. He’s changed clothes since last he saw his new Mandalorian, and he he’s donned a high-collared black over-tunic and trousers tucked into black boots, carefully paired with a thick gray cloak featuring an offset clasp. Clothes armor him like so much plastisteel does those around him  – clothes that say Imperial High Prince more than any verbal claim could.

He has time to brush mental fingers over Din’s null Force signature several times over before he turns a corner and sees the Mandalorian, the matte sheen of his imitable beskar surrounded on all sides by Stormtroopers. Despite his captivity, he stands tall, armor and attitude alike a gemstone among cheap glass knock-offs. He has an Amban rifle strapped to his back and a blaster pistol at his hip, though Luke knows for a fact they are far from his only weapons. 

Luke’s heart rate, treacherous, quickens. 

He claws himself back from the edge of that strange and unknown precipice, gifting Din with a magnanimous smile as he approaches. 

The Mandalorian’s visor is fixed on Luke, helmet tipped ever-so-slightly to one side as though in one subtle, wordless question.

“My thanks for bringing him,” Luke says to the TKs, lips curving further. A handful of white helmets nod with delight, dehumanized, always so desperate for praise. 

Din Djarin stands solid and untouchable, a living weapon given armored human form. Inscrutable behind the sharp cut of his visor, Din’s armor only accentuates the man’s innate mystery and danger. The sight and shape and presence of him makes Luke’s pulse quicken, mouth all but watering with desperate intrigue. 

Sharp-edged worry for the child’s wellbeing dominates the man, unseen to all others. 

Impulsively, recklessly, Luke reaches out and uses the Force to touch Din’s cheek.

He feels Din’s shock, his confused bewilderment. Physically, the man reacts with only the smallest jolt, hardly perceptible to others beneath the impassive, solid beskar. 

Being able to feel the trepidation beneath his disciplined exterior is beyond intimate. 

“I’ll take him from here,” Luke smirks. His white-armored shadows make their exit, leaving the two of them once again on their lonesome. 

Din’s shock at the phantom touch has already receded back into the animal imperative of surviving right now; intent on what comes next, second after second. 

“With me,” Luke smirks at him, tilting his head towards the hangar – and to Leia. “Three paces should do.”

Luke begins to move, and the Mandalorian steps to make way for him without being told. When Din begins to follow him, it’s at three paces back, just as directed. 

Low pleasure curls in Luke’s abdomen at the obedience. 

“You’re to attend me in any way I see fit to ask of you,” Luke informs him as he leads them through long hallways in military gray. “Private meetings, public functions, whether they’re on the flagship, in transit, or on any planetside deemed necessary. Bodyguarding is a reactive exercise, of course, so in practice I expect you to spend much of your time standing and observing. And, of course, being observed.” Luke looks over his shoulder, giving his Mandalorian a devilish smile. “I do hope for your sake you don’t bore easily.”

Din says nothing, but his mind is running hot, the buzzing of his thoughts growing so loud that Luke can’t help but overhear him. Where’s the kid? Din thinks, anxious and urgent beneath his silence. What game is this guy playing here? Why does he seem so certain I won’t try to pull anything?

Luke quirks a brow, turning abruptly on his heel.

“Yes?” Luke prompts, giving no other indication he can hear anything other than his words spoken out loud. He halts abruptly, looking right at where he knows Din’s eyes to be. The Mandalorian catches himself at the three-step threshold, startling internally, not sure what’s being asked of him.

Around them, the hall remains blessedly empty. 

“As long as we’re in private,” Luke enunciates, leaning forward, “you can ask me what you like.” His mouth curves upward. “Ignorance is no crime, Mandalorian. It’s not my intention to punish you for it.”

Long moments pass.

“... the kid,” the Mandalorian says at last, each word vocoded and synthesized through his helmet. Staunch and unwavering compared to the broken rasp of his exposed, unvarnished voice when they’d spoken in the holding cell not so long ago. “Is he getting off here with us, or are you sending him somewhere – else?”

A chink of emergent empathy makes subtle cracks appear in Luke’s pretence of dry amusement. He reaches his awareness outside of himself, briefly searching. 

“They’re preparing to unload him as we speak,” says Luke, answering lightly. He cocks his head to one side. “He won’t be far, Din Djarin. Of that, I can promise you.”

A fraction of the wordless tension drains from the Mandalorian’s shoulders even as a separate response – sickened and gut-deep– takes briefly hold of him. Luke frowns, but Din asks no more questions; that, it would seem, is enough for him. 

Luke turns on his heel; the Mandalorian follows. 

The light expression slides off his face as they near the shuttle bay, displaced by the mask of inscrutability he’s accustomed to wearing whenever Imperial High Prince Skywalker is out for public consumption. A humanoid Lieutenant, surrounded on all sides by rank and file in whites and grays, is there to receive him, as is appropriate.

“Sir,” says the Lieutenant. “We’ve prepared a private ship for your disembarkation.” 

“Good,” Luke declares, and lets himself be led there. 

It’s one of the old Lambda-class shuttles; underwhelming, but at a short enough distance, Luke doesn’t make a fuss about it. The shuttle idles, its boarding ramp down, wings raised like some bird of prey. 

He’s just about fully inside before he realizes that Din has fallen back behind him. 

The Mandalorian stands, stock-still as a statue, at the base of the shuttle’s boarding ramp. Back turned to Luke, staring back out into the depths of the Korriban’s hangar; searching for something, seeking.

“Din,” Luke calls out, bewildered when the man’s only response is a rush of contained shame and revulsion. He frowns, voice growing cooler. “Din, with me.” Luke’s lips grow tight. “Your child is safe. I promise you.”

No response. He just keeps staring, dial turned upward on the static in his brain.

Din’s care for his son is sweet, but this is becoming tiresome. Luke huffs out a sigh, holding up his hand and twirling a raised index finger. 

As though his armored shoulders have been taken hold of by uncompromising hands, the Mandalorian is yanked off his feet into the air, whole body turned until his beskar helm is facing Luke again. The shock of being hauled up like an unruly child jolts him out of the thoughts that had been holding him prisoner. A few technicians startle at the show of raw, eldritch power, but quickly return their gaze to their own tasks, a faint current of at least it isn’t me pulsing and eddying through the hangar. 

“I said,” Luke emphasizes, soft but deeply dangerous, “with me. Now.”

At his halting nod, Luke releases his hold. Din braces himself, and admirably, does not flinch as the flat of his boots hit durasteel.

This time, he follows Luke onboard.

Less than a minute later, the Lieutenant cycles through takeoff procedures with practiced ease, wings descending to delta-flight position as the shuttle passes smoothly through the magnetic shield and into the vacuum of space. In the passenger bay, Luke watches the Executor grow large out of the corner of his eye. Din’s mind turns, inert and instinctive, to escape strategies, and Luke suppresses a faint flare of irritation. 

The Mandalorian doesn’t actually try anything, but he does make a small noise of reluctant awe, audible through the vocoder, as their shuttle passes into the Executor’s primary hangar bay. 

It is as though someone taken the expanse of the Korriban’s hangar and multiplied it by a factor of five in all directions. The sleek black tile and painted gray lines of the floors give way to large gray geometric dividers, durasteel and plasboard alternating and magnifying in strength, that extend up, up, up to the brightly-lit ceiling panels. Cycled-out TIE-fighters line the ceiling, accessible only by way of massive drop-down mechano-arms. Several starships – massive in their own right – are undergoing repairs or upgrades, and sentients and storage containers are ubiquitous in their presence. Stormtroopers, technicians, rank and file, ebb and flow around the incoming vessel, a vast sea of imperial might. 

It’s not coming home, not quite. But it’s the closest place Luke still has left to return to. 

The Mandalorian shifts in his seat, and Luke has to stifle a laugh at the stark contrast between his own fond nostalgia and Din’s dispirited derision. 

The shuttle touches down next to a row of empty drop ships, intended to transport walkers to ground battles as needed. Luke disembarks; his Mandalorian follows.

A familiar tattooed face and burbling psyche awaits him at the bottom of the rampway. Xeck Ran Texes, a long-time adjutant, assigned to Executor-specific duties and wearing a neat black uniform, is flanked by a cluster of Stormtroopers in shining white. He taps rapidly on one screen, then another, before his eyes meet Luke’s and his expression clears. 

“Imperial High Prince Skywalker,” Xeck greets him pleasantly if professionally, and Luke feels the spike of disbelief that pulsates out from the pit of Din’s chest exactly three feet behind him when he hears his title for the first time. Luke leans into his best impassive expression to keep from smirking. “Welcome back, sir.”

Luke nods in response, but Xeck’s eyes are already sliding from Luke to the Mandalorian standing behind him. His inked brow wrinkles in subtle surprise. 

“You picked yourself up a Mando,” Xeck states slowly, as though speaking the words out loud will make them more comprehensible. His eyes scan over the beskar armor from boots to helm and back again, and he makes a small, impressed sound in the back of his throat. 

In the privacy of his own mind, Luke experiences a rush of deep pleasure and smugness, as much at the tacit approval of his choice as the implication of ownership.

“New bodyguard,” Luke says, externally impassive. He offers no further explanation.

Xeck nods, polite. In the privacy of his head, he immediately starts grousing. 

Never told me he wanted his defenses upgraded, Xeck thinks huffily. “Very good, sir.” Not even a mention! “I’ll have these troopers reassigned, sir.” Maybe a head’s up next time, Highness? So I don’t end up looking an idiot in front of the bucketheads? “There’s a transport waiting for you just this way, sir.” Not like it’s my karking job to get things to your liking around here.

As if that weren’t enough, as they walk past the Stormtroopers, another set of increasingly snarky inner commentary bubbles to the surface. 

Sorry excuse for armor, Din thinks, derisive as he follows. Construction’s atrocious, can’t take a direct blast from anything stronger than an A-180. Helmets designed like they want their troops blind in battle. 

Luke makes a mental note to follow up with the Imperial Department of Military Research later, then wonders with some bemusement whether surrounding himself with sentients with such… rich inner lives was a subconscious choice, or purely happenstance. 

A rolling transport awaits them, helmed by a near-human. Xeck swiftly and automatically takes the passenger side seat, and Luke slides into the backseat with unhurried ease. After a moment’s awkward hesitation the Mandalorian squeezes into the backseat next to him, his armored bulk hunched inward within the confined space. Luke finds himself extremely aware of places where cold, hard press of beskar brushes up against him; Din’s pauldron, his vambrace, the edge of his thigh guard. 

As soon as they’re in motion, Xeck is railing off the contents of the first datapad in his hands.

“Right,” he starts, businesslike, “you’re just back in time to catch the meeting of the Joint Chiefs – they’re working through the Emperor’s latest update from the frontlines in Bothan Space.”

Luke shifts experimentally; adjusting his spine, moving deliberately closer. Notices, with a faint, internal growl of satisfaction, the way Din's physical awareness of him blooms outward from the point of contact until every part of him is aware of Luke's presence next to him.

“-- an extractive resource delegation here from the Imperial Senate. Also, the Sith Knights of Malachor have been trying to reach you, did you know that? They’re looking for an update on the Force-sensitive you were tracking.” Xeck huffs, tucking the top datapad back behind the next in line, flicking it on with a practiced gesture. "After that --"

“No,” Luke declares, stopping him flat with a single word. “Take me to my sister.”

His wrangler’s heartfelt sigh in the front seat is, thankfully, internal. 

“... yes, sir,” he says. 

Wordlessly, their driver adjusts their direction. 

When the transport slows at a very large and familiar set of blast doors, Luke is hardly surprised – this is Leia’s sanctum, after all. He steps down, Din a half-beat behind him, and they approach the massive structure.

“Father had it made for us,” Luke explains, tapping the most recent passcode into the terminal. “After he got us back.” A flutter of a private smile nudges at one corner of his mouth. “Most people call it the garden wing.”

The doors slide open. 

Behind him, Luke hears the modulated sound of Din’s gasp. 

Their mother’s garden is as lush and overgrown with Nabooian plant life as it always is, verdant greenery and vibrant blooms seeming to spill from every surface. Temperature and humidity-controlled air hits Luke’s nostrils and he inhales deep, reveling in the smell, the caress against his skin. Enormous gray grow-pods house trees that tower high overhead to create an interior canopy, interspersed with hanging vines and planters. The rhythm of gently-cycling air and intermittent hiss of the humidifiers give the sense of the whole vast room breathing. Small insects flit lazily, some flower-faithful, others indiscriminate in their pollination; a faint inhuman murmur of water undulates from somewhere nearer to the center of the space, a yet-unseen stonecrafted fountain that serves flora and fauna alike. 

Each species and feature were acquired on Father’s orders in the first months after he tracked down and reclaimed his children.

Luke knows precious little about his mother aside from what’s available by way of public record. Padmé Naberrie, regnal name Amidala. Once elected child Queen, later Galactic Senator of her homeworld. The histories about her had to be amended once news of Luke and Leia’s existence hit the galactic airwaves, but even fresh revelations of her secret marriage to Anakin Skywalker had never made his mother any less an enigma to him. Luke struggles to wrap his head around her even when he’s looking at old holos of her face; has grown up without the Force-imprint of her memory that Leia’s always been blessed with. 

Standing here, breathing in the sweet-smelling queen’s hearts, is always when Luke feels personally closest to her.

Murmured conversation drifts from one particular direction.

Luke leads the way, through a grove of potted tassler trees, reeds, and water features intended to mimic Nabooian marshlands.

From his stunned surface thoughts, Luke can tell that Din has never encountered anything remotely like this before, despite having lived what Luke suspects has been an intense and storied existence. 

Leia rests, or appears to rest, spine straight and head held high, on one of the duracrete benches near the garden’s center, in mild discussion with what Luke recognizes as several key members of the Imperial Senate. Her floor-length crimson dress is perfectly tailored to expose delicate-looking golden sandals, and while there are glints of body armor at her waist and shoulders -- always planning for surprise attacks, even in the heart of Imperial military power and authority – her posture is one of complete assurance and poise. She turns to face Luke as he enters, holding up her hand to dismiss the gathered diplomats unilaterally.

The full weight of her attention and conviction lands on him.

Connecting with Leia’s Force signature again after being separated, even for a short while, feels like they are two parts of the same whole reunited. A magnet cut in half, forever attempting to draw itself back together from across the vastness of the galaxy. 

She stands and strides towards him, her speed unimpeded by her long skirts.  The Imperial Senators, accustomed to their meetings with Leia being dissolved in this manner, accept the dismissal with obedience verging on toadyism, quite literally gathering up their things and retreating deeper into the gardens until Darth Amidala deigns to re-engage. 

“Luke,” greets Leia, a hint of a smile at the corner of her deep red lips as she approaches. Her hair, always braided and pinned carefully, is wound today into an elegant crown around the back of her skull, accented by the thin silver string of milk-white quartz woven through the braid. A few strands of dark hair hang loose to frame her face. 

The style accentuates her eyes -- golden yellow, now, the colour still unexpected to him even seven months after her ascension to formally become Vader’s apprentice. 

She clasps Luke’s hand, her grip brief but tight. 

“It’s good you’ve returned,” Leia tells him, emphatic, unspoken meaning in every word.

“Hi Leia,” Luke says, grinning at her. It’s been almost a decade since he learned his twin existed, and yet still he finds himself constantly surprised by the fact of her existence. Of the depths of her power, surging beneath the surface of her skin. 

Almost immediately, Leia’s golden gaze shifts to the Mandalorian behind him. 

She arches an eyebrow. Golden eyes drag from beskar helm to boots and back again.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” Leia asks, and Luke is aware of the brush of her Force signature against his own, intent but not accusatory. 

“In part,” Luke answers, deliberately vague. Better to lead with the introduction that will make her want to tease him as a twin than the one that will make her want to throttle him for treading into some public relations nightmare. 

Leia approaches the Mandalorian, then circles him once, a predator to their prey. When she reaches out to him with the Force, it feels so tangible -- like holding a live wire, starkly powerful and electric -- her Force signature roaring to life like an incinerator. She reaches out to him, rifling nimble fingers through his consciousness. 

Luke senses Din’s shudder beneath his armor. 

Dangerous, Din thinks, though by rights he shouldn’t be able to sense anything she’s doing. 

Leia doesn’t hide her smirk. 

“Tell me, brother,” Leia says, and when she turns back to Luke there’s a teasing note to her voice. “Was your security detail truly so inadequate you had to take matters into your own hands?”

Luke sniffs, definitely not preening. “I thought you said there was nothing sufficient that couldn’t be improved upon.”

Leia gives him a razored look that’s blunted only by her amusement. 

“This is Din Djarin,” Luke begins – then pauses at the sudden and unmissable spike in the man's emotions – discomfort, shame, panic.  Outwardly he shows no sign of outward distress, a wall of implacable beskar. To be handled later. Pushing forward, Luke continues, “a Mandalorian I picked up on the Outer Rim.” Now for the kicker. “He was protecting the Force user Father sent me to intercept.” 

The Mandalorian shifts his weight, subtle, and if Luke and Leia were ordinary people, it may have gone unnoticed. They are not, and see the action for what it is: a grounding technique that palpably shifts his energy downward and outward where the soles of his mag-boots meet the ground.

Luke licks his lips without thinking, diverted enough that he almost misses another brief flare of Leia’s amusement in the Force.

Leia raises dark eyebrows. “And yet here he is standing guard for you.”

“What can I say,” Luke remarks, not bothering to hide his smile. “I have a way about me.” 

Leia turns to the Mandalorian once again, fixed and intent.

“Tell me who you are,” Leia demands, voice hard but honeyed with persuasion. Her golden gaze is fixed on Din, unrelenting.

Luke watches, waiting to see how this plays out. 

His sister’s skills in Force manipulation and compulsion are prodigious, unparalleled – as is her absolute ability to uncover the truth beneath any amount of performativity or politicking. Still, the Mandalorian is no weak-minded sycophant; unlikely to bend without considerable application of pressure. For long moments the Mandalorian stands there, uncertain and unspeaking. 

Then his visor turns to Luke in search of his permission. 

The display of deference makes a hot satisfaction drip down Luke’s spine.

“You may answer her questions,” Luke hums, giving Din a low look through the edge of his lashes, “as if they were my own.”

It’s with a mix of wariness and reluctant submission that Din turns back to her. “I’m a bounty hunter,” he answers, even-toned and modulated. He offers no additional detail. 

Leia’s eyes narrow. “You hail from the Mandalore system?”

“No.” 

Leia’s eyebrows raise higher. I see you prepared him thoroughly for our introduction.

Belatedly, Luke realizes that Din did not reply with the customary my lady to which Leia has become accustomed. 

Sorry, Luke sends to her, accompanied by an impression of vague sheepishness. His sister doesn’t draw attention to the omission, but Luke makes a mental note to spend some time giving his new acquisition a crash course in Imperial etiquette to avoid future blunders.

She pins the Mandalorian with her gaze, an enemy ship in sights of a targeting system. 

“Do you know who I am?” Leia asks, tilting her head. 

“You’re Luke’s sister.” Din’s words are serious. Leia sends her swell of cutting mirth to her brother through their shared bond. 

Not wrong, of course, but painfully simplified.

“Earlier,” Din continues, “someone called him a prince. Guessing that makes you a princess.” His helmet tips upward, and Luke can tell he’s looking her in the eyes from both the angle and tenor of the man’s specific disquiet. “Your Highness,” Din finishes, awkward and unpracticed on his tongue.

“My Lady will suffice,” Leia replies, light and easy as though it isn’t a veiled correction. “Now tell me what it is you want from my brother.” 

Her words hang between them. For a long moment, the Mandalorian is silent. 

“... safety,” Din admits, his visor turning towards Luke. “For the kid.” It’s a blunt admission, vocoder not enough to hide the note of sorrow. “... my Lady.”

That’s my cue. 

“Leia,” Luke interjects before the questioning can continue. Their heads both swivel towards him; Luke takes hold of his sister’s gaze. He inhales, then rips off the bacta patch. “I’ve taken on his child as my apprentice.”

There’s a beat of stunned silence. Luke braces.

“You what?!” She reels on him, mouth open in impassioned disbelief, golden eyes flashing. Her shields slip, just for a second, and it’s a glimpse into a reactor core, an immense and scorching sun that is her true connection in the Force.

For a moment, just a moment, he falters in the face of her. 

“Leia,” he manages, but she holds up one polished finger. The barest hint of pressure tightens at his throat – a clear but unseen warning not to speak. His eyes widen.

I am not doing this with an audience, Luke Skywalker, Leia sends to him, vicious and sharp-edged. Murderous, but unwilling to lay into him in the presence of this stranger. 

“You? Stay,” Leia snaps at the Mandalorian, then turns to her brother. Golden eyes narrow. “You? With me.” She tucks her arm under his, movements small but commanding, and all but hauls along behind her, not giving him a choice as they move into a deeper copse of deciduous trees. 

Luke makes no attempt to resist as he’s frogmarched along, crimson nails digging dangerously into the arm of his soft knit overtunic.

They reach the base of one of the great grow-pots that holds one of the larger cambylictus trees, gnarled and twisted roots spilling over the edge. 

She releases her hold on him. 

“What in blazes do you think you’re doing?!” Leia whisper-snarls.

He raises both hands palm outward. “I can explain.”

“Oh, you’d better explain,” she snaps, eyes flashing. “You’d better explain yourself to me, Luke. Taking on an apprentice? Without any discussion with me or Father?” She scoffs, furious. “Without even thinking of the optics of it, I’m sure–”

“He’s a baby,” Luke cuts in, and that throws her for long enough for him to launch into his account of the story. 

It’s – well. It’s not an entirely fulsome account, but he hits the main points well enough. Intercepting the ST-70, the ship’s Force-null occupant putting up enough of a fight to warrant Luke’s direct involvement. Just barely catching the Mandalorian before he blew out the docking tube. Choosing not to slaughter him on the spot. The revelation that this faceless warrior had been fighting in defense of his Force-sensitive son.  

As he speaks, he remains mindful of the inner wiring and sensor systems within the Mandalorian’s helmet; wonders whether one of the features is a volume amplifier for eavesdropping. 

“Leia, the signature was a child,” Luke tells her. “An infant. His infant. But not – biologically his. Another species, long-lived, physically tiny. Possessing some of the most vast, inherent Force potential I’ve ever seen. He’s fifty years old, and still a baby, but one who was able to enter my meditative state with dampeners on.” His sister raises dark eyebrows, reluctantly impressed. Her arms are still crossed, but her body language has receded from livid to listening. “As soon as I saw Grogu – held him in my hands – I knew I couldn’t let him go. He received some training years ago, but he is still malleable. Impressionable.”  He looks her in the eye, voice low. “There is much potential in him.”

His sister looks at him evenly. “Who taught him before?” 

Internally, Luke winces. Of course she’d pick up on that. “He’s had many Masters,” Luke says, stalling. “... perhaps some Sith. Most of them Jedi, before the Purge.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Leia snaps, and rolling her eyes is such a human gesture for eyes that are now so inhuman. “As if it’s not bad enough, he’s Jedi-trained? Father will just love to hear that.”

“I know. I know! But Leia –” Luke reaches up and lays his hands on her shoulders, openly entreating. “The Jedi were monsters; we both know that. But one of the things that made them so monstrous was the way they treated children. Stealing them from their families, destroying their attachments. Denying them a connection with the true side of the Force for the sake of some twisted morality.”

Leia’s expression, barely, softens. Neither of them say like Father, but it hangs there between them, heavily implied. 

“I want to do things differently,” Luke tells her, speech growing faster along with his conviction. “Just like we said we would! No more limiting Force-sensitives to merely adepts or inquisitors, there to carry out our bidding. True recreation of a Sith society, like the great empires used to be. You and Father to embody power, all others to aspire to it.” He gives her a smile that burns with his own earnesty. 

Leia looks at him for a long moment. Her silence speaks volumes. 

"Luke,” she starts, speaking slowly, as if to someone dim. “We have publicly informed the galaxy of our intent to rebuild the Sith Order, yes.” Her eyes harden. “But that is not the same as Emperor Vader's other child taking on a new apprentice just months after his sister completed her ascension.” She reaches up a small hand to rub at her temple. “This is going to take a lot of careful maneuvering to convince people this isn’t you going for a power grab, looking to unseat me, or even Father.”

And… oh. 

“...oh,” says Luke. 

It’s possible he hadn’t thought that part through, completely. 

“Yes, oh,” Leia says, her sigh longsuffering.  “With that in mind…” She turns her gaze his way, solemn and gold. “Is he worth it?”

Luke considers the question.

“Yes,” Luke admits, tone apologetic as much as determined. “I believe he is. I know it won’t be simple. But I do want to teach him.” He needs her to understand that; to understand both person and potential. “If you want, you can meet him before you agree to anything.”

She nods to him. “And his father?” Leia asks, as though dreading the answer. To that, Luke says nothing, but something in his microexpressions are enough that his sister’s expression dissolves into exasperation. “Oh, Luke. Don’t tell me you’ve --”

“No,” Luke interjects on the edge of too quickly, sensing the shape of what she’d been about to say and unwilling to let words hit air. There’s no guarantee Din can’t hear every word they’re saying, and Luke doesn’t want his sister’s posh Core World accent saying don’t tell me you’ve already slept with him transmitted directly into the man’s ears. “No, of course not. He’s an asset, a formidable warrior. I want him to be my asset.” 

“Besides,” he continues. “Even if I’m… interested.” Luke gives her a sardonic look. “Are you really going to judge me?”

Wordlessly, his sister huffs a long sigh. She steps into his space, wraps her arms around his middle. 

Luke hugs her back in earnest, arms curling around her narrow shoulders as their bond hums and sings. The power snapping and stuttering inside of her is palpable this close, just beneath her skin, and he marvels at her boldness, her control at being able to contain all that inside her physical body. 

Luke isn’t sure he could do it, in her place. 

“You know I won’t,” she murmurs where she’s pressed against his shoulder. Both of them thinking of Han; neither of them speaking his name out loud. Holding one another for long seconds beneath the twisted arms of the cambylictus tree. 

When Leia steps back, there’s a new objective in her eyes, a honed edge to her demeanor. 

“Well,” she says, “if you’re set on this, there’s a right way and a wrong way to break that message.” Luke can tell she’s moved on to solutions now -- how, what, when, why, where. “What we don't do is make the decision rashly, behind closed doors, and wait for rumors of a potential royal coup to run rampant. And we don’t make it look like there’s some family schism that others could use for their own advantage.”

“Right,” Luke agrees. “So…”

”So we provide the Imperial Senate with early notice,” she declares. “Give them a few weeks to feel in-the-loop and forewarned that Imperial High Prince Skywalker intends to take on an apprentice. Say it’s a show of solidarity to guiding the next generation of Force-users into a new and brighter future, perhaps even at Father’s instruction. After that, we give an announcement to the Chief Information Officer for galactic broadcast.” Leia lets out a long-suffering sigh, then glances up to hold her brother’s gaze. “Let me meet him today. To properly sense him, to speak with him. And if he’s worth it, well.” She shrugs. “Give me two weeks to lay the groundwork before you leave the flagship with him in tow. Got it?”

“Got it.” Luke beams at her, grateful and appreciative all over again. “You’re amazing. Thank you, Leia. Truly.” He gives her a cheeky grin.  ”This is why I come to you about things first, you know.”

“I know.” Leia holds his gaze, her perfectly-manicured brows pinched in a stern but loving warning. She hefts a sigh. “And I suppose I should thank you,  for telling me before you let slip to the entire galaxy.” It’s a joke, but only partly. Then she snorts, the poised image broken. “And you’d better have an explanation well-practiced by the time Father returns again.” 

“I know,” Luke replies, genuine and assuring. He leans in to give her a peck on the cheek.

Leia turns to lead them back, but one more question occurs to him. 

“And the Mandalorian?” Luke asks, and his sister turns, arching an eyebrow. Luke mirrors her expression. “Any reason to keep him hidden until an announcement is made?”

“I don’t see why you should,” Leia answers with a shrug. “The Emperor’s son acquiring a new bodyguard is hardly inflammatory, or unexpected. Do with him and take him where you please.”

Leia presses her painted lips together, but it’s not displeasure that Luke feels through their bond. It’s something more tactical, more controlled. Interweaving threads of focus, determination, and steel. 

Not for the first time, he finds himself outrageously, stupidly grateful that he and his sister landed on the same side of this intergalactic power struggle.

“We’ll talk more on this soon,” Leia decides, the yellow of her eyes reflecting outward every strong emotion she’s worked so hard to harness and bend to her will.

Luke nods, eager and stupidly grateful. “The child's being held in one of the guest suites – personnel can show you which.” Luke cocks an eyebrow. “Assuming you can’t find him on your own.”

Smoothing her crimson skirts, Leia huffs an exhale of a laugh. “I’ve felt him in proximity ever since your ship changed hyperlanes at Brentaal IV,” she says, words accompanied by a memory from her perspective: the moment she first felt the child’s presence, whole and bright and shining even from a distance. “I think I’ll manage.” 

With that, Leia carefully smooths crimson skirts and turns on her heel. “Come on, let’s head back. Your new dog must be chafing at his leash.”

Luke barely bothers to hide his smile. 

“He isn’t,” Luke tells her, stepping in to take her arm. Of that, he’s certain. “He’s waiting right there for me.”

When they arrive back, he is. 

-

He attends to only the most integral matters before escorting the Mandalorian to his new accommodations. 

The Joint Chiefs meeting is a wash by this point, but Luke manages to catch the Chief of the Imperial Army and a Vice Admiral of Naval Intelligence, separately, to get their particular perspectives for a debrief. He almost skips the Imperial Senate Working Group on Extractive Resources, and would have if Imperial naval resources weren’t deployed to secure some of the extractive sites, but the resulting political throwdown and all-but-actual fisticuffs is so entertainingly unexpected that it makes the whole thing worth it. Leia – that is, Darth Amidala – puts paid to that with a slammed hand on the table that resonates outward with inhuman strength – a reminder that their minor scuffles and squabbles are only tolerated at her and the Emperor’s pleasure.

(Luke keeps on dodging the Sith Knights of Malachor. What they don’t know won’t hurt them until everything’s official.)

In the end, there are two distinctive highlights after Luke leaves Mother’s garden. 

The first is the message he receives from his sister after she makes time to meet the child for the first time. Met with Grogu. Get it and also don’t get it. Enjoy your new apprentice. - LA

The second is having the Mandalorian at his back the whole time, a silent shadow in glinting beskar as he accompanies Luke through the Executor. Din’s presence adds fresh intrigue and importance to Luke’s daily work, from the stir he causes among visiting officials to his blatant shock, disgust, and outrage at some of the more objectively outrageous elements to life as the Imperial High Prince that Luke, at this point, has become numb and accustomed to. Luke receives more than a few questions about his new Mandalorian in the liminal spaces before and after various meetings, all of them asked, of course, as though Din himself isn’t in the room with them. As though he can’t hear every syllable spoken. 

The Mandalorian remains stoic and disciplined throughout, though perhaps with some purposeful exaggerations of his stance and posture.

Luke’s already decided that Din deserves a reward for his obedience by the time they arrive at the guest wing.  

It’s some moments after they’ve stepped away from the latest on-ship transport, Xeck Ran Texes replaced several hours ago, per some master schedule Luke has no knowledge of, by Andolin Krae, a human from deepest Coruscant still wide-eyed at being in space at all. The transport speeds onwards, and Luke walks for a time down the hallway before pausing in place abruptly.  

The Mandalorian has to catch himself to avoid overstepping the customary three paces’ worth of space between them. 

The two of them stand, facing each other, for long moments. The  tilt of Din’s helmet asks a question for all his lips are silent. 

“You did well today,” Luke says. The hallway is empty -- special access only, to enter this section -- but Luke’s voice is low all the same. a marker of intensity. He takes a step closer to his Mandalorian, eyes fixed intently on the place where he knows Din’s eyes to be. “You did. Truly.” He looks up at Din through his eyelashes. “You’ve pleased me.”

The Mandalorian holds his position, uncertain but resolute, waiting – Luke can tell – for whatever the catch is.

He offers, almost casual: "Do you want to see him?"

The gasp Din makes is audible through his helmet, his responding swell of hope suspicion longing fear crashing over him all in an instant. Luke shivers at the intensity of it, tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

“Yes,” Din blurts out, as though the word itself has been ripped from the guts of him. “I -- yes.” There’s the smallest, briefest pause. Then – “Please.” And oh, Din sounds good begging, but right now isn’t the time to indulge that particular line of thinking.

Today, Din has been good.

So tonight he gets rewarded. 

With a gesture towards the blast door, Luke overrides the security protocols and sends them rushing open. The Mandalorian looks to him, and Luke raises an eyebrow, expectant.

Din enters as though in a daze. 

The suite is one of the flagship’s many, many guest quarters, most reserved for high-ranking Imperial officials visiting from various planetsides. It’s the same gray-and-white colour scheme as the rest of the ship’s vast interior.  A moderately sized bed stands against the left wall, the rest of the room featuring a basic storage unit and modest dining set on the right.

Two doors remain: the adjoining refresher on the far left, and the doors that lead to the second room on the far right wall. Din strides inside, a staticky ball of apprehension and reluctant hope. He makes for the righthand doors. They automatically open as he approaches, and then – 

Din’s absolute relief bursts outward from him, shuddering and kinetic. 

Grogu’s delighted squeal is audible from the other room.

The Mandalorian seems frozen with emotion, his gloved hand on the doorframe. Luke knows from status reports received that the adjoining room has been given an improvised child-friendly facelift to the best of the crew’s ability.

Luke comes up behind him. 

“I promised you,” Luke says, and Din jumps, as though startled to be tugged out of the narrowed-down world that exists between himself and his son. “I promised you he’d be safe. That I’d take care of him.” As long as you behaved. He smiles, feeling warm. 

It doesn’t bother him, Luke thinks, to feel Din’s attention shift and slip away from him as long as it’s Grogu who’s on the receiving end.

The man’s single-minded devotion to the child in his care is one of the things Luke found most enticing about him from the very first time they met. 

Luke watches him from the door, feeling warm. 

“Do you wanna hold him?” Luke asks.  His voice is gentle, carefully kind. Each word and intonation chosen with care; a reflection of a time in his life when such an offer would have been an unthinking kindness, not a deliberate liability. 

“... yeah,” Din croaks, and the spill of tears over his unseen cheeks is a stolen intimacy.

The makeshift cradle is made from what appears to be cobbled-together parts from a decommissioned speeder, lined with padding sewn from spare flightsuits. With gloved and reverent hands, the Mandalorian reaches down into the cradle  – and picks up his son the kid the child his Grogu, looking into his small joyous face, then holding the tiny heft of his body against his armored chest.

The child’s joy at being held by his father is so bright it hurts to look at them. 

“Hey,” Din says to the bundle of child held in his arms, cradling him close with such reverent care it makes Luke’s heart feel too big for his chest. “Hey, kid. It’s okay. It’s --” Din cuts himself off, besotted beyond the ability to speak. After a moment he tries again. “It’s okay. It’s okay… Grogu.”

Me? Grogu asks him. 

“Bah?” Grogu says with his mouth, a somewhat-stutter of recognition at hearing his own name. He looks at Din with huge and adoring black eyes, staring up at his father in wonder as though, by speaking his name, the man has produced some kind of miracle. 

Luke feels the precise moment that Din’s heart goes supernova. 

His eyes flutter closed as he just – stands there and basks in it. That frightening, exponential kind of love that feels too big for any one individual to feel or be subjected to. The kind that makes people do unthinkable, insane things for the sake of another. 

With tiny grasping claws, Grogu reaches up towards his father, his vast loving mind pulsing outwards -- daddy love you and back, you came back for me, and scared before but back now, you’re here, you’re here love you daddy, love you love you love you and --

A punched-out sound escapes Luke’s chest. He steadies himself, dogged and determined not to break the moment, but Din and Grogu-in-his-arms have already taken a step towards him. Gloved fingers clasp at his shoulder – to catch him, to hold him, Luke isn’t sure anymore.

Before him, Din’s energy pulses outward in simple, shining gratitude. 

“Thank you.” Even modulated, Din’s voice is threadbare with the heft of his own emotion. He means every word, truth resonating in the Force. He squeezes Luke’s shoulder, and Luke knows from his surface thoughts how much he tries his best – and fails to find – the right words. 

He goes for the truth again, ardently expressed.

“Thank you.” The seconds that hang between his gratitude and what comes after feel like a small eternity. Eventually, he continues.   “...being with him is more important to me than you could ever know.”

“I do,” Luke tells him, sincere and whispered-quiet, but Din has already released his grip on Luke’s shoulder. Returning to the child in his arms,  the two of them once again reveling in each other’s company without speaking. 

I do know, Luke thinks, drinking in the presence of Din's unflinching love – and settles in to watch for as long as Din lets him.

-

Chapter Text

-

CONFIDENTIAL
44:7:31 ISC                                                                                                                                                                                          

INIA INTERNAL MEMORANDUM: CLEARANCE LEVEL S
Core Worlds | Bormea Sector | Chandrila System
Chandrila | L9

Executive Summary: Previously-observed Chandrilan civil unrest continues. Guerilla activity remains concentrated in rural scrubland adjacent to agrarian areas. Ground troops (501st Legion) and 35 MediWing Peacekeepers dispatched at 0030 on 44:7:30. 26 known or suspected sentient insurgents have been apprehended for interrogation, detention, repurposing, and/or release. No significant Imperial casualties reported.

Aggressors: Planet-bound guerillas organized in three known major cells. 30-80 humanoid, 8-10 nonhuman, 12-15 astromechs, 2-5 other droids.

Capabilities: Rank 2/10 - Possession of armaments but negligible training and/or service experience. Strategies have consistently followed Remnant Insurgent (RI) Playbook G. Vehicles are civilian with no known customization. 

Urban Unrest Mitigation: Municipalities Nayli and Emita remain at Level 2 Pacification, preventing potential civil demonstrations. Limited impact on civilian daily life is in accordance with Amidala Directive 61-2K-5. Hanna City and surrounding areas remain at Level 1 Pacification, with a modest scheduled increase of 2 companies of Stormtroopers (501st Legion) anticipated to accommodate upcoming Unity Day celebrations. 

RI Recruitment Mitigation: Reports suggest underground distribution of seditious missives within certain Chandrilan academic institutions. In coordination with the Imperial Governor’s Office, known insurgents in opposition to the New Empire have been taken into preemptive custody. Elevation in interplanetary security measures recommended, including HoloNet monitoring. 

Final Recommendation: Executor should remain on alert. Personnel distribution may be required on short notice. Flight crews are to remain at Alert Five status until an all-clear is issued by Fleet Commander Skywalker, Darth Amidala, or Emperor Vader alone. 

Appendix A: Decision Document - Increase to Interplanetary Recreational Travel Security.
Appendix B: Intercepted self-published RI document with annotations and corrections.

–

Watching over them for as long as Din lets him ends up being about twelve standard minutes, at which point Luke’s comlink goes off. 

Loudly. 

The unexpected blare makes all three of them startle, drawn rudely from the deep-down calm of seconds previous. Swearing internally, Luke forwards the call with nimble fingers, then turns the comlink to silent, intent on avoiding any such future disruptions. 

The Mandalorian, no longer staring at the child like an otherworldly miracle, has instead shifted to face Luke, the babe tucked in the crook of his right arm. Holding his son with the same bone-deep rightness Luke imagines with which he also holds his weapons. The man’s standing posture is deep-set with previously-unseen relaxation, an air of grateful parent that keeps rolling off him in waves.

Luke would like very much for Din to take his helmet off, but he’s fairly certain that’s a two-handed exercise. 

“Apologies,” Luke says, voice light and easy. His eyes drag leisurely over Din’s helmet, suppressing a pang of displeasure at being denied his deserved view of his companion’s handsome face. 

He contemplates the swiftest way to ease father and son into the next stage of their first evening together, anticipation prickling at the hidden caverns that are his insides. 

"Din," Luke says, loving the shape of the man’s name in his mouth as much as Din’s whole-body shudder as it’s spoken. Grogu’s small face scrunches, uncertain what to make of his father’s reaction. “It’s getting late. Do you think he wants something to eat?”

As combinations of words go, this one is fairly magical. Grogu perks up at once in his father’s arms, sending an excited inquiry outward through the Force. Food?

With such an enthusiastic gremlin in his arms, there is no response Din can give that isn’t an affirmative. 

There’s a small but functional dining table in what passes for the main room of this guest suite, and Luke eases all three of them over to it with polite but unyielding insistence. The child fusses briefly, wanting his own seat, and Luke opens his mouth to translate only to realize the Mandalorian is already problem-solving, starting an efficient pass through the room for objects that can be piled to allow him to reach the table. 

Din doesn’t speak as he works, but privately bemoans the absence of… hmm. Of a gently-floating ovoid. The child’s hoverpram, Luke realizes a confused beat later, following Din’s mental threads into impression-memories of the beat-up, faithful carrier. Father and son in some seedy cantina or other, Grogu unfailingly able to tuck in to any table or low-slung booth without need for adjustment or customization.  

A replacement would be appreciated. Luke files that idea away for later, into the realm of if he’s very good – a reward, or incentive for good behavior. He turns and barely suppresses a smile at the unintentional comedy.

In the end, a rolling chair is telescoped to its maximum height and stacked with two standard printed copies of History of the New Empire found in every sanctioned hotel room and boarding house across the Galaxy, then topped with one of the dark gray pillows from the bed, sufficient in both height and in notional comfort. Din places Grogu atop the pillow and the child makes a small burbled noise of satisfaction, a position at table-height clearly meeting with his approval. 

Luke ensures that he and Din are sitting close enough to promise brushed elbows. 

“What are some of his favorites?” Luke asks, immediately initiating conversation. In his experience – in both conversation and interrogation – the fastest way to make a parent start talking is to ask after their child. 

Din snorts under his breath. “Favorites?”

“Ah,” Luke replies, a knowing twist to his lips. “A large and varied appetite then, hm?”

“You could say that.” A measured initial answer, but the blare of Din’s thoughts and feelings betray him. This man, Din thinks, is powerful and unpredictable. Less said, less chance of a mis-step. 

A laudable instinct, but one Luke simply won’t tolerate. He reaches a hand with leisurely movements towards the built-in wall console overlooking the table, detaching the menu-pad with easy movements.

A quick scan of his left thumbprint enables his overrides. The interface appears, promising a near-limitless spectrum of potential delicacies.

Luke cocks his head, expectant and waiting. 

Pushed into a social corner, Din relents and gets to speaking. “He likes frogs,” Din admits, and for all its mundanity it feels like a shared secret. “And bone broth. Soups. Eggs, all kinds. Sweets sometimes too, but not a lot at once.” Makes his tummy unhappy, Din thinks freely, and Luke’s fairly certain he transcends to a higher level of existence right then and there. 

“Mm,” Luke manages at last, pursed lips keeping a smile at bay, tapping through the datapad menu and selecting a handful of things that would seem to fit the bill. Mollusk soup, amphibian skewers, bone broth for sipping. With as many non-humans on board the flagship as there are, there’s no shortage of options. 

The all-but-ban on non-humans from enlisting had been one of the first things on the chopping block, at Leia’s fervent insistence, from the very earliest onset of their New Galactic Empire. Needless discrimination just fosters resistance, she’d insisted at the time. It had taken years of his life before Luke learned enough about the world outside captivity to understand such a statement; more still to understand why it is he agrees with it. 

Luke cheats shamelessly in his acquisition of Din’s latemeal preferences, reasonably convinced that any answer the man will be willing to give will be lacking the nuances and details he’s after. Slipping into the Mandalorian’s psyche, Luke finds his taste in foods to be varied and non-particular.

More distracting is the total absence of any other beings but the child in any of Din’s recent memories of eating. There are shared meals Din himself has been present for, but with helmet firmly in place. All of his own meals taken in private; no one else there to take in the shape of his mouth as he chews, his throat as he swallows.

Order placed, Din regains Luke’s full attention. The man shifts at the sudden focus, busying himself with the child to avoid acknowledgement as long as he dares. Clever.

“Mandalorian,” Luke begins. The helmet turns to him, questioning and impassive as Din’s pulse, hidden, races in his throat. Don’t separate us – he won’t understand –

“I’ve always been taught,” says Luke, to cut off that particular thought as much to start meandering his way to the point, “that latemeal is a time for quiet conversation. The sharing of food, discussion of the day's events… eye contact.” At Din’s lack of comprehension, Luke pushes forward. “Take your helmet off.” An entreating demand, not a question. “I want to look at you.” 

Din stills, going rigid; that wasn’t what he’d expected, and for some reason the order hits harder than Luke would reasonably expect. Echoes of grief shudder through the Force, the loss of a once-precious treasure, irreplaceable, now taken from him. 

Grogu makes a curious noise, perhaps sensing his father’s distress.

But it is with gloved and steady hands that Din reaches up, flicks a hidden latch, pulls his helmet free with an understated hiss. He places it down heavily on the table, then turns to meet Luke’s eyes like a man sentenced to a fate worse than death rather than one who’s been spared and rescued. 

The Mandalorian’s face is solid and angular, dark and messy sweeps of his helmet-freed hair at his brow. The years of his life are etched deep into the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, along his forehead. His brows are expressive and his eyes a darkened brown, a dusting of scruff following the line of his jaw and the perfect line of a mustache that frames his sinful lips. The high line of his flight suit collar makes certain he remains covered everywhere from his jugular downward.  

Luke is aware of Grogu's split emotions from the sidelines, torn between upset at Din’s bewildering sorrow and the child’s own pleasure at seeing his father’s uncovered face. Even when it had just been the two of them, it would seem that going helmetless hadn’t been something that happened very regularly.

Silently, Luke looks his unrushed fill over the planes and edges of Din’s exposed face. 

It’s not yours anymore, Din thinks, vicious, but entirely self-directed. Get used to it.

Luke frowns. “Are you so unaccustomed,” Luke begins, almost rhetorical, “to being seen?” Din’s fundamental assumption of anonymity is in stark opposition to the way Luke’s own life has taken shape. His face, now one of the most recognizable in recorded history. His name, once less than dirt, now eternally precedes him.

The idea of living a life so deliberately unknown to others is foreign to him. 

“Yes,” Din replies tersely, short and to the point but for the corresponding cascade of memory and sense-memory that accompanies it. An armored woman in furs, sparks reflecting off the bronze of her horned helmet. Being one in a line of bare-faced children waiting to finally meet their armor. To become, at long last, grown.

Luke shifts in his seat, moving unsubtly closer. “I see,” Luke hums, deeply intentional as he holds Din’s unsettled gaze. “So. This is unusual, then. Having someone see your face.” Luke leans over the table, reaching one-handed to reverently trace his bare fingers along the edges of Din’s face. “Being touched.”

Din swallows, shivers rising to meet Luke’s fingertips. Dark eyes blink once, twice, but he doesn’t look away.

“Yes,” Din breathes out, confessing on an exhale. 

The possessive splay of Luke’s pale fingers across Din’s chin and cheek makes for a more than pretty picture. Luke glances down, allowing his eyes to linger on Din’s lips, gaze laden with deliberate purpose and intention. He comes in closer slowly; gives him time to pull away.

It isn’t fair, Din thinks instead. The thought that comes next is one Luke knows that he would never, ever say out loud. It’s just not fair that he’s this beautiful. 

It’s with a low hum that Luke closes the last of the space between them, laying gentling claim to his Mandalorian’s soft and waiting mouth. 

It’s a struggle to keep things chaste. Din gasps softly against him but allows himself to be kissed, the man’s mind going into overdrive at the coalescence of sensation and implication and meaning. Luke hints towards something more open-mouthed and salacious, leaning into him with a gratified sigh. Working hard to coax soft, unintentionally sensual sounds and responses from him. The smallest shift in his weight; a flutter of eyelashes. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, and when Luke inhales the up-close smell of him hovers between intimate and overwhelming.

By the time Luke pulls away, he’s radiating self-satisfaction. Din’s face remains cradled by Luke’s hand; flushed, wide-eyed, lips still parted. 

Pure instinct grips him, urgent and overcome. With carefully telegraphed but ruthless-quick movements, Luke snakes his gloved hand around the back of Din’s head, sliding into his hair. Fingers curl and cradle until Luke guides him slowly downward, pulling his Mandalorian close as their foreheads are pressed together with the most deliberate and intimate of intentions. 

As their foreheads meet, and Din’s mind all but short-circuits. Thoughts spark and turn to smoke, the man’s heart pounding wildly in his throat – before all of him just as quickly gives way to shuddering, simplistic peace of a creature craving comfort. His eyes slide shut, lashes resting at his cheeks.

Unspoken intimacy keeps them entangled together for long moments.

“Bahhhh,” Grogu burbles from the sidelines, making them both blink and turn in his direction. There’s a thoroughly unimpressed expression on his little face, and – charmingly – he sends what Luke senses to be a counter-offer by way of vague Force impressions: the Luke-and-Din tableau replaced with Luke-and-Din-and-Grogu. Me, Grogu sends, as though to remind him.

Luke snorts beneath his breath. His gloved hand stays tangled in Din’s hair for long seconds longer than necessary, shooting the child the more parental version of a challenging smile. Best to acclimatize him early so he knows what to expect. 

He’ll get used to it, Luke thinks, wildly pleased with himself.

The chime that signals the arrival of latemeal shatters the stretching silence.

Luke tries to not be bothered at how urgently Din retreats at the sound; how wide-eyed and spooked he seems in his bare-faced state as the blast doors slide open. A stream of service and waiter droids clank and trundle their way into the room. 

A wild series of snap emotions play their course from start to finish in Din’s psyche before Luke has even processed the first of them: a brief but blinding burst of panic, an immediate surge of relief, a crashing wave of all-encompassing contempt directed towards everyone but the child, even the droids. 

Luke blinks. Especially the droids.

Din turns his head as the droids lay out their meal upon the table, as though there is some shred of modesty to be preserved in doing so. Grogu, by contrast, seems unaffected, perhaps accustomed to his father’s current discomfort. Instead, the child is caught up in the excitement of the food’s arrival, observing with great excitement the dizzying array of dishes and sauces being laid out for – as far as the child is concerned – his own sole consumption. A large silver-plated tureen set in pride of place, a soup of unappetizing colour wafting the aroma of well-cooked and seasoned crustacean. A platter of Besnian sausage, rough cut and chargrilled by the marks, accented by a ring of colorful root vegetables of indeterminate origin.

The droids depart the room, blast doors hissing shut behind them.

Din’s face turns back to the table once they’re gone, a nonplussed expression etched into the flat line of his mouth and crumpled brow.

The tableware and food on offer is noticeably more ostentatious than the rest of their surroundings, even for Imperial guest quarters. A selection of serving bowls, platters, jugs, flatware, and utensils all jostle to fit the small and simple dining table.

There was once a time, Luke reflects, when he would have willingly, gratefully, licked up food from all kinds of foul places if it had meant abating the dual excruciations of hunger and thirst that he never seemed able to fully exorcize from his weak and ravaged body.

These days, Luke has an entire Imperial fleet's worth of personnel scurrying and scuttering at every moment of every day, and to do his every bidding. Even here, visiting what amounts to an almost-prisoner in a repurposed guest suite, the kitchen staff will find a way to send him the nice china.

It's funny how things end up.

Luke unfurls his napkin, laying it across his lap. The white pitcher on the table elicits a brief moment of confusion, but is swiftly identified as bone broth as soon as Luke lifts up the lid. 

From his custom-heightened seat, Grogu reaches forward, claws extended and greedy.

“It’s not just for you, little one,” Luke tells him softly, accompanying it with a pulse of no and stay and calm, all reluctantly received. A smile intrudes its way onto his face. “But if you stay right there and be good, I’m sure your father will give you a taste.”

To Luke’s mild surprise, Din complies at once – perhaps aware that any delay is likely to result in the child trying to feed himself, and with messy consequences. For his latemeal, Grogu receives a small cup of broth, a bowl of soup, and a father who doesn’t settle until all his foods are an edible temperature and he’s several tiny mouthfuls into his meal. 

In comparison, Din lags to fill his own plate. By the time Luke’s served himself up a bit of everything and paired it with a tall glass of Corellian red, Din has only just got around to self-consciously adding a conservative portion of meat to his plate and pouring himself up a half-glass of water. 

Luke has to actively resist the urge to fill his plate further. The root vegetables would make his plate look so much fuller, and would add much-needed colour. 

He picks his wine up instead, a prolonged eye lingering on Din over its wide-edged rim. “So,” Luke says, then takes his first long sip. It’s – well, frankly, it’s delectable. Nothing less than he would expect for some of the most well-paid and well-regarded chefs in all the galaxy. His attention re-centers on Din’s uncertain frown, brow furrowed and lips tense. “Mm. Apologies, no one else does lab-grown red quite like the Corellians. What I meant to ask is – does it pain you?” At Din’s unchanged expression, Luke clarifies. “Being seen by others. Being,” helmetless, Luke almost says, then thinks better of it, “without your armor.”

It does, obviously, but Din doesn’t have to know that he knows that. 

The resulting onrush of grief and pain that bleeds from Din’s self outward is so deep and richly-layered it’s difficult for Luke to follow the threads of individual emotion. Luke awaits a response as though he can feel none of it, head cocked to one side and projecting excessive innocence. The Mandalorian picks up his fork, scooping up his first bite of the meal so far. He chews, swallows. 

Luke’s eyes are narrowing, on the edge of an admonishment by the time Din gives voice to an answer.

"I was raised to follow the Way of the Mandalore,” Din begins, the words coming low, slow and simple. “It’s… an ancient creed of my people. We aren’t meant to show our face to other living beings.” His eyes remain fixed on his plate, his meal all but untouched. “It’s part of my religion.”

It takes a drawn-out second for that to sink in, and then –

A clenched fist of intensity grips at Luke’s chest. His mind lurches, then races, working double-time as he casts himself back over every individual one of their reactions since their first intrepid meeting. Meticulously re-examining each memory, thought, and impression through the lens of this new revelation.

“I see,” Luke responds belatedly, pulse fluttering. He looks at Din purposefully, works to catch his gaze – and then holds it taut and reverential. The first eye contact they’ve shared when Luke has truly understood and appreciated its significance. Mind and body alike, his Mandalorian emanates truth, his gaze dark and fathomless with overflown emotion.

Looking at Din’s face is… intimate, then. Deeper and more private than Luke had first assumed. Touch, then, would be even moreso. 

He wonders if their kiss was Din’s first. 

Self-satisfaction is followed by a rush of unlikely kinship.

How strange, Luke thinks, offhand and amused, to be the less devout, of the two of us, to preserving an ancient order.

Each time Luke’s eyes make contact with Din’s bare skin now, it feels like a caress. 

“There’s –” Din starts, then cuts himself off. Avoiding Luke’s gaze, his expression a rictus of discomfort. Luke allows it, eager to hear. He knows the exact moment when the great swell of anxiety and conflict in the Mandalorian’s chest – in his heart – seems to dissipate, giving way to steady resolve. “There’s also my name. Names are... private. The way faces are private, in my religion,” Din finishes, the words carefully stated and separate. “Having other people know them – it’s like they hold a piece of your soul.”

And that –

Oh, Luke thinks, as so much seems to fall into place with such a simple explanation. Oh.

The revelation of it gives so many moments and interactions a new and deeper meaning. Din’s random-seeming bursts of distress. The pulsing waves of shame and self-condemnation, the thrumming, baseline undercurrent to him all day. 

It’s why, Luke understands in a burst of perfect realization, that Din first chose to defy him when they met. Why the man had risked the Empire’s wrath – Luke’s wrath, more immediately – all to keep something so innocuous, so commonplace, to himself. 

At the time, Luke had thought it an act of inane and pointless defiance. A wounded animal lashing out, mindless in its savage desperation.

The knowledge that such a seemingly-reckless decision had in fact been principled is a revelation Luke intends to investigate most thoroughly, in future. 

“Well…” Luke says, too fascinated and giddy to be annoyed at what might be seen as the inconvenience of being unable to call Din by name only when they’re alone. Preening with internalized joy at this treasure that Din has inadvertently given to him; that Luke has unknowingly taken. The raw intimacy wound up in such simply acts: speaking a name, seeing a face. Bright lights like signal flares go off behind his eyes, and Luke feels invincible; feels absolutely high with it. He grins. "...I suppose 'the Mandalorian' works well enough for everyone else.” 

When Din lifts his chin, Luke is ready for him. He catches Din’s gaze, looks his fill; uses a tiny tendril of the Force to take hold of his chin with a barely-there touch, one that’s gentler than the grip of a lover’s fingers. Subtly attempting to dissuade Din from looking away from him; to look only to him.

“I have no interest in making you break your promise any further, Din Djarin.” Luke smiles. 

Just for me, he thinks, that point long since decided. You’ll make an exception for me. 

“Are there exceptions, in your faith?” Luke asks lightly, as though he isn’t wildly invested in Din’s answer. “To letting people see you.”

Din thinks on that for a long moment as he chews, then swallows, his mouthful. When he shrugs, it’s a sharp movement of his armored shoulders.

“Only for clan.” Din says nothing further, but his expressions tell a story.

“Clan,” Luke echoes, lingering meaningfully on the syllable. Something sharp and intense goes ricocheting around his ribcage, both painful and invigorating.

It’s a shock to his system, how deeply appealing he finds the notion of a clan. 

Luke huffs a happy breath, the matter settled. “I’ll reach out and talk to Leia,” Luke assures him at once, meaning every syllable, trying to communicate his own earnestness through the connection of their shared eye contact. “Truly. I’ll let her know that your name’s not something to be spoken, or repeated to any other.” He gives Din a short smile. “Don’t worry; Leia can keep a secret.”

The line’s of Din’s forehead and jaw ease, eventually, into a more gentle, somewhat-pacified expression. He looks away, nodding, and it’s only after he does so that Luke realizes that he must’ve released his force grip on the man’s chin without even realizing. 

Luke’s flesh and blood palm feels sweaty. Din’s throat moves as he swallows.

“Thank you,” Din tells him, quiet but earnest, and Din’s appreciation feels so damn good Luke wonders how hard it would be to track down all the Imperial officers present at Din’s apprehension. To cross their names off a list until there’s no one left living but Luke and the child who’ve laid eyes on Din’s face. 

The moment is interrupted by Grogu, who appears to have finished his soup and initiated a move onto the table without either adult’s notice. 

“Oh no you don’t,” Din says as both hands dart out to nab his son around the middle before he missteps his way into a tumble. 

No! Grogu insists. Fine! he says, pushing the thought toward Din ineffectually – before his tiny feet touch down, and the child realizes he’s been given free run of the table. A moment’s wild excitement gives way to focused contemplation before Grogu toddles towards a heaping pile of amphibian meat, takes a too-big-for-him-haunch in both small hands, and shoves it, whole, into his mouth.

Luke laughs at that, unperformed and unexpected. Din lets out the smallest exhalation of an overtaxed parent, but it’s laced with fondness and the temporary peace that comes with a mild reprieve from whatever’s chasing you.

Eventually, the back-and-forth gives way to thirst and hunger, and all three of them dig into their meal. Between bites, Luke steals glances of Din, committing flashes of his image like individual still frames within his memory. 

The way Din eats is intentional and methodical, one eye seemingly always on the child. More, Luke thinks, to reassure himself of the child’s presence and safety than a pre-emptive effort to keep him from trouble. 

It’s a peaceful bustle. Serene, grounded; almost domestic. 

Luke allows it to linger as long as he can justify. Disruption of such peace should not be taken lightly, even when one has a brand new and uniquely powerful apprentice on one’s hands. 

Eventually, as bowls and plates grow empty and Grogu’s Force-bright spark grows sleepier, Luke knows it’s now or never. 

It isn’t fair to throw the child in at the deep end tomorrow without him or his father’s forewarned knowledge. 

“By the way,” Luke says to the Mandalorian, artificially cool. “Grogu’s Sith training is going to start tomorrow.” Framed as a fact of life rather than grounds for discussion. 

Luke feels the exponential weight and heft of Din’s gaze as it returns to him.

Din’s face is outwardly blank, and if Luke weren’t able to perceive the depth and magnitude of his parental anxiety like a shining fucking starburst erupting forth from every part ofhim, he would have no idea how intensely Din feels about this. 

The Mandalorian’s inner life is rich, relative to most. Luke wonders if it’s a side-effect of all the barriers he’s constructed to keep others out.

Grogu looks back and forth between them, ears flattening, seeming to sense but only somewhat understand the shift in the room. 

“All right,” Din says to Luke in response, as though his approval or permission is any kind of factor in Luke’s decision. “What does that involve?”

There is a suddenly-strategic veer in the way of Din’s thinking. It reminds Luke, somewhat, of some of the military leaders and strategic tacticians he’s worked with over the years. Both circumspect and hell-bent meeting his objective – in this case, leveraging Luke’s willingness to entertain questions to extract every bit of information he can on what this training is meant to entail.

His serious tone, ever-pragmatic, makes Luke smile wide. 

“For now,” Luke answers, “it means meditation sessions a few times a week. Start him off slow, get him grounded and aware of the extent of his own abilities.”

Din nods, silent. Fleeting images appear in Luke's mind's eye – training dummies, and locked weapons cabinets, and an isolation so profound it gave community a new and more base meaning. Din sighs, a sound so small it may not have been picked up on his vocoder, and Luke revels at his accidental expressiveness. 

“Are you going to do it here?” At Luke’s prompting look, Din continues. “In this room. Or – somewhere else on the flagship.” A hung moment passes. The Mandalorian prompts himself to keep going. “Or… planetside.” The last two words smack loudly of a self-conscious reminder; a mention of an option Din knows already won’t be the outcome. 

Luke’s suspicion that the Mandalorian overheard his conversation with Leia earlier crystallizes. 

“Not here, certainly,” Luke answers, placing his utensils down on his empty plate and leaning back in his seat, crossed arms accompanied by a slow-dawning smirk. At his answer, the Mandalorian is relieved – perhaps the man had been envisioning his son’s confinement to this space, a slightly nicer version of that first Imperial holding cell. “Elsewhere on the Executor.”

Luke smiles at the both of them: Grogu wide-eyed on the table as he sips his cup of broth, Din regarding him with sharp-edged focus and a sweetly furrowed brow.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to take Grogu to the training wing.” 

And isn’t that a topic that sends Luke back. Back to the years after Father recovered him; all the hours that he and Leia spent there as no-longer-children. 

More words come tumbling from him, unprompted. “My father had an entire wing overhauled after he got me and my sister back again,” Luke explains for him, a smile tugging at his lips; for all he’d been a grieving, haunted wretch at the time, most of his actual memories of that time in his life are coloured warmly with gratitude and fondness. “It became his sole priority, for a time. All other projects of competing scales halted. They said it would take years to convert all that space into the kinds of training rooms Father imagined for us.” Luke shoots Din a mildly smug look. “It was complete in six months.”

“Hm.” The sound Din makes is non-committal. 

“Mm,” Luke agrees. “Remember the garden wing? Imagine that, but converted to training rooms for Leia and me. To teach us both the Way of the Sith.” Smashing into pieces the traditional Sith Rule of Two in the process, but that seems like a few philosophical and religious discussions away from being within the Mandalorian’s realm of understanding. “Some are for combat training, others for meditation… there’s huge variety.” 

For Luke, the training wing had represented the kind of young adult, adolescent freedom he’d never before been given a chance to experience – then amplified, enormously, by his abrupt ascension to the highest ranks of galactic power. Rooms for overcoming electrification, making things combust, inspiring fear in other sentients, draining creatures’ life energy…

No need to get into those kinds of details. Luke doesn’t want to scare Din unnecessarily.

Din nods, eyes vague and distant. His questions are so large he thinks them unaskable. 

Fair enough, Luke thinks. 

There are some things in life that can only be experienced. 

All right? Grogu asks, not interrupting verbally but still standing, expectant, pushing the thought outward towards both Luke and his father simultaneously. Grogu looks back and forth between them, eyes wide and curious and just a little bit concerned. 

We’re talking about tomorrow. Deftly, Luke reaches into the abstract overflow that is Grogu’s mind and plucks out the memory of their conversation in the Korriban ’s holding cell, raising it to the surface. You and I are going to start training, just like I told you.

“Ahh!” Grogu cries out, an obvious smile stealing over his round face. A wordless exclamation of excitement and eagerness – mostly, Luke thinks, at the idea of connecting with another being in the Force. 

That’s right, Luke sends to him, smiling back fondly.

From his seat, the Mandalorian looks back and forth between them, as though aware a conversation is occurring on some wavelength he can’t access. Din’s expression crumples, a slanting set to his mouth.

“Can,” Din asks, tentative and guarded, but entreating. “Can you two… talk to one another?” There's a wistful lilt in the way he says it, as though his Mandalorian isn’t used to having his voice in check, so accustomed to having it flattened and filtered.

This, Luke thinks, is a topic of great importance.

“We can,” Luke answers, measured. “In a way.” He ponders for a response, attempting to find words to describe the indescribable… without inadvertently revealing too much about just how much of Din’s private thoughts and feelings are Luke’s, entirely, for the taking. “Grogu and I can connect through the Force.” At Din’s questioning look, Luke continues. “That’s… that’s the power that exists, between and within all living beings. The… ‘magic’, you might say, that both he and I can tap into.”

Din listens, silent but intent. 

“And it’s not words,” Luke clarifies. “Grogu’s lived many years, but for his kind he’s still young. So… words are good, but they can only go so far.”

Luke’s already had to adjust his usual ways of communicating to the Force in order to meet the child’s comprehension levels. Words and ideas past a certain level of complexity, Luke’s discovered, are lost to him. 

“But yes – we can talk by sharing feelings or impressions back and forth. Images, thoughts, memories.” Luke tilts his golden head to one side. “Your son has missed connecting with other beings in the Force, Din Djarin. For a time that was all his life amounted to; then all of it was gone, taken without mercy. He’s missed the Force, and those in it, like arid lands miss rain.”

Din nods, deep in solemn thought, then looks at his son with mingled love and melancholy.

“Is there something that you want me to ask him?” Luke asks, aiming for something soft, encouraging. Gentle. Mindful of the fact that Luke is able to communicate with his son on a level that Din himself will never, ever be able to. “Or anything you want me to say to him, for you?”

There’s a hung moment where the thrum of the surrounding ship and the cycling of the air circulators seem louder than they are. The Mandalorian stares down at the table, unspeaking. 

Luke is ready to take his silence as a negative when Din, at last, responds to him. 

“Yeah,” Din replies, tone hoarse at the edges. Flickers and sparks of the man’s nerves and worry combine with rising colour in Din’s cheeks like an impressionistic forge, of metal being shaped and struck and refined. “It – doesn’t matter much. But.” Dark eyes lift. “The kid. Is he… happy?” 

With me, Din thinks. Is he happy with me?

More than ever, it feels as though the universe has deposited Din Djarin and his son at Luke’s feet as some kind of great and cosmic offering, hitting every metaphorical button for Luke; as though the Mandalorian has been custom-built for his enjoyment and attention. 

“Yes,” Luke tells him, meaning it. Then: “I felt his love for you the first time I met you both, you know.” A soft smile tugs at his lips. “The connection you feel with him – it’s not one-sided. Not even close.” His brows raise, expectant. “You’re his father, Din Djarin. And Grogu loves you as one.”

Din says nothing, overwhelmed but clearly working to bury it. 

From his place on the table Grogu looks between the two of them – then drops the half-biscuit he’d been snacking on and toddles across to his father, his hands raised palm-outward in clear demand. 

With unending affection and great care, Din scoops up his son. Gets him settled in his lap. Nestled between the gentle solidity of beskar-plated arms, Grogu emanates joy; contentment. He beams up at his father with wonder and adoration, making soft baby sounds. Love you daddy love you, Grogu emanates, words in no particular order, and Luke’s heart thuds against his ribcage at the wordless affirmation.

Din exhales, and a great rush of tension in body and soul alike releases from him. Outward into the Force, without his knowledge or understanding.

Luke marvels, quiet, at Din’s intrinsic skill and goodness. 

It doesn’t take long after that for the child‘s large ears to begin drooping. Grogu blinks, swaying in his seat. After a few minutes, he starts to actually fall asleep, his little face shoved into the elbow of Din’s flight suit. 

Din stands, chair scraping the floor. Grogu is held gently against his chest, cradled lovingly.

With an uncertain glance at Luke, Din takes him into the other room, putting his son to bed in the makeshift cradle.

Luke stands, but doesn’t follow. Heated anticipation slides up and down his spine as he idles his way into the middle of the room. Waiting, with no small patience, for nighttime rituals to be completed.

“G’night, buddy,” Luke hears the Mandalorian whisper-speak at last in the next room over, after tucking his son with raw, laid-bare affection into his makeshift crib. “You’re okay. It’ll all be okay. You’re safe here. I promise.”

It’s going to be hard, Luke reflects as he waits for Din to finish putting the child to sleep. Separating them, if Din does something. Crosses some line that I’d be forced to punish him for. 

Extending himself outward, Luke sinks with practiced ease into Din and Grogu’s shared awareness. Running mental fingers over the lit-up connection between father and son.

Being able to reach out and hold that kind of love provides a grounding kind of certainty. 

When Din returns to the main room, he looks visibly uncertain, a contrast to the contained explosions of nerves within him at the encroaching unknown. The door to Grogu’s room closes behind him with a soft hiss, and then it’s just the two of them there, alone together for the first time since they arrived aboard the Executor. 

The lights are programmed to dim gradually as the Executor enters the third and final shift of the duty cycle, the simulated nightfall a calculated attempt to convey the passage of time to its occupants. Now the room is low-lit all around them, making teasing shadows play over the curves and angles of Din’s face. 

The air feels taut between them without the child to make distractions, relieving so much tension.

“You’ll find this wing to be extremely secure,” Luke tells him, unfazed at having to fill silence. “Once you prove I can trust you, I can have you both reassigned somewhere a little more… comfortable.” Somewhere less barren than a prison cell, Luke thinks with vague contempt. 

An image of his own quarters surfaces. With reluctance, Luke dismisses the thought – it’s going to be a while before that becomes a realistic option. 

“I’m not planning on running,” Din claims, which is nice to hear even if true only in technicality. He may not be planning on running right this minute, but Luke knows with confidence that his Mandalorian wouldn’t turn down an escape if one were on offer. Luke needs more time than one day in order to demonstrate that the safest place for Din in the universe is right here in Luke’s arms.

Din’s gaze dips downward, lingering on Luke’s mouth. 

There’s a measurable barometric pressure shift between them.

“Din,” Luke breathes, and then he’s stepping forward, closing the space between them until his chest is brushing beskar. Close enough to hear the shape of Din’s shuddering inhale and exhale. It takes barely anything to walk him backwards until the Mandalorian’s back hits wall, head tilted downward and looking right at him. 

The flow of energy all around them and between them feels charged and expectant, brimming with so much promise; with potential energy ready to be made kinetic. Bare-handed, Luke reaches up to dance his fingers along the dark sweep of Din’s hair, so soft beneath his fingers. Luke watches closely, fascinated, as Din’s eyes flutter closed at his touch. His Mandalorian turns his head to one side, a small noise escaping from the back of his throat. The flush creeping up his neck is freshly visible above the high neckline of his flight suit. 

Luke wants him so badly he can barely hold himself together, close to flying apart into a trillion separate particles of ardent, fierce desire. 

His fingertips trail downward, the man’s stubble coarse and tantalizing against the pad of Luke’s thumb.

Don't be afraid, Luke wants to say. To reach out with the Force and send calming flows of energy his way; to push push push at the edges of his mind until his every waking and sleeping fear slides out and away and into the ether. Until he believes it when Luke tells him that he and his son are safe here. That Luke has no intention of hurting him unless Din forces his hand.

There are no short-cuts to building trust, however. Not in the long run.

It can only be built up over time like shoaling in the sea. 

“Do you want,” Din starts, then chokes on a ragged breath. Head tilted back hard against the wall, whole body gripped with overcome shivers as Luke reaches invisible fingers to trail beneath the man’s flight suit and armor, dragging their way with tantalizing slowness from his tailbone to the top of his spine. His Mandalorian arches up subtly against him; the wall at his back, Luke’s hand gripping his face a gentle mercy. Din licks his lips, expression twisted and taut. He tries again. “Is this – is this part of the deal?”

Luke casts his mind back to their first private conversation together in the brig of the Korriban.

Do as I say. Words spoken hours ago that feels like such a lifetime. Take what I give you. 

Invariably, always, Luke knows when people want him. It’s a survival skill of his, one long-since seared onto the essence of his being. It’s why he knows with such stark certainty that Din Djarin wants him; can feel the slow-burning embers of his attraction beneath the buzzing prickles of his surface nerves and uncertainties, ready to be stoked into roaring, blistering flame.

“It could be,” Luke admits to him, softly candid. “We can make it part of the deal, if you want. If that would make you feel better.” He gives Din a heavy-eyed look. “If you’d rather tell yourself you’re doing this …” Luke trails, dragging his thumb back and forth across Din’s cheek as the man shudders, so sensitive as he just-barely arches up into the touch, “for him.” 

The curve of Luke’s smile digs at his cheeks. Lifting himself up onto his tip-toes, he leans in to whisper, lips just-barely-brushing the sensitive skin.

“Wanting isn’t weakness,” Luke breathes, warm against the shell of Din’s ear. “It’s strength. Giving into your want, it only makes you stronger.” Luke exhales. “It’s okay, Din. It’s okay for you to let go.”

The Mandalorian absorbs his words like water spilled on hot sand, sentiment pulled near-instantly inwards. For a moment Din doesn’t move; just breathes with slow heaves of his chest. A rush of self-satisfaction grips Luke, and he leans into Din’s Force signature like he leans into Din’s space; a scenting kitten, learning the shape of him up close. 

You don’t know how long you’ll be here, Din tells himself, thoughts wild and racing. From his position at Din’s throat, Luke can’t see Din’s face – but he can feel his desperate reaching to justify, rationalize, reconcile some vexatious inner conundrum. Giving him what he wants can only help the both of us stay on his good side. With that conclusion, he concedes internal defeat. How long did you really think you were going to be able to resist him, anyway?

Silently, ignoring as though unable to perceive Din’s inner maelstrom, Luke drags his lips to press against the hollow of Din’s throat. 

There are dangerous people out there in the galaxy, those who seek just this kind of vulnerability for the pleasure of snuffing it out.

It’s fortunate, Luke thinks, that Din and his son won’t have to worry about that going forward. 

Elongated cracks are giving way throughout Din’s being in the Force, fresh torrents of emotion bursting forth through each fracture like a damn bursting outward. 

“I–" Din breaks off, halting, as though there are no adequate words. "Luke," Din says, and he's spoken Luke's name so sparingly until now that hearing it ripped from his lips is a shock to his system, a shuddering jolt down to the depths of his belly. One of Din’s hands, until now held stiff at his sides, is drawn up to wrap around Luke’s middle, a gesture so exactly what Luke has been yearning for Din to do to him – enough so that it’s hard to tell if Din put his hand there in earnest, or if Luke willed it upward. Din’s mind is running hot, too many thoughts at once. "I don’t know how to give you what you want.” 

“Shh,” Luke shushes him, insistent but as kind as he can manage. As far as he’s concerned, Din’s lack of familiarity with certain key things isn’t a bug. Hardly – it’s a feature. “It’s okay. That’s okay. I can show you.” 

Hand sliding deftly from cheek to the back of his neck, Luke’s thumb moves in soothing circles at Din's throat. You give me joy already just by being here, Luke thinks, but the sentiment is too tritely saccharine to verbalize. It’s not like Din would believe him regardless.

“I can show you what you need,” Luke tells his Mandalorian instead, low and real and earnest. “And if you want, we’ll take it slow.” No need to rush through that which should be savored.

When Luke pulls back, it’s just enough so that he can hold Din’s dark and shining gaze for long moments, noses and cheeks just almost-barely touching. His hand on back of Din’s neck so lightly placed that Din could shift or pull away at any minute, if he wanted to.

Din doesn’t move at all, mind already touch-numbed. Forehead still furrowed with the memory of an internal struggle at least for now overcome. 

“Please,” Luke exhales, not meaning to speak, but he doesn’t hate the sentiment. 

Then he’s closing the last of the space between them, chasing Din's gasp to lay claim to his mouth in a careful, irrevocable kiss. 

It’s a tentative meeting of lips; clumsy and deliberate, and it might just be the second ever time that Din Djarin has ever been kissed. Luke lets out an indulgent sigh against Din's mouth, sliding his hand from Din's cheek to the back of his neck. Pushing his fingers right into soft curls, helmet-flattened, tousling them back to their true shape. 

Din's breath hitches at the drag of Luke’s fingertips, head falling back and hitting the wall with a faint sound as he rides out the sensation. One staunch and armored hand getting a solid, splayed grip on Luke’s waist, just holding him there. 

The moment Din’s mouth yields beneath him, it’s like being on a starship as it jumps into hyperspace. 

The world accelerates, each vein igniting as Din’s lips part beneath his own. Luke takes the offering as given and deepens it, surging closer to taste his mouth, tease his tongue. Din groans, pulling back just enough to tilt his forehead against Luke’s cheek. Armor-clad chest heaving, fingertips of his opposite hand brushing and uncertain at the front of Luke’s shoulders.

Overstimulated, Luke senses – but not frightened. Not even reluctant, anymore. 

There’s a throbbing, needy want that writhes beneath Din’s skin, almost enough to make Luke purr with satisfaction. 

When Luke finally deigns to pull away, Din lets him go. A reluctant half-whine of upset is drawn from Din’s throat, upset and frazzled by first the presence and then the loss of attention. Luke steadies himself with a flattened palm against the wall, momentarily distracted by the delicious, lingering prickle from where Din’s facial hair has left delicate scrapes against his lips and jaw. 

He pulls back just enough to survey the fruits of his labor. 

The sight of Din like this is pornographic, obscene, despite his many remaining layers. Chest heaving beneath the armor, the man’s extant expression is one of hyper-intensity. Din’s brow knots with unmet need, his dark eyes shining in the low light all around them. Din’s lips are slightly shining, reddened from Luke’s mouth against his own. 

Luke memorizes this moment to run fingers over later. 

“That’s right,” Luke purrs. He doesn’t need the Force to know that Din’s cock is hard and straining beneath his armor, but it’s nice to have confirmation from his additional senses all the same.

Hand at Din’s cheek, Luke drags fingers down along the skin and stubble of Din’s neck. When they reach the high collar of his flight suit, Luke continues their downward trajectory with the Force instead; ever-so-intentionally ghosting unseen fingers over Din’s chest and belly, below all those layers of underpadding and flight suit and beskar.

The Mandalorian shudders, completely at Luke’s mercy. 

Wordlessly, Luke noses in close, pressing open-mouthed kisses against the side of Din’s throat. With a breath of a whimper, Din tilts his head back, discipline slipping as his hips buck, once, roughly upward. 

An uninvited but extremely welcome image enters Luke’s mind.

It’s one of Din’s many racing thoughts, projected unknowingly outward. Of unceremoniously hauling Luke right off his feet, walking the few short steps to the guest room bed, then tossing him easily on top of the sheets in a mess of limbs, blond hair, and fine fabrics. Climbing on top of him, and – wait, no, another thought, no shift or transition, just Luke bent over the bed, pants down around his ankles and Din’s cock shoved deep in his ass. Gloved fingers digging into Luke’s hips so the Mandalorian can drag him back onto his cock, making Imperial High Prince Skywalker lose all that thrice-damned coherence and composure more with every punishing thrust. The sound of Luke’s own voice, muffled, crying out as he writhes but lets himself be manhandled, fingers white-knucking in the sheets as Din pounds into him, shows him –

The real Luke Skywalker pushes his face into the side of Din’s neck with a weak groan, voice cracking and breathing coming hard. There’s a knotted mess of arousal and satisfaction and supreme vindication churning in his gut. Proof that Din wants him, however fleeting and intangible, is beyond erotic.

Luke’s self-restraint wavers. 

“Come to bed?” Luke asks him, head tilted upward, fingertips trailing along beskar.

Those three little words make the Mandalorian’s mind start freshly racing, at once envisioning a host of potential scenarios involving a bed that range everywhere from innocent to sexual to the cruelest of hurts and humiliations.

Luke frowns at him, brow furrowing. 

Fear is part of the point, of course, but it… discomfits him, somewhat. For Din to feel that particular kind of fear, and pointed in his direction. 

He takes a sharp step backward. 

“Just,” Luke says, cutting Din off as he parts his lips and draws breath to speak. “Just sleeping.” The Mandalorian belongs to him now, to do with as he pleases. If Luke wishes only to sleep alongside him, to be held in his arms – that’s no one else’s business but their own. Luke lifts his head as he looks to him, placing an assuring hand on his vambrace. “It’s been a long day. That’s all I want from you tonight.”

The Mandalorian blinks, dazed, but eventually nods. 

Luke slides away, finally giving Din enough space to move past him.

Looking around the room, Luke realizes he should’ve made sure the room was equipped with a standard-issue armor stand. He flicks a finger all the same, and one of the drawers of the basic storage unit slides open, revealing folded sleep pants and soft long-sleeved shirts. There’s no way Luke’s putting up with being on the receiving end of the pointy parts of his beskar all night.

“Sleep clothes,” Luke tells him, raising a hand to physically point to the other door in the room – the one that leads to the ‘fresher. “You can change in there, if you want. Might be easier to get the beskar off out here first, though.”

The Mandalorian nods in compliance as he moves to the nearest clear, flat surface – the shining black chest of drawers. Suppressing a rush of new, raw nerves as he reaches up and disengages his left vambrace.

The removal of each piece of beskar is reverant, ritualistic. The unbuckle of utility belts, removal of mechanized bracers, both hands moving to unlatch the buckles and catches that secure each of his pauldrons. Each piece is laid out with painstaking precision until he’s down to his underlayer – thick brown flight suit, heavily structured and strategically padded, boots.

There’s a surreal energy in the air as Din grabs a set of clothes from the still-open drawer, gives Luke an unreadable look over his shoulder, and then shuffles into the ‘fresher to change. The door snicks closed behind him as he enters.

At that, Luke staggers, oddly blank, towards the room’s lone bed. Lowering himself down onto the slate gray sheets, head in his hands.

The sound of running water in the other room, luxurious in most spacecraft but standard faire in any one of the Executor ’s facilities, pulls him from his stupor enough to determine his next course of action. 

He strips down to everything but his glove and underclothes, then crawls under gray and white sheets to get the bed ready for them, curling up to wait for Din like a crescent moon beneath the covers. 

Minutes later, ‘fresher door lets out a pneumatic hiss and Din steps back into the room. Luke can see him first in silhouette, then dimly illuminated as he steps forth and the light shifts, revealing the sight of him wearing soft charcoal pants and a long-sleeved white shirt. His feet are bare on the slate gray tile of the floor as he pads across the plastisteel floor, adding his neatly-folded flight suit to the array of beskar that sits atop the storage unit.

Head ducked, with halting movements, he crosses to the bed. Pulls up the covers and gets in, making the bed shift beneath them. 

Luke gets close to Din without hesitation.

“Just sleep,” Luke says again for good measure, curling up against him, maneuvering until his head is resting on the warm solidity of Din’s clothed chest. He finds their bodies slot together almost perfectly, head rising and falling with Din’s every breath, Luke’s ear pressed down against his heart.

The lights turn off with a small wave of Luke’s hand, casting them both into darkness broken only by the faint illumination of a few small wall panels at the baseboards. The Mandalorian’s quiet relief beneath him is palpable, emanating upward and outward, and Luke lets out a messy exhalation against him, newly validated in his chosen course of action. Luke’s sense of abject victory at having Din here next to him, kiss-soft and gentled, is outweighed only by the soothing bliss of being held close by someone bigger, stronger, warmer than himself. 

After a hesitant minute, Din adjusts his arm to get more comfortable. Strong, bare fingers curl around Luke’s upper arm in a way that doesn’t draw Luke closer, but rests his palm over Luke’s arm, holding steady, skin against skin. The pleasure from the touch radiates all through his body, sending deep ripples of satisfaction through his synapses and sinew, right down to the brightness of his core.

There’s a comforting whirr as the aircon and life support systems cycle through their routine patterns; a low mechanized backdrop to their mingled breathing. Beneath it is the slow, inexorable pulse of the Force as it ebbs and flows throughout the universe; as it threads right through all three of them here in these rooms.

Is he seriously going to just…  go to sleep? Din thinks, loudly enough that Luke makes a small noise of protest against him. The sense-memory of restraints rises to the surface of Din’s mind, and Luke understands in a sleep-edged moment of clarity that he’d expected to be bound. Isn't he worried that I'll kill him while he's sleeping?

And that’s a ridiculous thought, Luke thinks to himself. Din wouldn’t hurt him. Din has no intention of hurting him. Even if he tried, Luke’s sense of danger is too finely-honed within the Force to allow himself to be so caught off guard. 

“No,” Luke hums against him, already drifting a little. “No, of course m’not worried.” He snuggles closer, the warm solidity of Din’s arm wrapped around him holding him close and perfect. “Night.”

It sounds like Din says something in response, but Luke must fall asleep before he’s finished saying it. Soothed by the steady rise and fall of Din’s chest beneath him; held for the first time in longer than he cares to remember.

He slips, and drifts, and vanishes into the depths of himself between breaths.

-

The atmosphere is scorched and painful-arid, the smell of dust and cracked pourstone thick in the air. Heat swells up from the sand under his feet, beating down hard from the dual suns overhead. Spice smoke coats his throat and cloys at his nostrils, raucous laughter drifting over him, directed to him.

Luke knows he’s on Tatooine without opening his eyes. 

Cruel hands yank him backwards.

Past where sand and stone should be and into chasm, endless, air rushing to meet him as he hurtles down backwards, into darkness so deep that he just keeps on falling in it, deeper and deeper towards the planet’s molten core. 

When Luke at last wrenches his eyes open, the surface is nothing but a tiny speck of light in the distance.

The roaring in his ears gets louder as he falls, flailing, certain he’ll hit the bottom for every plummeting second. He opens his mouth and finds he has no breath in his lungs to scream.

Time moves strangely. Matter becomes made and unmade all around. 

When Luke lurches to a stop, it’s not the ground that’s rushed up to meet him. 

It’s a sickening mass of hands, a writhing nest of unwanted, grasping touch. 

Every touch is violation. Tearing at his clothes, crawling across his skin. Cruel and careless and vindictive, human and non-human, the hands clutch and worm their way all over him, into him, digits shoved in his throat so hard he’s hacking and gagging, others scrabbling to press into him violently, no preparation. Pawing at him, making use of him in every way they can. 

Luke wrenches his head sideways, retching and recoiling, and –

He lands face-first on the stone floor, arms rushing to catch himself as he collides with the ground with a dull thud. 

The writhing mass of hands is gone, he thinks, though he is aware of every bruise and scrape and memory of invasion they leave behind in their wake. Luke groans as he goes to try to stand, and finds himself instead already upright on his feet.

It’s like the sound has come back on, his voicebox re-engaged; the rattling gasp in his ears is his own. A dusty, bloodied smell hits his nose and Luke whimpers, wicked piercing fear tearing through him as an all-too-familiar room is dragged into focus all around him.

Luke staggers backward until his back hits the wall. 

His cell is made from carved-out caves and durasteel bars, every centimeter of the cell’s interior etched into Luke’s memory, carved there with a mental vibroblade. Dank, clammy, despite the persistent dryness in the subterranean air. The hallway beyond is dimly lit, the pair of metal lanterns hanging far enough apart that great pools of shadow gather in every nook and corner. 

A faint sequence of an entry code being entered drifts from down the hall. 

A door creaks. 

Luke raises both hands to grip at his hair –

– and is doused in the spurting spray of blood from the severed artery where his right hand used to be, white bone winking at him from within the ruined flesh of his wrist. He blinks blood from his eyes, spits it from his mouth. His own life gushing out second by second onto the stone floor. 

The floor and walls of his cave have become red-slick and slippy. With a wretched sob, Luke grabs at his shirtsleeve with his remaining hand; trying and failing to stem the bloody torrent. Its loss is agony. His existence is agony.

“That’s it.” It’s a wet, sucking voice; the one indelibly branded onto the fear centers of Luke’s brain. He screams but there’s an invisible hand at his throat, getting tighter centimeter by torturous centimeter. He struggles to breathe, struggles to think. 

The world shifts around him or he shifts the world. 

“You can make it stop whenever you want, Luke,” that voice says lightly, a clammy, greedy hiss at the end of each labored breath. “Just give in, my boy. Let loose that storm of power. Your hate, your rage, your anger.”

There’s a burning brightness at the heart of himself that Luke tries to reach for but fails to, the crackle of distant power so close as it slips between his fingers.

“Most disappointing.” All but spitting with contempt. Then Luke’s body is spasming apart with electrification, bright white-blue searing his vision as the pain cleaves down through his nerves and into his bone marrow. Spiraling down into an infinite freefall of agony, pushed so far past beyond his limit that consciousness is fleeting. It doesn’t end, it never ends, it never ends.

A scream rings out; people calling his name. Voices from the depths of his most treasured memories and it won’t be real, this can’t be real, it –

Luke shoots up in bed with a breaking shuddering gasp, pushing outward into the room with an unthinking hand. Metal hits the walls with a clang, the cacophony driving Luke to crest over the peak of his fear – 

Before he plummets back down into his body, himself. Into a bed and into a room – that aren’t his own. 

A sharp, indrawn breath comes from the man in bed next to him.

It takes a few pounding heartbeats to remember who he’s in bed with; to snatch out with his mind and cling to the new but unmistakable shape of the Mandalorian’s null Force signature right there beside him. Luke’s bare chest heaves, terror lifting into to cold sweat that prickles on his arms, his face.

Din’s presence beside him is warm solid strong resilient, as though Din is the sole tether keeping him from drifting into space, of the depths of his head. 

Luke blinks, looking around in the darkness. His hand is still raised; the Force pulse still holding whatever he’d pushed outward up against the walls. He lets it go immediately, then winces at a crash and clatter of objects hitting the floor. 

“Did I hurt you?” Luke asks, or tries to. The words come out more slurred than he expects them, muddied and thick with sleep and lingering fear.

The shape of Din’s bare face is just visible in the low light; the soft curl of his hair, the tense curve of his body; heart hammering beneath the sheets. 

“No,” says Din after a moment, a low rasp to his voice. The word resonates through the Force, true true true true, and Luke relaxes a fraction, coming further back down into his body. Din is on high alert, yes, but not physically harmed. Luke’s own heartbeat begins to slow where it’s been pounding, raw and ragged, in his throat. 

A second thought occurs to him, and it’s worse – so much worse – than the first one. Luke’s stomach tightens, going cold. 

It’s happened to him before, projecting thoughts and images into another person’s head without meaning to. Bile rises in Luke’s throat. The universe narrows down to the microcosm of the two of them. The air feels weighted, expectant and devastating in its potential. 

“... did,” Luke begins, then swallows hard. He blinks in the dark, licking his lips. “Did you see anything?”

It seems to Luke that Din hesitates before he answers.

“Not – not really,” Din says, and panic collides with Luke’s chest at the lack of a complete negative before Din continues. “It was… mostly feelings.” 

True true true true true. Luke’s chest deflates in wild relief. 

That’s all right, then. That’s all right. Mostly feelings is… acceptable. 

Luke can live with that. 

He sits there for another long minute; four beats in, four beats out, tapping a rhythm into his flesh hand with his prosthesis. Din makes no move to touch him, or reassure him; just lays there rigid, eyes wide and watching Luke with an unreadable expression through the darkness.

Deliberately, Luke lowers himself back down into the bed, wordlessly resting his head atop Din’s chest once more. 

His eyes are barely closed before he’s pulled back down to sleep again.

-

[COMLINK STATUS: Silent]
[MISSED TRANSMISSIONS: 4 audio, 27 written]
[TRANSCRIPTIONS: Forwarded]

PRIORITY PREVIEW:

Recorded: 21h 17
Transmission Location: Executor, The Core
Sender Name: Amidala, Leia (née Organa)
Flagged as Priority Message

Luke, get back to me as soon as you get this. 

There’s news from Wild Space. 

TRANSMISSION ENDED
Transmission Length: 00:00:08

-

Chapter Text

--

The warm assurance of his Mandalorian’s presence – awake but unmoving – is what draws Luke into wakefulness the next morning. The fall and rise of his chest, their bodies side to side. The feel and shape of him in the Force grounding and deliberate, an anchor in the deep.

Heavenly. Luke curls in closer, allowing himself to luxuriate in the bliss of it. It’s so much better waking up like this than to the sound of chrono alarms or warning klaxons. Magnitudes better than being ripped from sleep by still-too-frequent night terrors that leave him shrieking and Force screaming; lashing out in dark and empty rooms, animal, out of pure instinct.

In truth, Luke can’t remember the last time he woke up feeling so content. 

No. No, that’s not quite the word for it. 

It hits him a moment later. 

Safe. This feeling – it means safe. 

His lips pull into a hidden, wordless smile where his face is tucked against Din’s chest. 

It’s only gradually that Luke comes to understand that his bedmate’s riveted fixation is what enticed Luke to awareness in the first place. 

Stretching, Luke shifts against Din’s side, telegraphing every movement. He blinks his eyes open, pushes himself up. Takes in his first ever sight of his Mandalorian, in bed, morning after.

Din is lying on his back, kept there by one of Luke’s arms thrown over his middle. Sleep-mussed and bare-faced, stubble creeping up along his neck and chin. Eyes bright and alert as he stares with fixed intensity at the closed door separating them from Grogu’s cradle. Now that Luke is more awake, the lines of tension are evident all through the man’s body; the taut clench of his jaw, the rigidity of his shoulders. 

“Morning,” Luke hums, a sleepy smile lingering on his lips. There are a few stray gray hairs interspersed in Din’s otherwise wild brown curls. On himself, such signs of age and imperfection would be plucked and removed immediately. On Din, they strike him as something more than appealing. He angles his head upward, not bothering to lift it from Din’s warm chest. “What is it?”

For a short pause, his question goes unanswered. “...the kid,” Din replies eventually, his words a low rumble. The man’s agitation is palpable, his Force presence twitching. “He –” Din hesitates, unsure of how to finish the sentiment. Wants me. Needs me. Eventually he lands on: “I think the kid’s awake.”

There’s nothing stopping Luke from keeping his Mandalorian in this bed with him for as long as he wants. From pinning him here in the sleep-warmed sheets with hands and teeth; to make Din earn the privilege of holding his son in his arms.

But it’s too early, too soon, to disrupt this eggshell peace unless he has to. There will be time enough for that later. 

“Go to him,” Luke murmurs, kindness bleeding deliberately into his intonation as he withdraws his arm and shifts to grant him exit. Din’s moving before the words have even left him, bed shifting with careful movements as he skirts Luke’s legs and gets to his feet, padding barefoot to the other side of the room. 

The door opens, and a sound of gleeful delight rings out unseen; Grogu, pleased all over again by the sight of his father. And, Luke notes with some smugness, the sight of his father’s bare face. 

The bed is a poor vantage point to witness the reunion. Still, Luke knows the exact and perfect second that father takes son into his arms. Energies melding together with a rightness and certainty that all but shines in the Force. Sunshine on bare skin, the blaze of a campfire. A warm place to sleep on a cold night. 

Luke snuggles down into the heat Din’s body left behind in the sheets, all but rapturous as golden waves of father and son’s love washes over him, into him, seeping deep down right through to his bones. He hums, mind buzzing with affection-by-proxy. It’s such a small but deeply intimate moment – the kind that seems to be so much more frequent in his life ever since father and son first came into his orbit. 

The last lingering vestiges of the night’s lone terror seems to bleed from his mind, shoulders loosening with unconscious relief. 

With time, the bright waves of joy fade to a dull warm glow as Luke senses Grogu settling heavy into his father’s arms. The peace is interspersed, delightfully, with soft hints of a one-sided verbal conversation. Din Djarin, voice little more than a murmur, speaking small reassurances. A few times Grogu tries to respond, images and concepts pushed towards his father in little flurries of quiet excitement or contentment. Invariably, they flit past the Mandalorian without his notice; a comm tower not built to pick up transmissions on such a frequency.

Eventually, Luke drinks in enough of the two of them to whet his thirst for now – enough, at least, to begin entertaining thoughts of his own reluctant productivity. He confiscates Din’s pillow for his own purposes, stacking it on top of his own so he can be appropriately comfortable before reaching for his datapad off the side table. He allows unfamiliar contentment to settle low in his gut as he scans his thumbprint; a muzzily self-satisfied smile on his face, tingling exhilaration running up and down his arms.

It’s only as he begins his usual early morning perusal of his missives that Luke realizes that he turned his comm to silent last night and never turned it back on again. Never checked messages before bed as he always does.

One of the missed transcriptions is from Leia. 

Luke reads it quickly – then blinks, a lurch of coupled fear and hope in his gut. Through the side of his eyelashes, he glances at the wall separating him from Din-and-Grogu in the other room.

News from Wild Space is too precious and vulnerable a spot in Luke’s heart to dare risk sharing with anyone so new to him, no matter how whole and cared for they may make him feel. 

Force-enhanced dexterity helps him slide from the bed with barely a sound, sheets thrown back and the soles of his bare feet hitting the floor.

The room, Luke notes, is… disarrayed, a bit, from his nightmare. Bits of armor and dishes have gone everywhere, and Luke realizes Din must have picked his way silently through the smashed tableware to reach his child earlier. 

Wincing, Luke furls a hand closed. All items on the floor hover a meter above the ground obediently; beskar is sent, clean, to sit back on top of the dresser as the mess of other detritus is deposited on one of the large platters that remained largely intact. At least now things won’t be a complete disaster when Din and his son come out for first meal later.

He gets himself mostly dressed in yesterday’s clothes with deliberate quiet: socks, trousers, undershirt. As he buttons his overtunic, he finds himself eying a stretch of bare real estate in the far corner. 

Enough space, he thinks, to add another chest of drawers.

He’s hardly one to turn his nose up at wearing yesterday’s clothes when necessary, but it would be nice to have some of his things sent here for mornings after. 

With the crook of his finger, Luke raises the menupad with the Force and grabs it from mid-air, making his way over to the door to what he’s increasingly beginning to think of as Grogu’s nursery. 

“Hey,” Luke says, peeking his head in. Din raises his head where he’s sitting in the room’s lone chair, Grogu perched on his lap, a questioning expression in the handsome lines of his face. Holding Luke’s gaze in an instinctive, precious intimacy. “I have to take a quick comm,” Luke continues, “but first.” He holds up the menupad, cocking his head to one side. “Do you drink caf?”

For a moment, Din is silent. When it’s offered, he thinks, steady and habitual. He raises his eyes up from Grogu in his arms for long enough to hold Luke’s gaze for precious seconds. “Yeah,” says Din, shifting so minutely in his seat that most people wouldn't even notice. Luke does, of course, greedy for every part of him. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Luke answers, lingering in the doorway as he taps in their order with nimble fingers. 

Once that’s taken care of, Luke withdraws, exchanging menupad for comlink, striding past where his cape hangs and his boots sit waiting. Blast doors open with a scan of his left hand, then slide shut behind him to keep the two inside. 

It’s only a quick walk and one turned corner before he reaches the extended guest wing facilities.

The circular receiving room is plain but highly functional, the slate gray of the walls and floors broken up by sleek black chairs and a sofa grouped around a low table adorned in a splay of Imperial newsletters on printed flimsi. Five other doors are spaced evenly around the room, each with a sign above the frame that spells out their function in boxy aubresh characters. Fitness Room, Baths, Kitchenette, Work Space.

With a wave of his hand, the door labeled ‘Recreation Room’ opens and Luke strides inside. 

It’s more plush and private-feeling than the open airiness of the receiving room before it. A few black and gray couches topped with throw pillows in chromatic black, white, and lighter gray, a holoprojector, a few shelves sparsely populated with Imperially-approved datapads and holos appropriate for guest consumption. A dejarik table is tucked in the far corner, a sleek desk equipped with a holocaster in another. 

Luke beelines for the closest couch, raising his comlink to his lips before he’s even seated.

It feels like Leia picks up before he’s even finished entering her call code. 

“Hi,” Luke says, right at the sound of connection, attempting to pre-empt whatever kind of commentary she might have ready to hurl his way. “Are they –?”

“You know,” Leia cuts him off, sharp and ruthless, “I was under the impression that there are such things as call overrides, brother. In case, for instance, wildly important news comes in.” 

“I’m sorry,” Luke tells her, immediate and real, reaching out simultaneously to her presence elsewhere on board the flagship to make sure she knows he means it. “I’m sorry, I promise, it won’t happen again.” A few tense moments later, his sister brushes her Force signature against his own in reluctant acceptance. Verbally, Luke tries again. “But they’re okay? Made it safe?”

After a moment Leia sighs, and the sheer abject relief – both in the sound, and that she sends through their bond – is answer enough to have him slumping against the couch cushions by the time she actually verbalizes an answer.

“They’re fine,” Leia tells him, and Luke feels the knowledge in his body; a slackening in his physical, emotional, and mental selves all at once. The low-grade worry has been so constant these weeks and months it’s devolved into anxious, helpless background noise. He’d been reasonably sure… hadn’t felt a strong negative surge in her emotions while he’d been with the Mandalorian and his son… still. It’s a compelling reminder not to make the same mistake twice. “Landed safely on an inhabited planet in the sector of Wild Space we were targeting. A connection’s established, but a weak one.” 

Pride, relief, and a hollow ravaged sadness underpin his sister’s every word. For all that Han and Chewie have long proved themselves to be uniquely capable of making first informal contact with uncharted planets on the New Empire’s behalf, having her husband galavanting off across the galaxy for months at a time takes its own brutal toll. 

Letting Han leave all-but on his lonesome, trusting that he’ll always come back to her… it’s the kind of love that Luke wants for himself someday. 

It’ll be a few years at least before he can attempt something similar with Din. Less, perhaps, if Luke starts off slowly; sending his Mandalorian out on short-haul flights, his son kept by Luke’s side to ensure his prompt return.

“We talked last night,” Leia continues, and a swoop of disappointment hits Luke’s gut. From the other side of the ship, Leia sends him several pulses of care and reassurance. “Not for very long,” she clarifies, “they’re still establishing the connection. We’re going to try for a holocall later this week. I’ll message you.” There’s a pause, remembered irritation crackling from her vicinity of the ship, and Luke winces in anticipation, already thumbing through his comlink settings. When she speaks, her voice is level and laced with poison. “Assuming you aren’t so occupied that you miss my transmission again.” 

“I won’t, promise,” Luke swears, meaning it. Setting’s already changed. 

“Good,” Leia states, firm and definitive. His words seem to appease her. “In that case…” Luke tenses, noting the shift in her tone into something vaguely teasing. “I trust you enjoyed the first night with your newest acquisition?”

It’s Din she’s referring to, of course. Grogu, as both a Force user and her brother’s new apprentice, would warrant a higher level of respect and agency. Luke’s response is to groan dramatically, shifting to sprawl dramatically lengthwise across the sofa, socked feet kicked up on one armrest, blond head cushioned by throw pillows. 

His sister’s snort is audible, crackling through the comlink in his hand. 

“Leia,” Luke whines, pathetic to his own ears. “Leia, he’s so perfect.”

A flicker of… something slips through their bond before she suppresses it. Surprise, perhaps. Or for some reason, worry. “Hmm,” Leia hums, non-committal. “That good, then?”

“Ah,” Luke starts, uncertain how to clarify. “We didn’t – wait, let me just –”

With a mental tug on their shared bond, pushes a few choice glimpses of the last few hours in her direction. The father-son reunion; the calm and crafted normality of a shared familial latemeal. The true heft and meaning of his Mandalorians’s face, his touch, his name. The first kiss he took and the ones that came after; Din’s interest and his skittishness, Luke’s offer to take it slow. How warm and safe he had felt waking up this morning, nightmares chased away by Din’s solidity, Grogu’s lantern-brightness. 

Leia is unresponsive for long enough that Luke wonders, for a second, if she’s been interrupted.

“Keep yourself safe,” Leia advises him at last, in a way that is both caring and eminently ruthless. “He seems a fine enough distraction, and it’s good for you to have something else in your life besides the fleet and rebuilding the Order.” She pauses, real and heartfelt. “But no matter what, Luke: first, keep yourself safe.”

Luke’s heart softens. Memories of his early days on board the Executor come to mind gently if unbidden; when he’d been on the other side of Leia’s intensive sisterly care before he’d even fully accepted that he had a sister in the first place. 

I will, he sends, then gets to his feet. “Your override’s back on,” Luke tells her – out loud this time, finishing their spoken conversation with practiced ease. His voice, as he speaks, is full of a mixture of affection, sheepishness, and lingering relief at the good news. “Sorry again.”

“I know,” Leia tells him, authoritative. “Talk soon,” she says, and terminates the connection. 

Luke sits back against the synthleather with a soft noise, taking a moment to gather himself. Leia has always been intense, as a rule, but since her Ascension things have been…not tense, precisely. More… in a state of perpetually-threatening friction, constantly and skillfully avoided by their bond and closeness as best possible. But always impending. 

Always a threat. 

He misses their casual closeness. Their shared and easy laughter she spent literal years coaxing from him. 

With a pang, Luke realizes he can’t remember the last time Leia truly laughed with him.

As Luke makes to leave, he pauses at the door, considering the room with a newly thoughtful eye. One of several supplemental living spaces intended to provide for visiting dignitaries. This recreation room, a small fitness studio and luxurious ‘fresher down the hall…

It would be nice to give Din and Grogu a bit more space to roam around, to stretch their legs. Having free reign of the broader guest wing could help provide a sense of normalcy, especially on occasions when Luke has to leave them to their own devices. 

He files the thought away for later; a potential reward for Din’s continued good behavior.

Eager to return to his charges, Luke steals back down the hall. Socked feet pad across the black slate floors, and Luke smiles to himself at the picture he must paint like this. No cape, no boots, no lightsaber, wearing last night’s clothing – all of it says morning after so blatantly it’s almost comical. 

The smug curve of his lips stays upturned by the time Luke rounds the corner and sees both the door to their room as well as a trio of encroaching delivery and service droids. They pause as they get close. The droid in the front raises a shining metal arm, showing Luke his access pass.

“No need for that,” Luke tells him, rounding on the door. As an afterthought, he gives the room behind the door a quick scan with the Force; finds, to his pleasure, no indication of any doomed scheming or planning of escape attempts on Din’s part during his absence. His DNA, of course, grants him immediate access. 

The Mandalorian and his son remain in the nursery while yesterday’s unseemly mess of detritus is cleared off the table, replaced by trays boasting various temptations: a tall carafe made of fine ceramic, a tray of Felucian pastries, a bowl teeming with an assortment of what appears to be live gastropods. A large serving bowl of grain porridge takes pride of place, accompanied by an assortment of sweet and savory toppings hailing from just as many different star systems. Once firstmeal is arranged, the droids conduct a quick but thorough tidy of the main room. A flurrying cacophony of cleaning follows: revving vacuums and robotic whirring, the comforting sounds of mechanized movement all around as they put the room to rights.

“Other rooms, sir?” one of the droids asks in binary, and Luke shakes his head, a firm negative. From what he can sense, even the meager separation offered by the wall seems to work wonders for avoiding yesterday’s devolution into stiffness and disdain. Job done, they trundle out one by one.

The door snicks open before Luke reaches it. 

The Mandalorian stands, child tucked in the nook of one arm – doubtless more comfortable like this, nestled against the soft fabric of sleep clothes, than against uncompromising beskar. His dark hair is still bedswept, mouth a serious line. Dark eyes only widen a little at the immediate sight of Luke. Din glances away reflexively, clearly still unaccustomed to being seen. He forces himself to meet Luke’s gaze just seconds later – as is Luke’s expectation, when they’re in private together.

In the simulated sunlight, Din seems smaller and softer than Luke has ever seen him. No sharp lines of his beskar or thick underpadding to bulk him out; to make him appear larger and more intimidating.

“Morning,” Luke hums, a warm smile breaking over his face as he takes the sight of them in. With a subtle wave of his fingers, he sends a concurrent pulse of good, awake, hello to Grogu, who appears to be in a state of childlike delight at the combined thrills of food, connecting with someone in the Force, and lingering awe over the sight of his father’s bare face.

Snails! Grogu sends to him in return, all but beside himself,

Shhhh, Luke sends to him, with an accompanying sensation of calm. Patience.

 It’s with great reluctance that Grogu heeds his words.

 “... morning,” Din replies after a drawn-out pause, looking between Luke and Grogu-in-his-arms. Seeming to pick up on the cues, subtle that they are, that a conversation is occurring that he himself has no access to. His eyes dart over to the table, shifting his grip on the child held in his capable hands. Holding him up right at chest height, between him and Luke, like… 

Like a sentient shield.

Clever, Luke thinks, but nowhere near enough.

It’s with smooth and deliberate movements that Luke steps towards him, into Din’s space, making the man’s eyes widen and his spine go still. A hunted creature; one who knows itself to be prey. A move designed to force the Mandalorian to choose between stepping back in retreat or shifting his hold on the child to avoid him being squished between them. In a split second the Mandalorian chooses the latter, holding his ground as he transfers Grogu to the crook of his left arm. With a low hum, Luke slides both arms up around his neck. Standing chest to chest, reveling shamelessly in being able to look deeply into the lovely brown of Din’s eyes up close.

He senses Din’s pulse quickening. The uptick in his anxiety, his restlessness. The shame and reluctance of his want. 

“Gah?” Grogu asks where he’s been relegated to the fringes of their embrace. His curiosity and uncertainty flickers in the Force.

“Luke,” Din murmurs, and if he’s trying to dissuade him it’s not working, the sound of his name on Din’s lips sending liquid heat down Luke’s spine. Shifting self-consciously where he stands, the barest hint of a flush beginning to creep across his cheeks. Luke’s eyes flick down to his mouth and back up again. Din tries again. “The kid.”

“Let him look,” Luke declares, humming to himself in wild self-satisfaction. He surges up onto his socked toes as the same time he pulls Din down with looped hands, meeting him in the middle with a kiss so tender it aches like a bruise.

Some of Din’s pent-up tension releases into the Force as he exhales through his nose, as though all he’d really needed was some plausible deniability. His mouth becomes pliant beneath Luke’s own, even subtly responsive. The lingering hints of his worry are drowned out by the mental white noise of sensation, and when Luke drags his fingernails over the back of his neck it wrings a gasp from him, a low sound of overwhelm that goes straight between Luke’s legs.

Luke takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss; slipping his tongue between Din’s parted lips, savoring the domestic intimacy in the meeting of their sleep-thick mouths.

A series of sharp, persistent tugs at Luke’s Force signature pull him from the moment. Luke breaks the kiss with a huffed laugh against Din’s mouth, punctuating his withdrawal with a final stolen peck of lips before pulling back, disentangling his hands from their place around Din’s neck.

“No one’s forgotten about you, little one,” Luke tells him with a smile, looking down at where Grogu is looking up at them from the crook of Din’s arm with a wrinkled brow. Grogu perks up immediately at the return of their combined attention, emanating pleasure as Luke reaches out with a black gloved hand and tilts his chin up with his index finger. “We all know today’s your day.” Luke’s eyes turn to Din, all blinking eyes and shining lips, a shade of dark mischief. “Caf?”

Within minutes Luke has maneuvered the three of them over to the table, settled into seats and both his and Din’s mugs filled by a caf pot raised in the air with a casual gesture. He voices no objection to the Mandalorian’s persistent hold on his son rather than giving him his own seat, both satisfied for the time being and confident in his ability to circumvent any such future attempts to withhold his due amount of affection.

It's a short-lived seating arrangement anyways. The sight of the bowl of gastropods up close elicits a small “ah!” from the child, who fusses until Din deposits him on the table. Upon reaching the bowl, Grogu plunks himself down, raises a snail to his mouth – and sucks it whole from the shell with a satisfied squelch, giggling adorably after swallowing it whole. Delight and childish pleasure projects from him outward into the Force, a series of images and thoughts pushed outward in no particular direction. A series of memories of snail-like creatures in sundry sizes, shapes, tastes and colours.

An empty snail shell, no longer of interest, is tossed to one side.

“Hey.” The tension in Din’s expression collapses into a stern look, leveled at his son. He raises one finger. “Don’t make a mess.”

On the table between them Grogu just giggles as he stares at Din’s face, not a single scrap of beskar in the way of their connection.

It’s for their own good, really, Luke thinks. Keeping them here where Luke can give them all the things they never knew they needed. From the luxuries they deserve to the simple togetherness that comes from father-son time without Din quite literally walling himself off from his own infant child. Better for his development, Luke decides as he takes his first long sip of caf, to see his father’s face more consistently.

In spite of his impishness Grogu seems to at least attempt to heed his father’s words, leaving snail shells discarded all around him on the table rather than hurling them indiscriminately.

Din adds no cream and no sweetener to his caf, a preference that Luke finds deeply unsurprising. Dark green sleeves expose a hint of skin at both wrists as he takes the mug in hand for his first sip, the cut of his neckline leaving the skin of his neck and collarbone on display.

Luke’s fingers twitch. He wants very badly to reach out and touch his Mandalorian, so tantalizingly on display. At least to reach out with the Force and touch him; twining mental fingers through Din’s hair and scalp, at the edges of his face. 

Instead, Luke resolves self-restraint – at least until they’ve at least made it through firstmeal. Boundaries, he’s heard, are important in relationships.

For a few minutes, they partake of their respective meals in near-silence, punctuated with occasional happy grunts and cries from the infant. Luke smiles, but keeps his eyes on his plate. He feels the questions swirling and building his Mandalorian’s mind, along with - oh. Luke’s eyebrows, subtly, lift. A surprising – and delightful amount of calculation, tinged with intent to manipulate. 

Luke probes the man’s mind casually deeper, the kind that should hardly be felt by a Force-null. Luke refrains from an eye roll. It’s regarding Grogu. He should have known.

“So,” Din asks a moment later, deliberately casual, and when Luke glances up from his plate he is gifted with the sight of his mustache sporting several crumbs of flaky pastry. Luke presses his lips together to avoid commenting, privately committing the image to memory. This, he senses, was not part of the intended manipulation. It is, however, extremely endearing. Din continues: “You still taking him today for training?”

“That’s right,” Luke states, skewering a cut-up piece of jam tart with his fork. His eyes turn to Grogu as he takes his bite, the child making a small sound and radiating childish pleasure at being the subject of their collective attention once more. When Luke next speaks, he addresses son instead of father. “We’re going to take you to a special room where you can practice meditation. One my sister and I used to practice in quite a bit after Father found us.”

Din’s brow furrows, but Grogu is the one who asks an actual question. 

Daddy coming with us?

Luke gives him a reassuring smile. “Your father will be there,” he assures him. “Just to watch, of course. He can’t do the same things that we can.” Because he’s not special like us, Luke adds silently, sending waves of assurance in his direction. On the table, Grogu rolls the concepts over in his mind until he arrives, at least, on partial understanding.

Across the table, Din chews his current mouthful and swallows before speaking. “Is it…” Painful. Dangerous. Upsetting. Going to hurt him. “… anything I should worry about?”

Luke dabs at his mouth with a cloth napkin, then takes a moment to consider the question over a long sip of caf. When he sets down his mug, he reclaims Din’s gaze.

“... meditation,” Luke begins, meandering his way towards a fulsome answer, “is a way for Force users to connect with, and access, our own abilities – but also our own emotions. Our memories. In order to harness their power.” Luke looks at Din through his lashes. “But we’re not doing anything like that today.” He reaches out with his left hand, placing it firmly on top of Din’s own resting on the table. Lips pressed together at the jolt of sensation he senses run up the man’s arm. “Just easing in. Connecting with each other, learning one another in the Force…” Luke considers, then posits: “Like a first day of school.”

Din’s expression remains still, but his spine straightens, a series of images of combat brought to his mind at the term school. Jetpacks, hand to hand, even flight manifests and maintenance shimmer in his mind’s eye, overseen by a gold-helmed figure holding an antique hammer for use in a forge of old. This is the way, she says to the gathered youths, and a chorus of young, vocoded voices return the axiom, a golden ribbon of powerful belief. Luke leans forward despite himself, reaching out a hand to probe further –

It’s at that moment that Grogu, having wandered the space of two hand-lengths, discovers the bowl of Hisseenian-spiced bone broth that’s been served with all the other dishes as accompaniment and dunks an imperious claw within for inspection. The resulting domestic chaos – panicked squeaks and frantic scrabbles towards the blue milk jar, upending it over his face to offset the heat of it – makes both of them lose all composure, Luke’s face-clutching laughter and Din’s firm and panicked care, he’s sure, indelibly inked on his memory – a highlight of his year. 

Of his life, honestly. 

It’s as Luke’s hunched-over laughing and sweating through his days-old clothes that he realizes he can smell himself, and not in a good way. 

“G-go hop in the sonic,” Luke outright stammers with mirth, clutching at his sides with both arms. If he hurries, he can make it back to his quarters for a water-bath and fresh set of clothes in time to avoid rescheduling any staff. “I’ll b-be back in a half hour to bring you to the shuttle.”

The version of his life where Imperial High Prince Skywalker struck down that lone defiant Mandalorian without thought or mercy seems very faraway to him now. A path not taken, now impossibility. 

As dismissible a specter as nightmares in daytime.

--

When Luke comes to retrieve them a little less than an hour later, he does so freshly washed, clothed, and coiffed for a new day. Din, of course, has covered himself up once more in all his thick layers: under-armor, flight suit, beskar, leathers. The expressive secret that is his face concealed once more by the rigid gleam of his helmet. Posture all the more commanding with the counterbalance offered by the heft of the long gray cape once again hanging from his shoulders. 

Even Grogu’s robe seems to have been put through the sonic in preparation for his big day. Luke makes a mental note to requisition the child a few more appropriate custom outfits so that such manner of wash need not become a daily occurance – perhaps something in a nice black. 

“Here,” says Luke, holding up the black sling bag he’d brought with him– the closest he could find on short notice to match Din’s halting request from when he’d left the room earlier – meeting the man’s eyes through his visor. “Will this work?”

The Mandalorian shifts the warm bundle of Force presence that is Grogu in his arms in order to free up a now-gloved hand. He takes the proffered bag, examines it – then slings the handle so it rests across his body.

Din grunts, vocoded but vaguely appreciative as he tucks the child into his newest carrier.

It’s a fair distance to reach the training wing, located practically on the opposite side of the flagship. The geometric slants of the walls give the impression of an underground tunnel as they rumble through the hallways, each visual and artistic cue a variation on black and gray but for the low red glow of some of the overhead lights; the shocks of bright white armor as Stormtroopers pass in similar vehicles. 

Din sits silent and unmoving beside him, the sharp jut of his T-visor forward and unmoving for the vast majority of the ride. He shifts only to check on Grogu, the child clutching his father’s side as he surveys his militaristic surroundings with silent curiosity. 

When they finally come to a stop in front of a familiar set of large double doors, Luke pops the door and slides from his seat easily, the leather soles of boots hitting floor. Din, of course, follows without instruction.

“Wait here for our return,” Luke commands the near-human driver, sending both towering doors sliding open with as he strides, cape billowing, towards them. 

The training wing is gargantuan, built on a scale normally reserved for shuttlecraft and walker transport rather than foot traffic. The ceilings are multistorey, floors deeply recessed but for a wide walkway that stretches out before them for over a kilometer, its clean line interspersed with offshoot ramps that each lead to discrete rooms. 

Luke leads them forward. Deep red banners hang above each set of blast doors, rippling faintly in the recirculated air. Each emblazoned with black and white symbols in the same style as the Imperial insignia: a closed eye, a lightsaber hilt, a weight, a web, a bolt of lightning.

Over two dozen rooms at least from here to the end of the wing. Each training room is its own little universe; private and highly functional, no windows for Imperial staff to haplessly peer into. 

Din says nothing as he follows at his customary three paces behind, silent except for the low buzz of his unease. He pats the satchel at his side as though to settle a spooked creature without drawing attention. 

Curious and uncertain, Grogu nudges Luke through the Force. He hesitates – then sends through to Luke the ghost of a Force memory. One that doesn’t belong to him. 

Two young people, one older. A girl with braided brown hair and fire in her eyes. A man, towering black-armored and ever-flaming. 

A boy, broken and put back together with unfinished edges, eyes hollow and hair the colour of straw.

Yours? Grogu asks, tentative. 

Luke’s steps falter, stuttering a little at the sight of his old self. But his shields are strong and reinforced, and it’s easy to keep that hidden. 

Yes, Luke admits to him, sending short pulses of reassurance and comfort through the thin, golden thread of their fledgling connection. That’s mine. 

“Which one’s for him?” Din asks, oblivious to their silent conversation. Internally, Luke gives himself a shake. 

“This one,” Luke answers, gesturing ahead; an eight-pointed star rises over an arc on its banner. For now. 

When they get there, Luke sends the blast door open.

The room’s many lights flicker on to greet them. 

It looks just as Luke remembers it: large and circular, topped with a great dome that vaults high above their heads. A docking station built into the room’s center stands plated in shining black. A gray hoverpod rests, docked, atop it – vertidisk model, ready to make its pre-set journey upward to rest beneath the transparisteel dome. Its inset middle seating area is just visible from this angle. 

Luke finds himself gripped by a clutch of pained nostalgia and, simultaneously, great fondness.

The Mandalorian steps forward until they’re shoulder to shoulder, Grogu poking his head out of the black sling bag. The child’s large green ears are perked with curiosity, eyes intent on the raised platform ahead of them, the spherical ceiling above. 

Din’s visor turns to him. 

“What is this place?” Din asks, even-toned and neutral through his modulator. Luke glances his way, giving them both a close-lipped smile.

“Leia and I called it the Observing Station,” Luke tells them. Through the Force, he sends thoughts and impressions of meditation through to Grogu, who lets out a small trill of interest, ears twitching. “Meditative states can be amplified,” he explains out loud. “My father favors hyperbaric meditation chambers. My sister prefers to surround herself with natural things – plantlife, running water.” Luke gives Din a sideways look and a shrug. “Not all methods work the same for everyone.” 

As ever, Din’s body language speaks in paragraphs. He pauses, then shifts his weight from his heels to his toes.

“Gah!” Grogu exclaims, reaching out a tiny grasping claw towards the docking station. Want! 

In short order, the child wriggles his way out of the bag, forcing his father to grab him with both hands to stop him from unceremoniously hitting the ground. Din lowers him slowly instead – and then Grogu’s off and out of his grip, toddling as fast as he can towards the shining black platform.

“Hey now,” Din starts, moving to grab him.

He’s halted in place by the implacable barrier of Luke’s arm blocking his path, tailored black sleeves a sleek juxtaposition against the beskar chestplate. In irritated silence, Din’s helmet snaps toward him, peering at Luke in both concern and unvoiced frustration.

“Let him explore,” Luke instructs, light but firm. Brooking, in this, no opposition.

Din, hesitantly, obeys. On the floor before them, Grogu makes his way over to the docking station, letting out a small “ah!” as he discovers the shiny black stairs that lead up to the entrance of the waiting hoverpod.

Luke lowers his arm in recognition of Din’s obedience, fingers trailing metal. Resisting the urge to make the touch felt right through to his chest. 

“This,” Luke continues, as though there’s been no interruption, “is one way to amplify that state – to make it easier to access. It’s a good technique for beginners.” One he’d used to need himself, back in the days when connecting with the true side of the Force had been like fighting his way through a sandstorm, like intentionally rebreaking bones. He thinks carefully about what, next, to say. “... Grogu seeks connection. With you, me. Other beings. The Force itself. And this…”

He makes his way to the waist-height console, Din hot at his heels. Its interface is dated, relatively speaking, but even after all these years, Luke can still tap out the shield deactivation sequence in his sleep. He inputs it easily, turning to Din as he jabs the last button with a gloved index finger. 

“This,” Luke explains with an unneeded, but satisfying flourish, “is a tool to help open things up.”

“What–” the Mandalorian starts, before being cut off by lurching metallic shrieks and all manner of clanking overhead. The man goes for his blaster before tangibly registering that the massive metal dome so high above their heads is – retracting. Curling back on itself to reveal the great transparisteel dome that lies beyond.

The now-visible starscape shimmers, beckoning.

“Missile resistant,” Luke tells him, then stresses,“ and completely safe .” He knows from Din’s emotions and body language that he’s successfully anticipated his next question. 

At the top of the docking station steps, Grogu reaches up with both hands, letting out a soft coo of a whine even as he nudges at Luke’s mind with twin pleads of want and now. 

A few quick strides later, Luke is plucking the child up off the floor, gloved and ungloved hands wrapped around his middle, beneath each little armpit. Grogu cries out with delight and expectation as Luke tucks him easily in the crook of one arm. Holding him in a way that feels both foreign and strangely natural.

He feels Din’s gaze at the back of his neck. 

There’s a smile at Luke’s lips when he straightens up and turns, looking through his lashes at where he knows the Mandalorian’s eyes to be.

“Grogu and I,” Luke explains, “are going up there for a while.” Din’s exclusion, of course, is predetermined and not up for debate. He gestures with his chin. “There should be some folding chairs lying around. I’d suggest you take one.” Commiserative, he continues, “this can take a while.”

The incline of the Mandalorian’s helmet speaks volumes. Din stands his ground, eyes locked on Luke-and-Grogu as Luke turns from him to ascend to the docked hoverpod, stepping down into the lowered seating area.

A rush of bone-deep familiarity grips him, head swimming. As he takes his seat, Luke uses the Force to help balance himself into a graceful descent, not wanting the Mandalorian to see notice think realize that anything’s the matter. 

Luke punches in the last initiation sequence, and a ripple of memory chimes in the Force. Echoes of days past that rise up in his throat like bile. He swallows to stop the sensation from swallowing him whole. 

And then the repulsors beneath them are engaging, the vertidisk rising inexorably, and with a shuddering lurch Luke knows, he knows right down to his atoms, and –

They lift straight upwards, smooth as only antigrav repulsors can be. As soon as they’re out of sight, Leia deliberately scoots closer. She slips out a hand, pale and elegant, to wrap around the only flesh and blood fingers Luke has left. 

They sit in silence, shoulder to shoulder, as the craft takes them straight upward. Halting only when it reaches the highest possible altitude: directly beneath the peak of the observation dome.

Around them on all sides are visible the various cosmic wonders of the Galov sector. To Luke’s left, the dark swirls of the Abrassi nebula give way to a vast tapestry of constellations. Tutors and teachers have spent hours informing him of the cosmic cartography – nebulae, quasars, pulsars and satellites both organic and machined. Recognizable but not – tangible, perceptible. No sense of the Force as it moves through all living and unliving things. A cosmic dead zone as far as Luke’s senses are telling him. 

On the other side of his vision three pinpricks of clustered light glimmer in the vast vast distance that Luke’s been told are inhabited planets. 

He knows his sister and father can feel the fact of their habitation; can sense the breathing and moving and energy present, the smells and sounds of sentient beings.

Luke can’t. He can’t. 

A great sigh leaves him, chest heaving and shoulders slumping. With Vader and his underlings hovering over them (him) all the time, it’s been hard (impossible) to catch a spare moment alone together for days. The one person he’s been able to see for more than five minutes lately is Aunt Beru, which. If he’s honest with himself, Luke suspects it is just Vader's – Father’s – vague concession to the recent death of her husband.

Uncle Owen. Pain grips him and shocks like a live wire – then fizzles to nothing, inert and in vain. Death is nothing new, just. More immediate and personal to him, in this instance.

His sister – sister, and isn’t that still hard to wrap his head around – only speaks after the high-pitched whirr of the repulsors die down to the low murmur that indicates a hover.

“Tell me how you’re doing,” Leia demands – which, to be fair, is a strong opening maneuver. Her hair is pulled back in a high, thick braid that hangs down her back but for the loose dark strands framing the edges of her face. Golden accents are woven into her braid, dripping at her neck. They catch the starlight when she tilts her head, giving him a stern look. “Luke.”

There’s no answer he can give her. 

“I’m fine,” says Luke instead, trying to smile. 

From the way her eyes flash, ferocious with concern, he knows he’s unconvincing. 

Luke looks down and sideways. When he tugs his hand back, she eases her grip so he can slip away easily. Quiet for the space of a few breaths. “All things considered.” 

He squeezes where he’s unthinkingly wrapped his hand around the wrist and not-quite-fleshy palm of the new right hand prosthesis; squeezing at the place where synth flesh meets organic in sporadic, frenetic bursts. 

He can even feel it, kind of. 

“The medics say I’m doing well, physically,” Luke mumbles, more to fill the intensity of Leia’s silence than anything. “The new hand works, and the,” scarring “– cosmetic damage is all but gone now. The muscle atrophy takes – longer, apparently.” He hesitates, clenching his back teeth before continuing. Beneath the seal of thumb and forefinger lies the subtle line, hardly visible but for one looking. Separating Luke from what they took from him. 

“I,” Luke starts, not having meant to speak but then it just slips out, “I don’t like how it looks.” 

Brown eyes dip down to his hand and back again – then soften with warmth and compassion. “Cover it, then,” she suggests, in deep earnest. “I’ll help you find something.” For all Leia’s been forced to live a cutthroat life, none of it yet seems to have burned out the embers of her kindness.

Luke nods in wordless acquiescence, lifting his eyes to stare out into the black. Thousands of kilometers away, moving in a dance far slower than can be perceived by most sentients, a pair of binary stars revolve around each other. Sedate, yet precise as time itself; unchanging and eternal in all the ways that matter.

He should be more grateful, Luke tells himself for the upteenth time. For all that’s been given to him – gifted to him. For the unthinkable cosmic punchline-turned-windfall that is his own existence. 

Tentatively, Leia continues. “And… the dreams?”

Luke winces, reflexive. Smothering a full-body flinch.

Turns out that trauma to the mind’s a hell of a lot harder to fix than trauma to the body. Or so a galaxy’s worth of physicians and meddroids have told him. Even back on Tatooine, in the days before Palpatine’s slavers came for him, Luke remembers a dusty old doctor out Anchorhead way who used to have a saying for it: bacta don’t heal brains. 

Luke doesn’t want to think about Tatooine. Not here. Not in front of her.

Burbled sounds break through the fog of his awareness. 

“ Luke!” Leia says, emphasizing his name like it’s not the first time she’s said it. Luke blinks, turning to face her. She exudes hardened patience. “I said…. is it actually helping?” At Luke’s blank look she prompts, determined. “Vader’s lessons. The meditation chamber.” There’s a moment’s pause. “The… approach he’s taking. Getting you to go deeper into yourself.”

“Oh,” Luke says, distant. “That.” He shifts in his seat. In truth, it's not Luke’s favorite, being shoved into a box and told to look inside himself – as though there’s anything of value to be found there. 

But Vader is their father, so it would seem. 

And the Emperor, and Luke’s rescuer. Not a tall order at all.

So Luke will try, and keep trying. It’s a small discomfort, in the grand scheme of things. 

When Luke shrugs, the ostentatiously soft fabric of his training clothes shifts, still so odd and noteworthy against his skin. “It’s… fine.” 

Leia holds his gaze, even and suspicious.

“You need to build out your mental shields,” Leia admits. “Vader’s right about that.” She never calls him father. My father, she told Luke once, was Bail Organa. My mother was Breha. Palpatine, it seemed, could take her parents from her, but could not take her parentage. 

Her gaze is soft, but ardent, and she exhales deeply, deliberately. “ You can’t stay on the flagship forever, we both know that. But if – but if Vader’s methods aren’t truly helping you –” Weighted silence stretches for long seconds. Earnestly, his sister takes his hand. “I’ll talk to him.” A promise. An assurance.

Leia Organa, lost princess of Alderaan, once the ruthless teenaged pirate queen of the Banshee and single-handed broker of the Vornak Accords across the Mid and Outer Rim. So strong in all the ways that Luke’s broken. So vehement on his behalf when he’s done nothing to – deserve it. Earn it. 

Pay for it. 

In the far-off distances of Luke’s wandering mind, he wonders what it is she truly, actually, wants from him.

Just for a heartbeat, before shifting back to politician-neutral, Leia’s eyes sadden. Luke understands a furious heartbeat later: she can hear what he’s thinking. The simple fact that she can peer into his mind – that he can’t do the same to her in turn – it makes him reaware of the simmering resentment that churns in the depths of his core. The molten rage, the revulsion. The absolute self-hatred. 

Why, he thinks, and knows there’s no point in trying to obscure from her his emotions as they threaten to boil over. Leia, he’s learned, is so in tune with other people she senses their thoughts and emotions constantly in the Force without effort. Resentment, juvenile and brimming with self-hatred, takes hold. Why could she escape and I couldn’t? Why did I have to live through what they did to me?

It’s not fair, he thinks. An echo of his younger self. Moments later, ruthless with himself and laced with bitter frustration, he shoves the remnant aside. 

Life isn’t fair. 

Luke knows that well enough by now. 

The barrier that stands between him and the Force looms large in his mind. Infuriating; demoralizing. 

“Hey!” Leia calls sharply, drawing him with a blink back to the world outside his own head. 

These days nearly everyone asks permission before touching him, but Leia doesn’t as she pulls him into a fierce embrace. He hesitates for long moments before he hugs her back, mentally leaning in as he doesn’t-quite-feel the touch of her gentle presence against his mindspace, soothingly cool. A shuddering breath leaves his body as he squeezes her tight, eyes stinging. 

“We’re going to get your connection back,” Leia murmurs, her soft words ringing with her absolute certainty. “I promise.”

Her love for him, unearned and undeserved, burns so bright for a moment that Luke can almost see it with his eyes closed. He nods against her, throat too thick to speak.

Eventually she pulls back, but keeps her hands on his shoulders. Brown eyes hold his own, unrelenting. 

“The Sith,” Leia starts, her tone careful, “have a long history of torture as training. The idea that conflict elevates the strong and kills the weak.” Luke swallows back a sound in his throat that feels like a sob. “The point is to make the subject break. Make them give into pain, and in doing so, understand its power.”

His sister gives him a long look. “With you, Palpatine miscalculated. Failed to appreciate that there are different paths to power for different people. Pain and isolation is one, yes. But so is passion. Connection. Love so fierce for others, for the universe, that it fuels.” His sister’s eyes are shining with encouragement. She reaches up with great care to brush his air from his eyes, and softly says, “Look up.”

Luke obeys her without thought. 

The dark sprawl of the cosmos stretches out around them on all sides, reaching infinitely into the vast and sprawling distance. Slowly, Luke settles back into his seat as he takes it all in, leaning a little heavier into Leia’s steadying hands on his shoulders as he settles into his body. Looking properly for the first time at the expansive swirls of radiant matter that make up the Albrassi nebula, hundreds of light-years in diameter, visible only from the reflected fluorescence of embedded, pulsing stars.

The stars shimmer and move lazily, fireflies in the black. The wordless murmur sounds closer, this time.

His eyes slide shut, and he becomes aware, for the first time, of the infinite composite pieces that make up every star and hunk of rock out there in the blackness of space. The way the Force ebbs and flows between every part of it. 

He can just barely feel the billions of tiny lifeforms off in the distance – the trio of inhabited planets. Luke reels in his perception closer and, wonderingly, becomes newly aware of every one of the thousands of souls on board the Executor. Each one of them with their own little hopes and dreams and passions, from janitorial staff to Fleet Admirals to Vader himself, absorbed in planning and construction of new rooms to train his children in. New ways to get back the parts of his son – Padmé’s son – that Palpatine took from him. 

The roaring warmth of Leia’s Force signature blooms into existence in front of him.

“Now then,” Leia says, as her hands, small and certain, slip down from his shoulders to settle into his open, waiting palms. Her Force signature draws at him, pulling him further outward from himself and into the universe at large. She lets out a steadying breath. “Let’s try something a little different.”

Luke crash lands back into the present moment with a sharpened inhale.

The hoverpod is unchanged, but its occupants and surrounding starscapes are all different. In Leia’s place is a much smaller figure: Grogu, oversized ears flattened in confusion and concern from the opposite seat edge. Gone are the purple nebulae of his teenage memories, replaced by the asteroid and scrap-rich expanse of the Bormea Sector. 

“Ooa?” Grogu asks, soft and wordless but for the meaning he pushes into Luke’s head. All right?

With a cold chill, Luke realizes he has no idea how long he’s been gone for. How long, effectively, he left Grogu up here. A toddler, alone and unsupervised, easily a hundred meters up. 

Shame threatens to rise up his throat. All-powerful Sith royalty, reduced to less than nothing because of a few misfiring neurons. Pathetic. Worthy of contempt. 

Luke shoves that all down down down, giving the child a tight smile that feels false on his face. “Forgive me, little one. Sometimes I… go away, for a moment.” He brushes the child’s Force signature with his own; feels his uncertainty, the small depths of the childish concern that still lingers. Luke sends a pulse of love to him, true and unthinking. “But I always come back. I’m back right now.” He cocks his head for one side. “So why don’t you let out a deep breath… and look up.”

Pacified for now and eager to begin after the odd delay, Grogu cranes his pale green head to take in the view above and all around him. His attention settles quickly on Chandrila, a hanging sphere of mottled colours, huge if only partly visible. The energy of its millions of lifeforms hums outward, making the planet feel close enough to reach out and touch.

The warm, glowing lantern that is Grogu’s Force presence steadies out, gradually growing brighter and brighter. 

That’s it, Luke tells him, reaching out to guide him with his mind as a parent might ease an infant through their early, halting steps by letting them take hold of their fingers. 

A jolt of visceral, childlike fear cuts through their connection, undirected and without easily-identifiable origin. Luke remains unphased at Grogu’s occasional flares of unease; keeps on easing him forward instead for moments that meld into minutes. Showing the child through example how to release and draw on emotions in equivalent measure; in and out, in through nose and out through mouth, breathing into the vastness of existence. 

What now? Grogu asks, once patience and determination have finally brought them together in the space and energy that exists between them.

Luke considers. I want you to show me, he eventually decides. Show me Grogu. As though that’s all the child needed to hear, Grogu’s mind is opening up to him in a prismatic spectrum of colours. Guiding Luke forward as though tugging at his hand in this space they’re in without bodies; keeping them away from some of the darker spots in the distance in order to drag Luke through the more recent memories. The fonder ones; the better ones. 

Time passes unevenly and without notice. The stars and the immensity of space sprawl outward all around them, stretching into infinity, an endless all-dimensional expanse of the energy that exists between all matter. Silent and seated in the externality of their bodies; internally dancing through a shared conversation of images, thoughts, impulses, emotions.

When the hoverpod at last lowers them back downward, the Mandalorian is waiting to greet them. The man’s attentiveness buzzes through the Force after what must have, presumably, been a drawn-out period of boredom. A flimsy metal chair stands, unfolded, where there wasn’t one before. 

A quick glance at his wrist-worn chrono shows that almost three hours have passed. 

The repulsors hiss as they disengage, the hoverpod settled back down into its docking bay. With a fatigued but delighted Grogu tucked in his arms, Luke makes his way down the stairs. As soon as they’re close enough, Luke transfers the child into his father’s palpably eager embrace.

“He’s all done for the day,” Luke informs him, as Grogu think-shouts adoring thoughts in his father’s direction before proceeding to shove various images at Din through the Force. Luke watches as Din reacts to none of them, instead using a gloved hand to rub encouraging circles over the back of Grogu’s robes. “Your son did well.”

Outwardly, there is only the slight lowering of the Mandalorian’s shoulders, but around him the Force sings out with relief and quiet pride. 

“I’m going to start him with a few sessions a week.” He and Leia always found it best to leave a day in between, for repair and recovery.

“All right,” Din replies. He bounces the child in his arms – once, twice, rocking a little on his feet without seeming to notice. Annoyingly, Luke senses it as the Mandalorian considers – and decides against – thanking him.

Luke purses his lips. Din, he decides, could stand to re-learn himself some gratitude. 

It’s as they’re making their way back to their transport along the long walkway that Luke, in a moment of vicious impulse, pushes past the Mandalorian’s non-existent mental barriers to rifle through the man’s inner thoughts, his impulses. His psyche. 

The surface of his thoughts are as Luke hears often without meaning to: focused on the babe in his arms, Luke’s profile through his HUD. Monitoring their surroundings for threats in a way Luke is coming to understand is constant for him. He’s restless from all the time spent waiting; has to use the ‘fresher but has already resolved to wait until one comes available rather than asking. 

Beneath those easy thoughts sits determination. Conviction – adorably – that he and his son’s current situation will only be temporary, either through escape or release once Luke inevitably grows bored of them.

Oh, Luke thinks, both charmed and amused. Oh, Din. Please .

It’s a careful balancing act, digging into Din’s mind enough to get what he wants without alerting him to the intrusion. His grip on Din’s surficial thinking is limpet-like, but doesn’t go deep enough for the man to really feel anything. Once satisfied he withdraws, unnoticed as expected. 

Luke only speaks once they’re both back onboard their transport and in motion.

“There are matters I must attend to this afternoon,” Luke states; the Mandalorian, the transport driver, and the member of his retinue in the passenger seat collectively turn their attention to him. “Take us to the guest wing. We’ll drop the child off for the afternoon before proceeding to the holochamber.” Next to him, Din stiffens. “A nanny droid can be sent to attend him.” If anything, Din’s tension and anxiety somehow increases. Luke steals a sideways look at him from the corner of his eye. “The Mandalorian stays with me.”

His word, of course, is law. The driver changes lanes, beginning to re-route, as his shipboard retinue taps furiously into one of her several datapads. 

Beneath his helmet, Din’s jaw clenches and unclenches. Powerless, he has the good sense to say nothing.

Grogu snoozes in his father’s beskar-clad arms until they drop him off at the room a handful of minutes later. When they clamber back aboard the transport, Luke lets out a sigh of relief; for all the morning’s teachings had been meaningful work, it’s a relief to be surrounded only by Force-nulls as they make their way to the holochamber. 

Next to him, Din spends the entire trip sulking without speaking. 

The afternoon’s meetings pass in rapidfire blur. Nothing he has to fully devote his attention to: listening in on one of his Admirals out Rimward speak to the smuggling crackdown in the no man’s space between Ord Cantrell and Mygeeto, a discussion of the recent dip in Imperial Navy recruitment to be offset through incentive packages for deserving candidates. Nothing he has to devote his whole attention to. 

Which is fortunate, because his Mandalorian has really left himself wide open for Luke with his overt irritation. Din stands at attention behind him for his calls, reverberating with resentment at being separated from his child. Resentment he directs towards each and every being in this room, especially Luke, uncaring of whether they’re here in person or by hologram. Silently fuming, the emotional walls he’s built are less than nothing in this state, and Luke slides right through them, easy as breathing.

Humanoids wrapped up in deep red clothes, running through half-destroyed streets. Systematic destruction, armored and helmeted bodies fleeing for their lives during the exodus. 

Loss and aching grief for the covert; for the family he can never allow himself to return to. 

Fresh exhilaration throbs like a pulse through his body at the sheer intimacy of experiencing the Mandalorian’s innermost thoughts and feelings. Inevitably though, some official or other will ask a question that requires his attention and responsiveness, drawing him out from where he’d rather burrow in and ensconce himself. More time to keep reaching out to him like constant bursts of sonar, reaching and undercovering until the secrets and half-truths Din offers with such reluctance are laid completely bare. Until Din allows Luke inside his mind willingly, asks him to. Offering up each one of his so-called secrets for Luke’s pleasure; prizes for his taking. 

By the time they make it back to Din-and-Grogu’s room for latemeal, Luke is past riled up and more than ready to take advantage of their return to privacy. To pick apart and take whatever Din will let him. 

Luke scans his left palm for entry. The door, of course, opens for him.

The nanny droid – designation A-M1, but you can call me Ami – is a newer, state-of-the-line model that Luke had sent up by shuttle specially from Chandrila’s planetside. They find her holding Grogu in two of her four arms, playing up-up-up-and back down again while the child giggles and coos, vaguely pleased by the novelty of playing this particular game for so long without his minder growing tired of the repetition. 

It’s eclipsed entirely by his vibrant delight at the sight of his father returning to him, even fully armored. In short order Din has extracted the child from Ami’s arms, glaring at her through his visor with a suspicion so pointed Luke almost finds it comical. 

Once Ami’s dismissed and the blast doors snick shut at her retreating back, Luke releases a held breath. He hangs his cloak up neatly and smoothes his hands over his clothes, enjoying with some amusement the sensation of Grogu-in-Din’s-arms, reunited, the next room over. Their usual happiness in each other is there, but is spiked with more than a hint of Din’s low frustration and derision at – in Din’s view – having been made to separate from one another unnecessarily. 

Luke’s skin prickles, but he refuses to retreat from a battlefield of his own creation. A latemeal order is placed and Luke stakes his seat at the table, going through missives and transcriptions and firing off responses with ruthless efficiency.

Latemeal is delivered by droid in due course. Its contents are unremarkable: the same heaping platters filled with fine flatware, the day’s selection of galactic delicacies theirs for the taking. 

Luke is mindful to keep conversation light, high-level. Informing Din somewhat mechanically of Grogu’s progress today, some of the memories the child shared with him during their meditation. The Mandalorian nods, helmet removed to eat and watching them from where he’s placed it on the nearby shelving unit. As always, the man navigates his son’s messy eating habits with both muted exasperation and underlying fondness. 

It’s only after Grogu toddles over to Luke’s side of the table that things, abruptly, escalate. 

It’s difficult to say how much is Grogu’s desire for Luke to hold him and how much is Luke seeing and seizing an opportunity for leverage. Either way, Grogu is scooped up by Luke’s gloved and ungloved hands at his tiny waist and placed on his new seat on Luke’s lap. For a second the child frowns, but is swiftly and completely distracted as Luke draws all the dessert dishes closer with a crook of his finger, diving into his bowl of custard and piled cream with renewed fervor.

From his seat, Din watches, expression creased with a low-simmering discomfiture and reluctant tolerance. The man says nothing of the new seating arrangement until they’ve eaten their fill, but scrapes his chair back to get to his feet as soon as he dares. Rounding the table, gloved hands are already outstretched as they reach for his son.

Luke shifts in his seat, a course-correcting “uh uh uh” quick to his lips. His Mandalorian halts mid-reach, clearly reluctant. His eyes dark and irritated, mouth and mustache twisting. 

On Luke’s lap Grogu watches, unsure of why the mood in the room has so shifted. His black eyes are curious and slightly confused as they move between the two of them. 

“Do you want your son back?” Luke asks him lightly, head cocked in pseudo-innocence as he holds Din’s impatient gaze. Seconds pass, both of them unspeaking, before Din answers with a stiff nod. Luke’s returning smile is understated and deeply intentional, a victory banner Din recognizes. “Well. Come here, then.”

Luke angles his head and looks at Din through his eyelashes, outright tapping his lips with one expectant finger. Realization dawns in Din’s eyes a second later, but in this, Luke is unwilling to compromise. 

“Kiss me,” says Luke; he has no intention of being misunderstood. “That’s what I want. What I expect. Unless, of course, you want things to change.” He bounces Grogu a little on one knee, holding Din’s gaze overtop the child’s head. Luke’s expression deliberately sharpens. “And I don’t think you want things to change.”

There is relief in pulling such a blatant power move; comfort to be found in re-delineating the hierarchy between them. Of reminding himself and everyone else that Luke is the most powerful person in every room his father and sister don’t also occupy. No question, no negotiation. No such thing as take it or leave it, just take it.

Din looks back at him with a dead-level look, something between a scowl and a glare. Viscerally unimpressed and, perhaps unsurprisingly, with flat defiance in his eyes. 

Absolute brat, Din thinks at him, cool and vicious. A series of deeply uncomplimentary sentiments war in his head for supremacy. Ultimately he seems to land on: if I had my way of it, I’d sock him one right here and now in the jaw and then bend him over this table for good measure. 

Luke – blinks, thrown, as Din approaches him with jaw clenched and eyes shining with renewed determination in his eyes. He maneuvers around his son in Luke’s lap, fisting both vindictive hands in the front of Luke’s shirts, forcefully overcoming his own cultural discomfort to haul Luke up and into a crushing, bitter kiss. 

It's the first time Din’s been the initiator of such intimacy between them, putting beside for now whether or not Luke compelled him to do so. Perhaps more punishing than skillful, but Luke is left breathless and unwinding against him all the same. Hyper-aware of each and every one of Din’s thoughts and impulses as his Mandalorian gives Luke harshly, inconsiderately, exactly what he asked for. 

When Din tries ultimately breaking the kiss, to pull away, Luke keeps him there. Arms still wrapped around the child, Force gripping the Mandalorian by the shoulders to keep him close; to keep him going. 

Please, Luke thinks, then realizes belatedly he’s murmured the word out loud against Din’s mouth. Too late, then, not to start begging. “Please,” Luke breathes against him again. “Din.”

Something in his Mandalorian skips a beat, wavering, and Luke takes the opportunity to surge back upwards, recapturing his mouth. In his lap, Grogu takes issue both audibly and through the Force at being jostled as Luke shifts to holding him one-handed, the other worming its way up to cradle, desperately, at the side of Din’s handsome, increasingly overwhelmed, face. As Luke shamelessly uses and abuses every last bit of his not-inconsiderable experience to drive Din, personally, wild past the point of coherence. Luke’s turn to be punishing until he has his Mandalorian all but falling apart against him; weak-kneed where he stands, mind overloaded and hard and undoubtedly interested beneath his armor. 

“Gahh,” Grogu objects, both tired of being ignored and cranky from being up past his bedtime. 

It’s only then that Luke draws away slowly, nipping at Din’s bottom lip and then full-on grinning up at him. 

“Here,” Luke concedes, handing Grogu back into a stunned and conquered Din’s arms. Some of the tension – both between them and that had been growing and expanding outward in the pit of Luke’s stomach – seems to have broken; dispersed, perhaps, for the moment. “He’s tired. Put him to bed, will you?” Luke asks him, as though entreating – before counterbalancing the request with a look of low, wanton intention. “Tonight I want you to teach me how to take your armor off.”

Din’s mind goes blank, face burning, before he manages to take his son in his hands.

Stalemate, Luke thinks. But certainly a pleasurable one. He bites the pad of his index finger as he watches Din retreats into the nursery to tuck Grogu in for the night.

The armor comes off, sure enough, the methods for doing so conveyed with such a stilting shyness Luke has to assume Din has never before taught someone else how to do so. Another first for him.

He celebrates the acquisition of the new skill by getting Din on his back in bed in his small clothes, pinning him with the slide of his mouth and the clench of his thighs and kissing him more than completely senseless. 

Fiery back-and-forths are one thing, but what’s truly obscene is how easy it is to override this man’s senses with soft touches. To get him right to the brink and make him stay there, coiled up all inside himself with the overabundance of sensation. He has Din breathing heavy by the time Luke sweetly breaks the kiss, pulling back just enough to trail a line of open-mouthed kisses along Din’s jawline. 

He smells so much like himself here, Luke thinks to himself, beside-himself consumed with him. 

“Luke,” Din pants, and Luke’s mind thrums at the sound of his name on Din’s lips. Luke pauses, nipping at Din’s ear. 

“Yes?” Luke asks, so aware of the throbbing sense of I want – I want – that keeps coursing through Din’s mind, his body. “Din. What is it?” Luke asks, nuzzling against Din’s rough cheek, making the man’s breath snag even further. An entire litany of dirty talk at the ready. “What is it you want?” 

Beneath him, Din goes completely rigid. Frowning, Luke stills, lips parting to ask what’s wrong. 

Din’s emotions, projected outwards, reach Luke before he can give voice to the question. The burn of his own self-hatred; the shame that grips him, raw and juddering. Wanting what and who he shouldn’t is part of it, but it’s secondary. 

It’s the wanting at all, writ large, that frightens him more than anything. 

Beneath him, Din's overwhelm increases, wires crossed and mis-firing beneath him. In the low intimacy of the darkness, Luke’s cheek brushes one of Din’s eyelashes; finds it thick and wet with unshed tears. 

Luke’s stomach clenches. 

“Oh,” Luke says, a long sigh of a word. He disengages fully, swinging a leg over so he can lie down next to Din in bed, curling up in sweet reassurance against his side. “Shh. Shh, Din, it’s okay. I get it, it’s okay.” He presses a kiss to Din’s cheek, close enough that he can feel every exhale. 

Beneath him, Din shudders, pulling in a sharp breath. Luke snuggles in closer.

It’s all right to want, Luke sends to him through the Force, even though he can’t hear it. Trying to push the truth onto him all the same. It’s all right. I want you to want it, too.

“That’s right,” Luke says, urging calm through the place where his bare palm strokes along Din’s chest, his sides, his belly. “You’re all right. I’ve got you,” Luke tells him, heartened by the steadily slowing tempo of Din’s breathing. “Sleep, okay? Time for sleep.”

In this bed as in all places, Luke is entitled to whatever he wants. Din’s body is Luke’s territory, just like his mind. By agreement and in fact, every part of him is Luke’s to enjoy and lay hands on at his leisure. 

There is nothing rational about power, and those who wield it can do what they want with it. 

Luke has power over Din, and he can do what he wants with him. But his actions hardly reflect that aspect of their relationship.

I must not want to hurt him, then, Luke decides. Luke plucked Din from the jaws of death, took him for himself. Luke wants Din begging and grateful and wrecked for him, not hurting or upset. Not unless he has to be. 

Maybe, Luke rationalizes, if Din is his – well. Maybe that means he’s Luke’s to safeguard as much as to make use of. 

Releasing a breath of contentment at his understanding, Luke settles heavy against the warm reassurance of Din’s chest, his heart rate finally returned to something approaching normal. The edge of consciousness looms; the fluttering of a mental veil.

More than ready to fall asleep in Din’s arms, the last words Luke speaks after urging Din to sleep are a soft, whispered entreaty against the exposed skin of his throat. 

“Let me take care of you,” Luke murmurs in the dark, giving him a reassuring squeeze where his arm is slung across Din’s bare middle. 

The tide of sleep pulls him under just as quickly and easily as yesterday. 

-

Chapter Text

-

If last night brought nightmares, Luke doesn’t remember them in the artificial light of morning.

He wakes first, this time. He blinks, owlish, into consciousness to find Din curled up and warm and much as Luke left him; shirtless, half-ravished, down to his underthings. Only partly covered by sheets, the shape of him rising and falling in steady rhythm. Curled on his side, back facing Luke. His slackened, sleeping face isn’t visible from this angle, but Luke lies very still, not wanting to risk waking him. 

The next room over, Grogu’s Force signature smolders. Metaphorical smoke in much-deserved slumber.

The memory of Luke’s behavior last night hits with a gut-punch of guilt and self-loathing. He lies still, staring up at the plain gray of the ceiling as a sinking feeling tugs at the depths of him. 

Do you want your son back? 

His words, remembered, feel like they were spoken by someone else. 

What had Luke been thinking? Re-asserting dominance that hadn’t been in question to begin with – a sign of weakness, always, in his experience. 

He’d also been… vulgar, about their arrangement. Deliberately unkind in front of Din’s son. Even, Luke thinks, watching the rise and fall of the man’s chest next to him, vindictive. 

Now you mustn’t be too harsh on either of them, Luke Skywalker. Aunt Beru’s words come back to him, and the guilt seems to increase exponentially.

He turns his head to look at the bare, scarred flesh of Din’s back above where the sheet covers him from view. 

The outcome was… salvageable this time, yes. But what about the next? Winning Din over is a matter of strategy and attrition, not some one-off skirmish. 

Deliberately antagonizing Din does nothing to further his own goals. Does nothing to meet Din’s needs, which, Luke chides himself with derision, are clearly more than a vaguely Mandalorian-and-son shaped habitat. 

It doesn’t help the child, who – Luke thinks with a lurch – might even be left uncertain whether the spiteful shift in the room’s energy was, in some way, his fault.

No. He can be better than this. He’s going to be better than this. He wants –

The thought that comes after stabs him in the most wounded, vulnerable parts of him. 

He wants to be the kind of man – the kind of father – that Uncle Owen could be proud of.

Luke's breath hitches and his vision blurs, suddenly bodily choking up without his own permission. It has been a full decade, but his uncle’s loss still hits him like this sometimes out of the blue. Hard, fast. As fresh and gaping a wound as if it had been newly made. 

With careful, precise movements, he curls onto his side and presses his cheek into the pillowcase, teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut. Tears drip down his cheeks and into the sheets; silent, the way he taught himself as an adolescent.

His Mandalorian shifts, but doesn’t actually wake.

Several moments later, once he’s reclaimed a grip on himself, Luke lies on the bed as tears go from wet to dry on his cheeks. As he stares straight ahead, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of Din Djarin’s torso. Considering with wrung-out practicality what it is he has to do if he intends to… keep the Mandalorian. For himself. Permanently. 

I have to talk to Father.

It’s the obvious next step now that Leia’s had time to initiate her careful tugging of political strings, more important than making things official with any number of forms and administrative changes in codifying his claim. A task both partly executed and profoundly unfinished. A one-off mission report was never to sate his father’s appetite for collision or confrontation; not when it comes to an act that could very well be seen as deliberately provocative. 

Defying his Emperor’s orders twice by sparing Din, then taking Grogu as his own instead of shipping him off to Malachor. Then, insult to injury, bringing the two of them back to the Executor - the heart of the New Empire – and as dependents, rather than as prisoners! Flaunting his transgressions, one might call it. 

The Emperor’s Heart, unthinkably, acting in opposition to the man himself. 

Luke needs to explain. Formally; properly. To alternately grovel, persuade, or manufacture helplessness enough to garner himself the Emperor’s formal blessing. 

With Vader off in Bothan space, however, such ultimate clarity and absolution remains both unfortunately and blessedly out of reach. It should be a day or two at least before crushing their resistance abates enough for Vader to even bother checking non-priority holos or transcripts. Tearing apart a few starfighters and remnant insurgents has even been known to improve his mood.

If Vader’s reaction when Leia acquired Han is any indicator, Luke is going to need every advantage he can get. 

Luke heaves an almost silent sigh. 

At times, it’s like Luke’s chains were never broken, just handed off from one owner to another.

A room away, Grogu’s Force presence flickers to concerned awareness.

Shh, Luke sends to him at once, slipping from bed to tread barefoot to the other room as he bolsters his shielding, sensing the Mandalorian’s transition between sleep to pretending to sleep as he goes.

After yesterday, proactively starting off the day handing Grogu over to Din’s arms sounds like a way to signal getting back on the right foot. 

As Luke approaches the crib, Grogu is already on his feet, blankets kicked off and discarded around him. The child stares up at Luke, tiny face twisted in concern, and extends his arms a second later, asking to be held. 

With a heaved breath, Luke scoops him up with both hands, the shining warmth bleeding into Luke’s skin, a crackling hearth held close without concerns of being burnt.

The Mandalorian is waiting and awake when Luke-and-Grogu, collectively, return to the room.

Din’s sitting straight up in bed, fixed and intent, dark hair sleep-mussed and every square centimeter of his bare face a shared secret. A large and mottled bruise in purpling blue stands out against one side of his stubble-dusted throat. Dark brows furrow at the sight of Luke holding his son again. 

The other side of his neck, Luke knows, is littered in multiple smaller bruises, red black and ugly. Sucked in lightly, each a discrete marker of Luke's presence and possession. A message for no one else to ever see.

Luke ducks his head as he brings Grogu closer; an attempt to show submission in silent apology. 

“Hey,” Luke says, struggling to speak. The child is fussing against him; tiny claws clutching at his chest, reluctant to be handed over. Help, the child sends him, insistent. 

Frowning down at him, Luke instinctively does a quick scan with the Force to perceive any encroaching threats – senses none. Thrown off-kilter, he looks back to Din. “Ah, sorry. He was awake, so I–” 

Intangible little hands start tugging, pulling at his Force signature. Wide-eyed, Luke all-but-staggers where he stands; an unnamable something releases in his chest. 

It’s followed by a rush of pure, unfettered healing shoved inartfully inward where Grogu has wriggled his way close, both small green palms adamantly pressed to the front of Luke’s chest. 

He feels… strange. Thrown and off-balance, uncertain of what, exactly, the now-happily burbling child had been attempting to accomplish. Luke looks down, bewildered and disbelieving at the babe in his arms.

The Mandalorian, silent, is watching them.  

“Yeah,” Din states, simple and flat. Gaze fixed on the two of them, a strange expression in the lines of his face. “Yeah, he does that sometimes.”

Without speaking further, Din holds out his hands. Luke passes him over immediately, taking in his pleasure; the sweet, soft dusting of baby hair across the child’s head and ears. 

As always, the sense of them reunited exudes rightness, love, peace. A warmth that steals into his heart and fills it like no other. 

Privately, Luke resolves all over again not to take his own hurts out on either of them, if he can help it. 

He slides back to the bed, underneath the sheets, smiling as Grogu shoves unheard thoughts in his father’s direction. Helped, he tells his father excitedly. Helped him, daddy. Helped him.

Wondering what the child thinks he fixed, Luke smiles as he settles back in against the headboard. Minutes pass as they just… sit there, the three of them, half under the covers as Din and Grogu engage in a sweet, lopsided back and forth. After a spell, Grogu makes his way under the covers, burrowing down into them with an enthusiasm that makes Din exclaim hey! and Luke snort a laugh, breaking some of the tension. 

A reset of the tempo. 

It reminds Luke a little of a bird’s nest or rabbit warren. The winding underground stairs and tunnels of his family’s old moisture farm.  

A long-ago happy memory surfaces, unexpected. 

Being eleven years old in the kitchen of the Lars homestead before the suns come up, secretly conspiring with Aunt Beru to make Uncle Owen’s caf for him to have in bed on his birthday. His aunt allowing him to measure out and pour the precious water; the two of them watching in smile-struck silence as the brewer worked its mechanized magic; the long white kitchen taking on the unmistakable smell of brewing caf and dust of the morning sands.

Twenty standard minutes later, a pot of caf is delivered along with two trays of firstmeal, each item put in its rightful place with a slightly-unnecessary bit of Force kinetics. Din is visibly taken aback when the caf tray settles down on Luke’s cleared side table, the caf pot lifted up into the air, tilting to pour a stream of brown-black liquid into its pair of waiting mugs. 

The moment after Din takes his first sip, his eyebrows lift upward. His second comes longer and deeper on the heels of the first. He’s silent for long discerning seconds. 

“That’s good,” Din admits, surprised by his words as he says them. The quality of refreshments, it would seem, had not been fully appreciated amidst the anxiety of their first few days on ship. 

Luke makes a sound of agreement in the back of his throat. “The beans were grown on Endor, I think.” The label, folded and hand-written in slanted aubresh, is lifted towards him to hang at eye level. “Sorry, no – one of its moons.”

Remarkable only for the earliness of the day and the presence of all the nearby foods laid out on the table, Grogu starts nodding off between them, faint whistling noises coming from the space between their thighs as he begins to succumb to slumber. Smiling, Luke sends a pulse of rest and love and safe in the child’s direction. 

What’s intended as an unseen and unthinking display of affection seems to draw the child in his direction, sleepily clambering up onto Luke’s lap, then partway up his chest. Luke tenses for long seconds before his brain jumpstarts again, clumsily cradling him one-handed as his other hand holds hot caf out of spilling proximity. Eventually Grogu settles heavily, ears drooping in sleep and cheek pressed into Luke’s chest as he closes his little eyes. His breathing turns to light, adorable snoring in literal seconds. 

Careful not to jostle the baby or his half-full caf mug, Luke turns to Din with wide eyes – are you seeing this? – and is confronted by the full heft of his Mandalorian’s attention, every handsome line of his face is twisted up with it. Eyes dark and shining, looking into them like being able to touch his soul. 

As breathless as he is curious, Luke skims the surface of Din’s thoughts – and then huffs a laugh, shifting Grogu in his arms. Honestly, he thinks, ducking his head. He’s not sure if he should be flattered or offended that so much of Din’s attention has shifted over to Luke, holding his child compared to when he had been Luke, alone. 

Pinned beneath the weight and heat of his gaze, Luke shifts a little, feeling suddenly more… gentle, like this, than he’s become over the years. More nurturing. 

More the child raised by Owen and Beru than the creature that came after.

More attractive, too, if the blatantly appreciative way Din’s looking at him is any indication. 

“We’ll take it easy today and check in on his energy levels tomorrow,” Luke says, attempting to forcibly suppress the mortifying creep of the blush currently spreading in his cheeks. Confident words, he thinks, for someone currently having a private meltdown over how his… captive? bodyguard? Lover? thinks he looks while holding his baby. Luke adjusts his hold on Grogu-in-his-arms, then looks at Din through his lashes. “If he’s still this tired tomorrow, he might need another resting day before we try again.”

The Mandalorian nods his acceptance. His thoughts hum, and his level of tension has returned to its baseline levels – armored or unarmored – when his son is within arm's reach of him. 

Uncharacteristically, Din speaks without being prompted.

“It’s been four days, right?” Din asks. Luke sends him a questioning look over the top of Grogu’s head. “Since you took us.”

Luke raises both eyebrows. A plainspoken way of stating things, but not incorrect. Perhaps he really should consider requisitioning Din a protocol droid. Force knows it was a learning curve for him too. 

“That’s right,” Luke answers, subtly but deliberately begins to rock Grogu back and forth. “Why?”

The mug of caf is Din’s preferred stalling tactic, and today is no exception. The Mandalorian takes a long sip, contemplative. Luke doesn’t mind: his throat looks good swallowing, marked-up especially. 

Dropping his nose to Grogu’s wispy hairs, Luke receives another hit of a smell he can only describe as both alien and new baby. Both strange and strangely potent, non-human pheromones trying to plead their case to Luke’s olfactories. 

After considerable pause, Din answers. “Deadline’s passed for the bounty I was on. Rodian wanted on Ord Mantell for machinery fraud.” His pause is just a second too long, his heartbeat irregular. “He should still be there on the Crest in carbonite. Unless your fleet blew my ship out of the sky or something.”

For all it’s a clear play for information, Luke isn’t entirely sure he remembers what the outcome was with the Razor Crest before they jumped to hyperspace. Vividly, he imagines Din’s last bounty: hanging suspended in space as well as frozen in time. A distant and discarded relic of a bygone part of Din life. 

One that he’ll never return to, if Luke has his way of it. 

He shifts in place a little as he sits, swaying with the sweet bundle that is Grogu in his arms. 

“I’ll look into it,” Luke answers diplomatically, rubbing Grogu’s back through his robes. Din has no need for a spacecraft to hold bounties in anymore, of course, but it’s an easy enough give. And who knows – perhaps it’s still intact out there. Luke can’t imagine allowing Din to go jet-setting off by himself any time soon. But if his ship’s in one piece, and they scan it for traps… well. Perhaps one day they could take it out for a spin. 

For long moments Din is silent, clearly waiting for another requirement in recompense for this gift. 

The fact that he’s tangibly surprised when Luke doesn’t present him with one goes to show how badly Luke has already misstepped. The Mandalorian will keep rising to provocation if Luke offers it to him, but he doesn’t need it.

It’s gentleness, Luke’s coming to understand, that can most easily break him. 

He’ll learn eventually, Luke tells himself, balancing Grogu on his lap one-handed as he slowly nurses his caf. Luke can hardly expect Din to stop struggling when the man hasn’t even learned the shape of the snare that’s trapped him yet. He just needs time. 

Time in which Luke needs to remind himself to channel Leia’s cunning, Aunt Beru’s level-headedness. Not his father’s retribution; the carved path of rage and fury that has so viciously wrended apart the galaxy. 

Uncle Owen would’ve said that sandstorms wait for no man. They pummel, accrue. Coat everything in the immediate, lungs and food and buildings alike. Taste-memory of such comes to him unbidden. Batten down. Get inside. Protect what matters. Secure everything important. 

There are unasked questions on the tip of Din’s tongue, but he just drinks his caf instead of giving voice to them. 

–

HOLORECORDING TRANSCRIPT
Recorded: 6h 01
Transmission Location: Naboo, Mid-Rim
Sender Name: Lars, Beru (née Whitesun)
Auto-Flagged as Priority Message (click here to change settings)

Luke, it’s me. It’s been a few days since you commed – is everything all right? [...] 

You know you’re always welcome here. That means the father and his boy, too. I’d love to see you all when you can. 

Love you always. 

TRANSMISSION ENDED

Transmission Length: 00:00:36

INTERNAL COMMTEXT
Received: 7h 37
Star System of Origin: Chandrila
Sender Name: Leia Amidala (Leia)
Auto-Flagged as Priority Message (click here to change settings)

Luke – if you can drag yourself out from the guest wing long enough, H+C have signal for holocall. My quarters, 20 hours standard. 

END OF COMMTEXT: REPLY? Y/N

–

As soon as he reads Leia’s missive, Luke makes a series of snap decisions. Whipping off missives to various chiefs of staff, answering their questions with brief, terse responses. 

If Din and Grogu are to spend their first night apart from him since he brought them to the Executor, Luke would prefer that they have more space in which to keep themselves entertained. 

Ultimately, the day’s affairs prove to be a series of long-avoided conversations coming to fruition. It starts in the formal broadcast chamber; Luke sits in a large ornate black chair flanked on either side with a set of flags, and faced with a number of holocams and recorder droids and lighting droids. There he hears pleas and testimony, both in-person and by holo, on the proposed reversal of a Palpatine-era policy on military escalation in the Expansion Region and the Colonies. 

Din remains a solid presence at his back, steady and reassuring. 

The hearing lasts just under four hours and is nothing if not thorough. The excessive brutalities – and the commensurate opposition they elicited throughout both regions – is excessively apparent in the evidence presented. 

When Luke formalizes the reversal, half the room bursts into heart-rending cheers while the other half starts weeping. 

A signature and a quick holo-shoot with both galactic regional representatives later and Luke, Din and Grogu are back in a transport on the way to his next meeting. 

During the ride Luke tries, unsuccessfully, to summarize Imperial lawmaking authority as Carys May, a Kiffar makeup artist, sprays setter on his face and today’s adjutant, Abeckla Orden, runs through his briefing materials from the front seat, leaning back to fix him with with don’t-fuck-with-me eyes. 

The full reason for her adamance becomes apparent when they arrive at the holochamber. 

The Sith Knights of Malachor haven’t just sent a delegation. 

They’ve sent an offensive.

Robe-clad figures sit bristling and oppositional around the table when Luke enters. They’ve formally been sent to the Executor to seek word on how Luke’s hunt for the Force-sensitive, in fact, concluded. To inquire whether Darth Amidala spoke the truth when she sent reports of… unexpected suitability between himself and the apprehended Force-sensitive.  

In practice, they’ve come to undermine his decision.

Everything, somehow, is a concern. Grogu’s age, his comparatively long lifespan, the lack of formal ceremony in the child’s appointment. 

Further departure from the doctrine!  

An infant of zero standing –

They come at him fully-loaded, not even giving him adequate time to speak. Outwardly ineffable, the Mandalorian remains at Luke’s back, but his mind is ablaze throughout, carefully gleaning all the particles of meaning he can through his limited perception. 

It’s a remark about how he hadn’t the prudence to select from among his loyal followers that pushes Luke over his limit, a well-timed Force choke putting paid to further debate.

The glinting line of Din’s helmet turns, hand flying rapid-quick to his blaster before he registers Luke himself as the instigator of violence. He doesn’t take his hand off the grip, Luke notes, until five minutes after Sith Knight Crallac hits the floor in a pile of robes and muddy, wrung-out semi-consciousness.

“If you’re quite finished,” Luke enunciates cooly when he’s had quite enough, getting to his feet. “I believe we’re done here.”

“You,” Luke declares to today’s adjutant as they approach their waiting transport, whose life swiftly flashes before her eyes, “are promoted.” The tenor of her relief is practically unhinged. 

They’re whisked to the next obligation, Din’s gaze following him more heavily than usual. Luke lets it go. There will be time for Din to ask his questions once they’ve sufficiently percoalated. Once the two of them are back in private. 

Later, during a series of hyperspecialized military briefings, Din’s attention wavers, devolving. Aside from his baseline level of monitoring for threats, Din ceases all internal pretense of attempting to follow along. 

Instead, he spends long stretches deep in the depths of himself. 

Silently and subtly, Luke follows him there. 

The Mandalorian aches at being apart from his son; is unsettled by at least a portion of the things he’s witnessed throughout the day. At being subject to this much public consumption-by-proxy, his image broadcast live across the galaxy after a lifetime of working in anonymity and shadows.

He’s also, frankly, on edge from being subject to multiple days of Luke’s sustained, unrelenting attention. Riled from two nights spent pressed up against someone so, in his own internal words, pretty.

His psyche is frayed, beginning to split at the seams. That special kind of stir-crazy that comes with constant exposure and no chance of respite. 

It’ll be good for him, Luke reflects, even as he digs his mental fingers through Din’s emotions without hesitation. For Din and Grogu to spend tonight alone in their chambers. Luke has a holocall to take, and the separation will give them time to rest and reset. 

It will be, curiously, the first time Din spends time with his son one-on-one since their collective meeting.

It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect Din to drop everything for him, Luke thinks, assuring himself of that more frequently as the hours slip by and they get closer to the kind of hard stop to his endless obligations that Luke has never before experienced in his time having to execute them:

Time to see the baby. 

They’re dropped off by transport at the guest wing entrance a little after 18 hours standard – what would, plantside, be considered early evening. Security personnel grant them access, and as soon as the blast doors close behind them, Luke slows his steps.

He waits, looking over his shoulder to give the Mandalorian a meaningful look through his lashes. Armored body language responds articulately: halting confusion, a question, then cautious acquiescence as he steps forward, closing the space between them. 

Luke only starts walking again once Din is at his side, a wildly unsubtle indicator of the shift from public to private. He sets the pace at a slow saunter, drawing out the time until they arrive at the door to the room that’s slowly become theirs. 

What’s he building up to? Din wonders, privately wary. Pressing his lips together to suppress a smile, Luke cuts to the chase. 

“I got you something.” 

Next to him, Din experiences a series of emotions ranging from curious to vaguely unnerved. There’s a preoccupied air about him, Luke notes. Still turning over the day’s scheduled events in his head, no longer as stretched to his breaking point now that they’re back in private. No longer quite so aggressively on display. 

“Mh?” In the panoply of Din’s wordless hums, grunts, and indicators, this one is inquiring yet understated. 

Seconds later they arrive at their rooms, Q-2B in boxy aubresh above their familiar blast door.

Din says nothing, shifting his weight, radiating mounting uncertainty as time drags on without Luke granting them entry.

“Take off your glove,” Luke smiles – an order, but a kind one. His tone edges playful. 

Expressionless beskar turns to face him. An inkling of understanding lights up beneath Din’s many layers of fabric and metal. With unhurried movements, the Mandalorian eases off one black-and-brown glove until his right hand is left bare. Nails bitten short, knuckles and veins pronounced as he flexes his fingers. Hardly scandalous, but with every other centimeter of his skin so thoroughly covered, the sight strikes him as disproportionately suggestive.

Wordless, Din presses his bare palm against the transparisteel scanner, thoughtlessly tucking the glove into his waistband. 

Luke hums with quiet pleasure when the door yields open. The main room is empty, Ami doubtless in the nursery with Grogu well in hand.

“Limited access throughout the wider guest wing,” Luke explains, casting Din yet another sideways look before they enter. “There are all kinds of amenities there, for the both of you.” 

At the questioning incline of Din’s helmet, Luke ducks his head, falters, then continues. “After latemeal, I have to be somewhere else tonight. With Leia, it’s… a family matter.” Luke looks up, pinning Din with his gaze right through his T-visor. That particular move, as it so often does, leaves Din both wildly unnerved and involuntarily aroused. Heat creeps up along the back of Luke’s spine. “I’ll be away for the night. So you can get some father-son time with the kiddo.”

You’ve both been so good, Luke attempts to convey with only his eyes. So good for me already. 

No need to keep him so tightly contained if he’s willing, for now, to stay where Luke puts him. 

The process of retiring Ami for the night goes faster and smoother than yesterday. The blast door shuts at her mechanized back and Luke turns, taking in the small changes to the room with a careful eye. An armor stand, as requested, now stands tall and waiting in the far left corner. The closet, left a crack open, reveals a slim view of a dark gray bassinet with a handle. There should be razors and small scissors in the ‘fresher now, so that Din can keep his mustache the way he likes. There, propped up against the far wall where it sits on the floor, is – 

“I may have got you a few things,” Luke admits, pleased with himself and shameless. 

“My jetpack.” Din’s words are a low murmur. The Sleek T-visor turns toward Luke. Why? Din thinks, both puzzled and thrown. 

Luke answers a different question. “You were wearing it when my battalion took you onboard,” he explains. For reasons both obvious and best left unspoken, Luke hadn’t particularly thought it wise to leave a fuelled-up implement of escape in the man’s hands before he’d been fully introduced to his new situation. They’re deep enough, now, in the nexus of Imperial power that hardly matters anymore. He shrugs one shoulder. “Figured you might appreciate having it back.”

This, Din thinks, an echo of a memory of lowlit bronze as he stares at it, will make you complete. 

“Thank you.” Rapidfire emotions run their course in an instant. Love, loss, renewed determination. 

It’s a surprise when, following a moment’s hesitation, Din reaches up and removes his helmet without being asked. Luke’s heart rate speeds up, breath hitched at the sight of dark helmet-mussed curls as Din walks to the new armor stand and, without a word, sets his helmet in place. The jetpack is swiftly moved to join it in the corner, the two pieces resting like a monument to something Luke can’t quite put his finger on. 

With a final nod, the Mandalorian diverts sideways into the child’s nursery, shortly returning with a half-asleep bundle of Grogu in his arms. His son snoozes deeply, held fast in the crook of one arm. One of the child’s tiny green claws, Luke notes, has reached up to clutch at Din’s still-gloved thumb. His removed glove hangs at his utility belt, right hand still bare. 

Armored shoulders lower, some of Din’s tension at last easing. Din looks down at his son, mouth and mustache twitched upward in an unthinking smile. Love for his son as bright and steady as ever. 

Between blinks, Luke binds a tendril of the Force to the emotional high. Latching onto that gentle joy, not taking enough to be missed. Their connection thrums, buoying him further upward. 

An latemeal order is placed, and the decision made to receive it here in Din-and-Grogu’s room. For the exploring of new spaces to be left as father-son activity while Luke’s away for the night. 

The child doesn’t rouse at the chime announcing the delivery droids’ arrival, or even when Din brings him close enough for the smell of the food to hit him. Frowning, his father has to speak his name several times, gently jostle him, until Grogu blinks awake and glares at the both of them, heavy-eyed and tangibly crabby. Fussing until Din gets his makeshift highchair stacked up for him (Luke knew he’d forgotten to requisition something) and places him on top, at which point he narrow-eyed glares at the bowl of gorg stew before reluctantly beginning to eat. 

Overtired, Luke thinks, relieved when the child seems to forget his crankiness after he’s a few mouthfuls deep. 

“No training tomorrow,” Luke declares, at the same time a strung-out and frazzled Din thinks there’s no way Luke’s running the kid ragged again tomorrow; he can’t, I won’t let him. Adamance at once melts to relief and gratitude. Luke gives him a soft look. “He needs rest, and time with you.” 

The Mandalorian pauses, then nods his agreement. Wordlessly, Luke gestures towards the bottle of Sunfruit liquor that’s been sent to accompany the meal. The bottle lifts up, Luke pouring a generous amount of bubbly liquid into each crystal cup. They both deserve a drink, given the day they’ve had and the nonsense they’ve had to witness from those who are supposed to act with dignity and professionalism. 

To Luke’s pleasure, Din lifts his cup to his lips, taking a sip without protest. 

The meal passes without great incident or ceremony. Conversation centers on the envoy of Sith Knights; unsurprising, given the way the Mandalorian’s mind has been turning that particular slice of the day’s events over and over ever since with the steady rhythm of a metronome. 

“They were mad at you,” Din says at one point, inclining his head to where Grogu – long since having made his way up and onto the table – is quietly gnawing on a tentacle skewer. His grumpiness, if not his exhaustion, seems to have lessened significantly with a half bowl of stew in him. “Over him.”

Luke snorts over the rim of his glass. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve handed the Sith Knights and their histrionics plenty of times before.” As far as Luke’s concerned, the actual big deal had been announcing his intention to rebuild the Sith Order to the entire kriffing galaxy, then funding and directing the re-establishment of the Sith Temple on Malachor. 

By comparison, taking on an apprentice of his own seems like a footnote.

A long sip of alcohol sends warmth to his fingertips and toes. Zingy. “I trained two thirds of the ones they sent today.” Luke meets Din’s eyes over the table, reaching out so that his bare left hand can rest on Din’s bare right. “They forget their place,” Luke assures, giving his hand a tender squeeze as he holds eye contact. “Don’t worry. I’ll have them reminded.”

He feels Din’s shiver beneath his remaining armor.

The rest of the meal passes smoothly, Din not even making a token protest when Luke informs him that a protocol droid has been requisitioned to teach him Imperial etiquette; that there’s some paperwork Luke’s left him to sign in the guest room study. 

The Mandalorian even gathers up the utensils without being asked once they’re finished, stacking their plates without speaking. Fondly, Luke finds himself once again reminiscing about Tatooine, before; Uncle Owen loading the sonic washer with dishes once the second sun set, Aunt Beru wiping down the stove before pausing to lean her graying blond head with silent care and affection on his shoulder. 

It isn’t reasonable, Luke thinks, how much the simple domestic intimacy of sharing a meal together makes him feel this way. Charged-up and elated, pulse fluttering in his throat.

It’s when Grogu starts to literally doze off where he sits, faceplanting in slow motion into his bowl of Paradian berries and cream, that Luke officially calls it. 

“Bed,” Luke announces, definitive as he hoists the babe up in his hands. “Or at least a nap.” Too tired to be awake, Luke sends to him, dipping his cloth napkin into a half-full cup of water and wiping at his face. Grogu blinks, bleary. 

He wouldn’t have thought a lone meditation session two days past would’ve incurred such an aftereffect. It just goes to show how much he still doesn’t know about his new apprentice’s limits.

The handoff to Din for nighttime tuckings goes seamlessly, and this time Luke feels bold enough to linger behind in the nursery, enjoying the Din speaks over his son in quiet, loving whispers. Night, kid, Din breathes, giving his tiny shoulder the smallest squeeze. 

Luke says his own brief goodnights and then they’re retreating back to the bright lights of the other room, door sliding definitively shut behind them. Din settles heavily into what has become his pulled-out chair, exhaling a long breath. Luke’s eyes flick sideways. 

The wall-mounted chrono reads twenty standard minutes to the hour. 

Plenty of time, Luke thinks, for some goodbyes of their own. Perhaps even enough to stop by his rooms on the way, change into something a little less formal. 

“Thanks,” says Din, heaving another breath. As though sensing Luke’s confusion, he continues. “For helping tonight. He can be a bit much when he’s grouchy.” 

“Of course,” Luke answers, coming in close. Unsurprised brown eyes look up as Luke reaches touching distance, following the movement of Luke’s arm as he reaches out to brush his fingertips against the sharply-engraved lines of his chestpiece. “My pleasure.”

On his feet with Din still in his seat, Luke leans downward to kiss Din’s waiting lips. Gloved palm flat and fingers splayed against his beskar. A short kiss, chaste. 

Din shivers against him all the same.

When Luke pulls back enough to smile at him, Din looks dazed but intent; the furrow to his brow; the dark shine to his eyes. Luke lingers longer than he should, greedily taking in the sight of Din, up close. Unable to help himself, Luke leans back in, stealing another kiss against the small drawn breath of Din’s gasp. Luke’s hands reach up to slide and twine through the soft strands of his hair.

One last moment of respite, Luke thinks, and only draws apart enough to bring their bare foreheads together. Movements slow and laden with instinctive reverence. 

He hears and feels Din’s sharp inhalation against him. Want surges within Din, blatant and fleeting. Fists clenched at his side to keep himself from reaching up and hauling Luke closer.

Yes, Luke thinks, already shifting their positions with unthinking grace. Movements kept light, acrobatic. Plenty of time for Din to let him know if his touch is unwelcome.

The drag of Luke’s fingertips are silent in their claim but for the way they make Din’s breath catch, his thoughts thicken as Luke settles gingerly astride his lap, straddling his hips.

Gently, Luke reminds himself, determined. Gently.

A small sound escapes Din’s throat as Luke’s fingers card downward to drag along the bare, sensitive skin of his face, memorizing the feel of him. There’s a sweet flush to his cheeks, rising along his mottled neck. 

Don’t be embarrassed, Luke thinks, wild and desperate, losing track of where spoken words begin and his thoughts end. You don’t have to be. Not with me. 

Luke’s chest heaves, pressing his lips to the sweat-licked lines of Din’s throat.

“Oh,” Din breathes, at once grasping and overwhelmed, and they’re so connected in this moment Luke can feel his goosebumps rising all over. Luke’s mouth a dragging caress that turns to claim as Luke seals his mouth over a spot he deems deserving of greater attention; nestled between a pair of red and black bruises just visible above the flight suit’s neckline. Instinctive, Din reaches up with both hands to take hold of him by the waist, fingers curl their way over the waistband of Luke’s trousers, tightening. "Oh.”

His hips buck once, rough, before discipline kicks in. Body wild and roiling want so expansive it might surge outwards, consume him from the inside out. Hips straining upward in a thoughtless, unsatiated attempt to get the friction he craves – needs – through two sets of clothes and his own under-armor.

Din’s fragmented, wrung-out groan reverberates through Luke’s lips and teeth. Body responding so beautifully but withheld, constrained. Denying them both unnecessarily; cruelly. 

The Force is useful for overcoming obstacles, mystical as well as mundane. It’s easy, very easy, to set off the pressure trigger that makes Din’s codpiece retract; the man’s punched-out yelp and whole body flinch at the unexpected sensation is swiftly drowned out by an overcome groan, broad hands holding fast to the place where Luke’s waist becomes hip.

The hard swell of Din’s cock is already taking shape through his flight suit.

A rush of hot embarrassment floods the Force, shame, and Luke detaches from Din’s neck. Stays there against him for long moments, breathing hard. 

“It’s all right,” Luke whispers, licking a stripe up the side of his neck to soothe re-reddened skin, making Din shudder. He raises his left hand to just below Din’s ear, dragging fingers downward, the touch eliciting a groan of want and rush of half-moored melancholy that spills throughout Din’s mind. Luke hitches his hips, arching through the not quite almost there desperation before he finds the angle that’s as close as they can get like this; clothed, half-desperate, clawing at each other. That draws a helpless groan from both their throats. “There,” Luke gasps, stifling a rapturous whimper.  

Drawn out rolls of his hips chase white-hot sparks of pleasure.

When Din’s hips start hitching upwards to match him, meet him, it’s with rough, deliberate movements. Holding Luke’s body in place as he grinds upward, desperation verging on helplessness in the face of sensation. The hard line of Din’s cock finds friction, yielding surge after surge of burning pleasure that Luke feels right down to the tips of his toes. 

Luke gasps, head tipping backward – and lets himself sag properly into the clutch of Din’s grasp, arching back as he clenches his legs and matches the pace that Din wants of him. 

The chair squeaks and scrapes against the floor beneath them, unheeded. 

“That’s right,” Luke breathes, ragged and heaving, as his gloved and ungloved fingers run over Din’s face, his neck. The drag of their cocks through two sets of clothing is a maddening build of almost-friction, an unmistakable imitation of deeper intimacy. Using his grip on the solidity of Din’s body for leverage.

I’m all yours, Luke thinks, or maybe says, and either way he means it with an immediacy that cuts right down to his bones. You can do anything you want to me. Whatever you want, Din, it’s yours, just please, please –

Beneath him, all around him, Din is whiting out at the edges, right on the cusp of spiraling apart.

His teeth and lips close over Din’s pulse point, sucking down hard to work another bruise into him for no eyes but his own. Wrecked, overstimulated, Din’s hands clutch at him all the tighter, head tilting to yield access.

The rush of his release hits the Force, and Din arches upwards with a stifled groan, Luke keeping him pinned with hips and teeth. Driven to orgasm as much or more by Luke’s mouth on his neck as the friction between them, coming in his pants with lips parted and gasping, shuddering both through his completion and brutal aftershocks. 

The shining overwhelm of him is so much. Just barely, Luke detaches himself from the red, wet mark on Din’s neck with halting movements, takes a pauldron in one hand, undoes his trousers with the other – and wrenches Din’s mind open to him at the same time the cool clutch of his glove moves hard and tight over his own cock. A relentless inundation that spills over into Din’s mind, initial shock giving way to a base avalanche of transcendental pleasure. 

A groan, overloaded, spills from Din’s lips, hands clutching wildly at Luke’s sides, and the sound and feel of him is what pushes Luke over his peak. A strung-out mewl and clenching thighs accompanies his shudders of completion, splattering hot and creamy white over bandolier and beskar.

Unable to think, Luke can sense – tension and sensation alike both thoroughly wrung from him. Luke’s left hand is still clutching Din’s pauldron, his own breathing only just now starting to gradually slow as they hold position for long moments.

Din's grip slacks, hands falling to his sides. Breath heavy, unspeaking. Shuddering into a contented slump against Din’s chest, Luke’s gloved hand moves to rest on his beskar thigh plate, distantly mindful that fabric stains but metal doesn’t. 

The Mandalorian’s legs, braced so long to keep them steady in place, give out.

Beneath them the chair screeches back with a hard jostle. It’s enough to make them both tense up and clutch each other, that last hit of adrenaline sending into an overabundance that finds relief in a heaved half-breath of laugher. 

Beneath him Din is pleasure-wrecked and pliant, legs splayed and useless, Luke’s come drying on his flak vest. He keeps gloved hands where they rest already around Luke’s middle. Holding him close; keeping him safe. 

With a boneless exhale, Luke loosens against him even further. Din’s chest heaves beneath him, a slowing, steadying rhythm. 

-

In the end, Luke makes it to Leia’s quarters by six standard minutes past the hour. Not quite on the dot, perhaps, but downright impressive given the state he’d been in minutes previous.  

He enters, rosy-cheeked and wearing a grin verging on sated. It’s a selfish relief to see his sister’s daily efforts have also run somewhat longer than expected.

“Premier Utari,” Lei’s voice levels, ice cold. She’s standing in front of the great curved transparisteel windows that reveal the star-flecked expanse of space, wearing a deep green dress edged in gold trim cut to reveal slashes of pale underskirts as she levels a disdainful glare at the pale plue hologram extending upward from her cupped palm. Tone a mixture of derision and anger when she speaks. “In case it slipped your mind: all planets in your sector are subject to the same Imperial tax rate that Ruusan voted in favor of five years ago.” She looks over her shoulder and sees him at the door, gesturing to him to sit with an ill-tempered wave of her hand.

Her hair, pinned up in elegant twists, catches air when her yellow eyes snap back to the hologram. “By what right does your planet deserve to be uniquely, unilaterally exempt?”

Leia’s tone, Luke deems, is performative – but it translates just the same. As if she is speaking to the most incapable creature she’s ever had the misfortune to encounter. 

With a heaved sigh of blatant relief Luke removes his cape, hanging it neatly on one of the hooks provided for such purpose. He kicks off his boots for the first time since donning them this morning, then heads to take a seat on the semi-circular cream-coloured settee stands in the center of the room, flanked by silver tables and oriented towards a top-of-the line holocaster, intended for both business and pleasure. Atop it, incongruous, has been placed a decades-old viewscreen display – intergalactic telecom infrastructure so underdeveloped in the part of space Han’s calling in from that it can only handle two dimensions. 

Once seated, Luke flexes his right hand prosthesis at his side – a fresh glove, the only article of clothing he’d had time to change on the way over. 

The red and burnished gold accents of Leia’s chambers always strike Luke as warm and comforting when he enters. Intentionally reminiscent of some of the great museums of Alderaan. A sweeping, incongruous stairway leads to the second level of her suite: sleeping quarters and storage for her expansive wardrobe. Private office, ‘fresher, and cartographical room with an interactive starmap of the galaxy, a garden conservatory for meditation all tucked behind their respective first floor doors. 

“My Lady,” the hologram reverberates; a woman’s voice, humanoid official. "I swear to you we meant no offense. We are –” Her voice cuts off, then starts again seconds later, wrecked and ragged. "We’re desperate.” When that voice speaks again, it’s barely hanging by a shred. “... I’m desperate.”

Settling into his seat, Luke frowns. Turns to look at his sister over his shoulder.

Her Force presence flickers in brief hesitation, then re-settles firmly on a predetermined action. 

“The fact you believe this to be my problem and not the Imperial Medical Corps’ speaks volumes of your astuteness in crisis, Premier.” Tight-lipped and golden eyes flashing, she puts on a false smile. “Speak to me again when you understand how to beg for a handout.”

“My Lady, please–” 

The small blue pillar of her hologram winks into nothing. 

Leia releases a sigh, massaging her temples lightly with two fingers. “That,” she sighs, “went longer than expected.” 

“It’s fine,” says Luke, sending her a half-playful nudge in the Force; doesn’t count as me being late if you’re later. “Are they waiting on the line?”

“Not yet,” Leia answers, tucking her handheld holoprojctor in a discreet pocket. “Still waiting for the ping – Han says there’s connection issues, but they’ll call in soon.” 

“Mm.” Luke shifts in his seat, trying very hard not to think extremely loudly in his sister’s direction about… well. A smirk unrolls across his lips. About how he’s spent approximately the last thirty standard minutes. About the loose-limbed satisfaction dragging at each and every one of his limbs, making hidden smiles creep to the surface.

He double-checks his shielding. “So… what was that about?” he asks, not-so-idly fishing. Afterglow tempered, slightly, with a low long-simmering worry. 

He feels a curl of her irritation rise up from her where she stands, using the Force to decant an ornate bottle. “Plague,” Leia answers, candid. “Candorian plague, specifically. Fever and weeping sores. Ruusan can’t afford the amount of bacta they need to manage it – which, fine. But complaining about Imperial tax rates is really not the way to get the result they’re looking for.”

“Hmm,” Luke says, noncommittal. Plague means transmissible, which means potential for a greater threat. Leia knows that, of course. She’d never deny Imperial planetary aid entirely just because its leader angered her. 

“Thanks. Is there – a plan to deal with it?” He pats the cushion next to him. 

She snorts. “Of course,” she answers, as though to say who do you think I am? “MediWing has already been dispatched with pandemic aid, including additional bacta shipments. Intervention on humanitarian grounds, just as they would for any loyal planet under Emperor Vader’s rule. They’ll be there in less than a week’s time. The Imperial Press Corps have been sent along to cover the story. I was going to tell Utari that during our call, but given her impudence, I’m fine letting her sweat.”

His eyes follow the bottle and two full glasses she lifts across the room to the seating area, his own slotting neatly and expertly into his waiting hand.

Luke releases a breath as she pads across the room to join him, relaxing fully from his place on the settee. His sister navigates her long skirts with ease, pulling her small slippered feet up onto the pale cream cushions. 

Reflexively, Luke relaxes further at the closeness of his sister’s Force presence – like basking in the warmth of an industrial furnace. His glass floats to rest on its coaster. He lolls his head back against the headrest, turning to look at her, an uncontrolled grin creeping over his face. 

There’s a moment where Leia’s eyes narrow, as though taking him in for the first time properly.

“Well,” Leia determines, denunciative. Golden eyes knowing as she quirks a dark brow, taking a sip of her drink. “Sampled the goods, then, did we?” 

“ – ah.” Luke turns his head to face the ceiling; he feels suddenly warm despite the climate-controlled room. Natural candor and profound self-satisfaction war, briefly, with some fanciful notion of safeguarding their – his – privacy. He dismisses the notion as foolish, unrealistic. Hiding anything from his sister’s brutal-strong ability to sense him in the Force is far too much work unless it’s life or death. Instead he covers his face with both hands, his own smile wide and unfettered as brilliant warmth fills him right down to his core. Dramatically lets out something between a whimper and a groan.

Where’s Han and Chewie’s holocall when you need the interruption?

“Leia,” Luke whines to her, squirming in his seat in a highly undignified manner, then turns to her so he’s all but curled up sideways on the settee, hands cradling the bottom of his face. “Leia. He’s – so handsome under that armor. So good. I –” There don’t seem to be sufficient words. Luke continues lamely a second later. “I like him.” Luke averts his eyes a moment, letting loose a held breath. “I want him.”

Leia raises dark eyebrows, he’s already yours dancing from her mind to his. He acknowledges, then dismisses the statement with a shake of his head, blond hair flying in his peripheral vision. 

“I mean yes, he is, but…” Luke trails into silence, aware of her gaze on him and he struggles to articulate the feeling. “Even when I have him, when I’m with him, I want more of him.” I want to curl up inside him and make myself a home there, Luke finds himself thinking, questionably sensical. “I think… I think I want him to be mine the way Han’s yours.”

Twin pangs of surprise and shattered longing break through Leia’s usually impeccable shielding, followed by an after-echo of suppressed but visceral jealousy. Luke frowns, nudges his Force signature against hers, recognizing pain and channeling empathy. 

Allowing Han to wander so far from home, for months at a time, is a sacrifice on a scale that Luke is only just beginning – through his time with Din – to understand. Getting to sleep next to him, to kiss that mouth of his whenever the mood takes him… it’s incorporable. Incendiary. Luke’s stomach twists, curling and pleasant in spite of his empathy for her suffering. 

“We’re not there yet,” Luke assures, emphatically shaking his head. “Nowhere even close. Just starting. I’ll need some advice, actually, if you don’t mind giving it.” He’s already misstepped; pushing too hard too fast for Din’s acquiescence; treating him like any one of his innumerable underlings rather than the person of special standing Luke can, at least now, admit to himself that he wants him to be.

The painted line of her lips soften. She lets go of her glass and lets it hang in mid-air as she maneuvers herself closer to him. Throwing herself at him in a fierce hug that leaves his ears ringing with the vastness of her fearsome love for him. He squeezes her back, holds her so tight.

For a moment their connection feels bigger, more fundamental than the observable universe.

I never imagined, Leia sends to him, pushing both love and amusement through their bond to him, that you’d be the first of the two of us with a baby. 

They just have time to share a mostly-silent laugh before the vidscreen chimes, incoming transmission indicator lit up in exhilarating blue. Leia all but pushes off from him in her scramble accept, uncharacteristically wild-eyed as she taps in the requisite sequence.

There’s a delay, but Leia’s face lights up with deeply human enthusiasm as the shape of two beings – one towering over the other even more than usual – flicker into existence on the screen, everything a shape of light-to-dark blue. The connection glitches – once, twice before stabilizing out. The video clears up first: Han down on his hands and knees, wearing a jacket and fiddling with something out of frame. Chewie raising an arm, gesticulating a silent question. 

The audio kicks in as Chewie finishes a throaty call.

–  sure it’s the right configuration? His tone is the Wookie equivalent of exasperated, high-pitched and hair-raising. 

“Yes I’m sure it’s the right configuration!” Han half-yells back, shaking a hydrospanner vaguely in his best friend’s direction. 

A brilliant smile of melancholy pleasure has already spread across Leia’s lips. Instinctively she raises a hand to hide it – then pauses mid-motion, lowering it down to instead lay it palm-down on her chest. Luke grins too, not bothering to pretend he isn’t. 

Seeing them whole and safe, even a universe away, finally allows latent rigidity to slip from his shoulders.

Then why can’t we see them? Chewie demands, reverberating – and Han balks, dramatic. 

“Well!” says Han, performatively combative in the way Luke has learned means he cares deeply about something and wants people to think otherwise “Why don’t you try making it work if you’re such a – oh, wait, there we go.”

Nothing changes on their end, but all at once Han’s up on his feet, and the smile that breaks over his face is wide and honest, in that corkscrew way Han is.

“Hey!” Han exclaims. “You hearing us, kid?” It’s hard to tell if he actually winks at them or if it’s just a flicker in the connection, but a second later he turns to look at Leia. Lifting his chin in steady, even greeting, mouth still twisted up into a smile. “Your Worship?”

“Loud and clear!” Luke smiles. 

“Yes,” Leia says with a sigh, voice heated and intimate as she eyes his image hungrily. Unrepentant happiness shines from her outward, while at the same time unmet heat furls and lingers, banked but only for the moment. “Yes, we hear you fine.”

Beside her, Luke politely ignores the roil of her emotions. Thinks instead on how best to introduce the subject of his new apprentice and… bodyguard to the conversation. 

“Good,” says Han, blunt but charming. He turns to Luke with a scowl, folding his arms. “So,” Han says, and Luke’s brows lift as he waits for the punchline. “You got yourself a Mando in the Outer Rim and didn’t even invite me along? Honestly, kid, I’m hurt.” 

Oh, for the love of –

“You told them already?” Luke demands, reeling to face his sister. 

Leia gives him a pitying look out of the corner of her eye. “Of course I did,” she says, at the same time Chewie rattles out a long and wavering yell. Luke! Is it true he’s a… the Shyriiwook word he uses has its own nuanced implications. A simplified translation is lone, great warrior.

“Yeah,” Luke answers, even though technically he’s only ever seen the aftermath and grainy security vids of Din’s proficiency at violence. “He’s capable. Smart, too – I wouldn’t put him in charge of my safety if he wasn’t.” He pats the shape of his datapad in his pocket. “I have footage from the Korriban. It’s low quality, but even sending it would sink the connection.”

On screen, Han and Chewie vehemently agree with this assessment. 

Leia turns to face him, calmer and more placated than he’s seen her in months. “Send it to me?” she asks, already pulling her own datapad from an invisible pocket in her skirts. Luke sends it dutifully; he waits in silence, as do Han and Chewie, while she watches enough of the video to make her own assessment. 

It’s… nice, watching her expression twist infinitesimally as she watches the Mandalorian’s ultimately unsuccessful struggle unfold. Like letting her in on a shared secret. The quality really is bad – all terrible angles and choppy edits, cobbled together from Stormtrooper helmet cams, droid memory drives, and Imperial spotter droids. 

The video cuts off at Luke’s own arrival. He sits back, looking at his sister’s expression with satisfaction. 

“Not bad,” Leia assesses, in a tone of voice that says quite good. “You should have a recording taken whenever you take him down planetside for a test run.”

It’s a good thought: at some point, it would be nice to have something a little more flashy to show him off with. 

“More important question,” Han says, somehow perfectly cutting them both off despite the slight time delay before they can really dig into the idea further. He raises both hands, palm outward. “You ready? Okay.” He tilts his head. “… good lay?”

“Han.” Luke feels strangely euphoric for how much his face and ears are burning. 

“Apparently he’s handsome,” Leia teases, lips pursed, and oh stars, they are not above ganging up on him. 

“Leia!” He sinks lower in his seat, feeling like a squirming child. 

Luke has been livestreamed on the Holonet wearing nothing but sheer fabric and a smile; has spent almost a decade making gossip headlines, known and suspected partners turned over and dissected endlessly by the full spectrum of media personalities, Imperial and otherwise. Leia’s had to have leaked holosmut vids of him scrubbed from public consciousness multiple times, and all the time he’d barely even batted an eye, his body just another commodity to be leveraged. 

He bites his tongue, figuring he’s played third wheel to Han and Leia’s relationship for long enough that turnabout is probably fair at this point. 

Besides. There haven’t been many happy things to be teased about when it comes to his… love life, now that he thinks about it. 

Blessedly – and surprisingly – Han’s the one who puts him out of his misery. 

“But for real, kid,” Han says. “Who is this guy, anyway? You’ve–” Han halts unnaturally mid-sentence, expression intensifying for a half-second before continuing, recapturing his patter. “You’ve. Pretty much plucked the guy right out of his life.” His voice sounds oddly flat. “Guess I’m just curious what makes him so damn special.”

A small frown twists at the corner of Leia’s mouth. Her husband’s words, perhaps hitting close to home. Luke rises above the moment of tension, considering the question as asked. 

“His love for his son,” Luke answers, soft, and all three of their attention lands on him completely. Luke keeps his eyes downturned. “His competence, yes, but – the way he loves. How much the child loves him in return.” A shiver runs all the way up Luke’s spine. He levels the vidscreen with his most earnest gaze. “I didn’t pick him out of a lineup because I had a craving, Han. He landed in my lap. I fought to spare his life.” Still working on that part, Luke thinks wryly. At any moment in the coming days Father could demand his presence in holo or in person, and the fighting may reignite all over again. “I have an arrangement with him. With him and with his son, actually. They aren’t chattel.” The next thing he says isn’t fair to any of them. He does it anyways, sensing that this way lies victory. “I didn’t buy myself a slave.”

Beside him, Leia sucks in a sharp inhalation. A half-second later with the delay, Han’s expression crumples. Behind him Chewie yells, full-throated, in wordless distress and objection. 

“Hey,” Han says, low and real and a little deflated. He raises his hands palm outward in supplication. “I didn’t mean it like that, Luke. You know I didn’t.” He looks – older, Luke notices for the first time. A few of the lines of his face deepened. 

Beside him, Leia puts her hand on Luke's upper arm. A wave of love support calm is pushed into him, starting at the point of contact before settling into the cells of him. Great sadness yawns within her, Luke can tell, contained but ever-reaching. 

Her wish above all else that her husband could be close enough to reassure him the same way.

“I know,” he says, but pulls his legs up onto the sofa cushions, wrapping his arms around them. Nestling his chin between the twin peaks of his knees. What seconds ago had felt like a tactical performance feels suddenly too close to real. He blinks, time passing. “I’m the first freeborn Skywalker.” Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had made sure he’d understood that from a young age. “I don’t own slaves.” 

He’ll have to start putting credits aside for Din as a salary if he wants to keep that true in practice. 

Sentiment, though, seems to win out. A wretched smile curls at the edges of his mouth. “Besides,” Luke tells them, expression stiff and on the way to vacant as he passes on a piece of long-held wisdom, “all of us are owned by somebody.”

A long moment stretches outward, but it might just be a delay in the connection. 

“I’m happy if you’re happy,” says Han, voice strangely tight. He coughs to clear his throat. “Oof, sorry. Just… been a while since we talked.” He swallows back something. “But hey. That’s not why we wanted a call tonight.”

Hope prickles, intangibly sparked by that note in Han’s voice. Luke straightens, eyes darting to a purse-lipped Leia. “Are you–?”

“Tell ‘im, Chewie!” Han prompts, and Chewbacca’s resonant yell says, we’re coming back to the Core!

“No way!” Luke near-yells. Next to him Leia leans forward, silently exultant. His sister’s wild, indulgent pleasure floods Luke’s consciousness, wonderful secret now revealed. Luke is still catching up. “When?!”

“Hoping to set off this week,” Han answers. “Long story short, there’s a resource we have to get home.”

Laereth trees, Leia sends to him, high-level explanatory. Their sap makes fuel. 

“No hyperspace lanes out these parts, so it’ll be a month at least. But. Well, Chewie and I – we wanted to let you know before we start off into sublight.”

Luke’s own gratitude and love for them is a beacon, his excitement an only slightly less ardent reflection of his sister’s. It’s moments like these that their cobbled-together family gives him hope; make him yearn for what’s to come. 

Whenever Leia allows Han to leave, he always, always comes back to her again.

The conversation ebbs and flows from there into topics less immediately consequential. Eventually, Han and Leia start flirt-bickering back and forth – about their estate on Corellia, Luke realizes. How they should get things ready for Han’s return. 

While they’re at it, Luke tunes them out again for a second, stealthing out his datapad where it’s likely out of frame. Tapping his way into the guest wing’s live security stream, cycling through footage of empty rooms until, on the small screen, father and son appear.

He isn’t sure what he’d expected them to be doing in his absence – sleeping? – but finding them in the full-size ‘fresher down the hall from their chambers is a wonderful surprise. Grainy security footage shows the Mandalorian, fully armored, crouched at the edge of a large half-full bubblebath. Grogu, apparently rejuvenated by his nap, is mostly underwater but for his head and oversized ears. Din has one gloved finger extended that Grogu clutches onto, father stoically scooting as needed so his child can keep hold of him as he wades – slowly but surely – from one side of the tub to another. 

Luke’s heart expands outward in exponential magnitudes, a stupid smile stealing across his face.

He stifles his instinctive startle when Leia sends amusement.

Keeping tabs? she asks, pointed but true.

Don’t you? Luke shoots back, giving her a look. With a mental shrug, she concedes the point. 

“Ahem,” says Han, put-upon, as though he can tell they’re speaking silently to one another from the other side of the galaxy. 

“Sorry,” says Luke, throwing his datapad down on an empty cushion. Anything can happen in the black of space; he should be making the most of the time they’ve got. “I was just – watching him with the baby.”

It’s as though he’s set off a bomb in the middle of the call. 

“Baby?!” Han squawks. Beside him, Chewie lets out a rattling holler of shock and elation – a cub! Han turns to his wife, a galaxy apart, slack-jawed with disbelief. “Leia,” Han says, bug-eyed. “You didn’t say anything about a baby!”

“I did!” Leia insists, puffing herself up to meet and match his energy. “The apprentice is the baby.”

“He’s more of a toddler really,” Luke self-corrects, sheepishly aware he’s lost control of the conversation. 

Chewie lets out a wavering vocalization once more, and this time Leia grins as Luke’s neck burns, elbowing her brother in the side. “You’re so right, Chewie,” she agrees, fully smug. “He definitely needs a mate to keep him in line. A mate with a cub already attached? Perfect.” 

“So you’re raising a baby now? You?” Han, it seems, is still stuck on that point. 

“Well,” Luke starts, then stumbles, clarifying, “not really? He kinda… lives a long time. Ages real slow. Technically, he’s fifty.”

Han throws his hands up. “So you’re just gonna have a baby forever?!” he asks. “What kind of deal is that?!”

In the Core, on the settee, Luke and Leia dissolve into laughter at that, Leia clutching the front of her dress as she barks a hard laugh and Luke giggles, incoherent, literal tears of mirth spilling onto his cheeks. 

Force, he misses them. Wants them back here so much. The normal they bring, the banter and ease. 

It feels so long now since the last time he was able to just be Luke.

They’re laughing so hard that at first they don’t notice the seismic glitch in the vidstream until the audio dissolves, sharply and abruptly, into a high-pitched squeal. 

Leia’s mood goes from spiraling heights to tormented desperation. The moment hits like all the blood has left Luke’s forehead and rushed down into his toes. 

“No,” Leia says, order-begging, as though her word alone should be enough to remake reality ro her liking. “No, it’s too soon, we only just –”

“-- can’t —” Han calls out, still visible in hologram but head turning wildly, as though not sure which direction to speak towards. Chewie, visibly upset, is shouting. “– leaving soon – miss you both – I lo–”

They blink out of existence before he can finish.

It’s a struggle, Luke senses, for his sister to keep the crackle of electricity from seeping out her fingers.

Luke’s ears are ringing. It feels like every emotion he’s traversed during this call is stuck in his throat. He reaches out to her both with his Force presence and a hand to her arm. Taking deep breaths as though to steady herself.

“Leia,” Luke says, voice breaking, and he – he hates how frightened he feels, fucking always, when this comes out in her. When she buckles under the weight of the unbearable expectations that have been heaped on her shoulders; when her control fractures even a hairline.

She crumples forward into her own hands. 

“He loves me,” Leia says, muffled, then repeats it like a mantra. “He loves me. He loves me. I know he loves me. I know. I know.” Her voice breaks into pieces, her small body fraught and shaking. There’s something blood-red staining her aura.

“Leia !” Luke insists, heart pounding as he takes her in, suddenly more than serious. “You’re fine. Han’s fine! He’ll be back soon, he said as much. Both him and Chewie, they’ll be here before you know it.” 

Luke’s voice wavers, vision flickering. Something so similar to that presence from darkest childhood writhing to make surface.

It feels like he might pass out. Like he might slip down before her onto his knees and die begging for mercy. 

His bare left hand grips, silently desperate, at her shoulder. Luke smiles at his sister, silently haywire and desperate. You’ve got this.”

For some reason he doesn't understand, that seems to do the trick. 

The worst of the mounting volcanic plumes of dark, wretched energy collapses in on itself. 

It leaves his sister in its wake. Clutching at her head in her hands, rocking back and forth where she sits, chest heaving. 

His heart is pounding so fast he knows he just evaded danger. 

A hitching sob escapes Leia’s throat, swiftly-stifled. 

Ungracefully, numbly, Luke crawls across the settee to wrap her up in his arms. “You’re okay,” Luke tells her, and she shakes and shudders for long and drawn-out moments as she forcibly takes back control of herself. Refusing, with his urging, to allow rampant hatred to consume her entire being.

Luke squeezes her tightly, and she seems to – become smaller as he holds her. 

You’re okay, he insists, in the horrible few moments she dissolves to roughened sobs. It’s okay, Leia, you’re okay. You can master this. It’s okay. 

They stay there tangled together until she finally stops shaking. 

She shoves a vicious hand across her face when she shakes him off, her eye makeup smearing.

For a second he’s convinced her eyes are sunken, but she turns, and it’s a trick of the light. 

“This,” Leia tells him, and Luke frowns, completely lost until she continues, “is the last time, Luke. This is the last time I let him do this to me. Deep space travel so far from home – I didn’t marry him to be separated for nine months of the year. I won’t, I can’t do it. I won’t.”

Luke’s stomach sinks to the soles of his feet.

“I,” Luke starts, licking his lips. “Is that – for the best?” He swallows, trying to catch her golden gaze where strands of disheveled of hair conceal her profile. He dares pushing further. “You know Han loves being out there, at the edge of space. It’s hard for him here.” He gives her shoulder an assuring squeeze. “Would he really want to b–?”

It’s as though someone has physically closed their fist around his trachea. Not hard; not much. 

Just enough to ensure silence. 

“And what,” Leia demands, exacting and venomous, “about what I want?”

The pressure releases. 

Leia sags back, boneless, into the couch cushions.

They sit in long drawn-out silence. Luke raises a hand to his own throat as Leia’s chest heaves. He tries to keep a straight face despite how much his lips are trying to wobble. 

“Leave," Leia begs, turning to look at him for the first time in endless minutes. She looks – pained. Heartbroken, grieving. Apologetic. But in control. When she speaks, she sounds like herself. “Please, Luke. Go. We’ll talk about it later.” It feels, still, as though the floor has been pulled out from under him as Luke gets, uncertain, to his feet. Gathers up his datapad; collects his hung cape and boots as he leaves. 

The short distance between their quarters feels like it takes a lifetime. 

The blast doors open after the second time he tries to scan his thumbprint for access. 

He stumbles inside, waving to life a pair of low-lit lamps that keep the majority of the space in darkness. The visible parts are grays and whites – haunting colors, without any proper life to them. Comparable to any number of Imperial command posts he’s existed in over the years. 

Leia has tried to make her rooms a home. 

Luke, by contrast, can’t. He just can’t. 

His thoughts are racing; disruptive. The surrounding emptiness makes Din and Grogu’s absence all the more devastating. Hands tangled in his hair, he breathes the worst out, raw energy crackling outward. Grounding itself in all directions.

His discarded clothes, mostly white and lighter gray, gradually form a trail between the main door and the bedchamber.

There are precious few personal objects in Luke’s quarters, and the room he sleeps in is no exception. What there is of his own sits tucked into a box at the bottom of his second closet. Other nights, he’s crawled in there to sleep alongside them on piles of pulled-down coats, but tonight he roughly opens the door and summons the box onto his bed with the Force, crawling on top of it to meet it. To sift through. 

Inside are the relics of his distant past still yet remaining. All that was left after Palpatine’s men took his aunt and uncle, leaving their homestead to burn without them on the sand. A single holo of the three of them outside the dome when he was around eight or so; the halved remains of his uncle’s energy rifle, split by lightsaber. A half-burnt T-16 Skyhopper model airspeeder he had when he was a kid; he has no memory of who gave it to him. 

He lays each one out on his bedside table, hauls up the covers – and brings up the live security footage of Din and Grogu’s bedroom on his datapad.

The feed is infrared, meaning the lights are out and they’ve both gone to sleep. There’s an obvious Din-shaped lump in the bed – helmetless, Luke thinks, though he can’t tell if Grogu’s there with him. 

As his breathing comes back down to normal, Luke spends long minutes staring at the small screen in his hands, remembering what the warm solidity of Din’s body had been like last night.

Before he drifts to sleep, he plays his aunt’s holo again. 

Luke, Aunt Beru says, entreating and worried. It’s me. It’s been a few days since you commed – is everything all right…?

He plays the message the rest of the way through twice before extinguishing the lights, wondering when he can next justify a visit to Naboo. 

The last thought Luke has as he’s drifting off to sleep is whether there might be room to put a crib against the far wall.

-

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DAILY MEDIA SUMMARY
2nd Day, 8th Month, Year 44
Clearance Level B

Spotted! Unknown Mandalorian Backs Skywalker at Military Hearing –Information Hyperlane

Military Hearing Clip Spreads Across Holonet, Executor Looms In Chandrila’s Orbit –Hanna City Chronicle

Rumors of New Bodyguard Confirmed, Holos from Hearing Go VIRAL –Livewire Media

Galactic Refugee Association Makes Statement on Law Reversal: “This Victory Was a Long Time Coming” –New Imperial Times

High Prince Gets Himself a Man In Armor? Answering your Questions! -Pan-Galactic Gawker

What message is the Imperial High Prince's new bodyguard meant to send to Mandalore System? Here's what you need to know. –The Keldabe Press

Behind the Beskar: Top Ten Theories From Royal Experts on Mysterious Mandalorian –Royalwatch

Pet Mandalorian or Thinly-Veiled Threat? Why an Unpublicized, Unremarkable Security Update Is Taking the Galaxy by Storm –Deep Space Trawler

Advocates and Officials from Expansion Region, Colonies Celebrate Skywalker Ruling –Galactic Daily News

Hostilities Escalate in Bothan Space, New Empire Confirms Key Rebel Ringleader Neutralized –The Edge Audiocast

Click here for more headlines and links to full articles.
Click here for executive summary.
Click here for vidreel. 

–

Upon regaining consciousness, Luke spends an indeterminate period of time in a hollow-eyed funk. Feet tangled in lavish sheets, tear tracks drying on each cheek. 

It registers that he’s in no way fit for public consumption. 

Requisite missives are sent in short order. A notice to his adjutant general that his morning’s commitments, unilaterally, are to be pushed and rebooked; instructions sent to housekeeping and maintenance that his rooms are not to be disturbed for any reason except at his specific request. 

He lurches through protocol until he can collapse back down against his pillow. Body heavy; mind sluggish and numbed. 

His sister’s Force grip at his throat, more than a whisper, sticks in his head. Intended to silence; to put him in his place. 

He rolls onto his back, then stares blankly upward at the ceiling.

Distantly, Luke reflects on how fortunate it is that Din and Grogu aren’t here to see him this way. 

He finds himself dwelling for long, drawn-out minutes on what Leia said yesterday – about not letting Han play envoy, anymore, to uncontacted planets. Darth Amidala’s husband, sent in the flesh to lay groundwork for a future relationship; to argue candidly, in the way only Han can, for the New Empire as a strong yet merciful force within the galaxy. One from which systems and planets unreached can either accept the hand of friendship or live in fear forever of its clenched and vengeful fist.

Deep wells of worry bloom in his soul. A sense of dread and stranded helplessness, like being caught in the pathway of an oncoming natural disaster. Powerless, when it comes right down to it, in the face of the rocksliding avalanche of implications he had swore so ardently that he would help Leia keep at bay.

Luke blinks slowly, eyes unfocusing. 

Back in the day, he had argued, hard, for Han and Chewie to be allowed to take on the role of Imperial Envoys. Urged his sister that the two of them could be trusted; that their absence was worth the sacrifice. For the New Empire, yes, but more than anything for Leia and Han’s marriage. 

Being stuck in the Core – or, for that matter, on the Executor – for long stretches of time invariably left Han sour. It still makes him feel the need to buck and chafe, needle and provoke without purpose. 

Han belongs out there, among the stars. Chewie too.

He can still feel the invisible pressure of her fingers, tightening at his windpipe. 

I should send a note to Din, Luke thinks, dull and hollow. Let him know I’ll be by late today.  

Seconds later, it registers that Din has no comm or datapad with which to receive his messages. Inconsequential, perhaps, when all their time was spent so intimately. Now, separated, being unable to speak with Din directly seems unconscionable.

It’s a prompting realization; a problem with a bright, clear path to the solution. Blinking back to himself, Luke wrenches his own gaze from the dull white ceiling and manages to pull himself out of his own head enough to roll over onto his stomach, squinting at his datapad as he flicks and taps his way through various options. 

A local service-only comm and datapad are requisitioned in the end, along with a high chair and – in an extravagance that provides over forty minutes of much-needed distraction – several sets of custom robes, bespoke, for the baby. Half of them in dark gray to match his father’s beskar; the other half in black.

Once he’s done, word is sent to Din and Grogu by way of droid; almost an afterthought. See you at midday.

Precious hits of dopamine create enough momentum for Luke to push himself to his feet once the order is placed, hauling on a long-sleeved shirt that Din wore a few days ago, nabbed from the man’s laundry bin. He pads out into the main rooms, blankly taking in the trail of his own clothes that leads from the entrance to his bedroom; the sterile emptiness of his kitchen, untouched since his return. 

The prospect of caf and food equally unappetizing, Luke turns instead and walks barefoot down the hall, shirt hanging off one shoulder, passing through the set of blast doors he’s programmed to remain always open. Into the makeshift workshop. 

Its original intent was clearly to function as a private boardroom. One long table runs almost the full length of the space, a holoprojector built into its middle and edges dotted with standard-issue black conference chairs. All is unrecognizable save for the mechanical chaos strewn across practically every surface: bedraggled piles of cords and wires, scattered spare parts, and strewn tools of such high quality they’d be a rare indulgence, were they not so easily delivered from any number of the flagship’s hangar bays. 

Standard-issue shelves, one of his few deliberate additions to his chambers, line the walls for added storage. They create another dimension of chaos to the room, vertical as well as horizontal, spare vocabulators intermixed with powerbus cables and logic terminals, shoved onto shelves with little thought to organization or the comprehension of others. A full, if malfunctioning, avionics system stripped from a decommissioned TIE fighter sits at pride of place in what would be the seat of honor, should the board room ever return to its original purposes.

None occupy his attention in the same way as the current long-term project. The one he’s been working on, in fits and starts, for the last few months. 

Settling into a chair, Luke flicks a finger at the projector until it projects the schematics upward; it slowly rotates above the table in pale blue hologram, blown apart, labeled and measured to the micrometer. 

Gloved and ungloved hands raise the half-finished lightsaber handle up for close inspection.

The weapon’s composition is both simpler and more refined than his own, though with the project yet unfinished, Luke hasn’t fully encountered all the more subtle design differences. It’s intended, Luke thinks, to favor balance over heavy-hitting: custom energy modulation circuits to better contain its energy, internal wiring tightly-woven where it connects crystal chamber to blade emitter, a circulatory system of sorts.

Its crystal mounts are empty; he hasn’t found the right kyber yet despite multiple trips to highly-guarded Ilum. 

Luke summons a precision sculpting tool to hand, then proceeds to lose himself in fine-tuning the shape of the power insular in the handle.

Several hours pass, unnoted, by the time his datapad chimes with a lone priority message. 

The sound makes his stomach lurch, messy-haired blond head turning to face it. He swallows hard, then checks it, suppressing trepidation.

Forgive me, his sister’s comtext reads, small white letters against sleek black screen. I allowed control to waver in anger. Are you hurt? Love, Leia. 

The breath he’s been holding releases, tension in his neck and shoulders abating. Tentatively, he reaches out to her, brushing his Force signature against hers. Leia’s presence in the Force circles him immediately, holding him. Regretful and apologetic. 

I’m fine, Luke types back, so that she has a record. It’s okay. I forgive you. 

In his life, so many have fully intended the hurts they’ve leveled against him. It’s difficult to hold resentment in his heart towards his sister, who has done so very much for him. 

Who, in her heart of hearts, never truly meant to hurt him.

He hits send.

As soon as he does so, a pang of remembered guilt crashes over him. His fingers move quickly, typing up the missive to Aunt Beru he’s been dragging his feet on. An update on the status of himself, the father, and his son; Grogu’s progress in his training. Whether or not the Festival of Light might be a workable time for him to take them for an introduction. 

His own body’s needs make themselves known as soon as it’s sent, and Luke doesn’t actually get around to checking his work missives until after he’s used the ‘fresher and plunked himself down onto the main room’s plain gray couches, toasted bread and a mug of caf in hand. 

Reports from subordinates in Kordu and Vulcusian sectors, minutes from his meeting with the Sith Knights… 

When Luke reaches today’s media scan, his eyebrows fly upward with undignified snort. With a wide and creeping smile, he hits play on the compilation of media clips. 

Oh, Luke thinks as he watches, as a profound, flaring, tinkling amusement comes to life inside his chest. Oh, Din is gonna hate this. 

Gleeful, he has the datapad, comm, and baby clothes delivery expedited and sent to his chambers. He loads the mediareel onto a holocard in case the ‘projector in the guest wing isn’t state of the art enough to receive a cast directly from his datapad. A fresh set of clothes and the delivery of his small bundle of items later, Luke makes his way to Din and Grogu for the day, barely containing his humor and enthusiasm. 

As he approaches their door, he hesitates – then makes a last minute decision to keep walking past it, on to the guest wing living space. It wouldn’t do to have technical hiccups in the holoreel. He waves the door to the main entry room open, depositing the bundle of children’s clothes and Din’s new tech onto the receiving table as he proceeds through to the recreation room. 

He hums under his breath as he checks to make sure the holocard is compatible with his projector model. Once confirmed, he turns on his heel, mind elsewhere – and is legitimately startled by sight and shape of Din, fully armored, standing in the doorway with Grogu in arm. 

His hand flies to his chest, heart racing. 

He hadn’t even felt them get close.

It’s the first time Luke is forced to grapple with the fact that he doesn’t register either of them as unknown or threat anymore. 

“Hey,” says the Mandalorian, for all the world as though he isn't aware how badly Luke's been startled. Beneath his helmet, Luke can sense that the lines of his mouth are pressed together, a not-so-smile. Din shifts Grogu’s weight in his arms as the child reaches out to Luke with a grasping claw, sending back! with childish delight and enthusiasm in Luke’s direction. 

I am, Luke sends back, kind and affirming.

The Mandalorian’s helmet tilts, visor pointed towards the ground for a long moment before returning to him. “We left the contract paperwork here last night.” His voice, vocoded, is even in explanation. “Came back to grab it before you got here.”

“Ah,” Luke replies, heart still little-bird quick in his throat. “I was – checking something.” Beneath Din’s gaze, the details are insignificant. He drags his eyes from helm to boots and back again, dredging through the man’s being and finding no great trepidation. Luke tilts his head. “How was last night?”

Din considers the question seriously. “Good,” he determines, offering another sentence at the sight of Luke’s continued active listening. “He took a bath.”

Luke smiles at them both as though he hadn’t witnessed a portion of this spectacle without their knowing it. “That’s great.” 

The Mandalorian offers up no echoing inquiry, for which – today – Luke is grateful. 

As he watches, Din visibly caves to his son’s determined reaching. He crosses the room to close the space between them, a conflicted emotion taking hold of him beneath the beskar as Grogu reaches out and grips his black gloved index finger. After an exchange of unspoken greetings, Luke’s attention shifts from son to father. “I brought a few things – come see.”

The bundle of tech and baby clothes is summoned from the entry room, and Luke unconsciously herds the three of them to settle on the couch, a funny variation on a three-legged race in which Grogu acts as the hingepoint between them. It’s so easy to slide into their golden-sweet connection, wild relief unspooling in his chest at being tethered to a merging of energy so… earnest. Ever-reaching. 

Stable. 

Luke takes the baby to free Din’s hands, bouncing the child gently on one knee as he watches the father with avid attention. That Din removes and sets down his helmet before turning attention to the package is a pleasant surprise. His hair looks clean and soft. 

The reveal of the comlink and datapad elicit a quirked brow and side eye from him. 

“Local service only, for now,” Luke explains, “so you can reach me if you need to.” 

There’s a pause. “Thanks,” says Din, a bit stiff and measured, but dutifully does a once-over of each item. He clips the comlink to his utility belt, then tucks the datapad in his black sling bag. 

Screens! Grogu sends with some enthusiasm, but is swiftly distracted when his father reaches forward with both hands and holds up one of the small black robes by its shoulders. Grogu goes wide-eyed, mouth falling open. He points at the robes with one claw and turns to Luke. Mine??

The smile that spreads across Luke’s lips feels as bright as a sunrise. Yours.

A split second later he registers that Din is looking at him. Even-handed and dry without speaking, dark brows creeping upward, almost… cheeky, in an understated way.

“What?” asks Luke, half-affronted. “The child can hardly run around in the same pair of robes every day of the week, Din. Honestly.” Certainly not after their two weeks of seclusion are over and Grogu is introduced to his waiting galactic audience. “I thought he’d like some variety.”

Din glances down at where Grogu is crawling over their collective laps, little claws full of fabric, then looks pointedly at what Luke himself is wearing. “You’re dressing him like a little you.” 

Which. Hm. 

“Hm,” says Luke. “The gray was… meant to match your beskar, but. Point taken.” Din doesn’t seem to be listening, more intent on the fabric in his own hands – soft, waterproof, wipeable – and the miniature horned beast in replica sewn into the robe’s right shoulder, pattern recreated from the sigil on Din’s pauldron.

When Luke next speaks, his voice has softened. "Does it mean something?” He knows it does; he just doesn’t know what. 

The tidal crush of Din’s emotions hits hard and unexpected. Gloved fingers tighten, briefly, on the robes in his hands. “It does. Thank you.” As if aware that Luke will want something more than that, he continues. “The creature’s called a Mudhorn.”

Nodding, Luke files that away for later. “The reel is what I wanted to show you, though – here.”

Luke extricates himself from the tangle of Grogu and new garments, slots the holocard into the player, and quickly returns to his seat. He smothers the smile that threatens with his left hand. 

The rectangle of blue light projected upwards features two sentients in round, sleek chairs.

“Who is the mysterious Mandalorian?"

“What,” Din says, flat, as the blue-skinned Q’ltane woman in the anchor’s seat blithely continues.

“Seen today in the background of a recent military hearing with High Prince Skywalker, a lone Mandalorian has sparked a pan-galactic uproar.”

“What?” Din asks again, this time clearly horrified. He watches the projection in much the same way one might an oncoming train.

Grogu, for one, seems entirely unconcerned.

“Welcome back to The Pulse. I’m Kennecky Jaddit. With us today are V’antek Tzah from Royalwatch and Qrell Sillian, one of our own investigative journalists, who joins us by holo from Mandalore sector.” She turns to face the camdroid. “For those just tuning in: exclusive footage from a recent military hearing has revealed a significant security shift for the Emperor’s son, Luke Skywalker.”

An image of Luke, seated in the broadcasting chamber, appears on screen. The focus zooms in to focus on the Din himself in the background: the charismatic cut of his helmet, the strength of his stance.

“The Executor declined to offer comment, but did emphasize that the change is not due to an increase in real or perceived threats to His Highness’s safety. Qrell, what’s the word from Mandalore sector?”

A disjointed pause passes. “... thanks, Kennecky. Well, the rumor mill here on Concordia, one of Mandalore’s moons, is just off the charts.” In the background of the on-site reporter, a mix of armored and unarmored sentients – largely humanoid if occasionally otherwise – enter and exit a building that would be considered ornate by Outer Rim standards if not by Core ones. “Our cultural experts here in Mandalore sector have identified several subtle but significant signs that the Mandalorian --” as if there is only one of real consequence, “—specifically, his armor, strongly points to both Concordian – and Death Watch! – influences.”

If karking hell could be given corporeal form, it would be Din Djarin’s face right now.

“The Viceroy of Mandalore and the Regent of Concordia have denied any and all knowledge of the High Prince’s new security arrangements, but took the opportunity to extend his best regards to both the Imperial High Prince on his new Mandalorian security guard. He also reiterated the importance of a strong, united New Empire.” The reporter nods, solemn. “Qrell Sillian, Pulse News, Mandalore sector.”

“Thanks, Qrell. V’antek: what are the current theories about who, exactly, is under that helmet?”

“Ken,” says the bespectacled humanoid, “right now there are so many more possibilities than there are answers. Here are a few of the most popular ideas on the ‘Net right now about who Imperial High Prince Skywalker may want at his heel.” 

A square of five rows of five mugshot-style photos of sentients – mostly human – fills the screen.

“I don’t even know who these people are,” Din says. Low, perplexed, oddly defeated.

Luke shoots him a quizzical look, eyes flashing to the feed and then back again. “Pre Vizsla?” he asks, skeptical. “You don’t know who that is?”

“Well.” With reluctance, Din concedes with a head-tilt. “I might know his nephew.”

“-- new and revitalized HoloNet conspiracies have also been flooding the usual circuits in the wake of photos of the Mandalorian gaining prominence. Of particular note are rumors that the Imperial government and military are secretly controlled at every level by a cabal of Mandalorian overlords.” He nods, serious. “Kennecky?”

“Thanks, V’antek. Certainly some far-fetched ideas out there. Coming in live –”

 The feed changes, crackling static. 

A roundtable of squabbling sentients appears, quick-pan camera angles switching between speakers. The lower third reads SKYWALKER FINALIZES LAW REVERSAL  /  UNKNOWN MANDALORIAN STEALS GALACTIC SPOTLIGHT in slow-scrolling aubresh. 

“It’s about giving them a platform in the first place,” insists a gold-cloaked Ubdurian, frowning beneath her sleek headpiece. “My people learned long ago what Mandalorians are capable of, before the Galactic Republic or Empire were even a glimmer in spacetime. They converged upon our lands; we were nearly wiped out. We regrouped and survived, but we never forgot. And this is the sentient they station at the High Prince’s side, this–”

“--she’s right,” says a voice, and the cam angle switches. A highly done-up Core-world woman furrows her brow, clutching at the front of her bejeweled wrap in deep turquoise. “Mandalorians are a threat,” she snips, “or the New Empire wouldn’t have had to pacify them the way they did to keep us safe. Lifting up violent brutes, giving their barbaric culture air time – will no one please think of our future generations?” 

Next to him, Din’s being churns in a way that is contemplative, but shaken. 

“Geb nak tala!” says an exasperated voice, and the camera angle switching again to show a sentient comprised largely of tentacles with no visible mouth, gesturing rapidly, their appendages flying. A dubbed voice translates in Basic, speaking quickly to keep up. “It’s – a symbol. Symbolic. The Mandalorian is just a symbol of –”

“This all happened in one day?” Din asks with disbelief. Grogu stares from his lap, confused but entertained enough.

“News,” Luke informs him, an amused smile curling at his lips, “travels fast.”

Applause and mostly-femine cheers of a live studio audience make all eyes return to the projection, where a hostess with long floor-length braids sits elegantly on stage with three other female humanoids. “Welcome back to View From The Stars! Our in-depth coverage, your burning questions.” 

A near-human woman next to her winks at the screen as she draws a piece of folded flimsi from the oversized glass bowl. “What,” she starts, “are the ladies’ thoughts on Prince Luke’s mysterious new Mandalorian?”

Cheers and catcalls are shouted. The hostess takes an exaggerated swig of her drink. 

“Well,” hazards the older woman on the panel, looking directly at the camera. “I think it’s fair to say His Highness has a type.”

The live audience ooooooohs. 

One of the other hostesses gasps while another goggles. “Ch’an’drel!!”

“It’s true!” she insists. “Think about it! Dark and mysterious. Built for battle. He even has a cape!” She leans back in her seat, hands raised palm-outward. “There’s no way he’s not at least a little tempted.” 

A demure, waist-height sentient rests her head in her hands. She looks like a mix between a bat and a pig, but with lipstick and rouge. “You’re going to get us taken off the air,” she groans, only half-joking. “I’m going to go back to the office after this and find it papered with cease and desist notices –”

“So,” asks the woman who selected the question, “does that mean that tending to Prince Luke’s needs are part of his official duties, or–?” 

The audience hoots and hollers with another round of applause as the feed, yet again, switches.  

“-- in today’s feature, our information bounty-hunters have tracked down exclusive footage of the Mandalorian prior to his time as an Imperial bodyguard.” A grainy, smaller feed appears mid-air beside the speaker: it shows a fully-armored Din, no Grogu in sight, striding through an industrial-looking warehouse or hangar bay, amban rifle drawn and firing. “Preliminary reports suggest that the Mandalorian may have spent time on both Concordia and Nevarro. Rumors of previous operations as an independent contractor for the Bounty Hunters’ Guild have yet to be confirmed. Now; if you zoom in here –” 

An ‘enhanced’ version of the grainy image appears, highlighting small details of the Mandalorian’s weaponry and armor. In short order ‘experts’ are called in, dissecting each microsecond of the surfaced feed with wild abandon. 

With a gleeful wave of his hand, Luke mutes the holoreel, enabling a stream of aubresh close-captioning. The freeze-frame image of a hyper-competent warrior projected before them is a stark contrast to the shaken, sickened man sitting next to him. Luke rests his chin on gloved knuckles, eagerly awaiting a response.

It takes a few seconds for Din to collect his thoughts enough to speak. In his lap Grogu seems unbothered by the paused feed, watching their back and forth with bright, childish amusement. 

“... all I did,” Din says eventually, rough and muted, “was stand next to you.”

It’s like they’re trying to dissect me, Din thinks, unknowingly loud. Without a body to cut into.

Luke softens in understanding, sidling slowly sideways. He maneuvers pauldron and chestplate.

“Sometimes,” Luke says, resting his head on the comparative softness of cape, flight suit, neck guard, “that’s all that it takes.”

On screen, a collection of representatives – galactic veterans associations, advocacy groups – express support for the recent policy reversal. When prompted, one guest admits to mild irritation at the matter being conflated with the ephemeral cycle of galactic news, while another insists that any publicity is good publicity for the cause, and that it’s rare for developments in these regions to receive this level of galactic attention. 

Din shifts his arm so Luke can rest against him more comfortably. It’s a move that’s more than half instinct, but Luke finds himself sinking into the embrace all the same.

After a while, a new scene projects before them, depicting a dark blue hologram of Luke himself in full formal attire. Juxtaposed against another series of mugshot-like photos of… men. Lovers. His past lovers, rumored and actual.

“Ah,” says Luke, a flush rising in his cheeks. Not ashamed, per se, but certainly hoping to redirect Din’s attention. He waves at the feed to turn it off, then lays his head back down, resting his cheek against cool, sturdy armor. 

A thought builds in him, growing louder and louder for long minutes before Din allows himself to give voice to it.

“...I lived on Concordia,” Din says, an eternity later. “For a while. I was raised in the Fighting Corps.” Long seconds pass in relative silence. “My Tribe left after the exodus.”

Many did, Luke thinks, breathing a sigh, a hitch in his chest despite his foreknowledge. And were fortunate to do so. Luke refrains from prodding further, his thumb rubs gentle little circles into Grogu’s robe-clad belly. 

Right now at least, he doesn’t want anything more than this. 

 The gloved hand resting on Luke’s arm subtly squeezes, attention-seeking. The Mandalorian’s bare chin nudges at his head. “Where do we have to be today?” Din asks, a low rumble.

This peace can’t last. No peace ever can. Soon, Luke reflects, his Mandalorian is going to start pushing boundaries in earnest. Is going to encounter some line Luke doesn’t wish him to cross. Wherein this pattern of small rewards and small indulgences will be broken by some painful, necessary punishment. 

“Nowhere,” Luke answers on an exhale. Heavy eyes blinking, reaching out through the Force to cradle Grogu’s lantern-light presence close to him. The child’s presence sings with wordless joy at being so seen, so held. 

Luke reaches for his datapad. In silence, Din watches over his shoulder as Luke types a missive instructing the day be cleared of any and all pre-scheduled obligations. 

Right now, everything else in the galaxy can wait. 

He lets out a long and drawn-out sigh when he hits send – and allows himself to meld even further against Din’s side as he slumps more heavily against him; snuggling in close. “Nowhere we don’t wanna be.”

–

Day 2 Month 8 Year 44
Imperial Standard Calendar

Terms of Employment:

I, [Mudhorn sigil], do solemnly swear eternal allegiance to the New Galactic Empire. 

I hereby forsake all prior alliances and pledge myself wholly to the care and protection of Imperial High Prince, Fleet Admiral, and Sith Lord Luke Skywalker as long as we both shall live. 

No harm shall come to the child known as Grogu in exchange for my obedience. 

Signed,
[Mudhorn sigil]

Authorized By,
Luke Skywalker

Attachment 1: Application for Bounty Hunters Guild Membership Conversion (Form 3-T: Independent Contractor to Imperial Contractor)

Attachment 2: Authorization to Alter Chain Code – [NAME REDACTED]

-

Normally, on days when Luke can’t stand to be contained within the confines of the Executor ’s hull for another standard minute, his usual course of action is to find himself a fast ship and blast into the cosmos.

Luke sees no reason to put paid to this habit just because the child is still flagship-bound. 

“The Svelte -class does just fine for short haul flights,” Luke declares, Din following. They cut a dark and sweeping pathway through the sea of white and gray uniforms as Luke leads the two of them through the hangar, bodies parting to clear a path with a scuttering panic of collective retreat dulled to less than background noise. A grin unfurls over his lips; he glances over his shoulder. “Though, of course, I’d favor something a little more maneuverable if I were flying solo.”

The Mandalorian inclines his helmet in acknowledgement, not breaking stride.

Luke comes to a halt in front of the sleek black craft, the shuttle currently being fuelled and prepared for their usage. He puts his hands on his hips. 

“Sleeker than the Lambda models,” he remarks, inclining his head to one side. The tri-winged design of the old Lambda class with a more compact, streamlined wing for finer purposes than mere goods transport. With both black wings resting vertically at its sides, from this angle the shuttle resembles a waiting bird of prey. “I’m told some of the pilots call them Vader-class shuttles,” says Luke. Seen from above, the rounded curve of the wingpoints always remind him of a horned black beetle – but he can see the resemblance in concept. 

“Hm,” says the Mandalorian, a vocoded acknowledgement. Unthinking, Luke crooks a finger – and after a moment Din advances. Standing side by side beneath the eyes of so many onlookers. 

A familiar Imperial astromech zooms out overhead in a great arc, sweeping down towards them a whirring chipping flurry of binary. The spherical black shape of Q1-S1 zooms excitedly around Luke once, then engages his repulsors to hover – expectant and showoffish – between the two of them and the shuttlecraft. 

Que whistles and beeps; first at Luke, then the attending technicians. 

The Mandalorian’s muted, long-suffering sigh remains pointedly internal. Droids.

Luke raises both brows. “Sorry, Que,” he says, “I’m bringing a different co-pilot this time.”

Indignant, the black ball that is Que draws back, faceplate and radar eye swiveling to face the Mandalorian. He makes a low drawn-out whistle of wary suspicion, only further fuelling Din’s baseline level of unimpressed .

Luke narrows his eyes. “None of that,” he commands, “Emergency and auto-repair only.” He waves a gloved hand, spying the all-clear. “Go – get in position.”

Que does so, swooping in a way that’s somehow sulky.  

They’re boarding a handful of minutes later, the black boarding ramp closing behind them as Luke makes for the cockpit.

Behind him, Din hesitates – then slides into the co-pilot seat in silence. Familiarizing himself with the setup, adjusting his seat to his liking. 

If I ask to take the helm, the Mandalorian thinks to himself, he’ll just say no. Silence, he deems, is the better option. 

Luke stifles a frown, mouth twitching at one corner. He’s right, of course – Luke can’t justify giving the controls over to someone who still habitually scans rooms for escape opportunities when they enter, let alone someone his father hasn’t yet formally approved.

Perhaps in a few years, Luke tells himself, consoling. The sooner Din stops thinking himself a prisoner, the sooner Luke can stop treating him like one. 

The Svelte -class is responsive under his hands, both gloved and bare. Cycling warmth builds beneath their seats. The swooping canopy provides a wide viewing angle, limited only by the steel framing required for hyperspace durability. Luke waits, semi-patient, as a trooper down dockside provides the landing protocols. His fingers tap an idle rhythm on the yoke. 

“Ready for launch, sir.” As soon as the affirmation comes in over the comm, Luke’s easing the repulsor thrusters, unable to hide a smile at the corresponding whirr as he angles forward. Anticipated thrill builds at the base of his spine. The ray shield flickers, then drops entirely.The great maw of the hangar door yawns before them, wide open and inviting. 

And then–

Then they’re out and he’s flying, out of the flagship’s clutches and into the unfettered black. Piloting with a wildness he never shed; that was never beaten out of him. He skirts them past satellites and a slew of Imperial starfighters, deftly avoiding any of the designated entry points for urban centers.

The sanctity and certainty of his own freedom crackles through his synapses.

Damn, Din thinks from the copilot’s seat, a projection loud enough for Luke to hear him through the resonant buzz of the cosmos all around them. The kid really can fly. 

The kick of raw pride and self-satisfaction has Luke taking them into a series of dips, rolls, and spins – more well-suited to a single-seat starfighter, perhaps, but Luke knows this craft intimately.

The shuttlecraft is an extension of himself, each tight curve and rev of the thrusters palpable on every conceivable level of his being. Whole body leaning into the movement, Luke veers them away from the hyperspace lane that connects Chandrila to the Perlemian Route, aiming for a less populated expanse in the planetary geospace. Keeping an eye out for whatever part of the planet looks the most interesting from orbit. 

All trace of the haughty mask has slipped completely; features alight with exhilaration and exaltation, grin stretching so wide it aches in his cheeks.

Beskar gives no indication of how naturally Din seems to melt into the role of co-pilot beside him. The Mandalorian quickly familiarizes himself with the pitch and yaw, the navigational material, exhaling tension just loud enough for the sound to be caught by his vocoder as unseen weight seems to lift from his shoulders. 

It would seem Luke isn’t the only one who’d been chafing at the confines.  

The two of them pilot and co-pilot in easy, silent tandem. And it’s – fun, Luke thinks, having had to stretch to find the right word. A dance throughout the stars, both their hands confident and capable in their own right. 

They end up coming to a stop on the planet’s far side, positioned in such a way that its bulk covers the view of his father’s flagship all but entirely. Luke slips into a slower engine cycle, then brings them to full stop, stretching like a pleased cat and smirking as he settles to take in the sight of Chandrila from orbit.

A sphere of swirling color, Chandrila hangs stark and stunning in the star-flecked black. The thinnest crescent moon of light illuminates one side, the light from a sun thousands of kilometers away at last colliding with its final destination.

Only one of the planet’s two continents are visible from this angle, rolling hills surrounded by deep blue oceans and seas. The view before them remains spectacularly obscured by great swirls of cloud and twisting weather patterns – Rydix cells, Luke hears Din murmur absently, internally. All the way on its surface, Luke can feel the planet resonate palpably with life of all kinds – with the interwoven energy of the Force as it binds all life together. 

He’s sixteen years old and at the cruiser’s main viewport, Vader’s gloved and armored hand firm and heavy on his shoulder. All but dust-swept and limping from the caves out Tatooine as he stares out at the immensity of an entire planet before him for the very first time.

“Doesn’t look that developed,” the Mandalorian says, words a low and filtered cadence. Luke blinks, looking to him. The man’s visor is pointed in a dead stare at the planet before them, arms are crossed at his chest. His pauldrons rise and fall, a contained shrug. “For a Core World.” 

“Not all Core Worlds are,” Luke explains, wondering idly how much time Din’s spent in the Core relative to the rest of the galaxy. Unfastening his flight harness, Luke adjusts so that he’s turned towards Din further. He settles in against the headrest, pinning the Mandalorian very much beneath his gaze. “Leia says planets with strong governance and striking landscapes sometimes end up exerting their authority to constrain urban development.” He thinks of the snow-topped mountainscapes and verdant forests of his sister’s homeworld. They’d traveled there together at eighteen; him for the first time, her not since childhood. The landscapes had been awe-inspiring. “You know – to keep the natural parts mostly intact.” 

They’d travel to Alderaan more often, Luke suspects, if there were more of Leia’s parents left to visit than their tombs. 

The Mandalorian says nothing for a moment, helmet unwavering as he looks upon Chandrila. When he eventually speaks, his tone is very even. “What happens if the Empire has something they want?” 

It’s not a real question if they both know the answer. He lets it slide, the privacy and loose-limbed pleasure from the flight over tempering any desire for ideological back-and-forth. Instead, Luke lolls his head against the headrest, turning to look right where he knows the man’s eyes to be. 

Gloved fingers reach up, idle, to undo his top button.

“Take it off,” Luke says to him, casually – a command, but soft-spoken. “Din.” Speaking his name aloud both conscious decision and thoughtless intimacy. 

Next to him, Din has gone taut with a stillness that would hide his trepidation were Luke not able to feel the trill of the man’s insides with on-edge anticipation as if it were his own. 

The Mandalorian reaches upward with both gloved and steady hands. 

As always, Din exposing his face gives the impression of a crustacean without part of its shell. A snake shedding skin; a softer, more vulnerable interior exposed to a rush of recycled air. 

Now helmetless, Din surveys Luke sideways through dark lashes. Both wariness and challenge gleaming in his eyes; his restiveness at being so seen expertly hidden in the stiff lines of the rest of his armored body. A prey creature staring down a predator who hasn’t yet followed its nature in spite of repeated opportunities.

Luke swallows back the sound of weakened wanting that seeks to escape the back of his throat. For a stark moment, Luke imagines throwing all caution and strategy to the wind and having the man right here in the cockpit -- unclothed just enough, rough hands grasping, a teasing slowness. 

He lingers in his fantasy for a brief moment, then firms his resolve once more -- not yet .

Patience, Luke reminds himself, is an agonizing necessity. 

His gaze returns to Chandrila.

“Chandrila is known for many things,” Luke elaborates; even-toned and undemanding, as though no halt existed in the conversation. “Strident political culture. Great thinkers. Agricultural exports.” His eyes slide sideways, recapturing Din’s gaze. “They’re also known for being rife with remnant insurgent sympathizers.”

At Din’s nod,  Luke gestures forward one-handed. “They have a base – maybe multiple bases – down there on Chandrila. They’re out there burning grain fields, radicalizing students. Provoking escalating crackdowns. Local authorities, Imperial Army. That’s why the flagship’s in orbit here. To… send a signal that such opposition can, in fact, be put down if needed.” 

Beside him, Din turns Luke’s words over several times in his head. Examining them from several different directions. 

“Big signal,” the Mandalorian deadpans, expression screwing up a half second after in a way that suggests he thinks he may have said a few more precious syllables more than he should’ve. 

Luke gives Din a playful eye. "The New Empire,” he says, “hardly requires slathering thralls from its membership.” His eyes flit back to survey the growing swirls of a building low pressure system converging in the planet’s southern hemisphere, no doubt oceanic and balmy. His lip curls, tone lowering. “What it does require is order.” For a moment he feels a low chill, vision slip-sliding blurring, a pain spasming behind his eyes. “If obedience is deemed necessary, we will take it.” 

A thick, fraught silence passes. “Not as a first resort,” Luke adds, belatedly. “My sister and I work very hard, as it happens. To make sure it’s not a first resort, where we can.”

Din Djarin’s gaze pierces his awareness. Haltingly, Luke looks to him, suddenly self-conscious. As though he’s glimpsed cause for some new insight, the bare lines of his expression laid plain to him. “What?” Luke asks, earnest. 

The Mandalorian averts his eyes, giving his head a quick shake. “Nothing.” Din audibly considers speaking to fill the resulting silence; decides against it. Two-tone gloves reach down to unfasten his own flight harness. Heaving an exhalation as he subtly arches his back, flight suit and beskar-clad shoulders rolling back as though to work out a kink. There’s a low pop as he gets it, just audible beneath the ambient, gentling drone of surrounding systems and circuitry.

His small groan of satisfaction and the way he sinks back in his seat makes Luke smirk. 

“Hm,” Luke hums, making a mental note to get the man’s bare back and shoulders underhand in the near future so he can work out every knot and and aching muscle. Massage is one of the skillsets he developed as a necessity in enslaved adolescence, but that’s proven to have far more pleasurable utility in liberated adulthood. His gaze is a caress as it moves down over Din’s armored form. The Mandalorian’s legs, he notes, are slightly parted – enough space beneath the copilot-side console for someone to kneel there. He takes a breath through his nose, tongue darting out to lick his lips.

“You seem more relaxed,” Luke hedges, inclining his head where it’s pressed against his headrest. “Since leaving the flagship, I mean.” 

Din snorts under his breath. “That place is oppressive,” he states, giving blunt words to the sentiment, already-formed within his mind. If anything, Luke’s smile widens – he’s not wrong. 

“It is,” Luke agrees, “or certainly can be.” He draws breath to ask how familiar Din is with the publicized details of Luke’s past – then catches himself. No point in asking a question to which he already knows the answer. Little, if anything. “I woke up on a Star Dreadnought after Father and Leia rescued me. I was sixteen, and I was –” inhuman. inconsolable. shattered. “--unwell. Even after I was able to leave the med-ward, I found that craft to be… stifling, for all its vastness. At the time.” 

Luke huffs a light chuckle. “We lived there for less than a year before the Sith- class flagship was habitable. Several times the size, and it still feels… constraining, at times.” He turns his head, again taking in the starscape. Truth threatens on his tongue, and he lowers his gaze. “I never thought of either of them as home.”

He can feel the Mandalorian’s eyes on him. “So…” Din starts, in a tone of voice that suggests he might regret asking before the question is even voiced yet. “Why spend so much time there?”

The smile Luke gives him is beatific, but doesn’t reach his eyes. The kind of expression he wears to convey a message of graceful commiseration to whatever audience he’s faced with. 

“It’s the heart of Imperial power.” Luke accompanies his answer with a shrug of his black-clad shoulders. “People call me the Emperor’s Heart. Leia spends weeks at a time on board the Executor, as does Father. It’s where decisions are made, and there are times I need to be there to make them.” He lifts his brows. “Only at times, however. Most of the year I can holocall in; my responsibilities to the Sith and to my fleet often send me across the galaxy.” 

Silence stretches long enough to take on its own weight and shape. 

“Why? Where do you want to be taken?” Luke asks him, coy and prompting. Din blinks at him in response, and the hint of a flush creeping up into his cheeks feels Luke with sinful warmth from top to bottom. 

His hair is mussed, Luke tells himself, as he reaches up a hand to mime tucking a stray curl behind the man’s ear. The Force mimics the gesture in live time. 

A sharp inhalation and shiver are his winnings, each coveted like kyber.

“Once Leia’s done her politicking,” Luke murmurs, leaning in closer, “and an announcement is made to the galaxy…I can take the two of you anywhere you want.” At the mention of an announcement, a sharp pang of anxiety fear distress hits Din’s chest – rightful fear, Luke senses, that such an announcement would be the death knell of his and his son’s chances at freedom. 

Luke shushes him, low and reassuring, raising a hand to ghost the tips of two fingers over Din’s jaw. 

As is so often the case, touch proves to be a highly effective distraction. The Mandalorian’s senses suddenly narrow delightfully as he breathes in a gasp, lashes fluttering briefly shut. Preoccupied by the singularity of Luke’s fingertips dragging over his hungry, wanting skin.

“Any preferences,” Luke asks, low and breathy as he holds Din’s gaze prisoner, “for destination?”

If Din says the word, Luke thinks, anything they may want or need can be acquired. A ship, a home, a settlement – a planet, if that’s what he wants. Their little clan; all three of them. 

They could set out into the black, returning only for short, necessary stretches when Imperial commitment demands it of them.

Din shakes his head and Luke lets him, the motion enough to be visible through a helmet. 

“I don’t –” Din breaks off, unknowingly projecting his inner world outward. Luke stills, trying to act as though he isn’t doing the mental equivalent of leaning in closer to hear someone whisper. 

There’s – nowhere, Din thinks, ardent and true. Just… the kid. The tribe. What we need to survive. 

When Din’s next thought surfaces, it’s a billow of red fabric long since burnt to ash: The places I want to go back to don’t even exist anymore. 

Luke pulls back, slightly, with a sharpened inhalation. 

A lone pourstone entry dome set against staggered suns.

When the Mandalorian finally speaks again, it isn’t to answer. “Why,” Din says insead, a question without raised inflection. Luke blinks at him, thrown off-balance by the buzzing linger of the memory. “Why us,” Din continues, voice thickening with rising urgency, as though giving voice to questions that have been living for days on the tip of his tongue. “Why the kid, why –” Din catches himself, brow twisted and body language fraught. “Why do any of this?”

The sound of the oxygen recirculator seems louder as they sit there in silence. Chandrila hangs, stunning and brimming with lifeforce, in the corner of his eye. 

Luke spends precious moments deliberating a response. 

Clouds swirl sedately, converging south of the equator, gathering near Chandrila’s most isolated islands. A great maelstrom of indiscriminate natural carnage in the making, its grand pattern only made clear from their great surveying distance.

When Luke takes hold of Din’s chin with gloved fingers, it’s to turn his head to make him look out over the spacescape. 

“You see that?” Luke asks him, an encouraging lilt. “A tropical storm, from orbit.” Thick swirls of white clouds churn, fading spiraling trails left in its wake.  

Din remains still and disciplined but for his small nod of acknowledgement in Luke’s grasp. 

“The galaxy is cruel,” Luke tells him, “just as the storm is cruel to those who get caught in it. Those without protection suffer for the consequences.” He nuzzles up against dark sweat-licked hair; delights in the sound of Din’s bare, naked gasp. 

“Luke,” Din breathes, and Luke would do truly reprehensible things if it meant hearing his name from Din’s mouth for the rest of their days. He shifts in his seat; wants to shove Din down into the pit of his own chest so he can live off his warmth forever.

“But with me,” Luke tells him, unrelenting, “you’re at the heart of it. Here, in the eye of the storm.” 

Luke himself was once plucked from that same destruction; given shelter and protection when he’d done nothing to deserve it except being born. 

If he wants to do the same for Din and his son, that’s his prerogative.

His transition from leaning halfway out of the pilot seat to straddling the co-pilot is a feat of athleticism made easier with judicious use of the Force. Luke cups his cheek and looks down into his wide and overflowing eyes, staring into his soul. Their mouths are so close without actually touching, warm breath a shared intimacy.

Beskar bites into his shins, a lovebite in progress.

Moving with smooth confidence, Luke closes what little space there is between them, nosing at the sensitive skin behind Din’s ear. 

The Mandalorian’s inhale goes ragged when Luke nips, playful, at the dark bruises just visible above his high flightsuit neckline. “I’m doing this,” Luke exhales, breath hot against Din’s ear and neck, “because I want you here with me.” He drags the pad of his thumb along Din’s jawline. “That’s all.”

As always, physical intimacy has a way of halting Din’s protests before they’re even fully formed. 

“Besides,” Luke asks, pulling back just enough to recapture Din’s gaze. Cocking his head to one side, as though innocent. “Don’t you want me too?”

The Mandalorian’s expression cracks wide open, staring up at him.

Luke leans down to kiss his mouth like he’s capturing enemy territory.

Gloved and ungloved hands slide in tandem to tangle in his curls, drawing a low sound from Din’s throat that reverberates in the join of their mouths. The touch of his mustache brushes against Luke’s upper lip. Leather-thick fingers of one of Din’s gloved hands settles, uncertain, along the curve of his waist. Luke gasps, hips hitching, whining out his next exhalation. 

Seconds later, Din’s mouth shifts in a way Luke recognizes: a technique that Luke unquestionably taught him and also just happens to – affect him particularly strongly. He moans outright, legs turning to liquid all the way down through his toes. 

The idea of Din using his own tricks against him, learning him –

Beneath him Din burns with deliberate, retaliatory satisfaction. An arena in which he can fight back, if only in service of their mutual pleasure.

Luke’s the one to break the kiss, breaths heaving, pressing his forehead to Din’s only briefly – and then he’s drawing back, away from Din’s flushed cheeks and shining lips and confused blinking. Easing down, down, down between armored legs until he’s kneeling beneath the co-pilot console, leaning his cheek on beskar thigh plate as he blinks up at Din, eyes large and beguiling. 

Realization dawns in silence. Dark brown eyes seem to shine even darker from this angle. 

“Yes?” Luke asks, expectant and light. Hands unmoving as he takes hold of the hidden zipper of Din’s flight suit with just the Force, raising an eyebrow at Din’s wavering inhalation. Din’s head turns to one side, eyes averted, cheeks flushed and chest heaving. 

Luke doesn’t wait for an answer.

The zip drags down with a sound of understated eroticism. He slips a hand into the relief panel without hesitation, fingers grazing the hardened shape of the codpiece Din wears between flight suit and underthings. Persistent fingers tease along the crease of his thigh, where a hint of soft skin and wiry hair meets his fingertips. Inhaling through his nose, Luke catches barest whiffs of his smell – musky and potent – and it’s enough to make his mouth water, greedy with anticipation. 

Against and beneath him the Mandalorian shudders, silent and straining. 

Luke has learned many times over how to tease a human male into transcendental orgasm. How to swallow right down to the hilt and let his throat be ridden roughshod; to become a vessel for another being’s pleasure.

Din’s attempt at silence is sweet, but it won’t last long. 

Not when Luke’s determined to make him come screaming. 

“That’s right,” Luke breathes, fingertips grazing at the edges of the metal that denies him easy access. Each glimpse of skin when Din’s flight suit shifts is flushed and enticing; fingertips close but not quite touching the pressure trigger yet, drawing teasing little circles around it before tearing his eyes away long enough to glance up at the rest of him. 

The Mandalorian isn’t looking away from him anymore. He’s looking right down at him instead, dark eyes blown wide and armored chest close to heaving. When Luke takes his gaze prisoner, a small strangled sound escapes from Din’s throat. 

And Luke is so ready for this. Was so patient and gentle and earned this, can’t wait to show Din just how good he can be; to see how long it takes rigid discipline to give way to wrecked moans and rocking hips. To mindlessly fucking Luke’s throat. 

He licks his lips, going for the pressure trigger –

The blare of the comlink klaxon is by far the most infuriating sound that’s ever vexed Luke’s eardrums. 

Luke’s gloved palm slams against the comm center in ire. In the seat above him, Din’s exhaling hard as he sags back into his seat. Slowly, the Mandalorian’s right hand returns to the armrest from where he’s automatically gone for his blaster. 

With a clench of his fist, the comlink opens an audio-only connection. 

“What?” Luke snarls, as he clambers, incendiary and inelegant, back up from his position kneeling between Din’s legs. The stunned silence on the other end of the line lasts long enough for him to take a sullen, huffy seat atop his Mandalorian’s thigh guards. Uncompromising beskar at his back as the Mandalorian sits staunch and, wisely, unspeaking beneath him. 

“--Fleet Admiral Skywalker, this is Executor,” says a crackling, agitated voice. “A terrorist cell in Kordu sector has landed a successful strike against local Imperial Forces.”

The energy in the cockpit shifts immediately. Luke leans forward. “What?” he asks again, tone completely different, mind racing into Fleet Admiral. “What’s the extent of the damage? Suspected motive?”

“Over a thousand casualties and seventeen battle cruisers destroyed. Admiral Xahk’to is unresponsive. Captain Laylin’s coordinating recovery efforts,” says the voice, and Luke both feels and senses Din’s body language shift at just the same time Luke goes very, very still. “Suspected motive is religious zealotry. Three of your Admirals have called in from the field in the past two minutes requesting support and reinforcements –”

“Returning to flagship by way of the holochamber docking port,“ Luke declares, then abruptly disconnects the connection. 

The string of shouted obscenities that spill from his lips in the seconds that follow could make Han Solo blush.

The Mandalorian has the good sense not to speak throughout their subsequent disentanglement and extremely quick return flight. 

Minutes and a pneumatic hiss later, Luke is stepping down into a hallway lined on either side by dark troopers, rigid at attention. The Mandalorian follows at his heels through the short white corridors, around the corner, and down another set of much nicer steps into the Executor ’s holochamber.

The sleepy, half-dark version of itself it’s been every time he’s had Din in attendance so far has been banished completely with bright lights and waiting officials, sentients present either in person or – more numerous – by hologram.

The Imperial fleet’s war council, suitably assembled. Weighted appropriately, Luke notes as he strides to take his seat, towards Kordu and contiguous sectors. Camdroids hover in the corners, streaming footage to absent attendees without the means to participate as full 3-D holograms. Whispered side conversations pick up again despite the hush that fell when he entered, the situation too grave and critical for unbending decorum. 

With a darkened expression, Luke sweeps into his seat at the theoretical ‘head’ of the great hexagonal table as the Mandalorian takes his place behind him. He takes the proffered glass of water and datapad loaded with briefing materials offered to him by the closest attendance droid. 

He nods to the senior officer leading the meeting and everything, all at once, commences.

It’s the last time Luke thinks about anything other than tactics and triage for hours. 

By the time the Mandalorian grows restless in his armored confines, it’s pushing tomorrow. 

“Mandalorian,” Luke says, abrupt, as he turns to him, as a general break for necessities is announced. Catching Din’s gaze through his visor as he glances over his shoulder. “You’re off shift,” Luke informs him. “Tell the troopers outside to send for a replacement guard.” Between one blink and the next, Luke lowers the public mask, looking at Din through his eyelashes. “And a transport, if you want.”

“... yes,” Din says, voice low. Briefly, Luke feels leveled by his unseen gaze. “Imperial Highness.”

He turns his helm and strides past corporeal and holographic attendees as he makes his way around the table and towards the exit. 

As the blast doors close, Luke finishes a sip of water, leaning his cheek on his fist as he surveys the holoprojected map of the star system suspended before them.

“Zoom in on Evlon,” Luke orders. A rush of movement follows until a lone planet surrounded by four moons hangs in the air. “Southernmost continent. Cross-reference against high baseline Force sensitivity.” 

As the techs work, Luke monitors idly – without particular concern – as the distance between him and the Mandalorian stretches. As Din’s Force presence joins Grogu’s, as it should, on the other side of the flagship. 

In due course, one area on the planet in particular flares into brightness. 

“There,” Luke declares, pointing a gloved finger as his full attention returns to the task at hand. “That? That’s their temple. We mount an attack there, the Dark Brotherhood will come out of hiding to defend it." 

Fleet Admiral Skywalker, Luke reflects, is far more needed than he is right now.

Later, much later, in what would be the wee hours of the morning were they any kind of planetside, Luke returns to Din and Grogu’s chambers. Bone-deep tired but still wired and buzzing, Luke presses his palm to the entry pad.

The blast doors snick open.

The mingled shape and presence of both father and son curled up beneath the covers is unmistakable as Din sucks in a hard breath, shoving himself up off the bed one-handed. Grogu, tucked against his chest, barely stirs but for a bleary-eyed look at where Luke stands silhouetted. 

Back, the child sends to him, awareness flickering at being jostled before drifting back under. 

Helmetless, Din stares up at him; mostly in shadow but for the light bleeding in from the corridor. Half-alert but sleep-softened, the creases of his pillowcase etched into one cheek. 

“S’you,” Din says, then – miraculously – slumps back down onto the bed again as though following Grogu’s lead. His eyes slip closed, dark lashes against cheek as Luke slips inside. 

The door sweeps shut at his back, plunging them into darkness. 

Boots are kicked off, clothing discarded until he’s picking his way into the nest, maneuvering his way to lie between Din and the wall. An alarm is set with thick fingers. 

Sleep hits almost sooner than his arm is finished snaking around Din’s middle. 

The smell of spice smoke, fear, and sex hits, and Luke is gripped with a blinding childhood terror that has him struggling before he’s even opened his eyes. 

No, Luke tries, but the word won’t leave his head. Mounting panic struggles to claw its way up his throat. Hulking shapes loom overhead – he’s on the floor. Gamorrean guards conversing with grunting, pig-like snorts.  

They sound… riled. Eager in a way Luke’s learned comes in anticipation of violence. 

“Up you get, brat,” says a Weequay, Basic accented but understandable. They snicker. “Mighty Jabba demands your presence in his throne room.”

The crack! of an inhumanly large palm slapping him across the face registers before the pain. Flung backward in a crumpling pile of limbs, fresh pain blooming as the back of his head hits stone. 

I shouldn’t be here, Luke thinks. An inane flicker of conviction that’s snuffed out as soon as it occurs to him. 

Of course he shouldn’t be here. But when had that ever mattered?

Great-fingered hands haul him up by the scruff of the neck. He goes easily, body light and childlike. 

(What else can he do? Luke thinks, deadened and reeling. 

There should, he thinks, be something. Something.)

The world shifts. His insides turn outwards, conscious sinking down into his depths. 

When Luke surfaces again, nightmarish monstrousness looms on all sides. Bright lights rain down on him, a panoply of sentients and near-sentient onlookers receding back into a blurring shifting background. Coarse sand trapped between bloodied palms and knees and the harsh stone floor. 

Everything hurts so badly Luke can barely feel it but for the snap of his rapist’s hips as he’s split apart over and over in cruel rhythm. Trying and failing to brace himself as raucous music plays and spice flows. Onlookers, hangers-on of Jabba’s, jeering and laughing – the ones who haven’t lost attention – at his tear-slick face, his small body being rocked and jostled, struggling to keep silent. 

Last realms of resistance, the ones he knows in some part of himself are still there, lie just out of reach. Skittering just beyond mental fingertips as he physically goes limp, retreating.

The man – Imperial, Luke thinks, memory of a glimpsed black uniform resurfacing – hauls back on the golden chain around his neck, making Luke choke and splutter. His eyes bulge as he clutches at his throat with both hands, desperately wedging sweat-slick fingers between it and his throat as he attempts to make enough space for him to steal small gasps of air as he’s pulled so his back is arches. The man slams home over and over, grinding into him too-hard-too-deep. 

“Haku naga mee hagwa ta?” The words groaned out at his ear – Huttese, but human. Luke’s vision blurs, mind just barely able to suck down enough oxygen through the strangling crush of metal against trachea for his brain to provide a translation: what don’t you want me to do to him? 

“Eyy,” calls an insipid voice from the sidelines. “H agwa heesa killya. Doba ta, panwa. Tuta Jabba.” No permanent damage. Otherwise, enjoy him. Courtesy of Jabba. 

Everything below his waist pulsates with pain, a raw and twisted nerve. 

The hauled-back chain loosens. Luke sucks in wet and desperate breaths, spluttering and coughing with what he knows from past experience can only be short-lived relief. 

“I rather think,” says the Imperial, a low murmur meant just for him, but the sands must’ve filled his ears, it’s so hard to hear. Everything muffled and whiting out at the edges, trying to survive second by second. “That you’re here at our pleasure, aren’t you?”

Ice cold lights up his spine. 

The hot white sear of electricity punches a sniveling whimper from him – and then he’s being pushed and pulled apart, unable to talk or move or even try to scream.

He’s being ripped apart. The shatters of his mind lay splayed around him as the onlookers roar with wordless delight at his inflicted agony and helplessness. The brutalization of a child, Luke thinks, detached, as though outside himself, like some kind of game. A collective diversion. 

The band’s upbeat music swells. Electric onslaught cuts off, finally, in favor of the clutch of invisible fingers at his throat beneath his collar. Making Luke’s eyes roll back into his head and the world gray out as the Imperial pounds his broken body; shouts his climax with triumph. 

The wet splurt of the man’s come inside him is a sickening relief. Everything smells like cooked meat and smoke. He slumps further on the ground, pain-limp and defeated. 

One, Luke thinks, just trying to live through it second by second. Two. 

“Mmmm,” moans the Imperial, indolent in post-orgasm haze. Seconds later, a loud smack! hits air. The slap against his asscheek barely registers as sensation, only truly resembling painful in how it exacerbates his other hurts. “Now,” he says, “who else wants to have a go?”

Luke retreats into his head. 

Someone’s there waiting for him. 

There. The faceless voice echoes and ricochets within the confines of his mind like a bell rung in close quarters. Until all he can hear is that sickening lilt; until all he can feel is a hollow, empty chill. Do you feel the hate flow through you, boy?

Violently, Luke wrenches himself into wakefulness. 

Breath comes heavy. Shaking and sweating, Luke fists his hands in gray sheets as he stares up at a ceiling of blessedly Imperial construction rather than stone. His face is wet, chest falling and rising. He clings to each sensation, grounding himself from the onslaught of dream-vibrant memories. The smell of recirculated air at his nose; the bed, not his own, beneath him.

With a panicked lurch, Luke remembers whose bed he’s in. Din, Luke thinks in wild terror, rolling over, reaching out – 

Cool, empty bed is all that’s there to meet his fingers. 

A jarring spike of fear anger rage splits through him, involuntary. Luke’s chest doesn’t stop its punishing pace – just keeps heaving. 

Distress, twofold and rampant, emanates from behind the closed nursery door.

Luke’s vision narrows, pulse throbbing in his ears. 

Fuck.

–

Chapter Text

-

Luke’s mind races, edging hysterical. A chasm of self-hatred threatens.

Glitching and reeling, he goes to scan the room for signs of violence. None that he can see, but it’s dark – he waves for a light. 

Nothing turns on. 

It’s only then he registers the emergency backup systems are all that’s functional. 

Whiplash-quick, Luke extends his gloved hand towards the nursery door and slips – briefly but deeply – into their respective consciousnesses. Peering through feelings; tasting their fear.

The child is the shock that comes after violence. Head full of the sound of his own crying, though only small, shuddering breaths leave his real-world lips. The lantern-brightness of his being dwindled to a flicker. Hurting him, Grogu insists, pushing the thought fruitlessly at his father. Help him, help him, please –

The Mandalorian is a protective embrace; on high alert, jagged-edged from adrenaline and worry. Wild unravels of distress roil within him, pushing at his skin from the inside out.

It stopped, Din thinks, still braced for further violence. Stillness and silence hang on a precipice. 

With a gasping inhale, Luke’s eyes fly open, returned once again to his rumpled, sweat-shaken self. 

He lowers his gaze to the bed. He bends over double, heaving in near-silence. Numb humiliation rises in his throat; he can barely feel his limbs. Ears ringing, high-pitched and too loud to think. 

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s projected nightmares outwards.

The calm that descends holds the same heart-pounding surety of walking into a warzone. 

Tangled sheets are swept back. Legs swung over bed. Bare feet hit the cool floor. You can do this, he thinks. A surreal and lurching few seconds pass until he reaches the nursery door. You already know what you’re going to do.

He pauses, eyes unfocusing as he steps in close; resting his forehead with a soft thump against cold metal.

Breathe, Luke tells himself, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he taps into fresh wells of anger and hatred and power; a reactor coming online, given fuel it needs to roar into life. At those who tortured him for sport. At Din for glimpsing what he shouldn’t. 

At himself, for making Grogu live through something no child ever, ever should.

Just… breathe.

He waves the door open.

–

Day 3 Month 8 Year 44
Imperial Standard Calendar

EXECUTOR INTERNAL MEMORANDUM
NOTICE OF UNPLANNED DISRUPTION

At 0318 on 3-9-44, an unscheduled power surge resulted in the unforeseen shutdown of primary electrical systems in the lodging and administrative wings. The power surge is tentatively estimated to originate from a minor mechanical malfunction in stardrive engine 3R.

Auxiliary systems were implemented within sixty seconds and all systems were back online and functioning by 0500.

No foul play is suspected. Emperor Vader has been notified in keeping with flagship procedures.

PREPARED BY:
Lt. Cdr. Jyala Haydenn, Head of Flagship Security, Executor

AUTHORIZED BY:
Darth Amidala

–

The three of them lie tangled up under the covers when Din startles himself awake, inhaling sharply in a way that jostles both his bedmates. 

Luke’s arm, slung over Din’s middle, tightens in soft assurance.

“Hey,” Luke murmurs, breath tickling the back of Din’s neck. When he speaks again, he allows no hint of trepidation. “You okay?”

For long seconds, every cord of muscle in the Mandalorian’s body feels instinctively taut; tense and reaching. Then he heaves a long breath, allowing muscles to unclench. Allowing himself, painstakingly, to relax back into bed again. 

More subtly, Luke allows himself to go slack with relief along with him. He takes the opportunity to curl a little closer; cradling his ass with the hinge of his hips, the flat of his thighs. 

“Yeah,” Din answers, in a tone of voice that could very well be the haze of waking. “Yeah, just…” His head gives a small, instinctive shake. “Strange dreams.” 

He heaves another sigh. On Din’s other side, Grogu starts squirming until his father shifts his arm for better-positioned father-son embraces. Luke just nods, the tip of his nose grazing the back of Din’s neck.

They leave it at that. 

It isn’t until later, over first meal while Din’s distracted by Grogu’s antics, that Luke finds himself slipping into the thought of it again. Leaning his chin on the heel of one palm as he looks into the distance. 

He wasn’t lying. What he said before, with Leia and Chewie and Han. Luke doesn’t want some slathering thrall; has no interest in owning any others as he himself was owned.   

Making Din forget things Luke doesn’t want him to remember… well. 

There’s always a chance of breaking some part of him unintended. 

Sith mind control is a blunt force instrument, ill-suited for anything aside from pure domination without care for destruction. For all that Din may be blindingly ignorant to the ways of the Force, his Mandalorian is strong-willed; disciplined. As much as possible, Luke would prefer to allow time and space for Din to come to the right conclusion independently rather than risk permanent damage – suggesting too heavily, snipping away at bits of his being – for some minor expediency in the timeline of their relationship. He and Din are inevitable. Din’s a smart man; he’ll get there in the end.

When it comes to those memories, though…

Luke’s heart hardens. 

He’s only human.

And there’s no way Luke could’ve allowed either of them to hold onto that horror show of a memory. Not for one second longer than necessary. 

Thirty minutes, Luke thinks to himself, vision dimming. Thirty minutes in an entire lifespan. Barely anything, really. In the grand scheme of things. 

Long sips of hot caf go untasted.

He’d erase it from his own mind, if he could. But for all his memory is gouged and cratered, some things always seem to resurface, unbidden. 

Luke takes another bite of plain buttered toast, chewing past the point of necessity before each swallow. 

“Gah?” Grogu asks, and Luke blinks, returning. 

His apprentice stares up at him from atop the dining table, head tilted and curious, a crinkle in his small pale-green brow. He’s sucking on all three claws of one hand. Judging from the deep purple smears on his face and new tunic, he’s taken significant liberties with the quintuple berry jam.

He reaches out his other jammy claw in Luke’s direction. 

“Aha, no,” Luke says, wrinkling his nose. There’s more than one reason he laid claim to father as well as son. Where’s–?

On the other side of the table, Din leans over – incongruously – a physical book. Both of Luke’s eyebrows lift, involuntary. The Mandalorian seems deep in concentration; arms crossed and slightly slouched in his seat, eyes moving over the page beneath the scrunch of his brow. 

He’s almost entirely armored, all of his beskar strapped into place but his helmet despite the early hour. Coincidence, Luke supposes, dour and skeptical, that the Mandalorian chose this particular morning to so cover and protect himself, each leather buckle and mag-snap a barrier that denies Luke unfettered access to his body. Each cheating him out of what can and should be his, implicitly. 

The soft brushed wool against his legs helps keep him in the present. Armor of his own, though it serves him differently. The unmistakable touch of his dress uniform grounds him, contains him; reminds him with every movement of his place in the universe.

Fleet Admiral Skywalker, in a fit of vicious parallel. 

Luke taps his foot under the table, tamping down on a surge of reflexive aggravation when Din’s eyes remain on the flimisi. “What,” he enunciates, taking a long, deliberate pause as he gestures at the book, “is that?”

The Mandalorian raises his eyes to meet Luke’s, either inattentive to his mood or else deliberately ignoring it. He lifts the book wordlessly to show him, cover-outward.

It’s History of the New Empire; one of the two copies they’d stacked on top of Grogu’s chair that first night that seems so long ago. 

It’s not what Luke expected, though he can’t quite put his finger on what he would’ve otherwise guessed. One of the print editions in the Rec Room, where the plucky Imperial hero grows into their place in the universe? Repair manuals from the workshop?

“Required reading,” Din explains, only continuing at Luke’s clearly bewildered stare. “...for the lessons.” There’s a distinct hint of frustration underneath the way he says it; as if to suggest that Luke should damn well remember the things he’s forcing him into. “With the protocol droid?” Pointedly, Din inclines his head in a way that would be visible through a helmet, mildly restless exhale only audible barefaced. “Your people sent me a comm.” His tone and body language suggests that Luke is both the mastermind behind this and has since, rudely and perhaps intentionally, forgotten as much. 

At Luke’s extended silence, Din exhales, putting the book face-downward to grab a napkin and deal with the jam-hand situation. “First lesson’s today while you’re training the kid.” 

Luke barely resists rolling his eyes. Din would treat having to sit through a few sessions with a protocol droid like it’s mandatory schooling. 

It hadn’t occurred to him, in the moment, that bearing gifts of shiny new comms systems would establish a direct link between his staff and his Mandalorian. 

Logistically, he supposes, that’s a good thing. The part that doesn’t sit well with him is that other people have been talking to Din without his notice. Whether or not those people are his people is immaterial.  

“First time?” Luke asks, overly-earnest and pointed; resting his chin on two gloved knuckles, trying to catch Din’s evasive eyes. “Or re-read?” He presumes a negative, but given the pervasiveness and availability of the text, it’s a lateral courtesy to at least ask. After all, this book is issued to children on every sentient-occupied planet in the New Imperial Galaxy. It’s a legal requirement to keep a copy in every hotel, boarding house, and residence from here to the Western Reaches.

The side-eyed look Din shoots him manages to be funny rather than aggravating. Why, it says, would you ever think I would?

It’s fortunate for him that Luke is so indulgent. 

“What did you think?” Luke asks, oozing feigned innocence. His eyebrows quirk upward. “Learn anything so far?” 

The Mandalorian glances away, quiet and contemplative. 

His many layers mock Luke openly from the other side of the table, both an emotional and physical barrier. The high neck of his flight suit collar obscures, hatefully, some of the mauve and fading red of the bruises he’s left along Din’s neck muscle. 

He’ll have to be sure to work a few back in there tonight to make up for it. 

“It didn’t feel like that,” Din concludes eventually, not one to mince words. He picks up the book, showing Luke his place by dint of the thickness of the stacks of flimsi pages: early, very early, probably just out of the overview of sanctioned galactic history and into the narrative in earnest. The end of the Palpatine regime; all the parts of his father’s search for him and Leia that’s appropriate for public consumption. “The - the narrative. The way it’s framed. Like everything was setting up for some – bigger cosmic plan, or something.” One of his pauldrons catches and reflects light as he raises and lowers his shoulders. “It just felt like surviving.”

The story, Din thinks but doesn’t say, was all put on afterwards. 

Luke blinks at words thought, not words spoken. It is, frankly, an astute characterization. 

The fact that he can’t respond to the most interesting part of what Din said without giving the game away is… irksome. 

“Mm,” Luke hums, with put-upon neutrality. He’d rather not think about things he was actively surviving at that particular point in history, thank you very much. Especially not today, after – 

“Life,” Luke says, tone clipped, “is just surviving. Everything else is a story we tell ourselves.”

The Mandalorian accepts that, surprisingly, with a slow and solemn nod. 

His silence lasts long enough that Luke returns to his toast. He’s moved on to his caf, mind just starting to meander elsewhere, when Din speaks again. 

“Who made it?” 

At Luke’s contemptuous look – who do you think, can’t you read – Din elaborates, his tone irritatingly even-handed. “I know what it says. The Office of – Imperial Propaganda or whatever –”

“Galactic Truth and Fact Correction,” Luke cuts in, dry. 

“Yeah, that.” Solid and unperturbed, Din refuses to meet the rising prickle of his ire. “Those people wrote the words down. But – who told them which words to write?”

Luke observes him cooly, considering. He’s not sure he’s fully onboard with this ‘required reading’ business. History is designed to be read by the masses; for the billions who will never even lay eyes on their sovereign or his children; for the millions who just catch fleeting glimpses. Not for those within the Imperial royal family’s… circle.

He wants Din not to act foolish in public, not give the man ammunition.

It could be worse, Luke reminds himself firmly, sense-memory returning. The Mandalorian’s fear this morning, metallic and desperate on the back of his tongue in a way he hasn’t tasted since their first meeting. 

It’s an effort to exhale his vexation into the Force. 

“My sister, in large part,” Luke says, tight-lipped and succinct. “Though Father had final say.” 

Grogu shriek-giggles, blessedly drawing their attention. The child stands on the table between them, having apparently transitioned from fistfulls of jam to poking a claw into the wriggling pile of savor-worms on fine china. 

Din puts the book down again, raising one gloved finger and giving his son a warning look. “Hey,” he says. “None of that.” 

Grogu’s little head turns guiltily, ears drooping as though he knows he’s caught doing something naughty. One of the poked worms manages to wriggle off the plate, inching its way across the table in a bid for escape. 

Not missing a beat, Din picks up his spoon and whacks it hard before it gets out of reach. He plucks it up and deposits it back on the pile. 

“Eat it or don’t,” Din tells him, not louder but more firm. “Just don’t play with it. All right?” 

Luke finds his words grating. With a heaved sigh, he summons his datapad to hand, signaling the conclusion of the conversation. 

“Get yourselves ready,” says Luke, more order than suggestion, past ready to get out of this room. Away from all the reminders it holds for him that no one else can see. With a tap of his finger, he submits the order for a transport as Din nods. 

Luke gets to his feet. He straightens the clasp that secures his long white cape, lips pursing. “We have places to be.” 

–

History of the New Empire

Table of Contents:

   Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………i
   Preface: A Message from the Sovereign……………………………ii
        by Emperor Vader of the New Galactic Empire

   Introduction: Truth, History, and Using This Text..……………vii
        by Darth Leia Amidala, Lady of the Sith

PART 1  |  FROM VISION TO REALIZATION
   Brief Overview of Galactic History: Conflict and Chaos..………2
   Old Empire on the Brink:
        Excesses, Cruelties and Hidden Crimes of Palpatine...……9
   Lost Heirs Rediscovered:
        Darth Vader's Search for the Prince and Princess...………14
   Reconstructing Order:
        The Battles of Carlac, Coruscant, and Tatooine..…………22
   Emperor Vader:
        The Death of Old Emperor Palpatine..………………………30
   A New Promise for a New Empire..………………………………34

PART 2 |  REBUILD AND REGROWTH
   New Empire, New Mandate:
        Realignment of Galactic Priorities....…………………………39
   Rewards for Allies and Justice for Enemies:
        Clone Liberation and the Parmarthe Trials...………………44
   The New Imperial Charter:
        Roles of the Imperial Senate, Planetary Governors....……58
   Un-Entrenching Old Imperial Speciesism:
        "Each Sentient Deserves a Chance to Serve”....……………62
   Hunting Out Depravity:
        The Acquisition of Hutt Space..………………………………70
   Notable Accords, Agreements, & Threats Neutralized
        by Date....…………………………………………………………74
        by Sector....………………………………………………………78
   Rebirth of a Religion:
        New Sith Order and the Doctrine of Connection...………82
   Semi-Autonomous Territory Relations:
        Bothan Space and the Corporate Sector...…………………95
   The Office for Pan-Galactic Education:
        The New Imperial Core Curriculum..………………………101
   A Pan-Galactic Ecosystem:
        Inclusion, Expansion, and a New Empire for All..………114
   The Ascension and Becoming of Leia Amidala..……………120

PART 3  |  A STRONG AND THRIVING TOMORROW 
   Out On the Edge:
        Pushing Galactic Boundaries, New Connections.………129
   Re-Investment in the Outer Rim & Western Reaches..……137
   Revivification of the Core:
        Centers of the Universe, Working for the Galaxy..……144
   Leading Scientific Advancements
        (Holography, Cloning, Warp Drive Technology)………160
   Galactic Stability and   Restorative Theology:
        Rebalancing the Force..……………………………………184

PART 4  |   MORAL UNDERPINNINGS AND IMPERATIVES
   The Right to Rule:
        The Imperial Royal Family & Chosen One Theory....…190
   Limitless Progress:
        Order, Prosperity, and Elevating the Collective....……196
   Outsiders as Friends Yet Unenlightened...…………………202
   Journey to the Deep Core:
        Unexplored Energy Potential..……………………………211
   Coercion Over Violence:
        Proportionate Response and the Cosmic Good...……218
   Pacification Theory:
        Old Imperial Bastions & Terrorist Activity.....…………224
   Ratification of the Elevating Truth Act:
        The New Imperial Senate's Endorsement...……………232
   Constellations of Cooperation:
   The Achievable Future of an Interconnected Galaxy...…240

Conclusions, Reflections, and Aspirations…..………………251
                  by, for, and endorsed by
                        the Coalition of Galactic Peoples

Prepared by Chief Information Officer D. Ressi
        Office of Galactic Truth and Fact Correction

First Ed. Published 33 ISC  |  Current Ed. Published 44 ISC

–

Annoyances, both major and minor, continue to accumulate. 

The events of this morning cut themselves over and over into the day, slicing through Luke’s consciousness when he least wants them to. Oily, sickening tendrils of the nightmare that linger in his mind, stealing into his sense-memory unwelcomed.

-the hum of the flagship, louder than everything but Grogu’s tiny, hiccuping whimpers.

Din’s fear a metallic, desperate tang at the back of his throat in a way Luke hasn’t sensed since their very first meeting. 

More pressing matters, of course, require his attention. 

The fleet in Kordu remains in tatters. Chains of command sundered, countless reports of critical infrastructure outright destroyed or heavily compromised. Even with reinforcements from neighboring sectors already landed and more barrelling across hyperspace, recovery efforts are progressing far more slowly than acceptable. 

Impatience is superseded by disgust and fury after a transmission is received – sent, not intercepted – from one of the Dark Brotherhood’s known extremist splinter cells. 

The shaky holofeed projected above the command center’s great table depicts an Imperial official strung up by his wrists, legs splayed and dangling. The man is bloodied and beaten, either dead or unconscious. The charcoal uniform is marred with lightsaber burns – planetary government, Luke notes absently, not command military.

An unseen voice begins narrating out of frame, a winding monologue in Sith rather than Basic. 

“Heretics.” The protocol droid in the corner translates for the room at large, even-toned and unflinching. “This is the fate that awaits all Imperial lackeys until and unless Heretic Skywalker renounces his false doctrine to the galaxy.” 

The holoview pulls back. One of the less seasoned support staff at the table gasps.

A pile of dismembered corpses forms a ritualistic circle around the Imperial’s dangling feet.

Contempt, disdain, and sheer impotent fury drag downward on Luke’s insides. His bare hand flexes in order to refrain from forming a fist, jaw taut and clenching. 

It would seem the Imperial Governor in Kordu who went missing with his family hadn’t betrayed them to the DB, after all. 

Stilted silence reigns in the holochamber after the vid’s projection for several heavy moments as Luke’s fingers crackle, little sparks of electricity winking along the tips of his nails. 

“Sir?” 

Luke’s head whips sideways, staring down the subordinate who stands in the chamber doorway.

A yellow-skinned Zabrak, young and male and wearing the code cylinders and insignia of a staff sergeant, gulps a swallow. “I’m – I’m sorry, sir. There’s incoming from Kessel space.” Terror emanates from him in stark waves. “I was ordered to inform you. They say it’s an emergency.”

That something should deserve his attention more than tracking down the people responsible for slaughtering children in his name? 

The notion seems, at best, unconvincing. 

Luke sweeps to his feet all the same, clinging to decorum. His and the Mandalorian’s footsteps ring out as they exit.

The emergency, so-called, proves to be so far from urgent Luke barely manages to restrain himself from ordering the commanding officer responsible to seal himself in the nearest airlock and vent himself into space. 

Luke  settles for verbally eviscerating the lot of them instead, issuing a formal reprimand to the commanding officer, then denying all leave requests for his entire staff for six months for good measure. 

The Mandalorian’s flat, modulated tone is a rude intrusion into Luke’s awareness. 

“I don’t get it,” Din tells him, invariably blunt as they rumble their way back to the flagship’s main holochamber in the latest transport. “I thought you were a Sith. Why are Siths attacking you?”

Luke turns, staring at him. After a second he releases a sigh, rubbing his temple with two fingers. With muted incredulity, he eyes the transport’s near-human driver. Today’s adjutant in the front seat.

It would seem the Mandalorian has grown… comfortable enough to push at the boundaries between what’s public and private. 

Most of the time, Luke finds Din’s ignorance endearing. A novelty. 

Today? 

Today, it grates. 

“First,” Luke begins, swiveling again to face him. Conscious of the adjutant listening in and watching them in the driver’s mirror. “It’s the Sith. Or other Sith. Not – Siths.” He scoffs. “Second – did you spend your entire life under a rock?”

When the Mandalorian doesn’t answer, Luke jabs himself in the chest with a black-gloved finger. 

“I,” Luke enunciates, “arrived on the galactic scene and turned their little death cult into an institutional, palatable Sith Order.” He jabs his finger into the metaphorical distance. “They – the so-called Dark Brotherhood,” spare me, “are pretentious, theocratically fundamentalist fuckheads who crawled out of hiding for the sole purpose of destroying and desecrating everything I built.” 

Everything I am. 

“Those Siths attacking me?” Luke mocks, intentionally incorrect. “They want my head on a fucking pike. They want to set their slathering zealots on me, on civilians, on anyone even remotely associated with the New Empire. They want to inflict enough pain and terror on the galaxy that their ludicrous methods of channeling the Force will be possible – which, in antiquity, required mass humanoid sacrifices, by the way – and condemn me and mine for anything we do to protect Imperial citizens. To maintain the smallest bit of order .” 

Luke takes a long breath, then lets out a showy exhale. “They may call themselves Sith. But they’re nothing like me. Or my order.” Luke pauses, holding the Mandalorian’s unseen gaze. “Is that,” he asks, “quite clear enough for you?”

A faint huff exudes from the Mandalorian’s vocoder.

“Crystal,” Din mutters, but only Luke is close enough to hear him.

They return to the flagship’s main holochamber. Multiple squadrons are deployed to the transmission location, laden with ground forces and a sizable contingent of the Sith Knights – but Luke isn’t optimistic. They’ll be long gone by now.

The Dark Brotherhood always has a way of slithering back into dark corners of the universe. 

The final hurdle before they reach the time Luke’s carved out for Grogu’s training is a briefing with some of the officers stationed planetside in Chandrila airspace. 

Things escalate quickly after an especially obsequious Captain looks Luke in the eye and lies to his Fleet Admiral’s face about whether or not he’d condoned subordinates ‘let off some steam’ by way of a TIE-fighter strike on a rural Chandrilan community. Concealing his own blunders to the end, no matter how much his actions can and still could compromise the lives of Imperial citizens. The New Empire’s galactic integrity.

“You thought,” Luke enunciates, precise, hand outstretched, as the Captain clutches at his throat, windpipe buckling, dangling legs thrashing and useless. “That you could lie. To me.” 

The rest of the room barely exists at the edges of his awareness. Other officers sit or stand with heads turned in subservience. The Mandalorian’s attention and awareness behind him nothing more than background noise. 

Amid gargles and sputters, the Captain begs for mercy. In his mind, if not reality.

Disgusted, Luke hurls him onto the floor. 

“Chandrila,” Luke spits, “is no place for an Imperial airshow.” 

With a heaved breath, Luke waves his hand, sinking down into his seat as the imbecile hits ground in a jumble of limbs, gulping in air, desperate. 

“Consider yourself demoted to ion cannon maintenance duty," says Luke, as a pair of white-armored Stormtroopers haul their once-Captain out of his sight.

As he’s removed, Luke adds a red mark to his file as Din, silent, watches over his shoulder. The man’s null Force signature emanates wariness with unease. A disquieted sense of waiting for fallout that does nothing except leave Luke all the pricklier.

They’re zipping through innumerable gray hallways on their way, finally, back to the guest wing, when Luke’s datapad chimes with a new missive from his sister. 

INTERNAL COMMTEXT
Received: 15h 19
Star System of Origin: Chandrila
Sender Name: Leia Amidala (Leia)
Auto-Flagged as Priority Message (click here to change settings)

Luke – I know you’re busy with Kordu, but information requests have been pouring in from Mandalore re: bodyguard. Send statement and combat footage ASAP. -Leia

END OF COMMTEXT: REPLY? Y/N

Luke heaves a sigh. It’s been years since he wore a chain around his neck, but even now Luke can feel it being yanked this way and that by all its various holders. 

And it’s beginning to chafe.

He rolls his shoulders as he waits in the transport for Din to collect the child from their rooms, pocketing his datapad rather than checking it when a second antagonizing chime comes seconds later. Eyes shut and tilted back against the headrest, fingers again massaging at his temples as the throb of a headache threatens.

The Mandalorian returns a handful of minutes later, Grogu hitched up in one arm and bleary-eyed, as though just woken from a nap. His father keeps him on his lap for the journey back to the training wing, then against his chest as they make the rest of their way on foot. He only reluctantly goes through with the handoff, scowling beneath his beskar, as they approach one of the classroom-style training rooms marked with the banner of an open flimsi-book. A matte black RA-9 Imperial protocol droid stands waiting, back arched and hands at hips.

It doesn’t take that much longer for Luke to proceed with Grogu to today’s destination. 

The Island Room has always been one of Luke’s favorites. 

Cool air and flecks of spattered water hit his face as they enter. In his arms, Grogu – now more fulsomely awake – stares around the room in childish awe and wonder.

A semi-circle of artificial waterfalls surround the edges of the room on all sides but the entrance, creating the constant sound of rushing water as they spill into the large circular pool that makes up the majority of the room. Rough stones rise from the water to form a step-stone pathway that leads to the gentle swell of a lone island at the room’s heart and center.

Like! Grogu sends to him, his earnestness making a true smile twitch at the edges of Luke’s mouth for the first time since this morning. 

I like it here too, Luke admits as he steps to the place where the platform ends and the pool begins. If Luke wasn’t who he was, he thinks he might’ve wanted to live out his days on an island like this. Somewhere out at sea, where the ebb and flow of the waves could be forever in his ears.

He has to carry Grogu across the stones, the gaps between too big for his little feet.

The central island itself supports actual grass, dim grow lights overhead and semi-hidden sprinklers alluding to the necessities required to maintain organic life onboard. He lowers the child down and Grogu spends the first few minutes running around and exploring at his own pace; tiny clawed hands grabbing fistfulls or grass and looking startled when he rips it out of the ground, investigating his reflection in the waters. 

Come here, Luke sends at last, lowering himself down and navigating his cape to sit cross-legged. Seconds later Grogu joins him, toddling over and then plunking himself down on the ground, tangibly eager.

Once seated, it’s only seconds before they both sink down together into the depths of the long-ago past.

They spend untold time together thumbing through what Grogu remembers of old caregivers and teachers.

Simplistic descriptions and fleeting images serve to illustrate what the child recalls from the time he spent in the care of other Force-sensitivities. Red man beard man pointy lady skinny lady, a jumble of impressions in no discernable order. A happy memory of Grogu being tossed in the air by a husky green Nautolan, the child shrieking with laughter, lingers for the longest. Even in this intangible space, Luke thinks it brings a smile to his physical lips.

A blacked-out absence follows. Months and years are skipped over, the absence of memory, stifled or taken.

Gone, Grogu explains, but Luke can’t tell whether in relief or lamentation. 

Chasms void of memory. The persistent itch of things missing that shouldn’t be. 

You know? Grogu asks, innocence unfeigned. 

They have no corporeal form here, but all the same Luke feels the back of his neck tingle as the hair rises. He checks their fledgling bond, ensuring not even hints or glimpses of this morning make their way through to him. 

The warm and comforting glow of Grogu’s Force signature wraps around him, tugging Luke forward. 

A beskar helmet swims into view, as seen from below staring upwards. Memories from the more recent past flow through them: before Luke, but after Din. A hover-pram lid snapping shut a half-second before Din’s elbow crunches into an unarmored assailant’s head, blocking the child’s view but not the wailing that follows. Watching from the co-pilot’s seat as Din shoots another ship right out of the sky with brutal precision and an irritated jibe. 

Daddy! Grogu explains, gleeful. Seeming to sense Luke’s piqued interest, the child draws him forward, toward more recent happenings.

They’re in the newly-accessible recreation room, Grogu on his father’s lap, gazing up at him with lively adoration. The Mandalorian’s unyielding helm is no barrier to their connection. 

For all every square centimeter of his skin is covered up and hidden, Din Djarin seems more loose-limbed than Luke’s ever actually seen him.

As Luke listens, Din snorts, the soft sound hardly audible through the vocoder. “Well,” he says, both to Grogu and to no one in particular. He’s sitting slumped back on the sofa, helm tilted back against the cushions. Grogu is seated on one armored knee, seemingly content to hold onto his father’s gloved index fingers, one in each claw. “Can’t say as I expected this one.”

Grogu stares up at his T-visor, content to just listen to his words; to have daddy all to himself. 

“How long is he gonna want to keep playing house like this?” Din asks, continuing the one-sided conversation. Absently, he jiggles his knee in a small and steady rhythm, the motion and comfort keeping Grogu grounded and intent as he speaks. 

“Abaaah,” Grogu replies, gurgling a little. More! he sends his father, in support of continued knee-bouncing. 

Din keeps up his pace, but Luke can tell he’s distracted. A considering pause lasts a lifetime.

“Y’know,” Din says at last, sounding very tired, “I still don’t get what he wants from me.” 

The rhythm of his knee slows as he contemplates, visor turning as if he’s staring off into space.  

When Din finally speaks again, it’s in a tone of absent introspection. “What’s the point of all this?” he asks. ”What’s his endgame here.” Din hesitates. “I don’t think it’s just... attraction.” He huffs a contemptuous breath. “More like being a damn plaything than anything. Say the right words, do everything he wants you to, and no one gets hurt.”

Luke isn’t sure he wants to hear this. 

“Buh?” Grogu asks, crinkling his brow. 

In response, Din makes a wordless noise, shifting his grip. Gloved hands wrap around Grogu’s small middle, loving, and the child giggles with delight as he’s raised up so high that he’s looking down at his father’s helmet from above, then lowered down to Din’s lap again. 

Again! Grogu sends to him – he wants to go back up! 

But daddy doesn’t hear him. 

Daddy isn’t very good at listening, but that’s okay; Grogu loves him anyways.

“It’s not – love,” the Mandalorian muses, quiet but certain – an unknowing mirror-echo of the child’s inner dialogue. “... I don’t even know if he can love. A man like that.” Din’s visor tilts down. “Maybe kidnapping us and keeping us here is the closest he can get.” 

Elements of numb humiliation intrude themselves upon Luke’s formless being.

Grogu-in-the-memory and Grogu-through-the-Force seems to pick up on the actual substance of what Din’s saying at the same time, if only to be mildly bewildered by it. 

“Ah?” Grogu asks. But – safe? 

In a moment of innate connection, Din understands him completely,

“I know,” Din says, “I know I said it was safe here. And it is… for now.” The breath he heaves all but crackles. “But this safety won’t last. He won’t want us forever… even if he claims to.” 

And then – as if to sum things up for the child’s sake, to impart a lesson – Din states: “Owning someone is the opposite of loving them.”

The scene slips backwards, forwards, or Luke loses time.

They’re still on the same couch, though Din has shifted from a seated position to being laid back across the length of it, Grogu held close against his chest. The security and peace of his father’s arms urges the child closer with every rise and fall of his chest to the edge of slumber. 

“We’re gonna be okay,” Din breathes; a message intended only for his son, intercepted. “We just – have to keep our heads down. Keep ahead of the headgames.” Gloved thumbs rub circles on each of Grogu’s little shoulders through his robe, urging comfort and conviction. “At some point, he’ll move on to whatever next captures his attention.” He heaves a weighted sigh. “We just need to wait for a window.”

And then –

“No matter what he says to you,” Din warns, “remember – we can’t trust him.” 

Even through memory-haze, the words tear viciously into the wounded underbelly of Luke’s soul. 

“I’m gonna find a way to get you out of here, kid,” Din says to him, but the memory is slipping through his and Grogu’s fingers alike, dissolving at the edges on a rasping, barely-there whisper. “I promise.”

With a violent tug of disorientation, Luke pulls himself out and back, back, hard, into the finite mortal confines of his body. 

The roar of the surrounding waterfalls fills his ears. Distantly, he’s aware of fissures of latent fury open deep in the pits of himself, spewing hatred and bitterness with no end destination. His cheeks and back of his neck feel heated; his fingers ache and throb. 

The child’s worry rises where he’s still seated on soft grass, sparked by the sudden shift in Luke’s mood. 

Okay? he asks, a barely-there echo as the here and now dissolves.

"– don’t trust him."  

His uncle’s dying words, low and gruff and beaten but still fighting where he’s down on his knees. Caught in the standoff between the man who made Luke’s life a living nightmare and the angel of sleek black death who claims to be both father and salvation. Stern and loving eyes, punch-swollen and laden with intensity, flit to the man in black armor before returning to Luke, mouth a hard and bloodied line.

He shares a look with his nephew for the very last time, and when he speaks, it’s with just a hint of a waver. “Don’t you trust him, Luke,” Uncle Owen urges. “I lo –”

Luke’s vision swims as he gets to his feet, taking hold of the surfaced memory and shoves it back to the depths where it belongs. He extends his hands, using the Force to lift Grogu off the ground into his arms almost without realizing.

He bolsters his shielding, tapping into one of the hot coals of long-ago anger, newly stoked. 

Belatedly, he answers the child’s question.

I’m fine, Luke sends to the child without looking at him. The roaring of the surrounding waterfalls grows louder in his ears. We’re leaving.   

The return trip passes in a near daze, each step seeming to take him farther from himself. His mind churns, warring between mental paralysis, pain, and the need for retribution. 

Thoughts and images injected into his rattling head. Ones he doesn’t want to deal with, that he can’t deal with right now – 

His uncle kneeling on the ground, unseen by him in three long years.

Aunt Beru’s sobs. His own wailing, pleading screams in his ears, all but incoherent. Straining in his restraints until the wounded stump of his wrist re-opens and bleeds. 

The sight of Uncle Owen being reduced to a skeleton in screaming silhouette by Palpatine’s flames. 

Don’t, Luke snarls at himself, out loud or in his head, it’s hard to tell which. Don’t think about that. Don’t, don’t–

Luke barely makes it back to the other side of the stepstone walkway before his legs give out beneath him.  Still holding the child, now a bewildered, half-panicked bundle. 

Hurt! Grogu insists; tiny claws scrabble at Luke’s chest as the child tries to push – something – into him there, but the fear in him just reminds Luke of this morning, the child broadcasting terror on a frequency Luke could feel in the back of his teeth. Hurt! he’d sent out, just like he is now, as he served up flash after horrifying flash of remembered fear and pain. Luke’s own remembered fear and pain, reflected back at him through a child’s panicked eyes. Help him, daddy, help him– 

And then – 

“– what are you doing?” Din asks him, suddenly fearful as Luke approaches with single-minded intention. “Luke. Luke, don’t –” 

Dark curtains descend. 

Blackness looms. 

A gloved hand clenches at his shoulder, owner unseen. 

Luke comes back to himself bent double on the ground, curled completely around the child where he fell. Small pings of concern in the Force draw him back to reality. As he stirs, Grogu chitters with relief.

His vision is cloudy, dark at the edges. 

Echoes of this morning, of the long-ago past, have at last dimmed. Silenced and pushed out of focus again, where they belong. Relegated to the back of his mind; to his peripheral vision.

Eventually he pulls himself together enough to begin offering the child words and pulses of half-hearted comfort. Grogu drinks them all down with childish desperation, his small face buried in the front of Luke’s uniform. 

They can’t exactly return like this, so Luke stays there on the floor with him until they’re both back to something closer to baseline. Assuring the child in barely-there whispers as his mind circles, eventually settling on the most recent, safest place for him: 

The memory Grogu shared. Din’s unvarnished thoughts. 

The slow rolling build of Luke’s anger seeking an outlet. 

It is, of course, immaterial whether or not Din believes Luke has capacity for love in him. That’s not so different from what Palpatine tried to turn him into; first by way of the Hutts, and then by his own hand. Permanently ruined until nothing remained but a grotesque vessel made for pain and degradation. A creature of wretchedness from which great power would be born. It hardly matters, either, that Din thinks him fickle and superficial enough to take him and his son under his care, overturn his life and the entire workings of the galaxy - only to hurl them right back out again as soon as some shiny new toy comes into play.

No. 

What matters is the nerve of him for daring to believe, even for a fraction of a second, that either father or son has a chance of ever, ever leaving him. Not if Luke doesn’t want them to. 

So far, Luke’s been kind. Easing them in; taking things slow. Being outright gentle with Din at times to help with the transition. The soft-handed approach had even seemed to be working. 

Clearly, the Mandalorian’s due for a few reminders. He can't be permitted to forget what this new life entails for him: to give Luke what he wants, when he wants, for as long as he wants. 

Luke requires only Din’s obedience, not something as inconsequential as his care or devotion. 

Absently, Luke rubs the child’s back through his small black robes. 

Okay? Grogu asks him, the question small and tentative. Better?

The Force twists around them, pulling Luke to his feet, Grogu in his arms. 

Yes, Luke tells the child, making for the door with renewed intention. Yes, little one. All better. 

They see the Mandalorian leaning with his back against the wall outside the room where his protocol lesson transpired long before they reach him. His body language tells a story of restful impatience: arms crossed and broody, each foul spike in his mood working its way under Luke’s skin.

Do you not comprehend, Luke thinks, on edge as they approach, what I’ve given to you?

The helmet turns as they approach. “Hey.” Din’s attention, even more than usual, lands on the child and stays there. A half second later his posture and body language shift into worry, moving away from the wall. “What’s wrong?” 

In his arms, Grogu squirms. 

The Mandalorian closes the space between them, concern radiating as he reaches out for his son with expectant, open hands. 

The entitlement, the presumption feels a deliberate antagonism.

Luke stands and surveys him in silence. In his arms, Grogu lifts a small, clawed hand and reaches out towards his father, looking up at Luke with big confused eyes when he makes no move to hand him over. 

“Mmm?” Grogu asks. Hold? 

The Mandalorian’s wariness ratchets upward, but it’s eclipsed by the black billows of his frustration. A growing surliness he keeps within his tin can confines, though only barely. 

“Can I have him?” the Mandalorian asks. Words gritted out, as though it pains him to phrase it as a question. Audibly exasperated in a way he never would’ve dared on his first days on the Executor. If he knew what Luke just witnessed. 

(If he had to live with the memory of this morning like Luke still has to.)

What’s wrong with him? Din thinks, so loud the words rattle Luke’s skull. Gloved hands still palm out and waiting, agitation rising the more his son’s distress registers. Give me the kid, Din thinks, words he can’t say gaining momentum as he thinks them over and over in Luke’s direction. Give me the kid, give me the kid, give me the kid –

And that’s all he cares about. The thought curls upwards like dissipating smoke, taking now-distant memories of compassion and kindness in its wake. 

Din Djarin needs a reminder that access to his son is an indulgence he receives at Luke’s mercy.

Dark impulse grips him. 

“No,” Luke answers. He cocks his head to one side, subtly shifting his stance. “No, I don’t think you can.” 

The Mandalorian’s visor is fixed on Luke, unwavering, as are his eyes beneath. 

“Why,” Din manages, no upward inflection. At last his arms lower, hands resting on his hips. Luke shifts his grip on Grogu in his arms. “I thought. If I did what you said –”

“You’d be allowed to see him,” Luke finishes for him. “Which you have been! Generously so.” He thinks of Leia’s missive; the request for combat footage as an outward demonstration. His tone twists, growing flatter and more explicit. “And you’ll be allowed to see him again, too. Just as soon as you’re done proving your… capability to the galaxy.” 

What? Din asks, silent, but Luke answers as if it isn’t. 

“At this point,” Luke says, “those stills and vids of you just standing there have spread to every corner of the galaxy.” An exaggeration, but it’s worth it for the way it makes the Mandalorian stiffen. He pushes, relentless, onward. “And now? Now people want more. To know your name, hear your voice. Some combat footage. An interview, perhaps, complete with on-cam reveal of your face to the slathering masses.” 

The mere suggestion deals a heavy psychic blow. 

Each word is a claw snuck past his defenses, into the vulnerable spots beneath; guilt and shame drawn like blood from a wound. 

Grogu fusses, squirming in Luke’s arms. His ears are flattened against his head, uncertain as he looks back and forth between them.

Shhhh, Luke sends to the child, pointedly assuring him as the shape of his father’s distress broadens and heightens.

“But I’m far too merciful for that,” Luke informs him. His tone lightens. “So instead, all you have to do is run a few simulations. Take out a few dozen training droids, look good for the hovercams. Leia gets her footage, Mandalore gets their answers, and you–” Luke shrugs, magnanimous. “You get your son back. Hardly even notice he’s gone.”  

The Mandalorian’s shift in armored body language is palpable. He reigns himself in, resigning himself to bitter compliance. Attempting to draw away, into the confines of his mind; retreating, concealed, behind layers of mental and physical protection. 

I don’t think so.

Deliberately, Luke steps closer, shifting Grogu to one arm. 

It feels more intimate to take hold of Din’s helmet with fingers than with the Force. He takes hold of the point where the sleek cut of Din’s helmet tapers down to metallic chin, cool beskar trapped between Luke’s thumb and forefinger. 

The touch yanks Din back into the present, the roil of his internal struggle deep and heady. 

“We’re finished,” Luke tells him, softly, “when I say we’re finished.” Fingers tighten on metal, not intending to be sensed, but to be felt. Luke cocks his head. “Understood?”

The low burn of Din’s hatred is irrelevant compared to the concession that is the nod of his helmet in Luke’s grip.

“I understand,” says the Mandalorian, devoid of emotion. “Sir.” 

Luke sighs. 

So close, he thinks to himself, but not quite. 

“I think,” Luke purrs, “you can do better than that. Go on.” Luke grins, wolfish. His Mandalorian, of course, is not a military underling. Sir does not belong to him. “I’m sure that protocol droid taught you how just today. Why don’t you show me what you learned.”

Din exhales very slowly. His self-restraint, Luke senses, is hard-won.

“Yes, Imperial Highness.” The Mandalorian speaks as though each syllable is its own unique effort. Luke waits, expectant; can tell the precise moment Din surrenders, eyes squeezing shut behind his visor. Rigid with unexpressed anger, resentment, shame. "Thank you, Imperial Highness.” 

The grip of Luke’s fingers loosens. He takes a step back.

“Good,” Luke declares, giving Din a smile that’s half reassurance. Smirking, he raises his comlink to his lips. Holding Din’s gaze through his visor as he speaks. “This is Skywalker. Send an operations crew and the child’s nanny droid to the training wing main hallway. Immediately.” A moment’s contemplation later he adds, “the Mandalorian’s jetpack, also. He keeps it in his rooms.”

“Yes, sir!” comes the affirmative, and Luke terminates the connection. 

There’s a pang in his chest. Sudden, embattled regret takes hold, though he allows no sign of it on his face. 

“Here,” Luke adds, suddenly and unceremoniously handing – practically shoving – Grogu over to him. The incendiary burn that is Din’s anger lowers to a smolder as the child burrows into his arms, holding him so precious and so close. Bowing his helmed head as he holds him close against his chest. “Say your goodbyes while you can. I'll go pick out a room.” 

He does so immediately, turning on his heel. Pretending not to hear the quiet murmurs Din passes to his son beneath his breath as Luke walks from him. Hey, he says. Hey, kid. You all right there? You good?

Luke notes that Din doesn’t even do him the basic courtesy of thanking him. 

He keeps an uncaring mask in place as his eyes begin seeking out the red banners above each training room door. 

A stylized cylinder in white, rivets and cannon mount outlined in black, emblazoned on a red fabric field.

Luke returns to Din’s side confident in his selection. 

Their goodbye is briefer than the father wants it to be. Soon enough the far door opens, just under a dozen Imperial personnel spill through onto the walkway. Ami the nursing droid brings up the rear, along with a winded-looking underling, the jetpack under one arm. 

“Be good while I’m away,” Din says, unfurling Grogu’s small green fingers from where they’ve wrapped around his gloved thumb. Even stiff with reluctance, Din manages to assure him. “I’ll see you soon. I promise.”

It would be advisable, Luke reflects, for Din to refrain from making promises to his son he can’t guarantee keeping. 

The child is confused as Din hands him over, however unhappily, into the nanny droid’s care. 

Good, Luke thinks, good boy – Din has been, for complying – and reaches out with the Force almost instinctively in reassurance, mental fingers ghosting over the back of Din’s neck where his helmet meets his flight suit. 

The touch snaps Din’s attention back to him, but not in a positive way; fury licking like flames.

Well. They’ll have to work on Din’s ability to take comfort when Luke offers it to him later. 

He turns on his heel, sending blast doors open with a wave of his hand. Leading both Mandalorian and underlings into the Turret Room, the reassuring throb of ascendency in his veins.

A ceiling of a hundred meters is difficult to manage on a ship, but for the purpose for which this room exists, such height is absolutely necessary. Patterned tiles line the floor of the simulated battlefield, giving indications of distance without requiring too much familiarity with the landscape. Cylindrical turrets dot the terrain, smooth-sided. Elements both offensive and defensive are strewn throughout the expansive space: wall-mounted weapons, dynamic terrain, faint hidden lines in the outer walls that conceal the places that droid combatants will ultimately spill from. 

A rush of familiarity breaks the rigid control he’s imposed on himself, bordering on nostalgia. On instinct he glances to the right - the dent in the durasteel he made all those years ago is still there and intact. 

The Mandalorian comes to a stop next to him. He’s already calculating the arena; its places of high ground and cover, attempting to forcibly shift himself from resentful father to resentful warrior. 

“What’s the objective?” Din asks, half-bitten. Internally, he lobbies a variety of deeply uncharitable thoughts in Luke’s direction. 

It’s an annoyingly good question. For Luke and Leia, the objective had been to take out and dismantle all the turrets. Considering it’s Din, and considering it’s just a trial run – 

“Stay alive,” Luke instructs. Best to keep things simple. “It’s a simulation… Mando.” The term feels foreign and distasteful on Luke’s tongue, but the operations crew he ordered are spilling into the room around them and footage is undoubtedly already rolling. 

No matter how much Din deserves to be put through his paces, it doesn’t warrant spilling sacred parts of what’s his to the masses. 

He shrugs. “Fight as long as you can.” Luke turns, giving the man a look over his shoulder. “I’ll let you know when I think you’ve had enough.” 

Unseen beneath his helmet, Luke feels the crack of Din’s jaw as it tightens. 

“Lieutenant,” Luke calls, and as though summoned into existence a young man steps forward to present Din with his jetpack. An awkward moment passes, wherein the Mandalorian at first resists, then allows the underling to attach the magnetic panels. Securing the device into place such that Din stands taller, fuller.  

Complete. 

Under the circumstances, ‘good luck’ seems inappropriate. 

“Don’t fuck this up,” Luke tells him instead, then turns on his heel.

A flight of stairs later, Luke steps into the combined overlook and command center. Five technicians work to calibrate an appropriate simulation, each a tangled bundle of performance nerves and heightened emotion.

There is no reprieve coming. No sudden technical glitch that threatens; no anticipated interruption – from Leia, from anyone – to halt or redirect such execution of his authorities. 

He crosses to the rail that separates overlook from a thirty meter drop, projecting composure. With an indolent air, Luke rests his elbows on the railing, then leans forward to better take in the action. 

Below, the Mandalorian is already in motion, beskar a glinting contrast to the mostly-black floors and walls. Luke’s eyes trail him as he moves, both bitter and gluttonous in the act of taking him in. Taking stock of concrete half-walls, helmet tilting upward to survey the turrets looming above. Exploring the terrain before the simulation is initiated; expected, but still noteworthy. His movements are precise and deliberate, the lingering tension beneath his armor in no way affecting his outer professionalism. 

Compartmentalization is a skill Luke learned involuntarily; a way to cope with the horror that was once his daily existence. Din, though – he embodies the very practice of it. That rigid separation between self and other.

The Mandalorian’s inner world is so vast, Luke could get lost in it. 

Down in the training arena below, the Mandalorian’s visor points towards the overlook, towards Luke. Armor inscrutable, his simmering resentment imperceptible to everyone else watching.

Even a look shared from a distance feels visceral and intimate.

Luke wavers, doubt creeping. 

Would you be punishing him like this, an inner voice questions, if you hadn’t seen pity mixed with the fear in his eyes before you scrubbed that memory from him this morning?

Recollection hardens conviction. The unbearable weight of shame weighs heavy. 

“Officers,” Luke orders, his own voice distant to his own ears. “Initiate a standard sequence, A-4.” His tone darkens. “Live rounds.”

His eyes flick away for a half second to deliver the directive, and when he looks back, Din’s gone.

All six turrets unleash a deluge of plasma at the place Din used to be standing. Luke stills, tapping into the Force to pinpoint him in the section of the room with the best possible cover; down on his knees between a concrete block and the base of a turret. 

Multiple wall panels open, droids pouring towards the room’s lone target. 

Below, the Mandalorian’s pique sharpens into pure, concerted focus. 

A cluster of repurposed battle droids – spindly B1s, a legacy of massive overproduction in the Clone Wars -- are the first to charge.

Din’s blaster is in his hand, the resonant pew-pew-pew of its fire ringing out before Luke even registers he’s drawn it from his holster. 

Each shot is expertly leveled and landed, the Mandalorian simultaneously holding his ground and deflecting incoming fire with his free-hand bracer. Blaster bolts land in rapid succession, sparks flying and detritus hitting floor as the Mandalorian blasts apart mechanized knees, elbows, and necks with precision. Looming black and silver K-units follow right behind, unconcerned with the crunch of fallen comrades underfoot as they encroach on their target. 

Most of the B1 battle droids are down before they reach him, but the first one that does gets a swift punch to the face for its trouble, the Mandalorian using the momentum to spin into a low kick that takes out the next one’s legs right from under it. The move brings him just into the range of one of the turrets – an oversight, Luke thinks, until Din leads – lures – the first K-unit into the line of fire. 

The Mandalorian is already rolling back to cover by the time the turret unloads on the K-unit, leaving it a smoking heap on the ground. Heartbeats later, a great gout of flames erupts from the Mandalorian’s outstretched arm, drawing Luke’s attention back to him, eyes yanked back to him by an invisible string. Frying the circuitry of three B1 battle droids before they even reach him, scorched, blackened husks clattering as they hit ground. 

Even half-obscured by turrets and bad angles and movement too quick to process, watching his Mandalorian fight is like seeing a fine weapon unleashed.  

“Officers,” Luke calls over his shoulder, the sound of his own voice vaguely distant to his own ears. “Deploy cam droids for close-up footage.”

Seconds later, a handful of camdroids descend from their hidden spots within the ceiling.

The view will be better in the covered command center than it is out here: multiple close-up feeds, the ability to zoom in on any action he finds deserving greater scrutiny. 

Taking his eyes off the Mandalorian, though, seems a small but cruel betrayal to him. 

Is that all that you’ve betrayed today?  

Shut up, Luke thinks back at the intrusive thought, prosthetic clenching rail so hard metal threatens to cave beneath the clench of his fist. Shut up shut up shut up shut up –

It’s indulgent, in a way. Being able to observe the man he’s acquired as his own personal bodyguard actually deliver down there against the onslaught. Each part of his armor a blunt force weapon, blows dealt with blind faith in his beskar’s superiority. One hit for one target: brutal efficiency, no motion wasted. Ruthlessly strategic as he plays droids and turrets against each other at every opportunity. Using his environment for more than what it’s worth. 

Growing piles of smoking scrap and machinery are accumulating on the ground, the trickle of droids rushing in from the arena’s edges not enough to keep up with Din’s pace. Raw and refined in the same breath. 

“Next wave,” Luke calls over his shoulder. Intent as he watches with parted lips, blood rising. 

There’s the whirr and grind of distant machinery behind the walls of the simulated arena.

Wall panels open once more, and a second great wave of droids – newer K-series and B2s in individual phalanxes. They emerge in glinting black ranks; some with blasters, others lumbering with great mechanized arms outstretched for grappling in pursuit of their target.

From his vantage point on the overlook, Luke watches as additional turrets emerge from each one of the towers, extending their aim enough that a red bolt catches Din square in the jetpack, sending him hurtling down onto the patterned floor. 

Luke winces in empathy as beskar-plated arms push himself up again.

The Mandalorian’s back on his feet and making for a new position when he halts mid-step. His helmet turns slowly, taking in the vanguard of B2s lumbering forward, extending their blaster-arms in a whirring clutch of metallic fists as they level their arm-mounted weapons in his direction.   

A spike of Din’s alarm cuts through the Force, guttural and instinctive.

Luke frowns, but the Mandalorian’s pause lasts less than a second, already hurling himself sideways by the time they fire. Turning, he raises his left vambrace, unleashing his whipcord. Yanking one of the armored blasters from a K-unit, then hauling it up into his own hands, unleashing a torrent of plasma bolts at the droids encroaching from all angles until he’s all but backed into a corner –

The Mandalorian engages his jetpack with twin blasts of yellow-red energy.

His armored body arcs upwards in a controlled burst, landing in a controlled roll on a higher level of the structure. Putting some much-needed distance between himself and the K-units. Running almost as soon as his feet hit the ledge, avoiding turret fire long enough to get into a relatively covered position.

Without his notice, one of Luke’s hands has crawled up to press against his throat; fingers sprawled out in appreciation across bare, sensitive skin.

Regardless of whatever one of his foul moods brought them here, Luke can’t say that he regrets a thing if this is the reward he gets for it. 

Watching his Mandalorian fight is admittedly more riveting than he’d anticipated – but the greater gift is getting to experience, by proxy, how Din Djarin acts, reacts, and makes decisions. To catch so many glimpses into his psyche when faced with opposition.

Another warrior at work. A feast for all his senses.

A proficiency with violence that captivates him completely. 

Luke can hardly believe he didn’t think to do this sooner. Such an elegant exercise, allowing him to simultaneously observe his Mandalorian in action while also, decidedly, putting him in his place. 

And thanks to his father’s investment in the training facilities, at no actual cost whatsoever. 

Well. There’s a chance Din may be a bit broody for a few hours after the simulation’s over, but in truth that hardly matters. The Mandalorian has to do what he’s told; he doesn’t have to like it. 

Besides – after they put the baby down later tonight, Luke’s fairly sure he can make it worth his while. To run his mouth over each scrape and bruise; to finally finish what they started last night in the shuttle. 

From a distance he watches as the Mandalorian, now hunkered down, start taking pot shots at droids from above. It just attracts more of them, gathering in a swarming crush beneath. When the armored blaster runs out of juice, he hurls it aside, retrieving two blinking red devices from the depths of his utility belt. He hurls them down into the gathered droids beneath, using his vambrace to block the ensuing shrapnel. 

It’s just getting good, and Luke’s fully engrossed, chin resting on interwoven fingers as he watches his Mandalorian fight his way to the top of the closest turret tower, slamming his boot down to disable a mounted blaster cannon, and –

“Imperial Highness.”

Luke blinks. He turns, facing the speaker with his cheeks warm from the heat of his creeping flush.

A lieutenant commander stands to attention in the doorway, a carefully neutral expression on his human face. His next words are resolute, if perhaps a bit uneven. 

“Emperor Vader requires your presence in the holochamber.”

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Chapter Text

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Luke stares at the officer, making sense of the words first in pieces, then together. A blinding moment of cold internal panic stifled, composure fixed in place for the sake of watching subordinates. 

A holocall from the warfront, of course. Not here here, right now.

Not in person. 

A foolish thought, brainless. If Vader were anywhere within three star systems, Luke would’ve felt him the second his father’s starship left hyperspace. 

“Of course,” Luke responds, voice tight as he swiftly gathers himself, swallowing through the heart pounding in his throat. He glances back over at the training arena for a moment, relaxing minutely when he notes that the Mandalorian has successfully disabled one of the mounted blaster cannons atop the cylindrical turret and commandeered a second. He’s comfortably sniping down the Mark V sentry droids that descend from hidden panels in the ceiling, taking pot shots in an attempt to disable cannons mounted on neighboring turrets as they swivel towards him, unloading their fire in his direction. 

Everything is coalescing, coming together too fast, and at the wrong moment, one more thing – the most important thing – suddenly materializes at his doorstep. This is a rock slide giving way to an avalanche; the push and pull of the tides that conceal a brutal undertow. 

Luke fights an absurd urge to smooth his clothes to rid himself of imagined wrinkles. 

His eyes slide to the heavily-freckled man in uniform standing at respectful attention.

“Commander,” Luke instructs, tone carefully cool. “Remain here and oversee the rest of the training sequence.” The Mandalorian has already partly completed this one; it would be a shame to have to start over. Luke narrows his gaze. “I want the session terminated and the Mandalorian returned to his chambers the minute he’s defeated or surrenders. Am I understood?” 

“Yes, sir,” the officer confirms, snapping a tight salute. Luke is already sweeping past him with a small, distracted nod.

“Send the footage directly to Darth Amidala’s press team once he’s done,” Luke adds. “Have them cut together a highlight reel for me while they’re at it.”

He hesitates at the threshold, bare hand resting on the frame. Suppressing an unknown pang in his chest as he manages not to steal one last look over his shoulder.

Disappointment, perhaps, at missing the rest of the demonstration.

But there’s no such thing as keeping Father waiting.

His mind is already elsewhere by the time his fingers slip from the doorframe, following the lieutenant commander to his waiting transport. 

“The Emperor’s transmission’s been sent directly to the holochamber in this wing, sir,” the officer explains from the front seat, in response to the inquiring quirk of Luke’s eyebrow as the transport heads in a direction he wasn’t expecting. “His Majesty must really want to speak with you.” 

Luke hides his surprise, expression schooled into one of sedate acceptance. The training wing holochamber may be closest, but it’s also considerably outmoded. A relic of a time when Luke and Leia had to make regular calls to their father to update him on their training.

What’s so important it can’t wait for a few extra minutes of transit time?

He rubs his lone palm, unacceptably sweaty, on his gaberwool trousers. 

The transport hums and rumbles. In the confines of the back seat, Luke tries and fails to empty his mind; to release the rest of the day’s thoughts outward into the Force. In seated silence he works quickly; running through imagined arguments and counter-arguments, tying up the loose ends of justifications he’s been weaving in the back of his mind over the last week. 

Bracing himself for what may well be, for all that they aren’t present, the most important conversation of Din and Grogu’s lives.

The transport turns a corner. Luke’s eyebrows hitch minutely upward. 

What he’d expected was a mostly-empty hallway. Instead, a significant Imperial presence has congregated in front of the entrance to the training wing holochamber. High-ranking officers from the Fleet, the Army, and Imperial Intelligence — a collection of uniforms that would usually herald disaster, were it not for the exhilarated, triumphant undertone in their combined thoughts and energies. The excited whispers that cut off as he approaches. 

Good news, then.

Most noteworthy of all is the cluster of familiar, mostly-humanoid men that stand in pride of place at the front of the gathered masses. Luke eyes them in their pseudo-regalia as his transport slows to a stop; all dark clothes and dark armor. Each with a regional variation, usually a splash of vivid red somewhere along torso or neck. A few are wearing helmets so outrageously ornate he can practically imagine Din’s thoughts on the matter. 

Implementers.  

Those with visible faces seem barely able to contain their grins as he approaches, smiles an unnatural contortion to their forever-dour expressions.

“Highness!” one of them calls out to him, a wild informality, and all at once Luke realizes. 

This isn’t just good news.

This is great news. 

Luke pushes the side door open, stepping out before the driver has even put them in park.

Chief Implementer Sion Tilde stands at the head of the crowd before him, weathered forehead relaxing its permanent wrinkle. Once a Brigadier General in the Imperial Army, now he serves as the head of the galaxy’s most powerful institution. So-called 'Implementers', born from the ashes of what had once been Palpatine’s Imperial Ruling Council – once it had been overhauled, of course, and thoroughly purged. Its membership supplemented and adjusted for Father’s leadership style: more military, fewer politicians, as many Force-sensitives as could be crammed into their ranks. Tasked with implementing – at the highest possible level – Vader’s will across the galaxy. 

In practice, Tilde is fourth in command to Leia’s second, Luke’s third. 

“Imperial High Prince,” Tilde declares; arms outstretched in welcome, his tone unusually genial. He bows his head respectfully, with – Luke thinks – less resentment than usual. The pale lines of his human face are lit up with dark triumph. “I’m pleased to announce major advancements on the Bothan warfront. Resounding victories have been declared in Kothlis, Bothawui, and the third moon of Faerdu.” His eyes gleam. “The Emperor is making the call from the main government building on the Bothan homeworld as we speak.”

The homeworld? Significant victories indeed. 

“Excellent news,” Luke affirms, allowing the shift in microexpressions that the gathered crowd expects of him: satisfaction, triumph, pride at this latest demonstration of Imperial supremacy. The day’s trials momentarily recede in importance, overshadowed by this monumental turning point. He holds Tilde’s gaze. “How close are we to declaring total control of Bothan Space?”

“Close, Your Highness. Weeks, if not days.” A glowing satisfaction radiates from Tilde through the Force, echoed by many in the assembled mass of the Imperial elite. Luke doesn’t blame them, given that the greatest New Imperial victory since the acquisition of Hutt Space is approaching so swiftly on the horizon. Tilde’s smile twists and stretches. “When Your Highness and Darth Amidala could not be reached, His Majesty summoned me to receive this historic news.”

Ah. That would explain the crowd of gathered onlookers – assembled by Tilde to witness his formal first receipt of the news. A camdroid, Luke notes, skirts the edge of the room, taking holos.

“Of course,” Luke says, smooth but with a sharpened edge. He breaks eye contact, taking in the sea of uniforms and excited faces, the glossy white of Stormtrooper armor relegated to the far edges. Inhabiting himself completely as he locks eyes with a few of them. “Outstanding work,” Luke projects, raising his voice to make clear his words are intended for a wider audience; working the crowd. “A pivotal step towards lasting peace in the New Empire.” 

Nothing further is needed, but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce the proper order of things.

His gaze shifts back to Tilde. “See to it that all military and service personnel stationed in Bothan Space receive additional rations,” Luke commands him, smile verging on smirk. “They’ve earned it.”

The hushed, appreciative chatter in the crowd makes a flicker of resentment cross Tilde’s face, swiftly stifled. He bows his head with ostensible respect. “Of course, Your Highness. I’ll see to the arrangements. And… do let us know if the Emperor requires our counsel after you’ve spoken. His transmission remains live; you can join him at your… convenience.” 

It’s a subtle dig, made imperceptible by the way he raises his fist to his armored chest in deference as he steps backward, absorbed into the crowd. As he goes, Luke takes casual note of the officers in the direction of his movement; it’s not often, but advisers with military alliances always present the implicit threat of building into coup attempts without a proper management strategy.

Bodies part seamlessly to allow him passage. Luke turns on his heel, striding with his head held high towards the entrance, no outer indication of the churn in the pit of his belly.

He hopes that some time spent devastating their enemies – well, their soon-to-be-subjects – has left his father in a favorable headspace.

Don’t trust him.

Don’t trust him, his uncle’s voice echoes once more, intrusive and unwanted. 

With savage fierceness, Luke attempts to crush that thought – that memory – beneath his metaphorical heel. 

Not the time, he thinks, not the time. 

The blast door opens before him, then closes at his back. 

Stepping down into the training room holochamber is like descending into a memory. 

The chamber is low-lit and rounded, the most state-of-the art holotech power and credits could buy twelve years ago, giving the room an anachronistic air that permeates every feature. Technology once looked upon with awe registers disappointingly to his now-exacting eye as more than a little outdated. Dark paneled walls curve, only interrupted by glowing red lights at regular intervals, a built circular platform to indicate where to stand. The raised hexagonal holoprojector stands in pride of place at the center of the room to preserve a full image on all sides, interior surface already lit up with that distinctive pale blue glow.

A beam roughly two meters in height flashes briefly before dispersing; the need for the projector to wa rm up after a pause an artifact of another time.

It’s with surreal, deliberate steps that Luke steps forward and onto the receiving platform. Both boot heels firmly planted and arms at his side, he stands and waits, at attention if not at arms. 

When they were younger, Leia had always knelt in moments like these: in formal greeting to receive her instructions, to pass on information to him. As I once knelt, Vader once told them, approaching fond, for my Master. Immersed in power politics since birth, she’d considered it a means to her ends. A necessary act of rote decorum.

Luke never has. 

So far, he’s never been asked to.

The smell of heated dust hits his nostrils: machinery long dormant comes alive once more, burning away the residue of ages. Sonar pings increase in pitch and tempo, couched in the resonant wub-wub-wub warble of transmission as the holoprojector fine-tunes the connection.

With crackling static, Emperor Vader materializes in dark and towering replica. 

The projection of Luke’s father occupies the vast space from floor to ceiling, but it’s his enormity of presence that dominates the room, a force of power and personality that transcends corporeality and distance. The ubiquitous blue of the holo translates black into navy, but there’s no mistaking the cut of that helmet, the unshakable confidence with which Vader holds himself. 

The familiar rasp-hiss of Father’s life support and respirator fills each crevice of the chamber. 

A lone shiver runs the length of Luke’s spine. He bows his head in respect.

“My son,” Vader says in greeting, twice-filtered voice blessedly brimming with the self-satisfaction that follows conquest. Glitches of paler blue light run up his holo-image from boots to helmet, as though to emphasize his lack of physical presence. 

“Father,” Luke answers – then sucks in a breath as, from across the unfathomable expanse of the galaxy, Vader’s Force signature finds him. 

It’s an unexpected intimacy; a metaphysical embrace that Luke has to deliberately and consciously open himself up to receive and reciprocate. The brush and encircling of his father’s Force signature against his own so present it’s like they’re in the same room. Reaching out across the stars through the golden ribbon of connection that is their shared Force bond. Eyes slipping shut, Luke gives himself over to the embrace; his father a dark cloak that wraps around his shoulders; proprietary, enclosing.

And wildly triumphant.

At last Vader releases his hold and Luke exhales, shoulders releasing a fraction of their tension as his father recedes back into the distance, leaving just his hologram in its wake. All other background thoughts subside. Luke’s singular focus narrows, like keying into a target during a dogfight. 

The next few minutes are going to be crucial. 

“Father,” he repeats, shamelessly abusing how much he knows the man likes to be called as such when they’re in private. The light cast from the holo makes the white of his uniform pale blue. His smile, both forced and despite himself, digs at his cheeks. “I just received word.”

Bothan Space. A hard-won conquest at last where it belongs: in their collective hands. Not yet official, but in practice all but taken. A declaration of victory from the ruins of their government buildings sending its own special message. 

“Yes,” Vader answers, a hidden smile underlying his words. “It would seem that claims of the indomitable nature of Bothan independence have been… exaggerated.” Self-satisfaction and conviction gains momentum as he speaks. “They–”

A poorly-timed glitch in the holotransmission rends Vader’s image in half on a diagonal as the audio stalls and stutters. They, his father’s voice repeats, they they they th th th–

A rush of skipped audio follows at double speed as audio and visuals both snap back into place. 

“-- ich in the end proved no match for our forces,” Vader finishes, very clearly unaffected by whatever aged-out, faulty tech is responsible for the disruption on this end. 

A long pause stretches. 

“Mmm,” says Luke, not acknowledging the interruption; keeping any reaction to the surreality of the moment at bay. 

With careful intention, he softens his posture and expression. He ducks his head; the luminous pale blue of the hologlow is still visible with his eyes averted. 

“I can’t wait to hear about it,” Luke tells him, because stoking his father’s ego is more likely to help than hurt. In the far-off distance, an echo of his father’s satisfaction echoes. Luke shivers. “All of it. Every detail of your victory.”

In his mind’s eye, he can almost see the map of the galaxy laid out before him. The tangled web of interlacing hyperspace lanes, weighted heavily spinward, overlaid atop the gradient regions that ripple from Core outwards. The festering wound once known as Hutt Space, now the Kessel Cluster; already scrubbed from all official astrography,  that small but stubborn smudge that is Bothan Space at last set to join it in cartographical exile, the Rishi Corridor left in its place. No interstellar landscape but that which exists in anachronism; in relics of less-civilized eras.

“Our victory,” Vader counters, and Luke’s gaze snaps back to him. The words are tongue-in-cheek but unyielding. A firm but forceful reminder of what they agreed to, all those years ago. That each New Imperial conquest belongs, by definition, to all three of them.

Luke nods to him in quick concession; even though distance and the shoddy connection, his father projects obstinance; unstoppability. The armor that encloses him possessed with innate ability to keep both opposition and others at bay.

For all the obvious comparisons pan-galactic gossips enjoy making between the two men in his life with full-body armor, Vader and the Mandalorian really couldn’t wear it more differently. His father’s armor is an ominous barricade: an amalgam of life support and deliberate intimidation. 

Din Djarin’s armor is himself, extended. A metallurgical second skin - as much himself as the flesh beneath. 

Verbal permission, Luke reminds himself, the thought tinted with amorphous urgency. His spine audibly clicks beneath his uniform as he straightens it. That’s all you need: permission to keep them from his own lips. No decision that Vader isn’t part of can be safe from his destruction.

He ignores his own clawing anxiety.

“Father,” Luke starts, deliberate. “While I have you, there’s–”

“There are, of course,” Vader interrupts, either in interjection or from a transmission delay, and Luke’s words die on his tongue, “matters to attend to somewhat… closer to home.” The pause that follows, once created, allows no interruption. When next he speaks, his father’s tone is curled into a question: “Has your sister spoken to you, of late, of Chandrila?”

Luke’s instinctive response – should she have? – receives no airtime. Instead he rifles rapidly through recent memories; thinking with wild intensity before speaking. 

“She hasn’t,” Luke concludes, voice wary, “but. Tensions are high.” In his mind’s eye he sees the Imperial officer from this morning, suspended mid-air by the throat and spluttering. “Some of our men on the ground have lost all sense of subtlety or proportion, firing on civilians in petty retribution for acts committed by traitors and insurgents most have nothing to do with.” The curl of his lip translates into tone. “Rebels have infested pockets of the planet’s hinterlands, styling themselves an underground movement, funneling misinformation into the Three Cities. Stoking unrest as the planet approaches its Unity Day.”

Unsurprising, given Unity Day itself is an Imperial imposition. A plastered-over substitute for what was once Chandrila’s annual independence celebration. Subsumed, co-opted. 

Rebranded. 

Three years since Chandrila fell, and still the planet wriggles beneath the New Imperial heel.

“All heads of the Joint Chiefs are either actively engaged or monitoring,” Luke concludes, tilting his head. “Why?” he asks, tone hardened. 

The understated rumble of a vocoded chuckle hits his ears. 

“The time for scorched-earth tactics,” Vader hums, as though somehow amused, “may come sooner than you think.” 

Beneath flesh and uniform, Luke’s blood goes cold. By the time he’s opened his mouth to speak, however, his father’s hologram is already waving a gloved hand in blithe dismissal through a respirator cycle. 

“It makes little difference,” Vader drawls, conclusive. “No major offensives will take place until after Unity Day, once attention has shifted elsewhere.” The holoprojector chooses that moment to glitch, a large shudder of static passing through his father’s image. Flickering for long seconds before stabilizing. “Besides. We have many blunt force instruments at our disposal to manage the rebels. My assignment for you ,” Vader informs him, tone both uncaring and compelling, the matter long ago decided, “is one only you or your sister can undertake.”

The implication, of course, is that Leia isn’t available. Luke bows his head in respect, pushing aside for now his mounting dread at the thought of a major military offensive being contemplated against such a symbolically significant Core World planet. 

Chandrila, he thinks, agitation prickling at the back of his neck, is no place for an air show .

“What would you have me do, Father?”

His father leans forward, unsubtle, making his hologram loom. “In four days time,” Vader enunciates, “you will travel to Chandrila as my delegate for Unity Day. There you will speak with my voice; meet with officials, attend the annual gala.” The disdainful curl of his father’s lip is audible in his next words, as though to emphasize something uniquely undesirable. “Make appropriate media statements.”

Luke nods to show both attention and acceptance. In his mind’s eye, he sees that first Unity Day after the New Empire’s hold on the planet had been cemented. Imperial iconography strung and draped all over; Stormtroopers marching in formation in the streets of Hanna City. Some locals cheering, others weeping. Still more hiding inside their homes to avoid the spectacle entirely.

Engagement requirements, Luke understands, were implemented to deal with that problem.

“Remind all of Chandrila,” Emperor Vader says, his navy holo-counterpart tilting his helmet forward ever-so-slightly, “to whom, precisely, they owe their continued existence.” 

There’s only one acceptable answer. 

“Gladly, Your Majesty,” Luke defers.

For a few heartbeats neither of them speak. Around Luke, the predictable whirr and cadence of the surrounding machinery seems to fill the space, becoming louder and more prominent in his ears.

It’s a straightforward enough assignment, given Chandrila’s proximity. Perhaps even a chance to show his Mandalorian off to the masses. Their first chance to spend time together with an actual planet beneath their feet.

All of which assumes that his father isn’t… unreasonable about Luke keeping them.

There will never be a better moment. His father’s ego still inflated with triumph from the scale of his victory; fresh off of entrusting his son with a high-profile task.

But that niggling thought persists, pressing. 

“Father,” Luke starts instead, lifting his head. He curses himself internally. “Chandrila is in a… delicate position, yes. But our control still holds. And I fear that in striking too hard, we may eliminate one problem at the cost of many more.” There’s a reason news outlets and official propaganda have given him and Leia the monikers they have. His sister the Emperor’s Hand; Luke as his Heart. “Crop fields, exports, laborers. New Imperial-held resources and infrastructure. Civilian hearts and minds.” 

His father’s hologram’s navy helmet tilts in consideration.

“And what,” Vader asks, “do you propose instead?”

Fortunately, Luke’s thought that far ahead. “The rebels will almost certainly surface in increased numbers and frequency as Unity Day approaches. The planetside garrisons will increase apprehensions. Extract the locations of as many of their strongholds as possible. Launch a coordinated precision attack against them once the intelligence is acquired.” Luke maintains his gaze, steady and unflinching.

A lone shuddering line of slightly lighter blue runs through him from top to bottom. 

“I gather,” Vader says, falsely light, “that you volunteer yourself for any such operation.”

And – well. “Yes, Father,” Luke answers, once again left with only one possible response. “Of course. Thank you, I would be honored.”

“Hmm.” It’s a non-committal tone. “I shall reach out to Moff Kane on this matter.” The level modulation of Father’s tone sounds almost like a move towards conclusion; the wrapping of topics, determination of next steps. “Should all go to plan, expect a signal to strike while planetside. As for the rest of your time on Chandrila...” His father’s voice lowers further. “I trust I can rely on you to make the correct impression.”

Fear of the holocall ending fills Luke with renewed urgency. He takes breath to speak.

“Just as I trust I can rely on you,” Vader continues, deep and precise, “to follow all my directives in this matter.”

Luke’s mouth snaps shut. 

An icy chill descends from the ceiling, settling heavy. 

“Yes.” Vader’s word is laden with implication, an edge of not-quite-mocking; as though Luke has stepped into some carefully-laid trap without his realizing. “Did you think,” Vader asks without seeking answer, “that I had forgotten? That victory had so clouded my memory, my judgment, that I would fail to draw attention to your… little indiscretion? Your disobedience in the Outer Rim?”

Fledgling hope fractures. Above him the image of his father looms, towering and untouchable. It makes him feel smaller than himself; diminutive and leveled with intensity in just a way the projection is designed to achieve. 

“No,” Luke insists, heartfelt and vehement. Sweat prickling at his temples. “Not at all, Father, I only–”

“Silence.” Sharp-edged and bitter.

Luke’s stomach bottoms out, dragged downwards to where the soles of his boots meet the platform. 

Anxiety mounts into a spike of panic, shoved viciously away. Unable to speak, Luke exhales heavily, trying to release some of it into the Force. Eyes landing on the mantle and inset buttons of Father’s chestplate. Each breath sounds overly loud to his own ears.

“I admit,” Vader continues a drawn-out pause later, “I hardly expected it of you. Your sister has always had the stronger inclination towards obstinance.” A smile twists beneath his next words. “And to what end, I wonder. Testing boundaries? An assertion of independence?”

Luke stands there, unmoving. Biting the inside of his cheek. 

“Or perhaps…” Huffed breath becomes a crackle. “Perhaps you think yourself above your Emperor’s orders.”

There’s a schism, a shift – and it’s like Luke is outside himself somehow. Above himself. Looking down and watching the situation as though through another’s eyes. 

When he was barely more than a boy, back when life on Tatooine was not yet nightmare, his Uncle Owen used to take him out to shoot womp rats with some of the other locals from nearby homesteads. If he tries very hard, he can almost feel the pressure of the trigger against his finger as he lines up his shot. Almost taste the sandstorm dust on the back of his tongue. 

When you’ve only got one shot, Uncle Owen used to say, a soft rumble, you gotta make it count.

Fear lessens, and loosens, and cools into instinct, honed by bitter experience.

“You told me once,” Luke starts, words coming to him from the depths of him and simultaneously channeled from elsewhere, “that orders are like mission parameters. That they can and should be altered if new or critical information becomes available.” He pauses for a few long heartbeats. “We intercepted their ship in the Karideph sector. A boarding party was sent, but the Mandalorian proved too much for them. My arrival aboard his ship was expedited to pacify the threat.”

There’s a long and stilted pause.

“I…” Luke trails off, not wanting to share anything he may regret later. The higher-level, the better. “It turned out the Force-sensitive I’d been sent to retrieve was the Mandalorian’s son. And when I felt their connection –” He breaks off, uncertain how to continue. Eyes fluttering shut for a few seconds as he attempts to pluck up the most succinct and encapsulated description of that moment. “It was like the Force itself inside me recognized them. I saw them. And they were –”

He cuts himself off in embarrassment, returning to the moment. To the musty smell of a room that hasn’t been regularly used in approaching a decade; the prism flare of light splicing through his father’s hologram. 

“They were what?” Vader asks, a furling note of genuine curiosity in his voice. Luke, very pointedly, does not jump at the sudden crackle that accompanies his statement. 

But he knows what’s true. He knows what to say. 

“They were mine,” Luke admits to his father, understated and soft. “I knew it. I felt it.”

There’s a beat of delay.

Then Vader jerks back in surprise, a motion so visceral it translates across star systems. A visible balk. 

“You–” Vader starts, then stops abruptly, as though speechless. 

Luke pushes. “I need them for myself. I have to keep them both. I’m–” His voice comes close to breaking. “I’m asking you for this. As both your student and your son. Please.” Luke has never knelt before his father in all their days, but he almost does so now. “Let me keep them. As an apprentice; and his father as a – companion.” The term is selected carefully, mindful of the contempt, indifference, and resentment with which Vader has – only begrudgingly – tolerated Han’s presence over the years. 

“Please, Father,” Luke finishes, staring up at his image without blinking; drenched in his hologram’s pale blue light. 

The blue-black angles of Vader’s helmet tilts, a constrained microexpression. 

“Your so-called apprentice,” Vader intones in answer, “is a child. And his caretaker is,” disdain drips from each word, “a Force-null.”

Luke thinks of the warm, glowing lantern that is the child in the Force. Of the otherworldly song that had trilled in his ear the moment he made that fateful decision to keep them. How inextricably drawn he feels to every particle that makes up the Mandalorian’s existence. The raw connection that runs between them; the mutual attraction and compatibility, a lifeline in darkness. One surety to hold onto, for all the Mandalorian hasn’t fully accepted it yet.

“Force-null,” Luke manages, “but Force-favored. I–” He cuts himself off, then finishes, definitive. No matter how much the gesture may be expected of him, he can’t bring himself to apologize. “I can feel it,” he says instead. “A – a tug in my consciousness. As though the Force itself wants him - them - here with me.” He swallows, then continues: “Like you said it felt for you when you met Mother.” 

The remark lands as intended. Vader flinches back, unsubtle. A great flare of his father’s grief, painful-bright, cuts across the distance.

Your gentleness, Vader’s told him a few times now, is so very like your mother. 

Luke doesn't think of himself as a particularly gentle person. And he’s not above leveraging a dead woman’s memory if it helps him work towards a larger goal. 

He bows his head respectfully, solemn and sincere. “Disobedience, Father,” Luke promises him, “was never my intention.”

Silence reigns as Luke waits, but there is no immediate condemnation. No retaliatory outburst. Instead, his father’s silence is laden with active consideration. 

“And yet,” Vader retorts long moments later, tone laced with a strange hint of indulgent, sharpened pride, “here we are.” 

Luke lifts his gaze to him, straightening his spine. “Yes,” he answers. “Here we are.”

When he speaks again a few moments later, it’s in a tone of hardened professionalism. “Imperial Majesty. Emperor Vader.” He snaps a sharp salute, chin high. “As your Fleet Admiral, I surrender myself immediately for reprimand.” 

For long moments, the warbling near-silence of the holo-transmission goes unfilled.

“And,” Vader begins, low and prompting, “as my son?”

The words hang in the air. Slowly, Luke allows his posture to soften. He ducks his head, averts his gaze. Reaching up with his bare left hand to cradle his upper right arm; deliberately putting on a posture of vulnerability. 

Of weakness. 

“As your son, I would… request your indulgence.” His breath feels caught in his throat. “Father.”

The faint chirp of transmission data and the static of distant connection pound in his ears; he can almost hear his blood pumping, his prosthesis calibrating.

He closes his eyes.

“Luke,” Vader says, deeply serious, the sound of his name in that voice a chilling comfort. He blinks his eyes open. “Do you remember what I told you? On the day I brought you home.” 

It’s… not a time Luke likes to think about; the days and weeks and months after Vader and Leia recovered whatever was left of him from Palpatine. When he’d fought and failed so viciously to overcome the remnants of his own vestigial weakness. 

Involuntarily, his mind turns to that very first request he ever made of Emperor Vader all those years ago. Himself still fresh from the bacta tank, smell clinging to his hair and skin. He’d watched, stonefaced, dwarfed beside Vader, as they watched his once-captors and torturers wailed and shrieked with drawn-out agony at the hands of the Imperial torturers. As, one by one, their lives were snuffed out of existence. 

“You …” Luke begins, winning the fight to keep his voice steady. “You told me that if I asked for something, you’d give it to me. That you’d lay the Force itself at my feet, if it was in your power to do so.”

His father’s hologram makes a low noise of agreement. 

“And since then,” Vader asks, slow and deliberate, “have I given you reason to doubt that promise?”

His throat has gone dry. “No,” Luke admits. He gives his head a firm shake, then meets Vader’s eyes, deliberate. “No, Father. Never.”

Vader’s long silence is smugly self-satisfied. 

“No reprimand is necessary,” Vader declares at last, waving one hand in dismissal. Relief unspools inside Luke’s chest. “Amuse yourself with the caretaker how you wish. Your sister assures me you have the child well in hand.” The rasp-hiss respirator cycles once more, a wet, hissing sound. “Do not give me reason to regret this decision.”

A punched-out huff escapes his lips. “I won’t,” Luke promises him, meaning it desperately. He bows his head. “Thank you, Emperor – Father – for your mercy.”

There’s no denying the man’s indulgent satisfaction at Luke’s intentional intermingling of those titles here, just the two of them. Emperor and Father – the two most profound and undeniable ways he exerts his authority over him. 

From out in the far-off distance, a burst of Vader’s emotion cuts through Luke’s perception. Stellar in the purest sense; visceral and radiant, a supergiant star. More boundless than all else, even from a distance. Pride, self-satisfaction, pleasure. The depth and resonance of his triumph.

And pain. 

Always, always pain.

“I shall return to the flagship in the coming weeks.” The tone of Vader’s voice seems lighter, easier. The matter of Luke’s indiscretion deemed, in real time, no longer worthy of discussion. “Once remaining Bothan forces are dealt with. Your sister will work with my Implementers to coordinate the transition.” As per usual, Vader sounds vaguely disinterested in the work and rigor that follows conquest. “Manage the Chandrila situation while we’re otherwise occupied.” 

The feed is growing choppier, staticky crackles running at the edges of both image and audio.

“You have so much potential,” Vader emphasizes, and a tidal wave of raw emotion crashes over him. Clutching and dragging Luke down into the deep. He nods, distantly aware of the flush crawling up the back of his neck beneath his uniform. “Perhaps,” Vader concludes, considering, “an apprentice will be good for you.” 

There’s a long and stilted pause. 

“We shall speak further on these matters upon my return.” 

With that, the hologram flickers – then disappears into itself, winking abruptly out of existence.

For long moments Luke stares at the empty space where Vader’s image had just been. 

Blinking, he moves to step down off the platform. Walks towards the blast doors as if in a haze.

Luke stops mid-way, taking an inelegant seat on the short flight of stairs between the sunken main floor and the blast door platform. Legs sprawled before him in a manner unbefitting his station. 

He leans forward, takes his head in both hands. Staying there for long minutes until his breathing evens out again; until his legs are solid enough beneath him again to hold his own weight.

–

FORMAL INVITATION
to the

ANNUAL CHANDRILAN GALA FOR PERFORMANCE, ARTS, AND CULTURE

The IMPERIAL GOVERNOR OF CHANDRILA extends to you a formal invitation to the Annual Chandrilan Gala for Performance, Arts, and Culture (the Gala), hosted with support and endorsement from the New Galactic Empire.*

WHERE           Pinnacle Tower, Hanna City, Chandrila 

WHEN            Twelfth Day of Moutani. Doors at 1300; Performances at 1500

WHAT            Exhibition of Chandrilan Excellence, Performance, Arts, and Culture

WHY              New Imperial Honor. Attendance Mandatory Upon Invitation

HOW              Speeder Parking on Top Floor; Pedestrians Enter Via Ground Floor Turbolift

WHO              Chandrilan Invitees, Local Artists and Leaders, Pan-Galactic Special Guests

THEME           Imperial Chandrila Rising

Dress code is formal. No blaster rifles above a certain caliber will be permitted upon entry. 

All invitees are auto-added to the Attendee List. If you have a compelling reason to seek an Exemption to Attend, please contact your local planetary representative. Invitations will be scanned upon arrival. Failure to physically appear and provide appropriate identification may result in consequences up to and including criminal charges.

If you are an artist who will be showcased at the Gala, or a sentient supporting a showcased artist, please bring this invitation for scanning alongside your Performance and Fine Arts Pass. Failure to provide all relevant forms of identification may result in planetary fines under the planetary Documentation and Identification Act.

I greatly look forward to seeing and meeting you at this important celebration honoring our planet’s performance, arts and culture.

Sincerely Yours,
Governor Allesta Aelyn,
Imperial Chandrilan Planetary Government 

*This message is endorsed by the Office of Galactic Truth and Fact Correction. 

–

Day 1 Month 7 Year 44

To: CHANDRILAN CITIZENRY

Memorandum of Decorum:
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT FOR INTERACTION with
NEW IMPERIAL MILITARY PRESENCE on
UNITY DAY

Dear Chandrilan Citizen(s), 

As the Annual Chandrilan Gala for Performance, Arts, and Culture approaches, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind all of you of the basic standards of decorum that your government expects of you with respect to an anticipated increase in New Imperial Army presence on Chandrila in the lead-up to Unity Day. Those not found within compliance will be subject to disciplinary action up to and including criminal charges.

1. All One Empire. New Imperial soldiers are just friends you haven’t met yet. You must be willing to trust them and provide identifying documents when and if requested. Consider this an opportunity for collaboration and sharing of your culture.
2. Resistance Met is Resistance Engaged. Chandrila is a Class Five Pacified Planet. Inappropriate levels of unrest or opposition will be met with peacekeeping operations to ensure appropriate levels of peace remain in place. 
3. Have Fun! The Annual Gala is a time for celebration and appreciation for everything Chandrila has to offer. Higher-than-average levels of officially sanctioned enthusiasm may be rewarded with additional event participation credits. Charity auctions, keynote speeches, and musical performances from contributors across the planet and across the Empire will be holostreamed across all channels for the duration of festivities.

I wish each and every one of you the best during this very special season, and look forward to seeing you at one or more of the Unity Day celebrations. 

For more information about events that will be held in your sub-region, please consult the planetary government’s official HoloNet page.

With Regards,

Governor Allesta Aelyn,
Imperial Chandrilan Planetary Government 

–

Luke makes it through the gauntlet of Imperial officers and Implementers outside the old holochamber when he exits, incapable of shaking off the sticky cling of the crowd until the transport takes off with him inside it. The movement wrenches him out of the grip of one wizened hand, which had reached through one of the open transport windows to quite literally grasp at his upper arm. 

He’s whisked away at last from their oily congratulations on this great victory ; from the blatant vying of the younger Implementers attempting to catch his attention and his favor. The transport turns a corner, and Luke collapses against his seat, head tipped back to release a heavy exhale.

For a few precious minutes, Luke allows himself the luxury of closing his eyes. Replaying pieces of the holocall with his father in his head; parsing meanings and implications.

It hits him then, as the transport trundles down the old familiar corridors, that this is it.

He did it. 

They’re his now, truly. In all the ways that are more real than formalities. 

In the relative privacy of the backseat, his neutral mask cracks to reveal a budding smile. Soon it’s spread across his whole face, stretching his cheeks. He slumps back into his seat with a big catlike stretch, smirking and grinning by turn with the glee of it. 

He feels – unconstrained. Like a shooting star. An untold infinity of pathways now open to him. 

To all three of them. 

Joy bubbles up in the confines of his throat until he can’t hold back anymore; until he’s laughing, softly, into his gloved palm. Each little exhalation punched out of him until he’s blinking back blurs. Overwrought with the certainty of knowing he can keep them. That he’s afforded Din and Grogu some protection; that he has, at least in principle – for now – secured their collective future. 

As a Master, Vader’s never given Luke reason to doubt his promises. 

They’re so much more well-protected now, Luke could cry. 

It’s almost a reward to himself, imagining the scene tonight in Din and Grogu’s rooms when he arrives back soon. Din scowling and scuffed-up and all sour at having been made to be put through his paces; Grogu just happy to have both his caretakers back at his side again. 

He’s more than capable of going toe-to-toe with Din, should it be so required. Kissing all the man’s bruises better; making him unspool and fall to pieces beneath talented hands and mouth. 

Maybe they can watch some combat footage later, once Grogu’s been put down for the night. See what weaknesses they can identify for future improvement.  Start shaping Din Djarin into a right hand worthy of the Emperor’s Heart – one able to overcome even Force-sensitives, by the time Luke’s done with him.

He’s so preoccupied with his own thoughts that Luke doesn’t even register that the transport is heading deeper into the training wing, not towards the guest rooms. 

Not until Din’s Force signature flickers into existence in his peripheral awareness. Stuttering and frenetic. 

Desperate.

Luke’s eyes widen with dawning horror, clutching at the seat. Realization hits like a sucker punch. 

The simulation is still running. 

Din is still fighting. 

And Din feels wrong.  

Time slows. Luke steps outside himself and sees, in his mind’s eye, the entirety and structure of the Executor from the inside out. With a flick of effort, his consciousness plunges into the walls to travel along the live wires and electrical impulses that make up the flagship’s inner workings. He is a spark along that line, a mad and covalent energy, honing in on and racing towards Din’s mindless panic; towards the masterpiece of engineering that is the command center of the Turret Room.

He skitters through circuits, looking for any flaw or routine not frustratingly maintained to perfection. Reinforced systems, redundant systems – 

He sees it. 

In a blast of pure concerted Force-energy, Luke collides with a weak spot: a single overburdened mainframe, deep in the heart of the flagship’s inner workings. Uncaring of anyone but Din; his shattering shriek in the Force.

He feels the resonance of the hit. The sound of powering-down machinery hits his ears a second later, snapping him back into himself. The corridor plunges into darkness, only momentarily, until the low glow of emergency lighting kicks in. 

Surprised, the driver swerves, unaware of his charge’s ethereal return or departure.

Luke’s eye sockets burn. 

“Unexpected breech.” A low, roboticized voice comes in over the hallway loudspeakers, overly even-handed. “All training simulators halted. Please enable overrides.”

“Get me to the Mandalorian.” Around him, energy crackles. Compulsion overflowing in his words, dripping and venomous. “Now.”

The transport revs into a hurtle; troopers and officers alike scatter like so many insects. Seconds pass like eons. The alarm message keeps looping. 

Unexpected breech.

All training simulators halted.

Please enable overrides.

The transport squeals to a halt, and Luke is out and striding to the door instantly, waving the door open with such force it warps from its metal doorframe, sweeping into the control room like a thunderhead, a descending storm.

The enclosed part of the viewing platform is lit up, but the exposed overlook and simulated battlefield visible through the transparisteel are all but plunged into darkness. There is deliberately insufficient range on the emergency lighting to fill the scale of the space, a training decision Luke has never considered, let alone objected to, until this moment. One dull, pulsing red light mounted on each of the four turret towers is enough to make out that three of them are disabled, either smashed to hell with blunt force or blown apart by explosives. 

Unexpected breech.

All training simulators halted.

Please enable overrides.

On multiple screens, projected live from camdroids at various angles and close-ups, is the Mandalorian. Night-vision footage projected on multiple screens, a single armored figure down on the ground with his back propped against a wall; hunched over and defensive, one arm hanging oddly, mechanical carnage a pool of sparking metal at his feet. 

The stark terror on the faces and in the hearts of his subordinates barely strikes Luke as an afterthought. 

The commander from earlier approaches, ginger hair visibly sweaty under his command cap. “Fleet Admiral, the Mandalorian had yet to surrender or be defeated at the time of the power surge. Technicians are working to get the room’s systems back onli–”

The man chokes on his words. Bulging eyes lock with Luke’s as he clutches his throat. 

Luke’s field of vision narrows to the bright chord of the man’s life, pulsing in the Force, so easy to snap.

Unexpected breech, repeats the alarm message, the sound drawing Luke drawn back to himself, if only with abject frustration. All training simulators halted. Please enable overrides.

Luke releases the officer with a vicious curl of his fingers.

“Get out,” he breathes, after the officer has landed on the floor in a sprawl of gray limbs. “And someone enable those damn overrides.”

If he were one iota more similar to his father, he’d have left them a roomful of corpses. 

Officers and technicians scramble to exit, hugging the edges of the room as they run past him in the opposite direction. Luke strides, single-minded, and wrenches open the door that leads to the exposed overlook. 

Blackened smoke rushes inward, acrid and overpowering. It claws at the back of his throat, stinging his eyes. Luke takes the stairs two at a time on his way down, white-hot and pulsating with either fear or fury. 

It’s dark enough at the bottom that he goes for his lightsaber.

The pure glow of the blade cuts through the darkness as it extends, casting a low red glow outwards. 

Unexpected breech.

All training simulators halted.

Please enable overrides.

Smoke rises in dark plumes from droids that fell prey to turret and blaster fire, so thick and leaden it’s hard to see. Mingling with the residue of recently-fired ion cannons in the air; the smell alone enough to mark this as a warzone. Around him the walls are freshly dented and marred with scorch marks, shrapnel strewn everywhere. Enough smoking and sparking husks of shot-up droids that the air recyclers can’t compensate. The remains are in such great numbers that in places it looks like a scrapyard. There are piles of droid chassis at multiple choke-points, in corners, by concealment points and obstacles. 

The most unsettling thing is the ongoing silent shriek of long-gone panic. Unthinking, animal terror that bursts in the Force from the direction of Din’s Force signature; bloodied fingers scrabbling against a coffin lid.

His gut twists, fierce and urgent. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The thought is inane but driven by conviction. One foot in front of another as he speeds up, ducking through a gap formed by a legless K-series. His heart is in his throat. This isn’t what I wanted. I just –

In the surrounding red-lit haze of the stifling, smoky room, he feels suddenly cold. 

He’d wanted to teach Din a lesson. To see what he could do. 

To put him in his place. 

His mind is a faulty theater, playing memories he doesn’t want to think about. The pungent smell of Spice-smoke laid thick in the air, the sting of childish tears in his eyes. The howl of his old masters’ laughter as they debased him, hurt him, humiliated him for their own vile enjoyment. 

Amuse yourself with the child’s father as you wish. The echo of Vader’s voice rumbles in his mind, and Luke cringes away from the thought, repulsed by the comparison, briefly losing his footing. 

It’s not like that, Luke tells himself forcefully, shaking his head. It’s not like that, it’s not –

Unexpected breech.

All training simulators halted.

Please enable overrides.

“Din?” Luke calls out, voice more uneven than he wants it to be. Moving as quickly as he can towards that weak, stuttering Force signature. As accustomed to traversing battlefields as he isn’t to this strange and sinking feeling in his chest. To this particular high-pitched numbness that rings in his ears. “Din, can you hear me?”

The haze is now so thick it’s hard to see more than a meter in front of him. As he moves forward, a sea of silhouettes comes into view: powered-down droids of various types, slumped forward at their mechanical hips, paused mid-encroachment. And beyond –

It takes Luke a few seconds to realize that the looming, uneven shape that appears through the haze is a makeshift barricade. Made from heaped fallen droids, in large part, piled haphazardly along with smoldering chassis between two concealment points. 

Relief that Din is on the other side is outweighed by the feel and shape of him; a unique and mindless anguish. 

“Din?” Luke calls out again, voice hitching. He sheathes his lightsaber, blinking to adjust to the darkness. Please, Luke thinks, though he can’t say for sure what he’s begging for. Please, please, please…

Silence answers but for the sparking of a nearby headless battle droid. Bile rises, sour, in the back of Luke’s throat.

Unexpected breech.

All training simulators halted.

Please enable overrides.

Din, Luke tries instead, his first time ever brushing his mind against him in such a way: deliberate, with intent to be heard. Can you–?

Through the barricade, Luke feels the immediacy and repulsion of his reaction. An incoherent, explosive burst that radiates outwards: panic and terror and no no no no. 

The world lilts, unreal and jarring. The laws of gravity distorting as he as taps into his own raw fear, one clawed hand upward. The makeshift barricade pulling apart with a screech of metal on metal, chunks of detritus lifting up into the air, leaving enough cleared space beneath for them to walk through. 

It hangs there, disassembled and suspended, for long seconds until Luke pushes it elsewhere, uncaring of the clattering crash it makes as it lands. Luke heaves a breath, making towards the newly-made gap in the barricade. 

Through clearing smoke and flying sparks, his eyes catch movement. 

Unexpected breech, comes the alarm again, infuriating. All training simulators halted. Please enable ov-over-overd–

It cuts out at last with a powered-down finality; overrides, presumably, at long last enabled. 

Overhead, the main lighting powers on again, dimmed to partial brightness. There’s the sound of machine workings behind the walls, beneath his feet. A reassuring tone is played over the loudspeakers. bip, bop, bwoop –

Cycle restored.

Please remain calm. 

The momentary relief that grips him vanishes as he passes through the clearing. 

The Mandalorian is halfway down on the ground before him. Trying to struggle back up onto his feet, back braced against one of the outer walls. Through the low light cast, Luke can tell his legs are shaking. His right arm dangles at one side, obviously broken. 

The energy around him writhes. Buzzing with something volatile and unpredictable. 

“Din.” Luke’s voice is low and wavering; each word laced with desperate reassurance. He raises his hands palm-outward, throat thick as he steps forward. “Din, it’s okay. It’s over.” 

With a groan, Din braces his legs and pushes himself up into an almost-standing position. Visor pointed towards him, expressionless, as his mind churns with incoherence. Chest heaving beneath flight suit and beskar.

“It’s over now,” Luke assures him, eyes fixed on Din as the man wavers on his feet. “I’m–”

It’s then the Mandalorian lunges forward with the remainder of his strength, going right for Luke’s throat with his vibroblade. 

Stunned disbelief echoes outwards from Luke’s center, eyes blow startled-wide as he dodges sideways. The blade sails just past his cheek. 

In the slowed-down seconds that follow, understanding dawns. Din would never do something so profoundly stupid, never. Wouldn’t risk biting the hand that feeds him when he knows what the consequences could be. Not just for him, but for his son. 

It’s enough to make Luke realize that Din isn’t here right now. That the Mandalorian is gone, vacated, out of his head.

No thought left, only stimuli.

“Din,” says Luke, the word dripping with compulsion. Using the Force to slow the movements of Din’s limbs through the air without fully holding him rigid in place. Slithering his way into the depths of Din’s mind; usually so resilient and disciplined, now clawed-open and malleable. “Stand down.” 

With a lurch Din hesitates, some part of the command seemingly landing. Visibly swaying on his feet as his visor turns to him, and as he looks through Din’s eyes, Luke sees what he sees; is where he is –

–the monsters are metal and they’re everywhere, everywhere, bursting out of buildings and screeching overhead, the shriek-shriek-shriek of blaster fire as they fire on them as they run through crumbling streets–

The Mandalorian is frozen in place, making no move to attack again. Luke releases a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. 

–there’s a BLAST and he squeezes his eyes shut, clutching at papa’s shoulders, turning his face away from heat and sparks and –

“Hey,” Luke says to him, forcing his voice to soften as he holds Din’s gaze through his visor. He finds himself in two places at once: in the meat of his body and in clutching, childlike fear. “Din, it’s okay. You’re okay, I promise. You’re safe now.”

–stone and air and people rip apart, and his mother’s hands are on his back, her scarf over his head, arms squeezing him so tight–

“Breathe,” Luke tells him, more order than comfort. Just out of arm’s reach, Din takes a long, shuddering breath. It sounds wet through his vocoder. “It’s time to rest now, Din. Time to sit down.” He releases calm into the Force, a slow billow of deep water that washes against him warmly, soothingly. 

Infinitesimally, Din’s Force signature wavers.

“It’s time to rest,” Luke tells him, He reaches up with one hand, furling his fingers. “Go on. Sit down.”

–the brush of his papa’s whiskers before they both lower him down, hide him away, and–

There’s a shudder in Din’s being. A second later his legs give out, knees hitting floor, making him wince beneath his helmet as the impact jars his wounded arm.

His vibroblade retracts back into his vambrace.

Luke’s already sweeping in to kneel down before him.  

“Good,” Luke tells him, emphatic and earnest. “Good job, that’s right. Deep breaths.” And he’s –

           he’s being pulled up, blinking, into the bright light and blaster fire 

with the burnt out husks of droids that billow and spark 

into smoke that claws at his throat 

until he goes

up,

            up

                          and out. 

A shudder runs through the Force, and Din slackens, falling forward. Luke catches him with both flesh and invisible hands, exhaling in wild relief. Allowing himself to slip fully back into his body as he lowers Din to the ground with clutching fingers, waving shrapnel away to clear the space for him. 

In his arms, Din coughs, shoulders shaking. Still conscious, but barely. Not yet fully present.

“Hey,” Luke says to him, compulsion drained from his voice and vision blurring. “Hey. Din, you’re all right. You’re all right. You–” His voice strains to crack. It aches in his throat. “You did such a good job.”

He cradles Din’s helmet in his bare left hand. Brushing gloved knuckles back and forth against his chestplate; as though Din can feel his touch through the metal. 

They are a pair of entangled bodies lying on the ground, encircled on all sides by smoldering wreckage. The combined weight of Din and his armor is so heavy in his arms. 

At least the reverberations of Din’s pain are back below the surface. 

Sounds swell in Din’s throat, thick and slurred. “Th’kid…” He trails off, thoughts a tailspin.

“He’s fine.” Resolutely, Luke swallows the wretched sob that threatens. Their fight in the hallway, taking Grogu away from him – it all feels like a lifetime ago. “Grogu’s fine. He’ll be with you soon.” His vision swims, treacherous as his voice teeters on a precipice. “I promise.”

Then he tips Din over the edge into a deep and healing sleep, tugging him downward into the peace of unconsciousness. His helmet lolls to one side, body slackening. 

Luke’s chest heaves.

The sound of his own breaths mingles with the crackling pop of a nearby fire; the whir of exposed servos and flying sparks like battle droid death throes. 

He blinks, and tears land on Din’s chestplate. They mix quickly with smeared ash and blood, then drip out of sight. Leaving only a pair of clean tear tracks on beskar. 

He reaches for his commlink, swaying a little when he stands up on his knees. 

“This is Skywalker,” Luke tries, after a long and faltering moment. Numb and splayed open as his hand drags, lost and longing, over Din’s flak vest. His sigh is a hefty exhale. “Send Medical personnel immediately to my location.”

There isn’t much they can do without taking off his armor. 

If any of the medics find the scene odd or remarkable, they make no mention of it. Their High Prince standing over the Mandalorian as they work like a watching guard dog; his quiet vehemence to leave him in his armor. Denying them, counterintuitively, access to the flesh that needs healing. 

Their movements are quick and professional, releasing his jetpack so he can lie flat on his back. Hauling the Mandalorian’s unconscious body up and onto a stretcher, loading him into the back of the medical transport. 

My quarters, Luke tells them, terse, when they ask for a destination. I’ll tend to him there.

The last part, meant as a dismissal, comes out strained and aching. He declines the offer of a 21-B surgical droid's assistance; he may not fully understand what Din was reliving, not yet, but he can still taste the man's visceral, childlike terror on the back of his tongue. An impression of a hulking Clone Wars-era super battle droid unit, arm-cannon raised point-blank, seared into the backs of his eyelids. 

Whatever it is that haunts him, the last thing Luke wants is to make it even worse. 

They get the Mandalorian set up in Luke's bed per his instructions and leave him with the basics: multiple kinds of bacta, ointment to treat the blaster burns, an IV tap set up and ready with rehydration fluids and a sedative for later. A Mon Calamari medic gives Luke a succinct refresher on how to set a human arm before he can inform them that he doesn't need one. That he knows well enough from experience.

The sound of blast doors closing signal a return to privacy. 

The next few minutes pass in a state so wretched he doesn’t care to linger on it. Silence itself feels too loud, lowlights too piercing. All senses tuned too high, gain set at a frequency the far side of painful. 

His father and sister have never spoken to him of feeling like this before. Like every nerve is on fire, each cell pulsating, a glitching mess of pain signals. Like he might shake apart at any second.

Perhaps the breaking of him was more effective than they ever realized. 

He makes his way to his private holoprojector before he’s even processed who he’s calling, tapping out the familiar sequence with shaking fingers. Once, twice, leaves a recording the second time. Shares too much and says too little, borderline incoherent. A long minute later, in slow if due course, Luke’s mind settles from overdrive into a calm so resolute it feels artificial. 

He gets to his feet. Wet cheeks and chin wiped dry, one-handed, as he returns to Din’s bedside. Surveying the work ahead. 

The Mandalorian looks so small and out of place on the expanse of white sheets, even with all the bulk of armor still on. The subtle rise and fall of his chest beneath his chest plate is a silent reassurance.

It feels like Luke's lived a hundred lives today since waking. Exhaustion threatens, but sleep isn't an option. Not until he gets the worst of Din's injuries seen to; until he's stable enough to bring Grogu in to join them.

For his son to be here and waiting for him when he rejoins the world of the living.

He sits down next to Din on the bed, and begins the slow, painstaking process of removing the Mandalorian's armor. Starting with that arm. 

The gauntlets, dotted as they are with both overt and covert weaponry, prove an immediate challenge. Luke has to cheat with the Force to get the first one off without blowing up the bed, trailing his fingers over the beskar until he finds the spot that feels like how Din feels at the end of a long day. The corresponding pauldron is both easier and less intimidating, as are the tan and black leather gloves. 

Once he’s down to the blood-stained arm of Din’s flight suit, Luke cuts the sleeve off with sharp-angled trauma shears, peeling the thick fabric away to reveal the arm beneath.

The worst of the injury is at his elbow, where the beskar doesn’t cover him. Not pretty, but it’s nothing Luke hasn’t seen before. White bone and mangled socket dully visible through dried blood and torn muscle. 

An injection of painkiller and local anesthetic is delivered, followed by a first coat of high-potency, fast-acting bacta directly on the wound. As the bacta seeps its way into the shredded muscle and bone, Luke turns his attention to the nearest of his thigh guards. The shattered socket has reconstituted enough for the joint to be reinserted by the time Luke has both his boots off. 

It’s a slow and painfully manual process, but Luke has already resigned himself to it, a limited suite of appropriate Force tools at his disposal. 

Sith healing techniques… they come with a price.

As of yet, it hasn't been one Luke's been willing to pay.

Still, setting the arm is easier with the Force than without it; sensing the ruptures and misalignments in the flow of Din’s body’s energies and just… pushing, ever so slightly, until the bone shifts back into the socket, into the place it’s meant to be. 

The Mandalorian doesn’t react – the anesthetic performing as required – and Luke works quickly, wrapping the arm up with thick, damp bacta patches.

The dull ache in his chest creeps into the rest of his body as he works; spiderweb cracks spreading outward across a starship canopy. Vision narrowing in on his task; avoiding, as much as possible, looking at Din like this. Injured and unconscious, armor stripped from his slack body without resistance.

And all of it for no greater purpose. Purely to slake his own anger; to satisfy his spite. 

His life is mine, Luke finds himself thinking, as if from a great distance. Now more than ever. Why feel sorry for a handful of flesh wounds when you’re the only reason that man’s breathing in the first place?

Even in his own mind, it feels like a weak justification. 

It was an accident. The thought comes to him in a more genuine rush, steeped in violent reactivity. It wasn’t meant to end this way. 

A voice, placating and even-handed, surfaces. An echo-Aunt Beru in his head, close to her true voice if at times more indulgent; one of the things she used to say to him, sometimes, when he was very small. 

Just because it was an accident, she tells him, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Luke flexes his fingers as soon as the last bacta patch is in place, focusing on his breathing. He exhales calm into the Force, willing the growing clamor inside his head to stop shut up shut up right now as he breathes, and breathes, and breathes. Imagining himself pulled up and suspended within the crest and swell of his emotion. In the midst of the chaos as it roils; a sandstorm, a maelstrom, a supermassive black hole. 

It churns, and a basic truth comes to dominate his vision: carelessness and cruelty are no foundation for a relationship. 

When he and Leia were adolescents, Father would throw vicious obstacles in their paths. Physical, psychological, some potentially deadly. But every one had been manageable challenges; overcomable, and always with a purpose. Those trials were to make them stronger. He never threw them, uncaring, in harm’s way without forethought or intention.

Whatever his failings may be, Vader would’ve never allowed for such an oversight. Not when it came to his children. 

Making Din fight for his life on a whim, unprovoked, was… unnecessary. Inadvisable. But it was also understandable; explicable. An action taken in the heat of a hurt moment; wound or be wounded. Consequence unleashed in retribution for wounding words. 

Leaving Din there – unmonitored, uncaring of his hurts – was inexcusable. 

Pain is a vital tool. It keeps the weak in check, motivates the hesitant. Serves as a warning for those who would contemplate disobedience. 

But indiscriminate pain? When obedience no longer can be relied upon to garner safety?

That leads to resistance. Resentment. Defiance.

He can’t afford to lose control like this again; to lash out at him, vicious, thoughtless, uncaring of consequences. Far too comfortable in the knowledge that the Mandalorian has no choice but to stay and take it.

Luke wants Din warm and pliant beneath his hands, not fighting for an escape route.

I’m going to have to make it up to him, Luke thinks, vague and distant. 

From his place on the bed Din shifts minutely, eyelids twitching. Alarmed, Luke reaches a hand towards him, palm outward and fingers splayed, dragging him definitively back down into the depths of healing sleep. 

“Shh,” Luke tells him, apologetic as he shifts in closer to him on the bed. “Not quite yet.” 

He reaches out to him with both hands. Fingers connect with the cool, sleek line of the helmet’s lower edge, circling round to the back of the Mandalorian’s neck. A gentle touch, and the stirring energy subsides back to the low hum of his subconscious.

The Force is an enormous help in getting Din out of his armor without jarring his elbow or other hidden injuries. Low pulses of calm to keep him asleep, invisible fingers that help him access latches in difficult-to-reach places. The leather straps of his utility belts come off next, then the chest piece. Eventually he’s down to nothing but his helmet and the thick brown of his flight suit. It’s minus a sleeve, with rips and burns at almost every place his beskar doesn’t cover, exposing lining and flashes of skin beneath. The trauma shears make quick work of it; a replacement can easily be requisitioned. 

He leaves the helmet in place, subconsciously saving it for last.

Fabric is pulled back, movements almost mechanical, to expose wounds beneath. Chunks of shrapnel are withdrawn and replaced with bacta gel and sealing patches; sweat and blood and blaster ash are wiped from his skin with a clinical touch. Burns, both blaster and electrical, are smeared in a thin layer of ointment wherever needed. A shard of jagged metal is extracted from his calf. By the time he has Din down to his underclothes, Luke’s dealt with the first layer of triage. Nothing pretty, but superior to the man’s own self-care, judging by the sheer amount of scars, old and fresh alike. 

Luke untucks and slides out the top sheet from under him, tucking it over his chest so that his arms lie overtop of it. 

There’s nothing left now but his helmet.

At the touch to the clasp under his chin, Din’s Force signature surges into awareness despite his best efforts. Luke tenses as Din lurches awake, instinctively fearful. One-handed he reaches up to push at his arms, kitten-weak. 

“No,” Din protests, and attempts to raise his injured arm. A shrieking stab of his pain punctuates the Force, drawing a pained inhalation. Renewed panic floods his being. “Don’t–!”

“Shhh,” Luke hushes, sending a surge of flooding calm in Din’s direction; the sight of him is heartrending, a terrified animal caught in a trap. Luke slides his gloved hand down to wrap around the back of Din’s neck. Holding him in place; keeping him steady. “Shh, Din, it’s Luke. I’ve got you. I’m just taking your helmet off to tend to your wounds, that’s all.”

There’s a halting, uncertain pause – before Din’s resistance relents with a small, pained noise in the back of his throat, so quiet his helmet’s modulator barely picks it up. Knee-jerk alarm receding beneath Luke’s hands into a tangled snare of twisted-up emotions, all of them fogged and dampened with the numbness of injury and exhaustion. 

A second later, Din’s grip on his arm slackens.

“That’s right,” Luke croons, gentle and encouraging. “You’re safe. Grogu’s safe.” His thumb rubs little circles at the back of his neck.

The room they’re in seems to register for the first time. “Where –?”

“My chambers.” Din’s helmet tilts where it’s cushioned by pillows, as though to say what? Why? “They were closest,” Luke adds, a belated handwave. “Grogu’s - he’s on the way here.”

A truth and two-half truths – he didn’t come here because they’re closest, and Grogu won’t be on his way until Luke sends for him – but it’s enough to make Din’s shoulders relax, however minutely. 

As Din gathers his thoughts, a cold wind of distrust blows in Luke’s direction, recent events fresh and bitter. Not here. Not true until I see him. Not… not until…

He can’t sustain the train of thought, attention fleeting and fragmented in a way that suggests a concussion.

“I’m going to clean your wounds now,” Luke tells him, softly and slowly, almost certain he won’t remember this the next time he wakes. “All right?”

Silence reigns. Eventually, Din gives the smallest nod, weight collapsing back against the pillows of Luke’s bed. Exhaling, Luke sends a small pulse of gratitude in his direction, and into the Force in general.

Then he palms the hidden release lever and, in an act of raw intimacy, slides the helmet up and off Din’s head with both his hands. 

He carefully lays it next to Din, visibly within reach, and settles back on his heels to gaze his fill.

The sight of his exposed face is both relief and gutpunch. Face battered and bloodied despite the helmet’s protection: a thick line of blood from his nose that goes down to his chin, nasty gashes over the bridge of his nose, his right eye. Sweat clings to the ends of his flattened curls and his mustache, lips swollen and skin shining from both pain and exertion. The lines of his face look more worn than Luke has ever seen them, as though they’ve been chasmed out with tools. 

There’s blood thickly matted in his hair above his left temple. His dark eyes, once opened beyond a squint at even the low light  of the room, are clouded, unfocused.

Definitely a concussion. 

It takes three sterile wipes to get the wounds on his head and face ready for bacta application, each coming away stained rusty red. Movements well-versed enough in battlefield medicine that, by the time Luke discards the last of the sterile cloths, Din has drifted back off again. 

A relief for them both, in truth, to have him back out again.

Bacta comes next, spread with care over more split flesh. Special attention is paid to his head wound, though of course that will only deal with the surface damage. 

The old adage drifts through his memory, a swirl of dust and sand: bacta don’t heal brains.

Luke knows that far too well. 

When he’s done to the best of his satisfaction, Luke spends a few seconds deep in rhythmic breathing before he plucks the comlink off his belt. 

As soon as he terminates the connection, the child on his way to them, a rush of nerves surges across his skin. Luke reaches for the sonic cleanser and raises it to Din’s face – something to do with his hands, even if it’s all cosmetic. The remaining sweat and blood vibrated off his hair and face in dried, dusted-off flakes. When it’s done, he switches the sonic cleanser for a cryopack, placing it against Din’s temple. 

With a chime, his datapad heralds the child’s arrival at the specified handoff point. 

Stomach churning, Luke gets to his feet and goes to meet him. 

When Luke arrives at the guarded entry point, Ami is waiting for him, the small green bundle of ears and limbs that is Grogu restless in her arms. A tiny claw reaches towards Luke as he approaches, the lantern-light of his Force presence flickering and agitated. 

“Ahbahhhh,” Grogu calls to him. Hurt, he says. Urgent, confused, frightened. 

Guilt hits, immediate and visceral. Luke hopes very much that Grogu only picked up on Din’s weakened Force signature during the walk over; that he hasn’t been aware of something wrong for any longer than strictly necessary. 

Luke takes the babe in his arms, feeling absurdly like some kind of dastardly villain straight out of a Holodrama.

Even upset and agitated as he is, Grogu’s familiar weight and Force-presence in his arms is a balm to his nerves. On instinct, Luke breathes in deeply, glutting himself on the baby smell that clings to the fine hairs on the top of his head.

“He has been fussing today, Imperial Highness,” Ami informs him in her even tones, inclining her metallic head. “Please let me know if you are in need of further assistance.”

He acknowledges her remarks, then sends her on her way. As he turns on his heel, he adjusts Grogu in his arms for greater comfort: the child’s back nestled in the crook of his left arm. Allowing him to share eye contact with the child as Luke stretches out the short distance back to his chambers. 

“Hey,” Luke murmurs to him, looking down into Grogu’s big, inquiring eyes. He blinks, throat suddenly straining. “I… know you can sense something’s wrong. With your dad. And… I want you to know that he’s – going to be okay. Just fine.” Luke swallows. “I’m taking you to him now.”

In the crook of his arm, Grogu starts up his squirming again. 

Hurt! he insists, making small sounds of upset. Fix!

Each noise of distress goes right to Luke’s heart, each a guided missile. His expression collapses, from false calm into suffering. 

He’s just about to repeat himself through the Force when Grogu sits up in his arms, grabs the front of Luke’s uniform with both tiny claws – and pushes something indescribable into him through the flesh and fabric of his chest. 

Luke’s vision goes white, clutching the child to his chest. He cries out, but can’t hear his own voice.

Instead, his head rings - clamors. An echo chamber of jumbled voices that resonate in the depths of him although he can’t make out who’s speaking, so loud and dissonant he can barely discern words. 

                                                                                                –you wanna meet him? –
                                                                                    –hello there –

                                    –isn’t a sith power, you morons, it’s–
               – get ‘im back in the cuffs, just beat it out of ‘im –
                                                 – can’t let the Empire know he’s pulling this –

               – forced to take matters into our own hands if the Hutts are so incapable of –
   – resistant to the training, escalation most likely necessary –
        –proven defective, yes, but there is yet one chance to tip him over into –

               – don’t trust him. don’t you trust him Luke. I lo–
                                   – helped you find him, darth. isn’t that enough to let an old man –

                             – luke. please. this isn’t what your uncle and I ever wanted for y –
             – if it gets bad, we leave, okay? we run away together. we’ll –

                          he’s

                               –can’t access the Force–

                                            –too damaged to be salvaged–

                                                                        can’t 

                                                                        can’t
                                                                                         what I do now, I do for your own good. 

It passes as quickly as it started; an inundation halted, the end to a sudden downpour. Nothing remaining but imprints and impressions. A dream upon waking; footprints left on sandswept dunes. 

“What–” Luke chokes, stupefied and unsettled as he stares down at the child in his arms. Grogu is dimmer, less vibrant, but his energy glows with satisfaction, a task well done. And Luke feels… strange. Fuller, somehow, in a way he can’t articulate. Can't even conceptualize. 

It’s bewildering. Terrifying. 

But it’s not the child he’s terrified of. 

“What did you do?” Luke asks him; edging past upset into borderline incoherence. Luke’s fingers tighten, spasmodic, around Grogu’s tiny middle. 

Heal, Grogu sends to him, simple and obvious. 

I wasn’t – Luke cuts himself off, aggravated, emotions swelling. He shakes his head. I’m not hurt. I’m fine. He’s hurt. Your dad– 

Desolate and guilt-ravaged, Luke’s lip quivers. 

You should’ve saved your energy for him.  

A small claw brushes against his chest. Luke swallows, looking down. 

The look Grogu gives him makes Luke appreciate, perhaps for the first time, that this is an entity who has lived for fifty years. A child, yes – but a child prolonged. One who draws on deep wells of learning from many years of lived perspective. 

Together.

-

There’s enough room for Luke to curl up next to Din on the bed and still have space between them, a far cry from the comparatively narrow confines of the guest wing bed that he’s become so accustomed to. Grogu remains snug against his chest, his gloved right hand outstretched to hold Din’s bare, limp hand atop the covers. 

The child himself is so very peaceful between them, for all the awful circumstances. An emanation of strange calm, serenity, peace – a jarring contrast to the low throb of pain that is Din through the Force, addled even in unconsciousness. 

Passionate upset fills him, swells in him, and Luke’s instinct is to latch onto it. To allow bearing witness to Din’s sorry state to spark a reaction, wielding emotion like a sharpened blade.

Calm, Grogu tells him, brushing his Force signature against Luke’s own, that well-deep calm pulsing, bleeding into his frantic energy. Breathe.

Luke heeds his words, squeezing Din’s hand. 

After a long while he finds himself sinking into that calm, like sinking into the very bed beneath him. So deep there’s nothing left but him and Grogu and Din suspended in darkling space; the wholeness of their combined energy, flowing and passing through them, like lifeblood. 

They’re all of them connected. An ocean of calm awaits. 

All Luke has to do is surrender to it.

Terror fills him until it overflows into panic, incorporeality not enough to stop him from running, from seeking escape. 

Safe, Grogu assures him, urging. Sedately guiding him through the experience for all Luke knows he’s just an infant; can feel the contours of his yet-undeveloped brain. The impression of a tiny clawed hand squeezing Luke’s hand is sent to him. Come. 

I can’t, Luke insists, scrabbling back. He has no lungs for breathing, no eyes for crying. He reaches out, then pulls back immediately, stricken. I’m – I’m trying.

For some reason beyond his understanding, the child seems to find that almost funny. 

Do or do not, Grogu hums to him, knowingly. There is no try.

And then the child’s essence is falling backwards, splitting apart into a hundred glowing fireflies.

That, Luke thinks to himself, is the stupidest advice I’ve ever heard.

Then he opens himself to the Force, latches onto Din’s wounds, and promptly sets about healing them. 

It’s alien and unknown, altering someone’s being. Coaxing muscle and bone and sinew into the places they’re meant to be; pulsing healing light into the places that are bruised and battered in his brain. 

They do it together, Grogu’s tiny clawed hand wrapped tight around his finger.

Coming across the memory taken from Din from this morning, Luke gives it back to him. Slotting it compassionately back into place, as though he’d never taken it to begin with.

A pulse of satisfaction and pride wafts towards him from one of the ever-circling fireflies. No words; just peace. 

Luke releases a held breath, and with it goes a burden he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

His eyes fly open. 

He’s lying on his bed, still curled up on one side with the child hugged to his chest. The curves of Din’s nose and laugh lines are more prominent in profile.

Luke can’t tell whether he feels or imagines the warm clutch of Din’s returning grip before he’s pulled down into the depths of dreamless slumber. 

–

Recorded: 21h 34
Transmission Location: Naboo, Mid-Rim.
Sender Name: Lars, Beru

Luke? Luke, I woke up in the night and saw you’d left a message. Is everything all right? You sounded – upset. [...]  I don’t know exactly what  [...inaudible…]  but I do know you. And I know that if – if you’ve made a mistake, if you’ve hurt someone – that you can always find a way to make up the difference. You can never take hurt back, Luke, but you can show people what it is that’s truly in your heart for them.  [...] Come visit me here anytime, Luke. Bring anyone you like. [soft laughter] More than enough room for it here. 

[...] I love you, Luke. Please take good care.

TRANSMISSION ENDED
Transmission Length: 00:01:16

-

                                           Executor Medical Bay Trauma Team:
                                                           Patient Report

1. Demographic Data

2. Consent form(s) on file

Diagnosis and chances of recovery - patient access: Y/N Spousal access: Y/N
Recommended course of treatment- patient access: Y/N Spousal access: Y/N
Risks and benefits involved in treatment- patient access: Y/N Spousal access: Y/N
Risks if no treatment is taken- patient access: Y/N Spousal access: Y/N
Probability of success if treatment is taken- patient access: Y/N Spousal access: Y/N
Recovery challenges and length of time- patient access: Y/N Spousal access: Y/N
Assignment of benefits - patient access: Y /N Spousal access: Y/N

3. Incident Description

Simulation training with live rounds. Injuries sustained when control room relay was
interrupted at 1520. IHP Skywalker intervened at scene and worked to stabilize patient
at 1522. Trauma Team arrived within three minutes and continued care, stabilizing
patient at 1530.

Patient was released to the care of IHP Skywalker at 1545.

4. Treatment

4.1 - 4.3 measurements not applicable.

4.3 Vital signs - assessed by Trauma ParaMedic TK-3199

4.4 - 4.7 assessments not applicable.

4.8 Habit chart - supplied by IHP Skywalker [spouse of patient]

5. Progress Notes

[This information is unavailable for all but the treating personnel until treatment
is completed.

Thank you for your compliance with the Privacy Code of Medical Ethics. If you receive
this message in error, please contact Head Physician B’tan.]

6. Physician’s Orders and Prescriptions

[This information is unavailable for all but the treating personnel until treatment
is completed.

Thank you for your compliance with the Privacy Code of Medical Ethics. If you receive
this message in error, please contact Head Physician B’tan.]

Addendum - Notice of Patient Confidentiality
Disclosure of this patient's personal and/or health information without higher
authorization will be considered a violation of the Imperial Code of Medical
Ethics, the Controlled Information Act, and/or a treasonous activity under the
Galactic Security Act.

For more information, contact Head Physician B’tan or Imperial High Prince Skywalker.

-

Chapter Text

-

The hallway is long and dark and he can’t find Din. 

The floor beneath Luke’s feet is strewn with rocks and rubble, as though walking through a warzone rather than his father’s own flagship. He’s aware, somehow, of the blaring of an alarm klaxon all around him although he cannot hear it. His heart sticks in his throat with each step forward as awareness creeps up on him, floods him. Horrors hitting one after another. 

Din’s hurt, and he’s missing. Gone somewhere that Luke can’t find him; not like this, with the Force beyond his reach. His connection severed, a wire cut with wire-cutters. Detached and unreachable the way the cuffs and collars used to leave him, on Tatooine. In the days his captors still thought him capable of lashing back out.

The sheer absence of him is horrifying. Still, Luke knows he’s in danger.

Danger Luke put him in. 

Din! Luke calls out to him, and it’s impossible to know whether his lips and throat fail to give voice to the name or whether the buzzing in his ears just drowns it out. Each step he takes is distorted and too-fast-too-slow, piles of smoking detritus passing by in his peripheral vision like buildings from a railspeeder window.

A blast door appears, all at once, at the end of the long and tunneling corridor. 

It opens with a sidelong snick just before he reaches it, releasing a tangible blast of hot desert air. It hits like a wall. 

He opens his eyes – when had he closed them? – and sees before him the carved-out hall that still haunts him ceaselessly.

It’s oppressively hot and painful-arid, though being underground blunts the scorching worst of the Tatooine heat. It calls, imperious, drawing him forward. 

The hall is empty, which is – strange. Unusual. No torture devices mar the clean, unbloodied rock. No hacked-off hand discarded on the ground, the bone-white of his own carpal and metacarpals visible within thin sleeves of meat. No blackened scorch marks to marr the stony sameness; no charred skeleton of what was once his uncle’s remains. 

No Emperor, no Inquisitors. No paraphernalia of occupation in cleared-out space, as though the cavern had never been used for such cruel and wicked use.

When Luke looks again, there’s a man sitting cross-legged with his back to Luke in the middle of the cavern. 

How curious.

The steely-blue of his tunic is a shock of vibrant colour against the russety sandstone, boots and trousers a sensible brown. His back is facing Luke, gently curved rather than ramrod-straight, hair viewed from behind a swoop of gray and fading red.

You! Luke shouts, or tries to, but the man’s back straightens for all Luke’s words only seem to echo in his own head. 

I need your help, Luke wants to say, I’m looking for someone. 

Even as the words form on the tip of his tongue, the memory of who he’s looking for slips through his fingers. When he blinks, he’s in arm’s reach, gloved hand already extended to take hold of his shoulder. 

Before he can get there, the man turns soldier-swift, seizing Luke’s wrist one-handed.

The shock of the touch is eclipsed by the shock of where his face isn’t. Eyes, mouth and nose are smoothed over, flesh like worked wet clay. A blankness and absence that strikes primal terror into him; a revulsion that sends him recoiling backwards as he panics. 

The landscape slips.

Ground becomes plummeting air beneath his bootheels. The faceless man’s grip tightens. 

And then Luke is hanging over some great and terrible height that’s come for him from nowhere; suspended solely by the grip on his wrist as the abyss below him threatens. Above him, the faceless man remains, somehow, on solid ground. Encircling fingers at Luke’s wrist all that’s keeping him from plunging downward into the chasmous pit. 

Please! Luke tries to shout up to him, begging without shame as he realizes that it’s the swirling pull of the Force that awaits him should he fall; more terrifying as it beckons than a fall from a great height and sudden death could ever be. Around them, warm flickering fireflies of light are starting to dance around them both: the faceless man up on the cliff’s edge, himself dangling over it. Luke gives a silent sob. Wait!

The faceless man lets go of his wrist, sending Luke hurtling back and downward into the unknown depths. 

Luke gasps himself awake before impact; clamping down on the guttural impulse to lash out at some unknown threat, bedding clenched between his fingers as his breaths heave.

Displacement gives way to the wrongness of the empty bed around him after falling to sleep with Grogu in his arms. Paralyzing terror grips him. The baby –

He explodes his consciousness outward, reaching for the child with all his senses.

Their mingled presence registers in the bedroom long before he clocks them visually. 

The darkened shape of Din is low and hunched where he sits in the far bedroom corner, on the chair where Luke’s clothes sometimes end up before they make it to the hamper. He’s partly obscured by the IV setup he’s brought to stand beside him, and Luke senses more than sees Grogu on his lap, oblivious in the deep sleep that comes after exertion. One of Din’s arms is still hooked up to rehydration fluids, hand grasping at the IV pole, fingers tense. He’s dressed in more than the smallclothes and bacta patches Luke left him in last night – must’ve gone looking for Luke’s loosest-fitting clothes upon waking. 

The auto-lights stay low; it’s the middle of the night. 

Din says nothing, gaze avoidant. Hollowed-out resentment rolls from him in waves, background thoughts as tense as gritted teeth. That he has chosen to remain in the same room as Luke has less to do with a desire for Luke’s presence and more with not yet knowing the bounds of this new cage. 

He gets the impression that Din would’ve ripped out the needle, too, if not for uncertainty over whether it would be him or his son on the receiving end of Luke’s next bout of petty, puerile rage. 

Yesterday’s horrors flash before his eyes. Wanting to hurt Din – leaving him, unthinking.

And then returning that memory to him afterwards, after Grogu showed him how to–

No.

Mentally, Luke shoves it all aside to dwell on later. One challenge at a time. 

It feels like a thought that Din might have, arriving through osmosis.

The silence between them stretches until it’s taut and thin. 

Din is nothing if not an expert in being taciturn. Between them, Luke breaks first. 

“Din,” says Luke, a rasping exhale; half-involuntary, desperate to be on the receiving end of his attention. 

He shifts atop the bed, noticing for the first time that he’s still dressed in yesterday’s rumpled uniform. He swallows hard, pulse racing. “I’m–” It’s not often he has to say these kinds of words, and even less so that he has to mean them. “I’m… sorry.”

Din says nothing. 

The only response is the tiniest jerk of his head, the kind his helmet would usually conceal. The substance of him suffers and seethes beneath, mind a cross between not present not listening and a sharp, jagged edge of are you fucking serious. 

Luke’s gut plunges lower. His mouth feels dry.

What, Din thinks, subdued but deeply, viciously, does he even think he’s sorry for.  

The thought hits like a blow. I deserve that, Luke tells himself, then for some reason opens his mouth again. “I mean it,” says Luke, the words faint and inadequate to his own ears. 

Din, unmoving, doesn’t acknowledge him. 

And it’s strange, so strange, but even wracked with agony and guilt and shame shame shame shame shame, even as he rails against dwelling on certain things so fervently that it feels like he might burst, some deep-down part of Luke feels more still. As though beneath the daily roil of the pitch-black morass of his emotions lies the smallest, stubbornest bead of calm. 

It’s… unsettling.

What’s worse, though, is that he can’t see Din’s face.

He shifts forward to the foot of the bed before he can second guess himself; until he has a near-unimpeded line of sight to stare at him, stricken. 

Din looks everywhere that isn’t at Luke, dark curls bowed and unmoving. The clothes he’s managed to find in Luke’s bedchambers are mostly night clothes: a soft blue shirt with short sleeves, a pair of gray workout pants with an elastistretch waist. He must’ve had to navigate the IV lines to get into the shirt while Luke slept, bag of bacta and saline and who knows what else, clumsily, carefully pulled through and around seams and sleeve holes, before hanging it back in place. 

The sight of Din in Luke’s clothes – in his rooms – would, under normal circumstances, ignite within him a lip-curling pleasure; delicious excitement like a low and heated purr. 

Right now, it – doesn’t. 

Luke can feel, peripherally, another chasm beckoning, just beyond his sight. Wonders if this one will be the one to split him in two.

It hits him, then, that he has no idea whether Din is even aware that Luke hadn’t been there in the overlook the whole time. That he hadn’t been watching, gleeful, as his pet Mandalorian was pushed past his limits and into the abyss. Hadn’t intended to make him fail.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.” 

The bitter orange of Din’s resentment builds; Luke can practically taste it in the air.

Don’t, Din thinks, resolutely not looking at him. His energy is erratic in the Force, as though the wrong move or word could cause fault lines to open, cracking apart his being. He feels sharp and fragile and dangerous, an unrefined kyber crystal. Don’t, don’t…

Luke coughs, sharp and blinking. “I left,” he admits, voice soft and strained in contrition. “I was… called away. By Father.” As if that makes up for anything. “I –” hurt you, fucked up, didn’t think “–I shouldn’t have left you there alone. I should’ve stopped it when I left. I–”

I shouldn’t have had you put you there in the first place. 

The thought comes from somewhere both visceral and distant, but he can’t get his throat and lips to give voice to the words. 

“I…healed you,” Luke offers instead. It doesn’t occur to him that perhaps he shouldn’t mention that to anyone, even Din, until after the words are already past his lips. Instead he pushes forward, tight-throated. “We healed you.” That has to make it better, doesn’t it? At least in part; a fraction. Some small measure to shift the scales in his favor. 

Relief from agony, Luke knows, is a compelling motivation to forgive all manner of infractions, both past and future. 

Din’s silence stretches out, so drawn and taut that Luke can feel his tremors from a distance. He still won’t meet Luke’s eyes. 

Some lizard-brain defensiveness takes hold, desperate to fill the silence. “It would’ve stopped, though,” Luke tells him, soft but insistent. “If you’d fallen, or surrendered. I didn’t–”  Luke cuts himself off, trying and failing to find the right language. “I didn’t leave you there to die.”

He pauses, then admits with soft words: “Din. I never would’ve allowed for that.”

It feels like a confession, but Din just huffs a dark laugh. 

A fresh ripple of blunt, internal pain emanates from Din, biting the inside of his own cheek. The sour, swelling note of his anger breaches through the cottony numbness.

When he speaks, Luke isn’t expecting it.

“... you told me,” Din says, too flat to muster petulance, “to stay alive. That you’d decide when I’d had enough.” The word is a sharp edge, but a ragged one, resentment ugly and blatant.

Luke straightens his spine. It’s a struggle to keep his expression blank, unfeeling.

I did say that, Luke concedes internally, as though the thought has come to him from a great distance. Didn’t I. 

For the first time since waking, Din turns his head to look at him. The dark of his eyes is hollowed-out; haunted. 

Why, Din thinks, caustic as neurotoxin, would you ever imagine surrender was a viable option.

The shriek of mounting silence engulfs Luke completely. 

And – Luke hadn’t meant it. Not really, not even in the moment. 

It had just been a taunt. A power play. An attempt to get a rise out of Din; to keep him on his toes. To make clear, completely, which one of them was in control. 

Right now, Luke doesn’t feel very in control.

Unpredictable, Luke remembers, a dull punchgut-echo of Din’s characterization of him from their first night together. A more recent memory follows on its heels. Unlovable.

Weak. 

Through the fog of unawareness, Luke wonders whether that memory has even resurfaced in the man’s mind yet. How much lower Din’s opinion of him will drop once he registers what Luke used to be. That sniveling wretch, controlled and helpless, that still lives at the center of him.

A spacescape, a galaxy’s worth of self-hatred threatens, studded with pinpricks of self-contempt.

He messed with my head, Din thinks, so loud and spiteful it half-feels like an attempt to catch Luke in the act of hearing them. Dark eyes narrow minutely. How do I know how much? How often? 

Then–

How do I know he isn’t listening now? That he can’t hear my thoughts right this–

Luke’s up on his feet before he’s consciously decided to do so. 

The Mandalorian tenses, hard, but doesn’t visibly flinch at Luke’s approach. Skirting the IV setup to lower himself down onto the floor until his knees meet thick carpet; lifting his head up to meet Din’s gaze properly from his position, kneeling at the man’s feet. Eyes wary and bloodshot, the bared lines of his face far past rumpled and into ragged. A stiffness to his hunch speaks of muscle aches and tender just-healed flesh. The soft blue fabric of Luke’s shirt is ever-so-slightly tight across his chest, too-short sleeves revealing glimpses of bare wrists.  

In the cradle of Din’s right elbow, Grogu slumbers; soft and recuperative and entirely unbothered as his tiny head and chest rise and fall. 

As Luke waits, staying still, Din’s level of immediate urgency decreases. 

“Din,” Luke says, as earnest as he knows how. His next words are slow and halting. “I – hurt you. Caused you more pain today than I ever, ever intended.” That much is true; he feels it in his bones. His throat feels thick. “And I can’t take that back. I know I can’t.” 

No matter how sorry I am, Luke thinks, in another gust of sun-soaked wind, you can never take it back. 

Above and before him, Din waits for the other shoe to drop, a nerve stretched to the limits of its synapses.

“I won’t do that to you again,” Luke swears to him, leaning closer; thick-tongued and buzzing. “Ever. I won’t – hurt you for,” sport, “for no reason. I won’t do it ever again, Din. Ever. I promise.” Each word is uncomfortable, spiral-inducing. “It wasn’t fair.” His hesitation stretches outward before admitting: “... I. Wasn’t fair.”

Unconsciously, Luke sends the tiniest pulse of pure and beaded light towards him. Comforting and compassionate in a way that’s almost effortless. 

(I’ll have to be careful, Luke thinks, when it’s not just the three of us.)

“I want - I will be more open with you.” Bruise-knuckled determination hardens in his chest. He tells him, resolute, “I’m going to find a way to make this up to you.” Lack of response fuels his urgency, makes him push further. “Both of you.”

It’s Din who breaks eye contact first, ripe with overwhelm at both the sentiment and the prolonged eye contact. Vitriol shimmers – but at the mention of both, a settling falls across his shoulders, slowly drawing him back down into himself. Back in control.  

A stilted nod is all he gets in response. 

After long moments, Luke gets to his feet, realizing belatedly that he’s still wearing yesterday’s boots. He pauses in the doorway, tousled head downturnt. 

“You two should take the bed,” says Luke, each word a dull undertone. “For the rest of the night.” Pausing, he adds, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He doubts he’ll be getting much sleep, anyways.

–

Day 4, Month 8, Year 44

First Galactic Banking Syndicate
Unit 89, Level 10, Block 695
Coruscant
The Core

[Mudhorn Sigil]
Executor

SUBJECT: Welcome to the Banking Syndicate (Your New Account)

Dear Mr. [Mudhorn Sigil],

Thank you and congratulations on your new credit account with the First Galactic Banking Syndicate (hereafter referred to as the Banking Syndicate), the galaxy’s most elite and prestigious banking entity. The Banking Syndicate greatly appreciates the continued patronage of the Imperial Royal Family and its dependents. As Chief Banking Officer, I’m honored to personally welcome you to the ranks of our esteemed clientele.

Your employer, the New Empire, has initiated biweekly payroll deposits via Executor override. Funds will be made available galaxy-wide within two (2) business days of receipt. Access to funds is immediate within your local system, currently set to the BORMEA SECTOR. Deposits can be changed to occur weekly or monthly based on client preference. 

Extensive additional security measures have been put in place for the express purpose of protecting your privacy. Only one (1) authorized sentient in addition to myself has access to your spending records. At the request of a higher authority, the requirement for a name to be provided in standard aubresh characters has been waived. 

To update your account settings, click here. To speak to a representative directly by subspace transceiver, click here.

If you have any pressing questions about your new account or membership, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly by way of this holomail address. 

With Greatest Esteem,

Chavlin Dest, Chief Banking Officer
First Galactic Banking Syndicate

–

44:8:04
CX-CO 342K-12

NEW IMPERIAL NAVY DEPLOYMENT ORDER
HEADQUARTERS EXECUTOR

From:  Fleet Commander Skywalker

To:      Commander Gazarel, Karideph Sector

Subj:   Starship Recovery (ST-70 Class M-111 Assault Ship)

Ref:    (a) Record of Interception - #KS3-014-R; 44:7:28; Karideph Sector
          (b) After Action Report - Interception #KS3-014-R, Karideph Sector

1. Situation: On 44:7:28, a ST-70 Class M-111 Razor Crest Assault Ship was scuttled and left in drift near the edge of the Cantoid Belt in Karideph Sector. Contents onboard were left largely undisturbed. Starship functionality and exact location is unknown; however, transponder code remains partly functional. 
   
   
2. Mission: Secure ST-70 Assault Ship and transport to Executor by way of hyperspace network as soon as possible.
   
   
3. Execution: Refrain from additional impacts to starship, barring what is necessary to ensure procurement and transport. Upon arrival at Executor, ensure safe delivery of cargo to Executor hangar crew 3-E. 

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT:
Approval only for select distribution. 

PRIORITY:
Urgent/Immediate

AUTHORIZATION TO ELEVATE PRIORITY PROVIDED BY:
IHP Skywalker

-

Date: 44:8:04
Authorization Code: IHPS-1

EXECUTOR PRIORITY REQUISITION FORM

INTAKE INFORMATION

       RATIONALE FOR PRIORITY STATUS        N/A
       DELIVERY LOCATION                             IHP Skywalker residence
       TARGET DELIVERY TIMELINE (TDT):        Day/Month/Year rush
       PAYMENT DETAILS                                 N/A
       DESCRIBE RISK IF TDT NOT MET             IHP Skywalker dissatisfaction

REQUISITION DETAILS

       IS THIS A CUSTOM ORDER?        YES  NO   BOTH

       FOR STANDARD ITEMS, CLICK HERE FOR PRE-SET LIST
              Selected: Armor Polish, High Quality (phrik, beskar)

       FOR CUSTOM ITEMS, SPECIFY PRODUCTION TYPE
              Production Type: Textiles, miscellaneous

       DESCRIBE, IN SUFFICIENT DETAIL FOR PRODUCTION, CUSTOM ITEMS:|

             Textiles - 6 × military-grade flight suits (3 dark brown, 3 dark gray).
             Customize to Mandalorian on-file specifications.

             Misc - 2 x children's toys suitable for galactic standard toddler developmental level B-Y.
             1 x toy for engagement/stimulation, 1 x toy for comfort.
             Customize to child’s on-file specifications
                    (i.e. small clawed hands, three fingers, Force-sensitive).

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS (OPTIONAL)

       Chief of Requisitions to contact IHP Skywalker Chief of Staff immediately re: additional custom ammunition requisition requiring off-flagship expertise.

–-

--

Day 4, Month 8, Year 44

INIA INTERNAL MEMORANDUM: CLEARANCE LEVEL S
Core Worlds | Bormea Sector | Chandrila System
Executor Origin

Directive on Specified Fleet Members

By order of Emperor Vader, on 44:7:28, the crew of the Korriban intercepted a ST-70 Class M-111 Razor Crest Assault Ship in Karideph Sector.

In carrying out their duties, 13 select fleet members were unknowingly and unintentionally exposed to highly classified data. There is no imminent threat to galactic security. 

See attached list for names, ranks, and current deployment locations.

All individuals on the attached list will be transferred to higher-risk “hot zones” in disparate locations, monitored by the Imperial Naval Intelligence Agency, and subsequent fatalities tracked, recorded, and communicated to Imperial High Prince Skywalker upon task completion. 

Signed,
Vice Admiral Qilda Vennacles 

–

Recorded: Yesterday, 21h 34
Transmission Location: Naboo, Mid-Rim.
Sender Name: Lars, Beru

Luke? Luke, I woke up in the night and saw you’d left a message. Is everything all right? You sounded – upset… 

[...]

Click here to unpause transmission.
Transmission Length: 00:01:16
Repeat Count: 29 

–

The next morning, Luke is too hunched and fixated over his subspace transceiver at first to sense the exact moment the Mandalorian leaves the confines of his bedroom, son in hand. 

The timing is fortunate; he’s just hit pause on the transmission Aunt Beru sent him last night, played aloud to his otherwise empty personal office in a fit of equal amounts self-loathing, candor, and being too high-wired and exhausted to care whether or not he was overheard.

Grogu is the one who first makes himself known to him - a flutter of childish eagerness at the edge of his perception. 

With a sidelong glance, Luke takes in the sight of Din-and-Grogu in the doorframe. 

His quarters are laid out in such a way that the place they’re standing is equidistant between bedroom, office, and the open-plan kitchen. The way Din stands is stiff and awkward from more than just muscle aches, though from what Luke can see of his half-averted gaze, his eyes look a little clearer. By contrast, Grogu seems a bundle of jubilation in his father’s arms, giving Luke an open-mouth smile accompanied by a tiny clawed wave. 

Good! Grogu sends to him excitedly, ping-ponging sunbursts of sentiment coming hard on the heels of the verbal message. Yours, house, eat! 

“Hey,” Luke says at last, scrubbing a hand over first his eyes, then through his hair. He’s long since ditched the cape, boots, socks and over-tunic, down to trousers and an untucked undershirt. Nerves take hold of him, so abrupt it’s almost rude – he’s been too singularly focused on his efforts through the rest of last night and early morning to let such a fundamentally useless emotion register. He swallows down fear, then eventually manages, “how are you – feeling?”

With a low and inconclusive hum, Din shifts Grogu in his arms; more, Luke thinks, to have something to do with his hands than anything. He’s not… avoiding looking at Luke, at least not entirely this time. Dark eyes flick over to him once or twice, though his gaze favors the child in his arms and the ground.

Standing, the cuffs of Luke’s loose trousers reveal both ankles and bare feet. 

“Fine,” Din answers, tone carefully cordial. “The kid’s hungry.” He gestures with one thumb towards the kitchen. “Can I–?”

“Of course,” Luke says, words a tumbled rush. Stupid, he thinks. Spend half the night trying to make things right by him without thinking once that his child will want breakfast, you absolute – “Should I get something sent? There’s a kitchen droid, too, if you want–”

At Din’s instinctive, tiny wince, Luke cuts himself off, biting his tongue. Right. Din dislikes droids.  The full context behind why Luke doesn't fully understand yet, hasn't fully earned, but has nonetheless gained partial access to. 

Vaguely, Luke wonders – if he keeps trying to shove his own foot in his mouth – whether he might swallow himself whole like a snake. Collapse inward, a black hole. 

Either the Mandalorian doesn’t notice his shamefacedness or else just ignores it. 

“I can scrounge,” Din says instead, tone carefully steady even as Grogu starts squirming in his hands. “If that’s – all right.”

“It is,” Luke answers – then, in a fit of overcompensation and impulse, adds, “and you can look at anything here, if you want to.” It’s not as though there’s all that much that’s personal about his personal chambers anyways. “Help yourself.” Make yourself at home, Luke wants to say but doesn’t: after yesterday, after everything, it seems… presumptive. 

A thought jolts through him; a lurch of fear protect worry. “Just – the small closet in the bedroom, to the right of the bed. There’s a box on the floor.” An image of its contents surfaces in his mind; the only remaining visual record of him with his aunt and uncle, the sliced-apart weapon, once Owen’s, now his for all the comfort it brings. The toy starship he’s always felt so drawn towards, for all the memory of its acquisition has always eluded him. 

Luke ducks his head. “I – don’t mind you seeing what’s in there. But I’d. Like to be there with you, if you do.” He grips his bare hand tightly with his gloved one. What he told Din in the night – I want to be more open with you – taunts him like a challenge. “It’s… all I have left.” He hesitates. “From my childhood. Tatooine.”

He doesn’t expect that, of all things, to earn him Din’s eye contact, but it does. Chin lifting suddenly, dark eyes fixing on his own; the other man’s gaze oddly sharpened and riveted. It makes him feel unmade, peeled apart. There’s a curious twist at the corner of Din’s mouth, a subtle scrunch in his brow, that makes his attention feel like an amplified spotlight. 

Instead of answering verbally, Din just nods at him, solemn, and takes his son into the kitchen.

Seconds after they disappear from Luke’s view, a thought hits him, hard, like a Force-bolt to his chest.

Ben, Luke thinks, dazed and staring at the place where Din isn’t. His vision skews; blurs. A name like a dislodged stone coming away in his hand. Ben Kenobi. 

It feels like a long-lost relic of his past life, cradled in his hands. And – of course. That’s who gave him his little T-34, before – before. He’d been… nine, maybe ten. Memory surfaces of kind and shining eyes; a scratchy smile. 

It feels like he hasn’t thought about Ben Kenobi in years. 

Shaking off the revelation for later examination, Luke gets to his feet, markedly unsteady – and goes to join Din in the kitchen to put the caf on. 

Firstmeal, once assembled, is a quiet affair for the eating of it; Luke half-lost in his own thoughts, Din even less interested than usual in conversation aside from what’s completely necessary. 

The foods Din unearths in his kitchen are mostly tinned, flash-dried, or frozen, reflective of both the amount of cooking Luke does for himself and how little time he’s spent in his own rooms of late. Cerulean bread from the freezer that turns a deep and crusty cobalt in the heating unit; sliced Folendian peaches preserved in their own juice, drained and plated. Reconstituted plantflesh alongside sliced cured meats – an effort, Luke knows, to make sure Grogu gets his protein. 

The Mandalorian’s thoughts are more self-conscious now he’s come to suspect – understand – that Luke might be privy to them. Stops and starts that oscillate away from the things he either doesn’t want Luke hearing or imagines might anger him. Once-casual, fleeting thoughts of escape now swiftly stifled; tangled flares of resentment at yesterday’s happenings shoved roughly aside. 

He can hear you, Din chastises himself once, wrenching his own attention elsewhere. The food on his plate, the child on his lap. Cold assessments of the surrounding chambers not unlike the techniques that adversaries sometimes try using during combat or interrogations. Five things he can see; three things he can touch. 

Luke used to imagine, sometimes, how it would feel when Din learned of his abilities. He thought he’d feel… smug. Self-satisfied. Regretful, perhaps, at having his once-so-easy access to the man’s mind at all curtailed, but not enough to offset the pleasure that would come at the recognition of his power. 

The reality of it is mostly just dispiriting. 

By the time they’re both finished eating, Luke finds he can’t stand another second of the man’s silent tumult. “I got something for you.”

The stream of conflicted consciousness cuts off. Din’s eyes flick to him. He waits, stoic, Grogu still sucking on a slice of peach from astride his father’s lap. Raising one hand, Luke summons the pile of newly-delivered items from the table beside the blast doors that lead to the outer hallway. 

A stack of gray and brown flight suits floats towards them, topped with a pot of armor polish for his beskar. Handlessly, Luke clears space for them on the small table.

For long moments, Din eyes the gear with unease pushing suspicion.

“I had to – cut you out of yours, yesterday,” Luke explains, mostly hiding his wince. “Not sure if you remember that. So – I got you some replacements.”

The Mandalorian says nothing. Wariness bleeds from him like a poorly-staunched wound. Eventually, tone rigid, he asks: “So you can test me like that some more?”

Too pointed, Din reprimands himself internally, but it barely registers.

“What?” Luke asks, dumbstruck that Din could interpret the gesture as a threat rather than an expression of remorse as intended. He almost hopes the question is meant as a vicious dig rather than genuine sentiment. Does he really think so little of me? 

“Din, no, I’m – I’m trying to apologize to you. I had to ruin your suit. The least I can do is find a replacement.” More than that, Luke destroyed something Din valued. He’ll replace it tenfold to make up for the hurt. How else do people make up for the harm that they cause? 

He aims for levity but misses, landing somewhere near dithering. “Besides – did you think I was going to make you walk around with my secondhand clothes under your beskar just because you were injured?” He shakes his head, faking a huff of a scoff. “I was always going to get you some extras – this just sped things up a little.”

That, at least, seems to placate him, some of the tension easing from his jaw and shoulders. Dark eyes, inquiring, shift to the polish. 

“There’s – a gala we have to go to in a few days,” Luke explains. “Planetside, Father’s orders.” Hedging, he adds, “I was thinking you might want to service your armor.” 

Din’s face is careful, guarded, but a fierce ripple of joy resounds in the Force despite himself; a small warm breeze that blows across the snow. 

“... yeah,” he admits, patting Grogu’s little back gently. Dark hair hangs over his eyes, not looking Luke’s way. After a few moments’ fierce internal struggle, he adds, “... I’d like that.”

And there’s… somewhere else Luke wants to take him to. Invite him to, he corrects, trying to not skate over the difference. An estate on Naboo at the place where water’s edge and verdant summits meet; a dining space and kitchen kept humble despite surrounding grandeur. Where the hearths are always roaring to keep the space a proper heat; where he has to do his best to disentangle his old and new selves; to return to the place Before in order to not make heartbreak and disappointment shine in his aunt’s pale eyes. 

But that? That can wait. Until after Chandrila; after the child’s existence has been announced to the galaxy, and the roar of Din’s resentment has subsided to a whisper. 

The held moment breaks when the child warbles, then burps loudly. Din sighs faintly, every inch a fondly exasperated father, and Luke’s heart melts in his chest. He wants to take a holo of the moment; to preserve the two of them forever like insects in amber. 

A reminder for himself of what he risks losing should he once again fall into impulse and temper.

“I’ll go get dressed,” Din grunts after a little time passes. He shifts Grogu to his other arm. “When’s your first meeting?”

With a hand, Luke waves the thought aside; he has no intention of leaving his chambers today unless someone forces them to. “Everything’s rescheduled.” A thought occurs to him. He picks up his datapad from the table, tapping for entry. “I’ll have my staff share my schedule with you.” It changes frequently, of course, but better for Din to be plugged into those changes than kept forever in the dark. “Maybe we can watch a holovid later. If you like."

He resists the urge to look up to catch and hold Din’s gaze, tangible and weighted against his skin.

-

They do end up watching a holovid that night, after Luke spends the day catching up on paperwork; sorting logistics for the upcoming trip down planetside, as well as building out an adjusted training regimen.

It's an action holovid: fast-paced but not excessively gory, though Luke knows for a fact that Grogu's seen worse. Din spends the first half of making low noises in the back of his throat, discerning and derisive, whenever something especially unrealistic happens during the action sequences. 

Exhaustion hits Luke so hard that it isn’t even a strategic decision to fall into slumping sleep against Din’s shoulder. Knocked out by all the drains on mind and body he’s avoided thinking about, until he finds himself being shaken awake by uncertain hands once the projected credits are rolling. 

Any semblance of a nightly routine is truncated in favor of passing out hard with his face against Din’s chest in his bed, Grogu curled up against his father’s opposite side – as though the Mandalorian is part-human, part-sleep accessory.

In the two days that follow, it's clear that things have shifted between them, though some changes are easier to quantify than others. 

Meetings and obligations onboard the Executor proceed as usual, the Mandalorian accompanying him without complaint or deviation, but training and free time are both adjusted dramatically. For one thing, their free time is now split between the Guest Wing suite and Luke's actual chambers --a change he hadn't planned on, but now seems both already made and not worth reversing. Clothes and other things in Din's size and taste appear in one of the drawers in Luke's bedroom and vice versa, much like those Luke idly fantasized about, are moved into the main bedroom in the guest wing without fanfare. 

For another, Luke significantly scales back his demands for physical affection. There’s rarely a moment of physical contact between them beyond the press of sleeping bodies in the night, the accidental brush of hand when passing Grogu between them. 

It's a development that leaves the Mandalorian both relieved and apprehensive, speculative and on edge. Uncertain of the purpose of the reprieve, what Luke's angle is; how long he can expect it to last for.

In practice, it's less of a nefarious plot on Luke's part than it is a necessary recalibration after such a catastrophic misstep. Retribution for his actions; for his thoughtlessness. A penance he brought upon himself and now must suffer until he’s either achieved redress or Din himself initiates. 

Taking won’t help him, not right now. There’s more to lose than to gain from pressing; something he knows, innately, though exactly how he isn’t quite sure. No matter how much the sight of Din smiling softly to himself as he slowly, meticulously works his armor to appropriate luster makes Luke want those hands on himself instead of on his beskar. 

(If Luke can’t quite bring himself to compromise in the realm of sleeping arrangements, then, well. That’s understandable. 

There are risks that come with too much separation. The risk of giving the wrong impression; of creating such great distance between them it becomes difficult to bridge. 

Of losing a source of such assurance and comfort already, to Luke, essential.)

It’s over the dregs of latemeal, Grogu occupied with levitating his new plush probe droid with its dangling apparatuses, that the corners of Din’s mouth curve into a puzzled, doubtful frown as the man stares at his datapad. 

“Did you,” Din starts, making Luke’s head turn to him from his seat across the small dining table: Grogu on his lap, fingers outstretched and ready to reach out with the Force and catch any and all of the dishes the child’s been levitating. The Mandalorian gives his head a small shake, clearly reading something on the screen a second time to be sure of something. “Did you make me a bank account?”

A rush of glee hits him so hard it leaves him all but vibrating. “Of course,” Luke answers, doing his best to feign nonchalance. Avoiding Din’s gaze, he lifts Grogu’s raised right claw a little higher, a correction he does need but only barely. His eyelashes brush his cheeks. “Where else would we have your wages deposited?"

The Mandalorian says nothing, but shifts and settles in his seat; eying Luke with slow-thawing uncertainty that feels, almost, like progress.

Training, too, has been dramatically overhauled. They don’t return to the training wing – Luke doesn’t think he could stomach it, let alone how Din may feel about the proposition. 

Eventually, perhaps. For now, the extended guest wing facilities are more than sufficient for their adjusted regimen. 

Theirs, as in, all three of them. 

Some techniques and skills are accessible to more than just Force-users, and Grogu for one is more than delighted once he understands that his father will be participating directly in their next few training sessions. Din, who Luke let in on the plan beforehand, is mostly just bewildered until their sessions begin in earnest: the three of them sitting cross-legged in a circle on exercise mats in the cleared center of the guest wing fitness room, Mandalorian head-to-toe encompassed in his armor and the child so excited it’s a struggle to get him to sit still enough for them to get going. 

They practice balancing their bodies by listening to them. Breathing exercises to help control their energy flow; methods for turning conscious and unconscious thoughts from a shout into an undertone. Understanding the physical clues that can indicate Force manipulation even without visible evidence: raised hairs on the back of one’s neck, prickles along skin. What it feels like to be mentally redirected away from a particular thought, or urged towards someone else’s objective. How the ability to dig one’s mental heels in and put up a fight can mean the difference between life or death, even when all that can be gained are a few hardwon seconds against a power too great to overcome. 

The first time he sends the Mandalorian an impression of an image and basic instruction – a weighted red exercise ball tucked into a far corner and bring that to me fed into his mind like an unheard whisper – he reels on Luke with a full-body double-take, whipping his helmet towards him. Shock plain in his posture, mind whirring beneath his beskar.

Child held in his arms, Luke looks up at him through his lashes, holding his gaze right through his visor, all but shy at the unexpected intimacy of letting himself be truly, intentionally, heard. 

After a few halting seconds Din turns to retrieve the ball for him. 

That, the Mandalorian thinks, reluctant admiration ringing clear, could be damn useful in combat. 

Watching Din heft it into his arms and haul it back to him, Luke can't help but agree. 

"Holochamber next," Din states twenty minutes later once they're wrapping up, Grogu tucked under one arm; unflinching and unprompted as he takes Luke's gloved hand in his own and helps him to his feet. "For your conference with the Admiralty."

Privately, Luke wonders why he didn’t give Din access to his schedule ages ago. 

It’s after dropping Grogu off with Ami in the nursery, as they slide into their seats in the transport that it becomes readily apparent to the Mandalorian that – and how – his protocol lessons have been adjusted for him. 

“Mandalorian, sir.” A green-haired woman in the front seat turns back to look at them: the day’s adjutant, her eyes a glinting natural yellow. “I’m Lieutenant Indarrin. I’ll be your protocol instructor today.”

Next to him, Din stiffens in his seat. His helmet turns towards Luke, who keeps his eyes fixed on his fingernails. 

"Sentient instructors do add a certain something, don't they?” he remarks, then shrugs ostentatiously. The less time Din has to carve out of his week to spend with droids in isolation, the better. “I took the liberty. Besides.” Luke lifts his head, eyes flicking to the adjutant and then to the Mandalorian beside him. "This way you can multitask."

The transport revs up into rumbling motion as the adjutant shuffles her datapad. 

“Today’s lesson is on Imperial protocols,” she informs him, “with an emphasis on planetary customs and on-world visitation.”

It isn’t until the third day, after that Luke is forced to skirt Din’s questions about a particularly cryptic item that appears in their daily schedule – drydock – that he’s able to lead the man into a small and relatively private hangar. Enthusiasm kept to a deliberate, dampened minimum, until he’s able to bear witness to the moment Din lays eyes on her. 

The Mandalorian’s breath audibly catches beneath his helmet.

The Razor Crest, recovered after absolutely having been scuttled but now no visibly worse for wear than last they saw her previous, is sitting there before them on the hangar deck, cleared for the purpose of the reveal. 

The ST-70 class Razor Crests are a pre-Empire relic, perhaps, but such is common enough in the Outer Rim territories. The lack of transponder codes allow for the closest thing to anonymity as can be found in the galaxy, and the design is streamlined enough to be flown easily by a single individual, though a crew of three had been envisioned in their original design. This Crest in particular has seen better days, including carbon scoring and inexpert welding alike wound around the hull – but the gauntleted hand that lifts towards the paneling, unconscious and instinctive, speaks volumes of  the extent to which the vessel possesses far more than immediate value. 

"I-I had her recovered," Luke says unnecessarily, fighting the urge to shift on his feet. Din's visor is fixed and absolute in the direction of his ship, the man's emotions an indescribable churn. "I know she's… meaningful for you, even if it's going to be a while before she's fit for space travel again. And I'm sure you have personal effects on board."

The Mandalorian says nothing – still, Luke senses, stunned and reeling. Hesitantly, Luke takes a step closer to him, tilting his head to one side. 

"Do you want to board her?" Luke asks, tentative and close to kind. At his side, his bare hand flexes. "Collect some of your things?"

The Mandalorian clears his throat, the sound vocoded. "Yes," he rasps, with a hint of a waver his helmet can't conceal. It makes Luke's heart feel like it's blooming outwards. "Please."

At Luke’s encouraging nod, the Mandalorian steels himself tangibly – then reaches over with his gloved right hand to tap a pattern so familiar into his left bracer.

Luke can almost see the patterns of recollected energy to match his motions. With mechanized sounds and movements, the cargo hatch lowers down to the deck as the two of them watch its descent, revealing the ship’s anterior chamber. 

The journey up the rear cargo ramp is like traveling both into the past and into another world entirely. Din’s world – at least, the way his world used to be. 

It’s the first time Luke’s laid eyes on the interior since she was brought in. The cargo hull is not stripped bare, as Luke had in truth expected it to be, but rather, full of evidence of the moment from which Din was summarily seized. Four crates, labeled neatly in aurebesh, are stacked against one corner, but two others and their contents are toppled, their contents scattered across the metal flooring. Internally, Luke winces at some of  the black scoring here, too, pursing his lips  at the residue on the rear entry port frame, indicating where Din’s suicidal detonators had been planted and, subsequently, removed.  The carbonite unit sits against the left hull wall, humming idly, on its own power system subroutine unrelated to the faulty lights that flicker above their heads, several frozen sentients hung in a neat row from the ceiling on their right. 

A few paces is all it takes to reach first the concealed hatch wherein Luke first encountered the child, then the ladder to the cockpit, which Din reaches out to touch as though looking upon a long-lost family member; a mix of disbelief, grief, and longing so poignant it tastes of bile.

The one and only time Luke was in here previously, he’d taken in the ship’s interior with a cold, uncaring eye. Impassive and fleeting, the sight of it of no particular import; barely worth taking in. 

Now he takes all of it in hungrily, devouring every minute detail. Each scuff and built-in feature a small but treasured insight into the man he’s become so singularly enraptured by in such a fleeting time. The space is smaller than it is within his memory; a misalignment of actual and remembered like a mis-welded wingstrut. A conscious adjustment to replace the remembered version of Din’s ship with this cramped, imperfect reality. 

With another tap of gloved fingers against bracer, the antechamber lights turn on properly, illuminating the hold completely. 

“So,” Luke starts, sidling up a little closer to him; aiming for coy and playful, but landing closer to soft; entreating. “You gonna give me the tour?”

It doesn't take long; the interior of the ship is compact but highly utilitarian, each feature and surface designed to perform double and sometimes triple duty. The Mandalorian's explanations of the space are succinct and straightforward, but fuelled by a slowly-building enthusiasm that swells and strains at the confines of what Din might otherwise deem acceptable, were it not for extenuating circumstances. 

That's the weapons locker, Din informs him, the flatness of the words belying the stirring sentiment in the man's chest at being reunited with the rest of his collection. Carbonite chamber over there, for bounties. Custom adjustments have Luke asking prompting questions about ship features and repair history, Din's answers coming more and more easily with each one he gives. 

When the Mandalorian leads him up the wall-mounted ladder and into the cockpit, Luke feels the man's energy shift before he's even ascended to meet him. 

He understands why as soon as he climbs out of the hatch to join him. A meter-long silver egg lays on the ground, cracked open to reveal a soft blue blanket and a single durasteel ball that looks like it came from a cockpit console.

Luke feels the quiver in the Force as Din reaches for the hoverpram, sees echoes and flashes of the child secure in its metal embrace while Din fought off monster and man alike. Gloved fingers trace the smooth surface, and Luke knows the man's eyes are half-hooded behind his visor, memories at the forefront of his consideration. 

"I…" Din starts, unexpectedly speaking without being prompted. He audibly swallows. "Thank you," he husks, and means it. The sleek angles of his helmet turn to face Luke. “This…it kept him safe. Even if I couldn’t. When I couldn’t.”

Flying high on his own victory, Luke risks closing the small space between them; delicately lays a hand on Din's pauldron. "I'm glad it's back with you," Luke tells him softly; as earnest as he knows how. He gives him a small squeeze. "Where it belongs."

He draws back his hand, busying himself unnecessarily by leaning over and examining the flight controls. 

"Once she's repaired," Luke says, "we can take her out for a spin." Father would be apoplectic if he knew Luke was considering letting Din pilot his own ship, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him. Casually, he slides into the pilot's seat, peeking back around the seatback so he can look at Din again. "Don't worry about taking everything with you now; if you make a list, I can have whatever you want collected and delivered to you this evening." He hesitates. "Not to ruin another surprise, but I had a gunsafe installed in the suite next to yours.”

At the way the Mandalorian's head draws back in visible surprise, Luke raises one hand palm outward as though to physically temper expectations. "It's only a renovated closet, truly. But it should be enough to keep most of what you have on your ship on hand. Let you arm up again before we head down to Chandrila."

He doesn't mention the beskar ammunition he's had commissioned, including for Din's whistling birds. That, Luke thinks with a pleased and private smile, should be enough to keep some of the surprise intact. 

It's the sensation of Din's wondering gaze on him that draws him back into the moment. Luke blinks, silently inquiring. 

"Why are you doing this?" Even through his vocoder, Din's uncertainty – his caution – is evident. Luke frowns. "All of it." He struggles to elaborate, and in the end just repeats himself, shifting his weight where he stands. "Just – why?"

Distantly, Luke is aware of his own expression softening. He slips out of the pilot's seat and gets to his feet, dexterous but deliberate. Steady and steadying.

"I told you," Luke murmurs on approach, the sound of his own voice painfully tender to his own ears. Ducking his head, he looks up at Din through his eyelashes; attempting to signal sincerity in every way that matters. "I'm – trying to make things up to you." His throat feels suddenly tight. "You're… more than just a bodyguard to me, Din. I hope you know that."

He doesn't, Luke thinks. Not yet; not really. 

But with time, with consistency, Luke hopes to show him. 

There's more that he could say, but instead Luke allows his silence to hold its weight against Din's own.

Eventually, they make their way back down the ladder to the lower level. 

“That’s it, really,” Din tells him, thoroughly unceremonious, already angling himself towards the opening made by the lowered boarding ramp that leads back to the drydock. “Not much else to see.”

His words fall on deaf ears, Luke’s attention captured instead by the small, utilitarian living space built into the lower deck of the starship’s bow. 

There’s an exposed refresher, an built-in elevated bunk space – all of it cramped verging on claustrophobic, the size of a particularly small closet in comparison to any given living quarters on the Executor. Bare-bones and pragmatic; all catered to the needs of a single, no-nonsense individual, but for the small strung hammock at the bunk’s entrance that makes his insides ache and his soul all but sing. 

Such tight confines. And yet, Luke understands completely how much more – untethered it must’ve felt for him, before. On this ship; out there in the black, with his son. How much more free.

Without actually touching it, Luke reaches a hand out to the tiny hammock. “The child’s?” Luke asks, though in truth he doesn’t need to. A glinting nod out of the corner of his vision is sufficient confirmation.

And – for a few long moments, he just. Allows himself to imagine them, before. The two of them, father and son, wayfinding their way through the depths of darkest space. The things they must’ve seen, the lives they must’ve lived. The innumerable ways their lives might’ve gone, if things had gone just a little bit differently.

He doesn’t consider the implicit intimacy of sitting down on the carved-out space that is Din’s old bunk until he’s already done so. Luke is silent for long moments, vexed with fitful contemplation. 

“Do you think,” Luke starts, then cuts himself off, feeling suddenly foolish. In a push of conscious openness, he forces himself to finish voicing the thought despite his best judgment. “Do you think we could’ve – met, in a different way?” He lifts his head, meeting the Mandalorian’s obfuscated, inscrutable gaze. “If things –” He catches himself, voice threatening to crack otherwise. Releasing a held breath. “If things had turned out differently.”

Still standing silhouetted in the boarding hatch, the Mandalorian releases a soft, vocoded huff. He takes one step, then another, then – movements innate and habitual – reaches back towards the interior wall across from where Luke’s sitting on his old bed. 

It forms a simple seat; one he lowers himself down onto with practiced ease, knees spread and legs braced. “Don’t think I run in quite the right circles for that,” Din answers; sardonic, yes, but not truly unkind. 

Luke shakes his head anyways, sending blond bangs flying. He doesn’t get it. 

“No,” he says. “No, I mean – in another life. If I wasn’t Imperial High Prince Skywalker." At the Mandalorian’s inquiring head tilt, he continues. “If I were just – Luke.”

And that’s – 

If Luke is being honest with himself, it’s something he’s spent a non-insubstantial amount of time thinking about, over the years. What he would’ve done, where he would’ve gone. Who he would’ve grown up to become if Palpatine hadn’t discovered him all those years ago. If he hadn’t needed Vader to liberate him; hadn’t been gifted with this singular, incomparable existence. 

The Mandalorian is silent for so long that Luke thinks for a moment he isn’t going to answer. But eventually, he does. 

“You tell me. I don’t –” He falters for a second, and Luke’s eyes flick back to him, hunched and avoidant. There’s perhaps only half a meter’s space between their knees. “I don’t – know who you’d be, in that case. If you were – just Luke.”

For long moments, neither of them speaks. The silence of the ship around them is jarring: no immediate cycling of life support systems or the low rumble of engines. Just powered-down stillness surrounding them, no light except for what streams in from the boarding hatch created by the lowered gangplank. Both of them half-bathed in recessed shadow. 

It takes a great deal for Luke to give voice to the next part; a sentiment tied to a string that he has to pull forth from his throat into being. 

“My,” Luke swallows around the lump in his throat before continuing. “... my friend Biggs and I used to talk about what we’d do, when we were older. Talked about going to the Academy together. But.” What Aunt Beru told him once, after, rings in his ears. That Uncle Owen would’ve never let him go. How scared his uncle had been of Luke being discovered; of delivering him into Vader’s, and in so doing the Old Emperor’s, hands. “I don’t think that would’ve happened. I – might’ve joined a starship crew? Transport, maybe. Go see the galaxy. Send credits back home to their moisture farm out Anchorhead way.” He huffs a low breath, a disjointed slurry of emotions weighing heavy in his chest. “Maybe I just – never would’ve gone off-planet to begin with.”

For long and drawn-out moments, Luke’s vision narrows, lost in the ache of the counterfactual. Drawing himself inward, into imagining and memory. Until he all but forgets the Mandalorian is there with him despite his presence and proximity, the surroundings steeped in his and the child’s sense-memory. 

“I used to take jobs on Tatooine sometimes.” The sound of Din’s voice almost makes Luke startle. The man clears his throat, audibly uncomfortable. “All over the Outer Rim.”

The non-sequitur puts a furrow in his brow for a half-second until Luke realizes what he’s doing. 

Din is – playing along. Indulging him, despite the nonsensical nature of the fantasy. 

A sudden swell of emotion hits him in a rush, threatening to split the hairline fractures around Luke’s heart right open.  He blinks hard, a punched-out exhalation passing through his lips. It’s a fight to keep his voice light. 

“A cantina then, maybe.” Luke swallows. “Or a space port.” An unsettling thought occurs to him, and Luke huffs a small, humorless laugh. “Who knows. Maybe bounty hunting would’ve been an appealing career choice, if I could still access the Force without training.”

He senses the Mandalorian’s curiosity pique at that, slightly, but the man says nothing, and Luke has no interest in dwelling on that particular aspect of the scenario. Instead he lifts his head to shoot Din a look through his visor, some of that not-yet-forgotten heat just barely breaking to the surface. “Maybe I could’ve convinced you to bring me back here.”

“Hmm,” Din vocalizes, but it’s not a true denial. His helmeted head tilts where it rests on one gloved hand.

The loneliness that overcomes him is at once profound and crippling. Luke wraps his arms around himself, feeling very small. When he looks at Din again, it’s with an imploring note to his voice that feels reflected in his eyes.

“Please,” Luke starts, the dim light catching on Din’s helmet as he lifts his head. When he speaks again, his voice is small and breakable. “Could you… I know there’s not much space, but—” Through Din’s visor, Luke feels their eyes meet as he asks: “Would – would you come lay down with me?”

The subtle nuance of the other man’s emotions are too much for him to parse at the moment. Thankfully, haltingly, Din does so.

Mingled familiarity and strangeness resonate through the Force as the Mandalorian gets to his feet and maneuvers his way in alongside him in the bunk: the space remembers him, albeit not generally with another being there at his side. Luke ducks his head and scoots backward until his head is resting on half of the single pillow, hugging the side of the alcove to allow Din, still fully armored, of course, to crawl in beside him.

It’s a very cramped fit, the confines of the bunk barely adequate for one person, let alone two. But eventually, haltingly, Din lies down on his side, beskar helmet facing Luke where it rests on the other half of the meager pillow. Lying there in the darkness without making contact more than the smallest brushes of armor and leathers against him; at the points of their knees, the outer edges of their hands. 

A pulse of quiet dread and resignation joins Din’s uncertainty. With stilted movements, he reaches up with both hands to remove his helmet. Luke stops him with a hand to one arm, unspeaking but insistent. Don’t, he sends to him. Don’t, you don’t have to.

After a few beats of stillness, Din lowers his hands. Some of the stiffness within him ebbs.

With a relieved sigh, Luke allows his eyes to flutter closed.

He isn’t sure how long they stay like that, tucked away and barely touching in the dark. Thoughts wandering to the calm, assuring cadence of their intermingled breath; one filtered, the other not. Laying side by side, half-formed figments of what-might-have-beens drifting in the space between them as well as in Luke’s head. 

Eventually, with a hefted sigh, Luke breaks the silence. 

“Leia wants to see me tonight,” he murmurs, carefully neutral. “Help me pick out what I’m wearing for the gala.” It’s going to be the first time he’s seen his sister in person since the incident in her chambers, despite the comparative rarity of being in the same sector together for weeks at a time. He’s wondered a few times since whether she might be avoiding him – but in truth, she probably hasn’t even thought about it since sending the note of apology. Hasn’t even thought about him.

Not for the first time, Luke finds himself desperately looking forward to having Han back home again. Another tether, besides himself, to bind her together, to the rest of her.

(... he doesn’t think she’ll be able to sense anything different about him when they meet. His shielding is immaculate, when he wants it to be. He’ll just –)

“Okay.” The low intonation of Din’s modulated rumble draws Luke back to the moment. 

Absently, he nods. “Mmhm. If you like, you can go spend the evening with the child while I’m gone. Say your goodbyes, have some quality time with the child until I get there. Though – given the early morning departure, we should probably spend the night at mine. Let him get his sleep tomorrow.”

So close to him, Din makes a small sound of agreement. Instinctive and unthinking, Luke shifts the smallest bit closer to Din as he tilts his head forward, eyes once again closing as his forehead presses against the cool, metallic beskar. He keeps the contact fleeting, given the convoluted tug of emotion it elicits in the other man; his intention, in this moment, isn’t to overwhelm. 

Luke draws back slightly, releasing a held breath. 

“You can take anything you like from here when we leave, of course, or send a list to my staff for collection. Just specify you need things delivered for tonight.” A thought occurs to him. “From the gunsafe, too – I’ll send you the room number and access codes.” He feels rather than sees the Mandalorian’s responding nod, a tiny shift against the mattress. 

Luke’s eyes open, gaze running over the angles of the Mandalorian’s helmet in repose. “You remember the rules I sent you?”

The response he gets is a soft, modulated snort. “There are only four,” Din answers, flat to the point of – is that a dry hint of amusement in his voice? Luke certainly hopes so – a sign his efforts to wear the Mandalorian down are bearing fruit, for something as amicable and easy as unsolicited humor to begin creeping back into their exchanges again. Din huffs a muted breath. “I think I’ll be fine.”

After a few comfortable minutes in silence, Luke pushes himself up with his lowermost forearm, letting out a reluctant sigh. “We should go,” he says to him. “Can’t keep Leia waiting, and there’s still packing to get to.” 

With a nod, the Mandalorian allows Luke to squirm his way out of the bunk first. Once the deck of the Razor Crest is beneath his boots again, Din moves to follow – then hisses unexpectedly, a sharp sucked-in breath that makes concern flare, bright-white and blaring, in Luke’s chest. 

“What?” Luke asks, taking a step back towards the bunk and reaching out to him with one hand without conscious thought. “What happened, are you–?”

“Fine,” the Mandalorian answers, but his tone is gruff, strained. He shifts onto his front, crawling backwards the rest of the way out before Luke can urge caution. Once he’s out and back on his feet, he takes one gloved hand and presses it against the small of his back through his cape, helmet tilting back until he’s looking up at the ceiling as he arches into a stiff stretch. “Just – sore. Old injury. Little bit aggravated when I twist wrong. Something didn’t heal right.”

He drops his hand and rolls both shoulders, already turning to the exit. 

Luke, however, is still stuck on his words. Didn’t heal right, he thinks, a subtle sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. From when Luke hurt him; when Luke healed him. 

Guilt roars and burns like a stoked flame, but he stifles any despondency – this problem is a fixable one. 

“I’d like to help with that,” Luke tells him. “If you’ll let me.” His talent for manipulating sentient flesh and energy through massage is one of the few skills gained during his time as one of Jabba’s slaves that he has any use for, at the moment, given everything… else has been put on hold for the time being. “Maybe later tonight.”

Din nods in vague concession, mind seemingly elsewhere. 

It’s Luke who reaches the boarding hatch first – then pauses when he realizes Din hasn’t followed. He turns, taking in the sight of the Mandalorian visibly hesitating, eyes on the bunk.  

Luke tilts his head, and when he speaks, it’s with a consciously softened tone of voice. “Is there something… else?” 

The silence that follows is marked by brutal mental calculus on Din’s part that Luke can’t help but overhear. “Just–” He bites the word short. Shifting where he stands, neck and jaw tight where no one can see them. 

Abrupt as ripping off a bacta patch, Din turns and reaches towards his old bunk. With gloved and gentle hands, he lifts the bottom of the dense, thin mattress. 

A flash of unexpected red becomes, briefly, visible. A scarf, Luke thinks, or perhaps a small hood. Sense-memory of caring words and of cloying, acrid smoke cling to the fabric as Din tucks it away in his black sling bag. He straightens with uncharacteristic self-consciousness that Luke finds all the more precious for it, armored body language singularly expressive as a peace that has known grief surges in the marrow of him. 

“There,” Din says, weight shifting back to the balls of his feet. Any instinctive wariness drowned out, for now, by begrudging gratitude. His helmet inclines, giving Luke a tiny nod as he moves to follow him back down the rear cargo ramp. “Ready.”

–

44:8:07

Rules of Engagement:
Annual Chandrilan Gala for Performance, Arts and Culture
Chandrilan Unity Day, Year 44

FROM THE OFFICE OF IMPERIAL HIGH PRINCE (IHP) SKYWALKER
(Annotated by Imperial High Prince Skywalker):

1.   Rule One: No speaking unless spoken to. <- Chances of causing a diplomatic incident reduce, exponentially, with silence. Once we land, the fewer words spoken, the better. (I know stoicism is such a challenge for you…)
   
   
2.   Rule Two: Always remain in the immediate vicinity of IHP Skywalker. <- The distance you keep on the Executor should be largely fine. At times, though, I may be pulled into more – private discussions. Will inform you discreetly should this one change.
   
   
3.   Rule Three: Should violence become necessary, seek first to injure or incapacitate. Fatalities should be avoided or minimized. <- Commiting on-cam slaughter has significant knock-on effects and results in too much paperwork to represent an initial course of action. ‘Aim to maim’ if at all possible. (Please note – this means, in effect, no public disintegrations, but feel free to bring whatever weaponry you prefer.) 
   
   
4.   Rule Four: No assaulting members of the press. <- I truly mean this. It will, at times, be difficult, but what is done and caught on holofilm cannot so easily be taken back afterward. Resist temptation. Do not assault press unless and until they do so to you physically first – or me, of course, but that’s unlikely.

Failure to comply with any off the above-stated rules of engagement may result in consequences as the New Empire sees fit, up to and including torture, dismemberment, punitive reprisals, and/or execution. I’ll be very cross with you.

Authorized By
Luke Skywalker

--

The evening with Leia is, thankfully, uneventful. A gala-appropriate outfit is selected, albeit with more slightly wild-eyed enthusiasm on Leia’s part than might usually be the case – an effort, Luke suspects, to make up for what happened the last time they spent the evening together.

The outfit has already been sent ahead to his rooms by the time Luke, relieved if slightly tired from keeping a tighter hold on his shields than usual, waves open the blast door to Din and Grogu’s chambers.  

He finds Din in Grogu’s nursery next to the crib, leaning down over the edge to tuck him in for the last night for the next three days. Above him, a newly-hung baby mobile – handmade by artisans on Aleen, one of the items Luke had panic-purchased and had delivered in his scattershot attempts towards reparation – spins slowly, a gyroscopic undulation in perpetual motion.

Luke leans against the doorframe, watching without interrupting.

“Hey,” Din says in placid greeting, not turning to look at him. He hesitates. “Could you – translate for a second?”

Luke’s eyebrows shoot upward, disappearing into the golden-blond mess of his bangs. Surprised and, frankly, touched by the invitation, he nods though Din can’t see him. He draws away from his place at the door to come closer, padding forward quietly until he can see into the crib.

Tucked under a soft blanket, Grogu lies on his back, big eyes beginning to drift shut. His ears are drooping, little claws pawing at the blankets in a way that suggests sleep is imminent. The warm-and-loving air that hangs suspended between father and son is difficult not to bask in, but Luke takes this responsibility seriously. 

Grogu may understand more than Din realizes, but the language barrier between them is a real one. It’s a utility he’s more than happy to perform – and, if he’s candid with himself, a piece of leverage he’s not quite ready to let go of yet. “Pah,” Grogu murbles, blinking blearily up at them.

When Din turns to look at Luke, he nods in prompting encouragement.  

“Grogu,” Din says, and Grogu makes a soft sound of recognition, blinking his waning attention back towards his father. He clears his throat. “I’m – not going to be here for the next few days. Luke won’t be, either. So I want you to –” the next words sound like they physically pain him, “to listen to your nanny droid. And be good. I know you can be.” Din’s stubborn, fatherly frown is hidden by his helmet, but Luke feels it all the same as he attempts to convey some silent message to his son.

In his crib, Grogu tilts his head and gives him an open-mouthed smile. good can be good, he sends, unheard, in Din’s direction. love you daddy, see you soon

Din turns to Luke. “Did he catch that?”

Silently, Luke reaches out to brush the child’s mind with his own, one hand extending towards him, fingers reaching.

We’ll be back soon, Luke sends to him. Your father wants you to be good while he’s away. And then, in a moment of impulsive honesty, And I. I love you too, little one, 

It seems to strike him harder than it does the child, whose only answer is a sleepy glimmer of recognition and acknowledgement. A foregone conclusion of well-known sentiment, echoed back towards Luke as the child slips closer to the edge of slumber.  

“Ah,” Luke rasps back, blinking and belated. He’s not sure when it was he last expressed that to someone – to Leia, certainly, but when – “Yes,” Luke answers. “Yes, he – got the gist.”

With a solemn nod, the Mandalorian reaches down and tugs off one glove, tucking it into his utility belt, and reaching down into the crib to give Grogu a squeeze on his small shoulder.

A tiny pale green claw reaches up instead, curling around Din’s bare fingers. A bright solar flare of emotion erupts inside his chest.

“G’night, kid,” Din rasps, overcome and grounded in the same breath.

They stay like that for long moments, the two of them communing in a way both more innate and powerful than any kind of Force manipulation Luke has yet mastered. Love you resonates, unspoken, but as clear as a bell in the shared and gentle silence.

Luke swallows back his own emotion, pretending to fuss with one of his tunic sleeves.

A minute later, after the child’s small fingers have slipped from Din’s hand in a movement that mirrors his drift from consciousness, the adults make their way back to the main room. The blast doors close behind them, conveying momentary finality.

Beside Luke, Din’s shoulders lower as the man exhales.

“I’m all right,” he says, before Luke can prompt him.  Somewhat to Luke’s surprise, he finds the sentiment true. “I’ve left him for jobs before. He’ll be fine.”

“He will,” Luke agrees, perhaps a little quickly. “Safest place in the galaxy.” His eyes follow the Mandalorian’s movements as he slings a standard-issue black Imperial travel bag over his shoulder.

They make one last stop at the promised gunsafe, where all items of Din’s selection have been delivered from the Razor Crest for his retrieval. The room has been appropriately kitted out with carry cases and all kinds of weapons paraphernalia: silencers, explosives, vibroblades, every kind of blaster that can conceivably be imagined. To Luke’s great pleasure, Din is suitably impressed with the beskar ammunition – in particular the replacement whistling birds, which elicit a series of questions from him. First alarmed, then – at Luke’s explanation of their acquisition – reluctantly impressed.   

A quarter of an hour later, they depart with an additional carry case of weapons paraphernalia, Din’s large, extremely illegal Amban rifle now having joined his travel bag hoisted over his shoulder.

Luke gives the weapon a dubious side-eye as they make their way to his chambers. 

“Remember,” he says mildly. “No disintegrations.” The New Imperial Senate is a farce, of course, but its perceived legitimacy and structure have their uses. Being seen to flaunt the law in this case seems needlessly provocative. 

Father, too, is opposed to the use of disruptor technology – though his reasoning is more that separating one’s enemies atom by atom tends to leave little behind to extract information from. 

“No public disintegrations,” Din counters, “is what you said.” 

Which – yes, actually. That had been what he’d said, and Din has it in writing.

With a belabored sigh, Luke concedes; Din nods, silent in triumph. 

“I’ll keep the Amban in the hotel room.” The Mandalorian sounds both definitive and, in an understated way, pleased. “For emergencies.” Job like this, he thinks, can go sideways fast.

“It’s not a hotel room, though,” Luke points out. “It’s a publicly-funded residence for interplanetary officials.” 

If Luke could see Din’s eyes, he’s fairly sure they’d have just glazed over. 

It is, Luke concedes internally, very much like a hotel.

“Anyways,” Luke continues, waving the familiar blast doors open and leading them inside. With the wave of a black gloved hand, Luke gestures to where his outfit for the gala hangs where it was delivered previously. “At least you don’t have to worry about fitting the dress code.” 

A sweeping tunic that twists into a lightweight waist-length cape, tones transitioning luxuriously from Imperial white at the collar and shoulders down to that deep steely blue at the cape’s bottom hem. Luxurious black trousers and matching boots, custom made for the occasion, hang from and sit proudly by the clothing rack. A matching white glove is tucked into one pocket. 

Personally, Luke had considered his dress uniform sufficient, but his sister had immediately eliminated that as an option.

“It’s, uh,” says Din, setting his bags down at the door. He takes a few steps sideways, almost circling the outfit as though it’s an opponent. “Gray,” he hazards, helmet tilting. “...kind of.”

Luke snorts, biting back a remark about how, with that kind of insight, he can’t wait for the Mandalorian’s scintillating artistic commentary during the gala proper. Too snide, he thinks, and not worth pushing his luck for. 

Instead, he summons over his datapad from its charging station, flipping through tabs. The Mandalorian is a pillar of solidity, boots planted on the sleek black floor.

“I’m sending over the latest briefings,” Luke says, already doing so. “Feel free to have a look through while I finish packing.”

He's already provided the Mandalorian with the basics, of course. Key building layouts, top profile attendees, some basic intel about Chandrila broadly and Hanna City in particular. This latest batch includes more refined, detailed information: additional attendee profiles, backgrounders on each participating university and artistic institute – including, of course, assumed political leanings. A series of reports drafted by the Imperial Secret Police advising on the statuses of various Chandrilan political leaders, scaling from the boringly local to a suite of current and former galactic Senators.

Then bed, I think, Luke thinks, mindful of their start time, but Din is already pulling out his datapad, moving to settling down into one of the squat gray chairs, a serious tilt to his helmet. 

Two luggage cases sit open and already mostly-packed atop his bed, a fresh garment bag laid out for his clothes for the gala – a perk, Luke reflects, of staff and status. A quick inspection of his ensuite ‘fresher reveals his usual sleek black toiletries case, smaller versions of his usual high-quality products already tucked in place. It only takes a few small personal additions and replacements before he’s packed and ready: gradient tunic, slacks and cape zipped up and hanging in its garment bag beside the large case, small case open and ready for last-minute items come morning.

A sudden clutch of nerves takes hold of him as returns to where the Mandalorian sits, briefing materials open. Over his shoulder, Luke sees the status sheet of former and current Chandrilan Senators: Mon Mothma (Traitor, Wanted), Canna Omonda (Executed), Rona Syko (Demoted, Exiled), Krallus Rikial (Current).

Luke lightly clears his throat. “Bed,” he suggests, then hesitates as Din lowers his datapad and shifts in his seat, visor turning towards him. “And… I’d like to take a look at that shoulder. Since it’s been bothering you.”

A faint ripple of surprised caution emanates. Din hesitates. “It’s – fine. It’s a pretty old wound.”

“Recently re-injured,” Luke counters, clear-eyed, against which Din can’t argue. An urge grips him, strong and insistent, as though the Force itself is guiding him, and Luke ducks his head, avoiding Din’s gaze. Demeanor purposefully softened to allow some of the vulnerability beneath to subtly shine through. “Din. Please. I – contributed to that hurt. I’d… like it very much if you’d let me take care of you.”

The small noise that escapes Din’s throat is choked off almost as soon as it comes into existence, but Luke latches onto it all the same. He circles closer. “Besides – we have a big few days ahead. First planetside excursion, first major event… don’t you want to be in fighting shape?”

It’s a leading question, bordering on an unfair one – but eventually it yields him a tentative nod.

“All right,” Din says, and that’s all Luke needs to take Din’s gloved hand in his own, tugging him gently up onto his feet and towards the open door of his bedroom.

In recent days, Luke’s done his best to avoid pressing the Mandalorian to remove his armor outside of meals and for sleeping, an insertion of a boundary he’d previously blown right past, uncaring, and has since backtracked towards in his recent bids for forgiveness. 

Beskar catches the dimmed light of his bedroom as it’s placed, painstakingly, on the armor stand that Luke has ensured the space is equipped with. 

Luke bites his lower lip, urging himself to patience as he toes off his own boots. Stripping off both tunic and trousers and casting them aside into the hamper until he’s down to his underthings; stealing sideways glances as, after a moment’s stock-still hesitation, Din reaches up with now-bare hands to slide his helmet from his head. Rugged face and dark, compacted curls revealed to the dual caresses of the air of the room and Luke’s gaze, tangibly aware of both sensations as he unzips and steps out of his charcoal-gray flight suit with equal parts demurity and trepidation. More mental and physiological awareness of Luke’s presence in the room with him than he’s been blessed with these last few days in particular. 

A pair of soft sleep pants are swiftly drawn from ‘his’ newly-stocked drawer and pulled on, concealing the man’s shapely, muscled legs. Darker hair of his calves giving way to only faintly dusted thighs; to the hardened curve of his ass beneath his synthbriefs. After a moment’s hesitation Din peels off his sleeveless top, then folds and deposits it onto the chair in the corner. When Din finally crawls onto the bed, he positions himself roughly in the center of the mattress’s expanse. Lowering himself down until he’s splayed face-down over the soft, expensive synthsilk; arms laid palm-down with elbows at right angles on either side of his head. 

His back and shoulders are a tapestry of well-defined muscles and the remnants of old injuries – what’s left of them, at least, those that time and bacta couldn’t take care of. As always, he’s narrower than he looks when he’s wearing full armor, compact and self-contained in his dangerousness in a way that makes Luke’s indrawn breath hitch. 

Luke’s been wanting to get his hands on the gorgeous canvas that is Din’s back for just this purpose ever since walking into the Mandalorian’s holding cell on the Korriban .

The reality is even better than anticipated.

The bed shifts beneath him as he makes his way over to Din’s exposed form, stopping briefly to grab a bottle of slipskin out of the bedside table; not the purpose he’d envisioned for it, perhaps, but good enough for the time being. He warms some of it up between his hands, settling down with the swell of Din’s ass – covered by coarseweave sleep pants, but still more intimate than they’ve been with one another in days – cradled between his thighs.

Emboldened by the sight before and beneath him, Luke reaches out invisibly outward, stroking gently over the flesh and muscle of his left shoulder blade at that spot with the barest graze of the Force.   

The unexpected ghost of a touch makes Din suck in a sharp breath. Above him, Luke makes a soft sound of assurance in the back of his throat. “There?” 

"I--“ Din croaks into the pillow, tensing and then consciously releasing that tension with an exhaled breath. Please, he thinks, straining at his lips but not quite spoken. Please be careful. 

His fear is that of a man who relies so heavily on his physicality for his own – and his family’s – safety. As though he’s exposing a weak spot to some untamed creature of impulse, then asking it politely not to claw out his throat. 

“I will be,” Luke hums in gentle promise, leaning forward to graze his oiled palms and fingers over the rigid muscles of Din’s shoulders. He allows himself a flimsi-thin smile. 

Fortunately for you, Luke half-thinks half-sends to him, an unheard whisper, I’m quite good at this.

He gives Din’s legs an assuring squeeze with his thighs, a silent gesture of affection – before he expands himself outward, sinking his consciousness into Din’s body. Each cluster of tensed-up muscles lighting up with tangible sensation – as obvious to him as if they were glowing indicators of pain beneath his skin.

The vicious snarl of entangled muscle at the juncture where shoulder meets ribcage, standing vividly out like a raw-red throb.  

With an easing exhalation, Luke slowly gets to work.

For all the times he’s done this for other sentients, it shocks him how completely different it feels this time. How easy it is to slide his hands over Din’s muscles, totally new and yet bone-deep familiar to him. Body taking over as he languidly tracks and chases the currents of Din’s physical energy, allowing time for him to become accustomed and relax into his touch before he begins working in earnest at some of the places where stiffness truly lingers, avoiding the true injury for now in favor of addressing smaller discomforts. 

“Hngh,” Din grunts, involuntary, as Luke teases out a small knot of clustered energy that’s been trapped in the tops of Din’s right shoulder. It releases beautifully, and Din’s body jerks beneath his hands with a sharp and muffled inhale. 

Accordingly, Luke adjusts his grip on him.

“That’s –” Din starts, then breaks off as Luke’s right thumb works tender, teasing circles at the place where that particular hurt used to be. “Nh. You… are good at this.”

Luke hums with a hint of a smirk. 

“Yes,” he answers simply, attention already shifting to his lower back. Working to ease or release half a dozen more minor aches and pains, building his way towards his true objective. Movements instinctive and rhythmic as Luke takes his own deeply private pleasure in it. In each small sound he wrings from Din’s throat as he works; in each cluster of muscle he brings to spasming twitches, then works until taut muscle is sufficiently relieved, pliant beneath his hands. 

Finally, with the gentlest graze of fingertips he can manage, Luke turns his full attention to the place that shines loudest in the Force, where a long-ago memory of blunt force trauma lies buried deep within his musculature, from which the throb of pained sensation stems outward, lashing in all directions. 

He reaches up to feel the knotted tension with slick and careful fingers, just barely making contact.

Beneath him, Din whole-body flinches, breath coming hard and sharp. The impulse to protect vulnerable spots deep-seated, legitimately trembling with the effort of holding still for him. Not giving into the rush of instinct to throw an elbow back, to buck Luke off or flip him over. 

With a wordless caress, Luke reassures him. “Shh,” he hushes, the splayed fingers of his still-gloved hand sliding up the shining flesh of him where the injury isn’t. “You’re all right.”

Din breathes, ragged, beneath him – but his self-discipline holds.

Closing his eyes, Luke gets himself situated. Breathing in as he leans forward and becomes one with his physiology; finding he knows each shape and ache of the man’s nested trigger points, the taste of every firing synapse. 

He exhales, concentrates – and digs his thumb right down into the knotted mass of muscled scar tissue at the exact same moment as releasing years of tensed-up energy outward into the Force. 

Din outright yowls, arching and spasmodic beneath him. The dual shock of the sensation leaving both body and mind reeling; at the sudden loss of a pain that had become so much a part of him to work around and compensate for.

Luke’s fingers remain in place; firm and persistent, rubbing gentle circles over the tender spot that remains. 

“There,” breathes Luke, shifting his weight. He clenches his thighs where they bracket Din’s hips, a subtle reminder to remain still and pliant. His tongue slides across his lips. “Better?”

The creaking exhale Din makes is muffled by pillow. 

“Very good,” Luke purrs, then – unrelenting – uses Force and hands alike to ease the muscles and energy in Din’s back into the most optimal position. Something clunks into place lower down, near Din’s ribs, making him groan and spasm uncontrollably, then go limp and boneless beneath Luke’s palms. 

Thighs tighten around his hips and haunches in a small but satisfying shimmy. With great care and more-than-proprietary fondness, Luke strokes soothing circles over the lines of Din’s back, moving his thumbs to work, persistent, into the muscle of his opposite shoulder that mirrors where the old injury once was.

Dazed contentment begins to radiate from Din’s body upwards in steady waves. And it’s better – so much better – than the subtle sense of transgressive power such an act usually inspires in him; at being able to bring sentients to such a loose, compliant state. 

A sense of raw fulfillment that comes with easing the pain of someone he cares about; at leaving at least this one small part of Din better than when he met him. His hands slow their movements as he pauses, overcome. 

“Mm?” Din asks, buttery soft and endearing. 

With great fondness, Luke gives the small of his back a gentle pat. “It’s getting late.” Luke breathes, soft and urging, “come get ready for bed with me.”

Well beyond coherence, Din slurs, “m’kay”. Tensing up, then slackening back down onto the bed again once he realizes, belatedly, that Luke is still straddling him. 

With a soft but distant smirk, Luke shifts a long and slender leg to free him. 

Minutes later, quite literally as soon as they’re back in bed in earnest, the man’s body drags him down into much-needed sleep to finish healing. Curled up against his slackened body, Luke follows swiftly. 

He wakes, once, in the middle of the night to find Din’s arm, in slumber, has wrapped around his middle, hauling Luke’s smaller body closer. In the dark and quiet, it leaves him blushing warmth and heated pleasure that transcends both thought and language; a full-bodied relief he rides like a wave, leaning back into that treasured warm embrace as he slips right back to sleep. 

–

The shuttlecraft takes them down into Chandrila’s orbit early the next morning. 

Theirs is the only Svelte-class craft among the amount needed to transport all relevant personnel to the secure landing platform at the outskirts of Hanna City. Luke, of course, is seated in pride of place, the firstmost seat to the immediate left of the boarding ramp. In the seat to his right, the Mandalorian sits staunch, armor polished to mirror-like status, and wound back taut again. Embodying the hyperalert focus of a hawk, or else some other creature accustomed to the hunt.

Beneath the man’s surficial alertness, muscle and flesh all but hum with newfound looseness and relief. His physical satisfaction, combined with the mental stimulation of actually doing something, makes him an especially pleasant seatmate for the short journey. 

In addition to the handful of Executor Imperial fleet members needed for the shuttlecraft, their landing party includes several of his staff, media relations, and security detail. Today, the latter includes a modest contingent of Stormtroopers – more for crowd-control and making a statement than for any kind of actual protection garnered. 

Appearances, on exiting into the limelight, matter. It sends an objectively different message, whether he arrives with shock troops at his heels, or in the company of clucking advisors or bureaucrats, or with multiple armies and fleet in visible tow. Tone-setting – including gaming out who and what will be in the background of the first holographs that hit the HoloNet – is vital. Each detail has involved copious consideration and planning. 

Luke’s just glad that’s not his job.  

Their craft joins the bloodflow of starships and shuttles traversing the three main traffic arteries connecting Executor with Chandrila by way of the three gateways in the planet’s near-invisible shielding, one for each of the planet’s major cities. 

The familiar sphere of swirling colour that is Chandrila grows larger and closer until the planet’s edges against the blackness of space disappear, only fast-approaching continents and ocean visible through the cockpit window as they navigate the shield gateway. 

To his left, Abeckla Orden – now senior adjutant – takes him through a final confirmation of his schedule. 

“The weather’s holding, so visiting the Governor’s estate is still planned first after the landing and meet and greet.” She’s leaning over her datapad such that her eyes aren’t visible, only the gray-green of her kepi cap, dark coils of hair pulled back into a low bun. “Then to downtown Hanna City for the press conference, University of Chandrilan Fine Arts - Junari for the keynote speech and award handouts. Then Emissary Tower.” 

She lifts her eyes to briefly meet his own. “Dinner and the private screening at the Chandrilan Opera House have been pushed, for now.” Per your request, Abeckla thinks, but wisely doesn’t say, for more time in the evenings.

“Good,” Luke answers, anticipatory energy beginning to rise in the back of his throat. He taps his foot to get some of the energy out. “Have a light afternoon meal sent and ready for us upon arrival.”

There had never been any doubt in anyone’s mind, to Luke’s knowledge, that the Mandalorian would be staying with him for the night, in his private quarters. 

Shortly after, the shuttle hits atmo. As they weather its shudders, Luke allows his eyes to slip shut. Reinforcing his own shields, adeptly compartmentalizing. Stepping backward into the version of himself he’s spent the last few years building himself into. Tucking all the parts of himself that have come loose these past few days back into place.

They clear the atmosphere; a handful of seconds later, the swoop in the stomach of gravitational shift indicates controlled descent. 

The landing sequence initiates with the mechanized sounds of landing gear being deployed, in concert with a rise in cross-talk and the clattering of restraint harnesses being unfastened rapidly. 

Including Luke’s own. He gets to his feet, beginning to pace within the small confines, aware of Din’s eyes on him, watching. 

“Confirm drone droids in position.” Commander Klaxes, in ISB whites, speaks into a handheld comlink. A few seconds later he nods, bushy gray mustache twitching. “Awaiting security code from on-ground officers.”

“Prepare for crowd control,” orders the commanding Stormtrooper, underlings all but vibrating with pride and nerves beneath, shining white plastoid. 

“Audio check,” Shestine intones into an earpiece of her own. The bespectacled female Cathar listens attentively, her mane a poof of on-edge dandelion fluff. “Broadcast time imminent. Standby.”

Luke takes his place right in front of the soon-to-be-lowered gangplank, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little in order to shake into the shape the smile he’s going to need to be wearing within the first few seconds of visuals. Tapping into base emotions and latching onto them like leaching suckers to fuel the persona: fear of failure, hard-won vindication, exhilaration and disgust that converges into pride. 

Preparing himself to embody the Emperor’s Heart. Dignified but consumable; powerful and uncompromising, but with a streak of violent empathy. 

Luke senses the Mandalorian right at his back, closer than the mandated three paces given the close quarters. Can sense his gaze on the back of his head; a coalescence of admiration and disgust. “What are you doing?” he asks under his breath, quietly perplexed – his last opportunity to speak anything close to freely for the next few hours. 

It’s a question Luke’s surprised he even has to articulate an answer to. 

“Becoming who I need to be,” Luke answers, sotto voce, just as multiple camdroids lift up into a hover within the shuttle in a series of rapid, whirring clicks. 

The landing sequence finishes. “We are live,” Shestine barks, both into her earpiece and to the shuttle at large. “Repeat, we are live. Entry ramp deploying in five, four–”

She cuts off into silence, three clawed fingers raised. All wait for the signal, breath held unconsciously. 

Two. 

One. 

The entry ramp opens in a depressurized rush, letting in both fresh air and natural light as it lowers to the ground.

– 

Chapter Text

-

Shouts and shoving bodies explode before them. Hot, damp air exerts itself into the ship, humidity hitting Luke like a wall as it rushes past him, every hold and cabin shifting from comfortable to sweltering in seconds. 

From behind, Luke feels the Mandalorian’s reluctant shock at the sheer volume and breadth of the surrounding crowd; the mania of the intensity currently leveled in their direction. 

Rather, Luke’s direction. 

He rides the soaring swell of it. The viscerality of Din’s response makes some distant part of himself feel oddly validated – the part that’s still seventeen and speechless, overcome with his own first steps into the concentrated blast of galactic limelight.

He stands and rides it out, impassively waiting for the mob to settle. 

Or be settled. Whichever comes first. 

Most of their shouts are too fractured and incoherent to be understood, but some rise above the throng.

“Imperial High Prince!”

“High Prince!”

“Highness, look this way!”

The ratta-tatta-tat of camdroid shutters comes at him like gunfire. Bursting white light assaults his eyes as flash after flash goes off, diffused only partly by his near-invisible protective contact lenses – a must-have component of his planetside regalia in order to avoid retinal injury. 

The bold red of his military-style overtunic and well-fitted dress slacks does the majority of his outfit’s heavy lifting, clearly intended to make an impression. Black accents throughout make for a striking contrast; belt and boots, lightweight cape, the row of carved obsidian buttons that runs down the jacket’s middle. 

With ease born of long practice, Luke holds his position. Stands tall but not stiff, pale eyes engaged and glinting. The pleased-but-regal curve of his lips that aims to both holograph well and keep the rest of the universe guessing. Effortless, unbothered. Aloof.

Planetary authorities soon have their numbers bolstered as Stormtroopers descend down the boarding ramps. They pour from two Lambda-class shuttles as well as Luke’s own, silent as they flow down the Svelte-class boarding ramp to either side of the two of them, the sheen of their plastoid body armor in Luke’s peripheral vision. With proficient, methodical gestures, they move forward. Various snaps of stark white constrain onlookers until there’s enough space for him to walk through them.

The Mandalorian’s stunned overwhelm at his back, only privy to Luke, is belied by his unyielding solidity in the eyes of all others. 

A voice in Luke’s earpiece says, “all clear.”

With the smallest widening of his knowing, constant smile, Imperial High Prince Skywalker descends.

It’s not lost on him that when the Mandalorian steps out behind him and follows him down the boarding ramp, the rise in clamor of the crowd is swiftly punctuated once more by frenetic flashing of hundreds of camdroids. His silent shadow in glinting beskar is at last thrust out to join him in the light. 

The questions and faces of the still-writhing throng of reporters become clearer as he walks through them, past them. A few of the faces he’s known for over a decade – it’s not all local press, not by a long shot – and most of those closest to the cordon point wear the white-flecked black of press passes that mark them as off-worlders. Intergalactic channels and more than a few royal-watch tabloids, starved and slathering for new content; nexu sniffing for prey after this most recent weeks-long deprivation of Luke’s presence at anything resembling a media event. 

He sinks into the Force without breaking stride, sending himself outward into the knotted throng of mostly-media as he passes.

“Imperial Prince Skywalker!” Tabloid channel, more gossip than substance. Published an article on him and Leia being a couple three years ago; somehow still in publication despite formal reprimands. “Why’d you get the Mando?”

“Your Highness, what message should the galaxy take from you being in Chandrila today?” New Empire-held outlet, zero local credibility.

“Fleet Admiral!” calls a Mon Calamari woman – anti-war activist playing at reporter. He’ll send a note to security after they’re in the speeder to have her questioned and released to send a message. “Can you share a statement on the recent happenings in Bothan Space–”

“Highness, for Soundwaves Through the System–” Under no circumstances. Utter waste of bandwidth. 

“Your Highness, do you have a word for the artists featured at tomorrow’s gala?” Promising question, dashed by the nationalistic fervor of its asker. 

“Mandalorian, Mandalorian–!” Oh, he doesn’t like that. Luke subtly walks faster. 

With practiced, sheer focus, Luke rides the churning waves of the knot of media, following that chain of inkling forward. Awareness dancing from one mind to another: avoiding both off-world and overtly propagandistic outlets.

A purple press pass catches his eye – local media. 

Pale eyes settle on a Mirialan reporter, nearly buried in the pulse of the crowd. Female, meek-looking, pond-green skin with vivid purple geometric facial tattoos diagonally across her face. Hemmed in on all sides by the crush of other people.

Their eyes meet. She jumps at the chance immediately, pushing to the front of the crowd at his gaze. Those on either side of her ease back once they realize upon which one of them his attention has landed. 

He strides towards her at a measured pace, Mandalorian at his heel. 

“I-Imperial High Prince Skywalker,” the Mirialan starts. Little lime spots rise in her cheeks as, internally, she rejoices at having remembered his title in the right order. ”For the Chandrila Chronicle, please – what would you say constitutes a successful visit to our planet?”

“I am delighted, of course, to be here.” He smiles, making sure he hits the right angle relative to where her camdroid is hovering. The ratta-tatta-tat of the camdroid shutters go off all around him for the dozenth time. “Unity Day is a time for togetherness and celebration. Success here on Chandrila means getting to celebrate – and appreciate – works of art from every corner of this planet.” He tilts his head, golden hair shifting with the movement. “It also means demonstrating the New Empire’s true and lasting commitment to the wellbeing of its member planets.”

All its member planets, he implies, but leaves unsaid. Including this one. A subtle reminder that Chandrila remains on a deliberately short leash, should such a reminder even be necessary given the looming figure the Executor’s made in the skyscape these past few weeks.

Luke smiles, a sweeping curve. “While we’re here, we’ll see what we can do about enjoying some of the amenities of Core World living.”

The breathless vocalization the Mirialan lets out is devoid of any words. Emphatically, she resonates sheer unfettered relief at not having accidentally crossed him. 

Luke turns on his heel, satisfied and untouchable. All-powerful in control as he makes his way through the press gauntlet, his Mandalorian following only the slightest bit closer than the requisite distance. 

At the other end of all of it, Governor Aelyn of Chandrila stands waiting to meet him from atop a raised and guarded platform. Her uniform is the neat dark gray of an Imperial planetary Governor, long black hair pulled back into a bun that transitions smoothly into the dark gray of her kepi cap. A sleek fleet of luxo-pods hover idly, parked behind her in neat rows, poised and ready to take him – them to her estate. 

“Imperial Highness,” Aelyn says as he approaches, bowing low as he approaches. The swirling zoom of holocams around them shutter and flash to capture the moment, ratta-tatta-tat. Ratta-tatta-tat. “You honor Chandrila with your presence.”

“Governor Aelyn,” Luke answers, gifting her a tilted smile. “A pleasure.”

–

The world’s sole sun is close to setting by the time they make it to Emissary Tower.

Their suite overlooks the shorefront, grassy banks and beaches dotted at regular intervals between docks and jetties. Their bags, including Din’s weaponry, have long since been deposited in-room. A quick scan of the space reveals several indications that his special requests have been put into action, and Luke nods to himself before he makes a beeline to the sweeping whitestone balcony, leaving the Mandalorian standing – silently relieved to be back in a private space after so much unrelenting exposure  – beside the entrance to the turbolift they just ascended to get here. 

Transparisteel doors are waved open and a temperature-controlled version of the heat and humidity hits Luke’s skin as he steps outside, crossing to the ornate white balustrade. He leans his elbows on the stone, taking in the view before him. The Silver Sea stretches endlessly, its waves white-edged and shimmering in eponymously silver glints and glistens. Not endless, truly - vast, but finite, in comparison to the void of outer space; constrained to the bounds of less than one planet rather than extending beyond all knowledge and time.

Were it not for all the surrounding Imperial security staff and equipment – down on the ground below, passing by on hoverpods on regular intervals to patrol from the air, fleetcraft menacing where they orbit ponderously overhead – it would look like paradise. 

Behind him, the tone and tenor of the Mandalorian’s Force presence shifts as the man begins to move through their suite with professional rigor that suggests he’s doing a pass for bugs, explosives, or both. 

A handheld holoprojector starts chiming on his utility belt just as he’s contemplating heading back inside. Luke detaches it and answers with the tap of a finger; the small blue pillar of Shestine’s head-to-toe hologram blips into existence above his gloved palm as he holds her before the brilliant orange and pinks of the sun setting over the sea. Shestine’s pale blue hologram rubs her temple, fur on end with irritation or else well on its way to being so.  

“Crisis already?” Luke asks, only half-joking. “What’s–”

“If you could,” Shestine cuts in, unceremonious, “can you please refrain from using the ‘royal we’ planetside, IHP?” Her expression is scrunched in a way reminiscent of a fed-up schoolteacher, or an overtaxed parent. “Unless, of course, you want half the HoloNet and every local tabloid from here to the Western Reaches melting down every time over whether or not you mean you, the New Empire, or you and the Mando.”

Luke blinks at the image of her, turning that over in his mind. “... hm.” Not the intended outcome, perhaps, but hardly the worst one possible. A truer smile breaks across his lips; he gives her a small shrug, loose-limbed and reasonably at ease – it’s nice, for once, not having to continue to be the public version of himself well into the evening during a planetary visit. “Any publicity is good publicity, right?”

The tiny blue figure in his hand gives him a look that could sour milk. “Not when I have Chandrila coverage quotas to meet, it’s not.” She exhales in a way that suggests she’s already moving into spin and management. “The Mando inquiries are being directed to your sister and her team. But all this extra chatter is raising the visit’s profile.” In small blue holographic replica, Shestine’s pinnae flatten against her head a little, as if in fed-up earnesty. “Just – stay on-message tomorrow, all right?” After a half-beat, she adds: “And stick to ‘I’, please. It’s safer.” 

Luke snorts. “I will,” he answers, but she barely even waits for the acknowledgement before blinking out of existence.

A soft, modulated hm comes from behind him. When Luke turns his head, he finds the Mandalorian standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. At Luke’s returning look of inquiry, Din shrugs a pauldron. “I’ve seen you tear a strip off people for less.” His helmet inclines in the direction of the holoprojector in Luke’s hand. 

With a nod, Luke concedes the point to him. “Yes.” The rhythmic sound of the waves against shore draws his attention again. “Perhaps.” He shifts back again, gazing out over the seascape, contemplating his next words. 

Silently, Din crosses the balcony to stand beside him, resting a gloved hand on the balustrade as he takes the sight in. 

“Father says I’m too indulgent with my staff.” Luke’s gaze doesn’t waver where it’s fixed on some kind of transport ship in the distance, making its way from one port of call to another. Slowly, he raises and lowers his shoulders. A sentiment worms in the pits of his stomach, presses at the insides of his teeth. Eventually, he gives voice to it. “But I don’t like to surround myself with yes men.” A soft huff escapes him. “Well. Not as much as he does.”

The Mandalorian snorts, but offers up no other response. His mind is a low, internalized murmur; slowly turning over all the discrete moments he’s born witness to. Luke resolves to leave a deeper look aside for now. They’ve been to three separate locations since their arrival on Chandrila this morning: the Governor’s estate, first, to meet in private and issue prepared statements from its grounds.

After that, a short luxo-pod jaunt took them into the heart of gleaming Hanna City for a live press conference from the New Empire consular building. Once a bastion of independence, now properly brought to heel, the ancient whitestone structure stands at city center, surrounded on all sides by towering, more-modern structures; its presence, bedecked in New Imperial black, white, and red, underscoring the purpose of the press conference in question. Finally, they made for the seaside port town of Jundari, by open-top speeder this time, for Luke to hand out Young Artist awards pre-Gala. That was to be it, but an impromptu series of debriefings arose with Imperial Intelligence, the Stormtrooper Corps, the local Army contingent, and –

It’s the first real moment of peace they’ve found since last night, when they said goodbye to Grogu. 

The lone orange sun sinks lower and lower as they watch, gradually sinking behind both expansive, darkling sea; behind the faintest hint of shades of rolling, far-off hills.

Luke isn’t cold, but he shivers all the same. 

The weight of gravity feels different on him here than it has for his last few weeks, spent either on Executor or in transit in space or hyperspace. Each breath of air dragged into his lungs feels different here, more fulsome and brimming. 

“How long has it been?” Luke asks him idly. “Since last time you were planetside.”

Consideringly, Din shrugs, both pauldrons this time. “Guess it depends on what you think of moons.” 

Luke’s snort of amusement is involuntary, and only partly dignified. 

The dying light of the singular setting sun against his face feels like a cadence of treasured memory – though nothing compares, in his experience, to the complex colors and shades of its binary equivalent. 

“So,” Din says, unprompted, once the sun has dipped even lower in the sky, purpling colours flowing into ultramarine. “Today. That was – normal for you. When you’re planetside.”

Dragging his eyes away from sunset-on-waves, Luke turns to look at him. He slaps on a smile. “Which part?”

The Mandalorian visibly considers the question for a few long seconds. As he does, a speeder ridden passes through their immediate view of the coastal sunset – a dark streak ridden by two stark white troopers, zipping off until it’s once again out of sight. 

“Well,” Din says, tone self-explanatory. “There’s that.” 

Luke laughs and turns so that his back rests against the balustrade, elbows draped, the best of the sunset now faded into soft blues and grays reflect skyward from the sea. Their suite looks especially homey like this, silhouetted white stone against the dimming sky. 

“Not all trips down to the surface involve quite so much security, no,” Luke promises him, earnest. “Or this much media profile. It’s hardly unusual, but it’s…” For a moment he pauses, never having had to articulate the calculus at play to another person before. Eventually, he says: “It’s a formal visitation, pre-announced, and to a planet under scrutiny. There are militarized rebels, the Executor’s been stationed overhead for months…” 

Words trail off. Luke turns his head to take in the sight of his Mandalorian in profile as the man stares in the direction of the setting sun. 

A smile, soft with reassurance, graces his lips.  He hardly wants Din to get the idea in his head that it’s always like this; that he and his son will never again set foot on a planet’s surface without being hounded from every angle.

“There are plenty of places in the Galaxy we can go,” Luke tries again, “where it won’t be like this.” Briefly, he imagines the three of them on the Razor Crest; out there in the black, headed to some planet or other where no one knows they’re on the way. “When I want to, I can go unseen.” 

The trouble, most often, is that the point of the exercise is in the seeing of it.

He’s strangely aware of his vision unfocusing. 

“The media,” Luke admits, turning to look straight ahead at their suite again, “is always like that, though. Whether or not you can see them doing it in the moment.”

Beside him Din thinks, but doesn’t say: If those people could’ve cracked us both open to see what’s on the inside, they would’ve done it.

It’s not a truth that shocks Luke anymore, but he’s certainly sympathetic to the sentiment. 

“The New Galactic Empire controls the official channels outright, of course,” Luke continues, “and half the informal ones, too, whether or not the rest of the galaxy knows it.” There’s little point in playing coy about most things – not given the extent of the behind-the-curtain access the Mandalorian’s been granted. No point in trying to protect the man from a few raindrops when he’s drenched in a downpour fit for Kamino. “But… in practice, in a galaxy of this size… you can’t stop people from talking.” A humorless smile creeps onto his face. “Not unless you’re making a constant, unrelenting effort to crush the ones doing the speaking.” 

It’s the way Father would’ve preferred it. A continuation of Old Emperor Palpatine’s ways. Holotransmission infrastructure and journalists alike ground to fine sand, ruthlessly and completely, beneath the Empire’s unflinching heel. 

But Leia wouldn’t stand for that, of course. And so a compromise was made: Vader would remain largely out of the public eye, and the twins would take the brunt of that limelight. 

Permitted to exist, if in a durasteel-tight fist, the pan-galactic information machine keeps churning. 

This – all of it – it’s part of Luke’s function. Being consumed, devoured, gazed upon. Pawed at and objectified in every way they’re able, even those they aren’t meant to. Every second of every day spent being picked apart and consumed by many billions of sentients. 

The media never eats, it never sleeps. 

And it’s always hungry. 

“In truth,” Luke admits, turning a slip-slide smile in Din’s direction, “it’s better than it used to be.” He lifts his gaze, catching Din’s eyes through his visor instinctively. “Some of the mania really has settled as we’ve aged.” 

City lights from buildings closest to the coast are starting to become visible over his shoulder, peeking out from behind the whitestone tower. Another speeder and escort whiz by, armor streaking purple in the fading dusk.

Damn unnecessary, Din thinks, loudly and with enough intention Luke suspects him hearing it was intentional. A gruff commiseration in a mental undertone; wisely left unspoken but so appreciatively heard. 

The low, crackling “hmph” of disdain Din lets out through his helmet’s vocoder punctuates the sentiment. 

Another routine Imperial probe droid flies overhead out towards Jundari Bay.

In the far-off distance at Luke’s back, the singular sunset finishes its descent out of sight. Waning light dims around them further, bathing the striking lines of the Mandalorian’s silhouette in deepening shadow. A sight that would stir fear in the hearts of many, but all Luke feels stirring in his own heart is the kind of bone-deep joy that comes from being truly seen. 

It seems as though a lifetime since Aunt Beru asked if he’d been lonely, her worn expression cutting right through him even in pale blue hologram. 

Perhaps for the first time, it hits him just how much he had been. Not just lonely, but alone. Held up so high above the universe so long that no one else in it ever felt within his reach. 

This whole day has been made more bearable by the Mandalorian’s anchoring presence; steady and professional and solid, even in the face of his own private shock and overwhelm. 

Gratitude crashes through him then, gut-deep and visceral. Guilt does as well, twining a ribbon around the positive emotion, as he’s starting to understand that it should. 

But –

For all the things in his life Luke wishes had gone differently, he just can’t bring himself to regret bringing the Mandalorian and his son into his life. Not when it’s been made so immensely, immeasurably better for their presence in it. 

A gust of sea air breaks through the balcony’s temperature controls. His hair barely budges – it’s so full of sprayer for the humidity that each strand is pretty much locked in place. But it smells like the sea, sending waves of enticing shivers along his arms and up his spine. The kind that can only be made by real wind. 

Luke lets out a sigh, lightly twists his body so that he’s fully facing Din’s direction, side against the balustrade. He takes breath to speak, prepared to launch into some diatribe about the planet, or the weather, or whether they should order anything special for latemeal since the baby isn’t here. 

When his eyes land on Din, however, the man’s visor is facing towards him rather than staring out into the soul in profile. Gripped in some moment of fervent inner debate over whether or not he should ask something. 

For once, it’s the Mandalorian who asks a prompting question in the silence. Helmet tilting, meaningful and opaque. “How old were you?”

Luke wrinkles his expression in mild confusion. “Hm?”

“The first time you had to be him.” The vocoded lilt of his voice is flatly deliberate as he explains. “How old were you when you first had to be Imperial High Prince Skywalker?” 

It’s the framing of the question that takes Luke aback, leaving him bereft of a response for a few long seconds. As though IHP Skywalker is a role to perform and not a facet of his being; something he can be or not be, not necessarily defined by. 

The next strangest thing is that Din’s even asking. 

After a few beats of silence, Luke answers: “I was sixteen.”

It’s the closest to the truth that he’s got. Sixteen when Vader found him and reclaimed him; sixteen when Leia pulled their titles from thin air and bestowed them like destiny. 

Seventeen when he became a fully public figure; by the time Imperial High Princess Leia Organa had become the effective face of the New Galactic Empire, Luke had still needed further painful reassembly. 

But he’d still been Imperial High Prince Skywalker for that year, the weight of the galaxy wrapped heavy around once-brutalized shoulders. Even if he’d barely left the flagship except for brief stints down to the Imperial Palace on Coruscant. There had barely been a handful of blurry holos of Luke in existence for public consumption, even as his sister’s fierce and youthful face was splashed across every sanctioned and bootleg holofeed the galaxy over. 

When Imperial High Prince Skywalker made his full debut onto the intergalactic stage, he’d had a significant deficit of public exposure to make up for. 

That push for openness niggles in his chest between his lungs, pushing more words upwards than strictly necessary. “Though I’d say I wasn’t a – fully public figure until the year after.” 

The Mandalorian nods in acceptance, but his silence is only superficial. The slightest instinctive outreach in the Force reveals thoughts like rushing waters.

…can’t have been more than a few years younger than sixteen in that nightmare he…

The rest of the thought is pulled down deeper into the depths of Din’s mind, no longer in direct contact with the constant flow. All that remains in easy reach is a sense of vague consideration behind enclosing beskar. 

It should be painful, Luke reflects. Unconscionable for Din to possess any inkling of his past, his shame. What happened to him. 

Instead, strangely, it’s almost a relief. That seal of privacy cracked open by someone other than himself – at least, himself intentionally. 

In the end, it seems it's not the worst fate, having another sentient know those parts of him.

What he finds far more interesting in the moment is the fact that Din has been practicing the techniques Luke showed him: thought-shielding, energy modulation. A tad obvious and clumsy, perhaps, and the protection to his mind is flimsi-thin.

Until now, Luke hadn’t even noticed. 

A wiser man would lament depriving himself of such an astronomical advantage for no perceivable gain. 

Instead, Luke feels an exhilarating swoop in the pit of his stomach; the kind that might come from hitting a hard corner on a landspeeder, or piloting a starship through some asteroid field rugged enough to pose an actual challenge.

The Mandalorian asks him nothing further, and eventually Luke pulls his gaze away from his sleek-shine helmet, turning back towards the stretched out sea before them, now drenched in darkness and moonlight. Waves crash against the shores below, the sea breathing its tides onto the sands. The reflected lights and glimmer of the city reflect off the water at the edges of his vision. A reminder that, no matter how pristine the scene before them may appear, the city remains at their backs, just out of view. 

They stand in easy silence for a time until it occurs to him that there’s an autobar in the suite’s enormous living space, the usual bartender droid removed by way of special request during trip preparations. 

With a curled smile towards Din, Luke turns to look at him. “I,” Luke declares, somewhat exaggerated, “could use a drink.” He lifts both eyebrows, leaning forward so that his chin rests on gloved fingers. “What’s your poison?”

It’s almost funny, really, how quickly the mood changes. The Mandalorian draws back visibly; helmet tilting, body language exuding incredulity. 

“What?” Din asks, then follows almost immediately with, “No. No. Absolutely not.” Each denial is punctuated with accompanying body language: a cocked hip, a raised gloved finger. “I’m on the job. I’m not – drinking with you.” He sounds almost flustered at the thought. 

Poor thing. Everything from the flow of the man’s energy to his drawn-back shoulders tells Luke all he needs to know about how this is going to end. 

In response, Luke shoots back his most winning pout as he draws back from the balustrade and stands tall to face him. “Why not?” Luke asks, cajoling. His pout deepens, eyelashes all but batting at him. “Din. You worked all day today, and you work again all day tomorrow. Do you really have to work all night, too?”

The question seems to catch Din off guard, but he reconquers himself quickly. Drawing away from the balustrade to stand tall and hold his ground, crossing his arms over his chestplate.

“I’m your bodyguard,” the Mandalorian levels at him, and it's the first time he’s said it so directly or explicitly. “I’m not going to compromise your physical safety for your fun, Luke,” he clarifies, flat and unamused. “Not even if you order me to.”

Luke blinks, slightly warm and breathless. 

“This place,” he says, “right now, is one of the safest places in the entire galaxy. Almost as safe as the Executor itself! Look…” 

With a sideways glance in Din’s direction, Luke pulls out his comlink. Raises it to his lips. 

“Commander Klaxes?” Luke speaks – a demand, not a question.

Only a few seconds pass before a returning voice crackles through the handheld device. 

“Yes, Imperial Highness?” 

Luke raises his eyes to find Din’s through his encasing visor.

“Would my safety be – say, compromised, in any way,” Luke starts to ask, somehow both restrained and suggestive, “if the Mandalorian were to take the rest of the evening off from his duties?”

The silence that follows is almost offended. 

" No, Imperial Highness.” 

“Thank you,” Luke answers, drawn-out and light. He disconnects the line, expression breaking into a sprawling grin. “You were saying?” he asks, not at all deceptively innocent. 

That the man’s stink eye translates so completely through beskar is remarkable, considering a lightsaber wouldn’t make so much as a dent in it. Luke reaches a gentle hand and tugs on his glove, leading them both back into the suite.

As they move into the living area, all oddly-shaped couches and cushions, Luke activates the tower’s blackout mode. 

Around them in all directions, reinforced transparisteel windows dim and darken. Low, cozy lights come to life and light up the room, warming up the space until it’s golden and atmospheric. 

Luke plays coy with his gaze for long moments, holding taut until he knows for certain he’s won Din over. 

Long seconds later, with a heaved-off sigh, Din reaches up with both hands – a movement Luke has come to associate with his own wild internal exultation  – and takes off his helmet, exhalation transitioning from crackle to bare-voiced exhale. 

Dark helmet-hair curls and brows stand out sharply against skin that near-never sees sunlight. The dark mustache that emphasizes his sweet lips; the round of his chin. Some of his usual scruff, Luke notes, has been tidied, presumably for the occasion. 

He looks like a close-held secret; a vision of rumpled, begrudging concession. 

The autobar is obscenely well-stocked, as it should be. Bottles of every size, shape, and tint filled with spirits in every colour line the wall in their peripheral vision, practically a work of art in their own right. Luke ushers Din off to retrieve the canapés left warming for them in the kitchen, turning his own attention to programming in their cocktails. 

The brewer rumbles for a time before the dispenser box opens with a theatrical woosh of steam, revealing two especially convex glasses filled with ebullient red liquid. Each is topped with a dollop of creamy-thick foam.  

Shortly thereafter, the Mandalorian reappears with two heavenly-smelling plates. The juxtaposition of his heavily-armored self and the ornate little platters topped with delicate finger-foods makes Luke smile. 

Plates are set out on the coffee table, between a wing-backed armchair and a high-fashion couch comprised almost entirely of cosmic purple curves. Luke retrieves their drinks, extending one in Din’s direction. 

“Bormean Hellraiser,” Luke declares, scooping up both glasses, one in gloved and the other ungloved hand. He offers one to Din, cocking an eyebrow. “To your taste?”

Dubiously, Din takes it. He leans forward to give the concoction a sniff, nose wrinkling adorably. 

“Don’t drink much,” he grunts, as if in explanation; as if Luke isn’t so aware of this fact that he’s already adjusted his own life habits accordingly. He waits until he’s lowered himself down into the armchair before he takes his first sip, some of the foam collecting on his mustache. 

The thoroughly unimpressed expression that twists his features makes Luke laugh out loud as he takes his seat on the purple couch-swirl. Din sets the drink down, subtly but pointedly discarded. He turns to survey their appetizers, and – after a moment’s pause – starts to remove both gloves and gauntlets.

The action makes Luke pause in turn. Movements halting, he lifts his right hand until it hangs at the center of his vision.

It’s with a rush of danger-high exhilaration and unaccustomed movements that he eases the black glove off fingertip by fingertip. Pretends he can’t feel Din’s eyes on him as his prosthesis is exposed to eye and air. Intrigued, Luke can sense, at the absence of a barrier that Luke has never before seen fit to remove in his presence. 

The thin line where the world’s highest-quality synthskin meets flesh is faint, but still visible. Sound-dampening glove now gone, the barely-there whirr of machinery beneath once again audible.

“I don’t like how it looks,” Luke once confessed to his sister, as he rested his head on her shoulder. In those first few months; a rare and precious moment of privacy. 

It feels ungrateful to even think as much, given what they’ve done for him. 

Leia turns towards him, pressing a warm kiss into his forehead.

“So cover it up,” she offers, absent of judgment. 

Feeling distinctly exposed, Luke sits down – and reaches for a savory hors d'oeuvre, each morsel skewered through with a toothpick. The flavor is incredible, thick and savory-rich. He swallows.

Tension practically thickens on the air, on his tongue as their eyes meet again. 

Din breaks eye contact a few breathless seconds later, eyes flicking down to Luke’s exposed right hand and back up again to linger his mouth. 

Oh, Luke thinks, tingling with silent pleasure, wrapping realization around his shoulders like a scarf. 

Din’s all wound up. 

It’s deliciously understandable. The man’s gone from being glutted on romantic and sexual intimacy to being all-at-once deprived of any of it; still spends a solid eight hours a day pressed up close against the warmth of Luke’s body in bed at night. For the past few nights, Luke’s fallen asleep drifting along wandering trails of Din’s thoughts and held-back impulses, unable to place any barrier between their minds in those hung moments between sleeping and waking.

Poor thing, Luke thinks a second time, lifting his glass to his lips to hide his smirk. They’re… compatible. Luke’s known as much since their conversation in his cell on the Korriban, if not sooner. Waiting for Din to realize as much on his own accord is – trying, yes, but in the end it should be worth it.

He wonders how long it will take for the Mandalorian to… expend that pent-up energy in a productive direction. To step into the space Luke’s left there for him so deliberately.

It doesn’t take long for conversation to begin unfolding as they eat, too many little moments and instances straining to be spoken about after a day without being able to speak freely. Din’s low, blunt-edged questions punctuate the discussion; who was, what did, why are. 

His Hellraiser goes untouched, and Luke goes back and forth a few times to the autobar to make him replacements with middling success - a dark lager from a moon of Sullust, a shot of Umbaran liquor, a ridiculously complex layered concoction all the rage on the Bespin cloud cities lately. Din takes perhaps a few tastes of each before they’re set aside – not out of petulance, Luke senses. Just not to his taste.

It isn’t until a moment of Force-bright clarity draws his hand towards a particular bottle, unearthing a flask of luminescent Sorganese spotchka from the depths of the bar shelf, that Din’s demeanor noticeably softens.  

“I–” wouldn’t mind some of that, Din goes to say, but Luke is already pouring him a generous portion.

It doesn’t take long for Din’s consistent little sips to swiftly outpace the amount he’s had of all the other drinks combined. The harsh, astringent taste seems to call forth old memories, swelling to the surface of his mind through those flimsi-thin shields: the Mandalorian in the cockpit of the Razor Crest, boots kicked up on the dashboard as he stares out at the visor-tinted vision of vast pale sands and orange sandstone, helmet pushed up just far enough to sneak careful mouthful after mouthful.

Luke doesn’t exactly have fond memories of spotchka-stale lips. But in another life, perhaps, it could’ve tasted like youthful rebellion.

He sticks to his Aleenian Sunrise, a fruit-sticky carbonated creation that makes his tongue tingle, watching the man nurse his drink with both fondness and quiet yearning as they finish eating their fill. 

The transition from front room to lounge comes naturally: Luke seeking out a holoprojector larger than handheld to stream some of the day’s media coverage, Din in search of a larger space to lay out his beskar for one last touch-up polish before tomorrow.

Proactively, Luke brings the flask of spotchka and a tumbler of his own drink along with them. 

It’s a well-equipped space, teeming with every kind of entertainment a visiting interplanetary official could ask for. Well-stocked shelves full of Galactic Truth and Fact Correction-approved holos and datapads, even a handful of physical books and flimsi, for guest consumption. History of the New Empire has its own display stand in pride of place on the most prominent shelf, others containing various parlor games: sabacc, different kinds of dice.

There’s a state-of-the-art hologame table surrounded by curved seats, a card table and chairs tucked into one of the corners. An extravagant holoprojector takes up about a third of the room; the rest of the space is largely occupied by couches. 

There’s also an enormous painting of Emperor Vader in full shining-black helmet, cape, and armor that hangs prominently on the main wall. Red lightsaber illuminated where it's held at his side, ominously lit against a dark and craggy background.

“Well." The Mandalorian puts his hands on his hips, bare fingers curling around the duraflex below the brown leather of his utility belt. “That’s… something.”

Luke covers his mouth with the palm of his prosthetic subtly in order to keep from snort-laughing. 

Soon enough they’re both settled. Luke sprawls on one of the couches with his boots kicked off and his eyes on the holoprojection; Din wordlessly clears some of the furniture to make room to lay out all the pieces of his beskar atop plush white towels brought from the ‘fresher. 

He’s down to just one of his new black flight suits and his boots: every part of him covered but for hands and face, and still it feels one step away from softcore. Sitting on the floor with his back against Luke’s couch; mudhorn sigil pauldron and polishing rag in hand as he meticulously works some of the polish – thick and rainbow-coloured, like an oilspill – into his beskar until it shines. 

Tearing his eyes away from the tidal-consistent motions of polish against metal is made more difficult by the soft curve of the man’s mouth, smiling to himself as he works the metal. 

– Imperial High Prince Skywalker was serving big Sith energy today during a planetary visit to Core World Chandrila, a holoprojected newscaster shouts into the room, making both of them almost jump out of their skins at the sudden volume differential between this current clip and the previous low-toned murmurings of military and political experts debating supply chain logistics. 

Luke flails a little as he goes to wave the volume down with the Force, realizes he has no idea where the manual volume switches are on this machine, and proceeds to whip his head around in search of the controller before he spots it, yanks it towards him through the air towards him, and jabs at the audio setting until it approaches acceptable levels. 

On the floor beside him, Din loudly snorts. He shoots Luke a sideways look. 

“It’s the colour,” Luke explains, the back of his neck starting to flush as he gestures one-handed at the deep red of the slacks he’s still wearing. “Red’s a Sith colour, so–” 

The voice of another, different holoprojected newscaster cuts through his own. 

Who is the Mandalorian? a very convicted-sounding woman asks. The mysterious man in metal made his true galactic debut today when he touched down here on Chandrila, Bormea Sector, in the tow – or dare we say thrall – of IHP Skywalker. I’m Albesha Drazzak, Hanna City, reporting from a planet nearing fever pitch with anticipation for tomorrow’s Imperial Unity Day. 

That’s right, Albesha, says a jovial voice of indeterminate gender as a Bith appears on the holoprojector. Our panel tonight is ready to dive into everything we know – so far! – about the Bounty Hunter in Beskar. Tonight, top intergalactic investigators swap theories about the man behind the armor – and, perhaps more importantly, Chandrila has been chosen for his first steps into the limelight. A stilted pause follows. Our first panelist–

The holoprojected image crackles as it transitions to yet another newsclip

–put one shiny thing in front of the masses, and it’s like they lose their collective braincells, argues the short, wrinkled Quarren. HELL-O? This is Chandrila we’re talking about here, not some Rimward backwater. There are more important things for us to worry about than some minor staffing change aiming to rile up the–

Static crackles.

– just can’t believe he has somebody with him now, a young human woman sobs, her hair looking artificially blond even tinted with holo-blue. Prince Luke deserves this so much, he’s been so–

The mute button, Luke finds, makes the entire production more bearable. He steals a sideways look towards Din, who huffs a disbelieving laugh down on the floor as he rests his gleaming pauldron down on its own patch of towel and goes to pick up another. 

“Why is this place such a big deal, anyway?” Din asks him, as he begins to work the same magic into his second pauldron. 

Luke, still somewhat tipsy-flushed with relief at having cut the sound before however that sentence was going to end, waves his hand vaguely. “You’ve seen the briefings.” They’re all littered with tiny pieces of explanations – strategic significance, and critical importance of demonstrating Imperial presence. 

The Mandalorian glances over at him through his eyelashes, attention swiftly returning to his slow working of the metal. 

“Yeah,” he admits. Then, a few seconds later: “Still don’t get it, though. It’s just one world.” For a moment, Din is quiet as he reaches down and picks up his glass of spotchka from the floor beside him, raising it to his lips. When he puts it back down again, he finishes by asking, “Why does it even matter? Who actually gives a damn?”

Luke snorts in amusement. The images projected before them have switched again, now showcasing what appears to be a fiercely-arguing line-up of talkshow hosts from – based on their wardrobe and the subtitles – the Shapani Bypass. 

“You sound like Han,” Luke says, half-whine and half-offhand dismissal, though it’s not actually such a bad thing. Not actually such a bad question. 

It isn’t until he goes to reach for his own drink and takes in the questioning tilt of Din’s head from his seat on the floor – his silent inquiry – that it occurs to Luke that this may well be the first time he’s said Han’s name aloud in Din’s hearing. 

“Han Solo,” he explains, as his Aleenian Sunrise floats over into his hand. “My sister’s husband.” And Luke’s best friend, but in marrying the man, Leia well and truly staked the primary claim. In truth, Luke has a horrible suspicion that Din and Han will get on far too well once they finally get to meet. “He used to be a smuggler,” Luke explains. “He and his copilot – Chewie – they’ve been out in Wild Space for a while now.”

A glimmer of mild recognition passes through the Force, and it occurs to Luke how obscenely ridiculous it would be if Din Djarin ended up being more familiar with Han Solo than the Imperial Royal Family he married into. 

That they’ll both be marrying into, Luke’s mind helpfully corrects. 

The thought is shoved from his head almost as soon as it entered, Luke outright refusing to look at it directly. An indistinct warmth floods his cheeks – from the alcohol, he’s sure. He throws back the rest of his drink in deep swallows that tingle all the way down. 

With a curled finger and an avoidant gaze, he summons over both the flask of spotchka and the pitcher of his own drink through the air, topping up both their cups idly as he debates how best to answer. Din says nothing, attention only half-returned to his task; seeming to sense, perhaps, that Luke isn’t actually finished speaking. 

“It matters,” Luke answers eventually, words thick and heavy on his tongue, “because it’s a symbol.” 

The Mandalorian’s gaze turns to him, hands slowing and then stilling. 

“It’s–” Luke swallows, choosing his words carefully. “Chandrila is… newly-held by the New Empire, in the grand scheme of things. Finally conquered only three years ago now.” A battle won with threats of annihilation and propaganda as much as violence, though that too had been a factor. “Its citizenry have a reputation for being fiercely independent, artistic, creative… and political. Small in size and population, but a birthplace of big ideas.” He holds Din’s gaze. “Galactically, it’s as unique and influential as Alderaan. And Chandrila has always been… resistant, if you will, to Imperial control. Old Empire and New.”

Luke shakes his golden head. The Empire has existed in some form or other as long as he’s been alive; it seems impossible to imagine the galaxy without it.

(Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had used to. Privately, yes, but there in his hearing. Imagined and wished for its destruction, even from a distance. 

But that had been Palpatine’s Empire, not his father’s.)

“Plenty of places are, in their way,” Din says – a fact, not a challenge – and Luke blinks, having to repeat what he said in his head a second time to grasp the meaning. He nods once he does.

“Yes,” Luke says, not disagreeing. “But most places didn’t have an outsized role in the Galactic Republic. Or were a safe haven for remnant insurgents for years into Father’s rule.” He maneuvers himself so that he’s curled up against the couchback in Din’s direction. “My sister is masterful, really, at dissuading those still loyal to the Galactic Republic from taking up arms.” Leia has a remarkable way of making her wrath feel like mercy; at making it feel as though there’s always more for others left to lose. “But Chandrila was always an exception. Finally bringing the planet to its knees was… significant.”

Nodding to himself, Din lays down the second pauldron beside the first. Seemingly already understanding where this is going. “And now they’ve got a foothold on-planet again.”

Luke tilts his head in silent acknowledgement, as if to say right in one. For a moment he watches as Din leans forward and plucks up his gauntlet, settles back into his place on the floor, and dips his cloth into the pot to gather fresh polish to work into the metal. 

“My father,” Luke starts, then pauses, not entirely having intended to speak. There’s so much complexity, so many nuances to the orders he’s been given. He settles, lamely, on: “I made him a deal.” 

At Din’s questioning look, he elaborates. “Leia and I have mostly been able to dissuade Father from overborne,” and overblown, “violence, in the past.” Cajoling, pleading, bargaining, rationalizing; their tactics have grown and changed as they have. “Conquering is one thing,” Luke tells him. “But crushing those already conquered, and indiscriminately?” 

He shakes his head. “When obedience no longer guarantees safety,” Luke says, echoing a lesson Leia taught him long ago, “it leaves people with no reason to obey.” 

Once, early on, Leia managed to convince Father to halt construction on some half-built weapon – a planetkiller, Luke, she’d raged to him after, can you even imagine – on the grounds that any use of the damn thing would radicalize half the galaxy to take up arms against them, and was therefore an exorbitant waste of Imperial resources and funds. 

The project had been scrapped, decommissioned, and resources re-allocated to new priorities – but that kind of inclination towards complete retributive violence still runs deep in the New Empire. A facet of their regime, one built into its founding sinew: one that can be pruned back but never truly carved out without dealing too much of a self-inflicted wound. 

Everything either is complete destruction, or else exists in relation to it. And all Luke can do – the most he can do – is to try to manage – and, when possible, constrain – that inclination to the best of his ability. 

With a heaved exhale, Luke slips his datapad out of his pocket. “Which,” he says, “is why I suggested something else.” It takes several scans of both his eye and thumbprint to override the security settings sufficiently for the military intelligence and briefing materials to actually send to Din when Luke tries to forward them. “Targeted precision attacks on rebel leaders, if the targets can be found."

Beside the Mandalorian on the floor, his datapad chimes with receipt of the message. 

“That’s what I’ve got so far,” Luke says. “If we’re going to fight, we’ll be doing it that way. Killing terrorists is one thing.” He tilts his head back against the couch cushions, closing his eyes. “Publicized slaughter of Imperial civilians is just bad press.” 

As much as Luke misses Grogu’s lantern-bright presence, it really is nice, he reflects, to have an evening all to themselves. Questions of intergalactic political strategy don’t tend to lend themselves well to multi-tasking with a bundle of squirming Force-sensitive toddler in hand. 

He thinks this may be the longest grown-up conversation they’ve ever had without being interrupted. 

When he opens his eyes to shoot Din a tired smile, he almost falters. The look Din’s giving him is… it’s almost enough to make him feel self-conscious. Even-handed and assessing; considering. As though seeing something in him that, until now, he hasn’t. 

It takes a frankly embarrassing amount of self-control to stay seated where he is. To keep himself from slipping down onto the floor and climbing into his lap; from sliding his fingers into soft curls and kissing him senseless until neither of them can keep a single thought in their heads, let alone why they shouldn’t –

Why he shouldn’t –

Patience, Luke snaps at himself, wrenching his gaze away from that too-insightful stare. Forcing himself to return his attention to the muted holoprojection.

“There,” Luke says, mouth dry, flexing the fingers of his prosthesis at his side. 

With his chin, Luke gestures towards the scrawling aubresh subtitles at the bottom of the holostream: Galactic Daily News – Everything We Know About The Mandalorian’s Armor and Weapons… SO FAR!

Resolute, Luke summons the controller to hand, thumb hovering over the button, ready to unmute. He shoots Din a smile like a change of subject. 

“Let’s see what kind of impression you’ve made,” Luke says to him, and hits the button.

–

DAILY MEDIA SUMMARY
8th Day, 8th Month, Year 44
Clearance Level B

Meet the Mandalorian: Luke Skywalker’s New Man In Shining Armor Takes the Galactic Stage –Galactic Dispatch

CHANDRILA’S INDEPENDENCE LIVES ON IN HER FINE ARTS: Why New Empire Elite Want To Make Their Presence Known on Chandrila on Imperial Unity Day –Undercurrent News

Togetherness & Celebration: Imperial High Prince Skywalker Honors Chandrila With His Presence –New Imperial Times

It’s Been Almost Five Weeks Since High Prince Skywalker Last Made an Appearance and We Are FEELING This New Bodyguard –The Inter-Galactic Gabber

“Mando Mania”: Beskar Hits Dizzying New Heights on Intergalactic Metals & Minerals Price Index –Galactic Miner’s Digest

3 Dead, 17 Injured After Rebel Explosion in Chandrilan Village; Gov Aelyn Authorizes Proportionate Reprisals to Protect Public Safety During Lead-Up to Unity Day –Chandrilan Daily 

Skywalker Descends as “Unity Day” Approaches. –Core World Transceiver

You Will Not BELIEVE the Holos of IHP and His New Mando Squeeze on this GORGEOUS beach! 😱😭🌞🌴🙏🤩  EXCLUSIVE New Shots From Chandrilan Visit!!  –Royalwatch 

Victory Nears in Bothan Space, Amidala Takes Rare In-Person Trip to Inner Rim as Skywalker Holds Down Core –The Universe in Updates 

Rishi Bartender Gives Tell-All Interview on Mandalorian Bounty Hunter: “I’ve seen him ‘round a few times. He was ice cold and scary as [EXPLETIVE]” –The Rimward Reporter

Young Queen of Zakuul in Wild Space Begs for Faster New Empire Response Time to Uprisings on Newly Imperial-Held Planet: “We’re Stranded Out Here” –Missives From the Fringe

Click here for more headlines and links to full articles.
Click here for executive summary.
Click here for vidreel.

—

The manmade peaks of Hanna City swell from the ground to sprawl in all directions beneath them as the Imperial hovercraft gains altitude, only stopping where they edge up against the coastline. Cold stalactites of civilization, the tower heights vary in both height and design, iconic skyscrapers that punctuate the skyline interspersed with more modest structures farther below.

They arrive at the top of one of Hanna City’s tallest and grandest spires of glass and steel while the midday sun hangs high in the sky. The landing area itself is shaded and relatively secluded, facing inland mountains rather than sea. In the distance, the lines of the Arenal mountain range stand stately blue and purple, snowcapped only in the most extreme reaches of elevation.  

“Remember – you’re aiming for about twenty minutes spent in the upper outer level, Highness,” Adjutant Orlan says from the back seat as they dock, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the sound of  repulsors engaging for landing. “Easier to keep the interior secure.” 

Two stone-faced ISB officers flank her, the rest of his team following in separate vehicles.  All except the Mandalorian have been ordered to keep their distance from him throughout the event, regrouping at the base of the tower once he makes it through the descending exhibitions. 

The boarding ramp extends. Luke surveys the space that’s been cleared and cordoned off for his arrival, chin raised and formal mask in place. An appreciatively small number of sentients are there to greet them, with Governor Aelyn at their center. A lone official holocam operator documents their arrival but maintains a staunch, respectful distance.

“Your keynote is at 1500 hours local time, but they’ll delay if needed.” Orlan’s voice is tight, but pure nerves laced with stomach-churning anxiety rolls off her in waves, colliding with Luke’s back – it’s her first time in the role for a ground trip. “You.” She wheels on the Mandalorian, dark eyes flashing. “Stay in touch.” 

Beskar helmet inclines in acknowledgement. 

As soon as the hovercraft hatch opens with a hiss of hydraulics, Luke sweeps to his feet to make his entrance. Striding out to descend down the boarding ramp, a vision in pure white that descends in a gradient to the steely-blue base of his cape that whips at his feet. 

Din is up and stalking the requisite three paces behind him right after, on alert and wary. 

As Luke approaches, Governor Aelyn steps forward. She bows to him, deferential, and the holocamera snap snap snaps to capture the moment, whirring around their heads. 

“Imperial Highness,” Aelyn says to him, pride straining formality. “Welcome to the Annual Chandrilan Gala.”

A line of security droids bar their access to the rest of the outdoor portion of the venue where attendees in fine clothes engage in polite conversation over champagne flutes, pretending not to strain their necks to catch their glimpses of him. Faint hints of resonant music emanate from the the distance – a non-human singer performing an expressive version of an old Chandrilan classic.

“Governor,” Luke breezes, inclining his head. “I trust you have things well in hand.” 

At his back, the Mandalorian stands and surveys the two of them with absolute stoicism and solidity; as unmovable as a wall of beskar as he watches the exchange, disregarding completely the attendant droid who approaches to ask would you like to advance to the weapons check, sir?

Not speaking even when spoken to. Remaining in Luke’s immediate vicinity. 

The pleased smile that unfurls across his lips is captured for eternity, snap snap snap, but that shouldn’t hurt the narrative much. 

Aelyn, at least, takes it as a sign of favor. “Absolutely, Highness,” she says, the abbreviated title just a tad more familiar than their past interactions really justify. A quick rummage through her surface thoughts reveals both wild admiration and blatant ambition. 

Not, he thinks to himself, nearly enough fear for a leader in her position and a planet in this state. 

Bright-eyed and effusive, she sidles up closer. “Privately,” Governor Aelyn starts, and Luke gets to enjoy the moment where her brown eyes flick back behind him to drink in the sight of the Mandalorian before returning to him again. “Masterful media strategy, sir. Bringing him along… he’s all they’re talking about.” 

The emotional supernova of incredulity horror resignation that goes off in Din at her words is short-lived but intense. 

“Nothing about the insurgents for days; just Unity Day, the Imperial High Prince, and his keeper.” Once again, the Governor’s gaze moves to Din behind him and back again, as if he is an extension of Luke himself as well as a tool at his disposal. She gives her head a tiny, marveling shake, lips twisting into a sycophantic smile. “All glory to the New Empire.”

“All glory to the New Empire,” Luke echoes with great inflection, gifting her with an enigmatic quirk of his lips as though that had, in fact, been his plan the entire time. Smile locked in place, he becomes aware all at once just how much he wants a drink in his hand. He cocks his head. “Isn’t that the entire point of the endeavor, Governor? Redirect the attention of the masses to more… appropriate topics.” He tilts his head. “Such as the arts. I hear they’re quite compelling.” 

The Governor’s responding chuckle is perhaps a bit effusive. 

“You have got to be kidding me.”  The Mandalorian’s voice, unvocoded and piped into Luke’s subtle clear earpiece by way of the sub-vocal communicator built into the man’s helmet, forces him to hide a smile. 

Thankfully, the Governor’s attendants appear at her sides and swiftly whisk her away to provide the opening remarks, leaving it just the two of them once Luke briskly waves aside the offer of a replacement planetary attaché. 

“Just you wait,” Luke hums to him, shooting the Mandalorian a brief smirk over his shoulder as he leads them to the security check. 

The official holographer’s cam swoops towards him to capture the moment in close up; instinctively, Luke catches the appropriate light for the new angle. 

A few of the attending droids appear leery of Din in a way that suggests they’ve encountered armored Mandalorians previously. Their placid, rote reassurance that everyone else has also been required to do so, sir does precisely nothing to soothe Din’s supreme levels of pique as he’s forced to hand over one of his blast rifles that technically, with his various upgrades and modifications, exceeds the caliber limit. 

Luke’s lightsaber isn’t a common enough weapon to even register as a security concern. He moves right through the check, shoots a brilliant Imperial High Prince Skywalker smile to sentient and droid alike, and turns to stride confidently forward out of the relative shade of the overhang and into the gala venue proper.

The eyes and thoughts of tens of dozens of beings turn towards him as he emerges. 

Their collective thoughts and impulse hit Luke like a thunderstorm. A monumental torrent, boundless and atmospheric, its onslaught as invigorating as it is grounding. Politicians, prominent off-world Imperials, artists, musicians, university faculty, press, and above all else, citizens crowd the great platform – both profoundly exposed and excessively guarded– that encircles the spire’s topmost viewpoint. Their collective thoughts and attention underpinned by the crackling tenor of barely-restrained and deeply opposing opinions.

He senses rather than sees the Mandalorian’s hand fly to his blaster as every hovercam droid circling the tower lurches mid-air, then starts speeding towards them. 

They halt mid-air in front of him, of course, and Luke smiles sharply with his eyes, turning his attention across them in a grand sweep to the rattatat clamor of their flashes and shutters. Making subtle adjustments to his posture and expression enough to provide some variety for the publications they’ll end up splashed across. 

Midday sun flows across the air in ripples. Din’s armor, the bastard, has a thermal regulator, and Luke is envious of what he’s wearing despite the lighter look of his own attire. The sweat suppressant spray on his face burns and tingles.

Behind him, the Mandalorian’s discomfort at the experience is only tempered by the fact that Luke had let him know what to prepare for beforehand. 

Once Din has more bearing, Luke breaks free from the line and pushes forward down the stairs, descends into the parting crowd.

The top floor is only the first of many exhibition areas, intended to receive new arrivals, allow for initial socialization, and tantalize the palate – with respect to both the galactically-renowned art exhibitions they’ve all been promised in the invitations and New Imperial propaganda that was only heavily implied. The gala’s attendees are shepherded through the constricting spiral that is the outside space by a combination of serving staff, droids, and Imperial officers of indeterminate institute or origin. 

It’s a diverse crowd, a wild array of skin tones, furs, and feathers – mostly human-shaped, but that means next to nothing in galactic terms. More than a few of them watch him pass over the rim of their champagne flutes as Luke and his Mandalorian move through a highly designed and intuitive series of beautifully-designed banners and holograms that lead towards the inner spire and its descending levels. The promenade inward provides vivid introduction to the so-called Gala of Chandrilan Excellence: its history (three years), its founder (Emperor Vader), and its purpose (to quote: celebrating the unique creativity and special significance of Imperial Chandrila within a united New Empire).  

Stormtroopers in crisp white armor stand at attention with their E-11s at regular intervals. The artistic showcases they pass as they circle inward are, admittedly, all vastly different but incredibly captivating. There’s a group of Iridonian dancers wearing luxurious fabrics weighted down with incredible gems and beading as they perform a traditional dance, a young near-human student who appears to have programmed a droid to write and recite poetry in ancient Chandrilan.

A drinks droid chirps as it trundles past, and Luke snatches both the opportunity and a flute of something purple and alcoholic off its tray.

It’s difficult to tell whether Luke has simply become familiar with what it feels like to be on the receiving end of Din’s judging eye, or whether the man is intentionally turning up the volume on his disapproval in Luke’s direction. 

“We talked about this,” Luke reminds to him lightly. “I can burn away the vast majority of known toxins.” Easing back broken bones and torn muscles is one thing, but cleansing poison is just like spreading corruption, just inverted. His first sip is fresh and bubbly, with a tart-sweet burst of flavor across his tongue – sparkling tsiraki. He takes a second, swallowing with satisfaction. “It’s perfectly safe.” 

He can practically feel Din’s glare on the back of his head through his visor. 

“Hmf.” Din’s huffed vocalization of wordless disapproval rings in his earpiece. The Mandalorian, for one, had been vehemently opposed to him consuming anything so tamperable. It’s his first time out for a planetary event, though, not Luke’s. Luke’s had years to learn his own limitations. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”  There’s a beat of silence. “... and don’t say things like that where other people can hear you.”

Luke snorts, then shrugs, taking another sip without breaking stride. Failed attempts at poisoning the Imperial Royal Family are so well-known and publicized, it’s basically an assumed fact.

There are a few general themes insofar as the outdoor exhibitions go: those meant to be seen from a distance, that that demonstrate variety or attempt to make a statement, and musical performances.The latter, Luke suspects, has more to do with acoustics than anything. 

They pass a tangled clusters of dancers in black, red, and white whose undulating movements form the New Imperial insignia; a musician with several sets of arms playing standing bells carved, apparently, from meteors.

They’re just drawing themselves away from a luminous university student with head-tentacles whose singing voice appears to lull those who enter a certain radius into a dopey-looking stupor when they turn a rounded corner and come face to face with the exterior exhibition area’s centerpiece. 

A holographic rendition of Emperor Vader, Moff Seerdon, and Chandrilan Senator Vaz Rikial pulse in gently-rotating, massive replica. It’s a full-colour piece – such as it is, and Luke has never quite understood why a galaxy that so excels at so many of its efforts seems to struggle so much with transmitting pigmentation. The three men stand there side-by-side, staring – one of them’s even pointing – into… well. Nothing in particular, but it’s likely intended to make some kind of statement about looking into a new and brighter future. 

Luke pauses for a moment to consider it, head tilting, and manages to swap his empty champagne flute for a full one as a humanoid server passes. 

“He’s not actually that tall, is he?” Din asks him, blunt as ever. Luke turns to look at him properly,   the man’s visor tilted upward as he takes it in, catching vibrant sunlight.

Luke zeroes in on where he knows his eyes to be. “It’s to scale,” he confirms, voice light – not in reference to the scale of the holo-statute, obviously, but at how much holo-Vader towers over the holographic counterparts of Seedron and Rikial on either side. “Relative to the other two.” 

His first sip of his new drink reveals that it’s flavored like Jogan cordial. 

“Come,” Luke says as he turns, raising his right hand in summons; gloved, of course, today in a brilliant white. There’s the snap of several hovering camdroids to his right, and a pleased Luke tilts his head to one side instinctively, catching the appropriate light. He grins, calling over his shoulder as he makes his way through the ever-parting crowd: “I wish to see the interior exhibitions.”

A silver shadow at his back, Din follows into the large vertical atrium that marks the beginning of the interior exhibitions. 

The top floor of the space inside is sleek and purposeful, designed to convey a sense of vastness and easy simplicity. The lighting as they step inside is noticeably moodier, with warm yellow spotlights set up to highlight each performer or artistic work on display. At the very center of the atrium is a large circular lift powered by huge-but-soundless repulsors, raising and lowering attendees, artists, and serving droids to their desired levels. Each great circular floor is connected by a sweeping ramp down, allowing wheels and feet alike to traverse the different levels.

A purple-glass banister is all that stands between the attendees and the plummeting depths.  Luke approaches it with interest, peering over to take in the sight of hundreds of spotlighted showcases along the great spiral downward. 

Too close, the Mandalorian snap-thinks at him, blunt and instinctive. Tangibly – if barely – resisting the urge to yank him backward.

Luke huffs, but gamely steps back to humor him. He sidles easily backward, tilting up his head to take in the grandiose signage that declares the gala’s theme:

IMPERIAL CHANDRILA RISING

Wide-eyed onlookers either make space for them or else are made to do as they approach the first handful of interior exhibits, either by fellow attendees or in a rare few cases more roughly by security staff. 

A recognizable presence ripples through the Force a few seconds before the grand center lift arrives at the center of their floor, and a middle-aged human with a pair of stacked, thick mustaches appears before them in profile, laughing and jovial. Senator Rikial in the flesh, as opposed to his gargantuan holographic replica outside.

The latest in a line of… less-than satisfactory senatorial all-but-appointments. Luke can’t say he’s particularly convinced that this will be the one to break the planet’s losing streak. 

One of Rikial’s staff points him out, and the Senator first starts and then beams as his eyes land on his Imperial High Prince. He starts fussing towards Luke eagerly, top mustache twitching. 

As if sensing Luke’s disinterest – or, more likely, just not liking the look of the man himself – the Mandalorian sidesteps out from behind him, menacing and visible. Rikial stops halfway dead, eyes gone wide and face ashy-pale. He swiftly diverts himself towards a group of heavily-cloaked Aki-Aki, their varying number of mouth-tentacles waving to him as they gossip along the wall.

“Aren’t you earning your keep,” Luke hums, side-eying Din appreciatively before he keeps them moving forward towards the first truly breathtaking piece they’ve so far encountered: a display of large, hung pieces of tinted transparisteel or glass titled only as thrive set up so as to be perfectly hit by strategically-placed spotlights. The resulting interactions of light and shade cast an image of a fantastical star system over a large section of the first floor. 

A humanoid woman in shimmering orange passes them as Luke pauses to take the sight of it in, and he tenses momentarily before realizing that the fight rip burn he’d brushed against in his mind is her natural state of being, not directed at any given thing, person, or even concept in particular. 

Artists. Honestly.

They pass a few other reasonably noteworthy pieces as they make their way around the outer circle of the first floor: a performance artist using antigravity pulsars to perform weightless interpretive dance, an actor atop a floating platform delivering a soliloquy from a well-known Chandrilan play. 

A collection of six large paintings in stark red, white, and black is the last major piece before the ramp that leads down to the next exhibition area. Its title and description reads:

MISSIVES FROM THE FRONTLINES
Oil paintings on canvas

Each painting very much resembles the kind of propaganda the Chief Information Office pumps into the Galaxy in droves, complete with bold motivational slogans in aubresh. A stylized Vader, lightsaber drawn and charging forward with a handful of humanoids in different kinds of Imperial uniforms at his back, emblazoned with HE CAN’T DO IT ALONE – ENLIST TODAY. Luke very much doubts that his father would appreciate any such suggestion of needing help with anything, but it certainly is… emphatic. 

Another is a blood-red and shadow image of Hanna City in silhouette, three X-Wings ominous overhead, DEFEND AGAINST REBEL TERRORISTS across the bottom. Another depicts a woman in traditional Chandrila garb, wide-eyed as a black-gloved hand reaches from outside the frame to cover her mouth, a series of mournful, saluting Stormtroopers in the background. 

LOOSE LIPS BRING DOWN STARSHIPS, it declares, seemingly sincere. 

The sixth – TO VICTORY – shows a devastated Bothan countryside overlaid with Emperor Vader’s commanding shadow.

Leaning closer, Luke surveys each picture in the collection, interrogating each for some small trace of humor or irony and finding neither. The gut responses of surrounding sentients appears to range from genuine pride to incendiary hatred and every kind of fear and discomfort between. 

As he does so, a Bothan woman with blue beads in her beard shatters her drink glass at the sight of the collection. As if in a daze, she turns on her heel and abandons the shards of glass on the carpet, making towards the doors to the exterior plaza. Her partner and, Luke notes, several Stormtroopers, fall in right behind her. 

Half of everyone present makes great note of the sudden departure; the other half pointedly doesn’t. 

A vague sense of scorn and derision flares up behind him in the Force as the Mandalorian takes both the propaganda’s pettiness as well as the room’s reaction to the Bothan woman’s distress. 

Immediately and intensely curious, Luke latches onto his own exhilaration – at being back in public, at being out with Din, at the novelty of having someone to talk to at this kind of event – to thrown down an energy field, dampening and diverting, all around himself within a neat three-foot radius. 

As Luke stands, the eyes of onlookers slide right over him. As though there’s nothing of great interest in the place where he’s standing; just empty space and the rumble of surrounding voices. 

He beckons Din forward. Dutifully, he advances to stand alongside him to survey the work in question. 

“What do you think?” Luke asks after a moment, in his normal speaking volume. At Din’s stilted silence, Luke adds: “They can neither see nor hear. It’s fine.”  

Din’s visor turns to him just a smidgen, as though to say you can do that?, before his head snaps back to face the collection. After a long pause, he intones, “... I don’t know much about art.” His voice is as dry as the desert through his vocoder. “But that… isn’t.” 

It’s not at all the comment Luke had been expecting. “Why?” he prompts, turning his head to face him. 

Somehow, he knows just from the minute inclination of the man’s helmet that he’s frowning as he thinks about his answer. 

“Purpose,” Din answers finally. “Intent.” 

Luke’s eyes narrow, but in interest, not anger. 

When it’s clear that Luke is waiting for him to continue, Din adds: “These are about – forcing control. That’s not art.”

The way he says it is surprisingly definitive. Luke can’t help but instinctively reach out towards him with his own mind, picking up on tendrils of unexpected thought and memory from childhood and adolescence.

“What is it, then?”

The pause that follows is both careful and considering. 

“Intimidation,” Din determines, conclusive.

With a softly-inhaled breath, Luke allows the word to hang in the manufactured privacy between them rather than cluttering the sentiment with some inadequate response. 

The spell breaks when applause bursts forth at the conclusion of a nearby performance, and Luke drops the intangible veil of unnoticability around them with a small nod in Din’s direction, leading onward the spiraling rampways leading downwards towards the next of the twelve remaining exhibition levels. 

The lack of windows as they make their way down the great spiral creates the same sense of unreality Luke has come, over time, to associate with space travel. A sense of distance and removal from the passage of time as one might normally experience it. A seclusion surrounded by others; suspended, yet enclosed. 

Each exhibition floor on the way down is stylized slightly differently. The second floor down is laden with themes of DEMOCRACY, ADJUSTED. The third and fourth are less blatantly curated: FIELDS OF PLENTY is lush with depictions of agriculture, harvest, and food of all varieties, and THE SPANNING SEA smells so realistically of ocean that it makes him audibly sigh. 

Throughout, attendees approach him. Local officials, showcased artists, business titans in search of a rare chance to try sweet-talking Imperial Royalty. 

They arrive at the fifth floor exhibition less than an hour later, the space low-lit and constrained for effect, artificially-lowered ceilings flooded with blue mood lights. His eyes are drawn at once to the neon-green aubresh letters that spell out the floor’s theme:

CHOSEN ONES. 

Depictions of Emperor Vader, Darth Leia Amidala, and Imperial High Prince Skywalker dominate the space. Their images in both two and three dimensions are immortalized in multiple ways throughout the space. Replayed snippets of their voices emanate from a softly-glowing jukebox in one corner, spliced together to create something close to spoken verse. A semi-holographic image of his and Leia’s faces overlapping draws the most interest from passersby. The artist’s skill with color is commanding, the palate deliberately inverted, darkness in place of typically pale skin and sclerae – an interesting effect, given her newly-hued eyes.

Luke leads them sedately through the displays as, behind him, the Mandalorian exudes struck silence as he takes their multitude of likenesses in. A portrait of Han and Leia on their wedding day in which neither of them looks quite like themselves; a depiction of what he knows to be his mother in her blue funeral robes in layered stained glass, flowers in her hair raised to give the piece a sense of depth. 

A sculpture of the Emperor Vader himself stands as pride of place.The distinctive sweep of his helmet is raised, the statue’s eyeless stare fixed on a miniature depiction of the planet Chandrila hung suspended before him. Luke can tell that the sculptor intended it to appear benevolent, watchful – perhaps even paternalistic.

In truth, depictions of Vader tend to do little for the man in terms of enforcing or increasing his popularity. Without Luke and Leia there to steady his hand and garner positive public opinion, Luke can’t imagine what the galaxy might think of him. 

He’s standing there, contemplating Vader’s depiction, when a thrill of pure childish excitement bursts to life in one of the room’s corners. 

“Seala, don’t –”

Luke turns his head. 

A young girl, no more than six or seven, is hauling a reluctant middle-aged woman by the hand as she strains towards him, trying to reach him. Seala, he imagines, given the way the woman hisses the name at her with increasing desperation. The child’s eagerness is a high-pitched frequency, long blonde hair – Luke notes – done up in a braided headcrown that he can tell immediately was inspired by his sister. 

Her caretaker burns with genuine distress in the Force, her eyes fixed firmly on the floor as the little girl tugs at her hand. Seala stares up at him with saucer-wide eyes.

“Imperial High Prince!” the girl says with a tremorous breath. “I’m – it’s–” She’s so overwrought with excitement, she looks like she might burst into tears. “It’s an honor to meet you.” Her eyes widen further. “I mean, Your Highness!”

The little girl’s awe and admiration and anxiety shines so bright, it nearly eclipses the compact churn of great emotion in the woman behind her. 

“I’m so sorry, Imperial High Prince.” The woman’s tone is one of tight apology as she clutches the child’s hand. “She… admires you very much.” 

The Mandalorian stands back and watches the exchange. Wary and watchful, as Luke has come to expect, but also – heightened. Attention amplified; not quite to the same extent it does when Luke has his own son in his arms, but still elevated. A personal and cultural weight placed on children and their wellbeing that Luke doesn’t understand, but finds both telling and deeply attractive. 

There’s an air of anticipation as Din, the child’s caretaker, and the rest of the watching room hold their breath. Waiting to see what their High Prince’s response will be. 

“Does she now,” says Luke, deliberately infusing his voice with extra warmth. With easy grace, he lowers himself down to the ground in a half-kneel so that he can be on eye level with her. He’s always had something of a soft spot for children. “What’s your name, starlight?” 

The child looks as though she might pass out. “S-Seala,” she says. “Seala Grathba.” 

“Isn’t it nice to meet you, Miss Seala,” Luke answers, smiling magnanimously. “I’m Luke.”

Too starstruck by the sight of him up close to say anything, all the girl can do is nod emphatically back at him. He gives her another smile, then sweeps back up to his feet. 

The woman puts her hand on Seala’s shoulder, once again silently urging retreat.  

The Mandalorian’s tension surges in the Force. Military-trained, Din thinks at him – a warning.

Without hesitation, Luke delves into the woman’s psyche. 

He finds her thoughts dripping with absolute disdain. Fascist piece of bantha shit, she thinks, furious and terrified at once. If it wouldn’t ruin the rest of my niece’s life, I’d smash this champagne flute and stick your insufferable eyes out right here and now, you –

Ex-military, Luke pushes the thought to Din’s mind the way they’ve started to practice. Resisted the Empire and lost someone doing it. Hates me, wants me dead, no actual intent to harm. 

None of that appears to make the Mandalorian feel more at ease.

“Come on, Seala.” The woman raises her eyes and, fleetingly, meets Luke’s gaze before she looks away again – as though both in subtle defiance and out of genuine fear that refusing to meet his eyes for the entirety of the exchange could somehow earn his ire. “Let’s go find your father.”

Whatever made Vader sick enough to need that suit, she thinks, as she steers the child away, I hope it’s fucking genetic.

“Thank you, Imperial High Prince,” she says to him out loud, stiff but deferential. She thinks, broadcasting: You should die screaming like my sister did, you monstrous fuck.

Both caretaker and child disappear into the crowd as they head in the direction of one of the recessed elevators.

Chandrilans, Luke reflects as a hint of numbness buzzes. Forever the political contrarians, even in defeat. 

Were they in private, Luke would say something to Din about it. He presses onward; there will be plenty of time tonight to debrief on the day’s events back at their suite when all this is said and done. 

The sixth floor’s exhibitions are all landscapes and spacescapes, large bold lettering on the wall reading OUR CHANDRILA, OUR EMPIRE as they enter. Rolling Chandrilan mountains in shining oil paint; a hanging sculpture of the Executor clearly made from scrap metals. 

He’s just turning away from the sculpture, wondering what kinds of scrap they could’ve used to achieve the glowing effect for the Executor’s engines  – when his eyes land on something that makes him stop dead in his tracks. 

It’s a relatively small painting, relative to the scale and grandeur of many of the other pieces on display. Hanging, innocuous, beneath a pair of glowing red and yellow orbs. Luke tilts his head, stepping towards it without meaning to. 

As always, Din follows him. 

The brush strokes are deliberate, the scene depicted strikingly evocative. A spacescape featuring a single one-manned fighter of pre-Empire make hangs framed against a fiery nebula, drifting. The cockpit hatch is open, revealing an empty seat where the pilot should be – no exo-suit visible to suggest the whereabouts of the former occupant.

Despite himself, Luke finds himself drawn into it. His eyes flick down, almost reluctantly, to take in the piece’s title:  

Rebel Starfighter and Pilot in Effigy
Chandrilan oil paint on canvas

Luke’s mouth tightens. 

At its heart, Chandrila is a planet that thrives on resistance; on divergent, often warring, clashes of opinion. Luke knows this, of course: the entire point of the event is to remind its citizens of their place in the galaxy, and thoughts like those belonging to that woman are relatively common. Not majority-held, perhaps, but a significant enough minority. 

But that was someone’s private thoughts, unbroadcast. This is a formally-submitted piece of artwork at a formal Imperial unity event. Rebel Starfighter and Pilot in Effigy is subtle enough to make it past the censors this time, perhaps – but to the wrong set of eyes, could easily be deemed treasonous. 

There are those in his regime who relish the investigation and termination of just this kind of undermining sentiment before it has a chance to take root. 

Luke kind of wants it on his wall. 

A short time later, they emerge onto an open-air rampway – the first since the topmost. The next floor is marked by a larger amount of space, seats, and attendees than any of the gallery-style floors they just came down from. More of a networking area than anything, with a few highlighted performers – and, less frequently, art pieces – strewn throughout. Stormtroopers and camdroids are more populous here; several of them abandon their current subjects to speed through the air, snapping away at them as they make their way through.

Luke leads them in an arcing path; past clustered areas for socialization (both seated and standing), past small stations of drinks droids and servers that move in and out of the outer areas considered off-limits to attendees.

It isn’t until they’re two thirds of the way through the floor that Luke, approximately simultaneously, registers that the theme of this floor’s performances and arts is CONQUERED at the same time the Mandalorian’s muted outrage flares in the Force.

It seems Din, too, has found a piece of art that speaks to him. 

It’s a duochromatic piece in stark reds and whites. The scene it depicts is a Mandalorian, unhelmeted, trapped amidst collapsed building detritus and actively burning alive. Their helmet rests just beyond their reach, removed for reasons unknown.

There’s a sense of raw, undignified panic in the way the figure’s arms are raised to protect their bared head from falling chunks of duracrete and electrical wiring – but which contrasts so significantly against the painted figure’s near-simpering resignation as the figure is both burnt and crushed to death. The background of the painting contains multiple bloodied limbs emerging from the rubble. A cluster of other helmetless figures – Mandalorian children, Luke realizes – are shown having been left to meet their fate as the structure collapses.

Luke’s eyes flick down to the piece’s title and description. 

The Subjugation of Mandalore
Outer Rim acrylic paint on repurposed beskar

The Mandalorian’s gloved and armored fists are clenched tight at his sides. 

A local official Luke vaguely recognizes spots him, gets an ecstatic look on his face, and starts heading in their direction. Absently, Luke waves a hand, turning the man in an entirely different direction with perhaps a tad bit more brute force than necessary. 

Regardless, the space between them is swiftly rendered private. 

“Din,” Luke murmurs, an urging command of a murmur. “Tell me.” 

“That’s –” the Mandalorian grits, then halts himself actively. Starting over again is clearly a concerted effort. “That – thing,” Din sneers, “is – offensive.” He says it as though this couldn’t be less of an understatement. “To any Mandalorian. No –” He cuts himself off again, purposefully gathering. “... no Mandalorian would have made this, or – allowed such an art piece to be displayed this way.”  Din sounds genuinely agitated about it; upset. 

A trite subset of Luke thinks, that’s rather the point. The sentiment is swiftly outweighed by empathy, feeling what his bodyguard, partner, lover is currently undergoing. 

“And,” Luke asks, breathy but deliberate, “what, if you could, would you like to have done to it?”

Latent and impotent rage makes Din tremble beneath flightsuit and beskar. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” Din clips out at last, each word acerbic. 

“No,” Luke says. “Tell me. If you could have anything done to it, this – offensive creation.” He pauses. “What would you have done?”

Arms folded, Din answers. “... ’d load it into a torpedo tube and fire it into a gas giant.” The implied but that’s not possible rings out, unspoken. He thinks, too tainted to give to foundlings.

With a meaningful look in Din’s direction, Luke lifts up the datapad and takes a quick holopic of the painting in question. 

“Well,” he declares, “that’s easy enough.” From there, he taps out a few instructions, drops the privacy field as he holds Din’s gaze through his visor, and swaps his comm for his datapad to make an extremely public call. 

“Skywalker,” Luke declares into the comm, turning multiple heads in the surrounding crowd as he does so. “I want the following image and accompanying message transmitted to my senior adjutant, my Head of Travel Operations and Coordination, and the Chief Weapons Officer aboard the Korriban.” When Luke glances up, he sees that Din’s visor is pointed towards him in a silent question. He pauses to listen to the other end of the commlink call. “He’s available now? Yes, then, put me through.”

The conversation that follows is short, brusque, and may likely end up recounted on some corner of HoloNet by one or more of the nearby individuals listening as he doles the instructions out. Once finished, Luke clicks off the commlink.

“It might be a few days until the Korriban’s close enough to a gaseous body large enough to truly be considered a giant,” he drawls, “but my Executive Officer now has standing orders, and my on-planet staff are already seeing to acquisition logistics.” He shoots Din his most satisfied smirk. “We’ll have that done for you by the end of the galactic standard week.” 

For long seconds, the Mandalorian is silent. Eventually, he exhales, its roughness audible through the confines of his vocoder. 

“I–” Din starts, then cuts himself off again. All at once Luke feels pinned by the unseen intimacy of his gaze beneath his visor. Gooseflesh prickles on his skin beneath white sleeves. 

With the tiniest clearing of his throat, Luke turns on his heel. Smoothes his clothes unnecessarily as he leads them along the rest of this floor and then down to the next one. The faces of sentients around them barely register as he presses forward, heart pounding in his ears, performers and exhibits fading into the background as he leads them through the deeply public space, hyper-aware of the touch of Din’s eyes on him as he keeps moving forward.

Holo-art is the feature of the next two floors, meaning the spaces are even darker lit than any previous. It would seem, too, that the abundance of dark corners appeals to the Chandrilan sense of intrigue. 

A handful of sentients approach him with varying levels of beseechment as they pass through the floor. One of the exhibited artists, a local faith leader, a handful of planetary officials whose sense of public good outweighs the directives they’ve been issued previously. 

The vast majority come pleading and frightened; terrified and urging against the kind of devastation that comes from open war. 

It’s with great effect and tenacity that Din plays the role of a wall of beskar to great effect. Those he doesn’t discourage from approaching in the first place are cowed by his presence.

Luke hears the pleas of all those brave enough to approach him with them. Their requests of him range widely: calls for good-faith diplomacy, for a cease-fire to New Imperial retribution against civilians. For the Executor to leave Chandrilan airspace entirely in order to allow the pot that is Chandrila to boil over with civil rioting and unrest; to reset back to a lesser and more palatable state of tension.

He takes note of the spirit and intent of each request; has Din send each petitioner on their respective way. 

It’s after a colourful, birdlike Fosh without notable secondary gender characteristics is sent on their way – university instructor, has students with works displayed, all but begging him to have mercy on children young enough to be my students who’ve fallen for rebel propaganda – that the Mandalorian turns to him, a question clear in the tilted line of his helmet. 

“You good?” Din asks in his ear, seeming to give voice to the question almost unintentionally. He’s – taken aback, Luke thinks, by just how many people here not only want the opportunity to have their words heard by his ear, but who actively approach him. 

“Of course,” Luke answers, though he finds himself genuinely touched by the question. They’re still tucked into one of the dark corners, only a few hands’ breadths apart, the Mandalorian’s back to the rest of the exhibit floor, blocking anyone else’s view of their High Prince except himself. With an exhale, Luke takes an impulsive step forward, moving into Din’s space until he’s close enough to briefly rest his head against the cool metal of the man’s chest plate. For just a moment, he allows his eyes to flutter shut. “This is – it’s part of what I’m here for.”

In response, Din says nothing – but he doesn’t pull away. If anything, he moves the smallest bit closer to him; his energy twinging subtly in the Force as he flexes his gloved fist at his side, resisting the urge to lay a hand on Luke’s shoulder. 

They’ve moved out of darkened corners and are exiting the darkened floor towards the next rampway down when Din’s voice in his ear says, “on your right”. 

As subtly as he can, Luke slows his pace and glances over.

A holographic bust of Leia Amidala stands nestled in the last dark corner before the double doors to the rampway. The piece is programmed so that her eyes – gold, of course, the only colour used besides hazy blue – appear to follow the viewer as they move.

Luke’s brows raise up sharply into his bangs when he glances down at the placard, where the original title and description are barely visible where they’ve been defaced with what appears to be black oil paint. 

Lady Overseer TRAITOR TO ALDERAAN!
Holo-Sculpture programmed with Qaech SCT Your parents would die of SHAME to see the bootlicker you’ve grown into

“Hmm,” Luke remarks as they pass, as neutral as he can manage. As they exit back into the relative brightness of the uncovered rampway to the tenth floor down, he adds: “send a quick note to the Head of Security, will you?”

Behind him, Din radiates agreement. Other than that, Luke ignores the defacement entirely. 

There’s less than an hour left until his keynote speech; better to have such matters dealt with quickly and quietly than to draw unnecessary attention. Still, it’s – concerning. 

A pot about to boil over, Luke thinks, continuing downwards.

They pass through a floor dedicated to spotlit ceramics and etched metal and one to decorative circuitry before, as Luke descends the rampway towards the twelfth and second-to-last level, a rather dashing figure at the juncture where rampway becomes the next exhibition floor catches his eye. 

A familiar dashing figure. 

Kallian Nox – the dark-haired and charming heir to the Noxo Starship Lubricant corporate empire – raises his champagne flute to Luke in greeting as he descends. His gaze is flirtatious and pointed, tongue darting out to wet lips surrounded by a dark, finely-groomed beard. He’s dressed in creams and purples with bronze epaulets, a long purple cape at his back that stretches all the way down to his bootheels. 

Well, Luke thinks, simultaneously taken aback and morbidly curious. Let’s see how this collision of worlds works out. 

Subtly, Luke slows the speed of his paces to buy time. He’s reluctant to shove too many thoughts or instructions into the Mandalorian’s head before they’ve had more time to practice, but both warning Din and not allowing Kallian to see his lips move are currently the greater imperatives. 

I know him, Luke sends to the Mandalorian at his back. That man down there, he’s Kallian Nox. We – 

It’s a struggle to find the right words, but the seconds are moving too quickly. 

We used to… meet up, Luke tries, just grateful he remembered to frame the thought as past tense.

A beat of silence passes. “Huh?” Din asks in his ear, clearly with no clue whatsoever what he’s talking about. 

Oh, for the love of – 

We used to fuck! Luke sends in his direction, increasingly urgent. He accompanies the sentiment with a broad impression of a series of past trysts, rolled-up and remembered as a collective. Even at a high level, the memories are – salacious. We used to – have sex, okay? 

At the base of the rampway, Kallian looks up at him with a smile that slowly creeps its way into a smirk. He takes a slow sip of his drink without breaking eye contact, devilishly handsome features drawn into an expression of simultaneous hunger and self-assurance. 

It’s unexpected – not just to Luke, but to Din as well – when a heavy sideswipe of visceral emotion collides with the Mandalorian in the Force, creating a brief sunburst of knee-jerk, smothered jealousy. 

And oh. Oh. 

Isn’t that interesting. 

With profound and resonant confidence, Luke returns Kallian’s smile with one of his own; projecting a version of himself that feels more like a public mask and less an extension of himself than it has in years.

“Imperial High Prince,” Kallian declares, sweeping him a bow. Dark eyes stay locked on Luke’s as he does so, performative deference incarnate. 

“Kallian,” Luke hums, a sing-song purr. Once in arm’s length, Kallian reaches out a hand, dark eyebrows lifting. Playing along, Luke yields; placing his bare left hand atop Kallian’s own; allowing his fingers to be grasped and the back of his hand raised to the man’s lips to be kissed. A move precious few in the galaxy would dare make, but then, they have history. 

A pulse of stark disgust cuts through the Force at his back as Kallian lingers, lips against his hand. Whatever it is is swallowed swiftly by the Mandalorian’s contempt and his suspicion; he stalks behind Luke with deliberate hostility practically audible in his steps. 

“Such a pleasant surprise,” Luke tells him. “Your little Chandrilan vacation property slipped my mind entirely.”

“The honor’s all mine,” Kallian assures him, mouth curving. He finally straightens, letting go of Luke’s hand almost reluctantly; his gaze lowers pointedly from Luke’s eyes to his mouth and back up again. “How long has it been?”

“At least a year, if not more.” Luke cocks his head. “I’ve seen you in the holotabloids. You’ve been busy.” Busy getting tangled up with various planetary royalty and the sons of high-ranking Imperials, mostly, though with a few supermodels and holosmut performers thrown in for good measure.

“I could say the same for you, Highness.” The man’s gaze flits upward, over Luke’s shoulder, to where the Mandalorian is surely visible behind him. Kallian snorts a dismissive laugh, as though he finds something about Din’s presence tremendously amusing. “Hmm.” He tilts his head, assessing. “He looks taller in the holos, doesn’t he?” 

Tendencies towards small cruelties isn’t one of Kallian’s finest qualities, but it’s hardly unusual for men in his standing. Though… in truth, Luke’s position – superior to Kallian’s own by every discernable metric – has always prevented any such behavior from being leveled at Luke himself. 

Watching him act that way towards Din now feels a little like having it directed to him by proxy. 

Luke’s expression shifts infinitesimally. 

“Play nice, now, Kallian,” he says, with false lightness. “Or I’ll revoke your privileges.”

A flighty and vague sort of threat, perhaps – but still more of one than he’s ever before levied in Kallian Nox’s direction.

Outwardly, Kallian makes a mild of course, of course gesture to his High Prince one-handed, nodding his head once in deliberate but subtle apology. But the man’s thoughts betray him: the minute chastisement has caught him wrong-footed. 

“Your Highness,” Kallian murmurs, and Luke can feel him turning up that sensual charm like cranking up a dial. He sidles subtly closer, and Luke catches the smallest hint of the man’s scent. Tantalizing and almost certainly pheromone-enhanced; one of his many amplified charms and talents that had kept Luke coming back to him in the old days. Close to improper proximity as he reaches up to stroke his own beard, hands masculine and manicured. 

The Mandalorian’s tension ratchets upward with each millimeter Kallian closes. More to do, Luke senses, with affront on his behalf and dislike, intensely, of both Kallian Nox himself as well as the man’s perceived entitlement to Luke’s personal space. 

Back off, buddy, Din thinks, vicious and narrow-eyed beneath his visor, and Luke almost feels like he’s flying with it. 

“All I ask,” Kallian breathes, “is for a little time. To… speak.” He tips his head towards one of the offshoot hallways meant to be off-limits to all but serving staff. “In private.” 

Absolutely not, Din thinks, at the same moment Luke says, “My bodyguard will accompany us, of course, but yes.” He shoots the man a narrowed look, golden head tilting. “I can spare a few minutes for an old friend.”

He can quite literally feel Din’s glare on the back of his neck.

“Darling,” Kallian enunciates, wildly overstepping the bounds of propriety, given they aren’t yet in private. His bare hand hovers close to, but doesn’t quite touch, Luke’s elbow. “Of course. Whatever you fancy.”

Slipping away unseen is made possible through judicious application of the Force. They slip past a pair of drinks droids and into one of the servers’ hallways, caught between the radically different energies of Kallian’s confident swagger in the lead and the Mandalorian’s resentful simmer. 

The serving hallways are considerably less sleek and opulent than the atrium. The three of them move past an unattended kitchenette with the lights turned off; past a few closed doors. 

They come to a halt outside of a supply closet, a powered-down custodian droid propping its door open.

The Mandalorian stands between them like some kind of chaperone or referee, clearly prepared to intervene should the man try anything. 

Kallian Nox leans back against the hallway wall, dragging his eyes over every part of Luke he can get his eyes on; face, clothes, lines of his body. His utter disregard for the Mandalorian’s presence is akin to how one might treat a droid or semi-sentient.

“Kitten,” Kallian coos. Fury, hot and reactive, flares from Din’s direction. “It’s so good to see you.” He grins, cocky and entitled, dark eyes shining. Placing a hand over where his heart should, at least, be in theory. “I swear, it’s been far too long.” 

The man can deny his genetic modifications to the press all he likes, but Luke’s put that enhanced stamina to use enough times to be confident of its existence. Has doled more than a few political favors in exchange for this man fucking him through multiple screaming orgasms; for driving even a fraction of the white noise out of his broken damn head. 

“I will say, though,” Kallian adds, dark eyes flitting to where the Mandalorian stands with armored arms crossed over his chest, the two of them surveying one another simultaneously with absolute contempt. “I’m dying to know about the tin can.” 

Vividly, Din imagines pulling out his vibroblade and slicing the man open from cravat to beltline, any attempt at covering his thoughts up from Luke hurled right out the window. 

Channeling his bodyguard’s stubborn intransigence, Luke smiles and stays silent. His own arms cross at his chest, white-sleeved arms folding a pristine white chest. 

The silence proves too much for Kallian, and he swiftly fills the space.

“The gossip is outrageous, really. Some people think he’s a living art display, can you believe it?” The disdainful look Kallian shoots in Din’s direction makes clear in what low regard he holds such a notion. Once again, though, he gives Luke a bearded smile.  “I know you better than that, though.” He looks enormously self-satisfied about the assertion. When he speaks again, it's with Luke's given name on his lips. “The Luke Skywalker I know wouldn’t be seen with a trinket like that at his side unless it personally amused him to do so.”  

Annoyingly, it’s close enough to the truth. 

Retaliatory, Luke digs immediately and viciously into Kallian’s thoughts. 

He sees a corporate incident; the desire to make something disappear off the face of the galaxy. A freighter laden with barrels of mineral oil destined for the industrial lubricant production line that went missing. A few words from Kallian’s father, transmitted via holocall. 

See what you can get out of the Princeling, won’t you, Kal. Best to avoid word getting out if at all possible.

The man’s mind leaves a bitter aftertaste. 

He’s more a work of art than you’ll ever be, Luke thinks, though obviously he doesn’t say it out loud. The ostensible duplicity isn’t something that would’ve bothered Luke before – not when everyone in the galaxy always, always wants something from him. 

It bothers him now. 

“As riveting as your speculation is,” Luke says to him, dry and supercilious, “I fail to see the point of it.” His eyes narrow ever-so-slightly. “What is it you want, Kallian?”

Sweat appears at Kallian’s brow, but that slick smile doesn’t crack. His attention shifts from the Mandalorian to land on Luke in its entirely, apparently having realized that his attempts to acknowledge Luke’s… trinket aren’t being received as intended. 

“High Prince,” Kallian says, hefted and attempted-earnest. His eyes shining so brightly Luke wonders if he’s enhanced them to do so. His tone is low and warm and honey-sweet. “Luke.”

Kallian takes a step forward, closing about a third of the space between them, and Luke feels the Mandalorian go rigid where he stands. 

“It’s been so long since we’ve… talked.” Dark eyes run their way down Luke’s body and back again, pointedly taking him in: the dip between his clavicles made just barely visible by the cut of his collar; the crosswise sweep of layered cape and tunic across his chest, its gradients of white and steely blue all but scientifically engineered to make Luke’s eyes pop. “But I think of you often.” Eyes darkening, Kallian says: “That mouth of yours was made to suck cock, darling.” 

One more step, Din thinks, seething with contempt. One more step and I’ll– 

“It’s such a shame, isn’t it,” Kallian breathes, a low rasp. “That those lips ever have to be put to use another way.” His mouth twists in a faux-pout of commiseration. “Having to spend all that time out there, talking to the galaxy, when they could be right where they belong.” The man smirks. “Wrapped around me with your throat all stuffed full of cock, just the way you deserve.” 

He takes another step forward, and Luke’s attention is drawn away immediately by Din’s unseen reaction. A warning alarm in the Force; a system ready to shift into override. 

The tension in the hallway heightens, triangulated in a way only Luke can perceive. His lips part, tongue running over them. 

Kallian clearly takes it as a sign of encouragement. “That’s right, kitten. There are all kinds of dark corners here, aren’t there?” His eyes shift sideways to the nearby supply closet – secluded, door propped open and ready for them, and it hits Luke then just how much the stage has been set for this. Wonders how long the man spent waiting for him to come down that ramp, a rendezvous spot all picked out and ready. 

“The two of us could steal away for a little while,” Kal continues, “just like the old days.” 

Luke doesn’t have to be able to taste his thoughts to know which night he’s thinking about. Some celebration or other on Corellia, two years ago. They’d slipped out during one of the meal courses and into a frankly similar supply closet for a hasty, pleasurable interlude. Bent double with his scrabbling hands flat against the wall as Kallian Nox clutched his hips in a bruising grip, railing his High Prince into sweet oblivion. Getting off in no small part on having a man of his standing right under the galactic high society’s – the Emperor’s – noses.

For his part, Luke had just enjoyed the raw assurance of purpose and desirability that comes with being used.

“What is it that you want, pet?” Dark eyebrows rise as Kallian sidles closer; clearly he thinks he’s regained his footing, a path to pillow-talk entreaties and post-orgasmic favors made clear. “We can be quick, I know we can. Do you want me to take you apart on my cock while Mando watches the door? Or…”  A wicked smile curls across Kallian’s lips. “Is that not enough for you these days? Maybe you want him to join in. Is that one of the services he provides, hm? A full suit of armor and a nice fat cock for you to sit on whenever the mood takes you. I don’t mind sharing, darling, you know that. I’m sure you’ll feel divine, moaning around me while Mando here pounds away into that sweet, sweet –”

The Mandalorian moves so quickly and surely, it’s like watching a solid wall of beskar plant itself in front of him. Words cut off abruptly into choked-off aspirations and stunned splutters by the gauntleted hand at Kallian’s throat. 

“Yeah, no.” Din’s tone is cold fire through his vocoder, condemning and unimpressed. “Not happening.”

Wild, unfettered pleasure grips him at the intervention. Luke raises one hand to cup the side of his face, shifting slightly in order to take in the scene as the Mandalorian tightens his grip, hauling the man up one-handed until his feet aren’t touching ground. 

Amid his shocked splutters, Kallian claws at his grip, eyes bulging with the utter disbelief that comes when those born to wealth and privilege actually suffering consequences. The look he turns towards Luke expects – demands – immediate intervention. 

“What can I say?” Luke gives Din a deliberately lingering side eye, then returns his gaze to where Kallian Nox – net worth estimated at approximately 6.8 trillion credits – dangles mid-air, face furiously reddening. Luke shrugs at him, beatific. “He does have a mind of his own.” 

With that and a corresponding pulse of deep satisfaction, the Mandalorian hurtles him unceremoniously down the hallway. 

It’s hard to tell which, in the moment, is more satisfying: the thoroughly undignified yelp of pained indignation Kallian makes when his back hits the laminate, or the way he skids backwards a few meters before coming to a halt in a mess of cream-colored pant legs and tangled purple cape. 

“How d-dare you,” Kallian attempts to croak, struggling to get to his feet. Still reeling in disbelief, he reels on him. “Luke–!”

Beside him, with smooth movements, Din charges and aims his vambrace, T-visor unwavering. The charge-up sound makes Kallian stiffen, going all still and wide-eyed in the man’s sights. 

“Get. Out.” The Mandalorian’s tone suggests very heavily that refusal is not a valid option. 

Turning tail, all but hurtling himself down the hallway, Kallian scrambles to obey him.  

A resplendent smile breaks through the confines of Luke’s formal mask as he waves goodbye to him with the white-gloved fingers of his prosthesis. The sound of retreating footsteps fades, and Din lowers his arm only once he’s out of both eyesight and earshot. 

Still preening wildly, Luke turns towards him. The breadth of his beskar chestplate makes him appear inhumanly solid even as it rises and falls with slightly elevated breathing.

“That,” Luke declares, completely earnest, “was phenomenal.”

The Mandalorian’s helmet turns towards him, and if anything that just makes Luke smile all the wider, being on the receiving end of Din’s complete attention. 

For reasons Luke doesn’t quite understand, his skin begins to prickle. 

“I–” Luke starts, then falters a little, feeling all at once completely leveled by a gaze he can’t see. He ducks his head to give himself a moment’s reprieve, mouth gone suddenly dry and oddly aware of his own heartbeat. He clears his throat. “That was well done; restrained.” In truth, it had surprised him both how swift and thorough the man’s fury had been as well as how long Din managed to hold himself back before rising to the occasion. “Not in public either, and no camdroids around, so there shouldn’t be any need to–”

The Mandalorian’s hand reaches forward between them. Leather-thick fingers wrap, gently but intentionally, around Luke’s left wrist. Outreached arm forming a gray and glinting demarcation between them; at the place where Din’s fully circled fingers contrast sharply with the pale skin of his hand, the pristine white of his sleeve. 

The man’s helmet tilts, charged but unspeaking. 

And then he’s moving forward into Luke’s space. Walking him backward, uncompromising, through the open door of the supply closet Kallian had waiting.

Luke says nothing, holding his breath, suddenly convinced that speaking will break whatever spell this is. Allowing himself to be manhandled inside as jolting anticipation carves through his chest, watching in suspended silence as Din follows him in, shoves the powered-down custodian droid into the corridor, and closes the door firmly behind them. 

Low lights flicker on, automatic. The Mandalorian points his vambrace – still charged, Luke realizes, breathless – towards the door handle, soldering it shut with a small, discrete laser. 

A brief, perfunctory check for hidden recording devices later, Din powers down his vambrace, reaches with both hands, and – stunningly – removes his helmet in one smooth movement. Lays it down on an empty shelf to his side with a fearsome glint to his eyes and barely-contained movements before turning back to him. 

Then Din’s moving forward. Into Luke’s space, crowding him up against the wall. Gloved hands clutch at his sides, keeping him in place and hauling him close all at once. The dark head of curls lowers down to bury his face against the side of Luke’s neck, inhaling deeply. His mouth is a heated rasp, the scratch of his facial hair delectable against sensitive skin.

Luke’s lips fall open in a soundless cry of shock. Mindlessly, he reaches up to wrap his arms around the man’s neck. Just – staying there, still aside from the belabored rise and fall of breathing. 

“Oh,” Luke gasps, scrabbling at his pauldrons for purchase. He feels like an exposed nerve, firing and alight, and his mouth isn’t even moving; just pressed up there against the oh-so-sensitive skin of his neckline. Overwhelmed by the unexpected ecstasy of Din’s mouth there against his neck, bared and strained to meet him. Desperately, Luke tilts his head; giving him better access, a silent plea for him to have his way with Luke’s neck in whatever way he may want. He feels strung out and reeling. “Din, please. ”

Distantly, Luke becomes aware of the steady pulse of the man’s remembered upset. Wordlessly, Luke whimpers. Eyes fluttering open, he reaches down to take hold of Din’s right hand at his side, easing it up gently until their clasped hands are held up to Luke’s lips. Mouthing little assurances against the curl of his gloved fingers, pressing kisses into them; intended to comfort as much as they are to impassion Din to imitation. 

A tiny glimmer of the purest white light travels outward from Luke’s being towards Din’s own. He nuzzles sweetly, wanting, at Din’s hand. 

“I thought,” Din pants at last, and his words are a quiet rumble against Luke’s hyper-sensitive neck.  Luke’s mouth falls open further, arching back and thoughtlessly taking the man’s gloved thumb into his mouth and drawing it into his mouth with a hard, deliberate suck. Wanting so very badly to make Din feel better, in every sense of the word. “For a second there, I thought–” 

The warmth of a heavy exhale feels unreal against Luke’s neck and he whimpers again, redoubling his efforts to suckle at the man’s thumb. He spends a few graphic seconds imagining something else between his lips for the few seconds it takes for realization to dawn.

Luke pulls off Din’s gloved thumb with a soft, wet pop. 

“Wait,” Luke pants, so drunk on him already and they’re barely even touching yet, their sole point of skin-to-skin contact the place where Din’s face is pressed up hot against his neck. Each corner of hard beskar that digs into his skin a glorious tether to their shared reality. “You thought what?”

Against him, Din goes taut, clutching at Luke’s waist but not moving away. Luke nuzzles against his gloved hand again, knees weak and hips helplessly hitching. 

His words are a warm, low rumble. “That you might – want the things he said. That you’d,” make me, “want me to–”

As much as he can without detaching that wonderful pressure against his throat, Luke shakes his head in wild denial.

“No,” he says. “Din, I don’t – I don’t.” His hand clutches tighter at both right hand and pauldron. “I mean it.” To his own ears, his voice sounds breathy and strangled. “I’m–” Luke pauses just on the cusp of giving voice to more truth than should be spoken. 

Then he hurls himself forward off the precipice anyways, plunging into the abyss. 

“I’m yours,” Luke whispers, words exhaled breathlessly. He gives Din’s hand a squeeze, then presses a kiss against his curled-up fingers. He releases a huffed-out laugh. “All yours.” 

As desperately as he can without the sentiment being sent to the forefront of Din mind, Luke thinks, please, please, please, please, please. 

As if in concession to unvoiced appeal, Din’s mouth against his throat starts to slowly move.

It begins with the hungry press of almost-kisses right against his pulsepoint; at the junction where his neck becomes jaw. Motion without a defined end goal; giving in to the subject of long-withheld temptation rather than a drive towards an outcome. 

The hard, proprietary bite at his neck tears a cry from the depths of him.

The sound Luke makes is inhuman, a high, hitched sound, as his toes curl inside his boots.

With a hauled-off movement, Din wraps his hand from Luke’s grip in order to slide both hands lower, lower. Taking hold of his ass with both hands and hauling effortlessly upward, whole body lifted so easily Luke can’t help his own mewl of responding desperation, arching back against Din in desperate keening gratitude, legs fully dangling, the wall hard at his back.

An almost-apologetic press of lips against the side of his neck makes Luke shudder. Instinctively, his hips attempt a roll against Din’s own, breathy exhale dissolving into a beyond-indignant whine at the unyielding press of Din’s codpiece beneath flightsuit. 

It feels as though each scrap of artifice and composure has been shoved aside, bowled over. Soaring exhilaration tears through him as Din tentatively seals his lips around his pulsepoint and sucks at him, experimental. 

It’s enough to make Luke keen and squirm and pant against him, open-mouthed and wanting. 

And then Din’s mouth is dragging upwards, pressing his mouth against the line of Luke's neck, the edge of his jaw. 

At the corner of his lips, parted in an exhilarated gasp, a seismic shift occurring in the confines of Luke’s body as Din’s mouth brushes, in equal parts tentative and terrified, against his own. 

Raw euphoric victory surges outward from him as Luke kisses back, all the tension in his body tugging sharply towards his center before, blissfully, releasing.

Gloved and ungloved hands slide up to tangle in Din’s sweat-licked curls; kissing him back open-mouthed and desperate and daring. Coaxing and emboldening Din from unpracticed need into a roaring, crackling burn. A slide of mouth and tongue that sets the interstitial space between them on fire with sensation. 

Gloved hands dig once more into Luke’s ass, hauling him up further, eliciting a drawn-out moan in the back of Luke’s throat that reverberates in the ravenous join of their mouths. Each barrelling second bringing new heights of never-before-met passion in delectable tandem. 

Luke clings to him, writhing against beskar hard enough to bruise.

He would happily let himself be taken right here and now, by Din, with just the stretch of spit and his own fingers. Let Din ride his wrung-out body to completion, used as an instrument of his pleasure as Core World elites go about their business, unknowing, so safe so seen and just them, just them –

The sharp trill of a holoprojector – Din’s holoprojector, fuck – tears him from the fantasy. 

The whine Luke lets out when Din’s mouth tugs away from his own is both needy and slightly pitiful. Luke tries – but doesn’t quite succeed – in chasing him, only able to reach the scruff of Din’s cheek and jaw, insisting at him with his nose. 

Despite his hard and heavy breathing, the Mandalorian recovers far faster than Luke himself does. Lowering Luke back down until his boots hit floor, thoughts and impulse turning towards the device hanging from his utility belt. At Luke’s further sounds of disappointment and disapproval, he pats Luke on his clothed haunch twice – you’re all right, the man thinks, thoughts coming dazed – before turning sharply, grabbing his helmet off the shelf. 

It’s shoved onto his head in quick movements, holoprojector ripped from his utility belt before angling himself appropriately, to ensure that Luke’s own flushed and shaking body won’t appear even as a background flicker when he answers. 

A pale blue pillar of light flickers to life in Din’s hand. From his position against the wall, Luke watches him, wrecked and needy and breathless.

“Mandalorian,” comes a voice, brusque and professional. “IHP Skywalker has been out of our field of vision for five minutes longer than anticipated. Where–” 

“He’s fine.” The Mandalorian’s modulated voice is annoyingly even, given that Luke’s own breathing is just now starting to think about returning to a normal rate and cadence. “Private conversation went long. We’ll be out in two.” 

Unable and unwilling to prevent the wild and sprawling grin from taking over his face, Luke’s eyes follow Din intently as he takes the call in question. Holding his gaze over the hologram in his hand as he raises his left hand to his throat, catching Din’s gaze briefly through his visor. 

The man’s hitch in breath is a barely noticeable victory. 

The call is wrapped and ended swiftly. “We have to go,” the Mandalorian informs him.

The rush of guilty satisfaction that Luke experiences secondhand when his helmet tilts to take Luke in again is almost heady enough to make up for what he’s saying. 

Pointedly, Luke licks his lips. Pointedly, his gaze drifts over to where the lock on the door remains soldered shut. 

With a heaved sigh and a charging-up sound from his vambrace, Din sets about opening it. 

When Luke leads them back out into the throng on the main rampway, it’s with performative confidence, feigned composure, and an absolute inability to think about anything else in the entire galaxy other than what just happened. 

It takes until they’re halfway through the final exhibition floor – mostly patriotic metalcraft, he thinks, but Luke’s just moving on autopilot – for the flush to fully die down in his cheeks. For it to occur to him that, in all likelihood, his collar is only perfunctorily covering up the spot on his neck that feels warm and salty and beautifully achy with remembered attention. 

He’s almost grateful for the physical proof, particularly since the Mandalorian appears to have gone almost completely back to himself again, no evidence of ardor or upset through the gleam of impeccable armor. All thoughts of what just happened shoved down into the depths of him for later examination or compartmentalization. Ever the damn professional. 

Luke feels like he’s about to vibrate right out of his skin with barely-contained exultation. Mind spinning in a haze of glorious shock – at what happened, yes. But more than anything, that Din himself had been the one to initiate, unpressed and unprompted. 

It’s not often he’s so overjoyed to have his plans abruptly accelerated, but it seems this is one such occasion. 

A delicious thought hits him just as they exit the final exhibition hall into the comparatively bright light of the final rampway into the spire’s grand atrium.

I, Luke thinks, obscenely pleased, am going to ruin that man tonight. 

It’s the hint of a smirk that plays across his lips that gets captured by the ratta-tatta-tat swarm of camdroids there to meet him, apparently having crossed the threshold into a part of the spire where holography is permitted. 

The pair of them are swiftly whisked away by security personnel, who lead them to an otherwise off-limits balcony to get him into position. Luke pauses, allowing both he and Din a few seconds to take in the spire’s grand atrium. 

Numerous cam droids, lighting droids, holocams, and holorecorders whiz through the air in search of the perfect position. The main level of the spire stretches outward beyond the windowless confines of the preceding levels, taller and broader and grander than any of the floors they’ve traversed to get here. Floor-to-ceiling windows of towering glass and transparisteel showcase the glittering spires of Hanna City, the floor a shining white and polished stone. The great space below is packed full of sentients, all of whom crowd and mill around the large raised platform at its middle to showcase this year’s artistic centerpiece. Serving droids deliver flutes of sparking liquor to the crowds of attendees. From above, Luke can see part of the corded-off area tucked off in a corner containing heavily-surveyed media; can just see glimpses of the musicians preparing in the recessed right in front of the stage. 

Atop the great platform at the center of the hall stands an enormous, towering sculpture – the year’s artistic centerpiece.

It dominates the room completely, scrap metal and refurbished machinery, arranged and affixed to recreate the spires of Hanna City stretching upwards, reaching towards a swirling spiral of light clearly intended to represent the galaxy. A podium has been set up right in front, where great pieces of scrap have been assembled to spell out the sculpture’s title in welded, misshapen letters:

ImPerIaL ChaNdrIa RIsIng

“Hm,” Din grunts, coming up to stand beside Luke at the banister. The edge in his consideration as he surveys the crowd below is… wary. 

Luke frowns, some measure of coherent thought returning to him. “Problem?” 

“Not sure,” the Mandalorian answers, focused and intent as he scans the floor below. “Just a feeling.” There’s a pause. “Might be nothing.”

“Hm.” One does not bring an expert into one’s employ only to ignore something as uncannily meaningful, in Luke’s experience, as a gut feeling. “Flag it for security once we’re down on the main floor. I have to get touched up.” 

He’s just wondering whether he might be the only one of them still affected by their encounter when, turning towards the Mandalorian, he takes a moment to run his eyes from the man’s helm to boots and back again. 

The wellspring of Din’s reluctant arousal in the Force, quickly stifled, is unreasonably satisfying. 

Luke quirks his mouth, feeling oddly soft. “Stay close to me,” he says, and then they’re ushered into a back room and down a service lift before emerging into a concealed prep area. 

Shestine is there waiting for him with a gaggle of assistants yielding an arsenal of equipment, as is Senior Adjutant Orlan with a thick stack of datapads. Stormtroopers are posted at the entrances and exits, other security staff having a hushed conversation over a handheld holoprojector in the corner. 

When Shestine’s felinid eyes land on him, she releases the tiniest held sigh. “Get him ready.” 

His clothes are quickly steamed into perfection, anti-shine powder applied to both his face and – with unspoken professionalism – the side of his neck, deftly covering whatever mark has been left behind. (A pity, but appreciated.) 

“Governor Aelyn’s official host, so she’s up first up,” Shestine says blandly, trimming a loose blue thread from the hem of his cape with one claw. As so often happens in the immediacy before she sends him on stage, she drops all greetings and titles completely.  The points of her ears are high at attention as she consults her datapad. “Then the artist laureate – the one who made the centerpiece sculpture. Then Senator Rikial, then you.” 

She points a clawed humanoid finger towards several hovering droids scattered throughout the atrium. “There, there, there, and there – positions of the five most important cams and recorders for the live transmission.” She turns to him, austere. “And don’t mention Emita.” At his inquiring look, she elaborates. “Terror attack, another one, while you were in the exhibitions. I don’t want us drawing attention.” 

Luke nods, somber, then makes his way over to watch the proceedings on the viewscreen in the corner, set up to allow him and others to monitor the stage without themselves being seen. At present, it just reads: A Very Important Message from Chandrila on Unity Day – Starting Soon!

He inhales the anticipation and energy of every waiting sentient in the spire’s grand atrium, then exhales it back outwards. Din returns to his heel, closer to hand than usual, as soon as he’s done saying a few words to the rest of his security detail. 

It used to consume him with full-body terror, making one of these galaxy-wide addresses. These days, though, his nerves are limited to a ritual, racing heart and careening sense of being contained within the minutes and seconds before whatever performance he’s required to give. 

The collective mass of heightened emotion transforms the waiting crowd into a single roaring cacophony, drowning out any individual voice without effort or concentration.

There’s a shift in the energy, a preliminary sense of held breath Luke knows to associate with a performance about to begin. 

“And we’re live in five,” Shestine says, hushed but confident as she holds up a splayed hand. “Four, three…” 

A verbal hush falls over the crowd that none of them can see, playing out behind the drapes.

The opening brass notes of the New Imperial anthem mark the beginning of the keynote address. 

The Chandrilan Planetary Orchestra, barring those who were able to plead for an exemption, bursts into an effective – if slightly rote – rendition of the bone-familiar tune. Strong and bombastic notes with hints of a more subtle and meaningful undercurrent woven in through woodwinds.

The final punctuating note of culminating triumph rings out, a few attendees less familiar either with musical performance or with the evening’s programme initiating an awkward smattering of applause before the next song – the Chandrilan Planetary Anthem – bursts into being. A subtler and more complex and building piece made up predominantly of woodwinds and strings; the interlocking harmonic progressions that build and tip over into a crescendo of great and arcing meaning. 

The lingering notes of the planetary anthem are still hanging in the air when Governor Aelyn takes the stage, appearing about a half-second later before them the viewscreen than Luke hears it happening in real life. She’s followed on stage by a dozen high-ranking Imperial officers and dignitaries of varying levels of noteworthiness from all across the galaxy. 

She approaches the podium with a politician’s smile. 

“Welcome,” Aelyn declares into the microphone – to the grand atrium, to her planet, to the rest of the galaxy, “to the 4th Annual Gala for Chandrilan Performance and Fine Arts!”

A cheer goes up beyond the curtain, including a few voices especially rowdy voices that sound like they may have had more of the proffered beverages throughout the event than may be strictly advisable. 

Governor Aelyn’s black-gloved hands are clasped tightly at her front. She’s still wearing her planetary Imperial grays, complete with cap – deliberate visual framing.

“As we all know, we are here to celebrate the works of current and aspiring artists from every corner of this fine planet.” Aelyn nods vigorously, then raises a single finger, as if getting on a real roll. “Whether it’s here in Hanna City, in Nayli or Emita, or in any of the smaller cities, towns, and villages across this great planet, we know that--”

Beside him, Shestine sighs very audibly and – activating her earpiece – requests a crackle of static for the broader transmission. 

The Governor introduces Chandrila’s artist laureate just a minute later. The contrast between them, despite both being human females, is striking: dark hair compared to light, dress uniform compared to a frankly sad-looking dress that might just be the nicest thing the poor girl owns. 

Nodding in thanks, barely able to look at the audience, a trembling art student in her early twenties takes the podium. 

“H-hello,” she says, impossibly small and lanky compared to the sheer size, scale, and captivating majesty of her creation that towers behind her. Unobtrusive and unremarkable but for her large round eye-spectacles and refusal to look up at the crowd, and for the contrast she makes against the boxy gray lines and hardened faces of the uniformed officers behind her. “I,” she says. “I – thank you. For this honor.” Words devolving to a mumble, she finishes: “I just hope it makes an impression.” 

She scurries off stage as soon as possible, head bowed, to polite applause. 

On the viewscreen before them, Luke and Din stand side by side as they watch Aelyn once again take the podium. 

“Such… talent,” she says, then visibly has to grit her teeth to get the next words out between a forced smile. “Next, joining us from the Imperial Senate Itself, Senator… Rikial.”

“Briefings must be right then,” Din remarks in his ear, surprising only for his proximity-absent vocalization. “They really must hate each other.”

In a remarkable feat, Senator Rikial appears to be blustering at the podium before his double-mustached lips are even open. Aelyn’s sour expression as he bumps against her on the way to the podium is priceless.

“Friends!” Rikial declares to the audience, brimming with bombast and met with cheers. “Chandrilans.”

Some of the especially rowdy members of the crowd take a while to simmer down enough for him to start talking again. 

“Four years ago,” Rikial declares into the mic once they’ve settled back down, “on one of the darkest days in our planet’s history, we found ourselves at a crossroads.” He places a six-fingered hand on his chest over his heart – in his case, about dead center. “Would we dare take the New Empire’s outstretched hand to be led into a new and brighter era? Or,” he shoots the crowd – the holocams – an overbearing expression of pure dismissal, “should we cling to the carcass of some long-dead regime. To see ourselves left behind like so much space dust. On that day…”

A murmur of hushed disapproval moves through the crowd.

“What’s he doing?” Shestine asks, appearing suddenly at Luke’s other shoulder. “Their speeches are meant to be local, yours is the political warning. We talked about this.”

That’s what Luke had thought, too. It’s unnecessarily provocative, both for this kind of event in general and for a Chandrilan audience in particular. 

A ripple of warning hits him through the Force. 

“Something’s off,” the Mandalorian announces, urgent, low and quiet at his shoulder. “I can’t put my finger on it, but –” A moment of pause hangs suspended between them. “... I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he finishes, as though the words feel strange on his tongue. 

Luke couldn’t agree more. “Me too,” he says – at the exact moment Rikial starts warming up to Luke’s introduction. 

“Joining us from the Executor herself,” Rikial starts, and it’s too late to cut to black. 

Luke shoots Din a look that’s halfway cheeky, halfway desperate over his shoulder. “We’ll just have to improvise.” He abandons the viewscreen, moving to the pre-marked spot. 

The thick curtains pull back simultaneously, allowing him space for entry. 

“-- it is my tremendous honor and my unmitigated pleasure to introduce you all to the Sith Master, the Fleet Admiral, the Emperor’s Heart himself – Imperial Hiiiiiiiiiigh Priiiiiiiiince Skywalker!” 

He’s already stepping into the spotlights, into the nick-snick-snick of the cam droids, before Rikial has finished speaking. 

A tidal wave of applause crashes over him, cascading, rivulets of the whole spectrum of sentient emotion hitting him in the chest as he makes his way through the pre-cleared, security-laden pathway.

The towering likeness of the city’s spires in twisted scrap loom larger overhead than he even could’ve imagined as he steps up the metal steps and onto the stage. 

The cheering lasts, elongated and drawn-out, as the Mandalorian finds his position among the line of Imperial officers still stationed at Luke’s back; part of the ceremonial window dressing. 

An anticipatory swell of quiet grips the crowd as Luke approaches the podium.

“Thank you, Chandrila.” Luke smiles into the mic – just as a trill of pure warning rips through him. 

He pauses, eyes sweeping. 

The gathered crowd is vast and turbulent, a writhing mass of unspoken emotion. Awe and detestation, joyousness and fear. Hundreds of eyes and other visual organs are turned towards him, roiling with pent-up emotion as they wait in breathless silence for him to speak. Sentients straining at the edges, their volatility just barely contained.

All at once, his speech as written – laced with subtle threats and barbs about Chandrila’s place within the Empire – just doesn’t seem to meet or fit the moment. 

Luke exhales, posture shifting. Softening his own hard edges as, under the watchful, charged eyes of the entire galaxy – he prepares to go completely off-script. 

“The first time my father brought me to Chandrila,” Luke starts, “I was nineteen.” Allows a smile to break over the bottom half of his face, ducking his head before returning his gaze to one of the five places he’s meant to convey the message. “It was summer here, and the fields were just – they were overflowing.” He gives his head a tiny shake. “Such incredible bounty, and only a stone’s throw away from some of the most remarkable cities in all of civilization… it was nothing I’d ever seen before.” Luke shrugs, as if in mild self-mockery, the closest thing to sheepish he can get away with for something that will be streamed billions of times on the HoloNet. “But then, I did grow up on Tatooine.”

Titters and laughs travel through the crowd. It lessens the tension, palpable as if he’d taken hold of a corresponding dial and turned it, manually, downward.

“And,” Luke says, speaking to the crowd as though in admission. “It made me… almost anxious, if I’m honest with you. Upset. Seeing all that food just – sitting there. Priceless and life-giving.” His expression is good-humored. “I didn’t understand how all of it could get eaten before it went to rotting.”

That elicits a few good-natured chuckles, even from demographics more likely to be hostile. Locals, successfully catered to. 

“And so I asked my father, and my sister.” The chuckles taper off, sensing a moment of seriousness. He can barely see any faces in the crowd – the lights are too bright, even with his contacts. “And I learned, then, how Chandrila became the society it is today.” 

A dozen cam droids hover over the crowd, broadcasting his every twitch and pause to the entire watching galaxy.

“By sharing all that plenty with the rest of the galaxy,” Luke finishes, voice brimming with conviction. ”Your trade routes, your diplomacy – the exchange of art and knowledge and ideas! The fact that Chandrilans have – definitively – carved out a place for themselves in the galaxy, and that it’s something no Empire should ever try to take away.” 

A thinly-veiled dig at the approach taken by Palpatine’s Old Empire with respect to the planet, setting up a contrast.

“That is why we set up this Gala.” Luke’s gloved fist smacks his palm. “That is why we’ve strengthened our support for all Chandrilans, especially rural Chandrilans.” Again, fist smacks, against palm, convicted and fervent. “To show – not just say, show – your exceptional worth. Culture, knowledge, artistic expression – all of them invaluable right here and now. To all of us.” Luke emotes as hard as he can. “In this new and greater galaxy we’ve built together.” 

Din’s readiness and concentration vibrates with intensity at his back. 

The only thing he can do is continue. 

“My friends.” Luke hefts a breath, solemn. “The events in our mutual history speak for themselves as tragedies. Reviving past unrests will benefit no one. I was here that day, three years ago. For the first Annual Chandrilan Gala." He clenches his fist. "I never could’ve imagined what it would grow into." A prickle of sweat beads at his temple, somehow  evading his setterspray. "Chandrila is a beacon to the rest of the galaxy. The New Empire values her as the treasure she is, wishing only to see her shine brightly. The–” 

A blast of WARNING crackles through the Force.

Intersects his being. 

Before the impact hits, Luke already knows the Mandalorian is hurtling himself towards him. 

The great creaking groan of metal registers a second later as the monstrous sculpture centerpiece – Imperial Chandrila Rising – begins to buckle, and fragment, and starts collapsing inward.

--

Chapter Text

–

Strong arms jerk him upward as the Mandalorian’s weight crashes into him like a gravitational shift, hauling Luke up and into a bridal carry, hurling them both forward off the stage into the shocked and scrambling crowd.

The towering sculpture of Hanna City, once a gleaming tribute to Imperial Chandrilan glory, metals from all corners of the planet carefully wrought and shaped, crashes down around them in grand, cacophonous replica.

The roaring screech of collapsing metal all but drowns out the screams of terror that turn to death wails; as boulder-sized hunks of metal crash down on all sides all around them with devastating impact. Gouging and shattering once-gleaming floors, are debris hitting so hard they both catch air, the Mandalorian – and thus Luke in his arms – made surreally weightless for a slurred, drawn-out moment as gravity lapses.

It returns heartstopping second later with a sensation Luke will later identify as jetpack thrusters engaging: the immediate surge of propulsion as they rocket forward, lurching and accelerating within the man’s grip, tight but reassuring in its stricture.

Instinctively, Luke braces himself against beskar. 

The Mandalorian’s arms tighten around him as he lands on his feet, hitting the ground running, as he crashes through bodies. Some of them are already running; others aren’t fast enough. Dozens of the bright lights of Force signatures wink out on all sides, the Mandalorian’s backplate and helmet take multiple hits of shrapnel for both of them, trajectory redirected with every jarring impact.

Time slows. 

Luke breathes. 

The four counts of his inhale feel like they last a lifetime until at last, with practiced execution, Luke expels it outwards into the Force until it encircles their entwined bodies in motion. 

It’s an imperfect shield, smaller metallic fragments slipping through to rattle distractingly off his beskar, but the man whips and swerves and maneuvers them adeptly through air thick with carnage; single-minded on getting them outside the worst of the impact zone.

All the while, the Force-warning won’t stop shrieking. THREAT pounds a rhythm like a rattling heartbeat at his back, every instinct he possesses all but screaming at him to turn, turn, TURN.  

Hauling himself up with Din’s pauldron, Luke turns to squint back towards what was once the center of the tower’s great atrium. He squints, blinking back both particulate and the heat of the Mandalorian’s jetpack thrusters, the shimmering dust stinging his eyes despite protective contacts. 

The sight before him when his vision clears makes him almost wish it hadn’t. 

Like wasps swarming upwards into the air from cracked-open nest, airborne seeker droids stream upwards into the immensity of the inner spire. Yellow-black disk-necks and dangling articulated limbs spill out and swoop in all directions, alighting on various perches or whirring overhead, hovering and scanning with motorized precision. 

A chill runs down Luke’s back as a red signal light blinks on each droid in unison. 

Behind you, Luke thinks, shoving the thought with rough urgency into Din’s head. 

Panicked screaming rises as the wasp-seeker droids begin firing, point blank, into what’s left of the crowd, blasters set to kill. 

Swarms of the seeker droids fill the air, the whirr eerily insectoid in tandem with the high-pitched whine of their blasters. Luke’s Force shielding takes the first round of blaster bolts, absorbing their energy, dissipating it into the ether, but the Mandalorian’s armor takes the second, a defused ping-ping-ping-ping-ping sound as the plasma bolts ricochet off his backplate.

Clenching his ungloved fist, Luke crushes three seeker droids pursuing them out of mid-air, sending crumpled-up balls of sparking metal crashing down onto the debris. 

He glances from their airborne position, rapidly assessing the area.

What was once the height of opulence is now an active warzone, grand atrium brimming with living sentients reduced to crushed bodies beneath wreckage. At its edges, survivors pound fists and claws against emergency exits locked down per security protocols. Others have taken cover, or else fled to the higher levels. The air is thick with tireless seekers, swooping and chittering as they unload round after round, doing their utmost to gun down every sentient in Imperial uniform. 

Likely not programmed to target civilians, then, though Luke’s sure that’s little comfort to those already crushed beneath stone and metal. 

Only once he finds them partial cover does Din take them down into another thudding skid of a landing: an arcade of inner archways along one of the stretches of rampway, decorative but solid. Strong arms clutch at him, reflexive – unused to landing with this kind of passenger in arm – before Luke finds himself deposited up onto his feet with care but zero pageantry, then urged wordlessly backward where cover’s deepest. 

The Mandalorian turns on his heel, making himself into a very deliberate barrier. His hip blaster is drawn, charged up, and aimed with both hands.

“You injured?” Din asks, brusque and businesslike, eyes and mind and body attentive and taut as a drawn wire, tracking something in HUD that Luke isn’t privy to. A half-second later, Din lands two blaster shots on an approaching seeker, sending it spiraling out of its flightpath to crash into the wall to their left. 

“No,” Luke answers in low tones, and draws his lightsaber. 

The high hitched-up sound of ignition is swiftly replaced by the low drone of its hum, the glow of his plasma blade casting deep red shadows over the bare of his face, the white of his clothes. The Mandalorian startles at the sound, visor whipping ‘round to take in the sight of him with his lightsaber held aloft. 

“With me,” Luke instructs, then eases Din sideways with the Force until he can slip right past him, striding right back out onto the rampway, Din’s incredulous words in his earpiece. 

His righteous wrath and fury is both ascending and incendiary. He deflects two approaching rounds of blaster fire from the closest approaching seeker droid, then strikes it from the air in a hail of sparks as he presses forward. The next two approaching droids crumple in on themselves and crash down onto the once-gleaming floors with a vicious clench of his fist.

Too close! Din snap-snarls mentally, hot on his heels, but all Luke needs is a line of sight. 

He shoves his free hand forward, fingers outstretched, heart beating in time with the universe and his own passionate fury as each door on the main floor bursts open, sending a cascade of panicking and wounded sentients pouring out through each. 

In two quick movements Luke blocks a blaster shot, then slices an oncoming seeker out of the air in an arc of deadly red. A series of blaster shots ring out behind him; the Mandalorian takes down one and clips another, then launches what sounds like a rocket to take down a third. 

Stepping back, he finds Din there to meet him, blaster drawn and presence solid at Luke’s back.

They move in natural tandem: precise shots taken one after another from Din’s blaster, Luke deflecting shot after shot from seeker droids overhead in a whir of red blade and orange-yellow sparks. He finds he knows innately which to block himself and which ones the Mandalorian has covered for him; unflinching as a beskar vambrace appears and takes a hit intended for him, the high-energy particle beam diffusing in a hail of sparks that rain down from either side of the man’s staunch forearm. 

Another chittering swarm descends, firing madly, indiscriminately. Luke rips their metal bodies from the air with the drawn-back clench of his fist, leaving each seeker a compact ball of sparking scrap. 

The mystery of a small, powering-up sound at his back is solved when the high-pitched firework-squeal and streaks of smoking trails land on at least six seeker droids at once, a small contained explosion that sends each crashing to ground. 

Whistling birds. The thought rings out, marveling and open, as more projectiles than anticipated are launched and hit home. Luke has to fight a smile. He replaced my whistling birds.  

A sharp, vocoded cry rings out to their left. 

Luke’s head whips sideways. 

Reactive panic grips him, only registering belatedly that the grounding wall that is Din’s presence at his back means the sound originated from some other sentient.

A group of Imperial officers – Stormtroopers, Class Y if their sidearms are their own – have fought their way up the rampway towards them. The shout had been the death-cry of a sentient Luke only recognizes by the vague wisp of familiarity of their Force signature, now extinguished. Not a local trooper, but one brought down from the flagship; one of the many often-faceless members of his security detail. 

Hackles raising, Luke takes in the sight of the remaining troopers as they alternate pot shots at seekers that swerve and circle above them – too high, Luke realizes, for their E11s to reach from the grand atrium floor – as they attempt to reach their prince.

For a suspended moment, Luke’s consciousness spreads outward and upward and downward until it encompasses the terrified, fleeing civilians on the floors above; those lying dead and dying beneath the sculpture’s ruins. 

A gloved hand fists into the fabric of his formalwear and hauls him sideways by the shoulder, wrenching him clear of a blaster bolt before shooting the approaching seeker out of the air with a well-placed blaster bolt.

Luke hadn’t even sensed an immediate threat.

“Focus!” The Mandalorian’s tone is as firm and urgent as his grip, the lines and angles of his helmet taut and angled. He releases Luke’s shoulder as though reluctant to do so. “There’s another evac point a few floors up. We–”

There’s no time to explain, and Luke wouldn’t have the words for it even if there were. 

“No,” Luke answers, soft but irrefutable. He surges in the opposite direction, out of Din’s reach, accelerating towards the bannister, closer to the officers under fire than to safety.

The snarl of frustration the Mandalorian releases is wordless but emphatic.

The sound of Luke’s own heartbeat drowns out the universe. 

Two seekers swerve down through the air and take fire, but a reflexive Force-push sends both crashing into a wall. A third is yanked forward in front of him into range of a sweeping strike of Luke’s saber by the Mandalorian’s whipcord, a hail of sparks filling his vision before clearing. 

From his vantage point, Luke observes the number of remaining seeker droids still whooshing and swerving overhead, relentless. Darkness starts to curl at the edges of his vision, power crackling along each finger from knuckle to tip. He raises both hands, fingers splayed, as the Mandalorian’s Force-null signature approaches at his back. 

“ Get down .” 

His amplified voice ricochets outward, verbally and psychically, cutting through and into the mind of every proximate being. It’s a command absolute in its authority. His words reach beyond the mind into the lymphatic system, pulling the requisite somatic responses; easy as a pilot keying in a landing cycle. 

In the corner of his perception, Luke registers as the few pinned-down officers left standing instantly drop for cover. The Mandalorian does so last, tangibly shocked at the involuntary movement and straining to resist it, knees bending a shade slower than others as he lowers himself into a reluctant crouch.

Luke lets himself sink deeper, deeper, into the dark wellspring of his connection to the Force, drawing a deep lungful of breath until –

There.

He exhales. 

His consciousness expands outward once more, this time with intention, flooding every corner of the vast interior space. He glides into each airborne bundle of scanners and circuitry, locking onto as many as he can like a starship’s targeting computer, each pinned at the center of his crosshairs. 

With a monumental effort, wrists shaking, dozens of jagged streams of blue electric energy burst from Luke’s fingertips, drawing deep on righteous fury to fuel the crackling manifestation of Force power incarnate into the seeker droids’ metal bodies. Electric blue ripples roll over their yellow-black bodies and articulated limbs, frying their circuitry and eliciting shrieking screams as they hang there, momentarily suspended in mid-air. Excess supercharged electricity sparks off each in blue-white bursts.

Lightning tastes like heavy iron on his tongue. The entire atrium brims with blue-light shadows, but all Luke sees is red. 

Let loose that storm of power, Luke thinks, strangely calm as he rides out that cresting wave – that incomparable thrill – of being this kind of conduit. Your hate, your rage, your–

Wrenching himself back and into himself once more, he lets it drop .

There’s a final flash of bright white light as jagged lines of lightning retract back to his fingers, sending a rush of tingling aftershocks over his hand and forearms.

The majority of the remaining seeker droids plunge out of the sky and plunge to crash aground, dashed apart and clamoring metallically.

When the Mandalorian gets to his feet again, it’s with caution. He approaches Luke with the same contained wariness one might use to approach a wounded strill, capable of immense power but temporarily weakened. Through the glint of his visor, Luke feels the way the man’s eyes linger on his still-smoking left hand where it hangs at his side. 

“Are you –?” Din starts, but the sound of a great birdlike shriek overhead stops him flat. Both of their heads whip round to look in its direction, the Mandalorian aiming his blaster. 

Up above the metallic wreckage, but below the transparisteel remains of the central elevator shaft, a single Rishii in formalwear soars and tackles one of the few remaining seeker droids out of mid-air, ripping its insides out with talons and beak. 

It breaks whatever spell the Force lightening left lingering. Down on the main floor below, military and security officers emerge from various forms of cover, racing to either shoot down the last seekers left flying or pull survivors from the rubble. A human boy with shaggy brown hair – one of the few non-droid servers – uses his serving tray to full-body strike a sparking, half-fried seeker out of the air to join the rest of the broken metal on the ground.

By unspoken agreement, the two of them head towards the main evacuation point below, immediate danger now largely dealt with. 

It’s not entirely clear to Luke why – when he arrives at the bottom of the great rampway with Din and a small gaggle of military and security officers at his heel – he hesitates, not allowing the flat palm of Din’s gloved hand pressed against his back to guide him in the direction of the predetermined emergency exit. He stares towards the heaped expanse of wreckage.

Wails and whimpers of the dying seem to swell in his ears as the dust settles.

“Luke,” Din’s voice says into his earpiece, thankfully still in place. There’s a weighted pause. “What are you–?”

Luke’s eyes land on a heap of towering scrap metal, where the most Force signatures beneath cling most strongly to life.

Without further contemplation, he takes action. An arm extends, hand gloved in stained white, towards several thousands of tonnes’ worth of accumulated rubble. 

Fingers curling, Luke allows himself to linger on a phrase and sentiment he’s encountered more than a few times in his meditations with Grogu; one that’s spent the last several days bouncing around inside his head. It’s been bumping around the child’s mind more than a few times over the course of his training to date, and Luke now finds it stubbornly stuck in the back of his own mind the way gristle catches between teeth. A guiding, echoing mantra.

Size matters not. 

Luke twists his hand palm-upward, and begins to lift an enormous section of metallic rubble upwards. 

In his ear, the Mandalorian deadpans, “you have got to be kidding me.”

A sharp blast from his jetpack thrusters makes him first on the scene. His willingness to so easily go beneath such a cataclysmically heft of the invisibly suspended weight appears to inspire confidence in others to do so. 

Somewhere between seconds and minutes later, once the bodies of the handful of still-living sentients have been recovered and dragged free, Luke is drawn from his all-but-meditative state by the Mandalorian’s return; by the slow, deliberate placement of Din’s gloved hand on Luke’s shoulder

The low vocoded rumble of the man’s voice rings in his ear and in the ether. “You’re good.” 

The mammoth weight of mounted wreckage returns to ground, strangely and surreally silent as it collapses down and crashes. A second later, sound re-kickstarts, leaving him with a fearsome ringing in his ears. Beads of sweat drip down his brow. 

The grip of the Mandalorian’s hand at his shoulder is his anchor back to baseline. “C’mon.” 

When Luke turns towards his voice, the Mandalorian inclines his helmet towards the far exit across the other side of the shattered atrium. The man’s blinding conviction that they’ve lingered here too long rolls from him in waves. “Evac point’s out that way.”

The sun, strange in its brightness after so long spent inside, is still high in the sky as they’re airlifted out less than a minute later, speeding away from Hanna City and towards the MediWing ship stationed in orbit. 

They watch out the viewport as dozens of starships and speeders – planetary police, Imperial reinforcements – stream in the opposite direction. 

Descending onto the spire like flies to a carcass.

–

–terror and treason in Chandrila–

–raw footage seeming to indicate–

–shocking developments coming out of the Core as Imperial High Prince Skywalker narrowly avoids–

–reports indicate that the High Prince was delivering a keynote speech in support of Chandrilan artistic expression when–

–an art installation at an Imperial Unity Day celebration collapses, leaving multiple high-ranking Imperial officers and dozens of Chandrilan citizens dead at the–

–a Governor dead, a Senator’s fate uncertain as IHP Skywalker stands, though not alone, against the terrorist incursion into Chandrilan public life–

–latest footage showing armed drone droids descending upon the Hanna City crowd. Please be advised, this holovid may be disturbing to some–

–new royal Mandalorian bodyguard put to unexpected test tonight when– 

–Imperial High Prince Skywalker wrested to safety by Mandalorian bodyguard before both men rained hellfire down on rebel insurgents–

–Arakyd Industries accused of terrorist collaboration due to their models used in–

–IHP Skywalker and Mandalorian fight back against terrorist incursion on Core World planet–

–heroic actions taken against terrorists in Bormea sector today by High Prince Skywalker, who prevented –

–stunning holographs surfacing of regular Chandrilan citizens taking up arms alongside their High Prince in defense of their–

–IHP evacuated after assassination attempt on–

–the planet’s artist laureate, as well as multiple known rebel operatives, have been taken into Imperial custody– 

–Emperor Vader has been reached for comment–

–as the entire galaxy holds its breath awaiting the New Empire’s response.

–

CONFIDENTIAL
44:8:9 ISC

INIA-ISB-IMI JOINT EMERGENCY NOTICE – INTERCEPTED INSURGENT MISSIVE
Core Worlds | Bormea Sector | Chandrila System | Chandrila | L9

TRANSCRIPT:

“Hello? Hello, this is Grayhawk Five, can anybody hear me? Can anybody… [HEAVY BREATHING, INAUDIBLE] 

The mission… one, possibly two targets were eliminated, but the primary target evaded efforts. He– [PAINED NOISES, HEAVY BREATHING] 

It’s too late for me. For us. Multiple operatives are already apprehended. It’s only a matter of time; Imperial reprisals are imminent.

Evacuate the bases. Get everybody out of there. Get–!

[INAUDIBLE]

[INAUDIBLE SCREAMING]”

DISTRIBUTION AUTHORIZED BY:

Vice Admiral Indanika Lay’otte
Imperial Naval Intelligence Agency

Director Tatchke Lain
Imperial Security Bureau

Director Stilholme Creed
Imperial Military Intelligence

–

MISSED TRANSMISSIONS: 7 audio
Recorded: 15h27-16h09
Transmission Location: Naboo, Mid-Rim
Sender Name: Lars, Beru (née Whitesun)
Auto-Flagged as Priority Message (click here to change settings)

Click here for Priority Preview.

–

The repurposed corvette, once a personal starship of the Alderaanian royal family prior to its reclamation and bequeathment to the MediWing program, is ideal for Luke’s purposes.

A cluster of medics are there to meet them upon entry by way of the docking port. Luke, of course, is descended upon immediately. Mostly-human hands check him for injuries at the same time he’s ushered through brightly-lit white of the hallways and into a private treatment room. Din stalks behind them, then tracks their quick but competent movements as medics apply bacta to his few surficial scrapes: one along his flesh hand, the other a minor abrasion on his right cheekbone from shrapnel. 

The Mandalorian took enough hits for the both of them that he’s the one in greater need of attention, but it’s not until the medics have Luke situated to their apparent satisfaction that they turn their attention to his bodyguard. 

“His armor,” Luke instructs the room, “stays on.” His eyes narrow to ensure they understand his full meaning. “Treat what you can without its removal.”

A shiver cuts through the professionalism of several medics in the room, but Din is seen to presently, looked over for injury as Luke receives an electrolyte IV, the flimsibag dangling in pale pink-purple. 

When the holoprojector at Din’s utility belt flashes, he looks to Luke for direction. “It’s your sister.” 

Luke points toward the door. “You? Out,” he says to the medics, an instruction none of them need to receive more than once. To Din, he says: “Answer it.”

Once he does, his sister’s face appears before them, projected above the palm of the man’s hand.

The pale blue of Leia’s expression is thick with urgency, darkened like gathering stormclouds. Delicate beads woven through her braided hair contrast brutally with the fearsome snap of her golden eyes made holo-blue. 

“Tell me you’re all right,” Leia demands of him, vicious, practically before her image has fully flickered into existence. 

The sigh that escapes Luke’s lips is just this side of involuntary. “I’m all right,” he answers, trying not to sound weary. “Force-drained, but that’s easy to mitigate.” 

The huge, heaved breath Leia gives as her hologram takes a seat is welcome, if mildly concerning as, he can tell, relief from fear becomes secondary to rising, writhing anger. 

Within the confines of Luke’s chest, a cold bead of fear viscerally twinges. 

“Mandalorian,” Leia’s voice intones after a long hung moment, making Din’s spine straighten next to him. Luke blinks, tearing his gaze back in her direction. His sister’s expression is solemn. “My brother was right about you.” 

The beat of silence that follows on their end of the holocall makes clear that Din has no idea whatsoever what she’s referring to. Still, he inclines his helmet in the direction of her handheld image in silent acknowledgement. 

It takes Leia a moment to regain full composure again before once again risking speaking. 

“Vader’s apoplectic,” she declares eventually. Her words are clipped, stated as though such an outcome should be self-evident. “I only barely stopped him leaving what’s left of the Bothan frontlines to retaliate personally.” 

She shakes her head hard, her scoff barely audible, a single wavy piece of hair falling from her style to hang down against her cheek as she does so. “I told him it would make us look weak. Reactionary. That we aren’t risking victory on two frontlines just because he wants to crush these particular insurgents personally.” 

He must’ve loved that. 

Luke says again, quietly, “I’m fine, Leia.” 

She has to take a deep, steadying breath before she’s able to speak again. They’re too far aware from one another for her to dig mental fingers into his mind; to tangibly reassure herself of his wellbeing. 

He knows that it’s killing her. 

“The terrorists have overplayed their hand this time,” Leia summarizes, voice frost and fire as it crackles through the connection. “Multiple operatives taken into custody, emergency transmissions intercepted… we have the location of multiple on-planet bases. If we strike back hard and fast, we can still control the narrative.” Leia’s mouth sets, eyes flashing. “I told Vader you can deal with this yourself. Don’t make a liar of me.” 

It’s a small gutpunch, but one he pushes through. When Leia gets scared, she gets angry. 

“I won’t,” Luke promises, which seems to placate her. 

Leia’s anger at last breaks, somewhat, at that assurance. “I don’t know why you changed what you were going to say last minute, Luke,” she says, “but it was the right call. It muddied the message. They wanted you to exert cruelty and control, and instead you gave them lenience.” Her laugh is a harsh snap of sound. 

Luke thinks of Din’s gut feeling in the Force; the incongruity of Rikial’s speech. His own shiver of warning through the Force just before speaking. “Just a feeling,” Luke admits, catching Din’s eyes sideways through the dark of his visor. 

A thought occurs to him. “Senator Rikial–” Luke starts, and his sister all but snarls through the connection. 

“Is a fool,” Leia cuts in, “or was one, and not even a witting one. Terrorist operatives posed as Old Empire loyalists, and what they wanted was a double-feature, two rounds of bombast and threats of force before they dropped that statue on you.” Leia scoffs, crossing her arms. “Buffoon most likely had no idea he was being played. Treacherous and moronic.” 

“Do we know if he’s dead?”

“Not yet,” Leia says. “Death count unknown. Aelyn is – that was caught on holocam – but Rikial’s missing. The sculpture’s artist is in Imperial custody. No idea who she is – completely off our radar.”  

Leia pauses, then leans in closer to the holocam, stern and serious. “Retribution must be swift and sweet, Luke. Decisive, and when at all possible, proportionate.” 

“I know.” Luke presses his lips together, mind already turning towards the upcoming offensive. The terrorists’ attack was, at least in part, successful: a Governor dead, a Senator’s fate undetermined. An event intended to demonstrate New Imperial control reduced to symbolic rubble. Immediate consequences must be made abundantly clear; not just to Chandrila, but to the rest of the watching galaxy. “You know I’ll handle it.” 

Imperial relief efforts, too, should be scaled up at the site of the attack in Hanna City appropriately. Concurrently. Make clear a New Empire that doles out retribution with one hand, mercy and aid with the other. 

Rebels across the galaxy will come to rue the actions of their Chandrilan counterparts today. Luke will make sure of it.

The look she gives him is stern and urgent. “One chance, Luke. If this doesn’t work, there’s nothing I can do that can stop Vader from taking it out on the rest of Chandrila.” Or the rest of the galaxy goes heard but unspoken.

Leia’s holographic expression wavers. “Make them pay,” she presses. “Or they won’t be the only ones made to.”

With that, her image blinks out of existence.

“... right.” Din’s voice comes to his ear through his earpiece. 

There’s a hung pause. “No pressure, then.” 

Luke huffs a breath.

For a moment, all he wants in the universe is to lay his head against Din’s armored chest. To just take a moment to breathe. The last hour feels as though it’s lasted days. 

But the durasteel-spined sharpness and calculation of Fleet Admiral Skywalker is already washing through him, spreading throughout his being like he’s a kyber crystal being bled. 

With an expectant palm held upward, Luke silently asks for – and receives – the handheld.

“Xeck?" Luke asks as he sweeps to his feet, expression turned to hard lines, navigating his temporary IV tether. “Skywalker. Get me the Joint Chiefs. Emergency council in 20 minutes aboard the Tantive. Tell General Kong to bring the high-explosive munitions squad. In the meantime, have all all three of the planet’s gateway portals closed off to non-military traffic.” 

His lip curls. At his side, one hand tightens into a fist. 

“Let’s cauterize this infection before it can spread.”

-

The Tantive’s formal conference chamber is a relic of the ship’s past life as a diplomatic transport, but it serves Luke’s purposes as a makeshift war room. 

Commanders and Generals. Admirals and advisors. Adjutants and officers. Intelligence bureau, special forces.

A constant stream of faces and functions, both real and virtual, holograms flickering on and off with harrowing speed as decisions made and communicated and carried out within swift minutes, a self-propelled flurry of instructions down the chain of command. Mostly-human, mostly-white men in gray uniforms, stone-faced but all-but-vibrating beneath their gray uniforms as they make his will manifest. 

There are, as the New Empire had suspected, multiple minor rebel bases on-world from which the remnant insurgents have been launching their operations. Two on the planet’s other continent, closer to Nayli and Emita; one here, on the same continent as Hanna City, farther inland. 

What no one had realized was the scale - the sophistication of the operation. Pitifully under-resourced, of course, by Imperial standards, but larger and more complex than on-world operatives had suspected. More firepower, more resources, more operatives of galactic renown.

All of it had grown in the Executor’s shadow. Most likely, Luke admits to himself as he receives a fast-paced briefing with tight-lipped displeasure, as a direct result of it. 

Flight crews, having been on alert for weeks for just such a development, are already deployed at his command. Multiple Gozanti -class carriers, each escorted by a full attack wing of TIE Fighters, have been deployed towards each of the three hidden bases, targeting a coordinated attack. Each carrier is teeming with ground infantry, units with experience in guerilla-style warfare and equipped with a wide range of weaponry suitable for the purpose of breaking enemy fortifications. 

It should make a suitably imposing picture for the official holographers to broadcast out to the masses later. 

The Mandalorian alternates between staying seated at Luke’s side and getting to his feet whenever restlessness won’t allow him to rest further, either leaning against the shipwall at Luke’s back, or else pacing a little off to one side with curtailed, expressive movements. It’s chiefly lingering adrenaline, Luke senses, along with the certainty of an imminent return to battle. Staying alert means staying alive floats by every once in a while, though Luke is unsure if Din realizes his projection.

Some part of Luke’s mind remains fixed and anchored to his presence constantly, even as he rides the waves of receiving information and doling out orders. It’s a comforting notion, Din quite literally and figuratively guarding his back – one he has to bring himself back to more than once in order to stay grounded as he orchestrates the operation. Information in, decisions made, instructions communicated. Repeat.

Once all necessary orders have been issued, they make their exit from the Tantive’s pseudo-war room in order to board a Sentinel-class vessel currently being fuelled and loaded to take them back down-planet.

On the way there, Luke finally escapes to one of the ship’s ‘freshers to get changed while his Mandalorian guards the door. That the fresher has a mirror is unexpected, but welcome. 

His own reflection beckons.  

The lines of Luke Skywalker’s face are strained and pale, but not blatantly exhausted – a win, given the circumstances, gaze a sharpened and scrutinizing blue as he surveys himself over the rounded metal sink, stainless steel for long-distance travel. This morning’s makeup has largely given way to sweat, dust and grime, though the hairspray has done a surprisingly effective job keeping blond sweeps and strands intact. What he can see of the once-pristine Imperial white of his tunic and cape have been scorched and marred by dust and blast residue. 

And there at his carotid, just barely perceptible beneath sweat-smudged makeup, a hint of bruise peeks out from his collar.

Proof, small and ephemeral as it is, that their little backroom interlude actually happened in real life. That his memory of the event isn’t the raving product of his own desperate brain. 

The remembered touch of Din’s mouth and hands on him within those small and low-lit confines – marking him, kissing him – is entirely diverting. For the first time, Luke allows himself to dwell longer than a few stolen seconds. 

It had been an act of intimacy squeezed and bounded within both time and space, and one that Din himself initiated. As though he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t go one more minute, one more second, without the reassurance of his mouth against Luke’s throat. Without at last giving himself over to that inexorable pull between them. 

His own gaze, reflected back at him, is both desperate and heated.

It’s an effort to remind himself that this is hardly the time or place for such reflections. 

Soon, Luke promises himself, as hairs rise at the back of his neck. They’ve waited long enough. He has no intention of doing so for one second longer than necessary. 

He begins to extricate himself from his now-unrecoverable getup with a shiver. 

Thousands of credits’ worth of fabric and tailoring soon hit the ‘fresher floor in a pile. A pass with a handheld sonic cleanser – brought in with him from the private room they first put him in – makes quick enough work of the worst of the dust and sweat, all dealt with by the time he begins pulling on the replacement gear provided. 

Everything is black, plain, and serviceable. An Imperial officer’s tunic with the rank insignia plaque removed, matching pants; a plain black belt with a silver buckle. Durasteel-toed boots. Less fine than what he’d usually wear into battle against the enemy, though some underling has clearly tried to make the best of a bad situation by adding a long black cape and a single black glove to the pile. 

Sooty and stained as it is, his white glove from the gala has at least been suitably engineered to enhance his grip and protect cybernetics from blaster rounds. Mundane leather can’t compare, and is therefore discarded. The cape, however, he fastens into place.

The held sigh he releases once his lightsaber is clipped back into place at his hip is visceral.

-

The Mandalorian, of course, is waiting for him when Luke makes his way back to the ship’s hallway a minute later. His posture is deliberately relaxed where he leans against the wall opposite, arms crossed over his chest.  

Din doesn’t look up at first, caught between the pull of different moods that simmer beneath his armor, too complex and intermingled to be made truly intelligible. Resolve, unease: that continued sense of high-alert that Luke suspects will remain until this latest threat is dealt with. 

Beneath it all, incredulity – worse, in his own eyes, satisfaction – at himself. His actions.  

At what Din started in that back-room closet that the two of them have yet to finish.

When the man’s helmet lifts, their eyes meet through his visor. 

It occurs to him, perhaps belatedly, that it’s the first time they’ve been alone together since –

Luke has to concentrate. 

The Mandalorian’s gaze shifts, gaze landing on the pile of singed gray-white-steel blue clothing balled up in Luke’s hands with a questioning helmet-tilt. 

With a twist of a grin at him, Luke crosses the hallway to the chute marked INCINERATOR.  

“This,” Luke quips over his shoulder, “is what I get for wearing white.” The chute opens with a thought, and he tosses it in. “Everything shows.” 

That wrests the crackle of a huffed exhale through Din’s vocoder. A weak snark, if anything, but still yielding a close-enough-to-a-laugh and commensurate lessening of tension in the Force surrounding him, tangible as the release of air from an overfilled balloon. 

Distantly, as if outside himself, Luke finds himself aware of his own expression softening. 

A quick sweep with the Force confirms an absence of entities within immediate proximity. 

There’s no time, Luke knows. No time for anything that isn’t a necessity. 

Still.

Luke takes one step in his direction, then another, closing the space until they’re barely separated by more than a handful of centimeters. He wraps his arms around his own middle. 

“You know,” Luke says, soft and falsely light, eyes fixed on the elongated diamond indent marking the center of the man’s chest plate over raising them to meet Din’s own, “I did intend to give you a bit more preparation time before dropping you down into a literal warzone.” For all the Mandalorian would seem to have been raised, at times, like a soldier, Luke is the only one of the two of them who’s ever led a war. 

It would’ve been nice, Luke thinks, mildly wistful, to prepare the man properly for an encounter for once. When he speaks, his tone is both soft and deliberate. “Stay close to me,” he says, the order half an exhaled sigh. 

“I will,” the Mandalorian says, more promise than answer – before huffing out a wry exhalation. “Rule two."

Luke’s own responding punched-out laugh surprises even him. Whoever would have suspected, he wonders, that the rules for art galas and armed warfare could be so readily comparable?

He wants this to be done. Wants to crawl into a warm bed with Din and curl up with him for the next week straight, the warm glow of Grogu’s Force signature cuddled close between them. 

As that’s not an option, Luke instead raises himself up onto his tiptoes, and – with the gentlest tug downward with both white-gloved hand and the smallest pull of Force energy – drawing the Mandalorian down and closer, until his forehead is pressed against the cold solidity of beskar.

Luke still doesn’t quite get it: why Din’s entire self seizes up before sagging forward, leaning into the touch completely, made liquid with yearning each time their foreheads meet like this. It feels… weighted. A significance worn into his bones like etchings into metal.

“Thanks,” Luke breathes, voice bare and unvarnished to his own ears. Each inhalation and exhalation taken and released between them feels so loud, so shared; so intimate. At the prickle of a question in Din’s mind, Luke answers, “For earlier.” 

The Mandalorian gives a tiny incline to his helmet against him in acknowledgement, but without breaking contact. “You too.” The rhythmic pattern of his vocoded breaths speeds up a touch. “You–”

With a hard-drawn gasp Luke pulls back, mind reeling and narrowing as he feels the staring, boring eye of the universe turn towards him. 

Land on him.

It pins him like an insect beneath a microscope slide, peered at by an inescapable gaze. 

My son. 

Eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted, Luke’s back hits the wall, swiftly followed by the clench of gloved hands at his shoulders, placed to hold him upward. It hits him a moment later that the hands belong to Din: the flare of his worry in the Force unmistakable. 

The unmistakability of Vader’s presence in his mind is altogether different, all-consuming and all-demanding as he fills Luke’s mind’s eye, his consciousness, ‘til his own corporeality fills past the point of overflow.

It’s been a long time since Vader has inserted himself into Luke’s mind in such a manner, especially without warning, and over such a vast distance. It’s always easier, though, once the connection is made. Luke’s mental shielding is solid to anyone else, but the fissures created by past intrusions remain, hurt the same way, buckling to allow access and avoid greater scarring. Repaired and remade, but with forever-faultlines that remember the break.

The stars that swim before his eyes have been dredged forward there, through all of time and space. Tears spring to his eyes, distant and unbidden. 

Father, Luke answers. He can’t tell whether the words stay in his head or else escape past his lips. Either way, Din must hear him if the man’s surge of utter confusion is any indication.

It’s followed instantly by a chasm of yawning worry. 

Luke would try to explain it to him, if the mere idea of attempting to do so while so completely taken over weren’t incomprehensible. As it is, it takes a pooling of all his efforts and concentration to exhale deeply and do the exact opposite of what his instincts scream at him to do: open himself up, consciously if not completely, to the metaphysical intimacy that is his father. 

Vaguely, he’s aware of being lifted. Of being moved and deposited gently. His unseeing eyes register the fresher interior, and the quiet rumble of Din’s voice, though the meaning of his words is impossible to discern. 

He hopes Din will close the door.

As though by way of physical and mental pat-down, Luke feels himself looked over. You are unharmed. The sentiment reverberates through Luke’s entire being, a disembodied tone, that darkens. Then you must make them pay for what they failed to accomplish.

A sense of serenity crests within Luke’s mind. I will, Luke tells him. I am. I’m on my way now. 

There’s a pause in which Luke both rifles through his entire consciousness in search of what he can say that will sucker-punch Vader deepest and simultaneously holds thoughts of surgical attacks and proportionate outcomes so deep inside they may as well not exist, let alone be visible to those looking at a distance. 

Ah.

You’ve trained me well, Father. 

The cosmic equivalent of a rumble of satisfaction resounds from a far-off distance, making his very atoms vibrate with the pure satisfaction of it. 

Yes. This will be a day long remembered. Would that I could destroy them by your side, my son. As I cannot… 

Luke hides a minor twinge of annoyance - Vader’s flare for the dramatic is in full force - as a boarding klaxon sounds inside the ship, where Luke’s body is. 

I reached out to your Order. Several of your Sith Knights were stationed on-planet. They should be arriving presently.

His initial reaction – to feel coddled, undermined -- will not be appreciated. That his father feels the need to second guess his judgment, supplement the forces he selected, and from an order that Luke had a hand in training half of…!

But that’s not how Vader means it to be seen. 

From a certain point of view, it’s the care he never received, the only way this broken man knows to show affection. Shows of military might, domination; he carefully considers that framing, and decides it holds enough weight. 

Thank you, Father. Luke taps into that golden ribbon of connection across the stars to send a primal pulse of gratitude, appreciation. Deference. We will use them well.

Vader’s Force signature, a dark cloak of possession, glows hot like magma; all-consuming fire and molten fury. It’s a love that consumes its subjects, a passionate destruction. 

It wraps around him once more, and Luke surrenders. Allows the melting rock to sear both skin and consciousness before he’s once more released. 

Vader offers parting words as he gathers his presence back, preparing to return to his own corporeal body, vast across the distance. 

Luke. His father’s lingering Force-presence exudes finality. Both promise and ultimatum. You will not fail me.

No, Father. 

Luke cannot say ‘never’ because he knows that isn’t true. He is, and always will be, a failure and a disappointment on a level that no one can fix. The broken child, ever-damaged. Instead, he says: I won’t. 

Failure, Luke knows, had never been an option. 

- 

Coming back to himself is relatively pleasant with Din’s solid presence to greet him. 

Hm. Luke turns towards whatever part of Din is closest to him. With a roll of his neck and a tired stretch, Luke rubs a hand over his face, pushing himself somewhat upwards. “Hey,” Luke offers, trying to shoot the man a tired smile. “Thanks.”

For some reason, Luke’s words just make Din tenser. There’s a considerable pause. 

“What,” the Mandalorian starts, as though whatever Luke may deign to say to him will undoubtedly be beyond his comprehension, “was that.” 

“I–” At once, it seems so hard to explain. Luke pushes himself up into a sitting position, drawing back on himself instinctively even as he mourns the loss in contact. He spends a moment strategizing how best it can be articulated. Eventually, he says: “Father wanted to speak to me.”

There’s a drawn-out pause. 

“Holos.” Din’s tone is blunt but without judgment; concern and confusion mingling until they become indistinguishable. “Subspace transceivers. Long-range comlinks. Missives.”

Luke is – he isn’t saying it right. “No, he didn’t – didn’t just want to send his image, or his voice.” He smiles, a little wan, rubbing at his temple. “He wanted to send himself. To – to check on me.”  

Din’s silence is not especially promising. 

Smoothing hands over his borrowed uniform is as close as he’ll allow himself to openly fidgeting. “I’ll grant you,” Luke admits after a moment, “it can be a bit alarming–”

“Alarming!” Din exclaims, a vocoded huff not quite making Luke flinch. 

“But – it’s fine.” In truth, the strength of Din’s reaction is a little unsettling. “It’s fine, Din. Really.” 

The thoughts that resound inside the Mandalorian’s head are far too audible after prolonged exposure to his father’s unblunted Force presence. Thinks this is normal and right into his head from the other side of the galaxy! 

And, most brutally –

No wonder he has no sense of damn boundaries. 

Silently processing the sentiments without speaking, Luke maneuvers his weight and legs beneath him and extends his hand upward, implication clear that help getting back up on his feet would be appreciated. Without hesitation, the Mandalorian stands in order to help Luke get back up without further prompting. 

By the time they finally make it to the entrance of the docking tube extended between the Tantive IV and their craft, the after-effects of being contacted by his father have practically dissipated. 

The docking tube itself is standard Imperial make, so similar to the one in which their lives first collided that it almost forcefully takes Luke back into the moment of their first meeting. He’d felt Din in the Force first, of course: a brush of fierce resolve and ruthlessness and grief against the edge of his awareness as he made his way from the Korriban’s bridge towards the intercepted Razor Crest. Conquering the man completely before ever having seen him; a rigid Force-grip wrapped in place to hold him still and steady.

The intrigue that had gripped him when, through the frost-shine of white armor, he’d caught his first glimpse of him. 

The Mandalorian with a fearsome, desperate heart in beskar steel who’d thought him pretty. 

They make their way from one side of the temporary gangway to the other; Din at his side, a gruff protectiveness in the way he remains in parallel this time. Maintenance of the requisite three steps back is apparently deemed secondary next to the imperative of ensuring he’s there and ready to catch Luke, if Luke needs him to. 

At least this time, Luke reflects, we’re moving in the same direction. 

It’s not until the last second, as Luke steps over the threshold, that Din falls back to his standard pacing for the sake of appearances.

–

They barely have enough time for Luke to fit in a quick meditation before they near their desired frontline. 

The rebel base is so far inland that the Silver Sea swiftly disappears from their field of vision, their transport whirring over agrarian areas with crop-thick fields and grazing pastures dotted with the occasional farmhouse or village. 

Where they can, they cruise above the cloud cover, far above and away from any main thoroughfares where they’re more likely to be spotted. The occasional break in the whispy white cirrus clouds beneath reveal occasional glimpses of fields that give way first to scrubland, then to rolling hills and uneven terrain. The rebels’ location is unappealing by Chandrilan standards: inhospitable for both crops and cattle, remote even in relation to some of the more far-flung villages. 

They’re on their way from the cockpit to the hangar bay to join the action when, through a viewport, Luke gets his first glimpse of the base that all the intercepted rebel transmissions call Diplomacy. 

Diplomacy Base is built into the depths of the rolling hills themselves. Intelligence shows that it descends far beneath the surface; subterraneous, concealed depths are packed with everything needed to keep the base self-sustaining. Below-surface crops and livestock, groundwater aquifers, concealed hangar bays and command rooms and barracks. All the amenities necessary for a self-contained, concealed local base to exist, with minimal outside contact.

It operates, frankly, at a smaller scale than Luke is accustomed to – a planetary scope, not galactic or multi-sector – but the compact scale is likely one of the things that, until now, has kept it off the New Empire’s radar.

By the time their vessel reaches visual range, Diplomacy Base is no longer remotely hidden. 

The sun hasn’t even set, orange just beginning to streak the skyline stretching towards the mountain range. Smoke rises, oily and thick, hanging in the air. The sky above the base teems with TIE fighters, cut in with a meager few remaining X-Wings – not nearly enough insurgents or resources to mount a proper defense of the airspace. Repulsortanks and AT-ATs have already been deployed, alongside Stormtrooper ground forces; the former concentrate fire on what seems from a distance to be the base’s ‘front’ gate, while the latter pick off what few remaining insurgents haven’t already been smeared across the dirt. There are a pitiful number of rebels on airspeeders below, attempting to take out one of the approaching AT-ATs with harpoons and tow cables. 

His eyes trail a single X-Wing as it’s shot down, careening downward in a smoking, hurtling wreck until it crashes against the stone-strewn ground.

Rebel starfighter, Luke finds himself thinking, suppressing a shiver. And pilot, in effigy.

It feels like someone just walked over his grave.  

“Hey.” A gloved hand closes at his shoulder, and Luke turns his head to look down at it. His attention feels unmoored; far more distracted than he should be. “Gotta load up.” There’s a beat of hesitation; unvoiced words on the tip of Din’s tongue, Luke senses, too private to give voice to. Then, Din makes a concerted effort to think loudly in his direction, blunt and laid bare: you okay?

Luke’s head is still throbbing with the lingering after-ache that comes from another consciousness momentarily half-consuming his own from the other side of the galaxy. Force-drain lingers in each of his limbs, the relatively short stint of time out of combat and snatches of time he’s caught to meditate insufficient to truly refill his reserves. It feels like it’s been either seconds or days since the sculpture came down, not hours. There are about a thousand imperatives and pieces of unfinished business prodding at his mind, each in search of thought and attention he doesn’t have to spare. 

“Of course,” Luke answers, not entirely sure which sentiment he’s responding to. 

By the time they enter the hangar bay, the mask that is Fleet Admiral Skywalker is back in place, leading the Mandalorian up the boarding ramp into the LAAT troop transport. Luke forces his lip not to curl at the sight of the three Sith Knights lurking in a corner, two of whom he vaguely recognizes and the third of which is new to him. 

It’s his own Order, after all. His father bringing them in can’t truly be a sleight against his abilities if he’s personally responsible for their existence in the first place. 

At his back, the Mandalorian stands all but unprofessionally close, looming over Luke’s shoulder as if daring the surrounding officers and underlings to linger.

An officer appears wearing the insignia of the Army Engineering Corps, voice needling and urgent. “Sir,” he says, “General Occateen is on the line. He says the unit rocket launcher’s charged enough to punch a hole right through the hill into the rebel base. He wants to know whether to fire or hold.” 

“Hold,” Luke answers, voice brooking no opposition; the breach of fortifications is one of the most visual parts of the assault, and the message it sends will be clearer and louder if a very much alive Imperial High Prince Skywalker is in frame for the official holo-recording. “Some fatalities are unavoidable, Major, but instruct those on the ground to maim rather than kill in all circumstances possible. More mouths and minds for interrogation droids to work with.” A cool, performative smile curls at his lips. “Besides… you never know what figures of note might be mixed in there in the rabble.” 

Luke finds himself more aware of Din’s hidden gaze fixed on his back than he is on the requisite nods and yes, sir s he receives in response. Unease and exhilaration prickle at his neck. 

“And have Geotech run another check for rear escape routes!” Luke calls out, gaze unwavering. “If subsurface imagery turns up as the slightest crack, tunnel, or crevice, I want it brought down. Particularly anything large enough to fit a vehicle through.” His eyes narrow. “We don’t want a repeat of Felucia, now, do we?”

The lone media assistant onboard approaches with a murmured apology and a quick-seal splint on one arm. At his nod, she steps into his space and reaches up to touch his face, brushing off what’s left of the dried bacta one-handed. The setter and powder she uses to touch up his forehead and jawline is drawn from a professional-looking belt bag slung at her hips, no other equipment in sight. 

She looks pale and sunken; vaguely haunted. 

For the first time since the attack, Luke finds himself forced to confront the fact that he has no idea how many of his own team managed to escape with their lives. Rescue efforts are ongoing; there is no formal list, yet, of survivors.  

The thought triggers a deep-down ripple of hatred and anger within him, fathomless as dark matter. Consciously, voraciously, Luke allows it to flow through him; echoing from his center outwards. That throbbing, pulsating power that comes with the need to carry out vengeance. Filling him til he’s flush to the brim with it, prosthetic and flesh fingers alike aching to wrap around the hilt of his lightsaber. 

In minutes, the craft is clear of all but those equipped for battle: a host of elite Stormtroopers in red-accented durasteel, the three Sith Knights in their respective variations on blood-deep red sashes and tunics against dark, blackened armor. The hangar bay doors open with a rush of outer atmosphere, whipping wind palpable onboard.

And then they're jettisoned outward, shooting forward into the welcoming maw of wide-open skies as the transport gunship maneuvers in a great reaching arc, targeting a dropoff point at the center of the carnage. 

Luke unclips his lightsaber from his utility belt, hands steady amidst both the ship’s motions as the furore of emotion at his center.

There is only passion, Luke thinks to himself, eyes slipping shut where he stands, his only point of physical awareness the juncture where the Mandalorian’s hand – he thinks – may be gripping his shoulder. 

The weight of his lightsaber is bone familiar as he moves it from one hand to the other, rolling it between bare and white-gloved fingers.

Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. 

Through power I gain victory.

Luke’s eyes, once opened, burn red and yellow-gold. 

-

They touch down on duracrete stained to resemble surrounding grassy hills, and Luke is already darting forward before the boarding ramp has had a chance to fully lower. He effortlessly flicks on the long and humming red of his lightsaber as he hurls himself forward into a running jump, landing on his feet, deflecting multiple blaster shots as the Mandalorian and the rest of the elite ground crew spill forth behind him.

The vast majority of combatants around him are N5 units, sentry droids repurposed for combat. Sparks fly in a wide arc as Luke slices his saber through the first, using the carry-through to block two shots in rapid succession, the whum of each slash of his lightsaber accompanied by the sharp sound of sparking diffusion. 

Bright-white Force signatures pitch over in agony as Luke advances forward, cutting the legs out from under another N5, missiles fired from the Mandalorian’s arm cannon behind him finishing it off. 

The sound of blaster shots off beskar trails him like a chant. 

Luke is everywhere at once; presence predicting, preceding and responding to imminent threats all-but-instantly before they have a chance to find their target. 

With a nod from their leader, the Sith Knights dart sideways to take out the lone anti-aircraft laser turret left standing.

Down! Din shout-thinks, but Luke is already ducking beneath the swinging arm of the nearest hostile GK-5 – vintage Clone Wars technology, Luke isn’t even sure how they found working models – as it lunges in his direction, taking it out with an uppercut, gutting its most vulnerable parts into a splaying pool of cauterized robotics and wires before landing, weight-heavy, onto the waiting runway. The solid heft of the Mandalorian’s body appears in his line of vision, striking out with his vambrace, smashing an encroaching humanoid insurgent’s nose and sending them reeling backward. A follow-through blast to both of their kneecaps is, perhaps, overkill, but Luke isn’t one to criticize an effective technique.

The two of them stand amidst the meager remains of insurgent defenses, working back-to-back in perfect tandem. There’s an explosion in the distance that Luke knows, innately, is another of the Mandalorian’s targeted rockets taking out one of the few remaining snipers. 

The insurgents’ laser turret manages to get one off one last barrage, unloading in their direction just before the Sith Knights take it to pieces. Instincts lit up, the Mandalorian is already turning to lurch towards him, a mental image flaring of an arm around Luke’s waist, his jetpack propelling them up and out of the blast range. 

Hold, Luke sends to him, hard and sharp.

Against all his instincts Din does so, bracing. 

With careful, precise effort, Luke catches each one of the three plasma bolts with the Force, holding them mid-air, before sending all three loads straight up into the air to burst above their heads, the explosion simultaneously knocking the last X-Wing into a tailspin. 

With the turret out of commission, the clamor abruptly eases, reduced to the occasional burst of blaster fire in the distance and the crackle of flames, downed crafts no longer shrieking sky-monsters but burning, smoldering scrap. 

“My Lord,” says a voice in his ear. It’s almost a shock – it’s one of the Sith Knights, of course, but the title is one he hears so infrequently these days it barely feels like it belongs to him upon hearing it. “Exterior verified as secure.”

Luke scans the battlefield himself; once satisfied, he keeps his lightsaber extended – better for the official holovid recording and eventual propaganda – but straightens his back, maneuvering himself with Din in tow until he’s optimally placed. It’s better for them to view the downing of the defenses themselves, and it’ll be a better angle for the hovering holocam he senses to his right. 

Wrist comm raised to his lips and liquid vengeance still throbbing in his veins, Luke issues the command. “Rocket unit? Fire when ready.” 

A great blast echoes as the RPS-9 unleashes its load at the rolling-hill exterior that is one of the walls of the base.

The smoke begins to clear, revealing blown-through metal walls and sparking circuitry, smoking debris, and a few half-vaporized bodies – whatever unfortunate insurgents happened to be standing there when the blast landed. 

The shining white of front-line Stormtroopers spill inward, and Luke strides forward to join them.  

Shestine, he thinks, would be happy with his timing; the remaining coils of smoke are caught perfectly by the black sweep of his cape as he crosses over the threshold. 

The inner hallways of the rebel base are cramped and dimly-lit, almost as though the space has been modeled after much grander versions of itself, but without the resources or manpower to achieve the lofty expectations that precede it. Nothing is up to even a passing standard of care, water damage and a faint odor of mildew wreathing around each corner. Even the generator powering the internal lighting system seems faulty, flickering and thready in its output. 

This is no intergalactic rebel fulcrum; rather, it is a tired and dogged remnant of a long-fought planetary struggle, if one now galactically-amplified. 

Exuding confidence, Luke makes his way down the hallway as Stormtroopers, officers, and Sith Knights subdue what insurgents and defensive infrastructure remain in the main hallways following the failed attempt at repelling the Imperial attack. The trap that’s been laid for them is identified, grappled with, and undone well before any effects even have a chance of being activated.

In truth, it’s a bit anticlimactic.

Once the most immediate threats have been nullified, the Mandalorian inclines his head towards one of the rabbit-warren halls.

“Group of heat signatures down that way.” It’s consistent with Luke’s own sense perception, though none of the troopers seem to have yet moved to deal with them. “Dampened – maybe a panic room.”

With a tight nod, Luke summons a group of elite troopers and one of the Sith Knights, gesturing for them to follow. 

It does, in fact, turn out to be a panic room. Down a concealed flight of worn stone stairs, a stone door stands. The junior Sith Knight rushes forward to carve it open with his ‘saber after the troopers scan for traps. 

Luke does his own quick scan ahead, but the threat he senses in the Force is vague and generalized, not specific. It’s not altogether surprising: if the room is designed to dampen heat signatures, other forms of concealment aren’t out of the question. 

Din switches from vocal to sub-vocal channels. “Be on alert for explosives,” he says on one of the open channels. Surface thoughts underpinned with a visceral, hated memory of acrylic paint on purposed beskar, a Mandalorian being crushed to death beneath fallen rubble. He’s had, Luke thinks, quite enough of the idea of being buried alive for the day.

They brute-force their way in and troopers rush inside, blasters drawn and at the ready. The ranking officers and the Sith Knight hold back alongside them, waiting. 

Hand raised palm-outward, lightsaber poised to fend off blaster shots, Luke takes in the sight of what’s on the other side. 

The panic room is spacious compared to the narrow underground halls of the level above – intended, Luke assumes, to be large enough to hold the entirety of the base’s occupants should the need arise. The walls and floor are rough-hewn stone, a few patches of exposed earth revealing tendriled roots. 

The low light is more than enough to make out the few present, those on their feet in the middle of the room. Most of them look terrified, but resolute, though they range on the spectrums of both fierceness and despair. 

Visual hints of greater privilege and authority gives an indication of leadership positions. A human man with a sweep of blonde-red hair and beard in militia dress, a petite woman with long brown hair and a raised chin. A Sullustan with narrowed eyes and pale cheek jowls. 

“Skywalker.” The man in militia dress has a low drone of a voice, but it doesn’t waver. “Thought I tendered my resignation a while ago. Seems a lot of effort to track me down.” 

“Don’t flatter yourself, Madine.” The low curl of Luke’s voice drips with disdain. He drags his eyes from the man’s head to his boots, imagining him in gray-green army uniform and kepi cap. “When word of your defection reached me, I found it unsurprising, if disappointing.”

Madine half-laughs, the sound of it weak. Anticipation hangs over all of the insurgents. A fear and resolve like white-knuckled hands clenched, clinging to a ledge; everything balanced on the edge of a vibroblade. 

Luke frowns; something is off. 

A subset of senses plunges downward in suspicion.

A large thermal detonator lies beneath a concealed false-stone section of the floor. The tiniest mechanical tick-tick-tick ratchets along as each second brings them closer to the pre-programmed detonation time.

A limited playbook, it would seem, where matters of assassination are concerned. 

“I knew your mother.” 

It’s the older woman who speaks, her words ringing true in the Force like a bell, clear and unmistakable. Luke has to stifle a flicker of surprise, caught off guard by the unexpectedness of the remark more than he is by the content of it. 

Vicious hatred flares in her eyes. “And your father… that man betrayed everything my lady stood for. Everything she believed in.” The woman’s lip curls. She’s extremely beautiful by humanoid standards in spite of her poorly-fitting clothes, her sour expression. “Your sister dishonors her memory each time she uses her mother’s name as she does that man’s bidding.”

“Sabé-”

“He has to know, Crix.” Her eyes slash in a way her hands, weaponless, can’t.

They don’t sound like lies.

But then, they hardly sound like anything over the roaring in his ears.

Luke has no memory of his mother; he never has. Padmé Amidala has always been more of a concept to him than an actual person, even as a child. Once distant and barely-known, now little more than a historical figure. Mentioned rarely during the occasional visits he manages to make to what’s left of her family; a silence born of sadness he’s never truly shared.

If this woman believes some petty acquaintance with a dead woman is enough to move him, she’s quite mistaken. 

“In my experience,” Luke says, words a sing-song lilt, more for the troopers at his back than anything, “people will say anything to spite the victors when they themselves are facing defeat.” Pointed, he glances down and then up again. “... or facing death.”

Explosives, Luke pushes into Din’s mind, whose sense of alarm ratchets sharply upward. Sub-surface. A suicide attack. The ringleaders can’t be interrogated into giving up their secrets if they’re vaporized into atoms. They’re stalling. He marks the seconds as they tick towards the minute mark.  

“Subsurface explosives?” the Mandalorian snarls over comms, and for a worried second Luke wonders if he might have to lock his limbs in place to the ground in order to prevent him giving in to the man’s screaming impulse to haul him back physically by his middle in front of everyone. “Back. Now.”

“Hold,” Luke says aloud, along with a vague impression of a grin sent only to Din. Trust me. 

The portion of his consciousness that has yet to detach itself from the thermal detonator solidifies its hold around the bomb’s exterior, weaving a concentrated barrier that draws on the very throb and pulse of the universe to keep the tremendous force of the explosive’s detonation contained. A variation on the way he constrained the child’s Force-blast the first time he met Din, if far more intense. 

At times, Luke forgets the true nature of himself; of the Force. Allows himself to fall prey to the classic mischaracterization of that unknowable power, beyond the comprehension of any sentient being, that the Force is somehow finite. Depletable. A resource that one is capable of running out of. 

The force is infinite. It is an ocean, one that exceeds the boundaries of the known universe.

Luke reaches out a white-gloved hand – and catches the explosion before it has a chance to rupture. He is a transistor in the machine of the universe, exempt from physical limitations. 

The sheer effort breaks a bead of sweat free from the concealer and setter on his forehead.

The stone beneath their feet shakes, throwing the insurgents to the ground. Vocoded cries ring out, some of his own forces sent hurling down to join them, though the chrk of Din’s magboots engaging at his back suggests the Mandalorian remains standing. The black of his windswept cape rushes back behind him, sent up into the air. 

He curls his fingers. With another twitch of effort, he narrows his eyes – and sends the lingering pulse of kinetic energy outward in all directions, diffusing it outward, rocking everyone but the two of them off their feet into wall and floor. 

Burning eyes fixed forward, Luke lowers his outstretched hand. His smile edges feral as he eyes the prone and prostrate terrorists, shaking loose the last shivers of contained energy from his skin. When one of them finally breaks -- the woman, reaching for a concealed blaster -- the Mandalorian’s stun bolt lands before she can even lay hold of her weapon. 

With a heaved breath, Luke raises his comm to his lips. “Send a shuttle to take us to the Executor. Astromech pilot only.”  

Smile stretches lips. "We’re done here.”

–

EXTERNAL COMMTEXT
Received: 19 min ago
Star System of Origin: Chandrila
Sender Name: Shestine Cathari 

Nice job on that entrance, IHP. Couldn’t have staged it better myself. 

Media crew mostly fine. Others still being dug out. See you soon at the debrief.

-S

END OF COMMTEXT: REPLY? Y/N

-

HOLORECORDING TRANSCRIPT
Recorded: [timestamp corrupted]
Transmission Location: Wild Space [sector unavailable]
Sender Name: Solo, Han
Auto-Flagged as Priority Message (click here to change settings)

Kid! What the hell’s going on?! Chewie and me, we just got back in ‘net range and–

[UNINTELLIGIBLE BACKGROUND SHYRIIWOOK]

That’s right! You’re all over the damn thing! Eugh! [...inaudible…] Call us back, will ya? [...inaudible grumbling…] … doing his best to send me into an early grave out here…

[UNINTELLIGIBLE BACKGROUND SHYRIIWOOK]

All right, all right! Damn kid’s doing his best to send us into an early–

TRANSMISSION ENDED
Transmission Length: 00:00:31

-

HOLORECORDING TRANSCRIPT
Recorded: 21 min ago
Transmission Location: Naboo, Mid-Rim
Sender Name: Lars, Beru (née Whitesun)
Auto-Flagged as Priority Message (click here to change settings)

Luke! Thank the stars you’re all right… [ inaudible] 

…the three of you are going to come here and visit me, Luke Skywalker, or I am going to get on a trans-galactic freighter and drag you here myself. You hear me? [inaudible] 

… and tell that man of yours how fine a job he did for you today! 

TRANSMISSION ENDED
Transmission Length: 00:00:19

-

EXTERNAL COMMTEXT
Received: 3 min ago
Star System of Origin: Chandrila
Sender Name: Leia Amidala (Leia)
Auto-Flagged as Priority Message (click here to change settings)

You did it, brother. 

See you soon. 

END OF COMMTEXT: REPLY? Y/N

–

The requisite footage of terrorists being escorted into Imperial custody, not requiring Luke’s presence, is captured with the punched-out hole in the hill as its backdrop. 

It’s with considerably less bombast and fanfare that he and Din slip out the now-open main gate towards the designated pick-up point.

Piles of wreckage have now largely ceased their smoking. Bodies of both insurgents and Imperials largely remain where they fell, though some efforts to clear the battlefield have been initiated. AT-ATs are just visible in the gloam; looking like a pack of enormous trundling beasts as they make their way over to their designated pickup point.

Battle high lingers as they stand and wait for pickup. Sense-memory of the way their bodies moved and fit together today shivers along his spine and through his limbs. 

Neither of them speak. 

The Mandalorian keeps looking over at him; Luke, hyper-aware of the fact, pretends he doesn’t notice. 

Against the moon, the shape of an old Lambda-class shuttle appears as it descends towards them through the atmosphere; a three-winged bird in shadow.

“Your eyes.” 

The Mandalorian’s soft, vocoded words draw Luke’s gaze. 

It’s the first time Luke’s ever seen him in moonlight. Mingled light and shadows play across the slants of his helm where it tilts in examination, beskar at once steely and luminescent. Unseen dark eyes stay fixed and intent on Luke’s own. “They’re blue again.” 

The smile Luke gives him in return is half a preen. “They are.” He offers nothing further, enjoying the silence.

The Lambda comes to a midair hover, preparing to touch down. The three topmost points of light at the furthest tip of each wing make it easier to see as the bottom two wings fold upwards and inwards as the white-gray body of the craft descends towards the green-tinted tarmac.

No lifeforms onboard; droid-piloted, as requested. 

Displaced air hits their skin; the barest hint of heat expelled from the shuttle’s ion engines. 

He can practically taste his own heartbeat on his tongue. 

“You know,” Luke offers, voice taking on a lower register, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet and back again as he stands. He keeps the Mandalorian at the corner of his vision even as he ostensibly watches the Lambda lower to the ground. A small smile curls at the edges of Luke’s lips. “We never finished what we started, before. On the Svelte -class.”

The Mandalorian’s helm whips sideways, staring at him. Post-battle rush and lingering wariness give way, abrupt, to a spike of shocked nerves mixed with rapt interest. A low pulse of embarrassment that bleeds into the rest of his consciousness like a warm pink flush. 

Din's self-control, externally impassive, shivers.

“Luke.” The word comes out a rasping crackle through his vocoder.

Not in warning, though. In recognition. 

The hiss-clunk of the shuttle landing brings them back to present. The boarding ramp descends. 

Luke dodges Din’s unseen gaze as he strides up into the craft, deliberately avoidant.

The passenger bay is empty, just as Luke requested. Heart rattling, Luke turns with a lifted hand towards the cockpit, confirming it’s empty as the reeling MandIalorian ascends to join him.

Luke steals towards him, then, bare hand pressed splay-fingered atop the dual textures of leather and metal. A single finger narrows its attention to trace the inset symbol at his chestplate’s sternum. Moving into Din’s space with significant intention, guiding him backward – one step, two – as the tug of the Force at his shoulders helps guide him where Luke wants him. 

He eschews the empty passenger seats; they have no time to get comfortable. Instead, he walks Din backward until the jut of cloak-clad jetpack meets the shuttle wall with a muffled thud.

A roughened, sucked-in breath drags through his vocoder, doing visceral things to Luke’s insides. 

The rumble of the engine picks up as Luke drops, unceremonious, to kneel for him. 

The rush of motion and pressure bears down on them as they ascend. Urgent need twinges in the pit of his stomach. Half-clawed apart with want, Luke drags his tongue over his lips, mouth practically watering as he reaches to take hold of his flight suit zipper. 

A two-toned glove enters his field of vision to still his fingers; resting atop Luke's own, no grip or pressure. Valiantly, Luke suppresses a whine, instead tilting his head to look up at Din from the floor. Supplicant with unmet need. 

The sweeping curve of beskar helm is all the more visible from this angle. Looking down at Luke to meet his gaze through his T-visor. 

Cams, the Mandalorian thinks, muddy-minded, and Luke experiences a pang of shining fondness at the stunning consistency in the man's priorities. His breath hitches. “Can anyone–?” 

The word “see” catches on his tongue, thick and unvoiced, but Luke is already raising his free hand and twisting it mid-air; physically wrenching multiple security cams from multiple shuttle corners, each sending out a spray of sparks before crashing down onto floor and seats with a clatter. 

Without breaking eye contact, Luke leans in to rest his cheek against the raised etchings of the man’s right thigh plate, cool against his cheek as Luke blinks up at him.

The smallest inclination of helmet above him is paralleled in concert with the drag of a withdrawing hand against Luke’s own. It lowers, both hands flexing at his sides as if unsure of what to do with them. 

Beaming, shining, Luke draws his zipper down. The sound of it so close to his ear is obscene. 

This time, when Luke slips his hand into his relief panel, his fingers find the pressure trigger. Above his head, a vocoded inhale crackles. Withdrawing the hard-won prize of his half-hard cock from layers of protection; revealing the line of his flushed length to both recycled air and Luke’s own ravenous gaze. 

The shuttle floor rumbles beneath his knees.

Luke leans in, all but delirious at the sweat-potent smell of him, mouth watering and eager as parted lips wrap around the head of Din’s cock, giving it a long and drawn-out, filthy suck. A strangled half-cry escapes Din’s throat as Luke suckles and laps at the head, groaning at the salty tang that bursts on his tongue and in reward for his efforts. 

Indulgent satisfaction gives way to vicious imperative. He settles, getting his toes beneath him for leverage, relaxing his throat. Hands creep up the outsides of Din’s clothed thighs until his hands are nestled beneath duraflex hip guards. 

He takes the entire length of his cock in one long, languid movement forward, hands tightening their grip on Din’s hips for better leverage. A half-stifled shout rights out from above, the hips before him hitching as Luke swallows him down. Past the point where his cockhead hits the back of his throat to take him deeper. Right down up to the hilt, throat working to take the full length of him until Luke’s nose is pressed right up against dark curls that match the ones on Din’s scalp, lips stretched wide around the base. 

There’s a clang of metal overhead; a helmeted head falling back against the shuttle. It’s followed by a low, vocoded groan that resonates with perfection in Luke’s ears. 

This is right where Din belongs, buried deep inside Luke’s throat. Swallowing around the weight of him as he grips the man’s hips, cock so thick and heavy on his tongue. A satisfaction so perfect it could almost make him cry. Vocoded breaths grow increasingly ragged, gloved hands twitching, resisting the urge to take hold of his hair. 

Swoops of the craft’s movement hit his stomach, speaking to trajectory and momentum, and with a low, muffled groan Luke draws back and finds his rhythm. Deepthroating him in earnest as he rocks a little on his toes, clutching at Din’s hips. The relentless hot suction of his mouth playing the man’s body like an instrument.

Luke’s own eyes are practically rolling back in his head at the undiluted pleasure of it. The incomparable satisfaction. Ruthless in the intimacy of consuming; of being, in turn, consumed. 

“Hah,” Din huffs, amidst hard and breathless crackles. “Ah–!” 

As though unable to hold back a single second longer, a single gloved hand reaches, unsteady and tentative as it brushes against the back of Luke’s head. 

Groaning in wordless approval, Luke reaches outward, unthinking; pressing so that his hand stays snug in place as Luke continues the spit-slick slide of his mouth. 

It’s rhythmic and ruthless, stomach alight at the spasming tighten of Din’s hand on his head, wordlessly urging him onward. Head so very empty of everything but humming, staticky bliss, only coming up for tiny gasps of air when he absolutely has to; tiny little inhales sucked in through his nose without ever pulling off completely.

A dozen tiny tendrils of Luke’s extended being slip beneath Din’s armor to caress the skin beneath, dragging down the back of his neck, tweaking nipples hidden deep beneath his layers. The bite of phantom nails dig into the taut skin of his lower back. 

The additional sensation makes Din groan in frenzied overwhelm, hand tightening in Luke’s hair as he rocks his hips once, twice against Luke’s face before forcing himself still. 

They don’t have time for Luke to teach him how to properly fuck his throat right now, of course. But he’s confident they’ll find plenty of time to practice. 

The hand at the back of his head tightens. 

“I’m–” The sound of the word is a drawn-out creak through the vocoder. Panting breaths coming so hard and quick that Luke imagines them fogging up his helmet. A low, long groan escapes him, desperate. 

The sense of rising elevation slows, changing into smooth forward momentum. Approaching the hangar bay for landing. 

The same realization hits the Mandalorian with a full-body jolt and a spike of frustrated upset.

“Luke.” The Mandalorian’s voice is a wretched croak. A hand tugs, half-hearted, at the back of his head, but Luke just picks up his pace and swallows him down harder, deeper. “We’re–”

Trust, Luke pushes at him wildly through the Force. Ardent and primal in his need. Trust, trust–

He has Din right on the edge of orgasm when the shuttle’s landing sequence kicks in. Cock twitching and desperate where it’s buried right to the hilt in his swallowing throat. Pace defiant-steady as he works him just that last little bit more, easing him higher, higher, until –

A sharpened gasp hits his ears, followed by a long, hungry moan made deeper by vocoder. It’s followed a half-second later by the crashing onslaught of twinned relief and release as Din’s pleasure crests, hitting the back of Luke’s throat in hot spurts he sucks down greedily and swallows, wringing burst after burst of pleasure from him. 

Luke’s body resounds with a triumph so primal it whites the entire rest of the universe out; with the absolute conviction that this – this right here – is all he’s ever needed. 

All he could ever need. 

A punched-out sound of overload above his head convinces him to finally pull off with a filthy wet pop, though he swoops back in right after to suckle one last time at the man’s lovely, overstimulated cockhead.

The plunge of descending vertical movement halts as they touch down in the docking bay. 

With a thoughtless reach of his hand, Luke uses the Force to stop the automatic opening of the entry hatch before they’re ready for it. He tilts his head upward, giving his Mandalorian a blissed-out grin through the man’s visor. 

“Hey,” Luke croaks, sounding thoroughly fucked-out to his own ears as he stares up at him.

“Hngh,” Din manages, the usual blunt force of his thoughts made languid with orgasm. A gleam of light moves from one side of his visor to the other as he tilts his head, then exhales a hard crackle of breath. 

A confused clamor outside in the hangar prompts Luke to tuck that lovely, spent cock back into smallclothes and flight suit, zipping him back up again, and gets himself up on his feet, aware for the first time of his knees aching. 

He wipes his mouth delicately with the back of his hand, shooting Din a look that’s both outrageously satisfied and not even remotely sated.

When the astromech pilot re-deploys the boarding ramp, Luke allows it to descend this time. 

The mask of Imperial High Prince Skywalker steals not-quite-effortlessly over his face as they exit past the remains of the destroyed security cams. 

His heart continues to race within his chest, cock still painfully hard where it remains trapped within the confines of his borrowed trousers. 

But Luke doesn’t mind. 

Once they get back to their chambers, after all, it’ll be his turn. 

–

Epilogue – One Month Later 

[Transcription]
Galactic Daily News - Special Feature
Day 9 Month 9 Year 44

TRANQUILITY AFTER TERROR: A One-Month Retrospective on the Chandrilan Gala Massacre

Scenes of chaos and carnage. Betrayal and vindication. A threat at long last brought to its knees after a devastating terror attack on a Core World city – one long known for as a bastion of peace and stability – incited New Imperial reprisals, bringing a long-standing threat to Chandrilan public safety to its knees. 

One month after a failed assassination attempt against the Imperial High Prince left over two hundred sentients dead at a planetary art gala, the dust has finally begun to settle in Hanna City. Monuments to the dead, many of them works of art in their own right, are maintained by local artists and community leaders. A new Governor and Senator have been sworn in, their predecessors – Governor Allesta Aelyn and Senator Vaz Rikial – both caught in the deadly collapse. 

Rikial’s miraculous survival beneath thousands of tonnes of fallen scrap has been widely framed as suspicious by the galactic public – particularly given an unexpected variation from his speaking notes immediately prior to the collapse. 

 It’s an opinion the New Empire, apparently, shares. 

“Vaz Rikial has been stripped of his title and taken into custody under suspicion of conspiracy and treason,” reads the official Imperial Security Bureau statement, issued shortly after the Senator was pulled from the rubble. 

The sculpture’s artist, as well as multiple co-conspirators, have been taken into Imperial custody. 

Footage from the scene on the night of the attack quickly took the HoloNet by storm. A new bodyguard put to the test in extraordinary fashion; multiple displays of raw power and retribution from the High Prince, first at the scene of the attack, then by personally leading the successful effort to rout out remnant forces. According to current analyses, only a negligible number of insurgents were able to evade reprisals. 

At the time of the sculpture’s collapse, Imperial High Prince Skywalker was giving an impassioned keynote speech in support of Chandrila’s uniquely creative spirit within a new and greater galaxy. Later that day, Skywalker himself was dispatched to address the larger threat to civilian security.

Unofficial public opinion surveys in key sectors have seen a significant uptick in support for the Imperial Royal Family – and the New Empire itself – since the attack.

“The Imperial High Prince executed his duties on Chandrila admirably,” Emperor Vader stated by way of formal press release. In a subsequent audio interview exclusive to Galactic Daily News, Darth Amidala indicated that “Chandrila and the galaxy should rest easier knowing that threats to good order will not be tolerated.”

Unverified statements uploaded to the HoloNet claiming to represent a larger organized anti-Imperial militia condemned the approach taken by the Chandrilan contingent. The statements indicate that while their ‘goals are aligned’, the attack ‘was executed in such a way that does not align with the values of our movement.’ 

According to the Office of Galactic Truth and Fact Correction, claims of a larger network of rebels across the galaxy are, at best, spurious. 

“There is no unified rebel movement,” stated Lieutenant Konica Mifro, a public-facing liaison at the Imperial Security Bureau. “These are largely isolated splinter groups or dangerous radicals.” He later added that such threats to security and order serve as a reminder why the New Empire – and galactic citizens – must remain ever-vigilant. 

Galactic Daily News urgers our viewers and listeners to report sedition. As the saying goes: ”if you see something, say something.” 

The Executor left Chandrilan orbit this week after 7 months and 4 days of its presence. The New Empire’s official position is that the threat that was posed has now been largely dealt with. 

As for Chandrilan citizens? “Think of it as a fresh start,” said newly-appointed Chandrilan Governor Cylo Judd, as he beamed against a backdrop of New Imperial and Chandrilan banners during his swearing-in ceremony. “Regrowth in destruction. Security in strength.” 

Shrik L’ayez
Galactic Daily News
Coruscant