#silver ball

Ta’lan smiled to herself and opened her eyes. 

“What did Grogu need?” 

“He misplaced that knob from the Razor Crest again.”

Din Djarin sighed deeply.

“Do you want me to talk to him about that?”

“No. Not at all. I like helping him find things. Particularly when he’s feeling a little vulnerable. He just wants to make sure that I’m really listening when he calls. His life before he met you was very chaotic. You helped him discover himself again. You two had a very adventurous life and then he met me and things have been… different. So he tests me and himself. I understand that.”

“You do? What am I missing?”

Ta’lan patted the Mandalorian’s hand. 

“You have never called out for anyone using the Force Din Djarin and found that no one would answer. Luke was the first Force sensitive person to ever reply to Grogu’s call for help. Grogu thought he understood how the Force worked then. 

Eventually, when he met me, he came to understand a different way to work with the Force. That the Brethren make connections. Those connections last for a lifetime. Once I met him, I could not ‘un’ meet him. We became connected. 

Given how many Jedi he once knew and how forgotten he felt after the Temple fell, he doesn’t understand how that works. I have explained that the Jedi and the Brethren have many differences and this is just one among them, but he feels the need to test that connection.”

“Does he always ask you about that knob? Because you never mention him needing anything else.”

Ta’lan laughed. 

“Yes. He always asks about that knob. Outside of a few things he was given at the Temple when he was a youngling there, he’d never received a gift before from a person he cared so much about. That knob isn’t simply a toy to him. It is the embodiment of his connection to you. You two played catch with it. You saved it for him. He kept it even when you thought he might have forgotten all about it. It is special and he wants me to know that.”

“But you do know that.” The Mandalorian protested. 

“I do. You know how this speeder operates. You have repaired and maintained it for years now. But every time we get in it, you run diagnostics and check the system status report like you’re taking a star liner into hyperspace. It is the same sort of thing.”

“Yes, but I do these checks to make sure that you two don’t get hurt incase there’s a problem.”

“Yes. That is exactly what he is doing. He doesn’t want you to be hurt either. So he checks. He doesn’t do this everyday you know.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No. Only when we’re both out of line of sight, more or less.” She laughed thinking of how many times Grogu had pinged her and what she had been doing at the time. The pings had lessened over time, but they hadn’t gone completely away.

The Mandalorian shook his head.

“If you ever decide you want me to talk to him about that, let me know. Okay?”

“Thank you. But that won’t be necessary. I never tire of telling him that I love him. This is the Way.”