Metanoia | The Mandalorian

Chapter 42

They were all sitting in their respective seats, Din in the front and the kids behind him. Grogu was playing with his ball as Juno watched the stars around the planet they were nearing when Din turned to Grogu.

"Grogu." He said and Grogu looked up at him as he cooed, making Din chuckle. "Grogu?" He tried again, chuckling when the child looked at him. Juno was now watching them with a smile. "Give me the ball." He said, reaching out his hand as Grogu leaned away. "Grogu, give me the ball. Come on." Grogu grunted but gave him the ball, cooing as Din held it out to him with his fingers. "Okay, here we go. You can have it, just like before." But nothing happened. "Grogu, come on. You can have it. Come on." He encouraged his when suddenly, the ball flew over to Grogu's hands.

"Dank farrik!" He exclaimed, startling Grogu and making him drop the ball. "Hey, no. I'm not mad at you. You did good. I just...When the nice lady said you had training, I just..." He sighed and leaned forward to hand him back the ball. "You're very special, kid. Both of you are." He said as he turned to Juno, who was still smiling. "We're gonna find that places you belong and they're gonna take real good care of you two." He turned back to the beeping controls, not noticing the smile fell from Juno's face.

"This is Tython. That's where we're gonna try and find you a Jedi and a Seer. But you have to agree to go with them if they want you to. Understand?" He said as Juno and Grogu looked at each other with sadness in their eyes that they tried hiding. "Plus, I can't train you two. You're too powerful. Don't you wanna learn more of that Jedi and Seeing stuff?" He asked. Grogu went back to playing with the ball and Juno was looking out at the stars. "I agreed to take you two back to your own kinds, so that's what I need to do. You understand, right?"

Juno looked down and sighed, nodding her head even though Din couldn't see her. They flew down the atmosphere of the planet, looking for the place that Ahsoka told them about.

"Looks like that's the magic rock I'm supposed to take you to down there." The kids looked at him before going back to their thoughts. As they flew around the mountain, they all looked at the rock while Din tried to find a place to land. "Sorry, kids. I can't land on the top. Too small. Looks like we're gonna have to travel the last stretch with the windows down."

He landed the ship and they headed to the opening ramp. Once they were out, Juno took Grogu to her arms, holding him tight as Din picked her up and started his jetpack, flying up to the rock. On their way up, both kids whooped in excitement.

After a while, Din landed, making sure that Juno was steadily standing before he let go of her. He took Grogu from her and put a hand on her shoulder, leading them to the stone.

"Well, I guess this is it." He said as they stood at the edge the stone formation. They then started moving towards the stone in the center, looking around. "Does this look Jedi to you?" He asked.

Juno shrugged as she walked around it , looking over at the land around them. Din walked over to the stone and placed Grogu on it. 

"I guess you sit right here." He said and looked around. "Okay. Here we go." Grogu cooed as he looked at Din while Juno moved to stand next to them. "This is the seeing stone, are you seeing anything? Or are they supposed to see you?" He pressed a button on his helmet and started scanning the surroundings as Juno walked closer to the stone, feeling as if it was calling for her. It was the seeing stone after all. "Maybe there's some kind of control or something."

"This is an ancient temple. I don't think there are any controls." Mumbled Juno, looking at the stone as Grogu cooed, reaching for the butterflies flying around. Din sighed.

"Oh, come on, kids. Ahsoka told me all I had to do was get you two here and you'd do the rest." He said and Grogu cooed at him.

Din then suddenly heard a ship and looked up, seeing one approaching them. It flew around the mountain and landed. Din watched this, moving to the edge and not noticing that Juno had placed her hand on the stone and that Grogu was pulled in some kind of deep meditation.

"Time's up, kids. We gotta get out of here." He ran back to them but the kids were now surrounded by a glowing blue forcefield. Both of them had their eyes closed. "We don't have time for this. We got to get-" He reached for them but the field sent him flying backward. He breathed heavily as he stood up. "Hey! Snap out of it, kids! We got to get out of here!" He moved to the edge again, scanning the ship and seeing someone exiting it. He pulled out his blaster and turned to look at the kids. "I'll see if I can buy you some time. Can you please hurry up?" He asked and rushed down.

The children, being in such a deep meditation state, didn't even move. It was as if the time was frozen for them. With Grogu's strong connection with the Force, Juno was able to reach out and on the other end was met with one of her mother's old friends, a woman meditating. Through Grogu, she was able to connect with her and was now sure that Ahsoka was right. The Seers were hiding on Eldrys.

A sound of footsteps was heard before Din rushed back to the stone. "Time to go, kids!" He grunted, holstering his blaster. He moved closer to the stone, trying to get through the forcefield, but was thrown back, blacking out.