Title: Higher Education
Author: jordannamorgan
Fandom: The Mandalorian
Characters: Peli Motto, Din Djarin, Grogu.
Setting: During the opening scenes of Chapter Eighteen. (Mild spoilers for the latest episode!)
Rating: G.
Length: 690 words.
Summary: Peli wonders if Mando might be overdoing it just a little.
Note: Also written for the prompt of “Tools of the Trade” at genprompt_bingo.



“You oughta be grateful for this opportunity,” grumbled Peli Motto, trying in vain to hold a shuddering R5-D4 still with one hand while she tightened the loose bolts of his plating. “Mandalore is the stuff of legend! If you help make some great discovery while you’re digging around in those caves, you’ll go down in history.”

R5’s only response was a distressed whine; but before Peli could rebuke him further, she was interrupted by the roar of an engine across the hangar.

While Peli herself was busy sprucing up R5 for his new mission, she had left her pit droids to attend to the tune-up of the Mandalorian’s N-1 starfighter. To her satisfaction, the sleek little ship was thundering with what almost seemed like a palpable fierceness and pride. That vessel was the mechanic’s finest work—not that she was ever actually going to admit that to Mando.

It was at least gratifying that he seemed to recognize and appreciate her skill on his own. From where he sat nearby at a crate turned table, his helmeted head focused on the N-1 for a long moment before he turned to his child (who Peli still staunchly resisted calling by a name as silly as Grogu). At the moment the little green tyke was up to his outsized ears in a bowl of dungworms, happily feasting.

“You hear that, kid?” Mando prompted him with audible enthusiasm. “That’s the sound of an engine in peak condition. You’ll have to learn that sound, because ships practically have a language of their own. The sounds they make can tell you everything you need to know about their condition. Hopefully it will be a long time before we hear any trouble from the N-1—but I’ll try to teach you the noises to watch out for anyway. Like the knocking of a blocked injector, or the hiss of a damaged coolant tube. A Mandalorian hunter’s ship is their life, so you have to know every centimeter of it.”

Big brown eyes stared uncomprehendingly from above the wiggling worm-tail that protruded from the kid’s mouth.

Peli raised her eyebrows. After all the time Mando had spent trying to convince himself that the child he loved belonged with someone else, it warmed her heart to see him embracing his role as a father at last—but she had to wonder if he wasn’t getting just a little bit ahead of himself. Maybe he hadn’t plonked a beskar helmet on the kid and started teaching him to kill people yet, but still… it seemed like kind of a lot.

“Come on, Mando,” she chided him lightly. “Don’t you think he might still be just a skosh too young to hold stuff like that in his fuzzy little head?”

Somewhere behind a dark visor, the stare the warrior leveled at her had to be just as blank as the kid’s. “He’s older than I am.”

“And he also just said his first word today.” Despite Mando’s skepticism, Peli wasn’t about to let go of the fact that she was sure the kid had called her by name.

“He understands more than you think.” The adoptive parent’s tone gentled, with a small fragile note somewhere within it that sounded faintly pained. He placed a gloved hand on the kid’s back; the movement pushed down the front of his tunic slightly, allowing the edge of the beskar chain mail beneath to catch the light of Tatooine’s suns and gleam brightly. “The life he’s chosen with me is a dangerous one. And even if we both keep managing to navigate those dangers safely… he’ll still be young someday when I’m gone. Before that time comes, I have to know he can take care of himself.”

Between the way the kid stared up at his father with melting eyes and drooping ears, and the soft little whimper he breathed out, Peli needed no more convincing of just how much he understood after all.

“…You’re a good dad, you know that, Mando?” she said softly.

She might have been just a little bit glad her words were drowned out by the N-1’s engine gunning.

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2023 Jordanna Morgan