“Hey, hey, hey. Hold it.” Din was across the terrace in a flash. Luke marshalled a grin as the Mandalorian sprinted up to R2, who was moving at a fairly impressive clip with Grogu giggling on top, arms waving in the air.
The fun was quickly put to an end, of course. Din gently lifted up the child and sighed. “No. You keep falling off and then you come crying to me or to Master Luke. R2, you should really know better by this point.”
Grogu’s ears fell and R2 beeps were a low staccato. Luke, again, fought the urge to smile as R2 snapped at Din, making all sorts of claims about his ability to transport living creatures from point A to point B without life-endangering accidents. Plus, had the Mandalorian ever heard of fun? And perhaps more importantly, didn’t the Mandalorian trust him by now?
“I do,” said Din. “But guiding an x-wing is not the same as having a toddler ride on top of you. And there’s a huge drop down to the canyon—”
“Wait…did you understand him?”
The helmet turned toward Luke, speechless.
“Have you been learning droid?” asked Luke. Now he couldn’t help but smile. “When did you start learning droid?”
The Mandalorian shrugged and marched off, Grogu peering over his pauldron and reaching out a longing hand toward R2. R2 vowed that they would ride again. Finally, as Din descended the stairs to the temple’s atrium, what came muttered out of the helmet sounded a lot like “figured it could be useful.”