Vibrant Eyes | Din Djarin

50: remain.

Ira scooped Grogu into her arms. 

She laughed as he lifted his small hands to the sides of her face and connected their foreheads. For a moment, she fell into a deep silence. One where she allowed her thoughts to string to his and all of the emotion trapped within her chest to hum in the Force around them.

When they pulled back, Grogu was babbling with confusion at her, but she could hear the wide grin in it regardless.

"For as long as I hold you, little one," she whispered, voice choked with emotion. "We will have one another."

As a strong hand fell to the small of her back, the blooming warmth on the back of her neck as she flushed with remembrance and that which pounded away in her frantic heart melded into nothing but... content.

She didn't know how she recognized it, for she had never once felt she had enough. Never felt anything was ever hers, at least not for as long as the stars were in the sky.

But peace bloomed as a flower in the night from deep within her soul and if this was to one day mean pain, then so be it. Nothing had ever felt more worth it.

She continued, "Even when I cannot, when you leave us to find your place in the cosmos, know. Know and remember."

The kid babbled a confirmation. She tried to collect herself, to find the words to reveal the significance of this confession. How was she to tell one that they were... Ira honestly still couldn't believe it, but she hadn't imagined any of the last hour. She never could have imagined how it felt to run her hands over the rough scruff of Din's beard. Nor the heated pressure behind his lips.

Not in a million years would she have expected to enjoy kissing so much as she did with him.

But it was more than a kiss. It was a promise, a... he said it was a marriage, but not entirely. It was more than that. It was all of that. It bonded her not only to him but the child that was his by name, and now hers.

A curious presence prodded at her mind.

They were a clan.

"Clan?"

Startled, Ira took a moment to breathe in deep, slightly irked when Din chuckled behind her. He didn't even know what it was about. But maybe he did.

Not much caught her off guard, but somehow it usually involved him when it did.

"A family of three," Ira clarified, voice stronger than she felt.

Din paused behind her. As she felt the kid glance between them, he stepped closer and his hand shifted to rest at the crook of her waist. Ira leaned into it with an unconscious smile. For a moment more, there was nothing.

Then Grogu was slamming into her neck. Eyes wide, Ira rushed to support him, feeling his little arms trying to wrap around her neck. Happy, chattering babbles were muffled in her skin and Din laughed warmly. Her husband and her son.

Her family.

Ira beamed wider than she ever had and laughed with all the life she'd thought she lost all of those years ago.

The Force danced around them with their joy and the very universe rejoiced with them. Laughed for the happiness she found at the end of such pain, as the Force undoubtedly willed. All of those years ago... they led to this.

Everything ended, so that everything she now knew could begin.

"Love!"

Ira leaned back into Din's chestplate and he held her with no intention of ever letting go. His other arm wrapped around her front to hold Grogu as well. Warmth like she'd never known beat away the chill.

"Yes," she hummed. "Love is right."

Din only held them tighter.

Ira Venusta knew love. She also knew loss.

She knew how it could triumph over all that it was. She knew the pains that would never go away and the warmth that dissipated with it. For so many years, she held firm to the belief that love was too flitting to risk. For so long, she would rather have lived a loveless life than one of the pain it brought.

But as someone who knew both as well as she did, love and loss eternal, she knew now that one would never exist without the other.

Who she was now would never exist without Din Djarin. Who Din Djarin was would not exist without Grogu. Who they were now would be incomplete if they never cared for the small green child as he cared for them.

Maybe, one day, they would have to say goodbye. Ira had never been willing to lose that which she loved. But for them, her Din and her Grogu, she thought she was finally ready. Ready for it all, no matter what the Force sent her way.

Ira Venusta hurt too much and loved too deeply to never want to feel any of it in the end.

Din and Grogu and Ira were a clan of three. Maybe, one day, they'd be two. In the end, one could stand alone and remember all of the loss and love that made up their makeshift family.

They would all be lost to the stars in the end.

Until then, they had forever to get there.