Saga - OT The Song, the Sea, and the Mand’alor (Din, Grogu, Mando legend; Story Cubes Mini-Games Challenge)

Author: Findswoman
Title: The Song, the Sea, and the Mand’alor
Characters: Din Djarin, Grogu (the Child)
Timeframe: Sometime during The Mandalorian season 1 or 2 (9 or 10 ABY)
Summary: A tired Man-Dad-Lorian tells his kiddo a bedtime story about a famous Mand’alor of yore.
Notes: Written for @Raissa Baiard ’s Story Cubes Challenge (part of the Mini-Games Challenges series). She rolled three of the dice from her “Voyages” set for me, and the results are shown under this cut:

Spoiler: three story cubes

[ID: Three Rory’s Story Cubes, one showing musical notes, one showing an old-fashioned helmet with horns and a nose guard, and one showing ocean waves.]

Many thanks to Raissa for beta reading help and filling me in on the timeline and details of The Mandalorian, and to @rktho for help with the Mando’a language, especially in the text toward the end.

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It was after dusk when Din finally picked up the Child from Peli’s shop and headed back to the Razor Crest. Between uncooperative bounties, no-show contacts, and yet more trouble from that meddling Gideon, it had been a long day, and Din was looking forward to an early bedtime for himself and his young charge. And indeed, after a simple supper, a brief playtime, and the usual clean-up time and ’vacc time, he laid the Child in his bed and tucked the covers around him.

“Nighty night, kiddo,” he said, giving the little one a gentle Keldabe kiss before standing up. “Sleep tight.”

But the kiddo’s round, black eyes showed no sign of closing. He just kept looking up at Din, making a series of querying coos. Din knew exactly what that meant, of course.

“You want a story?” he asked. “Aw, sorry, kid… I’m kind of tired tonight.”

More querying coos.

“All right, all right.” Din sat back down with a sigh. If there was one thing he found hard to resist, it was querying coos. “Well… erm… um… do you want to hear one about Mand’alor the Prestidigitator?”

Excited gurgling, joined by the equally excited waving of tiny green hands.

“Figured. Okay, let’s see here. There are so many stories about him!” And the trick right now, Din thought wryly to himself, was choosing one that was short… “Tell you what, I’ll tell you about the time Mand’alor the Prestidigitator found the Song of Healing. Sound good?”

More excited gurgling.

“Okay, here goes.” Din cleared his throat and began. “Well, you know Mand’alor the Prestidigitator—his real name was Ogun Fett—was a very wise and kind ruler, and he loved the Mando’ade more than anything and would do anything for them. And they loved him very much, too.

“But once there was a big plague, a big disease, that spread over the entire planet of Mandalore, and many people got very sick, and a lot of them died.” The Child’s ears drooped, and he gave a mournful whine. “I know. It was very, very sad. And all the Mando’ade were very sad, too, because they didn’t know what to do about it. They were warriors, good at beating their enemies, but this plague was like an enemy they just couldn’t beat.

“So the Mand’alor is wondering what he could do to help his people, because he loves them so much. And you know he’s very wise, so he looks in all his books and scrolls to see if he can find anything that might help his people. And finally he calls on the Ka’ra—that’s the spirits of Mando warriors from long ago—and they come to him in a vision. And you know what they say to him?”

Inquiring chirp?

“They say, ‘To heal your people, you must go in quest of the Song of Healing and bring it back and sing it to them.’ So the Mand’alor asks them, ‘Where can I find this Song of Healing?’ And they say, ‘It’s across the widest sea and at the bottom of the deepest pit.’ And then they’re gone. Poof.

“Now, everyone knows what the widest sea on Mandalore is: it’s called the Ori’sho’cye. Oh-ree-sho-shay,” he said a little more slowly, in response to the Child’s quizzical look. “Just means ‘Big Ocean.’ But the deepest pit, the Mand’alor has no idea where that is. So he looks in all his books and scrolls again, but can’t find anything. He talks to the wisest members of his aliit and his alii’aliit, but nobody knows. And meanwhile, more and more of his people are getting sick and dying.

“So he figures if he’s going to go out and find this Song of Healing, it’s now or never. He gets his biggest and best seaskiff and sets out across the Ori’sho’cye as quickly as he can.”

Querulous burble.

“Yeah, I know. He still didn’t know where the deepest pit was, but he figured he might find out along the way.”

Somewhat pacified purr.

“Anyway, the weather’s pretty calm the first day, and he’s able to cover a lot of water. But then, on the second day, a big storm blows up, and it tosses the Mand’alor’s big seaskiff around like it was a little plastoid model. And Mand’alor Ogun calls on all his powers to fight that storm as hard as he can, but he can’t do anything. The rain just keeps pouring, and the sky’s so dark he can barely see where he is.

“And then, just off his starboard bow—or maybe it was his port stern, I always mix them up—what does he see but another seaskiff!”

Gasp!

“Yeah! But it’s been torn to pieces by the storm, and it’s sinking, and there’s wreckage floating everywhere! And he hears a voice shouting through the sound of the storm! Someone’s calling for help!”

Even bigger gasp!

“So Mand’alor Ogun heaves the skiff around hard to port—or maybe starboard—and goes in the direction of the voice. And there’s a man, an old sho’cye’verd, clinging to a piece of wreckage and calling for help! And as quick as he can, Mand’alor Ogun hauls him on board his own seaskiff, takes him into the cabin, and lays him down. And he faints. The old sho’cye’verd, not the Mand’alor,” Din added quickly. “Though the Mand’alor was probably pretty tired by that point, too.” Just like me, he couldn’t help but think—but he continued all the same.

“Well, now the Mand’alor isn’t sure what to do. He’s got a quest he needs to go on, right? To find that deep pit so he can save his people? But this old man he’s found needs saving, too. And he’s going to die if he can’t get help soon.”

Whimper!

“Yeah, I know, right? So the Mand’alor turns his skiff around and heads back to his own shore, as fast as he can through the storm. And when they’re back on shore, Mand’alor Ogun takes the old sho’cye’verd to his own personal healing house, and stays by his side while the healers help him. He’s totally waterlogged and they’re afraid he won’t make it.

“But time goes by, and finally he starts to move around a little and starts to make a few sounds, and when they listen closely they hear he’s singing a song. Just an old sho’cye’laar or something. But it means he’s up and alive.

“And that’s when Mand’alor Ogun realizes: he’s found the Song of Healing.”

Questioning yip?

“Well, because this old man? He’s already kind of been to the deepest pit, because he almost died, right? But he made it through, all because Mand’alor Ogun helped him and stayed with him. And that was something to sing about!”

Murmur of realization.

“Yeah! So now the Mand’alor knows what he has to do. He has to go to his people and stay by them the way he stayed by that old dying sho’cye’verd. Because all the Mando’ade are in the deepest pit right now, too, with the plague and all. And if he helps them, they’ll find their own songs to sing, and they’ll make it through, too.

“So Mand’alor Ogun goes all over Mandalore, to the houses where someone’s sick, and sits there with each of them and spends time with them. And, well, some of them make it, and some of them don’t. But even those that didn’t, their aliite never forgot the way their Mand’alor tried to help them when they needed it most.

“And that’s how the Mando’ade finally made it through the plague, thanks to Mand’alor Ogun and the Song of Healing. And that’s the end of the story, so it’s bedtime now, kid.” And not a moment too soon, he added to himself.

But the Child was still looking up at him through round, questioning black eyes, and cooed the longest and most querying coo he had cooed that evening. Din sighed, but it wasn’t a very big or convincing sigh.

“Oh, I think I know what you want me to do,” he said. “All right, I’ll try. I don’t know all the words, but here’s the chorus, anyway.” He took a deep breath in and sang softly:

“Vercopa me’sen olaro,
Ti shig, bal uj’ayl, bal ti’haar.
Sha ca’nara aiwha kyrayc,
mhi ven’yaimpar yaim.”

He sang it again, more softly, then hummed it, again and again and again, until the Child’s big black eyes finally fluttered closed and he rolled over onto his side with a sleepily contented purr.

Din leaned over to give him one more Keldabe kiss before heading to his own bunk, still humming the old sho’cye’laar.

fin

Spoiler: Notes

Ogun Fett (Mand’alor the Prestidigitator) is my own creation, first mentioned in Nine Down, One to Go. He is named for the Yoruba deity of war and ironwork.

Some Mando’a vocabulary:

aliit: clan, family

alii’aliit: lit. “clan of clans”; meeting of clans, parliament, governmental council

Ori’sho’cye (ori ‘big’, sho’cye ‘sea’): Mandalore is mentioned as having seas in the Wook, so I thought this would be a likely (but admittedly not very creative) name for the biggest one.

sho’cye’verd (sho’cye ‘sea’, verd ‘warrior’): intended to mean something along the lines of “old sea-dog.”

sho’cye’laar (sho’cye ‘sea’, laar ‘song’): sea song, sea shanty.

Finally, the song translates roughly as follows: “May the ship come / With herbal infusion, sweetener, and ti’haar; / When the aiwha is dead / We’ll return home.” (Yes, it’s roughly the Mando equivalent of “The Wellerman”—a sea song that seems to have sustained a lot of people during our own recent plague! I couldn’t find a straightforward way to render “when the tonguing is done,” so a dead aiwha is what you get instead. I figure they might exist on other worlds besides Kamino.) Once again, I thank rktho for his help with the language.

 

Thank you both so much! It was something a bit new and different (befitting a challenge that was pretty new and different), and I had a lot of fun with those prompts and writing Grogu's various little baby sounds! And it was fun to dip my toes into Mando territory a bit, too; I see why people enjoy writing them!

 

Thank you so much! The story cube challenge was such a fun, whimsical idea—and turned out to be such a hit at our Chicago FanExpo fanfic panel last year. (I hope we can do it again, if they just get back to me in a reasonable amount of time!) I initially didn’t expect to write this particular Mando either, but it just worked out somehow as a frame for a farther-back-in-time story. The kind of deep love and devotion Ogun shows his people is Din’s stock-in-trade, too, after all; the truest form of mandokar. Many thanks again for the wonderful comment and for the awesome challenge that spawned this story!

Isn't it quite the earworm, though? It became kind of the "pandemic theme song" on a lot of social media a few years back, probably because that whole theme of waiting around resonated with people so much. But there, too, it was all about a song bringing people together at a difficult time.

Absolutely, just another day at the office for the Dinster!

Hey, when you can't take your helmet off, you use it to show affection!

Yes, one has to admit their dynamic really is rather adorable in its way. I imagine by this point Din is an expert at figuring out what Grogu means, even if Grogu's not using words.

Thanks so much! I am glad you liked Ogun; I came to like him a lot too as I wrote this. He, like Din, knows that true mandokar isn't found only in war leadership but also—especially—in loyalty and compassion. And gosh did we need those things during the really bad part of the pandemic.

Yes, he's riveted! (Because not only is it an exciting story, pure and simple, but I'm sure Grogu can sense the true mandokar that's at work.)

Exactly, and I think Grogu gets that too. He's had a good example in that area in Din!

Oh, he has Din securely wrapped around those little green tridactyl fingers. And a soft, songful ending definitely felt called for, especially with music being one of the prompt themes (yay!). Thanks as always for being here to read and comment, and I'm so glad you enjoyed this!

 

This is definitely one of the most precious things I have read in a long time, and I loved every second of reading it

The querying coos are a great detail and description. I can totally picture this, and it warms my heart!

Grogu can be very persistent about getting his way

Yes, it is hard to resist the power of querying coos, and I suspect that Grogu knows that and uses it to his advantage with getting Din to do his bidding

Aww. Absolutely adorable

I can totally picture Grogu reacting like this. You describe him so perfectly!

Grogu is so skilled at getting his meaning across without words, and I think you have done a great job showcasing that in this fic. Well done!

And this song--this lullaby of sorts--is just the perfect note to end the story on!

Thank you so much for sharing this precious gem with us