StarWars2490

“You seem to have been doing well thus far.”

“Jedi, look at me,” the Mandalorian snapped. Tano stopped short, glaring over her shoulder at him. “He is capable of things I have no way of understanding: this is for his own good because I am not enough. If you refuse to teach him, you're dooming him to a life of being hunted without the means to fight back.”

“Is that what you want?" the Jedi said flatly. “For him to fight?”

“What choice does he have?" Mando barked. “He's going to outlive me and be killed by the first person who wants to dissect him to find a way to tap into those powers themselves— He deserves a chance to live. He needs one of his own kind to teach him to wield his powers. A life with me is no life for a kid; he's a target by association and the danger I face compounds his own. Without instruction, he'll have to keep running simply because he can use whatever it is you Jedi sense. This isn't about training him to protect others," Din said. “This is about him being able to defend himself when I'm gone.”

Ahsoka paused. He continued, frustration lacing his tone.

“Even if there comes a time Moff Gideon is defeated, even if I'm the one who does it and I survive, my life is incredibly short in relation to his. He may very likely still be a child if- if I'm old enough to die of natural causes. Even that fate seems unlikely. Mandalorians do not have a long life expectancy.”

Ahsoka glances away. He sees it.

“And if I can't defeat the Moff, if we’re always on the move, what kind of life is that for a child who ages at a tenth the rate I do?"

The Mandalorian continued. “You said you knew one like him, yes?”

“… Yes," Ahsoka said cagily.

“How old were they?"

She hesitated.

“How old were they?" Mando demanded. She still didn't answer. He huffed in agitation, gesturing to the child playing on the rocks. “He is fifty years old, Jedi. And he's a child. I'm not going to live long enough to see him become the age where he's even capable of taking care of himself, let alone protecting himself.”

“Has he ever lashed out in anger?" Ahsoka interjected. “You said yourself he's a child.”

“He doesn't use his powers to hurt people. He heals them. I've seen it.”

“He's never used his powers to harm someone not at fault? Think hard.”

“Of course not—!”

“Because that's not what he told me.”

Din froze. The Togruta woman smiled bitterly, clasping her hands behind her and looking out over the moors. “I asked him when we spoke if he ever retaliated in anger. Trained Jedi can usually tell when the mind— especially that of a child— lies, but there was no need. He told me he once thought you were in danger, and he strangled a woman with the Force to keep you safe.”

There was a gap of silence as Cara Dune's panicked expression flashed across his mind's eye, and the Mandalorian's shoulders slumped. He'd had to rush to the child and assure him that he was unharmed, that Cara was a friend, and had the child not understood him he would have been at a loss for how to break the child's focus and get him to release whatever invisible, intangible grip he had on her throat as Cara silently choked for air.

Ahsoka bowed her head. “The Jedi were not infallible. We're still mortals capable of making the same mistakes as anyone. It's why the Order held themselves to such high standards: we knew how capable we were of these kinds of feats and sought to rein in the possibility of failure because the consequences of acting on our emotions instead of discernment would always be more destructive and devastating than those of ordinary people. Accountability was paramount. Discipline is difficult; it extended to every aspect of our lives. Left without it, Force users succumbed to their feelings of fear, anger, and hatred.”

“So train him. Teach him that discipline.”

She turned back to the cairns where the child played, spreading his fingers through the moss. ”If he loses touch with the Force, he's less likely to hurt innocent people, including those he loves.”

“But if he loses those powers,” Din pleaded, “Who's going to keep him safe when he's alone?”

Author’s Note: At this point in the season Mando should have been desperate to find the kid a teacher for the kid’s own good because he knows that’s his best chance of survival. If Ahsoka was in search of Thrawn, there was never a chance she would have taken Grogu as her apprentice. I think she should have told Mando that at the beginning and given him the location of Tython so he could be on his way without wasting his time. She was planning to storm the castle herself anyway, and Mando has no connection to the people of Calodan.