Title: Jump
Author: jordannamorgan
Fandom: The Mandalorian
Characters: Din and Grogu.
Setting: After "The Book of Boba Fett".
Rating: G.
Length: 585 words.
Summary: Din finds that Grogu really did learn some things while they were apart.



“Don’t spoil your appetite,” Din admonished, watching as Grogu toddled clumsily after a frog. “We’re going to have a proper dinner in a few minutes.”

His foundling gleefully ignored him, diving after the frog into a tall stand of rushes on the lakeshore. Din shook his helmet with a sigh, and returned his attention to warming a pot of soup.

A moment later, he was torn from his cooking by the mingled sounds of a panicked squeal and a monstrous bellow.

Din’s blaster was in his hand before he was even on his feet. With astonishment he recognized the small green-and-tan shape bounding toward him, springing more nimbly than the frogs it had pursued only a moment before… and in the next second, he registered the threat. A fat scaly beast over a meter long was chasing Grogu, still dripping with the muck of the lake it must have been hidden beneath the surface of.

The impossibly leaping little blur that was Grogu crashed into Din’s chest, almost physically knocking him backward. Somewhere between steadying himself and wrapping an arm around the kid, he had only an instant to focus on the fact that the enraged beast was still galloping toward them—but that instant was all a trained Mandalorian hunter needed.

One shot erupted from his blaster, and the animal was dead before it hit the ground at his feet.

Indifferently Din gave the carcass a kick to ensure the efficacy of his handiwork. Then he holstered his blaster and turned his attention to Grogu, running gloved hands over the kid’s small limbs to check him for injuries. “You okay?”

Although green ears drooped with a rather abashed expression, there was no apparent distress in the little whine Grogu uttered. Din absently patted his back in reassurance, but he was still bemused by what he had just seen. Looking back, perhaps he’d seen a glimpse of something like it at the moment of their reunion on Tatooine, when Grogu launched joyfully into his arms at first sight; but in the midst of a running battle with a nightmare of a droid, he hadn’t really processed the phenomenon at the time.

Now he knew.

“Where did you learn to jump like that, kid?” In all his months spent as Grogu’s protector, it wasn’t simply that he had never seen the child be capable of such movements. To the contrary, he was fairly sure everything he’d witnessed of Grogu’s anatomy told him that small body should physically not be able to do such a thing… unless.

“Is that something the Jedi taught you?—Some new way to use your power to help move yourself?”

Big brown eyes shifted away. Grogu still looked oddly guilty.

“Why didn’t you show me you could do that before now? It would have been reassuring if I knew you could get out of harm’s way when you had to.”

The answer Grogu gave was crystal clear to Din. The foundling looked up at him softly, little fingers patting the beskar vambrace on the arm that was wrapped tightly and protectively around his body.

“You thought that if I knew you could move like that, I wouldn’t be as willing to carry you?” Din chuckled quietly, giving Grogu a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry, pal. I like it better this way, too. …Now let’s see if this ugly hunk of meat you helped catch can be cooked, huh?”

Grogu’s trill was a sound of happiness as Din carried him back to the fireside.

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2022 Jordanna Morgan