Unlike the Keep on Krownest,  the one on Jedha wasn’t as hard to navigate according to his dad. Grogu didn’t know one way or the other because he had never been to the one on Krownest. Din Djarin told him about hallways that seemed to go on forever and the use of the transportation mats, like the one that had brought them into the throne room. He also mentioned that Ta’lan seemed to understand it all, but then, as far as Grogu knew, Ta’lan pretty much did understand all of it.

Heffee Trad’s holocron wasn’t saying much because he was stuffed back in the Mandalorian’s bag, but Grogu was pretty sure that the Mandalorian’s ‘Dad’ would let them know if they heading into more danger, instead of away from it. Grogu had offered to carry that holocron because he no longer had to manage Odan Urr, but his dad said, no, he’d handle it. Fine. Whatever.

They walked down a fairly short corridor and another archway turned into a set of automatic panels and a series of lights flooded the room. Grogu was happy about that. Now at least he could see all the things that he had only every imagined before. Really. The storeroom was filled with items Grogu could swear he’d only ever seen in a history vid, a museum, or in his actual dreams. 

One of the first things he noticed was a very elegant small flat panel, maybe a 1/3 of a meter long and half as wide. It looked like it was made from a single kyber crystal, which was pretty unique and when he stepped close enough to touch it, it began to float and hum softly.

“Buddy, I don’t think we should touch things in here, okay? At least not until we have a better idea of what they do.”

Grogu sighed but nodded his head. His dad wasn’t wrong, but Grogu was certain that he had dreamed of just that sort of thing when he was living at the Jedi Temple and was required to walk everywhere. He was always late to class until he met Ian. Then they were both late to classes but it was okay because they were together.

As he rejoined his dad, he noticed all the sets of armor. It was amazing. There was probably enough armor for everyone who was currently considered Mandalorian. It wasn’t beskar, but it was impressive. He wanted to ask his dad a question but the Mandalorian was walking even faster than before and Grogu had to trot to catch up with him. 

“Dank farrik! Do these things just show up in every keep or do they travel from one to the next based on where the Guardians are?”

Grogu realized that his dad was talking to himself, because it wasn’t clear to him that anything had changed based on where they were. Did the Mandalorian think that all that armor just transported itself across the galaxy?

“Here. Take a look.”

Grogu found himself being lifted rather unceremoniously and pointed at another grouping of armor. There were five sets of the stuff and it was like nothing he’d ever seen before. It looked like beskar, but it clearly wasn’t beskar because it was glowing. It also looked like the sort of thing that featured in ancient stories about the first Force users and the struggles they endured bringing balance to a galaxy that was wild and chaotic. It was strange and wonderful and there was a set that looked like it would fit Master Yoda. Weird.

“On Krownest we returned a vambrace that represented a single suit of armor. There were five other sets there. Six total. Why are there only five sets here?”

Grogu hoped his dad was asking Heffee Trad that question, because he had no idea why there would be any specific number of them at all. He didn’t even know how many Dream Guardian Keeps there were. He chirped that comment back to the Mandalorian who seemed stuck where he was.

“Grogu, I don’t know who I was asking that question of, but now I’m more certain that we need to get back to Ord Mantell and find Ta’lan and just go home.”

Grogu coo’d at the Mandalorian and then suggested that he be returned to the floor. He’d noticed another archway and wondered if it would lead them to a place that stored vehicles of some sort. He hadn’t noticed any in the store room but it seemed logical that they would have to exist for the people who might one day need to move all that armor. It was worth a try.

His dad put him on the floor and Grogu began to trot in the general direction of that archway. The armor was on his right hand side and shelves were filled with all sorts of other goods on his left hand side. He just had to follow the shelves and he’d reach the archway and his dad would be able to see him the whole time. He hoped. After a minute, Grogu stopped and looked back. His dad was still just standing still and staring at that special armor. Uff.

Grogu went back to what he planned and after another solid minute of trotting, he reached the archway. It looked just like the other ones that acted like doors. But it didn’t open when he reached it. It didn’t budge when he jumped up and waved his hand at it. It didn’t do anything when he touched it, although he thought it was going to feel cold, but it didn’t. Then he realized that he wasn’t a Dream Guardian or a Mand’alor. Dank farrik!  He was a Jedi. Didn’t that count?

He thought about calling his dad, but Din Djarin was just standing there for some reason. Maybe Heffee Trad? Nope. He was stuck with the Mandalorian. Ta’lan? How could he reach her? They hadn’t ‘talked’ since he and his dad had entered the Dream Guardian’s Keep.

Then he thought about the other Jedi he knew and how they might handle the same problem. He remembered something one of his favorite Jedi told many years earlier. 

‘When all else fails, try being polite. It catches a lot of people off guard.”

Fine. Grogu would try being polite.

“May the Force be with you.”

Grogu needed some time to consider the ramifications of what he had learned. Master Ylani was a person he could only know based on those who knew her, not on what she left behind. That she managed to leave behind people who would speak well of her despite her failings was not really something Grogu had to confront before, as far as the Mandalorian could tell. Djarin understood what it was like to be that person, even if Grogu did not.

He hadn’t started his path with the Children of the Watch because he believed in the ancient way of the Mand’alor. He hadn’t even done it purely because they had saved him from the Separatists on Ac Vetina. He’d really been frightened and then hungry. He had no where to go back to and knew no one who would care that he’d been displaced. Losing his parents had been terrifying and then he’d been wracked with guilt and loneliness in equal measure. He didn’t know if his early minders had ignored his plight to toughen him up or if they simply hadn’t noticed it all, their focus always being somewhere else.

Once he was part of the fighting corps he went where he was ordered to go and did what he was ordered to do. The Empire had emerged from the tatters of the Old Republic. That was just another thing to deal with as Mandalore was basically in tatters as well. He’d left Concordia at the right time to survive, but at the wrong time to be unmarked by parting. He’d joined the Tribe and took on whatever work provided for the younglings and for their general survival. That was how he eventually ended up taking the bounty fob for Grogu and changed his whole life again.

In the years that followed that meeting, Djarin had realized that what he had done for so long was just take the easy path. A path a person in special armor, trained by the best warriors could follow with ease as long as they didn’t think too much about what they were doing and who they were doing it to. He couldn’t function that way anymore. To protect Grogu required that he reframe his understanding of who he was and what he would do to accomplish his goals. That hadn’t been easy.

Now, meeting Ta’lan Bet and being drawn into her life was causing him to reflect again and the more he looked, the more he wished he’d been awake to the problems in the galaxy much earlier in his life. He could have made a difference sooner. 

Was that what Master Ylani had felt once they realized how they were being manipulated? That they had to make a bigger difference? Or were they haunted by the things that had happened up to that point, leading them to a discovery that changed their sense of self completely? Djarin knew that Grogu had to consider that. Carrying the scars that the Sith could inflict was a burden that Djarin didn’t understand. Despite all that he and Grogu and Ta’lan had been through, despite ‘meeting’ Vader and Anakin Skywalker, he still couldn’t imagine how that felt. His choices, right or wrong were his own. No one’s voice was whispering in his head telling him what to do.

That made him think about the holocrons and the various other things, including people, that ‘called’ to Grogu and Ta’lan. Did they actually hear a voice? Or were they just compelled? Grogu had complained about having a headache anytime they discussed doing something other than what the Odan Urr holocron wanted. Was that because of the holocron or because of the Force? Did it matter?

The Mandalorian bounty hunter wasn’t sure. The outcome was the same either way. But from Din Djarin’s perspective it mattered. He was Mand’alor according to the behavior of the Dream Guardian’s Keep and according to the Odan Urr holocron. He hadn’t really wanted to become Mand’alor. He had wanted to save Grogu. That’s all that had mattered to him. As soon as he could, he handed the whole mess back to Bo-Katan Kryze and was glad of it. Mostly. Now, he wasn’t sure. There were only two titles he wanted and he had one of them already. Grogu’s father. The other title depended entirely upon the person waiting for them on Ord Mantell. He didn’t even like to think about it because he was as superstitious as the people who had raised him.

The superstitions of not just the Mandalorians, but his own parents. They tapped on wood, they threw spices over their shoulders, they refused to shave, they ate the same meal time after time, they refused to step on cracks, or bugs, and put treats out for the black birds. His favorite as a child on Ac Vetina had been when people threw small credits into pools of water for luck during storms. No one counted those credit pieces and Djarin hadn’t been afraid of storms. He’d really enjoyed them and that small bounty of credits they brought him to buy sweets that his parents hadn’t known about. Looking back on it all they seemed so silly, but then he’d never expected to meet people who could manipulate the very stone they walked on or prevent the rain from falling on them. He’d never known you could lift a mudhorn by thinking about it. He’d never known that your heart could live outside of your body because you loved people that much. 

Had that been what caused Ylani, the lone child, to seek out the Jedi? Did she love someone so much that she knew she needed their help, even if she didn’t know how to explain it? Or had that happened after she was brought to Coruscant or Dantooine or Takodana? She learned their ways and felt accepted and then knew what she needed to do? Or had she been like Din Djarin, learning that who you were does not determine who you are?

Grogu chirped something at him, and the Mandalorian turned and looked at his son. His apprentice was approaching him with a small plate. Where the heck had that come from?

“Grogu, where did you get this?”

Grogu pointed to a small cabinet not far from the throne. Djarin sighed. He looked at what was on the plate and began to laugh. Fire stacks. Mandalorian fire stacks! How in the thousand moons of Iego did Mandalorian fire stacks end up in a cabinet underneath the ruined Holy City on Jedha?

“Heffee Trad.”

Grogu’s voice was soft and precise and Din Djarin couldn’t help but laugh. Of course his ancient ancestor would make sure that this place held things that a Mandalorian might like, a thousand or more years in the future. 

“Peaceful does not mean unprepared.”

Grogu stepped across the threshold and wondered if the Jedi and whoever the Dream Guardians were had used the same architect. The space looking surprisingly like the main building of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The ceilings soured high above them. Figures were in alcoves every hundred meters or so. And the air smelled fresh and reminded Grogu of the great auditorium where all the younglings, padawan, and knights who were present at the temple met with the Jedi Council. It wasn’t as big as the Galactic Senate space, but it was just as serious. How could he be on Jedha and smell something that was only on Coruscant?

“I know, Buddy. It’s strange. This place is exactly like the keep on Krownest. It even smells the same. That smell reminds me of a space we used on Concordia to do our trials. We couldn’t do them in the open, but somehow the air there always smelled fresh and it smelled just like this. 

Over there, is a security post and in that space we’ll find some travel devices. I don’t remember what Ta’lan called them. I expect that they have a technical name, but they basically moved us from one point to another that was many klicks away. Come on.”

Grogu followed his dad because he didn’t have a better solution to getting wherever they needed to go. He knew that he couldn’t just trot over to the security post, drop off the holocron and then turn around and leave. He really had no idea where in the space the holocron belonged. His headache was gone, so it wasn’t going to help him.

“Wait.”

The Mandalorian stopped at his words and looked over to him. 

“Odan Urr.”

Grogu hoped his dad would understand what he meant. He wanted the holocron to tell them where it wanted to be. What if it decided it didn’t like the destination his dad chose? 

“Good idea.”

Grogu sighed a little and then shrugged out of his pack and located the holocron and placed it between the two of them. 

Grogu chirped a greeting to the ancient Jedi and waited for their response. And waited. And waited.

What the heck?

Grogu took a step forward and was about to pick up the holocron when his dad held up a hand. 

“Let’s talk to Heffee Trad about this.”

Ahh. Good idea. Maybe the member of the Brethren would understand what was going on.

Grogu grinned at his dad as Din Djarin put the other holocron on the floor of the Keep next to the one made by Odan Urr. 

Neither holocron did anything. What?

“Maybe they’ll behave better in the throne room.”

Throne room? What the heck.

“Come on. This way.”

The Mandalorian picked up both holocrons and Grogu didn’t know what to think. On Ossus that holocron had tripped him because it wouldn’t move. It had to be picked up by a Jedi. Din Djarin hadn’t suddenly become a Jedi, so why was it letting him pick it up?

They walked into the security post and lights and consoles turned on. Grogu was surprised but his dad clearly expected that to happen. Grogu wondered why. Was that how things had happened on Krownest? The Mandalorian had never told him much about that trip and Ta’lan had told him essentially nothing about it. That wasn’t really like either of them. Dank farrik!

“Okay, here they are. I hope I can make them work. Ta’lan did it all before. I’ve got to set this one here and the other one will be traveling with us. Come on.”

Grogu watched his dad put the square on the floor, mutter a couple of commands and then step into the center of the expanded floor covering. Weird.

“Grogu. I need you to hold onto me. Okay?”

Grogu shrugged. What choice did he have? He trotted into the center of the square and jumped up and landed on his dad’s shoulders. Whatever happened next, he would have a bird’s eye view of it.

“Sheber’shok.”

Chair? Why had the Mandalorian used the Mando’a word for chair or seat? That didn’t make any sense. Then Grogu looked around and began to laugh. Ah. Somehow they were in a throne room. It looked like the throne room on Kalevala in some ways, but Grogu could sense that the space they were now in was ancient compared to anything he had even seen on Kalevala. 

“Hop down, okay? I want to set the holocrons down.”

Grogu didn’t bother to reply to his dad. He jumped down and trotted over to the actual throne which was shaped like the central symbol on the Mandalorian’s armor if it had been made out of stone and then folded into a seat, but in a scale that made it clear to anyone in the space that it was a throne. How the heck had the Jedi missed a place like this on Jedha? They were still on Jedha, weren’t they?

“Yes, Jedi Grogu, we are still on Jedha. As far as your other question, I can only say that if you do not look for them, you cannot find them. During my lifetime I traveled to many places, but I was focused on my own work, which saw on Ossus. I had heard of the Dream Guardians but I thought they were a story told to younglings to help them sleep. Then Heffee Trad brought this holocron to Ossus and I was able to add that information to my data sets.”

“Why weren’t you able to communicate with us outside of this room?”

The Mandalorian had joined Grogu at the throne, but he sat down on it, while Grogu remained standing next to it. 

“It is part of the security of this keep. You are the Mand’alor. You have been to the keep on Krownest. You understand.”

“I had wondered about that, but I didn’t understand. I do now. I would be honored if you chose to remain here. It is a fitting location for a valued partner.”

“As you wish, Mand’alor. I will share with you that Master Ylani hoped to find this place and use it to save the Jedi Order. Tarre Vizsla and Tarn Gellos did not believe that the youngling’s goal was sincere. It was, but misguided. Is that not so Heffee Trad?”

The other holocron activated and Heffee Trad stood before them, his hair neon green this time, as he wore armor that reminded Grogu of his dad’s armor the first time he met Din Djarin. 

“It is true. Ylani was convinced that they were called to be a Dream Guardian, but they passed none of the tests. It later became known that they had been given a Sith token, not a holocron, that affected them. Seb Ta’low was the one who discovered their holocron and brought it Tzura for safe keeping. It would have been a magnet to other Sith. The token was incorporated into the holocron itself and cannot be removed without harming the holocron.”

Grogu sighed. What a terrible burden for Master Ylani. He couldn’t imagine how difficult that must have been.

“It is true that it was a burden and unlike many others confronted with such a burden, Master Ylani did not waver in their commitment to the Jedi Order and to preserving balance within the Force. They made that holocron at a young age and were able to trap the Sith token within it. That is why the holocron has such a singular focus, unlike it’s true Master. Truly, Ylani was great and wondrous and it is a pity that they were not preserved in the holocron that bears their name and likeness.”

Odan Urr’s words faded to silence. Grogu turned to his dad, who offered to lift him up. Grogu accepted that offer gratefully. It was more than a little disappointing to realize that the quest was really to thwart a Sith that wasn’t completely a Sith, rather than to do anything else.

“Din Grogu, you have honored your people past and present. You listened to your heart and to your friends. You made wise choices. That is what the living Ylani would have wanted for you. We all help as we are able.”

Heffee Trad was right, but Grogu still wanted to sit with that weight for a while and feel the feelings he had.