Vibrant Eyes | Din Djarin

Epilogue

Din Djarin wasn't exactly known for being the good guy.

He used to be okay with that too, when he was alone. He was trying to be better now. Simply, he was trying to learn to be good, for his family. For the life they'd found with each other.

Din lived in a world of grays. Nothing was light and nothing was dark. Everything lay in between, closer to one side than the other, yes, but never one or the other. When he saved a defenseless child from cruelty, that was the first time he truly chose the path of lighter gray. Then he met Ira, he learned to know her, and they'd been walking that path ever since.

Learning to live rather than just survive.

For a time it'd been the three of them. Grogu, Ira, and Din. Through battles and heists, long nights and long days, they found an unyielding peace with one another. The kid was their son, and they his willing parents.

Ira spoke often of love as the days continued. 

She spoke so often of love and the loss that came of it that many nights Din lay by her side and soaked in the weight of what that meant to them. The loss she focused so wholly on and yet decided to brave every day. The love she whispered in his ear when they lay together late at night, his helmet placed off to the side. The love that shone in her smile and that of which he often found her muttering to Grogu about.

It was only when they had to give him up that Din felt that loss for himself.

The nights grew longer; colder. The days were always too much; too much light, too much meaningless sound, too much time. The hole in their lives taunted him wherever he went. 

It haunted Ira, too, that much he could tell. But grief made her harder to read and he was only surprised she didn't let the mist and the fog consume her more than she did.

They still had each other throughout it all. It was perhaps the only thing keeping them sane; having another to hold that knew just what was missing.

Until it wasn't, and Grogu returned home.

The plan was never for that to happen, but one event led to the other and eventually it did.

It started with the bounty he collected for the information to find the Armorer again. Now with the darksaber in his possession Din could understand the difficulty of wielding such a weapon and he heard plenty about it when Ira had to help him along after he burned his leg. Then she trained with the Armorer like they were old friends, both instructing him on how to wield the burning blade.

From there they went to Tatooine for a new ship, thankfully a two-seater version. He was glad to be out of there when he was because those two, Peli and his wife, made the worst and most unlikely pair. The mechanic was bad enough without more encouragement.

It was after their failed visit to see Grogu that everything really turned around.

Din was running. 

Each thud of his boots sent sand flying as he scrambled to go faster, skidding around corners and clutching his blaster tight. With every few steps he would turn around and shoot helplessly at the giant droid on his tail, knowing it did nothing at all against the shield encasing it. He carried on like this for longer than he'd wanted to, no end in sight. 

And no Ira either. 

They'd started all of this at each others' sides, as they did most things, but amid the chaos she disappeared. Still pulling her disappearing act all this time later.

Dank farrick, he loved her.

Then the running stopped when Peli showed up in a droid-pulled wagon, turned around in a panic, and Din hitched a ride.

After a bit of running for their lives (which was sort of a daily for them), Peli all the sudden tugged the cloth at her side away to reveal a familiar face. Small, green, adorable. Those big eyes and big ears.

His son.

Din pulled him close when Grogu jumped at him and wished Ira was there to hold them. Maker, he'd missed the kid. But after taking a moment to soak in his presence, he had to focus on the matter at hand. And not dying. 

If he died the moment Ira left, she would kill him; and brutally too.

What felt like minutes later, he was charging at the flickering red of the droid's weakening shield as it faced up against Boba's rancor. He shoved his way through and used the jetpack to boost himself to stand atop it. Darksaber in hand, he first chopped off one its turrets and forced the blade into its head to deactivate the shield. Or, at least, as far as he could before it sent him slamming into the ground. Din groaned low in his throat, gritting his teeth as he tried to recover the air that escaped him.

Still winded, he could only watch as its leg slammed into the ground just beside his armored thigh. Even if it had been aimed precisely. Almost as if someone had nudged its trajectory away. And Din thought he had a pretty good idea who that was.

But then it began to rear back, and he didn't know why but he couldn't bring himself to move. Every bone in his body ached and he lifted his hands in a feeble attempt to protect himself when he saw something.

When something on a nearby roof moved in a flurry of swaying fabrics. A shadow against the light. Bright violet light melding into the glare of the sun behind it.

Then he watched as that shadow leapt effortlessly through the air and Ira landed on the droid. He watched, awestruck this time, as his riduur effortlessly spun the burning blade of her lightsaber between her hands and sliced off the other turret without a moment's notice. She balanced with ease even as it stumbled and fell, a bolt in its leg flying into Grogu's hands.

Din scurried back and watched as her gaze flew to him, those vibrant eyes as bright as ever. As lovely and passionate for this world she could not see. For all she saw instead.

Her attention flicked away for a moment and then she was at his side once more. Where she belonged and where he did too. Ira reached down and helped him to his feet, paying the droid no more mind. 

He took her lead, letting her bring them to the child held in Peli's arms.

And he watched as she plucked Grogu into her arms and held him close, small green arms reaching to grip at her neck. Happy babbles broke through the sound of the rancor slamming into the droid and Din really couldn't care less.

He wrapped an arm around Ira's waist and looked over her shoulder to the child in her arms. Their son. His family.

And listened as she whispered through crackling breaths, "I have missed you more than the sun misses the moon and the stars the sky by day."

Neither of them ever knew what to say to her when she said stuff like that. But she knew the love it invoked. Sometimes words just got in the way (never mind that the kid couldn't even talk).

So instead of attempting anything, Din simply shielded them with his body when debris came flying from the droid as Boba ripped it apart.

Ira whispered something to the kid that both laughed at, and then the fighting continued. And after attempting to get the loose rancor under control, where he lay groaning in the sand (again), Din sat up and watched his son and wife stand before the fearful creature, even as it roared in their faces, and even after how it'd thrown him around.

Both raised their hands and did their magic Jedi thing, sending it into a calm sleep.

Ira left Grogu to cuddle against the creature and helped Din up with a chuckle.

He sighed in the way he knew she found amusing. "Later."

"Yes, Din," she whispered teasingly. "Of course, dear."

When Din stood tall at her side once more, he looked down at her silently. Ira looked up at him and her grin faded. She knew the way his thoughts had turned and very likely knew exactly how he was looking at her. The love that swelled in his chest.

She tapped a hand on his chest plate. "Later."

When she turned to walk away, he followed right behind; to their child and the future ahead of them. The forever she spoke of often, and what they had there in their hands. Together against the loss and the love it all had to offer.

This was forever.