Chapter 6: Who’s Ugly?

Kuiil on Arvala-7 speaking with Din Djarin about Grogu. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 7, The Reckoning. Calendar from DateWorks. Caption reads: I don’t think it was engineered. I’ve worked in the gene farms. This one looks evolved. Too ugly. – Kuiil.

“Too ugly”? Wow. That stung. Grogu didn’t know what to say, other than  everyone couldn’t be as handsome, good looking, charismatic, and esthetically pleasing as an Ugnaught. It wasn’t Grogu’s fault that his parents, pollen donators, genetic precursors, hosts, or whatever you call the people who created him… somehow, weren’t the pinnacle of physical beauty. To be fair, he didn’t even know who they were, so he couldn’t bring it up to them and get an explanation that Kuiil would find satisfactory. It just was not his fault. 

On the other hand it was nice to know that he hadn’t been ‘engineered’. Imagine someone sitting down at a comp and inputing the requirements of the project. 

“Needs excellent hearing, audio processing center must be highly protected, multiple forms of communication acceptance sensors required for data acquisition,  visual data sensors must work in all lighting conditions, including infra-red and ultraviolet. Long eyelashes are not necessary due to other reaction factors, etc. etc. etc.”

Kuiil had both long eyelashes and impressively bushy eyebrows. No wonder he thought Grogu was ugly. His eyelashes were stubby and he hadn’t actually developed any substantial facial hair. It was a pity because he was certain that if he had been able to grow a goatee and a mustache, the Ugnaught would have admitted that it was possible to be non-engineered as well as beautiful. 

On the other hand, Kuiil had noted that Cara Dune was actually pretty enough to be from the cytocaves of Nora. Grogu didn’t understand why. Cara looked like an average human to Grogu. Her face was regular and practically symmetrical. Was that a sign of beauty? Grogu shrugged. Maybe it was. No wonder Kuiil thought he was ugly. If you looked at him very carefully you might notice that his left ocular bump was a tiny bit bigger than his right ocular bump. That sort of asymmetry had never bothered him before, but now he realized that it could be a critical flaw that the Ugnaught couldn’t ignore.  Dank Farrik.

That’s probably what the Ugnaught liked about the Mandalorian. That helmet of his was perfectly symmetrical. It was a thing of beauty and you didn’t have to worry about it being natural or engineered. Of course it was engineered. It was a Mandalorian helmet. Those things didn’t grow on trees, sprout from the ground, or even pop out of a sea creature because it was the irritating offspring of a tiny speck of beskar oar. Nope. It was made. Probably hand made by a Mandalorian armorer at some point in the distant past. 

Grogu had a theory that Mandalorians were hideous creatures that were only semi-human and they had to cover their heads because if regular humans saw them, they would scream and faint. He also suspected that even if they were regular humans, after wearing a helmet all the time they would likely turn into a hideous creature that looked like the pale underbelly of a worm, with a beard and eye brows that desperately needed a clean and bald heads from the interior surface of the helmet rubbing the hair so much it was like sandpaper over time. Uff. Now he was just grossing himself out. 

The one theory he didn’t like to examine was that the Mandalorian could remove his helmet whenever he wanted, but chose not to when other people were around so no one would speculate about his origin – cytocaves of Nora or regular reproduction for humans. That just didn’t seem fair. Considering the size of his own ears, Grogu knew that he couldn’t get away with the same behavior. No one could make him a helmet that didn’t squish his ears, expose them to dangerous speculation or double his weight so he couldn’t even move around in it. 

Normally he would have tried to investigate the situation when the Mandalorian was asleep. He never had to worry about figuring out when the bounty hunter was asleep. He snored like ten slavering barghest. Loud and proud as Ian used to say when they were at the Jedi Temple. And that might have been true in the Mandalorian’s case, but he was also a lighter sleeper than a stepped on Loth cat. 

The few times Grogu had just hopped out of his ‘pram’ to go use the privy or search the Razor Crest for something to eat other than ration packs (you’d be surprised at how many delicious spiders you could find in the average cargo hold), the Mandalorian had been on hot on his trail an instant later. It was like he was faking the snoring just to lull Grogu into a false sense of security.  Dank Farrik!

In any case, the Mandalorian’s status as ugly or beautiful, engineered or just thrown together, was moot. No way to know. Which also wasn’t fair. It was annoying enough that a beautiful person like Kuiil had made those comments. The fact that the Mandalorian hadn’t jumped to his defense made things even worse, plus the fact that he couldn’t be judged by that same set of standards because he was protected from scrutiny by his Mandalorian-ness. 

Grogu sighed. This had never been an issue at the Jedi Temple. People there learned not to make comments of such a personal nature. Not because they were afraid who ever they talked that way about would use the Force to find a way to punish them or shut them up, Jedi didn’t do things like that, but because everyone there was just as beautiful as everyone else. It was just true. When the Force was your friend, then it settled around you like an aura and showed how balanced and good you were. Master Beq had explained how all that worked practically a lifetime ago. When the younglings looked at each other they realized he was absolutely correct and they just didn’t worry about appearance. 

Now here he was, back on Arvala-7 and that aura that had protected him from all sorts of scrutiny had vanished. Was he no longer balanced in the Force? Uff. That was pretty likely. You can’t end up eating a little container of delicious pasty stuff without permission and maintain balance. Grogu had never considered it a problem until just then, when he realized it must have been the Mandalorian’s beauty cream. Dank Farrik!

Grogu sitting in bin at Kuiil’s moisture farm on Arvala-7 while Kuiil speaks with Din Djarin. Image from The Mandalorian, Season 1, Episode 7, The Reckoning. Caption reads: I don’t think it was engineered. – Kuiil