Comfortember 2022 - Day#8: Afraid to ask for help

In between fighting Trandoshan hunters, running after Jawas, getting a probable concussion and attempting to mend his armor, it had completely slipped his mind to check if the kid needed to be changed or something. Well, that wasn’t completely right. He’d given him food the previous night and again this morning, and he’d just witnessed him ingest a frog – a troubling spectacle to be sure. It made sense his body, as small as it was, needed to evacuate all this sustenance somehow. And yet during all that time, he hadn’t inquired whether he wanted to take a pit stop somewhere.

He should have asked him when they were on the Crest earlier. What was left of it at least. But those fucking Jawas had even stolen his vacc tube seat. He really should have vaporized more of them.

The Ugnaught seemed to think he could negotiate with them to get his parts back – what a joke – but this meant he was running out of time. They would travel throughout the night and it even looked like it was about to rain. It was now or never.

So while his guide was getting a blurrg ready to transport them, he carefully approached the child and picked him up. He seemed sleepy now that he had eaten, and he let himself be held without complaint, but this didn’t mean that Din knew what he was doing. Quite the opposite in fact he quickly realized as he tried to sit him on a workbench and remove his clothes. The kid refused to stay still and kept trying to wriggle out of his grip. Sure, this wasn’t the most comfortable table, but how else was he supposed to do this? And why was he trying to roll around? Couldn’t he see he was trying to help?

“Stop moving!” he complained, trying to see if he was wearing any pants under that brown thing.

He finally accessed skin and thought he’d be successful soon, but the child started giggling like crazy. His belly was apparently very ticklish.

Din sighed.

Several intense minutes later, he had his answer – yes, the boy needed to be changed. But he hadn’t planned any of this. What would he use instead? He didn’t have any clean clothes for him. And wasn’t he supposed to wash him first? Din had never done this before. This was unknown territory and he hated being on the back foot. But at the same time, he couldn’t leave him like that. He was just a kid, and it would be cruel.

“What the hell am I doing?” he mumbled to himself, unaware that the Ugnaught was standing next to him.

“Have you ever changed a diaper before?” he asked, his raspy tone amiable, and yet Din was still tempted to lie.

“No,” he finally admitted, shoulders lowering, as he observed the boy attempting to grab his own toes.

“I will show you,” the old Ugnaught resolved, and Din absorbed the information like he absorbed any new knowledge – scrupulously.

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Comfortember: Day#8 - Relived trauma

Din’s first reaction upon finding the child was that there had to be some kind of mistake – yes, he knew species aged differently but surely this was just a baby. What would the Imperial Remnant want with it? The client would laugh in his face when he delivered him. The so-called best bounty hunter in the parsec, and he was bringing back the wrong target.

But then if this was the wrong target, what was he supposed to do with it? Nevarro was no place for a baby, and he was much too young to be taken in by his tribe. He required too much care, and they could barely look out for each other as it was.

Mistaken bounty or not, he’d had no qualms about killing that IG unit. And he’d started wondering if maybe he should leave the baby with the Ugnaught while he went looking for the actual asset he had missed somewhere.

But then the two Trandoshan bounty hunters he’d seen in the Nevarro cantina before he left attacked them while they were making their way back to the Crest, carrying fobs, and he had to admit it would be very strange for all of them to be looking for the same incorrect target.

Obviously, Din realized why the client wanted the child when he saved him from the mudhorn using his strange powers, but surprisingly, this conclusion saddened him more than anything else. This hadn’t been a case of mistaken identity after all – he’d have to give him away. And not to anyone but to some Imps who possessed beskar gathered during the Purge. It would be right for the tribe to have it again and it would help many foundlings. That’s what he told himself. That’s what he kept telling himself as he worked relentlessly with the Ugnaught to fix his ship. It was all for the best.

“It is good to restore the natural order of things after a period of disarray,” had said the old regal man with the accent before he departed on this strange journey.

Was that it though? he wondered while the baby continued to sleep as he took off aboard the Crest. The natural order of things? Giving away a child? Or was he so scared of repeating the mistakes of the past that he wouldn’t let himself find out what it would mean to care for someone again?