Rating: M, 18+, no younglings. This is a mature fic.
Warnings: Language, canon typical violence, no beta, too much Mando'a, and Gideon.
Author’s Note: This covers The Believer and some of The Rescue. I apologize in advance for the weird formatting (dumb only ten images a post rule) and... The rest of it.
Summary: Din wasn’t sure how to respond to Mayfeld’s statement, but he knew he was wrong. He wasn’t desperate, just different.
Read from the beginning: Mar'eyce Masterlist
If you asked Din Djarin, The Mandalorian bounty hunter, and leader of his clan what the past fifty-two hours entailed he wouldn’t be able to tell you. Not anything past the terror and rage. His absolute determination to do what needed to be done as quickly as possible. Then Morak happened and Din didn’t think he could ever forget that.
Mayfeld was running his mouth, talking about ruling and being ruled. That Mandalorians were no different than the Empire, the wars and bloodshed all meaning the same thing. Power, undiluted and incorruptible. It was strikingly black-and-white for someone so grey. Din knew Mayfeld was wrong, that Mandalore fell because of the Empire, the weak rulers, not because of what Mandalorians were or believed. Din knew Arumorut and the Mandalorians there, that their power came from the people and the trust they had in their leader. Mandalore never had that, at least in his lessons.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Din had never been one to listen to ramblings and Mayfeld’s conjecture about his life and people was grating. “You and I are nothing alike.”
“I don’t know. Seems to me like our rules start to change when you get desperate. I mean, look at ya. You said you couldn’t take your helmet off, and now you gotta stormtrooper one on so what’s the rule? Is it that you can’t take off your Mando helmet, or that you can’t show your face? ‘Cause there is a difference.”
Mayfeld was somewhat right, Din was different now then he had been when they first met. He was learning about different Creeds and mandokar, something Kaiyah talked about all the time.
To her, the right stuff is what made Mandalorians and making sure you were worthy of it, working on mandokarla, was the most important thing. If a Mandalorian was wearing armor without mandokar, that was where she would step in. If they weren’t honorable, loyal, or a defender then they were dar’manda and didn’t need their armor. For Kaiyah it was simple, she was all those things so she was Mandalorian.
Din was trying to meet her in the middle, relax a little, but every time he would try to eat with her - the easiest way for him to break the ice - Kaiyah would look away, leave the room, obviously give him space. He appreciated the gesture and under normal circumstances it would be a non-issue, but this was his soulmate. Someone he cared for, deeply, and wanted to share things with them. He had given her his name, the one that he would share with her someday and while he was nervous about showing his face to someone for the first time in thirty years, he was… Excited.
Din had The Covert, people to share in the collective highs and lows, but this was going to be his clan. His person, the one that would be there for all of them. They wouldn’t be separated by Jedi, exposure, nothing would take Kaiyah away from him. It was why he had to get her back. She was his and he was hers.
Din wasn’t sure how to respond to Mayfeld’s statement, but he knew he was wrong. He wasn’t desperate, just different.
"Mrs. Djarin? Mrs. Djarin, there you are. I have to say, regardless of the circumstances, I am very pleased to meet you. My name is Moff Gideon."
Kaiyah blinked away the bleariness from her eyes, shaking her head slightly to knock away the double vision. The Imp in front her containment field, Gideon, is not one she had ever met before. The dark skin, greying hair, and lanky armored body did nothing to jog her memory but the name itched in the back of her mind. Din mentioned him, once and only once with minimal detail. He was ex-ISB with a vendetta against Mandalore and supposed to be dead on Nevarro, blown up by a detonator on his TIE fighter.
Gideon looms over her from her prone position despite the crimson electrical field. Kaiyah gets the first good look of herself since she was taken hostage on the light cruiser as she went to stand. She’s armorless, not surprising, but Gideon has left her with nothing. No gloves, no boots, her hair is out of the braided style she usually wore it in.
Gideon cocks his head in mock worry, a frown on his face, “Are you missing something, Mrs. Djarin?”
Kaiyah doesn’t deign to respond. It’s rhetorical and stupid. It's also not Kaiyah's first time in integration and probably wouldn't be the last. She does what she was taught and keeps her fucking mouth shut.
"You know what happens to snitches!"
She’s just had her first encounter with a Imp officer. She didn’t say anything, she promises, she pinky swears. They caught her, she didn’t see them, it was an accident.
"Ro, stop. Secrets keep us safe. All of us."
Even at eight, Kaiyah and Ro understand the weight of what's being unsaid.
The Rebels we do and don't know.
Ba'buir.
Armurot.
Civilians.
It is heavy, the silence, the knowledge, that if they let anything slip it would mean ruination.
"Say nothing and do less."
So that's what she does. This Imp won’t get an ounce of her, no reactions, he will use it all against her on the chessboard that is - at least in his mind - diplomacy.
“How was your rest, Mrs. Djarin?”
She looks the Imp right in the eye, letting them marinate in the silence until he breaks it.
“Well,” Gideon smacks his lips, looking almost confused at her muteness. “Our medics had to take off the armor to set your wrist. Nasty thing, a compound fracture in your forearm from the detonation. Mandalorians will do anything for family, won’t they?”
She can’t help the twitch that goes through her body when the Moff family. He has Grogu here, she knows he does. Who else would be after him besides this piece of garbage? Gideon was a big gun, someone who got things done according to Din.
He smiles at her reaction a slow, too-wide thing, “You’ll be happy to know the armor is safe, as is The Child. So safe in fact, that it’s right here with you. Now I can’t make the same promise for your armor as I can for him, but let’s call this a token of my good will.” The Imp flicked his cape to the side, showing a standing case full of her armor, the red light making her armor seem darker. Red and maroon instead of orange and purple. Honor and power instead of shereshoy and luck, all polished and put together it looked almost like a memorial or a shrine.
“I’ll see you soon, Mrs. Djarin.”
Drinking with Valin Hess was the worst experiences of Din’s life. He didn’t like drinking under normal circumstances, it left him feeling disoriented and exposed. Now, he was feeling that way for an entirely different reason. He barely took off the armor to sleep and shower, preferring to keep most of it on or near him in case of an emergency. The only person to see his face, besides himself, in three decades was a melted down IG unit on the lava flats of Nevarro and now a mess hall full of Imperial officers.
“I could blather on about ‘to health’ or ‘to success’, but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?” Hess asked, looking Din straight in the eyes. The only person to ever get it right over the years was Kaiyah, everyone else veered a little too far to the right.
Din had a lump in his throat the size of Coruscant and has dry as Tattooine, he had been burning all day. The burning in his wrist from Tython was gone, replaced by nicks and scrapes in his fingertips from something - more than likely someone hurting Kaiyah. Gideon was going to take her only weapons from her, healing her, then doing it again.
“How ‘bout a toast to Operation Cinder?” Mayfeld shrugged.
The two Imperials reminisced, though that would be a strong word for it. The sharpshooter was getting angrier with each passing second and Hess was getting suspicious. This wasn’t where Din wanted to be, needed to be. They needed to be on Fett’s ship, they needed to be gone, they needed to get his aliit and this was unnecessary.
Din tried to get Mayfeld to back off, shaking his head. If they could just toast, drink, and leave then Mayfeld could do whatever he wanted. Din didn’t care if he killed the Imperial in his sleep, blew up the mine, just as long as they kept it quiet and fast here right now.
That didn’t happen, of course it didn’t when Hess started rambling about freedom and order and power yet again. The only thing he didn’t expect was Mayfeld to shoot the man right in the chest, in the middle of the mess with a million witnesses.
The Imp was back.
Kaiyah had been marking time through the vents. Every six hours, without fail, some kind of air would start pushing through the vents. The rush of air was her only companion as she looked at her armor. She cataloged every piece with her own eyes, getting as close as she dared to the warbling field. She named every piece in Basic, Mando’a, and every other language she knew, then did it backwards. Kaiyah wandered around her half of the divided cell, not that there was much to see. A bench long enough for her to lay down on, to the right a toilet and some kind of rainfall spout, no shower head or handle. If they wanted her to bathe the Imp would have to give the order and let water fall through clear to the lower floors.
In a strange way, Kaiyah was flattered. They really pulled out all the stops to make sure she couldn’t escape. Or get to Grogu. Or Din. Well, she could always get to Din, it would just be painful on both ends and cause unnecessary panic.
As she paced in time with the seconds she counted in her head - never out loud, saying nothing and doing less - Gideon entered during the third vent cycle.
“Su cuy'gar, Mrs. Djarin.”
Kaiyah didn’t stop her pacing, even though Mando’a was coming out of this barve. He didn’t deserve to speak it, he shouldn’t even know it, but she couldn’t do anything about it now.
“I apologize for our less than optimal dinner services. Please, sit. Don’t stand on ceremony on account of myself.”
Out of her peripheral she watched as a trooper set up a travel desk and set down two trays, one on the desk the other on the floor. “Red gourd soup with haarshun bread. To drink we have kri’gee, all the things to remind you of home,” Gideon explained before he began digging into his food. He didn’t spare Kaiyah a glance as he pushed the tray through the red divider using the toe of his boot. By the time it got to her side the food was charred and the liquor was gone leaving only a smoking, super heated mess.
Gideon grimaced looking down at the bowl, “It doesn’t taste the same. It never does with Imperial cooks. They just don’t get draluram the way Ordo did.” He looked up at that moment, seemingly embarrassed about a faux pas he meant to make. Ordo was a Mandalorian name for a Mandalorian clan and Gideon didn’t seem like the kind of Imp who made mistakes, unless it was on purpose.
Waving away the tension he created, Gideon continued, “He was my personal chef, in another life. He could make anything and I took full advantage of that.”
He stayed for nine hundred seconds, fifteen minutes, eating in silence until he wiped the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin and stood, bowing shallowly to Kaiyah, “Ret'urcye mhi, Mrs. Djarin.”
Kaiyah waited for five minutes by her count until she started poking around. She wasn’t entirely sure of the schedule the Moff was setting up but he wouldn’t be coming back this cycle, there was no reason to. He had played his hand and would try again tomorrow, at least Kaiyah hoped by the display he made. Stripping her of her armor, eating her food, speaking her language, Gideon was planning to disrupt her or get her angry. It felt like he was digging for something, but what she didn’t know what.
He could always try to throw her off in other ways, visit her once an hour or send someone to check on her, he could make sure she was never alone and he more than likely had a video feed. Kaiyah could see parts of his plan but not all of it and it was frustrating. It seemed like he had every step planned out for her to fall into some kind of trap but she wasn’t sure of what kind.
Her only hope was to be faster than the troopers and get to a escape pod. Din would grab her armor for her because he was coming back for her, for the both of them. From there Kaiyah could scrap the pod for parts, get them shelter and food. Din would find them, he had to. With that thought in mind she headed for the shower, the only place that had anything she could possibly use to escape.
She kept up with her counting as she dug around the drain and the shower head, pinching, twisting, pushing, and prying to get it out at the expense of a few new cuts and broken nails. Metal became hot through the field, there was a chance she could shape the metal into something else, or if it was thin and sharp enough she could use it like a throwing dagger, killing Gideon. But that was a long shot, escape first, kill the Imp second.
Without warning warm water rains from the shower through the grate, “If you would like a shower Mrs. Djarin, all you had to do was ask.”
It wasn’t Gideon, but a woman. Lower pitch, rigid language, definitely an Imp, but a woman. “Seriously? Scheduled showers?” Kaiyah asked, wet, annoyed, and embarrassed that she has to talk to someone to get basic necessities.
“Not scheduled. It’s voice activated, or, if you were feeling polite you could always ask.”
Kaiyah scoffed, “I’m not asking for a shower.”
“There are five minutes of warm water. Your meal is coming down in ten.”
Three days. Three days since Din had felt anything from Kaiyah. No new injuries, small or otherwise. He couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t think about eating, he had no ship. The only thing Din could do was think. And think. And think.
What favors could he pull in? Who was an ally? What were there strengths? There was no way that even with how good Shand and Cara were that the three of them were enough for Gideon. Peli wasn’t a fighter, neither was Karga. Not for the kind of fight they were picking. There was no way Fett was leaving his ship, the Imps would get rid of it first before picking them off and they needed a ride off the cruiser.
In his darkest moments, Din thought of killing Moff Gideon. How good it would feel, especially after that message. He knew what he was saying to the kidnapper. They meant more to him than he would ever be able to put into words. Din thought about what he would do, how he would do it. He wouldn’t take his time, that was too easy. He wouldn’t be merciful, that was for the gods. The Moff had taken Din’s family and he was going to show him pain. Make him wish for death -
“Mando? Mando, you there?” Cara asked waving a hand in front of his visor.
“Yes. You were saying?”
“Is there anyone else? Anyone we can find?”
Din shook his head as he flipped through the map of the galaxy. He couldn’t get The Covert dragged back in this, he had learned his lesson about that. If Arumorut got involved it would be Nevarro on a huge level. So many would come above ground for only the worst to happen. “No. The Covert went underground, I can’t find them before…”
No one needed to finish that sentence.
“There’s no one else? No one like myself or Boba?” Fennec questioned from her seat.
Ahsoka was gone in the wind, Din wouldn’t be able to find her again without Bo-Katan. That was it. A Mandalorian above ground and had it out for Moff Gideon. She could keep the saber all he wanted was his family, his people, safe. Din started looking through the Outer Rim and called out to Boba, “Start scanning for assaults on the Imperial Remnant. Any starships that have Mandalorian names.”
It goes that way for the next hundred or so hours. The disembodied woman would let her know when food was coming down and sent new clothes after her flight suit got soaked in her first ‘shower’. Gideon showed up for the third meal, which Kaiyah assumed was dinner, without fail, every day.
On her third day, if it could even be called that, she broke. Nothing was working, the grates were welded to the floor, water was worthless against electricity, the panels on the wall held nothing besides bulbs, she couldn’t even find the speaker that the Imp was talking through. She couldn’t do anything if she tried.
“So why the Empire?”
“Why the Rebellion?” the woman asked.
“What the Empire was doing was wrong. Subjugation is wrong. People deserve to live their lives free.”
“That’s rich coming from a Mandalorian.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Kaiyah gritted out.
“Well, your kind fights wars based on nothing for nothing. Your planet is glass. Your kind has never fought for anything but scraps of land for a title that doesn’t even exist anymore.”
Kaiyah couldn’t argue against that. The Mandalore Mandos did do that, between Death Watch and the New Mandalorians there wasn’t much left. Arumorut was easy: respect The Creed and you can stay. Don’t be a shitty person and you can stay. If you weren’t, well, it wasn’t like Ba’buir Nejaa would let them leave and tell everyone about them. They did what they had to to protect their aliits.
“The Moff will be dining with you in five minutes.”
Din watched as Cara walked off the passenger ship carrying Pershing. The pilot deserved to be shot for mocking her pain. There was no way to cope with that kind of loss besides marching on. Hoping that you do something to see them all again.
Selfishly, Din wished that he could have something that Cara did. Something that would kill that kind of pain, he knew it after Nevarro and while he was too small to remember Mandalore he had heard the stories. He wished it for Kaiyah too, he had seen her laugh off too many glassy eyed looks and thousand meter stares. Heard her nightmares and commiserated in her pain. He wished that they both had something to suffocate, kill that feeling, fill that gaping, sucking wound and be whole again.
Kaiyah was losing her mind. She had to be. She was laughing at an Imp’s joke. This was rock bottom. Insanity. There was no coming back from this.
“I know, it’s awful. It was my brother’s favorite joke, it’s so stupid.”
“No, don’t say that. It’s pretty good, honestly. Where’s your brother stationed?” Kaiyah asked as she wiped the corners of her eyes trying to remember how to breathe again. The two had been doing this since their first conversation. Kaiyah would usually start rambling because it was boring as hell to be stuck there and the Imp wasn’t Gideon so it was a plus in her book. There were no deep questions after their first conversation, both choosing to keep details vague and anecdotes funny.
There was a pause, “He was on the second Death Star.”
Even though Kaiyah was the only one in the room it still felt like all the air was sucked out of it. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Don’t be, he’s not dead. I know it. We’re twins, I would know if something happened to him.”
The ache twisted farther in Kaiyah’s gut. She knew where the Imp was coming from. She could find Ro anywhere, at anytime. She could feel him like a limb, if he was gone she would know. “I get it,” Kaiyah cleared her throat. “I’m a twin too.”
“Really? I feel like it’s rare to meet one, I never have before.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda crazy, they ended up having twins too. Just carrying the family line,” Kaiyah laughed.
“You don’t have any kids?”
Her fists clenched on top of her knees, “I do. You have him.”
“The Moff will dining with you in ten minutes.”
It didn’t feel like ten minutes. It felt like eternity and the blink of an eye, her perception was all skewed even as she kept count. Seconds were nothing if you had no comparison.
Bes'bev blared through the speakers and Kaiyah jumped up at the sound. It wasn’t a particularly soothing kind of music as the end of the flute was cut off and sharpened to a point, when the bes’bev wanted to be it was shrill, demanding, and annoying. Gideon swished through the door a moment later, as he show cased a bottle of wine.
“I apologize for the late night. Some things came up, but I figured we could share a nightcap.”
Kaiyah barely held in her scoff. She didn’t know what time it was unless someone deigned to tell her. Gideon rambled about nothing, choosing to inform her all about the history of ‘this kind’ of music, where the rice was from, why its legs are more pink than true red.
Then the field turned off. Blinked out of existence and her chance at escape was in her grasp. Kaiyah charged, tucking herself for a tackle to bring Gideon down and book it to Grogu, get off this stupid ship and get safe. Then the field was up again, red hot and jumping, crackling with a frenzy. The electricity stopped her because there was no way she was stopping herself in time. Holding her forearms to her face, she gritted her teeth and made her scream a groan as too many volts swarmed through her body and she dropped to the ground.
Gideon scolded her from his seat, “I thought we were passed this. I wanted to build trust with you like you have my captain. How wrong I was, acting like the savage you are.” He pushed Kaiyah away from the field with his boot, rolling her just centimeters from the living red energy as her body recoiled.
“I’ll see you soon, Mrs. Djarin.”
Din nearly dropped to his knees in the Slave. Bo-Katan had her nose in the air as she surveyed their surroundings, Cara was taking her sweet time uploading the plans, and Pershing was fidgeting in cuffs all while Din’s stomach dropped. It had been four days. Four days of silence, no more scrapes or cuts or broken bones. Gideon got his message, Din knew he did, but he didn’t think the Moff would do something like this in retaliation.
Din needed both Kaiyah and Grogu alive. He wasn’t sure what he would do otherwise. Overlapping images swarmed his mind as he thought of who he would be without his runi. Kai was suddenly replaced with himself. It would be so easy, so understandable, to put down the armor, become a recluse, barely do the minimum it took to keep himself alive. Din wouldn’t be what Grogu needed, not that he was now, but at least the kid was safe.
What if Grogu was hurt too? Din didn’t know. He wouldn’t know until he got them back. All of a sudden the anxiety he was pushing away suffocated him. Every terrible thought, outlandish and otherwise was now a reality.
Grogu harvested of not just his blood but scrapped for parts like a droid.
Kaiyah burned to a crisp but kept alive.
Both of them sold off to slavers. Separated by two different buyers.
Neither of them there.
A fake cruiser.
Only one of them there.
Din having to choose who he would save. Kaiyah would force him to pick Grogu.
Gideon being a figment of Din’s fucked up imagination.
His breaths were getting shorter. Something was wrong with his heart. What was happening to Kaiyah? Something grabbed his shoulder and Din broke the hold, grabbing the wrist and squeezing.
“Mando, what the hell?” Cara gritted out, trying not to make a scene in front of everyone. Which was exactly was he was doing.
He dropped Cara’s hand as soon as he grabbed it, “I’m sorry. Excuse me.”
“Mrs. Djarin, we’re being boarded. They are obviously here for you,” the disembodied Imp woman sounded like she was just talking about the weather. It was impressive that she managed to sound that collected and Kaiyah told her as much.
“Thank you. It’s been a pleasure, Mrs. Djarin.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it that but -“ Kaiyah’s sentence hung in the air as the red electricity disappeared again. It had only been twelve hours by her count but she wasn’t risking getting shocked again. She had stayed curled up on her little bench far, far away from that thing.
“A group of four is heading to the bridge. Good luck.”
Not willing to bite the hand that fed her, Kaiyah took off. Her bare feet slapping against the floor as she started to pound on the control panels close to her. This was the brig, it had to be, Grogu had to be close. Plastoid clunking together alerted her before the tinny voice ever did, slipping in a alcove she pressed herself to the wall, “We’re heading to the bridge now.”
***
Din felt her before he saw her. She was somewhere nearby, not even close to the brig, this was cargo and storage. Kaiyah was right next to the Death Troopers. Moving down the hall, he followed her, feeling along this new connection before he saw her, peeking out from a corner in no armor, not even her flight suit, just some loose baggy clothes that they would give someone before medical testing or exams.
“Kaiyah!”
***
Translations:
Mandokar: the ‘right stuff’. Epitome of Mandalorian virtue, a blend of aggression, tenacity, and lust for life.
Mandokarla: having the ‘right stuff’. Usually by showing mandokar, a compliment from a Mandalorian.
Dar’manda: not being a Mandalorian, someone having lost their soul.
Shereshoy: Lust for life and much more, living life to the fullest.
Aliit: family, clan.
Su cuy'gar: Hello. Literally, you’re still alive.
Barve: Legends, slang for pig.
Red gourd soup, haarshun bread, kri’gee: Broken down, it’s basically squash soup with matzo and a malt liquor from hell. Kri’gee is awful to put down with a bitter taste, leaves you with a nasty hangover and being able to not complain about said hangover is a sign of Mandalorian fortitude.
Fun Fact: Mando wine is made with rice and grapes, it’s a red wine, kinda gives me Bordeaux vibes based on very minimal Google research, but I dunno. I don’t drink red wine it’s icky.
Osi'kyr: exclamation for surprise or dismay, I’m choosing to use this as ‘oh my, god’ but who knows if I’m right.
Rating: M, 18+, no younglings. This is a mature fic.
Warnings: Language, canon typical violence, angsty, too much Mando'a, too many italics. As always, no beta.
Author’s Note: I have no excuses for how late this is. I lost motivation and it kinda felt like it was done if though it isn't. I don't know if that makes sense. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! This covers some missing scenes of The Jedi and The Tragedy.
Summary: It was so hard. To wash his ears. To put him to bed. To step away. To not grab him. To not run. Far and fast and away.
Read from the beginning: Mar'eyce Masterlist
“I just don’t understand. I don’t get it,” Kaiyah groused as she paced the belly of the Crest. “We do all that work for her, for Vor- Grogu -and she won’t train him?”
Din gave a weary sigh from where he posted up against the counter, arms crossed over his chest plate. This was a discussion that Kaiyah had been pushing the closer they got to the end. She was of the opinion that Grogu should stay with them, had been since the beginning, that he already had his people and Din didn’t need to go finding anyone, that it wasn’t breaking The Creed and they would raise him as their own, like her buirs did with Ro. “We have a lead, it will work out.”
Barreling over his statement Kaiyah continued rambling, “I don’t get it, ‘I’ve seen what it does to the best of us’? So wouldn’t it be more helpful to help him?”
Din attempted a noncommital grunt, but they both knew he agreed.
“He’s so powerful but because he has us, he’s weak? Untrainable?”
“That’s not true and you know it, Kaiyah,” Din said sternly, trying to cut off the discussion before it started.
She felt Din’s shoulder move under her head as he shrugged, “The kid - Grogu - needs his people, we can’t train him the way he needs to be trained. We’re doing the right thing.” He said with all the conviction of a man who knew he was wrong. Who was trying to convince himself of the right thing.
Kaiyah stopped next to him and slumped against his shoulder, her forehead knocking against his pauldron. “I know. I just… I’m trying to wrap my head around it. The Creed,” she swallowed the unexpected lump in her throat. The Creed. Not mine, not yours, ours. It wasn’t something she ever really had to think about before, not in any real way at least, every Mandalorian she had ever met was of Arumorut blood, “Says that there is strength in numbers and family. Loyalty. How do the Jetti survive by being islands unto themselves? It sounds lonely.”
“Are we?” she whispered against his arm. “Is Grogu going to be taken care of when we find this stranger?”
“He will be safe. That is the important thing.”
“Safe and loved aren’t the same thing. Will they let him have friends? Will there even be other kids around? Is he going to be clothed and fed well? Does he already have too many ‘attachments’?” She sighed, her own humid breath bouncing back in her face. She was tired of the every growing loop they were finding themselves in. There was no meeting in the middle on this. Kaiyah was a guest, no matter that she was his soulmate. She joined this quest at the end, purely under the agreement to help, not hinder. “I’m worried, Din.”
“He will be safe, Kaiyah,” Din ground out. He didn’t want to have this discussion. Not again. Not when they just ended up in the same place they always did.
In the way that Kaiyah had heard of new parents nesting, she too was packing, organizing, rearranging, dismantling, and rebuilding anything she could get her hands on in the Razor Crest. She had promised both Grogu and Din to get Grogu to his people, to somewhere safe, let him live in peace like he was always supposed to.
He was also safe here.
He was cared for here.
With them. His aliit.
Their ad’ika has peace here. Kaiyah had peace here. But, as Din reminded her, she was being selfish. So she prepped. She packed. She pushed it all down and did what she was supposed to and thought of all things that their ad’ika might need.
What if Grogu was on Hoth for training? He would need a heater. She could make one, probably. So she did.
What if it was rainy wherever this strange Jetti took him? Grogu would need the appropriate clothes. She waterproofed his limited closet.
What if he needed someone to talk to? Advice or just missed his buir? She recorded Din talking, just in case. She knew that there was no way that Din would let her get a holovid or take pictures, for everyone’s safety, who knew what the price of the father and son’s bounties were now, but it was a voice recording. It wasn’t a big deal. The two of them would always know that while he was here, Grogu was giggly and mischievous and always wanted a full serving of tiingilar even though he could barely get through one bite. Grogu might not have that luxury. He should know that his buir loved him endlessly.
“He’s come so far. I’m so proud of him,” Din told her the night she recorded him. It was easy to get him talking about his ad’ika, all she had to do was say ‘Grogu’ and Din immediately went into a story about how he recognized his own name and how smart he was, all things she knew but was happy to hear again and again and again. “He moved the sphere all by himself today. He took it and gave it back using his powers, I wish you were there to see it, Tran’ika. He’s amazing.”
Kaiyah wasn’t upset to have missed it, she knew that Din was hoarding everything he could the same way she was practically giving everything away. Who knew what was going to happen? Who knew if they were ever going to see Grogu again? The Manda wasn’t in the habit of giving those answers, no matter how much Kaiyah prayed. She knew, Din knew. It was take what you could, keep what you can for them and Grogu was their treasure.
It didn’t take long to get to the seeing stone but the hours seemed to drag by. When they sat down for mealtime - Kaiyah’s and Grogu’s at least, Din still ate separately - it was the last one. Somehow, in the sinking pit of their stomaches, they knew. They knew it was the last chance to know Grogu, as their ad’ika, as their aliit, these were the last few precious moments pouring through the hourglass of their time together. While the adults understood, Grogu seemed unfazed, cooing and mumbling his way through the meal he showed no hesitation. The root vegetables were poked and mashed beyond recognition, the broth was sloshed, and it was aay’han.
It was perfectly normal and yet something seemed to grip their hearts and clench their fists around the muscle. Kaiyah worked with their ad’ika on his numbers, having given up fully on colors, Din spent time in the cockpit with him. It was what they did every sleep cycle. It was so hard.
To wash his ears.
To put him to bed.
To step away.
To not grab him.
To not run.
Far and fast and away.
Kaiyah wasn’t sure what she expected when they broke Tython’s atmosphere, but it wasn’t what it was. For a sacred Jetti place it was… Boring. Arid. Scrub land as far as the eye could see with sandstone and dirt to break it up. It wasn’t magical or holy in the way that Kaiyah thought Jetti were, there were no devotees or caretakers on the abandoned planet. No pilgrims making their ways up the shale and boulders, or the less devoted taking the easier but much more dangerous route of a dried out river bed up to the henge.
Din couldn’t land on the telepathic rocks so, one in each arm, he took all three of them to the top with his sen’tra. It was no less terrifying than when he did it on Nevarro and she was still worried about the weight limit he seemed to not care about. As if he could sense her clenched jaw and the anxiety sweating out of her, he said that they would fix her sen’tra soon too. That she had been too long without it, which she had, but she wasn’t exactly gung ho on having it again.
Din narrated everything to Grogu like normal, asking if this was Jedi, if he was seeing anything, asking him what was going on, all like a good buir did as Kaiyah got in some light jabbing. Nothing to wound, but enough that Grogu snickered and Din sighed like he was annoyed but they all knew he wasn’t.
If this is the end, at least it’s on a high note, Kaiyah thought to herself mid-giggle. At the sound of a ship landing, both adults stopped short. Shoulders tensed, hands hovering over weapons on high alert, binocs adjusting, heat sensors flashing, trying to get a read on who found them, how many, what were they armed with.
“What the hell is that?” Kaiyah asked, bewildered by ship rotating to land on it’s back.
“Nothing good,” Din gruffed as they scanned for anything or anyone close by.
They had turned their backs for one minute, not even that, as Din got the closest to anxious Kaiyah had ever heard him as he turned back to their child, “Time’s up, kid. We gotta get out of here -“ he stopped short, making Kaiyah turn as they both gaped at the blue energy surrounding Grogu. He didn’t look like he was asleep, honestly it looked like their baby was meditating, some otherworldly deep connection on his face even as Din tried talking him through a plan
“You go, I’ll stay. You have a sen’tra, it makes more sense,” Kaiyah cut him off, tone broking no argument as she moved her eyes back to the strange ship, heat and binoc flicking through the desert at a rapid pace. “I only have eyes on one, but keep safe, alright?”
Din nodded hesitantly, keeping his visor on Grogu even as he knocked his helmet against hers in a kiss, “I’ll see if I can buy you some time. Don’t go where I can’t see you.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Djarin.”
He nodded once, decisively. Kaiyah could see how he put away the worried parent and brought out Mando, the warrior, protector, and leader of their mission. Manda help whoever thought they could get through him.
“Come on, ik’aad. I’m right here, come back,” Kaiyah coaxed as she moved closer. She wasn’t sure what the energy was surrounding Grogu but it felt like something she shouldn’t touch. It was humming, thriving with some kind of force. Kaiyah couldn’t keep an eye on both Din and Grogu, the angle of the slope was too steep, she had to be right at the edge to see what was going on with her runi and her ad’ika needed her more right now.
Stopping at the edge of the force field Kaiyah bent to his level and tried again, urgency poured through the vocoder, “Grogu, come on. We need to get home, we gotta help buir.” She felt ridiculous, there was no way he could hear her over the humming and whatever Jetti possession he was going through right now, but she had to try. Something was brewing, some deep pit in the soul of her was gnashing at her insides. This was wrong, they shouldn’t be here, they needed to get home, now.
Kaiyah’s panic only grew as she heard another ship break atmosphere. Swallowing back the juvenile panic she repeated her buir’s mission mantra: Don’t look back, don’t look, keep your eyes on the objective. Everything else is a distraction.
Hesitantly, she reaches a hand up to the blue, swirling energy. She didn’t know what could happen if she touched it. Was it protection? It didn’t look like it was hurting him, just keeping him someplace that wasn’t here and she needed him here, they needed to leave. “Grogu,” she pleads near whispering, bartering. “Vor’ika. Gedet'ye, olaror yaim. Mhi linibar bah slanar, gar buir linibar mhi - linibar gar.”
Kaiyah can feel the sweat break out across her neck as blaster fire and artillery start going off. She’s nauseous and shaking, they are exposed up here and she can do nothing to protect Grogu if a stray missile hits them. She can’t see anything and she can’t leave him. She squeezes her eyes shut as the ground shakes beneath her.
Why can’t he hear her? What is going on? Clenching her hand she pounds on the energy, “Haar'chak, Vor’ika! We really gotta go -“
Kaiyah is suddenly in the air, hitting the ground hard and sliding across the dirt and loose pebbles from the crumbling sandstone. The landscape beneath them is full of red blaster fire and pock marked dirt. Standing up she adjusts her helmet as she frantically searches for Din.
He’s nowhere. She can’t find him - can’t see him - she corrects. His armor is a beacon and if that fails, she would feel him. "Vor'ika!" Kaiyah shouts, wildly switching tactics from soothing and pleading to desperation and demands.
“Come on! We’re leaving now!” She yells as she glances around the stone, knowing that there's no point in looking for an off switch that doesn't exist, that Kaiyah herself gave Din shit for.
"Why would a rock have an on switch? It's a rock, Din. I don't even think Jetti magic accounts for that."
A third ship is in the atmosphere, she hears it and suddenly there’s pain. Not the mind numbing, near death kind. Not the blaster burns or the knife scrapes. Something hitting beskar. The shove-like, mottled bruising force of blaster on beskar.
Kaiyah curses, running out of ideas, she thrusts her kad into the glowing blue sphere and thinks she is making ground despite the durasteel blade, up until it snaps in half and she goes flying. Tumbling ass over kettle Kaiyah flips herself into a slide and starts running back.
It feels like hours, time she knows they don't have, as the cycle repeats itself.
She bangs her fists and is shoved back.
She shoulders her way through and is thrown.
Runs at it, hoping beyond hope that the momentum will carry her to her ad'ika. She hits the stone slabs behind her.
Curses herself repeatedly for not bringing the beskar spear. Brushed Din's gift of a gift off, saying she didn't need it, it was his, the 'nice lady' gave it to him. "It completes the look, you know. Couldn't ruin your very scary beskar aesthetic."
All of which at the time were true. She didn't need it, she hadn't really needed an arsenal all these years away from, well, everything.
Something thunders in the air, screeching metal and explosion and Kaiyah thinks she has one last run before something happens. Knows deep in her bones she doesn't. Has had decades of war and scrapping and fighting for her peace to understand the shift. Has to try anyway. She wouldn't leave Grogu behind. Couldn't.
Kaiyah makes it halfway to him when the globe disappears and Grogu flops to his side, exhausted and purring in the soft snores only a baby can make.
A metal arm constricts her stomach and lifts her.
Oh, hells no.
Grogu is snatched by a droid that Kaiyah has never seen before. They are tall, all black, and sleek. She doesn’t have to question that these are Imperial made. They are all the same, with their lifeless, clinical look and red hot triangular eyes.
She doesn’t have time to think over her plan. Her dumb, idiotic plan. She’s never done this before, has never had a reason to. White-knuckling her pommel she takes a deep breath and flips it to a reverse grip before she yells as she throws a wild haymaker at the droid’s head, releasing the glowing red sensor on the bottom of the hilt.
The world slows and for one terrifying moment she wonders if the Manda is laughing at her. If bombs can expire. If there was one still even in there. Then, suddenly, there’s a screech and heat that Kaiyah swears she can feel through the beskar. She goes flying above the flaming wreckage.
She has no way to judge as far she has been thrown, how far above the ground she is. She didn’t expect this outcome. To be thrown above everything instead of to. All she knows is that her wrist throbs accompanied by some horrible grinding sound, she can’t see Grogu, has no idea where Din is.
Her visor fogs up, all hot and wet air that is being recycled back in her face. She’s crying. Why is she fucking crying?
Kaiyah doesn’t have an answer, can’t even fathom one as a different Imp droid grabs her freefalling body and jolts as it’s thrusters push them up. The movement shocks something in her and she jerks, squirms, until she realizes that there is no safety net for her now. She has no sen’tra, Din is standing there looking up at her with a human woman, dark hair and black clothing at his side.
Like everything else today, she hopes and prays. That that woman is a good person. That he doesn't come get her. That her and Grogu will be close, in the same cell. She'll be fine, all Cruisers are the same. It would take her a few hours on a bad day to get to an escape pod. She can do this, stay safe, as long as he does too.
Translations:
Buir: Parent
Aliit: clan, family
Ad’ika: little one
Jetii: Jedi
Tiingilar: Hearty, spicy stew (or casserole according to Legends)
Tran’ika: diminutive of Tranyc, or star. If that isn’t the right way to make nicknames in Mando’a, please let me know.
Manda: heaven, collective soul
Aay’han: moment of mourning and joy
Sen’tra: jetpack
Ik’aad: baby, child under three
Runi: soul, poetic
Vor’ika. Gedet'ye, olaror yaim. Mhi linibar bah slanar, gar buir linibar mhi - linibar gar: Little Green. Please, come home. We need to go, your parent needs us - needs you.
Mar'eyce Masterlist (Soulmate AU Din Djarin x Mandalorian OC Kaiyah Awaud)
Mar'eyce (mah-RAY-shay): Discovery, something found at last, a state of heaven.
Warnings for the fic: Canon typical violence, language, soulmate lore, talks of scars/scarring. Each chapter comes with its own warnings, but just to be safe this fic is 18+. No small lurkers, please.
The story of soulmates has been passed down for generations in the clans. When the Mando’ade swear their creed the Ka’ra pick another for you. Your “perfect half”, supposedly you know them through your shared scars.
For Din Djarin, it was always a legend, a myth. It wasn’t real, but then again, Jedi weren’t either.
For Kaiyah Awaud, the myth is real. Everyone has a soulmate, some believe it dictates standing in the clan.
When Din needs Mandalorians to help him on his quest to find The Child’s people, The Armorer tells Din about a rumored clan that might be able to help. When he gets there, it’s nothing like he’s expecting. The clan doesn’t cover their faces, they abide by soulmate laws, and their leader isn’t even leading. How are these zealots going to help him?
Kaiyah helps her buir, Kai, lead their people. She can’t do much else when she doesn’t have a soulmate. Rumors of her being dar’manda aren’t new, but with the added tension of Kai’s lack of leadership and flippancy for clan well-being, people are looking for an answer. Not to mention the influx of militant Mandalorian refugees from Nevarro.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Mar'eyce Introduces:
Extras, moodboards, and character backgrounds on your favorites in Mar'eyce.
Rating: M, 18+, no younglings. Idk if it calls for it this chapter but just to be safe this will continue to be a mature fic.
Warnings: canon typical violence, language, Harbinger gets his own warning now, passing food mention, alcohol is consumed, PTSD (I don't feel like you can be a Mandalorian and not have some kind of great trauma) & nightmares. Mando pokes through Kaiyah's things but it's not creepy I promise. No beta and tons of descriptions that should be earlier in the story that my lizard brain forgot.
Author’s Note: Not quite the 30k I wrote but this weekend has been busy and I start school Monday (I know. I'm not terribly excited about it either) so I wanted to get something out before updates possibly become spotty. I'm trying to keep Kaiyah as blank slate as possible so we can all feel like her but some mentions are made to height, hair, and tattoos in this chapter.
As always, translations and lore are at the end. Plus, a fun little headcanon for Paz.
Summary: "It felt wrong to dig through it but he needed to check. It was necessary. What if she was hurt?"
Read from the beginning: Mar'eyce Masterlist
Kaiyah heaved the box full of holopads and loose papers off her counter. She wasn’t trying to mess with Harbinger’s schedule, it was just a lot of stuff after fourteen years. That was a lie actually, she was trying to mess with her prick of a cousin. His oh so important to-do list of ‘real leader’ things was grating and she was already over it after three days.
“I can’t wait to push Arumorut even farther in its prowess. We will be stronger together, I know it. Thank you for all accepting me with open arms.”
That was his humble acceptance speech. Harbinger didn’t get on a stage and announce to the entire town that he was their one true leader, no that would have been too gaudy. It was just what he said every time anyone talked to him about his new status. Occasionally he changed it gushing about how strong they all were, how grateful he was, how much this meant to him that they trusted him. It was irritating because it was true. Arumorut needed someone who could get them where he was promising and Kaiyah couldn’t do alone, she had already tried.
According to Dagon, Kai-buir had yielded easily not even raising a blaster in Harbinger’s direction. A loud knock on the front door and shouting out the challenge had the previous chieftain out onto his porch for the first time in years. Kai had locked eyes with Harbinger’s garish maroon visor and nodded, stepping back into his home and shutting the door.
Even without words, the meaning was clear, it's yours, take it.
Dagon had watched the whole thing from inside his father-in-law’s home, the kids wanted to visit and Ro was still out on the mission so he delegated the opening to one of the Mandos that the blue guy had brought in. Tann was sitting on one of the chairs by the window and had narrated the entire thing back to her father as if he didn’t have a clear view from where he was trying to not beat Kato at some kind of battlefield simulator.
The entire town had shown up, trying to get a glimpse at one of the first real throwdowns in Arumorut or see their elusive figurehead. Cheers and congratulations could be heard from inside the home and Dagon knew it was one of the hardest things Kai had done in a while. Arumorut was Awaud’s home, had been for nearly every generation. As the only person who wasn’t aware of the legacy, Dagon asked how they all found the city. Nejaa said they were only going to tell the story once so he better not miss anything.
After the civil war, any Mandalorian that had fought for their way of life were shuttled off to Mandalore’s moon, and not long after some Death Watch, remnants were thinking of making a comeback. Nejaa couldn’t and wouldn’t live near the terrorists that destroyed their life and decided to leave. Their soulmate, someone who Nejaa avoided talking about under any circumstances, stayed behind stating that they had just lost one home they wouldn’t lose this one too.
So, armed with nothing but grit and a four-year-old, Nejaa rallied a pretty sizable group that was disillusioned with the New Mandalorians and hated Death Watch. After a few hyperspace jumps across the galaxy and the need for privacy from New Mandalorians, someone found Vlemoth Port and the group decided to settle there. According to Nejaa, no one could decide on what needed to be done first. Defenses, a place to hold court, homes, water access, it didn’t matter. If it could have been fought over it was. Huffing that they were “ori'buyce, kih'kovid” Nejaa nearly built Arumorut from the ground up themself.
The first and only catina was not even built for the purpose it held now. Nejaa just wanted a place to sleep that wasn’t a bedroll and figured everyone else would want a roof too, so they made a safe house. Trained as a medic, their next priority was clean water and a Medcenter. After that, defenses and guard posts. Finally seeing it all come together they built their home last, hoping that every other Mandalorian in the settlement got their helmet on straight and could figure out what they were doing.
Watching Nejaa be a parent and unquestioned authority on the landscape drove the people to officially elect them as alor. In the village’s mind, they were a perfect choice. Nejaa already had a soulmate, they were the perfect Mandalorian even if the two halves weren’t existing together, they had done the work to build Arumorut (even if it was embarrassing to admit it), and never complained about it. Taking the role on wasn’t something Nejaa wanted or even thought about. Truly they thought that Gaf Beviin would have taken the spot, he was coming out on top of every duel that had taken place for the title and Nejaa was genuinely surprised that he had acquiesced to them in the first place.
Continuing to run the town in their no-nonsense attitude Arumorut flourished. Word of mouth worked its way across the galaxy, any Mandalorian who didn’t have a home would have one with Arumorut. The invitation even extended to orphaned and lost souls, foundlings were the basis of the Mandalorian way after all. It didn’t matter to Nejaa if they had passed Verd’goten age or not. Those who were lost were found with Arumorut.
When Kai had passed his hunt and was officially coined an adult, it was almost predetermined that he would take Nejaa’s spot. He was quiet and diligent, shadowing his buir through meetings and negotiations he took to the role quickly. It was no surprise to anyone that after his coming of age Kai decided to paint his armor in the colors for peace and duty.
He didn’t officially reign as alor until his marriage to Ilyah when he was twenty-three and it was one of patience and practice. Never making the same mistake twice and striving for the best, he preferred to nip grievances in the bud and work in the community. He raised the standard Nejaa had set, saying that even if they couldn’t be on Mandalore, they were still Mandalorians and should act as such. No unnecessary wars, honest mercenary, bounty hunter, or security work. Duty and honor were at the crux of everything alor Kai did.
Most people agreed with Kai, up until the war. Ilyah was the opposite of Kai in nearly every way. Loud, brash, and unapologetic she had said that Mandalorians were needed. Manda had more than one meaning after all and to do their duty as guardians protecting the galaxy was their burden to bear. Not everyone agreed and had pushed back, saying that the last time they got involved in a war it ended badly for them just look at Manda'yaim or the rumors of who the clone donor was. Besides, the Empire would never come to Arumorut it was too remote.
Ilyah left to join the budding rebel effort alone and weeks later a fleet of troopers infested the planet. A chain code booth was set up in the only large city that Vlemoth Port had and people from every walk of life were lined up to exchange credits for numbers. Arumorut was temporarily abandoned in fear that any Mandalorians there would be executed for beskar they didn’t have or Maker forbid, someone started a fight and the settlement would draw the Empire’s wrath. A plan was thrown together to keep Arumorut safe and two days later, Kai joined his wife to take down the army that threatened their home. Three-year-old Kaiyah was brought with and it was in the Rebellion they found Ro and the family of four did their best to fight back the oppression that was suffocating the galaxy.
Kai had never wanted to abandon Arumorut, he always thought that he was doing his duty to protect it from the war. To keep the peace. He had never meant to become what he was now.
Dagon didn’t know the Kai that had married Ilyah or fought in a galactic war, he knew the Kai that existed now. The man that drifted silently through his house and had been mute his grandkids entire lives, but Dagon knew that the man who raised his stubborn husband and dedicated sister-in-law was dying from the shame and guilt that his best wasn’t enough.
As lunchtime rolled around strange mourning had filled every Awaud. It wasn’t pride, though that was a bit bruised, it was the fact that everything had been done right and well and things were good, but not good enough and it felt like they had all failed.
Maybe if Dagon had pushed Ro then this wouldn’t have happened. Ro didn’t want to lead or make life-altering decisions he had gotten enough of that in the war. He didn’t want to be away from his family all hours of the day and into the night, he didn’t want the responsibility and Kaiyah was already doing it anyway. Dagon knew that it was more than those things though, their family would have adjusted and supported Ro if either spouse had pushed for it.
The couple had fought about it, Dagon just wanted to know why his husband wasn’t taking a great opportunity. That was the night that he had learned that Ro had lost a lot to the galaxy, his birth parents were in the same squad as the Awauds and they never came home, lost their lives on some routine supply run. Ilyah was lost in a fight, the specifics were unknown to Dagon, and Kai had left himself on that battlefield too.
Ro wanted to have his family whole and safe. The family he created with Dagon was the only thing he hoarded, nearly binged himself on their security and love to keep sane. He had said that the home he made with his husband and now children was the one safe place left in the galaxy and becoming alor would ruin it somehow. So Dagon dropped it. Now he was feeling like he should have pushed Ro anyway.
When the docks commed to let the Awauds know that the ship had entered the atmosphere, Dagon ran to meet the rest of the family. Kaiyah and Ro deserved to hear the news from family and not be met with the celebration Harbinger were certainly throwing for himself. It ripped his heart out to see Kaiyah accept the fact that everything she thought she had worked for really amounted to nothing. Everyone knew that Harbinger would go scorched earth, leaving behind anything he didn’t need to build a new Arumorut.
This left Kaiyah cleaning out her home, taking down what she had thought would be her entire life. What had been her entire life. It was strange, not knowing what to do with her free time now that she had it. She was under the impression that nothing much would change, she would still help out in the community doing whatever work needed to be done. At least now she didn’t have to do those stupid budgets.
That hope was quickly dashed as she set the last box of documents and datapads on Harbinger’s kitchen table. His home was different than any other Kaiyah had been in, every room was divided by doors and walls he didn’t even have karyai something that was considered a staple in every Mandalorian home. “Sorry for the mess, Kay. Between renovations and my new promotion we haven’t had a lot of time to prepare for guests,” Harbinger huffed as he went through a different box of files. His face was tight in concentration, the scar on his left jumped and twitched every so often. It looked like he was almost laughing to himself as he read over everything Kaiyah had ever done.
“It’s alright, Harry. The place looks good.” Glancing around the room not a thing looked out of place. Even as she was guided through the hallways by Sonja Kaiyah couldn’t find a speck of dust or anything to even resemble ‘renovations’. Harbinger cleared his throat before organizing a different stack of papers, “I’m glad you’re here, I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Kaiyah lied. Harbinger gestured for her to sit down, as she did she followed up her statement, “What do you need?”
“I just-I don’t want to step on any toes my first week as alor. You know how… Well, let’s be frank, how tense it was when I first left Arumorut. I don’t want any bad blood between us or the rest of the clans.”
Kaiyah nodded and leaned back in her chair, lifting it so all the weight was on the back legs. It was a bad habit she had picked up from her buir, Ilyah couldn’t just sit down anywhere she was always rocking her chair, tapping a table, fidgeting with odds and ends. Kaiyah had picked up almost all of those habits, it helped keep her head clear as she was thinking of solutions or lies but the chair thing was the worst. Bothered her ba’buir to no end as they griped about manners and destroying property.
Harbinger watched as his cousin used his furniture as a playground. The disrespect that she flounced in his home grated on his nerves. Even as a disgraced second place heathen she still thought she had some upper hand. Using his foot to bring the chair down to the ground, Harbinger smiled tightly, “heirlooms. You get it.” They weren’t, the chairs had come with the house and since Harbinger hadn’t been back in ten years and the plan needed his attention he hadn’t made the time to get some good quality ones.
Kaiyah narrowed her eyes in suspicion, she was pretty sure she had the same chairs. The woods that surrounded Arumorut didn’t necessarily yield a lot of variety. Dropping the thought quickly she tried to smile back at Harbinger, keeping this short and sweet with emphasis on the sweet might be enough to get the nuisance that called himself her cousin to leave her alone.
“Of course, I’m sorry. Bad habits die hard, or whatever they say. Circling back to what you were saying, I don’t think anyone here holds bad blood for you. You won the title fair and square, Harry. I think the only person who remembers what happened ten years ago is us and I think you’ve really grown. Everyone can tell you carry yourself with a lot more confidence.”
Ignoring the urge to roll his eyes at her jabs Harbinger tried to keep the conversation brief. He swore to the manda that every time he had to talk to Kaiyah he lost brain cells, her true goal was always at the surface and it was mind-numbing to listen to. “I’m glad. I did a lot of soul searching in my time away and I just want to support Arumorut the best I can. I just wanted to make sure that everything was fine, munit tome'tayl, skotah iisa, and all that. ”
“We all appreciate that Harbinger. I’ll get out of your hair now, I’m sure you have a lot of reading to do,” Kaiyah stood and made a show of pushing in her chair and setting everything as it was before she sat down. Gods, heavens, and hells better bless her for the patience she exerted in this conversation.
Harbinger stayed seated, “Yes, yes. Loads of work to catch up on. Listen, a few more things before you take off. I know you do those excursions and I’m sure now that you’re free you’re preparing another one soon, but could you hold off on those? I’m just not positive we have the resources to be using up all that fuel and housing all those foundlings.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know if you know how those trips work, but pay for themselves. Plus, we’re able to bring in extra for the clans. My contact reimburses Reeger, or any pilot I take, for fuel and usually, the hostages want to go home. We don’t come back with very many foundlings most of the time,” Kaiyah explained.
“That’s great, but with Reeger being out for her pregnancy we’re already one ship down, plus hunters coming and going. I don’t know if Arumorut can handle losing all that transportation unless we haven’t inventoried those newcomers ships.”
“We don’t inventory ships. Those are personal property, not Arumorut’s.”
“Oh, my mistake then. I must have gotten my reports jumbled,” Harbinger shook his head like it would clear away the faux pas. Herding Kaiyah to the entryway he wondered aloud, “Do you know anything about those new Mandos? The ones who don’t take their helmets off?”
Shaking her head, Kaiyah thought about it, “No. Maybe they’re just literal? Armor is the most important part of the Resol’nare, after all. Why are you asking?”
“Just curious. They haven’t assimilated yet and I wanted to know if we could do anything to make it easier for their tribe.” Opening the door for Kaiyah, Harbinger shuffled her out of his house, “have a great afternoon, Kay. Thank you for everything you’ve done for Arumorut.”
Waving to Harbinger and Sonja who seemed to just appear from the house Kaiyah offered the same thing back to the couple and strode down the street. Maker, he was the worst. If the HoloNet had pictures of sleemos Harbinger would be the first hit.
The rest of the week went by like that, Harbinger playing up the grateful and surprised act. Telling everyone how beautiful their babies were and how their businesses seemed to be thriving if he could help let him know. Send any formal requests through one of his council - the two Mandos who Kaiyah thought were only staying for a layover - or bring the problem right to his doorstep, he was happy to help.
Nothing much had changed overall, sure it was only the first week, but Arumorut seemed happier. People were actively talking to Harbinger about things, projects that needed to be done, stuff Kaiyah wasn’t even aware of. Had she been doing such a shit job of providing for her people? Were they all right to not want her around anymore?
She still helped out where she could, took a lot of the small jobs that kept Arumorut afloat. Bugged Dagon in his shop, visited her father, took care of her niece and nephews. She still hadn’t told Kai about Cerna and it was eating at her, should she? Cerna and her mother were thick as thieves back in the day, Ilyah had called Cerna a sister and said she had enough mandokar to power The Rebellion herself.
Kaiyah was sure that when her father not only heard the news but figured out what happened that he would hate her. In a way, it was like Cerna was one of the last links to Ilyah, another person who could remember her and Kaiyah had taken that away in a moment of weakness. She hadn’t meant for it to go that far, it was just that Cerna wouldn’t shut up. Kaiyah was going to take her to prison or something if she could have just talked the captain off the ledge.
By the end of the week the nightmares started up again, Cerna joining the mix of firefights and explosions and death. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Kaiyah had been spending years working herself into a stupor to pass out dreamlessly or on the nights they seeped in, picking up work and doing something good. Good for her family, her community, protecting her way of life.
She wondered if Ro’s sleep was as shitty as hers. They had spent years fighting the Empire, doing things that kids shouldn’t have been doing. Smuggling, stealing, listening, carrying the Rebellion’s secrets because who cares about some ‘homeless’ kids. Hells, Kaiyah had killed her first Imp at six, couldn’t even remember why now but knew it felt like justice.
It didn’t feel so good now that she had nothing.
Din hadn’t spoken to Kaiyah since her brother-in-law broke the news of Harbinger’s new role. When Kato and Ellis still stopped by one of their fathers would be with them instead of their aunt. Neither had said anything to Din about soulmates anymore, they dropped it after it was clear that Arumorut had a new power structure now. It didn’t matter to him as long as he wasn’t the one to disturb The Covert’s peace again.
Everyone in the tribe was settling in, the jobs Kaiyah offered were upheld by Harbinger and they were left to their own devices most of the time. The only people who came through their side of town were either headed to the docks or children looking for new playmates. Things were getting back to normal for Din’s family and normal now meant hosting children get-togethers, answering questions about what kind of education he was pursuing for the kid, and trying to find a babysitter.
At the end of the week Dagon had basically dropped Kato and Ellis off at Din’s front step, the tailor had gotten a comm about some kind of emergency at his shop and was about to rush off with the boys when Din surprised the both of them by offering to watch all three. The kid had made a few new friends in Arumorut but his favorite playmates were the Zabrak boys by a long shot, if they left without some kind of play happening he would be in a bad mood.
“Are you sure? You’ll be outnumbered,” Dagon said over someone trying to get his attention on the comm.
“Not the first time it’s happened. If anything happens I know where to find you.”
Dagon chuckled as he walked away, “I like the confidence, beroya. I’ll be back to pick them up in an hour or two.” Waving goodbye to Kato and Ellis, the tailor turned his attention to whoever was on the other side of the comm and made his way down the street.
In all, the afternoon ended up being exactly how Din thought. The boys had decided to scrimmage yet another meshgeroya game and all the adult had to do was make sure they didn’t go too far. By the end of either round one or seventeen - Din was almost sure about the way they called matches. On the surface it seemed like Ellis would call out randomly that time had run out on the match and they would all reset when Paz walked up and ruined the train of thought. The kid made a beeline to his favorite uncle babbling about something while the twins stood back.
Getting down on a knee so the kid could talk to him, Paz listened intently to the gurgles and coos. “Is that so ad’ika? Are you winning? That’s good, want to introduce me to your friends?”
Now that Kato and Ellis had the green light to approach, it was an endless flurry of excitement. Kato wanted to know how Paz had gotten that big and made a bet with Ellis that he would have just as many muscles as ‘Mando’ did. Ellis brushed off his twin and was much more interested in the Gatlin gun that was attached to Paz’s armor and immediately wanted to know if he could shoot it. Answering any muscle questions he could and denying access to his arsenal seemed to get the boys less interested in Paz and as quick as they rushed in all they rushed back out to the field, continuing their game.
“Guess we’re not as fun as bolo ball, huh vod?” Paz laughed as he bumped Din.
“No, not when Ellis is on a winning streak,” Din chuckled along.
“Which one is that? Short hair?”
“Long hair, short hair is Kato,” Din pointed out the twins, along with motioning to the horns. Kato had nine and they could see them all around his head, Ellis only had four visible with the rest being covered by his long hair.
Paz nodded along, unconvincingly pretending like he knew which ones Din was talking about. “How do you know Ellis is winning? The kid told me he was winning.”
“Ellis calls all the matches. Why else would you call a match unless you had already won?”
Paz huffed, “Dammit. That’s smart, why didn’t we ever think of that when we were playing?”
“Because you cheated.”
“I never cheated! You’re just a sore loser, you know damn well that I - you know what, that’s not why I’m here. Jax is giving away this puck, says he doesn’t want to be too far from home when Reeger has the baby. Especially now that they have two of those kids from the last mission. You want it?” The puck and fob were in Paz’s outstretched palm, Din took the puck and clicked it open scanning over the information.
It was a thief, standard information attached to a weaselly looking human. Last known was Christophsis. The job wasn’t too intensive, they stole kyber from their job and now were hiding out in some crystal jungle on the planet. It was an easy quarry that Din could get away with taking since he was still technically recovering from the dislocated shoulder.
Anytime Ro was with his boys he repeated the medical advice Din ignored, it didn’t hurt anymore and he needed credits so he could move on with the kid. No one here knew any Jedi or any other tribes that could connect him with information, the longer they stayed here the harder it would be to leave. And they would have to leave eventually, even if Karga said he took care of the bounty on the kid it didn’t mean that hunters would stay away from them.
“I’ll take it, it seems easy. Can you watch him?” Din nodded to the kid, he hated leaving him behind but Arumorut was safe and had a whole tribe ready to die for him if need be. Paz shook his head, “Wish I could. I’m meeting with Harbinger right after this.”
“Best of luck to you, I met with him last week. He was asking questions about you guys,” Kaiyah strode up to Din’s unoccupied side.
Blue and silver helmets swiveled in her direction and demanded, “What kind of questions?”
Kaiyah snickered at the men. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if they were brothers, friends, or sworn enemies, "He didn’t want your mother’s maiden name if that’s what you were thinking. Just wanted to know about the helmets.”
“And you don’t?” Din questioned, Kaiyah had never said anything to him. He just assumed that she had gotten all of her answers from Paz and would have passed on that information. Now he wasn't so sure if people were gossiping.
“Not my creed, not my business. If you guys feel like you’re following The Way correctly then who am I to tell you you’re wrong? It’s not like I’m the Mand’alor.”
“There is only one way,” Din said.
“I guess not, considering the spread we’ve acquired here in town.”
“What did you tell him?” Paz gruffed, he still didn’t trust a lot of people here but at least Kaiyah was trying. Huffing a tendril of hair from her face, Kaiyah seemed unbothered as she faced the field to watch the kid throw himself over the ball right as Kato was going for a gnarly looking kick. “The truth. I don’t know why you were your helmets like that, Harbinger seemed interested though so be prepared for twenty questions.”
Kato and Ellis ran up to the group of adults with the kid following on their heels. Ellis dove behind Kaiyah as his brother chased him, yelling about how he was going to make the chakaar pay for something. “Hey, boys, stop it. No uj-cake for either of you if you kill each other.”
That seemed to get the twins' attention. “Cake? Are you heading out again?”
“No, your Edalinare said you guys are spending the night at my place. Tann is going to be there too, she just has to finish up training, so I was thinking cake for dinner.”
Cheers erupted from all the kids, even the green one whose ears seemed to twitch with excitement at the prospect of sweets for dinner. “Can vor’ika come over?” Ellis pulled on his aunt’s hand for attention. Kaiyah looked at her nephew, “if he and his buir enjoy cake I don’t see why not.”
“Mando has a job to take, he was looking for a babysitter if you think you can handle four ad’ikas,” Paz offered, shrugging as Din’s helmet turned to him that had cocked in an obvious ‘what the fuck’ kind of way. Kaiyah was the person they were closest to in Arumorut and Din had let the kid be in worse situations but it was still his kid.
“I don’t mind, wouldn’t be the first time I had a house full of kids. Besides, Tann is old enough to help if I need it.” Kaiyah now had all three kids standing around her, the twins were still hollering about their impromptu sleepover and jumping around their aunt while the kid had made his way to stand on her boot. “Is that alright, Mando?” Kaiyah looked up to Din’s visor and fuck. He couldn’t say no.
Not only did it feel rude, she offered and seemed fine with it, but the kid wanted to go too. It also didn’t help that she had unknowingly - or maybe knowingly since she also wore a helmet - made direct eye contact with him and he swore to every god that existed he forgot his own damn name. His chest seized with what he was certain was a heart attack and he had to clear his throat. Why was his throat dry? What was wrong with him?
“As long as it won’t cause any problems.”
“Your kid? Problems? Please, why would you ever put those two words in the same sentence,” Kaiyah giggled as the kids all started to chatter and babble amongst themselves, not so secretly making plans to stay up way too late and other mayhem. “Come on, boys! Let’s get vor’ika’s things and we can start making dinner,” she herded all the boys in one general direction and started into town.
Leaning over to Din Kaiyah’s pauldron nudged his bicep as she whispered, “I promise they’ll eat real food at some point tonight. I won’t load your kid up on junk, I’m mean not malicious.”
Paz Viszla wouldn’t say he was a paranoid man, just a very cautious one. He didn’t entirely understand the chip Kaiyah had on her shoulder but he could appreciate when it worked to his benefit. Like now.
“Your… Covert? Is that what you call yourselves?” Harbinger questioned as he sipped what looked like tihaar from a crystal glass. It was rhetorical seeing as he got it right on the first try. This was a different game entirely. It was diplomatic and rife with double meanings. When he met with Kaiyah he could tell that he could push a bit more, not be as polite. She wouldn’t take it personally and took his concerns just as seriously, sometimes even more so.
There hadn’t been that many of The Covert to relocate, either they had gone underground somewhere else or their names were added to the remembrance. Either way, they didn’t need all the rooms Nejaa had originally offered them. Some of the homes they decided to take needed repairs and they all needed modifications so their creeds could stay intact. Kaiyah was the one Paz took that issue to, Nejaa was more of a medic and semi-retired, they didn’t like to be bothered with the day-to-day stuff that came with running the town and Kai was nowhere to be found. His daughter made it her passion project and started passing new ideas through Paz, upgrades, and designs that would allow them the most privacy, tools, and lumber were delivered to the edge of their homesteads not wanting to overstep her bounds. Kaiyah even mentioned blocking that part of town off if it would make them more comfortable. She was nearly overbearing in how much she cared about what made their lives easier.
Harbinger was a different beast. Sophisticated, in a rough way. What other type of person would drink something that burned like punishment straight? And out of crystal?
“They’re impressive, I’ve seen the weapons you all carry. And your creed, it’s much different from ours. Reminds me of the old ways, when tradition mattered,” Harbinger smiled as his wife came into the dining room. She was small and younger than her husband by about ten years or so. Her hair was down, it nearly touched her knees and was darker than night. She had a scar that ran along her left cheek that unnaturally pulled her smile, just like Harbinger.
“This is The Way,” Paz responded in a knee-jerk reaction. Maybe if he repeated it enough times Harbinger would just let him leave. Instead, he laughed, “Yes, The Way protects us all. I apologize, I don’t think I’ve introduced you two to each other yet. Sonja, this is Mando. He’s the leader of the refugees that came shortly after us. Mando, this is Sonja. My wife.”
The woman smiled at Paz as she looked slightly left. She wouldn’t have made eye contact with him even if he wasn’t wearing the helmet. It made Paz uncomfortable. Your spouse was your equal in all things, but Harbinger’s wife seemed to be an accessory.
Paz nodded gently in her direction with a polite “ma’am” careful to keep his movements slow and mass slouched. Sonja repeated the gesture back to him, nodding and then drifting out of the room.
“She’s a bit shy, it takes a while to warm up to people. Hells, I don’t think she said a word to me until after we were married.”
The blue Mandalorian hummed noncommittally, how do you court someone who doesn’t talk to you? Did Sonja even know she was getting married? Did she even agree to it?
“I’m lucky, though. The Ka’ra blessed me with a fantastic woman. I know how the optics seem to those who aren’t Mandalorian. It looks like I forced her into a marriage she didn’t want but I’m a firm believer in the stars. Haven’t led me astray once.” Paz gritted his teeth, he was starting to get why Kaiyah didn’t like Harbinger now. He was self-righteous and that was the easiest way to put it.
“Marriage is hard, you two make it look so easy,” Paz said tonelessly.
That made the other man’s eyes light up, the scar jumping as he smiled wider, “Thank you, Mando. You married?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, don’t let Dagon know. He’s a terrible gossip and loves playing matchmaker, it’s easy to on Arumorut. Matching scars and all that.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Paz gruffed. He knew the stories, every Mandalorian did. Matching scars and sharing the pain. He hadn’t had a lot of that, sure, just like everyone else he had strange scars or shocks but nothing to write home about. He assumed it was just a parable for marriage, that you were truly one in all you did as a Mandalorian couple. It was kind of hard to keep seeing it that way after being here, Harbinger and Sonja’s facial scar was one of many matching sets he’d seen. Dagon and Ro were another couple, the Twi’lek medic only had one lek the other scarred over. The Zabrak tailor only had one ear. Jax and Reeger both had a shallow nick of a blade injury on their upper cheek, the list went on and on.
It was a bit daunting, to say the least. That all these couples were matched in the stars and knew it because they saw each other and The Covert had to court and guess.
“Not that I don’t love a social call but I did have a few questions. Nothing about the creed, don’t worry. I know we all get those questions when we’re away from home. It’s exhausting. No, I just wanted to talk about projects, plans, that sort of a thing. I just noticed that you guys haven’t meshed well with Arumorut and I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to make it easier for you.”
Maker, this man loved to hear himself talk. Shaking his head, Paz responded, “No, Kaiyah took care of that already. I’m sorry to have wasted your time, I assumed you two would have discussed these things already.”
Something flashed in Harbinger’s eyes, as quick as it came it was gone. His face pulled inwards, pinched and tight. The scar made it look like he was still smiling. It was the most unnerving thing Paz had faced down in a while. “Just double-checking. Can never be too thorough. I know Kaiyah’s... Reign little to be desired.”
Confused Paz tilted his helmet slightly, “We never had any trouble with her. Everyone I’ve talked to has only said great things about her.”
Harbinger chuckled before sipping his drink, “You and I have been talking to different people then, vod. If you're fine with how things are going then I best let you get going. You look like a very busy man. Thank you for stopping by.” Harbinger led Paz out of the home, down the hallways that felt suffocating. It felt like a maze. Or a trap. No home should feel like a trap.
Harbinger started talking again, having to turn his head over his shoulder slightly since Paz was behind him, “Mando, have we met before? I swear I’ve seen your armor somewhere.” Paz bristled slightly, unsure of where the other man was taking this. “No, I don’t think we have, alor. I’m sure I would have remembered meeting you," Paz decided against adding on the colorful monikers he had been thinking of in the last fifteen minutes.
“Now you’re just flattering me, I don’t like thinking of myself as an alor. Just someone helping their community. No, I’m sure we’ve met somewhere. The colors are so striking… You know what,” Harbinger snapped his fingers, the gloves muffling the sound a bit. “I think I’ve got it. You wouldn’t have any connection to Death Watch would you?”
Paz straightened automatically. That was a bold name to throw around. Standing at the door, Harbinger turned to look at Paz fully. The blue Mandalorian was at his full height now, posture rigid and looking like an immovable mountain. He was taller than a lot of people, bigger than any human he’d met. Harbinger was no slouch but he wasn’t heavy infantry.
“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. Quite the opposite actually, I think Death Watch had some good ideas, they just went about implementing them the wrong way. Viszla was such a strong house, shame though how it ended,” Harbinger was looking at Paz like some kind of jungle cat. His eyes were shining in a strange way of pride and smugness. Like he had Paz exactly where he wanted him and was toying with his food.
“Blue is a popular color. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about Death Watch,” Paz said. Harbinger could do whatever he wanted with the information.
“Until next time, Mando.”
Maker, he owed Kaiyah a drink. Or a bottle.
It was late, or early depending on how a person could look at it. Din had finally gotten back to Arumorut after three days and should he have washed the hunt off of him, slept a little while he could before going back to parenting? Yes. Any sane person would do that, Din Djarin, however, wasn’t a sane man.
Stalking the empty streets of Arumorut he made his way to the eastern side of town, heading to Kaiyah’s place. Knocking gently on the door, Din flexed his hands anxiously. He knew he was being rude interrupting both their sleep. He just needed to see the kid.
Kaiyah’s door creaked open, wide enough for him to enter as she waved him in. She was wearing sleep clothes, a light tank top and shorts to help with the heat and humidity that plagued this side of the planet. Her hair was prepped for sleep and it looked like she hadn't been to bed yet, nothing was rumpled or wrinkled and her hair looked intact.
“He’s missed you, had a hard time going down tonight,” she whispered as they crept through the house. She handed Din the bag he packed of possible kid related things. It was heftier than when he left it. Tilting his head at her in the silent question Kaiyah chuckled, “Dagon couldn’t resist. Whipped up a little wardrobe for him yesterday. The boys were all well behaved, too. Your vor’ika ate everything on his plate and some of the twins' too. Sleeps well, better than most toddlers I’ve watched.”
None of this was news to Din, he knew the kid could eat someone out of house and home if he wanted to and the womp rat slept like the dead when he choose to. “Thank you, for watching him. Thank you to Dagon as well, he didn’t need to do that.”
Kaiyah scoffed, “Dagon has baby fever, I think it was more of a ploy to convince Ro into having another. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s why I was called in on babysitting duty, so don’t encourage him.” Slipping into the second bedroom, she gestured to the kid’s pram. The little floating oval bounced as Din reconnected it to his vambrace.
“That’s a neat trick. Any chance you can tell me what it is so I can be the best ba’vodu the next time someone has a baby?”
Din shook his head, “A friend made it for me. I’m sorry for waking you - I just-“
“Needed to see him again?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, “I get it. The first time I watched Tann overnight, Ro came over after four hours. Picked her home and took her home just because.” Turning, Din saw the burn under the straps of her top. It curled up from the collar and weaved its way across her neck, spreading out and down her left arm. It tore through the tattoos that sat there, breaking them all apart. Her right arm had a scar from something with teeth.
“- Mando? You okay?” Kaiyah was facing him again, nearly touching his arm and Din flinched back reflexively, not realizing he had zoned out. “Yes. I’m fine. Thank you."
Her scars matched his. They were identical. Maker, help him.
Paz was unhelpful. He laughed in Din’s face and told him that the stories must be true then, told him that Din was just one in a long line of examples when he demanded answers the next morning.
“I don’t want to be an example, Paz. I want to get the child back to his kind,” the other Mandalorian stated.
“Two Mandalorians are better than one, stop trying to look a gift bantha in the mouth. You already left her with your ad’ika and that is the ultimate form of trust.”
Din didn’t admit to all the people he left the kid with that he didn’t trust. Or the times he left him unattended. “What about Arumorut? The Covert is safe here. You don’t think Kaiyah would go after Harbinger the second she knows? This could create problems for us.”
“Din, you are assuming she doesn’t know already, her brother patched you up. And, if she decides to go after Harbinger, she has my support. That man is…” Paz visibly shuddered, some of the armor plates clacking together. “There are no words in any language for that.”
“It went that bad?”
Paz shook his head, “I don’t know. He didn’t ask about the helmets as Kaiyah thought. It was a social call, wanted to help us 'acclimate'. His house is... strange. All walled up and closed off. His wife didn't speak a word to me, didn't even look at me. Just let her husband talk for her and smiled the whole way through."
"Is he hurting her?" Din grunted. It wouldn't be the first scum he'd taken out and doubted it would be the last.
"I don't know, I don't think so. She's just so... quiet. Nothing like you're riduur." Paz chuckled a bit at Din's obvious discomfort with the phrase, his arms immediately crossing over his chest defensively. "Let's everyone know what she thinks. Won't even wait for someone to ask her opinion."
"Shut up."
It was easier for Kaiyah to keep her head on straight when she had work to do. Everything had a little box or file that it was shuffled into, she could organize things as they came in. That’s what made working in town so easy, there was always something to be done at any given time and she could do it all. Hunt? Sentient or animal it was no problem. Fix a roof? She could figure it out.
Harbinger changed that. Now he outsourced jobs based on need or skill set. Long hunts meant single Mandos got those pucks. If water needed purifying, Mandos were sent to do that. Big jobs meant crews were put together of Harbinger’s choosing. Farmers needed extra hands? It was assigned not implied. Arumorut was becoming busier, everyone bustling around to get done what the alor asked of them. In addition to outsourcing jobs, more of the forest was cleared for something. There were talks of reconstructing Arumorut or making a bigger training ground but no one was certain.
Kaiyah couldn’t work any of the jobs she normally took because of ‘delays’. Ships and Mandos were scarce because of Harbinger’s assignments and Kaiyah’s jobs were pushed to the side with a promise of next week or "when an opening comes up". She couldn’t even help around the town, anything she would have done three weeks ago was already done or assigned out.
The kids were in school or training most days so that was a bust. Kaiyah didn’t know the first thing about medicine besides getting the bleeding to stop which meant Ro and Ba’buir couldn’t help her. Dagon finally told her to buzz off unless she was buying something.
Kaiyah was at her breaking point, she never slept anymore, she was jumpy. She yelled at Tann the other day when a pan fell out of grip and clanged on the floor. Kaiyah never yelled, especially over accidents. She needed something, anything in the hopes she could reorganize. Refocus and put this behind her. She needed to remind herself what this was all for.
So she bit the bullet and went to Harbinger.
“A job?”
“Yeah, anything. I’ll take anything,” Kaiyah said. Her knee was jumping under Harbinger’s table. She was hopped up on caf and sleep deprivation and it looked like it sounded. Scratching the back of his neck, Harbinger grimaced, “I don’t know, Kay. You look a little… Rough. Maybe next week.”
Kaiyah dug clenched her fists so hard the leather creaked under the strain, if she killed Harbinger here and now it would look bad. It would look bad no matter when she killed him but over a job? At the alor’s table? Manda it might be enough for Arumorut to ship her off for real instead of jokingly forcing her off-planet for soulmate business. “Please, Harbinger. I mean it, I’ll take whatever you have left.”
The man didn’t bother hiding his surprise. Kaiyah rarely said ‘please’ and would never say it to him under any circumstances. This was good. Great, actually. He couldn’t exile her without a reason and the rest of the plan couldn't continue with her here. She would be the first one to call a coup on him, no matter if it was justified or not.
But if she died on the job… Well, that was just the way the dice rolled.
“Alright, alright. I have one job. It’s not glamorous, it’s on Dantooine -“
“I got it handled. I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s rough. It’s a -“
“I said I got it handled. Do you have a puck?” Kaiyah nearly growled. She needed this. Needed something to get her together. Unfortunately, she had to lick Harbinger’s crusty boot before she could get there and he wouldn't give her anything if she copped an attitude.
“No, I don’t. It’s a bit… Underworld. I have a fob and the last known. Proof of death is preferred, bring it directly to me and I’ll pay you out,” Harbinger held the fob out to Kaiyah. She snatched the tiny blinking rectangle from his grip like an untrained animal, which in a way, she was. Shame. He could have beat her into shape if she wasn’t so fucking stubborn.
The moons of Dantooine created a teal-grey cast over the lavender fields, it was truly breathtaking. Because the planet had never been successfully settled it was nearly untouched and it showed, wildflowers grew across the grass in brush strokes. Even at night, the temperature was mild it wasn’t humid and sticky like Arumorut could be. It was a place normal people could retire and live out the rest of their lives unbothered and untouched.
Kaiyah hated the quiet. It meant something went wrong. Like now.
She had tracked the quarry across Dantooine, or at least it felt like it. They were smart. Never bothered to make a camp and took the time to cover their tracks. Either they had been on the run for a long time and had already made the mistakes or they were trained in disappearing. In hindsight, she really should have asked more questions.
Kaiyah had finally found the quarry, a bald androgynous Kiffar with blue tattoos that had a mean right hook. She couldn’t feel it through the helmet but she could tell they had the spirit. They had pushed Kaiyah away and made a break for it, attempting to put space in between her and them. It had worked, they disappeared somewhere in the long plain grass and Kaiyah was back to tracking their heat signature. It was the way she was able to get close enough in the first place.
We're waiting… The rage that followed Kaiyah closely sang in the back of her head.
Shaking it off, she slid her beskad into a lower position and crawled through the taller grass hoping to flank their left side. If she was assuming correctly with that right hook their left side would be weaker. Plus the heart was usually located on that side.
Right as Kaiyah lunged with the blade the Kiffar blocked the strike with their vambraces. Crossing their arms in an X over their chest they pushed Kaiyah back again, forcing her out of their space and drawing a blaster.
“I’m not going back!” they shouted. “Never!”
Raising the blade into a defensive move, Kaiyah started circling. Closing the distance on the blaster would be the hardest part of all this. That’s why she preferred blades, blasters could only work at a certain range. And they never worked for her, jamming any time she tried to shoot one off or that one time it nearly exploded in her hand. Blades didn't do that. Blades were simple.
The Kiffar blasted the hal'cabur when she started closing the circle around them. Kaiyah didn't even flinch, the beskar could hold up. It was the whole point of wearing it.
Gripping her vibroblade in the off-hand she rushed in. Panicked the Kiffar shot bolt after bolt getting a few lucky shots in the padded armor around her gut and one nicking her neck. Gagging through the smell of singed flesh and cloth that now suffocated the helmet, the scent the followed her through the nightmares, she wrapped the blade around the Kiffar’s blaster and pushed it to the ground. In the same movement, she gutted the quarry with the vibroblade.
“You're no fun today,” the feeling grumbled.
Coughing through the injury they laughed, a wet and full sound at the same time, “I guess now he’ll never get me. Thank you.”
Kaiyah had the sinking feeling that she had just done something very, very wrong.
Flinching awake, Din pushed the sheets off of himself. What the hell was that?
A blaster shot seared itself into his stomach, a few inches right of his navel. The scar was a nearly perfect circle that spiderwebbed itself from the shot's entry point. His neck tingled in that familiar way of adrenaline after a fight as he was ripped out of the haze of sleep.
Shoving his helmet on and grabbing the blaster next to his bed, Din moved across the room to the pram the kid was sleeping in. A cross between a snore and a purr escaped the kid’s mouth as his wide ears twitched. Clearing the small home took under a minute, the clan of two only had one bedroom the rest of the house was open and flowy. They were alone, no shots had gone through the glass or walls. No one hiding in the fresher or down the street.
Kaiyah.
Fuck.
The revelation hit him like that karking Devorian. He hadn’t seen her all week, since he picked the kid up from her house. Was she on a job? Did Harbinger do something? Would he do anything? They were staunchly avoiding each other, she wouldn’t even walk down his street. Hastily throwing on his flak jacket and trousers, he pushed the beskar on and made his way towards Kaiyah’s place, the kid’s crib gliding behind him.
Din didn’t have any excuse or reason planned before he started banging on the door. He just had to know if she was home. If she was safe. That maybe this soulmate shit was just that. Shit. When no one answered he started looking in her windows, started trying to jimmy the lock on the door.
Checking the house was pointless, no one was there. The floorplan was similar to Din’s home, an open living space that extended to a kitchen, two doors to the left that went into the bedrooms versus Din’s one room. The first door was Kaiyah’s room. It felt wrong to dig through it but he needed to check. It was necessary. What if she was hurt?
There was only one window in the room and the top of the bed was pushed up against it, neatly made with pillows were stacked on top of the sheets. Trinkets and tchotchkes decorated the space, a dagger was placed in a wooden holder that was clearly for presentation. An old and ratty stuffed bantha sat on the dresser with a Rebel insignia made of durasteel leaning against the toy.
A framed portrait sat on one of the walls in her living room, a human couple in their middle ages stood side by side with their arms around a much younger looking Ro and Kaiyah on either side of them. They had looked like they were all caught mid-laughter. Ro still had both of his lekku, and Kaiyah’s hair was longer. They both had some childhood roundness in their faces and their armor was incomplete, either they were just about to take their Verd’goten or they had just completed it.
The siblings didn’t look like either of their parents. Their father, at least Din assumed it was Kai since the two hadn’t met yet, had dark copper skin with an average build. Black hair that sat in loose waves and barely brushed his shoulders, he wore a full beard (Din would never admit to the jealousy that he would never have facial hair like that) that was significantly more grey than his hair. A strong nose traveled into thick brows that shadowed the man's dark eyes. The armor he wore was forest green, streaked with bright yellowy-green. His helmet carried the traditional T-Visor and some kind of antenna on the side. Ro held it in his hands smiling for the camera or artist, a wide grin showing off the sharp canines he had.
The woman next to Kai was his height, leaner but all corded muscle, and visually the opposite. She was white and pale, completely bald, and had no eyebrows. She held her head high with an angular face, everything about her was sharp and strong even down to her lips. Her cheeks were high on her face and her nose nearly came to a point. Her armor was massive and intimidating, black and maroon with two pauldrons stacked on top of each shoulder like roofing shingles and a visor he hadn’t ever seen before. It looked like a bird of prey, everything about the visor pulling in and down to a pointed chin with two pink transparisteel panes for the eyes.
In short, Kaiyah’s parents cut quite a figure even without the armor.
The rest of the house went by like that, glancing in under the pretense of scanning for intruders and finding little details. Like the second bedroom, it sported beds for her niece and nephews. A small cot with a matching sheet and comforter set decorated in flowers was pushed against one wall with a bunk bed on the other. A small dresser sat under the window that faced the neighbor’s house and again little toys dotted the room. A nightlight that projected the entire galaxy onto the ceiling was still running, even with no one home.
In the fresher, Din noticed that she shelled out extra credits for some fancy Nabooian perfume.
The kitchen was open and empty, Kaiyah didn’t have a dining room table instead she opted for bar seating at her counter. She had placed her drinking glasses in the cupboard to the right of the sink.
Din had made sure not to touch anything and locked the house up as best he could after the search. Where was she? Why was she being shot at? Who was shooting her?
Ro was his next best guess. Her brother had to know where she was. Din was more mindful of his knocks this time, he didn’t want to wake the kids. Fidgeting on the stoop Din waited impatiently. Just as he was about to go in for the second round of knocks the door cracked open, Ro wiping the sleep from his eyes.
“Who - Mando? Is vor’ika okay? Are you?”
“Do you know where Kaiyah is?”
Confused by the question, Ro laughed as he brow furrowed, “She’s at home, Mando. Where you both should be.” He gestured to the pram behind the Mandalorian.
“I checked already. No one answered,” Din figured it would be strange to full-on admit to creeping through a house that wasn’t his no matter the stance on soulmates. Starting to put the pieces together Ro glanced over the full armored man, “New scars?”
“Blaster blot,” Din pointed to the area the scar had appeared.
“Pain?”
“Annoying. Why?”
“If it’s bad you would know. I don’t understand it completely but it seems like pain… Transfers? I think that would be the best way to describe it. If it didn’t hurt you it didn’t hurt her is the easiest way to say it,” Ro explained as he stepped outside. He was covered in layers of clothing, a dark flannel sat over a long sleeve shirt with heavy-duty sweatpants and at least two pairs of socks. It was stifling tonight, how could someone whose species runs hot to begin with be cold?
As if sensing Din’s confusion Ro continued talking, slipping on some boots, “After I lost my lek to a stupid plan with an Aryx I’ve had trouble keeping a steady temperature. The armor helps regulate me most of the time, but I refuse to sleep in that. Wrecks my back.” Moving down the street Ro positioned himself on Din’s right side he pointed to his left ear, also scarred over, streaks of tissues coming to an end at the nub that was left.
“Can’t hear out of my right ear either. It doesn’t seem to bother Dagon, I don’t know how. I’m just lucky I walked away from that. It’s also how you both got that bite. Kaiyah and I were… Overzealous on our Verd’goten.”
“You hunted Aryx for your Verd’goten?” Din asked in disbelief. Aryx were massive carnivorous birds, standing at double Paz’s height they were known for having a chip on their shoulder. Two thirteen-year-olds were sent to kill one of those things?
“Yeah, of course. We were stationed on the Mid Rim already, pretty close to Cerea so we swung in, nearly died, swung out,” Ro waved off the shock that was pouring off the other Mandalorian. “We each got one apiece, one of our buirs tailing us just in case. What about you?”
“A series of tests,” Din answered feeling a little self-conscious. Kaiyah hunted a bird that was ten times the size of her at thirteen while he shot a target well enough to be passed.
Ro looked over at him, “Seriously? I’m jealous. I guess my parents were more old school, they took the whole ‘show you can provide for your clan’ thing to its limits. Originally, we were supposed to track, hunt, skin, and cook the Aryx. Showing that no matter where we were we could do something for our aliit, you know? I think we passed on guilt.”
Din hummed back, he doubted that. Ro had lost what humans would have considered a limb and still beat one of those hell beasts, he deserved the recognition. “Where are we headed?”
“To someone who knows more about this shit than I do,” stopping in front of a small hut of a home, Ro banged on the door and walked inside. “Ba’buir, it’s me!"
When no one immediately answered he called to the empty house, "Please, for the love of The Maker, don’t shoot me.” Turning to Mando who still stood at the door he smiled, canines glinting in the light. “They like to show off their slugthrower and I would rather not be picking buckshot out of myself tonight.”
A yawning, grumble noise made its way to the front room, “What, Ro? This couldn’t wait ‘til morning? You know how to break a fever!” A very rumpled Nejaa wandered out from the back of the house. They were stout and they looked like a carbon copy of their son, copper skin, soft jaw with heavy brows, and a strong nose. The only differences between the portrait of Kai and the previous alor standing in front of him were that they didn’t have a beard and their hair went past their shoulders and was just starting to become silver-streaked with age.
Glancing past Ro onto the porch, they eyed Mando, “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Do you know where Kaiyah is?” Din repeated. Nejaa shrugged, “Home, prob-“
“She’s not home, Ba’buir. And someone got a new scar,” Ro interrupted, tilting his head to point to Din. "How do we tell if Kaiyah's okay? You know this whole thing can be... tricky."
“Firstly, you gotta close that door. You’re letting all the air out, ad’ika. It's hot as the hells out there.”
Now that he had permission, Din stepped fully inside the home. It was small and every available space was filled with something, jars, books, and potted planets filled all the shelves and spilled onto the coffee table. Shoved in any space they could find were portraits - holo and not - of various stages of Kai, Kaiyah, Ro, Dagon, and their children. A mythosaur skull replica hung on the entryway into the kitchen where it looked just as stuffed as the rest of the house. Hanging on one of the walls was a full-sized flag of what appeared to be their clan symbol.
It was a home, not just a house. Warm and cluttered and lived in and Din could feel it like a living thing. Grief pulsed in his chest. He wondered if his childhood home looked like this, if he ever settled down could he have this? Something like it?
“Don’t sit yet. Where’s the injury?” Nejaa barked the question nearly like a command. Din repeated what he said to Ro and included the pain before they could ask.
“Let’s take a look, sometimes you can figure out if a soulmate is dying by the scar. Not always, mind you. Scars usually show up after treatment, not after the wound is inflicted. Could you imagine that? Bleeding to death together? Ridiculous. You would’ve been dead twenty times over,” Nejaa stated. Motioning to Ro and the two slipped towards the back of the house, the former leader griping about how they couldn’t find their glasses.
Stripping off his jacket for the second time in front of his second Awaud was a little annoying. Why did they have to see everything? Din had been living just fine before coming here and he would be just fine after. He reminded himself it was for Kaiyah, for her family. If she was in trouble he could handle some poking and prodding.
Loud enough to make their presence known, but hopefully not wake the baby. The two medics walked into the room, Ro laughed about something at Nejaa’s expense before looking over, “Damn, Mando. I get Kaiyah’s little crush now."
“It’s nothing you haven’t already seen,” Din muttered, trying to deflect the compliment and surge of confidence that Kaiyah thought he was attractive.
“Not like this, you were still wearing a shirt last time.”
“If you’re wearing clothes you’re doing it wrong,” Nejaa said. The innuendo made Din’s ears burn.
Walking a circle around him, the older medic nudged his skin around. Stopping at his back they stared at not only the blaster shot but the burn that wormed its way across his back, “That neck shot yours?"
"I've never been shot in the neck," Din replied. He wasn't one to brag, but usually, the bounties were too slow on the draw.
"Neither has Kaiyah. Tilt your head," Nejaa instructed and stretched on the tips of their toes to glance at Din's neck. Humming to themself, they finished their very thorough inspection of his scars.
"Good news, I don't think she's dying. Through and through on the gut, a nick on the neck. With a few bacta pads she was hopefully smart enough to bring Kaiyah should be fine. Bad news, your soulmate doesn’t know how to protect their soft spots,” Nejaa jerked their head towards the back of the house again in a silent question of privacy.
Din shook his head and threw his jacket over his shoulders and reapplied the armor, “Neither of you knows where she is?”
Both Awauds shook their heads and Ro gnawed on his lip for a few seconds. “She’s been cagey lately. Yelled at Tann the other day for something, I don’t think she’s been sleeping either.”
“Again? This hasn’t been an issue for years,” Nejaa shook their head.
“To be fair, we were all worried about it. Kai-buir yielding like that shook things up and you know how Kaiyah can be.”
“Worried about what?” Din questioned.
“Kaiyah,” Ro sighed and scrubbed his face. “Has she told you anything? About anything?”
The Mandalorian shook his head as the kid popped out of the pram, wanting to be involved in the conversation now that it was loud enough to be ‘up time’.
“We were Rebels. Not surprising, I know. It seems like everyone in this galaxy was on one side or the other. Long story short, Kaiyah had a hard time acclimating back to civilian life. Especially after our buir died. Doing things around Arumorut helped get her back together, made her feel like she was doing something good again. Or for once.
Arumorut checked all the boxes for her, she was able to have a pattern of checking up on people and doing something about it. None of us were expecting to become alor and when Kai-buir… retired, for lack of a better term, it was her that stepped up. Between Kaiyah and Ba’buir they were able to keep things running.
People kind of expected her to find her soulmate and step into the role fully. When it didn’t happen right away people got frustrated but were accepting of it. Now I think it’s just been simmering too long.”
When Ro finished speaking he looked exhausted, not just tired from being woken up by someone in the early morning hours. A bone-deep kind of tired, the kind you never really escape.
“Where were you then?” the kid cooed along with Din’s question, his hands patting the gloves Din wore.
“Naboo, I pursued medical school there. Met Dagon there, too. I didn’t-couldn’t stay here.”
“Why not become the chieftain then? Keep the seat warm for Kaiyah?”
“It didn’t work out that way,” Nejaa started in, a defensive tone to their words. “The manda has different paths for everyone and Ro was never meant to be a leader.”
“Thanks, Ba’buir. Your vote of confidence really means a lot,” Ro drawled. He continued before Nejaa could cut in again, “We all lost a lot to the war, but I lost four parents. Nearly lost Kaiyah too, I just. I didn’t want that target on my back, the alor target. I just wanted a job I could do well, go home to my family at night, and know we were all safe. I wasn’t going to risk however long it took Kaiyah to find a soulmate.”
Bouncing the kid lightly on his knee to keep the womp rat busy, Din asked, “But I have to? When Kaiyah finds out you don’t think she’ll do everything in her power to fight Harbinger?”
“She technically can’t without a reason, it’s part of her personal creed. No unnecessary wars. Until Harbinger does something against The Way or is actively endangering Arumorut, he’s alor,” Nejaa said.
“So what happens when she finds out?” Din gritted his teeth. This was going nowhere. It seemed too… Free. Just let the manda and the Ka’ra guide you through life until you tether yourself to a person? What would that solve?
“That’s up to the two of you,” Nejaa shrugged. "You should tell her, by the way. Secrets don't keep well in Arumorut."
Translations & Lore (in order of appearance):
Kai-buir: Typically, masculine parents go by their first three letters then 'buir', femme parents go by just 'buir'.
ori'buyce, kih'kovid: all helmet, no head. Someone with an overdeveloped authority, but I thought it fit for the context of mindless dummies.
alor: leader
Verd'goten: coming of age hunt that usually takes place at 13.
buir: parent
Manda'yaim: Mandalore. Yaim means home.
karyai: open living room used for dining and relaxing. Last stronghold in a Mandalorian home.
ba’buir: grandparent
manda: heaven, collective soul
munit tome'tayl, skotah iisa: long memory, short fuse. The typical Mando mindset.
Resol’nare: six tenants, I assume this is what people are taking about when they say The Way but I would really like an answer Disney.
mandokar: the epitome of Mando virtue - a blend of aggression, tenacity, loyalty and a lust for life. The 'right stuff'.
beroya: bounty hunter
meshgeroya: soccer, football. literally means 'beautiful game'.
ad'ika: child. I tend to use it in this chapter as 'kid' depending on the context.
vod: sibling.
chakaar: general term of abuse. I have a feeling Mando kids start swearing from birth.
Edalinare: Zabraki, family.
vor’ika: little green.
tihaar: clear spirit made from fruit. It's described as a fruit brandy, but I think it makes more sense as a vodka.
Ka'ra: star. Also a myth about the council of kings that used to rule Mandalore.
Paz headcanon: I'm not the first one to have this thought but I lost the original post somewhere in the mess I call my blog. Essentially, it makes the connection that Paz Vizsla is more than likely a child of members from the Death Watch sect we see in TCW. His armor is the closest to the Death Watch colors we saw from Din's flashback and if they're close to the same age (mid-to-late thirties) it would make sense. However, he doesn't carry the Death Watch symbol (which is just Clan Vizsla's stylized shriek hawk, we see it on the Mando that pulled Din out from the bunker). So either he disagreed when he came of age or had a falling out at some point with his clan. It's a great post and when I find it I'll link it here or tag it with the rest of the Mar'eyce mess.
Rating: M, 18+, no younglings. This is a mature fic.
Warnings: dead body mention, angst, we get a little too introspective and existential in this chapter, extensive talks of loss of parent and loss of spouse, hallucinations, swearing, minor character death, too much Mando'a, I realized too late that this accidentally turned into a slow burn oops lol.
Author’s Note: I'm going on an optimistic limb and saying that most updates from now on will be on either Sundays or Mondays. If anything changes I'll let you know, but for now I think this is best. No beta, extended note, translations, and lore at the end.
Summary: "Would they and could they follow each other to the ends of the galaxy?"
Read from the beginning: Mar'eyce Masterlist
(gif credit to oraliaonettii on tenor)
Kaiyah had been in hyperspace for nearly a week straight. A tedious, awful, boring week. Dantooine was on the other side of the karking galaxy, at least from Arumorut. She was aptly reminded of why she never became a beroya in the first place. Too boring. The week, however, left more than enough time to think about the dead Kiffar she had in a duffel bag behind her.
The ship Kaiyah borrowed wasn’t much bigger than an X-wing, it could squeeze maybe three people in the entire thing and that was a big maybe. She never had to worry about getting her own ship, if she left Arumorut for anything it was day trips, supply runs, even when she was busting up the underworld the pilot used their ship.
So, Kaiyah was stuck with a rank duffel bag and suffocating guilt in a seven-by-three space for days. On the surface, the job worked. She sacked out for fifteen standard hours with no dreams after she got to hyperspace. The cloudy, foggy feeling was gone and she didn’t feel near as cranky or paranoid. It was nice to be in control of herself again.
Unfortunately, being back to herself meant consequences and questions. What was the Kiffar running from? Was it Harbinger? Why would Harbinger have anything to do with a non-Mandalorian on purpose? Kaiyah checked the body over after her nap, even did a scan with the handheld medical device Ro and Ba’buir insisted she carry just so she could check for trackers or chips that some slavers put in people. She couldn’t find anything. No tattoos marking them as property, no chips claiming stake. Who was this Kiffar? And just what were they wanted for?
As Kaiyah lowered onto the dock in Arumorut, she commed Harbinger. She wasn’t dragging a dead body through town just so he could look at it, if he came here, saw the Kiffar, and paid her at the docks it would be a lot easier to dump the bag into a ravine and only have to deal with this in her nightmares. Much to her non-existent disappointment part of Harbinger's entourage showed up instead, the man with blue and maroon armor strode up and looked in the bag, nodded, and tossed a pouch of credits at her.
“They had some death bed confessions, any chance I’ll have a target on my back?” Kaiyah asked as she fumbled the deceivingly large amount of money. The man turned his head to look at her, the helm he always wore shined glossy in the afternoon light. It didn’t gleam like Mando’s beskar, it was more like satin. Coated. It bumped and moved awkwardly against his body, not fluidly like it was a part of him.
The man shook his head at her, “It shouldn’t. Thank you for your service, ma’am.” Kaiyah watched as the man took the bag with him and when she couldn't see him anymore she turned to finish cleaning the ship. The way he threw money at her and called what she did a service felt like he was shooing off a particularly annoying handyman, paired with his tinny and staticky vocoder he sounded like the stormtroopers that always thanked her when she turned in a bullshit tip while she was a rebel.
It was degrading and insulting, nothing like when Mando thanked her. His voice was always warm and he always meant what he said. Kaiyah wished more people in the galaxy were like him.
“Kaiyah Isabeth Awaud! Where have you been? Do you know how worried we all were?” Nejaa nearly screamed as they jumped from one of the seats in their granddaughter’s karyai.
Kaiyah cringed as she heard her middle name drop. It was only used in the worst situations, like this one, she supposed. Placing her helmet on the side table by the door, she strode through the rest of the house shucking her armor. “Dantooine. Harbinger had a job, I took it. It’s not a big deal,” Kaiyah shrugged as she set the pieces on her counter and pulled out cleaning supplies.
“It is a big deal, no one knew where you were-“
Kaiyah tuned out the tirade, she had heard enough of them. Accountability was important, they needed to know where people were in case there was an all-hands-on-deck emergency. Blah, blah. She knew. Wiping down the metal her thoughts turned back to the possible assassination.
Maybe the Kiffar was too close to something, knew something that someone (namely Harbinger, he was her only suspect at the time) deemed they shouldn’t. Kaiyah thought of the only thing no one in town knew about and interrupted her ba’buir, “What’s Harbinger clearing the forest for?”
Nejaa look affronted at being cut off and sputtered at the shift in conversation, “I don’t know. Nobody does, but I assume it’s for more training ground. It wouldn’t do any good to remodel Arumorut proper.”
Nodding, Kaiyah twisted it back and forth in her head, one on hand it wouldn’t. Move or demo all the houses and put them where? In the field, so you can move them back? On the other hand, it was Harbinger, he would do something so asinine. “Do you know where he hung out in the galaxy? He’s your nephew after all,” Kaiyah grunted as she scrubbed at a stain.
“Nathan didn’t say anything to me. Excited to see his youngest come home with a wife, all he could talk about was how he was beating me in the grandchildren department. How he’s claiming to have twenty I have no clue,” Nejaa swatted Kaiyah away and picked up a different solution, pouring it directly on the hal’cabur and letting it soak there. “Why?”
“The job I did for Harbinger, he said it was underworld and that there wasn’t a puck. I figured it was another hunter. Someone that no one wanted to admit they had a bounty on, you know? I don’t think it was. They weren’t a slave, I checked, but they said ‘at least he can’t get me now’,” Kaiyah picked at something on her nails. Avoiding her ba’buir’s eye line she finally whispered, “Did I just kill someone for Harbinger?”
“Fob or directions?”
“Fob.”
“Then probably not. Fobs come from Guild work, I think. If your that paranoid about it you should ask your beroya,” Nejaa jabbed. Turning to the stained chest plate, they wiped the stain off without effort and moved on to the vambraces, dismantling them before scrubbing between the buttons with a toothbrush.
“Mando isn’t my beroya,” Kaiyah muttered and walked into the kitchen as she felt the heat rise on her neck.
“Yet he’s the only one you respect enough to call ‘Mando’. He asked about you, you know. Wondered where you were and if we’d seen you around. Wasn’t very sly about it, honestly,” Nejaa opted to leave out the three in the morning spiral he sent them all into when he stormed nearly every Awaud house in search of her. It wasn’t their place to tell Kaiyah, even if they wanted to.
Not everyone agreed - when could Mandalorians agree on anything was the question - but Nejaa thought that love was a choice. A series of choices, choosing that person over and over even when it was hard. Loving someone didn’t mean that the couple would never struggle, it meant choosing and staying. Since Mandalorians married forever, it was important to Nejaa that even though the Ka'ra picked every Mandalorian's soulmate, they all got the choice to stay, even Nejaa.
They had never had a formal divorce from their partner, even when the two separated. It was surprisingly amicable, especially since Nejaa got to keep Kai. They both knew what was going to happen on Concord Dawn, they knew what Death Watch was planning. Nejaa couldn't stay somewhere just to die and their partner was tired of fighting.
In all, they thought that forcing two people together was never going to work because it wasn’t a choice at that point. The couple would just go through the motions until death or hatred and they wouldn’t want that for anyone.
Nejaa would never say anything, even if Kaiyah and Mando didn’t end up together like the Ka’ra thought they should be. The two had to make that choice together. Would they and could they follow each other to the ends of the galaxy?
Kaiyah figured it was best to let everyone ream her at once. If Ba’buir was that upset about her disappearance, chances were everyone else was too. It was the first rule of Mando school: don’t go off on your own, you or someone else could die.
Tann would never admit to it but she thought that when Kaiyah was gone for a week and a half that her aunt died. Kaiyah let her get in a solid punch. Dagon guilt-tripped her about it all since he couldn’t throw a punch and his sister-in-law would never let him. Ro teased her about Mando some more, “Nearly busted my door down trying to find you. You would think he lost something important.”
Kai gave her the best-disappointed look he could muster under his circumstances. It felt like everything took more energy than it should, the only reason he mustered up the strength to get himself out of bed every morning was that Kaiyah would force him if he didn’t. Between the routine his daughter and buir set up he now puttered around his house, mostly in suspense of a surprise visit from one of them. He swore to the manda they traded days since the two of them never showed up on the same day.
To make her disappearance right, Kaiyah was pressured into multiple rounds of cu'bikad by Tann and her brothers. At the kitchen table and away from prying ears, Nejaa and Ro filled Kai in on what had happened, Dagon had already known due to being nosy and worried about his husband’s midnight activities. The Zabrak was under the impression that they should up the pressure, force them to be around each other until one of them finally gave in.
In Dagon’s mind, Mando had already let Kaiyah know he trusted her implicitly, children were guarded very carefully and not just anyone was allowed to handle them. In addition to that, the tribe he was a part of was very closed off, they were secretive about their families and tried their best to remain as impassive and unapproachable as possible. Dagon was able to crack some of their shells by charisma alone, but it begged the question: why would Mando leave his child with someone who wasn’t one of his people?
Nejaa and Ro immediately vetoed it. Nejaa for their personal reasons and Ro brought up the fact that if anyone had forced the two of them to date it would have ended in disaster. As Kai listened he decided he was on the side of leaving them be. He was proud of his daughter finding her soulmate (kind of, technically Mando was the only one who knew) and was excited for Kaiyah to start that part of her life but not at the expense of her resenting them. If the Ka’ra wanted them to be together, they would figure out.
As Kaiyah played with the kids she spiraled about her missions lately. Ryloth and now Dantooine had ended in disaster by her standards. She still hadn’t told her father about Cerna and at this point, she wasn’t sure she should. It had been six weeks. What if he hated her now?
The Awauds believed that no one truly died as a Mandalorian because people remembered them and Kai clung to that belief with Ilyah. When Dagon and Ro named one of their sons after her, using her old clan name as Ellis's birth name, the man sobbed openly. Talking about her made the tension leave his body and the rest of the Awauds tried their best to remember new things about her; favorite jokes, food, scents. Anything to keep Ilyah 'alive'.
So, to Kaiyah, it felt like it didn't matter if the old rebel captain was saying all those things. It was a moment of weakness that cost her mother part of her soul and no one could forgive that, especially not her father. Ilyah was half of Kai and that was proven when she took half of him with her.
It was a subject that was tiptoed around, no one had the vocabulary to talk about it. It was labeled as “the accident” or just plainly “well, you know”. On top of that was Kai’s behavior afterward. Was this something that happened to every Mandalorian or just those that were lost violently? Was Kai and Ilyah’s bond stronger somehow? There wasn’t a way to talk about the accident without talking about Ilyah so nothing was ever said and now Kaiyah didn’t know how to approach this new territory.
As the night started to wind down and the rest of the Awauds made their way home, Kai and Kaiyah were eventually the only ones left. Manda seemed to have made the decision for her and figuring it was now or never, Kaiyah sat next to her father at the table, on his right side like always. Kai perked up slightly, his kids still came to him for advice every once in a while. Mostly just talking things out and coming to their decisions on their own and he expected some exasperation at the family, maybe now that his daughter had a soulmate some advice that he could help with.
“I killed Cerna. On the Ryloth mission.”
That was not something he ever expected to hear. Cerna? Their old captain, Ilyah’s best friend, hells at one point they even made her Kaiyah and Ro’s godmother. That Cerna was on Ryloth? It made no sense. Cerna was New Republic and had no business being on the Outer Rim, he had been keeping tabs on her after the Awauds left the Rebellion.
Kai’s dark eyes bounced around his daughter’s face, looking for something- anything -to tell him that this wasn’t true. Maybe Kaiyah had just killed someone that looked like Cerna. That had to be it because if Cerna was gone then the only people who could remember Ilyah properly were the Awauds.
“She was the slaver. I tried, buir, I really did. She wouldn’t tell me it was a mistake or listen to me at all. She-she just started saying the worst things. About everyone. I-I don’t know what happened, I don’t know how she ended up there. All she said was that the New Republic was awful and that the kids were good slaves beca-because they’re Trandoshans. Told me your speeches were bullshit and buir was always meant,” Kaiyah swallowed ache in her chest. She could do this. She could look her father in the eye and tell him why she killed his friend.
Kaiyah continued, trying her best to blink back the tears that were threatening their arrival, “Buir was always meant to die.” She decided to change the wording at the last minute. No one needed to relive the worst moments of their life. Ilyah’s freighter being shot down by anti-air cannons was certainly Kai’s.
Her father never really emoted normally, Kaiyah knew that. It was a lot of blank stares, sometimes the family could use his body language as a cue, but more often than not it was just guessing. Now though, Kai looked like rage. His heavy brows were drawn down and in, jaw clenching so hard veins in his face bulged out. His eyes were hard and cold and a very different kind of empty at this moment. Like he had to wipe away the fact that his daughter was sitting across from him.
Taking a shaky breath in, the tears weighing down her eyelashes starting to escape as Kaiyah tried to apologize, “It’s no excuse. I know. I-I should have been better. I... Ni ceta, buir. Ni ceta.” She just kept repeating the apology, hoping that somehow Kai would understand. She knew what she did and it felt like she had personally killed her mom as she looked at her dad, unwavering in his seat. The disappointed anger was palpable.
Kai stared at his daughter, trying so hard not to cry under the weight of his stare. She wasn't successful, not by a long shot, but she was trying and it ripped Kai in two. He spent so much time in his head that people would think he had everything figured out by now. And sure, he used to be able to fib his way through it, act like he knew what to do, but could he pretend to forgive this?
There was one less piece of Ilyah in the galaxy now and it was Kaiyah’s fault. Could he ever look at his daughter again knowing this? No matter what Cerna said she was remembering his wife and that was better than no one remembering her at all. To Kai, it was a day too soon approaching now, that one day no one would know Ilyah and everything she did. Realization dawned on him that no one would ever know her, not as he did, and it broke his heart all over again. No one knew her anymore. No one knew tor'ika, not anymore.
When the silence went on for too long Kaiyah got the message. Her buir was upset and rightfully so. Kaiyah was just one more thing to add to his list of disappointments. Scrubbing her face in an attempt to get rid of the sticky feeling of the tears left behind, she stood, “For what it’s worth, buir, I meant it. Ni ceta.”
Kai didn't even hear the door as it closed, barely saw his daughter leave his house. Ilyah was always better at this parenting stuff. She was fun and supportive, going above and beyond for their children and their interests, and always knew what the right answer was, especially when it came to the creed. She was the one that instilled the sense of justice in their children, to Ilyah manda meant guardian. This larger-than-life sense of passion and duty. She only ever gave one speech in her life and it was to the kids right before their Verd'gotens.
"To be a Mandalorian means you have the knowledge and capabilities to do the right thing, no matter the cost. It is your responsibility when you swear this creed to do that. Do you understand? That everything we trained you to do is to not only take care of us and each other as aliit but those who need it. If you two decide to swear to manda that you are strong enough to do this you not only become warriors but stewards to this way of life. Champions to no one and protector of everyone. You don't do it for the recognition or the fear that comes with the mantle you will carry. You do it because you heard the call and are answering it."
Kai hadn't known until that moment what being The Way meant to Ilyah and the intensity that she felt for it. That it was important for her children not just to be good warriors or kind people, but honorable Mandalorians. He felt like he was at an impasse because technically, Kaiyah had done the right thing. Ilyah would have been proud of their daughter for doing everything she was supposed to. She not only protected her family, she defended children too. It was what the Mandalorian Ilyah raised would do. It was no different than when she mauled Harbinger.
But this right thing had the wrong consequences. There were so few people left to talk about Ilyah that it was a crime to wipe that out. It was a good thing that was bad. Again, Kai was left asking himself could a bad thing and the right decision exist?
Not the first time, he wished that he was on that stupid freighter. Ilyah wouldn’t have let any of this happen. She would have least said something, no, no. She would have said the right thing.
Kai ran his fingers through his hair, stressed for the first time in years. It wasn't a feeling he liked. The pit that writhed in his stomach like a snake nest, making him relive all of his worst decisions and dark thoughts. A tapping sound on the front room window had Kai jerking his head up. Was it Kaiyah? Did she come back? Could he show her that he wasn't mad, just so confused?
A black glove knocked on the window, a smile peeked out from the corner. Thin lips, sharp and wicked pulled in an all-knowing grin. Almond eyes crinkled in smugness looked right through the distraught man at the table.
Ilyah.
It couldn't be. Not now. Not after this many years. Kai grimaced to himself. He thought he was over this. He saw her so many times after her death, thinking that Ilyah hadn't truly died, it was just a nightmare, only to be plunged back into the real world where she had.
The figment of his imagination knocked again. Louder and clearer this time. Kai squeezed his eyes shut. Covered his ears.
No. No. No. Please, not now.
It was incessant. Sharper, repetitive. It wouldn't stop. He could feel it in his heart. Hear it in his blood. It was unending.
He had to get it to stop. How did he get it to stop? What did buir say? Face it down and show it it's not real? He could do that.
Ripping the front door open, Kai wildly turned on his porch. Ilyah was standing at the end of the street, helmetless but armored. Her pauldrons winged out from her shoulders making her look so much bigger than he knew she was. While she didn't enjoy being a 'feared warrior' she leaned into the stereotype. Said making her opponents shit their pants was the easiest way to win.
Ilyah gestured Kai closer, "Catch me if you can." She takes off running. Down the street and into the town center and Kai doesn't think twice about his decision. Their part of town is empty, everyone in their homes tucked away. No distractions. No trip-ups.
He nearly touches her, catching the top pauldron because grabbing the kama didn't count. Ilyah disappears. Reappears five feet away, diagonally.
Kai can’t stop. Not now. Not when he’s so close. He can hear her, he swears it. Ilyah laughs, a tinkling bell kind of sound, “You’ll have to be quicker than that, alor.” Closer to town now, Kai is forced to duck in between people and vendors. He doesn’t hear the shouts, doesn’t see the shock. He can smell her, the lotion she uses is minty and medicinal. Twisting into an alley, he trips over himself in his haste. He can’t lose her. Not again.
Kai stops. He’s lost in the alley, an alley he doesn’t recognize. He turns.
To his right, like he’s clearing a blind spot.
One hundred and eighty, he’s watching his six.
To his left, nothing.
Facing three hundred and sixty, he catches a glimpse of her kama, now Kaiyah’s, fluttering behind a crate.
He takes off in a sprint again, his chest is tight, pulling in ways he didn’t know it could anymore. Kai passes through a haze of jogan pie and gags. Ilyah couldn’t stand the fruit, would claim she was allergic just to get away from it.
He’s in the town square, he thinks. He doesn’t know how he got there, it’s loud. So loud. He can’t hear her anymore. He doesn’t see her anymore. Her lotion has faded into the background and he's spinning trying to find it again. It’s the damn jogan fruit. It upset her. It made her leave.
Kai collides with something, heavy and metallic. The blank T-Visor of an unpainted beskar helmet cocks to the side like an interested owl.
He sees her, over the Mandalorian’s shoulder.
Ilyah.
He found her.
Finally.
She’s pointing at the Mandalorian, mouth carved in a wicked gleam.
He understands.
Kai clasped his hand around the man’s shoulder like he used to do when Ro was small, “You’ll be okay. It will all be how it’s supposed to.”
Brushing by the man, Kai followed his wife home.
Finding Mando was a lot harder than Kaiyah originally anticipated. Usually, she could just find him at home or if she was lucky around town somewhere. This morning, it appeared, luck was not on her side. Not that it ever really had been, Kaiyah thought to herself bitterly. Luck wasn’t for her, even if her armor donned the color. The purple accents were mostly a bitter commentary on the fact that more often than not she just… got lucky.
Kaiyah got lucky when she didn’t die in the explosion that killed her mother, she got lucky with the jobs she took, not every Mando’ade was able to do what she did, most taking on jobs to feed their clan the best they could. Living amongst other Mandalorians, even. Knowing she had a home in a galaxy where most people didn’t. Her entire life she had scraped by on the fact that she had gotten lucky. It seemed though that that luck had finally run out.
It was stupid to tell Kai-buir what had happened on Ryloth and it had been so long that now it looked like she had been actively trying to hide it. The luck that webbed Kaiyah’s life together like spider silk had been swiped through when she opened her big, fat mouth over the situation.
Of course, your luck doesn’t extend that far, di’kut. You wanna test fate you jump off a building, not ruin what’s left of your father’s half-life.
Kaiyah was new to guilt, she hadn’t dealt with a lot of it over the years. The things she did were things that she needed to do to survive. To protect. To serve. She could squint and turn her head at a lot of the Maker-awful things she had done and say it was for the greater good. Live her life with the knowledge she had done the right things and not war crimes.
She thought that maybe, possibly, hopefully, she could mirror her buir. See how to navigate this sticky tar-like feeling that was pulling her down and have some kind of help. Confide things to her father again, like the family they used to be. Kaiyah should have started with Harbinger. That’s why she was looking for Mando after all.
The nagging thought hadn’t left her, even after talking to Ba'buir, that maybe Harbinger had taken a bounty out on someone and she had unknowingly committed an assassination. It wasn’t like that would be her first one, not by long shot, but her cousin could have just asked instead of this wild goose chase.
Wandering up and down Arumorut, stewing in her head, Kaiyah kept an eye out for the beskar wall of a man. Mando was a rare breed, the focal point of any room when he wanted to be, or a wisp of blaster smoke that quickly faded into the background. Kaiyah could be looking right at him and not know Mando was there until he wanted her to know. It had happened before and she desperately hoped he wasn’t trying to use against her again.
Tann had wanted to learn more about swordplay, hoping to pick up the skill that not only her ba’vodu used, but her Ba’buir Ilyah too. Of course, Ilyah could also use a blaster, where Kaiyah could not. They just never seemed to work for her, jamming the second she put her hand to one or smoking out of places they shouldn’t be.
Because Ro wasn’t as good a swordsman as his sister, he volunteered her for the training, which hadn’t been a problem until Kaiyah had gone to pick up Tann from school. Arumorut education was different from the rest of the galaxy, every parent volunteered time to teach something to the children that wasn’t Mandalorian related since that training was handled by the parents. Unaware that Mando had been teaching that day - she hadn’t seen him in the schoolyard where children were being picked up or inside the classroom when she had peeked in impatiently - Kaiyah let her niece run her mouth a little too loudly and a little too long.
“Look! Look, Kaiyah! Your boyfriend brought paper today, can you believe it? I didn’t know paper still existed,” Tann gushed over the project, holding it just out of her aunt’s hands for the sake of its integrity.
“He’s not my boyfriend. Stop letting your Edalinare put worms in your ears,” Kaiyah rolled her eyes in a huff.
When her view finally got straightened out again, there Mando was. Leaning back on the door frame not ten feet away, fingers tucked in his belt loops and ankles crossed looking the perfect image of ease as his T-Visor was staring right at the two Awauds, he knew exactly what Tann was saying. Kaiyah swore he wasn’t there before, he hadn’t been there the entire time, she would have known. At least, she hoped she would have.
“Come on, he is too! Buir told-“
“Tann, I love you, please stop talking,” Kaiyah whisper-pleaded, her voice nearly an octave higher out of embarrassment as she pushed the pre-teen away from the schoolhouse.
Keeping that memory at the forefront of her mind, Kaiyah made sure to double-check every glance for the silver Mandalorian. She had almost made a complete circuit of the town, ending up by The Covert’s edge next to the docks when she found him, a bag slung over his broad shoulders and hands full of supplies with the cradle floating a step behind him.
“Mando! Wait up,” Kaiyah called out, jogging up next to him. He didn’t wait for her, in fact, Din nearly tore out of the town like a bat of hell.
“Long hunt?” she tried asking conversationally, waving to his things.
Din grunted, giving his best attempt at a nonanswer. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he planned to avoid her.
“You could always leave him here, I wouldn’t mind watching him again,” Kaiyah offered. Honestly, Vor’ika was probably the best baby she had taken care of in years. Slept through the night, ate well, whatever Mando was doing was working.
“That’s not necessary,” Din said, nearing running speed, hoping she would get the message. He did not want to have the conversation she wanted to have.
“Oh, okay. I just had a quick question for you-”
Din groaned. He was so close to getting out of here, away from this soulmate nonsense. Even Paz was drinking the crazy punch, asking Din if he should talk to Dagon about setting him up and finding that special someone. It was insane, truthfully. No matter how much the town tried to convince him otherwise, no matter how he might have felt about Kaiyah, his attitude remained the same. People weren’t puzzles, they were born complete, no need to force two people together because of a myth.
“Am I bothering you, Mando? Because you can just say so,” Kaiyah didn’t expect the insecurity that peeked through the question. She was a grown woman, a Mandalorian, men shouldn’t make her feel fragile.
Din cursed himself at the sound of her voice. He was being rude. Not only that, he was being rude to the only person in town that actively sought him out. Not the kid, him. Din. If it was a soulmate thing he would just deflect. He could do that, it's not like he would be coming back here anytime soon. Forcing himself to slow down, he answered her question, “No, you’re not. I apologize."
Going through all the ways she could kill a man as a pep talk, Kaiyah tried again. “I had a question about fobs, I got back from a job recently that didn’t have a puck but had a fob. Is that a Guild thing or an anyone thing?”
“More often than not it’s Guild work, but it depends. What was the job?” Based on her question, it felt like Kaiyah didn’t work in the Guild often so Din didn’t feel too bad about breaking any rules. It wasn’t like Karga was around to stop him.
“Assassination, I think. Harbinger wanted proof of death.”
Din hummed to himself. Anyone with a chain code could have a fob, pucks were mostly rap sheets with a last known to get you close enough to let the fob work. Running through all the other work he had done was hard, it mostly blurred together. The only job he had ever taken without a puck was the kid’s, even with Ran there were schematics and a plan.
“Did Harbinger tell you last known?”
“Dantooine, why?”
Now it made sense why she was gone so long. Dantooine was on the other side of the Outer Rim, it took her days to get there and back. “More likely than not he got the fob from the crime lord who wanted a message sent. Don’t worry about it,” trudging back up the foothill Din thought the conversation was over.
“The quarry just said something weird at the end. ‘Now he can’t get me’. If you’re right someone put the fear of The Maker into that Kiffar,” Kaiyah muttered as she trailed behind him.
“Crime bosses thrive on fear. Don’t think too much about it. That’s what Harbinger wants.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Because he seems like the type of jackass to do that sort of thing,” Din responded right back. The Crest was in sight, he could finally get back to what The Armorer quested him with and away from whatever was going on here.
Kaiyah looked up at the gunship, it was old. Old, old. Like, The Rebellion would have used this in the war kind of old. Watching as Mando walked up the ramp, she was struck with a sort of longing. There wasn’t anything here left for her. Harbinger was running town better than she ever had, her father didn’t want her around, Ba’buir Nejaa was fully retired, and Ro had a family to take care of, he didn’t need to babysit his sister until she got her life together. It was like all the ties and things she could think to stay here for didn’t exist anymore.
Mando had it good in Kaiyah’s eyes, a job that he couldn’t be ousted from, no ties to anyone but Vor’ika. He could just up and leave whenever he wanted and she wanted that too. Traveling wherever she wanted, making her own money, and taking care of people she wanted to, that sounded like the dream.
Feeling brave, Kaiyah shouted to Mando again, “Got room for one more?”
It had been weeks of searching. Nobody could find him. It was like the old chieftain just disappeared. Ro had forced the search radius to its limits, there were only so many days a person could go without food. All of Arumorut poured out into the forest, every able-bodied individual combed through the forests, mapped out river flow, time seemed to stop in the settlement as they searched for Kai Awaud.
The last accounts of him have people stating he was feral, running through the streets until they lost sight of him.
A wake was held, a ceremonial pyre burning for the lost alor.
Kai wouldn’t say he’s lost now. Not anymore. He knows where he is.
Home.
Among the stars.
Translations & Lore (in order of apperance):
Beroya: bounty hunter
Ba’buir: grandparent
Karyai: living room
Hal’cabur: chest plate
Alor: leader
Ka’ra: stars, myth of the council of kings that guide Mandalorians. In this AU they are also the people who decide soulmates.
Buir: parent
Manda: heaven, collective soul, and guardian.
Kai-buir: masc parents were usually three letters and then ‘buir’. Femme or single parents were usually just ‘buir’.
Cubikahd or cu'bikad: In canon, basically chess with knives. Sabine and Fenn Rau play it in Rebels, according to Wookiepedia it’s played on a hologram where two players gets four knife pieces on a cube board with the objective of capturing the other players pieces. In Legends and on the Mando’a website it’s played on a checkered board with up to four players and they use real knives. A mishmash of darts, chess, and ludo it’s seen as a rough game that non-Mandalorians should not play. I liked the Legend aspect better mostly because I feel like we have too much holochess in Star Wars and Mandalorians are the CEOs of Doing The Most.
Ni ceta: groveling apology, extremely rare.
Tor’ika: Little justice. Kai’s nickname for Ilyah since her armor was the color for it.
Aliit: family, clan
Mando’ade: children of Mandalore, Mandalorians.
Di’kut: idiot
Ba’vodu: Aunt/Uncle
Edalinare: Zabraki, family
Vor’ika: Little green
Extended Author's Note:
Kai and Ilyah hold a very special place in my heart, Ilyah was actually the mock up for Kaiyah before I decided that she would be too intense for someone like Din. I then made up Kai, someone to mellow her out just a little as two side OCs in this AU I really had no plans for. I was going to start from scratch and create a Mando that would fit better with our resident space dad, but I couldn't get away from these two. I ended up writing their entire story, from birth to falling in love to death before I even touched Mar'eyce. They were my first OCs ever, actually, and I'm sad to see them go. For now. I do intend on editing and posting their story after I'm finished here (if I ever get finished here. We'll see how S3 of Mando goes). I know that posting that end bit about Kai doesn't really make sense in the scheme of things for this fic and it was hard to flesh them out when they were both at the ends of their story but I felt that Kai and Ilyah deserved their own 'soft epilogue' and it fit right here.
Pairing: Mando/Din Djarin x fem!Mando OC Kaiyah Awaud
Word Count: 335
Warnings: Canon typical violence, talk of scars/scarring, swearing, some soulmate lore, a lot of Mandalorian lore (thank god for wookiepedia). T rating. Author's note, translations, and Mandalorian lore at the end.
Tall tales are nothing new to Mandalorians. Myths, legends, rumors, and gossip follow them everywhere.
“I heard Mandalore’s abandoned. Something about the air being toxic."
"I wonder what you look like under there. Maybe he's a Gungan. Is that why yousa don't wanna show your face?"
“Fett’s still alive? No chance, poor bastard died in The Dune Sea.”
“Mando’s crazy. Rizzi got too close to the helmet once, took their hand clean off. I swear it on my mother, man. Stay away from that guy.”
The myths of Mandalorians are everywhere, even in their society. Stars being the councils of kings long past, The War of Life and Death, even Manda, are all myths. Something to believe in past themselves. Din understood those stories, even if he didn’t believe them all, but the ones he could never wrap his head around were soulmates. You swear your creed and the Ka'ra got to decide who your “other half” was so you could be “the perfect Mandalorian, together”, finding each other through matching scars and pain like some kind of fucked up compass. By the time Din was a teenager, he knew better than to believe those stories; they were for children and romantics.
Most adults knew this, but some still held out. Either through staunchly waiting for their soulmate, trying to rationalize similar scars as matching scars, or just using it as a pet name, it didn’t matter. It was a story that was not going to die anytime soon.
While Din didn’t believe the stories, something still piqued his interest every once in a while. Random scars that he should have remembered getting, like the burn on his back. Hurt like a bitch and the worst part was that happened on his first hunt, knocked him on his ass, complicating his Guild entrance. When he got back to The Covert no one had any answers, every Mandalorian had a few weird scars, and besides, bounty hunting is a complicated profession.
Translations:
-Manda: Many meanings, but in this fic it will refer to the first translation of "heaven" or "collective soul". The second translation is being a Mandalorian in body, soul, and mind. The third is overarching, guardian-like, supreme.
-Kar'ra: Star. Also a myth, in which the past Mand'alors and cultural leaders live and guide current rulers from the stars.
Mandalorian Lore Stuff:
The Taung were the first Mandalorians and were very religious, they believed in The War of Life and Death (Akaanati'kar'oya) and waged ritual combat as a way to worship their destroyer god against the god of sloth. Originally the destroyer god (Kad Ha'rangir) was supposed to represent change but the Taung took it a little (a lot) too far and eventually came to believe that being a warrior and war itself was divine and started conquering the galaxy. Eventually they became more chill (mostly because war sucks and the Taung were going extinct) and they moved away from the obsession and into more of a philosophical approach and started treating Akaanati'kar'oya and Ka'ra as parables. Most current Mandalorians typically believe in the Manda and in Legends a lot of Mandalorians believe that the easiest way to get into the collective soul-heaven is through being the word semi-literally and becoming some kind of guardian.
Author's Note:
That was a lot of lore-dumping about Mandalorians and not so much about how the system of soulmate-ness works in my universe, for which I apologize. I debated over making the prologue a lore dump in all aspects just to get it out of the way but that's too easy and you're too smart for that. Anyway, this note is just me being nervous about my first multi-chapter, mult-arc fic ever and if you are here for Chaotic Space Dads I'm very sorry, all that writing mojo has gone into whatever this is. I'm very excited for y'all to meet Kaiyah officially, I know OC isn't everyone's cup of tea but it turns out I'm really bad at writing second person and I won't make anyone read that from me, ever.
Pairing: Din Djarin x Mando OC Kaiyah Awaud Soulmate AU
Word Count: 5.1k
Warnings: Swearing, canon-typical violence, and soulmate bond/scarring, drinking and food mention, medical check up. If I missed anything, don't hesitate to reach out and I will correct the warnings. No beta, we die on this hill.
Author's Note: Hey. It's been a minute. I've decided to redo this chapter because I wasn't happy with it so if you've seen/read chapter one already, no you haven't. Lore dumps and translations at the end. Reblogs, likes, dropping by the inbox to come say hi, all of it is appreciated. Dividers and moodboard by me. Happy reading!
Summary: "That a perfect Mandalorian, someone who had their other half, someone that the manda had flawlessly created, wouldn’t be driven by greed or pettiness."
Read from the beginning: Mareyce Masterlist
“Kaiyah? Kaiyah, come in. Where are you?” The comlink on her vambrace kept going off, but no one answered. No one knew where she was.
“Come on! That’s cheap, ba’vodu! I’m going to tell Ba’buir Nejaa!” Tann screamed down the ‘field’, a dirt spot that was at the edge of the settlement where they all played meshgeroya. The young Twi’lek flipped a green lek over her shoulder in a huff at her ba’vodu doing yet another victory lap.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you! I can only hear winners, these are winner's ears,” Kaiyah winked over her shoulder at her moody niece and the cohort the eleven-year-old had. Most were at that age when they wanted to be treated like adults since they were two years away from their Verd’gotens they had decided that since they were almost adults it was just as good as being adults.
Holding her elbow, kicking the dirt, Tann looked as sad as she could. Her aunt usually fell for the tooka cat eyes and if she did this time then they could finally win one round. “Ba’vodu, come on. You don’t need to brag about it.”
Kaiyah jogged up to her niece from down the field, “Alright, alright. We’ve been playing for an hour, let’s wrap it up. Ba’buir is going to be on my ass for that paperwork soon and I know that most of you are sluffing training.”
Various huffs and groans of teenagers and pre-teens filled the air, all of them complaining about something that was “like, totally unfair” at their age. Laughing to herself, Kaiyah started to replace some of her armor, ignoring the commlink that was blinking with missed messages. As she tightened her pauldrons into place, pressure filled Kaiyah’s head and her eyes started to water. It felt like someone had crushed her head into a wall and knocked the wind out of her in one go.
A burning sensation pricked all across her face before all the pain and pressure seemed to come out of her left eardrum. A tinny ringing sound became the only sound she could hear and she hit her knees, grasping at her injured ear.
Something in her chest didn’t feel right, her arms and legs were on fire, and trying to catalog all of her injuries felt useless at this point. Something bad had happened and suddenly from the way it felt. Tapping at her vambrace to get ahold of someone Kaiyah’s chest ached. It felt like a bantha had stomped her chest, whoever in the galaxy was on the brunt end of this had to be going through hell.
“I’m not covering for you, we aren’t kids anymore, Kaiyah,” Ro drawled. Ro was her brother and best friend, he had been with her through thick and thin. They had affectionately been called ‘twins’ throughout their lives, even if Ro wasn’t bui'tsad and their birthdays were months apart. As a stocky blue Twi’lek it was fairly obvious to anyone that even though Ro and Kaiyah weren’t blood-related, they were still family. Their place in each other's lives was decided long before they were born.
“Field. West, west field,” Kaiyah groaned. She was lucky that breathing wasn’t difficult for her, just painful. The ache in her chest turned to sharp pressure on every inhale and she couldn’t say much else before Ro started going down his list of questions.
“I’m on my way, keep me on the line. Tann?”
“Fine.”
“Just you?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“Damned soulmate decided to fight something bigger than them,” Kaiyah exhaled in a rush.
“Is breathing painful?”
“No, I’m pe-peachy keen. Don’t worry ‘bout m-me.”
She could hear the eyeroll over the comm as Ro muttered something to whoever he was with. “Ba’buir is coming with me. We’ll get you squared away, just keep stay on the line.”
It was her turn to roll her eyes now. If Ba’buir was coming then that meant half the town would follow. The two best medics in the settlement weren’t called away for nothing. Tann decided to save the day, pushing her lime green lekku behind her shoulders she kneeled beside Kaiyah and took over as a messenger between her buir and ba’vodu.
Going into her best calm medic mode, a skill Tann no doubt picked up from Ro, she answered all of her buir’s questions with efficiency. Repeating whatever medical jargon she could from the bare bones set up she had, Kaiyah’s heart rate and a catalog of injuries were done by the time everyone else got to the field.
And by everyone, Kaiyah meant everyone. Her entire family rush the dirt-packed clearing, Ro rushing forward in his teal armor, one blue lek noticeably absent with medical kit in hand was followed by Ba’buir. They were the family’s leader as well as Arumorut’s alor and Kaiyah was supposed to be following in their footsteps at some point if her soulmate ever turned up. Dagon was not far behind, Tann’s Edalinare and Kaiyah’s brother-in-law, the tall willowy Zabrak man in flowy clothing headed straight for his daughter, carefully clearing the way without letting her feel underappreciated.
“I’m fine, Ro, Ba’buir. Leave it. It just caught me off-guard,” Kaiyah shrugged off the blue Twi’lek and tan human hands re-checking vitals, shining lights, and prodding just to see if it hurt. “Just let me stand up, please.” The ringing noise hadn’t let off and it still felt like she got face fucked by the ground, but nothing was burning so that was a start.
Nejaa shoved their stubborn granddaughter back to the ground, making direct and intense eye contact with her, “Don’t move until I tell you to. You can’t blame us for being a little paranoid.”
“Ba’buir’s right. Chest pain isn’t usually associated with bonds,” Ro cut in as he took Kaiyah’s blood pressure, ignoring the double meaning of their grandparent’s statement. Soulmate bonds were tricky, especially if the pair hadn't met yet and Ro knew it was a sore subject. “Lightheaded? Dizzy?”
“No. I’m honestly feeling a lot better,” she grunted as light was flashed in her eyes again.
“Did you eat anything today?” It honestly didn’t matter which medic asked the question, it was the same answer.
“Yes. Fruit and caf. Was just about to go for lunch.”
“You can’t put off the budget, Kaiyah. It’s important to run Arumorut. You have to take the duties you do have seriously,” Nejaa badgered.
Annoyed, she sighed through gritted teeth, “I know, Ba’buir. I was getting to it.”
“Before or after you spent hours ‘getting lunch’?”
Fully standing and brushing off the incessant scrambling, Kaiyah grabbed what was left of her armor and weapons, “With lunch.” Stalking off she made her way back to her house on the other side of town, shutting herself inside to be left alone.
Days like today made Kaiyah hate Arumorut. According to some super old tradition that Ba’buir Nejaa still upheld, the alor had to be with their soulmate. For her buirs that meant being married, for Ba’buir it was that they had found them, lived with them, had a child with them, but ultimately lost them when they decided to go different ways.
Since Nejaa and Kai had found and been with their soulmate they could technically lead, even if the soulmate wasn’t around. Supposedly, the tradition kept things fair, kept alors from overreaching and taking people or places that didn’t belong to them.
The problem Kaiyah had wasn’t even really the whole having a partner thing, she got why the rule was still in place. That a perfect Mandalorian, someone who had their other half, someone that the manda had flawlessly created, wouldn’t be driven by greed or pettiness. She wasn’t mad at soulmates, it was just everything surrounding that.
It was that every time she got a new scar it was like not all hope was lost on the Awaud family. That she could still carry the legacy her parents and grandparent had built, that she was always a good alor. When the scar eventually faded and there was still no soulmate that had fallen out of the sky or when she came home from a mission alone, it was back to her being dar’manda, a failure, laandur.
It was a cycle she couldn’t escape and days like today were just a stark reminder of that fact. The gossip had spread before she even got home she was stopped, commented on, and blessed in the ten minute trek back to her house.
A seventeen-year-old newlywed tried to give Kaiyah advice on how to find her soulmate.
A decrypt Mando had ‘prayed’ over her for guidance, whatever that meant. Mandalorians didn’t pray.
Someone had not so jokingly stated that with scars like that it would be no time at all until their dumbass land squabble got resolved. Kaiyah could have solved it months ago but there was a reason she didn’t touch it in the first place.
She tried to see it as the clan wasn’t out to get her, wasn’t trying to displace her based on the fact that she had been nearly thirty years single. They wanted - needed - an alor and it was her legacy. It was her path. It was what the Ka’ra had decided on. It was what Arumorut wanted for her. Most of the time she could brush off the remarks, she could keep going, doing what good work she could. She had been doing it for fifteen years and what she was doing now wasn’t going to change when she got this galaxy altering soulmate.
It had also been fifteen years. Kai’buir was missing to his people. He hadn’t left his home, hadn’t said a word to another person in just as long. Kai’buir hadn’t officially led his people since he had led them to The Rebellion and Arumorut had been patient with the Awauds for too long. Kaiyah appreciated that and if she was in their shoes she would also want someone to step up and lead, especially if they had been training for it during their buir’s silence.
It was just so humiliating that what she was right now wasn't good enough. She was a decorated war hero by the time she was thirteen and had run multiple ops since being home. She had been doing this job tirelessly for almost twenty years. She was a good alor and everyone only saw what she couldn't do. It wasn't like she had decided to stay single, she wanted to have someone everyone else did.
She was one of the very few people in town who went home alone, slept alone. Did everything alone. Kaiyah had tried looking early on, it wasn't like her scars were ones that just anyone would have. Mandalorians lived hard lives and Rebel Mandalorians lived a life even harder than that, to say her scars were unique would be an understatement. No one ever matched, not even people she thought she had something of a spark with. After one too many disappointing partners Kaiyah finally gave up. If the Ka'ra wanted them together it would happen just not on her timetable.
As the chronometer on the wall announced the twenty-eighth hour, Kaiyah’s mind refocused on the stupid budget she had to balance.
Arumorut was a fairly self-sustaining community, anything extra went to the clan so no one had to worry about much of anything. Medicine, food, water, and weapons were all provided to the people of Arumorut. Some people ran businesses and the catina in town was a popular hotspot but everything the town needed it had.
This meant that once a week a ‘budget’ was needed to be balanced and prepared for the next week. It was a checklist that made sure the food bank had enough food, the water tanks were full, and everyone who needed supplies had them. It was the most important part of being alor, but it was also the most boring part.
Kaiyah was awful at record-keeping, math without action wasn’t her strong suit. Anything without action wasn’t her strong suit. Show her how to do something and it was no problem, she could do physics under blaster fire, rattle off the export of every planet in a system during a dogfight. Force her to sit down and look at just the raw data, she was useless. It took her a whole day to get this budget done because of that situation. No matter how much she pushed for a different one, for people to do their Maker damn bookkeeping, it never got through.
Because she wasn’t alor.
Because she didn’t make the rules.
Because this was the way it was always done.
Sighing, Kaiyah bent over the holopad and got back to work. She had to push all through the night to get it to Ba’buir first thing in the morning but it was done. For now. As Nejaa scanned over the information and made notes on what could be moved or exported, they dropped threw a detonator into Kaiyah’s plans of sleeping and sluffing.
“Harbinger’s coming home. Should be at the dock this afternoon, I can’t welcome him back because I have clinic this afternoon. You’ll have to do it.”
Kaiyah reared back, shaking her head in disbelief, “Absolutely not. I’m not doing shit for him.”
“He’s your cousin,” Nejaa pointed out, looking up over their half-moon glasses.
“He’s lived here before. I’m sure he could figure it out.”
“It’s custom.”
“It’s bullshit.”
“He’s family.”
“He’s chakaaryc,” Kaiyah growled.
“It’s also been ten years, you’re both adults and this is not a debate. Be on standby for his arrival.”
At noon exactly the docks commed Kaiyah to let her know that Harbinger’s ship was in the atmosphere and that they had to clear space for “Stella”, apparently, she was a “big girl”. Harbinger wasn’t even on the surface yet and he was making her skin crawl.
As Kaiyah made it to the docks she did a scan out of habit. Arumorut’s docks were unique because the town was pushed up in a pseudo-valley of sorts. A mountain to the north gave them the advantage of foothills to hide in and convert to docks but meant an uphill trek to reach the ship. It was a sacrifice they all were willing to make to have them close by and not scoured for parts or homes by scoundrels and animals. The docks also gave jobs to those who were mechanics or mechanically inclined.
Her scan stopped when Kaiyah spotted her cousin was stepping off his ship. Harbinger Awaud was best described as a mid-thirties know-it-all prick. Barely a few years older than Kaiyah, he was still gangly and awkward-looking in his armor. His face pinched and angular, the short military cut he hadn't changed in the decade he was gone highlighted the sharp points of his face. She always thought he looked like he needed to take a shit but couldn’t leave the conversation.
“Cousin! How good to see you, after all this time,” Harbinger smiled. The scar on the left side of his mouth pulled strangely at the movement, forcing the smile to tug wider on one side.
Kaiyah knew he was lying because she had given him that scar ten years ago. There was no way in any hell that he was happy to see the person who cut his face open after he called Ro a leech sucking the greatness out of the once great Awaud family just because Ro was adopted. Harbinger had left Arumorut not long after the altercation and Kaiyah couldn't say she was sorry to see him leave.
“Harbinger! Glad to see you back home. Find everything you were looking for?”
There was something that was always a little off about him, even before he left like he thought he knew something everyone else didn’t. It usually came off as smug and arrogant but there was something else, something off-putting about Harbinger in general. However, if he wanted to play this diplomatic route she would let him, he hadn’t directly offended her yet.
Kaiyah guided his small group off the dock on one of the foothills and down to the settlement, Harbinger having come home with something of an entourage. A small, mousy woman clung to his side, holding the edge of his cape. She had a matching scar on her face that was mostly covered with her long black hair. It was much longer than any Mandalorian dared to keep their hair, especially since she wore it down.
It made Kaiyah pause in her mental bashing of Harbinger. This woman was not a Mandalorian, not that she would ever judge that Dagon wasn't a Mando either, it was just interesting to see someone who had touted that born Mandalorians were the only right Mandalorians come home with the opposite of what they preached.
Following the couple, there were two more Mandalorians. A man and a woman followed the couple, their armor matching Harbinger’s in various shades of maroon. The man had blue in his armor and the woman had white, but Harbinger wore nearly head to toe maroon. He had repainted in his time away, covering the green and brown.
They didn’t take off their helmets to greet Kaiyah and Harbinger didn’t bother introducing them. It raised some alarms in her head, this posse of power. Harbinger was always popular somehow, but this felt different from friends following each other across the galaxy. It felt like soldiers waiting for orders.
“Yes, I have found quite a few things in my travels,” Harbinger pulled the woman under his arm while they walked, “This is Sonja, my riduur. Sonja, this is my cousin, Kaiyah. Say hello.”
Sonja shifted under his arm and waved to Kaiyah, tucking herself into Harbinger’s side after the task had been completed.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, I hope you enjoy Armuorut, Sonja. And your friends?” Kaiyah nodded behind them to the other couple.
“You don’t need to worry about them, they’re just here for a layover,” Harbinger dismissed her question. It was a tad insulting, not enough to pick a fight over, especially not with her precarious cling on leadership. Just generally demeaning as Harbinger usually was. Kaiyah not so secretly hoped he would put another boot in his mouth and give her a reason to kick him out of Arumorut once and for all.
The town boasted nearly every walk of life and creed. New Mandalorians walked beside those that carried the creed and even people who never swore Resol’nare lived here. It took a lot of diplomacy and patience but Ba’buir Nejaa wanted Arumorut to be what Manda’yaim couldn’t be for them, someplace safe for everyone, not just some.
Kaiyah was fine with it, everyone had to be to stay, but for her and Ro it was especially easy to intermingle with most people since they had grown up in The Rebellion and not in Arumorut. Because of how many faces changed and plots were uncovered in her childhood Kaiyah was quick to judge who was a good jogan and who wasn’t. It didn’t hurt that she was usually right, either. People had a lot of tells and tells repeated themselves, it was an easy pattern for her to see once she noticed that there weren’t a lot of good liars, or people, in the galaxy.
Arumorut was one of the last truly safe places that no one knew about for a reason. Not many people could live the way they did and very few Mandalorians were willing to live alongside people who ‘wronged’ them or ‘weren’t right’. Harbinger had been one of those Mandalorians, he openly and brazenly stated his opinions on foundlings and non-human Mandos for a while before Kaiyah had taken him down a peg or two.
People like him were bad for Arumorut, Kaiyah thought they were bad for the culture as a whole, that people who thought like Harbinger were those creatures who were constantly eating themselves. Nothing good would ever come from something that destroyed itself.
Trying her best to lead like her Ba’buir would, Kaiyah guided the group back into town and got Harbinger and Sonja settled into Harbinger’s old home, at the insistence of her aunt and uncle who claimed that their son would be home soon his house had been maintained in his absence. The two unnamed Mandos were settled into rooms at the barracks, since Harbinger claimed they were only there for a layover they wouldn’t need a home.
The town was buzzing with Harbinger’s return, the entire situation was fuel for the fire of gossip and Mandalorians were good at it. Bounty hunters, bodyguards, and mercenaries were all in the business of being up in someone else’s business and it transferred to their personal lives. Secrets weren’t kept in Arumorut, they couldn’t be, it was best to assume that if one person knew, everyone knew.
Another thing Mandalorians were good at was parties. It wasn’t a well-known secret that Mandalorians played as hard as they worked and with Harbinger announcing his marriage there was no better time for one. A bonfire was thrown together for the next night and most of the town greeted Harbinger with open arms. How many were honest about that would remain to be seen but for the time being everyone wanted to know what the prodigal son had been up to since his not so graceful departure and Harbinger was happy to entertain.
Ale and food were supplied by everyone and kids ran circles around each other in between sets of music and dancing. It was packed like Arumorut tended to be and Kaiyah was standing off to the side of the bonfire, the sweet spot right between the ale table and the dancers. Ro and Dagon were next to her, all of them keeping watch over their family.
“Who do you think is next?” Ro asked, adjusting his one lek as he leaned against his husband. He knew that Dagon had to have some information on the town that he was dying to share.
“Come on, Ro. We all know the Beviin girl is planning on purposing to their partner soon, I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened tonight,” Kaiyah scoffed, brushing a tuft of hair off her face.
Dagon nodded along with Kaiyah, his dark ponytail swishing with the movement, “Yeah, we’ve all known for years that they’re each others runi. They’ve both turned eighteen recently so I’m sure Kashida - the Beviin’s girl - is just waiting for the perfect moment. Greer has their first mission soon too, next week I think. And this is all assuming they haven’t eloped already.”
“Who do we think eloped?” Harbinger interrupted. He had his arm around Sonja’s shoulder again. Kaiyah hated it. It looked like he was holding her in a headlock, dragging her around with no care. Even though he was technically considered an Awaud, none of the ones here liked him and decided to give him the cold shoulder. When no one answered the question Dagon took the lead, saying that it was just some young people in town.
“Oya! I wish them many years of happiness,” He looked down at Sonja and squeezing her to his side slightly. It looked awkward, like it was supposed to be a hug but ended up far from it. “It feels just like yesterday we got married, right riduur?”
Sonja nodded silently, looking at Harbinger like he hung the moon and stars. Kaiyah didn’t get how she could think that but he was her cousin, not her riduur.
“Have you found your riduur yet, Kay?” Harbinger asked, looking up from Sonja. It wasn’t like he would know, he had been gone for a decade and it was a fair question, but the way he said her nickname sent a chill up her spine.
Her buir had given it to her, saying that two Kai’s was two Kai’s too many and she really should have thought that through when Kaiyah was born. She hadn’t been called ‘Kay’ since buir died. And Harbinger had just spoken it, out loud, in nearly fifteen years and said it in the most condescending tone.
“No, not yet, Harry. The manda works in mysterious ways.”
Harbinger’s face changed and Sonja drifted behind his body. It was a brief flash, like a mask dropped, the eyes going cold and empty before he laughed loudly and suddenly, clapping Kaiyah’s shoulder a bit too hard. In response to the outburst, Ro stood to his full height beside Kaiyah, moving Dagon fully behind him. Dagon was tall for a Zabrak, he was nearly head and shoulders taller than Ro but he didn't wear armor, and based on where this was going he would need it.
Before anyone could say anything or step in between the Mandalorians, the night shift captain called for the alor. Ba’buir Nejaa met the captain in the middle, standing a few yards away from the group. Kaiyah stepped around Harbinger and resisted the urge to shoulder check him, no matter how much she thought he needed it. Whatever soul searching he told people he’d done wasn’t true, something much worse happened in Harbinger’s time away.
The shift captain went to Ba’buir and whispered something in their ear, Ba’buir nodding along. They brought the captain’s ear to their level and whispered something back, Kaiyah on the sidelines of the conversation. She was used to this, it never really mattered how much training had been put into Kaiyah. She wasn’t a leader and according to the rumors she wasn't supposed to know about, she would never be.
Ba’buir leaned over to Kaiyah after the captain had taken off, “We received an emergency comm from Nevarro. I don’t know how many are coming, the captain said they refer to themselves as a ‘tribe’. What do we have open?”
Kaiyah rattled off the numbers from the budget she finished a few nights ago, taking away the barracks that the two new Mandos had taken they had roughly twenty houses and thirty barracks. The food supply was a little iffy, less than they would like for a group of refugees coming in. Water was the same but they would be fine and everyone donated a little extra when refugees came in.
Vlemoth Port - the planet that Arumorut resided on - was strange in the way it was arctic and sub-tropical at the same time. It just depended on what side you were on and lucky for them Arumorut was on the sub-tropical side. It was easy to harvest water from the humid air, or even purify it from the nearby rivers. Hunting was easy on this side too, meat was never in short supply and if they could stretch the donations it would be fine.
Ba’buir nodded, there wasn’t much else they could do about the situation, especially with a few hours' notice, “We’ll head up there now. Try and get a head start on the organization for aliits and a headcount.”
Kaiyah mentioned that they should air out the houses and personally took on the tasks of setting up the homes. Who knew how long they had been shuttered? What if the newcomers would want to eat or shower after Maker knows how long in space? After a quick plan was made and a few more hands were shuffled into helping Arumorut got to work.
Din sat a moment beside Kuill’s grave. Nothing had gone the way it was supposed to do today. The Armorer, IG-88, Kuill. They had all sacrificed for his miscalculations and risks, even if they knew that death was an option on the table. It was bittersweet knowing that he had some of the best people in the galaxy by his side and that that number was substantially less now. Everyone had done what they could and were loyal to the end, even if the endings weren’t what they expected.
Din took the win where he could, the Imps weren’t chasing the newly minted clan anymore and Din had a pretty good lead on some Mandalorians that might be able to help The Child get home thanks to The Armorer. A hidden clan on the planet of Vlemoth Port was the next step and that meant the mission could be over before it ever began.
It could have been the near-death experience, the kid saving him again, or all the mistakes made today but it was another reason Din was reflecting. The kid was strong, stronger than he had originally thought. Healing Karga and throwing the fire back were no small feats, especially when no one else could have done anything about it. Going even farther back, when the two had first picked up Cara and the arm wrestling competition had gone wrong was the kid protecting him.
While Din knew more than ever that finding a Jedi was the top priority now, he also knew that a switch had happened. He never really saw himself as a caretaker and was always so worried that every choice was the wrong one that the thought of ever separating from the kid wasn’t a concern of his, he had made it a quest to get him settled somewhere safe. Din might not have known a lot about kids but he knew that following him across the galaxy with the target that was on his back was no way for ad’ika to live, no matter how old they were.
The thought of the kid being away from him now? He couldn’t fathom it. There was no part of the galaxy that the kid was going to be in that Din wasn’t following. Wherever the kid went, Din was going to be there too. They were aliit now, it was The Way. He selfishly let himself hope that this clan wouldn’t know any Jedi, that maybe Din could keep his aliit for a little bit longer. He allowed it for about thirty seconds before he boxed it up and shelved it at the back of his mind, this wasn’t about what Din wanted or didn’t want. This was about getting the kid home.
After adding the new names to the remembrance he sat the kid in the Crest’s co-pilot’s chair. As Din moved through the pre-flight checklist he had done a million times he heard the kid chewing on something. Glancing over he looked at the womprat, “What do you got there?”
Fishing the Mythosaur necklace of the kid’s mouth, he spoke out loud, “I didn’t think I’d see this again. Why don’t you hang on to that, might need it where we’re going.”
Translations & Lore (in order of appearance):
ba'vodu: aunt/uncle
ba'buir: grandparent
meshgeroya: limmie or bolo-ball (the Star Wars version of soccer) literally meaning 'the beautiful game'. A Mandalorian obsession, even going so far as to call it 'the other national pastime'.
Verd'goten: coming of age hunt, usually taking place at 13. It tested a lot of things, overall it was mostly fighting and survival, once passed the Mandalorian was considered an adult and was treated equally within the clan. I feel weird writing 13-year-olds as 'adults' but when you need as many soldiers as you can get, I guess it makes sense?
Bui'tsad: Biological family, rarely used.
buir: parent. Mando'a gets tricky here because it's usually a gender-neutral language. There isn't much difference between what we would consider 'feminine' words and 'masculine words like mom/aunt/grandmother and dad/uncle/grandfather. It is stated though that mothers were usually presented with 'buir' vs fathers where the first three letters of the father's name in front of 'buir' (example would be Din would be Din-buir, his female spouse would be buir). I'm not entirely sure how this would work with gay parents or nonbinary parents, please let me know if you have any ideas because I have both in this story and I'm Struggling.
Alor: leader, chief
Edalinare: Zabraki, family.
manda: collective soul or heaven, being Mandalorian in body, mind, and spirit.
dar'manda: state of not being a Mandalorian. Not an outsider, but having lost your culture. I usually use it in the meaning of soulless, since a lot of Legends Mandalorians thought that anyone who hadn't taken the Resol'nare was dar'manda. Kinda Catholic that way.
laandur: delicate, fragile. Usually used as an insult meaning pathetic and weak
The 28 hour days is a thing on Vlemoth Port. I would die. How do you even organize a 28 hour day?
Chakaaryc: Rotten, low-life. Usually describes someone of dubious ethics.
maroon is the armor color to symbolize power, green is duty, brown is valor.
riduur: partner/spouse.
Resol’nare: Six tenants of Mandalorian life.
Manda’yaim: Mandalore
runi: soul, poetic use.
Oya!: lots of meanings, literally being 'let's hunt!" it's always positive and triumphant. Usually, it's in the context of 'cheers!'
Aliit: family
The remembrance: said daily it means, 'I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal' typically followed up by the names of those you've lost.
Rating: M, 18+, no younglings. This is a mature fic.
Warnings: canon-typical violence, language, food and drink mention, intense description of a panic attack, 1 (one) kiss. I know. Scandalous. As always no beta and too much Mando'a with translations and lore at the end.
Author’s Note: Elle attempts to make the episodes special! We get all of episode one in this chapter and I hope it isn't too boring. I also make mentions to Kaiyah's height and hair in this chapter, but I really do try to keep her a blank slate for us as readers, if I big goofed on something let me know. Gif credit in the moodboard to oraliaonetti on tenor. (yes we're using the moodboard again it's too pretty)
Summary: "Ni ijaat gar." (I honor you.)
Read from the beginning: Mar'eyce Masterlist
Mos Pelgo was a small town with a big problem which, Din supposed, wasn’t out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was the krayt dragon-sized problem this was turning out to be, both literally and figuratively. Cobb Vanth, the marshal for his dying town, had traded the stolen armor for silicax crystals, and now to get it back Din had to help him kill said dragon.
Kaiyah had been unusually quiet the whole day, keeping her helmet on and passing on any food or drink that anyone offered her, even the Tuskens. After running into the massifs and their owners the group of four had been taken to their camp just outside of the canyon and the Tusken chief wanted in on the plan. It was a simple decision, more reinforcements meant more opportunities to kill it.
“You know, Cobb, you wear those colors well. Even if you stole them,” Kaiyah said as a lull passed over the planning and debate.
“What’d you mean?” the man asked as he looked at her.
Kaiyah gestured to the outfit, Cobb was slightly taller than Din and much taller and leaner than whoever the Jawas took the armor from. The pauldrons hung limply off his shoulders and the chest plate exposed nearly all of his stomach. It would have looked off and silly to anyone who knew Mandalorian armor, but the rumors around them were enough to fend off most cowards who wouldn’t look twice into the T-Visor.
“We color our armor for a reason, sometimes it’s just because we like those colors, other times its causes or how we view ourselves. Let me explain it you. Green is duty, you have a duty to your people that you will see through, even when facing death head-on. Not many people will face down a krayt dragon or willingly enter a quick draw with a Mandalorian simply because it’s the right thing to do.
“Yellow is remembrance. You remember everyone you lost, right? Everyone you couldn’t save the day the Mining Collective came in and everyone you couldn’t save after too.”
Cobb looked away, the fire becoming the most interesting thing in one of the most objectively interesting places, not many people were welcomed in a Tusken camp.
Kaiyah pushed on in Cobb’s silence, “Red. Or maybe crimson. It’s difficult to tell sometimes unless you know the Mando. Defiance, restlessness, or loss. You’re carrying heavy armor, Marshal. Whoever owned this armor will be proud to know its service has been honored, even if the way it fell into your lap was less than honorable.”
Cobb’s eyes were glassy as he blinked and swallowed down his emotions. The kid cooed from where he was sitting and Din felt one of his tiny three-fingered hands patting his boot. Kaiyah glanced down to the kid, her smile was evident even through the helmet and vocoder as she spoke, “Yeah, kiddo. Armor is like people, different for everyone.”
Cobb roughly cleared his throat the way people did when they didn’t want to be caught crying and gestured to her armor, “So what’s yours say?”
She laughed, “What, marshal still haven’t figured me out yet? Take a guess.”
“I don’t know, tell me.”
Kaiyah sighed in something that sounded like disappointment and pointed to the purple outlining her shoulder pauldrons, “Luck because I’m lucky to have not died yet. I really should have by now between the general Mandalorian lifestyle and a stint in the Rebellion.”
She held her hand over her maroon kar’ta beskar, “Power. My mom had the same design. I draw power from everything she taught me.”
Finally, Kaiyah patted her chest, a solid wall of orange, “This one is difficult. There’s not a good way to explain it in Basic. I guess it would be like wanting to live your life to the fullest, tomorrow is never a guaranteed kind of thing.” Din recognized what she was talking about, immediately. Shereshoy. Her armor made a lot of sense when people knew where she coming from, Kaiyah didn’t want anything to hold her back.
Cobb critically looked over her armor and explanations, “That’s who you are?”
In a brief flash of violence Din wanted to beat the judgment off of the marshal's face. Yes, yes of course that's who she is. Kaiyah is full of life and luck and because of all those things she is powerful, Din's brain screamed at him like he didn't already know.
“Yep. I nearly died before I realized I was taking a lot for granted. My armor before this was blue and green, reliability and duty. I wanted to show off how good of a person I was. I wasn’t living those traits the right way, it was all for points and talk," Kaiyah shrugged.
It felt ironic, in a roundabout way. Everything Kaiyah believed in, who she was as a person and warrior was a mirror to Din and his ways. At the same time, it felt like they couldn’t be more different, not honoring the armor the way he thought it should be but in a completely different way. The Arumorut Mandalorians weren’t anonymous, they were wholly and completely individuals and unafraid to be so. They weren’t dar’manda for not wearing all of their armor, showing their faces, and giving out their names like everyone else in the galaxy. He wasn’t sure if they were even Mandalorians, everything that Kaiyah was had tipped Din’s world view on its head through one small difference, and the more time they spent together the more it didn't seem to matter.
Kaiyah was a good Mandalorian honorable and educated in her way of life. She was a good person, willing to sacrifice her life for others just because it was the right thing to do. He wanted to be around her, he liked her. Was splitting hairs over armor worth it?
“Ah. So you were showin’ off but now you’re… not?” Cobb didn’t look like he understood where Kaiyah was coming from but neither of them needed him to. Armor was personal, it was made to fit each Mandalorian differently, even down to the gadgets they carried. It was a fascinating coincidence that Cobb and whoever owned this armor were remotely similar.
“Yeah. If you think about it Mandalorians were made to be looked at. Witnessed. Challenged. We are the galaxy’s greatest warriors, why should we hide behind boring paint? To make the rest of the galaxy comfortable? Who does that serve? Because it’s not me and not any other Mandalorian I know,” Kaiyah was passionate about being a Mandalorian, anyone could tell just from how she moved. She truly believed in everything that she was taught and followed it to the best of her ability, just like Din did.
Cobb looked at him, tipping his chin at Din, “You agree, Mando?”
Kaiyah followed the marshal’s gaze to him, staring through him again. Just like always and it was just as unnerving as the first time. He had no idea what to say to Cobb because Kaiyah was right. Not only was armor personal, but it was also a challenge to the universe. A chance to prove yourself before Kad Ha’rangir, the god of self-challenge and change, to show him that you were worthy in his fight against sloth and indulgence. It was everything The Way was. How could he explain that to aruetii?
Giving the only answer he could, Din muttered around the vocoder, “This is The Way.”
Chief A’Vurk approached then, in their hands were tiny dirt-colored melons. Gesturing and speaking in their native tongue they cracked one open and passed it to Kaiyah, then the other as they handed it to Cobb. A fine mist-like smoke plumed from the top for a moment and Din translated in Basic and signed in Tusken.
“Chief A’Vurk wants you to drink this.”
“It stinks,” Cobb replied as he pulled his nose back from the fruit.
“Do you want their help or not?” Mando asked rhetorically.
“Not if I have to drink this.”
“You’re being a bitch, Marshal. I thought the rough and tumble lawman of Mos Pelgo facing down a krayt dragon wouldn’t be put off by fruit,” Kaiyah snarked as she adjusted her helmet slightly after pulling it back down over her chin during their distraction. He couldn’t help the grin on his face, Kaiyah was clever. Pride filled his chest that his soulmate could outsmart even him.
“What do I do with the rind?”
Din shrugged, he never had to do this part the Tuskens never pushed him to drink their peace offering when they knew his creed, “Whatever you want.”
Kaiyah tossed it in the fire and turned to face him, “How do I say ‘thank you’?”
Din rested his four fingers against the lip of his helmet where his chin was and brought them down in an arc. Kaiyah repeated the gesture, nodding to the chieftain. The kid yawned and smacked his lips as he leaned against Din’s calf, it was getting late. In the discussion over the armor and the peace offering, the suns had set and Tatooine’s three moons had peaked up over the horizon. It was past the kid’s bedtime and he still had to smooth things over with Cobb and A’Vurk. It was a miracle they weren't going at it right now.
Kaiyah had noticed and scooped up the kid, her helmet dipped in a nod as she said goodnight and disappeared into their tent. As she walked away Din felt like she was taking a piece of him with her.
No, he decided. It didn't matter. Not the armor, not their creeds. None of it mattered when Kaiyah made him feel like this.
The next day was full of travel, even if Cobb didn’t drink the melon. Not to Kaiyah’s surprise, there was an argument over the whole thing that Mando had to smooth over. She had heard it from their tent as she got Vor’ika ready for bed. She had wondered uneasily if she crossed a line, Mando had seemed so upset with her when she talked about the armor and what it meant, what Cobb unknowingly stole. It wasn’t just some protection it was a lineage, a whole person and their life.
Mando’s tribe had to view it similarly since they were so strict about the armor but Kaiyah didn’t know if they talked about it at all. She didn’t know what to do and was getting more frustrated throughout the day. She hated censoring herself, only being a Mandalorian half the time because of how Mando lived his life. This was supposed to be shared, not shuttered. Foundlings were just as important as born Mandalorians and there was no age limit on what a foundling could be. Sharing their culture was a good thing, more Mandalorians were a good thing.
At the same time, it felt like there was nothing she could do about it. They were a team now and Kaiyah would stick around until he told her to leave. It didn’t feel like there was another option for her, her soulmate was right in front of her on a mission that she could help with. Even if he never thought of her as a true Mandalorian she would stay until the end of the line, she had to. Just the thought of leaving tore her to pieces, Kaiyah couldn’t imagine what would happen if she was forced to.
In the time she had been on the Razor Crest it felt like they had all became a family. It wasn’t official and Kaiyah had to force herself to keep the expectations that they could ever be a true family low, but it didn’t change all the ways it came together. Mando had taken it upon himself to build a game for Vor’ika with some small Mando’a words that they could all play together. The words matched to pictures and it was the sweetest thing to watch as father and son sat on the floor with a laser focus trying to determine if ge’tal really was red or not.
Mando talked more too, he had always been chatty when they were in the Crest but he offered things freely now instead of Kaiyah having to ask. Like last night, she was going to ask him how he knew Tusken but Mando offered it to her as they mounted the bikes to ride to the camp, “Lots of bounties ran to Tatooine, especially a few years ago when Jabba was in power and the Guild sat here. Tuskens know the land better than any local, it just made sense to ask them first. They’re good people, honorable.”
He would just tell her things like that throughout the day, little tidbits or anecdotes about the planet or his life. It was so small that anyone who met them wouldn’t think twice about it, but to Kaiyah it meant the galaxy, that even if he never considered her a Mandalorian he still would think of her as his equal.
The push and pull in her mind continued throughout the day, old worries and new surfacing. Did she belong here? Did she belong anywhere? Arumorut was safe because it was home, but she was always a little lonely. Third wheel and second fiddle to all the couples there, fun aunt and impromptu babysitter when buirs wanted a night to themselves. As welcome as Kaiyah was in her hometown, it felt like there was a joke the manda had told everyone but her and they were all laughing as she stood to the side.
Kaiyah didn’t exactly feel like she belong here either, Mando had checked in silently throughout the day, helmet tipping towards her or letting the conversation pause so if she had an opinion she could voice it. What was there to say though? Mando was the translator and the Tatooine natives were the brains. They had the weapons and know-how to fight the krayt dragon while she was again the third wheel to a plan that didn’t feel like it needed her around.
When Chief A’Vurk and their clan showed up to load the banthas with explosives, Mando pulled Kaiyah aside, “Are you okay?”
Kaiyah’s tilted her helmet at him in faux confusion, hoping it would come across as genuine. She didn’t know that he had noticed, “Yeah, Mando. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’ve just been quiet today. I wanted to check in,” Mando said as he brushed his gloved hand over her unarmored bicep. A warm sensation traveled across her body, like when she would have a shower after a hard day and Kaiyah could feel her entire being sigh. She clung to the feeling, wanted more of it, wanted it to seep into her soul and warm her from the inside out.
Kaiyah decided to joke and deflect slightly, “And that means something is wrong?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m fine, I promise. Just a little out of my element.”
“How is this ‘out of your element’?” Mando cocked his head to the side like he always did. It was funny, after being around him so long it was like his helmet had its own language. Every twitch, glance, and tilt had its meaning, even when they all looked exactly the same. A small tilt meant interested or confused, a medium tilt could be annoyance or amusement, and when the helmet went so far it could have touched his shoulder it was a shrug.
Kaiyah huffed and pushed her arm against his fingers slightly, praying that it would come across as natural and not pathetic as she chased the comfort being around him brought.
She was embarrassed that she was even feeling this way. It wasn’t like she had to be the center of attention all the time, know everything, or run every op, but she didn’t want to be sidelined either. She just wished she knew more, spent more time on Tatooine, killed a krayt dragon herself or something so she wouldn’t feel like a Mon Calamari out of water.
Mando jerked his fingers back from her like it burned and Kaiyah was mortified at the urge to chase his touch. He was being a good friend checking on her and she had to go and make it weird.
Kaiyah crossed her arms across her chest to stop herself from doing something humiliating and answered his question somewhat honestly, “I haven’t done this in a while. Talk to locals, broker deals. Not since my buir was around, I take a lot of contracts from rich people who want to feel less bad about being rich. I just don’t want to be in the way.”
Something thumped the walkway they were standing on and a slew of Basic and Tusken came from behind Mando. Cobb called out for Mando to help him translate and Kaiyah went for a friendly sock on his shoulder pauldron. She could do friends, she had plenty of them back home, “Mando, Cobb needs you. I’m fine, I promise. I’ll be better out on the front lines than helping you delegate how much a bantha can carry. I’m going to go find Vor’ika and we’ll wait for you by the speeder.”
He didn’t respond, even as the volume rose. His helmet tilted slightly to the right, silently calling her bluff. Kaiyah didn’t react as she turned and grabbed the deceptively cute gremlin from a group of kids playing in the town square. As she walked by the parents watching their little ones she caught the end half of a conversation.
“-armor? I just… You know how scary it was last time, Sarah. Do you really think they’ll stay away if we don’t have a Mandalorian around? Who cares if it’s a fake?”
“Come on, Matt. They haven’t been ‘round these parts in years. Don’t go worrying about something that’s not going to happen.”
“I'm not being paranoid, it could happen again. Then what would we do?”
Guilt flooded Kaiyah, those people were right. She and Mando were taking Mos Pelgo’s first and last line of defense, something that they shouldn’t even have to do. Tatooine was a day trip from Arumorut, a two-system jump that wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. Kaiyah should have heard about this. She could have done something about it.
The Mining Collective were known cowards, greedy and cheap. When they had sucked the land dry they would let towns, mines, and entire settlements go to move on to cheaper opportunities for easier credits and take their newfound ‘employees’ with them. If the heat got too much due to politics, bounty hunters, or crime lords, well, they would leave the workers behind too or offer them up as a bargaining chip. They could always get more and what kind of man couldn’t resist an obedient worker bee? It felt like everything was piling on her, she had let these people down, failed in her creed, disappointed her buir, and was a general third wheel in life that no one needed.
“You can’t save them all, Kay.”
The early morning twilight of the forgotten planet had painted the sky purple and pink and the very lightest of blues. The rescue mission went a way that no one expected it to, the transmission said that they needed help, quickly, please, we don’t have much time left. When the Awauds arrived to help they were met with blaster fire and flung objects, all of the captives fighting valiantly for their protector.
After a very intense back and forth - Kai’buir telling all of the people under the warlord that they were here to help, they had gotten the transmission, it was going to be over soon - the people stated they didn’t need the Rebellion’s help. The galaxy was too big and too wild for them. They were safe here, this was home.
“I can! I can save them all and I will, Buir. You taught me how!”
Ilyah sighed and set her helmet on the sandy rocks that were still cool from the low temperatures of the night. “Kaiyah, you can’t. You can’t get involved in this if you don’t understand that most of the time not everyone can be saved, or wants to be. That there will be times when you do everything right, only to come back later and find all the work undone. The repeats, people you saved before only to save them again. The millions you will never know about.”
Mando grabbed Kaiyah’s hand lightly, jerking her out of the rest of the memory, “You okay?”
It all slammed to the surface out of nowhere, she barely remembered that conversation and it felt like she had lived it all over again. Every detail was burned into the back of her eyelids. Kaiyah swore that she could count all the stars in the sky, every line, and scar on her buir’s face, “Yeah, yeah. I’m good. Just remembered something.”
“Good or bad?”
Kaiyah waved a hand around, waffling a bit, “Neither. My buir. Everything ready to go?”
Mando nodded and they started the practiced routine of fitting on the speeder bike to get over to the liar. The citizens of Mos Pelgo had this part of the plan handled, laying explosives was a lot of people’s day jobs as a mining settlement. In no time at all a girl that couldn’t be older than Tann handed Cobb a detonator, “Careful, Marshal.”
Kaiyah felt sick as she thought of these kids fighting and dying to a krayt dragon. No kid should have nightmares of their friends dying. “She’s not staying, right? None of those kids should be near here.” The statement came out a lot shorter than Kaiyah intended it to, she sounded upset at Cobb personally and he looked offended.
“Of course not. No kid in Mos Pelgo is going to be bantha fodder. Jo is one of our brightest minds in Mos Pelgo. She can find the best way to wire the explosives for the biggest bang.”
Kaiyah didn't know what else to so say so she settled on, "good," and walked off to the trebuchets Chief A’Vurk’s clan had set up to try and keep the krayt busy. They would need all the help they could get on the front lines, there wasn’t a point in having three people supervising.
Someone from the clan walked up to the mouth of the cave - abandoned Sarlacc den, Kaiyah was quickly corrected - and shrieked to the dragon trying to wake it up. Taking a deep breath, Kaiyah readied herself, fists clenching at her sides in anticipation. She wasn’t sure what she would be needed to do and it wasn’t like a blade would do much good here. It wasn’t very often that she felt like a bad Mandalorian for not being able to wield a blaster, but it was a skill that could have been helpful more often than not.
Kaiyah was shit in mid - to long-range combat, a skill she had to make up for in other places, missiles on her vambrace or throwing knives and even then she was limited. This entire situation was going to be long-range combat, hopefully, they could get it over with quickly.
The krayt dragon made its presence known in no time at all and it was clear two minutes into the fray that nothing was working. Kaiyah was working the trebuchets with some of A’Vurk’s people and they were doing a good job of holding the line. She was feeling deceptively optimistic about their chances when the line snapped and it sent the four of them skittering across the ground. Kaiyah released the line as quickly as she could, it wouldn’t do any good to be pulled toward the giant lizard.
The dragon earned its name as it roared at their attempt to try and get it closer to the bombs. Kaiyah darted forward grabbed the two closest people, activating her sentra with the prayer she sent up to the manda every time she had to use it, and shot them to left quickly as the ground beneath them became caustic sludge.
As the three tumbled to relative safety, Kaiyah felt more than heard the ground explode. The silence was deafening as everyone held their breath, waiting to see if they were successful. With a blast of rock and a screech, the krayt exploded from the top of the mountain. Kaiyah watched as Mando and Cobb flew straight toward it and decided to follow their lead, tailing Mando as she pushed her pack faster.
The men went for the small amount of rocky cover the mountain offered shooting at the krayt. Kaiyah went for the top of the head, slashing and hacking uselessly in an attempt to keep it off the civilians and on them. Something the men were doing got its attention after it launched another round of acid below the mountain, chomping down on the rock as they all landed safely on the ground again.
This was the most Kaiyah had used her sentra in years, having only really needing it for a lift. She wasn’t afraid of it, she was a Mandalorian, she wasn’t afraid of anything. Just very, very cautious about where it was and what the fuel reserves looked like. Kaiyah had been bitten once by the equipment, she wasn’t going to let it happen a second time.
“What’s the plan now?” Kaiyah called nervously to Mando and Cobb as the krayt exploded from a dune behind them.
“Do you still have the detonator?’ Mando asked Cobb. He handed it over wordlessly, fingers flexing around a blaster.
Kaiyah glanced to bounty hunter-turned-big-game-hunter, “That’s not a plan, Mando! What’s the plan?”
“Take care of the kid!” he grunted as he smacked her jetpack, sending her flying through the air.
Kaiyah didn’t know which way she was facing, she was spinning uselessly, nothing was working as she tried to get back to the ground. Her HUD wasn’t displaying anything to her anymore, glitching in and out of the darkness. Her vambraces weren’t connecting to her sentra. It was an infinitely more terrifying version of the drunk spins, and worse yet, it was an experience she had already had.
The sandy ground of Tatooine was coming in fast. She couldn’t slow down. Nothing was working. No one was here to catch her this time.
Kaiyah tucked and rolled as she hit the ground, tossing the pack in the same movement. There was a rushing in her ears. She couldn’t hear anything. The HUD glitched out again and she felt like she was being buried alive. She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe?
Safe. She needed to be safe. Now.
Kaiyah ripped the helmet off and tossed it to the side. It was hot. Shade. Safety. She had to stay conscious until backup could come for her. Gulping as much air down as she could Kaiyah whipped her head around.
A rock wall broke off into the canyon. There. That was what she needed. Not too far from the crash site, someone could find her there.
As she went to stand her knees went out from under her. Hitting the sand Kaiyah crawled to the outcropping. She couldn’t see straight, it was like she was still spinning. Her throat closed the more air she tried to get. A pressurized pain sat right in the center of her chest. Her hands were shaking as she ripped off her hal’cabur and ghet’bur.
She had to check for injuries. The landing was rough, she was hurt. She was losing blood. That was the only thing that made sense. Kaiyah had to get herself stabilized.
Her fingers couldn’t grip as she pulled off a pauldron. She felt more than heard someone’s boots thumping in the sand.
Turning her head she recognized the glinting metal of Mando’s armor as it twisted and shifted. “Ca-can’t bre-eathe. I can’t - help,” Kaiyah gasped. Panic filled her quickly as she realized that her vision was still swimming. Something bad was happening. She pawed at her flight suit, “I ne-need to get out of this st-stupid, fuck. I can’t breathe.”
“Yes, you can. Deep breaths. Like this,” Mando exhaled all his air in a big whoosh sound through the vocoder and took a breath the expanded his entire chest, making it look bigger than it was already. Mando repeated it a few more times before things started to come into focus again. When Kaiyah looked up from the ground, he was right next to her. Nearly touching her and everything came rushing back.
He set off her jetpack on purpose. He could have killed her. He wanted to kill her. Of course, he did. Mando was just here to finish the job like always.
“Don’t-Don’t touch me, Mando! Don’t you fucking touch me!” Kaiyah kicked at him and attempted to scramble up the rock wall. His gloved hands pulled away and he slowly crawled back like she was the crazy one.
“You need to breathe, Kaiyah. I won’t get closer but you need to breathe,” Mando breathed in again, keeping his hands where she could see them. Eventually, she started following his lead, hiccuping, gasping breaths slowing into a regular pattern. “I’m going to get you some water. I’ll be right back.”
The first feeling she recognized as she officially came back to Tatooine's surface was humiliation. Whatever plan Mando had must have worked out because she could hear the cheers. What if it hadn’t? What if something bad happened to him? Or Vor’ika? Kaiyah felt like she was better than this, she was spiraling. Quickly and uncontrollably. She needed to get a fucking grip.
She sat in the sand, putting her head between her knees. Kaiyah saw Mando place a jug about a foot away, directly in her eye line. She heard him picking up her armor and dusting it off, he put it right next to the water he had brought with him.
“We’ll take off when you’re ready.”
Kaiyah lifted her head enough just so when it dropped back to her chest it looked somewhat like a nod, “Thank you. I’m sorry.”
Mando shook his head, “Don’t be. I wasn’t thinking, ni ceta.”
“Mando, just-stop. Please, for a second. The plan worked, right? So don’t pull this bullshit chivalry pity party because I’m a woman. I’m a Mandalorian, treat me like it,” she scoffed, head lolling back to look up at the sky.
“I never said you weren’t.”
“You never said I was, either,” Kaiyah pushed herself off the sand, dusting herself off and ignoring the stuffy sensation that filled her face. Honest to Maker, Kaiyah felt like she had somehow induced a hangover without drinking. “I’ll be out in a minute. You should check on Vor’ika.”
“Cobb is watching the kid. I’ll stay.”
Kaiyah rolled her eyes, “Of course, ganar at gotal'ur sure gar copikla riduur'ika kelir nayc viinir dayn bat gar.”
“I’m staying in case you need help,” Mando growled.
“Come on, Mando. What’s the point of keeping me locked up if you don’t even want me around?” Kaiyah asked as she drained half the jug.
“I’m keeping you locked up? You could have left whenever you wanted.”
“Could have? You mean I can’t now?”
Mando exhaled sharply as his fists started to clench, “Why are you acting like this?”
“Why did you try to kill me?”
“I apologized. The plan wasn’t to kill you, just get you out of the way. I didn’t have time to explain.”
Kaiyah leveled him a glare as she adjusted her pauldron, “Sure, because you totally don’t care what kind of soulmate you get. Come on, just admit you want a redo. It won’t hurt my feelings.”
It would. It would destroy Kaiyah if he admitted that to her. She was just so tired of having the rug pulled out from under her. She was trying so hard to be good enough for everyone and it was starting to feel like she wasn’t good enough for anyone. She was hurt and humiliated and wanted to hurt someone else, Mando was just the closest target right now.
Kaiyah’s eye caught his T-Visor and it pinned her in place, the disbelief dripped off his voice, shaming her further, “What the hell are you talking about? I’m sorry. How many times do you want me to say it? Or not say it?”
She held on to the anger as much as she could as she shrugged and retied her braid, “Forget it. My HUD is on the fritz, I’ll have to -“
“No, you don’t -“
“I don’t what? Get to do what I want anymore? Gods and Goddesses -“
“You don’t get it to change the fucking subject, Kaiyah. I understand what happened and it won’t happen again and I don’t want a different soulmate, so what the hell is wrong? Let me know so I can fucking fix it,” it sounded like it all came out in one breath, but Mando was deathly still. Kaiyah could barely tell he was breathing.
She finally tore her gaze away from the visor that was somehow so capable of laying her bare but was so blank at the same time. Neither of them said anything. Kaiyah found a pattern in the rock and kept her focus there.
It felt like a confession as she warbled, “I was scared. I thought I was dying and you did it on purpose because I’m not a Mandalorian like you. Then I was scared that you would think I couldn’t cut it out here with you because what if the worst-case scenario happened? I was fucking useless.”
She swallowed harshly and shrugged, keeping her head down, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Cobb’s waiting for us, we should go.”
Mando’s hand stopped her as it wrapped around her wrist and slid down to entangle his pinky with hers. “It does matter. It matters to me. I promise, ni ijaat gar.” He squeezed their fingers tighter together, “Talk to me. Please. I’m not doing this again. I don’t like fighting for no reason.”
Kaiyah cracked a smile, which was followed by a belly laugh. Mando’s helmet tilted in confusion not understanding what she thought was so funny. “You’re a Mandalorian, a bounty hunter Mandalorian, the most Mandalorian thing you can be and you don’t like fighting for no reason?” she snickered.
Mando huffed an amused sound through his vocoder and dropped his forehead to hers, bumping it slightly, “Not with people I care about.”
“You care about me? Whatever will happen to your reputation when the people find out?” Kaiyah gasped out in faux shock.
Mando chuckled and shook his head, keeping Kaiyah’s forehead connected to his helmet, “There’s no saving it now. Chief A’Vurk was very concerned that my wife and I were sleeping in separate cots.”
“Oh, the drama! The shame of having to tell the chief that you're sharing a tent with your not wife!”
His chuckle moved into a full-body laugh, Mando’s shoulders shook with the force of it causing Kaiyah to follow. She bumped her forehead to his beskar helm, “Vor’ika’s going to be worried about us. We should really get going.”
Mando nodded and they got untangled from each other, “What is wrong with your HUD?”
“I don’t know, it just kept going dark as I was falling.”
He hummed and gestured to Kaiyah’s helmet. She passed it over, as he fiddled with it he apologized again, “Ni ceta. I meant it. I wasn’t thinking about what happened to you before -“
“You forgot I was blown up wearing a jetpack?”
“No. I just… I was thinking of how to get you out of the way quickly. I wasn’t going to let you be swallowed by a krayt dragon.”
Kaiyah looked Mando over for the first time since she got punted. He was covered in some kind of dried-on green bile. Groaning as she vigorously scrubbed her forehead she pointed an accusatory finger at him, “You thought dragon bile was an acceptable outfit for a first kiss? Gross!”
“I wasn’t planning on all of this happening,” Mando shrugged. He handed Kaiyah’s helmet back to her, “There’s nothing wrong with it. Probably just panic mixed with altitude.”
Rolling her eyes, Kaiyah slipped the orange visor over her head. He was right, it was working fine, the only difference was her sentra wasn’t online and it wasn’t going to be for a good long while. “I think it was just panic. I’m sore from the landing but nothing’s broken,” she experimentally flexed her fingers and moved her shoulders. Sore and most likely bruised but no bones doing what they shouldn’t be doing.
“We’ll do a look over when we get back to the Crest.”
“Wow, already trying to get me naked? Can’t buy a girl dinner first?”
Mando huffed, his helmet mimicking an eye roll as he turned to walk them out from the rocky embankment, “Not what I meant and you know it.”
Vor’ika was happy to see them his large ears raising as he clapped. Chief A’vurk had wrapped a large chunk of meat into a cloth and thanked them both for their help, Cobb handed off the baby and set the armor on the speeder bike. “I hope our paths cross again. And you tell your people I wasn’t the one that broke that.”
Figuring out how to get settled took more than a little effort. With their spoils it was even tighter than before. Kaiyah and Mando basically had to become one person as Vor’ika hung out in the bag next to them. It was just before midday and they were making much better time than when they first came out to Mos Pelgo.
They were just about to cross into the empty desert a few hours outside of Mos Eisley when they all went flying, Kaiyah tucking in to roll off her shoulder for the second time that day as Mando gave himself an advantage with his jetpack. Blaster shots went everywhere as Kaiyah grabbed her blade and gutted the Nikto closest to her. A human man was quickly taken down by Mando and Kaiyah flicked a knife at the smallest bounty hunter as it ran for a gun case, the fight was over before it even began.
Vor’ika toddled as quick as he could to Mando, launching himself on his father’s boot. “Everyone okay?” Mando asked as he lifted the baby to check him over.
“My pride says no, but physically, yes,” Kaiyah answered as they packed up the wreckage. It was going to be a long trek back to Mos Eisley.
Translation & Lore (in order of apperance):
Armor colors are not canon. I just thought it was interesting to see how Cobb and Boba are probably more similar than not. Also, as a disclaimer, I’ve seen that yellow can sometimes be used to reference shereshoy as well as orange. It truly just depends on the source you find and seeing as how colors aren’t canon (yet) it probably just means Boba thought he looked sick as hell in those colors.
Kar’ta Beskar: Iron Heart, the center piece of a Mandalorian’s armor.
Shereshoy: Lust for life and much more. Enjoying each day and the determination to seek and grab every possible experience, as well as surviving to see the next day. Sometimes is the meaning for orange armor.
Dar’manda: Soulless. Someone who is no longer a Mandalorian.
Kad Ha’rangir: The Mandalorian god of growth and change. He is in an eternal war with Arasuum, the god of idleness and stagnation. Ancient Mandalorians waged ritual warfare as a way to pray to Kad Ha’rangir, the ways changed and eventually when the New Mandalorians took self-challenge in a different route, typically in the form of pacifism.
Aruetii: Traitor, outsider, foreigner. In Cobb’s case only the last two really apply since he's not a Mandalorian.
Foundlings generally don’t have an age limit. When Mandalorians were conquering the known galaxy they would force people to take the creed or they would kill them, believing that those who weren’t Mandalorian were soulless. Where we see Mandalorians now they typically take in kids younger than 13 because of the Verd’goten. Plus, it’s just generally easier to raise your own child than to try and teach an adult your ways.
Ge’tal: Red
Buir: parent
Manda: heaven, collective soul
Sentra: jetpack
Hal’cabur: chest plate
Ghet’bur: The piece that sits across the collar bones, above the chest plate.
Ni ceta: groveling apology, rare.
Ganar at gotal'ur sure gar copikla riduur'ika kelir nayc viinir dayn bat gar: have to make sure your cute little spouse won’t run out on you.
Ni ijaat gar: Literally, I honor you. There’s not a word or phrase for “I promise” but Mandalorians are serious about honoring their pacts so this is something colloquial and not to be taken as literally as Mando’a usually is.
Forehead bump: I don’t feel like I have to explain this, but it’s a Keldabe Kiss, or mirshmure'cya which means ‘brain kiss’. I love Mando’a so much.
