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When The Storm Ends
When Din Djarin closed his eyes, the darkness never settled as it often does in one’s sleep.
There was no sound sleep for him, and there never had been for the past year since he—and the rest of the Tribe who had managed to congregate on Nevarro—had outlived hundred thousands of others from the Purge.
That was what they had called it: The Great Purge. The news had poured in over the months, and amidst the shadows, the Tribe had pieced scraps of ghastly information together and realized that the Mandalorians were being wiped out—if not already so, and they were the last of their people, huddling under the ground, hiding. It was like waiting for the sun to rise in a world were night ruled with an iron fist.
They had transformed into a Covert overtime. The hunt was still on; the Empire was still combing the galaxy of every remaining Mandalorian since they had laid the Manda’yaim to waste.
No one was allowed to emerge above ground as they recouped, not even to make attempts at a steady livelihood. Perhaps that solution would come in time. There were already rumors set by the Armorer that a lottery was to take place, and whoever’s name would be picked will become the Covert’s sole provider. Alone… They could not even hunt in pairs, as was the custom in most cases.
Din was aiming to become that sole provider. He had been working hard to ease all the demons in his mind… the memories of the stretch of days that followed since the first attack which sparked the Purge upon the Tribe.
A year.
He had a year since the profound tragedy… and yet here he was, panting in the dimness of his bunker, eyes snapping open over his dire futility of a moment’s repose.
It was storming outside the streets of Nevarro. It was an extremely rare occurrence as the planet was as arid as any desert planet, and the dormant volcanoes upon its vastness bubbled with an easy indolence which kept Nevarro’s inhabitants reassured.
Thunder suddenly clapped soon after bolts of lightning flashed. The sewers had vents which revealed a bit of the outside world; one’s vantage point only beheld ankles and the treading feet of passersby on the busiest days. Sound and light still crept into the underground tunnels where the Covert had decided to make their refuge… and eventually, their residence. No one knew of Mandalorians seeking shelter in the subterranean labyrinth of Nevarro.
Din crumpled himself further into a ball on his cot, his body shivering; yet he was drenched in sweat, his hair and clothes clinging to him as he tried his best to harness his breathing.
He counted in his mind like a mantra: solus… t’ad… ehn… cuir…
In accidental circumstance, he blinked simultaneously with the blaze of lightning once more… and quickly, so quickly in his mind’s eye, Din saw those images flash again: the huge, blinding explosions and the silhouettes, dots of warriors faraway consumed by bombardments. How instantaneously he recalled all of it: the smells, the sounds, the frantic beating of his heart—all those sensations, yet he couldn’t remember the helms which surrounded him then. They were soldiers in a platoon led by his adoptive Mandalorian father.
It was no use. Din willed to retrieve the memory of his father’s voice, his father’s face when shed of the helm only when among closest of kin, but with it came everything else—the blanket of fury draped like a storm above and around them, muffling them, suffocating them all… and Din was no different.
He would remember his father, and he would deal with any bitter trauma that came with the effort. It was a push and pull, hide and seek… bleed and stanch, a calm and a storm. It was an endless cycle.
He would remember the love as well as the hate, if he needed to, as long as he kept the memory of Raald Movan alive in his mind and in his heart. He had lost his father in the Purge, and Din was in his own deep crypt of sorrow ever since.
Din would endure each wave of rising panic every time he was met with loud noises, or sustained wails of the suffering carried through the tunnels where the Covert had spread out. Sometimes the wind would whistle through the pipes, but in Din’s head, they were the cries of his brethren as raging fires swallowed them alive.
Rayshe’a… resol… etad…
His mind purposely blocked out the next hail of thunder. There was only the high-pitched, piercing ringing in his ears as Din got up from his cot like an automaton, and with the now-familiar walls to guide him through as he extended his hand and felt the assuring solidity of it all, he made his way to the makeshift infirmary like a specter.
He felt disembodied. Din acutely shuddered from the effort. He had been rehabilitating himself physically and mentally ever since he had emerged from a vat of diluted bacta several months ago. Din would still feel the slightest rise or fall of temperatures—his bones would make sure of that. Scar tissue marred him inside and out. He felt his body would never be the same again; he hadn’t had sufficient medical care since it had to be spread out among the many severely wounded survivors who had fought in the Purge.
Din soon found himself face to face with the baar’ur; Din could hardly remember the man’s name.
“I… need…” Din was making helpless gestures with his hands. He couldn’t even recall the names of the medicines. He noted a datapad strapped to the steel wall right next to the medic’s table, and with a shaky hand, he pointed at the words upon the tiny screen.
“Djarin,” the medic’s voice was gentle but audibly troubled. “You’ve maxed out your prescription, I’m afraid. You were taking the painkillers and the drowsing pills at a faster rate than you ought to… I have nothing to give you until the next standard month…”
“N-no,” Din protested dazedly. “You don’t… understand. I’m… I’m in pain, can’t sleep… need those medicines…!”
He couldn’t even recognize his own voice. The medic’s revelation amplified the pain, and now it hammered into his skull, repeatedly like blows of the Armorer’s hammer upon the Forge.
Debilitation suddenly claimed him. He doubled over and was on his knees, and he winced at how he must have looked too desperate in front of the startled baar’ur. Din didn’t mean for things to happen so dramatically, but there he was—a heaving heap on the floor, battling a sharp, throbbing pain in his head, over his back and chest… until his entire body felt as though it were being submerged into the planet’s scalding lava flats.
“H..help me,” Din said, unwillingly, unwittingly. He hated showing weakness, but he simply could not do this on his own at the moment. There had been no one for him for the past few weeks. Saoul, one of his childhood friends who had fortunately survived and usually kept him company was in his own rehabilitation period. His dear friend was worse off—nearly the entirety of an arm as well as a lower leg had to be amputated.
Din had been there for Saoul sometimes, but his friend had placidly waved off his help, knowing full well the many storms Din himself had to wade through.
Paz Vizsla… Paz had all but disappeared from his life, even as they settled among the same tunnels. They were the closest of brothers mere days before the Purge… but afterwards, the burly warrior had grown cold and deliberately avoidant towards Din. He had only encountered Paz once in a long expanse of time, and the other man had simply kept his helmeted gaze unmoving—no words, not even motions to indicate that Paz acknowledged Din. Then the towering shadow had walked away, unseen for weeks on end.
Din couldn’t get his life together as he couldn’t get his mind together.
“Please… I…” Din hyperventilated, and he suppressed the pain—real or imaginary—as he balled his gloved hands into fists.
“Djarin!” exclaimed the medic as he bent over him; the man ran a medisensor against his trembling frame.
Din clenched his eyes tight underneath the helmet. He was in a chasm of emptiness and anguish. He heard the medic speak, but he couldn’t make out the words. Every sliver and flurry of movement sent him on edge; every creak and the smallest clatter sent a shock through his system. He sobbed silently; he cared less under the cover of his buy’ce.
What were another warrior’s tears in this place of grief?
Everyone had their own agonies to abate—even this kind baar’ur who was only doing his job as best as he could, rationing out the medicines as prescribed, taking note of the ills of each recovering soldier… no more, no less. Even Din knew of the medic’s sorrows in flashing moments of empathy. The medic’s entire family was lost save for a cousin—the only two survivors of their entire clan.
“I need assistance at the medbay!” The medic was chattering frenetically at the comms. Din’s chest was tightening; the ringing in his ears had become a relentless drilling through his brain. There it was again: the explosions, the wails, the screams… his name, called by his father as Raald breathed his last, bloodied and beaten down while his eyes had lost their light.
“Din… ner ad’ika…”
“Pa?”
Din heard his own voice call out to his father longingly, lovingly.
He opened his eyes to discover that he was upon one of the medbay’s cots, only divided from the others by thick canvas curtains. Time had passed; it seemed that Din had lost consciousness just as soon as the medic had gotten help. He was carried to this very cot. Perhaps an entire night had passed but Din couldn’t tell, not in this confined space were dances of light and shadows reigned.
Din swallowed hard, catching his breath, which was fiery against his skin.
He was running a fever. Din took a sparse moment to lift his helmet and clutch at his head, feeling his damp curls settle stickily upon his brow. He felt the world tilt around him in his bedridden state. He sighed and settled himself upon the pillow in bitter frustration.
Useless yet again.
When will he ever get better?
He heard the wailing through the hollow halls once more, bouncing off the walls, seeping even through the curtains that partly smothered any noise.
Din was panting again, and he clutched at his chest as he focused on the rhythm of his heartbeat. Sometimes he did that to alleviate the pain; taking all attention upon one thing, and that was his own life force. His beating heart was a testament that he still walked among his brethren, and not among the Manda. Not just yet.
“Ner ad’ika,” came a smooth woman’s timbre across the curtains. “The stats before me say that you are awake, Din Djarin. How are you feeling?”
It was the Armorer. Din had recognized that voice since his youth. She had forged his helmet for him years after his Verd’goten, when he was sure to have reach his full growth at the end of his adolescence and was ready for the beskar as he had been for the Creed.
My child. The Armorer had presently addressed him just as Din’s father had used to call him. Why the sudden affection towards him? While she had a motherly streak to her, she was usually detached and achingly serene.
“I’m… I’m…”
Din felt obligated to reply, but did he really need to let her know of the unadulterated truth?
“May I come closer?” the Armorer requested. It was also heeding him to keep his helmet on as she was about to part the divider curtains.
“Yes,” Din replied once, and the golden horned helmet of their Covert’s goran gingerly appeared as she stepped in.
Din flinched at thoughts of how the Armorer may be regarding him now. What did he look like? Surely he was unkempt, and the exposed parts of his skin had a sickly pallor. The Armorer’s visor subtly assessed his condition.
“You are indeed unwell, ner ad’ika,” said the Armorer needlessly, but softly in observance of a private conversation. She took a step closer, hovering for an instant like the matriarch she was. “But you are stronger than this,” she continued, surety in her tone. “You will prevail.”
Din was silent; dumbstruck. Through the haze of fever, he could simply feel gratitude worm its way into his heart.
“Th-thank you,” he whispered, but he had uttered it in mounting weakness that he wasn’t certain if the Armorer heard him.
He heard the high wailing again. Din’s visor shot up at the same time the Armorer’s did, and that’s when he knew that the concerning sound of unhinged torment wasn’t solely in his head.
“Our Covert will rejoice soon,” said the Armorer quietly, and Din was confused for long moments over those ironic words until the goran spoke again. “Shani has gone into labor. You may have heard it like a howling wind across the halls. It will not be long until we welcome a new member into the Tribe.”
Din was making sense of everything slowly, letting his thoughts keep up with the tenacity of his spirit upon the Armorer’s words. Her words spoke of hope in the darkness. A child born when so many had marched ahead just a year ago. Life in this dead place… a light like a small beacon in the seeming eternal darkness.
“Dinui…” called the Armorer softly. Din’s head snapped to attention at the mention of his childhood nickname. So the goran had known if it as well, but when he was younger, his friends used that name in sarcasm, quite like an insult. However, as the Armorer uttered the word, it was filled with a bright fondness Din couldn’t fathom.
“…a gift,” the Armorer went on. “This new child is a gift to the Tribe… just as each and every member of this Covert remains a gift to us all. Din Djarin… we will all prevail. You must believe that one day we will rise again. But until then—“
She paused at length, as though burned by her own words. With uncustomary tenderness, she had carefully laid a gloved hand over Din’s bare one.
“Be well,” the Armorer said. “Build your strength. The lottery to pick our next Provider will be upon us soon. You can be worthy of that vocation. In the meantime, rest and heal.”
When the Armorer left his bedside, Din felt bereft. He hadn’t known of comfort for a long time, not when he now spent most of his time in his lonesome, not wanting to burden anyone with his profound troubles.
With a quivering breath in the ambient light of the infirmary, Din slowly laid back on his cot. The thunderstorms outside had ceased, and he was starting to breath easily once more.
He was still in considerable amount of pain. His muscles tensed with the stress as he rode out the fever. The best the medic could do was an IV line which provided him much needed hydration and some nutrients, but other than that, he was neither administered a painkiller nor a drowsing pill.
Din lay awake, counting his breaths as he cleared his mind. His head still throbbed; he could hear the haunting cries of Shani, another dear Covert member as she made all effort to bring life into the world.
I will provide for this child, Din thought with renewed willpower. I will provide for all our Foundlings when the time comes.
The last sound that drifted into his consciousness as sleep finally claimed him was the cry of a newborn infant—high and loud and wailing even more piteously than its mother.
And the last spark of emotion Din felt before he fell into slumber was that of a strange, indescribable joy.
This is the Way.
***