victory_road | [catch-all]

Waking up ancient and creaking has been an experience thus far, especially since he now has a tiny kid to run after. Was Grogu ever this fast and mischievous? Maybe, but Mando was also (apparently!) a lot younger then. Now his armour feels a lot heavier than normal and he gets tired quicker, which is how Riz manages to catch him on the couch.

Mando looks down at the little guy, and something tugs at his heart. Even as a practical infant, Riz was still trying to solve crimes and making notes on everything. Adorable, but also kind of sad. Was he ever just a kid?

Then again, were any of them ever just kids?

(Boober, maybe. But not the rest of them.)

"B-O-O-B-E-R." Mando spells it slowly so Riz can write it down. "Are you keeping track of everything?"

Riz's tongue peeks out from the corner of his mouth as he very carefully traces the letters underneath the picture he drew of Boober. The letters are big and uneven, but honestly, still more readable than Riz's normal spidery handwriting.

At the question, he looks up, his face scrunched a little. "That is prif-- priv-- secret." He's holding the notebook at an angle though, one where Mando can very easily see what he is doing. "Are you a knight?"

Yeah, Riz hasn't learned how to be slick yet, and Mando can see exactly what he's doing. The drawing is vaguely recognisable as Boober, and the writing is much easier to read than whatever Riz's handwriting becomes. Even after thirty-odd years of reading it, Mando still needs help deciphering adult Riz's handwriting.

"Some people call me a knight, yes." Mando has been unable to break Shadowmaru of the habit, and it caught on over the years. He nods towards Riz and lifts his hand to his brow in a little salute. "Sir Din Djarin, at your service."

Riz's eyes go wide at that, and he quickly turns the page in his notebook to a fresh one. He really loves stories about knights saving and helping people, and the thought that he is talking to a real knight has him excited enough to momentarily forget about the whole kidnapping thing.

"Have you ever rescued a princess? Or beaten a dragon?"

His pen is ready to start recording (aka draw a portrait of Mando)

"I helped rescue a young prince from a dragon once." Sorry, the only princess Mando knows spent most of her time rescuing his dumb ass, but he's definitely helped out young kids in peril before. "Would you like to hear the story? I can get you a snack while I tell it."

Can kids this small drink coffee? It'll probably be fine if he gives Riz coffee, right?

Should kids this small drink coffee? Probably not! Does Riz drink coffee? Absolutely!

(admittedly from smaller cups and with far more milk and sugar than he does in his teens, but coffee he does consume)

"Mmmm, yeah! I want a snack."

He's a growing boy, after all.

"All right." Mando hoists himself off the couch and heads to the kitchen. He assumes Riz will follow, and if he doesn't follow right away, he will once Mando starts brewing a pot of coffee.

He'll also be making hot chocolate. He can't handle the caffeine in coffee anymore, and he'll be making them both a drink that's mostly hot chocolate with a splash of coffee in it.

While the coffee brews, Mando gets out some crackers and the jar of peanut butter.

"So I knew a young prince, and he was being honoured by a high priestess. He was about to take his oath to become a knight like me when a dragon appeared. The other knights and the queen all fought bravely, but the dragon took the young prince and flew away with him."

Of course Riz is coming. He's been promised ~~a story~~ an interrogation, and he won't get more information to add to his notebook if he waits here.

When they get to the kitchen, he scrambles up onto one of the kitchen chairs, though he has to sit on his knees to even be able to peek out above the table. He's been following Mando's story with rapt attention, his wide eyes drinking in the sight of him. "Did the prince die?"

"We weren't sure. All the knights flew after the dragon, but we couldn't follow it all the way. The queen was smarter, though; she took her ship and followed the dragon all the way back to its nest. When she knew where the nest was, she came back and got all the knights."

Mando sets a plate of peanut butter crackers and a mug of hot chocolate laced with coffee in front of Riz. Then he sits down across from him with his own mug and a straw.

"The queen brought all the knights back to the dragon's nest, and we made a plan to save the prince."

One tiny hand sneaks onto the table, grabbing a peanut butter cracker to munch on, somehow managing to make an even bigger mess of things than Riz does normally. His notebook and pen are laying to the side, forgotten. Right now, his whole attention is on the story.

"The queen is really smart. Then what happened?"

Crumbs everywhere! It's fine; Steed the Durant scuttles into the kitchen and starts munching down the crumbs Riz drops.

"The queen is really smart. She made a plan for herself and all the knights to climb up to the dragon's nest while the sun was rising. We all did, and realised the prince was in the nest, and he was still alive."

Mando falters in his storytelling for just a second here. He's bungled this slightly with the titles, and has to think fast to explain what happened next.

"The prince's father was a knight too, and when he saw his son, he dove into the dragon's nest to get his boy back. That's when the baby dragons woke up."

The moment Steed scuttles in, Riz actually goes still in shock, one peanut butter cracker falling to the ground (face-down, of course). "That's a super big ant!"

Yes, yes, Mando is telling a story, but has he seen this? Has he seen this massive ant that is just right there? Riz has never seen an ant that big! He had once seen a big one in the park, one that had wings and his dad had said was a new queen ant, but that ant had nothing on this goddamn monster of an insect.

"Did you know that if you put copper pieces down ants won't come inside? My grandma says that."

The moment that cracker hits the floor, Steed pounces. Any food on the floor is free real estate for ants!

"Huh?" Mando bends to look under the table, like he didn't just see Steed come scuttling in. Maybe there was a different super big ant in the house. "Oh, that's just Steed. He'll eat whatever you drop on the floor."

Just between Mando and Riz, he doesn't think Spicy does a very good job feeding Steed. The Durant is always coming and begging food from Mando.

"Did she? That's good advice." It's advice Mando will file away and tell Boober about later. Or actually... "You should tell Boober. He spends the most time in the kitchen and I bet he'd be really glad to have some advice about getting rid of ants."

Riz's first impulse is that he will immediately go tell Boober because he enjoys sharing information with other people. Unfortunately, that impulse is dampened by another tiny little fact.

"Boober is a bad guy though."

"Oh? Why do you say that?"

It hurts Mando's heart to hear Riz call Boober a bad guy, even if he knows this is temporary. They'll all be laughing about today soon enough, but it still hurts to hear. He's also wondering why he's immune from being called a bad guy, and if it has anything to do with him looking like a knight.

"He kidnapped me!"

Unfortunately for Boober, he had been the first person Riz had seen when he woke up, and therefore the responsibility for the whole situation had landed on his shoulders. Within Riz's kid mind, that made sense.

"Hmmmm."

Mando isn't quite sure how Riz came to that conclusion, but hey, that's probably because his little kid hadn't started talking yet when he got taken to Pokemon land. The twists and turns of the very young mind are still a mystery to him.

"What makes you say that?" Mando is keeping his voice very calm and neutral, not accusatory at all. "Have you been making a case about it?"

Riz nods enthusiastically, clearly so excited to tell anyone about his case, that he'll even tell Mando who may or may not be another bad guy. "Yeah! I'm gonna show it to my mom when I find her and she will arrest everybody. Did you know my mom is a detective? She is the coolest!"

Whether he is five or fifteen, clearly the fact that Riz Gukgak loves his momma hasn't changed one bit.

Mando gestures at the remaining crackers. "I didn't know your mom is a detective. That sounds like a very cool job. Why don't you eat the rest of your snack and tell me about her?"

It is super endearing that Riz talks about his mom exactly the same at five as he does when he's fifteen. The vocabulary and sentence structure may have improved, but the sentiment has not.

[catch-all]

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