The World between Worlds

Chapter 6- The Child

Din Djarin sat helmet on as always, for this was the way. His helmeted gaze focused on the child playing, the only other member of his clan. The lifespan of the child was still of much interest to him. The child had been older than him when he'd found him on Arvala-7 but had been but a helpless babe. Very little had changed since Mando had taken the child under his charge more than thirty years ago. The child waddled on its squat legs a little more securely and now strung a few words of the galactic basic together and understood simple instructions in Mando'a, but was still a youngling. Mando, by contrast, felt significantly older. His various old injuries, long healed, ached daily, and his bones seemed to groan and complain at him as he carried out movements that had once been simple by comparison.

Despite the odds, Mando had kept the child and his extraordinary abilities secret for the last few decades. The First Order's rise from the Empire's remnants, the Final Order defeated by some new Jedi nearly a decade past, had all been in systems far from where Djarin and the child lived in solitude. They had moved frequently to avoid detection, but mercifully, the First Order had been preoccupied with far greater things than the child, the legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker. Mando and the child had kept to the outer rims, and they had now been on this planet long enough to call it home. Long since retired from the Guild and his days as a bounty hunter, life was slower, as Djarin was slower. Their home was simple, and anything the planet Bogano did not immediately provide his ship, the Era Razor still functioned well enough to get them off-planet to find resources. Bogano was perfect for the child, a planet of grasses, wetlands, bogs, and underwater caves. The child had not particularly shown a planetary preference between sand-strewn or grasses. Still, his carnivorous desires seemed to be amphibious in nature—one minute playing with native amphibians, the next devouring the hapless creature whole. After nearly forty years, such odd eating behaviours left Djarin queasy, but it was good to know the child was capable of finding his own food.

Currently, the child was lifting rocks and twigs and insects without his hands entertaining himself. In their time together, Mando had seen the child perform unimaginable feats. Held a Mudhorn at bay from killing him, healed Karga and reflected flame from an incinerator stormtrooper. Djarin did not understand the child's unnatural abilities or how the child harnessed them. It appeared to be instinct; the child wanted to help and had, but the child was clueless when asked to do something on command. Mando and the child were a tribe of their own, but he worried about what would happen to his charge when he could no longer protect the little alien. He had failed to find its species or native planet. He had learnt of one particularly famous and ancient Jedi of the same species, a grandmaster by all accounts who'd survived the massacre. This Jedi's appearance and abilities fitted with the child, but no others appeared to exist. A strange and secretive species, to be sure.

Mando had little knowledge of the child's abilities, though he had tried to verse himself as much as possible, and he'd had some limited information from a female ex-Jedi he'd met years ago. Others skilled in similar abilities had hunted them ever since Djarin, along with Dune, had recused the child from Moff Gideon of the old Empire. The ability to move items as the child did not physically but using what appeared to be their minds, making weak-minded fools do as they were bid and stop laser blasts in mid-air. However, none seemed to have some of the abilities the child did when it came to healing.

The light was fading, and Mando set to lighting the fire he'd been building outside their cave-dwelling and preparing his supper. He was surprised at having the fire lit to see a figure walking through the dusk-lit grasses towards them. Hardly anyone came to this planet. Those that did come came with unsavoury intentions. Mando mentally checked the multiple weapons permanently upon his personage; he was a Mandalorian, and weapons were his religion. A blaster pistol was at his waist, a long Amban sniper rifle on his back, a vibrio blade in his boot and, of course, his vambrances. The whistling birds were long since used up, but he still had his whipcord and flamethrower. The figure was tall yet slight. Despite the goggles they wore and the long, dark, hooded cloak, they were clearly female. Their stride towards his home was purposeful yet seemingly non-threatening.