a variable star - twigcollins - Star Wars (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Montross is the mole, the betrayer. For months now, his buir had suspected that something was wrong, that someone was leaking information from the inside, though the signs had all been subtle and there had never been any solid proof.

Jango doesn’t know if the Mand’alor ever suspected his second, or if it hurt too much to consider the thought of that close a betrayal. Montross didn’t like him, he’d known that for ages and Jango had certainly returned the sentiment, but he’d thought that was a matter between them, nothing of any great importance. You didn’t have to like every member of your clan equally, to want to protect them, to see the whole grow healthy and strong. At the very least, to honor the call of the Mand’alor.

None of the shouting he can hear now comes from Jaster.

Don’t freeze. Act.

He’s hovering above the ambush, looking for targets, but there’s smoke everywhere, and another grenade kicks up, and another, clouds of thick dust that swirl in the wake of the gunship and Jango knows how to deal with those at least - start with the biggest threats and work his way down - even though his buir hates this maneuver and where is he, why is there no call for the Haat Mando’ade to regroup, only static and bursts of meaningless sound - and Jango drops from above, a smooth dive like a hunting bird of prey. An error in judgement at what’s nearly free-fall could cost him in pieces, even wearing beskar, but Jango’s aim is perfect, sweeping through the open archway of the gunship’s vulnerable belly, taking out the gunner even as he drops a charge, and the whole craft goes up in a blazing fireball as Jango lifts back up into the sky.

A moment of triumph, but it's his last. He feels a bolt land like a punch against his shoulder, spinning him around, a voice roaring across the comm that might be Myles - and where’s his buir, where’s the Mand’alor - but before he can move or even think there’s a second explosion, much closer, that knocks Jango out of the sky entirely. He tries to recover, spinning out of control, the sounds across the comms all blurring into a roar in his ears, blaster bolts so thick in the air that the sky looks like a worn wall, covered in layers of old declarations.

A scream. The rumble of a structure on the ground, something already half-collapsed finally giving way completely. Jango roars, trying to right himself, his pack only half-firing, wanting nothing more than something to shoot.

He doesn’t even feel the pain, when his head slams hard into a building, or the unyielding earth. Only chaos, and then darkness.

—————

The sharp slap snaps him awake - he’s cold, already stripped of his beskar’gam, and Jango buries the shock, the hurt of the loss down deep - whoever’s got him, they’ll mock him with that. An easy humiliation, and he can’t afford to let it show. No fear, no shame, not for whatever’s left of the rest of his life.

A bag is over his head, the roar of excited voices when it’s pulled away and Jango blinks at the sudden sharpness of the light, struggles against the hands that hold him fast - he’s struck again, a warning to keep still, hard enough that the whole world wavers, a dozen injuries protesting the new pain.

The distant sky is the color of cold permacrete, opaque and unending, and nothing Jango can see tells him where he is, how far away from the battle he’d been in. No other prisoners, only him, standing on a small outcrop that passes for a stage, surrounded by a jeering crowd of the enemy of enemies, the Death Watch.

“Let us celebrate, victors all, in the final destruction of the refuse that called itself the Haat Mando’ade.”

Jango jerks, turns at the voice, dread and anger rushing through him, mixing and ready to explode. In the wall of the common room, there’d been a blurry printout of a bad photo someone had tacked to the wall, to use as target practice. Jaster had taken it down, once Jango had joined them.

It didn’t look much like the man anymore, anyway. He wasn’t supposed to look like anything - he was supposed to be dead. It should have been justice, for Jango’s first, lost family - but even from the start, there had been rumors, growing whispers almost as soon as they’d left Concord Dawn. The Kyr’tsad refusing to let go, to believe their leader could have been bested by an ad. He thinks Jaster had tried to shield him from some of them, perhaps even from the possibility before him now.

“All except one.”

Tor Vizsla, scarred and jagged and very much alive. Jango’s hand flexes, desperately wishing he had even a single grenade.

He’s dragged forward to a great cheer from the assembled masses, the first time he’s seen so many of the enemy outside of a battle, and their faces smear a bit when he tries to focus on them - he must have been hit harder than he thought. Jango tries to steady himself, glares back up at a face he’s seen too often in his nightmares. Jaster would sit with him, on the worst of those nights, neither of them talking, until the quiet had shifted from sorrow to something like peace.

“Hut’uun.” Jango snarls. “What does it feel like to think you’ve won, only when other men fight their battles for you, and they have to lie for any chance at victory?”

Tor’s second in command - Pre, he thinks - moves forward threateningly, and there’s a knife in his hand - and maybe that’s all for the best. Jango knows his buir is prone to... incautious decisions in the wrong moments, when it’s his own people on the line - and of course he wants to be saved, doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to die, but he won’t be a hostage, be used like that against his clan. He won’t.

“Nothing even in your pathetic Resol’nare forbids skill and cunning.” Tor leers. “What better proof of the failure of the so-called Mand’alor, than that there is no confidence among even his most trusted men? This loyalty of yours was wasted on such a pathetic di’kut of a leader. In my benevolence, and since there is nothing else left for you now, I will give you the opportunity to rectify that mistake.”

“Coward and liar and butcher.” Jango growls, wondering if he could taunt the other Vizsla into attacking him, could get the blade away, even for a moment. He would only need a moment.

“Mereel got your family killed, ad, not me.” Tor says, with a sickening sort of pity. “I wasn’t the one who found you first. Casualties of war - they died shielding a man who hid behind them, because he lacked the strength to stand on his own.” A pauldron hits the ground, the markings painfully familiar - nearly the same as Jango’s own, so recently won. “What a pittance of time their lives paid for.”

The sweep of the beskar plate is slightly wider, his buir broad-shouldered - enough to carry an entire empire on if he had to, he’d laughed. He always seemed to find something to smile about, though Jango had never seen him as proud or as happy as he’d been on the day he’d presented Jango with his own beskar’gam. The celebration had lasted all night, with Jaster as unceasingly bright as the sun.

No rallying cries from the Mand’alor, before Jango had gone down. He can’t be certain he’d heard any of the clan, no order to regroup or retreat. He tries to push away the heavy weight pressing down on him, what it means if Vizsla isn’t lying. If he’s just lost another family to the Death Watch.

“I… you…."

Jango can’t kill any of his enemies here, can’t wrest himself free to escape or make a final stand or, in the end, do anything at all except bow his head and mutter into the dirt, cowering in dishonor and grief and defeat.

“What’s that, hut’uun?” Tor laughs, and his men laugh with him. “Speak up.”

Jango can’t do anything, except wait for the great leader of the fearsome Death Watch, the glorious Kyr’tsad who isn’t wearing his helmet to lean over just that little bit further, to get within range and then he does his best to headbutt the bastard’s kriffing nose through the back of his kriffing skull. Jango hears the snap of bone, laughs and laughs until a punch to his gut drives the breath from him, until another blow drives him to his knees, keeps laughing in his mind, thinks his buir would be laughing too.

Being kicked to death to the sound of Tor Vizsla’s howls of fury and pain is not at all the worst end Jango could have made for himself.

—————

It’s quiet for a long time, before Jango realizes that he’s been sitting in the quiet, that he’s breathing in and out, that he’s still alive enough to manage it.

Alive enough to notice the consequences of what he’d done, as well. Every movement from breathing to blinking brings pain with it - a good deal of him tacky with dried blood, everything bruised and a few more things possibly fractured - but Jango doesn’t regret a thing. Wherever Vizsla is, he’s still feeling it too.

Tor Vizsla. Alive. Triumphant. The thought sits with him for a long, long while.

He’s been bound tightly to a chair in the back of a large canvas tent, half-stretched over the wreckage of a building. The lighting is poor, though that he can see at all suggests that he’s been out at least enough hours to drag the sun back up. Anything around him that isn’t rubble is scrap. A makeshift torture chamber, though that just leaves more room for imagination.

Jango knows how torture works, of course. His buir had made sure to prepare him for the possibility, among so many others, knowledge always the best armor against cruelty.

Well, besides beskar, and a good blaster. And a flamethrower. Jaster had said, chuckling. The memory twists in him now - he knows it had always bothered his buir more than he’d admit, to walk through the worst outcomes, to think about possible situations where Jango or any of his people might end up hurt. Where no one might get to him soon enough.

Torture isn’t just about the pain, but the mind games as well - that Jango won’t be able to anticipate when it’s coming, for how long or how bad. The long spans of boredom in between whatever it is they’re going to do can be just as dangerous, if he lets himself worry too much about what might happen, if he starts torturing himself in his own head first.

No way to measure how long passes, any outside noises muffled to anonymity from where he’s sitting. It’s not exactly his strong suit, being patient, but he knows this is going to be the easiest part of whatever’s on its way, and so Jango tries to empty his mind of the worries, the irritation of the sticky, dried blood on his skin, the creak and shift in his ribs when he twists the wrong way. He keeps his mind on better memories - the motions of training, of cleaning his weapons, the weight of his armor - and he will get that back, even if the how hasn’t presented itself yet.

He finally falls into a slight, half-awake stupor - exhausted and battered - but immediately snaps to attention, as the flap opens on the far side of the makeshift space, and he feels that slight flicker of hope, of confidence in his own strength gutter like a flame in a high wind. His expression doesn’t change - Jango won’t let it - but there’s nothing in his favor at the sight of dark robes and yellow eyes.

Dar’jetii.

—————

He’s afraid, a thick, chill dread slowly seeping through him. He’s afraid, and he shouldn’t be even if it doesn’t show, because Jango knows it’s like a feast for the creature in front of him, blood in the water. If he’d had his beskar, there’d be some small protection, but bound where he is the dar’jetii can dig the thoughts right out of his head, make him betray his clan, his buir and everything he holds dear, and it doesn’t matter how much he fights back, he can’t fight back, not against this.

Pale gold eyes watch him quietly, but there’s no sneering malice, no delighted calculation. If anything, he looks… tired. Preoccupied. As if Jango is more of a trial to pass than a helpless prisoner to toy with.

Jango spits at him anyway, the moment he’s in range. Defiant for as long as his mind is his own - but the dar’jetii barely has to dodge, leans just slightly to the side before crouching down, looking into Jango’s eyes. Still no anger, not even a hint of offense.

“How badly did they hurt you? Concussion?”

He flinches away from the hand that comes up, considers biting at it - but the dar’jetii barely touches him, and Jango suddenly feels a gentle surge of - strength, stability, a little of the pain of his many injuries easing off. Instead of clouding his mind, his thoughts feel quicker and sharper.

“It’s terribly rude to do this without a proper introduction, I know, but I doubt we have much time.”

The accent is well off-world, more than refined enough to be from Kalevalan, and if the New Mandalorians and the Kyr’tsad had somehow agreed to an alliance - no, but that’s insane, and there are no Mandalorian jetii, not for ages. Even if this one more likely hails from Coruscanta - what the kark is he doing here now, and working on behalf of Clan Vizsla?

It isn’t until the cup of water appears that Jango realizes how long it’s been since he’s had a drop, and when the dar’jetii sips first Jango thinks this must be the start of the torture - but those pale eyes meet his again, and he realizes it’s only supposed to be proof the water isn’t drugged or poisoned. Who knows if anything can even poison a jetii - but as the cup hits his lips, Jango realizes he’s willing to take the risk.

“Easy, easy.” He’s patient, lets Jango drain the whole of it in slow careful sips so that he won’t choke, and doesn’t demand or even ask a single question as payment. Softening him up, perhaps. Waiting until his guard is down to strike. If he thinks that the kindness will buy him anything, he’s going to be terribly disappointed. Unfortunately, no matter how long Jango stalls, he’s still stuck here, with no way free in sight.

The tent is shadowed, the light uneven, and it’s only now with the closer look that Jango realizes the dar’jetii isn’t nearly as old as he’d first thought - old enough for the verd’goten, but not many years past that. Younger than Jango is, too young for this. He’d heard the jetii were all cold, vain and distant creatures at best - but this… boy looks like he’s been on the same battlefield as the rest of them, ginger hair tied up in a messy tail, a scrape on his jaw, bruises on his hands, dark shadows under eyes that occasionally shift to a painfully familiar, thousand-yard stare that Jango’s seen on many of his clan.

“So, you’re the child of Jaster Mereel.” The dar’jetii doesn’t look particularly happy about it.

“I am the verburyc ad be Mand’alor, Alor be Aliit Mereel, Alor be Haat Mando’ade. The Al'Ori'Ramikade.” Jango snarls, and then the grief hits him fresh, remembering Tor Vizsla’s sneering pride, his delight in announcing the utter destruction of his clan. It can’t be true. It can’t be, can it? At least Montross wasn’t at that celebration, hadn’t even been mentioned - hopefully he had paid the price for his treachery.

“He’s not dead.” Jango startles - maybe the dar’jetii didn’t have to do anything at all, to get into his head. Maybe he’d been there all along. If so, he doesn’t seem to notice Jango’s surprise. “I heard them talking. Tor Vizsla was… rather unhappy with the situation. I don’t know about the rest of your clan, but at least your father - I think he escaped, for now. They’re not going to tell you, in the hopes that it’ll make you break faster.”

Jango’s heart is beskar, untouchable, and even if it wasn’t he’d never roll over for them, not after all they’ve done. The dar’jetii are liars, even among their own kind, and perhaps this is nothing more than that, giving him false hope so it can be taken away again at the cruelest possible moment.

“He had my buir’s armor.” Jango says, quietly, and hates the slight waver he can’t completely hold at bay.

“He had a pauldron, battle-scarred and easily repainted to his advantage.” The calm, cultured voice observes, as if it’s obvious because really, it is for anyone who wasn’t exhausted, recently beaten and left with the promise of worse to come - and Jango feels all that unfounded fear, the uncertainty he’s been carrying since the ambush, since the reveal of who was truly behind it easing off, allowing him to breathe. Tor Viszla’s alive. Which only means that Jango can have the honor of killing him a second time. “All of this is about you now, making you doubt and using that doubt to take down Mereel. If you need a truth, believe in that one.”

Whoever this boy is, Jango thinks, he’s a kriffing terrible interrogator.

A flicker from near the front of the tent, a slight shift of the shadows.

“You shouldn’t be in here.” The dar’jetii calls softly over his shoulder. A child steps forward, seemingly out of nowhere - bare feet, skin perhaps a shade darker than his own, and careful eyes that watch him unblinkingly beneath a fringe of dark hair. Old eyes, that Jango has seen in so many ade in this war.

“Are they going to kill him?” He doesn’t like how thin the adiik is, or the way she holds herself, toes tucked in, one arm holding the other against her body, as if to present a smaller target.

“I don’t know.” His supposed torturer’s voice is kind, even gentler than before. The longer this goes on, the less Jango understands. “Not today, I don’t think.”

“He’s loud.” Dark eyes stare at him, accusingly. The dar’jetii swings a hand behind him without looking, grasps the child’s fingers with his own, a gentle squeeze of support.

“We’ll meditate later. I’ll show you what to do. Go now. Don’t let anyone see you leave.”

Jango swears he doesn’t blink, couldn’t miss it if the tent flap opened, but one moment the girl is there and then she’s gone.

“It’s a Force trick.” The dar’jetii says softly. “I don’t even think she knows how she’s doing it. It doesn’t seem like the best idea to train her out of it, though. All things considered.”

“So the jetii child-stealers are now Kyr’tsad child-stealers?” Jango growls. “How many ade are you holding prisoner here, demagolka?

“Too many.” A flicker in those gold eyes, distant lightning, the first sign of anger he’s seen yet. “Zai Kaine is the man in charge of this camp. If you push him too hard, make him too angry, he’ll forget his orders. He’ll do things they don’t want done to you, not yet. Clan Vizsla wants you alive, for now. It would be in your best interest not to provoke him.”

Jango bites back the instant retort, just where the karking dar’jetii can shove his kriffing advice - because it was advice. Not a threat, or an order. Just an observation, from an enemy that has yet to so much as raise his voice.

“What are the dar’jetiise doing here?” Jango says, frowning, thinking over the rumors he’s heard, the tangled, incomprehensible complexity of their plots and plans. “Are you trying to kill Vizsla?”

A soft, mirthless laugh, and a few strands of lank, ginger hair slip free from the loose tie. “It wouldn’t matter much if I did. Tor dies, and Pre steps up. Pre dies, and the next Vizsla in line advances, and the next, and everyone is furious that an off-worlder thinks he has the right to interfere in the business of Mandalore. The Kyr’tsad would gain more support and sympathy, for the pains they suffered from the terrible, meddling Jedi.” A wry, weary smile. “It seems rather unlikely this is going to end with me playing the hero.”

So what the kriff are you doing here? Jango wants to ask, but the other man turns away, a moment before Jango can hear heavy bootsteps headed in their direction.

“Scream.” The dar’jetii says, raising a hand, his thumb against Jango’s temple, fingertips across his hairline. Jango startles, sucks a breath in - but there’s no pain, no sense of any dark power at all.

“What-“

“If I’m trying to torture you, it’d be better if you screamed.”

He was sent here to take information, but he hasn’t, and he isn’t, and for some reason no one else knows that. If Jango wants to keep it that way, he’d better play along. He does his best to howl between clenched teeth, pretends to fight, to struggle the way he thought he would have to, and when that hand falls away he pants in the aftermath, tries to take the measure of this new Vizsla, the man he’s been warned he shouldn’t provoke. He looks like every other Death Watch Jango hasn’t had the privilege of killing yet - cruel, vicious and proud of it.

“He’s shielded, somehow.” The dar’jetii lies, feigning weariness. Is he dar’jetii? It doesn’t seem right, not anymore. “I don’t know who could have possibly trained him, but I can’t-“

He cuts off suddenly with a sharp choked noise, and drops to the floor, back arched and limbs spasming painfully. Jango can guess the reason, even before he sees the small device being slipped back into Zai’s pocket - the remote for a subdermal slave chip, a ‘corrective’ measure for the rebellious or troublesome - and he steps over the jetii’s twitching body as if he isn’t there at all.

Jango is going to kill this man. It was going to happen anyway, but now he’ll make sure to pay attention when it does.

No questions, no warning, Zai just hits him across the face, once and again and again. Stops as if waiting for Jango to say something, to react or retaliate. He doubts the man would dodge as easily as the jetii had, if he spat at him. Jango isn’t afraid of escalating, of the punishment, even getting this man to kill him so Tor Vizsla can’t - it would be a satisfying death, to frustrate him like that. But his buir might still be alive, his clan might have survived the ambush and Jango is obligated to live for them, for any opportunity at victory, as long as he can. Out of the corner of his eye, he can still see the jetii still writhing in pain - the sooner this Zai is done with him, the sooner he might stop torturing what no longer seems to be the Death Watch’s newest pet.

Zai’s hand is in his hair, yanking his head back with a cruel smile. “You think you matter? Clanless. Dar’manda. You think we haven’t broken far better than you?” A slap. “Braver than you?” A second slap. “I’m going to laugh, ad, the day you swear your loyalty to the Kyr’tsad. The day you kneel like the whelp you are, to the true Mand’alor.”

The only monument to your memory will be the pile of Strill sh*t they bury you under. Jango thinks calmly, staring straight ahead. He can feel the tension trembling in the air - Zai wants him to speak, to challenge, displeased when he refuses to offer an easy escalation.

“Don’t think that silence will be enough to save you. I’m allowed to take my time with you. We’re only getting started, and there’s so far to go from here.” The only misstep, Jango’s only mistake - Zai turns, all his pent-up frustration into a fierce kick at the jetii’s chest on his way out of the tent. At least he had to stop the chip to do it, although in the aftermath there’s no sign of movement, the figure on the floor alarmingly still.

Not a jailor, or a torturer. A prisoner of war, just like Jango himself. But if Clan Mereel is still alive, they’ll be looking for him. Who’s looking for this boy?

“Jetii?” He calls softly, to what he hopes is more than a body laying at his feet. Impossible in the dim light, to see if he’s even breathing. He hopes the ad’ika doesn’t come back in, doesn’t have to witness this.

“Kenobi.” The word is weak, whispered to the dirt, and the jetii takes a long moment to roll slowly onto his back. “Obi-Wan Kenobi. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He blinks up at the ceiling, one hand coming to press against his neck, the other against what is - hopefully - only a new bruise on his chest, and he smiles. It’s a weary, tattered thing - not madness, but the small, quiet joy of long endurance, a strength tested and tested and still solid… and mandokarla through and through. The thought comes without warning, from nowhere - but it’s hard for Jango to see any flaw in it. He is stronger now, because this Obi-Wan took the hit in his place.

“Help us, jetii.” He whispers, soft but urgent. “You can’t have any loyalty to these demagolkase. Ally with the Haat Mando’ade.”

At the very kriffing least, they could pull that chip out of him.

A weak sound of amusem*nt. “You know, there are four factions in this valley alone who claim to be some form of Haat Mando’ade. Plus the duch*ess’ claim. And her sister’s counter-claim. And at least three entirely different branches of the Kyr’tsad. All of you, so certain you’re the rightful rulers. Ready to burn your whole system down, to prove how worthy you are.”

Slowly, carefully, Obi-Wan gets to his feet, moving like an old man. Jango’s had a bolt of electricity glance off him once - he’d felt it down to the bone, for hours after. “I’ll try to get you out, if I can, but right now the guards are everywhere. You’d be dead before you were three steps out the door.”

With no armor, no weapons and no idea where he is, it seems likely. For the moment, Jango is less concerned with his own well-being. “How long have you been here?”

Another of those wry smiles. “Long enough.” Obi-Wan finally seems to notice a little of Jango’s baffled dismay, and shrugs. “The Force says this is where I should be.”

Jango considers that for a moment. “The Force sounds like a di’kut shabuir.”

Obi-Wan laughs, a short, sharp bark that seems to surprise even him.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

“Hello, little brother. Long day?” Xanatos steps into the cell with a smile, as Obi-Wan tries to lay on his thin pallet in a way that makes everything ache as little as possible. He’d thought the older boy would be through with him, gone forever once Obi-Wan had disappeared in the mines. Bruck had always lost interest for a while after a decisive win. He didn’t know why Xanatos was different, why he looked at Obi-Wan like there was anything left to take. Obi-Wan’s still afraid, of course, but between the labor and the slight rations and spending any remaining time trying to think of a way out, he doesn’t have the strength to do things like rear back in shock or scramble away. What’s the point, in wasting more energy than it takes to look up? Whatever’s coming, he can’t stop it.

Xanatos is flawless and handsome, richly dressed and appointed, each crease sharp and every highlight polished. The starkest of contrasts to the rusty, worn down caves around them, to Obi-Wan’s ragged, dirty jumpsuit and fourth-hand boots. It matters so much to him, that he seem so untouched by the world, nothing to mar that perfect intent. An odd person for someone like Qui-Gon to care so much about, it seemed - but Obi-Wan is starting to realize just how much there is in the universe that he may not ever begin to understand.

“Did I ever tell you that after my time at the Temple, I developed a bit of a… personal interest in antiquities? Especially those related to the lost empires and republics of old. The Jedi. The Sith.” He’s in a good mood - his tone is conversational, almost cheerful.

This is going to be very bad.

“Over the years, I’ve developed a network of quite… adventurous souls who can be encouraged to track down the most interesting trinkets. I thought that you might take a particular interest in my newest acquisition.”

————

Obi-Wan dusts himself off as best he can, exhaling deeply as he leaves the tent, trying to let as much of the lingering pain go to the Force as possible. It could have been much worse, for the both of them. Mereel’s son isn’t quietly bleeding out from injuries he can't fix, and Zai didn’t add much extra damage to the pile. If no one takes a blaster to him, he’ll survive the night, and though Obi-Wan thinks the plan to turn him to the Kyr’tsad was unlikely even before he had a glimpse inside his mind - stubborn, a solid, unyielding defiance that seemed as easy as breathing - Jango can still work as leverage, or bait.

Or Tor intends to kill him, but only when Jaster will have to watch it happen. An ugly history there between them, Obi-Wan can feel it. Tor would accept significant losses, would make careless choices, if it meant seeing Mereel suffer. That kind of thing can be useful to know.

He swallows, the headache settling down into a well-worn groove in his mind. A side-effect of keeping himself so open, of catching as many of those glancing thoughts as he can. Some are muffled by the beskar, but at least the Death Watch are the kind of Mandalorians who take their helmets off to do things like eating. Many of them have never seen him do anything Force-related - no floating rocks, no impossible feats of agility - and so they’ve forgotten about the rest, if they think it might be real at all. Obi-Wan does what he can to gently encourage those thoughts - the jetii are all myths and lies and talk, nothing compared to the glory of the Mandalorians. Obi-Wan is young, pathetic, unimportant - nothing more than an exotic pet picked up on a whim, that ended up not knowing any interesting tricks.

He’s in one of the bigger Kyr’tsad settlements on this part of the continent - Obi-Wan has a carefully-hidden map, pilfered from the side of camp he’s not supposed to go to, the part with actual rooms for the higher-ranking warriors, the electronics and food storage, fuel for the small fleet of ships. Everything of lesser value sits scattered under mismatched tents and tarps across a dry, open patch of scrub - mainly Obi-Wan, and the younglings.

Nearly a year of survival now in this dwindling place - many things are not worth a second look, not just him. If Melida/Daan had been a molotov, the Mandalorian Civil War is the center of a kriffing sun.

Jango had still been afraid of him, at least at the very beginning - but he’d buried that fear fast enough, like a true Mandalorian would.

The Haat Mando’ade. Obi-Wan’s heard the stories, gleaned the bitter, angry and even envious thoughts of the Kyr’tsad about their greatest rival for the throne. Jaster Mereel, one more Mand’alor for the pile, new ones always popping up with anything even resembling a decisive battle. Mereel has some staying power, though, and at least has more to say than how he’s better than everyone else, that he deserves to rule because he’ll kill anyone who looks at him sideways.

It had been very easy, to feel Jango’s appreciation and admiration for the man who’d adopted him. No fear there - and not just loyalty, but love.

Strong, tall and broad-shouldered enough to block out the sun, to make anyone feel safe. A man who probably wouldn’t abandon him at the first sign that he might not live up to expectations.

That’s not how it happened, Obi-Wan, and you know it. He had been the one to drop the ultimatum, had forced his Master’s hand and it wasn’t like he’d expected some different solution, for Qui-Gon to suddenly work a miracle and make it all okay. Master Tahl had needed help and the Young had needed help and this was what Jedi did, this was what being on a mission might mean for anyone. Obi-Wan had made his choice, and even after everything, even after this he can’t regret it. He tells himself that this is what it is to be a Jedi, whether he is one or not - if it’s hard, that means he’s doing it right.

He tells himself that his Master wasn’t looking for the first good excuse to get away, tries not to think about how whatever thin bond there had been between them snapped like it never was. What does any of that matter now?

————

Obi-Wan has a moment’s warning - a bright flash of excitement in the Force - before there’s a rustle in the tree overhead and Cal’s looking at him upside down, practically nose-to-nose.

“It was him? Really?”

“It was.” Obi-Wan says, and continues moving, hears the younger boy drop out of the tree a moment later. Cal had been set to watching the ade while Obi-Wan had been ‘interrogating’ their new visitor. Usually, the older Death Watch have little interest in the younglings, but Obi-Wan’s skimmed too many thoughts in the camp, watched too many conversations between the warriors slide straight into brutal violence not to be careful.

The ade worked the fields that supplied them with what little fresh food the damaged land could provide, built walls and dug ditches, dismantled any scrap the Death Watch dragged into camp, and started learning the very basics of what it meant to be Mando’ade and Kyr’tsad. Obi-Wan had become a strange sort of creche-master, a position the Kyr’tsad seemed to think was utterly beneath them. Reassuring the new younglings brought to the camp - most crying, some with their parents’ blood on their hands - and keeping them alive and useful. The Death Watch hardly paid attention to anything Obi-Wan told the younglings - certain it didn’t matter, when the next stop would be the indoctrination camps, the real start of their training.

They go away, and Obi-Wan never sees them again. Or maybe he does, but there’s nothing left to recognize.

“So, what was he like? What did he have to say?” Cal says, walking backwards in front of him, dodging whatever’s on the path behind him without a glance. Of course, no one had realized the boy was Force-sensitive until Obi-Wan had arrived. He still hopes that it had been the right move, drawing attention to that fact.

Cal is nearing the age where the Death Watch will start taking a real interest in him. Obi-Wan has told them the Force-sensitive ones aren’t worth the trouble, that Cal and Trilla are all right with simple tasks but he’s not good enough to train them from making bigger mistakes, right when it might matter most. Liabilities on the battlefield, not worth the extra effort of trying to turn into real warriors. Thankfully, so far it seems they’ve believed him, but Obi-Wan doesn’t know how long his luck will last.

“Trilla was out again, she followed me in there. It could have been dangerous.”

Cal sighs. “I really want to say sorry, but do you know where she is right now?”

Obi-Wan scans the area, but even when she’s right in front of him, Trilla’s Force signature is half as strong as anyone else’s, and easily disappears into the background. The only thing that keeps him at all sane is that she’s smart, and always wary. If there is trouble, she will be among the first to know, and the first to keep her head down.

“So, was he cool?”

Obi-Wan blinks, brought up short by the question. He’d spent half the night and most of the day thinking around the problem of Jango Fett be Mereel, before their star prisoner had even arrived. The possibilities and potential dangers and the kind of answers he’d likely need to figure out, very soon. He’d seen a young warrior in pain, and tried to fix that, because it always hurt to see someone hurting and if the Kyr’tsad wanted him weak, it was better to have him strong. Obi-wan wanted to know more about the Haat Mando’ade, this branch that seemed to have a stronger claim to the title than most. If Jaster Mereel had survived that ambush in enough of one piece, he was still a solid contender to claim the title of Mand’alor and actually see it stick. He’d been the one to champion a return to the Code, to want to bring back all the parts of the Mandalorian Empire that gleamed brightest - honor and loyalty and bravery.

But if he won, was there any chance of trusting in all those pretty words? Trusting him with the younglings, the ade?

“Obiiiiiiii.” Cal says softly. The same tone he remembers from the creche, Bant once again annoyed when he’d got lost in thought - but quieter, Cal never really raising his voice. The younglings here are so much like the ones he remembers in Melida/Daan - always aware of the risks, no amount of joy worth attracting attention. “Was. He. Cool?”

“Yes.” He remembers that unflinching determination, the bravery even when he’d thought the Jedi was there to shred his mind to pieces, when he’d thought Obi-Wan was Sith. And he’d almost sounded worried, nearly kind when he’d asked for help, asked Obi-Wan to join their cause. As if it were as much to help Obi-Wan as be helped himself. “Yes. He was very cool. I hear he also broke Tor Vizsla’s nose with his face.”

Obi-Wan says that part quietly. Cal’s eyes go wide, and he giggles even more quietly, the sentiment still clear - oh, they would have paid to see that.

“So… you wanna spar?” Cal says, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. Obi-Wan sighs, tries to ease a little more of his aches away into the Force. It’s impossible to hide the chip, of course, and occasionally Zai will activate it even when he’s nowhere to be seen, just for fun, but Obi-Wan thinks he’s managed to keep the worst of it to himself. What he really wants is to sink into a tub of hot water, and then the plushest bed available, and sleep for a month. Of course, since none of those are options, and Cal can always use more practice, sparring will have to do.

At the Temple he’d taken up Soresu as his first discipline - Obi-Wan had always thought he would branch out from there eventually, curious about the possibilities, delighting in the luxury of patient masters and infinite opportunities…

At least he’d learned it well enough to give Cal a fair view of one style, a solid grounding in the basics. Of course neither of them have lightsabers, just two salvaged durasteel blades, and Obi-Wan can’t truly call his ‘style’ anything, anymore. All his old moves adapted to the new weapon, to unexpected enemies, to whatever he needs to do to survive.

He thinks of it, to himself, as Smashball style, the same way he’s come to think of probably far too many recent applications of the Force - Living Force, Cosmic Force, and Smashball Force. Quin might have liked that idea, might have understood exactly what he means.

The kind of patchwork Force he needs in a war zone, to keep track of the younglings and the Kyr’tsad and any dangerous things they might be thinking, any hint of a warning sign, all at the same time. Inelegant and slapdash and desperate, whatever techniques or lack of technique he needs to keep from taking a blaster bolt to the face and whatever the Force can do to carry rocks or fix a bad irrigation drain, keep him from needing sleep or a meal or anything that the younglings needed more. It wasn’t pretty. It certainly wasn’t anything the Jedi would be impressed by, but it worked for the moment and nobody died.

Not a Knight, barely a Padawan, but still there’s a makeshift bond between himself and Cal, and Trilla - because he needs to know where they are and if they’re safe and if that changes and he can’t bear the thought of not knowing. Non-attachment went out the airlock with Melida/Daan.

The kind of Force that Obi-Wan has to rely on to get him through, when the Light flickers as he reaches for it, when the Dark is always too close, when his eyes are a constant reminder - Jango had certainly noticed - in case he might forget, even for a moment-

“Obi-Wan? You all right?” Cal’s stepped out of his ready stance, watching him with concern.

He makes himself loosen his grip on his weapon, makes himself breathe steady, focuses and lets that fear out into the Force and tries not to care too much about which Force it is.

“Let’s put some work in on your parries, shall we? You can never have a strong enough defense.”

————————————————

The Kyr’tsad ate first. The Kyr’tsad had seconds. If there was anything left after that, the ade were allowed to gather up the scraps. Obi-Wan does scavenger runs outside the camp on occasion, is brought along on raids when there’s too much to return with easily. He can usually supplant their meager supply with a few carefully hidden ration bars, make sure the youngest and the most in need are getting their share. It’s true, too, that the gardens have produced more since he’d arrived than ever before. All the knowledge he’d taken with him from Melida/Daan has served him well. Sometimes, he regrets not having a little more experience with the Agri-Corps. No way to stock any surplus, unfortunately - the Kyr’tsad would just shrink their rations further - but no one’s starving yet.

The Mandalore have a ritual, for naming their remembered dead. Obi-Wan doesn’t know the words - but he does think of Cerasi every day - sorry he couldn’t save her, grateful she’s safe in the Force - and he asks her to keep watching over the younglings.

Obi-Wan had made it only a few weeks off Melida/Daan, with no credits and no plan, before he’d been cornered and captured by pirates who’d traded him to to the Death Watch for safe passage through the system. The history between any Mandalorians and the Jedi wasn’t exactly neutral - and as the saying went, Mandalorians had long memories. Obi-Wan had been dropped in the smallest room on the ship, wrists bound tight in force suppressor cuffs and waiting to be used for target practice.

It had been Tor Vizla himself, who’d finally opened that door, who’d dragged Obi-Wan half-starved and stumbling off the ship and into the dust and toil of his new life.

“I never realized the dar’jetii ade were so… docile.”

“I haven’t Fallen.” Obi-Wan said. He almost regretted it later, that he hadn’t tried to pretend, but he doubts there was any chance of fooling him for long. A man like Tor recognized his own kind. “I’m not dar’jetii.”

“Really? I suppose that will make this easier. ” Tor smiled. It was a terrible smile. “I’m going to take those cuffs off now, because I’m a kind man.”

A kind man who’d put a slave chip in him instead, handed off the control to another man who’d smiled when he took it, and all Obi-Wan could think was first Bandomeer and slavery, then Melida/Daan and war - and now, both at once.

The cuffs had dropped, and Obi-Wan couldn’t help the way his shoulders slumped, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as the Force rose up around him. It wasn’t anything like the Temple, or even Melida/Daan - there wasn’t much life left growing on Mandalore - but the Force was still vibrant and soothing and enough after so long without, and he drank it all in greedily. It was only when Obi-Wan opened his eyes that he saw Tor Vizla watching, saw the disgust - he hadn’t intended to actually be kind.

“You’ll stay here, and do whatever is asked of you, and use those little magic tricks of yours in any ways that might prove useful. In return, we will feed you and shelter you and attempt to teach you the glorious ways of the mandokar. Outside this camp and these fences, there are only lesser clans looking for an easy kill, wild beasts and ruin. If you should try to run away, in spite of our generosity, there will be consequences.”

And Tor Vizla had raised his blaster, and before Obi-Wan could think to move or shout, he’d fired five shots without looking into the group of younglings doing their morning chores.

“Do you understand?”

He’d killed two that day, and wounded two more. Obi-Wan had made his first introductions, helping bury those bodies.

“I understand.”

If Jaster Mereel’s ad dies, there’s a good chance the Haat's Mand’alor will as well, either in the rescue attempt or in taking revenge, and there would be very little left in the way of Tor Vizsla ascending the throne. The future of Mandalore will belong to the Kyr’tsad.

If Jaster Mereel’s ad escapes, Tor Viszla’s rage will be all-consuming, and no one in any camp will be safe.

If Obi-Wan runs, Tor will execute all the younglings, all the ade in the camp. Just because he can.

So he might have been lying to Jango a little, about murdering Tor Vizsla. No, Obi-Wan doesn’t think an assassination will do anything to shift the position of the Kyr’tsad as far as the war goes. If anything it’ll make them more militant, if such a thing is even possible- but there’s also no denying that Vizsla’s a kriffing monster and the day he dies can only be a net gain for the universe.

It’s not a thought worthy of a Jedi, Obi-Wan knows that, but he also knows that if things go karking sideways, too far to be saved - if Obi-Wan fails, and simple violence is the only remaining consolation prize -

He could crush every bone in the man’s body, one-by-one. Work his way from the bottom up, slowly. Make Vizsla truly understand - make him feel all those things he’d put so many others through. What other options were there? All these proud, vile demagolka, the only thing any of them ever understood was pain and there was no changing that. Only hurting them, and hurting them more and hurting them worse until they were too afraid to fight back or they died.

——————

Obi-Wan’s yanked violently out of those thoughts by a presence at his side, light as the smallest bird on the thinnest branch. He opens his eyes to see Trilla watching him, very closely.

“Breathe, ad’ika.” Obi-Wan says, gently. It’s strange, for such a warlike people, Mandalorian endearments can be so warm.

Trilla frowns. “You were thinking about the bad things.”

“I was.” Obi-Wan admits, and holds his arms out for the hug she wants. It always makes his heart twinge, the slight weight of her crashing into him, the totality of her trust. “But now you’re here, and you remind me of all the better things.”

“The woman with the scuffed-up helmet,” Trilla says, after a moment, and Obi-Wan knows who she means, one of the Kyr’tsad couriers who’s often in and out of camp. “She told Zai that she was late because of trouble with the engines, but she was lying. She’s smuggling to one of the other factions, and keeping the money.”

Trilla is the best lie detector he’s ever met, the Jedi Council included. Even when she doesn’t get all the details, she always knows. He doesn’t ask her for information, or to go looking, but Obi-Wan can’t say what she shares hasn’t proven useful. He hates blackmail, the whole idea of the threat - but there are times the younglings need more than he can scrounge together, and that threat’s the only tool he’s got.

“It’s not safe for you to go where the warriors are. You know that.”

“They’re loud.“ Trilla frowns. He’s been working with her on meditating, building her shields as her powers have grown, but Obi-Wan thinks she has some of the same problems he does. If she shields, then she can’t hear everything, and if she can’t hear everything, she might miss when the next danger’s on its way.

“Loud like Jango was loud?”

She shakes her head slightly. Everything she does is slight. “He was nicer. Warm. He worried about me.”

“Did he, now?”

“He didn’t understand why you had yellow eyes, when you didn’t act like a dar’jetti.“ Trilla says. “What’s a dar’jetti?”

Obi-Wan freezes before he can stop himself, and feels Trilla go completely still, her Force signature fading that little bit more. When he’d first found her, it had only been because he’d noticed where the Force wasn’t - a girl-shaped hole.

“Breathe, ad’ika.” Obi-Wan doesn’t ever lie to her, doesn’t hold back information. Trilla might be a youngling but she’s seen enough - too much - and only feels safe when she knows what everyone else knows, the good and the bad.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean to get scared - but the dar’jetti are scary. The same way that Tor Vizsla is scary, except the dar’jetti can do what we can do, too. You remember what I told you, about the Jedi Masters, and how strong they are?”

Trilla nods. He’s told both her and Cal about the Temple, and even if they’re too old for training, Obi-Wan holds out a hope that maybe they’d at least let him bring Trilla there someday, to try to help her. A Mind Healer would be able to do something, surely, give her a better place to anchor besides always wondering if tomorrow would be worse than today.

“The dar’jetti are like that - mighty and powerful and vicious. They use that power to hurt people, to hurt each other, and even themselves.” Xanatos, so strong and arrogant, so sure of himself - and even he had darkness seeping out through countless invisible, hairline fractures.

“They think about the bad things.” Trilla whispers.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, “they do.”

“And he thought you might be bad. Because you look like them.” Trilla looks up at him, curious. “What color were your eyes, before?”

Breathe in. Breathe out. Release it to the Force. Hope the Force is still kriffing listening.

“Blue. They were blue.” Obi-Wan looks for the right words. It’s not a story he’s wanted to tell. “I had an… accident? I was… attacked by something, long ago, and it damaged my sense of the Force.”

Xanatos had done something to him, on Bandomeer. Strangely, Obi-Wan thinks whatever it was had been far more than even he’d intended to do. He remembers the bragging, the mention of some artifact, being escorted to a door and Obi-Wan had felt it then - something dark and crushing and terrible on the other side. He’d tried to get away, but the guards had dragged him closer and the door had opened and - pain. A pain so all-consuming Obi-Wan isn’t sure how he’d survived. Nothing else remains of that day, only a single sliver of memory, a moment where Xanatos had looked utterly terrified - and that was the last he’d ever seen of his Jedi ‘brother’.

Obi-Wan had recovered, of course, waking up in his cell with nothing to show it had happened at all. He’d been fine, by the time help had arrived. If he’d wanted to be Qui-Gon’s padawan, it was in his best interests to be fine.

“At first, it didn’t seem like anything was different. I didn’t notice it. Or… I told myself not to. But then… it got worse.”

He hadn’t said anything to anyone. Maybe he’d imagined it. If there’d been some room with some terrible, dark secret, surely it would have been uncovered in the aftermath. If anything truly dire had happened to him, surely Qui-Gon would have noticed, would have sensed it. Or the Council, and they hadn’t. No one had. So all Obi-Wan had to do was pretend it had never happened, and everything was fine. If it was a little more difficult than before, to sense the Force, to reach out, everything taking that moment longer - he’d learn. He’d get stronger. If there were nightmares, well, he’d always had nightmares, and if these new ones tended to be stranger, linger a little too long after waking - it was fine. He could handle it. He was fine.

And then Melida/Daan. And then he’d been alone.

One more fight like all the rest, where they’d been outmanned and outgunned and it had only been Obi-Wan’s Force powers to turn the tide, a supply run turned ambush turned retreat and it had been exhausting, he’d been exhausted and pulling from the last dregs of his reserves, deflecting the blasts from a pair of grenades and that was so hard, but the alleys had been so narrow, no choice but to let the Force absorb the blow, to let the aftershocks rattle through him and then it was over, and Cerasi had looked at him in confusion and surprise. Are you all right? Your eyes… He thought maybe he’d blown a blood vessel - he’d seen that once at the Temple, it had looked terrifying - but when he’d seen his own reflection, Obi-Wan had frozen, mind completely blank at the impossibility of who - what was looking back at him.

He’d remembered Bandomeer then, and he knew, he knew…

Cerasi had to physically drag him away, that day. He didn’t remember what he’d told her - none of the Young understood what it really meant. However he’d explained it - lied, oh, he’d lied - he doubts she believed him.

Obi-Wan feels a spark of warmth now, an awkward but determined push of strength through their small but tenacious bond, Trilla trying to comfort him - and that she is so determined to try does everything to push away the fear. Has he Fallen now? Is he doomed? Well, maybe, but he’s still alive, Obi-Wan’s still got to live it - and the Young had needed his help and these younglings still do, and maybe he’s the wrong person for it but there’s no one else here.

“You’re very scared.” Trilla says, cautiously. Obi-Wan hugs her again.

“I am scared. I want you and Cal and everyone to be safe, and happy, and I don’t know how to make that happen just yet, and so I worry.” He says. “But that’s part of why we meditate - and why we should sit on Cal next time, and make him meditate too.” Trilla giggles softly. Cal is up for any mad plan or scheme at all times - as long as it doesn’t involve silence and sitting still.

“When it all gets too loud, or when we get scared, we can focus on the Force. We let go of our worries, let go of the questions we don’t have answers for yet. We let the Force flow through us, see how it connects us and everything around us. All that life, always growing, always changing - and we’re a part of that always, and it’s beautiful - so there’s really no reason for fear, is there?”

Trilla shakes her head slowly, and follows him into a simple meditation. Obi-Wan helps her see how strengthen her shields, how to practice letting go, finding peace - it’s so much harder for her than being focused, the sharp and instant concentration of a Jedi three times her age. Obi-Wan leads her through all the basics because, unfortunately, he doesn’t know much more himself. He needs to get her to the Temple, get them both there and even if he’s… damaged, even if he can’t go back maybe they’ll still help. Maybe he can still get them someplace safe.

Obi-Wan thinks about home, about the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and always smiles at the hint of disbelief he can feel from Trilla when he shares the memory - impossible for her to imagine that a place with that much beauty and life and peace could be real. He gives her the feelings of the creche, gives her Master Vant and Bant and Quin - she’d get along with Quinlan Vos like a house on fire, he’s sure of it - and it isn’t here, all that love isn’t here but it’s out there, somewhere, and for now that’s enough.

——————————————

When he’s lucky, Obi-Wan has the last minute of the day entirely for himself, to relax with a cup of tea - or a cup of what he tries very hard to pretend is tea, a mostly-palatable blend of sun-dried bits of what’s left of the local landscape. It is healthy - it tastes entirely of green and slightly different green - and takes the edge off any remaining hunger pangs, but if Obi-Wan does survive all this, he’s never living more than ten feet from a full-service caf-and-tea machine for the rest of his life. He’ll buy a droid full of hot water and a hundred little drawers just to follow him around.

The Kyr’tsad side of the camp is well-lit, warriors drinking or talking or brawling in varying combinations. Most of the younglings preferred the darkness, it drew less attention. He knows that some of them are watching the warriors, though, dreaming of the day they’ll be old enough to join the Kyr’tsad, to live in that place where it’s light and loud and comfortable, where they have strong armor and don’t have to be afraid. It hurts to feel that, to feel their fear of the Death Watch turn into contempt for the weak, contempt for themselves, because it’s the only path forward and the only way they know how to survive.

Do you really have a better idea, Jaster Mereel? Great and Powerful Mand’alor? Are they the Sith, and you’re the Jedi? Or is justall different colors on the same set of armor?

He looks up at the sky, wonders if any of those stars might be Coruscant’s sun. Wonders if he could get close enough to a star map to find out. Sometimes the younglings ask for stories - they had on Melida/Daan as well. Occasionally adventure stories, or myths and legends of the Jedi, but what they’d really wanted to hear about was where he’d come from - the Temple, the vast city-planet, even Bandomeer and the Great Sea. Obi-Wan hopes he uses the right words, hopes it reaches at least a few of them, how truly magnificent the universe is, how beautiful and full of wonders. A place of awe, not something to be cut down and boxed into only what the Kyr’tsad found useful.

Cal murmurs in his sleep, nose scrunching, and Obi-Wan sends out a wave of calm, protection and peace. Lets the feeling stretch out over all of the younglings, giving them a security he can’t ensure in the waking world.

No one’s returned to the tent Jango’s in since he left it. Obi-Wan will have to make sure he’s getting fed, and that they untie him long enough that his muscles remember how to move.

He’d told Jango a second lie - that the Force brought him here, that it has a plan. Obi-Wan believes that it does, he always will - but so far, it has not been at all inclined to share.

Obi-Wan knows he’s slipping, can feel his sense of the Force tangled up in that growing darkness, and it’s always growing and this war only feeds the worst parts of it - the anger and the fear and the hate - and he tries to pull from the Light and hold on, tries to keep his head above water - but how long will that last?

Maybe there was something in the Archives that might have helped, perhaps about the Gray Jedi, except Obi-Wan will never see the Archives again, and all he knows about the Gray Jedi from his lessons was that We Don’t Talk About the Gray Jedi, so that’s of little use.

If he had better access to a com, if he could steal one and make it work, he might even consider calling Quin. It would be such a relief to hear his voice again, or Bant’s, even for a moment, any reminder of a world that was still normal. Except Obi-Wan’s… dangerous now, in ways he doesn’t understand, and anyone who even talks to him would be tainted by association. He wouldn’t do that to them, not for anything.

At least, Obi-Wan thinks, he’s still managing to balance the load, maybe even getting a little bit smarter at keeping it all together. He can sense when he’s tired, when the Dark is going to surge up and snap at his control, take advantage of his exhaustion or the heat of the moment.

In the deepest, silent part of the night, when he’s all alone with his thoughts, Obi-Wan considers just what it means to fall, considers the Dark Side, what it would feel like to give in. Lets himself imagine endless power and limitless domination - but they’re lies, and they’re just ash in his mouth. As if he could reach out where so many others had failed, could grip the universe tightly enough to make it do what he wanted without an utterly absurd loss of life - and still, in a year or a thousand, an inevitable defeat. All empires fell, in the end.

Imagine killing the universe’s next Cerasi, without ever realizing he’d done so. Imagine thinking anything could possibly matter, afterward.

So many things feel so much differently than they did at the Temple, when the situations were all hypothetical, the consequences academic and all the rules clear. Nothing’s clear here, nothing clean. He’s afraid of losing his way, and not even knowing it.

Of course, there’s always the last resort, if he does lose control. Obi-Wan knows he could still turn - he has turned, really - but if it goes any further, if he goes bad…. a blaster or a high enough cliff or one jerk of a sharp blade and it’s a swift return to the Force, or whatever pieces of him it still wants to accept.

It’s hardly what he’d prefer - but he’s too dangerous not to imagine the possibility, not to plan for the worst. Obi-Wan won’t let himself become a threat, not to Cal or Trilla or anyone.

If they hurt the younglings, the Dark says, nothing seductive or charming in it, just a statement of fact, if they hurt the younglings - before we die, we kill them all.

It seems a fair enough compromise.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

The next day begins at what Jango assumes must be after sunrise, because he can’t imagine the lazy Kyr’tsad bastards can find their karking boots, let alone put them on the right feet without a good long time to think about it first.

He tells them that, when they finally let him up for air. It seems that Zai’s contracted this morning out, two scowling Death Watch meatshields who’d do a lot to improve his mood and his view if they’d put their helmets back on.

He tells them that, too, and grins as they shove him under the water again. A lot of things he’d rather be doing than getting half-drowned, of course, but Jango’s fairly decent at holding his breath and this torture is rather unimaginative overall, asking questions between blows and dunkings about where and how the Mand’alor moves his supplies, codes, plans - he stops listening in the middle, and just lets it all happen, lets his body choke and gasp and refuse to answer until they get bored and their arms get tired, and at least by the end he’s slightly more clean.

Jango’s still dripping a little, as annoyed with the places the bindings are digging into his wet clothes as anything that came beforehand, when there’s a slight movement from the front of the tent, just enough to catch his eye, maybe nothing -

“Hello, prudii’ika,” he says quietly, to an empty room, and watches as the girl steps out from exactly the opposite direction that he’d expected. A shame he can’t learn that trick. “Is it safe for you to be here?”

A shrug of one shoulder. “No one looks for me.” The confidence is so offhand, for one so small. He can’t help but smile. “What did you call me?”

“Little shadow.” Jango says. “I think it suits you. What’s your name, then?”

A cup in both hands, and she studies him for a moment, so seriously. “Trilla.”

It’s a test of her bravery, he realizes, to speak with him without her cabur’jetii here to hide behind, no matter how small a threat he might pose at the moment. Courageous little adiik. He wonders if he’s the first prisoner Kenobi has attended to, if she’s had to watch this all play out before. How it might have ended.

“I think you need that more than I do.” He says, as she brings the cup closer, her wrists thin enough that he might be able to wrap one hand around both of them with room to spare, but Trilla only shakes her head, lifts it carefully to his lips.

It’s still a little warm, a kind of breakfast porridge no doubt flavored with whatever had been yesterday’s dinner - but he’s had worse depending on which of his clan thinks they can do the cooking, and it’s hearty, it’ll keep him going for a while. Whatever his reasons, it seems the jetii has an interest in mitigating some of the damage of the Kyr’tsad. An ally, even if Jango doesn’t know yet what he’ll have to pay for it.

“What are you doing there?” Trilla has set the cup aside, crouching down to draw squiggles in the dirt at his feet. “This isn’t a good spot for you to play-“

Jango stops short, as he realizes exactly what he’s looking at, watching her map come together, the lines of the camp - the borders, the buildings, little dots with the press of her thumb for the guard - all spread out before him. The girl has quick answers for all his questions - what kind of guns, what do the rotations look like, when do new ships usually come in? Nearly a third of the camp, full of ade. His buir had been looking for places like this - wherever this is.

“I can get out there, and there, and there.” Trilla points to different places all around the perimeter. “But you’re too big, and there’s things out there that would eat you anyway.”

Given the choice, Jango would still probably take his chances with the beasts. “Do you know where we are in relation to anything else in the area? Any other towns or outposts?”

Trilla shakes her head. Jango tries to imagine it - such a little life, and only knowing this as home.

“Why haven’t you left yet? You and your cabur’jetii?” One slave chip can’t possibly be an insurmountable obstacle, if any of the stories he’s heard of the jetii are at all true.

“If Obi-Wan leaves, they’ll shoot everyone else.” Calm, matter-of-fact. Every day, a new reason to loathe the Kyr’tsad. “And wherever else we go, they’d just shoot us there, too. No place is safe.”

Jango shakes his head. “I know what your cabur might have told you, what he thinks is true - but there are safe places out there, adi’ka. The Haat Mando’ade, most anyone who isn’t Death Watch, we’re nothing like them. We don’t work for slavers. We don’t kill innocents, or hurt or kidnap ade. We would help you, you’d be safe with us.”

Trilla only looks at him, a strange expression in her dark eyes - and then Jango gets his first true understanding of the why the jetii are so distrusted, so feared and even hated, as this tiny slip of an adiik slides right into his mind as if it were her own.

—————————

It doesn’t hurt, but it’s still shocking, disorienting - Jango gasps, tensing, everything in him wanting to lash out immediately, fight back, but he forces the fear under control because Trilla is still an adiik, who might not even know what she’s doing, and he doesn’t know if he could hurt her here without meaning to, he doesn’t want - and then Jango realizes what he’s feeling isn’t even his own fear.

Flickers of memory. Patterns of light through leaves, the shadows of parched and bleached trees that had managed, somehow, to hang on. A bright day, the sound of many footsteps. A group of ade leading the younger adiik, and for a moment he sees them, feels them the way Trilla does, like a jetii must. It’s like looking across a field of wildflowers, each of them unique and beautiful and even more so as a whole, a rich, complex pattern in each moment of connection, glances and whispers and reassuring smiles - but even then, the edges of those looks are all tense with dread.

Jango can see the warriors through the her eyes - at least half a squad, not Death Watch colors or markings, not familiar Ha’at, not anyone he recognizes, guarding this group of adiik, escorting them along the gentle curve of a dry riverbed. Dead grass rustles in the wind, the ade move quietly, careful and wary. He wonders if they’re about to be ambushed, wonders if this is how she was stolen away to the Kyr’tsad.

One of the ramikad is holding her hand, the glove hard and unyielding. He looks up - Trilla looks up - but there’s only a vast expanse of beskar, not even the visor slit of a helm looking back down at her, the figure statue-tall and gleaming in the sun. Indomitable, especially in the eyes of an ad. Jango wants to be proud, but there’s something wrong, some ominous feeling slowly seeping down through it all, a conversation between the squad he’s only catching the barest fragments of - perhaps as much thought as anything said aloud.

“…. do this?”

The hand lets go, gestures her to go join the others, the whole group stopping for no reason Jango can make sense of, the dark edge of the riverbank rising up behind them and that terrible feeling growing and growing.

“What happened back at… already a threat…”

“… assassins… demagolkase… might be a mercy.”

“No point in trying… separate the chaff… whole batch is spoiled. We don’t know when the Kyr’tsad got to them, or for how long. … Not worth the risk.”

No.

The ramikadse step back, and raise their weapons as one to the sounds of startled screams. Not protectors. A firing squad.

No! Jango shouts, or tries to - this can’t be, it goes against everything he knows, everything he was taught, not just from his buir but from the family that was taken from him. The entire reason the Kyr’tsad were the worst kind of monsters, ignoring even those rules that didn’t need to be rules, the core of what they were if they wanted to be anything at all.

But this is a war, and it’s been a long, ugly war and it’s done terrible things to the Mando’ade. Efficiency replaces honor. Convenience overwrites pride. When the Death Watch find victory through viciousness and cruelty and lies, they can rewrite the all rules of engagement.

It’s what his buir has been fighting for - the throne means nothing, the title of Mand’alor is worthless without a return to the Resol'nare - not only a return, but something better than what had been there before. For their own sake, and the sake of the future. The hunt is life, the fight matters - but without the heart, without protecting what needs protecting and honoring what must be honored, the great spirit of Mandalore is a terrible, mad thing, brutal and diseased. Power for the sake of power, with no regard to past or future. Destroying everything around it, a crazed beast that can only devour itself in the end.

Bodies lay scattered across the ground like pieces of a puzzle, that delicate pattern of life and connection just… gone - and his brave prudii’ika had fallen with the others even though she hadn’t been hit. Trilla had fallen when she knew to fall and they hadn’t seen her breathing, she tried so hard not to breathe and they hadn’t seen her and wouldn’t see her and no one would ever, ever see her again no matter how hard they looked.

The wind rustles through the dead grass.

Jango comes back to himself, gasping for air, feeling the wetness on his face from tears that aren’t his.

“Oh, ad’ika.” He murmurs. “Ni ceta, ni ceta. I am so sorry.” The apology seems small, pathetic - no words for that kind of betrayal. He doesn’t want to hurt her again, but wonders if Obi-Wan had ever seen this moment, if he could look through that memory somehow and tell him which clan it had been, gunning down adiik without mercy.

He wishes more than anything that he could just go to her, scoop her up and hold her tight. He wishes his buir were here - Jaster could make anyone feel stronger, make it feel like things would get better even when it felt like the world had stopped spinning, when it seemed like everything had seized up in the worst possible place and nothing would ever move again.

“I know that it’s hard to believe, but there are still safe places out there. People who want to protect you.“

“Obi-Wan protects me.” He can feel it, that fierce belief, devotion that burns as bright a star. Still there, half in Trilla’s memories and watching her pick at the edges of another camp, stomach cramping with hunger, listening to another group of voices who didn’t realize they would be scattered on the ground someday, that everyone would be - and someone had reached out, warm and friendly and curious, brushing her mind with their own. Hello, there. She’d looked up, and he was watching her - seeing her, when no one was supposed to see - and he’d smiled.

“There are people who can protect the both of you.” No one should be alone, forced to try and stand against the world. Another rule that shouldn’t need to be one.

The girl nods, but it’s a polite thing she doesn’t really mean, and Trilla picks up the cup and sweeps her foot over the map in the dust, until it’s as if it was never there, and the second before he expects her to disappear, she’s already gone.

It’s almost a relief, when the overstuffed, no-necked Kyr’tsad comes in flexing for the late-morning beating. Jango needs the distraction.

—————————————

Obi-Wan doesn’t want to use Trilla to keep an eye on Jango, to try and keep him at least partly fed. Doesn’t want to - never wants to - risk her, but it is true that of all of them, no one will notice if she’s not around, and he has the feeling if he tried to forbid it, she’d just do it anyway. Whatever expression it was that his creche-master used to make him respect the rules, Obi-Wan does not have seem to have acquired the same talent.

I think you may also be misremembering how you felt about rules.

It’s roof day, and even though it’s only begun to tip toward noon, the sun is already searing. The Death Watch camp is tucked into the upper third of the valley, narrow enough for the cliffs to provide some defense, but the winds that sweep through still scour everything and the buildings need to be recoated too often with… Obi-Wan’s not entirely sure what it is, has never been interested in finding out. A mix of pale ash and some kind of paint that reflects the light, matches the pre-fab structures to the color of the valley floor, a camouflage that keeps them from being as easily scouted from overhead. He’s not sure he really believes it, thinks that if the entire purpose was just to keep them filthy and exhausted, the Kyr’tsad would do it anyway

It’s a messy business, and hard to keep the ash out of his lungs, even with the scrap of fabric tied tight around his nose and mouth, and Obi-Wan takes a moment to survey the other rooftops, that little ping of the Force that lets him know how everyone else is faring - if anyone’s feeling light-headed, in danger of falling. No water rations until they finish, of course, or else they wouldn’t work as hard. Obi-Wan feels a soft ping come back to him from Cal, nothing of substance, only recognition - and a sudden tremble in the Force from Trilla, unsteady and sad. He doesn’t look toward her, just reaches out for a stronger connection - weariness, a sense of old sorrow, but no new danger - and Obi-Wan sends comfort, reassurance -

The pain runs through him in a searing jolt, drops him to one knee. Zai must have noticed from afar that he’d paused in his efforts, giving him a gentle reminder. Obi-Wan gets up, doesn’t bother looking up, brushes off an ash-covered hand on the cleanest bit of cloth he can find.

Someday, I’m going to make him eat that thing. In the heat and the dust, Obi-Wan can’t honestly tell if that comes from the Dark or not.

He reaches out for the bucket of ash, to drag it across to the next empty patch, when a familiar klaxon sounds from the other side of camp - three short bursts, and the sound of one of the transports already humming to life. He feels the spark of excitement from Cal, half-climbing and half-launching himself off his own roof as Obi-Wan moves to follow.

Scavenger run.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Tor Vizsla speaks at length to his loyal armada about the power and the inevitability of the Death Watch, their domination over the lesser, unworthy houses and clans - over the lesser galaxy at large, when the mood takes him. Jaster Mereel’s name hangs loud and obvious in the spaces between words, the backdrop to each victorious diatribe, Tor’s refusal to acknowledge what everyone already knows.

Still unclear if Mereel lives and if so, if he’s fighting fit. Montross, however, is definitively very dead, and Vizsla isn’t going to get a better shot than that.

The war is system-wide, and Obi-Wan knows that most of the high-profile battles are on other planets, more valuable targets. Apart from the past few, noteworthy days there aren’t any items of particular importance in their camp, no tactical advantage or significant priority. If anything, it seems to mostly be a storehouse for things Vizsla thinks might prove worthy at some future date, odds-and-ends snatched up and discarded at a whim. Sometimes, it seems he forgets about what’s not right in front of him, and Obi-Wan isn’t the only one in camp who does his best not to be a reminder.

Still, there is something to the fact that Vizsla acts as if the war has all but already been won, always has - but for as long as Obi-Wan has been a part of the camp, it’s been expected to pull its own weight. Nothing but the most minimal of investments compared to the more important Death Watch installations, and scavenger runs still take precedence over everything else.

It’s been a while, since anything’s been shot down near enough for them to reach it - commerce still moving throughout the system, of course, but usually in larger caravans that pay for heavy protection, and in routes that keep them away from asteroid fields, smaller moons, anywhere that might prove a good ambush point. Anyone that doesn’t want to pay or thinks they’re clever or even accidentally slips outside the lines, though, has a whole system full of ships ready to move in for the kill.

The fighting isn’t all Mandalorian, especially out in orbit, though any freelancers or pirates looking for a profit tend to make themselves scarce at the first sign of retaliation. Obi-Wan has even heard of warring clans teaming up just long enough to make work of any outsiders - nothing brings Mandalorians together like hating someone else more. He wonders if that’s the sort of skirmish that happened this time, some pirates getting lucky enough to snag a ship but not lucky enough to avoid detection, the ship eluding the scavengers above just long enough to plummet onto a planet of eager, armed gundarks.

Obi-Wan grabs his sword and Cal’s and rushes for the gunship, jumping aboard just as it’s about to lift off. A full patrol today - two parts Death Watch, one part anyone old enough to want to be one, right on the cusp of disappearing down the hole of indoctrination.

Obi-Wan’s not sure which ones hurt more to lose, the ones who don’t want to go or the ones who do - most of those on board this ship now are the latter. Here to make a point, to try and stand out to the Death Watch. Maybe it improves their chances of success or survival, Obi-Wan doesn’t know, but he’s seen a few of them congregating at the edges of the buildings now and then - fighting each other for the amusem*nt of the older warriors, occasionally scoring a drink or a hit of spice.

Obi-Wan can feel the Light in them draining away, little flickers in the Force going dull and dim long before the ships come to take them, so they can go die for Tor’s so-called glory.

The transport roars across the barren land at breathtaking speed, testing his balance with every jolt. It’s dangerous being out here, as easy to end up the scavenged as the scavengers, and the only ones wearing any kind of armor, with any kind of real firepower are the Death Watch, a handful of knives and other makeshift melee weapons all the rest of them can count on.

Cal’s grinning, though, and Obi-Wan can’t help but feel a little lighter, sharper too. The trips out are one of the only things that break up the monotony of the camp, and though there’s obligations in the haul, expectations that most of what they get goes back to the Death Watch, there’s also the opportunity for a little personal gain if they’re fast enough, the chance for anything approaching luxuries.

The smoke’s visible long before there’s any sight of the crash - a larger cargo ship than any he’s seen yet planetside, and the pilot either hadn’t had control or couldn’t see the difference in the landscape, what must have looked uniform from above was actually an uneven maze of low stone formations that had shredded the ship when it hit, tossing the wreckage and cargo in every direction.

Obi-Wan shuts his eyes for a moment, reaches out, searching - and there’s activity, but it’s all focused and intent - other clans who’d beaten them here, setting up claims and counter-claims. No one panicking or confused or hurt, no crew alive - and he’s been lucky so far, for a certain definition of luck, the ships they’ve hit either with small crews that had all died on impact, or who’d been killed by someone else before the Kyr’tsad had arrived. Only once had there been a live pilot, but they’d locked themselves in a safe room, and the scavengers been chased away before they could make any serious attempt to breach the doors, more interested in the cargo scattered around them.

If that day does come, when Obi-Wan has to choose between the camp and someone out here, someone afraid and in trouble -

“Coming in hot! Get kriffing gone!” The pilot lets loose a barrage of cover fire, and Obi-Wan’s already out the door, Cal behind him and a few blaster bolts in the sand around them before the Death Watch drops in from behind and starts firing back and he tries not to be grateful for it, to be glad he’s on their side for this.

It’s all familiar enough, the way it had been on Melida/Daan - fast and quiet through narrow passageways, a difference only of smooth stone instead of city streets, but still the same lack of equipment, no com-links and no sensors. A field of chaos and explosions and searching for the best crumbs while trying not to get blasted by everyone else here doing the exact same thing.

It’s hard to tell just how many factions are out here today, drawn to the wreckage - Obi-Wan can get a sense of more minds blurred by beskar armor than he’s at all comfortable with, and nearly as many without, those brighter and easier to dodge around, Cal silent behind him. They’d had a decent look from the air, enough to see that most everything that was more intact and less on fire had slid to the back side of the canyon, furthest from where they’d touched down. The whole group had split up, the minute they hit sand, everyone for themselves and -

Obi-Wan gasps, stumbles slightly as he feels one of those bright lights suddenly burst. The sharp shock of pain, a spear through his chest for a moment, an agony he can’t breathe around even though his hand comes away clean. He can’t-

“Obi?” Cal at his elbow, but Obi-Wan shakes his head, gestures him forward as he tries to recover. It’s always a kriffing nightmare, he needs his shields down for the best view of the field, the best chance of knowing where the danger will come from - but every death broadsides him this way, and there has to be a Jedi trick for it, something to make it hurt less, but he never had the time to learn, there’s just -

Terror and confusion and panic and desperation.

The Force is with you. The first thing he can think of, a flicker of long-ago comfort. Obi-Wan reaches out for that last moment, that last breath and takes it with them. So that they’re not alone, and there’s something other than fear. You are one with the Force. The Force is with you. You are-

Gone. Whoever they were.

A matter of moments, and by the time Obi-Wan looks up, Cal is already halfway through slicing the door. The one thing he’s never been more than adequate at, even after taking tips and training from the more skilled Young on Melida/Daan - and Cal is the match to any of them. He swears that he can feel all those wires and connections through the Force, like any other living thing - but whatever that might be, Obi-Wan’s never had the same knack.

A sliding scale of plunder, between what the Death Watch are interested in and what Obi-Wan hopes he can find. The best case scenario is a mix of both. He knows they’re slightly hindered for working together rather than covering more ground alone - but Obi-Wan’s not about to let Cal out of his sight here. Grabs his collar and tugs him back even as the door opens onto half of a hallway and then more valley, and a firefight breaks out in front of them, Mandalorians squaring off. They dart down a side-passage, unseen, away from the battle and through a cloud of acrid smoke. Obi-Wan glances up, confused for a moment, the sky suddenly replaced with ceiling that’s actually floor, an entire section of the ship torn from the main, flipped and arcing overhead.

Beskar is always at the top of the list, although they were nowhere near the supply routes for that to ever be likely. The Death Watch liked valuables, a vast array of expensive ship parts or the ones that wore out the fastest, nav codes for the ships routes, anything used for shipment tracking, information that could be exploited for a better haul next time. Obi-Wan’s needs were far simpler - food, as light to carry and calorie-heavy and easy to hide as he could find, and medical supplies. There were times on Melida/Daan when it seemed like stolen bacta strips had been the only thing holding the Young together. And now there’s Jango to consider, and he’d like to hope that Vizsla will take some small care with his most valuable prisoner but Obi-Wan knows better.

A few things to snatch up here and there from the wreckage as they go. If any of them find a real treasure trove, more than they can move, they’ve been given a flare to send up, and maybe the Death Watch will swoop down to cover a longer retrieval. Unless another faction that finds them first. Usually, hostilities aren’t much above a steady skirmish, everyone keeping each other on their toes until they’ve claimed a piece of the carcass, but if the wrong parts of the wrong clans notice each other at the wrong moment, things can get very bloody very fast.

And if they take too long, or things get too hot, the Death Watch transport will leave without them, abandon them like chaff to be captured or killed. If all the transports leave, they’ll most likely die of thirst before they can find anything else in the wasteland that stretches across the better part of Mandalore.

Nothing in the maze of rock and twisted metal is anything like a straight shot, Obi-Wan following Cal through a passageway that tips on the diagonal halfway up, bent by the narrow canyon and leaving them half-climbing, a quick jump from point to point and from there a jump to the next section of the ship. Open sky in between and the Mandalorians fighting each other in midair - disappearing again, as they drop into another jagged canyon laced with sparks of electricity, the stink of coolant.

Obi-Wan catches sight of a tool sticking half out of the sand, drops it in the pack - it’ll be useful somehow, to someone, or they can pry it apart and make something useful. Cal scoops up half a shelf of food that had stayed strapped against the wall, dried noodles and other ration packs and not enough, none of this is going to be what they need to justify the haul, to satisfy the Kyr’tsad.

On his first run, they’d told him if he didn’t bring enough back, they’d fly a little higher before they dumped him out. Obi-Wan thinks it was just to scare him. Hopes it was.

Another door blocks their way through the next valley, surrounded by burning wreckage but the Force doesn’t spike in warning, when Cal finishes the slice and Obi-Wan steps forward to open it, only to be met with a blank stone wall. Cal curses - more time they can’t afford, to find a way around and through and then another door, and just as Obi-Wan realizes there’s someone behind it, it slides open with a hiss -

One more room in pieces, more equipment scattered across the stone and sand - bandages, smashed vials - and another scavenger, not one of theirs, just hoisting a full bag onto his back. He freezes when he sees them - face mostly hidden by a scarf to keep the sun out, but Obi-Wan can see wide eyes and thin-fingered hands on a makeshift knife and feel his fear of being outnumbered - always outnumbered - and what’s going to happen next.

“That’s a lot of supplies.” Cal murmurs, his voice almost a growl - and Obi-Wan shuts his eyes at the sense of triumph that comes through the bond.

“I know.”

“We can take him.”

“But we won’t.” Obi-Wan says, because this, right here? This is the Dark Side, just as evil as any grand design. The predatory need is petty and small and maybe even justified - and that’s what makes it so easy. Obi-Wan can feel it, frustration and weariness and anger, for things to just be easy for once, not to risk punishment if they can’t find anything better, and this is a simple solution and they don’t have time- and Cal’s emotions are a match to his own.

“But, Obi-“

Desperation from the scavenger, because he needs what he’s found, needs it badly - so do we! Cal snaps back in his mind, hard enough that Obi-Wan almost reels from it.

“We won’t. Because that’s not who we are.”

He doesn’t move, more grateful than he can say when Cal doesn’t move either. Once the other boy realizes they’re not going to attack him, or stop him, he turns on his heel, gone in an instant.

“Sorry.” Cal says after a moment, the tension broken, shame flooding in. “I’m… I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I understand.” Maybe there should be a lecture here, maybe a better Jedi would give one, but Obi-Wan isn’t and there’s no time. He allows himself a breath to get back under control, all of his training to make that lingering darkness bend and fold and vanish, at least in what he’s projecting. He needs to find peace and assurance and certainty, for Cal’s sake if nothing else.

Obi-Wan catches a glimpse of something useful, reaches down for a bottle of water, half-hidden under a broken chair, takes a drink and tosses it to Cal who drains the rest almost in a single swallow, and they’re off again.

A few more turns, a staircase to nowhere and another one ripped in half, a quick slide across steep stone and Cal lets out a soft sound of victory, the largest part of the ship they’ve seen yet that’s still in one piece, and a door that certainly looks like it’s protecting something worth the effort.

The problem with keeping his shields down is that Obi-Wan only has so much focus left over for everything else. It’s good at keeping track of what’s closest to him, any imminent threats, but only when those threats are alive. Cal’s focus is fixed on the door and there’s only the slightest warning, a hiss and whisper of metal-against-metal as much as anything in the Force and it’s only Obi-Wan’s reflexes that keep the droid’s arm from spiking through him, tearing him in half then and there.

“Cal!” The both of them dart for cover, as a spray of slugs pings against metal and stone.

He wishes he’d defied Qui-Gon, and kept his lightsaber. Obi-Wan regrets being that stupid, letting that be his last moment of obedience and it isn’t pride or spite but simply that it was a better weapon than any other option he’ll ever have again, everything he’s picked up after either osik or even duller osik.

It’s exhausting, fighting droids - trying to fight droids - and they’ve just been fortunate that there are never many around, anything with any real firepower out on the front lines, fighting in more important battles and he’s not sure if this one belongs to one of the other groups of Mandalorians or is some sort of defensive measure for the ship and it doesn’t really matter as much as that it’s thick-plated, and whatever parts of it aren’t blasters or slugthrowers are arms like whips that can move with bone-shattering speed, sending up a crunch of stone and dust as Cal dodges out of the way.

Obi-Wan’s watched wild birds tease a strill before, one attracting its attention while the other pulled at its tail, and he and Cal work much along the same lines, darting and ducking, never giving the machine a chance at a still target as it swivels and maneuvers and strikes.

“Obi!” Cal flicks a blade up, and he catches it midair with the Force and pulls, hard as he can, dragging the steel through the droid’s body, out the other side and into his hand and it would feel more satisfying if it seemed to slow the karking thing down at all.

He lets it go low, feels Cal catch it and drag, and they keep dodging and weaving, punching half a dozen more holes in the machine before it hits the blade with a limb on its way out, knocks it pinging across the rocks and out of sight, nearly taking Cal’s head off with the backswing.

Obi-Wan’s first blow with his sword only glances off, not strong enough by half, but when Cal gets its attention again he aims for a joint in one of the arms, pushes hard with the Force and feels the metal give - and Obi-Wan pulls and twists and pulls, tangling as much of the inner mechanisms around the blade as the Force can manage.

An arm slams into him, knocking him off and Obi-Wan drops and rolls to the side, hearing another spray of fire patter in the ground behind him - and Cal leaps forward, full weight on the blade and his own Force power putting everything he can behind the shove, eviscerating the machine. One long screech, and the limbs all go limp, the droid’s metal legs folding underneath it. Obi-Wan carefully slides his sword out, amazed the blade hadn’t snapped in half.

No time to celebrate, by the time he meets Cal’s eyes the other boy is already moving to the slug-pocked door and every moment he spends slicing seems to stretch out painfully long - so far, whatever’s occupying the Mandalorians is keeping the bulk of the fight from this side of the field, but they’d just made a lot of noise and can’t have been the only ones to notice this section of the ship and it’s not safe to stay in any place for too long -

The door slides open. Cal lets out a triumphant little hiss. “Oya.”

The room’s not that large, but it’s where they kept the good stuff, and there’s still more than they can carry. Obi-Wan will probably light his flare on the way out, can feel a few of the other scavengers from the transport close enough, that it’s worth the risk.

He feels a pang of regret as he digs his sword into the first box and pops it open - a crate full of scrolls and artifacts that look very old, carefully preserved. Exactly the kind of thing that he’d want to save first, in another life - and he carefully moves it to the back wall. Maybe no one else will bother it, maybe someone else will come and look for it later.

The rest is, thankfully, more useful in the now. Medical supplies - the good kind, everything sealed, the bacta undiluted - and soft towels and fabric that can be repurposed into damn near anything. Half a box of fancy lotions to help with the constant burns from the wind and sun, and even fancier food that will eat just as well as the regular stuff. It would have been ideal to find some weapons - a new knife, at the least - but it doesn’t look like they’re going to be that lucky. Cal still grins as he cracks the lockbox, revealing a decent cache of Mandalorian credits - enough to pay the Death Watch to look the other way on the rest, to make them indifferent to lesser spoils. Enough, even, to try and skim a few off the top.

They’ve got a cache, small and well hidden, though money is of little use to them at the moment, and Obi-Wan knows how little it really is, the likelihood it’ll do any good at all - but it’s something, and it gives Cal enough to keep going. The thought that he’s making plans for after, the chance to dream of something better than this, that someday they’ll be able to fly away and not look back. Obi-Wan doesn’t know how it’s going to happen, or how to get them there, but he’ll never do anything to damage that hope.

“You think we should try for the command bridge? Press our luck?” Cal says. “We’ve got to be close, and if I can slice into-“

The Force spikes a sudden warning, the sharpest one yet, and he feels the echo of Cal’s concern and confusion - he felt it too. Obi-Wan keeps himself close to the edge of the door as he looks out over the slope of the canyon below, ready to duck back at the first attack, waiting for the vibrations of some approaching craft, for a new barrage of blaster fire, or -

A suit of blue armor dropping out of the clear sky, directly toward their position.

“Kryze!” A shout in the distance - it doesn’t really matter who, this is no one’s idea of a fun escalation. Obi-Wan can only imagine the creative cursing filling up the comms. “It’s karking Clan Kryze!”

And in the distance, a series of dull, concussive thuds that slam into the ground beyond the canyons, back the way they’d come - and the Death Watch transport that brought them here suddenly explodes in an oil-tinged fireball.

Oh, yes. Obi-Wan thinks, as the Force continues to blare like a klaxon. Yes, that would do it.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Bo-Katan Kryze wages war like there’s a shortage on violence, and if she doesn’t hurry they might run out. Her presence in the Force has all the restraint of an impatient hurricane or a blade on fire. A warrior backed by a clan that’s been successful enough in this war to not worry about concepts like counting the ammunition.

Making up with interest, for the half of House Kryze that refuses to fight.

Bo-Katan wages war like someone who used to be an ally of the Kyr’tsad, and has since decided to atone for that decision with excessive firepower and extreme prejudice.

Obi-Wan doesn’t know what happened there, only that it involved an attempt on the young duch*ess’ life - her sister either an unknowing or ultimately unwilling assassin. It didn’t result in any actual reconciliation, as far as he knows - Clan Kryze is still in stark opposition to the New Mandalorian agenda - she just hates the Kyr’tsad even more.

Mandalorian politics at its most refined.

They’ve run into factions of Clan Kryze on scavenging runs before - nothing recent, thankfully, and until now, at a distance enough to keep from being noticed. It had always been late enough in a run to take their spoils and run, and there’s never been sign of that blue armor.

The fun of trying to survive a strike by Bo-Katan herself is that her tactics are never the same twice, and there’s no way of knowing if her opening salvo will be a surgical strike, or obliterating half the field with an artillery barrage before bothering to unholster her blaster. Or bombing what she’s already bombed a couple more times, just in case anyone might have missed the point.

“What do we do?” Cal says.

“Steal a jetpack?” Sometimes, even Obi-Wan has to admit he leans a bit too hard on nonchalance in the face of blind terror. Cal blinks at him.

“Obi, what do we do?”

“I’m working on it. We need to move.”

The transport’s gone, and he has no idea how many of the Death Watch, or the scavengers, went up with it. Obi-Wan can’t drop his shields anymore, too many people getting hurt too fast for it not to overwhelm him. He can see more of Kryze’s fighters dropping in to engage with the Mandalorians on the ground - at least that seems to have stopped the bigger guns from carving new holes in the scenery.

He crouches down in the jagged curve of a roof plate on a narrow overlook, trying to get a sense of the battle. At least one group seems to have dug in against Kryze, determined to defend their haul, blasts of heavy, concentrated fire off to their right. Obi-Wan can see the dust trails of at least two more groups doing their best to cut and run - chased down by Mandalorians in jetpacks who manage to land a shot that sends one of the ships skidding into a valley and a swift, fiery stop, the other ship cutting a wide arc, gunning it for open land. Who knows if this fight’s going to draw anyone else’s attention - they need to not be here anymore.

Obi-Wan keeps looking, scouring the landscape, any sign at all of - speeders, more than one tucked into a crevice in a low stretch of hills. New plan - take them, get far away from here, circle back to the Death Watch camp at night. It’s not the safest move - the terrain wasn’t exactly even between here and there, and they’d have to cross through the territories that may or may not belong to a few different groups - but maybe at least one of those was here now, being pinned down and taken apart by Clan Kryze.

Bo-Katan wasn’t known for claiming territory, preferring to hit-and-run, looting her way through her enemies and leaving whatever was left stunned and gasping in the wreckage. Still enough to be salvaged in this ship that if they abandon it - two little scavengers on two little bikes - even if Kryze notices, they probably won’t bother with the chase. Probably.

The packs they’re carrying are as patched together as everything else, but altered and adjusted so that even full, everything inside is strapped down and makes no sound. Cal is just as silent behind him, stepping where he steps, freezing when Obi-Wan feels something pass just overhead, or when there’s a sudden flick of a shadow in the brightness of a side passage.

A narrow gap between boulders opens up on the wreckage of a large meeting room, a handful of other scavengers of all types turning in a panic at their arrival, each one tucked behind a different makeshift barrier, each carrying their own spoils, some more successful than others. All of them flinching from every explosion, trying to track what’s happening above and around them.

A momentary restructuring of alliances, between the ones with high-powered munitions and the ones without.

“Obi-Wan!” A soft hiss - one of theirs - Vyrelli, he thinks, bracing himself behind a half-melted table. A Besalisk boy who’d managed to get in with the ships’ mechanics enough to do their grunt work most days. Obi-Wan had hoped it might keep him out of the camps, learning their trade instead. He’s not meant for fighting, though his pack is stuffed with no-doubt useful bits of scrap. “What do we do? The ship…”

“Speeders.” Obi-Wan says quietly, with a pang in his heart because there’s not enough of them for everyone in here, because they’re afraid and he can’t save them, he barely has half a plan to save himself and Cal and-

The ceiling above them is ripped away in a sudden scream of metal, and Obi-Wan doesn’t see the thermal detonator dropping so much as a flash of light and an arc that’s been burned into his muscle memory - they’d been popular in Melida-Daan on both sides, and as much reflex as thought to Force push as hard as he can, but even as it explodes safely away from them, there’s the sound of more gunfire, coming closer and fast -

“It’s Vizsla.” Cal says from off on his left, staring through a window in what’s left of the wall, “I think I see - kriff, I think they sent another ship. Reinforcements. We’ve just got to -”

Obi-Wan is turning to look, when the line wraps around his ankle, and he’s dragged up, Cal’s cry of panic swiftly fading in the open air.

—————

It was hard not to admire, at least, the tenacity of the Mandalorian style of combat, the sheer refusal to give up or give in. Certainly, they trained like anyone else, proficient in any number of common weapons and styles - but no weapon was ever too obscure to be useful, and nothing couldn’t be repurposed into one, should the situation require it. A Mandalorian would fight, and fight, and fight, until all their initial options were exhausted, until they’d been backed into a corner - and then they’d fight some more, until the hidden knives and spare explosives and backup blasters were spent - and then, if there was anything left to stand against them, they’d show what they could really do.

The Mandalorians had faced off against the Jedi en masse, in ancient battles long ago. Obi-Wan can’t even imagine what that must have looked like.

Which does not mean he’d been hoping for his own personal re-enactment with Bo-Katan Kryze.

The battle stretches out below him, flickers of near-constant blaster fire almost pretty against the pale wreckage and bleached stones as she drags him higher and higher.

“Anything to share, Kyr’tsad? Tell me now and maybe I won’t drop you from low orbit.”

Bo-Katan thinks she’s got him where she wants him, nothing he can do but dangle there and be threatened until she decides otherwise - only a fool would try to attack her in midair, when only one of them is in a jetpack.

Obi-Wan looks up, judging the odds of the stupid, stupid kriffing thing he’s absolutely going to do, just as she looks down, and he thinks he feels her tense, or some sense even through the Beskar, when she realizes the catch she’s landed isn’t at all what she expected.

He swings himself up, sees her go for the blaster as he hooks a foot in the loop he’d created in the line and pushes with the Force, leaping, and the physics of it is a tangled mess, dragging her down as much as pulling himself up, but he gets a hand on her boot, rewarded with a kick that glances off, isn’t enough to dislodge him, and a shot that goes wide. Bo-Katan is cursing at him, and he hears it in there somewhere - dar’jetii - and Obi-Wan curses back as the exhaust from her jetpack sears a wide line across his arm as she rolls in midair, trying to throw him off, but he finds what he’s looking for - his own blade is too dull to be useful against the line, but the knife she’s carrying won’t be, tucked in a compartment behind her calf where every Mandalorian he’s seen seems to keep one.

Obi-Wan lets go, Force pushes against her even as he swipes, cutting the line and then it’s all freefall. Higher than he thought it would be, but it’ll be fine, a Force push against the ground just before he hits - he’s done it before, maybe not quite from this high up -

Cal? Obi-Wan reaches, feels fear and surprise and relief -

Obi-

A flash of pain, and then nothing. He’s not dead - Obi-Wan would feel that, he would - but he’s not answering either, and suddenly Obi-Wan needs to get to the ground much faster than he already is.

He Force pushes sideways as much as down just before impact, a rough skip across the ground that lets him roll with the momentum, has him up into a run toward Cal’s last position that lasts all of five seconds before a cluster of blaster fire has him darting to the side, Bo-Katan back and firing from above.

Obi-Wan pulls his sword, deflects the first and second bolts but the blade can barely handle it, cheap durasteel that’s already glowing from the hits, and another bolt turns his osik blade into an osik dagger and Obi-Wan throws it, knows Bo-Katan will dodge but pulls hard with the Force the moment it’s passed behind her, snaps the end of the jagged metal into her jetpack, enough to drop her out of the sky. Bo-Katan abandons it, a few feet from the ground, a quick tuck and roll and she comes up shooting.

“Whatever treachery you’re planning, dar’jetti, it ends now.“

The fights between the Mandalorians and the Jedi of old must have been amazing demonstrations of agility, power and grace, the best in the galaxy at the top of their game.

Bo-Katan fires her blasters. Obi-Wan throws every rock he can find.

He manages to knock the left blaster out of her hand, unsurprised when she immediately pulls a spare - death before disarmament - but he manages to deal with that one, too, using another bit of stone to shield him from her increasingly accurate shots. Thankfully, it seems she might have already exhausted a few of her more exotic weapons on other enemies already. Obi-Wan’s starting to feel the drain of all that Force use, not that there’s much that he can do about it - Cal, you have to find Cal…

Bo-Katan finally loses patience trying to kill him at a distance, switches out to some kind of baton - electrified baton, because he doesn’t have enough of that in his life already - closing the space between them in moments, and it’s all he can do to dodge, barely avoiding each strike - what kind of idiot gives back his lightsaber - but she finally catches him in the side, the surge of pain enough to drop him to one knee, and he sees her pull back for the final blow.

“No more tricks, jetii.”

“One more trick.” Obi-Wan flicks out a hand and she turns sharply to block - a harmless puff of dust, while the rock he’d been holding in reserve smashes into her helmet from the other side. Bo-Katan staggers - it must have been enough to damage her display, the helmet comes off and she’s ready to lash out but Obi-Wan’s already out of the way, with the blaster she’d dropped now pointed at her head.

Bo-Katan turns to look at him - glare at him, just to let him know she’s not afraid of the end. Only fury there, that same wall of adamant defiance he’d felt from Jango - and nothing worse. Nothing vicious like Tor or Zai, not vengeful and bitter like the worst of Melida/Daan or even the bored, casual cruelty of Bandomeer, because for all she might want him dead, she is not his enemy.

“In my defense, I really was just trying to stay out of your way.” Obi-Wan says. “My apologies.”

The Force suggestion is just about as subtle as that rock to the helmet, but it’s only the option he has that won’t hurt her, and Bo-Katan drops where she stands. It won’t last long, but Obi-Wan doesn’t need long, he just needs to find Cal and get them out of here and -

When it happens, it’s not a thought. It’s not really even a choice. He’s running again, following the trail in his mind that might be quiet, too still but still there, which means Cal is still alive - and then Obi-Wan crests a short hill and sees him, and Cal is not moving and there’s a Mandalorian standing over him, weapon drawn, and these kriffing murderous zealot lunatics and their worthless, meaningless karking war think that they have any right -

“Get AWAY FROM HIM.”

The lightning surges out from him with a crack like a whip, hits the Mandalorian harder than Obi-Wan has ever hit another living thing, tossed across the sand like a crumpled bit of scrap, landing the wreckage with a crash, flashes of lightning arcing across the metal - something explodes further in, and there’s an uncurling in him, a feeling of satisfied pride -well, that’s more like it- even as Obi-Wan stares at his extended hand in horror.

He might just stand there forever, let whatever’s next just roll right over him - but this isn’t just about his life, and that’s what finally gets him stumbling forward again.

“Cal. Cal?”

Still bright in the Force, safe and alive. Whatever Obi-Wan had done hadn’t hit him by accident, still just a little stunned and quickly blinking that away.

“Mnnh?”

“Come on, we have to go. It’s not safe here.” Obi-Wan gets him up, an arm over his shoulder, using the Force to make up for what he can’t carry as if that’s any less exhausting.

Maybe you’re not the best judge anymore, of what’s ‘safe’?

Shut up. His heart’s thudding hard enough that it feels like it’s trying to crawl up his throat.

Lightning. That was Force lightning. You think you killed whoever that was? I bet you did. Maybe even more, if that explosion-

Shut up. It wasn’t- Obi-Wan tries to lock down the rising panic, not that surprising when it refuses to budge. It has evidence, now.

Hey, so guess who else uses-

Shut up. Shut up.

Obi-Wan can’t even tell himself it wasn’t the Dark - not when it’s right there, stirred up and eager and waiting and if he wanted, if he just let himself reach out and take what was right in front of him, it could do so much more.

Do you really think you’re still in control here?

He knows the stories. Everyone does. They used to talk about them at night, in the creche. Fallen Jedi. Sith. The only difference that one of them got a training manual. And the Jedi talked about coming back, returning to the light, but that always seemed to be more of a hypothetical. It was hard to get anyone to actually name names. Maybe no one did, not really, and they just didn’t want to say it. Maybe one step down that road, and there was really no way back.

Obi-Wan just wasn’t at the bottom yet.

They’re going to kill you. Even if you get out of here, the Council are going to find out, and they’re going to hunt you down and if there’s anything left of you that remembers who you were, you’ll let them do it.

Later. He could worry about it all later, if later felt like happening.

“… ship. Told you… there’s a ship.” Cal mutters, pointing ahead of them - and Obi-Wan never, ever thought he’d be so relieved to see that kriffing inkblot jai'galaar, to have a Mandalorian in Clan Vizsla colors wave them past, providing cover fire. He still keeps his eyes open, ready to dive to the ground if that should change. Even with the Force, it can be a trick telling friends from enemies, especially when everyone with the guns is in beskar.

All the scavengers carry tags sewn into their clothes, their bags, so they’ll show up as Death Watch allies on Mandalore displays, just in case anyone cares about friendly fire. But nothing’s ever really a guarantee, that they’re not just being rounded up by a branch of Clan Vizsla that’s less interested in those rules when no one’s looking, or another group flying false flags, ready to divvy up the spoils and sell them on.

As they reach the ramp, Obi-Wan can at least see a few familiar faces - a few of the Death Watch who’d come out here with them, a handful of the scavenging team - Vyrelli among them.

He doesn’t see the explosion that hits behind them, throwing them the rest of the way inside.

====================

Smoke and dirt and blaster fire and screaming. Obi-Wan reaches out for Cal in the Force and with his hands and doesn’t stop until he can find him in both - he’s shaken but unhurt, letting Obi-Wan drag him what he thinks is out of the way, until they hit a back wall and a table on its side that might work for cover, and there’s a lurch, a sway as the ship lifts up even with the door still closing,

This ship is bigger than the transport that brought them here - interplanetary, and Obi-Wan only has a moment to feel his blood freeze at the possible implications of that before the screaming takes precedence.

One of their reinforcements, one of the Mandalorians had taken the brunt of that explosion, and beskar was good but it hardly made them invincible. Obi-Wan looks around, allows half a second for someone better, someone who knows what they’re doing to take over - but there’s only a squad-mate with the wounded ramikad in their arms, setting them gently on a table in the center of the room - and more screaming, the sounds wet and desperate and all too familiar and Obi-Wan steps in.

The ship sways wildly around them - they’re being pursued, he can hear the muffled sound of the ship’s guns, and then he has to stop caring if they’re about to be shot out of the sky.

“Cal, get me as much bacta as you can find, and you-“ He points to the other Mandalorian, “-help me get the armor off.”

He should have been a healer all along, should have trained whether he’d had any talent for it or not. Obi-Wan regrets not knowing this about the universe before he was tossed headfirst into it - how fragile it all is. How many times a lightsaber might not be as important as a surgeon’s kit, or even a kriffing bottle of fresh water. For all the things he did learn at the Temple, that simple trick of taking pain, of letting it pass through him into the Force has been as valuable as all the rest of it put together.

It had stared him in the face on Bandomeer and Melida/Daan and right here, right now as the helmet comes off and the Mandalorian’s dark, panicked eyes look up into his, Mirialan skin drained to the color of the thinnest leaf, nearly transparent, groaning as she chokes on blood and broken cries and the desperate, hot spark of her in the Force, fighting to stay.

“Do you have a medic?” Obi-Wan says.

“You’re looking at her.”

“Oh, kriff.” Cal whispers, as they carefully pull the chest-plate back, and everything underneath is shredded and glistening and already dripping onto the floor

Obi-Wan had learned medicine from a boy on Melida/Daan who’d come from a family of doctors with high expectations - and then he’d been the last of them, father lost in one fight and the mother in the crossfire of another, and Obi-Wan thought he’d carried them with him through his studies, memories tucked into every stolen file he read or technique he practiced. Difficult to think of a memory of him that didn’t either have him hovering over someone, eyes narrowed in concentration as he’d pulled a slug or stitched up a gash - or reading up, long into the night, trying to learn how to do more, do it right and better.

He’d learned medicine from a girl who’d once been apprenticed to the veterinarian for the largest herds of what was left of the town’s livestock - and by the end of it, the beasts had certainly been valued more highly than any of the Young. Always a risk, trying to steal from the well-guarded yards, but there were rarely any better options.

Just the three of them, trading knowledge and theory and wondering how well reverse-engineering the treatment for an animal’s broken leg, for an unknown cough or a strange rash might work on one of their own. It had been a relief, the occasional condition that was more mundane or annoying than deadly, a chance to learn or just argue with each other with no one’s life on the line. Once they’d had him on board, Obi-Wan had been there for all of it - but especially the worst. The only one they had who could take some of the pain, make a field surgery bearable, or let the ones they couldn’t save at least go gently. But as the months had passed, they’d all gotten very good at not letting anyone go.

Obi-Wan should have been a healer right from the start, should have trained and learned and trained some more, but he hadn’t and it didn’t really matter on Melida/Daan and it doesn’t matter now. The same way it doesn’t matter that he’s already tired, that he has no idea if she’s a person he should care about saving, or even that he might have went Dark twenty minutes ago and meant it this time.

The only thing that matters is that there’s suffering in front of him - there is so much suffering, on what seems like every world - and the quiet insistence that Obi-Wan can fix this one, he can make it better this time if he just puts his back into it, just tries hard enough - and what is the point of anything he did bother learning, what is the point of being here if he doesn’t try?

A quick Force suggestion at least sends her past the pain, breaks that rising tide of fear and agony - still an echo of it, from the squad-mate holding her hand, but Obi-Wan ignores that, ignores the sway of the floor as the ship climbs again and all the questions about where they are and what’s going to happen next and how he doesn’t know what he’s doing - he never knows what he’s doing and there’s nothing to do except open himself up to the Force. Flinging the doors wide and letting it all flow through him.

At least he doesn’t have to worry about where that power’s coming from. The Dark has always been indifferent to all of this, doesn’t know how to look beyond its own self-interest, doesn’t understand how to heal or why anyone would bother.

So many things he’d do differently, if he’d known. He should have trained harder. He should have listened harder to Qui-Gon’s teachings about the Living Force and paid attention to every lesson and not just the ones he found the most interesting, that were the most fun to learn - and then all of that disappears, everything Obi-Wan is vanishes but the search for the worst of the pain and the damage and the Force says here, here is suffering and make it less and he puts everything he is into standing at that fulcrum, the point where things tip over into sorrow and disaster and - not here, not today.

He holds it back, holds on as hard as he can. Follows that thin, determined thread of life, lets the Force strengthen it, refuse to let it snap and everything in him is focused on help me make it better and help me make it right and help me help me help me.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Draye Vizsla already regrets hitting atmo, even before they get down low and the clouds part and reveals Mandalore in all its former glory, a dull, bleached tooth in a parched socket.

Even odds that, by the end of all this, she’s going to regret being born.

——————————

It had all been going so well, too. The last mission had been stupidly profitable for the minimal effort involved, nearly a month spent sniping the occasional predator and intimidating the local bandit population on behalf of a patron with far more money than sense, hiring them as guards on an archeological survey on a planet with pleasant weather and near-constant ocean views. The hardest part had been trying not to fall asleep in their armor. Draye had never figured out what was so exciting about finding more and more little pieces of pottery that looked exactly the same as all the ones they’d already found - or once, in a moment that had gathered all the scholars together in wonder and awe for the better part of an afternoon - two-thirds of a tile floor.

Still, easy money spent as well as any other, and at the end of it they’d been paid in full with no hesitation, made their farewells, and were left with the only question of how to enjoy the profits.

So she’d been in a good mood, which was always a mistake, because her ba’buir could almost certainly smell that moment of weakness from the other side of the galaxy.

One of Clan Vizsla’s most well-respected and wizened elders, who’d finally reached that age in which there’d been nothing left to do except generously part out the treasured clan heirlooms in anticipation of a dignified end. Except Draye had been watching the heirlooms get bequeathed with maudlin, noble sentiment - and innumerable, invisible strings attached - for the better part of a decade now, with no sign that anyone had any intention of actually dying. The old goat would bury them all. Possibly in heirlooms.

She’d managed to dodge most of the honors, pawning any that happened to get too close on whichever of her extended allit couldn’t come up with an excuse fast enough. But her ba’buir had always been clever and cunning, with nothing to do in his dotage but fossilize and grow more devious. So when the call had come in, it had been from a vod she hadn’t heard from in quite some time, and Draye had picked up without thinking and -

“My glorious bu’ad. I have heard your missions have been quite successful as of late, and yet your comms always seem to be malfunctioning. I think your repair crews may be cheating you.”

“Space debris, ba’buir. The entire system’s a junkyard.” A shame, that everything in front of her now was clear stars and infinite dark. Nelo had been in the pilot’s seat then, looked up at her with a wild laugh in his eyes before engaging the autopilot and slinking away. The coward. “So, how goes the descent into decrepit irrelevance?”

“Ah, a curse, vod’ika. A constant curse. If I’d known that this was the last reward for a life of such skill and valor, I would have spent a little less time training, and more picking a place for my final stand.”

“Mm-hm.” Draye said, wondering if he’d make her flail about on the line a bit in punishment first, or show some mercy and get to the point. “Is there a particular reason you’ve decided to honor me with a call today?”

“Of course, little nova. I wouldn’t waste your time.” Oh, the kriff he wouldn’t. “It seems that our noble Mand’alor has returned to the land of the living, and such a thing deserves to be celebrated.”

House Vizsla was one of the oldest and most expansive Houses in the system, large enough that even their inter-clan squabbles had left their marks across the galaxy. Ostensibly, Tor Vizsla spoke for the Death Watch and all of House Vizsla by proxy - but Draye had seen him in person exactly once as an ad, and there were plenty in Clan Vizsla, let alone the House, who’d never met him at all, and didn’t pay much attention to current events.

The rumors of his possible demise had not been met with any particular outpouring of sorrow, and his claim as Mand’alor had always been considerably less about overwhelming support than overwhelming indifference. He’d had a few brutally effective opening battles against the New Mandalorians - and their Republic backers - kicking the majority of them back out of the system, which had left him as a good candidate for continuing to put them in their place, the only thing they’d really required a Mand’alor to do.

Enough of House Vizsla was making its fortunes just fine, whatever happened in the home system. Did it really matter, trying to rein in what sometimes seemed less a war than a personal vendetta with House Mereel, as long as Tor kept winning battles against the New? Did it matter, if the deluded little duch*ess thought she was doing anything but playing the tame loth cat to her Republic masters? Kriff them all, for thinking they could use the wreckage of a once-great House as their shield, to bring Mandalore down from the inside, that there was any future for the New Mandalorians other than being a vassal state.

There were mercenaries running protection from Mandalorian ships through Mandalorian space, and making more money at it than actual Mandalorians. A kriffing embarrassment to all involved.

The future of the system was a waste of time, a foregone conclusion in the eyes of so many in the House, the only ones still committed those who’d sunk too much in to leave. All of Draye’s own best profits had been found far away from all of it, with plenty more opportunities to be had. The mandokar was carried with them, stretched across the whole of the galaxy. The fixed empire of old had been an unnecessary distraction, many said - too much upkeep for no real benefit. A sign of the strength of the Mandalorian people, to thrive beyond all boundaries, the whole universe theirs to enjoy as they wished.

If the ancient, honored homeland wanted to kriff itself to death, what loss was that to her, really?

“I didn’t realize you bothered with holding people in such high esteem, ba’buir.” He didn’t, and they both knew it. Whatever this was, it was pure osik-stirring, plain and simple. The same feeling itching at the back of her neck, as when a job threatened to go bad.

“Always, bu’ad. Always.” Her grandfather chuckles in a not at all reassuring way. “Now that I know he might live to receive it, I had hoped that you might gift our illustrious Mand’alor with one of our most prized heirlooms…”

——————————

“I mean, you have to admit,” Alif says, their baar’ur running a green thumb over one of the narrow lines on the chest plate, “it is beautiful. It must have taken ages to get all this done.”

The right half of the beskar has been engraved with an intricate pattern of twisting vines, clusters of berries and even a few flowers, and here and there are the bright eyes of a rodent, or a fledgling convoree peering out at the world. As if the armor itself is some safe haven for small things. It’s no pattern she’s familiar with, from Vizsla or any other House, and unspeakably ancient.

“It’s the stone around my neck.” Draye mutters. “I’m absolutely certain it’s priceless.”

Absolutely certain she should melt it down and fire it into the nearest available star - but of all the things to dislike about her ba’buir, at the top of the list was that he knew that deep down, unfortunately, she respected him. Respected the vows and ties and obligations of House and aliit, and would grudgingly honor the wishes of her elders.

At least to the point of plausible deniability.

It wasn’t as if she was about to seek out Tor Vizsla himself - the battles now clustered between the lesser moons of Shukut had been at a fever pitch ever since he’d re-emerged, the Haat and the Kyr’tsad and the New all at each others throats, and no chance it was worth flying anywhere near that three-way rancor clusterkriff.

Concordia and all the space around it was nearly as hot, so the next best option was to find a quieter Death Watch outpost somewhere on Manda’yaim itself, with someone nominally Vizsla enough that she could convince herself the beskar would reach Tor in one piece.

“It’s strange.” Lisile says, the gunner cross-legged on the floor with the beskar now in her lap, studying the little creatures in the design more closely. From every fresh angle, there seemed to be a new one to discover. “None of these creatures are even predators, not really. Maybe this belonged to a baar’ur?”

“Certainly the kind of thing to be prized by Tor Vizsla.” Nelo says dryly. From all she knew of their Mand’alor, any gesture was unlikely to move him - if he even noticed - but passing it along would fulfill her obligation to the aliit for the next ten years, and they could all get back to more interesting jobs in better places that were actually worth the effort.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, when Draye had plugged in the first set of coordinates - she’d barely been in beskar, the last time she’d been planetside on Manda'yaim, but even then there’d already been clear delineations - the New’s secure, sealed and sterile cities already up and running, but still a few smaller settlements here and there, holding on, making do. Simple and utilitarian, but solid and formidable, and they’d survived enough conflict that it seemed they would continue to do so.

The town she remembered is barely even a crater now - a blackened crescent of ash smeared across a few acres of land, a few rusted beams and just enough of the straight lines visible to suggest that there once had been a road, a settlement, a landing pad. The only thing of any substance left was bleached stone and dust clouds unfurling to to a bare horizon. Draye had heard it was bad, things on the homeworld hadn’t been good since well before she was born - but this…

This is the reason you don’t come back to this system.

“He’ll send you another one, won’t he?” Nelo says from the co-pilot’s seat, when they’re out of atmo again and the blank expanse of Manda’yaim is spinning silently underneath them. He’s Kiffar by birth - and a Mandalorian for many years after, keeping far away from there, for reasons he’s never shared that might seem familiar now. “If we don’t do it right the first time, whatever the kriff ‘right’ means. He’ll just keep pelting us with antiques from across the galaxy.”

“No.” Draye says. “If we don’t do this right the first time, we’re faking our own deaths.”

“And I thought clan spats on Kiffex were fun.”

The sealed cities are all clustered on the other side of the planet and still all under the heavy defense of the New - their main foothold on the planet, fiercely protected by Republic allies. No point trying to go there unless they want to get shot up - even claiming for Clan Vizsla and not the Death Watch is usually more than enough to set them off. At least her ba’buir had been kind enough to provide current flight codes, for placating whatever Kyr’tsad camp they do manage to find. It really isn’t worth asking where he dug those up.

“I’m picking up some chatter down there,” Sayze lights up the coordinates on the main display. “Sounds like a crash, or a firefight, might be worth-“

The alarm gains them an extra few heartbeats, just enough time to roll out of the way of nearly all of the barrage of blaster fire and the ship that screams by, dropping into atmo at speed - Clan Kryze markings like a clarion call, as if there was anyone else who was ever quite that dini’la. Draye swallows several curses, as Sayze instantly angles the ship to pursue.

“Are we good?”

“Just nicked us.” Sayze says, grinning - and though she never claimed to be more than human, when she was out for blood her teeth always looked so sharp. “Tried to disable our engines, but we should be fine to follow.”

“Well,” Draye says, grinning back, “since they were kind enough to offer an invitation.”

——————————————

The Death Watch may not be a fan, but Draye doesn’t have any particular grudge with the fierce little head of Clan Kryze. Bo-Katan is a formidable fighter despite her age, has taken more than a few victories that hadn’t started in her favor, purely through speed and determination, and there’s even something to be said with how she fights with her sister without it ever quite reaching a conclusion. Neither of them seems to have the heart to strike the decisive final blow. A tactical weakness - but it matters, when it’s aliit. Some things shouldn’t be easy, even if they’re the smarter option.

Still, that little osik of a cruiser did just try to blast them out of the sky, and maybe this might all end with a solution to their gift-giving problem, or at least a decent lead. Or at least a decent fight.

Draye is up and out of her seat the minute they’re through the burn, making her way toward the back. Like any long-loved ship, the Tiercel has its own eccentricities. No matter how many kriffing times she tries to convince her allit to keep their kriffing gear in their kriffing bunks, it never kriffing works, so there’s the concession of helmet hooks and weapon holsters in all sorts of odd places, generally wherever each of her crew touches last on their way to the exit. At least it means they’re all ready to go by the time they’re through the clouds, and the side door slides back to give them a decent view of the field.

“Shame we missed the starting gun.” Nelo says over the comms - signs of empty artillery, and the smoldering wreckage of all the poor bastards they managed to hit. Sayze’s dropping quick and careful, just in case there’s anything else waiting to strike, but it looks like things have mostly switched to one-on-one on the ground. Fighting over a crashed cargo vessel - and it’s nothing they haven’t done before, salvage work and bounty work not so different if it pays well enough, but there’s something about seeing that many clan signs trading gunfire over cargo on Manda’yaim that is depressing on some entirely new level, and this is the reason you don’t come back to this system.

“I think I found what we’re looking for.” Gren, their heavy gunner, gestures midrange, a cluster of Death Watch pinned down under aggressive fire.

“Right then,” Draye says, “this is our fight now, let’s make sure they know it.”

“Oya!”

No better life in the galaxy than being Mando’ade, no better moment than this, dropping down from the sky like the shriek-hawks they are, laying down fire and watching Clan Kryze startle and scatter, seeing a few other potential targets flicker and disappear deeper into the wreckage, wanting no part of the renewed fight. Her allit are long familiar with each other and with everything coming at them from the ground. Draye has barely a need to give orders as they touch down, supplanting the flagging Death Watch, Alif dropping to the side of one of the ramikad propped against a rock, curled around an injury. Draye glances around, no signs of an alor - and they all take cover at an outraged burst of fire, the Kyr’tsad to her right replying back with a few quick rifle shots.

“Little blue bird giving you some problems today, vod?”

“Mar’e! Is this what good luck feels like?” The voice is higher than she was expecting, even modulated - as young as Alif, or younger. “The kriff did you come from?”

“Does it really matter?” Gren rumbles from the other side, with a few shots that have the opposition scrambling back to a less ambitious location.

“Not if you’ve got a way out.” A rougher, deeper voice - still no rank on any of the Kyr’tsad she can see, maybe Clan Kryze got lucky before they arrived, took out everyone in charge - but it’s not just ramikad, they’re defending a few ade with heavy packs, loaded with newly scavenged treasures - but what comes up in her display when she looks more closely - that can’t be right.

Draye keeps one eye to the skies as things continue, scanning for Bo-Katan - who wouldn’t want that fight - but there’s no sign, and surely she would have swept in by now if she was planning to. It’s soon clear that where they’ve managed to push forward is as far as they’re going to get - too defensible for Kryze inside the rocks and wreckage, but at least her people can keep them there for now.

“Are there any more of yours we’re waiting on?”

“Obi-Wan’s still out there.” One of the ad says. “And Cal. I heard they were both fighting.”

“Well, then they’re kriffed.” The rough one says, though she can hear another Death Watch give a call out on the comms - hopefully the remaining ramikad can get here, if they hold this position a little longer. Interesting, that he doesn’t seem to care much for the rest of his allit - but maybe that’s how he hides his concern, or any number of other reasons Draye might not know from the first twenty seconds, in the middle of a firefight.

Still, the part of her that takes notice, catches on the important details in a sea of noise - the glint of a sniper rifle on the other side of a ridge, or the slight rise of a hidden mine - it’s paying attention now. Something’s not right.

“It’s not beskar.” Alif says on internal comms, sounding baffled, still patching up the wounded ramikad enough to get them moving. “No wonder they’re getting torn to shreds out here - what they’re wearing, it’s barely even armor.”

Tor Vizsla wins battles. Even his critics can’t fault him for that - the Death Watch are viciously good at what they do, especially against the rich targets of the New Mandalorians. No beskar? It doesn’t make any sense, they all ought to be swimming in it.

“You’re seeing this, right?” Nelo says, also keeping his chatter within the allit. “Those ade with the packs.”

“I know.” Draye says. “Focus on the fight.”

“They’re not tagged as Vizsla ade, they’re tagged as Death Watch property. The same as the junk they’re carrying.”

“I know.” Draye says, and Nelo trusts her enough to drop it, at least while they’re still shooting.

A sharp crack in the distance, the brilliant flash of an electric arc half-blocked by the wreckage, and something explodes.

“What the kriff was that?!” On internal and external comms alike.

“One of the engines must have gone up.” Draye says, and lays down cover fire for another two Death Watch taking the distraction as an opportunity to scramble out of the wreck toward them.

“‘Alor, we’ve got ships inbound.” Sayze comms in. “I can touch down for pickup but we can’t stay long.”

“All right, time to move. Let’s pack it up!”

Clan Kryze doesn’t give them an easy retreat - the pressure on from the first step back, but Gren and Nelo keep them from straying too far from cover, and from the corner of her eye she even sees two final ade stumbling their way forward to meet them, helping each other other along and how many Death Watch had been here, to cover for so many ade? How badly had they been ambushed, and why were they risking unarmored ade in the first place?

Nelo has them safe, Phelyx and Lisile providing cover fire with rifles from the ramp, and Draye leaves them to it, sprinting through the ship to the front guns as she’s sure Gren will soon be retreating to the aft - and it’s just when she hits the co*ckpit that she hears the explosion, close enough to rock the entire ship, hears screams echo off the deck.

“Go!” Nelo roars. “Get us in the air, now!”

Sayze had been a sailor of sorts once, on a slushy, barren nothing they’d dropped on between jobs. Some karking lunacy, racing narrow ships on long blades with questionably oversized engines attached, roaring across the ice - and cratering directly into glaciers, at least from much of what they’d seen. In all that white and gray, Sayze’s hair had burned like an armorer’s forge as she’d climbed from the craft to take her prize.

A stranger - but still surprisingly memorable when they’d found her hiding in their hold a few hours after they’d left the planet behind. Running away from the one who’d romanced her into the sport, who’d beat her when she dared to ask for a fairer cut. Desperate enough for Draye’s crew - or the possibility of being spaced - to seem like the better option, asking only that they drop her anywhere other than where she’d been.

The joy of being Mando’ade, that there was more they could offer - and she’d been willing, a fierce little spirit only needing someone to show her how to fight, adding strength to the allit as a decent shot and an even better pilot, and when her former business partner came looking to drag her back, she’d been able to part ways all on her own - though they’d helped dispose of what was left.

It’s always a pleasure, then, to settle in as her gunner. The Tiercel isn’t quite as nimble as what’s chasing them, but Sayze can make up for most of that, and they don’t have her firepower - most of Draye’s better days have gone right back into outfitting this ship - like any good Mandalorian vessel, she doesn’t show off her best side until it counts.

A pair of Kryze fighters are still keeping a tight lock, forcing them close to the ground, Sayze’s reflexes the only thing keeping them from chewing canyon walls as she tries give Gren and Lisile the best angles on the rear guns, Draye taking care of anyone trying anything clever on their flank. The last thing she ever wanted to be was on this kriffing planet in the first place, they’re not going to be another wreck for a pack of ge'hutuun to fight over.

“One down!” Gren calls - no time for celebration, as the ship suddenly jolts and shudders.

“Engines?” Sayze yells.

“On it.” Nelo breaks in, and with a few more twists and turns, Draye can feel whatever must have been hit being rerouted, the power shuddering back to full as they roar ahead.

“Who took the hit back there, before we launched?” Draye says, remembering that scream. “One of ours?”

Nelo’s voice is toneless. “Alif.”

“She all right?” Draye grimaces into the silence that follows. “We get the body?” Or are they going back for it now. Unless there’s not a body left to get.

“In the hold.” Not that it makes things any better at all.

“Kriffing banthash*t.” Sayze snarls, slams a hand against the controls and sends the ship diving into the narrowest chasm yet - the one silver lining in this, their pilot flies even better when she’s angry. It doesn’t take long after that - Draye doesn’t see if the other ship gives up, or tries to follow them down only to regret it - just the call from Lisile, another kick to the engines as the rear guns power down.

“We’re clear.”

——————————

Mandalorians marched ahead - it was how it had always been, how the universe spun on, and warriors were meant to be remembered in pride, not grief - but Alif had been her first, the first vod Draye had actually seen grow from gangly, foundling adiik to competent fighter and finally to complete her verd'goten, not just in combat but as a skilled baar'ur. It hadn’t been Draye’s hands to bestow her beskar’gam, but Alif had sought her out afterward, had wanted the honor of first flight on her ship, with her crew, and she’d been good. Strong and brave and there was no shame in a warrior’s death, but this one came too soon, for what seems like no good purpose and Draye should have been there, should have tried to stop it and it hurts.

She waits until they’re flying level, undetected in clear skies, to make her way back toward the cargo hold. Wants to hold the hand of her vod’ika for a moment, and apologize for this fool’s errand - anyone might march ahead, but that didn’t mean their alor wasn’t responsible.

It’s the end of this little adventure, her ba’buir’s intrigues be damned. Draye will open the back door and punt her honored ancestor’s armor at the first Death Watch of any rank they pass by - to kriff with even landing - and then they’re going to go burn Alif’s body with full honors, and then she’s going to scramble the comm signs for every other member of her House. Gren passes her in the narrow hall, looking grim, blood on his beskar’gam that isn’t his.

“We have coordinates for-“

She nods - hard to for either of them to give much of a kark at the moment - and he moves on.

It’s quiet in the hold, a few of the Death Watch they’d managed to rescue all talking quietly in an open corner. A few of their ade - property - sitting on the floor, bags of nominal valuables at their feet, leaning against each other - and they look away or down, when they see her watching.

Alif is on the table, blood spatters all around her, a trail on the floor where they’d carried her up. Phelyx has her hand in his - at least she wasn’t alone, that’s something - but when he sees her, what crosses his face isn’t grief.

A pair of strangers are standing over her vod - brothers, Draye thinks, only the older one within range of the verd'goten, but not by much. He’s also painted in Alif’s blood nearly to the elbows, while the younger one has an armful of medical supplies scattered in front of him, working in silence - and she sees him flinch and pale and stagger when his brother’s hand suddenly comes down on his shoulder, as if pummeled by an invisible weight, but he doesn’t fall. The older one is staring intently at Alif, but his eyes seem distant, fixed on some other place entirely - and Draye watches as he lifts a hand, and a piece of shrapnel, and another and another, gently rises from her vod’s body, falls with a ping in a bloody bowl that’s already gotten plenty of use.

Jetiise, the pair of them, that’s the only thing it can be even if it doesn’t make any sense at all - and they’re doing that kriffing jetii magic osik on her dead - not dead yet, not with the way Phelyx’s holding her hand, the hope in his eyes - and if she looks she can see the bare rise and fall of her chest. The jetii’ade moves in with the bacta now and then, on some unseen order from his cabur - too young, do they really send them out this young? - and it goes on like that. Quiet and still and determined, Draye just watching, afraid to break the silence - until the older one finally straightens up, panting for air as he stretches his back, lets his head tilt toward the sky. The jetii’ade just lets his legs fold, sliding against the table until he’s sitting on the floor.

The engines slow to a halt, everything quiet. She wonders where Sayze’s brought them down.

“I think…” The jetii sways, hard, and when Draye puts up a hand on his arm to steady him he looks to it, and then her, as if he hadn’t noticed her until just now. As if the gesture is entirely foreign. He smiles - reflecting Draye’s own relief and joy back at her, something invaluable snatched back from the brink. Gold eyes, and there’s something strange about that, matched against the gentleness in his expression, but she can’t remember what it is. “I think she’ll be all right.”

“What the kriff are you doing here?” Draye murmurs. The first jetii she’s seen for more than a handful of minutes at a distance, in passing - and even less impressive up close. Just a thin, pale stick of an ad. Except for what he’d just done for her vod, her entire aliit, for seemingly no reason at all.

A slight shrug, and that smile changes, just a little, like there’s a joke she’s not in on, that isn’t all that funny anyway.

“Will of the Force.”

Which is when his body gives a sudden jerk, and he drops like a stone.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

“Stop it. Stop!” The younger jetii yells down the deck, voice shrill with panic. “We’re here! He’s in here!”

He’d moved fast, managed to catch his brother before he hit the ground, and Draye doesn’t really understand what’s happened, if it’s some side-effect of what he’d did to save Alif - until the man comes strolling up their ramp and there’s a very familiar little device in his hand because this jetii has been slave chipped, and Draye hears more than one cut-off curse in her helmet - and the odds of everything they’ve seen so far being any kind of misunderstanding vaporize without a trace.

It doesn’t help that the Death Watch behind him have their guns drawn - and now so does her crew, and this isn’t an entirely unfamiliar way to greet a distant branch of any House, especially in a war zone, but they’ve been here less than five seconds and it’s already costing him points he can’t afford to lose.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“They saved us, ver’alor.” It’s the high-voiced soldier from earlier, a Pantoran now that the helmet’s off, and as young as Draye assumed, standing at careful attention. “Clan Kryze hit us hard, out of nowhere. The transport was destroyed. It was Bo-Katan, she was there.”

“You’re all that’s left?”

“Yes, ver’alor. Half went up with the ship, and… Kryze doesn’t take prisoners.” Which is not what Draye has heard, from other clans at other times, but it might be different on Manda’yaim. Or, more likely, Bo-Katan just doesn’t take Kyr’tsad prisoners.

The man gestures to the soldiers behind him, who slowly lower their weapons, - and how much of what they’re wearing is actual beskar’gam and not painted osik - and frowns at her. At least his face seems well used to the expression. Draye flicks a hand, and her own crew follows suit. If she were feeling at all polite, this would be the moment to remove her helmet, to greet her clan with friendly informality.

The moment comes and goes, and no one moves.

“I am Zai Kaine be Vizsla, ver’alor be Mand’alor.”

“Draye Vizsla.” Deliberately blunt, just so he knows there’s no sister clan, no hint of a second name. She’s old blood Vizsla, all the way back - which doesn’t mean anything, shouldn’t matter to anyone - but there are certain Mandalorians who seem to notice things that don’t mean anything and shouldn’t matter, and it’s just a guess that he might be one of those.

“I’m surprised I’m not more familiar with your name.” Zai says - sneers, really. Everything so far has been some form of sneer. “Do you not consider it your duty to fight for your homeland?”

“It’s our honor to find rich clients, to pay House tithe to fund the war effort.” Draye says - and she even pays by the old rules. A percentage of each job, not a fixed amount, which has always worked out in the aliit’s favor. “I’ve never had any complaints.”

While they’ve been talking, what’s left of the Death Watch they’d brought back have been doing their best to quietly shuffle down the ramp, away from the rising tension - including the jetiise, a few of the other scavengers helping the jetii’ad carry the older one away as silently as they can - and he looks even younger now, terribly lax and pale and the only thing Draye wants to do is bundle him up in a spare bunk and let him sleep it off, to not let any of these ade take a single step off her ship until she can figure out just what in the kriff is going on.

“You chipped the jetii?”

“Dar’jetti,” Zai corrects. “Although sadly, it seems he’s not much of anything but a disappointment. I’ve heard the actual ones are supposed to be quite impressive.”

Draye thinks about the power she’d felt, threading through her entire cargo bay just a few moments ago - the weight of Alif’s life in the balance, in the jetii’s hands, as he’d so carefully, impossibly managed to put her back together. Draye hasn’t ever put much thought into what she can’t see or punch or shoot, but if there’s anything that deserved to be called holy…

Tor Vizsla’s little ver’alor has just bounced off the bottom of her expectations, and now it’s time to see how much further he might manage to dig himself down.

“The younger ones pose little threat, because we keep the older in line. It’s the easiest option.”

“Smart move.” Draye lies.

“So, what exactly has brought you planetside now, if not to join in the war?”

“I was asked to gift an artifact from a respected elder to the Mand’alor, to honor his return. We were looking to make contact with a camp where it could be safely delivered, when we saw the battle. Unfortunately, it was fragile, and badly damaged in the fight.” Draye lies again. “Our engines took a hit, along with one of my crew - we’ll need to check the ship before we can leave. Although it isn’t impressive, we do have some cargo you might find a use for now.”

She shouldn’t have to even hint at asking for permission, or a trade, the way that any other Vizsla doesn’t have to ask for her aid should they cross paths out in the stars. The way that this ver’alor ought to have started out making sure her crew was all right, with an offer of support. Generosity is standard, obligation is implicit - helping clan was the same as helping yourself. No matter how much you disliked your vode or fought with your aliit, you sided with clan first against the other Houses. No matter how much you hated the other Houses, you sided with them against the galaxy. Manda’yaim for Mando’ade - first, last and always.

In the eyes of many, the New had broken that vow irrevocably, and deserved all the punishment that could be piled upon them as irredeemable dar’manda. Draye had thought she knew how the Death Watch worked - they demanded a return to the old ways, after all - but Zai hasn’t thanked her, hasn’t taken a second glance at the vode she brought back alive, not to mention the ade.

She wonders if they’ll have to fight their way out of here.

“Of course, you may stay for as long as you like. You are aliit, after all.” He finally says, with less welcome than she has ever heard in the word before.

===============

Phelyx stays behind to look after Alif and mildly break whatever’s convenient, if they end up needing to fake a longer repair. Sayze coordinates the release of whatever cargo they’d been traded as payment and hadn’t had the chance to offload yet, kick the beskar’gam they’d been sent to deliver into the nearest closet, and makes sure no one kriffs with the ship.

Four people is, of course, nowhere near enough to take this camp, but Draye knows Nelo is looking for places it might be possible to try, anyway. At a certain point, whenever a mission had gone shabla past the chance of all recovery, it was easy to feel the question humming between her vode - “Why don’t we just shoot all of them?”

She’s very lucky, that her crew has an extremely long fuse, and that for the most part, their anger burns cold long before it flares hot. It’s hardly the first time they’ve taken a job to discover that their employer was a lying shabuir, or thought that being a mercenary meant that anything was negotiable for the right price. When an enemy gave you the opportunity to see the extent of their vulnerabilities, when they casually displayed their weaknesses and failings, it was only smart to applaud and play along. Stand back and let them show you exactly where to aim.

Not the kind of sentiment usually reserved for her own clan, but here they are, and the day’s still young.

Tor Vizsla talks up the Death Watch at length - the last great hope of Manda’yaim, the true sons and daughters, somehow both an unstoppable fighting force, deserving of reclaiming their empire throughout the galaxy, and the victims of an unjust and unfair campaign, that same galaxy determined to wipe them out. As if the first fact had nothing to do with the second. Draye hasn’t ever actually listened to an entire Kyr’tsad rally from one end to the other, but can’t imagine she’s missed much.

This installation is… shabby, for all that talk of greatness and inevitability. Buildings that look like they were set up fast, the kind that usually existed until better replacements could be brought in - and then they hadn’t been. The perimeter’s defensible enough, the most resources spent there to make it secure, but still, it all has the air of an unkempt afterthought.

The Death Watch here are all young - perhaps a few of the older ones had been up front with Zai, behind their armor, but the further out they go from the higher-ranking offices, the less Draye sees of anyone she’d assume was squad alor or even ver’alor - and more importantly, there’s nothing that looks like a proper forge.

Beskar doesn’t kriff around, the resources required to work it properly are no small investment. A reason that the old settlements - and some of the new ones - were still constructed forge-first, that the goran could end up with so many jobs besides proper smithing. Maybe there’s no way to set one up out here, maybe there’s a swift path back to a larger camp that can do the job for them - but she remembers what Alif said, out on the field, and maybe there’s no forge here because there’s no beskar here, at least not for the ones actually doing the fighting.

“So, do we think any of that armor is real?” She says, the internal comms getting a workout today.

“It took me nearly two years for full beskar’gam, alor.” Lislie says. “It’s expensive if you’re not inheriting, and I was the youngest of three. Didn’t get sent to the front lines before I had it, though.”

One thing, to be in an aliit more blessed with ade than credits, for an inheritance to be split up and then improved on later - but this is the Kyr’tsad and these are the front lines, if today was anything to go by, and she’s not seeing many signs that they’ve planned for it at all.

Draye makes a few polite greetings as they walk through the camp, the mood of the soldiers ranging from quietly hostile to cautiously curious - nothing like the easy welcome that would usually come from aliit, even distant aliit - but that’s another issue. It takes a few responses, before she realizes it’s not a one-off - other than Zai, these ramikad will give her first name and rank, but she only hears the name Vizsla when she’s the one saying it.

“What house are you from?” She finally presses a soldier with their helmet off, just so she can see the mix of confusion, bordering on panic, before the hesitant answer - Kyr’tsad.

“I wasn’t aware Tor Vizsla’s private army was a house of its own now.” Nelo says. “He must be very proud.”

“They’re nervous.” Gren says. “There’s something here they don’t want us to know about.”

Obvious that they’re being watched, the feeling constant since they’d stepped into camp, and Draye swears she almost catches glimpses now and then, from the corner of her eye, someone just out of sight. A feeling that only intensifies, when they hit the edge of the built-up side of camp, and look out over what remains, where the ade are allowed to be.

“I’m pretty sure they don’t want us to know about any of this.” Draye says.

Of course she’s heard the rumors of the Death Watch, the brutality and the cruelty and all the tales of stolen children, but to hear the Republic tell it, every Mandalorian who dares chart their own path is a vicious, mindless thug, every ad a prisoner or worse.

At first glance, Draye’s own covert didn’t look so vastly different than this one - she’d grown up practically feral, living alongside the rest of her clan’s ade, a pack of children from all corners, system-born and foundling alike, roaming wild through a space of meadows, woods, caverns that at the time had seemed endless. Of course there’d been lessons, and training, and chores, but she can’t remember that many nights she’d spent beneath the roof of any home, let alone her own. Even mealtimes had often involved grabbing what could be easily stowed and not coming back again until she’d run out, and couldn’t hunt up enough on her own. Instead of tedious lessons in neat rows and regimented, lifeless days, they’d been allowed to learn their own ways of survival and rough living, fending for themselves and taking care of each other, discovering all the rhythms of the life to come.

The New Mandalorians took children too - tried to tame them, shape them into something that would please the so-called ‘civilized’ Core, break them of anything that might wish for a different form of freedom. Sterile little minds in sterile little boxes, all doing what they’re told.

So no, it doesn’t immediately shock her to see the barefoot ade with their little camps here and there in the trees and scrub. At least as impressive, that there are trees and scrub here, this camp set back against an unexpected tangle of actual jungle, disappearing down an increasingly narrow ravine that marked the end of the valley, the high cliff walls providing surprising protection from all that had ravaged so much of the rest of the land.

The ade have even managed a garden, somehow, all sorts of scrap stuck together for an attempt at trellises and irrigation. Gren nurtures a few plants in his corner of the ship, she sees him reach out to touch a leaf in thoughtful appreciation.

It’s not the wildness that bothers her, then, but that there isn’t so much more of it. An unnerving silence - the ade aren’t laughing here, aren’t hitting each other with sticks and pretending it’s swordplay or attempting to build slightly less wrecked versions of old wreckage, or any of the other semi-hazardous adventures Draye had crafted for herself long ago. Even the youngest adiik'e - so kriffing young - are very quiet, an alarming number of them watching from varying degrees of cover, or looking away the minute she turns toward them.

Draye had never imagined how bad it might feel, to be feared by ade on Manda’yaim itself, but if she had, she would have underestimated.

“They’re all so thin.” Nelo says, anger crackling under each word. “Seem to you like Kaine was skipping any meals?”

The longer she looks, the more Draye can see the differences between what she remembers and what this is - and yes, she and her pack of wild ade had been free to roam and explore and build, but there had always been a home to return to - any number of them. Rooms with warm food, with blankets and other supplies - with aliit ready to help, a baar’ur to chide over some avoidable injury, a goran to point out the many, many flaws in the first attempt at a makeshift blade. Nothing here says that the ade have a place to go if they’re in trouble, that the Kyr’tsad are at all concerned. An invisible line in this camp, with all the resources on one side, and all the ade on the other.

Which means it’s not all that hard to untangle her earlier confusion, about just what had happened out at that wreck, how there’d been so many ade caught in the crossfire. It hadn’t been some kind of advanced training. It wasn’t because the Death Watch had control over the situation until Bo-Katan came out of nowhere. The ramikad that had been sent out were young and unprepared, in armor that wouldn’t protect them, because losing a few that might have been spared with better planning wasn’t worth worrying over, and the ade were entirely disposable.

Draye doesn’t consider herself to be a particularly kind or wise person, but she’s been kicked around by the galaxy enough to know there are rules worth following, and reasons to do so. Keeping her weapons clean, and her gear in good order, because the next bad fight can always come as a surprise. Keeping an eye on her aliit, because they’re her whole heart, her purpose, and if things go sideways it’ll be their strength she’s leaning on until she can regain her own.

Children mattered, ade were as important as anything could be. The living future of the Mando’ade. What difference could it make, what you claimed in this world, if there was no one to give the best of it to, no one to pass on the hardest-won lessons to when you marched ahead?

She has listened to Republic senators blather on and on about words like honor and duty - all their words only air, interchangeable and empty. Duty isn’t a word or a feeling - it’s the ship under your feet and the blaster in your hand and the ade who grow up to fight at your side. Honor is the weight of your beskar’gam and the support you can muster because your word is true and you follow it up with action - and neglect adds up in who you are, just as much as the tools you use. No single oversight on its own is enough to topple the whole, but give enough selfish bastards enough time to carve out their own desires from what was once strong? What is Manda’yaim if not an answer to that question.

Tor Vizsla likes to talk about the power and glory of Old Mandalore. Words that cost nothing. Only air.

No one looks at them directly, no one moves, but Draye can still feel the warning of their presence ripple its way through the camp just ahead of them - and then she reaches the small circle of what must be their infirmary - a box half-full of supplies, two cots blocked from the worst of the sun - the jetii sprawled on one of them, still out cold, a bacta patch carefully wrapped around his upper arm. As thin as the rest - and Draye glances back, just to see if she can see the Death Watch’s medbay from here, a medic who could look down and see the suffering here and do nothing - and when she turns back, the jetii’ad is there in her path, standing silently between her and his cabur. Eyes lowered deferentially, but bracing himself, just in case.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“Yes, alor. Only tired, is all.” Obviously, the jetii’ad isn’t expecting any gratitude for what they’d done, and she wonders about what Zai said, that they were considered disappointments. A slave chip wasn’t a Force suppressor - and maybe these jetii knew that. Maybe they really were no threat in combat, or maybe the older one had risked a bargain, accepting the occasional lash of pain, allowing it to make himself seem unthreatening, with the jetii’ad following suit. Feigning helplessness, to avoid being cut off from that power entirely - Draye’s heard stories, Force suppressors can kill a jetii if they’re used incorrectly, or for too long. What are the odds Zai would bother to know or care about any those kinds of consequences?

“Alor,” The jetii’ad says quietly, “I left my bag on your ship. It’s important that I retrieve it.”

“You’d be punished, if you couldn’t.”

It’s not a question. The silence is still an answer.

“What is it in this camp, that I’m not supposed to know about?”

He turns a shade paler than she thought was even possible, and for a moment Draye doesn’t think he’ll respond.

“Threaten me.” He says, lips barely moving. Thankfully, her comms pick it up - and she knows her aliit is listening to every near-silent word. “Please. It can’t look like I talked to you without a fight. Gedet'ye.”

He sells it well - when Draye grabs his arm he yelps even as he moves with the motion, even though she keeps her touch light, straightening up so that he has to stand nearly on tiptoe, pretending to pull away from her as she pretends to shake him hard. It would almost be funny, the play-acting, except that the fear in his eyes is very real. He looks at her, and very deliberately cuts his eyes over to a large tent tucked in corner of the camp, seemingly no different than a dozen other that likely hold food or supplies, and then back to her.

Draye drops him, shoves lightly backward and he goes down as if it had been a punch, and even though he’d asked her to, she all but tastes bile when she brings her pistol back, like she’d try to hit him with it, watches him cower with one arm up to protect himself and everything in her is screaming that this is wrong wrong wrong. You didn’t treat ade like this on any planet, for any reason, let alone on on kriffing Manda'yaim - and there’s wariness in the eyes of the other ade but not surprise, watching her from a distance, ready to scatter at the first sign she might come for them next.

The mood of her aliit has dropped like a incoming storm, rapidly devolving from Why don’t we just shoot all of them? to I will kill the prick in charge of this with my helmet and as she moves toward the tent the boy indicated, Draye can see the nearest Kyr’tsad startle, thinks that Kaine’s likely being notified about this, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“Sayze, Phelyx, get ready to move. We may be getting out of here faster than anticipated.” She says. “Possibly under fire.”

“Copy.” Sayze says. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse.” Nelo growls, speaking for all of them.

Draye opens the flap on the nondescript tent, peering into the dimness.

Jango Vhett be Mereel - bruised and battered, tied to a chair - glares back at her.

Dank kriffing farrik.

————————————

The battle between House Mereel and the Kyr’tsad has been background noise for years - clashing, losing territory, gaining territory - but Draye likes to think she’s not so oblivious, that an announcement like this wouldn’t have caught her attention - and Tor should have made one already, she should have heard. A hostage on this level is important, could shift the entire war. The fate of Mereel’s ad should be in discussion among all the senior alor of House Vizsla and even the sister clans, not just among Tor and his favorites. If he bothers with any counsel beyond his own ambitions.

Jango looks healthy enough to be disgusted by their existence, so at least they’re making some attempt to keep him alive. Draye lets the tent flap fall, rather obvious he won’t be interested in talking.

“Alor.” Gren speaks up on the external comms, for the benefit of any Death Watch listening in. “The ship’s in good order. I think we’re ready to go. We should get Alif to somewhere with better resources, as soon we can.”

The last part, at least, is not a lie, and still their first priority, though it’s difficult to walk back along the edge of the camp and not pick up every ad they pass along the way, and if these rumors were true, if it’s like this here-

Tor Vizsla says there’s no truth to the tales the New spread of ‘indoctrination camps’, that Death Watch training is no different than any other clan’s. If anything, it’s to a more exacting standard.

The possible implications in those words roll around in her mind like a handful of spent slugs.

Zai is waiting for her at the gate, the Terciel just beyond. Half a squad with him, but no one’s drawing on them yet. It may just be intimidation - he’s had plenty of time to check up on her credentials. As loyal House Vizla, there’s nothing here she isn’t within her rights to see, whether or not he’d wanted to show her - and it’ll be interesting to see if that matters. Draye doesn’t have a hand on her blaster, certain the rest of her crew won’t send up any tells - but they’re all ready. Just in case.

“I hope our camp met with your approval.”

Kill you with my helmet and take my time about it.

“Quite a challenge, maintaining such an extensive position with limited supply lines.” Draye says. “I’m surprised it hasn’t been more fortified.”

“There are benefits to being overlooked,” Zai says, “as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Draye nods. “It must have been a tough catch, the ad of Jaster Mereel.”

“Not particularly.” Zai says with confidence, and she wonders if he was anywhere within a thousand miles of that fight. “A House that isn’t half as clever as it thinks it is.”

Which is why the war’s gone on for as long as it has, obviously.

“Well done, regardless.” She lies. “Has House Mereel offered terms?”

Zai frowns. “The Mand’alor will return, to deal with the fate of the traitor himself. There is nothing else to say.”

“Of course.” Draye says, and salutes. “Kote bah aliit Vizsla. Ori’kote bah Mand’alor.”

—————————————

Back on the Terciel, Draye pauses just long enough to dig out the discarded bag of the jetii’ad from where it had fallen, packing every available spare inch with food and bacta and whatever else they have at hand. He’s waiting for her at the edge of the ramp, and she tosses it to him without comment, hopes he’s got some way of getting it back to his side of the camp without losing everything valuable on the way - but he’s been enduring this long before she showed up, and with any luck he’ll manage to hold out a little longer.

A shame his cabur hadn't been there, or she might have just taken them both.

The silence has been absolute since they left the gate, and it follows them on the entire trip up, as they fly out the valley and all that misery shrinks down to a mottled blur on a burned-out plain and they’re waiting for retaliation, waiting for the di’kut ver’alor to decide he did want to try and blow them out of the sky, actually - but that’s far from the only reason for the quiet, and in the end, nothing happens. Perfect stillness all the way out into the deep black, and Draye isn’t sure that she wouldn’t have preferred a firefight. Any excuse to go back down there and do what she very much wants to do.

Hardly alone in that. Alif’s been carefully moved to the medbay, but there are still traces of her blood in the seams on the floor and Sayze’s keeping an eye out for trouble, but the rest of her aliit have all gathered of their own accord in the cargo bay, not the more cozy common room. The anger feels too large now for a space that small, a thing ready to knock down walls.

Nelo is furious past words, simply glaring at her, pointing to the door, to everything they’d witnessed, once and again, the obvious question in his eyes.

“I know.” Draye sighs, helmet off now and heavy in her hands. “I know.“

“We owe a debt to the jetiise. Even if they weren’t ade.” Phelyx says. “The minute Alif wakes up, you know she’ll want it paid.”

“We have people we can call in on this. We can have them here in days.” Nelo says. “I don’t care if that demagolka Kaine sh*ts credits and kriffs victories, we are not letting this-“

“I need to talk to my ba’buir.” Draye says. “It’s not an accident, that he asked us to do this. What we saw down there, I don’t think it’s going to be any kind of surprise to him.”

“He didn’t tell you where to go, did he?” Gren says. “We could have ended up anywhere.”

Which leads, of course, to the obvious conclusion - it was this bad everywhere in the Kyr’tsad. Maybe not the same type of bad, maybe not terrified ade cowering like frightened slaves, slowly starving in some empty, anonymous corner of a dead world - maybe not the ad be Alor be Aliit Mereel tied to a chair, what the kriff - but still. Draye’s not an idiot, she’s seen enough of the galaxy - corruption doesn’t keep to its boundaries, one ugly choice but no further. A rot doesn’t stop spreading once it’s started, and for them to start here with the ade…

The very thinnest of slim chances, that somehow Tor is too busy on the other side of the system, doesn’t know everything about this camp, or how bad - but that’s no better, really, not an argument in his favor. What use is a kriffing Mand’alor who doesn’t know what’s going on in his own aliit, no matter how vast? A little difficult to win a war by flinging half-trained soldiers and ade to their deaths over scraps.

“We’re not walking away from this.” Draye says. “But let me talk to him first. Let me understand just why he wanted to us to see that.”

The quiet but insistent suspicion, that she already knows, that what she thought would be a simple battle is more likely a matter of digging in for the long assault.

—————————————

“Ah, the honor of a beloved bu’ad’s attention upon these ancient bones. Truly, the universe bestows infinite blessings.”

It’s good, that the signal’s distant enough that Draye can pretend that only the audio works. Keeping her voice level is hard enough.

“I will dance through your ashes, old man.”

A soft chuckle. “So, I assume you have given our esteemed leader all the honor due to him?”

Draye drums her fingers against the priceless start of all this osik. A good thing the chest plate isn’t small enough to throw, or there’d probably be a dent in her wall.

“You nearly cost me my youngest vod today, for this wild strill chase.” Draye says. On their way now, to patch her up properly, but none of that would matter at all, if - “A jetii saved her life - practically jetii’ad. Two of them. Or one of them was dar’jetii, maybe - I don’t actually know how any of that works. They were prisoners, in one of the Kyr’tsad’s little camps.”

The only reward for a life saved - the jetii’ad begging her to knock him down, to avoid a harsher punishment. Draye forces her hand to uncurl, not to punch something she’ll just have to repair later.

“Interesting. Jetiise, out here? What could they possibly be thinking?”

Odd and inexplicable, but also not her most pressing concern.

“Did you know that Tor Vizsla is holding Mereel’s ad?”

“Still alive, then? I wondered where they might have put him.”

Draye is suddenly, overwhelmingly tired. Being scammed out of a contract, double-crossed at the last minute, battles that cost more in ammunition than they ever paid back - nothing compares to having to try and chart a course through the minefield of inter-clan politics. The reason she’d stayed away all this time. The reason she ought to fly out now, and never look back.

Except now she knows what they’d be leaving behind - who they’d be leaving behind, and that’s not possible. Its amazing, with what she’s seen of how the galaxy can disappoint, and she knew her House was by no means perfect, hardly immune to failure - it was still unnerving to dig beneath the surface and find it all so blatantly rotten, full of holes she could fly a ship through.

“… he’s not worthy, is he?” Not just to sit the throne, to call and be answered, to stand as Mand’alor. If that camp is any representation of the whole, Tor Vizsla is not worthy for any position, for any reason, by any measure. Dishonor to the House in every moment he keeps breathing.

“I hear that Pre is also an absolute di’kut when given the chance, though with more of his face still attached.” Her ba’buir says. “I believe we have allowed for enough time to pass for a full opportunity to see what House Vizsla can aspire to under their continued guidance.”

Absolutely kriff all.

“Ba’buir, if you’re expecting me to suddenly take an interest in an ugly throne on a dead planet, I will disable my comms permanently.”

“It seems, my formidable bu’ad, that the Mand’alor best for House Vizsla’s future may no longer come from House Vizsla.”

“Mereel.” Only a few names worth bringing up in this fight, and he certainly doesn’t mean anyone in the New. “You want to back House Mereel.” And if he wants to, then he’s not the only one. “Why now? He might not even be alive-“

“He lives.” Her ba’buir says, with the kind of confidence that means she doesn’t want to know what he does with the rest of his free time. “Mereel’s an idealist.” As if it’s an unfortunate illness, or a head injury. “In the past, that’s kept him from any real consideration - but he’s an idealist, and yet he’s survived, and the longer he lives, the more clans have found benefit in rallying to his side, and the less his grand ideals seem so entirely unreasonable. Considering the alternatives.”

“What will he do differently, that House Kryze hasn’t already tried to force on us?”

“Have you ever actually read any of his declarations, bu’ad?”

“… skimmed them. A few. The short ones.” Draye mutters. Any lessons that didn’t involve the opportunity to throw a punch had never exactly been her strongest suit, and Jaster Mereel didn’t put much stock in brevity, at least not on the page. “He won’t fight back against the New. He wants to cut deals.”

“Mereel has suggested that there might be a path forward on Manda’yaim for all parties who are interested in more than finding new ways of killing each other. He has shown a willingness to at least speak with House Kryze, to consider the duch*ess’ perspective - without any implication that it involves kneeling to the Republic.”

“I don’t see what difference that makes.”

“Would the duch*ess have to lean so hard on her Republic allies for their support, if House Kryze were not under near-constant attack from the Kyr’tsad? Would she have to look to others, if there was any guidance offered to her within the system, from any clan? We have only ever treated Satine Kryze as an outsider, an usurper. Who benefits most from this, from Manda’yaim not recognizing one of its own? Do you think she’s lying, about her goal of peace? Do you think she truly cares nothing for the well-being of her people?”

“I don’t think she can even see her people.” Draye says. “What possible use is her peace, if it means razing the soul of the Mando'ade down to bare stone? I think she’s a dangerous fool. An idealist.”

“So let the idealists fight it out amongst themselves for a while, perhaps even with words instead of blaster fire. Let Mereel and Kryze see if there is some common ground to be discovered that hasn’t already been soaked in blood. What do any of us have to lose? If it doesn’t work, we can at least take a moment to clean the blasters, bang the dents out of our beskar’gam and reload. House Vizsla can throw a rock and bounce it off someone to replace Tor. Or elect the rock and see if anyone notices.”

Oh, and she hates asking - that her ba’buir is making her ask - when they both know it was all leading up to this, from the moment she’d stupidly picked up that first call.

“Supposing I was the kind of gullible di’kut who actually thought there was some merit to any of this…. what then?”

“Well, my gracious and wise bu’ad, I might suggest that, since you’ve already traveled so far, you take the time to visit with a few other of your extended aliit. It’s been so long, you must have much to catch up on. See if they have any news to share of our great Mand’alor, and his noble Kyr’tsad, and their seemingly eternal campaign for a return to the glories of old. Share the details of all that you know, and perhaps they might have some of their own observations to share, to tell the whole of such a magnificent saga.”

Insurrection. A quiet one, but nothing less. Collecting enough evidence that House Vizsla would have to take a moment to re-examine its priorities, asking a question that, really, ought to be asked of every Mand’alor once in a while - was this still a person worth supporting? Was the Death Watch actually interested in winning the war, or just prolonging it permanently, with any damages acceptable as long as they could benefit? Was this what House Vizsla truly wished to be? Would all those who marched ahead regard what had been won with pride?

Starving ade who suffered not because they had to, but because the Kyr’tsad were too busy chasing glory to care for the cost, or who had to pay it.

Did something need to be done about Tor Vizsla? If that was too extreme, perhaps it was a matter of simply not anticipating his replacement, of considering alternate options, should the war continue not to favor him, should he show himself to be less than the leader they thought they’d been backing all this time.

Draye doesn’t think she’ll be the one to pull the trigger, but this is certainly all about lining up the shot.

“Why do you even care what happens here, ba’buir? What difference could it make to you? Did someone lose a bet?”

He chuckles, a voice full of dust and old battles and long grudges carefully savored, polished to a high shine.

“If you are unfortunate to live so long, my cherished bu’ad, you will find that pure spite is the only thing interesting enough to get you up in the morning.”

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Jango blinks, lifts his head at the klaxon blaring in the distance, ignores the twinge of worry at the unknown - whatever it is, he’ll have to take it the same as everything else. He doesn’t think he’s so far out of it - the Kyr’tsad brute didn’t hit him that hard, maybe one new black eye - but he still startles as something vaguely cold and wet presses against his bleeding lip, looks up to find Trilla staring at him in concern.

“Need to put a bell on you, prudii’ika.” Jango says. Wishes he wasn’t bleeding in front of her, although she doesn’t seem to care, dabs a bit more at the cut before letting him drink the rest of the water she’s brought. “What was that I heard, the alarm?”

“Scavenger run. Obi-Wan and Cal went out to bring us things from the ships that crash.” A small shrug. “Sometimes there’s good things.”

“Is Cal another friend of yours?” Jango says, and watches her immediately shut down, eyes darkening with suspicion. He feels a new, fresh hatred for every Kyr’tsad who could make an adiik be this cautious to say anything, wary that any piece of information might be used against her.

It’s easier to ask questions about Obi-Wan, obviously someone she thinks is far beyond Jango’s ability to harm. The best person to ever live, taking care of all the ad, teaching her how to use that Force of theirs - patient and kind and wise and gentle - and Jango smiles to himself, makes a mental note not to disparage the jetii anywhere that might risk her wrath. Trilla joined the camp after Obi-Wan - he’s always been here - but as Jango asks more questions, he gets a clearer picture of what ‘always’ might entail - a little more or less than a year, maybe, and though Obi-Wan’s been worked as hard as anyone else in the camp, it seems that Tor’s found his usefulness as a jetii to be so underwhelming he can’t think of a better purpose to set him to. It’s unclear if he even remembers Trilla exists.

“It’s that jetii magic of yours, isn’t it? Power to make them think he’s powerless.” Trilla doesn’t answer, but there’s a sly smile hiding in the corner of her mouth.

He learns nothing about why her favorite person in the galaxy looks dar’jetii but obviously isn’t. Trilla goes silent again - if she does know anything, he’s not worth trusting with those answers.

So Jango asks more questions about the camp - impressed by how many details she knows about places he’s sure Obi-Wan wouldn’t want her to go. He wonders how he can convince her to help him - how many steps between him getting free and him hijacking a way out of here that she could help make happen. Or finding a way to broadcast their location, so that the Haat Mandoade might hear. Except it would put her at risk, and there are reasons he doesn’t want to do that beyond the fact that Obi-Wan likely wouldn’t let him live long enough to regret it.

All at once, Trilla stops, gaze focused on some point he can’t see. “Something’s wrong. He’s hurt.”

“Who-“

A sharp gasp - two steps back, and she’s vanished again, leaving Jango with nothing to do but curse to himself, and strain to hear anything useful in the silence. It feels like hours go by, but there’s no way to be sure. Jango wonders if he can convince one of them to hide a chronometer somewhere he can see it, just to have a better idea of how much time is passing.

The tent flap suddenly opens on a half of a squad of Kyr’tsad in full armor - no, he catches the insignia as one of them shifts, they’re only Vizsla, although that’s not always a distinction worth making. Jango exhales silently, bracing himself for the worst - but they only look at him for a long moment before leaving again.

He blinks, and Trilla’s standing next to him, as if she’d never left. One of these days, it’s not going to startle the osik out of him.

“Do you know who they were?”

“I can’t… I can’t, they were too quiet and it’s too loud.” She crouches down, arms around her knees. He can hear her breathing, wet and uneven. “Everyone’s scared and angry. All the time, all the time… and I can’t…. everyone’s always so scared.”

He wonders where Obi-Wan is - aren’t jetii supposed to know when their own are in trouble? Unless that’s a part of this problem.

“It’s all right, ad’ika. Udesii, you’re all right.” Jango strains against the bonds on his wrists, not that it gets him anywhere new. “Just breathe. I’m right here with you.”

And suddenly, he is, more than he ever intended to be - that Force osik of hers again - but at least this time he understands what’s happening from the start, doesn’t panic even though Trilla is, too afraid to be gentle as she digs down through his thoughts, sending them startled and flying, like a high wind through dry leaves. Kriffing strange and wrong and unsettling, but he tries to keep calm - she’s not trying to hurt him. It must be some version of how she reaches out to Obi-Wan, some jetii technique, a comfort Jango’s unable to provide.

“I’m here. I’m here, ad’ika. Focus on me.” Jango says - and thinks it too, or tries to, unsure if it will be of any use. He tries to think of good things, gentle things - a particularly beautiful sunrise after a successful job, the whole world cast in endless shades of blue. A family of vulptices he’d watched playing among the rocks, when they’d stopped once to fix an engine mid-mission. The way it felt to lean in to a hug from his buir, the steadiest, safest place in the galaxy. Jango tries to give her what makes him feel strong - training, going through regimens with a spear or a blade, sighting down a scope, letting the whole world go silent and still and calm around that focus. All the wrong memories, maybe, for a grieving adiik with no reason to love them, but he’s got nothing else to offer.

He thinks about the weight of his beskar’gam, the safety and the pride there. Sparring with Myles or his buir, the joy in that fight, knowing he was a part of something strong and solid and safe. He thinks of… the farmhouse, warm lights against the sea of the night, the strength in his mother’s hands as she’d repaired - and Jango tries to stop, yank those thoughts back - he doesn’t want to remember this - but it’s like being caught in a sudden tide, feet dragged right out from under him. Memories he does not let himself dwell on rise up, sharp and clean and new - the heat of that day, the feel of Tor’s hand around his arm, the gun against his head - had Jango killed them? Had he killed his family to save himself, blurting out that osik about strangers on the farm? Had it always been his fault?

Jaster said no - always said no - that it had been the fault of the Haat for ending up there to begin with, that Tor had been angry and looking for someone to take it out on, would have murdered Jango’s first father anyway, slaughtered all of them simply for being in the way, for not being the person he wanted to kill.

It’s hard to remember that sometimes - hard to remember now, with the sounds of blasters ringing in his ears and Arla screaming and the fire, the smell and the heat and the roar of it, his whole world burning and Arla, always Arla screaming and his fault, his fault for not being smarter, not keeping his kriffing mouth shut, not saying the one thing that might have saved them all and-

Stop it stop it STOP

Trilla had given him the worst day of her life, and now he’s returned the favor. Jango comes back to himself enough to hear his own breathing, heavy gasps through clenched teeth, and as that pain and fear and sorrow ebbs, he can feel the jetii’ad - horror and sympathy, apology and shame for seeing what he hadn’t meant to show her, what wasn’t hers to take. An accident, and her touch on his mind is soft, trying to soothe, little hands bolstering walls made of sand, to give him back some kind of stability - and she’s so afraid of his anger. Afraid that he’ll hate her for what she’s done, what she is. Powerful gifts she’s still growing into, in a world with no safe place for learning.

“It’s all right. It’s… it’s okay.” Jango tries to focus enough to send her that understanding - the memory of taking a bad hit during sparring, the number of times Myles has sent him to the ground without meaning to, and how often he’s returned the favor. The benefit of being the ad be Alor be Aliit Mereel, to be among the rarefied few who could accidentally kick the Mand’alor in the groin and live to tell the tale. Learning meant making mistakes, getting stronger meant those mistakes could do more damage - the possibility of great harm, but also the only path to doing anything useful.

“It’s not your fault, prudii’ika. You didn’t ask for any of this, you’re just trying to survive it.”

Jango breathes, steady and even against the spin and panic all around him, and slowly, very slowly it all goes calm, and still - and he blinks, back in the world, to find her arms wrapped around one of his, eyes closed and tense as if braced against a storm, though she’s breathing better, the weight of her in his mind easing off.

“Do you see? The fear comes, but you’re braver than it. The worst things come, but you survive them, and endure. You’re too strong, they can’t carry you away.”

The little adiik sniffles a bit, and he leans toward her, the closest he can get to a gentle keldabe.

“We protect each other, all right?” Jango’s trying to comfort her, but Trilla only gives him a long, thoughtful look and then a decisive nod.

——————————

All that Force osik of hers still takes it out of him, a jetii’ad able to wreck him harder in a matter of minutes than anything the Kyr’tsad have managed to so far, and once she’s gone, Jango spends whatever’s left of the day getting something like rest. Whatever happened out in the camp, no one comes to bother him until well past dark, when he finally senses movement nearby, quiet but steadily coming closer.

“I thought I suggested you try not to provoke them.”

“Says the walking shu'shuk“ Even in the dim light, Obi-Wan looks like the fight hit him head-on, tossed him through shebs-up, and he slid face-down on the other side.

“I can’t remember what that word means,” Obi-Wan frowns, “and I don’t want you to tell me.”

“You said not to provoke Zai, and I didn’t.” Jango says. “Provoking the rest of them gives me something to do.”

Obi-Wan raises a hand - jetii magic osik - but now that Jango has the feel of it from Trilla, he can tell just how skilled the older jetii is by comparison - barely a sense of him at all, except for the dimming of the dull aches and pains in his body, a slow rush of new strength.

You’d be kriffed. If he ever stopped being polite, you’d be absolutely kriffed.

Obi-Wan sits down heavily in the nearest chair, elbows on his knees, just barely avoids dropping the mug in his hands.

“Can you give me something to tell them? Anything - a half-truth, information that used to be accurate. It’ll help if they ask, if they want me to keep trying to interrogate you.”

Jango considers it - gives him the coordinates for two long-abandoned camps, useless code words for obsolete comms, plans Jaster made for the oldest battles he can recall. It’s tempting to try and twist the knife on Tor, remind him of a few battles where the bastard’s had his shebs handed to him - but he doesn’t want Obi-Wan or any of the ade to suffer for it.

The late night meal is a bit of folded flatbread dipped in a broth that at least has some kind of spice to it, Obi-Wan ripping off pieces for him in between offering careful sips.

It should be awkward and strange, being hand-fed like this, but Jango’s too hungry to care - nothing since what Trilla had brought in the morning, and he doubts he will care much for what the Kyr’tsad feed their captives anyway, if they ever get around to it. Obi-Wan doesn’t seem to be more than half-there anyway, gaze blearily fixed on the middle distance.

“Are you sneaking out extra rations, or am I eating your food?” He asks between bites.

“I’m not hungry.” Obi-Wan says, which is an answer, even if it’s not to the question he asked.

“You look kriffed. What happened?”

“Bo-Katan Kryze happened.”

House Kryze and House Mereel aren’t allies, but they don’t particularly go out of their way to ruin each other’s days, especially now that Bo-Katan’s side of the clan is so fervently opposed to any moves from the Kyr’tsad. He’s not sure what would happen to him, if Kryze found and attacked this camp. If Bo-Katan would see it as an easy opportunity to get rid of him and blame Vizsla for it, or if she’d try to sell him off to the New as a hostage. He can’t imagine escaping from them would be much of a challenge.

“Arial bombardment or close-range combat?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know I’m here?”

Obi-Wan sighs. “I can’t tell how the Death Watch are playing it yet. I don’t know if anyone knows that you’re still alive.”

His buir might think he’s already gone, that Tor just killed him immediately. His clan might not even be looking - but Jango fiercely shoves back that thought, ignores the way his stomach goes into free fall for a moment. It’s hardly mandokar to expect a rescue, especially if it risks the lives of his aliit, of the Mand’alor, and maybe it’s better if they do think he’s lost. It might keep them from pulling their punches.

“Do you know who that was, who came in here earlier?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “More Vizsla. They got us out of trouble, but I don’t think they were local, and they didn’t stay long. I heard they didn’t seem very impressed with the place.”

Jango wonders what that Force of his might have been saying - and then wondered if it was saying anything at all, and not just the only thing keeping him upright. It must have been a decent fight out there, a shame he had to miss it.

“Did we kill your cabur’jetii?”

His buir has commented on more than one occasion, that the concept of tact and the concept of Jango exist in entirely different star systems, possibly even beyond the reach of hyperdrives. Obi-Wan blinks at him, momentarily thrown.

“What?”

“Jetii always travel together, like a wampa and its cub. But Trilla’s a foundling, and you’re too young to have been on your own. Were you here on a mission? Did your cabur get caught in the war, and that’s why you’re alone?“ A secret mission, perhaps, that meant the jetii couldn’t reclaim him easily, or didn’t think he’d survived. From everything he knows, the jetii are, if nothing else, very protective of their ade. Until a few days ago, it was the only thing about them Jango could even grudgingly approve of.

He’s also overstepped, badly. Obi-Wan seems to take absolutely everything in stride, but his expression is suddenly, completely blank. Jango can’t even see him breathing. After a moment, he blinks, the polite mask sliding back in place.

“No, there’s no one... I wasn’t a - I was alone. when I came here, and I’m not a Jedi.”

You were, though. Once. Jango is sure of that. He’s too skilled to be totally untrained - and there’s that core world accent. The manners, here of all places? If it hadn’t been an accident to bring him here, some mission gone terribly wrong, what the kark was it, and why hadn’t his buir heard about it? Why was no one looking for a missing jetii’ad, even discreetly? Jango’s an adult by every measure and Jaster will still not hesitate to pull rank, if he thinks his ad’s about to do something unnecessarily stupid.

“Your little shadow, she showed me what happened to her. Why you don’t trust me.”

“Did she hurt you?” Jango shakes his head no, but Obi-Wan is still frowning. “I’m sorry, she shouldn’t have - the fault is mine. I know how unsettling it can be, if you’re not… Trilla’s still learning control, but she’s strong, and sometimes-“

Jango shakes his head. “It was important, that I saw it for myself. I wouldn’t have wanted to believe it, otherwise. I still don’t. You need to understand that what happened there, what happened to her - that was… that was not us - not the Haat Mando’ade, or the will of the Mand’alor. My buir would never hurt ade. Ever.”

“The Kyr’tsad and the Haat Mando’ade are at war.” Obi-Wan says. “Everyone knows how vile the Death Watch are, how young they take their new soldiers, how quickly they can be dangerous. Some of the younglings here, the Death Watch are all they’ve ever had to look up to. What happens to them, if he decides it’s just ‘not worth the risk?’”

Jango remembers those words too clearly, the last that Trilla had heard before the shooting started.

“The risk is what makes us Mando’ade.” Jango says fiercely. “It’s madness to do otherwise.”

“This entire system is already kriffing mad. This entire war is a karking bantha sh*tshow.” Obi-Wan snaps back. “It makes me wonder what it would look like here, if your people spent as much time actually acting with things like honor and duty as they do talking about it.”

So this is how tired the jetii has to be, to lose his temper. Jango had wondered.

“Surprised it’s not so simple, jetii’ika? That’s what it looks like, when you actually bother to engage with the world. When you live in it. We don’t spend it locked away in our little temples, looking down on everyone and feeling superior, only coming out when it’s time to judge a galaxy we know kriff-all about.”

“No, you just come out shooting and then feel superior over all the dead bodies.” Obi-Wan says. “The surprise isn’t that you kriffed over your entire system, it’s that you ever managed to build anything important enough to even bother blowing up in the first place. The Death Watch would have killed me when they found me, except they think that I’m a karking Sith, and your people all seem to believe that being the biggest ori'jagyc shabuir possible is some kind of grand achievement!”

Jango scowls. “And where do the dar’jetti come from, then? Remind me, jetii? A holy order so wise and powerful it can’t even teach its people to not be the biggest kriffing ori’jagyc shabur possible? Is it really so much to ask? Does your infighting always have to drag the entire galaxy along for the ride? At least we don’t pretend to have all the answers before we go and ruin everything anyway. Ad who can touch the Manda are better off as far away from you and your di'kutla jetii osik as possible. No one needs you, jetii. The universe does not need you, and your dini'la Force will not even notice it when you’re gone.”

Jango, my bright and clever and only ad. Jaster’s voice says calmly in his ear, as those gold eyes glare daggers at him. Maybe don’t provoke the haryc jetii when you’re the one tied to a chair?

A moment passes, and Obi-Wan lets his head drop, brings his hands together behind his neck and stretches, with another of those soft, wry laughs that make him sound twice his age.

“Well, this has certainly been productive.”

“The ade here,” Jango says, more gently, “they’re too young to swear any oaths, let alone wear beskar’gam. Until then, they can’t be Death Watch, or anything else.”

Yes, and it’s true that kind of clemency isn’t always possible in the middle of a battle when the bolts are flying - but when the dust settles, when there’s the opportunity to choose restraint and mercy, to do a thing well and right, he knows it’s his buir’s first choice. Especially when it’s ade in need.

“And if Trilla gets scared again and gets into the head of your Mand’alor, like she got into yours?” Obi-Wan says. “We’re still jetiise, in all the ways that matter here. What will keep him from killing her on the spot?”

“I wouldn’t let him.” Jango says, and means it. Honoring the Mand’alor only matters when they’re acting like the Mand’alor. If Jango had to make that choice - impossible as it seems - either his buir would thank him for it afterward or Jaster wouldn’t be his buir anymore. Unlike some of the rulers of other planets he’s seen, vows to the Mand’alor don’t just go in the one direction, more than just the demand for dull, unquestioning obedience. It was Jaster who taught him that.

“Once we’ve taken this camp-“ Once I’ve kicked out every vertebrae in Tor Vizsla’s spinal column “-we will return the ade to their people, the ones we can return, who have somewhere to go. We’ll take care of the others, until they swear the Resol'nare or choose another path.”

There can be significant advantages to raising ade who don’t become warriors, who chart their own path in the galaxy but still consider themselves aliit, and have close ties to all things Mandalore.

“And then we leave.” Obi-Wan says, and somewhere along the way this has become a negotiation. “I help you as much as I can against the Death Watch, whatever that means - whatever it takes. I help you stop Zai, maybe even Tor, and when the dust settles, you help me get the younglings to safety - and then you convince the Mand’alor to look the other way and let us go.”

I’ve already won this. Jango thinks. He won before they’d even started - from the moment the Death Watch dragged him in here, the moment he hit the list of one more thing Obi-Wan Kenobi had to figure out how to protect.

“We’ll let you go.” Jango lies. The last thing he wants is to see the jetiise leave, just disappear into the universe with only each other to depend on, where anything might come for them next. Obi-Wan needs a clan, a loyal aliit to watch his back, if this is how he intends to go on.

He wants to show his prudii’ika what the galaxy looks like, so much beyond the little she’s been able to patch together and call a life. He wants Kenobi to swear the Resol'nare, swear to House Mereel, very much wants to see what that kind of focus and determination is capable of with a decent meal and a decent weapon and enough sleep to realize he’s already proven too valuable, too mandokarla by half to be abandoned to some indifferent fate.

———————————————

Obi-Wan gathers the very last dregs of his energy to leave the tent without being noticed. There’s something he wasn’t quite picking up by the end of that conversation, something subtle and elusive, but he thinks Jango had been telling the truth about everything that mattered - if Obi-Wan can get into a position where it’s possible to surrender to the Haat Mandoade - the real one, with the firepower to back up its claims - to Mereel’s House and clan, this won’t all end in preemptive mass executions.

Send up the kriffing fireworks.

We’ll just ignore your history of unfounded faith in making yourself valuable to figures of authority. Maybe this time if you’re extra useful, it’ll result in some actual reciprocity? Or instead of killing you, they’ll just sell you to the highest bidder instead.

It’s not out of the realm of the possible - nothing ever is - but this potential alliance is the closest thing to an actual chance they’ve had yet. He needs to talk it all out with Cal, and Trilla. Get their perspective - trust in them, with his head pounding and his own perspective shot to steaming osik. No doubt he’ll need their help with whatever comes next, and they deserve to all decide together.

The escape plans, of course, have been there from the start - he and Cal have always been keeping track of changes, oversights in the defenses, Trilla poking new holes in the perimeter even when she shouldn’t be. The biggest problem is in moving all the younglings at once - the camp’s never dropped below forty of them, and it’s nearly twice that now. Far more than would fit in a single transport, and Obi-Wan isn’t even sure he could fly one, let alone successfully hijack another pilot - and even then, where could they go? Until now, it didn’t seem like anywhere held the slightest promise of safety.

The younglings are already supposed to be in some form of combat training - obviously allowed no real weapons, but they have a few junked blasters stripped down to little more than a light show, enough to work on aiming with. Obi-Wan can walk them through the basics, which ones they need to watch out on the recoil for, how to overload a blaster when things don’t go to plan. Some of the older ones are in his own little advanced course - let’s pretend these rocks are a few simple, accessible supplies, and here’s how you combine them, this is where you put the fuse, this is how far away to run.

It sounds absurd, of course. An army of children? How ridiculous. What could they possibly accomplish?

Still, leveraging that has never been part of any real strategy, nothing Obi-Wan ever wants to try again. If they can contact the Haat Mando’ade, if they launch an attack and take the brunt of it, Obi-Wan can move the younglings out of the camp - there are nooks and corners in the nearby wilderness that would be safe for the short-term, at least long enough for the fighting to die down.

He still doesn’t understand where that Vizsla ship came from, if it’s a sign of some new problem on the horizon. He’d hoped they’d stick around until he woke up, hoped he might be able to glean something off any of them, if they took the helmets off. No such luck, not so much as an expression of gratitude - but they’d saved him too, so maybe they’re even. Obi-Wan hopes the wounded soldier is all right, whoever she was, that he’d done the right thing and that it was enough. He’s seen enough to know that the Death Watch didn’t care as much for those who only partially died for the cause.

You see? The Dark murmurs, trying to leverage his weary frustration. All that effort and what good did it really-

Oh, please do shut up. He’s tired enough to just let it drop, all of it. The day is over, and somehow they survived it, and Obi-Wan can have a breakdown tomorrow if it still seems worthwhile, cleave himself and everything he loves from the Light tomorrow if he needs to, when he’s actually awake enough to remember how to have proper feelings about that.

It shouldn’t have been enough to knock him out completely, that jolt from the chip - it always kriffing hurts, for sure, the kind of pain that’s difficult to brace himself for - but he’d been so open then, still half in the Force, that it had caught him completely off-guard. Thankfully he hadn’t still been trying to heal, hadn’t done any further damage to the soldier, but everything aches now, and the dull pounding in his head won’t be going away anytime soon.

It’s dangerous, being incapacitated like he was, especially with strangers in the camp, and the aftermath isn’t much better. He can’t afford to let himself get this worn down, when there’s never any certainty he’ll have the chance to recover before the next crisis hits. Obi-Wan knows he’s courting Force exhaustion, too tired to even consider the meditation that’s supposed to keep him from being tired, his awareness contracting to little beyond putting one foot in front of the other on hopefully level ground.

He’s not even sure just when Cal steps in, helping him reach their corner of the camp. A slightly raised platform of stone, half-sheltered by scrub and with a decent view of the front entrance, Kaine’s quarters, and the outer perimeter of the younglings’ own sites - everything he might need to keep an eye on. Obi-Wan smiles when he sees the majority of their scavenged bedding arranged into an attempt at a comfortable chair, and he doesn’t need to be fussed over like this, but Cal is already nudging him to sit down.

“Here, have some water first.”

Obi-Wan takes a sip and realizes it isn’t just water - hot, and different than his usual damp, green osik. Actually worthy of a little attention, and he takes a careful sniff. A little sweet, a little spicy. It smells like distant, better places.

“What the kriff is this and why is it actually good this time?”

“I swiped it from that Vizsla ship while I was grabbing spare bandages. Didn’t get a chance to look at the label, but I figured anything had to be better, right?”

“Cal.”

“Don’t ‘Cal’ me. Nobody saw, and they can afford it, especially after all that time you spent keeping their squadmate’s organs inside their armor. Do we know who they were?”

“No idea. House Vizsla, obviously, but nothing… I thought maybe reinforcements, but...” He should have been paying more attention, but it had all been happening so fast, most of the day’s memory little more than a hot, loud blur punctuated by angry blue armor and trying not to get blown up.

“I think they cared that Jango was here. They asked me about it, and left right after they saw him.”

Obi-Wan blinks, tries to consider what might happen if they want Mereel's son for their own and decide to return, to attack - or if they were allied to Clan Kryze all along, if Bo-Katan really was looking for Jango, if she managed to interrogate one of the Kyr’tsad and… and… his headache spikes up again, smashing all those half-formed worries to pieces. If anything happens in the next twenty-four hours or so, they’re all just kriffed, and there’s not much he can do but try not to think about it.

“Ration bar?”

“I’m fine.”

“Half of one, then.”

“Cal-“

“A quarter.” Cal says. “And then another quarter. Please, Obi-Wan?”

He’s developed a taste for the spicier foods of Mandalore - had to, with very little else on offer. The heat levels do tend to kill any other flavors he’d rather not be tasting, depending on the day, and elevate anything bland to at least the same, familiar burn. When Obi-Wan’s this tired, though, his tolerance is the first thing to go. Even chewing the flavorless rations makes him feel slightly nauseous - but Cal’s not wrong, he needs something to keep going, and a few swallows of tea at least help it all along.

“How’s the arm?” Cal says.

“It looks worse than it is.” They shouldn’t have wasted the bacta on him, but he’s not going to make Cal feel bad for that. He’ll catch a few hours of sleep now, a few more of meditation later. “It’ll be fine.” He’ll make it fine.

“When you went down, when we were on the ship and-“ Cal says. “I lost you there for a minute, in the Force. I couldn’t find… I thought, maybe…”

“I promise I’ll be okay.” When Obi-Wan had first arrived, Cal hadn’t known how to keep from broadcasting his emotions, that there was even anyone who might overhear. His memories of how he got here aren’t as clear as Trilla’s - just the knowledge that once there had been better days, and kindness, and then suddenly it was all over.

“We wouldn’t make it without you.” Cal says, not looking up. “If you weren’t here, we wouldn’t-“ He sighs. “You could leave whenever you wanted. The only reason you stay, and that they hurt you, is because of us. I think… maybe… I think I’d hate us for that, if I were…”

“Hey, no. Absolutely not. Never.” Obi-Wan reaches out, ends up with Cal’s head on his shoulder - he’s been the backup to this whole clusterkriff of a day, and must be just as exhausted. He’s so young - it’s not fair, that Obi-Wan has to rely on him as much as he does. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be. It’s not your fault, and it’s not forever - we’ll get out of here.” Obi-Wan lowers his voice, even though he was already quiet, and there’s no one listening. “Jango says that if we can help him, his buir will help everyone else. The Haat Mando’ade will take the camp and help everyone and let us leave.”

“You think he’s telling the truth?” Cal looks as skeptical as he feels - because it sounds too good, too simple. It sounds sane, and when’s the last time sane has ever been true?

“I think he thinks he is.” Obi-Wan says. “We have to take the risk sometime. I still need to ask Trilla, if she wants to go along with this.”

“Yes.” Trilla says, from a nearby shadow, and Obi-Wan ignores the twinge of pain as he raises his other arm so she can cuddle close. “We can trust him. He’ll help us”

The lie detector gets the deciding vote, and who is he to argue with her? Now to try and figure out what comes next.

“Yeah, well… I might have something that can help us, too.” Cal’s presence in the Force suddenly flickers bright enough that Obi-Wan has to retreat behind his shields, to avoid spoiling whatever secret he’s about to reveal. Trilla must pick it up, though, hiding a smile behind her hands. “I found it in that cargo hold, just before Kryze showed up.”

“Don’t tell me.” Obi-Wan says. “Mon Cala wedding trifle. Or something new to read besides that old engine schematic. Maybe a full set of flatware from Naboo, with a matching-“

Cal opens his hand with a flourish, and Obi-Wan thinks that any of his guesses would have been more likely than the kyber crystal resting in his open palm.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

“So do they bother teaching any of you how to throw a punch, or do you hire Clan Wren to do all the actual fighting?”

Another day, another ugly Kyr’tsad - kriff, but they’re getting worse - and another wake-up beating, just to get the blood pumping. At least it’s just the one this time, although he’s got the knack for aiming for Jango’s kidneys, even with the chair in the way, and doesn’t let up until he finally wrenches out a groan of pain, and if Jango had known that was all he wanted he might have offered it up a little sooner - likely not, but he would have preferred the choice.

It isn’t long after the sound of heavy footsteps fade that there’s further noise beyond the tent flap, and Jango doesn’t have time for more than a moment’s dread and an indrawn breath before the Kyr’tsad have a bag over his head again and he snarls out every curse word he can remember in every language he knows or can guess at, running out of holes they can shove things into and the things they can shove there just about the time he feels smaller hands fumbling with the bindings around his left wrist.

“It’d be real great if you didn’t kill me. You know, if that’s an option.”

An ad. A nervous ad, who might not believe what he assumes the Kyr’tsad already know, that Jango won’t hurt him, and there won’t be anyone else to hurt within arm’s reach.

“How many blasters are on me?” He says, quiet as he can.

“Enough.” The ad says, and Jango doesn’t move as his other hand is unbound and then his ankles, and the ad gets an arm over his shoulder and Jango tries to stand, figures it’s not going to be pleasant and it isn’t - whatever doesn’t ache responds with an even sharper spike of pain, everything in him locking up and he’s impressed he doesn’t bring the ad straight to the ground with him. A bark of laughter from one of their captors, and that’s enough incentive for Jango to make every effort to stay upright as he’s slowly, painfully led out of the tent. Not exactly a breath of fresh air, with the bag over his head, but Jango can feel the warmth of the sun and a bit of the breeze, and his body’s slowly remembering how do things like move and what a spine is supposed to be for.

“So it’s true, right?” The ad says, propped close enough to him that he can keep his voice to practically a whisper.

“What’s true?”

“You really break Tor’s nose with your face?”

“Absolutely.” Jango can’t help but be a little proud that the word spread. Judging by the eager way the ad said it, it wasn’t an unpopular decision. “What’s your name?”

“You!” A voice barks out nearby. “No talking!”

Jango doesn’t say a word, lets the ad turn him around, moving away - can’t help the hiss, as his leg cramps up, tries to stretch it out without making a bigger deal of it than he already has - who knows how many Kyr’tsad are enjoying his pain. The bag blocks out most everything else, no sounds but the pop and crack of his own annoyed joints.

“Sorry that it hurts. Obi-Wan’s way better at fixing things like that than I am.”

Cal. He must be. The one Trilla had mentioned.

“Are you all jetii in here?”

“No, it’s just the three of us.” And if Jango couldn’t already guess at the boy’s age by the height of his mobile walking stick, there’s a waver of vulnerability in the young voice. “He didn’t mention me?”

“He was protecting you.” Jango has a feeling Obi-Wan’s trust will be a thing to be earned by patient inches, if at all. “I think your cabur keeps everything in his back holster for as long as he possibly can.”

A soft laugh. “Sounds like him.”

“He all right?”

“Yeah.” Cal says. “He had.. uh, something to do-“

“I said no talking!” A second harsh bark, much closer, and Cal stumbles back into him with a little grunt that probably means he got hit, if only a glancing blow. Jango tells himself it won’t do any good to launch himself in the direction he thought the strike came from, that it won’t do the ad any good to watch him get his shebs kicked off - and if this is one of Obi-Wan’s jetii’ade, he’d almost certainly get himself hurt trying to stop it.

“They’re putting in a… cage.” Cal murmurs, after they’ve made another long circuit of whatever minimal area he’s being allowed to move around in. “I guess that means they think you’ll be here for a while. Or we’re getting a pet massiff. Or maybe they’ll make you fight one.”

“Fun. Can you face me north?” Jango says, thinking of the map Trilla drew - and Cal understands what he’s thinking, spends the next few circuits turning him in all sorts of random directions, each one with a quick remark about what he’s facing - guardposts, gates, barracks - and approximately how far away it is. It all might be for nothing, but Jango prefers to at least pretend he’s building his way toward a plan.

Cal lets out a small, relieved sigh, a little tension fading from him on the next lap - Jango wonders if the guard most insistent on silence has found somewhere new to try being the poster child for a friendly fire incident. Still just walking in circles, but every lap’s a little easier, the knots easing their way out of his limbs.

“So, what are you better at?” Jango risks it, as the silence continues. Cal snorts.

“You mean the Force? Not much. Other things… I can slice okay, if the equipment’s decent. Fixing stuff, sometimes. Counting cards?”

“Out here?”

“One of the soldiers taught me. He was nice.”

“Which one?” A Kyr’tsad with even a slightly better temperament was worth knowing about, but even for their strange, truncated conversation, the silence goes on too long.

“He, uh… took a walk. Marched ahead. A while back.”

Trilla is skittish and wild, Obi-Wan can be unnaturally patient and forbearing, but even sight unseen and under duress, Cal reminds him of any number of Clan Mereel’s own ad. A little more cautious, given the circ*mstances, but still open and friendly and ready for adventure. He wants to know how far out in the universe Jango’s been. What’s the biggest thing he’s ever had to fight. The fastest ship he’s ever been on.

“Oh yeah, and sometimes I have… uh, Force echoes?”

“No idea.” Obi-Wan would likely not be impressed to know that the words ‘Force’ and ‘osik’ come as a matched set in Jango’s mind.

“If I touch something old and interesting, I can tell you it’s… old and interesting. And sometimes miserable. And it doesn’t always work very well. Obi-Wan knows someone from the Temple who’s really good at it. Which surprises exactly no one.”

Jango smiles. He loves being right. “The Jedi Temple?”

“No, the other one.” The boy says, deadpan.

Myles will like his new vod’ika, although having to deal with two of them constantly snarking will be… something. It’s going to be a trick already, figuring out how to keep the jetii’ad on the ship and out of combat, but certainly less difficult than trying to convince Obi-Wan to leave them behind someplace safe - and that’s if the little shadow would even listen, which Jango sincerely doubts.

Cal’s hand tenses on his arm, and Jango hears a cough, one of the Kyr’tsad moving by, very close, and he waits until the ad’s hand isn’t digging into his shoulder before he risks the question.

“Broadcast tower?”

“Signal goes to a Death Watch relay boost. No good.”

“Can you do something about that?”

A long pause. “… Maybe.” Cal says. “Have to think about it.”

“Transport?”

“You have people on planet?”

“Not close.” The Haat have dropped on Manda’yaim plenty of times, but the Kyr’tsad take particular offense to any suggestion of a permanent outpost.

“Nothing else out there, then.” Cal says. “Only dust storms and other people who don’t like you.”

“Hm.” Jango says. “Beskar’gam?”

“A piece at a time, maybe. Could hide it. Trilla might have trouble with the chestplate.”

Jango frowns. “No. Don’t want to risk her.”

Cal snorts. “If you give her a job to do, it’ll keep her from finding one on her own.”

“Well,” Jango says, “I suppose we just stay here and take over, then.”

It’s not entirely stupid - if these Kyr’tsad were anything like the ones he’s dealt with, at least some of them are wearing pure garbage, and if he could get decent beskar… and now Jango’s got three jetii on his side, and it’s not like he’s about to put the jetii’ad at ground zero, but still, if he could get that chip control away from Zai, give Obi-Wan some space to work with and a weapon or two… Make the call out, broadcast their position, find a way to take down as many as possible in the first strike, and then hole up, hold out and hope to kriff his aliit felt like showing up...

Not entirely stupid, but enough to make Cal laugh softly, which is useful on its own.

“I mean… sure, that’s… almost in the same galaxy as a good idea. I guess they wouldn’t see it coming.”

——————————————

It’s always dangerous to remind Zai that he exists, so Obi-Wan tries to do it as little as possible, only for the most crucial of reasons - sick younglings, sightings of dangerous predators or potential attacks. The kyber crystal carefully hemmed into the cuff of his pants certainly counts - he can’t build anything with what they’ve got on hand in camp - and so Obi-Wan takes a breath and crosses over to where he usually doesn’t go. Walks straight to the first Kyr’tsad he sees, so no one can claim he’s trying to sneak around. It’s easier, to do this kind of thing in the morning - there’s not as many guards, the ones there are rarely wear beskar, and they’re usually still waking up, disinterested in caring about his presence any more than they absolutely have to.

“The ver’alor should know there’s an issue with the irrigation system.” Short, direct sentences, head down, that balance of deference and fear that most of them seem to like. He’s lucky today, the first one waves him on with barely any interest, and no one else even glances over as he makes his way up to Zai’s office.

Obi-Wan stops at the door, does not move, and Zai doesn’t look up, though he’s sure the man knows he’s there. A waiting game. It could be ten minutes, or an hour - once, Zai had made him stand there until the next morning, because he could. Thankfully, no one’s life had been on the line that time. Of course there are… consequences, for announcing himself before he’s been acknowledged, but Obi-Wan has still done it when he’s had to.

The ancient Sith had a rule of two, supposedly, and Obi-Wan can’t help but think the basics must be much the same here, even without the Force - Zai desperately wants to be Tor Vizsla, more than anything. It seems to encourage his efforts at cruelty, although thankfully even the worst of his brutality is still a simple, blunt thing. Easy to provoke him - any minor slight justification for a viciously disproportionate response, but at least there’s still some sense of cause and effect. Zai wants to be powerful and respected and feared, and he’ll lash out at any reminder that he might be otherwise. It’s unpleasant, but at least Obi-Wan can understand what moves him.

Zai will never be Tor Vizsla, never even be appreciated by Tor Vizsla, because there’s nothing in the leader of the Kyr’tsad that doesn’t begin and end with himself. Obi-Wan had reached for his mind only once, the briefest, lightest glance just to see the lay of the land, as it were - and never again, never. The universe is exceedingly kriffing lucky Tor Vizsla has no sense of the Force, and even that is only a matter of taking weapons out of his arsenal than lowering the level of his malice. His mind is as twisted and dark a place as anything Obi-Wan has ever seen, and whatever Tor says about his ultimate desires - to rule as Mand’alor, to rebuild an empire - Obi-Wan wonders if his allies know there’s nothing in him that has any actual interest in an end goal. No need for cause and effect - he just doesn’t care. About anything. The leader of the Kyr’tsad kills when he wants, ravages when it pleases him, and that impulse sparks entirely on its own design.

It’s dangerous to remind Zai that he exists. Reminding Tor is a flip of the coin, whether or not it’s just suicide.

So Obi-Wan’s wary of the head of the camp, but not afraid of him in quite the same way. A man who craves power, who wants to be respected and feared can be flattered, can be worked on as long as he never realizes that’s what’s happening.

So Obi-Wan waits, and waits, and he’s grateful he never had as much difficulty with meditation as some of the rest of his class did - like Quin, on occasion, and Obi-Wan never thinks about most of his friends here, wouldn’t want to imagine anyone as gentle as Bant in the middle of this - but he can imagine Quinlan here, looking over the scene with that same ‘well, this is karked’ expression as when they’d failed to pull off a prank without being detected, feeling the looming presence of a thoroughly unamused Jedi Master behind them - but it hadn’t ever been that bad, with Quin there to face the worst beside him.

When the worst had been training, or cleaning, or both. Obi-Wan would scrub the entire Temple top to bottom alone, with a toothbrush, if it’d get him clear of this now.

Zai’s quarters are spare and utilitarian, the way most Mandalorians tend to be, the only thing threatening to pile up out of control usually weapons or ammunition. He has a line of trophies as well - spoils of war, claimed in battle or… otherwise, and Obi-Wan doesn’t let himself look there for long enough to recognize anything, to let himself tell a story of how they came here and who had died for it.

It’s a little over an hour when Zai gets up and walks past him - leaves him there, but Obi-Wan knows better than to move, not even to turn his head. An hour or so brings the man back again, and then another hour at his desk before he finally looks at him, as if Obi-Wan’s existence is an unjust burden only tolerated out of the most exceptional sense of duty.

“What could you possibly have to say that might interest me?”

“The irrigation system’s broken, and there’s a few other parts I’ve been told the backup generator might need soon. Going into the ruins for replacements would be the most expedient answer, alor.”

Obi-Wan calls him that when Tor isn’t present, pretends it’s because he doesn’t know it’s the wrong word - but Zai has never once corrected him, either. Ambitions above his station. A flexible boundary, perhaps - wanting to be Tor Vizsla or wanting to replace Tor Vizsla. Obi-Wan has assumed the rule of two was less a rule and more the number of Sith who could be in a room together for more than five minutes before ‘contemplating murder’ simplified down to just murder.

“Cetar, you self-righteous little sh*t.”

Obi-Wan drops to one knee, a position of respect from a ramikad to his alor. Important to stop here, so there’s room to go lower, if Zai demands it, and Obi-Wan lets out a steady, silent breath, tries to let go of the way his heart is suddenly thudding - the man’s in a bad mood. Obviously, he should have read the room more thoroughly, although Obi-Wan’s still recovering from yesterday and Zai has acquired Tor’s habit of slipping from zero to furious in a matter of heartbeats. He keeps his eyes down, doesn’t move or flinch even when he feels a heavy boot scrape against the hand he has planted against the ground.

“You know, I think your friend might have been out there spilling our secrets yesterday.”

You came to him. If he thought Cal was any kind of threat, you’d already know it. Obi-Wan thinks, even as the idea of the younger boy in Zai’s sights makes his breath catch in his throat.

“The fault was mine, alor. The ramikade were talking about whether or not they wanted to bother bringing so many people back, if we had anything of value to offer. I panicked. Ni ceta.”

It’s a lie, of course. Obi-Wan’s only vaguely certain what the problem even is - that those new Vizslas weren’t supposed to learn about Jango? Or did something else happen? He could easily be caught out, if Zai had talked at any length with them, but at least the man’s attention would be on him now for the lie, instead of Cal.

The boot grinds down a bit against his fingers - Obi-Wan doesn’t move, focuses on the inhale, lets the pain out with the exhale. It’s not the worst threat - he can heal himself, even the finer bones, given enough time and focus. Better if he doesn’t have to, but he can.

“So, what did you think of them? Our visitors?”

“We were lucky to have them, fighting against Kryze, or we wouldn’t have survived.”

“Did you sense anything?”

Does Zai remember that Obi-Wan spent nearly all of their visit flat on his back? Did he even notice? Pointing that out isn’t going to help him now.

“It’s… very difficult, alor, with the beskar…” Obi-Wan yelps as Zai turns on his heel, the full weight of him on his hand for a minute - nothing broken, though, and the man’s already pacing away. It’s all right to move, to cringe back - Zai prefers to see signs that he’s left a mark, can take too much stoic silence as a challenge.

“You really are quite useless, aren’t you.”

“Ni ceta, alor.”

Kill him. The Dark says. He deserves it. You don’t even know all the reasons - you don’t have to, to know he has it coming.

Obi-Wan wishes he’d stayed in the Temple at least long enough to learn what he was supposed to do when the Dark was right.

“That little scrap run was a kriffing disaster. Three times as many of you worthless ulik’e couldn’t bring back half of what we lost out there.”

“Ni ceta, alor.“

“And now you want parts for your… garden?”

“We’ll lose rations if we can’t get it fixed.” Zai rarely goes to their side of the camp, and there’s a good chance he couldn’t find the irrigation system even if he were staring at it. Obi-Wan still had a few of the important pieces removed and hidden, just in case.

“And do you intend to cost me anything further with this little adventure? Expose us to more strangers? Am I going to have to try and explain these failings to the Mand’alor?”

“No, alor.”

It’s an empty threat, because telling Tor there’s a problem means telling Tor that Zai allowed a problem to happen in the first place. Obi-Wan hopes it’s an empty threat.

“An infinite pain in the shebs, keeping you alive. I don’t know why he hasn’t liquidated the lot of you.”

Snap. His. Neck. The Dark says, annoyed with his continued stupidity - just kill them all - and Obi-Wan forces his hands to stay still and flat against the floor, hopes that Zai is almost done with this, will just get bored or disgusted and throw him out, every second dragging past until he wonders if the man’s forgotten he’s even -

“You think you’re very clever - don’t you, jetii?”

Zai can’t know anything. There’s nothing for him to know yet, there’s no plan, and he’s not the sort of patient man to wait, if they’d found out he was even sneaking food to Jango. He’s still just fishing, trying to provoke a reaction - but the spike of sudden fear is still louder than every thought in Obi-Wan’s head except the certainty that if his control slips even slightly, if he reaches out the tiniest bit with the Force to see if he’s been discovered, he’ll pop the man’s head like a ripe fruit. Tear him apart from the inside out. It would be easy. Who would even care? No one would care.

Stop it.

“I… I wanted to be a farmer once, alor. That’s all.” Obi-Wan lies, trying to sound embarrassed and wistful, although if he’d known then what he knows now, just how many worse fates were out there than the Agri-Corps... “I thought this was the way I could help.”

“Well, I suppose we can’t all have grand dreams.” He can hear the smirk, and there’s a cause for celebration. A Zai who thinks he’s proven himself superior is a Zai who’s almost finished with this conversation. “I’m sure if you keep at it, you might be good for something, someday. Leave in the morning. If you’re not back before dusk, we’ll see who will have to pay for it.”

“Vor entye, alor.”

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

It was going to be the best day of what had, until then, been a very good life - the day he’d finally construct his own lightsaber. Obi-Wan had memorized the steps long before it had even been on the horizon, considered and reconsidered every piece and possibility. He’d made detailed schematics. Everyone made detailed schematics.

Master Yoda was one of several masters who’d made many sober speeches about what mattered more than fighting, about how the path of a Jedi was not one pointed toward excitement, toward desiring conflict. About how dueling was only one skill among many and there was great responsibility something something lightsabers something something lightsabers.

Master Windu had refrained from taking a side in those particular admonishments. He was also - arguably, and at great length among everyone in the creche - the best duelist the Temple had seen in over a century. Master Windu had a purple-bladed lightsaber. Master Windu invented his own combat style.

Master Windu was extremely cool.

Obi-Wan had a basic training saber with him, when they’d arrived on Melida/Daan. There hadn’t been time for anything more, between Qui-Gon accepting him as a padawan after Bandomeer and their first actual mission. Obi-Wan isn’t entirely sure how long he’d lasted, really - the whole span of actually being a padawan - a month? Less? How much less? One of those questions he doesn’t try too hard to answer.

He knows how to use blasters and rifles now, of course. Obi-Wan learned both on Melida/Daan, trained until it was fast and familiar even though he had no real interest because interest hasn’t been the main reason to do anything for a long time - but it’s still just utility. Obi-Wan tolerates the blaster. The lightsaber… well, the Mandalorians treat their armor and weapons with a sacred respect - and of all the parts of their culture, that one doesn’t need any explanation.

Obi-Wan’s always loved dueling, can’t remember a day in his life that he hadn’t wanted to know more, spend his time honing those skills. It just felt right, the weight of the hilt in his hand. Exciting and fun and… personal, in a way. Each opponent was a new puzzle, the answer usually as much about strategy as strength. He loved how fast he could learn and improve, the ease of practice and experimentation. Everything could be fought through and studied and understood in some new way - and nobody even had to get hurt, at least in the training halls.

A part of him thinks that every conflict ought to be a duel. No hails of blaster fire, no artillery strikes from halfway across the field, from orbit, or another planet entirely. No collateral damage, or innocents caught in the crossfire. Just two opponents, and focus and deliberation and skill. A civilized disagreement - and even if it came to blood, at least no one else had to get hurt.

He opens his hand, looks down at the crystal, ignores that his palms are sweating, ignores what he’s been trying not to think about since the moment Cal passed it over to him. If it goes red, somehow. If he doesn’t - if he tries to do it right, if he tries not to… and the blade’s red anyway…

Just confirming what you already know. It’s warm here, no wind to be had, and still he shudders at a drag of ice down his spine.

The minute Cal showed it to him, a part of him wanted to throw it away, and still does. Obi-Wan shouldn’t do this. He doesn’t have the right to do this. He should tell Cal it was damaged, or that he doesn’t know how to put a lightsaber together, or that he just… can’t. He can’t.

It’s a sacred act, one of the most sacred things he knows, and there’s steps to be followed and guidance from his Master to defer to. It’s about rituals and purpose, seeking out perfect crystals humming with the Force, responding to his call. The Force imbuing every moment with meaning and direction. It was meant to be important and beautiful and the beginning of everything he was supposed to be.

It isn’t going dumpster diving in the husk of an abandoned Mandalorian factory for spare parts to tape together, with a stolen kyber crystal that doesn’t speak to him at all.

————————

At the far edge of the Kyr’tsad camp, past where the younglings sleep, the valley tapers off and drops down dramatically into an increasingly narrow gorge. The only place Obi-Wan’s seen on the planet that’s still green, and the riot of foliage seems like an overcorrection from the rest of the barren landscape. A few times as he’s made his way down, Obi-Wan’s seen patches of pavement here and there beneath the overgrowth, the only suggestion the area might have ever been clear.

The Kyr’tsad don’t come here, no one comes here. The paths are crumbling and overgrown, the local wildlife anything other than friendly, and there’s nothing at the end of it but a massive, underground vault that leads to a massive, abandoned structure that has perhaps had only Obi-Wan as its sole visitor for decades. Little of value in it beyond scrap metal and whatever mechanisms can be pried from the duracrete - not even the potential bounty of a scavenger run - and with no way to fly in, it’s difficult to bring out anything past what can be carried. So the Kyr’tsad have little reason to bother, although there’s nowhere else to fix anything that breaks on Obi-Wan’s side of the camp, and so he’s come here when it’s been necessary - when he can convince Zai it’s necessary, or trade a bit of the man gnawing on him like a bone for the privilege of walking into a slowly rusting death trap.

The Force helps, of course, both for navigation and anything he might meet along the way. He leaves before dawn, and the beasts that are awake are easy to avoid and placate, especially here in their own territories where they aren’t under any undue stress. Obi-Wan can be a neutral party, just passing through, neither threat nor temptation, as meaningless as the flicker of a falling leaf.

Obi-Wan isn’t sure what kind of industry they’d been working at here - most of the signage is either too damaged to read or written in Mandalorian, and the few words he can make out - Buruk and Warning - aren’t providing much in the way of clues. A guess that it was some kind of smelting facility on a rather massive scale, processing raw ores and other materials - whatever it was, they’d left in a hurry, but the power source seemed to be geothermal, and by his second visit Obi-Wan had even managed to engage the emergency lights.

An unnerving space, for anyone who thought civilization would always prevail against the natural world - but the Force here thrums with vitality, plant growth that’s managed to encroach through the walls and spread, clusters of mushrooms and skittering of tiny creatures who’ve made their homes amidst the dormant hulks of old machines. Massive vats of caustic chemicals still fill warehouse-sized rooms, but the ferns and flowers grow along the catwalks, uncaring.

It’s more than just plants and trees and small, nesting things. Obi-Wan had noticed that as well on his second visit, when he’d turned on the lights and felt a shift and an uncurling in the Force and the sleepy curiosity of something very large that had crawled down to the warmest spot to make its home. Obi-Wan wonders if that is why this place was abandoned to begin with, or if whatever it is had made its way here afterward.

The Mandalorians have been waging war for many years in many ways - there were biological weapons, creatures both bred and created to be sold as the ultimate path to victory. Even better, when both sides could be convinced to invest - and it didn’t seem that anyone ever read the fine print, or realized the sellers didn’t have to care about what happened to the creatures they’d sold once the credits came in.

Obi-Wan had made himself as small as he could in the Force, just another skittering creature among many, and he’d felt that interest wane, whatever it was go back to however it had been hibernating, and he’s been very careful to be very quiet ever since.

Of course, he’d looked for ways out - ships or even wheeled transports of any use, but anything worth leaving in had gone with whomever had come before. He might be able to broadcast a signal, but not outside the confines of the planet, and even then it didn’t seem like there was any way to aim it - anything Obi-Wan said would be easily intercepted by the Kyr’tsad first.

Cal says Jango thinks their best bet is to try and take the camp, which is funny because Obi-Wan thinks that sounds a lot like their worst bet, although he can’t say that his plan, the most obvious answer - get Jango out alone without anyone thinking he’d had accomplices, get him pointed at House Mereel and hope to kriff he makes it back before Tor does - isn’t exactly without its own flaws.

If Jango reconsiders the worth of keeping his word, or if the Mand’alor decides there’s a greater strategic victory in knowing where Tor Vizsla’s going to have his attention for a while…

Which is why Obi-Wan’s here now, venturing deeper into the foundry than he ever has before, remembering to pick up the parts he said he would, any bits of scrap or random pieces of other machines that they can put to better use. A few things that might appease the Kyr’tsad, if they want to shake him down first - but he’s also looking for a very specific group of materials, even as he half-hopes he just won’t be able to find them, even if the kyber crystal was by far the most impossible find.

Obi-Wan looks down at it again - still nothing to hear, but that might very well be because all he can hear is his own heartbeat, because he doesn’t want to hear the obvious truth - this crystal isn’t meant for him because there isn’t a crystal meant for him.

It’s almost stupidly easy, in the end, to find everything he needs - a few half-stocked storage bays across the hangar-sized rooms spilling over with old wires and focus rings and power cores - he’s not making a plasma cutter, but the theory’s similar enough, and there’s tools in a small workshop of the main bay, to cut and burnish down something that will more than work for the grip. He even finds something he can use to adjust the power - it could be a training saber for Cal, someday.

Obi-Wan remembers conversations and arguments and conver-arguments with Reeft, Garen and Quin over hypothetical repairs in the field, what would work in a pinch and what wouldn’t - and all of them would have their own weapons by now, of course. Obi-Wan wonders what colors they settled on, what they looked like. If they ever remembered all those dumb, late-night discussions.

It’s so easy that, by the end of it, Obi-Wan is staring down at allthe components in mild surprise - he really did have them all. Just when did that happen? The obvious answer - the Force, guiding him, although then there’s an obvious question - which one?

He’d had nightmares in the creche, years ago - strong in the Unifying Force, they’d said, but they'd lessened as he'd grown, and Bandomeer and Xanatos had taken care of what remained, along with everything else. Maybe it’s a good thing he doesn’t know what’s on its way, how bad this could get. It’s not like the Force had felt like being specific about Mandalore, let alone any of what came before, so maybe Qui-Gon had been right and ‘hey Obi-Wan, here it comes again!’ wasn’t exactly worth worrying over.

Message kriffing received.

The entrance he’d come through was a sub-basem*nt, a long tunnel that terminated in paths both up and down - up was where all the equipment was, down belonged to… whatever lived here. Labyrinths of internal corridors on multiple floors, a few of the walls here and there leaking gently from what they must have been using as a cooling lake, all that water escaping its confines without the pumps to keep it moving, flooding and trying to flood anywhere it could. Obi-Wan goes up and up, further than he’s ever gone before, following the Force toward the flickering sense of flying things and open air.

The last set of stairs opens up onto an enormous cavern, the top of the building torn away by some massive explosion, rubble overgrown with moss and grass providing a decent slope down to what must have been a large landing platform over the expanded cooling pond, now verdant and overgrown - there’s even a tree, one he doesn’t recognize off-hand, with rustling leaves the colors of a vivid, fading sunset, pale purples and deep blues. Light spills down from narrow, lattice-like cracks high in the canyon overhead, whatever door for the ships they’d had here still letting the light in, but nothing else out - and Obi-Wan thinks he can see scorch marks, attempts to blast it open - but it doesn’t look like it’s about to budge anytime soon.

It’s the most beautiful place he’s seen yet on this entire planet, quiet and serene. Obi-Wan’s got everything he needs. He couldn’t ask for a better spot to do the thing he doesn’t want to do.

It’s ungrateful, to even think it. An opportunity like this, out here, of all places? Cal’s pride had been beautiful to feel in the Force - so happy to give him the crystal, knowing it was a part of what Obi-Wan had left behind. He didn’t realize he’d ever broadcasted that particular feeling enough for Cal or Trilla to pick up on it, but Cal had thought it might make him that little bit more happy, make them all that little bit more safe.

Obi-Wan would have to hide the saber well, of course, but even as a last-ditch option, he couldn’t deny the relief of knowing it would be there. A powerful weapon he could rely on, trust to do what he needed it to do.

Every little victory mattered - and if this was the one that made the difference? If this could save even one extra person in the end? All his discomfort and unease would just have to get kriffed. Practicality was always going to win the arguments he had with himself.

So here he is, in the little, jagged tear of an abandoned corner of the Mandalorian homeworld, pretending he’s going to meditate for the answer he already knows.

Pretending he’s going to meditate at all, as he sets out all the components on the ground in front of him - tangled and tarnished and wouldn’t Bruck have a field day with this. It’s funny, that the thought of his old bully and rival only makes him smile. Obi-Wan hopes he figured things out, figured out his place, just what it was he wanted - it’s a hard enough galaxy to live in, to bother with making it any worse. He thinks he’s learned that much, at least.

He remembers a dozen mantras about harmony and peace, words of wisdom from ancient times - from Master Yoda, who counted as ancient times all on his own. Obi-Wan can’t feel anything from them the way he used to, just cold and empty words that clicked together, beads on a string. He could pretend there’s still comfort in the ritual, but it isn’t really true.

Obi-Wan rubs a hand against his eyes and feels the wetness there, hears his breath shake, so grateful he’s alone. How stupid is this? All this time, there’s so much that hasn’t gotten to him - there hasn’t been time to let it get to him - after everything he’s seen and done, this is what’s going to tip the scale?

It seems so - this is the dumb little choice that feels so permanent, not just about what he’s doing but who he is.

Or maybe it’s just that Obi-Wan’s finally admitting to something that happened a long time ago. Maybe on Melida/Daan - or earlier than that, on the day they shipped him out to the Agri-Corps, and he finally had to admit the future he’d believed in and worked so hard for wasn’t in any way the one he was going to get.

He remembers that last day, remembers how he'd fought to keep every ounce of disappointment out of the Force as he’d gone, because that wasn’t the Jedi way and maybe, just maybe this was one last test. Maybe he’d been too reckless to be given the opportunity freely, but if he accepted his fate with grace and serenity, the way any Jedi worth the name would - maybe they’d see and they’d let him back in.

When he'd seen Qui-Gon again, in that first moment, he'd actually thought...

He’d trusted the Order completely, that they knew what they were doing, that everything would be for the best - but in the end they hadn’t… had they tried at all? Did they care? Was the Force really that silent, had it not told them how much he needed to be out there in the galaxy, needed to be doing this, needed to be a Knight - and he didn’t think it was arrogance, it just… was, like the color of his hair or his eyes - maybe not the best comparison these days - and if they’d needed more proof, they could have asked.

Obi-Wan would have trained harder, listened better, done more - but they hadn’t asked him for anything. Hadn’t wanted anything. Hadn’t needed him, when there were plenty more initiates where he came from.

He just wasn’t worth fighting for.

The Dark likes the sound of that - the bitterness and resentment it stirs up, but Obi-Wan just… refuses to go down that path any further, to feed the outrage, when there’s so much of that story he knows he doesn’t know. It’s not like he’s the first Initiate who didn’t make Padawan, it’s not like he wasn’t impatient, frustrated, talked back and got angry and fought with Bruck - he wasn’t perfect either, and Obi-Wan will not make up a story where being hurt gives him some kind of right to… kriff, what, to Fall? That’s just karking nonsense, that’s the same kind of tit-for-tat osik that Cerasi had been willing to sacrifice herself to stop.

She’d died so fast. So fast. He hadn’t even had the chance to try…

But maybe… maybe Obi-Wan doesn’t need to forgive them, either. Not completely, not the way he might have, once. Blaming himself and making excuses and believing in the infallibility of his elders when Obi-Wan has seen now that everyone kriffs up. No matter how hard they tried, no matter how wise - it was just the way things were. The Jedi Order tried to do what was right and fair and good and they helped people and made the universe better and occasionally, large or small, they got it wrong, made the wrong decision.

Maybe he wasn’t good enough and maybe they’d failed him and maybe Qui-Gon had tried afterward and it just hadn't worked out, wasn't meant to be, the absolute worst possible timing for everything. All just a kriffing mess and it was all true and not true at the same time, all more complicated than he could untangle, and trying to measure out blame by the teaspoon, make sure everyone got their fair share - it’s not like that’s really making him feel any better. It won’t change what is.

So Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, lets it go, gets himself out of the way and lets it all go still and quiet around him - and the rest is the Force, and even here in this decrepit wreck in the middle of a planet that’s been bombed inside out - there’s life reaching out to life, there’s growth and there’s decay and all things echoing against all things. No place in him left to grieve for what he did or didn’t receive, what would or wouldn’t be the path of his life - there’s just the Force threaded through him and everything around him, ever present and infinitely beautiful.

Who could ever be disappointed or afraid or unsure, when this is what is.

He had sat down to mediate once on Melida/Daan, reached out for what he’d thought was just a pretty tree at the edge of a small glade - but the tree had been the glade, and the entire forest beyond, every tree connected into one vast presence in the Force that had stretched for miles and miles, thinning out in some areas and widening in others and Obi-Wan had followed it in awe, the roots in the soil and leaves drinking in the sun, over stone and along the water, animals burrowing into the roots or the branches and even soldiers here and there, taking cover behind thick trunks, taking a moment to rest. Enemies they’d never meet fighting over distant hills, and the Force ran through it all like a river. The forest didn’t live like he lived, or died like anything Obi-Wan understood of death. Time and purpose and identity all words with entirely different meanings - and for a while there he’d been a part of it, just existed there in that unfathomable world.

At least until the sun rose, and the Young had panicked when he wouldn’t wake up and dumped a bucket of water on him, and Obi-Wan had snapped back to himself spluttering, trying to remember what it was to be contained in one body, with things like hands and fears and the need to breathe.

When he’s in the wrong kind of mood, when the Dark’s getting loud - it’s almost hard not to hate it, to think that the Force just forgets about all the good that is lost, all the unique, irreplaceable beings, everything they were or might have been just erased back into some kind of cosmic blur. Which is why Obi-Wan has to remember to bring himself back here, to sit down and breathe in and let go, and then he just knows - there’s no words, he’s just in it, the tiniest fragment of that grand and infinite pattern, and there’s nothing to fear and nothing to lose and never was or will be. Only wonder and the timeless now.

Obi-Wan lets himself drift there, a rejuvenating balm on his spirit, cleansing and strengthening - and the Dark is still there, the way it always is now, like a cliff in front of him, dropping off into an endless abyss - but Obi-Wan can stay where he is, anchor himself to the Light. Slowly, he can bring the life that he’s living into focus, let go of some of that sense of the infinite, still his scattered thoughts and observe them with better clarity, examine his mistakes and regrets. If this is all supposed to end with a lightsaber, he ought to be kriffing sure he knows why he’s going to pick it up.

He sought out combat. Conflict. Obi-Wan didn’t have the words for it then, when the Council had made their judgement, the implication that there was only one reason for his interest and it must have been wrong.

But Obi-Wan doesn’t want to dominate - he wants to understand, and in that understanding comes control, or at the very least mitigation. If Obi-Wan is good enough, if he tries hard enough, if he can see the entire situation, sometimes he might even see the clearest path through. He might not be able to stop the worst of war or disaster, but he can still find the path with the least damage and fewest casualties.

But it also means he has to be in it - no half measures, no worrying about what it looks like from the outside. If Obi-Wan wants to know, wants to learn and do and hopefully make a difference, he has to surrender his fear and commit to it, let it all come at him at once.

What did that mean for attachment? Did he even care anymore, the way he used to? What was Obi-Wan supposed to say, when the Young came to him on Melida/Daan with their trust and their hope and their fears? When he knows there’s younglings in the Death Watch camp who would die trying to defend each other, and to protect him. Cal, so bright and so fierce and he knows what the world can do, but it hasn’t stopped him from caring, from trying to get the small wins in wherever he can. Obi-Wan knows how frightened Trilla is, of what she’s sure is out there, coming for her someday, and yet if he asked her to face that fear for him, that he might not even have to ask -

Is Obi-Wan worth so much, that he can set the line where he stops caring - here, but no farther? If he’s given all that allegiance, given trust and faith and loyalty - and then only offering half of himself in return? Is that right? Is that what virtue looks like, or is it just selfishness in disguise? Is his purity so valuable, that it’s worth even one life in sacrifice?

Attachment. Attachment to what? The people he cares for? The things he thinks he needs to do? The person he thought he was? Attachment to Obi-Wan, the Jedi padawan? The Knight? What was lost, and what has he gained? The Force is here with him, it’s everywhere, and even if Obi-Wan couldn’t feel it, never felt it again - it would still be there. He will never not be a part of it.

If you know it, it is not the true Force. If you use it, it is not the true Force. If you understand it, you understand nothing.

Obi-Wan freezes - even here in his meditation, everything is still in him to the last hint of breath or thought. A void sits beside him, matching his pose but much, much larger, looming over him. As straight-backed as any Master and so Dark it hurts to look at, even from the corner of his eye, as he tries to shrink himself down to nothing at all.

Hello.

He’d thought he was safe here. Which seems... hilariously naive in this moment, that Obi-Wan could think there would be no more surprises, that the Dark Side was anything other than a ruthless opportunist, viciously attacking any weakness, seductive and taunting and brutal in turn. Whatever it took to get what it wanted. Whatever this was now.

The ‘Dark Side.’ An amusem*nt, vast and terrible, swallowing up all the space between them - Obi-Wan has all his shields up as far as he can, but this is… he can’t shield from what’s already here, inside of him. This is inside of him. ‘Do not touch’ - like a hot stove, or a naughty book. Is that still how it is? Is that all you’ve learned, you Jedi? Do and do not.

Pity, an overwhelming sense of amused pity, and even that holds terrifying power. He wishes he could show this to Zai, to Tor Vizsla. Let them see what real fear looks like.

You’re a liar, and you’ll say whatever you can to get what you want.

What do I want? Questions answered with questions, but this isn’t a Temple lesson, and all these innocent queries have hidden teeth. What is there to want?

You’re a Sith.

Oh, is that what I am? Curiosity, but honed to a long, sharp edge. Is that what I want? Another Empire? A war to wage? A throne to sit on and people to applaud and a little flag to wave? What a fun toy.

The Dark is immeasurable - an event horizon in his own heart, no sign of the other side. A cruel joke, maybe, that he ever thought there was a choice to be made.

I won’t give in. You don’t get what you want. Obi-Wan thinks fiercely, like breathing on a guttering flame. I won’t Fall. I won’t. I won’t.

Oh, little one. You have no idea what was done to you, do you?

It isn’t gloating, isn’t any kind of attack. If it wasn’t cold enough to burn, Obi-Wan would say it was almost - sympathy, though with an ocean’s crushing weight.

You surrender yourself, and you are unmade and reborn, again and again. No power but this. No knowledge but annihilation.

The Force… shivers, or he trembles inside of it, or both. Nothing Obi-Wan’s ever felt before.

You’re… mad.

Amusem*nt again, like the bitter flare of a dying star. A fury that could devour whole galaxies, so far away that he’s only seeing the fine edge of it, red and searing and already consuming the horizon.

Yes, and dead. And yet, and yet...

---------------------------------

Obi-Wan’s eyes snap open, and he’s dragging in a deep breath that turns into a hacking cough on the way out, as if he’d been down at very bottom of the sea, had breached the surface in the moment just before he drowned.

He’s panting for air, still afraid to move, although whatever that… whoever… is gone. Obi-Wan doesn’t want to look, not even in his own mind, doesn’t want to draw any attention - but he forces himself to reach out, and there’s only the Dark, only the Dark, and who would have ever thought he’d ever have reason to say that and -

He’s holding a lightsaber. It was possible to construct one using the Force, but Obi-Wan hadn’t been making a conscious effort… and… and… was he the one who’d done it, or that other…? If he turns the blade on, is there any chance it will be anything other than red, and… just in case he wasn’t panicking enough, Obi-Wan looks up and into his own eyes and nearly feels his heart implode before he realizes it’s just his own reflection.

His reflection… in an eye nearly half his own height.

He’d been connected to the Force, and drawn the attention of everything that was living here, attracted to the warmth and peace and vitality of so much energy - and of course, this is Mandalore, so there’s more off-planet castoffs, more attempts to purchase a lethal advantage in the war. Discards, like the landmines scattered here and there across Melida/Daan.

Tiny lizards that glittered, half-transparent in the light, and he’d heard of these from some of the Kyr’tsad, one bite poisonous enough to kill, with teeth sharp enough to get through the gaps between beskar plates. A few large, cat-like creatures that watched him placidly from the edges of the platform, yawning to expose long teeth and stretching to show off equally large claws, sparks of electricity popping here and there along their spines.

And, of course, the massive creature in front of him, with several pupil-less eyes of various sizes blinking at him. Armored plating, with gently rattling spikes the length of his arm cascading across its bulk, and a long scythe-like tail, swaying gently behind it - and as Obi-Wan stays there, still connected to everything around him, he realizes - this isn’t even the big one.

A child… no, not exactly, the creature more of a hive mind, if even that - puppeting outsmaller versions of itself as scouts, to study anything strange and new. Obi-Wan sends back a sense of peace and gentle apology - not being a threat, not wishing to intrude on its territory.

A relief, when there’s no anger, no sense of impending attack. Whatever this creature had been once, whatever kind of battle it was meant for, it had either lost its warlike instincts or never really had the same desires as its creators. Obi-Wan gets only a sense of deep peace and calm. It’s happy here - it feeds off the geothermal power, the gentle warmth beneath and the sunlight above, watching little fish swim in the clear, glittering waters of the former cooling tanks. It had been designed to adapt in all sorts of ways to its environment, to survive - hundreds, hundreds more like the creature in front of him, now sleeping down in the deep, and Obi-Wan had only called it awake with the strange, new peace of the Force.

Stay. The thought rumbles over him. Stay and be warm, stay and be safe and happy, and Obi-Wan thinks gently back that he can’t. The creature understands itself, understands what is like and not-like and Obi-Wan is not-like, regrettably. He needs more to live than water and sunlight, like the birds and other beasts now retreating from around them, returning to their nests and holes - and after a moment, with a sigh that could almost be wistful, so does the larger creature, disappearing over the side of the platform, with an unnervingly quiet splash a few moments later in the water below.

Which leaves him alone, with a lightsaber in his hand.

It takes longer than it should, when there’s nothing else he can do now but light it, and Obi-Wan tells himself he’s brave enough, that whatever happens, somehow he’ll figure it out- please don’t be red please please please - but it still takes him a few deep breaths and he closes his eyes, braces himself before the familiar snap-hiss and he’s missed that sound. So stupid to miss something so simple, but he has and-

Gray. A blade the pale gray of an overcast sky, or the whitecaps of Bandomeer’s sea in a storm, and Obi-Wan thinks it’s a little too on-the-nose, maybe, even as relief nearly has his legs buckling underneath him.

A kriffed-together saber for a karking, sad excuse of what was only ever barely a Jedi - Smashball saber - but the hum of it is true and the weight is solid and familiar in his hand and the pale line that isn’t red, doesn’t waver in the air as he turns it this way and that.

The one consolation, maybe, when life gets hard, when it’s all bad and ugly - at least you learn who you really are, what you want. It can be easier to pick out what matters from what never did. And this is like the Force returned, like the first breath after the cuffs had come off here, or the collar free from his throat on Bandomeer - something that he might have been able to stumble on without, that he could make do and survive despite the lack, but he doesn’t have to, not anymore.

He was made for this, to do this. Obi-Wan’s been unsure of enough in his life to be certain of at least that much.

He draws the saber back, goes slowly through forms that feels entirely different now, better than they ever did with the weight of a standard blade, nostalgic and familiar. He runs through every technique he can remember, focuses on each movement, making sure the edge snaps and sings with precision and then Obi-Wan lets himself have a little fun, a few of the flashier moves that weren’t exactly necessary in a proper duel - and Cal was right, it’s given him something back. Even without the Unifying Force, Obi-Wan can see what’s coming and there’s a path out, there’s a way forward, and each step he takes feels so light.

———————

He leaves before he wants to, before there’s the risk of returning late, incurring Zai’s wrath - or worse, that someone else would take his place - and perhaps Obi-Wan moves with a bit more assistance from the Force than is absolutely necessary, scaling his way across the branches and up the rock-strewn paths with ease, smiling each time the lightsaber bangs against his hip, the constant reminder in the weight of it.

Of course he hasn’t forgotten that other presence, and Obi-Wan isn’t foolish enough to believe he’d left it down there, left it behind - no, there’d been no Dark in that place, besides what he’d brought with himself, but whatever it is has gone silent again, vanished as if it had never been.

You have no idea what was done to you.

No, or what it will mean to find out.

Obi-Wan feels the warning from Trilla first, as he gets closer to camp - more importantly, the utter lack of her signature in the Force, only an empty space and the echoes of a dangerous, familiar fear.

Tor Vizsla - thankfully - doesn’t come in person very often. Sometimes, when it’s time to pick up the next batch for the nearest camp - and Obi-Wan reaches for Cal, heart in his throat until he finds the sharp, bright flare of him - safe, but dimmed with a wary dread of his own, one that palls over all the the younglings and all the way into the rest of the camp. Even the most devoted acolytes, the soldiers who agree the most fervently with every word and command of the Kyr’tsad Mand’alor, even they aren’t completely free from fear.

It makes sense that Tor might return off his usual schedule - Jango is here now, and Obi-Wan feels another spike of alarm, at the thought that he might be taking his new hostage away. It doesn’t make sense but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen - and he’s still got his attention half on the younglings, checking to see if anyone else is missing as he hides the lightsaber well outside of camp, of any chance at detection, at least until he knows what’s going to happen next.

Obi-Wan makes some noise for the perimeter guards, raises his hands, grateful when they wave him through without comment - no one calls attention to themselves when Tor’s around, if they don’t have to - and he’s got a clear view of a new, smaller ship docked just past the gate, smaller and red-plated and nothing he recognizes. Tor is there, with an unfamiliar woman beside him, geared up in the same red armor, hair long and blonde and with that grim look that’s more weapon than person that he’s come to recognize among the Kyr’tsad elite - and they’re moving toward Jango’s tent.

Company’s coming. Obi-Wan says, because it seems like Jango’s more disturbed by not having the heads up than he is by the occasional incursion into his thoughts. At least until Obi-Wan sends an image of what he’s seeing - and Jango’s emotions light up like an ion engine in overdrive, so much horror and shock and disbelief that even with how little Force sensitivity he has, it still lands like a hammer and sends Obi-Wan stumbling, one word clear amidst the chaos.

Arla.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Tor Vizsla allows for two kinds of subordinates in his world - either you get him the things that he wants, or you’re the way for him to entertain himself. Arla’s seen enough of the latter - floating in space or splayed across the floor or dripping down the walls - that it’s been worth her time, effort and blood to stay profitable, too valuable to turn into another plaything on a whim.

Until today. Until he’d called her in from a hunt she’d barely started halfway across the Rim, commanded her to return to a nowhere tent in a nowhere camp in the middle of kriffing nowhere - and this is what she keeps forgetting, because after everything, she’s still that same idiot child who never learns. It was only ever in her head, thinking she knew how Tor saw the world, that there’s any way to be safe in this endless, violent shipwreck of a universe that’s led her here, now, to this - her baby brother chained in a cage and Arla watching him from the other side of the bars, with the hand of the leader of the Death Watch on her shoulder - and she knows the look on his face by the look on Jango’s.

She’d been long dead and forgotten, and good riddance. Dead was better.

Better than this, the last moment she ever wanted, the way his eyes lock on the Kyr’tsad insignias on her beskar’gam - top-of-the-line, no patchwork battlefield suits for little Arla. Little Arla has proven her worth.

She imagines the possibility of just stopping it here, the way the betrayal often quietly plays out in the back of her mind, like a song at the other end of a crowded bar, out of her control. One step back, bring her hand up on Tor’s and twist, just enough to have him stumble forward. Just enough surprise that she can get her blaster out first, empty as many shots into his head as it takes to make absolutely sure there’s not enough left to come back, and then bring the barrel up under her chin and -

Except she never will. Arla’s a survivor. So she can keep having days like this one.

Nothing’s ever just one threat with the leader of the Kyr’tsad - this is gloating and entertainment and a test of her loyalty all in one, and Arla’s thankful that locking it all down has been reflex for as long as she can remember, that there’s still half-decent buzz in her veins, keeping the world sharp and clear and just that little bit distant. Always a risk - Tor didn’t care what got her through a job, but tended to disapprove if she didn’t return to him clean, nothing that might blunt whatever he might want to make her feel - but there’s little that can give her away, her expression professional and cold, almost bored, even now.

Arla can still see the tiny, pale scar on Jango’s chin, some genius adiik inspiration to see if he could climb to the top of their roof that had all ended in blood and a broken arm - but even then, he hadn’t made a sound, shocked and teary eyed but stoic as a statue.

Everything’s changed, and nothing has.

“You’re a warrior, boy.” Tor says. “I do respect that. Allied to an embarrassment of a cause and a di’kutla pretender of a leader, but you wouldn’t be worth much to me if a little pain was enough to change those loyalties so fast. It occurred to me that a reunion might encourage things along. Have you hear the truth from a familiar face, the value of reconsidering your allegiances from someone fortunate enough to land on the right side of this war.”

Arla had been trained in the long eclipse of Tor Viszla’s supposed demise - she’d been thrown before him with the stink of smoke and blood and twisted wreckage still thick in the air, bits of fabric and under armor melted in long, deep rivulets across his skin. Arla had thought he would kill her then - hurt her first, maybe, the way he’d been hurt, and toss what was left away to die.

Always the fear, so much of it inside of her that there are times it feels like there’s nothing else. When a job’s gone bad, when one prize or another has slipped through her fingers - “you’re disappointing me, Arla,” with his hand in her hair, long enough to twist around his wrist, yanked back so sharply she can barely keep her feet “I didn’t train you so well so you could disappoint me.”- and all she’s ever been able to do is promise to do better, swear she won’t fail him, and how many people has she watched beg and die just like that? How many times has she watched him take an eye or a hand or even let the poor bastards make it to the door before he cuts them down and she’s never been sure what it is that’s kept her mostly whole and alive. A happy accident - roll the dice, put the slug in the chamber and let it spin…

“I missed you, Jango.” Arla says, not because it’s true but because it’s what might hurt him the most and that’s the only thing she’s here to do. Anything in her that might have missed him, thought about him had been cauterized a long, long time ago. Memories of a life that might have been hers once, but she’s forgotten when she even stopped caring.

His eyes flash, a dozen emotions at once, but he doesn’t answer. Pure Fett stubbornness in the set of his jaw, old Vhett roots that refused to be torn up no matter how deep the digging - this isn’t going to be fast, and it’s going to be anything but clean.

Jango had been a menace from the moment he could walk - run, really, walking more of an inconvenience - and always seemed to be aimed at exactly whatever would get him killed the fastest. On a farm, there’d been nothing but a wealth of opportunities. As the older sister, she’d had a responsibility to look out for him, and Arla had resented him as much as it seemed he’d resented her for standing between him and death by kriffing combine harvester.

She remembers when he’d been so small, their mother used to bathe him in the kitchen sink.

“Your allies are all gone, little brother. It’s all over, it’s done. There’s nothing left for you out there, but thinking about your next best move.”

Arla’s fairly sure she’s lying about that. Tor wouldn’t have called her back - Jango probably wouldn’t still be alive if he’d actually beaten the Haat outright, and it was stupid of her to come into this so blind, so kriffing stupid not to check the lay of the land, but it was hardly the first time Tor had pulled her from a job before she’d started, because the war demanded it or because he could, and Arla was still recovering from the last close call. The New may have claimed they were pacifists, but still had allies to defend their borders, and she was nursing a chest full of bruised ribs courtesy of their more conventional views on peacekeeping.

Arla had felt the drag on that invisible line even more than usual, yanking her back to the heart of the Kyr’tsad, and as foolish as it was she hadn’t wanted to know what had changed, had wanted to keep every atom of space and ignorance between herself and whatever was coming for as long as possible.

Still, she’d heard a few mentions of a battle, the surprise and alarm that Tor Vizsla had finally, formally returned from the grave - but Arla had been trained up on those who’d thought he was gone years ago, who’d wanted to improve their position in his absence, steal a piece of Death Watch victory for themselves. So many people who thought they were so clever - he’d kept a low profile for a long time, digging out threats and traitors, Kyr’tsad usurpers and attempted runaways. How many times has the last look in their eyes been one of shock at who had sent her? How many corpses, still not quite believing it was possible.

Tor Vizsla doesn’t lose, doesn’t forgive, and death has proven only a minor inconvenience. A hard, unfair truth, but the universe is built on little else. The Kyr’tsad are an inevitability and always have been, and there’s nowhere to run to and nothing to do but try to survive it. The only thing she’s been trying to do for so long - and now Arla has to find a way for Jango to survive too, even if there’s no way for him to do it and still be himself on the other side - even if she knows for certain that he’d rather die first.

It’s in the way his eyes narrow, sliding from her to Tor - ignoring her completely now, and Arla knows what’s coming next, would plead with him not to but he wouldn’t listen and it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. Whatever she can save him from - if there’s anything at all, the barest scraps - it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Tor has to have his fun first.

“Just get on with it already, you sad, mangled excuse for a osik-eating, rancor-kriffing hut'uun ori'buyce, kih'kovid rusted-out, karked-over shabuir dar’manda"-

Jango’s still swearing when the first drops of blood hit the ground, when Tor suggests that Arla take over, slips one of her own knives from its sheath and puts it in her hand. Jango doesn’t acknowledge her existence, no matter what she does, only stops cursing when they finally get to the needles, when he stops being able to trust anything that comes out of his mouth, and what finally does come sounds more like a sob than any attempt at an insult.

Arla knows how this goes, as familiar as a second skin. Sooner or later, there’s nothing left but the screaming.

————————————

Cal looks up, as another stifled cry of pain carries across the camp. It’s not the first time they’ve tortured people here - sometimes other Mandalorians they’d captured, once a member of their own camp, a younger Kyr’tsad who’d been caught stealing, and that had been… nothing worth remembering now. Cal thinks this might be the worst one, because he’d actually talked with Jango and he seemed friendly enough - cool, definitely cool - even if Obi-Wan always encouraged caution and they both know where Trilla had been, what will happen if they put their trust in the wrong person.

It’s a little selfish, and Cal hates himself for thinking it, that he doesn’t want to see Jango hurt - but also that if he dies, the closest thing they’ve ever had to a chance to escape dies with him. No tactical advantage in saving a bunch of ade whose buir isn't the Mand’alor. Kriff, if Jango gives up, if he joins the Death Watch and tells Tor what they were planning, what Obi-Wan wanted to do…

Another cry, and Trilla flinches in his arms. Cal tightens his grip around her, tucking his chin on her shoulder and grateful she isn’t hiding somewhere they can’t find, tries not to think about this getting any worse where he might slip, and she might overhear.

There are times, that he’s almost jealous of her and Obi-Wan. Cal knows he’s the least useful of them, at least when it comes to the Force. He can hear the both of them fine when they reach out, but trying to glean anything from the less Force-sensitive is rarely worth making an effort. In large groups like this, he can feel the dread and worry, but Cal figures a handful of loose gravel could sense that things are anything but okay here, so that’s not terribly impressive.

When he’s on his own, Cal doesn’t mind so much - the Force gives him a heads up on where he shouldn’t be, help him throw a few rocks if he ends up there anyway, and the rest he can usually muddle through one way or another. Watching Obi-Wan work, though… he never even realized how much more there was to know.

Obi-Wan says he’s not weak, that the Force manifests its gifts differently for everyone - and that if he’d meditate, maybe he’d have more focus to hone his skills. Except that meditation is the most boring thing that anyone has ever invented and he’s half-convinced Obi-Wan just made the entire idea up, to see if he’d fall for it - which at least usually earns him a laugh, a long-suffering sigh.

It’s better than when he says it’s not that Cal’s less powerful, but that there’s no one here to train him right, to learn where his strengths truly lie.

He doesn’t like the way Obi-Wan gets sad, when he thinks about the past - doesn’t trust those Jedi who were so wise and kind but left him out here anyway - but he’s just as glad they’re gone, too. Afraid they might return some day and take Obi-Wan away, leave him and Trilla behind because they were never Jedi and they don’t matter. He doesn’t understand how Obi-Wan can think he’s not good enough, when he’s the only one who’s ever been able to stand up to the Kyr’tsad in any way that’s made a difference.

He’s doing it right now. Supposedly, they’re working through lessons, Obi-Wan teaching the youngest Basic while Talni, a Torgruta girl about Cal’s age, repeats the words in Mando’a - but Obi-Wan’s gone silent and still a half-dozen times already, and he’s been doing nothing but breathing steady with his eyes closed for the last quarter of an hour, just about the time the worst of it started.

Cal can’t do what Obi-Wan does, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what’s happening. Obi-Wan’s done it before, plenty of times, whenever an ad is sick or injured - he’d done it for Cal, when one of the Kyr’tsad had been annoyed by something he’d said or done or daring to exist within easy range, and hit him hard enough to leave him gasping for air, his ears ringing.

Obi-Wan put a hand on his shoulder, the lightest touch, and the pain had drained away to barely an echo. Cal’s never seen him do it at such a distance, especially for someone who can’t reach back in the Force - but he’s also never seen Obi-Wan not try. So Cal watches him flinch and grimace, beads of sweat at his temples and his breath going ragged. Everyone pretending it’s still a normal lesson, keeping up a low, steady murmur of noise - the Kyr’tsad usually don’t notice them using the Force when there’s nothing much to see, but it would be a disaster now if they started connecting any dots.

Cal rubs a thumb along the edge of the holster in his pocket - little more at the moment than pieces of scrap fabric and half a good idea, carefully tucked away. He’d just gotten started on it, before Tor had arrived, and it’ll probably be worth losing sleep if he can finish stitching it together fast. It seemed like the best thing he could do, giving Obi-Wan some way to conceal the lightsaber if he has to, keep it as close as possible. Cal can’t kriffing wait to see it, can’t figure out how he might get the chance to see it, but something will work out - and there’s no reason to rush except that Tor is here now, and who knows what that means and there’s never such a thing as too prepared.

One of the younger Twi’lek boys at Talni’s side passes Cal a cup of water - easier for him to reach Obi-Wan without completely disrupting his concentration, and when Cal hands it over, he drains it without comment, lets the empty cup fall from his hand. The real sign of what this is costing him, that Obi-Wan is actually impolite.

“Oh, kark.” Cal says, watching Zai make his way toward the tent, hands flexing into fists and a smile on his face. “Kriff, it’s Kaine, he’s-“

A nod, Obi-Wan’s lips pressed into a near invisible line, and a few moments later Cal sees him go even paler, one hand clenching against his knee, the knuckles white, and Cal reaches for him. He’s figured out how to do this much, at least, provide some support when it’s needed, no skill in it but at least a boost of extra strength when it counts - but Obi-Wan pulls away, a sharp, short shake of his head.

“I can’t… I don’t want you to…” He blinks, and his eyes seem molten, just for a moment, shields so strong they’re almost a tangible presence pushing Cal away. Protecting him, from whatever it is he’s seeing and feeling, or however he’s doing what it is he’s doing. Obi-Wan worries so much about that, too - there’s something in him that’s dangerous, like those golden eyes of his are contagious and if he didn’t know that Obi-Wan wouldn’t take it right, Cal would tell him he didn’t even care if it was. Didn’t matter what color his eyes were or what it meant or if Cal was doomed alongside him - who cares, whatever. Let it happen. He doesn’t know Jedi stuff, not like Obi-Wan does, but there can’t really be much worse in the universe than abandoning one of the only people who’s ever given a kriff about what happens to him.

I’m not afraid of you. Cal thinks, unsure if Obi-Wan will hear it, but feels a nudge of warmth, determination and approval from Trilla, glad that she seems less upset than she was, but not entirely happy with the way she’s looking toward Jango’s tent - not fearful, but thoughtful. No sounds for the moment, but the silence is no less disturbing.

“Don’t you go getting any ideas.” He says. Trilla pulls his arm tighter around her, but doesn’t look away. He’ll have to try and keep a better eye on her, at least as long as that blonde woman is around. She seems like the kind of person who pays very close attention.

“Ba’jur bal beskar’gam“ Cal’s eyes snap up, to where Talni is crouched with a few of the other ad, speaking softly, trying to reassure them, the smile mostly in her eyes when she sees him watching.

“Education and armor.” He murmurs back, watches that smile grow. It’s the rhyme the enemy teaches their ad, the Resol’nare of the Haat Mandoade, and the punishment can be brutal if they’re overheard, but all of them know it anyway - what’s more interesting than forbidden knowledge?

Talni says she was taken too old to ever be Kyr’tsad - she’s never been afraid, not really, her aliit already teaching her how to fight, how to be mandokarla - and she also swears they’re not dead, that her buire survived the ambush that brought her here, that they’d come for her if they knew where she was. She’s determined to be next out to the camps - to defect, the moment she gets a chance, and then she’ll come back here and bring her aliit and they’ll save everyone.

Cal hasn’t told her that he’s heard that before, from people who went away and never came back - but who knows? Talni’s got a little group of them who all think the same, share the same dream - and maybe one of them really will make it, maybe this time will be different.

“Ara’nov, aliit“

Self-defense and clan. Talni claims it’s wonderful, having a real aliit, strong people who care, who want to teach them how to be strong, too. Cal isn’t sure if he can even be Mandalorian - if Obi-Wan’s not, if Trilla can’t, then he’s not going to be, they’re his aliit, they’re what matters most - but it wouldn’t be so bad, maybe, if they all could be, together. If Jango knew a place they could go -

A howl from the tent, rage and pain and kriff only knows what else, and Obi Wan lets out a little gasp like he’s been knifed, bent nearly double for a moment with a hand against the ground, slow, careful breaths like anything else would be a mistake.

“Infirmary.” Talni says, moving to help him up, her voice a little louder, just in case anyone noticed. “Must be something you ate.” It’s hardly an uncommon occurrence - the ade are a mix from so many planets, hardly anyone eating what’s best for where they came from, when there’s enough that’s worth risking to eat at all. Cal wants to follow, but it’ll just attract more attention that way. Obi-Wan will probably do better without any distractions, and Jango obviously needs all the help he can get.

Mando'a bal Mand'alor— An vencuyan mhi. Trilla thinks quietly to him, finishing the rhyme, even easier not to get caught when there’s nothing to hear, and Cal sighs. Survival. It’s the best any of them can do for now - stay careful, stay hopeful, and wait for this new storm to pass.

—————————————

It’s dark by the time Arla tastes fresh air again, Tor called away by urgent news from the front and his little carbon copy right on his heels in case there’s any boots in need of licking. Jango was unconscious anyway, so there was no need to draw attention by trying to stay behind. It feels like an entirely different world when she pushes the canvas back, a drop in pressure so fast she’s nearly lightheaded, fighting to keep her breathing steady, and Arla knows her hands aren’t shaking but she keeps glancing down, can’t stop herself. It feels like they’re shaking even though they’re not, but if she keeps checking them, someone’s going to notice.

A risk to palm the vial in her pocket, a risk for even one quick hit, but right now Arla needs the clarity badly, even if it’s artificial. Needs to not feel things for a while.

Lock it up, Arla. Lock it the kriff up.

Some parts had been easier than others - easier than Arla had expected them to be, and hadn’t that been a joy to learn? What kind of an irrational, insane, vindictive monster would resent their little brother for getting out, for being safe, for finding a life with anyone who wasn’t the Death Watch? She’d gone for that angle anyway because she’d known Tor was expecting it, a way to flatter him and hurt Jango all at once, just the kind of thing he’d want to hear - but once she’d started it hadn’t stopped.

Oh, the words were all pure osik - she didn’t blame him, he’d been an adiik, and Tor has told the story so many times, so many lies about that day and what had happened and who was responsible - her parents, Clan karking Mereel, Jango or even Arla herself, somehow - that the details had long since blurred together, flashes of light and chaos and the sound of it more than anything. The brittle, violent rattle of explosion after explosion as the whole field seemed to catch at once, paint melting off the barn before the metal buckled in and her mother’s limp hand in the dirt and the hungry roar of that inferno, a whirlwind desperate to tear her into screaming cinders -

Arla knows better than to think anything she remembers, or feels about it is real - but there’d still been something waiting in her, with Jango looking through her while she’d spat out all the stupid lies she knew she was supposed to say - wanted to find yourself a better family, huh? Bored of where you were and thought that bastard Mereel was the better deal or were you really just so scared that it was worth killing us all to make sure you survived? - but a part of her she didn’t recognize, didn’t want to know she had suddenly slipped the leash.

An ugly, jagged part of her raged at the sight of him - so perfect and untouched and noble. Lucky little boy growing up with his safe little verd’goten and a whole aliit to cheer him on, the proud warrior with his honor untouched while Arla had been getting nine kinds of osik kicked out of her by men twice her size, survival seeming as impossible as freedom - and he was judging her, wasn’t he? She was just one more enemy, one more kriffing Death Watch for him to look down on when he’d dodged all the consequences and the misfortune and left the target on her back, when he’d had all the best handed to him and how dare he judge her now, how dare he think he was so much better and -

Arla couldn’t even hear the poison coming out of her mouth by then, but Jango didn’t blink, never looked up, and Tor looked as if he’d never seen a better third act, ready to applaud when it all came crashing down.

He didn’t tell you what to say. He certainly didn’t tell you to mean it. Arla’s known what she is for a long time now, it shouldn’t have been any kind of surprise.

Of course, she’d pitched in with everything that followed, especially after Tor had called in his ver’alor, this one not nearly as frightening as some of his inner circle but plenty mean, his first punch enough to snap Jango’s head back - more than eager enough to kill, given the go ahead - but Tor appreciated that Arla could do more damage with half the effort, get in his head without even trying, and if she struck as much with words as blows, at least there was no risk of her taking an eye or a limb, damaging anything worse than it could heal.

Drugs were the best bet for interrogation, for maximum results with the least chance at irreparable harm - but that had meant the fun of watching Jango fall apart piece by helpless piece, slowly stripped down to a confused, agonized mess and he still hadn’t said anything, responded to all of Tor’s attempts at interrogation with the same ragged silence - but he’d flinched, keened at the sound of her voice, a high, wrenched sound of pain and a litany hissed out through clenched teeth - “you’re dead, you’re dead, you died, I killed you, I’m sorry."

And wasn’t this exactly what she wanted? What she hadn’t even known some part of her had wanted and here it was, his shame and sorrow on demand and snapping her in half in a whole new way.

Monsters can hurt and still be monsters.

Nothing changed, Jango gave them nothing new and they learned nothing and it still went on forever. Eventually, he’d passed out and couldn’t be roused - still breathing, although Arla couldn’t get close enough to check his pulse - and so now here she is, looking up at a cloud-strewn sky in the middle of kriffing nowhere and feeling her hands shake even though when she looks down there’s nothing to see. She’s fine.

Lesser villains build their own little empires out of whatever happens to be around, and she assumed the ver’alor of this camp would have to have someone to lord over, a village he could terrorize or prisoners of war to abuse - or ade, because he really was that pathetic, half a camp full spread out in the shadows, only a few of them close enough to see and even fewer glancing at her when they think she’s not looking.

It would make sense for Arla to have someone to train up, her position hardly one with a long shelf life, but she’s grateful Tor’s never mentioned the idea. He dislikes it, when the things that are his dare to find new things of their own, and she’s sure that even if it was on his order, at some point she’d be ordered to kill whoever he’d allowed her to take as an apprentice. Probably have them try to kill her as well, just to see what would happen.

Arla’s already his top pick for those kinds of jobs, when his operatives try to keep secrets, when they find other allegiances, when they try to run. Which is why she’s kept her own preferences to cantina dancers who charge by the hour and don’t ever bother with names and she’s never a repeat customer.

“You.” Arla says to the first ramikad who passes by with their helmet off, watches the change in their expression - she knows what most everyone’s ever said, why they think Tor keeps her around - but that little hint of a smirk falls away when Arla doesn’t blink - and this one, at least, is smart enough to consider that maybe pissing off the person Tor sends out when he wants things to die is not the smartest move. A rather narrow list of people, even in the ranks of the Kyr’tsad, that she could kill and elicit more than a shrug from Tor, and none of them are in this kriffing camp.

“A-alor’ad?”

“What happened with the Haat? Is Mereel still alive?”

The soldier pales. Arla can’t blame him. Tor has a reputation for shooting messengers depending on the news, the weather, the time of day - and there’s no way for him to know how many of his habits she’s picked up. If it’s an honest question or she’s waiting for him to answer in a way she doesn’t like. He still stammers his way through a truncated series of current events - Mereel likely alive, their mole dead, the plot mostly a failure - and Arla’s as relieved she wasn’t within the same star system as Tor when he’d heard that news as she is suddenly, overwhelmingly furious, once again, at a man she’s never met.

Arla’s hated Jaster Mereel for a long time - not anything he is or even anything he’s done, not really. The version of him in her head doesn’t even look like the holos she’s seen, the ones that occasionally leave Tor breaking those very same projectors - he’s an empty outline, more or less. A blank suit of armor that had dropped like a detonator, destroyed her life and scattered what was left to distant stars - hating him like he’s a person feels like trying to hate a landslide, or an asteroid strike. Arla just hates because there are so many times she needs to hate something, needs to put that feeling somewhere and he’s always been the safest option, and now is no different.

Why didn’t you protect him? She wants to scream, wants to dig her nails in and draw blood. You had one job to do, you stupid kriffing bastard, and that was to keep him from ever being here.

Arla has to get Jango out, even though she can’t. Find a way to keep him safe, even though she knows exactly the kind of unholy wrath that Tor will bring down, unleashing every other weapon like her that he keeps tucked away for just such an occasion. It’s not the thought of dying she gives half a kriff about - but Tor wouldn’t kill her, if he found her first. He wouldn’t stop looking until he found her, and then he wouldn’t kill her for a very long time.

Arla looks down, flexes her hands, expecting something other than the stillness - ashamed of how steady she is. Considers getting a drink at whatever they’ve decided to call a bar in this place, maybe beat the kriff out of the first person who makes it worth her time to see if it improves her mood. Considers going back to her ship, and how long she’ll have to stare at the ceiling before Tor decides it’s time to yank her out for another surprise. Considers stealing something a little bigger, setting the hyperdrive and aiming the ship into the biggest star she can find and just… enjoying the show.

More guards are moving on their nightly patrol behind her, boots scuffing in the gravel, voices carrying in the otherwise quiet evening.

“… heard something moving around out there, just past the perimeter. Sounded big.”

“If anything shows up, we can send the dar’jetii to deal with it.”

Arla turns on her heel.

“I’m sorry, the what?”

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

It’s been three days since Tor arrived. It’s just after dusk. The voice is always steady, calm and gentle, when nothing else is, when Jango’s lost every other point of reference. I’m right here with you. K'atini, Jango Fett be Mereel. Verburyc ad be haat Mand’alor.

It’s only pain. It’s only pain. Everyone who’s ever meant anything to him needs him to be strong and endure and so however bad it gets, it just doesn’t matter. Jango holds on to those words for as long as he can, and then the feeling of that presence in his head, strong and steady and safe. He can trust it, even when he can’t remember why, even when he can’t remember anything except that it’s going to get bad again and he has to shut the kriff up and hold on.

Don’t let me talk. Don’t let me talk. Jango thinks he’s asked this more than anything, anytime he can remember to ask, but there’s nothing that’s more important. Whatever happens, don’t let me say a word.

I won’t. The voice says. You’re doing fine, you haven’t told them anything. You don’t need me for that.

Jango opens his eyes before he can remember being conscious hasn’t been doing him many favors, closes them nearly as fast. A steady throb of pain shoots all through him with every heartbeat, straight down through his bones, new drops of blood sliding through his hair, skin tight and sticky where more of it has dried. He feels hot and shivery in waves that aren’t at all in his control, and his mouth tastes like he’d licked the inside of a gun turret that had been shoved up a bantha’s - yeah. It’s been a fun… day? More than that. Someone had said it was more. Hadn’t they?

Easy, easy… let’s see what we can do…

A month ago, if you’d told Jango his biggest problem would be anything other than the space magic osik voice in his head, he couldn’t have imagined it. The jetiise were a distant weapon of a distant Republic, ancient tales of the war that had broken the back of the Mandalorian Empire, scattered what was left across the stars. The occasional whisper of some dar’jetii skulking here or there with their bizarre, karked-up infighting - occasionally, the circ*mstances might line up for some mutual benefit with one House or another, but it was rarely worth the bother. Certainly, the dar’jetii made for fine assassins, but all the stories said they were just as likely to turn on their employers, even if the money was good. Just for fun.

Better to keep clear of all of it, not worth worrying about - Jango’s opinion at least, and though Jaster seemed to agree as much on the field, the veritable treasure trove of books and scrolls and artifacts in his private study told a different story. The past fascinated him - all of it, from every perspective he could find - and while Jango can see the value in at least studying mistakes to avoid repeating them, his buir is interested in far more than just battlefield tactics.

Jango has often threatened to reveal that the Al'Ori'Ramikade’s greatest ambition is to win the war so he can spend the rest of his life with a mug of shig and a pile of musty tomes stacked high enough to hide him from view.

Jango can hear him talking now through the open window below, as he sits on the curved roof above their karyai. One of his favorite places to come to in the evenings, a quiet space still in the center of everything. A Mandalorian’s home is their beskar’gam, he doesn’t need more, but he loves it here anyway. The distant sounds of their nearest port, layers of conversation from verde walking outside the main wall and the scuffling of the ade at some game below. The sky so lurid it could be paint rather than light, bold swathes of orange and red cut through with streaks of yellow.

A second voice cuts in, deeper than his buir’s - that’s Montross, familiar enough on many nights, but now Jango frowns because that’s… no, that’s not right. Montross shouldn’t be here, the lying dar’manda aruetii is dangerous, and -

“He’s already dead. You don’t need to worry.”

Jango blinks, an older ad sitting next to him with no weapons and no armor but something in him is still reaching for the blaster he’s not carrying, because this is his home and there shouldn’t be anyone that could infiltrate without a sound and he knows every verd’ika in line for trials and this isn’t one of their ad and -

“You don’t belong here.”

The smile is gentle, a little wry. “No, I don’t, but I needed somewhere safe to put you for a while, and then I just…” He makes a vague gesture with one hand, an explanation that doesn’t explain a damn thing. Jango blinks, thoughts and memories slotting into place because he’s not, this isn’t… he was captured and this is-

“Kenobi?” Jango frowns, looks down at his hands - unbound, no wounds. It doesn’t hurt to breathe. “I’m… dreaming?”

“Something like it.” The jetii’ad shuts his eyes for a moment, takes a slow breath. “I figured a good memory might give you a little more space to recover.”

Because he’s not home, none of this is real. He’s captured, is being tortured - for information, for fun, because Tor wants him to join the Kyr’tsad, at least long enough for his buir to see it, to lure him into a trap - and Jango would like to think he’d have managed this all better, if the bastard hadn’t known exactly who to choose for his opening strike.

In the worst of it, with kriff knows what running through his veins and his vision narrowed down to Zai’s leering sneer, Jango thinks it might not be true - that Arla is still dead and gone, that she was never there at all and he has to bite his tongue until he tastes blood to keep from begging Tor to bring her back.

No better way to send him off-balance, and even though Jango knows it’s all to plan, he can’t make himself not feel how much it hurts. He can’t afford to be vulnerable, but it’s his sister there and alive and hating him so much, blaming him and why hadn’t he been there, why had he thought she’d died and why had he never checked, why had no one checked - Jaster couldn’t have known, his buir wouldn’t have kept it from him even as Arla laughed - oh you karking idiot, of course he knew, he’s always known. Why come back for me when he already had you - so innocent, so ready to believe whatever you were told? You were a tool, Jango. You’re a weapon, and Jaster Mereel told you exactly as much as you needed to know, to be no more than he wanted you to be.”

Here, sitting on the roof of his home where nothing hurts and his mind is clear, listening to the voice of his buir, it’s so easy to see those words for the obvious lies they are - Tor will say anything, and force his sister to say anything, to get what he wants.

“You know what he used to do to me, Jango, when the Haat would win? Do you want me to tell you?

No, he didn’t force her to say everything, a different kind of hate there, as Arla whispered in his ear - or at least he thought that had happened, nothing clear while it was happening and even worse trying to piece it back together afterward.

He’d recognized her instantly, heart aching for the person he’d remembered, and so every difference now was a scar, some sign of past violence, a story that he didn’t want to hear. Knew it was cowardly - she was the one who’d lived through it, but he didn’t want to know what Tor or some other Kyr’tsad bastard had done or tried to do, that she’d been alone with that and he would have come for her - if he’d known, he always would have come for her and that she’s here now-

“If she’s the one hurting you, they can’t hurt you worse. It’s why she’s taking the lead.” Obi-Wan says. “It’s hard to - she’s not easy to read… but she’s afraid. Afraid of Tor, and of what you think of her now. Afraid she’ll have to watch you die.”

A relief, to have it all stated as obvious fact, that Arla doesn’t hate him, doesn’t blame him - at least not completely. Jango’s not prone to spending time on regrets, putting too much weight on unlikely possibilities - but still, he’d been desperate for it to be true, couldn’t help himself.

Jango remembers the day that she came home with her hair dyed, neither of their parents very impressed with the small act of rebellion, a frivolous waste of money and time - but Arla had never allowed it to grow out after that, no matter how much of a hassle it had been. It gives him some faint hope, to see it still - the Kyr’tsad wouldn’t know what it meant, or that it meant anything, but if she was stubborn enough to hold on to that, maybe his sister was still there somewhere underneath her cold, dead eyes and those Death Watch sigils - signs of ownership, not loyalty.

“You think you matter to him? You think people like us matter to people like them? You’re a trophy, little brother. They pass us back and forth to score points off each other and this war of theirs is not worth dying for.”

“I have to save her.” Jango says, knowing how stupid it sounds, because right now no choices are his to make. He isn’t free or whole. He’s in a cage, not saving anyone, and the person who can has already been spending all their time and energy just reminding him where he is and who he is, what his loyalties are. The voice so close, like a hand in his that refused to let go and kept him moving forward, on the march when Jango was blind and senseless to everything but his own agony.

Obi-Wan reminding him that his buir is alive, no matter how much they try to lie to him. His aliit hasn’t been annihilated, and there’s a world out beyond the cage and past the tent and - it’s sunny, it’s raining, it’s night and they’re done for now. No late-night surprises, it’s safe Jango, just rest. I’ll warn you when they’re coming back.

“I have to…” His sister’s the enemy, and she’d kill any of them on Tor’s order, if there were any hint of what Obi-Wan’s been doing to subvert their plans. Even so, if he walks away, if he doesn’t include her in whatever comes next now that he knows she’s alive - “I just… I can’t just…”

“Yeah.” Obi-Wan says. “I know.”

It’s not always the most reliable connection - he doesn’t have any of that special Force osik, can’t talk back to the voice in his head in the waking world, and sometimes there’s nothing to hear, or it’s jumbled, like trying to communicate through heavy static, everything blunted and half-formed, only the simplest emotions making it through - don’t give up. The pain wavers, better and worse but never quite as bad as Jango thinks it should be. He stays silent through the beatings, for as long as he can until whatever they’ve jabbed him with bubbles up and burns through him and then Jango focuses on the words of the Resol’nare because he figures they’ll piss Tor off, repeats them until they’ve lost all meaning, until he’s screamed himself hoarse and his voice is gone and then it doesn’t matter what he doesn’t want to say.

No food, no water, an assault on all fronts, Tor happy to starve him out - but he has memories of dark, worried eyes and small hands and a trickle of water, blessedly cool down his throat, his prudii’ika bringing him back to life, spoonful after patient spoonful. It’s the farthest thing from safe, Arla’s eyes are too sharp and if Tor ever thought -

“We protect each other.” Ka’ra, the determination in her eyes, a loyalty he’d never asked for, never would have asked for. Jango hopes she can’t hear anything that’s going on otherwise, that she’ll stay far away from everything happening in his head.

“You need to keep her away from me, the little shadow.”

“Who’s fault is it that she likes you?” Obi-Wan says. “We’re doing what we can. It’s not easy, convincing her not to help.”

“I can’t imagine where she gets that from.” Jango says. A clatter comes from below, the sounds of more voices and enough banging to suggest half the kitchen being upended onto the other half - hopefully if that is his buir getting inspired, someone will be able to stop him in time.

“So… this is your home?” Obi-Wan says, looking around. “It’s nice. What are they doing down there?”

“Preparing for a festival, maybe. Or a wedding.” Jango glances at the sky again - tries to remember the last quiet moment for the Haat, the longest pause between battles where they’d even been home, let alone able to take a breath. It’s been a long time.

Obi-Wan lets out a small, choked sound, eyes squeezed shut and breathing around clenched teeth, a tension incongruous with the peaceful scene.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine, fine.” The jetii’ad waves him off - but he doesn’t look fine, pale and still and tense as if he’s trying to keep some unimaginable weight balanced on the tip of a blade.

Jango frowns. “You said this wasn’t hurting you.”

He remembers that, remembers the pain ebbing, remembers the jetii’s voice fading in and out - Jango even remembers lashing out against it, maybe even more than once, in panic and confusion and fear against the unknown voice in his head. Stupid and foolish, and even more so that he’d been just as afraid to find it gone, afraid that he’d been left alone - but Obi-Wan had been there, steady and resolute and not the obviously exhausted ad sitting beside him now, who looks like a strong glance could knock him over and he won’t meet Jango’s gaze.

He wonders if this is what it’s like for his buir, impressed with that stubbornness and worried because of it, all at the same time.

“You know, jetii’ika, it’s not as convincing when I can see you pretending not to hear me.“

“You’re a Force null, you can’t do anything to me.” Obi-Wan says. “It’s just… it makes it hard to hold on to you, especially when I start asking questions. You really don’t like me in your head.”

“I don’t…” It doesn’t feel like he’s fighting - it doesn’t feel much like anything, even less than it did with Trilla. “I’m not trying to fight you. I don’t even know what you’re doing.”

Obi-Wan snorts softly, eyes still closed. “Yeah, that would make two of us.”

“I thought this was what you jetiise trained for.”

Another soft snort. “How many years does it take, exactly, before you let the new recruits hold the really big guns?” He opens his eyes with another slow, steadying breath. “I just… this is a lot more than I should be seeing, and I know that, and I’m sorry. I wasn’t ever meant to be anything like a mind healer, I didn’t train for it. I shouldn’t even… but you don’t need me to be better later, you need me to be good now.”

“So, you were a jetii.”

“You are unnecessarily relentless.” Obi-Wan says, but he sounds more amused than annoyed. “Cal already told me he let it slip. I… sort of. Barely. I was raised there, but when it was time to…” He seems to consider a dozen ways to finish that sentence, each less preferable than the last. “It didn’t work out.” He makes a gesture to his eyes, which seem to burn brighter now than they did before. “It really didn’t work out.”

“It’s that bad? It means that much to them?”

“It’s… it doesn’t matter now. Not here, not anymore.” Obi-Wan says, as much ramikadyc in the determined set of his jaw as an entire battalion. “Just know that I won’t hurt you, and I can handle whatever else happens. You just focus on… I don’t know, the fastest way to kriff Tor Vizsla a few new holes once we get you free.”

Jango laughs, surprised and impressed. “Is that really the kind of language they teach in your Temple, jetii’ika?

“I’m in your head, there’s nothing for me here but terrible habits.” Obi-Wan says, with a small grin.

“A good thing you like me, then.”

“You think I wouldn’t do all this just to spite the Death Watch?”

A rabid rathtar would have more to recommend it than Tor Vizsla, to be sure. Still, Jango can’t help but hope he’s landing a little higher in Obi-Wan’s esteem than slightly better than the worst possible option. The one he’ll accept because there’s no other choice. Jango can only imagine the kind of tales the jetiise must tell about Mandalorians - and for Obi-Wan to end up here, with the Kyr’tsad of all people - more than enough evidence that all the worst stories were true.

“I don’t think that way anymore” Obi-Wan says, catching the thought before Jango can say anything - and gestures out to the compound, the sounds of ad playing, of his aliit at rest. “You love it. You love them, all of them. I don’t-“

He winces again, and Jango has the singularly odd sentiment of being angry at his own mind. Even though he knows that he would have treated whatever part of him keeps snapping at the jetii’ad like a favored attack dog under any other conditions, because he never could have seen this coming. Never imagined a jetii as his vod’ika, and Jango has an obligation to protect him. A responsibility to do more than leave him stranded and alone on point, bearing the brunt of every hit - and kriff only knows what’s happening in the camp, if there’s more that he’s dealing with than just the osik inside Jango’s head.

Shame and anger and frustration clings to him like mud, an easy enough feeling to fall back on - the humiliation of being caught, for all the fear the jetii’ad must be sensing no matter how Jango tries to hide it, the way Arla’s arrival had smashed through his composure like a comet through a piece of flimsi. All the ways he was helpless, that he couldn’t stop them from trying to break him down, to make him less than -

“Don’t.” Obi-Wan says, and the word burns with something very close to anger, something fierce and protective. “Don’t ever give them that, or give a damn for what I think, either. Whatever happens here, whatever I see - I never saw it. I wouldn’t… I swear, I would never use any of this against you, even if it didn’t go against every inch of the code. Don’t give them a foothold, don’t let it get in your head. It’s just like it was in the kriffing mines, just ugly and cruel, and they’re not worth -"

Jango blinks, the sudden realization that it had only been his assumption that the jetii’ad had a simple trajectory, from some better place to here.

“… what mines?”

A slip that Obi-Wan did not intend to make, obviously, with his focus so badly split and his control obviously coming at a high price.

“I didn’t… it’s nothing.” He deflects. Badly. “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”

“You’re not old enough to have a long time ago.” Jango says, feeling the anger kindling along with that protectiveness - the jetii’ad is formidable in ways Jango doesn’t even understand, but he shouldn’t have to fight this hard - and he frowns when he’s simply ignored once again.

“What would it look like if I got in your head, Obi’ka?”

It’s very close to cruel, even more so because instead of getting angry, the jetii’ad goes pale, and Jango regrets it immediately.

“I’m sorry.” He says. “N’eparavu takisit, that was unfair. I-“

“They’re coming back.” Obi-Wan says, looking up past the peaceful night, the warm lights in the dark, a memory that’s already fading at the edges. He’s trying to maintain that jetii implacability, that everything will be all right, but there’s real fear underneath the words. “Tor’s… angry. Very angry. You need to brace yourself.”

Jango takes a slow breath of his own, focuses on the last few, better feelings while he can- the scent of a good meal, the muffled, steady sound of his buir’s voice - and fixes the moments in his mind, like strapping on armor - and there’s a hand at his shoulder, steady and reassuring, and it stays with him, grounding him, even with everything that comes after.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Arla wakes up on the fourth day from a dream of the fire so vivid she can taste the smoke, the heat gnawing at her skin, the roar of it - and this time her mother turns from where she’d been fending off the Death Watch, and levels the gun at her instead. Disgust and contempt on her face as she pulls the trigger and Arla’s eyes snap open, hands clenched in the blankets hard enough to ache, soaked in a cold sweat.

Spice for breakfast, then, and the promise of another fun day - and that’s before she opens the door on her ship to murmurs of conversation that abruptly stop when she appears.

The Kyr’tsad have been sending out false distress signals from the moment they’d taken House Mereel’s heir, trying to lure them into a trap - but Jaster Mereel’s been at this all a long, long time. He’s no idiot, he must realize how low the chances are of getting his child back in any recognizable form, if he’s even holding out any hope. House Mereel usually plays a cautious game - the steady, careful advance, the strategic retreat - but it seems that while she was busy having nightmares, on the other side of the system the Haat decided to respond to another fake cry for help with a devastating assault. Working out their anger issues on the first weak spot that offered to buckle under the pressure - Mereel hurting, and wanting to spread that hurt around.

Tor wasn’t there, and in his absence, some very overconfident underlings made some very bad calls. By the end of it, the Kyr’tsad have lost the better part of a sector and two Keldabe-class cruisers and there’s even whispers of a possible alliance between Mereel and Kryze - and so Arla wonders if this is the day she watches her baby brother get beaten to death in front of her. Which one of Jaster’s victories is going to kill his so-called son?

No questions, no threats or demands - it’s not an interrogation this time. Tor just lays into him and Jango just takes it and Arla watches, doesn’t flinch or look away when the blows fall, when the blood flies, and the only thing at all to distract her is the growing belief that there’s more going on in this camp than she can see.

Arla’s been careful so far, not to show her hand - nothing less fun than when a target goes off-script, when whatever she’s hunting doesn’t behave like it’s supposed to - and there’s every reason to believe this one can hear her suspicions, if she slips up badly enough.

She’s being watched, Arla knows that, something quiet and impossibly still hovering just outside her peripheral vision, darting away if she even considers looking. Nothing more than a feeling, but Arla always trusts anything that might be nothing. It’s often the only warning she gets.

It fits with what she’s been told - because it seems there’s more than one kriffing jetii in the camp, because this is exactly the kind of luck that she has. Although she can’t get anyone to agree over whether it’s two or three because kriffing jetii osik. Depending on who she asks, the oldest one is a dar’jetii or just a jetii’ad or nothing worth any name, because these idiots don’t think it really matters. Half the fools in this camp have never even been out of the system, and shrug at her questions as if the only reason it hasn’t killed them all yet is because it can’t, and not because it’s just biding its time, with some silent timer slowly ticking down.

Arla hasn’t had much time to study it further, because there hasn’t been much time that Jango’s been left alone - and it’s stupid to think her presence makes a difference, not like she’s there to protect him, that she can stop anything that happens, but Arla still doesn’t want to let him out of her sight.

Unsurprising that Tor would have been intrigued by the opportunity to snatch up a dar’jetii - he probably threatened and toyed with it a bit and then tossed it to the side when it didn’t prove an immediate solution to any current problems. He likes to take risks, to play with dangerous things and show them off as spoils of conquest, but his attention pivots on a whim. Maybe the dar’jetii knew that, knew that all he had to do was be quiet and wait for the next distraction. Arla knows that strategy, she’s used it herself.

She’s known a few of the Manda-touched, the ‘Force-sensitive’ - good to have on a team when they’re trustworthy. Better-than-average aim, hunches that pay out more often than not and knowing when to cut and run before the first real sign of danger.

That’s not what a jetii is, though, what they’re capable of, let alone a dar’jetii - the difference between the beskar ingot and the blade.

There’d been a day that Tor had wanted something because he always wanted something and she’d been the one to go get it for him because she usually was - an artifact only valuable for the weapons it was worth in trade, not her job to even open the crate. Whatever it was, it had been impressive enough for a dar’jetii to try and steal it in the middle of her own hijacking - yellow eyes and laser sword and the whole karking package.

The reason Arla always keeps a set of force-inhibiting cuffs in her arsenal, a stupidly high price for something so single-use, but all it took was one durasteel door being wadded up and thrown at her like a two-ton get’shuk ball to make even expensive countermeasures seem prudent - and she’d dodged more than one door that day.

The dar’jetii had nearly killed her - delighting in every minute of the attempt. The only thing that had saved her was that it wanted to play with its food before finishing her off, it had been too arrogant and she’d been too lucky and always kept a beskar stiletto as a backup to the backup. It had mistaken the howling chaos in her head for weakness. It had thought she couldn’t handle a few up-close mind games and stabbing it through one of those yellow eyes at the same time.

Arla had still crawled out of that fight on her hands and knees, leaving nearly as much blood behind as she’d taken with her - and that’s what a dar’jetii is. So when one of the rank and file mentions that she shouldn’t worry, that Zai’s chipped it to keep it in line, it’s all she can do not to laugh in their face.

Just because the rancor acts like a tooka doesn’t make it one. Even if it watches children and does menial labor and is sent out on salvage runs and actually comes back instead of the dozen other things it should do, and that ought to be a blaring klaxon to anyone in charge and the fact that it isn’t ought to be an even louder one. It’s not unarmed, it’s never unarmed. It's allowing itself to be ignored and so the only question left is why. Dar’jetii aren’t particularly known for their patience. What is it waiting for?

Important questions, vital oversights that she’s also not at all required to mention, if Tor hasn’t noticed on his own. If it’s something Arla might be able to use to her advantage - and if she’s seriously going to start thinking that way she needs to think much faster because it’s been four days and her brave, stupid little brother ought to be in pieces by now.

Arla knows what she’s doing, knows how to hurt people until they do what they’re told. They used to - they… she used to… she was one of the ones who figured out which of the new recruits might be trouble, and stop it before it could ever start. Arla’s put Jango through all her best hells and this is something more than simple tenacity - he hasn’t budged an inch and it’ll kill him before they get anything they can use.

It might happen today, Tor might just kill him by accident while she’s watching - but eventually, mercifully, even his endless fury subsides into a snarling, spent thing that spits and curses at her brother, promising bottomless hells before storming out. Jango is still breathing at the end of it, and all she can do is hope that lasts. Tor doesn’t ask her to stay at his side, so she doesn’t - no need to give him another target unless he requires a show of loyalty.

Arla’s good at not being noticed, picks out a ledge tucked between buildings that gives her a good view of the ade, distant enough that they won’t see she’s watching. Tor is a distant, raging storm in the comms room two levels above, shouting orders and tactics and curses that echo down through the alleyways, and it sounds like they’ve at least managed to stop Mereel’s advance, but he’ll have to pull from somewhere to hold the line and that’ll almost certainly give Kryze some kind of opening - Mereel’s ally or not, she won’t hesitate to exploit a weakness.

A quick sweep of the camp finds her the younger jetii’ad soon enough - normal eyes, could pass for any other recruit-to-be - helping with some sort of wall or drainage ditch at one side of the camp. But Arla keeps watching, until he takes a quick glance around - and there it is. Not as fast or as effortless as she remembers, and the boulder he’s lifting is still considerably lighter than a durasteel door, not throwing so much as carefully sliding out of the way, never more than a few inches above the ground.

Still, it’s the spirit of the thing.

Which is why Arla keeps quiet and keeps looking, because that’s a jetii but not the one that really matters, it’s not… the pair of yellow eyes quietly watching her in return, the dar’jetii sitting cross-legged in the shadow of a low tree. Staring back just long enough so that Arla knows it was probably always watching - and who can tell, it might have known where she was since she got up this morning. Could have even taken a stroll through her thoughts, if she wasn’t paying enough attention. Maybe it knew about that other pair of yellow eyes, that dar’jetii who had been so delighted by her pain.

Not a tooka. No matter how small or thin or weak it looks, or what the idiots in this camp think they know. No matter that it hasn’t made its move. Yet.

News of the front continues to come in as the hours pass, none of it good - until Arla can’t help but wonder if she’ll be sent out to fix the problem, if this will be the hunt she won’t come back from. It’ll happen, sooner or later, the bargain her life is worth paying for. Mereel must be somewhere on the short list of targets to fit that bill, although perhaps Tor never trusted her to get that far, assumed she’d run into Jango and choke. Or perhaps he would rather burn the Death Watch to the ground himself, than be the one who didn’t kill Mereel personally.

Assassinating the duch*ess must also be on that list, a way to throw Bo-Katan off her game if nothing else. Although no one likes the New, and the hope had always been that another clan would do them the favor first, destabilize things further and possibly drag Clan Kryze back into even a grudging alliance with the Death Watch. Getting in to kill Satine isn’t out of the realm of the possible - but getting back out again, with those cities of theirs like fortresses even when they’re not on lockdown…

The camp is quiet by the time Arla returns to her ship, the leader of the Kyr’tsad long since returned to his own to continue the promises of pain for his enemies as well as the allies who’d just gone and karked up the front, and she’s thinking that another hit would do her some good even though Arla knows she has to start rationing, the osik she’s burning through not exactly meant for lightweights or available in every back-alley dive.

Off her game, distracted by thoughts of Jango, the dar’jetii, whatever’s coming next. Off her game when she absolutely can’t afford to be, hitting the door release and walking into her ship to find that Tor hasn’t gone nearly as far as she thought - standing there in her hold, turning a broken vibroblade over in his hands.

—————————

Arla knows what they say about her. All sorts of names for that across the whole galaxy, everyone with an opinion to share. What… position she must serve best for the Mand’alor. Arla’s been the gift he’s given, of course. A reward to one or another of his high-achieving ver’alor or alor’ad for the right victory. She’s done as much herself, when it’s the easiest way to gain intel, to stay unnoticed, to get five minutes with a mark who otherwise wouldn’t let down their guard. Her body is another weapon in the arsenal, nothing more.

Never with him, though - no matter what everyone else thinks they know. If he’s ever shown a passion for anything but the battlefield, for destruction and conquest and finding each nerve under the skin and ripping it free, she’s never seen it. Which ought to make moments like these easier than they are.

“You’re worse than ever.” He tosses the bit of scrap aside. Arla wonders how long he’s been looking, for whatever it is he thinks she’s hiding. “How do you even find anything in here?”

He sounds casual, but it’s never worth believing. It’s never worth anything but being on her guard without showing it and it’s his ship, Arla. Stop feeling uneasy, stop being surprised - he knows how much you hate the reminder or he wouldn’t have come here and it’s his ship as much as it’s his armor on your body, everything is his and not yours, which is why he could look as long as he wanted and never find anything, because you know it’s only your life when he decides it’s not his and-

“I’m leaving.” Tor says, still not looking at her.

“Where are we going?” The front, obviously, and if he’s moving this fast things are even worse than she’s heard. It doesn’t matter, though. It doesn’t matter what Mereel thinks he’s won, Tor will turn it around. He always finds a way, but this may at least keep his attention elsewhere for a while. A little breathing room - although Arla doesn’t even finish that thought, not with him standing in front of her. Not when he closes the distance, raises a hand to her cheek.

Her family had been stoic, not prone to many gestures of affection. Arla’s grateful for that - one thing, at least, he couldn’t ruin.

“I want the brat in our colors by the time I get back. You’ll make that happen for me, won’t you, Arla.”

It’s not a question, not even really an order. She’s a blaster, or a blade. A tool. Tools don’t have to be afraid, they don’t have to be asked because they don’t do anything but what they’re supposed to.

Tor tips his head thoughtfully, strokes the back of a gloved knuckle lightly against the side of her throat. His attempt at a smile is a grimace, pulling shiny, twisted skin taut in all sorts of wrong ways. Arla’s seen scars, seen burns, carries enough of her own - it’s a war, no one stays undamaged for long. No shame in it, not ugly or wrong - but with Tor… it reminds her of what else is underneath, how much of him in all ways is just pretending.

“You’ve been… more emotional than usual. I thought you could handle it, Arla. I thought I could trust you with this.”

Coming from a man whose fury had silenced the camp from one end to the other, and when Arla is sure she’s given nothing away. He’s fishing, because he’s always paranoid and he always goes fishing for hints of betrayal after a defeat - the reason he’s in her ship, pretending it’s just intimidation. Which might mean it wasn’t just luck and chance, that Mereel knew exactly where to strike to the greatest effect. Or just that Tor can’t imagine losing so much without it being some kind of plot. Either way, he’s at his most dangerous like this, and when he’s acting casual, unconcerned, that’s the worst of all.

“It’s what he understands.” Arla shrugs. “The Haat’s little idiots, they’re all about feelings. If he thinks I care, we can use that.”

His hand curls in her hair, not quite hurting, not yet. Arla keeps it long because of how many times she’s been told how foolish it is - time-consuming, unnecessary, a potential liability in battle. It’s also an easy target, the first thing Tor usually reaches for. If she gives him an obvious way to hurt her, at least she can know what’s coming next.

“I made you sharper. You know that, don’t you? I showed you the path to becoming the best you could ever be. Untouchable. Unstoppable. No less than you deserved. Ruthlessness is a mercy, Arla. The galaxy is a brutal place, with no room for the weak.”

“I was very lucky, Mand’alor.”

The story he’s settled on these days, her stern but generous benefactor - after years when Arla was no less memorable or disposable than anyone else, long after she’d learned how to be empty, to be only what she was told to be and do. Only meaningful when she was set to a purpose. It’s terrible, to think there was a time when a part of her would have been something like happy to hear the pride in his voice, to think she was strong and that it mattered. But Arla’s old enough now to be the only one left of the few who survived with her - and she’s seen the deaths of even more who’d come after, and they’re all forgotten before they’re cold, and she will be too.

“We’re nearly at the end, now. It’s almost done. House Mereel will fall, and I will send you, my very best blade, to cut the the heart out of the New, and the universe will once again feel the unstoppable might of our Empire.”

Does he realize how many times she’s heard this before? How many variations over how many speeches as she’s stood behind him, listening to the howls of his loyal followers, with total victory always mere moments away, year after year after year. Why is he still trying to convince her, to pretend it matters if she agrees, when he’d been the one to make sure she couldn’t do anything else?

Arla can imagine it all too well, his glorious future. A whole universe ablaze. Planet after planet reduced to the shattered husk under her feet, barely able to support a handful of lives. The Mandalorians of old had brought so much glory to the universe that no one missed them when they’d gone, no one she’d seen ever grieved for their loss - and Tor would soon be welcomed by the full force of the Republic and every gun and ship they could bring to bear and a war she would not live to see the end of, no matter how long she survived.

“I’ll give you a planet, for your dedication, your loyalty. Would you like that? A whole system. I could make you a queen.”

Arla would be a good queen. She’d make sure to hire people smarter than her, better than her, and she’d listen to them. Her people would have food and safety and happiness, and then she’d leave them all the kriff alone forever, just let them live their lives and no one would ever have any reason to fear her. They wouldn’t even have to know her name.

“You give me too much credit, Mand’alor.”

The jetii punted them all into oblivion once, surely they can do it again. Maybe Arla will be there for that, maybe she’ll last long enough to see Tor die - it has to be possible, somehow. Maybe she’ll get to watch them put a half a dozen of those laser swords through him before they cut her down.

Arla hears the footsteps a moment before one of his crew arrives at the bottom of the ramp, the shift in the dirt as he snaps to attention. Far enough away that Tor can ignore him if he wants to, close enough that he won’t risk having to repeat himself. All those little calculations they make on Tor’s behalf, trying to play to his moods, all the time. Arla wonders how much he even notices.

“Ready to depart, Mand’alor.”

Which means he’ll have to stop touching her. He’ll leave, and his fingertips will fall away and she’ll still be able to feel him for hours, the weight of those gloves on her skin - but at least he’ll be gone, he’ll be light-years away. All she has to do is not move, not move and not care and he’ll stop touching her and he’ll be gone.

Tor sighs and sounds almost fond and her skin crawls and this part has to be an act most of all. It’s unbearable, to imagine anything else, to think that he somehow believes any of this is real. “I know you’ll make it happen. You’ve always understood what this is for. No one knows me like you do, Arla.”

What if he’s right? What if he let her live only because he recognized something in her, something in them that’s the same? How could it not be true, if she’s managed to survive for this long? And what, really, could anything at all matter then?

Arla stays where she is, until she can’t hear his footsteps, until she’s heard the engines on his ship roar to life and he’s up and out and gone again. It’s a law like gravity or hyperspeed - easier to breathe with every moment he’s further away, although Arla still doesn’t move for a long time, and when she does it’s to reach for the small box in the back of the nearby compartment before anything else. Just a little bit, just enough to keep her steady and get her moving again, but Arla doesn’t really think about where she’s going or why until she’s through the camp and stepping into the tent where the prisoner, where her brother -

Movement in the shadows, on the far side of the bars, just past the slumped shape in the cage - a quick and darting motion, as if a small bird had somehow found its way inside. Arla takes a few careful steps forward - no one there, but there’s a patter of fresh water drops in the dirt, as if someone had spilled half a glass. Jango hasn’t moved, crumpled against the bars, and Arla crouches down. More water on the metal, a few more drops on his tattered shirt - an act of mercy she’d rudely interrupted. Arla listens intently - nothing to hear, no one in here with her - but there’s still that feeling of being watched.

“You’re not doing him any favors.” She says to the listening silence. “I know you think you are, but it’s just making things worse.”

Kriff, and just look at him. Beaten flat, passed out and left for dead and Jango still looks like he’s ready to come up swinging. Their father had been the same, strong and unyielding - and he’d died on his knees in the dirt like anyone else, like half of this entire kriffing planet, probably. Kriff the Mandalorians - all of them, including her. Kriff this war and their pride and the whole sorry lot of it.

“You’re not going to give me any help here, are you? Too proud to even try and save yourself.” Arla murmurs. “We both know you can lie, or I wouldn’t have ended up doing your karking morning chores half the time.”

A beam of light cuts through the shadows, as the tent flap’s pulled back - and Zai stands in the doorway, watching her. Arla wonders if Tor gave the order, that she wasn’t allowed to be in here alone, or if the camp commander’s taking the initiative. Either way, it’s not like there’s much else she can do for the moment.

“He’s still breathing.” Arla says. “Tor wants to keep it that way for now.”

“He does, or you do?”

“I am the will of the Mand’alor.” Arla snarls. One of the very few benefits of being the thing she is - she’s allowed to snap back at the suspicious, jealous little nibrale who forever posture and bicker in Tor’s wake.

“Speak to the guard if you want to do any further interrogation. I’ll be notified immediately.”

Implied threats established, there’s little more to do than a bit of glaring and posturing, like a pair of flea-bitten Cophrigin goats vying for territory. It would certainly be easier if she could just headbutt him off a cliff and be done with it. One more moment of glowering, and he’s gone, and there’s nothing to do but follow and-

“… Arla?”

Jango hasn’t even raised his head. Probably delirious, doesn’t even know what-

“Arla… don’t go. Don’t go.”

Is this what it means, family? The only thing her being alive has done is hurt him, and here he is begging her to stay. Kriffing idiot.

Arla walks away, slow and steady. No one could mistake it for running.

————————————

Obi-Wan takes a careful sip of tea, wishes he could negotiate with the tiny wookies currently punching the backs of his eyeballs, to see if they wouldn’t mind taking a short break or at least change up the tempo.

The fourth night, of what feels like a forty day siege. At least the sky is clear, and Tor has gone as quickly as he’d come, the entire camp left in recovery mode. An unexpected shift in the front, important battles lost, although Obi-Wan can’t imagine that whatever sent the leader of the Kyr’tsad away will keep him away for long and he needs to come up with a plan before then, they are running out of time and -

He shuts his eyes, the wookies putting their backs into it as his tea threatens to make a quick return trip, and he doesn’t have the strength left to try and center himself, to do anything for the moment but sit and exist and let the world move around him.

The Dark feels so smug, shifting like a restless sea no matter how he tries to ignore it. It had surged up at every strike that fell, every cruel word, Tor’s brutality and Zai’s vicious delight and perhaps most of all with Arla - she has shields, someone along the way had taught her how, but every now and again he’d get a glimpse and it felt like being hit with a bag stuffed with knives, jagged edges of pain and anger no matter where he touched, the Dark churned up into seething whitecaps in response. He couldn’t retreat, couldn’t let go, Jango needed him to not let go, but at the same time he’d been drowning, barely able to keep above it. Thankfully, there’d been no sign of that other voice, whatever it was he’d felt in the foundry, but even now Obi-Wan can feel the satisfaction in the Dark and knows what it would say if it could.

I am the universe. I am the engine that keeps it all in motion. Would I win again, and again, and again if I wasn’t supposed to be here? All of it is mine. Every last brutal inch. The rest is incidental.

The brilliant argument to easily refute that claim is out there, he’s just too tired to think of it right now. The Order had to have several thousand years of answers for this - the Council knew, they had to. It’s probably some class meant for the knights because they didn’t want to terrify the younglings.

Jango’s resting comfortably now, at least. Obi-Wan was finally able to ease him to a place past the pain, where every small movement wouldn’t just jolt him awake again.

Obi-Wan remembers a massive piece of machinery from the mines in Bandomeer, a roaring monster of a thing that tumbled great rocks together, banging them into each other until they’d shattered - and it feels like he’s been tossed into that bin and left to spin, somehow keep it from breaking him apart, scrabbling for a few moments’ peace before a new load is shoveled in and it all begins anew.

He’s hit his limit before in Melida/Daan, more than once. Walked that fine line of Force exhaustion when there’d been so many wounded, when one of their medics had gone down and he’d had to do the work for two - but it’s never been quite like this. One thing to briefly touch the mind of another, share a thought or impart a suggestion - something else entirely to keep himself there, to try and follow the flow of Jango’s mind, let him lead or risk panic and fear and undoing everything he was trying to do. Obi-Wan could only rest when Jango did, when Tor finally relented, and even half of that was practically a walking meditation, Cal keeping him from face-planting into any trees while Obi-Wan struggled for the bare pretense of normalcy and thank kriff all eyes were on the Mand’alor and no one’s been paying much attention otherwise.

He’ll have to step up his game now that the leader of the Kyr’tsad has gone - and Obi-Wan has already felt Arla Fett’s gaze on him more than once, a predator crouched in the tall grass, waiting for the right moment to strike. He doesn’t think he’s given her anything much to work with, but there’s no telling if that will actually matter.

And through all of it, the Dark lapping at his feet like the edge of some bottomless lake, colder and deeper with every blow and kick and pang of grief.

He takes another sip of tea with his eyes closed, breathing past the nausea that hasn’t abated - he’s worrying Cal, going on the second day that he hadn’t bothered eating and the younger boy not quite believing him, that the Force could pick up the slack. But trying to choke down anything at the moment is just that one step more than he can handle. He has to let the Force carry as much as he can let it, and ignore that it’s not a great long-term solution.

Nothing’s going to be a great long-term solution - but Obi-Wan has at least a little breathing room now - a few hours of sleep, a few more of meditation. Maybe risk trying to see Jango in person, see if he can heal the very worst of this last, vicious round, see just how bad… If anything gets infected, if he gets sick… Obi-Wan already had only the barest sketch of a plan for when Jango could get out of here on his own, and now-

Well, now it’s wookies and eyeballs and Obi-Wan seeing stars at the edges of his vision and he lets his head drop, just tries to breathe and feel the plants around him, the creatures pacing their quiet trails through the night and not letting his thoughts spin out into the countless ways this could all go wrong. Focus on the present is what Qui-Gon would advise, but that - that’s an entirely different kind of problem.

He’s never spent so much time in another person’s thoughts before, not since the creche, when reaching out for Bant or Quin had been as easy and obvious as breathing. He’d had to stay as close as he could to Jango to be of any use at all. Soak up as much of the damage as possible, give him all the clarity and endurance he could muster even though it felt like a constant swim upstream, a struggle even when Jango wasn’t trying to kick him out, the combination of drugs and pain leaving him convinced at times that Obi-Wan was just one more threat, and even his lucid moments hadn’t been easy. A Mandalorian trait, maybe, that furious independence raging against any attempts at control.

Obi-Wan doesn’t know how he’d managed what he’d finally done, only that Jango was hurt and flagging, his thoughts restless and bleak and the pain and exhaustion dragging him further down and Obi-Wan remembered some basic introduction to the idea of mind healing, back in the Temple, back when they’d been given a look at all the paths they might consider and he hadn’t had more than a polite interest then. What use as anything that wouldn’t put him out among the stars with a saber in his hand - and Force, but he’d certainly been a creature of simple goals, hadn’t he? No wonder the Masters hadn’t been falling over themselves to choose him.

The healer had said something about memory - using memory as a tool for healing, though Obi-Wan’s sure it wasn’t meant at all in the way he’d tried to use it. Definitely not how he’d followed Jango down into that past, and couldn’t find the way out again.

No - he hadn’t wanted to leave. Giving Jango a moment’s peace had been a relief for him as well, those feelings of pride and love and home like a warm fire, impossible not to want to bask beside, if only for a moment. And that was before Jango had noticed him there, and Obi-Wan had felt that same fierce sense of protectiveness wash over him - for him, and that had been… unexpected.

Allegiances under fire could be fierce and inexplicable… but also fleeting, he had to keep that in mind. He’d thought he had brothers on Melida/Daan once, too.

If he’d been asked back in the Temple, what was the best path forward for Mandalore, Obi-Wan wouldn’t have hesitated to say the New. He’d only had the basic classes on the Outer Rim and the forces at play there, but the path of non-violence was always the right one, the suffering and the endless civil war proof enough of how much Mandalore needed to change.

The mind of a Mandalorian is nothing like those of his crechemates, or the steady, quiet peace of the Masters. Jango could be arrogant, and violent, as prepared to start a fight as he was to end it. Obi-Wan’s been told to avoid passion - a sure path to a thousand cruelties, but Jango is nothing but passion. Every Mandalorian he’s met is some variation on the theme, a point of pride to live their lives on that edge of battle-readiness and determined fury.

Except there’d been so much more on that rooftop - and even before, when Obi-Wan had needed to distract him, when Jango had been hurting and confused and afraid and he’d said remind me what you’re fighting for and tell me why it’s worth being brave and show me who you are.

Freedom. It was about living free, the wild wandering of long hunts through unfamiliar territory, of watching suns rise and moons fall and eclipses over rush-strewn waters on a hundred different worlds. The thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of a bounty well-taken. In choosing a battle and fighting it well, and trusting those who stood next to you and knowing they could trust you. Taking up armor earned with valor, that had been carried by a long line of strong warriors who’d come before. The connection of House and clan and welcome - and offering that welcome to those who might bring even greater strength, offer up new skills and talents and stories around the fire, a shared hunt and a shared meal. The same words spoken in a thousand different ways - strength in those differences, and the beliefs that tied them together. Aliit and vode - true Mandalorians weren’t strong for themselves, didn’t live for their own benefit, it wasn’t the point.

Jango had begged for his help to stay silent, the one thing he was desperately relieved to have out of his control, no matter how much it cost him - don’t let me talk - that Obi-Wan and his mysterious, fearsome magic Force osik would keep him from betraying his people.

Self-abegnation is a Jedi principle, too.

Obi-Wan had thought he knew the best path, the way he should live. Be a Jedi, follow the teachings, be calm, be dependable, step back from the temptations and the distractions of the world. He’d tried to follow that path on Melida/Daan, to do what he thought the Jedi would have done even when he’d never be one again, to be thoughtful and diplomatic and find peace - and all that had still ended with Cerasi’s blood on his hands and Nield devastated and snarling and hating him, hating all those things that Obi-Wan had thought made him good, able to do good. He’d seen himself then, through the other boy’s eyes - not reserved and balanced but bloodless and inhuman.

“We can’t all be you, Kenobi. Putting our ideals over people. Not caring. Not needing anyone. Not everyone can live taking nothing.”

Was that really what he’d thought? Was that what everyone saw? Obi-Wan had never cared for anything like he’d cared for them, like he’d fought for the Young, and he tells himself Nield was only hurting and wanting to hurt - they’d both been wrecked, lost and desolate in the wake of what either of them would have given their lives not to lose.

The Jedi are feared and distrusted all across the Outer Rim, just for being what they are. Child-stealers, even Jango had said that when they’d first met, the very first thing that had come to mind. Taking children and making them… less, taking something vital away from them. No different than the Kyr’tsad - and Obi-Wan can’t even begin to explain how wrong that is. How absurd, when all his memories of the creche are of kindness, lessons of peace and compassion and understanding - but he’s seen enough of Jango’s thoughts now, to understand why he would think so. Ask a Mandalorian to treat their mandokarla like a poison, loyalty to their aliit like a flaw to be overcome? You’d either get laughed at and then shot, or they’d shoot while laughing.

And they weren’t… they weren’t wrong, were they? It wasn’t what he knew, wasn’t anything like what he’d been taught - but Obi-Wan couldn’t see through Jango’s eyes, couldn’t feel what he felt without also feeling so many of his own truths start to crumble at the edges. He was the one who’d been wrong about the New, wrong about the war. It wasn’t at all as simple as he’d thought, what the New wanted wouldn’t work and it shouldn’t work. Obi-Wan still believes in de-escalation and compromise - the war needs to stop, Tor needs to be stopped and there needs to be reconciliation - but the New just want to sweep it all away, erase everything that Jango showed him, all that he is, even the best things that the old ways have to offer. Make it all disappear forever. A peace as violent and terrible as any war, in its own way.

Of course, admitting that only raises other questions, ones that get more dangerous rather quickly - the kind of questions Obi-Wan knows he’s not supposed to ask. Simple uncertainty isn’t the same as temptation, the prelude to a Fall - if he’s only walking the path he’s on because he’s afraid to step off of it, what good is that? But… how will he know, how will he recognize the right path, or the wrong one, when his old lessons now seem more rote than true? Where’s the path through this, a peace that everyone can find a future in?

Can passion ever only - only - lead to the Dark?

Footsteps approach - quiet boots in the dust - and this is another lesson from Melida/Daan. Nothing waits to happen until Obi-Wan is ready to face it, when he’s prepared. He’ll never be anything but grateful for many of the Temple teachings - how to center himself, how to find that last scrap of patience, of focus and peace, and meet whatever’s coming next with as much strength and clarity as he has left.

It isn’t anyone he recognizes, one of the Kyr’tsad that had arrived with Tor and left behind as reinforcements, moving close enough that Obi-Wan can sense that most of what they’re wearing isn’t beskar - one leg from the shin to the thigh, the helmet - nothing more.

Vizsla’s ground troops only gain their armor from the bodies of anyone they’ve been lucky enough to vanquish. It’s not, from what Obi-Wan understands of Mandalorian traditions, an entirely uncommon practice, or even necessarily a disrespect to the dead. Like so many other things, though, Tor Vizsla seems to have ripped any hint of meaning or purpose from it. Simply the cheapest way to arm his forces, and encourage them to fight if they want to survive. He claims it’s the way things were, in the Empire of old. Funny, how those ancient traditions always match so well to what’s most convenient for him.

The helmet comes off. A girl, human or close to, dark hair and pale eyes and not so much older than he is. At least she doesn’t look angry, the Force isn’t spiking with any particular warnings.

“… do you remember me?”

For a moment, he doesn’t, and then a nudge of the Force, her signature, a memory - Obi-Wan had only been in the camp for a few weeks, when the oldest ade had first been gathered up and shipped away. He remembers a girl - longer hair than she has now, a shy smile, hand pressed against one of the low, stunted trees that still managed to bear fruit now and then, in what Obi-Wan only realized afterward had been a goodbye.

“You used to take care of the trees.”

“They look good. I didn’t think… I wasn’t sure they’d last.” As dark as it is, he can only see she’s crying from the reflection of the lights on the other side of camp, and she does so silently - no sniffling, no wiping them away, her voice still steady. Obi-Wan takes a breath, and as tired as he is there’s nothing to do but reach out - another variation on the theme of not knowing exactly what the kriff he’s doing, following the sense of it in the Force - find the pain, make it less - and he doesn’t take it, exactly, doesn’t try to replace her sorrow, just allows it to have its space in the night, with the trees and the stars. Lets her know he’s there, that she’s not alone. He hears her give a little, wet gasp.

“Oh, I thought I dreamed you. I thought I dreamed this. It’s so quiet.”

One more mystery that Obi-Wan just doesn’t understand. Why the Force doesn’t speak to everyone, why everyone can’t at least sense that they’re all part of it, all connected. Of course the Jedi can do more, see more, but the Force doesn’t belong to them, and too many seem to think of it that way.

“I’d offer you some hospitality,” Obi-Wan says, with a glance at his cup, “but you wouldn’t believe this was it.”

She takes a glance behind her, to see who might be watching, and then sits down across from him, near the fire, reaches out for the spare, mismatched cup he offers, pulling a face with the first sip.

“Oh kriff,” she laughs softly, “that is vile.” But she doesn’t give the cup back, holding it close, warming her hands.

Before Melida/Daan, Obi-Wan would have asked more questions, and tried to find answers, and done his best to help. He still wants to help, but doesn’t really have to ask - even if she wasn’t bleeding out relief and pain into the Force in equal measure, hadn’t returned to them from one of the camps and somehow, it seems, managed to hold on to more than they could have ever wanted her to. He’s learned to let others lead, rather than always pushing forward. Sometimes he can’t help as much as he’d like, not right away. Sometimes just being there to listen is the most helpful thing of all.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see this place again.” She says, looking up at the stars, her voice little more than a whisper. “I wasn’t supposed to, we’re not supposed to end up anywhere near where we started, but there was a fight and I was…” She stops. “I was the only one left, afterward, and the squad they put me with after were all from somewhere else, and I think they just… forgot. If they ever even noticed.”

“I’m glad you’re back.” Obi-Wan says, and her expression blanks out in that familiar way, when it’s not safe to feel.

“I don’t know… I don’t… want to hurt anyone here, but I don’t know…”

“Nobody has to know you’re here, unless you want them to.” Obi-Wan says, not even sure how many others there are, who might remember her. “No one would expect you to… we can all only do what we can.” Which might not be more than misplacing a few rations, looking the other way at the right moment - or maybe nothing at all.

“They told us it was going to be different. That if we were strong enough, if we fought well… everything would change. The Kyr’tsad grants its power to the worthy.” Another one of those non-expressions. “It never felt different.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re helping him, aren’t you? The prisoner, Mereel’s ad.” The girl says. “I remember… I was there when you did it before.”

Obi-Wan had barely been able to do anything back then, that first time - hadn’t even seen whoever they’d brought in, already in bad shape and they hadn’t lasted long, thoughts full of only confusion and pain. All he could do then was make those final moments a little easier, less full of fear - and the thought of having to do that for Jango, to have to feel him slip away fills him with a cold and potent dread that is almost overwhelming.

“You need to be careful. That woman in the red armor, she’s been asking about you.”

“Yes.” Arla says, stepping out of the shadows. “She has.”

————————————————————

No one moves, only an occasional crack and pop from the dwindling fire. Arla has no idea who this particular verd is - one more young, disposable prop in bad armor, although she’s at least smart enough to be afraid.

“You can leave now.” Arla says, and with another quick glance back at the dar’jetii, she quickly retreats into the night.

Admittedly, there are smarter ways to end a multi-day reconnaissance against an enemy she still has no real measure of, and Arla hadn’t planned on confronting him like this - but then that little soldier had appeared, and they’d started talking and suddenly it seemed that all of Arla’s half-formed suspicions might be correct after all, far more going on than anyone could see.

The drugs also think this is a fantastic idea, if anyone’s asking.

Arla really, really needs to slow down, and she knows it, and she will, just as soon as every moment stops feeling like another step through a minefield. As soon as she’s not face-to-face with a dar’jetii, those gold eyes wide and wary and there’s even fear there but Arla knows better than to believe it. She’s armed, nearly in full armor - too conspicuous to walk around in camp with her helmet on, which might end up being a terrible oversight - but it seems unlikely the dar’jetii would risk blowing its cover just to attack her now.

“You know, I had some questions, but I think I’d rather know what she meant by that. What are you doing to Mereel’s ad?”

No answer. Arla crouches down slowly, so they’re eye-to-eye - takes the remote she’d pocketed from Zai, that he either hasn’t noticed is missing, or doesn’t want to bring attention to the fact that he’d lost it, and holds it casually, watches the dar’jetii’s eyes flick from it back to her.

“Does this even work on you?”

“It works.” He says softly, licks his lips, either nervous or faking it. “… but I don’t think you want to use it.”

“Trying to get in my head now?” Arla says, with one of her sharper smiles. “I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s not a nice place to be.”

“No, I’m not.” He says. “But you don’t like hurting people when you don’t have to.”

Oh, so it thinks it knows things. It thinks it knows her? Arla laughs. “Well now, maybe everyone’s right.” She says. “Maybe you are just a misfire. Were you sent here to pick up some information? Kill someone if they happen by? Or was it just sink or swim?”

“No one sent me. I-”

Arla presses the button, watches the dar’jetii jerk forward, barely catching himself on his hands before he can hit the dirt face-first, ignores the pang of something very close to shame. How small he looks, curled at her feet, the stutter of his breathing - though it has to be a lie, dar’jetii don’t just get themselves chipped by idiots, even if it is an ad - and focus, Arla, damn you.

“What. Are you doing. To my brother.”

For an answer, Arla is unceremoniously thrown sideways off her feet into the nearest tree, hard enough that she can hear the wood crack when her armor hits.

The next few moments happen all at once, Arla recovering with a tight roll that brings her up with a blaster in one hand and a knife in the other, finger on the trigger but she’s aiming at least a foot too high because it’s a girl - a tiny little girl standing there, staring at her with such ferocity - and this would be the confirmation on that third jetii then, Arla thinks. No time to be impressed before the dar’jetii is there, standing between them, dark and dangerous now in the light of the flickering fire, with eyes like liquid gold, and Arla’s grateful she’s in beskar right up until she feels the invisible weight press against her throat - light, but steady. A warning.

The dar’jetii doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, and Arla has the very distinct thought that the very best way to deal with a threat that’s mostly in beskar’gam is to simply remove the parts that aren't. Her head, for example, is a good deal lighter than a durasteel door.

No one’s watching them, Arla had made sure of that on her way over. Maybe she’d get a shot off, if she was lucky, but she’d never have the chance to make a sound.

You wanted to see what it was capable of, Arla? Well, here you are.

A long, quiet moment passes - and Arla slowly feels that pressure ease from around her throat. The dar’jetii still doesn’t blink.

“Go.” He says softly, and the little girl peering out from behind him just… vanishes, as if she was never there. Arla remembers the tent, the splash of water on the ground, the feeling of being watched. Interesting.

Very carefully, she holsters her blaster, slides the knife back into its sheath. Crouches down again, to slip the dropped remote back into a pocket, just to see if he’ll allow it. The dar’jetii watches her silently, and she has to admit, the longer she looks the less she can see of the one she fought before. No sense that he’d been spoiling for this fight, nothing pleased or amused in his expression - there hadn’t been, even with that invisible hand at her throat. Mercy’s a tactical error, she could make a lot of trouble for him with very little effort, if he lets her leave, and yet she’s still breathing.

“It suppose it wouldn’t have been easy, getting rid of my body.” Arla says.

He shrugs slightly. “Just throw it over the fence. Blame it on the beasts, when they dragged you away.” A pause, he glances away from her and back, his voice going even softer. “I’m trying to keep him alive. Your brother.”

Ask her if she would have ever believed him, five minutes ago - but now?

“It won’t work.” Arla says. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s just going to get him killed.”

“He knows his buir’s still out there.” The dar’jetii says softly. “He knows there’s a reason to keep fighting. You can’t give Tor what he wants - even if you wanted to.”

Arla damn near shocks him again, just for that - it - he thinks he knows her, when he doesn’t know a kriffing thing - but also… this isn’t a discussion that can continue here and now, whatever it is she might want to say, no matter who’s supposed to not be listening in.

So Arla turns and walks away, and he lets her, though there’s still that feel of invisible eyes on her the entire way back across the camp. Right up until she’s back in her ship with the door shut, and she takes the time to dig the Force-suppressing cuffs from the back of her armory, spins them around her finger and thinks about… nothing useful, not yet, but now she’s found the biggest mine in the field and given it a sharp kick and is somehow still alive, and that’s something. A dar’jetii inexplicably helping her brother, whatever it - he means by 'helping', and kriff only knows how and to exactly what ends, and that’s… something else entirely.

Arla doesn’t plan on falling asleep - thoughts racing, tired of dreaming, not wanting to see yellow eyes whenever she closes her own. She doesn’t even realize she’s gone down until she jerks awake in the co*ckpit, still armored below the waist and a bacta patch on her shoulder where she’d hit the tree because it seemed even a jetii’adiik could play at thermal detonator when they felt like making a point - stupid magic osik - and the light on her front console is flashing, a twin chime of warning somewhere under the console where her bracer had rolled because this is a message from the Mand'alor and that damn well better always be her top priority.

It hasn’t been that long, Arla can’t imagine what could have happened in so short a time - couldn’t have imagined this at all, as she listens to the highly encrypted, extremely terse message play out once and again. It’s not about Jango. It’s not even about Mereel, or the battle they lost. It’s much, much worse than that.

“Kriffing bantha ballsack.” Arla mutters, with a deep and profound gratitude that she was planets away from Tor when he got this news.

The sun’s barely up, and the soldiers she passes don’t do more than watch as she pillages their storehouse, grabbing boxes of food and resupplying on ammunition and trying to consider everything she might need for this hunt, how far it might take her, what kind of opposition she’ll likely have to blast through - and kriff what she wouldn’t give for a camp with a proper goran but no point complaining about that now. It’s on her second trip back for even more guns that Zai finally makes an appearance. Arla wonders which soldier had been brave enough to tell on her, the paths around them all conspicuously vacant for the moment.

“What’s going on here?”

“I’m leaving. Now.” Arla says without looking back, “and I’m taking your pet dar’jetii with me.”

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

“I don’t care who you think you are.” Zai snarls. “The whelp’s not going anywhere.”

“Because he’s doing so much for you here.” Arla says, doesn’t slow down as she moves past him, hears him curse when he realizes she’s not going to stop. Arla wishes it was just a power play, putting him in his place but the truth is she already needs to be off the ground and moving. Every minute this goes on, the more trouble is going to stand between her and what Tor wants and there won’t be another option but going through.

Get it for me, Arla. The Heart of Gamorr or the head of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic - it doesn’t matter. Weapons don’t ask how or why, they kriffing make things happen.

Zai follows her into the armory - a little too narrow to fit him comfortably, to give him room to maneuver if he thought about it, but he’s not thinking about it. He’s thinking about how he’d like to put her in her place. He’s not Tor Vizsla, though, and big men with more arrogance than brains trying to squeeze out all the air in a room hasn’t intimidated her for a long time now. Arla makes sure to keep at least one hand clear while she sorts through the supplies, but she’d grabbed most everything worth taking in the armory the first time around.

“You think I’m just going to give-“

Arla holds up the remote for the dar’jetii’s little chip, amused that Zai is actually surprised, that he didn’t even notice it was missing. She brushes past him for the exit, tense and waiting for what she knows is coming. He could just grumble and walk away and tell anyone who would listen what a frigid, gedin'la little bitch the Mand’alor keeps in his back pocket. Plenty of Death Watch peons across the sector who’d be happy to sympathize. All he has to do is let her walk out and do her job and not cost her another five minutes she can’t afford -

A hand clamps down on her shoulder, and Arla smiles. Fine, she’ll make it quick. The little dar’jetii thinks she doesn’t like hurting people? Arla kriffing loves hurting people, especially after so many days of not being able to beat the kark out of someone who isn’t her little brother.

He’s a brute. He’s dangerous, wouldn’t be in charge here if he couldn’t at least keep the rest of them in line, but like most of the brutes Arla’s met, he underestimates anyone smaller than he is, and relies on his strength to see him through. Among the Mandalorians there’s a certain expectation of knives and blasters - maybe a flamethrower in the mix, all within the realm of fighting fair.

Arla fights mean. The light that ports to her right palm is nearly as bright as the strobes they park at the edges of mapped space, the flash so powerful it can easily glitch a helmet, more than enough to leave him with the afterimage of her hand burned on the backs of his eyeballs and he howls, staggers, swipes at her. Arla swipes back - retractable blades on her gloves, more pain than damage for the moment, although if she were trying to kill him it wouldn’t be the worst option, to let him bleed out slow. It’s hard to neutralize without wanting to go in for the kill - not what she’s used to, and better than he deserves.

“This is fun and all, but I’ve got places to be.” Arla says, punctuating the last few words with a vicious kick to the knee, using his own momentum against him as he lurches to the side and she slams his head into the wall, and then the opposite wall with the rebound.

“Kriffing shabuir!“

He still manages a few glancing blows - big man in a blind rage in a small room - enough to leave her winded, but his final punch goes well wide and knocks a whole row of rifles off the wall. Arla picks it the nearest one by the barrel, swings it up like a club, a direct hit to the jaw that finally sends him staggering and down.

A soldier leans inside the open door - and just as quickly leans out again when Arla looks up. At least someone here understands the concept of the chain of command.

Zai’s still dazed when she grabs the proximity mine, weakly tries to throw her off as she sits down on his legs and slaps it down against his armor, a modest three beeps as it unfolds and arms. Waiting for a good jolt, to join the conversation Zai recognizes that sound - he goes very still, tries to see the mine without moving his head, looking up at her, still blinking away the spots from her opening attack. It feels good, to see his fear, when he realizes just what he’s dealing with.

“… jare’la lunatic.”

“Just try me.” Arla grins.

When the Mand’alor’s got a hand at her throat, Arla knows how to be afraid - but as soon as he’s gone, it degrades into this three-way tug-of-war between tactics, impatience and... let's be honest, self-destruction, and she only vaguely cares who wins. It’s getting worse, Arla thinks, self-destruction tugging a little harder every day. Or she’s just a hypocrite and a coward, the worst kind of person, with so many others - so many better people sacrificed for this stupid waste of time she dares to call a life.

“The kriff are you going, anyway?”

“New orders from the Mand’alor.” Arla says, and he’s got just enough of a clearance, to be in the loop. So she explains, watches his eyes go wide.

“… oh.”

“Now, do you want to tell him I didn’t have every available advantage, if I don’t come back with what he wants?” Arla says. “Do you want to be the one to say that to him?”

Zai looks the way anyone would look, like he’d rather just eat the mine.

“I didn’t think so.” She says. “So I’m taking everything I need, and I’m going to go do as I’m told, and you’ll stay here and do as you’re told. Mereel’s ad is for the Mand’alor to deal with - not you, and not me. If you touch what belongs to him before I get back, he’ll let me take it out of you in pieces, and I’ll feed them to you. Tayli'bac?”

“… ‘lek.”

“Good.” Arla says. “Thanks for the workout.”

It’s tempting to stand up and leave the mine behind, see if he’s skilled enough not to blow himself up - but Zai’s not going to defy Tor, out of loyalty or out of fear - which is the closest thing Arla’s got to making sure Jango stays alive. So she deactivates it, pockets it as she gets to her feet - no doubt she’ll find someone just as worthy to give it to soon.

—————————————————

The Force is screaming warnings at him before Obi-Wan even opens his eyes and the first thought is that this was his last mistake. He chose forebearance over reality and this is the Outer Rim and not upper-level Coruscant and Arla putting a blaster to his head while he sleeps is just what makes sense here.

An honest surprise, when he opens his eyes, to see only empty sky, though the Force is still thrumming with tension, the promise of incoming disaster and so much of it is so Dark and he’d kriffed up, he’d kriffed up badly. Obi-Wan forces himself to stay still - breathe in, breathe out, find some sliver of peace - and it’s not any part of any meditation he ever learned but Obi-Wan keeps breathing and starts calmly listing out his problems, with the ones most likely to get him or someone else killed near the top.

Arla had seen Trilla, and felt first-hand what she could do and she’s never done anything like that before and he hadn’t… kriff, he’d panicked, needed to get her out of there and get Arla’s attention back on him, and in his hurry she’d felt that fear. His control had slipped, and in a half-second Obi-Wan had slammed her with a full inventory of the ways they could all die or worse, what she'd done unnervingly close to the Dark Side and his own response even worse and it was his fault for not training her better - as if he had the right to even call it training - and Trilla had felt all of that before he could rein it in, and now even in the Force, she’s barely a whisper. No one’s going to find her until she wants to be found.

Trilla? Obi-Wan silences the part of him that says there’s no time for this, no time to reach for her in the Force like holding out his hand for a bird he can hear but not see, hoping to coax it out - but it would be worse to push it, to do anything more than wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I know why you did what you did. I know you were only trying to protect me. It’s not your fault-

-you can’t return the favor. The Dark replies, just for him, amused at his anger and frustration and shame. Oh, you could have, you always can. It’s just more fun to let scared little girls fight your battles for you. I especially liked the part where you let that woman shock the kark out of you and walk away with the means to do it again. At least you still know how to lose like a Jedi.

But if Obi-Wan had destroyed it, she’d just get another one, and what did it matter, if the only other option was to not let her walk away? Just throw what was left over the fence, like he’d said? Jango would never have forgiven him for it, not really, and Obi-Wan wouldn’t forgive himself either. Arla didn’t hurt him for fun - behind all those threats she was afraid, and he’s caught glimpses of the kinds of things that scare her and he doesn’t want to be on that list.

In the end, though, she’d walked away. It had been a standoff, and Obi-Wan had backed down and Arla hadn’t immediately stabbed him in the eye - yes, he’d noticed that knife, and also what did he catch a glimpse of, that he wasn’t her first fight with a fallen Jedi? - and maybe it meant something. Or maybe not, with the Force still letting him know it’s not going to be all right. Loud enough that he keeps looking to where the stern of Tor’s ship had been docked only yesterday - but he’s gone. So why doesn’t it feel any safer?

“Obi-Wan?” Cal is just waking up, but already feels what he can, that something’s wrong. He’d sensed the danger last night, too - only stayed away because Obi-Wan had told him to, not trusting Arla with a second target. Kriff, and the sight of her drawing a gun on Trilla, the echo of all those memories - and Obi-Wan doesn’t even remember falling asleep because he’s pretty sure it was a lot more like falling over after Arla had stalked out of view, after he’d looked and looked and Trilla was nowhere to be found.

Arla could have done anything, could be doing absolutely anything right now.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Cal says, the both of them moving slow, trying to find the threat - but even though his voice is worried Cal’s steady enough, familiar with things going wrong with no warning or explanation. Kriff, that he thinks this is in any way normal. Obi-Wan reaches out, just to check - Jango seems to be all right. Unconscious, but likely the better off for it, for now.

“I’m not sure yet.” Obi-Wan says, trying to calm down and reach out with the Force at the same time, just for a moment - Trilla, I want you to stay where you are, don’t-

The cool cylinder of the lightsaber hilt hits his open palm, and Obi-Wan glances down to see Trilla looking up at him, expression balanced between wariness and determination. Worried he might still be angry - but worried he might need the weapon more. He can’t even say he’s surprised that she knew where to find it, although the holster is unexpected. Obviously patched together, but sturdy enough, intended to help him hide it from view, strapped close underneath his clothes.

“You did this?” He looks up at Cal, who gives him a hesitant, lopsided grin.

“It’s kind of karked, I know, but I figured…”

The nice thing about the Force, is that Obi-Wan doesn’t have to find the right words - he can just let them feel it. How proud he is of them both, how much he wishes they were all in a better place but that he’s so lucky not to be alone. He feels Cal’s joy in return, Trilla’s relief - and he still needs to talk to her, explain how his fear is not her fault - but first, figure a way through whatever is happening now. Obi-Wan makes sure no one’s looking as he quickly slips it on, feels a little more steady just having the weight of it back with him, even if actually using it here and now would mean things were so far beyond kriffed -

“You both stay here. I’m just going to go…”

He trails off, because Arla’s returned - red armor and blonde hair like a battle flag and walking straight toward him, her expression that usual mix of distant and vaguely murderous. Obi-Wan quickly moves to meet her at the boundary of the two camps, and she’s silent in the Force, not giving him the barest hint of warning and-

A glint of metal arcs slow through the air. Obi-Wan catches the cuffs on reflex - like reaching for a poisonous snake. Much worse than that - he can usually negotiate with snakes.

“Put them on, we’re leaving.”

“… What?”

Arla doesn’t look back. “I’m not repeating myself. Get moving.”

His whole body’s gone numb, locked up because Obi-Wan can feel what he’s holding - and this… Zai isn’t here, isn’t watching, but if he finds out about this, if he decides this is a smart idea… if Tor decides he likes it better this way - why do you even think you’re coming back, why do you think there’s a future to plan for - and oh Force, Trilla. She won’t understand, Cal won’t understand what they’re about to feel or what it means and it’s going to be awful.

The dread rises in him, the part of him that still wakes up sometimes, feeling Bandomeer around his throat and Obi-Wan can’t do this again, he can’t, it’s too much and he’s not strong enough and wasn’t he careful enough? Didn’t he do everything he could to avoid this and he can’t, he can't - and they’re listening to you, Obi-Wan. Cal and Trilla are feeling this and it might be the last thing you ever give them.

As hard as any Force shove could possibly be, pushing that fear away, and Obi-Wan tries to focus on everything he was feeling, just moments ago - pride and gratitude and love.

I’ll be back as soon as I can. Take care of each other. Be brave. The Force is with us, always.

Obi-Wan snaps the cuffs closed before he can stop himself, refuses to react as the whole world bottoms out, vanishes into a pale imitation of what ought to be there. He hears Trilla’s cut-off cry of alarm. Cal’s got her by the shoulders, holding her in place and they both look so scared. Obi-Wan gives them the best smile he can - Trilla has tears in her eyes but Cal nods, determined.

“You’re kriffed now, ad.” A nearby soldier mutters as he follows Arla out, with a mean little smirk and better you than me all the way through. Obi-Wan tries not to think about it or anything else, ignores the dread and uncertainty and confusion that wants to drown out every other thought. He breathes, just breathes and focuses on the weight of the lightsaber hidden against his side and follows Arla onto her ship, into whatever is coming next.

——————————————

Arla splashed out for the best inhibitors she could find - less obvious than a collar, almost decorative at a glance, but still form-fitting enough that the dar’jetii - jetii - whatever the kriff he is - won’t be popping his thumbs out of the socket to remove them, even if he’s a kriffing twig. A little silly, to bother cuffing him to the chair as well - if he wants to kill her, he’ll probably get at least one chance while she’s otherwise occupied - but no reason to make it easy for him. As much of a liability as an asset, perhaps, but with so much stacked against her, what’s one more? All Arla can do is try to set the ground rules and see which ones he’s most interested in breaking.

It will also be nice to have a little more time to chat, away from the rest of the galaxy. He’s an opportunity, a weapon that’s fallen into her hands, one that Tor has already dismissed as irrelevant. Arla needs to figure out just what kind of advantage that might be.

You’re not seriously considering- No. Tor would know. He always knows, always. Even if he didn’t, he would suspect - and he didn’t need silly things like ‘having proof’ or ‘being sure’ to flay her alive and stretch her body across the front of his ship. Or worse. If Jango escapes, it’s going to be on her, she won’t avoid that fallout - and what does it even matter, the fate of some stupid traitor’s son she knew so long ago, in some other life…

Arla’s good at lying to herself, but she’s not that good.

The kid hasn’t said anything yet, didn’t flinch when the cuffs went on or when she’d double-checked them or made sure he’d stay where she put him and it’s interesting how often Arla can interrogate with nothing more than boredom and silence, leaving space for whoever she’s with to lose their patience and start talking. Obviously not a jetii - dar’jetii - whatever - Arla’s fairly sure she can keep quiet as long as she wants and get nothing for it, the kid just sitting there with a placid calm that sets her teeth on edge. The shock remote’s in her pocket, but she’s not stupid enough to think she can rely on it, either, a false sense of security even if he wasn’t lying.

“All right. So I’m going to-“

The ship lurches a bit, breaking through lower atmo, and Arla makes a face as whatever it was she thought was stowed securely in the back clatters across the floor instead. The armory gets all her attention because of course it does, and the rest… it’s not that Arla’s a packrat, she just gets busy and distracted and so her life tends to pile up in layers vaguely sorted by time or whatever part of the galaxy she’s in. Until whatever she’s flying is inevitably damaged past recovery and she can just set it on fire and start over again.

“All right, you and I need to have a little - oh for kriff’s sake!” Arla snaps, as a sudden, slightly louder bang makes the whole ship shudder again because she’s been meaning to fix that internal dampener for weeks now and it isn’t as dire as it sounds but if she doesn’t kick it back into alignment and double-check the stabilizer they’re going to be shaking their way on and off through the rest of the galaxy. Not exactly doing wonders for her untouchable assassin image, but that ship flew into a black hole ages ago, Arla always banking less on flawless elegance and more on ruthless determination and a good arm when she needs to throw her helmet.

“Don’t kriffing touch anything.” She can lock down all the useful systems anyway, and unless he’s trying to get them both immediately killed, it’s unlikely he’ll take any stupid chances. It might be useful, really, one more way to see what his plans might be when given this kind of opportunity, but as she kicks and swears and actually focuses on making sure the issue gets fixed properly this time - small problems only become bigger problems, Arla, and always when you least expect them, you know that - there’s no alarms from the co*ckpit. No suggestion the kid’s trying anything at all, which maybe just means he’s also better at slicing than he ever let on and she can’t help but be a little unnerved by the silence as she makes her way back up.

“Right. So, now I’m going to tell you how this is going to go-”

One of those things that would sound a lot more intimidating if Arla hadn’t been repeatedly interrupted, and if she were trying it on anyone other than a half-starved, Force-suppressed jetii’ad who’s just passed out in her spare chair. The case could be made that he’s faking it, but he’s also drooling slightly on his shoulder so she’s guessing not so much. What Arla actually knows about the jetii and the dar’jetii is mostly about either staying well out of their way or killing them first, and that cutting them off from their stupid space magic makes either of those options a whole lot easier. They lean on that power in all sorts of ways, and if she still needed proof that he was doing a lot more than he let on, Arla guesses this might be it, the little fool like a long-haul spacer who’d suddenly come up shy on stims.

“Oi, evil baby Jedi. Wake up.”

It does about as much as Arla expected, the kid only shivering a little in his tattered robes, curled up as best as he can manage with one arm still hooked to the chair. Arla sighs, rolls her eyes, curses whatever batch of giant jetii idiots ever let him out of their sight in the first place, and wanders back to dig through what is nowhere near organized enough to call storage to find a spare blanket. He doesn’t move when she drapes it over him, or when she adjusts the seat to lay a little more flat. Arla curses herself, the anonymous jetii again and the universe in general, just for good measure, and then keys in the coordinates for their first destination. It's far enough that there should still be plenty of time to tell him what he’s here for, and how this mission’s going to go.

It’s a lot less useful, the growing certainty that the only place this mission’s going to go is straight up the back end of an exogorth, like there’s anything to do but go faster.

————————————

One minute they’d been pulling up through the atmosphere, and despite all the fear and uncertainty and everyone he couldn’t afford to leave behind, some small part of Obi-Wan had been reveling in the feeling. He was actually leaving Mandalore, the whole camp quickly vanishing into a blur obscured by the clouds, and then even less than that, the whole planet receding to just one more rock in wide open space. A certain kind of freedom he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel again.

Now here he is, blinking aching eyes against the backdrop of hyperspace, reaching up a hand to wipe the sleep away and hearing the clink of the cuffs against the chair. All that vacancy where the Force ought to be, like taking a step and realizing too late the floor isn’t there, or that his kriffing legs are gone - and a good shock of adrenaline chases away any vestiges of sleep. Arla is in the pilot’s seat, glances over when she sees him moving. No longer wearing her red armor, Arla’s switched out to a standard set of beskar with no decorations or signs of allegiance at all. He’s warm, a blanket over him that’s a higher quality than anything he’s wearing and Obi-Wan doesn’t know where it’s come from or what it means that she bothered. He knows what he thought he’d sensed, what he’d risked - that she wasn’t the type of person who’d do something terrible to him at random, just because she could - but that still leaves a lot of room for her to do terrible things on purpose, with consideration and planning.

“Fresher’s in the back. Use the sonic, and there’s new clothes on the shelf. Toss what you’re wearing. Don’t touch anything else.”

“New clothes?”

“Otherwise you’ll stand out and I don’t have time to deal with it.”

Arla keeps her gaze forward - the non-conversation is over - and if she’s offering an improvement on his current situation, it’d be stupid to argue before he could reap the benefits. He carefully makes his way along the corridor - the ship’s a familiar size, the kind a Master and Padawan team might take on any number of missions - but the Jedi weren’t much for possessions, and while he doubts Arla actually cares much for anything that’s stacked and piled and stuffed in between the shelves he passes, there’s certainly a lot of it.

The fresher’s small but clean enough. Obi-Wan wonders if there’s anything watching him, does his best to keep the lightsaber tucked under his shirt, tries to casually hide it in between a low bench and a wall. It dislodges another item - thankfully at least there don’t seem to be any free-roaming grenades he has to watch out for - but Obi-Wan doesn’t immediately recognize what he’s looking at until he lifts it, tugs it free - long wraps, like decorations for a Twi’lek’s lekku, the leather ornately carved and studded here and there with little stones. It looks costly - to be taken care of, or at the very least sold, not to be dumped into a corner and forgotten about. Obi-Wan wonders what useful information Quin might have picked up from it - which reminds him again of the cuffs around his wrists. Simply constructed, but solid and expensive - whatever was dampening the Force helped by a thick layer of beskar, and he can’t even find the seam, where they’d been snapped together. He wasn’t getting free anytime soon, unless at some point cutting his hands off became the better option.

Obi-Wan flicks on the sonic, ignores the sting of it against the small cuts and scrapes he’s never without anymore, and with no one to see or hear or feel it, he gives himself the luxury of a few minutes’ total meltdown. He’d been signed up for the initial trouble-for-Padawans course on return from Melida-Daan, the one where they explained the half-dozen most common Force inhibitors, what they felt like, how to handle it. Obi-Wan imagines it’s a lot like dealing with anything else that’s inconveniently unbearable - tell yourself it’s not so bad, tell yourself there’s no other way than through. K’atini, as the Mandalorians said.

He wishes Jango were here, just for one moment, if only to tell him what he already knows.

The Force is the only real strength he’d had out here, the only way of even slightly leveling the playing field, let alone anything that might be considered an advantage. His early-warning system, his best weapon against anyone bigger, stronger, faster - and without it, he is weak and small and entirely alone. Usually, thoughts like that would come from the Dark - some small mercy, that at least Obi-Wan can’t feel that either, although between the weight of the Dark and the total absence of the Force, it’s hard to say which one is definitively worse.

So he lets himself panic in ways that are entirely unbecoming to a Jedi - although maybe now it’s more like the Sith he’s embarrassing, and that feels a little bit better. A few minutes of blind terror, and then Obi-Wan pulls from his earliest creche lessons about breathing and focus, when the nightmares were at their worst. Accepting those feelings, allowing them to pass through him and into the Force - it doesn’t matter if he can’t feel it, it’s still there, it will always be there. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t, not for this.

Cerasi used to sit with the Young, whoever had come in from a bad fight, or was having a particularly hard time. Obi-Wan had learned, as the months went on, when to anticipate these breakdowns - in an hour, or a day, or at the first long-enough pause in battle for everyone to relax. Which people would learn to come to him, or Cerasi or one of the others for comfort, and who would need to be reached out to, before they snapped. He remembers late nights, too tired to sleep, listening to some battle in the distance, flashes of fire over the hills in what sometimes wasn’t even a directed assault, just the Melida and the Daan reminding each other they were there. Cerasi on his left, Nield on his right, at peace with each other’s company - a strange sort of contentment.

By the time Obi-Wan’s done in the sonic, it feels like he’s had a year’s worth of grime or more scoured off his skin, which is probably disgustingly close to accurate. The clothes Arla found for him are unnervingly similar to what he’s seen on the newest soldiers fresh from the camps - the basic kute, with a simple armorweave shirt and pants and all of it baggy enough on him to almost pass for robes once he’s belted them up properly, with plenty of space to keep the lightsaber well-hidden. The kind of thing any Mandalorian would be desperate to slap some armor over - but far more protection than anything Obi-Wan’s had until now. He takes a last glance at the remnants of his robes - so many patches and mends that they’ve been more the suggestion of the past than any kind of reality for a while now - and dumps them in the bin.

Arla’s still in the pilot’s seat, and though she doesn’t look at him, seems only half-awake, Obi-Wan wonders just how fast she’d have a knife in him if he sneezed wrong. He wants to ask about who it was she fought - some kind of Sith from beyond the edges of wild space, or a fallen Jedi the Temple never mentioned or even a Force sensitive who’d somehow stumbled over a lightsaber and figured out the rest along the way. The galaxy is a far more chaotic place than Obi-Wan had ever imagined.

“Thank you… for the clothes.”

Arla makes a face, gratitude unfamiliar and not to be trusted. “It won’t protect you from much, but it’s better than nothing.” She holds up her vambrace. “I updated the code on that chip. I can track you now, and anyone who scans it will ping it back to me, to the Death Watch.” Arla glances over. “If you run - when I find you, I’ll hurt you. But if someone else finds you first, and decides they don’t care about warnings, I promise it’ll be much worse than that.”

Obi-Wan nods. He remembers it, that brief span of time alone, after Melida/Daan. The pirates who’d finally caught him hadn’t been the first to try, just the ones who got lucky. The universe was not kind to people on their own, a galaxy full of nothing but baited traps, and Force-sensitives more valuable and more vulnerable than most. Obi-Wan would have commended a high price at a slave auction, a novelty for the gladiator’s ring, a test subject - a delicacy, if he was particularly unlucky. Arla isn’t wrong, that right now she’s his safest bet.

———————————

He’s… polite - far more than Arla bothers with, let alone the way she ever was as an ad. It’s incredibly annoying. He doesn’t react when she cuffs him to the chair again, doesn’t fidget or complain. He doesn’t even ask her where they’re going or why - although maybe he already lifted that right out of her head, before she’d got the cuffs on. Kriff, but he’s strange, the way everyone’s always says the jetii are strange, even when they’re not flinging doors. She’s heard the stories - kids in Republic space, the Manda-touched, they get taken away by the jetii, they all end up that same kind of strange. Arla wonders if it’s anything like the way things were in the camps. She hopes not.

Now that he’s clean, Arla can see red patches on his neck, cuts on his hands where the skin’s gone so dry it’s started to crack and bleed - she digs through two layers of a side compartment, finds a half-used bottle of bacta lotion and tosses it at him. It’s not a kindness - she needs him in the best shape she can have him, for whatever’s coming. He thanks her anyway. Annoying.

At least her hair isn’t going to be a distraction, freshly bleached before she got the call to Manda’yaim. Of course, there are longer lasting options, less fussy ones - permanent, if she wanted to pay out for it, but Arla’s never bothered. It’s better to have the routine, something steady and inconvenient to mark the days, to demand her attention - or like now, when it’s quiet and there’s nothing else worth doing with the stars streaking by and Arla can do her braids up properly, make sure it won’t be a problem for the fight and focus on what’s coming. How many rocks she might have to kick over until what she’s looking for scurries out.

Giving yourself lekku now, huh? A voice from her memory, wry and bold. Always trying to cut in on my turf. The kiss, just as bold. Maybe I’ll allow it.

Arla blinks, lets that memory resettle and sink beneath the surface, takes another breath until it stops threatening to hurt. A long time, since she’s thought about any of that. Her brother’s back, and it seems he’s dragged the rest of her past in with him, more distractions she does not need.

The baby Jedi’s watching her. Even without his kriffing Force powers he’s so quiet. Unassuming. Zai’s still an idiot, but Arla can see how easy it would be to lose track of him, how he just wouldn’t call attention to himself, disappear into the background. A useful skill, wasted on a camp in the middle of nowhere, of no tactical value until long after he’d arrived. Except the jetii can see things, can’t they? Maybe someone had known exactly where to put him. Which meant… maybe he was supposed to be here now, with her? Kriff, this Force magic osik was annoying.

“What?” She says, finishing up one side of her hair. “You want one?”

Arla has no idea what the kriff she said, but she knows that expression - blank indifference, to hide the fact she’s just gutted him somehow. The only thing she can think to do is change the subject.

“It’s going to be dangerous out there, and you’re going to do exactly what I tell you, or else I’ll have to choose between you and what I’m hunting down and that’s not a choice. You understand?”

“What are you looking for?”

Arla frowns. “You don’t need to know that.”

He frowns back, but doesn’t say anything. He probably dressed it up better in the camp, so they’d mistake the silence for fear. Arla doesn’t.

“Just kriffing say it, kid.”

He lifts the hand that’s still attached to the chair. “If you don’t take these off or give me some kind of weapon, the only thing I’m going to useful for is a very temporary human shield, and I’m not even that tall. If you believe I’m such a threat, why bring me along?”

A conversation she isn’t ready to have yet, because she’s not sure of the answer herself, if he’s not here just to help her speed things along with the Mand’alor. Even by her standards, the thing she’s definitely not thinking about is not a plan, just desperation and a vast pile of unknowns - if she can threaten him, or bargain him into a deal or if he’s working with another dar’jetii, someone older and stronger who might be interested in the double-cross and if Arla could trust that, which no, she already doesn’t trust this hypothetical stranger who might not even exist -

“I’m not…” He stops, looks her in the eye. When he’s not implying decapitation, that pale gold is only pretty, doesn’t really remind her of the one she fought at all. “I’m not going to help you find another weapon for the Death Watch.”

Arla can’t help but smile at the declaration - and the jetii knows how precarious his situation is, she can see that. He’s not arguing this from a position of strength - but it’s not really an argument, either.

“Now is not a particularly convenient time to have a conscience, baby Jedi.” Arla says. “I could make life real, real hard for you, and for your friends back on Manda’yaim, if you don’t do what you’re told.”

He swallows, but he doesn’t look like the threat is a surprise. “I can’t… I won’t help Tor Vizsla hurt a system’s worth of people I don’t know, just to save the people that I do. I don’t think… I don’t think my friends would thank me for that.”

Maybe he’d change his mind, with that little girl of his in front of a blaster again. If noble sacrifice was more than just a hypothetical. Or maybe not. He doesn’t look like he thinks she’s bluffing.

“Well, I guess you’re lucky this time.” Arla says - and she hadn’t intended to tell him, but he would find out sooner or later. That jetii osik might even help them track it directly, once they were close enough. Skip beating up a few middlemen, maybe. “It is a weapon, but it doesn’t really do any more damage than anything else. It’s mostly… symbolic.”

As far as Arla can tell - like so many things in this stupid, stupid galaxy - it’s more a dick-measuring contest than any kind of utility. Which doesn’t make it any less crucial - even more important, in some ways. The other clans are always watching, House Vizsla itself forever vigilant for signs of weakness, dissension in the ranks and the implications for those in charge. Tor hates so very many things - but the idea of losing face, of not being able to hold on to what is his? The idea that he’s being mocked, let alone openly betrayed? The only thing that will compete with his anger is the body count.

“What is it?” Obi-Wan says, with a hint of curiosity that actually makes him sound his age for once.

“You ever hear of a Mandalorian called Tarre Vizsla?”

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

It’s a long descent through the clouds, so much that Obi-Wan starts to wonder if there’s any planet to land on. Arla won’t tell him where they’re touching down - it doesn’t really matter, nothing out here on the border of the rim and the wild space beyond that he’s going to recognize, none of these planets on any of the maps he’d ever seen. Places no Jedi would have a reason to go.

At last, the clouds give way to waves of steady rain that wash over the ship, and Obi-Wan can see a string of wobbly lights below, an uneven line in the darkness that slowly resolves into a long, thin city piled up all along a cliff’s edge. So near the churning sea that the highest tides send foam up through the grates under their feet as they disembark, and make their way further into town. Obi-Wan can see his breath in the air, but at least the cloak Arla had thrown at him is warm and dry. The buildings remind him a bit of the camp on Mandalore - a mix of simple concrete structures and what looks mostly like old containers repurposed and stacked into towers, covered with lights and makeshift decorations and perhaps decades of upgrades and additions, clinging to the stones in a way little different than the barnacles below. It speaks of tenacity, of making do with little assistance in this far-flung corner of the galaxy.

It’s been over a year, since Obi-Wan’s seen so many adults who aren’t in armor - who aren’t Death Watch. Nearly two since he’s seen glowing signs and items for sale, even simple fare behind salt-scoured windows, or the clattering of dishes coming together in a street market. He hasn’t heard this much noise in ages, when he wasn’t fighting something, or running from something worse. It’s almost too much, even without the Force. It’s not enough, without the Force - every glance in their direction seems calculating and ominous, and Obi-Wan can’t prepare himself for trouble, doesn’t even know which direction it might come from. Arla’s disappeared behind her helmet, he can’t even judge by her expression. She’d given him a communicator, but for the moment it’s silent in his ear. He’s already been given his orders.

It’s going to be busy down there. Arla said. You don’t talk, not to anyone. You don’t fall behind, or draw attention. Follow close, and do exactly what I tell you.

He’s so focused on the world around him, scouring for danger, trying to see anything through the rain, that he startles when a cup is shoved into his hand.

“You look less suspicious this way.” Arla mutters.

Obi-Wan can’t quite follow the logic of that, but when he takes a sip he realizes whatever drink it is has layers, somewhat like the atmosphere they’d flown through, except these are made of sugar and tea and milk, with caramelized sugar at the top. It’s more calories than he’s consumed in a month and sweet enough to make his brain cramp up, so he’s not about to argue.

Arla was angry well before they’d landed, because this isn’t going to be where they find what they want, just the best chance they had to pick up the trail. She isn’t giving him many details - doesn’t trust him, still thinks he might run. He hasn’t told her that one wrong word from her means the death of every youngling in the camp, so Obi-Wan supposes the lack of trust goes in both directions. Nowhere to go anyway - even if he knew where to find the Haat, if he could get to them, they wouldn’t believe him, at least not fast enough for it to matter. No Jedi out here, and even if there were - they’d just kill him, or drag him back to the Temple for judgement. Fallen Jedi were dangerous, anyway - you couldn’t believe a thing they said.

At least Arla’s right - he doesn’t have to worry about sabotaging this mission. As stupid as it sounds, giving Tor back the Darksaber doesn’t really change anything at all.

Yes, he’s heard of Tarre Vizsla. He’d seen the cheap holos Quin would sneak in that were probably low on historical accuracy but high on chase scenes and the sword fights they’d try to imitate with practice sabers. Of course he’s heard of the Darksaber. Ancient weapon constructed by the only Mandalorian Jedi? Stolen from the Temple ages ago, and spirited away to the furthest reaches of the galaxy? Even Sith weapons were low on black blades. Definitely haunted and probably cursed, either by the spirit of its legendary, mysterious master or the innumerable souls it cut down, and just as likely powered by the screams of the damned as anything so pedestrian as a kyber crystal.

So yes, Obi-Wan knows about the Darksaber. Except that Arla’s also right, for all that it’s ancient and extremely awesome and incredibly dangerous - it’s a lightsaber. It does lightsaber things. Tor can do worse damage to far more people with a dozen other readily-available weapons, and from the way Arla tells it, the day it was stolen was the first time it left its vault for ages. Even she’s only seen it once or twice, when Tor felt obligated to prove a point.

“I heard it… before my time, that it ‘got away’ on occasion. Like it wanted to escape.” Arla glanced at him, obviously expecting some extra Jedi insight but Obi-Wan could only shrug. Kyber crystals had a… resonance in the Force all their own, a personality of sorts. The whole journey of building a lightsaber was about finding your match, the one best suited for your path forward, and it still bothered him that the one he carried had no particular call, that it so obviously wasn’t meant for him. It didn’t mean they were alive, exactly - but if the Darksaber got bored and decided to grow legs and find a better war, who was Obi-Wan to say otherwise?

A more pedestrian escape this time, it seemed - someone got greedy, and whatever they expected to get for the blade had finally been enough to overcome the fear of what the Mand’alor would do to recover it. Arla doesn’t seem very impressed with whoever the culprit is - less about the individual than the implications, more that she’s not saying, broken-off sentences that Obi-Wan has to infer the meaning of on his own.

Obviously, they’re keeping the theft as quiet as possible - it looks bad, if Tor can’t hold on to what’s his, if there’s any suggestion of dissension in the ranks. Officially, the Haat don’t even recognize the Darksaber as evidence of a right to rule, and the New have made it clear they’d like to see it returned to the Order, or just melted down - but in reality the longer it stays in play, the more players will be interested in having it for themselves. It goes well beyond Mandalore - any number of crime syndicates would love to have the blade as leverage, or for bragging rights, or for it to disappear forever into a new vault of some impossibly wealthy collector of antiquities.

Wherever it goes, Arla is obligated to get it back or die trying, which means Obi-Wan is along for the ride, which means it’s in their best interests to do this as quickly and quietly as possible, and hope it cuts down on the competition.

“… and if you ever try and use any of that dar’jetii Force osik on me,” the blade came up, so sharp and so close to his eye that Obi-Wan couldn’t even see the tip of it, just the gleam along the edge and Arla’s glare beyond, “this will be the last thing you ever see. Tayli’bac?”

Obi-Wan understands. Arla doesn’t trust him, doesn’t like him, has stripped him of the Force - but she could have left him in rags in the rain, could have kicked him awake on the ship, refused to let him sleep and hurt Trilla and Cal so much more than a vague threat. It isn’t enough to work with, isn’t enough if he’s supposed to somehow convince her to help, at least get her to understand that Jango won’t consider this won if she’s not on their side when it’s over.

It’s still something, and Obi-Wan has to believe he can work with that, that this has some chance of ending better than it began.

The paths in the city are all loud and narrow and dangerous - Obi-Wan sees at least one fight break out on the floor of a building above them, and as they climb higher and higher against the cliffside, anyone unlucky enough to go over the far railings wouldn’t even make a splash, nothing but a few distant beacons and a wild wind suggesting there’s anything of a world beyond. Their own progress is a mostly quiet affair, Arla disappearing briefly into one building or another, sometimes dragging him along into a world of smoke and conversation and being smacked in the face on all sides by wet cloaks or - more unfortunately - wet fur. It doesn’t seem like there’s many people here from here, the whole city just a waypoint between more valuable places.

The search goes on long enough that Obi-Wan’s finished his drink, surprised again when Arla replaces it with a stick of… something sauced and semi-charred. It tastes good, though, even underneath a fine glazing of rainwater, and it’s all calories, so he’s not about to complain. By the time he’s finished, they’ve made their way to the buildings at the top of town, and Arla moves them into a convenient shadow.

“All right, baby Jedi. Might as well see how much of a mistake this was.” She says, reaching for his wrist.

“Wait,” Obi-Wan says, “don’t-“

He’s used to the camp, the familiar Force signatures of the younglings, the commandos who aren’t in full beskar. A settlement maybe a fifth the size of this city, and even if he’d been able to feel it all on approach, so many new minds, so much activity would have been overwhelming at first.

Arla lets the cuffs fall away, and might as well have swung the entire planet like a flail, directly into his head.

It’s not a nice place. Nice things don’t happen here. Obi-Wan could tell that just with his eyes, and now the Force is an avalanche of suffering and desperation roaring down on him, every thought looking for that next fix, next score, next victim. Infinite desperation - to leave, to scratch through another week, to stay unnoticed and all of it with jagged edges - someone getting beaten in an alley, someone crying quietly, the sound drowned out by the spill of water through the gutters and Obi-Wan reels, enough training to feel it all but not enough to pull his own shields together under the onslaught. He hopes he’s not about to lose the only decent meal he’s had in ages back into the sea.

The Dark surges, hungry for him, furious that he’d been put beyond its reach even for a moment and it’s all he can do to stay above it, skipping helplessly across the thoughts of traders and haulers, hard and indifferent and preoccupied as often as cruel - but even that is too much, too brutal, and he’s in free fall. Scrambling desperately for quiet, for anything that isn’t coiled tight with fear or promising pain. Obi-Wan finds it at last, all the way down where the pillars of the city are driven into the rocks. Giant, many-armed creatures beneath the waves, no less predatory in their own way but not with that same cruelty, the choice in it, the desire to do worse - and there’s plants and tiny fish and even tinier creatures, all shifting in the deep currents, and the Force is with them, too, and Obi-Wan can breathe again, just stay there small and quiet and breathe…

“- the kriff, kid. Can you hear me?”

Cold water is soaking his knees, Arla’s voice in his ear and her presence a beskar-hole in the Force at his side, and when he sees the cuff about to snap over his wrist again he jerks back hard enough to end up sitting in another puddle.

“Please don’t. Please. Please.“

Arla stops, and Obi-Wan swallows back a rush of gratitude and nausea, can’t imagine how much worse it would be to lose the Force again before he’d even managed to center himself in it.

He knows what she’s expecting of him, what she wants - and if someone in that building does have information on the Darksaber, it’s probably a bit more than an idle thought. So he focuses, easier with a few breaths to put his shields in place, to find the stillness that quiets the Dark enough that he can listen in. No use if anyone’s in beskar, but even that will tell him something.

Small annoyances about a missing shipment from the bored man behind the counter, concerns from a trio of travelers nursing their drinks, stranded by bad luck and hopeful to book passage on whatever can get them somewhere better - and workers on leave from the nearest gas mining rig, this damp heap the closest thing to civilization for at least another half year, way too kriffing close to the kriffing Mandalorians but not much to do about that - the holo of a new daughter in a hand, the risk worth it, a better life for her than this. One floor up there’s a heated exchange in a too-small space, a fervent mix of lust and boredom and - if he pulls my hair again I’m kriffing charging double - and Obi-Wan blushes even as he drags his attention onward.

There, on the third floor, alongside - next planet I’m doing the talking and kriff, I am damp through every single layer and stupid bastard doesn’t know what he’s talking about, my beard looks fine - there’s a steady, focused, increasingly angry line of thought - -the kriff was he thinking better let me take point on this one or I will space him and… kriffing Darksaber of all the stupid… gods know he couldn’t fence the last heating coil in an ice storm, kriffing space wizard relics and kriffing Mandalorians and-

“On the third floor.” Obi-Wan says, focusing harder for details. “Near the back window. Tall. Clean-shaven. In… green. I think he has two bodyguards with him. Maybe three.”

“Not for long.” Arla says. “Stay here.”

Obi-Wan assumes the stealth part of the search is over, when Arla fires her jetpack to the third floor and blasts through the nearest window.

Efficient, that’s all he can think of, what he feels more than sees - she’s here to do a job, each punch and kick like the next step on an assembly line. Obi-Wan feels flashes of alarm and anger from the corner he’d pointed her at, the rest of the room a chaos of swearing and panic that the bounty hunter might be here for them - one particular patron as concerned with not spilling their drink as getting out. All this time, there’s been nothing from the lightsaber tucked away at his side, but Obi-Wan can feel a faint hum of interest at the sudden rise in action, grins a little as he sends a quiet apology in response. No fighting for now, not anywhere that Arla might see, although if that ever changes it will likely have all the combat it could ever want and more.

He’s still struggling with control, still too much with the Force newly restored - surprise and outrage, agony and sudden silence, as Arla takes down her first target - and Obi-Wan can hear it, blaster fire and the smash of anything breakable as he runs to the back of the building as the rear windows shatter and Arla comes down with her armored knee on her opponent’s unarmored chest and Obi-Wan feels the crunch of the impact, an echo of the pain and near-instant death that sends him stumbling, falling - too close, too close, pull it back. Be calm, Obi-Wan. Find it. Where’s the kriffing calm in this? Find it.

By the time he looks up again, Arla’s fighting the smuggler one-on-one and he’s not bad, he’s got speed and knives but what he doesn’t have is beskar, and that’s a kriffing heavy handicap to overcome, Arla letting him land blows that glance off the steel, giving her an easy advantage. Obi-Wan’s thought about that, watching the soldiers idly sparring in the camp. So much to a Mandalorian’s basic defenses that even the Force and a lightsaber can’t so easily overcome. He wishes he knew more forms, enough to know if there were any that were intended to counter that kind of fighting. There must have been, during that long-ago war, possibly swapped out for more versatile techniques, when the immediate danger of the Mandalorian Empire was no more.

Arla takes the smuggler down in the space between breaths. Obi-Wan can feel the fight give way to the interrogation - panic, pain and blood mixing with the rain as she hits him once, and again, and again before she even asks any questions. He can hear it, when she finally does, and guesses the man isn’t answering, not from the flashes of jagged-edged fury that follow and Obi-Wan tries to pull away from it, find that distance but still feels the echo of broken bone, a flash of white hot pain across his face and the longer they stay here, the more damage she’s going to do and the more people might show up, and Obi-Wan doesn’t think he can handle much more, gagging on rainwater with phantom blood in his throat -

“Stop. Stop it.”

It’s always hard to tell, who’s going to be better at keeping him out. Operatives like Arla have training, warriors in general are usually more focused than the average person, don’t leave as much for Obi-Wan to overhear - but this isn’t just overhearing, is it? Obi-Wan’s looking for what he needs now, and he hates how easy it really can be, when he lets himself do what he knows he can do, hardly more difficult than moving through a crowded room, looking at pictures on a wall.

“You don’t… just stop hurting him. I can tell you what he knows. I can tell you the coordinates for where they usually meet. Everything.”

Coordinates and frequencies and the cargo from other jobs they’d pulled together, Obi-Wan reels off names and numbers without thinking too hard about any of it and hopes Arla is getting it all, tries not to think about it with the smuggler’s mind reeling from confusion to shock to abject fear, like a trapped bird scrabbling against transparisteel, desperate to get away but Obi-Wan keeps his focus, keeps looking until he’s sure there’s no reason for Arla to continue.

This smuggler is not a good person - Obi-Wan had felt that too, that he’d been in this same rain many times, someone else’s blood pooling in front of him - orders, he preferred orders and keeping his own hands clean - but still, it’s not easy having a man like that stare at him in terror.

“Ad. We’re going.” Arla says, tossing him the cuffs again, and some part of Obi-Wan wants to throw them back in her face, wants to run away, the Dark lunging for him again and he puts them back on because at least the sudden absence isn’t that, the way the world seems to tip over beneath his feet is still better than feeling what he had before.

At least until Arla shoves the man backward over the railing, and the dark and the storm swallows him up without a sound.

———————————

Way, way too kriffing long to spend for the paltry information that she was able to find, but at least Arla has a direction to point herself in, and confirmation on the stupid shabuir she’s looking for. Everything she’d verified from what the jetii’ad had offered came up valid, a match to most of her initial expectations.

It’s good in some ways, bad in others. Not a direct attack by some other House, not an external strike. An inside job, from someone who’d apparently gotten tired of a survivable level of grift, mistaking an absurd streak of luck for skill. Except that Arla’s been blocked from accessing any of her usual clan resources, expected to complete this with as little fanfare as possible. Which suggested that the little idiot’s luck might have come with some assistance. Which clan was it this time, that Tor had forgotten to remind of their place? On a good day, Arla doesn’t trust anyone within the Kyr’tsad, but this is… well, there’s probably going to be some use for the Darksaber, by the time she returns with it.

An inside job means Arla won’t have to be as worried about trying to infiltrate a Hutt’s palace, or setting off a syndicate war. But it also means this isn’t a highly trained operative with a boss to answer to, which means they're going to get nervous or going to get greedy and then they're going to get stupid, and word of the Darksaber’s going to spread.

Maybe that’s the real point of all this. Maybe the Darksaber really did just get bored, and wanted to be fought over, to be reminded it was the prettiest weapon of them all. Kriffing jetii osik.

Arla glances over, with coordinates entered for their next jump. The jetii’ad is a quiet lump in the chair, nearly vanished under the towel she’d dug out, the cabin set a few degrees warmer than usual. He’d come out of the rain only slightly worse for wear, a little soaked through. It’s the silence that bothers her more, the way one hand kept coming up to his chest, in the place she’d cracked the bodyguard in half. Arla had heard the gasp in her ear, saw him go down when she’d hit the ground with the man underneath her.

The reason she’d slapped the cuffs back on him, before she’d tossed the smuggler over the side. No point in him feeling that too.

It seemed unlikely, that all the jetiise shared that sensitivity - they sure as kark used those laser swords, she knew that - so maybe it was just being an ad. Maybe he wasn’t strong enough yet, to block it all out. He’d certainly had no problems getting what he’d wanted from the smuggler’s thoughts. A useful skill - if it didn’t make him look so damn miserable afterward. She hadn’t bothered cuffing him to the chair again - he’d proven himself worthy of that much trust, for now - but she’s not entirely sure he’s noticed.

Maybe a proper meal, then, Arla? Not everyone in the galaxy can live off of spice and anger management issues.

Eating is never the priority on a hunt, let alone eating well - and Arla’s usually hunting. Letting anything spoil in a hard-to-find back compartment on a ship with a cycling air system is… less than ideal. The obvious solution, then, is making sure most everything on board is shelf-stable to about two weeks past her most optimistic estimates of when she’ll remember to think about caring.

So it’s cup tiingilar. It’s a lot of cup tiingilar. If there’s anyone other than the ammunition suppliers cashing in on this war, it’s the ones making cheap almost-food in convenient, long-lasting single servings. Even the Death Watch doesn’t target the distribution centers - the most popular field ration for all Houses and clans, if only so that everyone can complain about how it tastes nothing like the tiingilar that their favorite ba’buir used to make.

If the real cause of the civil war was an argument over how many spices and which ones, Arla would not be nearly as surprised as she wants to be.

If she’d had warning, she could have stopped somewhere, stocked up on a few things to add in, try and fancy things up just a bit. At least it’s hot, steam rising as she lets it steep. The higher-end versions have spicy oil packets along with the flavorings, but Arla never pays enough attention to grab those ones, just ends up cursing herself like she is now.

Seko used to steal them, when he could get away with it - two or three extra arguably brought things within the same galaxy as real tiingilar. If he was in a mood, he’d steal the packets of spices too. A lot of fun pranks to play with a spare one of those and a flight’s worth of time to consider the options. Stick one in a shower head, or even the right place in a sonic, and just wait for the swearing to start. A packet in the air filter of a buy’ce and not only would it wreck the filter past saving, but you’d be smelling tiingilar for months even after a thorough deep clean.

Arla doesn’t even know what Vixel had done to piss him off - if she’d ever known, the memory isn’t even an afterimage now. All she remembers is how Seko had been laughing while Eyli held the other man at bay, everyone yelling until Seko’s brother had threatened to open the cargo bay and just space them all.

Vixel was long dead now, some battlefield on some moon, when Arla and her attention had been lightyears away. Eyli had bled out in front of her midway through a hunt, the wrong hit at the right angle.

Seko might still be alive, and his brother too. Arla hasn’t heard mention of them in years, and they weren’t exactly front-row fighters. Specialists-for-hire - for how much the Kyr’tsad talked up their own prowess, there was no war so smooth there weren’t odd jobs to contract out along the way. They’d never signed on for the long haul. No reason they couldn’t have gotten out. No reason to think about it now, either way.

“Thank you, but I’m… not very hungry.” Obi-Wan says when she offers him the cup, looking at nothing, one hand still pressed against his chest.

“Doesn’t matter, kid.” Arla frowns. “You eat when you get the opportunity. It’s fuel, all it has to do is keep you going.”

He stirs it listlessly. Arla tells herself what she’s feeling is annoyance, not concern. Kriffing hothouse flower jetii’ad.

“You know, you’re probably even more valuable than I thought. Don’t know exactly where to find any other dar’jetii these days, but I hear there’s a few people on Dathomir who might take an interest. Or maybe that Temple of yours would like you back. Any standing bounties on ones that look like you?”

Obi-Wan blinks. “I’m sure you’d have their deepest appreciation for helping rid the galaxy of a potential threat.”

Arla snorts. “Yeah, and I’ll crap in the other hand and see which one fills up first.”

She takes a few quick bites from her own cup, to give him the idea - quantity over quality, enjoyment optional - but he doesn’t take the hint.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re not upset.” Arla says. “You’re not very good at it, and I’m not going to punish you. But I can guarantee you that’s not the last person who’s going to die over this, so you might as well get used to it now.” Her eyes narrow. “You’re really gonna tell me that was your first?”

“No.” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve… killed people before. That didn’t mean he had to die.”

Arla rolls her eyes. “He wasn’t a good person. None of them were. The one that I took out the window? He had this mark.“ Arla drags her pinky finger down below her eye, to her jaw. “There’s a merc guild a system over that brands the ones they exile, so they can’t ever go back. Whatever he did, it was bad enough that even the bottom feeders didn’t want him for their own anymore.”

The kid doesn’t look convinced. She sighs. “If I’d let that di’kut live, he would have sold us out before we’d left port. You’re a jetii’ad. I wasn’t lying, it’s worth a lot of coin just to tip off the right people about you.”

“So, I’m the reason that you-“

“No. He was a dead man the minute he jumped at the chance to screw over Tor Vizsla.” Arla says. “He’s probably been a dead man for years, for any number of reasons. I just made it official. If you haven’t figured it out by now, approximately no one out here is worth regretting, baby Jedi.”

“Even you?”

Arla laughs, spearing a sliver of meat from her cup. “Have you met me?”

It’s the reason the hunts like this are easier, for all the likelihood of imminent, painful death. Arla doesn’t have to worry whether or not she might end up hurting good people, because she’s not going to, or whether she might cut short some beautiful potential, because she won’t. Anyone she squares off against on a mission like this, they’re in it for the profit or the glory or the violence - they all know the score. One way or another, everyone out here has it coming.

“Did it hurt you? Getting in his head like that?” It hadn’t hurt the dar’jetii she’d fought, Arla remembers that. The way it had clawed through her thoughts, hungry for the worst of it, like a bird ripping bugs out of the bark of a tree. The way it had laughed. Nothing looked like that, this time - the smuggler had been scared, when the kid had started rattling off information, but more bewildered than in pain - like having his pockets picked, rather than a mugging.

“No.” Obi-Wan lies, and frowns when Arla raises an eyebrow. “It’s not that… it’s not right, to do that to someone. I don’t… have the right, to do that, just because I can. I… but you were hurting him, and you weren’t going to stop until you got what you wanted.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have.” Arla says. “So stop trying to blame yourself.”

Not exactly the heights of brilliant dinner conversation, but after a moment he finally starts eating, so Arla’s going to consider it a win. She wonders what he can pick up as ambient noise, when he’s not making the effort, when there’s nothing bad happening - but how long ago might that have even been? What was it like for him before the Kyr’tsad camp, not surrounded by men like Zai and Tor and…

The thought sticks in her throat.

“You’ve been in his head, haven’t you.” She says, almost a whisper. “The Mand’alor.”

It seems like sacrilege to even ask, impossible to even imply some vulnerability that Tor wouldn’t be aware of. It also seems quite obvious - remarkable, that she hadn’t thought of it until now, that obviously he had never considered it at all.

“Briefly.” He says. Gold eyes watch her with wary compassion. “I didn’t have much reason to stay.”

“And my brother, then?” She says. “Easier to pick up information during an interrogation?”

“You weren’t just interrogating your brother.” He says, eyes back on his food.

“Helping.” Arla says. “That soldier at the fire, she said you were ‘helping.’ I thought she… I didn’t understand. I didn’t get what she meant. So you can… what, make it not hurt as much? Put yourself in his place?”

“Something like that.” Obi-Wan says, still not looking at her, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth. “It’s harder to break what’s twice as strong.”

“You’re really not a dar’jetii, are you?”

The smile turns sad, grim and resolute in a way that’s unnerving for his age. Obi-Wan moves the contents of his cup around a bit. “That’s the goal.”

“You have no reason to help my brother, or give a kriff about this war, and you don’t need to be here.” Arla says. “With those cuffs off, I should never have seen you again.” The kriff he couldn’t escape, no matter what she’d said, couldn’t find a way off that wet rock and on to somewhere better. Not with what she’s seen of all that he can do - and he’s almost certainly hiding more.

“Jango needed help, so I helped.” Obi-Wan says. “Tor will kill all the ade back there, if I run. If I didn’t come back, if tried to do anything to ruin your mission, and he found out -“

“So stop helping.” Arla says. “Just walk away. Then you’d be free.”

“Are you free?”

Arla sucks in a sharp breath - and grins, acknowledging the hit. Stupid of her to let her guard down. “Ask me that again, baby Jedi, and you’ll be doing it around my boot.”

The meal ends in silence. Arla figures that’ll be it, until they’ve reached their next destination. The jetii’ad looks tired enough, warm and fed and it must cost him something, maybe, to use those magic powers of his. A surprise, then, when he turns to her.

“Can I… um… is there any news that I could listen to?”

Arla gives him a look. “The kriff do you need to know? You’ve been living it. This just in - it’s all still osik.”

Loud, bloody, stupid and kriffing endless. Arla keeps track of all the the little details she needs to know to do her job, but it’s not like they actually matter. The smallest of meaningless rebellions - that she can be a loyal asset to the Kyr’tsad, but they can’t make her care.

“No,” Obi-Wan says. “I mean, are there any broadcasts that come from closer to the Core?”

Arla gives him another look, more confused than suspicious.

“It’s been… it’s just been a while. Since I’ve had the chance to, um, find out what’s going on over there.”

Arla shrugs, finds a station in Basic with decent signal strength for all the loud, stupid news from the other side of the galaxy, and kicks her feet up, the pilot’s chair as good as a bed for times like this. It’s not like she’ll be sleeping much, either way.

“Thank you.” He says, and turns away, leaving her to her thoughts. Which should only be about the quickest path forward, what kind of interference she expects to find, who her most likely obstacles might be. How fast she can reunite the Mand’alor with his favorite evidence of being the Mand’alor.

Instead, she’s watching a kid who shouldn’t be here - and whatever’s coming next, he shouldn’t be doing that either. If he’s really not a dar’jetii, then he’s still got things to lose, the kind of things Arla gave up caring about a long time ago. The kind of things it hurts so bad to try and hold on to - and she’s not even… whatever the kriff he is.

Yeah, you think this is wrong, Arla? You think maybe this nine-way clusterkriff might end up hurting the weird little magic ad that can feel people die?

Kriff.

“Whatever happens out here, however bad this gets - it’s my fault, stupid baby Jedi. Not yours. This was never going to be clean, and you can’t fix that. If the universe or the Force or whatever it is wants to bitch about it, tell them they can take it out on me. I don’t care.” One more unspeakable decision on the pile won’t exactly tip any scales. “Tayli'bac?”

He’s staring at her. He has every right to be confused and cautious. It’s still irritating.

“Tayli’bac, jetii’ika?“

“… ‘lek.“

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

Time evaporates easily on a hunt, especially when you’re jumping planets, morning to evening to morning again in what feels like the blink of an eye, and if there’s not a clock to sync to in the ship or the armor, the hours blur. Arla usually sharpens her edges with drugs and not giving a kriff if she can’t remember what week it is, but that’s not exactly going to work now. Tor’s going to expect results, almost certainly faster than she’ll have them - she can’t afford not to know exactly what she’s apologizing for.

Arla’s also frustratingly low on her usual supply, and cutting half-doses with the remnants of whatever she’s digging out from the backs of cupboards isn’t exactly a long-term solution. It’s her own kriffing fault - she’d been warned, well before this little jaunt had pointed her away from any trustworthy dealer who made enough credits off of Kyr’tsad customers not to cut their supply with kriff knew what.

“This isn’t kriffing back-alley death sticks, you know that, right? You kriff around too hard with this, it’s going to take your head clean off.”

“If I wanted useless advice, I wouldn’t pay for it.”

“Fine. Just trying to keep my customers coming back. Enjoy karking yourself to death out your own eyeholes, Fett.”

It’ll be fine. She’ll make it fine. It’s not like Arla hasn’t experienced the joys and wonders of forced sobriety before. The next planet they hit with anything resembling an infrastructure, she’ll find… something, enough to blunt the headache that’s underlined this incredible shabla journey of disappointment and paltry leads. They’re closing the distance now. It’ll be fine.

The other problem with business as usual is currently in her ‘fresher, trying to clean up from the hit she knows he took in that last brief skirmish, that he hasn’t said anything about.

The jetii’ad doesn’t say anything about anything unless she asks directly, and even then he’ll sidestep as often as not. Arla’s had to pry out every syllable she’s managed to get about those other little jetii’ade with him, which wasn’t much - and they’re not even actual jetii, just ade with the Manda that he’d gathered up along the way and was now… well, when she’d said ‘teaching’ he’d ducked his head and glanced away, but there’s no way that littlest one wasn’t taking notes. He’s friendly as a default, polite and agreeable without ever really saying anything of substance. Obedient and quiet and conscientious - until Arla’s had to start setting reminder alarms because he won’t tell her when they’ve skipped meals, when she forgets to stop for a rest. No sign of trouble until then the cuffs are back on and he’s stumbling into the nearest wall, and even then the apology comes first.

Arla knows it hurts him, every time she takes that Force of his away, but it’s not something she’s about to just kriffing… not when they’re on the ship, not with her helmet off - and she thinks that he knows it, the both of them quietly observing each other, all the little truths that pop up, sharing space in close quarters. Jetii osik or no jetii osik, the kid’s never not paying attention.

“Still in one piece?” She says, when he returns to the co*ckpit. “Enough to patch you up in there?”

Arla tries to make up for the general chaos of the ship by keeping a little first aid in arm’s reach anywhere - kriff knows she’s had to tape herself back together while making a dramatic escape more than once. He nods - he does look all right, although she’s still not able to trust it completely. He said he’s not dar’jetii, but he’s been vague about what that means he actually is, what he’d done and why he left.

Arla knows what it means, though, to only want to bandage yourself up behind closed doors, what it looks like when you’re not allowed to fail. The dar’jetii are well-known as universal bastards, but that might just mean the jetii do a better job of keeping it to themselves.

“I’m fine.” He says. “Do you know where we’re headed next?”

Their little di’kut thief is planet-hopping as fast as he can go, and Arla doesn’t think she’s tipped her hand enough that he’s running from her, a whisper of information two planets back that suggested a deal going bad, and now he’s just fleeing. Which might make things easier, in some ways, if what he’d thought was his sure bet fell through and left him without a backup. He might be willing to negotiate, stupid enough to think she’d let him leave once they had the Darksaber back. Stupid enough not to realize he’d want her to end things - Arla would at least finish it quick. A mercy, compared to what would happen if he ever got back to Tor.

“Mining outpost, looks like.”

The details that come up over the ship’s comm as they prepare to land have no information about who’s in charge of keeping the peace. Seems like the place has changed hands a few times, enough for the oversight to become a bit less thorough - there’s a reminder that no one on-planet is responsible for pilfered valuables, and that most of the local inhabitants are armed. No one’s going to be paying much attention, either to who comes in and out or if the locals were justified in shooting back.

“So… sand, gravel, sandy gravel, wet gravel or.... minor biological gravel hazard?” A new surprise - when he’s not afraid for his life, or that she’ll hurt him for it, the baby Jedi has a sense of humor. He doesn’t refuse to work, never complains - but he’s not above making quietly pointed observations.

“Oh, just look at the hothouse jetii, too fancy to puke on a landing pad while he adjusts to the atmosphere.” Arla says, wincing as they drop out of hyperspace and the sun immediately makes itself known all the way to the back of her brain, skewering most of her thoughts along the way. “Kriffing hell, see if there’s anything in that drawer?”

“What isn’t in this drawer?”

“Kriff off, kid.” Arla says, but she has to admit he’s not wrong, as Obi-Wan pulls out half a blaster, a ball of wires with no discernible beginning or end, a miniature get’shuk ball keychain that had been unceremoniously disemboweled for some reason, a small jar half-full of what’s either powdered, fossilized pastry crumbs or crystalized antifreeze, two wrenches, a dull knife - and finally, half a bottle of painkillers with the original label, which means it actually has half a chance of containing what it says it does. Arla double-checks anyway before dry swallowing three, ignores the look on Obi-Wan’s face, concerned and thoughtful and just on the cusp of an offer, maybe. Using those Force powers of his, that Arla’s never going to be desperate enough to want anything to do with.

The other danger in all this - not lesser, because there are no lesser dangers, just things she doesn’t prioritize until they bite her in the shebs - that the little jetii is useful. He listens when she gives him orders and he listens when she gives him advice and there’s not enough about him that she actively hates, not enough to remind her he’s only a grudging ally at best.

It makes stupid things happen, like Arla unloading her pockets between planets and not immediately recognizing the slim device that falls out, only to realize it’s the activator for the shock chip she’d forgotten he even carried.

A snap decision to bring him along, because so many of Arla’s choices were made on the fly, and maybe she thought he’d help or maybe she wanted to scare him, show him who was in charge - prove she wasn’t afraid - or it was just a way to piss off that di’kut Kaine, to remind him of his place. What it means now is that if - when - the little jetii does try something, there’s a very good chance Arla will hesitate just long enough - and that’s all it’ll take.

You know better. You know better. It used to be easier, to know better, to play things smart. These days, it all comes with a weight.

Maybe it won’t matter, because more than one piece of evidence suggests their runner has finally gone to ground here, possibly just to hide, possibly waiting until things quieted down enough for him to disappear again, to try and set up a more clandestine arrangement with the next buyer. Arla doesn’t know exactly what combination of fear and greed is motivating him - thankfully, of all her current problems, figuring that out isn’t one.

The town is small, curved around the edge of a mine that’s managed to dry up on one ore only for another vein to be found of something that became profitable, nominally a supplier to the war effort. Likely for more than one side, if you looked at the right books from the right angles. Whoever the last batch of miners were, they’d been more comfortable hewing homes out of the rock itself, although now it seems most of the newer inhabitants have been adding on with local supplies, thin strips of wood flexible enough to curve and bend outward, giving most of the homes the appearance of some burrowing insect about to hatch. A bit unnerving, but less so than the wide swath of abandoned architecture that rises alongside the south end of the mine. The overambitious leavings of the original tenants, poorly constructed from a lesser quarry and left to crumble, outdated and damaged beyond repair by decades of nearby blasting, but more trouble than they were worth to tear down. A decent hiding hole.

“That seems useful.” The baby Jedi says, pointing out some sort of tool left abandoned in an alley, a long pole with a broken-off metal tip. A game they’d started three planets ago, killing time during a long surveillance. A game Arla had played herself as an ad with her mother or father, wherever they happened to be. What made the best weapon, if you didn’t have a weapon. How to compensate for weaknesses, and best use your surroundings to your advantage.

“Do a lot of spear fighting in your Temple?”

“Well, no.” Obi-Wan shrugs. “We’re not really supposed to - a Jedi should keep their attention on more important things than weaponry.”

Arla snorts, rolls her eyes - what an impractically self-righteous way to look at it, and the kid’s got more where that comes from. Of course he believes in a fair fight - if anything, all that training seems to be about being able to take the biggest handicap he can without losing outright. Any number of reasons why it’s his role to defer, to take the first hit, even as second or a third if it means there might be a solution other than violence. Which might be all right, if there was more to him at the moment than malnutrition and determination. Who the kriff bothers even trying to have morals without beskar to back it up? And an alternate weapons loadout.

“A peacekeeper’s role is to focus on mediation and resolution, not combat. You can’t serve two masters.”

“Yeah, I bet that sounded great in the classroom.” Arla says. “It’s hard to keep the peace when you’re dead, kid. Tell me what else you see.”

The thing is, when it comes to pure tactics, the little jetii’ad is quick enough, pointing out opportunities for cover, the best positions to try and get to in the fight, several other bits of scrap and garbage that might be useful, either for tools or distractions - and Arla is fairly certain he’s holding back, keeping the strategies that might involve outmaneuvering her to himself. He’s done this before somewhere, whatever story led him here no doubt as long and twisted as most she’s heard. But he doesn’t talk about it, doesn’t talk about whatever else that is, the thing that makes him hesitate rather than strike. As if it’s shameful to prioritize his survival, even above his enemies - did the Republic do this to them? Some ancient admonishment designed to keep them in their place? So much about the jetiise she doesn’t understand, and doesn’t really want to, but he’s still an ad and there’s no one else here to give advice. The very least she can do is try to help him keep himself alive.

A ping in her helmet, from the frequency she’d been tracking - dadita code, embedded on the back of another signal - their thief, calling out again, and maybe if Arla’s lucky she’ll be able to take out whoever he’s contacting as well, a double reminder not to touch what belongs to the Kyr’tsad. All he needs to do is not stop broadcasting, just long enough to…

“I have you now, chakaar.” Arla murmurs.

“Wait.” Obi-Wan says softly, one hand up, and she freezes. The space wizard osik is annoying, but part of that is in having to admit that it’s kriffing useful. The kid is quiet enough with the cuffs on and silent when they’re gone, and a damn good trouble detector. Arla’s been able to avoid more than one confrontation simply by dodging around it. He still hates doing any more than skimming thoughts uninvited, not that Arla can blame him, but even then he’ll do it, when it’s the kinder option to a firefight. Arla scans the alley ahead, for any signs of what might have - a tripwire, the thinnest line across the narrow part of the alley, whatever it’s attached to hidden well enough not to ping on her display.

“Mandalorians, they’re out there.” Obi-Wan whispers, eyes squeezed shut, concentrating. “It’s hard to say, exactly… I think there’s only two.”

A worried look, when he opens his eyes again, and she knows why - he doesn’t want to fight House Mereel, or Kryze, or any of their sister clans. Frankly, it’s nothing Arla wants either - possibly drawing attention, and she’d make a wonderful consolation prize for any House. The Darksaber can’t scream, after all, or beg or ask for mercy. Not that Arla would, but she’s starting to think that maybe the ad wouldn’t even have the sense to run away, abandon her if things went south -

The slight glint is her only warning, and Arla yanks the kid back, dives back into an alcove as the blaster shot flashes just where her head had been. Obi-Wan is wide-eyed with surprise - it seemed he’d miscounted, the camouflage of beskar getting the better of him this time. Arla can only hope there aren’t more than three, although she’ll have to deal with that as it comes.

Arla pops a smoke grenade, some cover from the sniper - but even as she’s moving there’s a shot from her right, two more charging ahead.

“I’ll handle the sniper!”

“The kriff do you mean you’ll-“ Arla bites back a curse - the kid’s already gone, and she’s got a firefight of her own to handle.

The buildings around them aren’t sturdy or stable - hard to tell whether her opponents don’t know about this or don’t care, but whatever punches into the wall nearest her cover sends a considerable amount of dust and then the entire structure itself crumbling down around her, Arla rolling back through an open doorway and back into the street. She glances up, sees the rifle pointed at her from high above - and then a stone launched like a bullet all its own, pinging off the helmet and sending the shot wide, Obi-Wan’s hiss of triumph in her ear.

No clan signs that she can see, which should make things easier for the kid, and possibly for her. Little chance that any of the greater Houses would stoop so low as hiding their allegiances, not like she does. Which means they’re of no clan - possibly dar’manda, or even mercs taking stupid risks with stolen armor.

Like you can even tell the difference half the time. Arla thinks, the kind of sentiment that would get her cast out of all the decent Houses without a second glance, let alone the Kyr'tsad. Clan enforcer for the most militant of militants, and Arla believes in Mandalore and their grand empire and all its supposed virtues about as much as the New do, except they’re fools even without the armor.

If these are mercs, it will mean they’re less well-trained than they could be, but high-powered munitions can be a real bitch of an equalizer, the explosives they keep throwing her way proof enough of that.

A bit of a trick, keeping ahead of the crumbling walls, buildings falling into others and collapsing them as they go - the blaster bolts pause for a moment, and she wonders if the competition is in danger of taking itself out without her input. Before long there’s a decent amount of dust in the air - they’ve slowed themselves down trying to take her out quickly, and Arla has an opportunity to do more than just retreat.

It’s all about flexibility, like she tried to show the kid. Use the terrain and everything in it to the best advantage in the moment, never hesitate to swap to a better strategy. Play dirty, and try to conserve on ammunition, when resupplying isn’t an option. Which means if you can set up a situation in an area with low visibility and indirect lines of sight where you can maneuver one of your targets into shooting the other one for you, that’s always a bonus. Especially if you can kick the remaining one back into a nearby building as it starts to come down. Two convorees with one… well, with several thousand stones, most likely, but it’s the spirit of the thing.

Mercenaries, then. No House that would actually send them out that sloppy. Arla ought to to collect what she can of the armor on her way out - she’s an osik Mando’ade, no doubt, but there’s something about seeing beskar on the incompetent that still grinds.

Arla can hear the jetii’ad breathing hard over the comms - still fighting, she doesn’t want to distract him, trying to place where he is even as a series of concussive thuds takes down another row of half-crumbled buildings. The jetpack gets her a better vantage point, a view of the ground - though why she expected anything as pedestrian as the baby Jedi fighting on the ground when he could be leaping from rooftop to rooftop dodging blaster fire instead is her own obvious lack of imagination.

Kriff, but these jetiise are as fast as she remembered. Especially impressive, now that she's not the one trying to fight back. It’s a whole different kind of game, watching the jetii’ad square off, dodging the bolts almost before they’re fired and it doesn’t even look like he’s watching where he’s landing, not even on the buildings that crumble underneath him - and he still doesn’t have any weapons, just flinging bits and pieces of debris back at his opponent - obviously enough to keep his attention off Arla, but it’s hard to say now if the baby Jedi can’t or won’t end this fight. The merc fires his jetpack, obviously hoping to put enough distance between them to bring that rifle back into play.

Luckily, Arla’s here. With a grappling hook. And a mine. And a clear view of the his back. Because she’s an asshole.

It’s over a few seconds later. Obi-Wan looks like he’s trying not to look upset, or glance at the smoldering remains of his opponent, and Arla wonders again just how much it’s worth believing “I’ve killed people before,” even if he’s obviously got the reflexes for it.

“I told you, kid, it's all me. All of it. You’re just along for the ride.”

And unfortunately, fun as all this is, it also isn’t the reason they’re really here - and it’s now her primary concern, that the code she’d been tracking hasn’t stopped broadcasting, no noticeable movement from anywhere else in the abandoned district, no one escaping or trying to escape.

“I don’t…” Obi-Wan says, frowning, as they follow the trace to a small building in the middle of a row, no different than any of the others. “No one’s there. At least not… alive.”

Arla does her due diligence, because this is the kind of trap she might consider setting up if she had the patience for it, but there’s no signs of bombs or ambushes and the kid says he’s pretty good with imminent threats - and wouldn’t that be a kriffing thing to have, if not for the way most of Arla’s life is an imminent kriffing threat.

All a waste of time, although their target isn’t going anywhere - sprawled in a chair in an otherwise empty room, throat slit and blood long since soaked into the floorboards, buy’ce gone and transmitter torn from his vambrace and left on the table, broadcasting to empty air, with no sign at all of the Darksaber.

—————————————

It’s not the first time a trail’s gone cold, not the first time a target’s been dead before Arla needs them to be. The fight drew a little too much attention, no chance to track down the mercs’ ship, or if there was any trace of how their little thief arrived, who might have beaten them to the pickup. The jetii cases the room but doesn’t have much to add, helps her gather the armor, not that there’s anything left to slice. The mercs have a bit more to offer, though explosives can be double-edged as a weapon. A tendency to scatter armor a fair distance, but it’s also easier to tell what is and isn’t real beskar in the aftermath. The better part of a suit-and-a half across the three bodies, and they make it back to dock and out without having to answer any questions.

Arla still has options now, of course, for where to go next. Contacts in most of the dank and dirty corners of the galaxy, from the Son-Tuul to the Pykes to the Dawn, favors she’s traded for information on the routes of various Houses, the movements of the New. Quite a few individuals out there willing to offer up news of the day, interesting rumors for a few credits, as long as any consequences couldn’t ever be traced back to them.

Of course, if Arla starts making more than the most generic of inquiries, they’ll wonder why. It’ll start getting attention. If this hasn’t already - whoever it was that got to him first, or whatever kind of go-between he’d agreed to be, unaware that he’d ultimately be working for free.

It’d be easier to start digging her way out of this if she didn’t increasingly feel like a ton of osik stuffed into an ounce of armor. Arla knows what it is, recognizes the first symptoms of a bad withdrawal, just starting to edge past the place where she can ignore it. Still, she’s going to have to ration until she can fix that - no time for a detour - and that’s just how it’s going to be.

Nothing of use in any of the buy’ce, just more proof that these fools weren’t part of any clan that might come looking for vengeance. The only good thing to come out of this. Almost.

The kid had fought, done his part of the work and that’s good enough for her, verd’goten or no. Good enough by Kyr’tsad standards to be worthy of extra protection. The helmets are all no good - way too big, and blocked too much of his Force magic. He’d refused the gauntlets on the same principles, although with a little adjusting they might have managed for leg armor, little stick that he was.

“I’m not that skinny.” He’d frowned at her.

“Who said that?” Arla says. “Oh, sorry. You were standing sideways.”

Obi-Wan pretends he’s too dignified to respond, studying all the things in the box Arla had upended while looking for a way to adjust the straps on the chest plate - even the smallest one enough to protect plenty, once some adjustments are made. Arla should scrub the last of the faded colors off, give him a brief overview of the basics for which shades can go where, and why - what to do, what not to do, what might be funny if he does it anyway.

Heritage. The weight of pure utility on her shoulders, a claim that Tor wields like a scythe, that Jango sees as natural and right, that killed their family and burned their home. So many things to so many people, and here it is now on a jetii.

“What’s this?” Obi-Wan says, picking up a hefty silver roll from where it had rolled against the wall.

“Engine tape.” Arla says, grins when he blinks. “Don’t look like that, it’ll keep you going longer than you’d think.”

“You mean on… a ship like this?” A look on his face, obviously worried that it’s exactly what she means, and wondering just how much tape and where.

Arla shrugs. “Works on armor too. Works as armor if you’re really kriffed. Emergency jetpack harness. Chewing gum?”

A dumb joke, but it still earns her half a grin.

The ideal move would have been to slap the beskar in front of her engines for a few minutes - it’s decent in a pinch for dent removal on the parts that are pure - and try to hammer down the edges into something a little more ad-shaped, but they don’t have that kind of time. He wouldn’t be comfortable in full kit anyway, even what he is wearing leaving him with an expression like a tooka with its tail in a paint can as he twists and bends, adjusting to the new weight.

A shame she hadn’t had a little more patience, bringing down that last merc. It would be something to see, a jetii in a jetpack.

He looks slapdash, of course, especially with no clan signs to claim him. Scrappy and determined, though. The kind of person that’s proved they can survive out here, past the edge of civilization.

Kriff but he looks Mando’ade. Even more than if his armor were all shiny and new. Arla wonders how close he’d gotten to Jango - it would have had to been close, wouldn’t it, to get in his head like that? It’s not like Arla really had a chance to catch up, but her brother seemed as stubborn and fierce as he’d ever been - he wouldn’t have just trusted any random jetii, even if there’d been no other choice. Had he seen this, too? Did he need to? All the clans tout their love of loyalty and proving worth - some of them might actually mean it. It might not be the most politically savvy move, adding a jetii to aliit Mereel, even if the kid isn’t really one, even if he’s… whatever he is. Nobody ever said the Mando’ade were a fan of bowing to popular opinion, and it’s unlikely Jango’s any different.

“…. smashball Mandalorian.” Obi-Wan murmurs, staring down at himself, and before Arla can ask what that means, a light flashes on the console. A chime at her wrist.

Arla doesn’t let herself sit down, legs locked, standing in perfect attention, staring straight ahead as she hits the button.

“Mand’alor.”

“I’d expected a call by now, Arla. I’d expected you here, returning what was stolen from me. Or are you enjoying this? Making me look weak and foolish?”

“The first thief is dead. I recovered his armor. I’m tracking his killer now.”

“Oh, his armor.“ Stupid, Arla, stupid not to start with an apology. Stupid to think it might matter. “What an impressive prize! Who could expect more from my most elite hunter than abject kriffing failure !?”

Was she really the only one on this task? Arla thinks it might be true - otherwise she would have been targeted by some upstart Kyr’tsad by now, looking to secure the prize and a new position.

“I am unworthy, Mand’alor, for the faith you put in me. But I swear, whoever it is who dares think they can cross you, or dishonor us, I’ll track them to the other end of the galaxy if I have to. I’ll do whatever it takes to return what’s yours, and make sure-”

“Promises I’ve already heard!” Tor roars. “Promises I wouldn’t need to hear again if you could just do what you were told!”

It’s better if he’s shouting. Arla’s not in front of him, so he can’t shift that fury into violence against her, and so she’d rather have him raging. He enjoys it, and it’s easier for her to grovel, and that’s the safest -

A scream in the background, and then another, punctuating Tor’s disappointment that he’d ever thought she was worthy of the task, that he’d been stupid enough to trust her with it - a wet, desperate gasp that’s painfully clear despite the systems of distance between them. Arla’s not there to be hurt, but someone is. Who? Is this for her benefit, or did Tor decide to call in the middle of an interrogation, just for the fresh inspiration.

Arla tries not to listen, as Tor rages and she responds - Ni ceta, Mand’alor. I swear I will not fail you again, I would never stain the glory of the Kyr’tsad, or lose your faith in me. - but she’s straining to hear every weak whimper. It’s not Jango, it can’t be. He’s too valuable. Isn’t he? Tor’s busy on the front, far away - he wouldn’t risk having his prize hostage shipped there just to hurt her like this. She’s not that important.

Another scream. Ka’ra, please, let it end. Just let him get bored and end it. Arla almost feels relieved, when she hears the broken begging. Jango wouldn’t - even if he did break, he’d know there’d be no point.

“I understand you’re not alone. Ver’alor Kaine said that you’d walked away with his dar’jetii.”

It’s amazing Tor even remembered his name - but Arla can’t risk being dismissive now. Zai may be the favored, loyal acolyte for the purposes of this conversation, the one who hasn’t failed at a task he was never set to.

“I thought it might prove useful, Mand’alor. Use a jetii to find a jetii’kad.”

It slips out, and Arla winces, even the oblique reference to what’s actually missing - but Tor doesn’t seem to notice.

“It appears that you were wrong.”

“So far. But he is obedient, and hasn’t cost me any time - now and then his little tricks have even paid off. He might still be valuable.”

“So… becoming an ori’vod, are you?” Tor’s voice is indulgent, almost gentle. Arla feels everything go still inside of her, and very, very cold. “I wonder what your brother would think of that.”

“Maybe he’ll finally see the the benefits of being on the side of the victors.”

“Is he there now? Your new jetii’vod?”

Arla holds up a hand to keep him silent, doesn’t look back. Grateful in this moment that Obi-Wan picks up on so much, so fast, and that even when he’s not trying, he’s usually so quiet she might as well be alone.

“Sleeping. We ran into some trouble, he took a hit. I can wake him.”

Lying? Lying to the Mand'alor? Well, Arla, this is new. Except the jetii’ad won’t know what to say if she lets him speak. Doesn’t understand how dangerous this is, even here on the other side of the galaxy, and won’t know how to protect himself when Arla feels as if she’s toeing a narrow line over a vast chasm.

Weak, tiny whimpers in the distant background. Or maybe just her imagination.

“I thought he wasn’t slowing you down.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.” Arla says. “But these jetiise are more durable than they look. A good pack animal, if nothing else.”

“Interesting. I admit, I never saw much of value, but you’ve always had that knack - noticing what’s been overlooked. Who knows? It might be useful in the future, a real dar’jetii at my side.”

More useful than her, is what he means, if she takes too long with her current task. He’s playing with her because he’s frustrated and angry and because if you’re not bringing the Mand’alor what he wants you’re the new chew toy and you’d better try harder, Arla. If you can’t be useful then at least be entertaining.

“I swear I won’t fail you, Mand’alor.” Arla says, lets her voice waver a little, the slightest hint of a very real desperation, even if it’s not what he thinks it’s for. Safer to be on this track, that he thinks she’s jealous of the jetii’ad, trying to set them against each other, than that they were any kind of team.

“We’ve been having some… difficulties with recruitment, of late.” Tor says. “Maybe when you return - successfully - I will honor you with a new position. You have a lighter touch.”

Raiding parties. Maybe even on Concord Dawn. Tor hasn’t threatened her with that for years.

“I often wonder if the entire system isn’t in need of restructuring.” He continues. “Maybe it’s my fault, maybe I’ve let my attention slip. I suppose you could begin with that camp of Kaine’s, put the ad through their paces. Find me some real mandokarla, if there’s any to be had.”

He hasn’t threatened her with that since she was a child herself.

I’ve noticed. Is what he means. You slipped up and I saw, and it’s your fault they will be punished for it. Again. If you’d just stop caring, Arla, it wouldn’t have to be like this. You do it to yourself. You do it to them.

Arla’s good at some things, at least. She doesn’t need to put a hand over her mouth, to force back what wants to slip out. No flinch, no change at all where anyone can see, even if he’s on the other side of the galaxy. Arla’s close, she has to be - after all these years she must be close to a thing he can’t hurt anymore.

“I won’t fail you, Mand’alor.” What else is there to say?

“Of course you won’t.” Tor says. “You never have.”

The call cuts off, in the middle of a raw and desperate howl. Arla’s hands aren’t shaking - her head is throbbing, tongue thick in a parched mouth - but no matter how close she looks her hands are so, so steady…

“Are you…?”

The kid’s smart enough not to touch her, not that it helps him much. No thought, just action, the spike of fear and panic and the next moment gold eyes are looking into hers, wide-eyed and full of fear and she has him cornered, the edge of her knife against the throat of the dar’jetii and she’s done this before, they put up a fight but they die just like everything else, like everything always has no matter what she-

“It's not you.” Obi-Wan says, frozen, his voice a bare whisper. “Arla, please. This isn’t you.”

It is. It isn’t. The kriff does he know. There hasn’t been an Arla Fett for so long there might as well never have been one at all. What difference does it make?

Slowly, carefully, she sheathes the blade, steps back. The ad ought to run, at least as far away as he can get. Ought to put a door between them, curse her for being a monster, for putting him in chains. He does none of this, only relaxes from where he’d been pressed to the wall, watching her carefully.

“I- I think…”

“Nobody in the galaxy kriffing cares what you think, jetii.”

Arla pushes past him, and kriff if she isn’t elbow deep in the shelf where the spice should be before she remembers she’s running low, probably not enough to put more than a dent in the headache now driving a spike through her temple and down her spine, but the more she looks the less there is to find, empty packs and bottles and this isn’t… she didn’t kriffing - she did - she didn’t miscount this badly, there was still time, she still had time, didn’t she -

“Did you do this? When I wasn’t looking?” Arla shouts. “Did you!?”

You know he didn’t. You know that.

“I don’t…” The ad still has his hands up, maybe to remind her he’s still wearing the cuffs around his wrists, to show that he’s defenseless. Helpless. Liar. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Little Arla’s getting sloppy. Little Arla’s past her sell-by date. No chance for mercy out here - you’re either the hunter or the meat.

Her hand itches to go for her blaster. Arla lets out a slow, steady breath through gritted teeth instead.

“You think I’m stupid, jetii? You think you can play games with me?”

You can’t hurt who you want, so you’ll hurt who you can? That seems fair.

“I wouldn’t… you know I wouldn’t do that.”

It shouldn’t make Arla feel better, to watch him watch her, to try and figure out what to do if she goes after him again. It shouldn’t make her feel strong. Arla wants him to be afraid, wants to hurt him because she’s the kriffing one in charge here, she wants to make him stop being stupid and hate her like he’s supposed to. Stop making it complicated, pretending they both don’t know what the score is, and how this is all going to end - and he’s looking at her in that same way she knows so well, what he can do or say to defuse the bomb that she’s become - and here we are again, the only place this ever ends and aren’t you proud, Fett?

You deserve it. Every bad thing that could ever happen to you. The end will be terrible and you will deserve every moment.

“Your friends might already be dead. Do you know that? The Mand’alor might have already given the order, and he won’t tell you until we get back. He’ll want it to be a surprise.”

It couldn’t have been Jango she’d heard dying, though. He’ll wait for Arla to come back before he does that, because this was never going to go any other way, because Tor never dies and never loses and always gets what he wants in the end.

The jetii’s tells can be damn near microscopic but Arla sees it, the barest shift in his expression. “What now?”

“They’re… not dead.”

Arla blinks, scoffs half a laugh. “You can… what, you can tell? Talk to them? All the way the kriff out here?”

The slightest shake of his head. “I can’t… talk to them, but… I’d still feel it. If something… if something bad happened there. I’d know it.”

Arla glances at the inhibitors. “Not with those on, you can’t.”

Like she’s telling him anything he doesn’t already know. All this time, Arla thought she knew all the damage she was doing, but every time he takes them off, he has to wonder if there’s another surprise waiting out there. Look at her, taking him from all those ade who have no one else on their side, and don’t pretend you care now, Arla. The kriffing absolute least you can do is just stop pretending.

“Would it help if you cuffed me to the chair again?”

The thought of answering that makes her want to throw up - and then Arla realizes that’s going to happen regardless. The next moment finds her on her knees in the fresher with the door firmly shut and yeah, sure, Arla, let’s hold the ad at gunpoint and then give him free rein of the ship, that makes sense, you’re definitely not a shabla di’kut kriffing lunatic. He’s absolutely not within his rights to figure out the fastest way to space you.

At least the taste in her mouth and the knives prying their way down her spine are a good distraction. Arla rests her head against the bowl for a moment, breathing hard, vaguely waiting to see if things want to get worse or better.

Her fingertips brush against something curled on the floor, thin and stone-studded, and Arla manages to maneuver until she’s propped up by the nearest wall, looking down at a familiar lekku wrap that has no business being in her hands.

“You always did say I could lose a body in here.” Arla runs her thumb slowly along the stones, rolls it between her fingers. “It should have been you, you know that? All this, you would have done it better. You already knew that. I’m the one who can’t ever kriffing learn.”

The nice thing about being all alone in the galaxy is being able to go as dini’la as you kriffing want, and not having to explain it to anyone, even yourself. Arla winds the wrap around her hand as tight as she can and pulls hard, the little stones digging in, until the skin under the leather is bone white, her fingers tingling and numb, and her heart pounds so fast and hard she swears she can feel each beat tap against the back of her teeth.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

By the time Arla’s standing over what remains of the pair of thieves who had dispatched her quarry - three and four fighting over their prize before number five solved the argument for them, she’s willing to believe the rumors. The Darksaber is extremely kriffing cursed. Also probably possessed. And no longer such a secret.

The first group she sees casing the opposite side of the town aren’t interested in flying any flags, but a few planets over there’s a Black Suns sentry in the port, and Arla takes a moment to swap out for her red armor. As conspicuous as sending up a flare, but there are so few Mandalorians this far out that any beskar will make a statement, and anyone who recognizes what she is might decide it’s in their benefit to keep their distance, no matter the prize. The Mand’alor is known for excessive retaliation when he’s been slighted, willing to eat a large penalty if it means turning his enemies into a foot-deep molten crater. It’s hard to argue wanting that kind of crazy on your doorstep.

Dangerous now, every time the Darksaber switches hands, new players with new allegiances and new motivations - and kriff, but she does not want to chase the damn thing into Hutt space if she can avoid it. Thankfully, it seems the draw of a once-in-a-lifetime score is enough that everyone’s decided they’re most loyal to themselves. It’s starting to take on a life of its own, unclear if most even know exactly what they’re chasing, just that everyone else is. Even guilds and minor syndicates with little chance of victory are showing an interest, just for the opportunity to flex. The kind of thing that’s entertaining to watch from anywhere other than the middle of it. No wonder Tor was as livid as he was - she’s even getting pings from curious contacts in Little Keldabe, unsure about the exact circ*mstances but more than happy to point and laugh.

‘We gonna see this one from the other side of the galaxy, Fett?’

Kriffing jetii osik.

Distance evaporates after time, especially when hunts go on too long at the edge of wild space. All part of one endless day, lifting off and touching down on what might as well be the same kriffing, inhospitable rocks, unimportant details flattening out to nothing. The edge of the Outer Rim is not the easiest place to move around in, the hyperspace lanes unreliable, entire swaths of space partial to random flares or asteroid fields or other things only vaguely noted on sketchy maps. It might be the only thing doing her any favors, Arla at least vaguely familiar with the paths that are most likely to be traveled, a few shortcuts she’s been granted passage through for favors done or fights that no one wants to have again.

Going through the same motions, the same wariness coming in for a landing, same frequencies to check for chatter and doors to kick down to try and force a slip-up. Same false politeness, with innumerable hostilities simmering just beneath the surface. After long enough, even the weather doesn’t seem to change.

Maybe Arla should have made a gift to the Ka’ra for a better hunt, try to bribe the gods for a way out of this mess.

Obi-Wan hasn’t said more than a few words in days - and who could blame him? Silent in the ship and quiet on the ground, an obedient ‘lek’ for every ‘'tayli'bac?' and she’d chide him for sulking except it’s not even that, just quiet and empty. It had been tempting to just leave him behind, not have to… think about any of it, but Arla’s not stupid enough to trust locking him in the ship, and feelings don’t matter against what he can do for her. Against even just having someone else with their eyes open and watching, because right now? She’s not running anywhere near a hundred percent.

Arla watches him now, that first moment after the cuffs come off - and it never changes, the way he shuts his eyes for a moment, not just to catch his bearings but as if he’s listening carefully for something at the very edge of his hearing. If anything bad has happened, back on Manda’yaim. Nothing they talk about - Arla’s still not sure she believes it - but she watches and knows he knows she’s watching, and every time he relaxes, she feels a little of her tension fade too.

The Mandalorians have a reputation for combat first, coming out punching and ending things with more of the same - but there’s fighting and then there’s profitable fighting, and slogging her way through heaps of the incompetent is neither. If the ad hadn’t earned his keep already, he’d be worth it just for this, that magic sense of where not to be that allows them to move faster and, for the most part, undetected.

Of course, there’s always a skirmish to be had sooner or later, everyone out here a little lord on their little fiefdom, throwing around whatever sad attempt at power they’ve managed to scrounge together. The fights so far have been blessedly brief, but even then Arla can tell she’s taking more hits than usual, feeling every bruise protest later in the sonic, a line of fire up her side or across her back. Insomnia’s a lot kriffing harder to balance out when there’s nothing to shove where the sleep usually goes, and that’s only one of the many issues she’s refusing to acknowledge.

She’d tried to track down a working solution, but after the first dealer had tried to sell her little more than spray painted bantha droppings, there was no point trying to sink more time they didn’t have into what likely wasn’t here, only home-brewed osik as likely to make her go blind as anything useful. Arla expected it would take a karking terrible day or two to work through the worst of it, but it’s been a while now and things haven’t improved - snapping out of brief naps soaked through with sweat, finding it suddenly hard to catch her breath, a few unexpected stutters under her ribs and the kriffing relentless headaches - and she’s fought through worse, lived with worse, but this is far from the ideal moment to add it to the pile.

It’s when her vision goes blurry twice in the span of an hour that Arla makes what might well be her last mistake - and hands the jetii’ad a blaster as they touch down. He certainly looks at her as if it’s a test, as if she’s out of her mind which - yeah, obviously - but Arla’s still got the armor and her reflexes and that’ll be something against any plan the ad cooks up - and Arla has to admit that he’s not the one running this mission compromised.

He looks it over, checks everything she would when handed a weapon for the first time, and doesn’t say more.

Arla’s tracking by the pursuit for the moment - thief number five is nimble and silent, but whoever was after them took a chunk out of a company town and their helium mining rig, and raised all sorts of hell on another small cluster of villages that was only happy to return the favor, reminding everyone in a ten-system radius why it was a good idea to be armed to the teeth and suspicious of outsiders.

The planet they’re on now is thankfully not quite as isolated - still armed to the teeth, but welcome to travelers and their credits, one of the last few planets with any sort of infrastructure in this stretch of wild space. So the city is a relatively sprawling collection of odds and ends, everyone gathering together around the closest things to convenience and decent ways to better places and Arla’s not looking forward to what happens if she loses track of her quarry here.

From space, the whole continent looks barren and lifeless, as much as Mandalore, no sign that anything had ever grown there, vicious winds that scour the surface just often enough to make living up top an impossibility. Arla doesn’t know much about stones or plants or any of it, can’t say what processes led to the the way the city is now - all the streets set into narrow, curving gorges below the flat surface, pale, chalky rock giving way to great swaths of transparent stone that glimmers green, wide ribbons that thread overhead like a second sky.

Obi-Wan doesn’t say anything, but Arla looks up from where she’s locking up the ship to find him taking it all in with wide eyes and a slow circle, a quiet smile she doubts he means to show and she can’t help but wonder again just what stranded him out here. Ot maybe it was always going to happen. Maybe that Force osik of his just wouldn’t let him stay where he was.

Are they all like you, your jetiise? So ready to be in love with the whole universe?

He’s all focus a few moments later - she doesn’t even have to ask, just starts to move and he’s at her side - and then it’s as easy as working alone, with a better-than-average scanner that can understand the hand signals she’s taught him and answer in kind. It’s quiet - perhaps mid-morning, on a day that seems to be disinterested in getting up early. The houses are narrow and tall, tucked in stacks along small side passages off the main roads, mostly built from of a mix of old shipment crates, scavenged and repurposed materials and even trade from those coming and going - a decent business, perhaps, salvaging less fashionable materials from the junkyards of the inner systems and offering them up for sale.

Walking and talking and waiting, the part of the job that does not feature in the action holos. Trying to dig up information from people who - fair enough - don’t want any kriffing thing to do with a Mandalorian, or are only willing for an extortionate fee, or who actually think they can scam her without earning a blaster bolt for services rendered.

Once again, the jetii’ad proves his worth. He’s still hesitant to go too far, but they’ve hit a balance - Obi-Wan skimming thoughts at a distance during Arla’s attempts to gain information, which cuts down drastically on the time wasted on false leads and liars, and the amount of threatening she has to do to get results. If it still doesn’t sit entirely right with his little moral code, it seems he prefers it to watching her punch until the answers come out.

The only time Arla’s come to regret the kid is as good as he is, when they’re once again standing outside the building their thief ought to be, and he can give her the bad news with a slight shake of his head, even before they’re through the door.

Five thieves, and now five bodies, and still no Darksaber.

Arla’s unloaded half a dozen rounds into what’s left of the corpse before she can decide if it’s a good idea or not. Still alive, so no booby traps. Shame.

Also, no head or hands or anything that looks like she can slice it for more information on who killed this thief or where they might have been headed. Did she mention no Darksaber?

Arla’s breathing… does something, that hitch that’s somehow connected to the pounding in her head and the stiffness in her spine and usually the beskar’s a second skin, wearing it the same as not wearing it, but at the moment it feels like she can feel every molecule of it pressing down on her from all sides, ready to crush her and even locking her legs to stay standing hurts, just swallowing brings the nausea with it and at some point Tor is going to stop being forgiving, even if they come back with it there’s going to be punishments - for her and her brother and the jetii’ad. Indiscriminate and unavoidable and -

“If I may-“

Arla may be kriffed but her reflexes still work, blaster instantly at the door. From the corner of her eye, she can see Obi-Wan’s pulled his as well. The being in the doorway raises all three pairs of its hands with the same mild gesture, as if familiar with the reaction. Arla doesn’t recognize where the creature might hail from - about half her height, no holstered weapons, no signs of any of the usual hidden dangers. Obi-Wan slowly lowers his blaster. Arla doesn’t.

“Ahem, yes. If I may,” The two lower pair of hands come together, peaking their fingertips. Arla can hear the vaguest mechanical hum in his voice - a synthesizer, but a good one, lending his Basic an air of pronounced decorum. “I believe I can point you in the direction of someone who might know more about what’s going on with all…” The other pair of hands gestures slightly to the room. “… this.”

The affect of a mild-mannered bureaucrat in the body of a pale purple, fuzzy biped, with a jacket far too fastidiously tailored for the Outer Rim. One who hasn’t mentioned payment. Yet.

“Keep talking.”

“You may find what you’re looking for at one of our more shabby and disreputable local drinking establishments. Third building on the left in the East Fissure.”

“Information that valuable ought to be worth something.”

Pupilless eyes blink at her from the end of a long face that seems mostly made up of fur and nose, what she can see of an expression more annoyance than anything nervous.

“I know what you are, Mandalorian, and I know what it means that you’re here, even if I don’t understand all…” The hands wave again. “This. And I don’t particularly wish to. If you go where you’re supposed to go and shoot who you’re supposed to shoot, there’s less for the rest of us to clean up afterward, and the sooner you leave.”

He departs, without so much as a look back. Arla glances over. “Was any of that the truth?”

Obi-Wan shrugs slightly. “I don’t… think it’s an ambush. Maybe.”

Arla appreciates it, that the kid doesn’t try to oversell what he can do. Still learning. Still more than she’s got on her own.

“Let me know when that changes.” Arla says, almost hoping it does, because it might mean they’re anywhere other than back to kriffing zero.

————————

Arla’s mostly keeping an eye out for snipers or scouts - hard not to be paranoid, with the walls looming so high overhead, although with the natural twists and turns there don’t seem to be many good angles for attack, and she can see the wind still blowing with a steady ferocity above, dislodging dust and sand in faint but steady wisps that sparkle in the sun as they fall. Easy to tell which areas are better off - more air purifiers hanging at the mid-levels, many of the locals walking around with some sort of rebreather or mask or scarf to filter out the dust, and eye protection to match. It doesn’t provide a lot of tells for most of the people they pass, but as they move further into the city everything stays quiet - eyes on them, no doubt, but nothing worse.

At least until Arla has to step into a side passage, and barely gets her helmet off in time to avoid throwing up in it. A mistake you only ever make the once. Arla can’t actually remember what she had for… whatever the last meal was she bothered with, somewhat curious to find out as she introduces it to a new planet. Nothing but a mouthful of spit it seems, for all her trouble - but it’s harder than it should be to catch her breath afterward, takes a few moments more to straighten up and start moving again. Everything hurts, and the world… wobbles briefly, her vision blurring again.

Get it together, Fett. Kark yourself inside-out on your own time.

The jetii’ad is watching her closely while pretending not to, with a sympathy in his eyes she does not want and she thinks so, loudly, but if he can hear it he doesn’t give any sign. Against her better judgment, Arla lets her helmet hang for a moment in her hand, tips her head back. She can taste the grit in the air but at least it’s a little cooler - and she catches a whiff of unexpected, familiar spices.

“You hungry, kid?”

How long has it been since she fed him? It… just happened, didn’t it? Even if she didn’t eat anything, she made sure he had breakfast for dinner, or lunch for breakfast, something like that. Arla looks down at the clock she’d synced with the ship and - eighteen hours? Kriff, that can’t possibly be right.

“Yeah, you’re hungry.”

Even if the clock is wrong, it’s no doubt longer than it should be - and Arla can’t help but be a little curious about who’s cooking anything that smells anything like actual Mandalorian food out here, and if that’s the person she’s supposed to… yes, yes it is. Third building on the left. Which means either they do know something, or Arla’s being set up to take out a rival, or perhaps the hope is that the Mandalorians will just shoot each other out of habit, no questions asked. It isn’t the worst assumption - the Kyr’tsad don’t usually invite a warm welcome, but there’s no clan marks outside the building, which means they’re not declaring territory openly, which means that talking might still be an option. Or maybe it’s just someone who enjoys the cuisine, and she’ll have the chance to feed the ad something that might have once had a passing encounter with an actual nutrient.

Arla puts her helmet back on, glances at the kid, Obi-Wan with two fingers at waist height, barely a gesture at all. It seems they’ve arrived at off-hours, a few scattered tables, what might be an Ortolan hunched over a drink at the far end of the bar - small, portly, no weapons - and yeah, the bartender. Tall, grizzled, built like a brick oshokita, and anything that isn’t muscle is steel.

Their helpful little informant sent her here expecting someone to die, that much is obvious.

An adage about old Mandalorians - at some point the armor stays on because no one wants to see what’s underneath, especially the one wearing it. A lifetime of combat chews up and spits out even the greatest of warriors - nothing pretty, but still intimidating as all hell. Arla can see the scarring from the blast that took the left arm at the shoulder, the left leg at the hip, pale gouges into his skin up past his hairline, across his throat, down beneath the collar of his shirt. Wherever he’d come from, to start there and end up here, he probably could have had some work done, and prosthetics built to downplay the damage. Even the inexpensive ones are usually made to blend in.

But even the most expensive ones aren’t usually plated in beskar. Kriffing hell, he looks like he’s got half a shipbuilding rig welded to him, unpainted and unpolished, looking beaten-up at a glance, but…yeah, it seems just wearing his armor wasn’t making quite enough of a statement. Arla can hear the whirr of some internal servo, the promise of buried power - if she wants to guess how fast she can break more bones than she can count, this is probably the right place to find out.

He’s got a glass poised in that mechanical grip, wiping it down with a casual indifference, and sets it on the bar so gently it doesn’t make a sound. “What’ll it be?”

“A mug of what you’ve got cooking back there.”

He nods, makes his way to where the pot’s simmering on a back burner - actually turns his back, though Arla doesn’t buy the casual act for a moment. Obi-Wan glances between them, the air transparisteel thick, and when it’s clear no one’s going to draw blasters until someone makes the first move, he eases his way into a chair and takes the offered spoon.

In the proper circ*mstances, it can be possible to tell House loyalties and even clan affiliation by the spice blend alone, although Arla wouldn’t trust it this far out, probably whatever can be cobbled together from the supply line. The ad eats. After a moment, the Ortolan shuffles out, and they’re alone.

“A little young for your verd’goten, aren’t you, boy?” He says. “The war must be going very well.”

“… dar’manda.” Arla says, more an observation than a judgement, just confirming the obvious.

“Another verd’ika in shiny armor here to judge me? Because that’s never happened before.” His voice is a low, steady growl, but his hands - both kinds - remain open and empty on the bar. Obi-Wan keeps eating, although Arla’s sure he’s ready to duck at a moment’s notice.

“Might as well take that bucket off for now, unless you plan on blowing my brains out into the vaar'ika’s lunch.” He shakes his head. “That armor fits him like a bantha banged it together. You piss off your goran on the way out to kill me, or did the Death Watch finally insult the last ones into leaving?”

He’s baiting her, although it seems halfhearted - probably didn’t expect she’d bother talking at all before they got down to the violence.

“I’m not here to kill you. I don’t even know who you are.” Arla says - and takes her helmet off. A show of good faith against the fight she still doesn’t want, and if she can just deescalate things long enough to get what she needs, if there’s even anything… “I was told you might have some information for me, but I assume they were hoping we’d skip the conversation.”

A soft huff of almost laughter. “Easier to acquire the land without the owner… or the building, I suppose. Opportunistic bastard. Can’t blame him for trying, though.” He has eyes a shade paler than beskar, and a steady gaze. “I know who you are, and what you’re after. It’s already gone, they blew through here like a hyperdrive on overload. I guess I see why, if you’re what’s chasing them.”

“Point me in a direction and we’re leaving.” Arla says. “I can even pay you for the trouble, if you’d rather not do me any favors.”

“Oh, Kyr’tsad’ika.” He says, with an odd little smile. “There’s nothing worse I can do to you than give you what you want.”

It’d be nice, to think he just hates her and the Death Watch and he’s bored and hoping to unnerve her, killing time until he can try to kill her. Arla wishes there was a sign of which clan he was from, so she’d know if there was anything in specific he wanted to tear her apart over. The man glances to Obi-Wan, who’s obviously had some chance to build up a tolerance for the cuisine, but the jetii’ad has still gone a little red, taking his time with the back half of the bowl.

“How’s that treating you then, ad?”

“It’s very good. Vor entye.” A slight cough, and Obi-Wan grimaces, smiling politely. “I think I may have gotten a bit too used to cup tiingilar.

“Nobody should be eating cup tiingilar.” He says, glaring at Arla. “Stop feeding him that osik.” And then, in the same tone, with his eyes back on Obi-Wan. “I take care of her, I can get you someplace safe. You want that, ad?”

Arla has her first five moves locked and loaded with her next heartbeat - he’s expecting her to keep her distance, it might just be worth it to throw the helmet, go in close while he’s distracted by - with any luck - a broken nose, and try and finish this before it can start. Obi-Wan’s gone two shades paler, but he doesn’t move.

“It’s more complicated than it looks, alor.” He says, calmly. “We both have people we’re trying to protect, and it would put them all in terrible danger if this came to violence now.”

“… the kriff you’re Kyr’tsad.” He turns his attention to Arla again. “Where’d you steal this one from, then?”

“Like he said,” Arla says, “it’s complicated. If you know who I am, then you should know I don’t get extra credit for bringing the Mand’alor anything but what he wants. You tell me what I need to know, and we were never here. I forget this planet ever existed.”

She can guess why he’s twitchy. There’s rumors of networks willing to relocate those who’ve had enough of the war to somewhere they won’t be found, connections from the Outer Rim all the way to Little Keldabe - you could lose an entire war’s worth of defectors in the under levels of Coruscant alone. Or maybe he’s just one washed-up old soldier who might have been something, somewhere along the way, and is just trying his best to be nothing at all. Either way, it does her no good to care.

“It’s a dead hunt - osik’la oya’karir - and I bet you can smell it. You’re too late. Where they went - no one’s getting anything back. Tell him that, your dar’Mand’alor. He doesn’t want anyone else swinging around his little light stick? It’s gone.”

“I come back with what he wants or I don’t come back.” Arla says. “It’s a grave for me either way, so why not let me walk into it?”

He ignores her again, looking at Obi-Wan. “You ever heard of a ghost station, ad?”

“We don’t have time for ruug'la verde tales.” Arla sighs, and throws the bag onto the table, a few credits spilling out. Worth the cost, if it’ll hurry this along. If he isn’t just trying to screw her over - but the jetii would have likely given her some sign by now, if that were the case.

“The fools think they can find a place to hide, until things die down. A place where they can court offers freely, and no one will find them until they want to be found, to cut a deal.” He sighs. “Where they’re headed, it’s Sith space. It’s cursed. You go in there, you don’t come out again.”

It’s not the first time Arla’s heard that particular story - it’s not even the first warning that’s been right, dropping her into more than she ever wanted to deal with - but it also doesn’t matter. Except the kid’s gone still and spooked because of course he has, and Arla wishes she could explain the overlap isn’t exactly narrow and from her admittedly spotty grasp of the history, the Sith Empire or empires or whatever the kriff they had not exactly small - they’ve already been flying through Sith space, a lot of it, most of it - which doesn’t mean he’s necessarily wrong, but that still changes exactly nothing.

Hard to tell if the man notices that Obi-Wan is rattled, or if he’s stalling for time or if there really is nothing more behind it than generosity, cutting a large slice of dessert and sliding it across the table. Maybe it’s just one of those Mandalorian traits that’s occasionally more than just big talk - see an ad, feed an ad.

“It’s uj’alayi, verd’ika. It’s sweet. You’ll like it.”

The frown the baby Jedi’s trying to hide only makes him look even more his age - aware he’s being coddled, but the cake is sweet, dense and caramel-crunchy at the edges and that ultimately wins out over his pride. Smart ad. Spoils now, pride later.

“I would have expected a little more shooting by now, if you’re not going to help.” Arla says. “I expected a little more shooting anyway.”

“I take a few minutes to be kind to an ad. Maybe it pays down a few of my worst days.” The man lifts the arm that’s still flesh and bone in a slight shrug. “Maybe not.” He glances to Obi-Wan, Arla can see him thinking something over - possibly still ready to kill her once the kid’s finished his lunch. If there’s not at least one gun under that bar, she’ll eat her own buyca.

“Drag your heels a little longer, and it might not matter what happens to your missing jetii’kad.” He finally says. “I hear House Mereel’s making their play. Looking to pike Vizsla’s head in honor of his lost heir. Nothing like Mandalorian grief to clear the board.”

“He’s never had that kind of power and he never will.” Arla says, and it sounds like loyalty but it’s just reality. House Vizsla’s too vast, too wealthy and powerful and Tor is still the easiest way to keep the Republic from having any real claim on the system.

“He might, if things take a turn with the New.”

Arla rolls her eyes - another evergreen rumor with nothing to back it up. “The New won’t dirty their hands, cutting deals with lesser beings, and alliance with those hut’uun would be House suicide for Mereel. Everyone knows that.”

“Not if there’s no actual agreement. Just a mutual understanding between like-minded narudar. A… useful coincidence.”

“They’re not that smart.”

“Maybe they can learn.”

Arla looks at him. Really looks. Old Mandalorian. Maybe her father’s age, had he lived. Old enough to have seen the start of this latest flare up, watching the schism explode into system-wide violence firsthand, and if he’s not Mereel and he’s not Viszla…

“You’re a New.”

He barely blinks. “Once, I was lucky enough to swear to Adonai Kryze and his riduur. Now, I am unlucky enough to watch the galaxy try and stumble on without them.”

“House Kryze endures.” Obi-Wan says, with a gentleness in his tone that makes Arla wonder what he’s sensing that she can’t. Whatever lifetime exists between those two sentences, and how it ended with him here, at the edge of the universe. The man snorts softly.

“Oh yes, should I follow the alor’ad’ika who can’t decide which side she wants to fight for, or the one who wishes to honor her House and aliit by sowing the ashes with salt?”

A look in his eyes - and how many times has Arla seen that look, and how many times has she tried to keep it out of her own, to stay devoted and loyal where anyone might see, when the truth is… kriff, she just doesn’t care anymore. If she ever did. The war’s stripped everything bare of any victory that she’d ever had or found or tried to piece together, and even then it all just… keeps going. It will keep going long after they’ve all destroyed anything worth winning.

It’s Obi-Wan who moves first, but Arla’s gotten used to taking her cues from him - so when his head snaps up, turns sharply toward the door she’s already going for her blaster. Plenty of time to watch the grenade bounce in, the tap sharp when it hits the floor and the man’s already reaching forward with his metal arm, dragging Obi-Wan up and over the bar in one swift motion as Arla dives behind it, slamming her helmet back into place.

The explosion doesn’t do nearly as much damage as it should have, if what they’d crouched behind weren’t as much bunker as bar - and yes, he’s got plenty of guns back here, punctuating the space in between bottles, and… a kriffing plasma chaingun. From a kriffing assault cruiser. The kind of weapon you can draw when half of you is heavy machinery and you’ve got most of a room to double as a convenient holster. Arla can’t help but wonder if this job or that gun came first.

She almost pities whoever thinks they’re coming in for clean up.

The man looks at her for a moment, and rattles off a set of coordinates, the name of a system and planet and “don’t go there, don’t take the ad with you.” A jerk of his head. “Back door. Move.”

“What about y-?!” Obi-Wan starts but Arla’s shoving him forward before he can finish the sentence. Her last glance back gives her a moment’s view of a wide grin and a steady hand as she hears the massive beast of a weapon begin to rev up, like he’d been hoping all along this is how the conversation would end.

————————————

Access passages and back alleys run though similar meandering canyons vaguely parallel to the town, all the industrial areas and support systems for the places people actually live in. Arla had intended to backtrack that way to the hangers - which is what they’re doing now, just a bit faster than she’d intended.

The kid’s in the lead, doing that Force osik to find them the quietest path possible - as much to keep anyone who isn’t involved out of the crossfire as for their benefit, but the end result’s the same so she’ll take it. They’ll have to have a conversation once they’re in the air, just what’s got him so nervous about where they’re headed. Arla’s been stacking up a few other idle questions about that Force of his, things she won’t ask because it’ll make it too obvious how little she knows.

The question of whether or not he can sense droids is handily answered, when a clank and a flash of metal pops up ahead of them and the blaster bolt catches Obi-Wan square in the chest, and even with the beskar on the impact’s enough to drop him.

“Kriff!“

Droids usually hit hard - often overclocked, especially in the hands of anyone trying to intimidate - but what they have in armor and stopping power they usually lack in real surprises. Only so many manufacturers from so many places, and the cheaper you are the more likely you’re using the same kind of parts and the one in front of her seems practically stock, not modding itself in its downtime. Whoever set it loose loaded it down with weapons but forgot to put the smart in.

Arla charges, firing a flare at its main sensor bank - it won’t do any real damage, just distract it long enough for her to close the distance, which buys her a few more seconds while it recalibrates for close combat - kriff, they really didn’t think much past the opening salvo - and she’s already moving, wedges the first vibroblade into an arm joint before it can lash out and break hers, dodges the second blow to slap a dummy tracker on the main chassis as it pivots and twists, lashing out, and Arla drops, loops her grappling hook around the backswing and drives it in, feels the point catch in its armor.

Arla fires up her jetpack and blasts straight backward, making sure it’s her pauldron bearing the brunt of the force as the cord snaps tight. The shriek of metal fills the air as the droid attempts to counter the attack and shears off two of its limbs and a decent chunk of its armor instead. Enough that when Arla stands up again, it switches back to long range - and targets to her dummy tracker instead, shooting itself in its own exposed panels.

Most droids that hunt on their own have self-destruct as standard, but whoever built this one either didn’t think it would lose, or wanted a better option in the aftermath than shoveling up mangled scrap. Thank kriff for cheap bastards with more credits than sense.

An easy enough fight, as these things go, until a sudden wave of vertigo nearly sends her off her feet anyway, Arla bent nearly double - don’t throw up in your helmet, never throw up in your helmet - and she forces it back with a few breaths they don’t have time for her to take.

“Ad? ‘ti gar?!”

He’s moving, thankfully, although it’s a little uncoordinated and she has to help him up. Obi-Wan doesn’t stagger, only wavers for a moment with a slight grunt of pain.

“S-sorry, didn’t see…”

Arla can hear a mechanical whine echoing down through the valley behind them, and what might be voices as well.

“It’s fine. We have to move.”

Obi-Wan nods, pointing to branches in the path as they shuffle along, down a set of passages that seem increasingly empty, no sign of transport tracks and half-grown over with weedy desert plants. No more droids, it seems, but hopefully not leading them to a dead end.

“There?” Obi-Wan says - some kind of old, rusted-out building with several doors and several staircases, and as something explodes in the distance, Arla chooses the path that gets them behind cover fast. A walkway down behind the structure into what looks like a natural fissure, terminating in a locked fence that gives way under a few twitches of a blade and a coded door beyond that barely takes a tap of the auto-slice. It would be good luck if it led directly to the shipyard or directly to the Darksaber or directly to a kriffing mountain of spice or anywhere other than a sewer.

It’s only fair. No mission is properly shabla without at least one run through the sewers.

Whatever purpose it might have served, it’s clear the space hasn’t been much of anything in a long time - possibly retrofitted into someone’s little hiding hole, judging by the crates and pallets left here and there, stacked around a central pillar that rises to the ceiling. Clusters of some luminescent plant dot the walls, little pods of light providing just enough of a dim glow. Obi-Wan leans in to look at one, and his hand slips, comes down hard very close, and the pods all shut at once. Interesting. Smaller pieces of machinery are scattered everywhere, scrap and what might have even been useful parts, before they all rusted over - judging by the shattered debris strewn liberally across the floor, and the line of dry mud over half the room’s height, it seems someone may have misjudged the timing on the rainy season.

Obi-Wan sucks in a quiet breath, looking straight ahead, the expression that means ‘using Force osik’ and he silently gives her the count - twenty, although she’s noticed he tends to estimate high. It’s not the worst thing - if someone’s coming toward them, it means there’s a way out. The only problem now is going through them to reach it. Not worth even entertaining the notion they’re not hostiles.

“Go.” Arla says, direct to his comm, pointing up. A catwalk, along the perimeter of the room, with a low wall half-crumbled bordering most of it, enough for cover, and deep shadows she guesses he can make use of. “Don’t shoot until the fighting starts.”

Arla hopes it doesn’t need to be said, that it’d help if he can manage more than cover fire.

Obi-Wan signals again - understood - and moves toward a ladder inset against the side of the wall, silent even on the scrap-strewn floor. The thought occurs that she’s putting the baby Jedi in the best position yet, to kriff her over. The thought also occurs that he won’t, not even after the fight, and not just because he needs her alive. One of these thoughts is more uncomfortable than the other, and not the one it should be.

Arla finds a decent vantage point for the entrance, scanning the frequencies just in case - twenty’s a considerable crew, which means maybe someone hired whatever passed for local bandits around here to bulk up their numbers, and even one kriffing idiot with an unencrypted comm means Arla can ping…

“… place smells like dead nerf ass. Are you sure they came in this way?”

“Shut the kriff up. Spread out, eyes open. Remember, we take them both alive. Mandos got a thing about kids - we keep them breathing until we get the information we need.”

Oh, that’s ambitious. It isn’t the worst thing in the world, the sudden gift of someone she can hurt as much as she wants, without having to overthink it. Sometimes the Ka’ra really were generous, the bastards. Arla watches the cluster of dots pop up on her display, tagged to the comms of sixteen thugs who really ought to have known better, even for a once-in-a-lifetime score.

“You know the price of pure beskar by the ounce?”

“The kriff do you think I’m doing here. Gonna part her out like-”

“Shut your kriffing face. Radio silence until someone has a visual.”

Arla has a visual - not that she really sees people in moments like this. Not Wookie or Pantoran or Nikto or human, just threat and vulnerability. Who has which weapons, and who looks like they actually know how to use them. Who got the short end of the armor stick, or can hurt her and how, and what the best chance is to hurt them first.

“We know you’re here! The Mand’alor’s little schutta, sniffing around.” The voice is human, or near enough that there’s nothing to add to the threat - a crew that seems much the same, nothing that speaks to absurd strength or poison spines or electrified claws or any of the osik she’s come across. Just a bunch of scruffy Outer Rim thugs with enough minor victories under their belt to imagine they should have ambitions. “The word’s out you’re looking for something very valuable. The competition’s getting a bit fierce for a solo run. Maybe we can help each other out? You could use some extra muscle. We know our way around.”

Kriff, even without the pings on her display she can hear them well enough to track positions, crunching and scraping their way across the ground. A shame she didn’t have a few more minutes to lay traps, she could have joined the ad to watch this from the balcony.

“No? Too bad. All right, let’s light her the kriff up.”

The kind of thing that sounds better at the front of some dramatic action, and not a cautious advance through a shadowed room. Arla takes the first one out as they round the corner, yanking him forward by the blaster, one hand over his mouth and a knife already in his throat as he stares at her, wide-eyed and dying. Arla spins him around, kicks him off balance to stagger his last few steps forward, and she isn’t surprised when a round of blaster fire follows, and the swearing shortly afterward. Shouting, confusion - and the nice thing about low-grade weapons like this is that they’re very easy to sabotage. A twist of the knife, a few wires swapped and Arla waits two… three… pitches the blaster over the side of the box she’s using for cover and waits for the explosion and the shouting to pull her own - and after her first few rounds, more shots come in from the other side - and that’s not just cover fire. Stupid Force osik is also good for aiming, it seems, and within moments they’ve cut their competition in half.

The comms are pure chaos, of course, only a few of them skilled enough to try and stay in any kind of formation and find cover - and thankfully they seem to be firing entirely blind at the kid - shots in every direction - and so they all get to learn that the crates stacked together near the central pillar aren’t exactly crates or as harmless as they seem. Maybe this whole room was less about smuggling than it was about dumping waste - as an arc of blue fire skips from one to the next, through whatever batteries are still carrying enough of a charge to react with a loud crack that makes the whole room shake.

The plants close up. The lights go out.

Well. Arla can use that.

She’s spent enough time shorting out buy’ce as an opening gambit not to rely too much on her HUD - but this isn’t the war, this is a group of eager idiots who saw the numbers without really seeing them, without the superiority in training or in equipment and somehow didn’t think that would work against them. Arla doesn’t give the next two long to regret it, a quick swipe of a knife for the first and coming up with her blaster flush against the body of the second, using it to block the light and taking their weapon as they fall - blast cannon. Still the cheap variety, but no day isn’t improved by a blast cannon in her hands.

Oya.

Arla doesn’t have the Manda on her side, but she has many years of not quite dying and she knows what it feels like when the tempo of a fight suddenly changes. A shift in the air, a voice on that frequency she’s patched into cutting off mid-sentence and not of her doing. A brief round of fire, and a sudden silence. A few of the plants have opened back up, nothing moving that she can see, but Arla trusts her suspicions far more than anything she can see.

“Kid, get ready, I think this is about to-“

A high, frightened cry of surprise from above, and Arla sees the body come launching out of the darkness, dark-clad and face covered, slamming into a crate before tumbling to the ground at her feet. So that answers the question of just what else the kid can throw.

Arla fires two shots down even as she’s looking for details - doesn’t recognize them, but the lack of markings mean they don’t want to be recognized, and that’s not great. The armor they’re wearing is expensive and expertly designed, meant for quiet jobs in dark places and that’s not great either and Arla hears the barest whisper of sound, a hiss and a crackle, and leans back just in time for the white-hot foot poised to kick a burning crater into her throat goes sailing by instead.

All right, so that’s new.

Four of them in front of her in the next instant, which is worse than a crew three times their size when they’ve got the skills to back up their interests and all of them with those same white-hot soles, the ground hissing and crackling under their feet, and Arla wonders who the kriff they are, what kind of spinoff sect-of-a-sect decided that was going to be their calling card, and just what it is they think the Darksaber will do for them.

Not questions that matter, not really, and Arla wonders if the one who went for her first is the leader even as they step away to let the others move forward, like a teacher giving the student an opportunity. Arla remembers those lessons. Or perhaps they’re just trying to get a better look at how she fights before trying to take her on - but then they’re gone, a bolt plinking off the space they’d been a moment before and another chasing them away. Kriff, that wasn’t even a blaster - the baby Jedi had found himself a rifle somewhere along the way - well worth every credit she isn’t paying him and Arla hopes it’s not about to get him killed as the first strike comes at her.

Tor loved having people fight in front of him, to prove their mandokar and their loyalty and because he could. A return to the glorious days of old - remarkable, how he knew all about it despite keeping no tomes, having no goran among his inner circle. Operatives and soldiers and recruits all stepping forward or being shoved into the ring - and sometimes it was friendly, to first blood, but more often than not it was until one of them was limping out, or worse.

Arla had been flung in with no ceremony, fresh from a round through the camps and without any expectation of victory, she knows that now. A funny little amusem*nt for the Mand’alor between main courses, something that might die in a new and interesting way. The fight’s as good as a blur - she remembers not knowing why she was there or what she was supposed to do, remembers getting her shebs kicked into a new shape, but that was all nothing new. How strong her opponent had been, how much he’d been enjoying his easy win. Until Arla had spit a mouthful of blood across his visor - always go for the eyes - and in the moment of surprise, as he’d reached up to clear the view she’d snatched a knife from his vambrace, the mere suggestion of a blade, and had just gone for him, lashing out and darting away, stab after stab until he’d finally lost his patience and lunged for her and she’d gotten lucky - a single desperate shot, just under the jaw, all her weight into a slice that had poured the blood out of him like a tipped over bottle.

Arla remembers the silence that followed, wavering on her feet, nose broken and wrist fractured and certain she was next. The surprise on Tor’s face, just for a moment - and then the way he’d smiled. It wasn’t the last time she’d stood there - far from it - eventually the one to deal with all kinds of traitors or failures or anyone in the Kyr’tsad who’d fallen out of his favor. Ugly fights, hard fights. Arla knows what it is to win badly. Maybe not much of a lesson, but it’s hers, and it always seems she finds a new place to put it to use.

Mandalorians talk up beskar like it’s better than breathing, but in moments like this there’s nothing like the utility and reliability, knowing her armor can take one of those kicks in a way she doubts they train for. Unflinching when it connects with her pauldron and using the shift in momentum to spin them off balance, dragging them close enough to fire off the strobe in her palm, directly into their eyes. Listening to the howl of pain as she sweeps their feet out, sends them down, and the next attacker is already on her but it’s what she wants, grabbing the leg that lashes out at her, her knife coming in hard behind the kneecap before letting herself fall back, her own beskar slamming down on the body underneath her and the blazing heat still firmly in her grasp, over a shoulder, biting just a little against the side of her throat, and Arla fires two shots up into her opponent, letting all that dead weight fall onto the body under her, listening to the fighter beneath her scream and flail as she burns a swift hole through him the same way they’d tried to do to her. Thank kriff for a sealed-off suit, the smell of nothing but her own sweat.

A hand grabs her by the ankle, yanks her out from under the still-smoking bodies and pivots, throwing her hard against a nearby crate. Even with the amor, Arla feels the impact through every vertebrae, right down into the bones of her toes. Just enough strength to roll away from a vicious, white-hot stomp, but this one doesn’t seem too worried about killing her in other ways, a flurry of of brutal punches as she tries to rise that don’t seem to mind hitting beskar. Far stronger than she is and quite happy to forgo the grace of the others in favor of just throwing her around the room. Softening her up, keeping her on the defensive and finally getting that kick in when she goes down again and Arla bites back a scream as the tip of that blazing boot finds purchase under her armor. Reaches out to scrabble at the ground as she rises, so that when that hand picks her up again to throw her, she can toss a faceful of glass-strewn grit into their eyes, grinding it in with her palm and dodging the hand that lashes out, the other pawing at their face as Arla brings the blast cannon around like a club, a full strength blow to the face that gives her enough time to flip it around, aim and pull the trigger.

Arla pants for air in the aftermath, tries to get her bearings around the ringing in her ears - not a long fight but she didn’t come in fresh and these shabuire are fast - the other one’s still out there, maybe more, and she hasn’t heard the kid this whole time and that can’t-

The bite of the knife goes in deep in her side, finding the space between the beskar - and the jolt of electric agony that follows yanks the whole world away. Arla crashes to the ground and kriff, she can feel the warmth spill down her side - but she can still fight. They make kute skintight for a reason, it’ll keep her insides in, she just has to get up before the next hit is the last hit, ignore the fact her vision’s tunneling - get up, get up - but that damned boot finds the already tender patch at her stomach, bears down hard and blazing and Arla’s vision lurches back into crystal clarity as she screams, chokes, can’t pull away or even get the breath to scream again -

A soft, electric hum cuts through the air, a sound that Arla’s only heard once but could never forget. Nothing else in the galaxy makes a sound like that, and the next sound is the body that was standing over her now hitting the ground in several pieces.

The tempo of the fight shifts again, everything still alive in the room going quiet for a moment as plans are reconsidered, because you don’t kriff around with a jetii’kad without weighing your chances first.

… and you worried about giving him the blaster.

Obi-Wan stands over her, the pale gray line of energy in front of him a quiet warning.

Knew it. Arla thinks, vaguely impressed around the pain threatening to pull her to pieces. Rancor’s not a tooka, no matter what it pretends to be. Kriffing knew it.

Arla blinks, tries to force her vision to clear, her HUD doing a better job of clearing the static than she is, counting out who’s left - only three of them remaining, but all in better shape than Arla is and slowly circling in for the kill.

“You’re going to let us leave.” Obi-Wan says, with that calm certainty of the jetiise that has always rendered them among the most punchable creatures in the galaxy.

“Mind tricks won’t work on us, boy.” The first figure says.

“No, but that might.” Obi-Wan says, and raises his lightsaber high enough to illuminate the barest glitter in the darkness above them. Arla glances up, tries to figure out what she’s seeing, until it all makes the kind of sense that only works because jetii, because there’s a sea of metal and transparisteel suspended above them, around them. Every broken scrap from the floor now lifted into a hail of razor-sharp shards all pointed at their enemies, just waiting to strike. She thinks she can hear one or two slivers gently clinking together high above, a distant wind chime.

Pretty. The part of her that’s bleeding out thinks dizzily, and this is why. This is why he’s always so sad and it’s funny to think that now, of all things - but he really is, the expression on his face even now is grim and determined and not wanting to follow through on the threat. So much power for one little ad. How in the kriff had he ever kept himself from launching Kaine and Tor and the entire Kyr’tsad into the nearest star?

It’s impressive, but it won’t be enough to get them out of here if he’s not willing to follow through - or maybe he can’t, skilled enough to keep them aloft, but not for the kind of precise strike that might end this. Arla can see the slight movements between the enemies that remain, a silent conversation of who thinks they’re close enough to the jetii’ad to try and take him down. She keeps her own motions as smooth and subtle as she can - a vibroblade in the casing of the blast cannon, a few quick and dirty adjustments… and slaps a mine on it, just for fun, as the weapon starts to whine and crackle.

“Kid.” Arla says through the comm, and hopes he catches on as quickly as he has so far - this one’s for all the credits. “Push when I throw.”

It all happens at once, and yet so slowly Arla swears she can hear every shift of her weight in the dust - the lightsaber proving just as effective against a set of those kicks as it is most everything else, forcing them to keep their distance - and then the gun spins past him and he throws out a hand and everyone is sent flying back, crates shaking and splintering and the sound of a thousand shards of debris scattering into the walls and ceiling because he couldn’t do it, couldn’t follow through on the threat, while Arla does exactly what she said she would from the start, and makes the decision for him.

The gun sails across the room like a launched missile and Arla swears she hears the soft ‘tink’ when it hits the pillar just before the whole thing goes up, the crates at the base catching the explosion, amplifying the blast tenfold.

Might have overcooked that. The thought slips past between the roar of the fire and an equal, shuddering echo from above as the ceiling starts to crumble, the burning air full of dirt and Arla grabs the kid and pivots, hears a few parting shots ping off her armor as she lights the jetpack full throttle and fires off with the kriffing hope that the exit is clear, nothing less to be done against the roar rising up around them, the tunnel like a mouth closing on them and really might have gone too hard on this one, di’kut.

Arla holds on to the kid as tight as she can, tries to put as much beskar between him and the inevitable crash as she can manage, whether it comes from above or below, and there’s no time for any thoughts or prayers or plans, just the vague, desperate hope for survival as the world comes down.

————————————

An arm under hers, a voice speaking distantly. Everything hurts past bearing and Arla can do very little about it. It feels like she’s being dragged along the ground, hitting every stone along the way, but every once in a while she’ll stumble, legs aching, and Arla will realize she’s still walking, an arm over someone’s shoulders and that’s not… she works alone, there’s no one who would bother - they’d just dump her. If she’s dead weight, she’s dead - take the armor, leave the body. No hard feelings.

Hot. Burning. Can’t breathe. Lungs full of ash and fire. The farm is burning, she can hear the pop and crackle of - no. No, that’s not, that was another life… The explosion, she’s still in it, he left her to burn - who? Can’t blame him, not his fault, doesn’t matter. Arla can’t help the whine of pain, as she tries to drag herself up and away and out, something jabbed straight through her and digging deep and there’s the panic as she twists and scrapes, tries to pull herself free and she doesn’t want to die, even here and now, too much of a craven hut’uun to just take what she deserves, what she’s earned so many kriffing times over…

“Wait, you shouldn’t… just let me… is that helping? Kriff, we can’t - I don’t-”

Lost in the belly of a mad beast that burns and burns but no matter how long the embers crackle, she’s still here, it won’t just be over. Arla howls, clawing at layers of armor that peel away with nothing but more underneath, until she cracks down through to the bloody jai'galaar engraved on her splintered bones. Iron in her mouth and a hard floor underneath her and trying to be quiet, knowing she’s out in the open and that’s no good, that’s not safe. Tor was angry, he was angry and there was nowhere to hide and when he found her it didn’t matter why he was angry, because then he’d be angry with her and -

A cool cloth on the back of her neck, the side of her face. A hand in hers. Her head is pounding hard enough that she can hear it, pulse rattling in her veins. Cool air on her skin - armor’s gone, the armor can’t be gone, she’s kriffing dead without it. Her heels kick against the floor, scrambling from nothing to nowhere, out of strength before she even starts. A knife in her stomach, and Arla fights to pull it out but there are cold hands on hers because they want it to stay in, because she deserves it, this is the Ka’ra judging her, finally, now that there’s nowhere left to hide and she’s too weak to run.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

When has that ever been true? Whoever it is sounds like they’re trying, though, and whatever happened it’s probably not their fault.

On, and on, and on, the bone-deep ache with each thud of her bootsteps, piercing pain with each ragged breath and where the karking hell is she even going and it doesn’t end and doesn’t change and oh, kriff. Oh, this is it, isn’t it? This is marching ahead, she’s marching ahead and why in the kriff did Arla think being dead was going to make things any better?

“You’re not dead.” A voice says, from far away.

“What’s the good news?” Arla mutters, as everything goes dark.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Arla doesn’t remember what safe felt like. It must have happened sometime, maybe when she was young. She remembers warm blankets on cold nights, her mother’s hand on her brow when she was sick, a good meal waiting after a long day helping with the harvest - but they’re just images, no real feelings attached. Whatever it had been, she figured it was long gone and best forgotten.

Until she’s here, with Seko pressed in a warm line against her back, one of his dark-patterned lekku draped over her shoulder, and Cybele stretched out in front of her, all blue skin and intimidating perfection. Half the damn galaxy’s got a thing for Twis, so it’s not like Arla’s appreciation is particularly original, but there’s no point pretending Cy can’t turn a head. Tall for just about any species - taller than Arla is - and built to take names and dodge consequences and laugh about it all.

It’s the ease in her that Arla hates most - envies most - wants most. On occasion, on demand, Arla’s managed perfection, but Cy makes it seem effortless.

How things between them ended up here first, before the barrel of a blaster or the tip of a blade, she will never be able to say.

The room smells like lavender and Ithorian roses, and other nice, fancy things. Like a place people enjoy living and not the inside of a boot after a swamp tour - it’s Seko’s doing, the only one of them who cares enough about actual decent living and bothers trying to maintain it. He thinks he loves her. He thinks that’s a good idea. Arla likes him more than she ever intended to - finds him in places in her heart she didn’t know were there.

It’s rare, even in their time together, for things to be like this, to have the chance to study Cy while she’s sleeping. Arla feels a rush of… some stupid emotion, swallows until she can breathe again. Between one blink and the next, the darkest violet eyes she’s ever seen are open and looking at her, the Twi’s gaze always a challenge and a question, a threat and a tease. It’s always been stupid beyond belief, to do this, to be with her, to think of anything as absurd as a with her, but there’s been enough of this now that even Arla can’t pretend it’s still purely a matter of convenience.

“Kriff, you’re a mess with your hair down.”

Arla makes a face. “Who’s fault is that?”

Arla doesn’t trust her, and hasn’t tried to hide it. Cy doesn’t seem to care either way, and it’s still impossible to tell how bad a mistake this will be - but unfortunately, nothing else in the whole galaxy feels like this, either. Being with them. Being alive. Obvious by comparison, how long Arla usually spends just existing, those vast stretches of time that don’t really mean anything at all. Instead of being there again, she has this - untrustworthy and ephemeral and dependent on so many things that Arla can’t control, and she still rushes to meet it, every time. Nothing else seems to matter as much as this stupid mistake.

“I remember thinking, the very first time we sparred, that I didn’t understand why a human would be so foolish, to keep such a handicap.” Cy says, lifting a hand, letting a few blonde strands slide through her fingers. “The lekku are bad enough in a fight - and you just… walk around like that, on purpose, all the time.”

They keep their voices low, even though Seko sleeps like a brick for someone who spends half his life on the run. Arla can feel the curl of the backs of his knuckles against her side. So gentle, even when he’s asleep, even when he knows she wouldn’t notice the difference.

Arla grins. “You know, I remember kicking your shebs around the mat the first time we sparred.”

Arla thought Cy might be the one, the challenger Tor would finally set against her that she couldn’t beat. A part of her still thinks so.

“Poor decision-making skills and a bad memory.” Cy grins. “Why do we even bother with humans, you think?”

“Above-average troublemaking skills, and a general weakness for Twi smiles.” Arla says. “Except for me, of course. I’m immune.”

“Obviously.”

It’s all lazy, pointless chatter mixed with equally lazy affection, indulgently stupid - it’s happiness. It has to be, nothing else feels so impossibly terrifying and fragile - and sad, because this isn’t a thing that lasts. Arla wishes she hadn’t even completed that thought, as if recognizing the truth would be enough to make the moment shatter.

It doesn’t, though. She gets the better part of this day as her own, trading more stupid banter and insults neither of them mean at all, until Seko’s arms tighten around her and he kisses the back of her neck with a sigh of contentment, and eventually there’s breakfast somewhere, a warm bubble of random conversation that never gets interrupted by a sudden call, that reminder of the real world just outside the door. It’s one of her best days - one of the last days she’d consider anything like good, and Arla is in no hurry to remember what comes next.

—————————

Nothing hurts. Everything’s quiet. Arla breathes, and waits for the inevitable rush of… everything, the way it usually crashes down on her, but seconds tick by and it’s still just quiet. Even in her head. For the first time in… kriff, forever, everything just feels steady and simple and… okay. So yeah, definitely dead.

Kriffing finally.

“You’re not dead.”

“I said I wanted good news, baby Jedi.” She murmurs, opens her eyes to find herself on the floor of the ship, a folded-up blanket under her head and Obi-Wan looking down on her with worry and weariness and has she ever seen him when he’s not exhausted?

Arla finds herself… smiling back up at him - and she never smiles, not like this, but it’s… easier, now. Not as much work to get there. He’s a good ad, he tries so hard and he just pulled her shebs out of the fire, so why not smile?

It feels like everything makes sense, or at least all those big, infinitely powerful threats looming over her are… a little smaller now. Maybe even something she might be able to stand up against, or at least manage to end-run around. It’s like the best high she’s ever had except there’s no obvious boundaries, no place she’d better not think too hard about and risk shattering the peace. Nothing about this feels fragile.

“I don’t hate being alive.” Arla blinks. “That’s… new.”

“It’s… it’s the Force.” He looks worried, sheepish - she can feel it, vaguely, part of whatever strange nonsense he’s dragged her into. “You were… sick. You were hurt and sick and I didn’t… I tried to… sort of… bring you in with me. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“This is the Force?” Arla can feel the tears - actual kriffing tears sliding out the corners of her eyes, awe and joy and no sadness at all. Kriff, feelings. Yeah, this was how they worked. “And you all still bother with other things? Why the kriff would anyone be a dar’jetii if they could have this?”

When they weren’t busy jumping at the Republic’s every whim, it was said the jetii spent all their time just sitting quietly, staring at trees. It suddenly makes a lot more kriffing sense.

“If you’re a Jedi, you have to feel bad when you punch people.” Obi-Wan says. “And… usually try not to punch so many people.”

“Fair.” Arla says. So the kid’s in her head, or she’s in his? All this time she’s been so afraid of it. “How much did you see?”

“Not… everything.” It would almost be convincing if not for the way he’s blushing. Arla sighs.

“At least I’m corrupting the youth with decent material.” Cy had always made the extra effort to be decent material.

“Who… were they?”

The problem with feeling, of course, is when it hurts, it hurts a lot more, and there’s only a few things in her life that hurt like Cy hurt, that she was stupid enough to let hurt. Obi-Wan sucks in a sharp breath - he felt that, and now that she’s better than she was, he’s retreating. Arla feels that connection go with him, gently fading… but it doesn’t feel bad, like she’s losing anything. Arla’s not sure she’s ever felt like this before - like she’s… still okay. Well-rested and steady.

“You loved her. You loved both of them.”

“For all the good it did.” Arla says.

He’s set her armor to the side - more carefully than she had any right to expect, and the Force cuffs are there too. Arla lifts them slowly, hanging from a fingertip.

“I didn’t get it. I really didn’t get it. What I was taking from you, all this time.” Arla says. “You shouldn’t have to be here at all.”

“I’m where the Force wants me to be. Where I can do the most good.”

A little easier to understand it now, how he can be so calm. Say that and mean it, but still…

She lifts herself up slowly, gingerly, because it’s going to hurt - and it does ache, enough to make her grimace, but the discomfort isn’t crippling underneath the metric kriffton of bacta and bandages slathered across her stomach and up along her ribs. He’d even cleaned her smaller wounds, ones Arla wouldn’t have bothered with - and there’s nothing at all of the withdrawal that had been dragging her around by the throat.

Kriff. Score one for Force osik. Or several dozen, by now, really.

“Do you know who they were? The ones with the…” Obi-Wan gestures toward his feet.

“It’s the Outer Rim.” Arla shrugs. “Everyone’s got a gimmick.”

If the universe is feeling at all sensible, every single one of them piled into that cave seeking credits or glory, and it’s the first and last anyone will ever have to care. “The kriff are we?”

“I… um… you were…”

The ship’s on the ground, but the landscape through the window isn’t at the edge of the city - or any city. No canyons or howling winds or light, only a few stars, and the promise of dawn at the horizon line.

“You flew my ship.”

“It seemed… dangerous to stay where we were, and… I didn’t leave the system?” He says, like that’s the important part.

“Pilot lessons are a big thing for jetii’ad?” A simple shuttle, maybe? Flying her ship? Not so much.

“The basics. I mean, sort of…” He won’t look her in the eye. “I watched you. A lot.”

Sneaky, hodayc little not-a-tooka, and of all the things she’d thought to worry about, all the ways he could double-cross her, she’d never even considered... Yesterday’s Arla might have been angry, worried about just how much he knew and was planning to use it, and irritated purely out of habit. Today’s Arla is just impressed. Of course the jetii’ad knows how to pilot the ship, and keeps a lightsaber in his back pocket. Maybe he has the end of the war tucked in his other boot.

It’s an awkward, drunken bantha shuffle actually getting to her feet, Arla wincing as the calls come in from every part of her body that didn’t appreciate the poor performance. Obi-Wan hovers at her elbow - but flinches himself when he puts a hand to the wall, and Arla can’t see any signs of damage but he’s not moving like someone who walked out of that unscathed. Shadows under his eyes that suggest that Force of his didn’t do him as much good as it did for her.

“You stay up with me this whole time?”

“I was meditating.”

“You patch yourself up while you were meditating?”

“It was a healing trance.” He says, so defensively it doesn’t sound at all like the real thing it probably is, pretending he’s not glaring. “I’m fine.”

Arla glares back, reaches up to tap his chest where she knows that blaster shot from the droid would have left a bruise - and sees him flinch. Maybe he can heal himself just by thinking about it. But he doesn’t seem to do very much thinking about himself.

“Gar shuk meh kyrayc, ad. And you never know when the next minute’s going to be worse than this one. Always put yourself back together first.”

“You were in trouble.”

“I’m never not in trouble.” Arla says - and takes a deep breath in, deep breath out, still vaguely amazed she doesn’t feel entirely like something that crawled out from under a garbage scow. Still, somewhere along the way he’d unbraided her hair, and it drapes down in her eyes and sticks to the back of her neck and is absolutely begging for the sonic. He looks like he could use one too.

Fresher first then, with a quick scour and a full survey of the damages, then see if she actually remembers how food works and kriff, why not even try hydrating? Shove the ad in the fresher after, and refuse to let him out until he’s actually fixed himself up - and if he yawns at all she’s going to wrap him in blankets and park ‘meditation’ next to ‘I’m fine’ and ‘not hungry’ and ‘don’t need a break’ on the growing list of things not to take his word on.

After all of that, when there’s no way to delay it any further… kriff, they’ll probably have to have a conversation.

————————————

Arla leaves Obi-Wan in the ship, stacks a couple of the better-tasting ration bars between the ‘fresher and the door, and grabs another for herself as she walks outside to a sweet-smelling wind and a bright sunrise, the air crisp but not too cool. A planting season on this planet, maybe, at that time just after dawn when things seem new and soft and full of potential. It’s been a kriffing long, long time since Arla’s been in a moment like this - and even when she considers the worst things - the kind of danger they’re going to be flying into, that there’s no guarantee Tor won’t punish them anyway, when they return -

Or that you’re not going to give the Darksaber back to him.

Arla won’t quite put her full weight on that thought just yet - but there’s no threat of her rations making a return trip, either.

The land slopes out gently on one side of where they’ve landed, and in the distance she sees something moving, a gentle sort of lope, and she raises the rifle - hadn’t expected trouble, but hasn’t been unarmed since she was twelve - and sights down the scope. Far enough away that the creatures don’t see her, dark-pawed and long-legged… no animal she’s ever seen before. Stretched tall, like long, living shadows, with equally long, brush-like tails swishing in the dust. A whole family, an aliit, and the little ones play in between the paws of their parents, tumbling over themselves in the grass. Arla feels so small here, in this quiet place, with the whole, vast universe stretching itself out around her - but it’s a good kind of small. The same way she’d felt in what the ad had said was the Force - the Manda, the voice of the Ka’ra - when he did whatever damn thing he did.

The way Arla feels on those rare moments between jobs, in quiet places like this where she doesn’t have to lie to herself - that this is the only part of existing she finds of much value anymore. A few chance moments without a purpose or a reason. Arla doesn’t know if the creatures have a name and she doesn’t want to. It’s enough just to be here to see it.

“Please don’t kill them.” Obi-Wan’s whisper cuts through the silence. “Please.”

Arla keeps forgetting how young he is, the tremble of vulnerability in his voice. That he trusts her enough now to think it might make a difference. It’s nice to be able to meet those expectations.

“I’m not killing anything.” She reaches up, takes the scope off the rifle and hands it to him, slings the gun over her shoulder. “Go on, take a look.”

He does, and she watches him watch as the creatures amble their way across the plains. “They’re beautiful.”

“They are.”

It’s the middle of kriffing nowhere, and if nobody’s bothered with this place yet maybe they won’t ever, maybe there’s nothing here that anyone needs. Maybe another hundred generations will have the chance to stay beautiful and wild and unknown.

“Jango loves you.” Obi-Wan says, eyes still on the distance. “He’s not ever going to stop.”

“Yeah, well, that’s his mistake to make.”

“You don’t want to be doing what you’re doing.”

Arla sighs. “Which changes nothing.”

“It could.”

“Why don’t you just go home then, baby Jedi? You don’t want to be here either.” He winces - and really, Fett, kriffing really? Like he wasn’t just in her head. Like he didn’t just save her life and… kriff, what a piece of work you are. Try it again. Do better.

“… can I see it? Your jetii’kad?”

Arla knows what she’s asking. It’s not casual to go handing off weapons between Mandalorians either, especially your favorites - and she’s glad he seems to understand that, looking at her for just a moment before he hands the hilt over.

Of course, Arla has to take a few steps back and fire it up, carefully but properly put it through it’s paces. Kriff, that’s… different. Instantly, she knows it’d never be her first pick - too light and oddly balanced. It’s not like Arla’s unfamiliar with all kinds of blades, but there’s something about this one that doesn’t quite… she has a sudden and fairly detailed image of carrying her own limbs off the battlefield, once things got a bit too rowdy. Still might be worth the risk, though, to cut an opponent or an armored speeder in half with one good swipe.

A strangely insubstantial weapon, for all the damage it can do. No wonder he’d been able to hide it so well, and as she turns it off and looks closer, Arla realizes she recognizes a few of the pieces. It’s not jetii, not forged for the purpose, just bits of scrap metal and repurposed fittings and no part of it was meant to be doing what it’s currently doing.

“You made this? At the kriffing camp?”

He looks away and down, and what she can see of his expression is tight with embarrassment. “It’s not… I know it’s… it should be better. It’s not a real lightsaber.”

“You saved my shebs, kid.” Arla hands it back, and doesn’t let go until he looks up, so that she can see she’s serious. “Fancy’s great when you can get it, but a weapon that does what you need it, when you need it? Nothing more real than that.”

He nods, but she can see he doesn’t believe it - it’s not her opinion that matters, and she can’t help but wonder who’s does, and just what was said, that he thinks he’s falling so short.

Kriff, the places he could go, with a few more years and the right training. One hell of a spy. Not an assassin, he obviously didn’t have the stomach for that - but a spy, or a thief? More than careful and nimble and patient enough to get where he needed to be, to find what he wanted and leave without anyone the wiser. Plenty of bastards he could feel just fine about divesting from their credits.

Or he might even be a data broker - the kind of thievery so high up they could afford to buy it a better name. The politeness alone would get him halfway there. It’s easy to imagine him a little older, a nice ornament on the arm of this patron or that, working his way into some position of easily overlooked power, building himself a polite little dynasty. The galaxy could do a lot kriffing worse.

“I’ve never seen anything like what you did in that cave. All you jetii can do that?”

A soft sound of disdain. He looks sheepish again. Nothing like the verd’ika who’d raised his weapon high and dared the enemy to make a move. “It wasn’t… I wasn’t really thinking, I was just trying to…. buy time to come up with a better idea. A real Jedi wouldn’t…” He lets that trail off, because it’s impolite to say ‘wouldn’t have been there at all.’

In a way, it was a far more impressive display of power than the dar’jetii Arla had fought, and that one had more than a couple of years on this kid. Power’s all well and good, but the ad’s got precision, and reserve, and imagination. Give him time, and he might be capable of the kind of fights Arla likes to talk hers up into being after a few drinks.

She’d say as much, but he doesn’t look like he’d appreciate the compliment.

“You were afraid, when you found out where we need to go next. Sith space. Do you know something I need to? That… Force stuff of yours tell you?”

Obi-Wan grimaces slightly. “I don’t… I can’t really be sure. I don’t know if there’s any actual warning or if it’s just… just me.”

Still afraid, then. Maybe even terrified.

“What do you know about them?” He says. “The Sith?”

Arla shrugs. “Dar’jetii? Ancient… magic fancy evil bastards? If you stumble over a piece of their kit out there, box it up and ship it off to the highest bidder. Don’t even look at it too hard, or it can get… weird.” She’s lucky, never had an opportunity to have many artifacts cross her own path, just stories of stories that… sounded a lot like this Darksaber business, frankly. “Mandalorians were on the payroll, I guess, way back when they owned the galaxy.”

The story shifted a bit, depending on who was doing the telling - not surprising that most preferred to think of it as a profitable partnership, the elite of their ranks, rather than taking out the garbage whenever the Sith snapped their fingers.

“The place we’re headed, it’s a small system, nothing I’m familiar with.” Arla says. “Not a lot of information on it on the maps either, not that there’s much on anything this far out.” The middle of the middle of nowhere out here could eat the Core worlds and most of the Inner Rim without ever noticing. A lot of nothing to hide anything in. “I’d like to say that New was just trying to get us off the trail, but if that were true he could have pointed us anywhere, no ominous warnings necessary.” Arla sighs. “It’s not like you haven’t been right here with me so far, through all this osik. No reason to think it’s going to suddenly improve, that this won’t be… kriffing shabla akalenedat - the kind of clusterkriff you can see from orbit.”

He nods. “We have to keep going. I’ve already been away from the camp too long as it is.”

It’s wrong, so young for such a sudden, grim acceptance, burying his fear under bleak resignation. Kriff, it’s not like there’s many other options, but it still grates.

“I mean…. you couldn’t just… make another one, right?”

“Another… Darksaber.” Obi-Wan says, giving her that look, like maybe he didn’t check her hard enough for blunt force trauma. “How… how do you think I could do that?”

“Kriff, like I know?” Arla hides her smile. “Force osik, right? Like every other kriffing thing you do. I’m half-tempted to turn you upside down and shake you to see what comes out.”

“Ration bars and tiingilar, most likely.” Arla keeps looking, and he looks back, equal parts amused and annoyed. “No, I can’t just… Force up a new Darksaber. Kriff, why would you even…. how would I even…” It’s fun, watching his rational mind try and pick apart which angle of that idea is the most idiotic when it’s all equally stupid.

“I mean…” Arla says, looking very serious. “Have you tried? Really tried?”

“Oh, kriff off.”

An old saying from some planet, one soldier or another Arla worked with once and didn’t completely despise. The way they’d worded it is more poetic than she can remember - that when you laugh with someone, everything that comes after is new.

A moment of happiness, but just the one. Arla wishes it would last a little longer, that she couldn’t see exactly when the ad remembered he had to set it aside.

“Talk to me, jetii’ika? Before we go fling ourselves into this next terrible idea.” She says. “I’m an awful listener, but if I really kriff it up and piss you off, I’ll give you a shot for free.”

He gives her a look, like the offer ought to be stupid but he’s also known her too long. As if she doesn’t owe him a lot more than one punch by now. It’s quiet for a long time, the beasts disappearing over a small ridge, nearly invisible against the horizon line.

“I’m… going to be a monster.” Obi-Wan murmurs. He gestures to his eyes. “It’s what this means. It’s why I can’t… I can’t ever go back to the Jedi.”

“You kill somebody on your way out?”

“What? No! I would never...” Enough shock and horror that it has to be true. Arla wonders if he realizes it wouldn’t really be a dealbreaker either way. Wouldn’t be the first time she’s heard it. A lot of kriffed stories, nothing but mistakes and regrets for the people who find themselves out here. “It didn’t… it wasn’t like that.”

“So… how long do we have?”

“What?”

“Days? Weeks?” She waits. He still looks incredulous. “Okay, so you’re saying this is more of a future Arla problem.”

“It’s not a joke!”

“Udesii, kid. I’m not trying to make fun. But… what, is this about you making threats? Or those shots you took that kept us alive? You had to get mean? It’s the main reason we’re here now. And I’m kind of used to kicking the consequences ahead of me and expecting I won’t live long enough to meet them.”

Not a strategy that was currently doing her many favors, but you couldn’t win them all.

He shakes his head. “You don’t… you don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me.”

“The Dark is… you know what it looks like. Whoever it was you fought, that’s what it looks like when we stop caring. When we do what we want for ourselves instead of what’s best… what’s aligned with the Light. It’s always there, the option, the temptation. It’s just simple, not to have to care who gets hurt, or how many, as long as you get what you want in the end. Do you think I really didn’t know it wouldn’t have been easier to just kill all those people who wanted to kill us, not even give them the chance to-” Obi-Wan flinches. “The Dark tells you how the world is, and it’s so much easier, and if you have all the power - it’s freedom, or at least it feels that way. It’s fun to turn fear and anger into action. It’s a relief to do whatever you want, to act without consequence - but there’s consequences, there always are. Everything has a price - it’s just that you stop caring who has to pay it. The more you gain, the more you don’t pay that price and the easier it is not to care. And the damage… just piles up. Exponentially. How many years has it been, since you had that fight with your dar’jetii- and you were still so afraid of me? You were afraid of me for so long.”

Arla regrets it, but she can’t exactly argue that he’s wrong. Still…

“You didn’t ask for that fight back there. Or anything else you’ve had to do. If they’d have backed off, you’d have let them walk. We both know that.” Arla says. “You don’t look for the fight, and when it comes to you, you don’t drag it out. Don’t go punishing yourself for solutions that aren’t there. It’s an osik galaxy, kid.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Like you keep reminding me.” Arla says. “So… what exactly does happen if you trip and fall into this… Dark whatever? Start your own war? Go murder everyone who ever looked at you funny? Be the next Mand’alor?”

“I become something worse, to stop him.”

It should sound stupid, coming from an ad, even a jetii’ad. It shouldn’t be the kind of thing that rolls cold down her spine.

“He asked me to kill them, all your friends.” Arla says. “When Tor said ‘restructuring’ in the camp, that’s what he means. I find the best ones. Maybe I make them fight each other, or me, for the chance to survive. The rest of the ade - they get sent out to be cannon fodder, traps for the other clans… you don’t want to know.” Arla looks away. “Maybe I don’t really get what it all means, what you think you might turn into - but there aren’t things worse than Tor Vizsla in this galaxy. Different, maybe - but not worse. And if you’re going to… if you really want to even try and go up against him - if you’re not ready to give everything you’ve got, I don’t think you’ll have a chance to save anyone.”

“You… you’d help me? Against the Kyr’tsad?”

Cy used to whisper it in her ear, or shout it so loud it would echo off the hull - Kriff Tor Vizsla! Down with the Kyr’tsad! Kote bah Aliit Mereel! - because they all knew who he hated the most, and no ship was less likely to hide a hidden transmitter than any of the ones they flew and if Cybele wanted to set her up for Tor, to betray her, there were a dozen easier ways. She was Tor’s best enforcer from the moment she’d arrived, and they both knew it. All she would have to do is lie. Kriff, all she might have to do was ask.

Say it. She’d demanded, angry, or teased, mocking - like she wasn’t doing the same job, like she was above it all somehow, like Arla couldn’t ever threaten her in the same way - you never did though, did you - or quietly, in the night, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, when Arla didn’t understand the rules of the game they were playing, or why she looked like it mattered so much.

He can’t hear you, Arla. No one will know. Just say it. Kriff the Shabuir’alor. I want to hear you say it.

And Arla would look away, pretend she was busy, or annoyed, or sleeping. Arla knew Cy was right - even trusted her, actually did trust her not to run back to Tor, too proud to bother with subterfuge when she could just best Arla in a fight - and even then…

Even now, here on a distant rock, kriff knows how many light years away from anyone who might hear, let alone care, there are still words Arla just can’t say, not even a nod of her head.

“Sometimes, if you survive long enough - even when it’s what you w-wanted, what you fought for…” Arla breathes out, slow. “I don’t know my brother now, not really. He was just a kid when… and it would be easy to say that it couldn’t matter anymore, that we’re not even really… but I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to know what it feels like, to keep on living if he dies. If the war… and the Kyr’tsad… I don’t want to be smart enough to survive in that world.”

“The Dark, it lies.” Obi-Wan says. “If it was all-powerful, like it says it is, the Sith would still have their empire.” Some day in some distant future, the name Death Watch won’t mean anything to anyone, ever again. Arla tries to remind herself of that. “Just because I give it what it wants doesn’t mean I’ll get anything worth having in return.”

“You still think there might be something on that planet that you could use.”

Arla can see how hard he’s struggling to say it, just like she did moments ago. He’s probably not ever supposed to consider ideas like this - not even think them too hard, let alone imagine speaking them out loud.

“I don’t know what’s…. I don’t know what would be down there. Whatever it is, it will tell me everything I want to hear, that I can have everything that I - and that’s a lie. I know it. But if there’s…. if there’s power there, the kind that… I have to be sure it’s enough.” Obi-Wan swallows hard, his expression firing-squad bleak. “If I… if I have to… if that’s what it takes - I need to be sure that I have a plan and that it will work. That I can save who I need to save, and that someone will stop me, if I… if after… I can’t stop caring if I hurt people. I can’t let that happen.”

“Is that how it works?” Arla says. “You just… stop being yourself? Flip a switch? Start being Alor of the assholes?”

Obi-Wan huffs, the sound not quite laughter. “I don’t know how it works. We - when we were little, we’d tell each other stories, trying to scare each other, or somebody would hear something - but they never really talked about it. Not really. Just not to give into fear, or anger. If an evil Holocron falls from the sky, don’t poke it. Maybe they tell you more when you’re older, when you’re a knight. Maybe… maybe they thought… I would have been tempted.” He says bleakly, those words a softer murmur. “I don’t want to… but when you Fall, I don’t - I don’t know.”

It seems cruel to her, if the jetiise really have no way for even their ad to atone. As far as she can tell, Obi-Wan hasn’t even done any irredeemable thing yet, and had they just… washed their hands in advance, rather than make it their problem? Arla’s seen that before, quite a number of those she’s met out here on the fringes inconvenient in one way or another - wrong child, wrong love, wrong choice. Or what was treated as a choice, rather than just the way things were. Who a person was. So many ways not to fit the role you were expected to fit. One society’s indifference the next’s unforgivable sin.

“… would you stop me?” His voice is barely a whisper. “If it went… bad.”

Arla looks at him, really looks, and tries to imagine him as what she’d thought he was when they first met. Imagine everything she’s come to know, twisted into that mirror image - but even then, Arla’s seen so many different flavors of bastard, the full sliding scale of shabuire - she can’t imagine him as what she thought he was. Not loud and thoughtlessly brutal and vicious, without the hint of reason or care.

If he were really dar’jetii, he might be less forgiving, maybe. Less willing to risk himself for the sake of others - sure, and he probably would have snapped her neck there at the fire. If there’d even been a camp by then, if he hadn’t already shown the Kyr’tsad the full error of their ways.

Once the threat had passed, though? After the fight was over? Would he really go out of his way to be cruel? It’s hard to imagine he’d find any pleasure out of preying on the weak. Arla just… can’t see it. More uncompromising, maybe, once you’d crossed his line - she’s known some cold bastards like that, but they were still polite enough to point out the line in advance. If you got your shebs kicked off by the evil baby Jedi, you’d probably know how you got there.

“Kriff, kid. Who knows? I might end up following you.”

“… what?”

Arla can’t help but chuckle at the look on his face, the sheer incredulity. “What do you mean, what? You know who I work for. I’ve seen… a lot of shabuire out there in the galaxy, and it’s way beyond our stupid kriffing system and our stupid kriffing war. The fact that you’re even worried about what you might do, that you’d ask me…” She sighs. “Kriff, I am the very last person in the galaxy who should be trying to give you any advice on this. I couldn’t find the moral high ground with both hands, a map, and a global tracking system. It’s not your fault it’s all damage control out here. Disaster on a sliding scale. You try to keep yourself together, to do what you need to do. Maybe you do fail. If you survive, you get to try again. That’s all there is.”

“That’s… not really what I was taught.”

“Do they point a lot of blasters at you, in that temple of yours?” Arla says. “It’s easier not to kriff up, when the world makes sense. When you have a choice of something other than bad and worse. I don’t know this Dark Side, kid, but that Force of yours I felt… there’s no way it’s that cruel, that it would… shut you out, if you wanted back in. Kriff, if it let me in the door, there still has to be a place for you.”

It earns her the barest hint of a smile, though he probably still doesn’t believe her. Atin little bastard - and whatever Arla thinks or doesn’t about what he could be, it’s clear he’s terrified, and for all she knows he’s got every reason to be.

“Is there anything you can do right now, to feel better?”

“Meditation.” He looks trepidatious. “It might… take some time.”

Yeah, and they should probably be moving, no doubt already late for the next disaster - but the sun is warm, and the wind is crisp and cool and Arla needs just a little while longer to settle back in her own skin, let the bacta do a little more work before she throws herself into the next fight. There’s a lot to think about.

“Go ahead.”

So he does, folds himself up on the ground while Arla watches, and she can still call up the memory of that place he’d shown her, that… thread of life and joy. Usually the good feelings die first, usually it would already be faded and gone - but it really feels like the kid just picked her up, moved her from crumbling sand and on to solid ground - nice ground, too, the kind where things were growing.

Hope’s the quickest way to dying. You know that, you’ve seen it happen. You think stupid like this, it only ends the one way.

Except what she’d told Obi-Wan was true. Survival had a weight, and Arla… can’t pick it all up again. Maybe once she’d been fine with it, nobody left she gave half a kriff for, just waiting to be ground under like so many others - but in this moment, right now…

Now the sun is out, and the beasts are around the other side of the hill and coming closer, ambling slow and steady and and Arla has a long time to study them - the way their fur shifts color from black at the paws, to a darker violet up the long legs that grows paler to an almost lavender crest on their backs, and eventually she can even see dappled spots in their coats, because they’re moving close enough to touch. It’s Obi-Wan who’s drawn them, that jetii osik of his, of course, as if this needed to get any more absurd.

You don’t have a plan, to save your brother, or this ad, or anything else you can’t do.

Get the Darksaber, that has to happen first. Tor wants it, more than anything. He venerates symbols, and for him this is the peak of Clan Vizsla superiority, the keystone of the story they all tell about who they are and who they deserve to be. Which means he’ll make mistakes, if he thinks it might slip out of his grasp permanently.

It doesn’t mean he’ll react rationally, she knows that - he’ll kill Jango outright, if Arla tries to force a ransom, or threatens to destroy it. He’ll do it just to spite her - better they both lose catastrophically than she ever show him up. But once Arla has it, there will be a very brief window of time that she will have a valuable bargaining chip and the opportunity to play it. If she offered it up to Mereel along with an explanation, and the location for where Jango was being held, would he believe her? Would he believe her fast enough, and would there be a way to keep the plan from Tor before they could strike?

You can’t beat him. Nothing ever has. Which means running and hiding until the day he comes for you. And you know he will.

Arla doesn’t know what to do, and the things she can’t do seems to increase with every moment that passes, all of them at odds. Can’t fight the Mand’alor. Can’t lose Jango. Can’t-

A slight motion jars her from her thoughts - one of the pups, all paws and ears and no spots at all, gnawing at the toe of her boot for a moment before pouncing on a sibling, the two of them rolling away in the grass. The older beasts have settled near Obi-Wan, the serenity that comes from him warmer than the sun - even Arla can feel it, an echo of what he’d shared with her, like it was nothing to just give her back her life.

Can’t let the jetii face it alone. Can’t let the kid… destroy himself, for the sake a fight that isn’t even his.

Arla can follow him down, though, if that’s where it has to end. Give him the tour. At least he won’t be alone there, in the dark.

The Manda lives in the heart. The Ka’ra live in the stars. Whoever’s pointing and laughing at where Arla’s found herself now can probably hear her, no matter where she’s looking. She looks up anyway.

“It was my idea to bring him along, but kriff you anyway.” She murmurs, hopes her thoughts stay quiet enough that the kid won’t notice. “Don’t you dare…” What, Arla? Whatever she’s asking for help from is the same thing that left him here in the first place.

“I know you see it. I know you kriffing see it, what he is. We both know how rare… are they all like this? They can’t all kriffing be like this.”

Once again, a feeling that Arla thinks might be the very worst to feel - seeing something precious, something worth saving and wanting nothing more than to make sure it is protected and knowing she doesn’t have the power to make that happen. She gets it, that Dark Side, if that’s what it is. Despising what you’d rather love. Ruthlessness as a mercy. So much safer to hate than to hurt.

“Kriff you. Kriff you for ever making this and not being more careful with it.”

————————————————————

“What did he mean, ghost station?”

Obi-Wan will regret asking later, even though Arla’s made it clear she doesn’t believe in bad luck - or more specifically, their luck on this mission is already so far gone that nothing is going to do much to change it, either way. It’s really nothing more than idle chatter, killing time in hyperspace, trying to ignore the likelihood that they’re going from bad to worse.

He’s nervous, and trying to release it into the Force moves it precisely nowhere. Obi-Wan’s never been the kind to fidget when he’s tense but there’s an increasing amount of energy running through him that he doesn’t know what else to do with. Arla found a more secure holster, for the lightsaber now at his hip, and there’s a blaster too, and a rifle waiting and ready, and about six different knives tucked here and there in his armor, places he didn’t even know could hold a weapon until Arla had pointed them out. Whatever happens, they’re as prepared as they’re going to be.

Do you truly believe that weapons will make the difference? A voice says, not unkindly - it sounds a little like Master Plo. Not that Obi-Wan would expect him to understand any of what he’s thinking, certainly never, ever condone… but he’d always been kind, and patient. Gracious with the shortcomings of others. Obi-Wan wishes once again he was back there in the Temple, listening to another lesson - he understands so much more now, of how much he didn’t understand at all. He could ask so many better questions, and there’s so much he needs to know. If it’s not power he needs to rely on, then what?

“It’s a story.” Arla says dismissively, startling him out of his thoughts. Be mindful, indeed. “One of those things that happened to somebody’s ba’buir’s ba’buir. You find a station sending out a random ping, floating around some distant rock. It’s empty, abandoned- no people, no signs of life - but loaded down with valuables. Enough that you take your time loading up, trying to find the best stuff, trying to take everything you can.”

“Except there’s a catch.” Obi-Wan says.

“Always a catch.” Arla nods. “The details are different, but the end result is the station’s a trap, either deliberate or by accident. Usually some energy blast from the nearest star on some cycle just long enough to be dangerous. One that doesn’t destroy the merchandise but burns up anything alive. A siren’s call that just keeps drawing in fools, forever. One of those morals - don’t chase a better hunt into a blind nebula, don’t get greedy when you’re already fueled and fed. Know when to walk away.”

It sounds like any number of stories Obi-Wan had heard in the creche, warnings against impatience and greed, reminders to listen to the Force, to let it guide him out of danger and he wants to, kriff he has never wanted anything more. The only thing that makes it bearable is knowing that Arla doesn’t want to be here either, that for the first time they might be something like a team.

I might end up following you.

Arla doesn’t understand, she couldn’t understand, except… and oh, Obi-Wan knows that hint of hope is dangerous, to even think about having hope. He can feel it, in the way the Dark reacts anytime he dares to try and imagine a way out of what’s happened, tries to treat the possibility of his Fall as anything less than an absolute and -

She thinks you’d be the better monster. Even if you kill Tor. Maybe even if you killed her.

Arla is quicksilver in the Force. Where Jango had pushed back, had stood his ground she all but disappeared, thoughts ephemeral and elusive until Obi-Wan could think of nothing better to do than find his own peace, like lighting a warm and gentle fire, and hope it might be the right thing to settle her. If he didn’t know how to heal her he could at least bring her close to the Force and let it try.

So much pain there, flashes and glimpses of things Obi-Wan couldn’t help but shy away from, fear and anger and self-hatred that would pummel him to pieces - peace, there is peace - more pain than he knew what to do with, than he could even begin to try and help. He’d focused on the worst of the physical damage instead, the parts of her body that had turned against themselves - not that he was any kind of genius there, either, but after a long time, it felt as if he’d managed to help her through the worst of it.

If anyone could recognize a monster…

No. No, she’s still not a Jedi, she doesn’t really understand - but Obi-Wan can’t help but be that little bit less afraid, anyway. He’d said it out loud, finally told someone what he was and what it meant, how it might end, and Arla had only nodded, taking it as one more problem to solve. A problem that might be solved, and survived - and somehow it does feel less frightening. Less like the unavoidable doom hanging over his mind and soul ever since Xanatos had looked at him and smiled.

Disaster doesn’t feel quite so inevitable. Which, in retrospect, is a terribly funny thought to have as they drop out of hyperspace. In that way that only the universe is laughing.

“Okay,” Arla says, “we’ll take this real slow and careful. You tell me if you feel anything strange when we-“

Obi-Wan can’t hear her, because somebody’s screaming - he’s screaming, and his arm hurts because he fell, lunging back out of his chair so fast he’d gone right over the side, crashed to the floor, scrambling down the hall on the heels of his hands. Away from here and how the Force has been torn apart, cold and dark and twisted like a dead limb, like his own body left frozen and rotted, shadowed tendrils rising up to choke the last breath out of him-

“-kid, what the kriff?” Arla keeps glancing between him and the view as he tries to drag in air. “What is it?”

“We can’t be here.” Obi-Wan trips over the words, trying to get them all out at once. “We can’t be here we have to leave we can’t be here we have to go now.”

“Kriff, okay, but I need you to…”

“Can’t you feel that? How can you not feel that?!”

In optimum conditions, it still takes time to punch in a jump, and the sky directly ahead is littered with a debris fi - with a moon, what might have been several moons, a few continent-sized pieces still clustered together and everything else it used to be all stretched out into smaller countless fragments ready to shred whatever might move through them - a snare, a net - and that doesn’t… the hyperlane couldn’t… gravity shouldn’t even work like that…

It does when it wants you here, and doesn’t want you to leave. It does exactly what it wants.

The unwavering eye of some enormous, invisible bird of prey fixed on them now, the shriek-hawk the Death Watch thinks they are and he’s sorry. He’s sorry. He’ll go back. He’ll join the AgriCorps and he’ll keep his head down and never complain about taking soil samples in the middle of nowhere for the rest of his life, never think about reaching out with the Force again if it’ll mean he doesn’t have to feel this and he’s sorry, he’s sorry…

“Kid? Obi’ka? Just try to breathe, kid. Come over here. Whatever it is, we’ll-“

Obi-Wan staggers back to his feet and lunges at her, doesn’t even think that she might see it as a threat, doesn’t care but thankfully Arla is too preoccupied or startled to just gut him on instinct, and he’s able to grab the cuffs where she still had them tucked away on her belt, slaps them hard around his wrists and it’s usually awful, but here there was nothing to feel but the Dark and it wasn’t even - how could it be worse than what he thought he knew?

The Dark is terrible, the way it surges and swells and always pulled at him - but this… this is nothing he could have imagined. Empty and still and dead and how could it feel like that, how could it feel dead like that, worse than dead, like it had never been alive and never would be and it was looking right back at him and it knew he was there. It’s been waiting patiently. An eternity, to be so patient.

Ghost station.

“Kid? What did you say?” Arla has a hand on his shoulder, and even gloved, it feels like the only point of warmth left in the universe.

Which is when the alarm shrieks - and they’re hit, hard enough to knock him off his feet, the view outside the ship suddenly alight with streaks of fire, a momentary view of the field, a half-dozen vessels in fierce battle all around them - where the kriff did they even come from - and the floor drops out from under him, Obi-Wan slamming hard enough against the wall to leave him tasting blood, ears ringing and Arla’s yelling something, the field of view at the front of the ship switching from the spinning darkness of space to thick bands of clouds whipping past, giving way to a dark wall of mountains. A field of gray that fills the view in all directions - too close, coming in too fast, he can tell that even without the screeching alarms or the way his stomach’s bottomed out.

Obi-Wan scrambles to find purchase, to hold on to something, anything - but the ship shakes again, a violent crash that sends him hard into the ceiling, tumbling over and over until there’s no way of telling which way is up. He just tries to curl up, protect as much of himself - just disappear - as the roar replaces everything else, an unending scream that tears the world apart.

———————————

A light flicks on and off steadily behind his closed eyes, a number of aches and pains instantly making themselves known as Obi-Wan slowly lifts his head, looks around - nearly falls off the half-open, half-ruined door he’d been propped on, and it takes a moment to realize what he’s looking at above him is the floor, the ship coming to rest upside down.

Obi-Wan reaches out with the Force on instinct, panics when he doesn’t feel anything but then he catches sight of the cuff around his wrist and remembers - and then he remembers and oh Force, oh he can still feel it. Obi-Wan goes very still, breathing silently, open-mouthed and even then, the pressure of it bears down on him. He swears he can feel the cuff creaking against it, a ludicrously flimsy barrier against the encroaching Dark, like a single light going down, down, down into an infinite sea.

Sith. What else could feel like that, like the Force itself had turned into a predator? This place is hungry.

A soft groan breaks him from where he’d been frozen - Arla still strapped in her pilot’s seat, left dangling. He moves forward, squeezes her hand until she squeezes back. Talking helps, anything helps that gets the focus off of what’s inside his head.

“You’re upside down. We landed hard. I don’t think anything’s about to blow up. Are you okay?”

“Never better.” She mutters. “ti gar, jetii’ika?”

“I’m fine.” Which is the most that it’s ever been a lie, not that it matters. Obi-Wan can feel what’s likely blood, trickling somewhere over his ear, but it doesn’t feel that bad and really, immediate pain is also a good distraction. “Be careful getting down. I’ll go see what’s left of the-“

Nothing’s left of the ship. It’s open air, a foot or two past where Obi-Wan had found himself, the majority of the stern gone, as if ripped and tossed away by some vast, vindictive hand.

“Well, at least we know we can breathe.” He says, although the air feels thin, and Obi-Wan’s not sure if that’s because it is, because he took a hit he’s not quite feeling yet, or because right now he’s mostly made up of mortal terror. What he’d felt, before he’d locked it off, locked himself away…

He doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want this place to know he’s here anymore than it already does. He feels like a crecheling, trapped in a nightmare and all Obi-Wan wants is someone stronger, smarter - anyone at all to come and take him anywhere else. He can’t even pull from the Light - no scrap of it here even before he’d blocked himself off, hard to imagine it had ever existed in this place.

As silent as he can, Obi-Wan peers out of the hull, into a massive hall that disappears into the darkness in both directions. Just enough light comes in from the hole they must have punched through in the roof, to illuminate a thin waterfall of gray, powdery sand that drops in a perfectly straight line to the floor. No wind, a stillness so absolute he can hear the hiss when the silver strand hits the floor. Intricate, perfectly angular patterns are cut into the stones, so many repetitions that it hurts to look at - pale pillars rising up near the walls with their own unnatural, ornate perfection. Every inch, immaculately constructed and devoid of life. A planet-sized catacomb.

Oh, little one. The tall, cloaked figure stands beside him, gazing out over the silence. It should be interesting to see how you die.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

They used to compete for me, you know. I was an honor. The highest honor. Now, it seems I am again a curse. No bitterness at all in the soft, amused tone. What a marvelous absurdity. Existence.

A lifetime of lessons on finding peace and withstanding darker emotions, the importance of calm in moments just like this are… obliterated, replaced with nothing but raw, blank terror. Obi-Wan is vaguely aware he’s only making it worse for himself, the fear compounding in on itself in a vicious cycle, but he finds he is entirely unable to stop.

“How are you still here?” He whispers, little more than mouthing the words.

You mean because of that trinket? A dark, gloved hand flicks out from beneath the robes, the gesture small and utterly dismissive toward the cuff around his wrist. I’m on the other side of it, little one. You know that. It’s doing you more harm than good, anyway. You can’t run from this, not now, not in this place. Better to just scrap it now and be done with it.

Yes, let’s abandon the only thing allowing Obi-Wan to cling to that last thread of composure, let alone sanity. He stands very still, tries to get his breathing under control. Focuses on the fall of sand, the most normal and least threatening -

Are you sure?

Obi-Wan looks closer. The sand is… rising in the column, not falling, disinterested in either gravity or whether or not he can handle one more impossibility right now.

Peace. Knowledge. Serenity. Harmony. The Force. The short-short version, for when there’s no point in pretending he can think in complete sentences, or that everything isn’t kriffed well past repair.

Ah, the sage wisdom of the gardeners. The voice means Jedi, Obi-Wan thinks, spoken with a sort of fond, contemptuous amusem*nt. The gentle sympathy of watching a tooka kit try and fail to climb a flight of stairs. Of… limited utility, perhaps, circ*mstances being what they are. In their defense, it is a very nice garden.

Obi-Wan finally turns, forces himself to face the cloaked figure head-on… which gains him nothing. The hood is deep cut, the cloak and everything it covers fading to empty air before it hits the ground, concealing all. Obi-Wan leans forward just a bit, trying to catch a glimpse beneath, and the perspective… shifts impossibly, revealing only more cloth and shadow. A bit foolish, really, to think he’d even recognize anything, that it matters whether not the phantom Sith has a face.

Who are you?

Consider me… a hypothetical. A theory let out to play with the galaxy. A wager, perhaps. You could think of me as your ori’vod.

Not. Kriffing. Likely.

Call me… Genet, then. It serves as well as anything.

Genet. Gray. A perfectly mild name - if it wasn’t a lie, and if he couldn’t hear that undercurrent of amusem*nt still threading through every word, at everything Obi-Wan doesn’t know.

What are you? A… Sith that worked with Mandalorians? He’d have to be… ancient, if that were true. Xanatos had been so proud of what he’d discovered - his newest and shiniest prize. So eager to show it off.

If I’ve been in your head all this time, perhaps I’ve just learned the language alongside you.

In his head, all this time. Obi-Wan does not dare to let that thought linger long. I don’t trust you.

Oh, please don’t, little one. It makes all this far more interesting.

A thud behind him makes Obi-Wan jump and spin, saber in hand - but it’s just Arla, dropping to the ground. He hadn’t lit his weapon up, at least, but he still needs to be more careful. This is the kind of place that would no doubt thrill to see him startle and accidentally take off a limb - cut her in half, see if he could take her head off with the backswing before she hit the-

Obi-Wan drags in a ragged breath, at the unexpected, brutal slide of those thoughts, the images pushed on him each more vivid than the last. This place is reaching for him, doesn’t care how he’s trying to keep it at bay, or what little tricks - peace-knowledge-serentity-harmony-Force - he thinks will make any difference at all.

It already feels like he’s lost, fear and grief and sorrow that don’t even need a reason to be there, clinging to the insides of his bones. Every wisp of dust that rises with every footstep echoes, hollow with some unimaginable loss. Obi-Wan pushes it as far away as he can, still barely enough for breathing room.

Arla flicks on a light that at least scatters the shadows further away - he assumes it’s about the distance it would take for her to raise her blaster and get a shot off. Nothing moves in the darkness, no hints of traps or fractures in the floor. Nothing. It still feels like he’s on the verge of screaming, the very edge of knowing something terrible is about to happen, but as they stand there the tension stretches and stretches but never breaks.

You’d do better if you stopped pretending you didn’t have options. The Dark Side. As if he could mean anything else. If you feel like starting somewhere, I might recommend fear.

Fear leads to anger. The thought is automatic.

Dogma, little one, is not the same as truth, no matter its pretensions. Anger can also dispatch fear, if aimed carefully. Judiciously.

“The Sith don’t do ‘judicious.’”

“What was that, jetii’ika?“

“N-nothing.”

Arla surveys the scene, and he’s certain she’s grim and expressionless even behind the helmet. It’s not like he expected her to break down in terror or tears, but there’s still something comforting in her stoicism, that unyielding Mandalorian determination. Big or small, impossible or certain death, it’s still just one more obstacle on the hunt, to be dealt with like any other.

“So,” she says softly, “on a scale of one to kriffed…”

“Everything you can see wants to watch us die, but only after it hurts us as much as possible.” The kind of thing you wouldn’t usually say about an empty room, but Obi-Wan has never been more sure, never so clear that it’s not ‘if’ but ‘when’.

Arla arches a brow. “Us? I don’t even have any of your stupid jetii Force osik.”

“That just means you’ll be a little harder to chew.”

A relief that Arla doesn’t need him to mince words - and maybe it’s better for her to look at him the way she does now, the admission that all the things that he is, the same powers that gave them an advantage before might only be a liability here. He’s not sure of anything, with the way his thoughts feel… shaky. Unbalanced, with no stable ground to steady himself again.

“Wonder where the other half of my ship ended up.” Arla muses. “Supplies are kriffed, comms are kriffed. I can still track you all right, but the link I gave you…” Obi-Wan nods, nothing but static in his ear when he’d checked it.

“This isn’t a place that wants people to talk to each other.” He says, before he can think the better of it, and can feel the look Arla gives him.

“There… is something out there.” Arla gestures into a darkness no different in one direction than any other. “A signal, faint but steady. Origin… unclear.” She sighs. “Obviously it’s a gigantic kriffing trap, but we don’t have much else in the way of options.”

The stillness looms, suffocating and total. It’s so wrong here. Obi-Wan can hear himself swallow, the movement of joints against bone and cloth over skin and the thud of his heart, a ringing in his ears in the absence of what ought to be there - not even the suggestion of a breeze.

“What I’m most worried about is water.” Arla says. “I’ve got some emergency filtration in the armor - and the less said about that the better - but if we can’t find something more, if there’s not another way off this rock… we don’t have very long, even if we ration. I hate to say it, especially if you say this place is… listening - but it doesn’t need to work that hard to kill us. All it has to do is wait.”

“I don’t think it will.” Obi-Wan says, and hates the certainty. He shouldn’t know, but he’s sure. How easy it is to feel the anticipation - a vast, empty nothingness and yet they’re somehow center stage. “It won’t be… interesting enough. Or violent enough. It doesn’t want people here so it can starve them out slowly. It wants… pain. Struggle. Maybe we even get to think we have a chance, for a while. It’s probably better if it can convince us to kill each other first.”

“… you’re a real ray of kriffing sunshine, you know that, jetii?” Arla says, but her hand comes down on his shoulder, gives the armor there a shake - and that is steadying, the reminder that she’s right there with him in this, that he might be in a nightmare but at least he’s not alone.

He should tell her. Obi-Wan should absolutely tell her how much he’s not alone - about the figure still waiting there patiently next to him, for whatever comes next. That maybe she shouldn’t trust him, shouldn’t have trusted him before they ever got here.

I won’t hurt her. I won’t Fall. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.

Look around you, little one. You’ve already landed. Genet is still not gloating, just observing. An unnervingly similar tone to any Master in a classroom, trying to impart a lesson. The Dark Side is a negotiation, far more than the Light. It pushes, you push back. You decide what it is, how you use it - or it will decide for you, and without much in the way of patience. It is… uninterested in waiting around.

I don’t want to use it. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.

Well, that’s going to make things very boring. And brief.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Even in Bandomeer, even cut off from the Force and exhausted and afraid there were still the shuffles and coughs and small miseries of too many people in too tight a space, lichens and mosses growing on the walls, water trickling through cracks in the stone, and even in the quietest, bombed-out sections of Melida-Daan there were still weeds, still tiny creatures burrowing through the mud, or breaking down all that had been left to decay. Sad and grim and not exactly comforting - but life, the steady cycle of all things.

Beyond the two of them making their way through the vast, darkened halls, there’s nothing alive here. Nothing but pale walls and thin air and vast, sterile room after vast, sterile room, enough sand on the floor to erase the sound of their footsteps and he ought to be grateful for that. The last thing they want to do is call any more attention to themselves - but it’s smothering. A great wave of emptiness that wants to choke him and drown him and make him… not be. Make him a part of whatever this place is.

“All right, then…” Arla says quietly, on the fourth room that looks like the third and the second and still no sound and no light beyond what they carry with them. “Evil osik’la hell planets? Any fun jetii stories that might be relevant?”

No plans to take the helmet off, in the hopes the beskar might provide her some protection. The light she’s carrying catches on the impossibly delicate designs in the columns, and Obi-Wan finds it hard to look away - why would any place be so barren yet this absurdly ornate?

It would make sense if it were some shattered palace, with grand spaces giving way to simpler passageways, or courtyards, or any recognizable sign of living. Tables or chairs or anything but vacant hall after vacant hall, pale walls and pale pillars like the rib cage of some impossible beast, all etched in dizzying fractals that make his eyes hurt to follow them down too far, like this was how whoever lived here had died - not eating, not drinking, just carving those obsessive, immaculate patterns until their flesh dried and stretched and snapped away from crumbling bones and-

“Baby Jedi? You with me?”

He wishes he could see her face, but even with the modulator flattening her tone Obi-Wan can hear the concern there, and the part of him that this place has its claws in says it’s suspicion, paranoia, that she’s only weighing him as a potential threat - but Obi-Wan knows better, because if Arla actually felt that way she’d just shoot him.

“Sorry, I just…” He swallows, tries to ignore the dryness in the air. What Arla said about running out of water. Tries twice as hard to ignore the fear that prickles across his nerves, the sense that he needs to be looking over his shoulder when he’s already looking over his shoulder…

“Obi’ka? Ti gar?”

“If this is a Sith planet… I mean, obviously it’s a kriffing Sith planet, I just… you’d have already known it, if it had a name.” Tales from the Temple, more myths and legends than anything that could matter, and he was safe because the Sith were long vanished and vanquished and whatever was left of them couldn’t ever get him from the other side of the galaxy.

“Old stories are mostly old duse, but yeah.” Arla says. “There are planets they left behind - death traps for di’kute. The system where the empire ended in one shot, like... flicking a switch. Never quite believed it, but I’m getting there fast.”

A superweapon, tied to the Dark Side like nothing else that had ever been - a planet-killer that tore apart everything in its wake on both sides - and there were other stories, other battles and other weapons, each of them bad enough to be considered the worst, in their own way. Unspeakable powers that could turn Jedi, make them Fall like it was nothing - and Obi-Wan does not let himself linger on that thought. The ancient battles, the Civil War, it had all been painted for them in the broadest of strokes - as much parable as history. Terrible mistakes and even worse choices, the treachery and horror of the Sith, and anything more specific had been relegated to the restricted archives, dangerous information no padawan would have access to - even Quin usually thought the better of trying to sneak around Master Nu.

“The jetiise may have burned us down, but they had to light themselves on fire to do it.” Arla says. “If you can’t win, at least make them pay for the show.”

A time when Obi-Wan wouldn’t have understood the pride in her voice, when it would have only frightened him. It’s not like he’s about to celebrate the war, certainly not how it ended, and he doesn’t think that’s what Arla really means either, nothing he’s seen in her that longs for conquest or blood - but what he’d been taught about the Outer Rim, about Mandalore and Mandalorians - it wasn’t as simple as his lessons had been. What did that say, and how much more was there they hadn’t bothered to teach?

Malachor. Genet says. The name of the planet was Malachor V. This isn’t that, though not for lack of trying.

You’ve… been there? Obi-Wan keeps forgetting he shouldn’t listen, that whatever this… presence wants, it isn’t to help him.

Little one, I’ve been everywhere.

So then, where-

Arla suddenly has her blaster up, every muscle rigid, pointed at a blank section of the wall behind them that looks no different than any other. Obi-Wan freezes, but everything is quiet for one breath, two…

“Unless your readings say something else, there’s… nothing there.” He says softly, wondering what he’d feel in the Force if - no, no he’s not.

“No, it’s… kriff, it’s fine.” Arla says, though even modulated her voice sounds shaken. “I just…”

And then she doesn’t have to explain, because Nield is standing there, just inside the circle of light. Arms crossed, expression as cold, implacable and triumphant as when he’d announced the truce. The great war between Melida and Daan finally, finally brought to an end, and Obi-Wan didn’t have the chance for relief or joy or the sorrow for the ones who weren’t there to see it, before he’d learned of his part, of the exact price of peace.

Is Nield dead, then? Is Obi-Wan seeing this because… did the treaty fail, had it all been for nothing? The thought of Melidaan collapsing back into endless warfare, all their effort and sacrifice barely a ripple in that sea of pain crashes down over him, an emptiness hollow with heavy regrets - all the Young he couldn’t save. All of them in front of him now, shifting in and out of the shadows as the light wavers around them. Some of them so small when they’d died there couldn’t have been much to their lives but being there and then his failure to protect them from what came next. Soldiers he’d killed from the Melida and the Daan and it was survival, it was him or them but it’s hard to remember that when they stand there watching him, silent and bloody and condemning.

A Jedi didn’t do things like this. A Jedi wouldn’t ever leave so many bodies in their wake, wouldn’t kill so many and fail anyway. The Young had trusted him. They’d trusted him to at least be what he’d claimed to be.

Cerasi watches him - of course she’s here - with disbelief and agony and betrayal, blood sliding through her fingers where they’re pressed against her chest, another thin line of red sliding past bone-pale lips. A real Jedi didn’t let these things happen.

Funny. I wouldn’t think you’d let them have your Cerasi so easily.

Fury blazes through the chill that’s filled him, the thaw a violent thing, snapping beneath his rib cage - it’s fine, for that smug, indifferent voice to play its games, to try and trap him, but there are lines, lines he didn’t know were there until they’d been crossed but - You don’t get to say her name. You don’t ever get to say her name.

Ah, that’s better. Not all things are quite equal in this world, are they? Some may have even earned the right to… disrupt your Jedi equanimity.

Obi-Wan breathes through gritted teeth, the anger providing a moment of clarity in exactly the way he shouldn’t allow, shattering the sorrow - and he thinks that letting them starve slowly might not be satisfying enough for this place, but paralyzing them with grief and fear? Surrounding them with the shadows of all those they’d failed? Arla’s not moving either, lost with her own ghosts. Cerasi still watches him - long dead by now, if this had been the way it actually happened, but forever with him here, in that terrible final moment -

Such bravery deserves more than your self-loathing, doesn’t it? The girl chose to risk herself for her ideals before you ever arrived. Is it fair, to see the whole of her life as nothing more than how it makes you feel now? Is that how you honor her?

The thought stings - even more so because Genet… isn’t entirely wrong. It is selfish of him, to think that any part of Cerasi would truly choose to be here, to act as if her choice was his fault, that she’d gone in blithely unaware of what might happen. As if they hadn’t talked about it often enough back then, how to go on, fully aware that they all might not survive - and the harder Obi-Wan holds onto this last memory, the more it’s the only memory, crowding out the rest - flattening everything else she was, all the things that had mattered to her most.

“Arla.” Obi-Wan says, dragging his eyes away. “Whoever you’re seeing, they’re not real.”

“No footprints, kid.” Arla says, and Obi-Wan realizes she’s right, the dusty ground entirely undisturbed. “Buyca's not pinging right either, I figured that might be the case.” The words still sound like an effort, and she still isn’t moving. “So… this is all part of the show?”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan says, “I don’t think they can hurt us, not physically, but -“ But they don’t need to, is what he means to say, and then a looming shadow steps forward, disappointment and contempt heavy in his gaze, like the very last time they saw each other, and the rest of the explanation is punched out of him. “… Master.”

The more Obi-Wan thinks he’s reconciled with the past, that he’s accepted it and let go and put it behind him, the more it seems to ask - is that true? Really? Prove it.

“… you were chipped before Tor picked you up, ad?”

“No.” Obi-Wan says, struggling for composure. “It’s not… meant like that. It’s what we call our teachers at the Temple. An honorific.” He doesn’t want to talk about this, not ever, but it’s easier to face the gaze of that illusion when he’s half-distracted trying to explain. Force, Qui-Gon looks so real, the same expression as that last day, that final moment, staring down Obi-Wan with nothing but disdain. Not even disappointment - it hadn’t hurt him, you couldn’t lose what you never wanted. “Masters and… and, um…”

Padawans.

“Shut up.”

“Voices too, huh?”

Obi-Wan winces, hadn’t meant to say that out loud, because there’s secrets and there’s secrets and then there’s… whatever’s in his head. Whoever.

“Y-yeah, uh… maybe you might…”

“Hear the Mand’alor telling me to kill the treacherous little dar’jetii before you can kill me? And then take myself out for good measure?” Arla says. “Yeah, loud and clear. Stupid of this place to start with him, really. If I were in charge, I would have kept that one in reserve.“ Arla takes another step back, though the sound she makes is more annoyance than pain.

“What.. and you now, too? You can kriff right off.” She makes a rude gesture to empty air - emphasizing the words with the tip of her gun. “The only reason you could possibly be here is because I regret not killing you worse and sooner. You were an asshole. Slana’pir! Go be the least impressive part of someone else’s breakdown.”

“Maybe… maybe you want to do that without a blaster in your hand?”

Arla stops, looks down, as if she hadn’t even realized she was still holding the weapon, and after a moment very deliberately returns it to its holster.

“Oh, that’s cute. Real cute. So that’s how we’re gonna play this?” A short, steadying breath. “Sorry, kid. I’m with you. I’m here. Kriffing shabla bastard planet of kark.”

“Are you… are you all right?” As if it’s at all a sensible question, here and now.

“I’m kind of a pro at being alive when I hate it, kid. This is… not going to lie, this feels like every worst day at lightspeed, but… kriff, I’m still breathing. I’m still here.”

“… how?” Obi-Wan doesn’t mean to ask, or for it to sound so pathetic, but the sound just slips out. Every person he’s ever failed is still watching him from the shadows. The Jedi Council sit in silhouette and judgement far behind, a row of faces he doesn’t need to see, to know what they’d think of him, what they’d do if only they knew how to find him.

“Don’t think about it, not even to argue with yourself. Don’t bother trying to rationalize, or make it make sense. If it’s not mission critical, if it isn’t about getting you where you need to be in one piece, it does not exist.”

“… you stop being a person.”

“Yeah, kid. Sometimes… sometimes you do.” Arla sighs. “I’m sure there’s a dozen ways less banthash*t to keep going, but I don’t know them. But… you remember what it felt like, the last time you saved my shebs? That Force of yours… how bright it was? How alive?”

If it were anyone else, Obi-Wan would lie. But Arla won’t judge him for the truth. He doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth keeping around. “I’m… I’m not sure right now.”

“But you know that it happened. I know that it happened, and things like that don’t happen to me, so I damn sure know it was real. Even if you can’t remember what it felt like, you can remember that it was better, once. So you get through this to find your way back there.” Arla says. “And if you can’t even convince yourself it’s ever going to be good again, it’s probably annoying someone out there that you’re not dead yet, and that’s always fun.”

You’re not real. Obi-Wan thinks at his imaginary Master. You’re not him. He wouldn’t care enough to come here, just to remind me how I’d failed.

One last look of disgust, and the shadow disappears - though it seems the others are not as easily dismissed, and Obi-Wan can see even more Jedi here and there in the crowd - the crechemates he’d left behind, interspersed between the dead because it’s the most terrible thing he could see and this place wants him to hurt - but that might mean Nield is still alive, that the peace held and everyone’s all right, and that thought makes the rest a little easier to bear. The weight of this place is a constant, though, and he turns his attention inward, just to be unnerved by something else for a while.

Do you know where we are?

The stars have shifted in their orbit some, since I last moved among them. Whatever happened here seems… quite thorough. Nothing remains to recognize. Genet leans closer to the next pillar they move past, a bored patron in an underwhelming museum. A passing attempt at Korriban, perhaps, in some of the fine details. Hard to say if they’d ever seen it themselves - or just a copy of a copy of a copy. So many are. Absolute power does not beget absolute imagination, more’s the pity.

Do you… know where they are? Obi-Wan thinks. Whoever… whatever is in charge of this place?

Oh, little one. I thought that was rather obvious.

Arla’s hand closes around his arm in the same moment she cuts the light. Obi-Wan hides a hiss of panic behind his teeth at the way the shadows surge, Arla’s voice a careful murmur over the thud of his heart, pulling him carefully back behind the pillar they’d just passed.

“I’ve got heat sigs ahead, just inside the next room. Looks like… eight of them, nothing bigger than human - but if this room’s like the rest, there’s no going around.” He can hear her voice tighten with annoyance. “We’re being herded. Kriff, I hate being told what to do.”

I do like her.

“So, I’m going to throw the light… and then we’ll see what we see. Tayli’bac?“

“‘lek.” Obi-Wan says, hand tightening around the grip of his blaster, riskier to use the lightsaber when he can’t use the Force -

Won’t.

Can’t use it, and it would just be another light source for whoever they’re fighting to use as a target to return fire.

It’s sad, when Obi-Wan realizes he never even considered that whoever was ahead might not be an enemy - but then he hears it, a wet, ragged chewing in the dark, the meaty splintering of bone - and as the light hits the ground and illuminates the scene, he also didn’t think that whoever was out there might not remember what a blaster was for, let alone how to use it.

It’s a… pack, not a group or a battalion or anything more civilized, not anymore, and the bodies on the ground are in the same mercenary colors as the ones crouched over them, looking up at the light with vacant, violent eyes and blood-stained mouths. Disheveled and ragged, a few of them ignoring freshly dripping wounds that might even be self-inflicted. Obi-Wan looks away, before he can make a more educated guess.

If they came down here chasing the Darksaber… they haven’t even been here that long.

“Oh, do I really wish I could say that’s my first time seeing somebody eat somebody.” Arla says, raising her blaster as the closest merc howls, and lunges. No tactics, no thought, not even trying to protect themselves as they snarl and claw straight into oncoming fire and the fight isn’t even much of a fight. Over almost before it begins which ought to be a relief but doesn't feel that way at all. Hard to handle, when it's all happening so fast, every moment an even worse surprise. Hard to think the Force is with me when it so very obviously isn’t.

Hard to move, as he watches the bodies… glow, a pale light that burns brighter and brighter until they start to crumble, burning up from within, until there’s nothing left but a fine pale ash that vanishes against a floor that never quite looked so much like bone as it does now. Arla curses as she takes a few quick steps back from the one she’d been about to check over, cursing again - louder - as an even more brilliant light suddenly fills the room from overhead.

Obi-Wan stumbles, until he’s up against Arla’s back, the two of them brandishing guns in both directions in a blind attempt to fend off the next strike, as he furiously blinks his eyes to clear his view - at what’s still only the same silent, empty room as before, even easier to see how alone they are, how vast this place truly is. No bodies now, no new ambushes, or signs there was ever a fight. Obi-Wan swallows hard, tries to keep his breathing steady.

“… any thoughts, jetii’ika?”

He looks around, looks behind them, stomach tilting oddly at the infinite mirror rooms stretching out behind them, a mockery of progress to see nothing ahead but more of the same. Hard to say that things weren’t better with the lights off.

“No, I don’t… I… no…”

I believe it’s waking up. Genet says with mild curiosity.

… what does that mean?

You might figure it out, if you let yourself look.

Before he can reply to that, there’s a distant rumble, muffled as if it’s coming through the wall, far enough away that Obi-Wan isn’t sure what’s happened or where.

“Grenade.” Arla murmurs, and there’s another, slightly different rumble, and then a softer, steady patter that Obi-Wan knows well enough - gunfire, and he’s heard enough battles to tell when it’s just groups trying to feel each other out, when there’s a push or a retreat and when it’s this - all-out combat, both sides throwing out everything they’ve got. A few of the groups on Melida-Daan had been this bad, when they’d caught a glimpse of each other, nothing to be done but get the Young into hiding or as far out of the way as they could and hope that anything worth salvaging after hadn’t been blown into a million pieces first.

A larger rumble, enough to leave a little more pale dust hazing in the air. Was all that dust… people? Would that happen to them, if they died here?

“That’s a gunship taking off. Modded engines, maybe syndicate mercs.” Arla says. “Which means there’s bastards that actually managed to land here, which means-“

A series of dull, concussive thuds that don’t sound like grenades or gunfire, and of all the things Obi-Wan doesn’t want to hear in this place, Arla’s sudden chuckle is near the top of the list.

“Oh… kriffing nevermind.“

Arla pivots, jetpack firing and an arm around Obi-Wan’s waist that knocks the wind right out of him as she plunges back the way they’d come and they… just did this, didn’t they? Not here, obviously, but close enough, a few planets over in another moment of almost certain death and he’s starting to get it, why Arla is the way she is. Why it isn’t worth bothering with all the usual feelings when they’ll just be back here again sooner or later, just louder with even less time to prepare and this time it’s two disasters in one, this time the ceiling caving in because someone shot the ship out of the sky and there it is, crashing through the roof and the walls, coming down right on top of them and Obi-Wan can’t say he’s enjoying things any more from this side of the shipwreck.

——————————————

A little disheartening, how familiar it is to wake up with dust in his mouth, stinging eyes and a ringing in his ears and that moment when Obi-Wan’s mind shuffles vague and confused through the possibilities - under the sea, endless civil war, bigger endless civil war - and then there’s movement in front of him, and he looks up just in time to see someone a little too tall and a little too furry to call themselves near-human cleave an opponent in half with an axe as big as he is, backlit by the sparks and fire of the ripped-open wreckage of the ship and several dozen blasters lighting up the air around them, other figures rushing madly through the smoke and chaos, screeching with rage.

Right. Sith hell planet, exactly where he left it.

Obi-Wan presses his hands to the ground just to move, digs his toes in to make sure he still has legs, ignoring the liquid slosh of pain behind his eyes, the protest of more muscles than he could possibly own. He needs to be quiet, to stay low and find some kind of cover and find Arla - and then Obi-Wan freezes at a glint of metal in a familiar shape, close enough that he can make out the clean, simple lines of it - and what else could it be, nothing more ornate required for the weapon of a Mandalorian Jedi.

After all this time, every close call and false lead - the Darksaber rests on the ground only a handful of feet front of him, like the punchline to the galaxy’s least funny joke.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Later, he’ll consider how the Darksaber must have made the trip - tumbling off the ship as it crashed, obviously. Whoever had been on board lucky enough to take hold of it and try to escape, but just as lucky as everyone else when it came to actually keeping it.

Which suggests that maybe Obi-Wan’s first impulse of reaching for it with the Force - twice - before he remembers the cuff on his wrist might not be the smartest decision - but words like ‘smart’ and ‘decision’ have certain meanings in some situations and entirely different ones when the giant with the axe catches sight of him just as an explosion rips through the back of the ship, and with a crack of stone and screeching steel, the whole wreck plunges down through the floor.

Later, Obi-Wan will wonder why someone who already looked like he’d test the dimensions of starship hallways would be carrying around a weapon he couldn’t swing in any of them - but this is the outer edge of the Outer Rim and it’s been made quite clear that nothing needs to make sense here.

Obi-Wan scrambles off the ground, lunging forward, the hilt of the Darksaber in his hand as the axe swings around and he tucks, rolls - the hiss and snap and roar of pain as the blade cleaves through the axe-wielder’s leg with no resistance and his opponent topples, one meaty hand reaching out even as he falls and Obi-Wan spins the saber around, removing that threat at the wrist as a bolt shoots by him. Obi-Wan ducks, turns, brings the blade up, feels a searing heat across his side, low beneath the chest-plate where the next bolt grazes him because he can’t sense it coming - because he’s still blocking the Force.

He’s also just let everyone in this room who’s still alive know exactly where the Darksaber is.

“Arla? Arla!?”

Maybe she’s there, maybe the reason whoever shot him doesn’t get off a third round is because some of that crossfire is hers - all Obi-Wan knows as he backs away is he can’t find her and they’re coming at him, more mercs and pirates and kriff knows what than he can count, and maybe some of them are still sane but that doesn’t matter nearly as much as the claws and blasters and another kriffing axe are you kriffing kidding -

His fingers scrabble at his wrists for half a second too long, just enough to bring the panic to a full boil so when they do finally fall away Obi-Wan Force pushes as hard as he can in every direction, shouts of rage and pain and metal thudding against stone and he’s running, pure instinct, somewhere away from the fighting and the flames, anywhere they can’t follow. Down, leaping onto the edge of the ship now jutting up almost vertically from the chasm below and Obi-Wan slides, letting the Force assist but it’s still so wrong here, no currents, no web of life, just the individual points of light now above him, lives he can feel pop and flicker and vanish -

He hits the ground, tucks into a roll and is slammed into from the side even as the Force cries danger, the Darksaber knocked from his hands and Obi-Wan kicks out blindly, gains a snarl for his efforts as he scrambles to his feet, trying to get any distance between himself and his attacker, pulls a knife from the several that Arla demanded he take, ready to fight. Kriff, why do they always have to be so much bigger than him -

A piece of the ceiling caves in without a sound, and his opponent is unceremoniously replaced with a boulder three times his size.

Obi-Wan blinks.

Well, that was exciting. What do you suppose will happen next?

Another explosion, of course, hard to tell if it is the wreckage or just near the wreckage and you wouldn’t think anyone would bother dragging ground-to-air munitions all over the barren hell planet but again, outer edge of the Outer Rim, sanity not required. The ceiling - the floor above begins to groan ominously, Obi-Wan diving back as a body goes flying over the edge above, slamming into the ground with a broken-off cry and it starts to crumble and burn and vanish almost immediately - and it feels… he can feel it now, in the Force… dragged away and twisted and…

Screaming. Walls, ceilings, floors. An entire planet screaming, the Force itself frozen in an endless, echoing howl of agony.

Obi-Wan staggers, topples backwards and doesn’t really feel himself hit the ground, numb inside and out.

Little one. Breathe.

He can’t. He can’t he can’t, it’s too much and he’s too weak, he’s nothing and how - how long have they been trapped here, has the Force been - how many, how long will he be trapped, eternal and forgotten and…

Fingertips brush against metal, and then he’s clutching the Darksaber hard enough that the pattern on its hilt digs into his hands, and... the crystal sings, strong and steady, his heartbeat slowing as Obi-Wan just lets himself listen, lets it pull him back into himself.

It doesn’t say anything. No booming voices proclaiming him Mand’alor, no Force ghosts of ancient masters with exact instructions on how to solve all his current problems. But the Darksaber’s crystal is… resolute, unintimidated even now by the nightmare that surrounds it. It sings with quiet confidence - one more battle for the pile and no cause for any particular concern. A magnificent weapon, built to survive a fight, reliable first over all other considerations. Arla would approve. Will approve, when he finds her again.

Obi-Wan knows he has to get moving - but he can’t help firing it up again, just for a moment, getting used to the feel of it, listening to the steady hum, the strange, dark blade. Just a saber, that does what any of them do, and yet…

He wonders if it’s ever fallen into darker hands, if anyone’s tried to bleed it - and swears he hears a faint scoff of derision. He can see the grin Quinlan would give him now. Hell planet or not, Obes - at least this is pretty kriffing cool, right?

Extremely cool.

You’ve… never seen it before?

A bit past my time, I’m afraid. A shame, I imagine we would have had much to talk about. Maybe even a duel or two - that would have been something to see. Perhaps one day, when all the lights go off, and the galaxy has been folded up and put away.

Obi-Wan frowns slightly - there’s something else he hadn’t noticed before, not just the patient chime of the Darksaber. A flare of power, like the wings of some great bird spread out all around him. Heavy with threat and warning… and shelter. A chance to get his feet under him, to learn to bear the weight of this place without being crushed beneath it.

No point toppling off into oblivion just as things get interesting. Besides, if you choose the Dark instead of getting kicked down the stairs, it’s double points for me and bragging rights to the rest of the Holocrons.

His mouth goes dry, even as Obi-Wan feels the warm thrum of amusem*nt - that was a joke. The Sith tell jokes. At least this one.

He can’t hear the screaming anymore, but the echo still reverberates in the silence - the emptiness of the Force quivering like a plucked chord.

I will never give you what you want.

Noted.

The fight’s gone quiet above, even with how that last explosion left most of the room collapsed in on itself, the ship crumpled further, no longer anything to climb or jump for even if he trusted the Force to help - the cuffs are gone, slipped out of his grasp during the fight but Genet wasn’t wrong, they’d really only ever been wishful thinking.

Obi-Wan flinches, reaching out to sense danger a reflex for so long but there’s nothing here that doesn’t burn with that empty cold. Arla isn’t, he can’t sense… even if he did try to find her in the confusing, painful tangle of the Force - she’s in beskar, and maybe she didn’t see him fall or maybe her jetpack had been damaged in the crash, maybe she couldn’t follow.

Maybe she’s- No. No, he needs to find another way out, and then find her.

He turns away from the wreckage, and the room beyond is… different. It starts the same, he stands surrounded by the same pale stone ceiling, walls - but as it nears the ground it gives way jarringly, unnatural, to a rough and mottled cavern floor, the pillars simply… ending, gnarled stalactites frozen in mid-reach for the earth, and the further back the room goes, the less uniform it becomes, a roughly-shaped corridor that bends around a corner. At least enough of lights are still on, although he’d rather not consider why.

Obi-Wan’s still got the Darksaber in a death grip - a bit more reliable than any stuffed tooka for keeping monsters away, and the thought makes him smile despite himself. Old memories of the creche with their glimmers of warmth, still - this isn’t the whole galaxy no matter what it feels like. Obi-Wan wouldn’t want anyone in his place, but kriff if he’s not the last one who should be here. Any other padawan would have had at least a few years’ guidance from a Knight or a Master, some better idea of how to get through… whatever this is.

You truly think you’ve lost something vital, skipping ahead to the good part?

… the good part.

What do you imagine you’re for, little Jedi? What did you think it would mean, to be a knight?

… not this.

Which is why you abandoned your friends to fight alone, and went home safe with your Master. Genet says. What loss do you grieve, that your Order could give you that you can’t find on your own?

Food. Showers. Training. A lightsaber he didn’t scrape together from a trash heap. Kriffing sensible ideas. Having someone to warn him when he was about to make a mistake that would cost more than he could possibly imagine.

So, it’s fear that keeps you honest. The certainty of someone else’s certainty.

I’m not talking to you anymore. Obi-Wan thinks, which is a stupid thing to say with no one else around and the voice in his head the only one that might have any idea of what’s going on - even his blatant lies likely further than Obi-Wan can get on his own.

A theory immediately proven, as he moves carefully down the hall - blank, industrial - and his only way out quickly ends in a door that spans the entire width of the corridor, dull metal and easily twice as tall as he is, inscribed with glyphs that hurt his eyes because… that’s a Sith door, isn’t it. A locked Sith door to keep out the unwanted and unworthy, only for those with the Dark Side as their key.

I can say it if you need me to. Genet almost manages to not sound like a smug, gloating jagyc. Almost. If you didn’t start snapping people’s necks when your little friend betrayed you to get a foot up in Melida/Daan, I don’t think you have nearly so much to worry about as you do.

That’s… not what happened.

No?

If Nield wanted to hurt me… I wanted to hurt me too. Obi-Wan says, because if you’re going to square off against the Dark, you have to be honest with yourself, always. What he did stopped the war, it stopped people from dying. It was the whole reason I was there. What happened to me… wasn’t the part that mattered.

Since it’s self-sacrifice that gets you moving, I might point out your Mandalorian was at a bit of a disadvantage back there. A good chance she might already be dead.

Either Obi-Wan could let himself feel that fear, that Genet might be right, or he could be sarcastic. He has a feeling which one Arla would appreciate. So… is this how all Sith motivational speeches work?

Usually, there’s a casual murder or two and then a good deal of preamble about how no one has ever been as brutal or ruthless or unstoppable - but it’s rare that anyone pays attention to that, even when it’s their speech.

Obi-Wan wishes he’d spoken more to Master Tholme - that they’d spoken at all, really. Funny how he’d kept his distance back then, even when Quinlan had moved ahead, not wanting the Shadows to take an interest, wanting to be a different sort of Padawan - back when he’d thought that hard work and dedication would be enough to get him there. One more missed opportunity to ask, to learn from those who often balanced on the edge of the darkness if there were any stories about power and temptation with an ending beyond denial or disaster. How to know the will of the Force when it’s all just empty silence.

Spare me the will of the Force, little one. The Force does not care who lives and who dies, if it even marks a distinction. The primal, beating heart of the infinite cosmos does not notice if the day is saved or the war is won, and the points we score against each other are hardly the metric by which the universe measures itself.

You’re trying to… what? Convince me the Dark Side doesn’t exist? Here?

Is it really what you’re feeling? The Dark? Genet says. Or is it uncomfortable and frightening, and so you’re afraid to look further? We both know you’ve seen it - the Dark isn’t just one thing. In combat - the firefight, the rush and thrill of it. Different from the fear of retreat. Different still from the dread of hiding, or the hate for them, for yourself - watching while they looked for survivors, and made sure the dead were-

“Don’t.”

I think, little one, you might want to consider that there may be far more than one way to know the Dark. If there’s any real value in calling it that at all. Genet says. If the Sith codify it - if they tell you what it all is, and what it means, and how to use it, and you believe them, they define all the terms of engagement. So instead of learning, you stay away - and eventually that distance becomes its own virtue, and everything beyond a vast unknown - and what is unknown is fearsome. Which stands entirely to their benefit.

He wants to stop thinking about all this - he’s too tired, too much coming at him from too many angles and no idea where the next hit is coming from to even imagine a useful conclusion, but Obi-Wan also can’t do as Arla suggested - can’t just keep moving, make himself not be a person. Not when how he survives this fight will matter as much as if he does at all.

If you die here, they all come with you. I don’t need to convince you of that. Arla and Jango and Trilla and all those ade with no one else to fight for them. Maybe Cal makes it through. Maybe he goes into a camp and what’s left comes out the other side as something for the Mand’alor to smear across some backwater battlefield in his endless quest for relevance.

I’m… I’m not going to-

Am I asking you to laugh maniacally while electrocuting a litter of fluffy lothkittens? I’m not even asking you to open the door. I only want you to listen. Listen and tell me what you hear. At least attempt to discover who it is you’ll have to go through to get off of this rock.

It still feels like a terrible risk, like breaking cover for anything just waiting to strike - but while he doesn’t trust Genet, it feels much more likely that the phantom won’t risk Obi-Wan’s safety if it puts his own scheming in jeopardy. So he moves toward a patch of bare wall, the slightest hint of a crevice for cover, flinching as he reaches out - but the stone is only stone, though there’s still nothing, no lichens or mosses, no hint of life-

He rests his head against it, lets the coolness ground him and closes his eyes.

A storm above him, planet-sized and swirling, the kind that usually exist on gas giants, and to be within them would mean instant destruction, lost in the crushing depths and it doesn’t feel all that different now. Obi-Wan tries to make himself as small as he can - Trilla had tried to teach him a bit, to move so lightly through the Force that it left no mark and he’s not as skilled as she is, not a reflex, but if he concentrates he can make himself unnoticed, let the wild, unnatural, damaged currents of this place -

Damaged. He had thought the hunger malicious, the cruelty of this place focused and deliberate but as he concentrates, doesn’t look away from what he’s sensing, lets it flow through him, Obi-Wan can pick out the flickers of energy that are still living people near to the surface, watches those vast, invisible winds batter them, the power of that darkness like a gravity well, unraveling them without order or intent, dragging them into a maw that screams and rages and the grief -

Sorrow. Fury. Despair. It’s not attacking, not a predator at all. What he’d been so certain was the Dark Side is only vast power flailing blindly, recognizing and resonating with the pain of anyone who comes near. So strong and overwhelming it can do nothing but shred them from the inside out, pulling them down into… it feels almost like the Force is in stasis, twisted and frozen. No wonder nothing can live here. A deliberate, impossible construction - not that he knows Sith magic but what kriffing else could it be - and Obi-Wan follows the tangled skein of it, less than a whisper of a thought through a labyrinth of pain, and at the very end -

“No one.” Obi-Wan’s eyes snap open, impossible that the words are true even though he knows what he felt. The closed loop. “There’s n-no one there. No one here, no one in control. Not for a very long time.”

Well. Genet says, sounding entirely unsurprised. An empty chair. Now, isn’t that interesting.

Slowly, he levers himself up from where it seemed he’d fallen into the dirt - hardly a surprise, considering - and as much as he’d like for things to change, no matter how he wishes he could only keep stalling, Obi-Wan knows there’s only going to be silence, the door, and the choice. He shuts his eyes again. Hates himself as much as he ever has. Apologizes to the Order for ever doubting them when it seems they were right, that he was always meant for this.

He sets down the Darksaber. Stupid, childish - but he doesn’t want to be wielding it, for whatever happens next.

“What... what do I have to do?”

No one as young as you should be this cautious. What are they even teaching these days? He’d expected triumph. Expected Genet to demand he call him Master, expected… some kind of gloating, not the same mild, bored amusem*nt. You don’t need my permission - that’s rather against the point. You already know what to do.

I don’t… it’s not the same here. Obi-Wan thinks, even as he clenches his free hand into a fist - even as he reaches, and nothing in particular answers the call. Back on Mandalore, it was easy to - it was hard to keep it out. The Dark never wanted to leave me alone.

The ambient emotions of a Death Watch camp do keep things lively, while this place soaks up the Force like a sponge. It doesn’t help that when you’re actually trying to reach for the Dark, you just keep getting in your own way. You don’t want it, and it can tell.

I don’t… understand. Obi-Wan thinks, for what feels like the thousandth time in an hour, his usual feelings of disappointment at not meeting expectations clashing against the determination to never meet these expectations.

Usually, it’s the broken or overeager who find themselves here - it’s either a hard sell or no sell at all. Even by my standards, little one, you are… rare. Still, there’s always something to work with - anger is evergreen. We just need a useful spark. What about… that little idiot of yours, all the way back. The one who thought he mattered. Bock? Brick?

Bruck. And Genet knows that, Obi-Wan thinks but does not say.

What did it feel like, when you were kept from knocking him down a few well-deserved pegs? When your wise and patient teachers considered the damage he did of no interest whatsoever? When you were as convenient to find inadaquate as to help?

I’m not doing this. Obi-Wan scowls. I’m not.

If you want to get angry at me, that works just as well. But let’s consider our friend Bork a moment more. How would things have ended, if you had free rein to act as you wished? How would you have chosen to conclude your little spat? Maim him permanently? Drive your saber through his heart? Break him until he groveled at your feet?

No!

So what you felt wasn’t Sith. It was being annoyed with a fool who had every opportunity to be otherwise, and likely could have benefited from a demonstration of actions and consequences. Look around you, little one. There are mistakes, there are slow slides into dark places - and then there are choices. You don’t Fall into razing a planet, you don’t lose your temper once and accidentally end up here. All of this was carefully calculated, the greatest devastation for the most possible harm. Now… is that not worth a little anger?

The jailers on Bandomeer, looking for any reason to hurt - beatings, dropping their already meager rations in the dirt, teasing prisoners by pretending to throw them past where their collars would blow, just to listen to them beg and scream. Fighters on Melida-Daan who’d left behind poisoned rations, who’d rigged medical supplies to blow. Creating traps meant to maim more than kill - just to do as much damage as possible, to punish the Young for daring to want more than a life of endless fighting. The Kyr’tsad camp, the worst of both worlds and more. Cruelty as entertainment, as a purpose unto itself.

It’s not about domination, or revenge - or even justice, if Obi-Wan can only choose one goal. It’s about having the power to stop that cruelty before it can do any further damage.

Kindle that feeling, let it flow. Anger always wants an easy target - justification, specifics to focus on and fester. If you must insist on playing the gardener, refuse it one. Don’t allow it to drop into anything so petty as annoyance or resentment, don’t allow it to glut itself on self-satisfaction. Just let it burn, clean and for itself alone - it sharpens focus, fuels the resolve for the fight. Ramikadyc, the lifeblood of the warrior.

It feels like… Jango. Jango had felt like this. Obi-Wan had asked him why he was who he was, what made him strong and this, this had been the response - fierce and joyful and alive. A hunter delighting in the hunt, in that keen-edged drive and determination - but not some mad thing, ready to turn on whatever was next. Not blind rage or greed or malice, able only to tear and consume until it was out of control. It didn’t exist for Obi-Wan’s benefit - but for the people who needed him. A shield as much as a saber. Everyone who gave him their own strength so he could carry this power and let it burn. Maybe… maybe that was part of it.

Attachment could drag you into the Dark - but… it might also just be what kept it from eating you alive.

Interesting theory, little one.

Impossible to tell if that was approval or mockery or indifference or if it mattered - could a Sith do anything but lie and use him for its own ends? All Obi-Wan knows is that this feeling… it’s within his control - a weapon he can carry without cutting himself at the same time, without putting anyone else in danger.

Unless he wants them to be.

His breath stutters as the power grows - churns, builds on itself - still seeking an easy target. Bruck. The Jedi. Tor Vizsla. An entire planet of selfish fools that murdered his friends, murdered younglings - too kriffing stupid to do anything but tear themselves apart and nothing they’d do afterwards worth any of the sacrifice of -

No. Obi-Wan thinks, bracing through the surge of rage, forcing the flash of fury under control. We have more important things to do. He grits his teeth, when trying to steady himself, rein it in only causes the whole thing to ebb, like a flame threatening to go out.

“It’s… tricky. Hard to balance.”

Stop thinking like a Jedi. What have you seen in the galaxy that says ‘balance’ to you? The Force is change, it is the flow. Constant cycles, constant motion. Life is endless destruction and reinvention. No power but this. No knowledge but annihilation.

You said that before.

I was right, before. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, and you’re stalling. Now, go on. Stop pretending you’re not up for the challenge.

He’s not, he’s really not - but this isn’t about him. So Obi-Wan steadies himself, takes another breath - and reaches for everything he’s not supposed to reach for. Lets it happen, fire and ice dancing under his skin, feels the Dark in front of him binding itself tighter against his intent, sullen and irritated, disinterested in petty displays of power from younglings too stupid to even be fallen padawans - and something in him turns sharp and molten, as certain of victory and satisfied as he was staring down Bruck in their final spar, knowing he was the better fighter, that they both knew it. As sure as he wants to be, shoving a saber through Tor Vizsla’s throat and Obi-Wan snarls and pushes and you will do as I say-

A soft click, and a hum.

Congratulations, little one, you’ve pressed an evil button.

I hate you. Obi-Wan thinks wearily, the Dark ebbing as his control unravels along with it, breath coming hard, swaying on his feet, the world spinning a bit at the edges as the massive door slides back, revealing a brief span of empty corridor - and another, identical door.

Redundant blast doors. How unexpectedly competent. Well, it’s not like you can’t use the practice.

… I hate everything.

That’s the spirit.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

You know, the Manda, the Ka’ra - there’s no real discussion of polarities, no light or dark. The Mandalorians consider it another tool, nothing more. It’d be like having an evil hammer. If you used that power to, say, slaughter your entire aliit, of course they’d hunt you down and gut you - but it wouldn’t be any particular fault of the stars that you decided to be a dar’manda shabuir. It wouldn’t make you anything special - just another target with a few nastier tricks.

The second door seemed to give way a little easier than the first, which of course wasn’t anything to celebrate at all. Ask him what he’s feeling, Obi-Wan might be able find the words in a week or two, if he survives half that long. There were moments on Melida-Daan that had been tricky, walking through recent battlefields and having to force himself to focus. His shields are as strong as he can make them, but that’s just nothing compared to the sheer power of the entropy of this place, the tidal currents of emptiness and rising fear and old pain battering him from all directions. The only difference between him and everyone else caught in it is that at least he knows it’s there.

How long will Arla be able to hold out? How many ways can this place go for her that he can’t even imagine? What is he going to do, if he gets back up there and she’s not something he recogniz-

He’ll deal with it as it comes. It’s not how he prefers to do things, too easy to make mistakes without all the information and the opportunity to prepare - but maybe this is the Force trying to teach him something, whatever Genet says about it not caring about the details.

Of course, there is always the question of which side of the Force is making that call.

Quite a few others don’t have any concept of a duality with their Force sensitives. Or it’s a trinity, or something else altogether. A way of understanding the Force different enough that either Order can’t even recognize it. Did that ever strike you as the slightest bit arrogant - ‘Force sensitive’? As if there’s only the Jedi and the Sith and the barely trained. We’re all so terribly eager to divide and subdivide and put it into little boxes and pin it all down and make it be understood. Make it safe. The Force is not there to be safe. To be useful, or understood.

Obi-Wan wonders if the reason Genet hasn’t tried to corrupt him faster, or just possess him outright, is because then he wouldn’t have a captive audience.

This is hard-won ancient wisdom, little one. Be grateful. At least, if anything, his rudeness only seems to be a source of continued amusem*nt. Not as much a crossover between the Mandalorians and the Sith as you’d imagine there would be, no matter how far back you look. Unless they were unexpectedly strong in the Force, the Sith let them keep their ‘star-touched’ and the Mandalorians never really pursued it further. The rock-throwing might have piqued their interest, but expecting them to stick around for the theology… well, one can hardly blame them.

Obi-Wan’s still holding - clutching the Darksaber, let’s be honest. It’s heavy and slightly too large but still keeping him together in a way that far exceeds any minor difficulties of using it in combat. His own blade is still quiet and indifferent as ever, but the Darksaber - would it really let him wield it, if he were irredeemable? He is increasingly willing to believe that the weapon bounced its own way across the galaxy, just to get out of Tor’s hands. Certainly, if he were beyond saving, it would find a way to escape him too - would let him know in the Force just how unworthy he was. He braces himself for that judgement - half wanting it, if only to know for sure - but the crystal only hums softly, waiting for whatever comes next.

It’s still a little easier to breathe here, inside this bunker - the chaos outside muted by those Sith magics buried deep in the stones. The same ones that have left this space… seemingly unaltered for who knows how long. Long, unadorned corridors - basic, no more than functional - this was always meant to be hidden, the work behind the spectacle, for whatever that had been meant to look like.

“It’s… different, isn’t it?” Obi-Wan says, as he catches his breath, leaning against the wall just beyond the door and he certainly shouldn’t be distracted, attention drawn by the splintered chaos in the Force he’s spent all this time trying to avoid.

Be mindful of the present, padawan, a familiar voice chides from his memories, shaking his already fractured concentration.

Kriff the present. Go play with eternity. Genet may not care if Obi-Wan takes his time in being corrupted, but it’s clear he also has no interest in helping him avoid disaster if the splatter might leave a particularly interesting pattern. What do you see?

“It’s not… things here aren’t like they were when we landed.” Obi-Wan focuses - a little less difficult, like watching the chaos from behind transparisteel, and he reminds himself again it isn’t trying to hurt him. It’s just… hurt. “There wasn’t this… storm then, or it wasn’t so strong.”

All that fighting. Genet says. Pain and death and suffering all stir up the Force, as you’re aware, like stones thrown in a river. This place amplifies all of that - on purpose, by accident - creating more ripples that wash over the new arrivals, inspiring them to… throw more stones.

You knew. You knew all along no one was in control here. Obi-Wan thinks. What else do you know?

This and that. Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. The more I tell you what I think the Force is, little one, the more you understand things as I understand them. I already know what that looks like.

You think the Force… changes?

The Force is the Force - so yes and no. Obi-Wan rolls his eyes again. You set down the glass, the Force will conform to the shape - to make another rather plodding metaphor of it. You may only find what you expect to see. You expected to find an enemy here, expected this to be the predatory Dark. If you hadn’t let yourself listen, why wouldn’t you still be facing off against some terrible adversary, reacting to the expectations of your own fear? How do you think a Sith pulls power from the Dark while you can barely keep your feet? Certainly there’s time and training and the fine details - but ultimately? Perspective. Is the Force a tool? A destiny? A friend? Is the Dark a temptation or a resource or a sparring partner? Genet says. I knew a planet once where nearly the entire populace were ‘Force sensitive’ - you were considered an adult only when your eyes changed color. It was a time of joyous celebration, a sign of coming into your power. The very beginning of the great journey of your life.

I’m sure that worked out well for them.

A plague took them, in the end. A nasty thing that wiped out too many and flatlined an already low birthrate. Nothing to do with the Force at all, no one to blame. Growth and decay, the cycle of all things. The survivors dwindled, scattered and disappeared into history. Or… even less than that, now. Genet says. At sunset, they would sing the most beautiful songs.

Of course, Obi-Wan knows that there are planets where any Force-sensitive children are handed to the Jedi without a glance back, just as there are planets the Jedi are not welcome, those with their own traditions and no interest in the attention or opinions of outsiders. Respecting those beliefs - treading lightly - is, of course, a vital part of who they are and what they do - but he’s never heard of the whole of the Force being considered so… malleable, certainly not the Dark.

He is lying to you. Do not be this stupid. He can afford to play this game as long as he wants.

There are some who believe that the entire universe and everything in it is only a conversation the Force is having with itself. Insatiable curiosity at play with infinite possibilities. It does have a certain appeal.

Obi-Wan tries to pay no more than half-attention to Genet’s musings, the way he used to let the finer points of astro-nav wash over him while he considered how to improve his lightsaber forms, even if there’s nothing in front of him he really wants to focus on either.

The tunnel widens into a corridor that branches off at right angles in several directions, a few more missing lights adding the proper layer of ominousness. It all feels ancient - but with the whole planet barren as it is, practically suspended in time, there’s a distinct lack of anything to overgrow or warp or corrode. Decrepit and sterile at the same time.

At least a few tectonic shifts from then to now, it seems, at least enough to shatter many of the windows as he moves closer, the hall half-buried in rubble and Obi-Wan leaps the sill into one of the smaller locked rooms, window to window to make his way through.

The banks of anonymous machines are all lifeless, mysterious and Sith to the core, Dark as anything they give their full attention - but there are enough other markers, for Obi-Wan to know where he is, and what it was for. Tables with restraints. The floor glinting with countless small, sharp things from overturned shelves. Grates in the middle of the room, channels cut into the edges, because whatever happened here would be as messy as it was commonplace and they had known it from the start.

Obi-Wan struggles as he’s lifted, but the hands around his arms and legs are unyielding, and he strains to see anything - where he’s going, where Xanatos is, the source of that terrible, roiling, fathomless darkness that had left him gasping even as they’d opened the door and he knows it won’t do any good, won’t matter but his back slams against the table, bindings hard around his wrists and he’s begging anyway, the words spilling free - “You don’t have to do this. Please. Whatever it is, we can - there has to be another way. Please, Xanatos, you don’t have to do this.”

The sound of the older boy’s soft chuckle, dragging… whatever it is closer, along the edge of the table, and Obi-Wan tries to pull himself away even with the restraints, doesn’t want to be anywhere near the sickly red glow that grows brighter and brighter…

“Oh, little brother… but I really want to.”

Obi-Wan comes back to himself, pressed against the wall, both hands against his mouth to stop whatever it is that wants to get out. A wave of nausea rises, his vision going gray at the edges. The Dark stirs, roused by his fear.

“What did he do to me?” He whispers. “What did you do?”

The scion of Telos? Ambition outpacing competence. Always one of nature’s more stunning combinations. I imagine whatever happened here was much the same. It usually is. Genet says. You didn’t want to remember, little one, so you haven’t. You’ve certainly had enough to keep you occupied. I would point out that now might not be the ideal moment to go digging.

Obi-Wan nods, tries to focus on his breathing, the uneven thud of his heart - Genet may be right about that, but he’s not sure it’s going to be any more his choice than the rest of this has been.

A shock of lightning, snapping to him from the wall and Obi-Wan yelps, diving away as it all lights up, comes alive, half the panels glowing in some shade of red or dim and flickering, but others in less damaged yellows, greens and blues. A mix of languages - that twisted Sith script his eyes shy away from and another set of delicate marks and cross marks that doesn’t carry a similar darkness but isn’t anything he recognizes.

You’re like a high-pressure bubble in the system. Genet says, as Obi-Wan tries to shake the feeling back into his hand. It’s reacting to you as a Jedi, to the unbound Force, the Light.

But, I’m not…

Who are you going to believe, your own doubts or the hell planet?

He can’t read the sigils that flicker to life, but Genet seems to have no trouble studying them, the hooded figure flicking from one bank of images to the next as they continue along the corridor. Obi-Wan could ask, probably should know the details. He does not want to know the details.

“I felt…” Obi-Wan says, trying to figure out exactly what he’d felt, when the mercenary had died in front of him, when those who had died had crumbled and vanished and then in the Force, the violent, unnatural pull. “It’s like the Force is being… absorbed here. It’s like… a battery?”

What you see as evil Sith magics in the darkest of places are - beneath all the pageantry and spectacle - just more and more complicated ways of manipulating the Force against its natural inclinations. Brute force cruelty is simply a reliable source of power, an easy spark. Narrow the channels, flood the river with stones - the stream becomes a rapids, the power grows. The Force itself remains unaltered - but the pain it takes to build those initial pathways, let alone to fix the new structures in place - all anathema to the Jedi.

Or anyone else who’s not a monster. Obi-Wan thinks, but he tries to focus on what Genet is saying, trying to explain. It’s not how his teachers spoke of the Force, although there were still differing perspectives among them - a living thing, to be tended and nurtured and to follow into balance and alignment. Or a being of its own whims and determinations, or a power that could be corrupted and lost. Genet talks about it almost like breaking down an engine, the Force with no more inherent sanctity than coolant or brake fluid.

Sith reductiveness does not often lend itself to poetry, little one - although even there, it’s brake fluid that can decide to be hyperdrive fuel when it wants to be. Or the engine. Or you. Or all of it, and the birds and the stars. Genet says, amused and fond. The Force changes as you study it, as it is experienced - which can make replicating desired results… somewhat challenging. The Sith like to pretend it isn’t true, that all things can be controlled if the boot just comes down hard enough, but this planet would suggest certain limitations to that worldview.

It’s terrifying, to even let his thoughts skate across the surface of whatever it is the Sith did here - the incomprehensible vast horror of it - but very slightly less so, if it isn’t some indomitable fortress. It shouldn’t be like this. Whatever it was supposed to be - they’d tried, and they’d failed.

Collecting the Dark, translating the Force into a more… universally applicable form of power - but that’s tertiary, just to keep the systems running. Genet seems to be talking to himself as much as anyone, as he continues studying what’s left of the evidence. Far more interesting… of course great atrocities produce greater outputs, a boulder leaves a bigger wave than a pebble, but it should all still stagnate if not… ah, now there’s an intriguing avenue of thought. Insanity, but we hardly get points for rational decision making, now do we?

Obi-Wan steps up to his side, not that there’s anything more he can understand here, what’s caught the phantom’s attention. All he has is what he can feel, what this place screams in his ear, even if it doesn’t make any sense.

“It feels… the Force feels…” Wrong. Impossibly wrong. “… it's frozen.”

In manner of speaking. Locked up, and what little movement remains is left bouncing back and forth along countless channels, all bound up in itself, perpetuating its own imprisonment. Somewhat similar to a glacier, if we’re keeping with the theme. The Force can behave… even more unexpectedly under those kinds of advanced pressures. I’ve seen the theory before, as a modulator of sorts in a greater system - but there was never quite anyone mad enough to try it as a proof of concept on its own.

“You know a lot about it.”

I should. A ghostly finger flicks against a long line of figures. At least some of this was certainly mine.

By now, Obi-Wan thinks he ought to be used to the feeling of his insides going into free-fall with every new surprise or revelation, but it still keeps taking his breath away.

You… did this.

If I did this, little one, it would have worked. Genet says. Depending on how long ago this occurred, they may have found some old research notes, perhaps a prototype or some other scavenged artifact, and they tried to patch the gaps as they went. Or they did have all their foundation well figured out - but someone wanted more, wanted it faster, or first.

A distinction, between knowing he’s been haunted by a Sith, that there’s a Dark presence inside of him and being reminded of the particulars of just what that really means - surrounded by all these rooms where no doubt countless, helpless others were fed into whatever… machine it is they’d tried to build here, that Genet seems to know so much about, so matter-of-fact in the face of this apocalypse -

Blood. Pain. One of the guards is dead, has been dead for a long time. Obi-Wan can see an unmoving hand on the floor, just out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t know where the other guard is, or how long he’s been here, only that he can feel blood beading off of him in a dozen different places from the symbols carved into him, a hot, dry ache down to his bones and Xanatos no closer to whatever it is he wanted than when they started an eternity ago. The collar had been disabled, but they’d jabbed him with something that had dragged the Force away just the same, and Obi-Wan's not sure it would matter either way, the Dark in this place all but suffocating.

“… appreciate that only the worthy are deserving of reward, but this is beginning to border on the impolitic.” Xanatos growls to no one. He’d been happier at the start of things, elated - but that was some time ago, and things have long devolved to frustrated shouts and ranting brokenly at empty air. Obi-Wan still can’t see it, the Sith holocron he knows is there, the sick glow of it filling the room and casting Xanatos’ shadow across every wall and now this, the sound of something heavy thrown against a wall, the light wavering wildly, and that’s probably not what you want to do… that’s probably…

“I’m n-not… I’m not… Qui-Gon didn’t even want-“ He’s not sure why he’s still trying, whatever this is well past the point where it matters which padawan had failed who for what reason. Maybe just that talking holds a connection to his body that Obi-Wan can feel fraying - not that it helps, the backhand knocking the rest of the words away, tasting copper as Xanatos leans over him, thoughtful and hateful and crackling with violence around the edges, the Dark Side limning him in fire.

“I know this is difficult for you to believe, Kenobi, but there are things that matter in this galaxy besides Qui-Gon kriffing Jinn and the kriffing Jedi Order.” Xanatos says, and pats Obi-Wan’s cheek, a mockery of affection. “I will claim all that I am owed, that’s for certain - but there’s more. So much more that I deserve. And now I have the means to make it mine.” A glint of a blade in his open hand, the dagger ornate and curved and it’s been taking slow, careful bites of him all this time, whatever ritual Xanatos thinks he’s needed for whatever reason.

The light in the room is flickering now, brighter and sharper, and even without the Force Obi-Wan can feel it, gathered power being dragged to a breaking point, Xanatos with a hand outstretched toward the holocron and the red light glittering in his eyes. Obi-Wan tries to speak, to plead, but all that comes is a tight keen of panic and Xanatos savors it, he sees that, the smile almost gentle and all the more terrifying because of it.

“Calm down, little brother. You’ll get to see your Temple again, soon enough. You’re going to be right there beside me from now on - in a manner of speaking.”

The knife comes down.

Obi-Wan finds himself panting hard, staring into his own yellow eyes in a jagged, broken fragment of a window, with the Darksaber pressed hard against his throat and his thumb on the switch and a whole new terrible possibility he hadn’t quite considered looking back.

“Am I… am I dead? Did Xanatos kill me?” Did Obi-Wan never even leave Bandomeer, and he’s just some… echo, some scrap of the Force being worn like ill-fitted clothing to cover for the Sith beneath - oh Force, and he’d gone back to Coruscant. Before Melida-Daan. Whatever Genet wanted, whatever he was, no one else had seen it and Obi-Wan had brought him to the Temple-

Does it really matter?

“Yes, it kriffing really matters!” Obi-Wan snaps, hating the way his voice cracks, how young he sounds, how helpless.

You’re not dead. Genet says. You’re not some droid shell I’m hiding inside of to pop out and yell surprise. That I can exist here as long as I have with you now is only because of how disrupted this place is in the Force. Du Crion understood nothing, not what he had acquired nor what it was intended for. I already know what it looks like, little one, when I live a life. Several, in fact. I have no need of yours. No new atrocities of mine from your hands. Any debts owed me were paid long ago, and of those that remain… there is no recompense. He can feel Genet’s invisible gaze resting on where his hands are still holding the unlit Darksaber against his throat. Whatever your choices, they should never come from fear. Frightened people will work against their own best interests without even knowing it. After all, you’re still listening to me.

Obi-Wan can’t help the laugh. Every time he thinks he knows the phantom in his head, there’s a swerve. “You’re mocking me.”

Of course I am. And if I really was puppeting you about, giving yourself a few new saber holes seems like it would still be more your problem than mine.

He’s not wrong, and Obi-Wan doesn’t want to die - not here, of all places - and he lets the saber fall, and then lets himself follow, sliding down the wall, just a few moments of letting himself breathe, sitting with… this.. it… everything. He’d been far enough out of his depth back on Mandalore…

All is the path to knowing, little one. Every moment, here as well as anywhere. If what you truly want is enlightenment, best to let the universe destroy you as often as possible. No punishment they can throw at you will be a sliver of what you’ll gain. If you long for any chance of knowing anything for what it is, you should rejoice that the galaxy found you as quickly as it did.

“The Temple was a good place. I was lucky to be there.” Force, has he been learning just how kriffing lucky.

I’m not arguing that - but it’s hardly a triumph of ideology, to be somewhere serene and find serenity. If you want to know harmony, dive headfirst into chaos. How much more do you understand of peace now that you’ve walked through two wars? What does letting go even mean if you’ve never held on with everything you are?

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “I can’t… I can’t live like that. I can’t risk it.”

What? Mistakes? The galaxy survived Kun and Revan and Malak, Sion and Bane and a hundred-thousand lesser ambitions. All the infinite horrors of the past, and all the infinite horrors yet to come. I think it’s safe to say it will survive you.

I don’t want to be a thing to be survived.

But you do want to know. Genet says. You want to see what it looks like, all the way down, and understand why it is the way it is, all those answers you’ve been given that don’t quite fit with what you’ve experienced - and if you can set yourself against it and see what will endure.

Arrogance. Foolishness and insanity. He’d never… Obi-Wan shakes his head. “I don’t… no. You’re wrong. I don’t need that. I don’t want it.”

Do you love being a Jedi - truly delight in it - or just worry that someone might see your attention drift elsewhere? Genet says. Dark side or Light, I doubt the Force enjoys being an obligation.

Obi-Wan sighs. “You wouldn’t let me die, or you might actually have to stop talking.”

I do have some capacity to keep myself entertained. Genet says. But if you’re ready to continue, we can see if there’s anything useful in this grand monument to failure.

———————————

It’s a relief, to leave the claustrophobic clusters of little rooms behind them, the most obvious reminder of what was done here - and how often, and how little the pain mattered to the ones doing the damage, except as a means to an end - like Bandomeer, the guards either sad*stically attentive or bored and indifferent and which one is the Sith in his head, does he think? Obi-Wan swallows, feels his breath catch, uneven and refusing his insistence on being otherwise. He is absolutely out of places to put all the things he does not have time to think about, and that doesn’t stop them from coming.

The door ahead of him opens, with no more than the slightest brush of his attention, locks giving way with quieter and quieter protests. Now he can open Dark Side doors but he can’t kriffing breathe. Fun.

Little one.

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine. We’re already wasting too much time.” Obi-Wan says, just to jump half out of his skin again as a side room flares into life, panels lighting up, another crackle of sympathetic energy across his skin, the hairs raising on his arms. Kriff this kriffing place. Kriff the kriffing Sith. “You said it’s waking up. What did you mean? What happens if it wakes up?”

You can feel it. The more arrivals, the greater amount of Force coming in from elsewhere, the more it suggests the possibility of a way out. The Force is dynamic, it’s against its very nature to be trapped like this, and whatever scraps are left of all those bound up in it are desperate to find enough new fuel to break free. Unfortunately, the more that’s absorbed, the stronger things bind themselves in place. A recursive loop with no end and no purpose.

Obi-Wan wonders how long this cycle has gone on, how many hundreds or thousands of years - ships arriving seeking secrets or treasure or glory, the violence that ensues stirring the unbound Force into a grasping maelstrom until there’s no one left, and the planet quiets itself again until the next ship lands, unknowing, and it all begins again.

Or, I suppose, there might be a saturation point, all remaining survivors subsumed in one great blast - a last, doomed grasp at freedom.

If there’s a worse place than this in the galaxy, Obi-Wan does not even want to try and imagine it.

It certainly is memorable, and that is no small feat.

“Glad you’re enjoying yourself.” Obi-Wan says flatly, and then the hallway curves and widens into a much larger, circular space and he never thought it possible, that a simple map could fill him with so much relief, but for the first time in this place it feels like he’s doing more than scrambling blindly.

A three-dimensional view of what must be half the continent, and though it flickers and flashes now and again it is amazing that anything here ought to work at all, but Obi-Wan isn’t going to question this one bit of good luck. Genet can read the information as Obi-Wan flicks through the settings - a cross-section of the entire base, and it stretches out in every direction, lifts and pathways beneath the surface - although there’s immense, hard-edged swaths of red breaking through much of the infrastructure, anything that wasn’t deliberately protected replaced by a honeycomb of what Obi-Wan knows are the same vast corridors of endless, repeating rooms. It spreads out in all directions, disappearing past the edges of the projected map.

“Why do all the rooms - why does it all look like that?”

The battery?

Oh. Oh, of course, and there’s one more thing he’d rather not have known, but Obi-Wan thinks he already must have, on some level, the two dots connecting with painful swiftness. The rooms had all been… suffused with the Dark, and there was no sense of source, no up or down and it sounded like they were screaming because they were made of the former inhabitants of this place, and all the creatures that lived here, the trees and the grass and everything in the Force that got swept up in the wake of what the Sith did, rendered down into the same blank, pale bone, a thousand thousand identical ornate, empty structures that had devoured an entire living world.

A cascade failure, I imagine. Genet says. A Dark Side engine, fueled by an infinitely suffering populace suspended in a closed-circuit Force loop. Whatever clever little Sith put it together must have also fancied themselves an artist - perhaps they’d intended to render themselves a palace, some elaborate display of power as a capstone to the whole. And then suddenly they weren’t clever enough, and there was no one to direct the output, and the system fell into mindless replication.

“You did this.” Obi-Wan can’t help the way a part of him still circles that thought, a bird on a carcass. Genet may not have been responsible for this specific planet, but he recognized every step in the process. Whoever he was, he’d been an inspiration for all those who’d come after. “… was it funny?” He hears his voice shake. “Did you laugh when you hurt… whoever it was that you hurt? Did you make them beg? Or did you just not care at all?”

Genet sighs - an echo of vast, empty time, and there’s a moment Obi-Wan thinks he won’t actually answer.

When power is an end to itself, and everything else the means to get there - very quickly there is only the need for more. The universe and all within it becomes two-dimensional - resources to be spent, challenges to be dealt with. At best, it is all no more than a reflection of your own glory. An echo chamber - and when you are surrounded only by those with the same ambitions, who want nothing more than to stick a knife in you as a handhold to climb higher… the ‘Rule of Two’ sounds so much better than admitting they couldn’t stop it if they wanted to. Sometimes, you have an empire because you need a few systems between you and your closest allies.

“So, you didn’t care.”

Perspective, little one. It seems such a small thing, barely even a choice sometimes - but when you decide what’s most important, you also decide what you’ll sacrifice to keep it, and everything else… falls into place. The greatest of horrors justified, all things turned to the value they have in the moment and all of the means disposable in pursuit of the end, even if, by definition, there is no end. After a while, you start constructing little dramas for yourself just to keep the emotions running high. If you’re lucky, someone comes along to unceremoniously end things before it can all descend into farce - if it wasn’t there all along.

The entire point of non-attachment, of course, to cut that disaster off at the root. Selflessness ahead of desire. The knowledge that all things are temporary, that striving for power is of no purpose, and holding on too hard can only cause pain.

Non-attachment is a journey, not a destination - and for one so young? You have to do things before you can be enlightened about why you shouldn’t have done them. If you didn’t care for anyone or anything right from the start, you’d be a stone. Or a politician.

“If this is where you try to tell me it’s all relative, you can skip it. This,” Obi-Wan throws out a hand, encompassing the dead world. “This is not relative.”

Certainly not a planet likely to seduce anyone to anything. Genet agrees, But your gardeners are hardly free from such worldly woes, no matter what they’d prefer to believe. The Jedi create very useful, tidy channels for the Force to travel. Not violent, not those of the Sith, but don’t think for a moment they aren’t… cultivated. Walls upon walls, teachings upon teachings, to bend the Force this way and that, that it will serve the way they prefer it to serve. Benign and pleasant and useful.

“To help people. We help people.”

… and if, one day, that cultivation, that understanding stops helping, do you still protect the people, or do you protect the walls - and if you’ve spent your entire life being told they’re the same thing, how do you know the difference?

“Stop it.” Obi-Wan says. “You’re lying. I know that you’re lying, I know what you’re trying to do and I’m not-”

Little one, if you could look back and see yourself right now, if the initiate from the Temple had a glimpse of this moment, what would you believe? What would you think you’d become, and would you have been right?

Obi-Wan doesn’t know how to answer that - and thankfully, he doesn’t have to, the holomap suddenly flickering and shifting, new markers pinging away.

It appears more of the system is coming online. Genet gestures to a point over the top of what looks like a long ridge, down into a valley on the other side. Connective tunnels between here and there, but all blocked with red. This is the building that connects to the markers for the hyperlane, and likely the better part of what’s keeping this place on the map.

Obi-Wan ignores the quiet thought he’s already ignored a few times by now - if they can’t get out, if there’s not… they’ll have to try and shut down the beacons, to at least do whatever they can to keep anyone else from being lured here.

No, they’ll get out. They have to get out.

“Is there anything that can clear a path to make sure we get out into orbit?”

Besides you, little one? Genet says - and yes that had been the… plan was giving it too much credit, but Obi-Wan is prepared to try and play catch with whatever this planet felt like throwing at them in order to escape. Difficult to say if there’s any weapons that will still hold a charge out there, but I imagine the Sith must have left one or two overpowered bad ideas lying around that might prove of use.

“Can you see anything else?”

It’s picking up a signal. Genet says, gesturing to a smaller pulse of light, at the end of a tunnel that seems protected, clear all the way to the surface. I believe this was the way you were headed, before you and your Mandalorian were split up. It will give you a good position, if you want to continue up the ridge. If there are any ships to be had, you might see them from there.

“What’s that?” Obi-Wan points to a high peak on the mountains along the path, lit up differently than the rest, marked with Sith and that other script, from whoever the Sith had used to… “What does it say?”

I’m unfamiliar with the native language, but the other notes say it’s a site of no great interest, a minor complication. He can hear the smile in Genet’s voice. So whoever it was up there likely defied them, at least for a while, which might make it worth a closer examination.

If the map is still accurate, it also appears to be the best vantage point for the rest of the area. Obi-Wan watches the view change again, feels his stomach sink at the sight of another moving blip - another ship landing, another kriff knows how many mercs or pirates or scavengers who have no idea what they’re getting into. Genet is idly flicking through a few more subsections on the image, and it takes Obi-Wan a moment to realize just what that means.

“You’re… using the map.”

Well, it is powered by the Dark. As am I, more or less.

“So… you could have opened the door?” Obi-Wan says around gritted teeth. “All of them?”

And deprive you of the opportunity to expand your horizons, little one? What would that make me?

“How long does it take, usually, before Sith apprentices try to kill their masters? Just out of curiosity.”

Genet laughs. It ought to be an ugly, cruel thing, or false levity. It doesn’t feel like either. Obi-Wan tells himself he doesn’t care.

An accident, what had happened to him. Xanatos had intended for him to be some kind of… puppet, or vessel for the power of the Holocron - but it hadn’t worked as he’d hoped for, the same way whatever happened on this planet hadn’t worked - and Obi-Wan physically shoves that thought away as far as it will go. It doesn’t matter what happened, not in this moment. It doesn’t matter what happened on Bandomeer. Or if Xanatos is still alive. It doesn’t even matter what Obi-Wan is now. Nothing matters except finding Arla, keeping the Darksaber, and getting the kriff off this planet.

“If it isn’t about getting you where you need to be in one piece, it does not exist.”

Is he in one piece? Doesn’t matter.

The main corridor has crumbled midway, which sends them back along a side passage of twisting stairs and maintenance tunnels, but Obi-Wan remembers the map - a detour he had hoped they wouldn’t need to take, more time lost - but it ought to reconnect with the whole, and faster than deciding if he wanted to use the Force to clear a path, to see if he could do it without bringing the rest of the ceiling down on top of them.

Yet another door, and Obi-Wan glares at Genet, who looks back at him and even cloaked and faceless there’s no doubt of that smirk. No time for this, not when the phantom is clearly willing to outwait him - and Obi-Wan takes a breath and makes the same apologies he has every time he’s reached for his fear and annoyance and doubt and frustration and anger. Focusing, driving them like a sharpened pick into the Sith-locked door and he almost stumbles back as the bindings hold, the Dark twisted in even more complicated patterns that challenge him for every inch. Obi-Wan has never been the strongest, the only natural gifts he has those of patience and persistence and they serve him just as well with the Dark, even if it might be better if they didn’t.

It isn’t until the door is sliding open, Obi-Wan again left shaken in the wake of it, that he thinks that maybe there was a reason the door was so firmly barred. It might have been a cache, weapons or other valuables, or possibly something he’d rather not have opened, but it’s too late for that, and the Force is the same here as it is has been everywhere - muted, suffering, twisted.

The lights turn on. No, he doesn’t want to see any of this. Obi-Wan’s not even certain what he’s looking at.

“What…”

It seems this was a panic room, and one would imagine that was the panic.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

It’s difficult to tell what he’s looking at - and Obi-Wan keeps looking and it stays difficult. Violence implied in every outstretched limb, in the stains of ancient blood, the scorch marks of Force lightning etched across the floor and up the walls. So much destruction that in places it’s hard to distinguish the infrastructure from the… organic - except that it’s all been torn apart.

A mass of bodies spread out before him, some stripped down to the bone and others almost… mummified, dark robes that threaten to disintegrate even as he looks at them. Not all of them were Sith, though - Obi-Wan can see flashes of repeating color here and there, of cloth and armor and the glint of weapons, long thin bones beneath long, thin helms that only begin to suggest at the inhabitants of this place - two legs, at least two arms, but nothing else he can be certain of. Maybe he could tell more, feel more if he opened himself up fully to the Force but that is absolutely not going to happen.

Lightsabers lie scattered here and there across the ground, casings torn and immolated from the inside out, crystals shattered into faint glints of deep red powder.

A morbid frieze, more than a few of the bodies half-embedded into the wall, and at the edges they melt away in a sickeningly familiar manner, dissolving down into those repeating, pale patterns that half-stretch up the walls. Not enough… raw material in here for anything like a full transformation - but how that had happened at all, when they should have been protected here?

One of these bodies probably knew the answer - perhaps part of an attack, or some fragment of that failure they’d brought in with them, not knowing it was a mistake, that it would react the way it did. Obi-Wan can’t even tell who was slaughtering each other and who might have just been trying to escape. If this was some desperate, last attempt by those who’d lived here to stop the Sith or some late-stage coup of one faction over another - or simply some final gasp of violence and vengeance, when they all realized the end had finally come. Maybe the sight of the moon shattering in the sky was enough to shake even the resolve of a Sith, no matter how well-fortified their defenses.

Join the Dark Side, and all this can be yours. Genet says, with a jagged shudder of ugly amusem*nt. So much potential. So much possibility. We could do anything. Be anything. Victory will break the chains - and yet the very first thing they do is find a new Master and new rules and bind themselves up tighter than ever. I suppose I have as much right as any to ordain you. Would you like that, little one? You could write your special little evil name on all your special little evil plans.

Of course Obi-Wan knew the Sith fought the Sith as much as anyone else - it was what they did, what they were - but the withering, searing fury in Genet’s voice feels as if it could peel his flesh from his bones. Ages of disappointment, enough fuel to burn him from the inside out a thousand times over, the scraps of Force gathered in this place trembling in the wake of it.

“You… hate them. The Sith.” Not just as competition, and it doesn’t feel as… simple as betrayal, or envy, or some revenge denied. Genet may have come from one of their holocrons, but Obi-Wan thinks he has as little idea as Xanatos as to exactly what that means.

Trading in the capacity for awe in the endless struggle toward… what? An army? An empire? A chair. Just imagine, though - devote every inch of what you are utterly to the pursuit, make it your highest goal and lay waste to everything before you and it just might be a bigger chair than anyone’s ever had before. The biggest chair in all the galaxy.

Obi-Wan whimpers - can’t help it, the weight of that hatred like being dragged into a collapsing star, no hope of survival - but slowly, he feels the pressure ease, the raw anger fading. Or Genet’s still just as angry, but he’s sparing Obi-Wan the brunt of it, maybe hadn’t even realized how much was bleeding through.

“Do you know - do you know who they were?”

Not any of mine, if that’s what you’re asking. He was. I could make an educated guess, although I doubt it would mean much to you now. The matter of a few centuries difference here or there, when it all happened thousands of years ago. Genet says. The Sith claim themselves untethered, even as they look backwards like everyone else, seeking validation in the legacies of long-forgotten lords. Perhaps they decided to be acolytes to whomever they deemed most impressive, whatever story they wanted to be true. Perhaps this was the remnants of an Empire fracturing, or those who grew up in the wake of the collapse, desperately fanning a flaming ember with whatever scraps of lingering glory might feed the flames.

“Remnants?” Obi-Wan says. “That’s not… even if they were powerful, it would take an army to capture a planet like this, to do… whatever they did to the people who lived here.”

He doesn’t like it when Genet talks. It isn’t any better when he stops, not when the silence is this heavy.

… what do you see, little one?

He learned to be wary of open-ended questions after Bandomeer, that brief span of time where no answer he gave was the correct one, and too many foolish mistakes might leave Qui-Gon reconsidering his choice. Everything conditional, every failure piling up on the last - it shouldn’t be the truth, that in some ways it’s easier to talk to the evil Force ghost in his head. He doesn’t have to care what Genet thinks, or if it takes him too long to understand.

The evil Force ghost already seems to approve of him more than his Master ever did.

Lies lies lies.

Obi-Wan focuses again on the chaos in front of him, forcing himself to drag out the details, looking for whatever it is Genet thinks he’s supposed to see.

He sees… Sith killing Sith, at least one that had died with gloved hands tight around the throat of another, the blackened ruin above the neck suggesting all the lightning that could be brought to bear - and in their distraction they’d been run through from behind, a long pike that seemed to be the standard for this planet’s military force or honor guard. Another tattered, dark cloak impaled on half a dozen blades while taking down half a dozen more.

Not always the easiest thing, to destroy a Sith - but they can be…. rather exceptional at inspiring commitment. A blind spot, the weakness of believing they’re guaranteed to be the most ruthless ones in the room, because they think they know the Dark. But the Dark does not play favorites - it’s about the game, not the pieces, and it loves all its pieces equally.

Obi-Wan shivers.

It was an honor guard - too many marks of rank to be simple soldiers. This was supposed to be a safe place, and if there were others here who weren’t the Sith, they would have had to been… invited. Obi-Wan can pick out the gleaming decorations now that he’s looking for them, and of course not all planets have the same traditions, the same markers of status, but there are often repeating similarities. Precious metals and stones used to denote rank, the more important with the greater amount - and this place seems much the same. Bodies and the suggestion of bodies all tangled and broken - but the glint and gleam of materials less fragile than skin and bone remain mostly untouched.

A king or a queen, or even a group of kings or queens or officials, however this world chose to organize itself - and it doesn’t make any difference, shouldn’t make his heart clench - everyone died here, no matter where they were - but it hurts to notice that there are those with marks of status but no sign of weapons. Bodies he’d assumed to be badly damaged that were simply… smaller, younglings hiding behind their parents, shielded in their arms even though they must have known it was futile.

If they’d come down here to be safe, if the Sith had allowed them in - these leaders would have known something about what was happening. About how the Sith had been gaining their power. You didn’t build a facility this large or this complex without outside involvement. And if the Sith hadn’t come in with an army, if they hadn’t had the strength to simply demand this whole world follow their lead…

Do you want to learn how to destabilize a government, little one? I used to do it just to watch them fall. Genet says. Every system has its flaws, every ideology has its vulnerabilities. Always those who gain and those who suffer. Those in control, who wish to keep that control, and those who wish to trade up for more no matter how much they have. The Sith have power, but they also tell a story of power - and so many in this galaxy want so badly to be a part of that story. If you had the time, we could use Mandalore as a test case. It wouldn’t take as much as you’d imagine to have the Kyr’tsad tearing each other to pieces. Hardly an impossible feat to destroy a Mand’alor, I should know.

“So the Sith, they… lied to the leaders here. Told them all some story, and not what they were really doing, and when they found out…” Obi-Wan says, and wishes he believed it, the way he would have believed it before Melida-Daan. Wishes he believed that these great leaders had stormed down here in outrage when they’d learned of the atrocities being performed, that the Sith had hidden everything, that there was no other possibility -

Oh, they surely lied about who would win the endgame - but the getting there? If the Melida could have sacrificed the Daan for a position to rival the Core Worlds in power and prosperity? If all they had to do was see their enemies destroyed utterly? If the Daan were offered the same chance? Genet says. To say nothing of what Tor Vizsla would agree to, to watch the galaxy bow or burn.

In a way, Bandomeer had been very simple. No moral grays - Xanatos was Fallen and the overseers were brutal and Obi-Wan had been ready - hadn’t been ready, hadn’t wanted to blow his collar - but he’d known his responsibility, the value of the greater good a Jedi put ahead of personal fear.

Melida-Daan had been… everything gone wrong in every way, and suddenly the harder path had been the wrong choice, suddenly he was foolish instead of brave - but that hadn’t been Qui-Gon’s decision alone. It had been the rules of the Order - and the Republic, those who’d requested Master Tahl’s intervention in the first place.

The Republic, who hadn’t sent anyone to intervene specifically for the Young - who hadn’t cared even though they must have known, if not before their arrival then after, when things just got worse and worse. Except the Republic had never cared about anyone’s survival - what had mattered was having their orders followed without question.

Wrong. Obi-Wan admonishes himself. You’re wrong, it was bigger than that, there’s more happening in the galaxy than you’ll ever know, and no one can help everyone, and you can’t just assume…

Always good for a government to keep a useful tool in their back pocket. Especially a tool that’s morally opposed to demanding what it’s worth.

“The Jedi aren’t mercenaries, we’re servants. Peacekeepers and diplomats.”

Which is why they sent enough Jedi to Melida-Daan to enact meaningful change.

“It’s not - we couldn’t just sweep in like some invading army. Peace by demand isn’t true peace, and wouldn’t last. It’s more complicated than that and you know it.”

Do you always give everyone the benefit of infinite doubts?

“When the alternative is what? This?” Obi-Wan gestures around him. Is there any level of reserve, of restraint not worth accepting, if this is what happens when they let themselves start thinking they have the right to do whatever they want?

Devoting yourself wholly to the Force, forsaking all ties and desires - so that you may better serve the demands of petty bureaucrats in bad suits. The sound of a phantom breath hissed through phantom teeth. That… is a choice. That is a choice you can make.

Stop mocking me.

Only an observation. Genet says, mockingly. It truly was the worst thing that could have happened, when the Sith were vanquished. This Republic can’t imagine what it was to face that threat, and the Jedi don’t remember what it was like to fight it, and have been stripped of all useful tools. And for some reason, in an ever-changing galaxy, you’ve all decided this is the victory that will last forever.

What did Xanatos believe he had found? Why had he been looking, and what did he think it would have given him? Where would it have ended? How many more like him were out there - how many others had come to this planet, thinking they’d discover some great power in the darkest corners?

“Are they… out there now? The Sith?”

Oh, they always will be. Those who believe they deserve to rule a better empire, that this time it will be eternal. Always and ever ambition ready to sacrifice others for the sake of some grand conquest. Genet says. Maybe not Sith in name, at least not to start - but the temptation of a framework to follow, of power and legacy… they didn’t create Holocrons because they thought no one would ever come looking. The question is - when they do make themselves known, in one form or another, who will even be able to challenge them?

“You should remember that I was barely a Padawan, and mostly by accident.” Obi-Wan says. “You can win as many arguments against me as you want, but the Council isn’t stupid. They know the Force as well as you do, if not better, and they’ve been fighting threats against the Republic for a long time.”

Kriff, he’d like to see Genet go up against Master Yoda or Master Windu - or Master Dooku, who would have been a count if he hadn’t been a Jedi, and had probably forgotten more about galactic politics than Obi-Wan would ever know.

Until your Republic decides that listening to the gardeners is inconvenient. Or the Sith offer them a more tempting deal.

“Or Coruscant wobbles off its orbit and knocks half the Core worlds out into wild space, if we’re going to start imagining ‘what ifs.’” Obi-Wan says, more angry than he should be showing but he’s tired and this place is grinding him down and if he goes with mockery he doesn’t have to think too hard about everything Genet’s saying - that the Sith might be an inevitability, that the Jedi might not know where to look, that the Republic might kriffing choose… no. No, never. There's evil and then there's evil and... no, not like this. It would never happen. He’s got to stop letting this place rattle him, letting the phantom in his head have so much free rein.

Fair enough, little one. Genet says, with an indulgent chuckle that makes Obi-Wan want to punch the nearest wall. I imagine if we stayed down here for a month or two, we’d unearth all kinds of interesting details about just what happened here and why - but there is that matter of having no time and no resources and Mand’alor the Regrettable out there with his head still inconveniently attached.

The next door opens, and Obi-Wan can’t help the sigh of relief, to put this room behind him - only to have it catch in his throat, a flicker and flash of red that makes him tense, an instant reminder of Bandomeer and Xanatos and Obi-Wan just about manages to convince himself it might be nothing more than a damaged panel stubbornly holding on, when there’s a ripple in the Force that says he won’t want to be in this room either.

The lights turn on as he approaches, dimming the crimson glow, though it still flashes violently - the holocron resting on its side in the corner of the room, flickering and jagged, like watching the remnants of a broadcast through a solar storm. It… burns in the Force, a small knot of violent torment, and as Obi-Wan looks closer he can see the jittering, broken shadows of two distinct figures within, flashes of one and then the other. Fractions of a second to suggest faces and forms but all of it twisted in agony. No sound to be had but the silent screaming hangs in the air, fills the space as it likely has for thousands of years.

I bet this all sounded better in the planning stages. Genet says. It always does.

The world had been tearing itself apart, the sky falling, all the plans of the Sith collapsing and their bunker under siege from without and within - perhaps this had been a last-ditch attempt at salvation, at keeping some part of themselves beyond the reach of the nightmare they’d created. Maybe an attempt to survive, that someone might come along and free them at some point in the future. Obviously, whatever the case, the Holocron had not been meant for two. Obviously, they had fought, and whoever was the betrayer and the betrayed, neither of them had found much value in the end result.

The Sith cannot show weakness, even when they are weak. Which means never admitting you don’t know how to change course, whether or not you’re aimed straight at the ground. Genet says. As impressive as the victories may be, the failures are… truly magnificent.

Obi-Wan watches the frantic flares of light, can almost feel the pounding from the inside of the casing, a wild animal in a trap. The desperation for freedom or annihilation or anything else, anything but this.

“…. how do I make it stop?”

Do you want to make it stop? Genet says. These are likely among those most responsible for what happened here, and all they would ever regret is that they weren’t smart enough to avoid the consequences. I can guarantee they do not deserve your mercy, little one.

That’s not the point of mercy. Obi-Wan thinks - and maybe Genet is right, maybe this world and its people deserve a hundred-thousand more years of pain extracted from the last howling fragment of those who destroyed them, but he… he can’t walk away from this. He can’t leave what’s left of them screaming forever in the dark. Can I end it? Can I make it stop?

No one’s escaping this place, no returning to the greater Force - but their release would still be a kindness, of a sort. If you wish. Genet lifts a hand in example, clenching it into a fist.

The Dark is easier to use each time he calls on it, and this is the first time he’s used it for more than getting from one place to the next - this is the first time there’s been real power in it but Obi-Wan can’t find it in himself to regret that. He’ll take this hit, give that little bit of himself to the shadows for the raw power it takes to lift up the holocron and bring the Force around it like a fist squeezing tighter and tighter, until it bends and creaks and snaps, splintering beneath the weight of his command - and he feels it, as the howling silence and that bright knife of pain in the Force, the part that still recognized itself enough to suffer for it slips away and dissipates. Less acute, less focused as it fades into the background, the greater ruin of the rest of this tomb.

The Dark clings to him in the aftermath, cold and furious and sad - waiting to be used, but Obi-Wan doesn’t have anything else he needs it for. It’s likely a terrible mistake, keeping his attention so focused on it but he needs a moment to recover and he’s not strong enough to push it away, there’s nowhere for him to let it go - so Obi-Wan just… sits with it. Breathes and accepts that it’s all quite awful and tries to recover his equilibrium - and feels the Dark flow in, almost… curious.

It’s all right. Obi-Wan thinks - a heavy weight, as it gathers close, but he can bear it for the moment, all that power… settling, and with every breath it’s not so restless, so full of sharp edges. It doesn’t know what to do, how to exist without anyone to lash it onward.

You don't have to do anything. He keeps breathing, steady as he can. See? It’s all right. We can be quiet here. We can just be.

And for a moment, they are. Everything is still, and the pressure eases, and the Dark...

What are you doing?

Obi-Wan startles, the moment of peace jolted out of his grasp - but Genet hardly sounds angry. Only curious. He has the feeling he’s being closely observed.

“I was… nothing. I wasn’t doing anything.”

You were treating it like the Light. Listening, rather than making demands. It won’t be of much use to you that way.

“I don’t need it to be useful. I just… it doesn’t matter.” Obi-Wan grimaces, too aware of the effort it takes just to stand up straight again. “We need to get going.”

I’m hardly standing in judgement, little one. Genet says. An idea doesn’t need to be useful to be interesting.

Blessedly, there are no more surprises. No more new, gruesome details that say too much and too little all at once, and they finally reach the lift, and it isn’t broken or blocked or damaged, the near impossible reward of an easy, silent trip back to the surface.

“Do you know what the name of this planet was?”

It wasn’t in any of the records I saw. Why?

Obi-Wan wants to know. He wants some scrap of this place as it once was, before it became only the Sith’s terrible mistake. Even if their leaders had done the unspeakable, even if they’d been complicit - there were those who’d had no choice. The younglings. All those who had been used as sacrifice. Even in Melida-Daan, even after so many years of war, not everyone had taken sides. He remembers bodies hung up as traitors, those who’d refused to hate their neighbors, or hate them enough.

He remembers a man of the Daan watching him from the corner of a field - he could have raised the alarm, could have attacked, but he’d just stood there silently. He remembers a warm pool of light from the door of a house they’d thought was abandoned. A full loaf of bread flung into the darkness to land at Nield’s feet and they hadn’t trusted it - of course they hadn’t trusted it - but supplies had been nonexistent and Obi-Wan figured he could take the risk of tasting. It had been one of the most delicious things he’d ever eaten, and they’d shared thick slices of it together, him and Nield and Cerasi.

He wants something real to mourn, for a whole planet with no one to remember them. All those who couldn’t fight and couldn’t run and couldn’t do anything except watch everything they’d ever known disappear around them, before it swallowed them up too.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He can feel it, as they push closer to the surface, as the protections the Sith put around this place fall away. The Force-storm on the surface is stronger than ever - more arrivals, more deaths - and it’s chaos, and it’s powerful but Obi-Wan understands it far more than when they’d landed, and there’s that part of him that’s used the Dark now, an uncomfortable weight that still feels like an anchor against the surging tides.

Obi-Wan blinks, a flicker of sudden familiarity in the Force amidst the increasing sounds of blaster fire and dull explosions he can hear through the walls. He’d tried not to hope too hard, that she was all right, that she’d survived the fight and would keep following the signal -

Arla?

Several more volleys of fire, and a much larger explosion.

Arla.

=======================

Amazingly enough, the lift does not terminate in the middle of a rampaging horde of berserkers or a firefight or even directly into the mouth of a rancor, so maybe Obi-Wan’s luck is improving.

A blast hits the outer wall near enough to send a shower of dust cascading down around him. Maybe his luck is slightly improving.

The foundations of the building, the raised peninsula it was perched on had been protected like the tunnels beneath, the Sith terraforming that had destroyed the planet sweeping around it like a wave. Only fragments of a roof remain, the damage more significant with every floor he climbs. Signs of hasty and perpetual adjustment and repurposing of the area - rusted brackets and sheared-off bolts where guns must have been mounted and remounted. A temporary base of operations for whichever newest group of unfortunates had come to realize the planet was not going to pay out as they’d hoped.

A familiar jetpack lies abandoned against a wall, cracked open and leaking, what even Obi-Wan can see is beyond a simple repair - enough to get Arla up here but no further.

Outside, he can hear a battle raging far below, but for the moment it seems they’ve either lost interest in attacking the building or run out of heavy munitions to toss around, and as Obi-Wan makes his way to the top there’s no sign of traps or enemies or -

“Well, maybe if you’d all shut up for five kriffing seconds, I might think of a faster way to get myself killed, and then we could all get what we want!”

Arla’s found both a decent sniper’s nest and a weapon worth using there, lining up shots in between pieces of a broken argument with no one. At least she looks uninjured, for the most part. Obi-Wan’s stomach clenches, he doesn’t pull his lightsaber but prepares himself to deflect the shot, to jump back into cover even as he steps out, hands raised.

“Arla?”

No surprise, the blaster immediately pointed at his head even as she keeps most of her attention on the field, firing another round before she turns to look at him. Her eyes look wrong, too bright and sharp and vague all at once, but at least she hasn’t shot him yet.

“I know you. I don’t… which one are you?” Arla says, frowning. “I don’t remember killing you. When did - kriff off, you’ll get your turn!“ She snaps, waving a hand at an invisible crowd. “Yes, I know we have to find it. That di’kutla shabuir must have hid the kriffing thing around here somewhere but I can’t- haar’chak!“

“Where’s your buy’ce, Arla?”

She frowns, reaches up as if the helmet will be there, frowning in confusion when it’s not. No sign of it at her feet, or amidst the nearby debris.

“I didn’t… I just… it should be….” The blaster lowers, her confusion sliding swiftly into something quieter and darker and worse - a switch suddenly flipped, to a far more distant place than here. “I tried to run once. I know you don’t believe me, but I did. I did try.”

“I believe you.”

“They knew. I get that now, that they let it happen. I was young, I was stupid. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t understand how it all worked. They did it on purpose. Let us go, let us think we might… so that we’d break our own dreams for them.” Arla says. “We got caught. Of course we got caught. We barely even got out of the kriffing- they put us all in different rooms, kicked us around a bit. Tor said the others betrayed me, sold me out. Divide and conquer, I know that now. Or maybe they did talk, who knows. He probably told them all the same thing about me. He put us all in one room… and… I mean, what else? Drop a knife in the center of the floor. The Mand'alor said he had enough forgiveness in his heart for one of us.”

Obi-Wan risks a step forward. He can almost see it, the currents of this place dragging at her, high winds searching for anything they can tear away. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t even remember who went for it first. It was probably me.” Arla’s hand tangles in one of her braids, pulling absently. “I’m the only one left to remember and I don’t even remember. I’m always the kriffing survivor and I don’t even… I can’t…”

“It’s not you, Arla, it’s this place. You know that.”

She shakes her head hard. “It’s not. Not really. Maybe it’s got the gun, but I loaded all the ammunition.”

“Arla-“

The sound of claws on stone, or the clank of armor-on-armor or something less subtle than either - Obi-Wan’s not even sure anymore if it’s the Force or his own instincts that are faster, that razor-sharp recognition of danger as a new group of enemies suddenly rush up over the walls.

The Dark is easy. The Dark is powerful. Obi-Wan barely has to call and it’s there and he doesn’t think, doesn’t have time to hesitate, less a Force push and more a Force launch, the first merc over the wall with no chance at all as he’s flung back into the abyss, claws leaving deep, useless furrows behind him and Obi-Wan sees the grappling hook next to it and has that pulled free with a flick of the Force and tossed over the side in the next moment - and this time, whoever falls screams all the way down.

He might have kept going, could have dealt with them all himself if Obi-Wan hadn’t caught up to his own reflexes, at how easily he’d called for the Dark and it had come and this time people were dead because of it. Dangerous people who’d wanted him harm, but this wasn’t just buttons and doors and it hadn’t been any more difficult and that is enough of a distraction for the next two mercs to breach the defenses, and Obi-Wan has the Darksaber up, and though it shears through the spiked club that comes down on him, the sheer ferocity of the blow nearly brings him to his knees, and he scrambles back but there’s not much of anywhere to go.

Blaster fire from the side, Arla taking down her assailant and then his in a quick cluster of bolts, before they even realize she’s there. Always astonishing to him, how fast it can all happen, so much life and then just… nothing, bodies crumbling to dust, off to join the rest and Obi-Wan drags his attention away from that unnatural pull of the Force to where Arla has the gun pointed at him again, with renewed purpose, all her focus on the Darksaber.

“You give me that. Now.”

Obi-Wan nods, extinguishes the blade and slowly kneels down to slide it across the floor to her feet. Arla lets her eyes flick to it for the briefest fraction of a second before she picks it up, clipping it to her side.

“The signal was coming from here, the saber was supposed to be here - so how did you…” A glance at her vambrace. “I’ve got a tracker in you. Why would I have… I know you. I shouldn’t… I know you.”

“You know me, Arla. I’m Obi-Wan.” He says, and she blinks, and he reconsiders. “Evil baby Jedi.”

The relief belongs to the both of them, when he sees her gaze finally spark with recognition. When she lowers her gun and gestures him forward and has a hand tucked into the collar of his armor the moment he’s in range, dragging him into a less-than-gentle keldabe that’s still one of the best things he’s ever felt, and Obi-Wan shuts his eyes and just lets himself lean into it, taking the strength he’s offered, hoping he’s giving some of the same in return.

“Kriff, Obi’ka. I thought you were gone, kid. I couldn’t find you.” Arla smiles, shaking him slightly. “You osi’kovid’ika, I thought you were dead.”

“The day’s still young.” Obi-Wan says, and hears her soft huff of laughter, even though judging by the light, it’s not, and he doesn’t know what the day-night cycle on this planet looks like, if even that’s been affected by all that’s happened here - does he want to see this place in the dark? No, no he really does not.

“Here.” Arla says, and he’s surprised when she shoves a half-full flask of water into his hands, and a ration bar. “Whoever was here before set up a little cache, waiting for someone to come pick them up with the Darksaber.” Likely the ship that had crashed into them earlier, and they’d either forgotten about their signal beacon, or left it running as a distraction. “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

Obi-Wan nods, ducking behind a bit of cover, away from the wall. Startled by how ravenous he is all at once, and though he should ration the water, Obi-Wan drains it without even stopping to breathe, well before his common sense has a chance to protest. Arla keeps an eye on the field, glancing at the Darksaber every few moments, and then at him. Thankfully, for the moment, it seems they’ve been forgotten about, everyone else distracted in the fighting down below.

“Din’kartay, verd’ika?” Arla asks.

The sheer magnitude of things to tell her, things he doesn’t want to tell her, things Obi-Wan doesn’t know how to tell her leaves him momentarily speechless, uncertain of where to start. Sitrep, his alor wants a sitrep. Keep it mission critical.

“The Darksaber… found me? I think it fell out of the ship that crashed on us. I went deeper underground, and there was… a facility. I found out some of what happened here.” Obi-Wan says. “It was an accident. The Sith were doing terrible, terrible things - but it was too much power, and it got away from them and destroyed everything and killed everyone. What’s left in the Force is just… trying to escape what they did, but it can’t, so it’s making all of this happen instead.”

“Dar’jetii magic osik.“

Obi-Wan nods. “Dar’jetii magic osik. I saw a map while I was down there.” He lifts a hand toward the ridge above them. “It said there’s some kind of holdout near the peak, we might find something useful. And over the ridge, there’s another facility that might have some supplies we can use, maybe even a way to clear a path out. If we can find a ship-“

“I’ve seen a couple landing over in that direction, and no fireballs afterward, so maybe-” Arla shrugs, and they both look up at a blaze of light, another fragment from the shattered moon scratching across a weeping sky. “We'll figure it out. Climbing would have been better news when I had a working jetpack, but I am not at all surprised that’s how this is going to go.”

Arla leans forward again, looking through the scope to see who’s still fighting. He isn’t expecting to hear her laugh.

“Wayii, you are joking! It’s one of those foot guys, the ones with the kriffing feet. All the way out here. What in the ever-loving kark...”

Obi-Wan looks over the edge of the building - and it is easy enough even at a distance to pick out the fighter with the familiar, inexplicable blazing footwear kicking their way across the battlefield.

Arla makes a show of lining up a shot, but neither of them are all that interested in taking them down or reminding the rest that they’re up here. Instead, they simply watch the flurry of fiery kicks and dodges across the unnatural plain.

It's easier to see the full scope of what happened here from above, the smooth, repeating shapes of the identical rooms beneath only broken here and there by the unyielding stone of the foothills, scorch marks and scattered debris of long-ago attempted departures and a few places where explosions have caved the rooms in, revealing glimpses of those too-flawless interiors.

Several figures finally rush the fighter, and for a moment it seems they might be overwhelmed - but they’re nimble, and fast, and when a blazing roundhouse takes out three at once, Obi-Wan and Arla quietly cheer. Amazing, the feeling of something very close to nostalgia for what Obi-Wan had once thought was the absolute worst-case scenario, what now seems like a lifetime ago.

“… this is it, isn’t it?” Obi-Wan says. “This is how people go crazy out here.”

“Pretty much.” Arla nods.

They quietly draw away from the wall, Arla gathering up the weapons and meager supplies around her - and she unclips the Darksaber from her belt, handing it back to him. Obi-Wan carefully tucks it out of sight, although with any luck they’ll be able to avoid most anyone who might be looking. The building had been built into the rock below it, he’d seen that from the map, and a quick and careful search through the lower levels reveals the lift wasn’t the only exit - a side door to a retracted bridge and a path that leads up further into the mountains. An evil bridge, of course, but he could hardly expect any different by now.

Hypothetically, Master Koon, how many evil buttons can you push before you’re irredeemable? Even here in the comfort of his own mind, Obi-Wan doesn’t dare ask hypothetical imaginary Master Yoda just how kriffing doomed he is.

Arla gives him a look as he reaches out with the Force, as the bridge stretches out ahead of them and he takes a minute to collect himself, but thankfully she doesn’t press any further. A few faint sounds from the battlefield echo in the distance - they left the beacon running, hopefully to continue as a distraction to whoever survives that fight - but the path they’re on is hidden from view, no sign of anyone as they make their way up.

Obi-Wan tries to lose himself as well as he can in the simple action of moving forward. The terrain quickly grows steep, the air thin enough to make anything past a slow and steady pace all but impossible. He’s not even sure why or how there is air here, when there’s nothing else - and Obi-Wan decides he’s just not going to continue on that train of thought.

He doesn’t want to think about anything, really. The likelihood they’ll have to fight their way onto a ship if they want to escape, more people to kill - and that he will do it, if that’s what it takes. The possibility of further surprises waiting in the facility ahead, more stories mostly made of terrible blanks to fill in. What will happen if they don’t find anything there that might help them escape - and if they do, how much will he still have to try and fend off the efforts of this planet to keep them with nothing but his own power.

Will he use the Dark? Can he pretend that’s even a question worth asking? Hypothetically, Master Koon…

And if somehow, by some mad miracle they do escape… what happens next? No way that they return with the Darksaber to a hero’s welcome, that Tor is happy to see them and distracted enough for even a sliver of time to get Jango out, to make an escape. No way that Arla and Jango are reunited without one of them ending up dead, Obi-Wan is certain of it. Kriff, this was so much easier when he only had to worry about an entire camp full of younglings he had no way of saving.

I have a suggestion. Genet says, quiet for so long that Obi-Wan stumbles at the sudden interjection, sliding on a patch of gravel before he can catch himself. You’re not going to like it.

Oh, hit me. Obi-Wan thinks, because when the phantom Sith lord suggests you brace yourself, what else is there to say? Hit me hard.

We spoke before on the value of perspective, on the possibilities it can inspire. So I must ask you, is all of this an unspeakable, inescapable tragedy - or an opportunity? Or both.

… what are you telling me?

What the Sith did here, what they failed to do and left behind - it was designed to amass incredible power. The kind that could level considerably more than a playing field.

Oh, Force.

A power only waiting for someone to claim it.

Oh Force, no.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

“You know, I could just have my ba’buir assassinated.” Draye says. “A fine, honorable tradition of senicide among the ancient Mando’ade, I’m almost certain I heard a story once. It might have even been from him.”

“The Ka’ra consign your soul to dying stars if you pay someone to hit your elders in the head with rocks when they’re not looking.” Phelyx says without glancing up.

“No, no,” Draye amends, “I could do it myself, with respect and dignity. And to make sure it stuck. Take him on a lovely picnic, find a nice, hungry krayt dragon. I’ll even polish his armor first. An apex predator - that’s a compliment.”

“He’d just leave you in charge of the estate.” Nelo says. “Same endgame… and you’ll have to spend all that time tracking down the dragon first.”

“… kriffing monsters, the elderly.”

“He’s only doing this because you’re his favorite.”

“Feel free to space yourself at the earliest possible convenience.”

The war’s a kriffing black hole, and for most of her life Draye hadn’t worried about it because she always knew it was a kriffing black hole, and there was no profit and no point if there was no profit and therefore no reason to think she’d ever stray anywhere near the event horizon.

It’s still a kriffing black hole, and even so it’s a bit unnerving how quickly it’s swallowed them up - there’s still no profit in any of this and yet here they are - running silent, chasing down a random tip about a Kyr’tsad raid, supposedly high-priority even though this route is well off the usual paths. Draye still doesn’t want to show her full hand anywhere Tor might see, but her aliit need to work off some outrage, because Death Watch raiding as often as not meant recruiting and they were all getting a little kriffing tired of learning about the aftermath of that.

“Distress call, Alor. Right on schedule.” Sayze says. “Looks like they’re running little more than a skeleton crew. Odd.” Sayze frowns. “The pilot… sounds like a New.”

“Of course they kriffing are.” Draye says, and as she pulls her helmet on the distress call comes through, usually amusing to hear those posh accents sent into a panic, but there’s desperation too, and screams behind it - frightened ade. “Of course. Who else would be out here getting their shebs shot off in the kriffing middle of kriffing nowhere?”

The rest of her boarding party is already in full gear, waiting at the door - Draye’s still not used to the lack of color, all their paint stripped down to anonymous beskar. The Tiercel’s running as merc as they can make her most of the time now - no identifying marks, not when being recognized would be inconvenient. A perfectly valid tactic that bothers her more than she thought it would - one more good reason to get this whole kriffing thing sorted and done with.

“Right, time to bail out our mortal enemies for no discernible benefit. Oya.”

“Oya!”

—————————

It’s bad. It’s all so bad. The legacy of Tor Vizsla is a kriffing horror show, and the longer Draye looks, the worse it gets.

And she keeps looking, because obviously she should have been looking sooner - this never should have been allowed to… how the kriff has no one - because even in a kriffing war zone there’s bad and there’s regrettable and then there’s deliberately bad. So much damage that could have been avoided if the Kyr’tsad had just given even half of a…

So much they never even tried to avoid, and House Vizsla never protested, and the least Draye can do now is bear witness without flinching.

Rumors have emerged of renewed attempts by the Republic and their New allies to discredit the Mand’alor. It would be intolerable if House Vizsla did not make some effort to counter this misinformation, and track down those responsible. It’s Draye’s honor, should anyone ask, to gather together all the evidence of slander, capture every detail of the Mand’alor’s unnecessary cruelty and blatant graft and indifference to losing a hundred verde when a simple bit of caution and care might have lost him fifty, or ten, or none.

The crew is as busy now as any of their most complicated jobs - collecting data, tagging evidence and making plans. It’s one thing to consider hitting a single camp covertly, saving a few ade and vanishing - this was treason, against the Mand’alor if not against House Vizsla, and if Tor discovered them there would likely be a hit squad in their future, before any kind of honorable call to challenge. Nothing’s been made more clear to her than how much the Mand’alor truly values honor… or anything else beyond himself.

Draye had promised her aliit good fighting and good profit, not politics with no discernible end, not tangling themselves up in this kriffing endless war to try and… stop it? Really? It sounds hopelessly naive, even in her head, even with her ba’buir’s tacit approval. All this effort and far more of it than was sensible on the hope that Jaster Mereel might not be as much of a shabla di’kut - and she’d said as much to her crew, offered to find them passage on some other ship in the House, with some other aliit and her best wishes for good hunting. Draye had barely finished with the gesture before they had started up their own conversation, dividing up tasks and strategies, discussing how cleanly and quietly to depose a Mand’alor.

After a good fight, Draye feels like the pride for her verde could keep the ship flying all on its own, or easily fuel a jump into hyperspace. This time, it blazes like a newborn star.

A Mandalorian should train for the ambush. Reflexes that need to be sharp on demand, for when the fight finds you first.

Which means no room for mistakes, if you’re the one preparing to strike. Take the time to learn the terrain, study the opposition - even the most hot-headed mir’sheb smart enough to look for weaknesses and opportunities. Or to have that importance beaten into them by grizzled old verde who knew survival and victory beyond bragging over rounds of ale. Draye won’t say she hadn’t had her own nose bloodied now and then - deservedly so, impatience rewarded with the swift reminder of not only where it would land her, but anyone who might stand at her side - and to see verde go down due to her own stupidity and carelessness, that was a fear like nothing she had ever known.

Draye had always assumed the same even of enemy clans, even of the New - if you were worth nothing else in the galaxy, at least you cared for your own.

The Kyr’tsad hadn’t always been this bad, or perhaps there had simply been a tighter leash on Tor at the beginning of his rise to power. Excesses and corruption compounding slowly over time, with the continuing lack of any real censure from House Vizsla. Almost certainly, there’s money going into various pockets to keep eyes away from where he doesn’t want them to be - and after his ‘death’ there was even less accountability. Pre never quite claimed the title of Mand’alor as his own - the war a noble inheritance, the fight against Mereel a matter of filial vengeance to keep on a low burn - and though he lacked the worst of Tor’s brutality he made up for it with pure greed, House tithes buried in accounts all the way to the Core, a network of graft complicated enough to make Draye’s head spin.

House Vizsla hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t realized how much had gone missing because the Kyr’tsad always ran a cheap war. The Kyr’tsad always ran a cheap war, because they did it off the backs of stolen ade with no resources - who were treated as resources - and when those ade died they just tossed more in after them. The Mand’alor had lied outright about some of his losses, entire missions against House Mereel and House Kryze that were never reported because they were either decoys or debacles.

No gai bal manda for the Kyr’tsad ade. None ever intended, as far as she can tell. It’s not the worst of the Mand’alor’s sins, certainly nowhere near the most brutal but it’s the one Draye can’t help but return to. When his soldiers die for him - and kriff, so many of them die so young - they fall as Kyr’tsad, not Vizsla. Property - she will never forget that, he’d tagged the ade in that camp as property. No clan name, no one to speak for them in the litany - and of course, she can always add a mention to the unknown verde, those who burn brightest at the right hand of the Ka’ra - but it feels cheap and lazy this time, nothing like what they deserve.

All her verde, all House Vizsla - or they should have been. Should have been trained and armored and not left to die alone, thrown out on suicide missions, abandoned in outposts with supplies that were never meant to last, waiting on reinforcements that were never coming.

Occasionally there are broadcast logs, or half-audible recordings. Draye’s had to pause them more than once, midway through, to go and punch things for a while.

Nelo had been gently dropped from information gathering after the third night of finding him in the galley, staring blankly over a cup of caf. Draye can understand, none of it easy to see, especially the Kyr’tsad camps. Training camps. Indoctrination camps.

The worst images, the most shocking reports of those atrocities come from the New, of course. Stories she’d dismissed most of her life, summarily ignored by all of House Vizsla. Obvious propaganda, from Republic puppets feigning some twisted connection to Mandalore, paid handsomely to play-act at having some claim to a system that wasn’t theirs, the willing tools of cowards.

Dead ade in mass graves. Yes, verde could get hurt, even out of combat. The verd’goten wasn’t without risks, and accidents were a part of training - especially jetpack training - but the Kyr’tsad were stingy with their jetpacks the way they were with everything else, and this wasn’t a few terrible mistakes, this was negligence and indifference and cruelty to ade barely old enough for the trials. Beaten and starved and intimidated until the Kyr’tsad looked like a good idea because at least they’d die with a weapon in their hand, some chance of fighting back, in a galaxy that had otherwise abandoned them completely.

It’s still difficult for Draye not to go on the defensive, listening to the New’s high-minded disdain, the criticism of battlefield tactics from those who had never been warriors. Wrapping themselves in Republic righteousness, safe and coddled as long as they never bothered to think for themselves - sanctimonious yapping little Core-system strill. But the pictures aren’t all doctored lies, an avalanche of data that she can corroborate with tales from those few who managed to escape the Kyr’tsad camps, those rescued and rehabilitated - and of course the Houses called them all spies, provocateurs from the New, but the more Draye looked, the more there was to find and enough of it didn’t come from the New and she’d seen it, she’d seen the camp on Manda'yaim with her own eyes, the barely-fed, terrified ade and Kaine the bastard, the demagolka with maybe two whole brain cells rattling around in his buyca.

Draye knows how careful they have to be, but with every new piece of information the possibility of just trying to take Tor Vizsla apart with her bare hands seems like a better and better idea. Who even needs a proper challenge, or an arena? An obliging alley seems entirely formal enough for this osi’kovid of a Mand’alor, and she’d be more than happy to bury a boot in his shebs for the sheer privilege of doing so, no titles necessary.

“I could always tell when you were thinking about murder, even before I signed on.” Alif says. “Now, I can almost tell which weapons you’re planning to use.”

“Maiming.” Draye says. “Maiming comes first. You shouldn’t be up.”

“I’m fine. It’s good for me to walk around, it helps with the healing process.”

“It helps when there’s no other barr’ure around to call you on your osik.”

“That doesn’t hurt either.”

She’s healing fast, a more vibrant shade of green by the day - remnants of that jetii wizard magic, maybe - but Alif is still officially recuperating, which of course means using the excuse of bedrest to scour and collate twice as much data as the rest of them, and pretend that laying down is a substitute for sleep in some complicated calculation reserved for barr’ure and the fact that she’s up and moving at all… Well, every time Draye sees her, she remembers how close they came to losing her for good, and none of that luck was anything to do with them and everything to do with two jetii’ade who aren’t even aware of a delay because they’re not expecting a rescue. The stories the Mando’ade tell of the jetiise are usually far less… complimentary, but with how wrong she’s been about the Death Watch, Draye’s willing to admit there’s a lot of opinions she’s been running on full-nav for probably most of her life, never really bothering to examine the actual terrain.

“Let me know if you learn anything useful about adopting jetii’ade.”

Kriff, it’ll be hard to keep from adopting the whole damn camp. Draye wonders if that might not be the right move, pulling back to a covert for a while, trading off the ship to some up-and-coming verde who didn’t look like they’d immediately crater into an asteroid. A cut of the profits and a few extra odd jobs would be enough to skate them by for a while while they work on helping the ade recover, help cleaning up a mess Draye didn’t know she was making.

All those tithes, and how much of that had gone straight into helping Tor or Pre curry favor with some merchant guild for some new banthash*t luxury they wouldn’t even notice they’d acquired. Draye’s in it this deep and she’s still not certain just how many vacation homes Mand’alor the lesser has tucked away.

“Wouldn’t be the worst thing, our own Tarre’ika.” Alif says. “It’s interesting, reading what he has to say about the jetiise. Everything I’ve ever heard either says it’s all mostly osik, or they’re… stars walking around in robes, indifferent to the plight of us lesser beings. A little esoteric when he’s not talking about combat, but some of the things he says about the Manda, the Force - they’re… beautiful.”

Alif doesn’t remember nearly dying, but Draye thinks that moment in the hold will be clear to the end of her days.

“Also brief, I imagine. Lucky you.”

Draye’s been doing her own reading, and while Mandalorians are fairly well known in the galaxy for being terse, for getting to the point, Jaster Mereel has never met a sentence he wouldn’t extend in both directions. So many manifestos. So many footnotes. So many kriffing digressions to even more digressions citing ancient texts no one’s ever heard of. At times it feels less like reading than trying to scramble her way up a cliff wall, desperate for a foothold before the paragraphs of supporting evidence bury her in a landslide.

One of his verde must have suggested a condensed version, just the highlights, but the Supercommando Codex in its full form is still a kriffing endurance trial.

Draye has always supported her House, and by extension Tor Vizsla, who claimed the Codex was all lies and nonsense and the kind of lack of ambition that would get them all plowed over by the Republic in very short order. An argument she could have confirmed for herself at any time, of course. Except the war and the Kyr’tsad and the feud with House Mereel had all been background noise, not in the ledger of a decade’s worth of her immediate concerns. Not the notion that she would ever really care who was Mand’alor, let alone that she would be in a position to decide it.

Haat Mando’ade. It had always seemed a bit much, calling themselves that - but if she’d spent as long as they had fighting the Kyr’tsad, knowing what she’d learned, knowing how many Vizslas like her couldn’t be bothered to care… yeah, she’d probably feel like declaring it too.

As a manifesto, his Codex hews very closely to many of the old ways, the Resol’nare - frankly, nothing that Draye hasn’t already been doing all her life. As Mand’alor, it doesn’t seem that Mereel would ever ask for more than she or any sensible Mando’ade would already want to give.

In the field, Jaster Mereel is a hardened veteran, known for his judgement, his discretion - still a warrior, but the code he champions has no room for pillage or slaughter or conquest, and as far as she can tell, neither does the man. All the trustworthy tales she can find speak of an honest and fair alor who knows how to put his clan before himself, who understands the strength of the leader is the strength to give more for the good of his House. What Tor calls cowardice is simply restraint, and most of the claims against Mereel seem to be nothing but a lack of self-promotion, his indifference toward the same kind of increasingly manufactured adulation that has marked their Mand’alor’s reign.

Whatever Tor’s accusations, Mereel has no interest in rolling over for the New, of letting the Republic get comfortable in the system any further than they are - but it’s clear he finds no joy in the war, or glory in the killing, or any ambitions toward greater conquest. Willing to at least look for a less destructive path. The real divergence of philosophies with the Death Watch - Mereel honors the tenets of the past, but not all of the actions. He has no interest in bringing war to the Republic, to moving on the Core or trying to resurrect the Empire of old.

Kriff, Draye agrees with him there. Hardly her job to push her beliefs on the unwilling. What good was an aliit by force? It’s an honor, to live the life they do - Draye is happy to welcome all who feel the call, but being Mando’ade is far too valuable to go around peddling at gunpoint. The Core and their Republic fools are more than welcome to putter along as they have been until all the stars go dark, unaware of just what they’re missing.

“You still think he’s the right choice, then? Mereel?”

“Strong fighter. Smart leader. Loyal to Mandalore. We can always turn off our buy’ce for the speeches.” Draye says, and Alif laughs, and then winces, which is more than enough proof for any half-decent alor to send her back to her bunk.

————————

The evidence piles up even faster, once they spread a few quiet words about their special mission to uphold the Mand’alor’s good name, with lines easy enough to read between. The reports come in, everything from encrypted and anonymous accounts from the wary and terrified, to detailed overviews signed by those too angry to care about the fallout. Most of these come from the smaller vassal clans, or even the less-powerful branches of House Vizsla that Tor has been using the same way he uses everything else - the means to an end, of no more value than what can be stripped out, the rest left to fall where it will.

Of course there are other stories, the ones Draye’s already familiar with - attempts on the life of the young duch*ess, and it’s not like she has any love for the deluded dar’manda but it does seem… tacky, in light of her unflinching pacifism. Hardly impressive to launch surprise assaults against those who won’t fight back. Certainly convenient if she’d just die somewhere, but making the effort seems embarrassing, and Tor doesn’t even have the decency to send his own out, only mercenaries and droids. Droids. Kriff.

Rumors of worse, of slave trading along the rim, currying favor with the Hutts and others any self-respecting Mandalorian would rather eat a detonator than do business with. Melting down the armor of any who fell on the battlefield, offering no ransom - and there’s that oddity again, how many of the Kyr’tsad seem to go without beskar, and Draye guesses the numbers won’t add up, especially with how hard the Mand’alor has always been working the mines.

The kind of claim she’d have to be ready to back up with heavy fire, even with proof - that Tor and Pre might be selling beskar outside the Mando’ade to fund the Kyr’tsad and line their pockets. An unforgivable sin, and all too easy to believe, nearly the same kind of open secret as the assassination of Adonai Kryze.

The actual act bothers Draye less than that Tor never openly claimed responsibility. A less-than-honorable strike against another House’s alor, but Kryze had been the one to so boldly renew and strengthen ties with an enemy that had done their best to destroy Mandalore, with what seemed every intention to finish the job for them. He couldn’t have expected it would end well - but Tor should have called him out in open combat. The fact he hadn’t, and even now pretended as if it were at all a mystery - hut’uun. No other word for it. Another claim to back up from behind a missile salvo.

Any of it should be enough. All of it bad enough to call House Vizsla to attention - but if it were, they would have buried the Mand’alor long before Draye arrived. Of course her House knows, and of course every Vizsla alor thinks kindly of every ad in their aliit, tucking them in tight at night, warm and fed - but there’s a price to pay, to keep the New in their place, to keep the Republic off-balance, and at the end of it, when it’s politics where no one’s watching, her House is no better than anyone else.

All the vows and proud declarations of what it means to be Mando'ade, and they’re still willing to eat osik and look the other way as ade they can pretend aren’t theirs because they won’t claim them suffer and die for the sake of a stopgap war, with no honest goals and no real end.

It has to go. The Kyr’tsad have to follow Tor down. Pre can’t be allowed to carry on where he left off, the Death Watch can’t continue in any form. Which means Draye will only get one strike, one chance to hit House Vizsla with enough evidence that something will have to stick, will be enough to make this all stop, and she wishes it was honor or nobility alone that would reach them but as the sheer scope of the damage of Tor’s cruelty and indifference is revealed, Draye will accept a solution in any form. The drain on House resources or the blatant graft or Tor’s increasing belief in his own untouchability, that House Vizsla has chosen inaction for so long it doesn’t dare speak out against him - whatever it takes. Whatever finishes it all for good.

A long enough silence from her ba’buir that Draye had stupidly assumed he’d forgotten her, wound her up and pointed her where he needed and then toddled off on another of his no-doubt infinite schemes. Until they find the large crate waiting for them at their next stop off, expertly packed with enough priceless artifacts to outfit an entire battalion and a list of names for delivery. Nothing overtly suspicious about it, of course, Draye merely one more poor bu’ad ensnared in the unfortunate clutches of filial obligation - and delivering some of these valuable antiques would no doubt lead to reminiscing, which would lead to rounds of drinks and further reminiscing and conversations that would wander as far as the gal could power them.

Who knows what she might learn, what information or advantages or deals she might be able to secure.

“Heavy crate.” Nelo says.

“Of course it is.” Meddling old goat. Draye glances to the other end of the hanger, the armor that dragged them all out here just visible over the edge of the bag hanging from the wall. Every time she looks at it, she thinks of the jetii’ad, how thin and unarmored and dauntless he seemed in spite of all that adversity.

Hold on. Just hold on a little longer.

Nelo pops the locks, exclaims at whatever priceless artifact is under the lid - and then louder, at whatever’s just under that. “And you’re certain your ba’buir isn’t just setting us all up to be executed for treason against the Mand’alor?”

“Almost… sixty percent sure.” Draye says. “Maybe even sixty-five.”

“You realize that when we do pull this off, you’re never living it down. Imagine the next ori'skraan. They’ll write songs about you.” Nelo says, enjoying the thought too much. “Don’t you have that ba’vodu with the bes’bev he never keeps in tune?”

“Faking. My. Death.”

——————————————

The Kyr’tsad don’t expect an attack in the middle of their own, too focused on their own assault to even properly guard the door. A little bit more of a challenge than usual - these are some of those Tor actually bothers to fund, but they’re still caught off guard as Sayze disables the ship and most importantly their long-range communications even while Draye and her team rush the airlock.

A few scattered bodies of the New lie in the corridor, the remnants of a blown door and then a brief exchange of gunfire beyond as the Kyr’tsad scramble for cover in the hold - not enough of them for a whole squad, they must have already split up. A problem, if they’ve found the ade - but nothing for it but to move as fast as they can, and hope the New were smart enough to lock a few doors behind them. Alif is already crouching near one, red staining all through his fancy white robes, half-propped against a side-wall and staring at her in blank shock, a stupid hole punched right in the stupid place a stupid piece of armor would cover if he wasn’t so kriffing stupid.

Draye reminds herself this isn’t about how annoying the New are, it’s about seeing what the Kyr’tsad are doing here and it’s about those ade she heard in the transmission and it’s also about appreciating how good her second can be with a vibroblade if he can get up close while she provides cover fire. It might be useful to keep one of the Kyr’tsad alive for questioning but that doesn’t seem likely, the Death Watch determined to fight to the last, a well-timed shot from Gren dropping the last one in this room as they’re distracted by Nelo taking down their alor.

Quick, smooth and professional, and it looks like Alif may have even managed to stabilize her patient. Kriff, but she’s got the best traat'aliit around, and Draye moves to the door to see if the Kyr’tsad had managed to breach the co*ckpit, and to find the ad - and then she’s diving back as an arc of electricity comes close enough to leave her HUD spitting static, a slightly glitchy view of the disheveled New bringing her weapon around for another strike.

Draye tries not to think about the New any more than she absolutely has to, but she’s Mando’ade, little bits and pieces of information gather in the corners of her brain from all over the galaxy, because who can say what might prove useful? So she knows that while the New do their best to present a united front against the other Houses, to keep their politics opaque, even they aren’t as lockstep as they seem. Internal politics are internal politics everywhere, and while some of the New are absolute pacifists to the core, others are at least willing to defend themselves when necessary.

Draye assumes the New currently trying to dent her helmet with the electrobaton is one of the latter.

“Wait. Wait!” Draye dodges, holsters her blaster, hands up - but it’s clear the woman isn’t seeing anything but the armor, perfect hair in disarray and immaculate tunic scorched along the edges - a few scratches on her throat but nothing life-threatening. Nelo and Gren have stepped back to give them room and also watch the show. Draye could probably afford to take at least one hit from that baton - if she was careful, her kute would absorb most of the energy, but she’d really rather not.

“You know, you’re not bad with that.” She says, as the woman winds back for another blow. “If you ever feel like changing sides-“

Draye lunges under the strike, brings a leg in to knock the New off balance, using her gauntlet as leverage with a hard twist against her wrist to knock the baton out of her grip as they grapple. Draye doesn’t let go, doesn’t want the woman hurting herself trying to punch beskar which seems the likely next strategy as her attempts to lash out grow more frantic, with what sounds as much like a wail of panic as a battle cry.

“Hey. Hey. We’re not Kyr’tsad - we’re not Death Watch. We’re not here to hurt you, or your ade - the children - all right? No one’s here to hurt you.” Draye repeats the last of that a few more times as the woman continues to struggle, until finally she runs out of energy, or notices Alif still kneeling by her injured comrade.

“Who… who are you?”

Draye slowly lets her go, and realizes she probably should have done a little bit more thinking about just how to answer that when the door slides open again. Her team have their weapons drawn in an instant - but it’s probably only that the New stands between them, blocking the shot, that keeps Bo-Katan from unloading both her blasters.

Helmets all around, and there’s still times where the confusion is perfectly clear to see.

“You’re House Kryze, working with the New.” Draye says.

She can feel that sharp gaze flick swiftly from one member of her crew to the next, those unblinking owl’s eyes. Scrubbing their paint was never going to be a perfect disguise, especially with anyone they weren’t intending to take out quickly. Bo-Katan has been fighting both with and against the Kyr’tsad for a long time, in this war for nearly all of her life, and she’s suspicious but not at all fooled.

“You’re House Vizsla, working against the Mand’alor.”

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

Draye wonders if maybe this shouldn’t be the way to do all official negotiating between feuding Houses - with napping adiik drool slowly working its way in the gap between her chest armor and her pauldron, the soft giggles as Nelo gently lifts two other ade, one dangling from each arm.

It’s still tense, everyone with eyes on everyone else - but nothing worse, not with so many ade potentially in the line of fire, the older ones watching with cautious curiosity. Everyone with helmets off now, the Mandalorian equivalent of waving the white flag.

Bo-Katan had taken care of the rest of the Kyr’tsad on the other side of the ship, with what seemed to be only a scattering of her Owls as backup, a few more New with blasters no doubt set to stun. No one had breached the co*ckpit, but the Kyr’tsad had still done plenty of damage to the engines in their initial strike - Phelyx working with both the New and with Kryze to get things up and running. Stripping the Death Watch ship for any useful information and parts before it would be scuttled. Each of her people flanked by at least one of Bo-Katan’s, helping with the injured, or moving the bodies of the ones who didn’t make it, and the Kyr’tsad, who were out here chasing down this particular secret ship, on a route well outside of the usual paths, because…

“These are House Kryze ade, aren’t they?” Draye guesses. A covert operation, of a kind Draye never would have considered if she weren’t sitting in the middle of it now. “The duch*ess is… returning them to you?”

Bo-Katan’s expression hasn’t changed the entire time they’ve been here, suspicion with the threat of hostility, which Draye thinks may just be the combination of her natural temperament, her dislike of anything House Vizsla, or just having to fight for her position from the moment she’d been old enough to throw a punch.

“They were recovered from the Kyr’tsad. These children all had ties - living aliit that can claim them, or those old enough to remember where they came from, who can be taken in by clan if not direct kin. The duch*ess… my sister isn’t… Satine cares about ade as much as anyone else. The New will take those in with no one left to look out for them, but… she doesn’t want to split up families when she doesn’t have to.”

“Now that doesn’t seem like standard policy for the New.” Draye says, knowing very well it’s not. One of those flashpoints that can rally even the clans most hostile to each other into hating the New more. “I thought they were more interested in making sure our ade never knew they were Mandalorian at all.”

“Maybe you’d manage to keep more, if the Kyr’tsad stopped making so many orphans.” The New woman they’d met remains ready to fight, and though her comrades visibly wince she holds her ground and Draye’s gaze. Well… after everything Draye’s learned and seen, it’s not like she doesn’t have a kriffing point.

“So you’re out here helping your sister go behind the back of her Republic masters, for the good of the people she refuses to call her own?” Imagine that, a mark in the duch*ess’ favor for once. Who would have thought. “How long has this arrangement been going on?”

“How long have the Kyr’tsad been sacking their own ships?” Bo-Katan counters.

Draye still has the opportunity to come up with some banthash*t lie, whether or not anyone actually buys it - but why bother? Of anyone in the galaxy, no one on this ship has any reason to go tattle to Tor.

“We’re not Kyr’tsad.” Draye says, and draws on a bit of authority she doesn’t technically have yet. “House Vizsla has been… re-evaluating its unconditional support of the Mand’alor.”

One of the New sucks in a soft breath - and maybe that was a mistake, suggesting dissension in the House, but if Draye keeps up as she has been they’ll find out about it sooner or later. The New may be weakling dar’manda hut’uun, but they’re also annoyingly good spies. Maybe it isn’t even new information, and Draye’s just confirming what they already know.

Bo-Katan scowls. “It took you long enough.”

“There’s one person here who’s pulled jobs for Tor Vizsla, little blue bird, and it wasn’t me.” Draye snaps back - tension rising in the room - enough to send the older ade glancing for cover, spooking a few of the younger ones. Dual glares from both Nelo and one of the Nite Owls, who swiftly soothe their charges while the anger dissipates, Draye rocking her thankfully still-sleeping adiik while Bo-Katan reassures another and yeah, this is definitely the way to handle negotiations from here on out.

“The war needs to end.” Draye says, aware of the eyes on her because House Vizsla doesn’t make many declarations, preferring to let Tor do all that for them - and never one like this. “The Mand’alor - Tor Vizsla is taking advantage of all of us, to make himself richer, to keep the Kyr’tsad as his own private army, so he can act however he wants and walk away with all the profits - and yes, my House has been complacent and complicit, and it needs to stop. It’s killing us - all of us - by degrees, and he’ll just keep going and going until there’s nothing left that can even call itself Mando’ade.”

The Nite Owls glance among each other, more than one eyebrow raised. Bo-Katan prefers to stick with the scowl. “So what, we rally so that you can be Mand’alor instead? We’re all left bowing to yet another Viz-“

“Kriff no, I don’t want it.” Draye says. “Do you want it? Really? I can’t imagine it would do much to improve things with your sister.”

Bo-Katan starts to answer - and stops, as if she’d been preparing for an entirely different argument, jaw clenched as if she wants to keep arguing anyway, mostly because she’s talking to a Vizsla. Maybe she’d never considered there might be another option to stopping the Mand’alor than taking his title - and his head - entirely on her own. “If not you, then who?”

“Do you have any way to contact House Mereel?”

————————————————

Draye didn’t expect to get an answer to that question anytime soon, even if House Kryze and House Mereel were passing each other notes between rounds. It’s not like she’d be quick to offer anything of value to an enemy who showed up out of nowhere talking utter dini’la. All she can do is everything they’ve already done - the ade are safe and the ship is limping well enough to make it to Kryze territory and the Terciel will run defense to the border, which ought to be a half-decent dry run to see if Bo-Katan will just try to blow them out of the sky once they have the chance.

The bodies of the New are all in cold storage - grim, but functional - while the Kyr’tsad corpses are laid out in the hold of the her ship, to be stripped of their armor and spaced, left to burn up in the atmo of whatever planet is convenient, lost to a mission that never happened. At least none of them were young enough that she feels too bad about it, unlikely any of these verde were dragged into this unwillingly.

Draye hadn’t explicitly ordered their side of the airlock off-limits - Gren was watching, and they’d sweep for bugs and bombs once they were on their own again, but Bo-Katan’s crew were busy enough with their own work, and the New still throwing nervous glances their way, so it was a surprise to return to the cargo hold and find the New she’d fought there, walking slowly up and down the rows of the Kyr’tsad, no particular expression on her face. Draye glances at Gren, presumably occupied in attempting to slice a Death Watch bracer, but gains nothing more than a brief shrug.

“They just look like anyone else, don’t they?” The New says, with that irritatingly cultured tone of theirs. So proud to abandon their heritage, so outraged by the common bonds of the Mando’ade when they all look the same, talk the same, copies of copies.

“When you’re lucky.” Draye says, being mean because she can. “Ship battles usually leave behind prettier corpses.” Less high-powered ordinance when everyone remembers they’re fighting inside a tin can in zero vacuum. When you’re lucky.

Of course the New flinches, not at all what she meant. No doubt some musing about death and mortality from a pacifist who probably hasn’t ever seen this many bodies at once - and it isn’t entirely comfortable, to see this many Kyr’tsad laid out in front of her, technically her verde but they’d found the credits for the job on the ship - this strike as a punishment against Bo-Katan, for her disloyalty. The order - no survivors, not even the ade.

Draye’s not really going to shed a tear, kicking them into the void. The Ka’ra can sort out anything worth keeping.

“Is it true, what you said? You’re going to fight your own leader?”

“He’s not my Mand’alor.” Draye says. “House Vizsla is more than the Kyr’tsad, even if we haven’t been acting like it, and he…”

“It was fine when he was hurting us, but now he’s hurting you?” The New says, although she sounds more tired than angry. It’s not entirely unfair. How many of Draye’s tithes might have funded missions just like this one?

“At least the news ought to please your duch*ess.” Draye says. “Are you one of her attendants? A handmaiden?”

“Me?” A slight laugh, slim fingers fussing with hair that’s gone wavy, all pulled out of its ornate style. “No. I’m… no one. No one at all.”

“Half-decent with a weapon, at least.” Draye says.

“For a New, you mean.” The woman gives a little shrug. “It’s amazing I’ve lasted as long as I have, really.”

“Just keep practicing.” Draye’s never had much time for those who talk up the art of it all, treat it like magic. You train more, you get better, you punch harder. Simple enough. “Maybe swap out for a different weapon, so you’ll have a backup if you get caught off-guard again. Plenty of non-lethal options out there, if you insist on it.”

“It doesn’t bother you? That I don’t want to kill?”

“Oh, it bothers me.” Draye says. “I won’t say I understand it - but at least you have the sense to defend yourself.” The silence feels heavy, judgmental, and Draye shouldn’t care, it shouldn’t matter what one silly little New thinks, or thinks she knows about things she knows nothing about, but all this business with the Kyr’tsad, her House’s glaring mistakes… she gestures at the bodies around them. “I have a responsibility to my aliit, to my crew - my family. I won’t ever apologize, for putting their lives above anyone’s - especially when these shabuire all knew the score, and what the consequences might be. There’s no shame in it, New, whatever you think-“

“I made candy.” The New blurts out, with a little smile that isn’t a smile at all in the silence that follows, as if trying deliberately to undercut even Draye’s estimation of her. “Yes, really. Barabel truffles and behot caramels and all sorts of nonsense to sell in the market. It wasn’t anything special - my husband’s position provided for most of what we needed, but I did all right, especially on festival days.”

Draye doesn’t know what the New celebrate - before now, she would have thought they were too stuffy to even bother with things like fun.

“It was one of those mornings, that my husband took our children out ahead of me, while I waited for the last batch to cool. It was… I wanted to start early. The crowds would be gathering as the sun rose, and I wanted to be there first.” Her tone shifts, edged with something brittle and dark. “And the Death Watch were there in the morning, because the crowds would be gathering, and they wanted to be there first. With their bombs, because Mandalorians love their weapons, and the New are all cowardly vermin who need to be exterminated, so the glorious Empire can be reborn.” She opens one hand, a pale palm toward the sky. “And so now there’s just… minutes and hours and days that stay empty, no matter where I go or what I do to try and fill them.”

The question of how to handle the New was one that Draye had shoved vaguely toward the piles of ‘after Tor is dead’ and ‘not my problem’ and ‘I don’t care.’ The New might as well be the Republic and the Republic could copad lo’shebs’ul narit until they could taste it, as far as she gave a kriff. Of course the hardest of the hard-liners considered the New to be practically heretics, but Draye had never considered them worth that much attention. Deluded, easily-led fools - not really people, at least not enough for their problems to matter.

Or maybe the fool’s the one who needs to be reminded, again and again, that the galaxy doesn’t care if she’d prefer things to be simple. A real alor has the gett’se to see things as they are - especially when they’re standing in front of her.

“What is it that you say about the dead?”

“Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la.“ Draye says. “Not gone, merely marching far away.”

“I suppose that’s not allowed, for the New.”

“All ade - all children are most beloved of the Ka’ra, and play forever in the star fields. Riding the tails of comets across the whole of the galaxy.” There’s probably some orthodoxy somewhere, that would condemn New children and the parents who grieved for them to the void. The orthodoxy can suck it. “What’s your name?”

”Sarad.” She says, and this smile isn’t quite as hollow, at Draye’s surprise. “Yes, I know, not a word for the New - but my mother insisted. Apparently, her grandmother had a friend, and…” A slight shrug. “Well, my mother wasn’t a warrior, but you might have gotten along anyway.”

“You want us gone. Dead. All of us, not just the Death Watch.” Draye says. “You agree with the Republic that we’re all idiot barbarians and the galaxy would be better off if we’re not there. You let them tell you who you are, and you let them fight your battles for you without ever holding them to the same standard. Do you think that once they’ve dealt with us, the Republic would have any need to keep protecting you?”

“I thought you were all monsters. Cruel. Indifferent to suffering. I thought that was what it meant to be a Mandalorian.” Sarad says, eyes on her clenched hands. “I thought what happened was proof of everything I’d ever been told about what things were like before. I was… they came to me, after. The duch*ess, the leaders of the New - some of them were kind, some of them had lost… some of them knew what it was like. I went to the Core, I spoke to senators. I told my story and they told me again and again everything I already knew. The New were the future, you were just jealous and ugly and hateful and that was why-“

A long pause.

“My pain was useful to them. I don’t mean that to sound - some of them were very kind, and understanding, and it was a relief just to go… anywhere, to have things to do, to worry about where to stand and what to say. It was good to have distractions. But then it was over. I didn’t have anything left to give them, and when I came back…. it was all still there. Waiting for me. I was still there, and there was so much time to fill, and I didn’t… I wasn’t supposed to stay angry, to not know what to do with everything I - it wasn’t useful for them anymore. It didn’t fit, with how the New told me I was supposed to be. I didn’t fit.”

A hand goes to the weapon at her side, and she smiles a little.

“It helps, beating the kriff out of the Death Watch. I’m not supposed to say that. But it does. The duch*ess… reached out. I didn’t even know she remembered me, or that she had any reason to - she said she thought there was a job I could do for her, if I wanted to. Dangerous, and a secret. She was polite enough not to say I didn’t have anyone left to to tell secrets to.”

The other reason Draye hadn’t thought too much about the New - everyone knew the duch*ess was their very own handcrafted pawn, not just ignorant of her heritage but actively hostile to it. No chance at negotiation there, let alone anything like reconciliation. It seems Draye wasn’t the only one who’d underestimated the duch*ess’ capacity for covert maneuvers.

“The Nite Owls taught me how to fight - still teaching me, obviously. I didn’t know how I’d feel, dealing with them, having to face other Mandalorians. I didn’t know if I could - but then we brought their children back to them, and they were so happy-“ Sarad’s voice cracks, a hand pressed against her mouth.

“Children are the future.” Draye says. “It doesn’t matter whose they are, it shouldn't matter. We shouldn’t - Tor is wrong. Any Empire he wants is for his own glory, and nothing more. It shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did, to see how bad it was. Apologies aren’t worth much, so I won’t bother - but I will do everything I can to stop him, to make this stop.”

Erase the enmity between the New and the Mandalorians? When an hour ago, even you couldn’t have cared less? Have fun with that, Draye.

“We don’t all want you gone.” Sarad says. “Some do, maybe, but most of us - we still know the old words, the old stories. We haven’t forgotten everything, we don’t even want to. We just want to find a way to live, to keep our families safe - but there are those who say that if we agree to any kind of truce, you’ll just slaughter all of us the moment the Republic leaves us unprotected. Is that what happens next? Is that what’s coming, when you find your new Mand’alor?”

“Mereel’s not a murderer. You should read his codex.” Draye reconsiders. “You should read the highlights. It’s not about bloodshed for the sake of it, or conquest. Tor wants an empire. Mereel wants a thriving Mando’ade. It might scare the kriff out of the Republic, but it’s not at all the same thing.”

“If he’s telling the truth.” Bo-Katan says, stepping through the airlock, followed by one of her verde and Alif trailing behind, which means she’s saved all she could and it’s probably time for them to get ready to depart.

Draye gestures at the bodies of the Kyr’tsad. “You want a cut of the beskar?”

“Keep it.” Bo-Katan says. “Consider it a wager, that you’re here for any of the reasons you say you are.”

“I owe a debt.” Alif says. “There was a pair of jetii’ad on Manda’yaim, in a Death Watch camp. One of them saved my life.”

“Jetii’ad?” Bo-Katan frowns. “The one that saved you, was he a little shorter than me? Gold eyes?”

“So, you were at that clusterkriff?” Draye can’t help but grin. “… was he the reason we didn’t see you?”

Bo-Katan could take offense to it, that they’d been on different sides of that fight, but Draye doesn’t worry much that she’ll bother. It may well have been a Kryze shell that nearly took out Alif. It’s the war, it’s the Outer Rim - spend time fussing over every shot fired and no one would get anything kriffing done.

“Something like that.” Bo-Katan says, with an expression that doesn’t quite track to annoyance or resentment - what might almost be a grudging respect. “He owes me a rematch.”

————————————

Pay no attention to the fact that the most powerful factions of House Vizsla keep their strongholds in quiet systems conveniently distant enough to the homeworld to avoid its most… significant difficulties. The building itself is a sprawling, ancient estate with a courtyard large enough to land any ship in and a karyai to match. No doubt picked up brick by brick and moved from Manda’yaim long ago, quite possibly even before the Dral’han.

A good place, a strong place, surrounded by golden fields waving well above her head. A bounty waiting to be harvested, with giggling ade hiding here and there among the rows, scattering whenever she comes into view. Unafraid of their ori’vod, as they should be, and up until now Draye would have only been proud to see it. A symbol of House Vizsla’s vitality and endurance, quiet and comfortable in its understated sense of legacy. Now, it’s hard not to see the price of all this power, all those ade out there with no chance to shelter behind these walls.

Her crew have earned a well deserved rest at the port. Of course there’d been a protest when she’d left, the demand to come just in case, but Draye had refused. Over half her ba’buir’s relics have been distributed in a speed run of meetings and reminiscings and watching barely-known distant relations try to remember how they knew her. An increasing number of conversations tracing careful paths around things deliberately unsaid, and Draye’s had more and less interest, approval and disapproval, but so far no accusations of treason, or immediate demands for blasters at dawn.

A steady amount of support, at least, for the observation that things are no longer working out so smoothly with the Mand’alor- that since his official return to the land of the living, Tor Vizsla seems to be prioritizing his obsession with House Mereel even over his actions against the Republic, that the goals of House Vizsla seem to be an increasingly inconvenient afterthought.

Tor has been fighting this war for a long time - there are hard-liners who supported the Kyr’tsad who have since gone to be with the stars, some replaced by those less thrilled by the thought of passing on an unchanging war to their own heirs.

So Draye has been talking, enough that the elders know of it, and why, and there is a slim but not impossible chance she will step through the gates to find Tor Vizsla and half the Kyr’tsad ready to part her out in disgrace. Draye might be able to use the gift she’d brought with her for a few moments of cover, the chest hovering a few steps behind - but if House Vizsla had decided that killing one of their own under a banner of hospitality was the best way to resolve the matter, then Draye had failed before she’d ever started, and there’s already nothing left to save.

No Kyr’tsad in the courtyard, no snipers on the towers. Only an empty courtyard with a pavilion on one side, covered in carefully manicured flowering vines, with a canopy above to block the sun. Nearby, there’s a forge, the clear ring of metal on metal, the goran at their holy work. Draye had taken note of how few Kyr’tsad camps she’d learned of had forges, and it seemed to have as much to do with the smiths as the beskar. It isn’t exactly written in stone or steel, that the goran should have a voice as respected as any alor - but it shouldn’t have to be. One more clear sign, that Tor has no interest in any council but his own, and only the traditions that serve his needs in the moment.

“Ori’vod, olarom! A fine day for us to meet. I hope you had a smooth journey.” A bright smile from a young torgruta - surprisingly young, for this, and though the welcome seems proper enough - food and drink waiting for her at the table, the greeting as hearty as if they were aliit newly reunited - he does not rise to meet her.

Mandalorians are warriors - injuries are inevitable, prosthetics hardly uncommon, in varying levels of discretion depending on preference and funds. Draye has known verde who prefer to have limbs they can choose not to feel when the fighting gets heavy enough. Doubtful this branch of the House has any difficulty obtaining bacta either - which means it must have been a hell of an accident, a fight gone very wrong to leave such a young vod this badly scarred, the pattern on half his face broken into illegibility, one montral sheared away and the matching lekku half the length it ought to have been.

It’s also a test. Now the question is, what kind?

The New enjoy spreading all sorts of tales about how the clans ‘deal with’ their weak and wounded, the ‘non-essential’ - death by exposure is a popular theme, and it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that Tor had some hand in keeping that ‘tradition’ alive, although there’s always been the debate of what was actually ever codified by the old Empire and what was simply the decision of an ancient House or clan in desperate straits, or run by a ruthless alor, or an injured vod or elder determined to go down fighting.

All verde could contribute, everyone had strengths to offer and all those strengths combined into the might of the Mando’ade - at least that was how Draye had been taught, the responsibility of a good alor to help each vod cultivate their unique abilities. Draye had grown up with the skilled and clever alongside the clumsy and the easily distracted, those who might never carry a heavy cannon or lead an assault but who were excellent at negotiating the highest payout, or could keep a ship flying on nothing but scavenged parts and optimism, or cooked a feast that could take the sting out of the worst jobs gone bad.

So either Draye has been tossed off to some clerk’s assistant a handful of years past a verd’goten that had done him no favors - a deliberate insult - or it’s intended to look that way, just to see how she’ll react. Draye smiles back, taking a seat at the low table, raising her glass - watching the young man over the rim of her cup, as he is certainly watching her.

“Ran Peri be Vizsla. My buire wished to meet you themselves, but urgent business has called them away.”

“Of course.” Draye says, with a respectful nod. “An honor.”

“The honor is mine, ori’vod.” A sharp smile, but friendly, something in the marks on his montral and the look in his eyes that makes her think of a loth cat on the prowl - unassuming and sly and quietly dangerous. “I understand you and your crew have served the House with dedication and efficiency, and brought in considerable coin while doing so.”

“A privilege to add to the strength of House Vizsla.”

“So it’s said.” He glances toward the box, and Draye nudges it forward.

She knows what’s inside, but hadn’t given it more than a cursory glance, so it’s still impressive when Ran lifts it free of the case - a long shield, the far edge sharpened to a deadly point, of course. Vaguely in the shape of some sea shell and enameled from edge to edge with an ocean scene, all from some lost shore on Manda’yaim the Dral’han had boiled away long ago. Ceremonial, of course, though for a Mandalorian that only meant pretty as well as functional - hard to tell how well it would actually work in a fight but it’d be fun to kriffing try.

A blue ripple in the beskar itself that was supposedly some kind of lost technique. Draye isn’t surprised to hear the hammer pause from across the courtyard when the shield catches the sun.

“Kriff, your ba’buir must be on death’s door, to be parting gems like this out.”

“We live in hope.” Draye mutters.

“Magnificent. Do you know, there’s less than a dozen pieces left from this goran to be found in the entire galaxy, and half of those likely in some kriffing core world collection.” He tilts the shield it this way and that, admiringly. “Maybe the Mand’alor traded a few away, in exchange for some kriffing ship that was blasted out from underneath him a week later.”

Well, that answers the question of whether or not she’s being taken seriously. Ran admires the relic for a moment more, and shuts the case.

“A bit of a surprise, to discover so late that one of your ba’buir’s line had inherited his talent for… discretion. Which I suppose was the point. Tor remains unaware of your… deliveries, of course. Indifferent to such petty House obligations, although I imagine you could write it in mile-high letters between the stars and it seems unlikely he’d see anything that isn’t the word ‘Mereel’.”

“What the kriff happened between them, anyway?” Draye can’t help but ask, had expected to find the answer in the first few minutes of research, for as hot as that fury burned - but no matter where she looks, there’s only speculation. “Did Mereel steal his riduur? Refuse his bracer? Piss in his gal?

“I hear when House Mereel liberated their last planet, they were welcomed with garlands of flowers, sacks of grain, and the people pledged their third-born ade in honor of his victory.”

It’s a dangerous thing, for anyone on the Outer Rim to formally ally with any House or Clan - a good way to not only raise the ire of other Houses but catch the interest of the other side of the galaxy. Still, informal agreements abound, and as much as the Republic claims the Mandalorians force planets into service, as much as Tor’s tried to make good on all those terrors, there are plenty of places where pledging a child to the Mando’ade, with the promise of protection and training and food is far from the worst idea.

Still, she hadn’t heard stories of anyone throwing flowers to the Kyr’tsad.

“Tor is Mandalorian born, and raised to rule - and yet it’s Mereel’s banner they flock to, without the speeches or the threats. Tor does not love what he is or what it means, and then can’t understand why the Manda won’t love him back.”

Interesting turn of phrase. “You’re star-touched?”

“Do you think so?” The vulptex grin is broader this time, and Draye knows she will not be getting an actual answer to that question. “It seems it was all a bit easier dealing with Pre - Tor was still pulling the strings, of course, but his heir didn’t share quite the same… obsessions. Surprising, that his loyalties proved to be genuine. Inconvenient too, but I suppose everyone must have a few virtues.”

Well, that was the tacit acknowledgement that at some point, someone in House Vizsla had suggested Pre might want to consider keeping on as Mand’alor, whatever it took. Draye hopes it was more laziness than loyalty that kept him at Tor’s side, otherwise she’d very grudgingly have to acknowledge he had exactly one point in his favor.

Very, very grudgingly.

“Tor Vizsla has a supply camp in an osik’palon on the backside of the homeworld.”

“Several, I would imagine.”

“Full of ade, practically starving - and two jetii’ad.”

It’s nice to see that earn her at least a blink of surprise.

“Really? It seems we should have had word, if the jetiise believed any of their ade had been stolen away. The Republic wouldn’t usually overlook that kind of opportunity.”

“He’s also holding Jango Vhett be Mereel.”

No blink of surprise there. Ran only takes another polite sip of his drink, quiet enough that Draye can hear the goran cranking up the flame in the forge.

“It has been suggested that the dispensation of House Mereel’s heir was a weighty enough matter that the Mand’alor might consider the wisdom of the elders of his House.” He finally says.

“Suggested.”

“Repeatedly.” Ran says, pouring himself a bit more shig. “The Mand’alor has been less interested in… counsel since his miraculous return from the grave, as I’m sure you’ve heard.”

“I’ve heard quite a few things.” Draye says. “And so now I’m here, to seek the the wisdom of my elders.”

She earns a bright, full smile for that.

“You will be granted rights as a loyal alor of House Vizsla to seize the camp on Manda’yaim without fear of retaliation. You may deal with whoever you may find there as you see fit - enemies or allies.” Ran says. “Of course, this assumes that Mereel’s heir will be delivered to our custody afterward.”

“How do you plan to spin that when the Mand’alor starts screaming for blood?”

“Any discretion on your part would be preferable, of course, but it is clear our esteemed leader might be served by a slightly more… forceful reminder about what is owed to his House, let alone paying closer attention to both the source and the care of his foundlings.”

“… and if it takes more than a reminder?” Draye says.

Ran tips his head. “If you wished to call a formal challenge on the Mand’alor, it wasn’t worth all this effort.”

“If I wanted a formal challenge, Tor would hire some hut’uun to shoot me in the back, the way he did with Adonai Kryze.” No reaction, and Draye sighs. “He didn’t have the gett’se to do it in open combat, but please tell me he was at least there to see it.” Ran gives a slight shrug, and it’s not like it really matters. “Did Kryze really even attempt to seize the title of Mand’alor in order to destroy it?”

“It has made for a very useful story.”

“I think I can get them on our side.” Draye says. “House Kryze. A cease-fire, if Tor Vizsla is removed as Mand’alor, and if House Vizsla steps away from the claim.”

“Who takes it, then? Bo-Katan could never hold…” Ran stops. “Kryze would agree to back House Mereel?”

“If it puts Tor in the ground faster? I think so.” Draye says. “Bo-Katan would rather fight than lie to me, and dealing with the Kyr’tsad would be far easier for her if House Vizsla cuts their ties. If Mereel’s a man of his word - even half of them - it doesn’t sound like he’d ask for anything of our House that wasn’t already in our best interests.”

“You want to end the war.”

“I want to get my ba’buir off my back. I want things to be simple again. Getting paid sometime in the next century wouldn’t hurt, either.” Draye sighs, seeing the laughter in Ran’s eyes - and she does sound like a grousing ad who doesn’t want to scrub boots and polish pauldrons. “The Houses and Clans have been at each others’ throats for as long as there have been Houses and Clans, and probably even before that. We’re made for it, the constant back-and-forth - beskar sharpens beskar… but this is, it’s gone wrong. It’s been wrong for a long time. If you’ve been looking at all, you have to see it.”

“The rest of the galaxy is quite aware of how well the Mandalorian threat keeps itself contained.” Ran says, and gestures to the grand space around them. “It seems our House is hardly hurting for coin, glory or the hunt, even so.”

Power protects itself. Draye knows that, has always known it, even with that sliver of idealism she’s picked up from kriff knows where. Self-interest as much a natural law as the stars and the tides and the whole universe spinning on its axis.

“House Vizsla doesn’t want the war to end.”

“The Death Watch serves two purposes.” Ran says. “A way to keep the Republic at bay, to keep the threat of the New permanently unstable, and to make the Republic believe they’re doing the same for us, eliminating any hint of a new Empire. The minute the war ends, no matter who wins or what they say, the Core Worlds will grow nervous, and Manda’yaim and House Vizsla will be once again looking down the barrel of a blaster.”

“So the Republic still gets to decide who we are, one way or another.” Draye says. “Why don’t we just let the New have it all, then? They might be dar’manda, but at least they have a decent track record of keeping their ade above ground.”

Sarad, who’d just wanted to make sweets and see her children grow. That’s the threat worth all this destruction, this perpetual holding pattern, the sacrifice of any real future for Manda’yaim?

Draye has had all the evidence at hand of Tor’s many failings, and delivers it with a bit more force than necessary, the data stick clicking as it bounces to Ran’s side of the table.

“There are slavers paying to keep this war going, because they profit from the chaos. Hutts throwing money at the Death Watch and barely bothering to hide it, putting down bets like we’re in a fighting ring. We’re a sport to them. This is what we’re building, this is the real cost.” Draye casts out a hand. “All those ade out there, starving in the camps - this is all they know of House Vizsla, of Mandalore. Entire generations living and dying and knowing only this war. Thinking of themselves as the property of House Kyr’tsad because no one’s ever bothered to tell them otherwise, no one’s taught them about honor or pride or what they’re owed. Children are the future when it’s convenient? Sacrifice for House and aliit unless it’s difficult? Where do we add that to the Resol’nare?”

Ran doesn’t look annoyed by her outburst, still only thoughtful. “You think we’d fare any better with a second Dral’han?”

“Where would they even strike?” Draye says - and the moment she says the words, she realizes just how true they are. “The only thing left on Manda’yaim are the cities they built for themselves, for the New, and just keeping those supply routes open now seems to take all their attention. The war’s kept everything else mobile, and the hunts do the rest.” Draye hasn’t had a home outside the ship for a decade or more, but at least a dozen friendly ports to choose from. She gestures to the compound around her. “A shame if you lost this place, but I bet you could take it all apart, bury the bricks somewhere for a decade or two.”

Mandalorians aren’t fragile - adaptable by design, the whole damn thing meant to be portable, passed along. A goran, some beskar, a few half-decent guns and all the best new ways to swear from whoever they pick up along the way, to make their own. Fight the fights, bang the dents out, all as good as new. The Core could declare war on them openly, outlaw the Mando’ade - see how well that would go for them on the Outer Rim. See how much they’d have to invest, just to try and make good on that threat.

“A guerilla war?”

“On our terms, if the Republic really wants to force the issue. Let them come out here, loaded down and ready to be plundered. We can see just how long they’re willing to hold out while they chase rumors of us from star to star. Let them see what we’ve learned, fighting each other for so long, while they’ve grown complacent. I hear the jetiise don’t even have battleships anymore. Maybe we could send them one, if they wanted to join in.”

Jaster Mereel has several treatises on the flaws and weaknesses of the ancient Mandalorian Empire because of course he kriffing does. He also has several ideas for how to mitigate increased attention from the Republic - he’s considered this, and in far more than Tor Vizsla’s usual bang-the-podium-and-torture-a-metaphor level of detail.

“If the Republic really wants to continue mucking about with what was never theirs to touch, they’ll have to commit to it. After so long of not having to commit to anything, against an enemy with no clear goals and no defined boundaries. What would winning even look like?” Draye says. “Who knows, we get the New on our side, we might even get the Core to pay for us to fight ourselves.”

“Most in the House would say the New would never consider an alliance, that such a thing is impossible.”

“Today. It sounds impossible today - but if we take the pressure off, they don’t have to worry about the Kyr’tsad killing them all in the night, and what then?” Draye says. “We offer an open hand instead of a closed fist and who knows? Are we really that weak, that uncertainty is enough to keep us from all that we could be? Beskar is strong and unyielding so we can be as flexible as we want. We can afford to take a few hits, if it means a stronger Mando’ade."

Ran smiles “… and you’re sure you don’t want to try for Mand’alor?”

Draye snorts. “I can give my acceptance speech as I drive into the nearest sun. I’m not doing this for glory or honor - but the war and the Mand’alor who doesn’t fight for any of us - all of it is a threat to House Vizsla, to all the Mando’ade, even if they can’t see it. Fighting threats to my aliit is what I’m for.”

“You should know now, whatever happens, you’ll never get the House elders to admit it was ever a mistake, or that anyone might be directly culpable.” Ran says. “Nothing that might require some people to admit they’d backed the wrong person for all these years.”

“I don’t need to rub anyone’s face in anything.” Oh, she’d like to. Draye would very much like to see everyone complicit in the worst of the Kyr’tsad’s unnecessary kriff-ups required to answer for it in front of the whole House. The kind of no-nonsense accountability the Mandalorians were supposedly known for - and maybe in the future, maybe there will be some reckoning, but if it’s justice for the dead or a better future for the living, unfortunately there’s really only the one answer now.

“I’m not asking for verde or credits, but I need to know that House Vizsla won’t challenge it, if Jaster Mereel stands as Mand’alor. I have to be able to promise House Kryze and Mereel and anyone who fights with them against the Kyr’tsad that they won’t see retaliation from our House when the dust clears. When the Death Watch call for support, they won’t get it.” Draye should hold her tongue, but that’s never really been her strongest suit. “The elders have been doing such a good job of looking the other way, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for them to do it one more time.”

Ran smirks. “Well, I do welcome you for as long as you wish to stay, though I understand business elsewhere may require your attention. It will be my pleasure to show off the tribute you have brought us. I am sure my buire will be quite pleased. The Mand’alor himself has rarely seen fit to offer such a substantial gift.”

“Did you ever meet with him?”

“He was extended an invitation.” Ran says. “Our glorious leader saw ‘little reason to exchange words with the scraps of a failed recruit,’ although he was gracious enough not to consider my presence an insult.”

Draye’s going to get what she wants. Who knows, it might even be waiting by the time she returns to the port.

“His loss, vod’ika.” Draye says, with another nod of respect as she stands to leave. “Ret'urcye mhi.”

“Jate’kara, ori’vod. Happy hunting.”

———————————

Nothing waiting at the port, not that Draye expected it to be quite that easy. Ran will report back to whoever it is he’s got the ear of - unless they’d been listening in on her themselves - and it will take some time. Either because she’d read things entirely wrong, and the elders already think her plan is worth less than scraps to fuel the forge, tossed away with even less ceremony - or she’d read it right, and this is all a boulder slowly gathering speed as it rolls downhill, the delay of important people having to discuss what they pretend they’re not talking about, how to agree to depose a Mand’alor, even if she’s not asking for more than the most tacit permission.

Guns and the traatikae to carry them would be ideal, but Draye hadn’t planned on it, willing to work around. Play it right, and Bo-Katan might even think of it as the chance to show up House Vizsla, to do the fighting they were too skittish to commit to. It might work in her favor, honestly, the fewer Vizsla there to make House Mereel think twice the better. It won’t be an easy fight in any case, let alone the aftermath. It hadn’t really hit until Ran had spelled it out, just what it meant to win - ending the war, flipping all the tables.

One of the larger downsides in the current pile of downsides she’s calling a plan is that Draye feels obligated to listen in on Tor’s little pep talks to the faithful, his propaganda smeared as far as it will broadcast, like any good strill who doesn’t know how to kark in the box. Difficult to tell one speech from the next - exhortations about the weakness and cowardice of everyone who isn’t Kyr’tsad, reminding them of all that is owed to Manda’yaim, all that supposedly used to be and will be theirs again as soon as some collection of stars fall into the proper alignment. The Mand’alor wins - of course he wins, that’s the reason he’s had House support all this time - but the biggest victories and the loudest boasts are mostly so old they’ve been polished into smooth legend - and Draye’s heard the counter-arguments, grand victories that created their own problems, or others equally responsible for their success, dead in subsequent battles and easier to smoothly scrape from the records.

No awareness at all, of the stacks of outrages large and small she’s been compiling, of the growing distrust within the House. In the world of Tor’s speeches, it is still the peak of his glory, and everyone is just waiting for the chance to applaud.

“So, how soon before we can kick his shebs into his buyca?” Nelo says, wisely appearing only at the end of the broadcast. Draye sighs, putting down the blaster she’d been pretending to clean.

“We have sanction to take the camp. Maybe we just should.”

Of course, giving over Mereel’s heir to the elders would be exactly what they’d need, a hostage to hold over the House, to decide they really didn’t require Tor to step down, for nothing to change. Whatever else afterward wouldn’t be her problem, but it also wouldn’t solve things the way they needed to be solved - and she knows it, and she knows Nelo knows. The perils of having a good second, for when it would be so much easier to pretend the technicalities were the truth.

“Every day, we find another couple dozen ade in need of rescuing.” Nelo says. “Might as well make sure we don’t miss any before we get started.”

“You can’t adopt half a war.”

“Sure we can.” He grins. “Just toss a gai bal manda out through the speakers, get them all in bulk.” He sighs. “This is going to be be big, isn’t it?”

“Seems that way.” Usually, Draye doesn’t talk about what will happen after a victory, or even let herself think about it much, until it’s over and the dust is settling. It's too much like tempting fate, to underestimate a fight - but if they do pull this off, she can’t imagine the aftermath won’t be as tricky as everything that’s come before.

“You promise me.” She says. “Swear that you’ll toss my body and my beskar’gam into the nearest black hole the minute I’m gone. I will not be the next cursed object for some poor Vizsla to have to pass around for the next thousand years.”

“Alor.“ Lisile at the doorway, wide-eyed. Still gathering information, the way they all are, although Draye can’t remember which direction she’d even been pointed. “We just received… you’re going to want to see this.”

Draye knew that when she gave Bo-Katan the ability to contact her ship, it was entirely likely that information would get back to her sister, and through her, to the New. Unsettling, the very, very high chance that they’d be keen to exploit this opportunity. A crack in the loyalties of House Vizsla, when she would rather follow Tor Vizsla off a cliff than hurt her House or her people. So it’s hard not to be certain what she's reading now is anything but a trick, a fake, a trap she doesn’t know how not to spring.

Kriff, but it is the kind of paper trail only a New could piece together. Hidden accounts, shell companies, multiple spins through the economies of various planetary systems, all to a relatively simple conclusion - funds from the kriffing Republic itself, some allegiance of planets profiting from the war - possibly even kickbacks from a sitting member of the Senate, all funneled down to the Kyr’tsad.

And Tor and Pre both signing off, and Draye doubted either of them ever paid half a kark to the paperwork, but even so, this was damning. A strike against the Senate too, certainly - so the New had sent it to her. A bomb they couldn’t drop themselves, without risking fallout from the Republic.

The New against the Republic. The duch*ess lying to the New. House Vizsla using Draye to oust the Mand’alor. Kyr’tsad alor skimming money off the top, screwing the Mand’alor the way he was screwing the rest of them. Was anyone actually on their own side in this karking war?

"Kriff." Nelo says, reading over her shoulder.

“Kriff.” Draye says, scanning through it for the third time.

“Kriff.” Lisile agrees. “What do we do?”

“Suffer.” Draye says, punching in the code before she can think the better of it.

—————————————

“Greetings, my dutiful bu’ad. I hear you’ve been quite thorough with your deliveries. I hope you’ve had at least some time to enjoy yourself, reconnecting with the aliit. Sharing tales of your grand adventures. What a wonder it is, to be young.”

“Magical.” Draye says flatly, her own channel well-encrypted and kriff only knows what her ba’buir has running from his end. “I’m sending you something. A particularly… alarming accusation against our honorable Mand’alor.”

“How scandalous. Certainly, it is a blessing to have you seeking those who would dare to-“ He stops, because he’s come to the part in the transmission that she had, when it all started to come together. “… where did you say this came from?”

“The Core.” Draye says, certain he doesn’t need her to spell it out further. “I didn’t know how to… confirm it, or exactly what to do now. I thought any further… analysis could use a touch lighter than mine.”

“What an honor to be considered so useful.” He says. “And here, at the end of my days.”

“We’ll have a race to see who goes first.” Draye says. “Will it be you, sipping fine gal and stroking out over a game of cu’bikad, or me dying nobly so you’re justified in calling for blood?”

He chuckles. “Oh, I have more faith in you than that, bu’ad. Never doubt it.”

“How could I, when I’m apparently doing all of this to be Mand’alor. Which, of course, you also know nothing about.”

“Is it so wrong of an old man to be proud of his glorious bu’ad’s many accomplishments? Who wouldn’t believe you were worthy of a throne?”

“I have people begging me to drop all this and come work for them, ba’buir. Contracts with wide open riders. Complimentary ammo and bonus pay.” Draye says. “The only thing any of this is going to get me is quiet congratulations when no one’s looking and loyalists challenging me to honor duels until the end of time.”

“Shying away from the challenge? Is this to be the fate of our glorious House? When I was far younger than you, bu’ad, it was a delight for us to go into battles stripped even of our weapons and use what we found when we got there.”

Draye rolls her eyes. “And was it equally fun, ba’buir, to ride the last of the Mythosaurs?”

“I wonder if my illustrious bu’ad would appreciate a bounty on her ship? It might help keep her skills as sharp as her tongue.” He says. “You know, when this has all finally resolved itself, you should come for a visit. It’s been far too long. We can have some of that uj'alayi you like so much.”

“I hate uj cake.”

“It’s an acquired taste.”

————————————

One thing Draye’s lived long enough to see, is that the tipping point never comes as early as it should, or often even due to the greatest crime.

In a perfect world, it should have been the suffering of the ade alone that rallied Clan Vizsla to act, with Tor exiled into the nearest star long before she’d come on the scene. It should have been the verde he hadn’t outfitted properly, his own soldiers he’d knowingly sent to their deaths. Or dishonoring the vassal clans with incessant, petty demands. It ought to be those payments with a direct line back to Republic sources, for both Tor and his heir. Any of it ought to be more than damning enough.

Ultimately, of course, it will come down to credits spent. The scales no longer balancing, Tor Vizsla’s wins no longer justifying the cost.

It helps, however, for House Vizsla to be able to frame that pragmatism as something far nobler, a strike against the Kyr’tsad that won’t imply their prior support - and kriff if for once the stars don’t align. All of Tor’s negligence and arrogance coming together in the perfect moment - and not even his fault, not directly. One more detail he saw himself too far above to care about, just like all the rest. The straw that breaks the eopie’s back.

Clan Rawl is smaller than many under House Vizsla, but with ancient roots and glorious victories, well-respected by any who still know the value of respect and Draye doesn’t know every detail but she’s read so many accounts of the failings of the Kyr’tsad by now that the gaps fill themselves.

A young scion, newly fledged and armored in the beskar’gam of his ancestors. Beloved by his aliit, by all who had known him, destined for greatness, for tales of valor that would write his clan’s name anew among the stars. Cut down in a firefight in one more battle for the same five feet of nothing on one moon or another - and the very worst of the rumors suggested friendly fire from the direction of the Kyr’tsad - likely not deliberate so much as indifferent, and Draye has seen enough to believe that.

The death, devastating as it is to those left in its wake, still isn’t nearly as bad as the aftermath - that the Kyr’tsad claimed the ancient beskar’gam from the field, stripped the body practically before it had a chance to cool, and melted the armor down. The heritage of countless generations, of a founding goran reduced to nothing but a blank ingot in the flames.

Even for an enemy, it would be a grave insult - there were codes to follow, certain armors returned after a battle as a matter of right and duty - perhaps not even tithed in trade, to honor the death of a ver’alor taken so early. But this was a vassal clan of House Vizsla, this was aliit, the kind of offense that could spark a civil war within a civil war. The kind that demanded apology in blood, with a grieving clan left to gnaw at the insult like a bone, an open wound, demanding right of satisfaction by combat from no less than the Mand’alor himself.

Tor had refused, of course, citing his need to focus on the war, although in far less polite terms. Pre, in a shocking display of not covering his own shebs, had offered no consolation and indeed, made no comment at all, when keeping silent was as good as putting another bolt in the body.

Clan Rawl isn’t so much demanding retribution as howling for vengeance, the eldest among their ranks with as much reputation and clout and fury as an entire platoon, repeatedly declaring that he will fight Tor Vizsla himself, bare handed, the rest of the Clan just as eager to join in.

Time passes, but nothing quiets down. The Mand’alor has no new grand victory, to sweep this oversight under the rug, and Clan Rawl makes it clear they are not going anywhere - and they have friends, and make new ones across all the Houses and Clans that Draye has spoken to, many of them reaching out to her, to see what she makes of the news. All those who have been waiting far too long for a change, and even more who are newly outraged to discover their Mand’alor defends their virtues by practicing exactly none of them. Everything from close aliit to distant relations and names Draye doesn’t know at all, stretching all the way to Little Keldabe, all demanding that House Vizsla take action.

It’s not long after that, when she receives the message from Ran.

If Tor Vizsla should fall in battle, Pre inherits nothing he won’t fight for. If any Mando’ade should join in the claim with Clan Rawl against the Kyr’stad, House Vizsla will not intervene. The House recognizes Draye’s right to challenge the Mand’alor - or the claim of anyone she should choose to support.

Kriffing finally.

————————-

“Incoming!”

Surprising that the pushback took as long as it did, really. Draye figured the Mand’alor or one of his underlings might look up from his endless pursuit of whatever it is he thinks Mereel owes him and notice the bit of osik-stirring at the edges of his domain. Anyone she’s spoken to could decide to betray her, any allegiance might flip in an instant - she doesn’t think her ba’buir might decide she needs a bit more of a challenge, but it was hardly ever out of the realm of the possible.

A bit annoying that they’d bothered to slap the paint back on their armor just in time to get into this. The next step, of course, was reaching out to House Kryze, seeing if maybe they’d remembered some connection to Mereel in the interim - and answering a distress call from a House Kryze traat’aliit under attack seemed like a decent start. Bo-Katan hadn’t exactly returned the favor of leaving behind a way to keep in touch.

Except there’s no sign of Kryze here, just the wreck of some old depot being used for storage, and mercenaries who’d opened fire the moment they were spotted. Draye does not regret leaving a third of her crew back to cover the ship, but kriff that was a lot of opposition, and they weren’t holding back with the firepower, the ground thudding with the force of every blast, forcing them behind dubious cover.

“At least it’s not droids.” Lisle says.

“Always the bright side with you.” Gren mutters, returning a blast of fire that tags whoever was foolish enough to step out from the tree line, what’s left of the wall they’ve been pinned behind shuddering violently, dropping bits of rubble. The web of vines that had consumed the structure was still, somehow, holding fast, but it wouldn’t last forever. A pained hiss from over the comm pulls Draye’s attention away from considering where to drop a gas grenade, the best place to reposition.

“Phelyx?”

“Fine, alor. Just grazed me. Returned the favor, but I think… wait-“

The sounds of shouting, a definite uptick in fire - but nothing’s hitting the wall now, or anything nearby. Whatever happened, it sounds like it came from behind the mercs. Draye swallows a stab of annoyance - they were a distraction, keeping the enemy occupied while whoever it was came in from behind - and it isn’t that long before everything goes quiet.

“Alor?” Gren says.

“Hold up.” She murmurs. “Phelyx, visual?”

Before he can answer, several Mandalorians appear in the clearing - not Kryze, but not Kyr’tsad either, and for all their crimes it’s wearing false colors that the Death Watch usually treat as utterly beneath them. So it’s likely that what she’s looking at actually is Clan Wren, although there’s still the question of what that means, as the alor takes a few more steps forward, and removes her helmet.

“Utrel’a, alor!”

“Stay here.” Draye says. “If it goes wrong, retreat. Drop smoke and get back to the ship.” Hopefully that’s even an option, and Gren begins to protest but she’s already moving out from cover. The Wren guard tense behind their leader at her approach, but don’t draw weapons. A decent start.

“House Kryze?” Draye says wryly. The woman arches an imperious eyebrow - no nonsense, but with that edge of weariness that seems to follow anyone sensible trying to deal with this war. It’s hard not to like her immediately.

“There was a disagreement, on whether or not we could trust you. We’ve been asking for help here for a while now,” She gestures to the bodies of the mercs around her, “but the Mand’alor has been… occupied elsewhere.”

If it’s anything like the other vassal clans Draye’s heard from, the Mand’alor’s been ‘occupied elsewhere’ for years.

“It sounds like we owed you one, then.” She pops her own buy’ce. “Draye Vizsla.”

“I’ve heard.” The woman nods. “Ursa Wren.”

“Glad you decided on the benefit of the doubt.” Draye says, wondering just how true that is.

“Usually, there’s little interest in opinions from the ‘lesser’ clans on how the war is going, beyond how delighted we all are to keep fighting in it. Until one day, we're told there's a House ship out there asking questions. Actually listening to what we have to say. Maybe even reaching out to our enemies, to see if it’s in our best interest if they stay our enemies.” Ursa’s expression is still stone, but her eyes flick back and forth in the tiniest movements, studying for a reaction. “If our enemies are still who we thought they were.”

Draye glances back, gesturing - and soon her team are out of cover, as more of Clan Wren appear from the tree line. Draye’s dealt with Wren before, even shared a few bigger jobs once or twice, the Clan occupying that space in her mind for reliable and competent, two of the highest compliments she can think to give. All the verde here are in gleaming, well-painted beskar. Clan Wren has always seemed vital and thriving, and only now does Draye wonder what part of that is any less than a careful and concentrated effort. How much more invisible damage has been done to the foundations of what they're supposed to be.

“House Vizsla has sanctioned the… removal of the current Mand’alor, but they won’t commit resources.” Draye says, because Clan Wren is aliit and she’s not going to insult another alor by trying to dance around the point, as if it isn’t familiar ground. A glint of what might be anger in Ursa’s eyes, thought not entirely unfriendly.

“I might be honored just to say I was there, to see the next Mand’alor taking those first steps toward setting things right.”

“I’m not challenging for Mand’alor,” Draye says. “But if you have been keeping an eye on me, I think you already know that.”

Dark eyes narrow. “Will they really back Mereel, or is this some ploy just to get him out in the open?”

“Kriff.” Draye sighs, because surprise, that sounds like Clan Wren has been talking to House Mereel - and she was tired of all this subterfuge before it started, and she hadn’t actually even considered - and who the kriff knows, really?

"I can’t guarantee they aren’t lying to me. All I can do is take out Tor, and swear allegiance to the new Mand’alor - and if House Vizsla has taken this long to act, I can’t imagine there’s anyone else who actually wants to try and clean this mess up.”

It’s a little too easy to imagine a future where she has to chase down Jaster Mereel, when he realizes just what kind of clusterkriff he’s about to take responsibility for.

Ursa is quiet for a long moment, and Draye considers just how many of the vassal clans may have made connections to their supposed enemies over the years, as the war’s become less a thing to win and more a thing to survive. How many times a riduurok or a shared border or past history has blurred the lines of obligation - or just the increasingly unhinged demands of a osi’kovid Mand’alor and the realities of keeping a clan together in spite of them, especially when the alor with the most sense isn’t the one you’re supposed to be following.

“Is it just House Mereel you’re in contact with, or can you reach out to Kryze as well?”

“… both.” Ursa finally says. “It’d be good to have someone from Clan Rawl, if you think you can trust them.”

“I trust their anger.” Draye says. “The only fight will be over who gets to beat the Mand’alor to death with his own buyca.”

Ursa’s lips twitch just slightly, like she wouldn’t complain if the opportunity fell in her lap.

“It’s still not going to be easy.” She says. “If we want Mereel all in on this, we need to give him as much reason as we can to trust us. Something more than the word of a sworn enemy, perhaps, that his child still lives.”

“Well then,” Draye says, with a glance back at her crew, “I guess we’d better go pick ourselves up a jetii’ad.”

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

“Awful quiet there, kid.”

Obi-Wan is furious. Which has made it slightly easier to ignore the ache in his chest or the pains in his legs or how the last thing a Jedi is supposed be is furious, how he’s supposed to accept his feelings and then let them go and at least he’s damn sure figured out the first part. Accepting the horror of what Genet has offered, the swift slide into rage at the phantom Sith for thinking he could lay out such an obvious trap, a box propped up by a stick, tied to a rope - ‘certainly not the inescapable destruction of your soul under here, come and see’ - and that Genet would think Obi-Wan would be so desperate or so stupid to even consider…

No useful lessons in his past, no warnings about binding your soul to a Sith death planet because obviously no one should ever kriffing need any.

He’s angry at himself, for talking to Genet for as long as he had, for letting himself get drawn into any of the arguments, when it was obvious they were all leading here, that every single word was in the service of this, of getting Obi-Wan to do the dumbest thing imaginable for the sake of some kriffing Sith lord’s gain - and Genet is a Sith, no matter the ambiguity, Obi-Wan can’t imagine for a minute he’s anything but the most dangerous of enemies and Genet can go kriff himself, he can go kriff himself right off the edge of the Outer Rim and Obi-Wan thinks that as loudly as he can, even though the phantom voice has been silent since he’d made his suggestion. The one he knew Obi-Wan wouldn’t like.

“You feeling all right?”

“Fine.” It’s snappish, he can hear it, but Obi-Wan’s too tired to try for better, doesn’t even know why Arla’s asking. It’s not like it will make any difference how he’s feeling, there’s nothing for them to do but keep moving, nowhere to go but up. At least it doesn’t seem like they’re going to lose all the light, everything slipping into a pale sort of near-dusk that’s held steady for at least the last hour or so. It’s cast the mountain further into shadow, rising up like some dark nemesis and Obi-Wan irrationally hates that too, angry at this planet for constantly trying to scare him and succeeding far too often.

He’s angry, because if he’s angry he doesn’t have to even consider what’s beneath the anger - the hurt, that everything Genet said was a lie to only one end, only to his benefit and nothing more. The part of himself that had… not hated it, having someone to talk to, someone who’d seemed to listen to what he had to say. It’s bearable to be angry. It’s far less so, to know it aches now in the exact same place that it did, watching the other initiates get paired off. Being left behind and not knowing why. What obvious failing did Genet see in him? Why couldn’t he do it right? Why was he never good enough or brave enough or smart enough when it mattered?

“Hold up here.” Arla says.

“I said I’m-“

“Hold up, vod. Tayli’bac?”

“‘lek.” The answer’s automatic now, and Obi-Wan shakes himself out of his hole of self-pity because they’re still in plenty of danger and there’s still a small army of people on this planet, none of them sane, all of whom would gladly and immediately murder them for a chance at the Darksaber, and he needs to grow the kriff up and stop -

“Obi’ka!”

He looks up for the danger at Arla’s soft hiss, but there’s no one approaching, no sign of a threat anywhere - except the small rocks all around them, hovering a few inches in the air, and as Obi-Wan watches one of them snaps straight down the middle, crumbling to pieces. He shuts his eyes, hands in fists, forces out a slow breath and listens to the rest patter back to the ground.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

It’s always hard to tell, how other beings are going to respond to external shows of the Force, especially if there’s any implication it’s not entirely in a Jedi’s control. He’s hardly expecting Arla to panic, not with everything she’s already seen - but a part of him still untangles itself, easier to breathe when she doesn’t hesitate to bring him into another keldabe and he shouldn’t need this, the constant coddling. How is he ever going to deal with everything else if he’s not stronger than this now?

Still, he doesn’t step away.

“This place is all about finding new ways to kriff with you.” Arla says quietly. What he wouldn’t give, if that was the whole problem anymore. “Maybe it’ll be easier if you try and talk it out? If you need me to forget I heard anything - it’s already gone.”

“It’s… complicated.”

Arla looks up the path, winding and looping far ahead, out of sight, and they’ve already had to make their own way across the rocks more than once, doubling back on the path. “Pretty sure we’ve got the time, kid.”

Obi-Wan shifts from foot to foot, a hard swallow that doesn’t do much for a perpetually dry throat. He could say anything, and it would be some kind of pressure release. He could tell her more about what he saw underground, all that pain and all that horror. He could tell her about Melida-Daan, or Xanatos, or how afraid he is for Cal and Trilla and everyone they left behind. How he doesn’t know how to save anyone.

“I think I have an undead Sith lord living in my head.”

Or that. He could always just say that.

Arla blinks. Nods slowly. Blinks again. At least she’s not going for her blaster yet. “And that’s… bad.”

“Yeah, I… yeah.” If the phantom in question has any comments about this sudden turn in the conversation, he’s keeping them to himself.

She still doesn’t look angry, or afraid. Just watching him very closely. “… scale of one to kriffed?”

“Uh, either ten or eleven or… several million.” An anxious chuckle stutters in his throat. “It’s hard to tell just yet.”

Arla nods again, the gesture not very useful but it’s what she’s got so she’s sticking with it. “Did you… pick it up down there? Here? Underground?”

“No.”

“… is this why the jetiise kicked you out?”

“No.” Obi-Wan wasn’t using his hands for anything in particular, but suddenly finds it difficult to know what to do with them. “This was… before. Well, before and after, I guess. Before the war. The first war. I was - not here, not on Mandalore.” When did he tell her he’d been kicked out of the Order? He can’t remember. “It wasn’t on purpose, I wasn’t trying to - I didn’t want - it was a… a dar’jetii tried to summon it. I was - he was… I was kind of… I was a s-sacrifice. I don’t know why, but it didn’t work the way he wanted. I’m still… me. More or less.”

Arla nods - why stop now - and lets out a long, slow breath.

“You got a lot to unpack in your kit, jetii’ika.“

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna go ahead and assume if he wanted to take a shot at me, I’d probably know it by now.” Arla says. “Are you all right? Is he… hurting you? Can he do that?”

Absolutely, but not in the way she means. At least not yet. Obi-Wan shakes his head. “No, he’s not - it’s just… talking. A lot of talking. He could read the notes I couldn’t, underground - he knew some things about what - what happened here and… I’ve had a lot to think about.”

Her eyes narrow. “Can he hear me now? This... dar’jetii of yours?”

“I think so.”

Arla glares at him - not at him - and the finger she’s pointed in between his eyes isn’t meant for him either.

“Cut the kid a karking break. If you haven’t noticed, we’re all full up on kriffing impossible nonsense right now. If you don’t know how to get us out of here, save the rest for later.” The glare lasts a moment longer, before Arla turns back to the incline. “We should keep moving, if you’re good.”

“I’m good.”

Single-minded Mandalorian pragmatism. Nothing else like it in the whole of the galaxy.

He doesn’t answer. Maybe if he keeps not answering, Genet will just give up and leave him alone. Even as Obi-Wan thinks it, he knows it’s stupid.

I have no particular strill in this fight, little one. You are free to do as you wish, always - although I would point out you hardly came here seeking power, and caused none of this suffering. Choosing not to wield what’s been offered won’t change what is. Even using it for the greatest good won’t bring peace, or justice to those who were wronged - but it is something.

I can’t. Won’t. Both. Even arguing why not seems like giving up ground. This is why he knows captured soldiers only respond with name, rank and serial number. It never came to that on Melida-Daan - they didn't have numbers, and no one ever had much use for capturing the Young. He doesn’t know how Jedi are supposed to respond - once again, he’s managed to hit the crisis well before the training that would tell him how to handle it.

Obi-Wan is still only Fallen. Not Sith, never - no vows, no sworn allegiances - but does it matter, does it really matter when the voice in your head knows so much more than you do. Maybe you don’t choose, maybe you’re chosen, and it just drags you out like the tide... Somehow, he’d been on Bandomeer’s surface just long enough to learn about riptides, the water seemingly calm on the surface, but deadly just underneath.

I can’t use it. You said it yourself.

Did I, now?

A closed loop. It’s all… trapped.

Chaos is a constant, little one. Nothing fixed in this world that won’t be unraveled in the end. Although, I suppose it’s true that if you tried to crack into that power directly, you’d likely explode. In a way, this planet succeeded far beyond their expectations - I doubt they intended to… repurpose the whole of it, at least not all in one go. But that means you shouldn’t even need to draw from the source - the sheer disturbance coming off the core ought to be more than enough for your purposes. For now.

You want to teach me to… siphon off the dividends of an entire planet’s endless suffering for my benefit? Obi-Wan thinks. That is the most unspeakably evil thing that I have ever, ever kriffing heard.

I never claimed it was ideal. Genet says. And let’s be fair, it’s hardly your benefit you’re worried about.

A planet where everything had been burned away, until all that remained was rage and sorrow and loss. Obi-Wan could give that darkness a target, arguably a quite worthy one. Collapse the entirety of Tor Vizsla and his Kyr’tsad like a paper doll in an ion engine - just like the weapon that crushed the heart out of the Mandalorian Empire, so long ago.

The reason the Jedi did not get too involved, did not let themselves get too far drawn into conflicts, and did not covet power.

A difference between coveting power, and recognizing that you have an opportunity to enact change. With power, you have the luxury to observe, to take the time to make a decision instead of just reacting.

Yes, because rational and productive outcomes are exactly what Obi-Wan’s taken away from all the times where someone’s had power over him.

You can choose to wield it like a cudgel, or a scalpel - but you can’t choose to wield power lightly if you have no power at all. I’d rather not abdicate out of the fear of making mistakes and be left with nothing to do but cry noble tears when all my friends are dead.

But all your friends are dead. Obi-Wan has no chance to snatch that thought back - well over the line and deliberately cruel, because Genet was just as deliberately jabbing at all his buttons - and there’s a moment’s silence, and then a rueful chuckle.

Points to the gardener.

I shouldn’t have…

No, little one, it was well deserved - and a lesson worth remembering. The limits of power, the illusion of control. The lies of the Sith - the ones even they can’t make themselves not believe. That if they just double down hard enough, if only they can be that little bit more cruel, surely this time they can control every atom of the universe - while the Jedi try to convince themselves it doesn’t hurt that they can’t. We fight as much with the obvious as we do with each other. I’m sure it must be quite entertaining to someone, somewhere.

The Living Force is, in many ways, the Dying Force as well - one of his early lessons from the creche, an unavoidable truth taught as gently as they could. Plants competed with each other for sunlight and soil, animals killed other animals to feed their young - life sustaining life. Even cataclysms - earthquakes, tidal waves, vast disasters - they happened out of no ill intent, simply things that could happen and sometimes did. The possibility of terrible fates, frightening and inexplicable and painful - but it wasn’t wrong, not the way that Falling was wrong, the way this place was so wrong. Destruction was just another part of the cycle - and in the wake of it, new life might flourish. Just because a moment was not what was preferable, or understandable, or free from pain, did not mean it wasn’t a part of the Force.

Obi-Wan had been assured it could take him the whole of his life to truly understand it, let alone accept it, and that’s certainly been true. Not at all the same to nod along with his lessons, to think he understood the cycles of the Force, death as just another point in the journey, as it was to have the hot blood of a Young solider he didn’t even know by name bubbling up between his fingers as he tried to staunch the wound at his throat, wide eyes watching him in agony and desperation and terror, begging for Obi-Wan to save him when he had no idea if he could.

He had, at least that day he had. Obi-Wan had power, and that power meant he could save people. So the Young wanted him with them, were willing to follow where he led because they didn’t want to die. Simple as that.

“Hold up, kid.” Arla says, the both of them straining a bit as the air grows thinner and the path more vertical, as they stop at a rare patch of level terrain, sharing a spare swallow of water from her pack, and a better view than ever that he doesn’t want to see, of the vast devastation wrought to this world - and far below, the battle they’d left behind still going, though reduced now to only a few flickers of light slowly canceling each other out.

The Dark Side - the power of the Sith - is power, but it isn’t free like it pretends to be. It isn’t some grand wellspring the Jedi are simply too cowardly or unambitious to reach for. An exchange of life for horror - this planet’s simply a bit more blatant with the outcome than most.

No power came without cost - someone always paid. Master Dooku’s wisdom, he thinks, a rare lesson, when he was usually far too busy to speak to the initiates.

How many had suffered a similar fate across the galaxy? How many beautiful, irreplaceable things were lost to all those Sith Empires that crumbled to nothing. How many people, how many planets casually sacrificed to what would ever only be ambition and unattainable, impossible goals.

It mattered. Each person mattered, in a way even Obi-Wan thinks his Jedi teachings can’t fully account for - in a way that nothing could account for, and death could be both natural and terrible - it could be a contradiction. Obi-Wan could accept it as inevitable and still fight as hard as he could for those who struggled to survive, and he could grieve for the loss of all that might have been. Everything in the galaxy had a value of its own, beyond what use it was to him, if he understood it or not. It all mattered, connections more subtle and vital than even the Force might be able to show him - and he had to remember that, or Light or Dark or no power at all, he could do unimaginable damage and never even know it.

Walk lightly among the stars. Another saying that just didn’t seem as simple anymore.

Gardener. Genet says, amused.

Yes. Obi-Wan thinks back fiercely. For this? Absolutely.

“Things still all right with the ride-along?” Arla says, tapping her temple. Obi-Wan nods, half-amazed that she hasn’t abandoned him, or at least asked for the Darksaber back. Kriff, and he’d thought it was bad to think about before, if he and the Order somehow crossed paths. He can’t even imagine what they’d do now, if they realized just what he carried with him, if they ever found out -

High Council. Genet murmurs, still amused. So many chairs.

Nobody asked you.

They keep climbing.

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

The Temple on Coruscant has a Force presence like few other places in the galaxy, so much Light from so many Masters and so many Knights over so long a time, the whole building suffused with peace and welcome, stones worn smooth and gleaming in the Force underneath a steady river of time.

Many cultures have more specific traditions of imbuing objects with a deeper connection to the Force - weaving fabric into blankets to soothe newborns or comfort the aged, distilling spirits with special properties for guiding Force visions. The Jedi make note of these skills but don’t often encourage their cultivation - distractions, holding on to the physical rather than trying to transcend it. Although most of the initiates and more than few knights and Masters are sure every volume in Master Nu’s archives informs her the moment they are out of place or overdue.

Ages of Jedi passing through the Temple have left occasional, individual marks, though, and perhaps once there had been more interest in the tangible world - or perhaps whoever had animated the little mouse in the back corner of the Thousand Fountains simply hadn’t cared. Obi-Wan was grateful for it, whatever the case, on those too-frequent nights when he couldn’t sleep, or woke up with a scream lurking behind his teeth, for reasons he couldn’t remember.

He had his training saber with him now - spending some time on his forms at least gave him something to focus on, usually a few of the more nocturnal Jedi practicing, enough that it wasn’t as noticeable that he shouldn’t be among them. But the salles were empty, and he didn’t want to go back all the way back to his rooms and stare up at the ceiling and risk waking his crechemates. He didn’t want questions, where everybody already knew all the answers, except how he was supposed to fix what was wrong.

Better to visit the little mosaic, tucked out of sight along a back wall - a pale, stone mouse with long feet and a longer tail, and it would sit on its hind legs, listening for danger as if there was anything that could do it harm, scampering back and forth, tiles shifting as it passed, disappearing and reappearing into a void of darker stones in one of the corners. Obi-Wan liked to watch it, to think about who must have created it, and when and how. It made him feel less alone, on those nights when he felt very alone - but not tonight, it seemed, Obi-Wan sneaking to the half-hidden corner to find someone already in his spot on the floor, sitting against the fountain wall.

He knows Quinlan Vos, the older initiate newly arrived at the Temple - already a padawan, more or less. Older than some would have been allowed - but the Shadows seemed to choose who they wanted when they wanted, and Master Tholme himself had been the one to bring him here. Obi-Wan has seen the boy around, but only distantly, between classes, or watching him in the salles. Only what he’s heard in Temple gossip. He hopes the other boy won’t be angry or try to chase him away - one Bruck is already more than enough fun, and he doesn’t want to give up this place.

“Hey.” Quinlan says, and holds out a piece of cake, already chewing through his own share, a few purple crumbs dropping to the floor. “You want some?”

“When was that on the menu?” Obi-Wan says.

“Tomorrow.” He grins, and doesn’t hesitate to slide over when Obi-Wan takes the piece of cake and sits down beside him. The little mouse appears at the edge of the wall a few moments later - they float a few crumbs over, but it shows no interest, stones flickering and shifting as it scurries away.

“I saw you, at practice.” The older boy says, gesturing at the saber. “It’s Kenobi, right? You’re pretty good.”

Obi-Wan shrugs - more effort than talent, and he’s still just learning. Training to learn how to be good. “It’s fun.”

“We should spar sometime.” Obi-Wan looks over, to measure if it’s a serious offer or just making fun - and there’s a warm bump in the Force, like friendly knuckles against his shoulder. Curious and open - and just as unsure as he is, waiting to be rejected. Obi-Wan nudges back, and soon they’re both smiling, the connection between them settling as if it had always been there. No different than the ones he shares with the rest of his crechemates - but there’s a sense of relief from Quinlan’s side, that maybe this is all a bit more unfamiliar for him.

“You don’t have your own friends?” Obi-Wan says, and immediately winces. “Sorry, that sounded really terrible. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s all right.” Quinlan says. “I haven’t - I guess I’m kind of a special case.”

Not so rare, an initiate from outside the Temple - but Obi-Wan had heard some of the why. What happened to his family.

“I’m sorry.” Obi-Wan says. “I don’t really know what it’s like, to… but I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it’s… it’s okay. I’m fine.” A flood of negative emotions across that fresh connection, disproving the lie - anger and hurt and shame, loss and loneliness all twisted up, all feeding on each other and Quinlan swears under his breath, the chaos ebbing away. Not subsiding, merely cut off, hidden from view.

“Sorry.” The bond between them rings with embarrassment and shame and disappointment, the expectation that the next thing Obi-Wan will do is break it, and pretend nothing had ever happened. Quinlan doesn’t belong here - too angry, too loud, too everything - but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go either, not anymore, and -

“It’s okay.” Obi-Wan says, and reaches out the way his creche master taught. Peace, and calm and steadiness - like a candle flame, or a steady stone in a rushing river. Something for the other boy to hold on to, if he needs it. “I mean, I’m sorry that you’re hurting - but it doesn’t bother me.”

As if he doesn’t have plenty of practice with sudden drops into violent confusion, anger and fear - and even half-remembered, Obi-Wan’s visions are far worse than anything Quinlan is sharing now. Those don’t come with apologies, or cake, or the relief in warm, brown eyes and an even brighter smile.

“So, what brings you down here to the land of sad cake and fake mice?”

“Bad dreams.”

Obi-Wan says, because it’s usually true. Tonight he’d snapped awake, enough training that he didn’t wake up anyone else much anymore, in the Force or by shouting - but what had finally dragged him out of bed this time was a memory from earlier that day, as he’d been moving from class to the salles, getting ready - an older Knight, talking with the initiates’ battlemaster, and Obi-Wan didn’t recognize him, but judging by the nicks in his saber and the scars that creased across his fur, he was certainly someone from somewhere. Maybe a knight who’d been away for years, maybe even as far as the Outer Rim.

“… fair lot this year, more than most. Any standouts?”

Talking about them, about possible futures, who showed promise - and Obi-Wan wasn’t quite noble enough not to hope they’d notice he was better than Bruck - that he’d spent as much time as he could making sure his forms were clean and flawless, working on speed and footwork where size was unlikely to ever be his advantage. He kept an ear out, even as more initiates entered the room, Garen calling to him from across the hall.

“Kenobi… creche-master says… visions, but Force willing those will go with time…. don’t want to end up with another Sifo-Dyas…”

Sifo-Dyas. The Master with the terrible visions that had never faded, who had to step down from Council duties as often as he stayed. The one who disappeared now and then - and that they said had turned up at the Temple steps more than once, battered and lost and raving like a madman. The Jedi not even Master Yoda could help, too far gone - although that’s never said in more than a whisper. Obi-Wan had heard his name mentioned alongside the Master once before, in one of his worse nights in the Halls of Healing.

He has never met Sifo-Dyas in person, and never, ever wants to.

“… sounds like quite a lot of trouble for one with no particular Force talent.”

It hadn’t even been said unkindly, not really. Just the voice of experience giving an honest opinion of Obi-Wan’s potential, no natural strength in the Force to give him an edge. He certainly hadn’t redeemed himself on the floor that day - slow and fumbling, just wanting to get out of the room. Wanting to get away from the disappointed eyes on him - but of course that feeling had followed him for the rest of the day, even as he’d tried to clear his mind. As if worrying about his own ability to impress wasn’t the last thing that made a good Jedi Knight.

“I should get going, before they notice I’m gone.” Obi-Wan says, shaking himself from the memory. “Thanks for the cake.”

He gets to his feet, and bumps the training saber right out of the pocket of his robes, where it clatters and rolls next to Quinlan’s boot. The other boy reaches down to pick it up, and freezes - bare fingertips hovering just above the metal.

Force echoes, he’d heard that was Quinlan’s strongest ability - too strong, enough that it could catch him up, that he couldn’t find his way out - kind of like Obi-Wan and his visions, and maybe he usually wore gloves but maybe sometimes he didn’t want to. Maybe he thought it wouldn’t matter tonight, that he’d be here alone.

“Does it hurt?” Obi-Wan says.

“No.” Quin says, and frowns, not looking at him. “Yeah. Sometimes. Kind of. I just… I might see things. Things maybe you don’t want me to know. Some people don’t like that very much.”

Temple gossip. Obi-Wan had heard it - Quinlan has probably heard what they’re saying about him… and then Obi-Wan decides he just doesn’t care. He’s not stronger than all his fears, not yet - but Quin deserves it, that he be stronger than this one.

“There’s not much to see.”

Quinlan looks at him for a moment more, and closes his hand on the hilt. The hope that he might not see anything quickly fades - Obi-Wan hears the slight intake of breath, sees his eyes close, a flutter of emotion in the Force, the other boy probably seeing every failing and stupid mistake -

Quinlan’s arms are around him in a rough hug, as warm in the Force as he is in person, just that little bit taller, that Obi-Wan can lean against his shoulder and he feels it, in that shared space between them. As much a surge of pure emotion as words - you’re like me, with the Force as much a problem as a gift, trouble without trying, you’re like me and you know what it’s like and I’m not alone - and Obi-Wan sends that thought back, smiling - no, not alone.

“If you stand on my shoulders,” Quinlan says in his ear, “we can reach the shelves where they keep the maintenance droid parts.”

“What do you need with a maintenance droid?”

“Who said anything about a whole droid?”

“This sounds like a terrible idea.”

It is. It’s even worse in the execution. Which, of course, doesn’t stop them from doing it. Or any of what comes after, once they’ve cleaned up the mess, and promised never to do it again.

It’s harder to be Quinlan Vos than most people think - than he ever lets them believe, always cavalier and carefree. Except for his close friends, and though he’d quickly found a place in the Temple, even though they could have parted ways, he’d never left Obi-Wan behind. Never let him take all the blame, even when he might have made his escape. Even as Quin had learned how to slow down the things the Force pushed on him, as he learned how to choose what to see instead of being overwhelmed, stemming the onslaught into a more manageable flow. As Obi-Wan got a little older, and the worst of the visions thankfully faded into nothing, vague fears for his own future going with them.

They’d stayed friends through it all, and Obi-Wan had tried to learn from him, that strength in pretending to be strong. Friends and alibis and partners in crime - whatever trouble they’d been in or running away from, they always did it together, and it was always fun.

———————

“Huh.”

Arla speaks, and Obi-Wan realizes he’d closed his eyes - chasing the slightest hint of warmth in the Force, an unexpected sensation that somehow wasn’t bitter cold or the empty, screaming void. It almost reminded him of hom - of the Temple. A warm summer day in place of the blizzard that should be there, the sudden lack of active hostility nearly enough to knock him off his feet.

The wind has picked up as they’ve climbed, grasping and curling around them - but it has more to do with the rising body count below than anything like altitude, although Obi-Wan is only certain when his foot hits the edge of the bottom, rough-hewn stair and everything goes still and quiet. It would be funny, in any other circ*mstances, Arla staring at the stone staircase as if waiting for it to attack

“We’re… good?”

It’s strange to be the one she turns to, the way it had been strange on Melida-Daan, to go from wayward padawan to voice of authority simply because he knew a few more things, a few extra details. Obi-Wan’s already smiling, one foot on the stair and the worst of the weight of this place already easing off, drawing away.

“It was on the map, from underground. Whoever they were, they weren’t friends with the Sith here.”

“It does feel… a little less kriffed, yeah.” Arla glances around. “Let’s keep on our guard anyway, okay kid?”

“lek, alor.” Obi-Wan says, and doesn’t try to dodge when she ruffles his hair as she passes. The more the respect is honest, the less Arla wants anything to do with it.

Staying alert is not the easiest promise to keep, each step further like moving into a warm bath even though Obi-Wan can tell it’s only echoes, that this is nothing more than one more well-appointed tomb. Whatever protections were here still linger in tatters, warming the stones, but nothing more.

Obi-Wan is afraid for a moment, that the lingering Light will retreat from him now that he’s touched the Dark, commanded it - but when he reaches for it, lets it in, it flows over him like eager sunlight. It’s everything, it makes everything better even if it’s nothing more than a faded echo of what ought to be there, fragments of what was, like trying to chase after a party that keeps just ahead of him. Following the echoes from one dark, empty room to the next. The thin strand of a distant melody, and if he could just get closer, just enough to hear a few more notes-

Arla’s arm raps against his chest, holding him back, and it’s only then that Obi-Wan realizes he had his eyes closed again, wandering through a small vestibule into what remains of the larger room.

“What…” Obi-Wan says, and stops, as the question answers itself. The walls of the room are set in glittering slabs of glinting copper stone, etched in long lines of intricate, unfamiliar script, some panels carved as if the stone had been woven, like wood or reeds. Massive pillars define the far side, with wide spaces left open to the outside world - windows perhaps long shattered, or some other way to tame the winds or block any former creatures that might have wished to wander inside - and then he looks down, and thinks whoever made this place may have had little interest in any such boundaries.

The vast span beneath the glittering dome gently swirls in endless motion. Patterns within patterns, all gently turning, and if Obi-Wan had wanted to know what this planet was - here it is, all laid out before him. Reeds and rivers, grasslands and grazing beasts - the forms of this planet’s nature, the turning of seasons, distant birds flitting through a stone sky.

He remembers when he’d been so impressed with a tiny, tiled mouse, running back and forth in a corner of the Temple.

“So, the floor’s… moving.” Arla says, still holding him back. “Are we concerned?”

“No.” Obi-Wan says, swallowing back what might be a sob or a laugh and either way get it the kriff under control. “No, it’s fine. It’s fine. This was just… just a part of how they w-worshipped here.” He stammers, as his eyes catch on the slumped piles of cloth all along the edge of the room. A circle, evenly spaced, as if in the middle of some ritual - except for a smaller, shadowed space in the distant corner, an inner room - smaller bodies, and he swallows hard.

Of course they weren’t going to find anyone alive here, these people had been dead for thousands of years and whatever they’d done, much like the Sith below, had managed to protect the physical but little more, and -

In the center of the room, a darker cloak, this figure much larger than the rest, in the same robes as those underground, the Sith staining even this sacred space, and Obi-Wan looks closer at the nearest body - thinks he wasn’t wrong, something avian in the people who lived here, delicate and thin and there it is, the perfect circle scorched into the robes, and likely another shattered lightsaber here somewhere, because even here, even in these last, desperate moments - and something… shudders in him, down to the bone, like anger but hotter, like hate but darker, and it isn’t that the Light shies away from him, there’s just no room for it, the bitter, disgusted rage is all-consuming, and for a moment he can’t even care.

“I’m guessing this was some kind of… holy place?”

The anger slides to Arla without purpose or justification, with the pinpoint targeting of a star destroyer - because she broke his concentration, because the question is stupid, because he’s just so kriffing tired so kriffing angry and there’s nowhere to put it, and all that’s the Dark, and it’s getting much worse - or it’s staying the same, and he’s just running out of the strength to fight back, and Obi-Wan needs to go, needs to get as far away from her as he can, before he can hurt anyone, before he can do anything he doesn’t mean to and -

“Kid.” Obi-Wan knows he used to be better at keeping his failings to himself. It took a long time for the Temple to decide they were done with him, but Arla’s looking at him like he’s hiding none of it - but she still doesn’t look angry, or suspicious. “Is it the other guy? The dar’jetii?”

“No.” Obi-Wan says, nearly laughing again, because at least Genet hasn’t said anything since they’d arrived, and maybe the Light here was enough to keep him at bay, maybe -

Just being polite.

“Oh, kriffing shabla, kark-sucking son of a bantha-humping… kriff!” Obi-Wan snarls, half-amazed when all that comes out is swearing and not Force lightning. He still feels the hot flush of shame as the moment passes, throwing a tantrum like a youngling who'd never heard the word control. “I… I just… I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “Lose all the osik you want, kid, just try and give me a heads up on when to duck.”

She knows you’re a threat, but she’d rather let you hurt her than hurt you. Obi-Wan doesn’t know exactly where that thought comes from, only that he’s certain it’s true - and the thought of it humbles him, douses the remnants of that rage like ice water.

“The Sith.. they were here.” Obi-Wan gestures to the dark cloak. “Whoever was here, these people, they must have tried… they were trying to protect themselves, and the Sith just came and… did what they do.”

He wonders if they had forced themselves into this sanctuary, or if even here they’d been able to tell some lie, cover up the truth for just as long it took to destroy everything. Had it been part of their plan, or were things already falling apart, and this one had stayed behind, just to make sure absolutely everyone suffered along with them?

If there’s an acceptance he’s supposed to find in the face of that, Obi-Wan’s not entirely sure he wants to.

Arla moves to the far side of the room, past the open arches to the balconies that stretch out into open air. Obi-Wan can see where channels were cut into the stone, presumably where water would have spilled out, a ring of shallow pools and then waterfalls, to cover the base like a shroud. All gone now, jagged rocks cutting down the vertical space, smoothing out into that same unnatural, pale stone that spreads out in front of them - except that far more of this side of the mountain has seen greater damage since the initial devastation. Larger pieces of the moon coming down, perhaps, and what remains are shattered fragments and exposed stone, a maze of twisting, broken passages leading out to a distant, flat plain where several ships of various sizes and ages sit in some form of abandonment.

“… and this is why you don’t listen when dead people tell you to toss your buyca off a cliff.” Arla mutters, but she’s still got a spare set of smaller binoculars, studying the terrain. Beyond the flat plain, far off in the distance, Obi-Wan can see a slight ridge rising, a place where the pale stone just stops, curving around another hill. The second Sith compound, with more answers he probably won’t want but can’t afford to overlook.

“Nice bait.” Arla says, stating the obvious, her attention on the ships. “At least sixty crew between all of them, if they landed here full. No telling how long it’s been since they touched down - a few of them are practically relics, but that doesn’t always mean much on the Rim. It’d be great if they all killed each other before we ever got here - but I’m guessing we get down there and it all goes straight up a bantha’s shebs. If the bastard planet doesn’t just, you know…” Arla mimes an asteroid dropping from the sky, with an unnecessarily squishy sound effect on landing. “Anything I should know about what we’ve got to work with?”

How hard can you hit back whatever this place throws at us? is what she means, and Obi-Wan wants to say that he can handle it, whatever comes next. He wants to be the person she needs him to be, resilient and reliable - but there’s determined and optimistic and then there’s standing up to a planet’s worth of desperate rage dragging flaming rocks out of the sky.

Which maybe you could still handle, if you weren’t such a coward.

Revealing the big secret to Arla was just hiding an even bigger secret - that Genet has a way out, a viable plan, but Obi-Wan can’t take it, not if he wants to leave this planet as anything like the person who’d arrived. What it would turn him into, what it would mean to bind himself forever to a place like this… and if he told her, would she just expect him to? Would she hate him, when he couldn’t step up and-

“Obi’ka. Kid.” Arla holds his gaze a moment. “Without you, I would have been dead already, a couple times over. Or worse. I don’t expect you to fix this, I’m not asking for the impossible. It’s just you keep changing up exactly what that means, and I like to know what I’ve got to work with. You said that you can… access the equipment in the base out there, whatever systems the dar’jetii left in place?” Obi-Wan nods - pressing evil buttons, at least, isn’t asking any more than he’s already done. Arla sighs. “I’m kriff-awful at logical choices, but if we go for the ships before we have a plan to get clear of the rest, we’re kriffed. You said the structures here, the ones the Sith built, that they ran all through the planet? Maybe there’s more information - maybe we find a way out this place didn’t plan for and can’t stop.”

Arla turns her attention back to a closer study of the best path forward, and Obi-Wan should probably do the same - but he can’t help looking over his shoulder, at the bodies, and when his eyes drift back to the slumped form in the dark cloak he drops them instead to the ever-shifting floor.

It must have been the work of ages, masters passing on their work to apprentices, imbuing the stones with intent, intricate patterns Obi-Wan can barely keep track of, each sliver of color shifting and trading places with others in a way that shifts the entire picture, the endless cycle this planet no longer has - different regions, different seasons, waterfalls and woodlands and it would have been beautiful even when things here were beautiful, and now… he wanted to know, he wanted to understand what had been lost and Obi-Wan doesn’t regret it even if the awe is a knife in his heart.

Perpetual motion, some parts moving faster than others - the flick of some kind of of stone fish, leaping briefly from the water, a gust of wind and a lightning strike - and out here near the edges, he can see even the tiny borders moving, in between the larger shapes. Dark, glinting stones, and pale ones - and they trade places in easy, twisting patterns, the shifts in color so subtle it would look like a liquid if it weren’t almost under his feet, pooling and swirling, together and apart and together again. Whatever these people believed, it was not a matter of division, of any space between sides - of sides at all. Obi-Wan glances back at the crumpled cloak.

It still couldn’t protect you from them. Whatever you thought the Force was, it wasn’t enough to save you.

Obi-Wan reaches out, because even if they’re mostly gone, the echoes here don’t hurt like the rest of this planet, there’s still whispers here of something like peace, even if he wants nothing more than to toss what remains of the Sith right off the edge, and -

The world goes bright and sharp, around him. He’s not Quin, picking up whispers in the Force from anything at hand - but there’s places like this that speak much louder than that. The sky still the sky - on a day long ago, the last normal day and the robed figures are kneeling, an interweaving, mournful song that he couldn’t try to imitate - and the Sith stands among them, massive enough to terrify without the power gathered around him - and perched on his shoulder, what looks in the Force as much like a tiny bundle of light as anything, ornate robes trailing behind them to pool glittering on the ground. A priestess, perhaps. So small, he can’t help but think of Trilla.

Of course there are those cultures who raise their most powerful Force users to the highest religious ranks, if not that of local deities. The aspect of their gods and goddesses - rarely the easiest planets to study in any depth, only a few of them trusting the Jedi enough to share doctrine, most of them afraid the Jedi would simply steal what was most revered.

Why would they ever have let any Sith get so close to someone this important? Maybe they couldn’t have kept out someone so powerful, but why not hide their precious youngling? Obi-Wan focuses, trying to force the vision further, to give him answers, even as the scene wavers, blurring, his strength faltering -

“Kriff, Obi’ka!”

A jerk, as Arla’s hand grabs onto his shoulder, and Obi-Wan realizes he’s listing, dangerously close to the edge. He blinks, tries to recover his balance - it doesn’t happen as fast as it should, Arla taking a good deal of his weight as she pulls him back. He can’t even let her know he’s all right before she’s sat him down against the wall, dropping down beside him. The headache throbs behind his eyes, in his temples - familiar enough, the same combination of not enough food and too much Force from the camp, from Melida-Daan, more used to feeling it than not, these days.

“We need a minute, okay? Let’s just… take it easy while we can.”

Obi-Wan nods, willing his legs to stop trembling. The Darksaber pokes into his side, clipped awkwardly at his belt and scraping against the ground, and Obi-Wan unclips it, hands it to Arla before leaning back, closing his eyes just for a moment. Still nothing much to speak of, when he tries to get a sense of the dark kyber crystal. Only that cool and composed readiness, still absolutely unruffled by everything they’ve seen and faced and all the possibilities ahead.

Kyber speaks to kyber, on occasion. Obi-Wan has felt the affection, the sympathetic resonance in certain stones - Qui-Gon’s and Master Tahl’s, for example, though Obi-Wan isn’t sure he was ever supposed to notice it. The kyber in his own blade hasn’t reacted to the Darksaber - but now that he has a moment to spare, it seems to be a very specific kind of not interacting, like two lothcats calmly grooming as they stare in opposite directions, quietly refusing to admit the other exists. It almost makes him smile.

“Mouth tiingilar, kid?” Arla says, dangling a rogue packet of spices in front of his eyes, the label almost insultingly cheerful, a relic of a normal world Obi-Wan is finding it harder to believe was ever out there.

“That’s not… that’s not a thing.”

Arla snorts. “Like you know, baby Jedi.”

“I know that’s not - no one does that.” Obi-Wan says, aware she’s baiting him again, the both of them trying not to smile, luxuriating in a moment of stupidity. “I don’t have to be Mandalorian to know no one does that.”

“You can have the ration bar then. Your loss.” Arla tosses it at him, and before he can argue she’s swishing the contents of the packet around with a half glug of water, fishing out a few noodle crumbs from some other pocket on her gear. Obi-Wan tries to take the barest sip from the already too-light canteen when she hands it over, but Arla glares at him until he finishes it off - and there it is for their supplies. Against the clock from the moment they crashed, but there’s no avoiding it now - they’re out of time.

She hands him what he realizes is a stim patch, peeling back her kute far enough to slap another against her throat. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to find out what sleeping here feels like.”

Good point, even if it does feel like they have some buffer, this place perhaps the closest thing to safe on the entire planet. Obi-Wan still puts the patch on, wishes he could feel a jolt, any kind of rejuvenation instead of only a single drop into a very empty bucket. It might be worth trying to draw from the remnants of the Force here, for any semblance of restoration - but even as he thinks it he hears Arla inhale softly, her eyes fixed to an empty point at the other side of the room.

He’s seen no apparitions for a while - since you touched the Dark and meant it - and Obi-Wan tries not to think about that, but as tired as he is, Arla’s battles haven’t been any easier.

“I can… I might be able to make them go away, here.”

“It’s okay, kid. The ones up here… they’re not that bad. They’ve earned the right to stick around. Cy kinda does what she wants, anyway.”

Arla looks sad, and happy, and a few other emotions Obi-Wan thinks he’s learned how to feel even if he can’t name them. Longing and regret and grief for the kriff ups that he still doesn’t know how they happened, even when there’s no one else to blame.

“She’s the one that - that I saw. With you. One of them.”

It’s almost nice, to be tired enough that he can’t even find the energy to be embarrassed about it now. Arla nods.

“Seko’s probably still alive. His brother was smart enough to keep them both out of trouble. At least when I wasn’t around. Kriff, did he hate me. Smart man. He thought for sure I’d get Seko killed, or break his heart, or both.”

“Cy was one of Tor’s enforcers, like you?”

“My replacement.” Arla smiles. “Send them both out, the best one comes back. Been through that before. I was sure… the first time I kissed Cy was on a job. Well, she kissed me. She said it would be a good distraction, keep the eyes on us and not where they were supposed to be.” Arla huffs half a laugh. “It sure the kark worked, we had their attention. You know what I was thinking most, though, the whole time? It felt normal. It felt like a stupid, fun thing a normal person would do. I don’t know if I’d ever felt that way since…”

Obi-Wan’s growing more familiar with the language of what doesn’t get said - the silence, the glances in all directions as if the explanations might be hiding there, attempting to avoid or name the indescribable, or sometimes both at once. Arla starts untangling her hair, rebraiding it back into tight, professional lines. An easy way to split her attention.

“Kriff, it was like she never - nothing that happened ever got to Cy where it mattered. Tor says he’s the hardest of the hard-liners, tradition above all, loyalty to all the old ways. That’s kriffing osik. He loves novelty. Like an adiik chasing after every new butterfly so he can rip its wings off. He had me and he broke me, and then that wasn’t interesting anymore. Cy didn’t… she didn’t break the ways that I broke. I don’t know if she ever really broke at all - and that was why he wanted her to finish me off. She was new and I was boring.” Arla smiles. “So much for gratitude, huh? From the start, he was pitting us against each other. Forcing the rivalry - ‘beskar sharpens beskar’ my kriffing shebs. It was fun to be cruel. That’s the real motto of the Kyr’tsad. It’s a party to be an asshole.”

Obi-Wan wonders what that would look like, translated into Sith script. A flick of amusem*nt from Genet, that if he really wanted to know… Obi-Wan ignores it.

“I thought she was going to kill me, the first time. She kissed me, and I thought she was going to kill me right then, and suddenly we’re in bed together and I think - okay, well, now it’s all over. Once she’s had her fun it’ll be a bolt to the back or a knife to the throat - and then… she just didn’t. We just kept ending up together. And then Seko was there and it was still just… easy. Nothing was ever easy before. I didn’t know what to do with that. I tried not to… to put any weight on it, to get used to it. I think it made her angry. I don’t know why. I don’t understand what she thought… kriff, if she wanted my loyalty she should have kriffing known better. It wasn’t like there was ever a question of who I belonged to.”

“You killed her.”

Arla’s laugh scrapes the air, ugly and jagged.

“Of course I did. Of course I kriffing did. She took some new recruits, a whole batch fresh from the camps, and she ran, and the Mand’alor said ‘go after her Arla’ and so I did and he said ‘solve the problem Arla’ and so I did and Cy knew I would have to - why did she run? Why did she run when she knew it was me he’d send after her? Why were they suddenly so important, some ade like any other kriffing ade?”

Why did they matter to her more than I did? It hangs in the air, unspoken, and Arla grins. Ashamed.

“I shouldn’t have been the one that lived. She was a better pilot than me and she had all the kriffing time in the world to make a plan. Maybe she didn’t think I’d really do it. I think about that. If she thought I wouldn’t pull the trigger on her and a bunch of scared ade who wanted to live just because the Mand’alor told me to.”

Obi-Wan’s been in her head, she’s not projecting but she’s not trying to keep him out, either. The memory of a scream that went on and on and on, swallowed up by the infinite, empty silence, and glittering fragments of the only thing that had actually mattered.

“It all kind of…” Arla snorts, half a grin. “I didn’t even know there was anything left that could fall apart, and then there I was. Drinks. Spice. Anything. Everything. I stopped paying attention to the jobs, to the risks. Just… waiting for it to be over. Maybe Cy knew she’d win in the end, either way. She was the line, and I didn’t know until I crossed it.”

Her eyes still follow that empty point in space, looking away the only thing more painful than watching.

“I’m not even sure he remembers her.” Arla says. “Why does that even surprise me? She was everything I’m not and Tor wanted that and now she’s dead and it’s like she never happened. I spend half my life barking on command, and when I’m gone he’ll just give the next kriffing blonde my name.”

She glances to him. “I deserve this, kid. It might not be my disaster, but I deserve to be right here. I even dragged you right down with me, like a real kriffing champion.”

“No one deserves to be here.” Obi-Wan says, and means it as much as he’s ever meant anything, even if it doesn’t seem like she believes him.

Obi-Wan reaches out for the Light in this place, the faded protections, still relieved when it washes over him - it was his choice to ignore it, not to make a space for it to illuminate - and maybe that’s a part of why the Sith reject it. It’s not so eager to be to be weaponized, it doesn’t have such an easy purpose - and maybe Falling is a choice, a constant decision to keep reaching only for what’s easiest. Obi-Wan’s touched the Dark more than once now - but he still wants to protect Arla, protect his friends, to find the path of least harm.

What does that make him now? Smashball Sith? Oh kriff, kriff please no.

He looks up, lets himself be pulled back into the vision, the last Force memory of this place as it was - to where the child sits on the massive, dark shoulder of the Sith, but she isn’t struggling. The others in their robes have all gone silent and still, cut down all around her - but she isn’t fighting, it… wasn’t an attack? Instead, Obi-Wan watches as she turns her face away from what must be the oncoming wave of devastation, burying her face against the dark robe, and a hand that seems nearly as massive as she is reaches up in… comfort and protection.

You’re quite good at that, little one.

What?

Listening.

Wonderful. I’ll just listen us up a ship off this planet and a big rock to drop on the Mand’alor. Obi-Wan says, still distracted by what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling. What he’s not feeling. He killed them here. He killed them, but they… didn’t fight him, and the youngling…

The Light and the Dark around them - Obi-Wan can see it, like two rivers flowing together, joining, like the mural beneath their feet, and it’s not gray or tainted, not Dark choking Light or Light burning away the Dark - just… the Force.

Almost like that barrier between the Light and Dark isn’t so impermeable - like there may not be a barrier at all. As if the words we use are mere approximations of what is, let alone what could be. The demands of a child, that the ineffable pin itself down for our approval.

Did you practice these speeches inside that Holocron?

It’s a gift.

I didn’t… I didn’t know the Force could be like that.

How would you ever have learned? The Jedi consider any mention of the Dark to be as good as apostasy. The newly Fallen have little interest in the Light they’ve decided has no value - and any suggestions of other possibilities are destroyed as heretical, by one side or the other. Don’t - He says, as Obi-Wan starts to protest, Little one, don’t defend them, not in this. Genet’s voice is calm, but there is a terrible, sudden rage beneath, hairline cracks threading through each word. Whatever you may wish to believe, the Jedi are little different than any Order, when it comes to inconvenient truths.

He killed them. Why would the Sith kill them, when he’s not even… Obi-Wan can’t help but be drawn back to the scene, the vision that continues to pile questions on top of questions. He doesn’t feel…

The Sith felt triumphant, but it wasn’t the sad*stic mirth of treachery, of making sure nothing would survive. Whatever was happening here, he didn’t even do it to be saved, or try to be saved.

He knows he’s going to die, and what’s left of him won’t… Wherever the Sith thought they moved on to, whatever happened after, he must have known he would be trapped here. And what Obi-Wan felt from him was… contentment. Knowing he last thing he chose wasn’t desperate grasping or uncomprehending rage - but kindness. The freedom of letting go, of caring for someone other than himself, here at the very end, that he was even capable of such a thing - there was no small satisfaction in that.

It was Darth Leraikha, I think, who turned her back on the entire Empire - whichever one it was, then. Severed all her ties and more than a few heads, gathered her court and vanished into the Wilds because one day an apprentice made her laugh - and she realized she did not give a single, solitary kriff for the rest of it, and never had.

Blessedly, the vision fades before the very end - and here they are in the now, and Obi-Wan can see a few strands of paler fabric beneath the dark robes. He must have put himself between her and the shockwave even as they fell, trying to protect her to the very last.

A surprisingly brittle ideology, for all they like to act as if Falling is inevitable. Genet says. As if the Light can’t be seductive. As if even a Sith might not long for something more than the dismal, tedious grinding out of yet another supposedly Meaningful Conquest. The Dark drops vast, immovable boulders of arrogance and certainty - and the Light quietly works its way through the cracks, playful and illuminating. The Light stagnates, sours itself in dull, unmoving pools, and the Dark comes along to shake it from its slumber, to flip the table and demand that tomorrow not be another yesterday.

Not here. That’s not at all what happened here.

You’re happening here, little Jedi.

Obi-Wan’s breath catches in his throat.

Do you really want to understand? See what’s waiting for you all the way down?

You won’t get what you want.

That’s not at all what I asked.

Don’t. Don’t you dare, Kenobi. You’re not saving anyone by becoming the next thing for them to fear. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to, when he doesn’t say no.

Close your eyes.

Stupid stupid stupid so stupid. Obi-Wan closes them, every muscle tense, listening to the fear in each beat of his heart, for something lurking in that inner dark.

And here we are.

He wonders if anyone in the history of the galaxy has ever been irritated off that last cliff into the worst of the Dark Side or if he’s going to be the first. Maybe that was how Genet got all of his apprentices. Maybe he was the most kriffing successful Sith Lord in existence.

You honor me. But I’m not trying to tease you. Mostly. You have your anger. Kriff, Obi-Wan wishes he didn’t, but of course it’s there, it’s always been there, thrumming like a well-tended engine and just waiting to be used. Now, you choose what comes next. Everything the Dark could be, every worst case scenario that worries you so terribly much - here it is, the only place it’s ever been, inside of you. Where else would it be? Refuse to look at the worst of what you are now, what you could become, and you’ll run from it and it will consume you. Face it, accept it, train with it - know yourself, and the threat becomes… one option, of several. The fire in the hearth can burn down the house. The water that nourishes the field can wash it all away. Do you want to see how many other obvious metaphors I can manage?

It sounded good, but the Dark wasn’t a hearth or a gentle rainstorm, it was a weapon. Only a weapon. But the Mandalorians used their weapons to protect their clans, didn’t they? Respected them. Understood their dangers and their limits and their potential. Tor was a monster, Zai was a brute, but the intent belonged to them - the desire to do damage didn’t change, whether they were wielding the Darksaber or a toothpick.

The Force is a transition. The movement between spaces, between lives. A verb, not a noun. An appreciation that all you will ever achieve is water on sand.

Obvious metaphor.

Just wait until I start talking about animals. Genet says. The Force is action, forward motion. If you need to be cautious about something - it will never tell you no. It never has, Light or Dark, you only think it’s a matter of misinterpretation or personal failing when the Light leads you astray. Nothing is ever the wrong idea, and nothing is ever enough. The power of the Dark exists to be used, it wants to be used - the purpose, the ends are of no consequence. The Force knows no end.

This isn’t how you train a Sith.

Half the point of a Sith’s training should be to overcome it, every lesson a deliberate puzzle box. Trust no one as the source of truth, not the rhetoric, not even your Masters. Genet sighs. Of course, if your Masters can’t be bothered or they’re not terribly clever themselves, pain is a passing substitute for competence. Pry your fingers into the most obvious cracks and pull. Send your apprentices fleeing from their own fears until whatever’s going to break does so, and see if anything useful survives. Sink and swim. Consider the scion of Telos. Xanatos. It would almost be satisfying, the sheer indifferent contempt in Genet’s voice, if not for how cold it was. Very little effort, to have him begging to kneel at your feet. Leave him just enough of a leash to think he’s making his own decisions, that he’s on the cusp of some grand treachery. You can play a fool like that for their whole life, and they’ll run at your heels, snapping at whatever scraps you deign to throw while telling themselves they’re one step from victory.

The thought makes Obi-Wan sick, the idea of turning so much of his attention to invisible prisons and mazes and tailored miseries. Pinning minds like insects on display.

Subtle machinations do have their purposes, especially considering your aversion to collateral damage.

The way he says it, like it’s a choice.

It’s all a choice.

No. No, it’s not. Obi-Wan says. I can’t let that be a part of me, let it… change me.

Go out into the universe, see things you never expected, meet those you never imagined - and don’t change them? Don’t let them change you? When the Force is change itself. How was that ever supposed to work, do you think?

I can’t… Can’t, or won’t, Kenobi? Do or do not.

It doesn’t want to be like this. You know that. Genet says, almost gently. This planet, these remnants of what was - they’re going to devour everything and everyone here - and then they’re going to wait for the next course, and the next, and it’s never going to be enough to save them. A tattered remainder of a loss so complete and so ancient it can’t even remember why it’s angry, or what it’s so desperate for.

Maybe…. maybe he could help them, somehow. If he could understand, if he could… no, he’s not. Who does he think he is, what could he possibly hope to-

… How-

The sharp hiss and a hum of a blade ignites, close by, and Obi-Wan nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Sorry.” Arla says, not looking sorry at all, studying the Darksaber with a professional’s eye. “Kriff, so this is what all the fuss is about. Well, it’s cool, I’ll give it that.” A few more awkward swings, a strange comfort in the steady hum of the blade. “You know, if we don’t get out of this, eventually Tor will come down here to get it himself.” She smirks grimly. “Silver linings, I guess.”

Obi-Wan pretends his heart isn’t thumping, that he isn’t trying to calm down, that he hadn’t been about to -

“Do you know why it became the symbol for the Mand’alor?”

“Well… it’s kriffing badass, and came from a kriffing badass.” Arla says, and shrugs. “We’re nothing if not a complex and subtle people. I’m guessing it’s some mix of that, and that we took it back and the kriffing hut’uun Republic and their hut’uun jetiise couldn’t retrieve it even after they smashed every reminder he was one of ours they could find. No offense.”

“You mean… during the Excision.”

One of Tor’s more favorite subjects, all those speeches that get broadcast through the camp. The backstabbing Republic and their cowardly, vicious strike, the only reason the Empire hadn’t risen up to its rightful glory ages ago. The justification for every violent act the Kyr’tsad have ever claimed, an insult against Manda’yaim and its people so complete there can be no quarter until the Republic is smashed and scattered and the remnants swear themselves to the Mand’alor forever.

“No, kid, I mean the Dral’Han.” Arla says. “The only kriffing thing Tor Vizsla and my father ever would have agreed on.”

The vehemence in her tone surprises him. He thought Arla hated Tor, hadn’t been taken in by his rhetoric, or had learned otherwise. “I don’t understand.”

“Not much to understand. You’ve seen it, look at Manda’yaim.”

“The war did that to the planet. The- the civil war.”

“The war sure didn’t help.” Arla scoffs. “I’m not saying we ever do ourselves many favors, but we’re not that bad.” She looks at him, and powers down the Darksaber. “Just what do they tell you about us in the Core, baby Jedi? Why do you think we all hate the Republic so much? And the New, and the jetiise?”

As if there’s any diplomatic way of approaching that question - but Arla doesn’t sound that upset, just tired and curious and maybe even a little amused, like she doesn’t blame him for whatever she expects him to get wrong.

“We didn’t really…” Obi-Wan starts. “I only took the basic… they didn’t really go into the specifics of-“ Lies. Even his introductory courses on history told him how the New Mandalorians were in power on Mandalore and how that was right, how it was only terrorists and warlords who’d opposed their peaceful rule. They hadn’t made any mention, of course, of any difference between the Ha'at Mandoade and the Kyr'tsad, hadn’t mentioned that the peaceful rule of the New meant no quarter on giving up their beskar, even when it was more family history than armor or weapon. It meant giving up their language - why take their words from them? Why be surprised, when they’d fight to keep them? As if Republic worlds didn’t defend their own traditions just as fiercely.

“The Mandalorians attacked the Republic, they were planning to attack-“

“Attacking or planning to? Which was it?” Arla teases, unaware of how his mood is falling. “I think you’ve seen enough by now, if a Mandalorian’s attacking - you’ll know it.”

“They did.” Obi-Wan says, trying to keep calm. “The Mandalorians attacked, and were gathering to launch an even greater strike against the Republic, and so there was… there was a war.”

“The Dral’Han wasn’t a war, baby Jedi. Look, I don’t know exactly what happened back then, I’m not saying we weren’t probably being a big pile of jagyc’kovide - we do that. But if the Republic rolled up looking to start a fight, they knew we’d never admit we weren’t ready to meet them in kind, that we wouldn’t back down. If they wanted to escalate, it was going to escalate - and it was real convenient for them, then, packing the pre-emptive strike before they ever left.”

It hadn’t been unfortunate, that’s what she means. It hadn’t been regrettable.

Maybe… maybe it hadn’t been necessary.

“But that… maybe the Republic attacked too soon, maybe they got nervous - but the Jedi… that’s not what we do.” Obi-Wan says. “We’re not fighters, we’re peacekeepers.”

The reason Qui-Gon had wanted to leave Melida-Daan - the reason Obi-Wan’s decision had been not just a betrayal of his Master, but of the Order.

“Who do you think was their vanguard, kid?” Arla says. “Maybe they don’t do it as much these days - maybe the Republic’s got no one else they think needs to be kept in line.” She looks down at the Darksaber. “All these shiny little laser swords, bet it made a real impressive picture for the people back home.” She snorts. “Peacekeepers’. That’s one word for it. A planet’s always going to be real peaceful when it’s glass and ash.”

It would be better, if Arla was actually angry, but she’s really not. The Republic and the jetiise were just one more hypocrisy in a universe she has long since stopped expecting things from. Of course the Jedi were liars, just like everyone else. Of course they’d struck first, without making any attempt at peace - and of course there’s a class for this for the Knights, probably a whole concentration on the great Mandalorian wars of the past, and so maybe Arla’s still wrong, maybe she’s misinformed but this is her life and her heritage, this is more than just some Kyr’tsad propaganda and she has no reason to lie about this, and has never insulted him by trying to be polite when what’s kriffed is just kriffed.

It was… it was a Sith, wasn’t it? He asks Genet, stupid and desperate. Back then. Somehow, there was still a Sith, and they got into the Order, found a way to lie and convince the Council…

All past my time, little one. I can only guess at the broad strokes.

The Jedi wouldn’t… they wouldn’t…

…. it was a different age. A different Code.

“No. No, kriff that. Kriff that.”

“Kid?”

You know. Obi-Wan pushes. I know that you know.

I could make an educated guess, but I think you’ve beaten me to it.

If it was anywhere else, any other time, any other combination of circ*mstances, Obi-Wan could handle this - think it through calmly, or just set it aside for later. If he wasn’t exhausted with this planet’s grief and rage battering at him from all angles, if he wasn’t fighting the Dark and not winning, not the easy, noble denial he’d always wanted, the obvious truth - that he would live and die as an unquestioning guardian of the Light. If he wasn’t among the very last fragments of a world torn from the Force, warped and twisted into the silent, screaming horror stretched out around them past the horizon in all directions.

If he wasn’t sitting a dozen feet away from the remains of a Sith who’d wanted nothing to do with it, who’d maybe even tried to stop it.

Obi-Wan’s hands dig into the stones, sweat mixing with the dust he’d climbed through to get here - dark gray lines of ancient fear and pain beneath his fingernails, in the back of his throat.

Jango had said something, the last time he’d been half this tired, when they’d both lost their tempers - how the Force didn’t need them, how the Jedi and the Sith did nothing but make things worse - and how is he supposed to deny it here? When Revan Fell and pulled how many more Jedi down with him like a wave, sweeping across the galaxy. Flip a coin and see who might be tomorrow’s monster. How many planets like this one, reduced to broken toys because the Jedi got angry or sad and somehow that was enough, somehow that gave them the right?

Except when the Republic gave them the right.

Life just stops past the narrow borders of the Kyr’tsad camp on Mandalore, the edges of the valley - not this unnatural Sith-made impossibility, but not so far off. Not a desert, things live in deserts, only flat and blasted rock and Obi-Wan had always assumed it was due to the war, the endless civil war - and it was, and it wasn’t, but how did you start an endless war? If a Melida-Daan wouldn’t start on its own, how did you make sure that it happened?

“Kid?” Arla calls from what sounds like very far away. “Obi’ka? Kid, listen, it’s just kriffing politics, okay? It’s all nonsense that doesn’t matter and everyone’s a ge’hutuun. Who the kriff knows what really happened - I’m just spouting off banthash*t. Listen, we can have as long of a conversation as you want about all the shebs’palone in the galaxy once we’re off of Absolute Bastard Death Planet.”

“It’s not supposed to stop.” Obi-Wan murmurs, notices a crackle, a snap of energy snaking from his hands across the ground but who cares? Who cares? “The war’s not ever supposed to stop, is it? If you’re too busy killing each other over limited resources, fighting with the New, you couldn’t ever unite under one banner again. The Mandalorians wouldn’t pose a threat.”

The Jedi did that. The Jedi did that. The Jedi let the Republic convince them them that killing an entire planet - decimating an entire system - to stop a war that hadn’t even started was right and just and fair. And now the New die, and the Mando’ade die, and the Kyr’tsad die, and Cal’s parents and every person Trilla ever knew, and the machine just… grinds on and on and on.

Somewhere, deep down, something in him trembles with a feeling he cannot begin to name.

Well, I didn’t think this would be what did it.

Cerasi, begging to be forgotten with her last breath - better to die unremembered than as another tool for revenge, for the violence to go on a single day more. All she’d wanted was peace, and she’d died for it like she was nothing and Qui-Gon had walked away, his Master had thought it wasn’t worth his time, thought Obi-Wan was an child and a fool for siding with a girl who’d given everything she had while the Jedi sat back in their Temple, secure in the knowledge that nothing was more important than not caring too much - not true - so they could look down on him with perfect, unassaible clarity for his misguided determination - not true - for not being able to just let go, just abandon so many who’d been so brave, so many who would have no one else to remember them if Obi-Wan had looked away.

If they’d done this to Mandalore, if they’d razed the entire system down to dust, the Old Republic would have been just as satisfied.

A place where nothing could survive, not even desperate stolen children no one needed, putting everything they had into pulling scraps from a wasteland and no one cared, no one cared because the appearance of goodness mattered more than admitting it wasn’t true, that Obi-Wan was afraid, that there were pieces of him he could not wrest into the proper shapes no matter how much he tried to do what he was told, tried to hide them, tried to ignore them -

If the Civil War stopped today, if the Mandalorians united - how would the Republic respond? What would the Jedi be ordered to do?

What would Obi-Wan have done? What kind of Knight would he have become, never knowing otherwise? Would he have been proud?

The second snap of power is considerably larger than the first, enough to raise the hairs on his arms, the back of his neck, and crackles even against the beskar. Obi-Wan can taste it, dust and ozone in the back of his throat.

If it were anywhere else - but he’s not anywhere else. He’s here, on this dead planet of who knows how many millions without anyone to remember or mourn them, killed for reasons they didn’t understand by greedy fools who crafted nothing with all that unending insanity but their own absolute destruction. Grand and recursive and senseless and here in the center of it, he can feel how right the Dark is - how terribly, miserably right. Not even an argument, just the obvious conclusion - the universe is an engine for pain. Anything else is an accident, ephemeral and meaningless.

What does it matter? What does any of it kriffing matter when you could raze a planet on purpose and still say you walk in the Light?

“… ah, kriff.”

“Get away. Get away from me!”

It’s a warning, not a threat, and with the last vestiges of focus he has, Obi-Wan pushes Arla back as far as he can - tries to, thinks he does - and even if it’s less than gentle it’s better than the alternative as Obi-Wan feels himself drop, feels the whole world seem to condense in on him, smaller and smaller, crushing out everything but the anger and the hurt, everything narrowing down to a single point that’s on fire with so much pain all trying to take up the same space, fury and despair and confusion and rage, when all they’d wanted to do was live and it had all been snatched away and why wouldn’t it stop, why wouldn’t it just end, everything warped and twisted and dragged into a thread that stretched and stretched but never broke, it never broke and it won’t let us go it won’t let us go please please just let us go please let us out let us out let us out let us

He’s screaming, Obi-Wan can feel it, the tension in every muscle, his hands scrabbling against unyielding stone, the ache in his lungs that turns to a knife when he tries to draw a breath - but he can’t hear it, he can’t hear anything or feel anything and the Dark isn’t Dark at all, not anymore. It burns, a blinding, blank nothing that rips the world away and him with it.

—————————

Obi-Wan blinks.

An eternity passes.

He blinks again, dust scratching his eyes.

A shuddering breath in, a cough that leaves him twitching and breathless, curled in on himself.

Obi-Wan’s entire body is a line of pain against the ground, what’s either dust or the Dark or both, like grains of caf, gritty and bitter, cracking against his teeth. The air tastes like iron and ash and little flakes fall down around him - snow, just a rare dusting, Nield leaning forward to catch one on his tongue while Cerasi laughed - and he looks up and-

A shadowed, twisted version of his reflection stares back at him and he chokes on his next breath, throws himself back, little purchase to be found on the slick, oddly pooled surface - because he’d just thrown Force lightning powerful enough to glass the floor and half the walls.

It’s not as bad as it looks. Some of that was you, more was me, and the planet’s more than a bit of an amplifier all around.

Cracked and melted shadows under his hands, where there’d been that last memory of color - all his fault, to take the final remnants of life from this place. If there was some way he was supposed to honor them, to make things better, he has failed utterly.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He whispers, face pressed to the floor, the second apology a whimper, the third nothing at all. Obi-Wan retches, though nothing much comes of it, fingers aching where they dig into the ground, shattering the surface into razor-sharp shards. It’s so… hollow, and freezing and terrible. Who would ever want to exist like this? What could possibly be worth the price?

You learn to prefer it. The quiet. The distance from the world. It helps when everyone else wields a knife eager for your throat. Hard to feel you’re missing out on any truly meaningful dialogue. Genet doesn’t sound troubled - but why would he? He’d been waiting for this all along. Do think you killed your Mandalorian? That would be… somewhat ironic. All things considered.

“… ‘la?” His voice is cracked, barely audible, and Obi-Wan swallows hard, tries again. An effort to lift his head, gazing past the crater’s edge, clouds of fine ash still thick in the air. “Arla? Are you there?”

How hard did he throw her? How much damage had he done - did she get clear, or was there even anywhere safe for her to land? He couldn’t have thrown her over the edge, could he? Did he?

“… Arla?! Please... please…”

Nothing. Only the silence of a dead, agonized husk of a world, and a darkness that’s… quiet, and expectant. No longer gnawing at him, no longer so restless - no longer unfamiliar. It rests beneath his hands like wet sand, waiting for him to summon the tides.

Nothing’s ever, ever going to go back to the way it was.

He thought he knew that, thought he understood and accepted - but it feels like every time Obi-Wan finds some peace with what is lost he’s asked to give up more, and more - and if he takes one step further in any direction it will lead off the same cliff, into an endless darkness, that he’s already Fallen and hit the bottom and somehow there is another bottom waiting, and another and he’s so tired of being afraid, of waiting for the worst to rise up and swallow him whole. Obi-Wan shuts his eyes, already hard to breathe and the sudden onslaught of tears doesn’t improve the situation any, even if very few fall, just a rising pressure that makes his temples throb.

All his thoughts feel terribly fragile, barely strung together. Just the kind of thing a phantom lord of the Sith would have no trouble rearranging to his own amusem*nt, and it’s easier than ever to feel Genet there, at his side, about to be finished with biding his time. He must be. What else was all this for?

He’s sorry. He’s sorry he wasn’t better, that he didn’t know what to do. Maybe it will make him easier to stop.

Always so certain of what I want. I told you, little one, I know what I am. I know that path, and where it leads. I have seen total victory, and total defeat - and from here, looking back, there are moments I can hardly tell one from the other. The galaxy has little interest in any more of me - but I would like the chance to witness you, in all your failure and your glory.

Glory. As if Obi-Wan can even remember what that word’s supposed to mean, or why it matters. Nothing matters. The Force is a pretty story he believed in once. Everything is just… numb, and blank and endless. He doesn’t… can’t… he leans forward, rests his head against the dusty ground. Stops fighting. Waits for whatever end feels like coming.

Show me something new, little one. It’s been so long since I’ve seen something new.

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

Baby Jedi gets upset, baby Jedi turns into a bomb. So, that’s fun.

Arla coughs, shakes another few cupfuls of the hell planet out of her hair - at least she had a kriffing chance to redo the braids - and punches the ground, listening to the grit grind against her glove as she pushes herself upright. Which sucks, but the kid had tossed her clear of the worst without sending her over the edge. All her internals are still internal, and none of her limbs are too happy but at least they’re all attached and mostly working, even if they’re not delighted with her for asking

“Politics, Arla.” She mutters. “Never talk about politics.”

Kriff, if she’d known it was going to set the kid off that bad - but Manda’yaim is her kriffing planet and it’s not like she’s ever been all that sore about the Dral’Han, whatever the jetiise of old did or didn’t do not exactly the kind of thing that keeps her up at night.

Of course they were all shabuire - but who isn’t in this kriffing galaxy? If anything, by his own rules Arla’s always thought Tor never had any right to complain. The Kyr’tsad are the first to say the strong deserve to win because they’re strong. Victory itself is proof of the right to rule - and by that logic the Republic and the jetiise did nothing wrong by coming in guns blazing, rolling over a weaker opponent because they were worried or because they were angry or for no damn reason at all, whether the Mandalorians of old had it coming or not. Live by the code, rule by the code - get your shebs stomped off by the code.

Somehow, she doesn’t think that train of logic is going to do much to console the jetii’ad. If he’s still in one piece.

“Kid? Obi’ka?”

As if she really knew a damn thing about jetiise, and that was before he’d started dropping the real bombshells. Oh, by the way, there’s some ancient dar’jetii kicking around in his head - and just what the kriff did that mean, and what the kriff was she supposed to do about it?

All Arla knows is how he’d looked when he’d said it, like he was bracing himself for the firing squad, like he’d expected her to either ditch him, shoot him, or both. And he’d told her anyway. Because he thought she deserved to know, because he was a brave little jetii’ad packed full of mandokarla and he shouldn’t have to be here. Shouldn’t have had to gone through whatever the kriff had put him here in the first place- what the kriff was that about his first war?

She thinks there’s probably a few answers some jetiise somewhere could stand to have punched out of them. Would it have kriffing killed them to at least put out a kriffing scroll or flimsi or something for the rest of the galaxy - care and feeding of your strange little explosive jetii’ad?

“Oh, kid.” Of course he’s right at ground zero, at the bottom of a kriffing crater with the crunch of glass under her boots, and Arla might be a little more impressed or unnerved if she had the time for either, if the kid wasn’t pale and crumpled up and motionless, used up and discarded by… whatever the kriff that was.

“Baby Jedi, you with me?” Arla reaches out to check his pulse, bracing herself for the backlash. Another jolt of that electricity, at the very least - but nothing happens, he’s still, pale as bone and out cold. The whole damn planet’s been doing its best to drag her under - she knows she lost time when they were separated, things got… bad there, for a while, before he found her and hauled her back above the surface of it, back into the game. He knows this place in ways she can’t - but still, it’s costing him, it’s been bleeding him slow. Until she let her mouth drag them both into a minefield and he took the worst of that too.

“Hey. Other asshole,” Arla says softly, “are you in there?”

No answer, and it’s not like there’s anything she could do if there was. If the problem is not a punchable problem, Arla is generally low on solutions. All she can do is scrape him up off the ground, get him over her shoulders - score one for losing the jetpack, at least - and get out of here. The wind roars wild now, beating against what’s left of the temple, whatever scant protections this place had offered certainly gone now.

Arla can’t hear anything, behind or ahead - still can’t see anything moving, with a cursory view of below, but anyone within a hundred miles would have seen what just happened here, and this place… this place knows they’ve got the Darksaber, this place will point anyone it’s got its claws in right at them, she’s sure of that, and crazy mercs all powered up on eating the competition probably don’t care much about silly things like exhaustion or long-term survival.

It wasn’t like their plan was ever going to work, but kriff it would have been great to pretend, at least for a few minutes.

Arla hooks a line at the edge of one of the plinths, descending slow, the baby Jedi a dead weight carefully secured to her back. The path is narrow and steep and fractured, but there’s no one here to see her less-than-graceful descent. Everything about this is less than ideal, the further down they go the more mazelike things will be, the more opportunities to be flanked - and even if they do make it to the ships, this karking place will just drop a rock before Arla can even spark the engines - if any of those ships even work. Unless the kid wakes up and can do… something. If the kid ever wakes up.

One step at a time, take it as it comes. Odds are, you won’t even see the one that gets you.

“Kriffing bantha ballsack,” Arla mutters, glaring at an increasingly furious sky, “of all the days to die, I’m going to have to do it sober.”

=======================

He hurts. Everything hurts badly, but Obi-Wan has learned how to work around that, a skill he knew he’d need as a Knight someday, even before Melida-Daan and Mandalore made it less of a ‘someday’ and more of a ‘now, right now, or five minutes ago if possible.’ So it hurts, but not enough that he can’t take a moment to try and figure out how bad the worst of it is, a deep breath in, but it doesn’t feel quite… oh, kriff, he’s knocked himself into the Force somehow, and this isn’t the Force in the Thousand Fountains or any of the outer gardens or anywhere on any other planet, calm and free and safe.

Violent swells clash and swirl above him, around him - and he’s drowning in it, Darkness slipping through him like he’s no more than a loose concept, the vague outline of a person being pushed this way and that by deep, tidal forces - and Obi-Wan focuses, tries to focus, to pull himself together - and it ripples through the Force around him. Far beyond the borders of himself.

Obi-Wan swore he’d never reach for it, never cross that line and try to call on the power of this place - and now it’s seamless, hard to tell just where he ends and it begins. It’s not what it could be, not the kind of power the Sith had wanted when they’d smashed the life of this world to pieces, thinking they could reshape it, but it’s there and it’s his and he might… try for more, if he wanted. Demand it.

Certain things shift into a sharper focus, as he just tries to… exist, just feel it and exist and not think too hard about existing, just for a moment. What was once only horror and fear and wrongness have… clarified somewhat. Obi-Wan can feel it, like bits of netting drifting with him in the Dark, anchors dug deep into this place. Sith constructions, perhaps more than one project, or previous prototypes of the nightmare they’d finally chosen for themselves, and Obi-Wan could learn more about all of it, if he wanted to. Reverse engineer, and make this hell his own.

So, this is it. Surrendering to the power of the Dark Side. Wasn’t it supposed to be more fun, at least at the start? Wasn’t he supposed to think he could do anything he wanted?

You can do anything you want. The Dark whispers, eager and attentive. Anything. Everything.

That impulse didn’t come from the planet - the Dark is so much more than any one thing and this feeling is far more about inflicting than suffering and this… this is in him. Every ugly thought, every flare of temper and test of his patience. Every outrage at being overlooked, at trying his best and getting nothing in return and was this all the future could offer him? Why not just take what he wanted, if he had the power? Demand his due, strike first against a galaxy that was so ready to destroy everything he cared for. Why be fair, and follow rules he never chose to make? Why should he uphold some thin illusion of justice, when no one else bothered, when it was only ever a weight holding him down, holding him back?

He could tear out Tor Viszla’s throat with his teeth. Yes.

Make the Kyr’tsad bow down and eat lightning, until only ash leaked from a mountain of smoking armor. Yes.

Obi-Wan could do anything, to anyone. Murdering Qui-Gon Jinn would be little more than an afterthought. His former master went off on his own often enough, it wouldn’t be so strange if he simply vanished off the map. Things happened in a galaxy as ugly as this one. No raging tantrums here, nothing like Xanatos’ little fits. He’d be calm and deliberate, so his former master would see exactly how little he’d ever been needed, how much stronger Obi-Wan was without him, without any of them. He could make his allegiances, build an army - take the galaxy, bend it to his will and listen to it grovel and worship and beg.

Obi-Wan could stand at the helm of all creation and turn off the lights, one star at a time.

The Dark shivers with anticipation. There’s never been a better plan.

Plan? Hardly. And if he does destroy everything, what would be left? What would happen next?

The Dark… pauses, in what could almost be called confusion, eager momentum unexpectedly halted - next? What difference did it make, why or how or next? Only the now matters, only the forward motion, the joy and the terror, desire and pain and all of it cranked up as high as it will go.

I want to… set strangers on fire for no reason. Yes.

I want to drop kick a dreadnought into a sun. Please.

I want to bite the head off a baby porg. Obi-Wan thinks flatly. In front of its whole little crying baby porg family. This is also the very best idea the Dark has ever, ever heard, eager to indulge him. All the power he can wield for anything he can imagine and oh, you really are terribly stupid aren’t you.

Genet was right, at least in this - the Dark doesn’t care about consequences or logic, not even an animal’s base reasoning, Only a ravenous desire, only faster and more and now on whatever level it can get, whatever impulse it can encourage - and if Obi-Wan wants to take that for permission from the galaxy, as sanction and destiny and truth, it has zero interest in telling him otherwise.

Absolute freedom. Of a kind.

Anything. The Dark says. Anything can be a weapon. Just decide which story to tell and start sharpening the edge.

It would be very easy to lose himself to the simple, violent toss and turn of so much wanting, the nearly overwhelming need to act - now, anything, everything. Obi-Wan doubts he would have lasted long, if Genet had made the right arguments, had thrown any extra threat or demand on top of the chaos inside of him, when he’s just barely holding on. So simple, to manipulate this kind of fear and confusion, alternating random punishments with the occasional glimpses of power - control, if only he made himself brutal enough to seize it. The way of the Sith. The way Tor and the Kyr’tsad had hurt Arla, demanding impossible choices while pretending the game wasn’t rigged, that there was any real choice at all and Arla - Arla.

She’s alive. He didn’t, he didn’t… she’s alive. He thinks of her and there she is. Very close in the Force, but he can’t… can’t quite find the strength to figure out where his eyes are to try and open them, and that’s not good, that can’t be good - but Obi-Wan can still sense so much. Fierceness and sorrow and guilt and determination burning like forge fire - weariness and wariness, anger and hatred and - concern for him, caring for him and he had felt it before, in the Light, but here in the Dark it’s all so much more… vibrant, vital and immediate and complicated, so many emotions pulled in so many directions.

He’s never felt such… compassion for that struggle, never an admiration as vast and raw as this - peace is a lie and it’s not, it’s really not, but this is just as honest. Just as much a truth of the world, messy and sharp-edged and beautiful in its imperfect survival, and the thought of what he’d almost done to her, of feeling the emptiness of where she used to be, the way he’d lost Cerasi and so many of the Young and no. No.

No one is going to hurt what Obi-Wan cares for, not ever again.

Oh, and the Dark likes the sound of that - the ears of a predator pricking up, alert and ever ready - and it doesn’t feel silly or foolish this time, or so easy to argue away. The kind of desire he’s supposed to reject outright, Obi-Wan knows that - corrupting lies and false promises compared to the inherent, unarguable truths of the Jedi. Harmony, serenity, peace. No one had ever suggested any wariness, any suspicion of the Light - there weren’t even the words for such a warning.

But there was a Council once, not so different from the one he knows. Full of wise and calm and detached Jedi Masters, and they had looked toward Mandalore and all its people, and they had deliberated in their quiet, confident tranquility, and out of all that knowledge and all that understanding, they’d still chosen…

Perspective. The Mandalorian Empire was indomitable. Conquest as the natural order, a state of grace - they lived for it, and woe to the vanquished. It was a terrible war. I suppose you know as well as anyone, though - there’s really only the one kind. It burned up grand ideals and tore down ancient traditions, and showed everyone things about themselves they’d prefer not to see. The Jedi were tested to their very limits - and beyond. The scars of that kind of damage become legends, and then warnings. Unspoken fears and long shadows that lingered even as the memories faded. Stretching down through generations, until any other option than to see that threat return seemed like the lesser evil.

You were there. The first war.

Everywhere, little one. I’ve been everywhere.

You lied to me. Obi-Wan says, feeling the currents of the Dark pushing him this way and that - and if he reached out, if he pushed back - or pulled… You said I’d have to claim it, if I wanted to - but it’s already a part of me, isn’t it?

Who knows when it had happened. Maybe when he’d opened that first door. Maybe even before that.

When we speak of power, you are always three words away from sabering off your own head. Forgive me for wishing to break it to you gently.

Obi-Wan considers his options, which seem to have all dwindled into the same darkness that surrounds him.

… so do I at least get the really big chair, or were you lying about that too?

It is some small consolation, Obi-Wan thinks, for the loss of everything he might have been and, likely soon, the loss of all the rest, that he has learned what it is to hear a timeless lord of darkness laugh and mean it. Darth… Leraikha, was it? Maybe she was on to something.

Oh, you were wasted on them, little one. Do as you will, but I don’t think I’ll be giving you back.

He probably ought to protest that, snarl and rage and deny - but who is he trying to fool, and either way it’s not exactly the sort of thing that will make Genet change his mind, and dangerous as the phantom is, Obi-Wan thinks there’s very little else in the galaxy at the moment with any interest in being in his corner.

To know the Dark is to know yourself, as much as anyone ever can. What you reject, what you claim, what you cherish. Everything you’re afraid of. Everything you think you’ve failed. The failure you still believe all this somehow proves you are.

Obi-Wan flinches, though there’s no malice in Genet’s voice.

The Force moves through all things. Among all the endless reinvention of the galaxy - you alone are some brittle, damaged artifact in need of repair? Go back to what you were? When? You were never fixed in place. You were potential then. You are potential now. You will be potential until the day you pass into the Force, and likely long after that.

Kriff, he makes it all sound so easy. It must be nice to be incorporeal.

Speaking of that. Obi-Wan tries to concentrate, to drag himself back up into the world. He can’t keep drifting here forever - but the moment he focuses, pulls, a wave of jagged pain rips down through every thought he has, shredding his focus, leaving him trembling in the aftermath.

What… what was…

Genet is… closer, easier to sense here and maybe that’s the Dark. Obi-Wan has the feeling he could reach out, try to get a sense of everything he hasn’t been told - but that it might be no more tossing a credit into an endless chasm, he’d never hear it hit bottom. Or maybe that’s what it means, to really Fall, and Genet was lying about that too - he hasn’t landed, and never will.

Only so much of my presence this planet can mitigate, and even less, with this many… cracks in the ice. You’re changing, which is no small victory, but it has left you… compromised. I cannot tread as lightly as I should. Before Obi-Wan just… shatters, that’s what Genet means - and inexplicably something the phantom still wants to avoid. I may have overstepped myself. Imagine that.

The harder Obi-Wan tries to pull himself together, the worse it feels - as if he’s managed a level of Force exhaustion somehow greater than his ability to use it. It would be nice if he could tell Arla that before he dissolved out of existence, it sounds like the kind of thing that might make her laugh. Obi-Wan wonders what would happen, if he didn’t…. Genet doesn’t even sound tired. Can anything in the galaxy do him any kind of harm?

Could you? If you were… if you were me, instead of me - could you get out of here? Could you defeat Tor?

He knows what it is, to feel an ancient phantom’s impatience, and amusem*nt - and now, surprise.

Oh, little one. Always so determined to walk the hardest path.

The pressure… eases, and the pain slowly recedes, a weight so heavy held for so long that he almost feels dizzy when it disappears.

Genet? Are you there? Genet?

Silence. Alone again in his own head. It should be a relief.

—————————————————

Arla’s never bothered with remembrances - it would take too kriffing long, for one, and there’s plenty of names she never learned and enough of them she does know who would never want to hear their name in her mouth. This whole kriffing planet’s a litany of the dead - part of how it breaks the people here, shows them their kriff-ups and their regrets and the things they want and will never, ever have again. The Outer Rim is little more than the desperate, the ambitious and the damned - no wonder this place eats so well.

A scream of rage in the distance, but far less distant than she’d like, and Arla curses as her foot slides on a patch of uneven ground, shoulder taking the brunt of the fall to keep from pitching the kid over her shoulder and Arla grunts, curses, adjusts her grip. A few feet away, leaning against a rock, Cy shakes her head in amusem*nt at the poor performance, while shadowed ade with no faces cluster around her, and Arla can still feel their anger, their anticipation, waiting for her to die.

A flicker of lightning on the horizon, and then several more, arcs dancing between gathering clouds, the rumbles of thunder deep and ominous and the grit picked up by the wind already stinging her face, hissing against her beskar. Unnatural, of course, the same as the rest of this place, and not at all worth waiting to see how it will break.

A second howl, this one deeper and rougher and it’s hard to say if it’s human or someone else, someone bigger - no one sounds quite the same when they’ve lost their kriffing minds, and Arla moves as quiet as she can, the broken plinths of stone rising up around them, obscuring them from view but hiding anything that might be ahead, those abandoned ships, those crews that may all be long dead but she doubts it - doubts they can rely on being able to hide, that this planet can’t see her or the ad or at the very least the Darksaber.

A flash of new color from the corner of her eye, Arla has the blaster up even as she already cursing, a split-second and she can already tell it’s another imaginary person because they’re not closing distance, no weapon raised and -

Arla figured this place would send Tor again, for the finishing blow - after Cy and the ade and so many others, a small army of all those who didn’t deserve to die at her hand, so she could keep existing, keep doing… whatever the kriff this is supposed to be. But here’s the real proof, the reminder that would hurt her the most, because she's a selfish, vacant shipwreck where a real person ought to be.

Arla’s the shadow to the woman looking back at her now.

Yeah, it's her. Arla Fett - but the right one, the way she should have been before Tor and the Kyr’tsad and every shabla karked-up day of her shabla karked-up life. Softer. Saner. A shine on her that Arla doesn’t have and never will - no Kyr’tsad colors on her armor - not even beskar, just standard Protector gear like her father, like she’d just started planning for - and there’s nothing desperate in those eyes. Nothing lost. An Arla who doesn’t even look at her shadow-self the way she looks at her own reflection - or tries not to, as often as not. Only sympathy, because even this ghost of her is more of a real person, with a real life and real feelings - and Arla has the blaster up and ready and damn near pulls the trigger, even when a part of her knows it's not real. Only here to make her waste time and give away her position and she needs to move, needs to stop studying every inch of this reflection, like it’s here to do anything but hurt her, like it’s any kind of a map that could lead her back.

All this fighting. All this survival. For what, Arla? For what. How long will you keep pretending?

Eventually, Tor will get bored and paranoid someone else will beat him to the Darksaber - and in a few more weeks or months he’ll come, he’ll find his way here, and Arla will make damn sure there’s a few of her vengeful atoms left strung together, to watch this place eat him alive. It’s the planet that says she should just let it happen, just lie down and wait. It’s mostly the planet.

A soft groan against her shoulder, a twitch - it startles her, for a moment, with the other version of her carrying nothing at all.

“You with me, jetii’ika?“ Arla glances over her shoulder, and when she looks back, of course there’s only empty ground.

“… not really.” Obi-Wan mutters. “Are we in trouble?”

“No more than usual.”

“Kriff.” Obi-Wan says, and shifts a little. “I can… I can walk?”

“Is that an offer or a question, kid?” Arla says, because his voice is weak and thready and he doesn’t answer right away, doesn’t try to get free when she keeps moving.

“Sorry.” He murmurs, a few moments later. “…’m sorry.”

“Please,” Arla says, “it’s going to take more than one little exploding jetii’ad to even ding my helmet.”

“You’re not wearing a helmet.”

“Nobody likes people who notice things, kid.”

A drop of wetness against her neck, tracing the line of her kute - kriff, the kid’s crying.

“Obi’ka? You hurt?” Kriff, and he’d seemed all right but it’s not like she’d been as careful as she could have, and maybe it wasn’t kriffing jetii osik that was the problem, maybe it was kriffing internal bleeding -

“N-no. I’m fine. It’s… the kyber, my… in my lightsaber. I couldn’t… I couldn’t hear it before, but… It’s t-two notes. A harmony.” He says in a watery, defeated voice. “It’s both.”

Whatever the kriff any of that’s supposed to mean, Arla doesn’t have a clue except that it’s upset the jetii’ad - thankfully not enough for any new explosions, but she can still feel him crying even if she can’t hear it, the slightest sniffles that he buries silently against her shoulder.

“C’mon, baby Jedi. We’re almost there. Stay with me. When we get out of here, I promise I’ll take you someplace loud and bright and wildly inappropriate. We’ll get ronto barbecue and do body shots off identical twins.”

“… don’t want to do body shots off twins.” He mutters.

“Have you ever tried? No. So what do you know?”

The weak laugh almost doesn’t sound like a sob. “…’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? Coming here was all my stupid kriffing idea. Try to sneak up on a kriffing planet. Genius, Fett, absolute top of your game.”

“… ‘m not supposed toget angry… supposed to release that to the Force.”

Arla snorts. “Yeah, well, I’d say you released it to the next star system. Mission kriffing accomplished.” He flinches, the opposite of what she was going for. “Kid, you have any idea how many times I’ve almost been killed by my friends? And that’s not even counting the ones that were on purpose.”

Kriff, Arla once had a contact come at her in the middle of a game of sabaac - naked, except for a vibroblade and a pair of tauntaun horns - spiced off his kriffing buyca and calling her ‘mommy.’ And that was how that day had started.

“… glad we’re friends.” Obi-Wan murmurs, burrowing his head against her neck like a weary adiik. Kriff.

“Me too, kid. Me-.”

A rumble from above, cutting through the howl of the wind, and Arla wonders how this place knows, how far its reach extends. How it decides who gets unceremoniously dropped from the sky and who will be more entertaining if they reach the ground in one piece, armory intact and directly between them and any chance at escape. It can’t know, it can’t possibly understand what it means, that specific ship in those colors even as Arla’s expectations plummet faster than the ship can drop, even as the howl from behind them is answered by a scream from ahead, echoing off the rocks around them.

“… Arla?” Obi-Wan murmurs.

“It’s okay.” She lies. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“That’s a Death Watch ship.” He’s right, of course, and everyone on it will be in full kit, with full ammo, and they haven’t spent the last kriff knows how long being dragged face down through every bad day they’ve ever had. Maybe they’ll go crazy, but it won’t be fast enough, and probably not the kind of crazy that will give her an edge, not as they land directly between them and any chance at forward progress. “They’re… not here to help us, are they?”

He learns real fast, the jetii’ika. A surprise it took them this long. Tor will take any story as truth as long as he gets the sword back, and she’s of far more value as the corpse they find the prize on, than the one who brings it back herself. Or maybe they’ll just keep it for themselves, intending to start the karking strill chase all over again.

“I know that ship, the Talyc Gra’tua. The alor’ad - he’s an Aqualish. You know how many testicl*s they have, kid?”

“…. no.”

“Well, I’m the reason he’s got one less than that. I’m pretty sure he still remembers.”

One more bit-off curse for losing the helmet - Arla might have been able to patch in and listen to the chatter. At least she’s got some advantage - the kriffing planet might have been able to draw them down here, keep the pressure on - but it can’t tell the crew they’ve found what they’re looking for, or at all what they’re about to drop into.

First thing’s first, find the safest place she can for the jetii’ika. He’s in no shape for any kind of fight, that jetii osik look in his eyes when she puts him down that means he’s likely no more than half with her anyway.

“All right, kid. You stay here.” Arla says, tucking him into a narrow gap between the rocks, hopefully enough keep him from view. The blaster she tucks into his loose grip won’t be much help, and he hardly looks ready to come up swinging, but there’s nothing else she can do - and that’s the sound of jetpacks, scouts too impatient to wait for the landing gear to fully drop. If the ship’s still running the same crew, at least Arla knows who they are. Strengths and weaknesses, for whatever it might be worth.

She considers her options, and reaches for the Darksaber.

“Ba’vodu Arla’s just gonna borrow your fancy hitting stick a minute.”

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

The world simplifies itself, and Arla isn’t sad to see it go. No people here, no forward scouts of the Death Watch jetpacking their way to a better position, no oncoming mad legion of unspecified size and firepower. No shabla mindkriff of a planet, or crews she vaguely remembers with their leaders still carrying grudges over improvised munitions to the crotch.

It was mostly his fault anyway. Maybe. Probably.

No worries, no hopes, no past or future - only targets and terrain. Every ship only a collection of angles, lines of sight and opportunities - what engines might still hold a useful spark for traps, what would be good cover, what might be more worthwhile if she didn’t try to blow it up. Escape has been knocked down fairly far on her current priorities, but it’s still on the list.

At the top? Beskar stacked at slightly different heights, with estimates on how hard they’ll hit and from which direction. Long-range weapons and short-range weapons and the usual plans of attack, the usual ways soldiers take a field. The many ways Arla knows how to inject chaos into the order, to send things hurtling out of control - business as usual, except for the hilt in her hand. Nothing Arla ever expected to actually touch, let alone carry into battle, even one as karked up as this.

Tor loves the Darksaber, or as close as he’s ever come to the sentiment - which hadn’t inspired Arla to look on it kindly even before this bloody little jaunt across the galaxy. But it’s a part of her heritage, the shared history of every Mandalorian, and belonged to someone once who - flip a credit - might not have even been as much of a kriffing jagyc’kovid as the generations he inspired.

“Hey ba’buir’kad, we both know what I’m kriffing not, but what I am is the best chance you have to end up anyplace other than this that isn’t a Hutt’s treasury. So, how about you help me out here, and I make sure you don’t spend the ride back in the ship’s toilet, tayli'bac?”

Threatening inanimate objects is always a high point in any mission. Arla has no reason to think the blade is impressed, but it doesn’t immediately leap from her hand and cut her in half. So she’ll take that as a win.

A shame it’s as long as it is, really - even a two or three inch blade could do some serious kriffing damage, when it’s a kriffing plasma cutter on a stick. Ignite it the right way, at close range, and you could kill someone without ever revealing the blade at all. Assassin tactics are probably too unseemly for the jetiise, if not against their religion. Arla’s a bit unsentimental, even by Mandalorian standards, but nobody’s going to be lining up to write tales of this battle, whether the Darksaber’s here or not.

Keep musing, Fett - or maybe use that advantage while you have it?

Find the fatal flaw, the subtle angle that spoke of armor off-the-shelf rather than fresh from the forge, the slight difference in the gleam of paint that meant it wasn’t beskar. Which forward scout was more hesitant than the other, fresher to the field - or overconfident, pushing ahead that little bit too far, trying to prove something to the others. Distracted, maybe, by the slightest issue with a jetpack that they should have fixed before heading out.

Arla exists to exploit weaknesses. Arla exists to make things worse.

So the explosive she rigged in one of the smaller craft is just a distraction, get all the heads turning in the right direction so that she can sneak up from behind and bring the Darksaber up and - kriff - a spark off one pauldron, but the blade goes through kute and spine so swiftly that she almost overbalances. Arla catches the head before it can hit the ground, lowering the body with as little sound as possible, quickly strips the blasters in reach. No blood, not with a laser sword, just that slight burnt meat smell - thank kriff they didn’t have fur or feathers - and Arla unceremoniously shucks the helmet free of its former inhabitant and yanks it on. It’s never great, wearing a stolen bucket, and her skin stings, scraped in more than one spot from the awkward fit, but it’s worth it to hear the chatter on the comms and to see the tags light up. A view of the field, if there’s anyone close enough to -

The shot hits her from behind, but it was overly optimistic from a bad angle, mostly glancing off. Arla feels the slight burn at the edge of her kute but she’s already moving, the flurry of shots that follow now only hitting the junk she ducks behind. Whoever it is ought to wait for backup, but Arla doesn’t honestly remember how many enemies she made on this crew, and this Kyr’tsad’s not waiting around, trying to cut off her escape. Maybe they didn’t see what happened to their friend, and thinks Arla doesn’t have anything useful at short range, or doesn’t recognize her yet, thinks the beskar alone might keep her at a distance.

A jetii’kad doesn’t need leverage or momentum. It’s not a weapon that can get stuck, no tangible blade - easy to turn off and turn on again. Zero to murder and back with barely a twitch on the handle.

Yeah, Arla gets it. Ba’buir’kad is sexy. She still doesn’t kriffing want to be Mand’alor, but she gets it.

Arla swings a bit of dangling debris forward just enough to force the Kyr’tsad back and then she drops, comes in close, jams the hilt up under the breastplate at a severe angle and she honestly doesn’t know what will happen, when the tip of the Darksaber’s blade hits the back of the beskar before it’s had a chance to fully extend but hey, let’s find out.

Still wearing that stolen helmet, and standing close enough to hear the eerie sound of a dying scream overlaid with itself. Arla’s a jagyc-and-a-half but there’s no real satisfaction in this poor shabiir’s suffering, so she cuts the power, puts the hilt up to their throat and extends the blade again, a flick of her wrist that puts another head on the ground before the body joins it, and she snatches up the rifle as the sound of reinforcements charges in and it’s time for the last trick with this helmet, a few taps to the bracer and a piercing feedback screech rips through the comms. Arla hears at least one roar of pain, and hopefully buys a few extra seconds to find a new hiding place.

Rocks cracking under angry gunfire, more in spite and frustration than the hope of hitting a target, as the Kyr’tsad find their comrades. Arla listens to the order, changing the internal comms to a different frequency, the tags disappearing off her display a moment later - and she yanks the helmet off, more uncomfortable than useful now, too much distraction to keep chasing down the signal on her vambrace. Arla tosses it down a side path, listens to it roll away as she moves as quietly as she can in the other direction.

“Still alive then, Fett?” A vaguely familiar voice calls out, snide as ever. All this time and the alor’ad’s never bothered to invest in another mood. “We had a decent tip you were headed this way. The Mand’alor’s massiff knows how to play fetch.”

Keep moving, keep moving. He wants the Darksber this badly, she’s happy to introduce him. Arla takes a guess on how far they’ve advanced and thumbs the switch on her second trap - swallows a curse as the damn thing doesn’t fire - and then there’s a bolt that gets far too close, and Arla’s retreating again, backtracking. A fair portion of her attention listening past the edge of this fight, into the still-silent valleys around them - take your kriffing time why don’t you.

“Give it up. You were supposed to demand that we take you to Tor, so we could shoot you in the back. And the head. And the back again. You hand over the blade now and maybe we’ll still make it quick.”

“Not enough credits in the Core to keep the Mand’alor from gutting you when he tracks you down.” Arla shouts back, enough around here to echo off of, that it might throw them off her position. Wishes they’d give her something to shoot at. “Or he’d hire me to do it. So I guess we can consider this saving some time.”

Big words, but she’s outnumbered and they know it. The sound of a jetpack firing - Arla throws a grenade, retreating footsteps covered by the sound of the explosion. No armored parts joining the wreckage on the ground, unfortunately, but maybe it’ll make them think twice about trying to hit her from the skies.

“You didn’t hear kark, she’s all alone.” An aside to one of the other Kyr’tsad, but loud enough for her to hear, trying to distract her or unnerve her or just to hear himself talk. Good. More noise is good. “Heard a rumor, though - you really dragged a dar’jetii along for the ride?”

“Dead.” She’s kept the fight well away from where she put Obi-Wan so far, nothing to interest them in that direction. “Two planets back. Not half as durable as they’re supposed to be.”

The sound of shifting gravel, too close, and Arla fires off a few more rounds, dives down a side path with blaster fire on her heels. Closing in on her. Where in the kriffing hell -

“You’re stalling, Fett.”

“I really am.” Arla says, and then, finally - a high pitched, guttural scream from what sounds like the next path over. The sound of innumerable feet pounding against the ground, a blind charge, and she glances out from cover to see the Kyr’tsad shrinking back from their pursuit, closing ranks as they try to pinpoint the incoming threat.

“Let me show you what kind of day I’ve been having.”

Arla watches something vaguely near-human launch itself off the top of one of the nearby rocks, a wild howl of rage as the nearest Kyr’tsad fires, and they’re both knocked out of sight.

One thing you can say about Osik’la Death Planet of Kark is that it’s memorable even in a galaxy full of kriffed-up rocks, but at least it’s also honest. No glory or honor here. No trying to pretend all this isn’t anything other than what it is - a mad, rampaging pile of the once and future damned, every bit of gnarled, wretched ugliness from the worst corners of the galaxy kicking each other to death in the dirt.

Chaos and madness, all those poor shabuire who crossed the mountains and everyone else drawn in by the fighting all descending on the ranks of the Kyr’tsad - and she has to admit, they hold the line. Hardened fighters with beskar armor and heavy firepower against an army of what’s left of what’s been here far too long, charging forward with teeth and claws and occasionally even steel - axes, swords, makeshift poles split into jagged-ended pikes. Wild shrieking and howling echoing off the walls, louder and louder until there’s no saying how many there are or how many more are coming. Arla isn’t immune from the onslaught, more than one attacker coming across her first, and she’s got the same advantage of weapons and still being able to think about defense but they don’t stop, they don’t care, one after another running themselves through on the Darksaber, clawing at her armor even as they fall.

It’s a game of numbers - picking off the distracted Kyr’tsad when she can, while leaving enough of them to cut through the majority of the onslaught, dropping the odds on both sides to something she can manage. Arla loses herself in the chaos of the battle, the madness of Planet Kriff tugging at her edges, but she’s familiar with it now, enough to tug right back and it’s not just her shebs on the line.

Slowly - a round fired off here, a scream there - and the howling subsides to the last clusters around the few remaining Kyr’tsad. An explosion, as a mindless attacker must grab a detonator in his frenzy, taking out the Mandalorian and the rest of that fight with him. Arla clears herself a moment of quiet, long enough to risk pulling the rifle - the alor’ad lost his helmet, somewhere in the fray, and she’s lining up the shot when he vanishes, disappearing in a puff of dust.

Arla doesn’t understand what she just saw, doesn’t track it even when there’s another crash, and another, and she watches a body fall a few feet away, torso crushed and smoking… some kind of mortar? She looks to the sky, expecting more ships, or Kyr’tsad, or kriffing giant birds dropping flaming Ishi Tib coconuts for all she kriffing knows - and then Arla remembers, so focused on the fight she forgot just how many directions they were kriffed in. A problem she hadn’t known how to solve, so she’d tossed it to the back of the queue and hoped it would either solve itself or she’d be dead before it could matter.

It was a stone that crushed the alor’ad. A meteorite, to be more specific, the planet no longer entertained by their little scuffle and ready to wrap things up. More and more zing past, a lethal rain that smashes here and there into the ships and the valleys and anyone still alive and unlucky enough to be in their path. She can find cover, of course, but that’s not going to do much to stop the city-sized slab of rock that, judging by the way the edges are burning, has just punched into the atmosphere. So big that it looks like it’s barely moving, but no doubt it’ll be here any minute.

Well… kriff.

Worse ways to go. At least she’d made them put a little effort in. It wasn’t everyone who got taken out by a quarter mile of the kriffing moon.

A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye - a slower and steadier pace than any of the last few bits of fighting, strange enough to draw attention - and then she’s watching the baby Jedi walk across the battlefield because of course he kriffing is and Arla is moving, heart in her throat but the kid is still just walking, seemingly blind to everything around him.

Obi-Wan raises a hand toward the sky, and there’s just no way, there’s no kriffing way he’s thinking -

Arla’s ears pop, a sudden, violent shift in the pressure as the air around them snaps and goes utterly still, and she couldn’t say what happens next - jetii osik of course - as he tilts his hand almost gently, but she can see every tendon, every muscle flex with the effort - and the city in the sky splits, shatters, massive hunks roaring as they plow overhead, into the mountains and beyond, crushing more of those dead pale rooms to dust. One still dropping close enough to leave the ground shuddering wildly beneath her feet - a shockwave that sends a few of the smaller ships tumbling, slides the larger ones sideways as Arla is tossed like chaff from the thresher, tucks herself into as small a ball as she can, back slamming into a wall as a blanket of dust covers her.

The sound of distant avalanches, as she coughs her way to her feet. Arla waits, looking for movement, for anyone else to decide they wanted to survive that, but there’s nothing, and she waits a moment more and there’s still nothing and she can’t afford to wait any longer than that.

It doesn’t take as long as she’d feared, to track the kid down, piles of debris here and there but wider swaths swept clear by the winds and she already knows what she’s looking for - just find something small and unassuming, that looks like it was smashed into the dirt and left behind.

======================

The Force isn’t always kind and warm and good, even the Light. It doesn’t always wait until you’re prepared, until you’ve called for it and you’re ready. Sometimes it comes for you first - rolls you, catches you in the undertow and keeps you tumbling until it sees fit to toss you out, senseless and breathless and trembling in its wake, far away from everything you knew.

And this is not the Light.

Bad. Bad bad terrible idea, Kenobi. He should not have… he shouldn’t… didn’t even think he could, really. Didn’t think… but he’d felt it coming, the spike in the Force, death upon death and the vengeful voices in the Dark, the fury of this planet making its move. It was coming and there was no time, he couldn’t even think-

He’d pushed as hard as he could manage, wild with panic, forcing his will against the very Dark trying to kill them all at last, to gather enough power to be free - and he’d thrown everything he had into stopping them from dragging that doom onto them - dividing the threat, diverting it as far away as he could. Obi-Wan would think it hadn’t worked, that he’d died anyway, except that he can still think, if only to wonder if dying wasn’t the better option. The pain rakes through him in waves, new damage on old bruises, every sense in the Force gone vague and distant except for how much it hurts.

Oh, he really should not have done that.

The Dark rages around him now, a wild maelstrom that knocks him down again and again, the world a blur of pain and anger and he’d had it, he’d made it follow his command but Obi-Wan was nowhere near strong enough to hold it and now he’s being kicked around like a ball on a field. Alone, it seems that Genet really has abandoned him. Out of concern - but does he really believe that? Or had the Sith seen everything worth seeing, enough to already guess how the failed padawan would meet his end.

Disappointing Masters on both sides of the Force. Almost impressive, in a way.

… it wasn’t going to work. Obi-Wan thinks weakly at the Dark, like trying to placate a hurricane, his plea barely a whisper against the howls for blood, for freedom, anything but this. It slams him down again. It won’t save you. No matter how many you kill, it won’t be enough to set you free.

Obi-Wan can feel that much, whatever has them trapped here like a knot that pulls tighter the harder they struggle, the more desperation and anger they have - and they’re so angry, lashing out. Obi-Wan can feel that hate and rage turn on him, tower over him. For stopping them, for telling the truth, for having power but still not enough to help and the Dark does not play favorites and if he can’t control this, make it obey him it will tear him into pieces for daring to get in its way.

Can he throw up inside a Force vision? What wonderful new questions on this grand adventure. Hey, Master Koon, did you know the Dark Side isn’t much fun at all, actually?

Please. Please, I’m trying. I’m trying, I just-

“Help me here, small brother.”

Silent and still. Stars like pinpricks in the black, high above. No wind but a piercing, numbing cold, even though he’s… dressed for the weather, bundled up tight.

Weather?

Obi-Wan can see his breath, his hands guided - dwarfed - by the pair that swallows his own, still working deftly, weaving a dark row. Patching holes in some kind of net, he can see the webbing terminate in a kind of spike stuck into the ground, a pale blue glow lighting the top, and more lights all in a long line, disappearing into a horizon that seems ready to swallow him up, the ground sliding beneath his feet as he tries to judge how far -

“Pay attention. Follow me.” A command, but not a harsh one, and he’s guided again through the loops - fumbling, the figures not ones he knows, the patterns unfamiliar - and this isn’t really a net he’s weaving, the darkness slipping through his hands isn’t…

“What… what are we doing…?”

“Fixing the perimeter fence. The mending never ends, between storms and the predators. I admit, it was never my favorite task.”

Obi-Wan looks, really looks at the figure attached to that voice, to those massive hands. The Sith he’d seen in his vision, on the mountain.

Hard to imagine anyone more intimidating, a grip that could likely squeeze him in half with barely a thought. Ribbons of near translucent color run through skin like pale stone, and he can see layers of tattoos like veins of ore, some in what might be Sith script and others in words he does not recognize, and of course that gaze of gold, the flicker of corona fire.

“My Master bought me by the pound. A generous offer. My mother long outcast, heretic and exiled. My fathers shunned, lost hunting together in the long snows. No one would speak for me. A drain on resources our village had no reason to spare. My uncle still demanded more - until my Master took his arm at the elbow. No one asked again.”

Fear is the reason for the stillness, why the rage and the Dark had vanished - it was afraid. Obi-Wan can feel it now, in this freezing place, every breath a challenge and the overwhelming terror, edged and hanging in the air, a predator on the verge of striking.

“Do you see it, small brother? Can you see?”

Obi-Wan swallows hard, ignores the way his instincts are screaming to escape - where, and how? The certainty of doom against the patterns he’s weaving, the knots and ties under his hands that aren’t…

“It’s you.” He says. “The fear. It’s part of you. It’s not real, I mean it is but…” The Sith is terrifying all on his own, but the sheer power, the persistence of that terror is… artifice. Obi-Wan’s own fear, amplified and thrown back at him to be amplified again into something wild and formless and all-consuming. “You’re manipulating it, with the Dark. Encouraging it.”

A fear so powerful even the ghosts of this place will not cross it - and as Obi-Wan sees it for what it is, the feeling ebbs and fades. Inviting him into its protection.

I took a vast city once, its gates opened wide when I battered them with nothing more than their own dread of what I might do. I brought fear to every planet we stood upon, all who opposed us. Enemies and allies alike. Obi-Wan realizes those massive hands are banded at the wrists by what looks like wide bracers of unpainted beskar. It was said I wore the corpses of Mandalorians who thought to best me. Crushed them where they stood and armored myself with their remains.”

“… did you?”

Maybe a smile in those molten eyes. If someone should tell a story you find useful, small brother, you are not obligated to correct them.

Obi-Wan remembers how often he was annoyed at the Temple, to be reminded of his age and size. How he’d bristled to be called youngling, even when he’d been one. It’s only a relief, now - small things get overlooked, little and young is foolish and unthreatening.

His hands fumble, numbed through as he tries to bend the rope into a loop and it’s - it’s not real, this is all happening in the Force, and what he’s doing -

“Did the Empire throw you down here for study or sport?”

“The Sith aren’t… there’s no Empire anymore. Not for a long time.”

The great hands still, just for a moment. “So. Some time has passed. I had wondered. If we are truly gone, then are you, perhaps… and to think I would meet my first Jedi now. They kept to their own borders, in my time.”

Yes, Obi-Wan imagines they really would have. The Dark swirls through him, like wading in chest high waters, frozen to the bone. If there’s any Light anywhere, he can’t feel it. “I’m not… not a Jedi. I’m… can’t you tell what I am?”

“Young… and turbulent. You are not the first to come here seeking power, but you have survived longer than any other. Who is your Master?”

“I don’t…” Oh, he’d like that to be true more than it actually is. Even if Genet’s never claimed the title, and Obi-Wan would never give it - and when what the shade does can’t exactly be called guidance. “I don’t know who he is. Not really.”

“The Master that is not known cannot be usurped.”

“I don’t think that’s his biggest concern.” As far as Obi-Wan can tell, Genet doesn’t have anything to usurp, let alone that he’s found anything remotely threatening about Obi-Wan’s increasing power. Which is fair, as Obi-Wan hasn’t found much use for it beyond increasingly dramatic ways of blowing himself up.

"A path of mysteries, then. My Master would have approved."

A tiny light flickers beneath the Sith’s hood, and then another, and another. A cloud of stars like a school of fish flashing out briefly beneath his hood, keeping safe and close. He reaches up, a few of them dancing for a moment around his fingers. Bright fragments glittering against the dark - the younglings from the mountain. Hovering against one broad shoulder, as he’d seen in the vision, a brighter singular light, the faintest echo of the Force presence he’d felt from the young priestess.

All of them vague and dim but still - they are undamaged. No sense of pain or panic. The calamity that tore this world apart never reached them.

“I saved what I could. So little remains of any of us… but I can keep the fear away, at least.”

The fear. The Force. The Dark. The careful bindings beneath his hands and these are not fences - this is the Sith guiding him, weaving knowledge of the Dark into his thoughts, into the power he can barely use and absolutely none of that is a good idea, all of this so far beyond any lessons Obi-Wan can only begin to guess how dangerous it is - but this Sith had also saved him, as much as those he’d tried to protect on the mountain.

“What are we really doing?”

“Fortifying you for what lies ahead, in what small ways I can. There’s no time.” The soft sigh is like tumbling stones. “So much time, and yet no time at all.”

“I was underground. I saw… I saw the bodies. What happened here?”

“My Master was cold, severe - but his rules never wavered, his expectations absolute but unchanging. It was not so, for every Lord in the Empire - those who enjoyed creating opportunities for punishment, who slaughtered for the sport of it. We held our own against the other Lords and their acolytes and their ambitions - but my Master had no true designs to be Emperor. He sought mysteries - deeper knowledge, ancient secrets.”

Imagine it, a shade older than almost anything Obi-Wan knows of history, and even for him there were lost unknowns.

“He would go out into the galaxy, seeking answers for questions he did not deign to share. He never told us where, or when he would return.”

“Did anyone ever trust anyone in your Empire?”

“All weakness, small brother. Trust, love, camaraderie - anything that might encourage reliance on anything other than the self, and your own ruthlessness, and your own power.” Which would sound even worse, if not for the dry note in the Sith’s voice. “And all of it gone to nothing, it seems, in the end. All that we swore to for the glory of the Empire, or our own small and cherished treasons.”

“I thought being a Sith meant doing what you want.” Obi-Wan says, with more than a little bitterness, although he’d never really imagined it. What it would really be like, to be a Sith, in a galaxy with few other options. “I thought that was the whole point.”

“You are free to agree as much as you’d like with the superior path.” He says, still dry. “I was… fortunate, in a way. I had strength and size and power. I did as I was bid, conquered as I was told, commanded as I was ordered. Feared by all, including my brothers and sisters. The Sith are not supposed to fear, but they did. Feared so many things, and they knew I knew it, but none of them were strong enough or brave enough to strike me down. I was hated. I was alone. But there was a freedom in that.”

It’s the Force, they’re in the Force, so Obi-Wan can feel that past as much as hears it - and this shade survived where the others had been torn apart, able to maintain himself because of that fear. He’d been feared whether or not there was any reason - he’d learned to use it, grow comfortable with it. A life of solitude surrounded by fear - in a way this terrible void of a planet was not all that different from any other.

“My Master left as he usually did, on one of his expeditions - but he never returned. Weeks passed, then a month. We were badly exposed, vulnerable to any Lord looking for easy prey. We were pushed out of systems that had been ours, closer and closer to simply being hunted down. This planet was to be our stronghold, our new base of power. We found favor with the factions on this world, made ourselves welcome as powerful allies and advisors. We insinuated ourselves into their conflicts, encouraged their worst impulses against each other - to turn every grievance into a wound, and make a point of pride that it must never heal.”

“I know.” Obi-Wan says, thinking of the bodies below ground - of Melida-Daan, and Mandalore and all the ways things can get worse, even without the Dark whispering in his ear. “I know what that looks like.”

How easy it is for hate to be kindled, to be spread. How every violence escalates, makes the next all but inevitable.

“My Master had his favorite apprentices - his destined heirs. He was charming and she was ruthless, each with their own smaller courts and the both of them made of raw ambition . It was the custom in our time - raise two as equals, until one succeeded in sharpening their teeth on the bones of the other.”

Obi-Wan remembers the damaged holocron, the warped figures inside it, trapped in agony. He wonders.

“Insanity.” The word slips out. The Sith raises a shoulder, the barest shrug

“It worked, for a time. Many things work for a time. They split the planet between them - and I’m sure you can see it, you can see the end from here, but at the time we believed ourselves to be so terribly clever. My Master’s favorites were patient, they understood they needed to build something before they could kill each other trying to claim it. We were afraid, alone and afraid and unable to admit to any of it, of course. I do not know which one of them was the first to enlist Lete, if he offered them the same plan or if he was just another piece in the game they played against each other.”

“Lete?”

“He was brilliant. Broken. The war prize of one more Lord who challenged us. My Master saw his potential, and he was quick to be loyal, but even then - whatever his training, it had shattered him completely. The fear in him, even then, it was already…” One massive hand flexes, clenches to a fist and flexes once more. “Water will freeze and thaw and freeze again. Take up all the little spaces in between, until even a mountain can’t help but… crumble away. That was what the Dark had done to him. I should have seen it for what it was. Of anyone, I should have understood…” The Sith sighs. “I didn’t care enough in the right ways and then our Master was gone and he was their weapon of choice. Impossible theories of the Force, explanations we all pretended we understood - Lete was brilliant, and he was going to build the power behind a throne to span the galaxy. I, on the other hand, took too much after our Master, and he had abandoned us and his lack of ambition was to blame for all our woes… and then I was…” He shifts, glancing at the pale light holding fast to his shoulder. “Distracted.”

“I was there in the temple, I saw… and I…” Obi-Wan winces. “I’m sorry… the temple, I…”

“We felt it go. It’s how we found you.” The Sith says, but he doesn’t sound angry. “Don’t grieve too long, small brother. It was... a point of contention, even by those who had helped set the stones. Honoring the truth of the ever-changing world and their place in it - but still too fixed, too simplified. Reverent and beautiful but… misleading - perhaps more misleading because it was beautiful. A distraction. A misinterpretation. I was there long enough to hear many of the arguments, and I was not there long.”

“You were supposed to destroy them.”

“By the most expedient means. A small sect - no political power, seen even by their own as a quaint anachronism. These were a people who preferred the Force to be useful, to show results. Of course, we could have ignored such an inconsequential group entirely - but the Sith do not share territory, and the order was meant to insult me. Others handled the important affairs, while I was sent to dismantle what would never be a threat.”

“Except they made you stop being a Sith.”

“As I said, in some ways I was always fortunate. We take pride in the struggle to stand alone - but I never had to work to be alone. It was never an effort to be feared. So I saw little value in either. I was… a lesser Sith, in many ways, but still strong enough to stand uncontested. As long as I supported those I was meant to support, my failings of ambition were convenient. And as far as I could see across the Empire, there was only more of the same, nothing to be ambitious for. Until I came to the the mountain, to undo these people and their ways, and met with a few of their eldest - they welcomed me in. Not at all afraid, and I had never - they took the Dark from me and made it sing.“

What Obi-Wan had seen on the mountain, it wasn’t Dark or wrong, but it wasn’t Jedi either. It wasn’t about peace or tranquility or letting go - but there had been something familiar around the edges, a murmur in the Force he almost thought he knew. Like a friendly figure waving in the distance - a warm greeting, but too far away to recognize.

“They spoke of the Force like riding thermals - they’d tell each other to feel it in their wings, memories of flight.” He raises a hand, fingers curved like feathers. “I’d like to say the wings were all I lacked, but I was terrible for many reasons. For them, the truth was all things in constant motion. No star fixed in its position, each planet and system spinning, rivers rushing, the cells of the body being renewed. Infinite change and eternal renewal. I thought I knew how to control the Force but this… no control. All the energy of the Dark and more, and I was meant to ride the edge of it - exist in all things at once, and always. It knocked me flat, to even try and catch a corner. I tried to pin it down and it laid me out without even noticing.” He looks again to the light at his shoulder, the smile in his eyes. “She laughed at me. Often. The world delighted her.”

“You were her protector?”

“No, small brother. I was her student. The sages of this temple, they did not fear me at all - they pitied me. To know either the Dark or the Light but not both, not the flow of one into the other? That was the Force for them, anything less was stilted half-measures - trying to fly with a broken wing, and one that I’d snapped of my own will. I knew less than their youngest initiate - worse, for all I that thought I knew. It might take a lifetime just to unlearn - but I wanted to. I’m not sure I had ever known what it was to want before.”

Obi-Wan wonders if the rest of the Sith had ever considered just walking away - someone they didn’t want disappearing into a place they didn’t care about. It would have been easy just to forget about him. He remembers thinking that maybe, just maybe, if he could prove to the Council he wasn’t a threat - but what if it’s not about anything he does or doesn’t do? Were the Mandalorians really a threat worthy of the Dral’han, and all that came after? If Obi-Wan scuttled off, found some small, empty corner of the galaxy to die in, they might allow it - but if he refuses to disappear? He’s a threat the same way this Sith was a threat, simply by existing against expectation.

“I told them to leave me be. I told them to leave the temple be - and when they came for me, I tore them in two until they let us be.” Hard to imagine him wielding a lightsaber. Hard to imagine he’d ever need to bother. “I knew they would do their damage and wage their wars, but I was foolish enough to think it didn’t matter, that I could protect what I claimed as my own. I thought I was that much of a Sith, at least. Arrogance. Of all my faults, I never believed - but I suppose that is the point of arrogance.”

The Sith pauses, and the little lights beneath the hood tremble, dim and flicker.

When we saw it coming, the strongest among them believed they might provide some protection for their temple, their people, if they entered the Force willingly before they could be torn apart. I put them to the saber because I could not join them, could not help them. Not that it changed much at all. I can’t tell you what exactly broke this planet, or why - accident or overreach. That long-awaited coup gone wrong. Or perhaps Lete had always thought he was their equal, and could not stand to learn they felt otherwise. But I don’t… I don’t believe it was ever truly about power, not for him. I think that, in the end, he was trying to… break the Dark itself. Split it apart into what he could control and… make it stop. Make himself something that would never fear again.” The Sith gestures out into the dark. “And now we linger in the aftermath.”

“I’m… supposed to take that power.” Obi-Wan says. “My… I was told that I could use it.” Obi-Wan reaches out, reaches for the Dark - it aches, an overextended muscle, but the connection is still there. “I have people counting on me to be strong, to save them, but I can’t…. this place is in so much pain. I can’t…”

“I would show you something, small brother. It is of no real consequence, but it was mine.”

He hasn’t made a good decision yet, why not say yes? Genet would almost certainly still see fit to intervene, wouldn’t he, if this were all part of some complicated trap - like two rancor fighting over the same nerf. But if he’s as true as he’s seemed so far… this is all that remains of him, a shade standing as a bulwark for the last small, safe harbor. Everything he knew and saw and lived all gone, if not with this place then simply lost to time. A loneliness so absolute it makes him ache.

“What’s your name?”

"I don’t… remember. I think it had something to do with the snow."

“Okay. Show me.” Obi-Wan says, and braces himself - but there is nothing to brace himself for, only a soft puff of dust beneath his feet - and when he looks up, a void that makes his breath catch. The whole of the living universe, everything he’s ever known reduced to gauze of smoke, scattered here and there with a few dim stars. He’s standing now on a long plinth, an overlook on a small moon or what might even be just a large asteroid. A few hints that the floor beneath his feet was once carved and decorated, a few stones that may have been a wall, an archway. No other signs of life, this place not big enough for any kind of civilization, not even an outpost. Nothing to justify itself.

“Ancient mysteries.”

“The furthest temple, on the edge of the furthest sky. Supposedly of the Sith, but there is nothing to mark it so. It is rare, that we would act without purpose - and this place seems to have no purpose at all. I was only here the once, but the memory of it has followed me all the way here. I think it is the first time I truly wondered what might lay beyond all I thought I knew.”

One hand outstretched in front of him, and Obi-Wan has the whole of the Core measured out between his fingertips, little more than a pale blur at this distance. Terrifying and humbling and beautiful, something vast and unknown rising up inside of him, something he can feel but not name - the Force, perhaps, but not like he’s ever felt. It feels like he is looking at the horizon line of everything that has been or will ever be. He wants to hide his eyes, to run away. He never wants to move, to stay here forever.

"A beauty in being alone. In listening to that silence."

It happened at the Temple now and then, usually one of the older Masters but sometimes even a Knight - they would leave the Order and just… disappear into the universe, point themselves out at the stars on some private pilgrimage. Sometimes they came back, or another Jedi would mention briefly crossing paths. Other times, they simply vanished. Surely, there must have been a few Sith like this, like that story of Leraikha, inspired to do the same. What would that even mean, what was a Sith without anything to challenge or dominate or control?

"Awe tucks itself in the shadow of fear. Turn it this way and that in your mind and you can catch a glimpse, like the glint of light off kyber."

He must have bled his crystal, the way they all did. Obi-Wan wonders if he regretted it, in the end.

“I… don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

The thing is, some part of Obi-Wan must already know what’s going to happen next. Maybe it’s not even a betrayal. Maybe there is nothing else, no reason to discuss the options when there really aren’t any. In any case, the Sith doesn’t look amused or cruel. Sink and swim, Genet had said, as one large hand gently shoves Obi-Wan backwards over the edge.

====================

“Facedown on a battlefield is no way to go through life, kid.” Arla says, because not joking means a lot of concussive swearing that will give away their position to anything still alive to hear it. Or maybe just her position, maybe he’s already - kriff, he looks bad off this time, pale and still and bleeding from the kriffing eyes. Arla yanks a glove off with her teeth, goes for his pulse and feels her own heart jump around in her chest unhelpfully for a long moment until - there. Weak and thready, but there. She keeps glancing at the sky, but so far no more rocks. Maybe even this place needs to catch its breath before trying something like that again.

It’s eerily still, with clouds of impact dust hanging in the air. No gunfire, no screaming, just ships tilted or knocked off their landing gear, and slumped shapes of all sizes everywhere under a pale blanket of debris - something wrong about that, that shouldn’t be - but Arla doesn’t have the chance to think about it long as the kid’s body jerks and gasps in her arms, choking on the dust and Arla’s sprinting toward the closest ship that seems vaguely in one piece. Opens the hatch ready to fire, but the air is only stale, empty time and old metal, and she drags him inside out of the worst of it. Unloads the very last of her emergency kit into his veins, a combination of drugs and stims that could stabilize a dead man. The kid still looks like trampled osik, and Arla risks leaving him for the scant few moments it takes to enter the co*ckpit, punch buttons and flip switches - nothing. The Kyr’tsad ship’s still the best bet for something that will get them out. Focus, Arla. Deep breath, reload. Leave the jetii’ika here until you can make sure the path is clear, maybe find a helmet that might fit him, to keep the worst of the dust out, and then -

Arla has her blaster pointed at the sound before it even makes any sense - a dragging sound, a low and gargling sort of sound - and it still doesn’t make sense when the body lurches up the ramp missing half its head but it still seems to see her fine, broken body lunging in an impossible sprint and not even noticing the shots she fires off into it, the club in its hand nearly shattering her shoulder with the swing and it’s still coming, the other arm ready to strangle her or dig out her throat and Arla brings the Darksaber up and around, clips that arm at the elbow, the other at the shoulder and it still takes both legs falling away to drop it, and even then it twitches on the ground and doesn’t stop.

The bodies had vanished before, disappearing into light and dust when they’d died. That was what she’d noticed, but hadn’t understood. Maybe the planet had decided to change tactics. Maybe enough people have gone down this time, that it has a few more options to play with.

Arla walks slowly down the ramp, the sounds of shuffling and uneven, rasping sounds from various levels of working throats echoing all around her - and she hits the button to close the door, buy the jetii’ika a few more minutes, if that even matters anymore.

The dark profile of a growing crowd moving through the dust - and then more gathering, and more. Odd shapes, some missing arms, or heads. The sound of hands and claws dragging bits and pieces along the ground. All that’s left of all that fighting, forced back to its feet by this spiteful schutta of a hell planet and pointed right at her. Sure. Why the kriff not.

“I always knew it was going to end stupid.” Arla glances down at the Darksaber. “You were a surprise.” As usual, it has no comment.

A long, guttural moan from close by, a snarling growl with, perhaps even some wet remnant of her name. A glint of battered beskar. Arla fires up the blade, a thermal detonator in her free hand.

“All right then - round two. Try to impress me this time.”

=====================

Falling. Again.

Obvious metaphor.

Tumbling through an infinite void, the kind of nothing that takes weeks of lightspeed to cross.

No. Obi-Wan doesn’t have anything like that kind of time, even in this timeless place. No.

The weave of a rope, the line of a fence beneath his hand, the warp and weft and all of it Dark, a pattern to hold in his mind. The Sith deliberately changing the way this place flowed through him, the way he understood it, binding it to him or trying to give him some control - there’s a power there, but Obi-Wan can’t even try to examine what he’s been given, what he might do with it without the threat of being subsumed by the memories it’s made of. The Dark is not clean and uncomplicated, matted and gnarled with emotion and memory and regret - the bone-aching cold of that fence in the snow, what it meant to look back on a place that was never loved but still know it as home, to feel even that enmity vanish in the distance of eons.

The Sith probably have a way to strip away what is inefficient from the raw power they need, how to ignore such distractions, but Obi-Wan doesn’t know those things and wouldn’t want to learn. The only thing he can do is breathe, try to let all that emotion pass through him and even that doesn’t work, any hope at calm instantly snagged on the fears of what must be happening where he’s not. Arla is fighting, she’s outnumbered and she needs him and Obi-Wan needs to find a way forward and out, some kind of distraction or disruption, long enough to -

A light, small but steady. A single point of brightness in the dark, and… familiar in the Force, which is when Obi-Wan realizes somewhere along the way he’s stopped falling. He looks up, and…

“Oh no. No no no.” Obi-Wan snatches the light out of the air, cradles it carefully between his hands, well away from the empty abyss that stretches out beneath his feet, all around them. Wet stone, rough-cut jet and obsidian gleaming but that’s just translation, that’s just the Force giving him something to think he’s seeing. In the physical world, it’s a sterile room of lifeless ornament, repeating over and over again across the whole world. In the Force… well, here he is, in the center of this world’s last terrible mistake - the battery, the well of power. The Sith had sent him here - why? What did he think Obi-Wan could do? Maybe there is no greater plan. Maybe it seemed as good an idea as any.

“Why are you here?” Obi-Wan whispers to the light that dances between his fingertips. “He could protect you. He could keep you safe, and I can’t. You should have stayed with him. I don’t - I can’t keep you safe.“

Out there somewhere, his body’s still breathing, but when he dies this place will rip him to pieces the same way it has everything else. One more haunted, desperate remnant that can do nothing more than lure others to the same doom.

“What do I do? What… what do I do?”

One step at a time, Obi-Wan. The gentle, encouraging voice of his crechemaster, whenever he had been angry, impatient and frustrated. Overwhelmed, when he knew he wasn’t as good as he should be, when all the ways forward seemed equally distant, forever past his reach. If you can’t do everything, do what you can.

He can… stop panicking. He can breathe, or whatever passes for breathing in this place. Exist. Just exist. Feel the warmth of the the little light, bouncing back and forth in the loose cage of his hands - not a person, not enough left for that, but bright and… here with him, so he doesn’t have to be alone. And in that kindness, in that space between the two of them - the Force. The Light. The feeling that quiets the fear, if he’ll let it. If he gets himself out of the way to listen.

He’s still afraid, and even quieter, the fear is just fear. If the Sith had tried to teach him any lessons, Obi-Wan didn’t learn them well at all - but there is an echo of that fear, far away, and that’s when Obi-Wan realizes his connection to the planet has been stretched out to the very thinnest of threads, all those jumbled, tattered fragments of what had lived here straining to be as far away as they can from this place.

The one who did this, he was trying to split the Force, he wanted to carve off the fear from the rest, make it obey, make it go away forever. Obi-Wan exhales slow, once and again, tries to let his own fear go, the confusion and the skittering panic that time is running out, has already run out. Silence his own mind and listen and there’s… nothing, from what’s below him. The Force, yet not quite the Force - blank and still and frozen, scoured clean of any trace of living, any memory of what it should be.

The Dark, the chaos of this planet struggles against him like battle cruisers tied to kite strings. The closer it comes to this emptiness the closer it comes to remembering what happened, to remembering that day and the screaming and the fear and the confusion and the pain worse than pain and it does not want to get closer it does not want to remember.

Oh… and that’s the trap, isn’t it? Simple, really. What can still move in the Force is in terrible pain, but too afraid to look back, to afraid to feel the whole of what happened to reconnect to what was hurt. Eternally doomed to try and tear itself free from what it will never escape, the other half of itself.

Come here.

No.

Obi-Wan grits his teeth, digs in with everything he’s got.

Come here.

No no no no no.

I know. Obi-Wan says gently. I know that it hurts, that you don’t want to ever hurt like that again. I know you don’t want to remember, but I don’t think it’s going change any other way.

He pulls, slow but deliberate, demanding - one long, trembling moment as the Dark moves forward, and he almost -

NO.

It tears itself away, lashing out in terror and rage, hurling him to the ground. Obi-Wan hits hard and gracelessly, knocked senseless - and the light he’d been carrying tumbles from his grasp, swallowed instantly by the surface of the abyss, vanishing without a trace.

“Oh no. No, no please no.” Obi-Wan scrambles forward, digging painfully against the unyielding darkness with his bare hands, hears himself begging for what he already knows is irrecoverable. “Please, no. No, please. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He’s failed her, this last glimmer of hope - and everyone else on this planet. He’s failed Arla and Jango, Cal and Trilla and all of them. He already lost Cerasi, when he’d sworn, when he and Nield had sworn to each other - why would he think now should be different, just because he wanted it to be? Just because he tried?

It’s suddenly very easy to feel empty. Easy to just stay where he is.

“I understand. I don’t want to but I do.” Obi-Wan says, the cold burning against his cheek, where his palm presses against the smooth surface. “It feels like power, not to feel anything at all. When everything is terrible and nothing makes any sense and all you can do is lose.” And he was a initiate in the Order, the worst of his trials and tribulations were still the version with the gloves on. Imagine a universe where not being good enough meant not being at all, where every moment was a challenge just to survive. “You wanted to make yourself something no one could hurt. Someone with nothing left to take away.” Good Jedi don’t see so much dark in themselves, not like this, not over and over again - and Obi-Wan isn’t sure he believes as much in good Jedi anymore, but it’s his oldest dream and it won’t go away just because he thinks it should. “They told you that the pain would make you strong, but it was just pain. I’m sorry.”

He’s got nothing left. The Light is gone, and even the Dark is far away and won’t listen, and Obi-Wan’s… got nothing left.

“It’ll be okay. It will be.” Funny that even now, even here some part of him still believes it. Genet thinks the Force is primal indifference and he’s got a few millennia on what Obi-Wan thinks he knows. Odds are, he’s just a stupid child - but the first thing he still thinks of when he thinks of the Force is the Light, and it is benevolent. And if the sages on their mountain were right, then the great, wending mural on the mountain, the whole howling world and the vast silence beneath him - it’s all the same. The Force is fluid, ever changing, and if Obi-Wan believes what he says he believes, this is temporary. All things are, and the Force connects it all, and out there beyond this terrible place the stars are singing and worlds are alive and everything is in motion.

The very slightest tremble, beneath his hand. A whisper of a dream of memory.

Obi-Wan has never been the strongest in the Force. It’s been dedication, trial and error where there’s no one to see. Trying to cultivate patience, to always look for opportunities. He listens. Even when he can’t do anything else, he can keep listening, letting his awareness seep down into the terrible, frozen emptiness and what is it, how must it work? If he’s in the Force then this, this is also the Force, and if it’s the Force then it wants to move, it would never be so still on its own. So what’s blocking it, Kenobi? How do you block the Force with the Force - and he ignores the cold, the unnatural emptiness and lets his focus sink further in, the twists and turns and tangles of the Sith’s dark-

A labyrinth. No, perhaps it had been intended to be something elaborate and finely crafted, but this is only a snarled heap. The Force bound up so tightly in itself it can’t flow free, not remembering how it’s supposed to be, that it ever moved at all. Half the life on this planet tied up in that tangle, infinite tiny prisons - I see you. I see all of you - and he remembers the Sith above, remembers the fence that was no fence at all, just manipulations in the Force, the patterns he was shown.

At first it feels impossible, more difficult than any effort he’s ever made with the Force before, than anything he’d imagined he could try. Clumsy fumblings with a borrowed, shorthand language of power. The few scraps of knowledge the Sith had thought might be useful before throwing him into the fray - but this isn’t the first time Obi-Wan’s had to learn as he goes, not the first new language he’s had to pick up along the way. A dozen silent codes on Melida-Daan, in gestures across battlefields, or left in scatterings of sticks and stones.

So he focuses all his attention on his task - testing the tension, pulling at threads and trying to find purchase, to work even a single strand free. It will work, if he has to stay here until the last star burns out. A knot that is tied can be untied. All is possible with the Force.

Ages pass, epochs of time slip by and then he focuses there and twists here and - one loop unfurls itself. The slightest ease in the tension, a little more slack to work with - but with each knot undone the next comes easier and Obi-Wan is hardly Obi-Wan anymore - only the thread, and the pulling of that thread - and he feels a slow shudder - a flicker of power like the glint of water on stone they used to look for, obsessively, in the depths of the mines - and Obi-Wan thinks distantly that he’s not wrong there, that there’s a momentum building behind a crack in a wall. It’s waking up, and he works and he works until finally Obi-Wan’s no longer undoing a knot, but watching a great and terrible pattern begin to unweave on its own, Sith control unraveling under his hands and that sense of power growing and growing, burning so bright Obi-Wan can feel the edges of himself giving way - but so wild and alive, so vibrant in its waking he can’t remember why he should care.

Go on. Go.

No chance at control, to even think to hold on would obliterate him - and that might happen regardless, what’s set into motion now inevitable, racing well ahead of him and so Obi-Wan just… lets go, lets himself blur into it, drowning in relief and reunion and freedom and freedom and freedom.

I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me, and I… I am… the Force is…

The Force is.

================================

A soft wind from the east, and he sways with it, feels the rustling across his petals. Warmth in the soil, a suggestion of the bright day approaching, on its way and good for growing, for tilting leaves into the light and stretching his roots into the soil and -

Wait. No. Wait.

The first breath is awful, the second isn’t much better, accompanied by a harsh staccato of broken coughs, remembering that he has lungs to push the air in and out and grimacing at the brightness, the flickering - those are eyes, those are eyelids and - ow, yes, that’s his hand he just slapped himself with. It feels like every bone and muscle carries triple the weight, all he can do just to tip his head and wait for his vision to focus. Looming shapes of ships all around them - no sign of anyone else, just a quiet wind that feels fresh and cool and damp - alive, somehow, the kind of thing he wouldn’t notice on a normal planet, but here?

A field of pale blossoms all around them, small green shoots growing up between cracks in the earth and that color alone is enough to leave him awestruck for another long moment. Obi-Wan reaches out, brushes a finger against the tiny flower, half to see if it’s real and half to see if motor control is still an option.

It takes a moment, staring up at the sky to realize why it’s so strange. An unimpeded view to the horizon, no trails of debris. No broken moon.

No moon?

The peak of that power is a blank, white spot in his memory, a piece of flimsi burned past even an afterimage. The Force of an entire planet roaring out when the last binding had snapped, and all that power had to go somewhere. No moon. Did he… was he part of, did he actually blow up the…?

He’ll think about that later.

“…’la. Arla?” He coughs, gasps again, dry tongue in a dust-strewn mouth - words, that’s how they work. The more he moves, the more it hurts, but not in an immediately dying way so he’ll take it. He thinks he can feel her in the Force - the Force as it ought to feel, even if trying to focus on it is well beyond him at the moment. “Arla, are you okay?”

“I think… I was grass?” Arla says, blinking at the sky. “I think I was grass.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Obi-Wan manages. “Am I bleeding from the eyes?”

“Little bit still maybe.” Arla says. “Kriff the Force, by the way. Kriff all you jetiise and your whole kriffing…” Arla weakly waves the Darksaber around, and then flips off the hilt with her free hand. “Kriffing jetii osik. Unbelievable.”

“That’s… fair.” Obi-Wan says, still vaguely astonished there’s a him left to do things like breathe and blink and look at the Darksaber.

Did you… do this? He thinks. Set all this up, bring us here, because you wanted me to fix it?

The Darksaber, of course, is a humble, silent weapon that doesn’t make plans.

“I’m not going to ask just what you did, jetii’ika, and you’re never going to tell me.” Arla says. “I was grass.”

It’s quiet, but finally there’s nothing trapped or lurking behind it, nothing screaming in the silences - it’s just quiet, and the wind is gentle, sifting through the drifts of what were once ornate prison walls. All crumbled away now, from what he can see - and it’s still sad, all that dust where there should have been a world - but there’s potential here. Obi-Wan can feel it, a Force that shifts and moves and echoes, even so faintly, with the song of the stars. All those lost fragments, frozen in time, have thawed and may grow again, like the small plants around them. Clouds will form, water will fall, cycles will return. New people will come, bringing new life, tilling the fertile soil and making new patterns within the Force. Maybe somewhere out there, there’s even a remnant of these people who survived, maybe some escaped before the end. Maybe they’re still hoping and listening, and one day they’ll hear of home.

“… where the kriff is the kriffing moon?”

Obi-Wan laughs, and it hurts but that’s all right. A hurt that means he’s still got a body to laugh with.

A familiar tall shadow falls over him, though Genet is already blurred and fading fast, as the sky fully tips over into a new dawn.

Well, little one. You have my attention.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

“Wampakriffing bantha jagyc.”

It’s funny, Obi-Wan thinks as his eyes snap open, that if Arla was yelling it would be less likely to wake him up. Not that he’d meant to fall asleep, he’d just sat down for a moment in between tasks - they have more stims now, but Arla adamantly refuses to give any more to anyone who’s going to get himself exploded three times in less than twelve hours.

Obi-Wan says the third time doesn’t count if neither of them know exactly what happened, and Arla says he’s not old enough for that kind of logic.

It’s taken longer than either of them have liked, just putting themselves together enough to try and get off the planet. Three ships in all the wreckage that had still seemed relatively spaceworthy, with working systems and engines still willing to fire. Arla had stopped looking after that, focusing on fixing up the minor damage to the Kyr’tsad ship, on pulling unlock codes from the vambraces of the dead crew. Pillaging their supplies, the both of them devouring ration bars and water packs and cup tiingilar with a little packet of special fried crispy bits on top and kriff, there was a time when Obi-Wan thought he’d need to win a Temple tournament to feel quite this victorious.

He’s hardly okay, but considering the possibilities, it’s not worth complaining. The Force feels… off, slipping through his attempts to even focus on it, let alone control it - but this time the damage is all with him, not the planet. He’d obviously overdone it and then some, but he can’t bring himself to regret it, so the worrying is pointless. The Sith and the little priestess and all that remained of everyone, returned to the Force. He’s happy for that, even if he wishes he could have known them better, known them for real. It’s still going to take some time for him to process everything that happened, and he desperately needs to meditate instead of just passing out the moment he stops moving.

“What’s wrong? What is it?”

Of course, there isn’t the really the time for either.

“Nothing, kid.” Arla says, eyes firmly fixed on the screen. “Go back to sleep.”

Obi-Wan looks at her, and waits, and looks and waits and looks until Arla sighs.

“Just… catching up on what’s been going on in the galaxy while we’ve been having fun.”

Cal and Trilla are still alive, Obi-Wan knows that, the connection faint but unwavering. Alive can mean a lot of things, but he’s had to hope for the best for the sake of focusing on anything else. Including the questions he has to think about now he’s survived all this. Whatever he is now, whatever it means going forward - is he safe to be around them anymore?

Trilla’s already seen so much ugliness - they both have. Obi-Wan won’t bring more of that into their lives, whatever the kriff Genet has to say about it. The phantom’s gone again, no trace of him inside Obi-Wan’s mind - still there though, if everything he’s said is true. Still watching and listening, but he can’t communicate. It’s not like it takes an immortal Sith lord to let him know things are still plenty kriffed.

A slowly rising tide of anxiety, fear and tension that’s been growing stronger with each hour that passes, the closer they get to leaving - and it’s not Obi-Wan’s, and he doesn’t have to ask why.

“Where’s the Mand’alor?”

“The Kyr’tsad’s taking more losses than wins - a couple of big ones since we landed. All kinds of chatter in the background, who’s to blame and what to do - the ruug'la Vizsla are always grumbling about something. It won’t come to anything, it never kriffing does. But… he’s moving. Changing strategies. The Mand’alor’s pulling back to Manda’yaim.”

“No.” Now that spike of fear? That’s all his. “The camp? He’s going to the camp.”

Arla nods slowly. “Can’t tell how long it’ll take - looks like Kryze isn’t making it easy, trying to keep them pinned down - but he’s on his way.”

Maybe Tor was preparing to make use of Jango somehow, or had a new strategy with the camp as a pivot point, or some other permanent or temporary design. It doesn’t really matter, if brings his forces into the camp, fortifies their numbers, there is no chance of anyone getting out. After that… either the Mand’alor scatters the ade between camps on some even more barren piece of the planet, or another planet entirely - or he simply... liquidates what’s more trouble than he wants to deal with at the moment, cold calculation or sheer indifference. All their lives are of far less value to him than the ships he could park in their place, even if only for the night.

“I need to… I need to get some air.” Obi-Wan manages, out of his chair and out of the ship, shaky-legged down the cargo ramp and focus, he has to focus, try to detangle his own panic from what he knows is Arla’s and it’s not that she’s any worse about keeping it locked away than she used to be, but this… it’s cold, and it’s sharp, a hand against his chest and the chill tension gathered there - it’s what the Sith gave him, a part of all that he knew woven into whatever he’d passed on to Obi-Wan, tied to him in the Force. The fear, how it collected and the paths it traveled in the Dark, and Obi-Wan can just feel it now, far easier than before, Arla’s dread much like his own, though with far more broken branches and deeper, twisted roots.

She’ll die, if she goes back. Obi-Wan knows that with more certainty than any Force vision he’s ever had - neither of them are the person they were when they left Mandalore, and the person Arla is now can’t survive Tor Vizsla.

He needs to return, immediately. Needs to get Jango out and the younglings away from the camp before Tor arrives. Obi-Wan needs to go back and Arla needs to disappear, someplace as far away from the Kyr’tsad and the war as possible.

When the answer comes to him, Obi-Wan waits for a better one. And waits. And waits.

———————————

The second ship is smaller than what the Kyr’tsad brought, older and worn around all the edges but it still runs and all the systems still work and he’s shadowed Arla enough to have some idea of what he’s looking for.

Obi-Wan sits on the edge of the pilot’s seat and stares at nothing for a while, curses himself for all the things he swore he wouldn’t do - as if that’s anything new- and reaches for the control panel, the external comms.

He has no idea what time it is, back on Coruscant. If the ship will even be able to broadcast so far. If he remembers the numbers right or if the code’s changed after all this time. Maybe he moved, or is out on on a mission. It could be the wrong room or no one’s there and what does he even think he’s…

“… middle of the kriffing night, but sure, why not? Any more beauty sleep and it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the galaxy. Hello?”

Obi-Wan bites down hard on his knuckles past the sudden, overwhelming wave of longing and sorrow and home and he’s lucky there’s no one Force sensitive on this husk of rock, can’t even imagine what he has to be projecting.

He’s so tired. He’s so kriffing tired and there’s still so far to go.

Quinlan sighs. “Okay, just wanted to make sure I was nice and worn out before tomorrow’s trials? Thanks for that. Come on, don’t be shy. Now I’m intrigued. Animal, vegetable, mineral? Sexy mineral?” Oh, this was a terrible mistake. It’s too much, hearing him now and he has no right to drag him into - “… Obi-Wan?”

His friend’s voice trembles, caught between uncertainty and what might be hope. “Obes? Is that you? Where are you? Are you safe?”

Do not answer. Hang up. Find another way. He deserves better. Hang up, hang up, don’t you dare-

“… hey there, Quin.”

An explosion of extremely colorful swearing in several languages that suggests his friend’s been on a few missions here and there since last they spoke.

“Kriff, Obi-Wan, where have you been? What happened? Are you all right? They said you left the Order, that you just walked away. I hear the way Jinn told it, you practically Fell.” He can hear the pause, as Quinlan takes a breath, brings himself deliberately down into the Vos version of calm. “So… how’s that going? Pros and cons?”

Obi-Wan chokes on a broken laugh. Oh, and if Qui-Gon Jinn could kriffing see him now…

“Force, I missed you, Quin.” It’s amazing how fast being reminded his friend just exists can make any situation seem bearable, takes the worst of the sting out of all his fears. Quinlan has always rolled with almost everything the galaxy could throw at him, and maybe even this.

“Obes, what happened?”

“Well, I met a girl.” Obi-Wan smiles, because he knows the laugh it’s going to get, and Quinlan doesn’t disappoint.

“Oh kriff off, the infallible Obi-Wan Kenobi did not leave the Order because of a girl.” He says. “Is she pretty?”

“She was beautiful.” He can feel himself trembling a little, but his voice is steady enough. “Strong and smart and brave. All she wanted to do was give her home a future, to protect everyone that she could. They needed me. It was a war and it was terrible and I couldn’t… I couldn’t look away from what was happening. I couldn’t walk away, just because I was told to, because I had an easy out - it wasn’t right, Quin. Master Qui-Gon had to get Master Tahl out of there but I couldn’t… they needed me to stay.” His throat tightens. “Master Tahl, did she make it? Is she all right?”

“Yeah.” Quin says. “We got her back. Her sight didn’t… the healers couldn’t save that, but trust and believe she can still tell whenever I’m trying to prank Bant.” Obi-Wan smiles. It’s sad that she couldn’t be healed completely, but given how they’d found her, the worst case - but she’s home now, she’s safe. “She was in bad shape, Obes.” Quin’s voice is hollow. “I thought about it a lot after, what they did to her for no reason at all. And you fighting out there all alone. Then they said you were dead, but I knew… I would have felt it. I would have known if you were gone.”

It’s not really a surprise, if that’s the official story. Nield might have even considered it the truth, or that it would be soon enough.

“I’m sorry.” Impossible to get through life without hurting anyone, it seems, even the people he cares for the most. “I didn’t… I didn’t expect it to turn out the way it did. Any of it.” He’d thought the Jedi would come back, maybe because he stayed behind. Even if Qui-Gon hated the sight of him, even if it had nothing to do with him anymore, Obi-Wan thought that they’d at least send someone back to stop the fighting.

“Melida/Daan, right? Or Melidaan… whatever they’re calling it now.” Quin says - and Obi-Wan wonders just how much his friend knows, whether he was given the full report or found a more efficient way to acquire the information. He was inclined to be a Shadow long before any formal training. “Are you still there? If I’m in the neighborhood, maybe I’ll drop by.” A long pause, too long, and something in his voice both urgent and gentle somehow. “Obi-Wan, tell me where you are.”

“I’m not there anymore.” Obi-Wan looks around, the helpless laugh coming on its own - where even to kriffing begin? “I…I’m afraid things are… really kind of complicated right now, Quin. I just… I… “

Obi-Wan swallows back what feels like a lifetime’s worth of words, the surge of fear and relief and longing so strong he can’t breathe around it. It’s just… too much, all at once, and whatever he thought he was going to say has scattered. He presses his head hard against his folded arms and swallows back a sudden rush of tears, fumbling for any scrap of control.

The galaxy has never felt quite this endless, the distance between here and anywhere he actually wants to be so insurmountable. It’s not like he’s forgotten any of what he’s learned - the Jedi are not some pure, unblemished guardians of all that is good. Even if he could go back, he can’t simply do what he’s told anymore and trust that it’s right, just because the Council says so. Still, he misses the Temple. His friends. The peace of it, the solace and tranquility of so many familiar presences in a quiet oasis in the Force. A place where things made sense and didn’t happen faster than he could react to and every decision wasn’t life and death and wasn’t always his to make.

“I’m with you.” Quinlan says, softly. “The Force is with you, Obes, and so am I. No matter how far apart we are, wherever you are I’m right there.”

It is astonishing how much it matters, even if he’s going to have to face it alone, just to know that a good person out there somewhere gives a kriff about what happens to him.

Obi-Wan takes a few slow, silent breaths, until he’s sure that at least his voice won’t crack.

“Listen, Quin, I don’t… there’s a couple of younglings. If you ever happen to… Cal Kestis, Trilla Sudari - you ever hear either of those names, I need you to find them and bring them to the Temple. Get them someplace safe. They’re brave and smart - the best. Strong in the Force. Trilla… you’d really like her, Quin. I think she might actually appreciate your terrible sense of humor.”

“It’s not my fault I operate at a higher level.” Quin says. “So, what, are you taking in Padawans now?”

Obi-Wan laughs. “No. I don’t know… maybe, a little.” If it means wanting what’s best for them. If it means hoping they’ll be safe to learn and grow - even if they’re too old, even if they end up in the Corps, at least that’s something. A safe place, a chance to decide what they wanted next. Obi-Wan could return to the Force and be fine with it, just knowing they were all right, that they’d get an opportunity at the kind of lives they deserved.

“I need… I need to ask a favor, Quin. It’s going to be kind of a big one.”

“Name it.”

“I have someone else - she’ll come find you, soon. She needs help. A place to… hide out, for a little while. A mind healer, maybe. She got involved in… some bad things. A lot of really bad things. She’s hurt, more than I have any idea how to fix - but I think if she got some rest and some help, she’d be better, she might be okay. I know that it’s a lot to ask, but I need you to do this for me. I need you to get her someplace safe for a while. Please.”

“Yeah. Okay, all right. Where are you?”

“Promise me, Quin.”

“I promise.”

“I never wanted to leave.” Obi-Wan blurts, not what he meant to say but the words spill out anyway. “I didn’t want it to happen like it - and I didn’t… I didn’t Fall. I swear to you that I would never - I wouldn’t give up like that. I wouldn’t ever hurt any of you. Not ever, not for anything. No matter what it looks like, no matter what anyone says, I swear. Please, I need you to-“

“You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t kriffing know you, Obi-Wan?” Quin almost sounds angry, offended at the thought, and the relief is so strong that it hurts. “I’m never going to not be on your side, idiot. Not if it was you and me against the whole galaxy. Now, will you just tell me where-“

Obi-Wan cuts the call.

Quin missed him. All this time. He wasn’t angry - or even if he was, he still cared. He hadn’t just given up and moved on and forgotten. Quinlan didn’t know the worst of - he really didn’t know - but if there’s anyone in the galaxy who might still give Obi-Wan the benefit of the doubt, who might meet him face-to-face and not immediately go for his saber…

Not now. Not anytime soon, but maybe… maybe someday. If Obi-Wan survives whatever’s coming next, and whatever’s after that. Quin’s a Shadow in training, and he’ll end up all kinds of places - and Obi-Wan wouldn’t ask anything from him. No bending any vows, no more favors. Nothing would have to change - just a meal, a conversation. Even just once would be enough.

Obi-Wan brushes the heel of his hand hard against his eyes, breathes shallow and sniffling until the ache in his chest begins to fade, until he’s ready to keep going. Luckily it’s only Arla he’s facing, and even when they were enemies he didn’t have to pretend to be all right - she already knew you didn’t have be all right to keep moving.

She’s standing outside the ship, last minute prep or just stretching, enjoying a moment in the newly fresh air or waiting on him. No one could ever tell, just by looking, that she was anything but ready to go. The fear thrums in the air around her.

“You ready to get going?”

“You’re not coming with me.”

Arla blinks, slightly amused, as if waiting for the punchline.

“… you wanna run that by me again, jetii’ika?“

“You can’t go back to him, Arla. You can’t”

Not amused anymore. Obi-Wan’s saying the specific thing they’ve gotten along very well all this time not talking about.

“We’re not friends. Not on Mandalore.” Obi-Wan pushes, before she can stop him. “You’re the Mand’alor’s enforcer and I’m a temporary asset. If you go back, he’ll make you hurt your brother again and again, and when Jango doesn’t turn because he never will, Tor will kill him and you’ll die trying to stop it. Or he’ll kill one of you in front of the other, just because he can. Or he’ll tell you to kill me, and when you don’t - Arla, you already know how this ends.”

The flare of real violence behind her eyes, tensing up like she’s about to strike - and she hesitates with what likely would have been some vicious, cutting reply, because she doesn’t want to hurt him, not really. Only so angry because that’s what she doesn’t want, and they both know how easily the worst might happen anyway. Arla hates herself for it, that he can see her weakness, that she doesn’t have a plan, that she can't ever protect anything when it matters - Obi-Wan staggers with the weight of all of that in the Force, breathes and lets it pass.

“He’ll know that you’ve changed.”

She scowls at him again, because he’s talking about the other thing they don’t talk about - that she’s a good person. Where it counts.

“This is osik, jetii’ika. I don’t need you to tell me-“

“I can hear the part of you that wishes I hadn’t saved you, because you don’t want to go back - and it’s only getting louder.”

Arla’s expression goes tight and blank, and that feeling goes quiet, even if that hardly means it’s gone.

“Is this the other guy in your head, coming up with all this? Saying you can do this on your own?”

“He’d want me use you as a decoy.” Obi-Wan says. “Send you right back there and make sure you were at your worst when I did it, so that Tor would be too busy killing you to even pay attention to some stupid broken dar’jetii’ad.”

“It’s not a bad plan, kid.” Arla says. “What do you think I can even - like I’m just supposed to leave you-“

“This is your chance.” Obi-Wan holds up the Darksaber between them. “This is what buys you a chance. It means more to Tor than anything else in the galaxy. Do you think he could even imagine that you’d ever leave him? That you wouldn’t take it with you, if you did?”

“Kriff, Obi’ka.” Arla leans back on a heel, holds up her hands. “Okay, say I even… consider this dini’la stupid idea, where do you even think I’m supposed to-“

“The Jedi Temple, on Coruscant.”

Arla laughs, incredulous. “Well, you’d be right about Tor not looking there. I can’t imagine they’d be real keen on seeing someone like me.”

“I have someone who can make sure you’re safe for a while. Give you a place to stay. I’ll give you his comm code, you can contact him when you arrive, his name’s Quinlan Vos.” Obi-Wan says. “Arla, when I helped you before on that planet, when I made it… less bad, there are Jedi so much better at it than I am. If you go there, Quin might be able to get someone who can help-“

“Oh, not on your kriffing -“

Obi-Wan raises his hands placatingly.

“I swear, I swear they won’t do anything if you don’t want them to. The healers, they help people in the city - they can’t help everyone, but I know they try when they can, and if all you want to do is sit there in a quiet place and rest, they’ll let you. But I think they.. they might be able to help. Really help.”

“Kriff off, kid. I’m not going to let you-“

“I don’t need you to be brave.” Obi-Wan says, and meets her gaze, and holds it. “I need you to run away.”

“Kriffing - karking… kriff.” Arla snarls, takes a half step back - pacing a tight line, glaring up at him and Obi-Wan doesn’t look away, can’t afford the slightest hint of backing down. She looks a half-second away from either punching him or stunning him and dragging him back to the ship - but she doesn’t do either of these things and just keeps pacing.

Obi-Wan slowly starts shedding his armor - tries not to wince as he feels a shallow gash open up again on his side. Kriff, he could really use a shower inside of a sonic inside of another sonic - but it’ll likely be to his advantage to look as wrecked and desperate as possible. At least that won’t be hard.

Funny, it had been so awkward, heavy and uncomfortable when he’d first put the armor on, and it was never really his, not made to fit him - but it had saved his life at least the once, and he can’t help but set the chestplate down now with some regret, more familiar than he’d ever thought it could be. It’s not the same as a lightsaber, but it’s not nothing, either.

Arla is watching him. She doesn’t look happy - but she hasn’t told him this isn’t happening, hasn’t ordered him to get on the ship.

Obi-Wan clips the Darksaber on his belt, tucks the other saber carefully back in its hidden holster.

“… you are playing a very, very dangerous game here, jetii’ika.”

“I know.” He does. Obi-Wan gave back any great power he might have had a chance to wield, is likely in worse shape than when they arrived - both in and out of the Force - but there’s still some part of this place he’s carrying now. The story of what happened, all those Sith and all their grand plans brought to nothing. The utter devastation, the millennia of suffering - Tor Vizsla just isn’t quite as frightening as he used to be. “Would it help if I told you it was the will of the Force?”

“Would it help if I shot you?” Arla snaps back. “You swear to me, baby Jedi, that you have a plan. One that actually has some chance of working. You promise me, promise me you aren’t just going back there to die.”

“Ori’haat, alor.” As if either of them believe plans are real.

“Banthash*t, mir’sheb’ika.” Finally, she turns away, a hand digging in her loosened braids. “I’m a piece of osik. I’m such a piece of kriffing osik for even - tell me what happens, then. What have you got?”

Obi-Wan lays it out, as much as he can, the plan they always had but didn’t have the knowledge or the resources to attempt. The plan he might have already tried, if Arla hadn’t shown up when she did. Set up a distraction outside the perimeter - he’ll do it, or Trilla, or the both of them. Get a few of the local predators to make some noise, or steal a few of the munitions. The lightsaber the guards aren’t expecting ought to be able to deal with what’s standing between them and the transports - it’s not like anyone expects any real trouble from a bunch of ade. Sneak them all on as fast as possible - Jango pilots one, he pilots the other - sabotage anything that might try to come after them or announce their escape - and fly away.

Obi-Wan is confident he can manage it, after what he’s learned from Arla’s ship - and even before he’s done talking she’s pulling up maps of Mandalore on her vambrace, and there’s the last year of his life all laid out in such small, simple lines, and there’s the most recent view of all the contested borders, fewer factions than he remembers, either dead or gone or united under one group or another - and there’s the place they can run, there’s the open ground and the little canyons no one holds that can hide them while Jango calls for help and the Haat Mandoade will come for House Mereel's heir, they’ll have to come, and Jango swore it would be okay, that the ade would be safe.

“I have a friend in the hangar, he helps them with the ships - he’s never given them any trouble, but I know he’ll help, he wants out.”

“Another ad, of course.” Arla says. “Anyone involved with this plan of yours old enough to know it’s a half-karked idea?”

Obi-Wan knows the smile on his face isn’t a nice one, but he can’t help it. “You’d be surprised what ade can do when we have to.”

He still can’t feel Arla’s emotions, but the lid on them shudders, like something slamming against a chained door. “I was younger than you on my first mission, kid. And I don’t think anything you could do would surprise me anymore.”

A long moment, Arla obviously hoping that Obi-Wan might lose his nerve, and then she sighs, swears again under her breath and pulls him in for a keldabe and holds him there. Obi-Wan feels the words pile up in his throat - of course he can’t do this alone, of course it’s karking crazy, please don’t leave - and swallows them all back.

“Don’t mention my name to anyone else - and don’t tell Quin where I am, no matter how much he asks. He’ll just do something stupid.”

Arla huffs a laugh. “I can’t imagine why you’re friends.”

“You can sell the armor.” He says, gesturing to the pile at his feet. “Use the money to-“

“You let me worry about me, okay ad?” Arla says. “You just… stay alive, you absolute dinii jetii’ika. Stay the kriff away from Tor, and whatever happens - you stay alive.”

“Lek.“

===================

1. Thanks everyone for the super thoughtful and kind comments and kudos.

2. I’m taking one point in ‘space radios work how I need them to for reasons *handwaves*’

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

The knife comes down.

Blue eyes blaze molten gold, and a hand catches Xanatos’ wrist just before the tip of the dagger can pierce the skin, and holds him there, easily.

What is no longer a frightened boy strapped to a table looks along the edge of the blade - up, and across, tilting his head in consideration as Xanatos glares down at him - and what was once Obi-Wan Kenobi smiles.

All kind of warnings in the mines - floods, cave-ins, the industrial consequences of steel on flesh. Xanatos has never thought twice about it, the day-to-day of this operation like any business he’s been a part of, all taking place when he’s not there.

The Force push hits as hard as any explosion could, and he feels something snap, low in his chest, as he’s thrown into the table behind him, contents scattering as he skids across the top, before tumbling off into a wheezing, pained pile on the floor.

The thing that was his almost-lineage brother doesn’t bother to watch him land, glancing instead at the restraint on his other wrist, which clicks open without complaint, the bindings on his ankles quickly following suit. Obi-Wan is holding the dagger, taken from Xanatos’ hand even as he was thrown, and studies it as well for a moment before tossing it aside. Stretches his arms out instead, examining his pale, slim hands, front and back.

Xanatos rises slowly, hair falling inelegantly into his eyes - not so arrogant that he can’t realize when a situation is swiftly sliding out of his control. He fumbles in his pocket, finds the remote detonator meant for just such an occasion. Presses the button. Twice. Three times. Looks up to see eyes that flicker as they burn, the amused patience of one content to let the prey run a bit first, brushing the collar around his throat with an idle hand. A restraint meant to quiet a Force sensitive, no trouble handling a half-trained child - but Xanatos can feel the power of the Dark bending and warping around it as if it isn’t there at all.

The Dark is thick in the air, crowding its way into every inch of the room. Stirred up by everything that’s happened here before this - but it no longer feels familiar, not those currents of power that call to him so sweetly, ready to leap at his command. This is… Xanatos doesn’t know what this is, but when he reaches out, the Force brushes past as if he’s not even there.

He can almost hear his old master’s voice murmuring in the distance, Qui-Gon’s advice no doubt as stupidly arrogant as ever - but strangely, a part of Xanatos wishes he could hear it, no matter how worthless, as his shaking hand slams the detonator’s button again and again.

“All this effort to get me here, just to change your mind now?”

A flick of thin fingers, and the remote goes flying, splintering against the stone. A flick in the other direction, and he slams into the opposite wall. Pain bursts up through bones that have certainly fractured now, or worse, as he slumps to the ground, dazed, red beginning to stain even through the dark fabrics. This isn’t… this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

What had once only been a little less than a padawan slips off the table, and sighs.

“I told him. I told him that before he passed into the Force or wherever it was he wandered off to next, he was to break me into tiny pieces and toss me into the sea. I was done. It was over. Typical, scatter-brained gardener.” A soft laugh. “It was the fisherman’s son, I bet you anything he snuck me out under his coat and sold me for a ticket off-world. I hope he got a good price.”

The boy crouches down, picks up the twisted and broken remains of the Holocron, rubbing a thumb along one edge.

“A bit of advice - sometimes when you knock and no one answers, it isn’t because they hope you’ll knock louder.”

Thin, pale hands drop the bit of now-worthless metal, picks up a heavy, equally-ancient tome from where it had fallen instead, half the cover soaked in the blood of one of the long dead guards. He flips a few pages - reed paper, impossibly old - flips a few more, and then unceremoniously rips the book in half.

“This part is me.” He raises the thinner sheaf of documents, before shaking the rest in his other hand. “I have no idea what this is supposed to be. I hope you didn’t pay by the word.”

Slowly - more in pain than caution, one arm cradled against his side - Xanatos drags himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. Cracking open the ancient holocron, that had been the difficult part, far more infuriating than he’d been expecting. All the rest of his efforts had gone into preparing for the transfer of power, to make the silent artifact live again without killing the vessel meant to hold it.

He hadn’t made contingencies for this kind of… oversight. His contacts hadn’t deliberately tried to screw him over, he’s sure of that. Xanatos had felt their fear well enough, their desire to leave him his prize and get as far away as possible. He’d considered silencing them permanently even so, just in case they felt like talking, but this was all only step one and who knew what he might want to uncover in the future. When his plan came to fruition, everyone would know it all, anyway, and by then no one would be left to stop him.

“I… it was not my intent to displease you, my lord.” Xanatos says, grimacing when his voice refuses to steady. “I did not know… I beg your gracious pardon. I am grateful for the opportunity, of course, to release you from your confinement, that we might together avenge the injustices that have been committed against us both.”

He’s proud, and rightly so, but Xanatos can still appreciate the value of targeted flattery and tactical humility. Whoever he’s talking to, whatever he’s released here - it’s still extremely powerful. Perhaps not entirely under his control - yet - but still useful, if he can only point it at a more deserving target.

“Ah. So, you’re helping me. And, of course, I would be obliged to return the favor.”

“A humble petition only, my lord, as I believe we share a common enemy. It would be my honor to aid you in your revenge, against those who have kept you from all you rightly deserve.”

“What I… deserve.” The smile again - Xanatos hadn’t paid enough attention, to notice Obi-Wan’s actual smile, if the boy ever had any reason to smile - but he is certain this is not it.

“Power. I wasn’t the one who was obsessed with power. Or control. He made those first. I do wonder, sometimes, what he knew. If he could already see the cage for what it was, the… limitations of the path before him. Such a brief window of time before he had to invest himself fully in his new vocation. If he truly believed he’d found all his answers, I wouldn’t be here.”

The rambling doesn’t make any sense, but it does buy him time, even if Xanatos isn’t coming up with any further flashes of brilliance, and the Dark continues to swirl well past his reach, as if he’s standing in the eye of a storm.

“They used to argue constantly, you know. As padawans, in the salles, in the courtyards. During the war. Grand conjectures on the nature of all things. Sometimes, I think I am nothing more than that regret - a tribute to unfinished arguments. The restless one, without doctrine or devotion. Posessed of all of his living and knowledge, and intended to ignore all easy solutions, all base ambitions. Eternally dissatisfied.” A soft chuckle. “All of us, sent out among the stars. He may have had some suspicions of the others, but I don’t think Alek ever knew about me. And now I am the last. Which I suppose may be an answer of its own.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“No, I can’t imagine you would.” Golden eyes meet his own, and Xanatos feels whatever half-formed plans he’d been trying to piece together fall apart to nothing.

He’s used to having some leverage in all situations - a figure of quality and strength, even after all the kriffing nonsense with the Jedi. The galaxy is teeming with the ill-mannered and uncivilized, but even common thugs and pirates understand what he can do for them, that he and his business connections and, at the very least, his credits have enough of a use for them to locate some semblance of manners.

Whatever it is he’s summoned here, Xanatos has the sudden, cold thought that there may be nothing he can offer - wealth, connections, lineage - that it has any interest in.

This is the last room you’re ever going to see. A stray thought, so utterly unlike his usual confidence he barely recognizes it.

“I apologize, all this rambling - and you’re the reason I’m here, after all. It’s rude of me to keep you waiting. So why don’t we see exactly what it is you think you deserve.”

Xanatos has taken thoughts from the unwilling before. It’s not one of his stronger talents, if he’s going to be honest with himself - he prefers bribes and threats. Beatings, on the whole, take far less time. People are… tricky, muddled and demanding and overly complex. It’s difficult to sift what’s actually useful from the suffering and the fear, and sometimes it hurts. Xanatos is still irritatingly untrained in making his own pain serve his interests.

All that time, the Jedi taught him nothing except new ways to bleed, and then expected him to thank them for it.

He’s taken thoughts, though - he knows what it feels like, the push and the pull, the strain against his own shields, should someone try to - but then he’s already on the ground and staring at the far wall, cheek aching against the hard floor, watching his own fingers twitch feebly, trying to remember… where he was… what…

“A statue and a chair? Aren’t we a visionary. I’m always amazed at how often those who take no joy in the lives of others think that ruling over them will make it somehow more palatable. And… ah, revenge against the Jedi. Of course, of course. Do you mean to tell me they’ve actually managed to - still, after all this time? What an unexpectedly decent run of it. Well done.”

Xanatos’ hands are clenching, scrabbling weakly against the metal floor, and wet - he’s been sick, all over himself and that’s disgusting, a servant needs to clean that up, someone needs to help him, he.. he…

“Oh, don’t bother getting up.”

He’s lifted, helpless and dangling in the predator’s talons, graceless choking sounds that he can do little to stifle as he tries to breathe, tries to remember just what - Jinn’s little replacement holding him up with an idle hand.

“Now here’s where some might reconsider putting all their faith in power as the absolute authority - but not us. That’s quitter’s talk. We’re far more firm in our convictions, aren’t we?”

Nothing angry in his voice - nothing much of anything, because Xanatos isn’t being hurt for any particular offense, or even out of some sad*stic pleasure - he’s simply what’s at hand. The spare glove it can wad up and worry at the seams while it considers its options.

Obi-Wan’s head tips slightly - a costume for a curious bird of prey, flipping through diagrams on a table that Xanatos might have recognized before his thoughts were all ripped free and scattered. Or possibly not even then. He’s trusted no one in this room, far too busy himself to find a new, secure place for all the esoteric clutter that ultimately hadn’t proved of use.

”You know, this one is actually quite interesting.” A gentle tap against the drawing, fingertips smoothing the edge with care. ”No obvious practical application, but Force manipulation across a entire arrangement of planets in a large enough system could, hypothetically, make manifest a-“

A glance over his shoulder, as if he’d just remembered Xanatos was still there, still suspended in place by his will - and there’s another flicker of annoyance, or what even might be disappointment.

“… well, I suppose it does little to serve us in our glorious war against the Jedi. Are we taking down the Republic as well, while we’re at it? That’s usually somewhere on the list.

Xanatos is dropped, not flung, to the floor, but he still can’t help the cry of pain on the impact. A little easier, as the moments pass, to try and pull together his tattered composure, scattered thoughts no longer clinging to the corners of the room. Anger clarifies, and Xanatos focuses on that, on the disappointment at himself for his own oversight, the simmering fury at Obi-Wan’s existence, even as his mind shies away from feeling too much ire toward whatever it is beneath the other boy’s skin, that might sense his hate as any sort of challenge.

“The Jedi… they n-need to be d-destroyed.” He manages at last. “You w-were going to help me. You’re supposed to want them gone. Whoever you are, you’re still one of them - a Sith, their eternal enemy! You know wh-what…” a weak gesture toward his head, dragging a hand through tangled hair, “you saw what they did to me.”

“I do love the stories you tell yourselves. All the little twists and turns and justifications. Do you even know how miserable your former Master is now, after you gave him up?” The thing wearing Obi-Wan’s face taps his own temple. “I’ve got enough of it here, and that’s only from the boy’s perspective. He barely understood what it meant, but he could still feel it - the lasting, permanent injury to who your Master thought he was and what he thought it meant. The shame he felt, all that losing face. It means much more to the gardeners than they’ll ever admit to, and the cut is all the deeper when they can’t simply rise above. If you were looking to do damage, you could hardly have done more. What about this grand scheme of yours was supposed to be better than that?” He points a hand at his chest. “This boy doesn’t even know who you are, not really, not to feel what you so desperately want him to feel. You could have trundled along with your corrupt little dealings, even kept the better part of it above board. Built yourself a productive little fiefdom and left your former master to eke out an awkward, uncomfortable existence with a padawan so eager to please they both would have been quietly miserable for ages.”

“It’s not enough. Not nearly enough.” Xanatos snarls. “He needs to suffer. The Jedi all need to suffer for what they did to my father, to my family!”

“All this drama for a man who didn’t even love you.” Xanatos’ eyes widen, but he isn’t given the chance to protest. “You know that, we both know you know that. Your father loved power and he loved chasing more of it and he loved seeing a little simulacra of himself in you. He loved himself, the same as you love yourself.” One finger describes a lazy circle. “It’s a closed loop, there’s no way in. Your sister did love you - wholly and without question - but it was too simple, and it bored you. Such an easy thing to have, a meaningless love, when you only wanted things you had to earn, to wrest from the universe. The reason you hated Jinn well before it all fell apart - how dare he appreciate you without making you earn it. His approval meant nothing, and your sister’s far more useful to you now as a corpse than she ever was alive. A cherished memory that won’t ever ask for anything you don’t wish to give. The perfect, convenient justification for a lifetime’s worth of vengeance - oh, stop making that noise, I’m not saying anything you aren’t well aware of.”

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong!” Xanatos howls, because there’s nothing else he can do, the anger the only thing to keep from feeling anything else, from having to think about any of what’s been said - and a tendril of the Dark finally, finally reaches out to him, summoned by his fury and Xanatos will regain control of this, he will fix this mistake if it means cutting this useless boy’s head from his shoulders and starting over. The Jedi are to blame and he will carve them out of the galaxy, he will have his vengeance, on his former Master and the whole worthless, backward Order and-

The Dark rips free of his grasp, lashing across his wounded mind like a scourge, and Xanatos crumples again, breath hissing between clenched teeth. A ruse… he knows before he looks up that it hadn’t come to his call, gold eyes watching him with a hint of knowing, cruel amusem*nt. He’d sent the Dark, knowing Xanatos would reach for it, taunting him.

“I’ll kill you.” Xanatos snarls, because if he’s going to die anyway, he won’t beg. He is du Crion, a ruler and a leader of men, and no matter what happens, he knows his worth.

“And then… revenge. Power. Control. A hundred dead Jedi. A thousand? Fleets and armies and banners and applause. Is that what it’s all for? Dead Jedi and absolute victory. Do you want to know what it feels like? Why wait?”

It was quite possibly the worst that he’d ever been hurt, just a handful of moments ago, when his mind had been torn from him, unraveled and scattered like a ripped-open bag of refuse.

The worst pain Xanatos could imagine - until the thing that he never should have roused from its slumber raises a hand, and the wound inside his mind tears open anew, a thousand years of history pouring itself inside.

———————-

Pale eyes watch dispassionately as Xanatos twitches and spasms, curled into a weak ball, breath stuttering in short, uneven bursts. Eyes open but blank, pinprick pupils darting about sightlessly.

”Well. Is it everything you imagined it would be?”

It takes time, but the scion of Telos finally remembers how to sob, curling up even more tightly, face buried against his arms as his whole body shudders.

”I tend to agree.”

The Dark hangs heavy in this dim, damp place, leaden with the misery of the enslaved workers and the cruelty of their captors. Above that, with the mundane worries of the supervisors and corporate leaders, who didn’t care or at least didn’t ask about what happened in the corridors below. Beyond that, the beasts in the seas, and the hard, dangerous lives of those who went out to make their living by bringing them to shore.

Beyond that? Well, the galaxy as it is now, in the memories of the body he’s been gifted, and what’s left of the young, ambitious acolyte weeping on the floor. A cage of flesh as immutable as the confines of his former home, and far more temporary.

So, this is it. And so long after he’d thought he’d quit it all for good.

He’s never believed the Force has a goal, or a plan, but there are times that a sense of humor…

“Well, I suppose we should conclude our business, now that it seems I have a next to consider.”

He taps his toes lightly against the sole of a dead guard’s boot.

“Obviously, you appreciate that loose ends can prove unexpectedly… tedious, and far be it from me to stand between a fool and the death they’ve earned.”

Xanatos doesn’t look up, doesn’t acknowledge him as he lifts a hand - and then pauses, watching his fingertips tremble ever so slightly.

An unexpected whisper at the edge of his thoughts - his host not entirely destroyed, it seems. Just frightened to the very furthest boundaries of himself - and yet, still the quiet protest…

“The little one cries mercy. How interesting.” He lowers his hand. “All things considered, it would be poor form not to accommodate where I can.”

Obi-Wan - at least in some small part, a thin and guttering flame now cupped by a steady hand - moves toward the door, turning back at the entryway.

“Maybe I’ll see you again someday, brother. Feel free to come find me. I’ll make sure they’ll tell stories about it.”

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

Myles had laughed at him once, saying no torture could be worse for Jango to endure than having to sit still for more than five minutes.

He’s not right, but it’s kriffing close.

Time stutters and stalls, slumped and feverish in the corner of his cell and dreading when Tor will return - when Arla will, and he’ll have to endure another round of what there’s nothing else to do but endure. He drifts. He wakes. He drifts again. The bars of his cell shriek open from some vague distance and he flinches and it hurts and he tries to hide it and that hurts more. A bucket of water dumped on him and Jango coughs through it, but not a gesture with more than casual malice, and nothing worse but the sound of the door shutting again.

The world is bright or dark entirely without his permission, on some dizzy cycle of its own. Jango forces himself to his feet at some point, shuffles back and forth across the narrow confines of his cage. Does a weak set of the world’s worst push-ups against the bars, mostly to see what’s cracked and what’s only bruised, before trying for a pull-up on pure stubbornness, cursing when it sends him to the ground.

The light outside is piercing bright when Zai comes in, trailing two guards - but Arla’s not with him, and Jango isn’t going to ask why because that won’t get him an answer, that’s just handing him ammunition. The man’s in a foul mood, doesn’t even bother taunting him, lying about his dead buir or his dead clan - this isn’t torture so much as working through his frustrations.

It can’t possibly be where Zai wanted to end up, this dead-end camp on the back side of Manda’yaim. He’s another Montross, a mediocre man convinced that he’s being held back from true glory, that if he weren’t stuck here he’d easily be able to raise himself in Tor’s esteem. Jango might point it out, twist that particular knife, if not for the gleam in the Kyr’tsad’s eye - what Obi-Wan had told him right at the start. Zai wants an excuse to hurt him far worse than this, perhaps enough to forget his orders, and whether or not Tor would flay him for it afterward wouldn’t change that Jango would be too dead to enjoy it.

He keeps the insults behind his teeth, then, and does his best to take the blows in stoic silence. Zai hurts him for a while, but Jango can still get to his feet in the aftermath, his mind clear enough. Not the best shape he’s been in, but he can still fight, he can still run. All he needs is the opportunity.

It ought to be a relief - but where is Arla?

Jango has shoved as much as he can of their reunion as far back in his mind as it will go - half-delirious ruminating on an incomplete story won’t help anyone, won’t get him out of here and Obi-Wan was telling the truth - Jango knows he was - that it was all mostly lies, anyway. Lies for Tor’s enjoyment, lies to protect him - and he reminds himself of that, every time his thoughts threaten to slip to those uglier places.

Where is Obi-Wan?

It’s dark again - and then there’s a small, cold hand on his brow. Jango jerks awake, splashed by a few drops of water, Trilla tipping the cup against his lips at an awkward angle, before passing a square of some kind of congealed cake or casserole through the bars. Jango tears it into smaller pieces, hopes it won’t come right back up - he needs the calories, even if he’s not hungry. It’s been… a while since she’s been here, or perhaps he just doesn’t remember. No, something’s wrong. Trilla doesn’t usually have many reasons to smile but she isn’t speaking at all, doesn’t look at him, gazing off into the dark, eyes glinting with unshed tears.

“What happened?” Jango whispers, aware he shouldn’t push too hard, but with so much he needs to know. “Prudii’ika, what’s wrong? How many days has it been since we talked? Did… did something happen to Obi-Wan?”

A stifled sob, and she’s gone like she was never there.

“Kriff.” Jango curses, letting his head thunk back against the bars.

Long days of nothing follow, now that he’s conscious enough to notice time refusing to pass. Zai only makes a few sparse appearances for the mandatory beatings, the other guards not even bothering to taunt him or hurt him, just stunning him flat before opening the door for a pitiful ration or to empty his refuse bucket. Jango knows he ought to be relieved - every hour he’s left alone is another to regain his strength and focus - but all he has for company is himself and… kriff, he’s not always the best company, certainly not like this, locked away from all the answers and how to find them out.

He tells himself his buir is fine. The Haat are still out there fighting. Whatever he does or doesn’t know, his job is to stay focused and keep the faith. They deserve nothing less from him.

Darkness and silence in what once more must be the middle of the night. No reason for his eyes to snap open when they do but what other reason could there be?

“I brought porridge.” Trilla whispers. “It’s not warm.”

It doesn’t taste of anything, either - what’s left when the Kyr’tsad don’t leave any scraps behind, but he won’t complain. At least he’s coherant enough to actually take the spoon from her this time. Trilla won’t look at him, but Jango swallows back his questions, the demand for answers, forces himself to be as patient as he is on any hunt, to let her close that distance.

“She took him.” Trilla says, still so soft. “They’re gone.”

“Arla took Obi-Wan? Where?”

A sharp shake of her head. “On a ship. She took him, and he couldn’t… I couldn’t hear him anymore, she made him go away.”

He’d never had any real reason to think about it, how the jetiise must use their powers in all sorts of ways. Only the vague understanding he’s had of those few star-touched he’d crossed paths with, their luck and their hunches and an aim a bit more swift and true. Never considered what Force inhibitors must feel like, not just for the jetiise they were used on but anyone they were… connected to. A warm hand to hold, only to be snatched away - cold and empty and gone. A terrible thing for an adiik to feel.

“Do you know where they were headed?”

What could have been important enough to pull Arla away from hurting him for Tor’s amusem*nt, from trying to turn him to their side? Where in the kriff would she go, and why drag a jetii’ad with her?

“Zai knows.” Trilla says. “He won’t tell anyone, and he lies when they ask. People call to yell at him, but I can’t hear the words through the walls.”

“You need to stay away from there.” Jango says, trying not to let any of the anger come through in his voice, none of it for her. Frustrated at his own inability to act, that Arla might be in danger - or putting Obi-Wan in danger for some Kyr’tsad objective. Trilla has every right to be angry with him for all of it, that his being here made their entire situation worse. Except she doesn’t blame him, isn’t angry. Only afraid and unsure and hurting, and there’s not much he can -

“Trilla.” As steady, as gently as he can. “I need you to help me get out of here. You and Cal both - I need you to help me make a plan.”

Making a stand was only mostly a dini’la osik idea with Obi-Wan there. Without him, running’s the only option.

Trilla takes a step back, nearly drops the bowl, too far in shadow for Jango to see the look on her face but he has a guess.

“I’ll come back, ad’ika. I promise. It’ll look like I got out all on my own. I’ll come right back and I’ll bring my buir and my aliit and we’ll free all of you.”

A slight shake of her head, the mere suggestion of movement. “We need to wait for Obi-Wan. He’ll know what to do.”

“Prudii’ika,” Jango says carefully, “if he doesn’t come back soon-“

It’s a mistake, too hard a push, Jango knows that even as she disappears. He forces the curse into a soft growl instead, a frustrated sigh. It’s not her fault - she’s too young for any of this, for everything she’s already done. It’s not even about the plan, Trilla has never seemed concerned about being caught where she shouldn’t be. But helping him now means admitting Obi-Wan might not be coming back soon - that he might not be coming back at all, and she can’t face that, and it’s not her fault.

Kriff, at least now he has a spoon. Jango gives it a drag against the bars, knows the cheap metal will grind away with enough time into something potentially useful. It’s not exactly a victory - he could probably get Trilla to just bring him a blade when she comes back - if she comes back - but it gives him something to focus on for a while.

It’s early in the morning, maybe two days later that only feels like a week. Still as much night as anything, when Jango is roused by a sound so distant he wonders if he’d dreamed it, so bored his mind is just flinging random noise into the gaps and -

Blaster fire. Perimeter alarms. High alert, his meager view outside replaced by a blinding rectangle of light. Shouting. Jango’s heart can’t help but leap - maybe the Haat, maybe his buir has finally tracked him down.

He’s managed to do a decent number on the spoon already, the edge of the handle sharpened to a point and Jango pulls it up from where he’d hidden it, a narrow gap between the dirt and the bottom of the cell, and he can’t see the exact lock on the door - electronic, not just simple mechanisms - but Silas had been the one to run him through training on the four or five he was most likely to come across, on where to shoot, or what to do if he didn’t have anything to shoot with.

It’s not the right tool, and it’s not going well, Jango biting back a curse as the point slips from its leverage once and again, skidding across the surface, but he keeps at it, following the narrow seams in the metal, where he might be able to get just enough purchase… there, now if he can just widen the gap a little more, if the metal doesn’t snap first -

The sound of a jetpack closing distance. Jango can’t pretend he isn’t straining to hear any detail of the fight, hoping for a familiar war cry, a known voice shouting orders, or calling for him.

It’s not Haat colors on the armor that steps inside - Jango doesn’t recognize the pattern - there are splinter factions across Manda’yaim, as Obi-Wan had noticed. Small groups still just as fierce as any great House, unlikely to overlook an opportunity like laying claim to the heir of one of the main warring factions.

Jango backs off, as the bolt comes through the bars - a glancing blow, enough to leave one arm numb and a prickling pain shooting up his neck and down to his hip, but not a full stun - and it isn’t the arm still holding his improvised lockpick. He drops anyway, face down, trying to prepare, tense and ready without looking like it and hoping the ruse pays off. Hoping for the sound of a blaster or an override used on the lock - the click, the door swinging open -

Jango springs forward, lunging low, feels the second blast pass close enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck but he’s faster, and once his makeshift knife goes into the space between armor, the back of an unprotected knee, it’s more than enough to distract his opponent. For Jango to drag himself up, yank the knife out and bury it again just below the helm, not a killing blow, not with the kute in the way, but enough to grab for the blaster and that’s all he needs -

The second shot hits Jango straight in the back, and sends him to the ground on top of his wounded enemy. Bright and dark stars cloud his vision, dimming everything to a flat, distant wash of color - but he still isn’t out, not completely. Hardly a reason to celebrate, especially when the one thing he does notice, shoved roughly off the other man and kicked into the corner of the cage, are the familiar Kyr’tsad colors of a ver’alor. Shot by Zai then, as if the indignity of a failed escape attempt wasn’t bad enough.

It doesn’t make sense in the moment, with Jango mostly trying to breathe as the world blurs and fades, unsure if he’s still conscious or ever really was. Later, he thinks he must have been mistaken - if Zai had been the one to shoot him in the middle of an ambush, what are the odds he would have ever remembered to set his gun to stun? Especially when they were surrounded by the enemy? Why did everything seem so quiet in the aftermath, why didn’t he remember hearing any more gunfire after he’d fallen?

He’ll set it aside, waking up later, face down in the same, familiar cage with the door once again locked, scuff marks and what might be a few drops of dried blood in the dirt the only sign that anything that happened, maybe a bit of smoke in the air and a few more guards posted at the entrance to the tent to mark that there had ever been a fight.

It doesn’t make sense - but his instincts aren’t wrong. Not that it will matter, by the time Jango figures it out.

————————

Just when he thinks the extra guards doing rounds at night might mean no more guests for a while, just when he starts to worry, he hears the soft thump of a ration bar dropping into his cell.

Trilla looks exhausted, though unharmed. He hadn’t been able to tell… didn’t think he’d heard anything to suggest the attackers had been interested in that side of the camp, a pile of half-starved ade a low-priority target. Which would have meant the greatest danger was getting caught in any crossfire, which was still bad enough.

Except Trilla would have felt it too, all that fear and anger and death - but not a surprise, not unfamiliar, which was perhaps even worse. Jango moves forward carefully, ignores the rations to put his hands over hers as well as he can, leans in for the sad attempt at a keldabe.

“Can you focus on me, adii’ka? Will it help?” He tries to stay calm, tries to think only of kindness and strength as his thoughts are shuffled as if caught in a gust of wind, but settle soon enough. No memories appear, for either of them - maybe she’s improving, or just too tired to manage more than leaning there against the bars.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Trilla shakes her head, but her expression wavers.

“Cal.”

Jango grimaces. “Is it bad?”

Another short shake, but she doesn’t look any less bleak. Minor injuries, perhaps, but still enough to scare her, and maybe there were other ade even less fortunate, but asking more questions won’t do anything but upset her now.

“I’m sorry, prudii’ika. I’m sorry I couldn’t-“

“If we…”

Jango cuts himself off at the barely whispered words. It’s painful to watch anyone so small gather up all her courage to speak.

“If we… go. If you leave and come back and then we… if we go and Obi-Wan comes back, what if he can’t find us? What if he doesn’t know where to look?”

Jango smiles. “Do you know what I like to do, when I’m not stuck in a cage? What Mandalorians are best at? We track people down. No matter where they are in the whole galaxy, we find them.”

Knowing Obi-Wan, he’ll make it easy enough - and if… if he’s already gone, then Jango can still give him proper honors, let him march ahead with an easy heart, knowing that his ori’vod will be here to take care of those he had to leave behind.

“Once we’re out of here, we’ll find him, and we’ll do it together. I promise.”

————————

A real escape plan, then. Trilla reaches out to Cal right there, while Jango keeps an ear out for the guards. That silent conversation trick of theirs is certainly among the more useful jetii osik. Still, it makes for a very strange discussion, with Trilla whispering Cal’s replies to him, long spans of silence as she relays Jango’s responses.

It will take a few days to prepare, for the camp to calm down again and drop off of high alert. It means gathering at least some minor supplies and useful intel and all of it relying on risking the lives of ade more than Jango’s at all comfortable with, but this is the only way he might do them any good at all.

Cal wants Jango to take Trilla with him when he leaves - there’s an even longer span of silence at that, her expression screwed up with stubborn determination, and Jango can imagine how that argument is going. He understands Cal’s motivations, of course. Nothing he’d rather do than get Trilla as far away from anyone who could ever hurt her again - and there’s the tactical argument, that having her on the outside would make it easier and safer for the rest of them, when it was time to come back in, for the Haat to take the camp. Jango doesn’t want to overwhelm her with too much all at once - he’ll make the argument himself the next night, when they start nailing down the specifics of what exactly she can bring him, the step-by-step path to freedom.

All they need are just one or two more dull and quiet days.

Why he ever thought he’d get that lucky, Jango has no idea.

It’s mid-morning, when he hears the sound of the ship - not the familiar engines of the camp craft, but not enough shouting or alarms for it to be an attack. Once again, there’s nothing for Jango to do but sit and wait and strain to listen for the sounds of… anything, until it all goes quiet again, and enough time passes that he’s sure that whatever it is has nothing to do with him at all.

Which is when Zai graces his tent, followed by Obi-Wan, and a holo-droid ambling in after him on spindly legs, Tor Vizsla’s leer of amused satisfaction still enough to set Jango’s blood alight with fury, even in miniature.

Kriff, Obi-Wan looks half-dead, painfully pale even by the dim light of the tent. The dark colors he’s wearing aren’t helping - and Jango’s breath stops in his throat, Obi-Wan’s simple - clean - clothes trimmed in Kyr’tsad blue, golden gaze fixed at a point just ahead of Jango’s feet, refusing to look at him.

“I wanted to be the first to give you my condolences, Vhett.” Tor says. “I regret that I can’t be there in person - your sister was among my most loyal for so many years - she deserved such an honor.”

Zai tosses an object down, in the space between them. A damaged vambrace, spattered with blood.

“Tell him what happened, dar’jetii. He should hear it from the last person to see her alive.”

Obi-wan flinches, steps forward - still won’t raise his gaze.

“We found… we found what you were looking for, Mand’alor. We tracked the thieves to a cave on an uninhabited planet, where they were making the exchange for the credits. The ship - A-arla’s ship was damaged on the descent, we were running out of time - she had me tracking them down, through t-the tunnels. There was a firefight, explosions, and the cave… it all… Arla was… pinned. I couldn’t, there wasn’t time - she told me to leave, take the Dark- take the asset and her vambrace and return to the Mand’alor what was rightly his. She… had explosives, and she… I was able to get to one of the ships, and find my way back.”

Gold eyes finally meet his own. “She didn’t suffer.”

“Are you sure you didn’t let her, Kenobi? Just a little?” Tor sneers. “I wonder if she was surprised in the end, that you’d double-cross her to try and curry my favor?”

“N-no.” Obi-Wan says, staring from the image of Tor to Jango in horror - perhaps at the suggestion, or perhaps at being caught. “I wouldn’t - I didn’t… she w-was going to die anyway…”

Jango thinks two things in very quick succession - if Obi-Wan had really switched sides, he’d already be in Jango’s head right now, ripping out more secrets for Tor, or at least gloating about his victory, savoring Jango’s pain. But the Kyr’tsad don’t know anything about that, don’t know anything about what the jetii’ad has done for him or what they’ve sworn to each other.

Obi-Wan is reacting to Tor’s accusation exactly the way that would provoke Jango’s rage, if they were strangers - and he’s moved just close enough, that if Jango reaches out -

Tor wants pain, and suffering, from as many sides as he can get it. He wants this to be a spectacle.

And if Jango’s wrong, if Obi-Wan really has betrayed him, well, it’ll all be about the same anyway -

“Hut’uun dar’jetii, I’ll kill you!” Jango roars, lunges forward and reaches out and he was right, Obi-Wan standing just close enough that Jango can get a hand around his throat and drag him into the bars and he has to make it look good, look real even as he hopes that sound was as much the jetii’ad‘s hands slamming against the metal than his face. Obi-Wan is bleeding a little as he struggles to get free - and then Jango is shoved back by invisible hands. A snap and a hum and the length of the Darksaber illuminates the space between them and oh, that’s what Arla had run off for, then. The one thing more important to Tor than the kriffing war - and Obi-Wan’s eyes are leached of all color from the light off the blade - something other than human, a crackling power barely contained, his voice toneless.

“I could dispose of him for you, Mand’alor.”

Or the slightest pivot, and the blade would carve Zai in half, Jango thinks quietly.

“I don’t appreciate your presumption, dar’jetii. Arla should have taught you better than that - but I suppose she may have been nearing the end of her most useful instruction.”

“Ni ceta, Mand’alor.” Obi-Wan says, powering down the blade, dropping to one knee with the hilt in both hands, head tipped in deference to the holo. The blood seeps unnoticed from one corner of his mouth. “I’ve been warned before about my temper.”

“You will find the Kyr’tsad do not begrudge our vod a healthy dose of a’den, or ambition, if it can be turned to the proper ends.”

“I’ll make sure he understands his place, Mand’alor.” Zai says, stepping forward to reach for the Darksaber, only to be stopped as the holodroid steps between them.

“His place, ver’alor, is where I believe he will serve me best. Until my arrival, he will be given quarters. I believe there was a room set aside for Arla - it seems as good as any for the one who wishes to replace her.”

“But you can’t possibly want-“ Zai stops talking, about five words later than he should have, and even with Tor no more than a distant, blue illusion, the threat is very real. He straightens up obediently. “Yes, Mand’alor. It will be as you say.”

“Of course it will.” Tor says, and the hologram vanishes with no further fanfare, the droid retreating from the tent. Zai watches it go. Obi-Wan rises from where he’d been kneeling.

“Now listen here, you little di’kut, whatever the Mand’alor thinks you deserve for killing that waste of a-“

Jango remembers a hunt he’d been on with Myles once, surveilence on an informant who’d tried to give them the slip, and a night spent on an unfamiliar jungle moon. Close enough to those places Jango had seen before that he’d been confident in their fire, a few warning shots for some of the larger creatures to keep them at a distance.

He can’t remember the exact sound that had split the night - a scream with a growl inside - only that he’d felt it all the way into his bones as everything else in the jungle had gone utterly silent. He and Myles had sat back-to-back until dawn, weapons ready and helmets on, scanning the darkness.

It feels like that now. A cold sweat on the back of his neck and the whole world holding its breath, something very large and very dangerous in the room with them, and all there is to do is see what it is going to do next - and all of that, he realizes, is coming from Obi-Wan.

Zai’s hand is extended, as if he’d meant to reach for the blade, but he’s frozen in place.

“Arla dropped the remote, somewhere along the way.” Obi-Wan rubs at his throat, the chip buried beneath his skin. “If you wanted to get a spare.”

A taunt. A challenge. See what difference it makes, now.

Jango thought that he knew the game Obi-Wan was playing - the truth beneath the spectacle. He’s no longer quite so sure.

“It’s funny - the Mand’alor didn’t even tell me to give you the Darksaber.” Obi-Wan says mildly, looking down at the hilt in his hand. It seems like any moment, he will ignite the blade and just calmly run him through and Zai will let it happen because any alternative would be much worse. “It must have slipped his mind.”

Obi-Wan holds out the hilt in both hands, as he’d proffered it to Tor, without the kneeling. Zai moves slowly, the scowl still on his face but without much in the way of conviction. Pretending that if he can’t feel that terrible sense of dread in the room then it must be some kind of mistake, that if he’s got his hand on the Darksaber it somehow means he’s any better protected.

“Will you show me to my quarters now, alor?” Obi-Wan says. Still that sense in the air, that he’s not really asking.

“… let’s go.”

No one looks at Jango on their way out. No one comes in after they’re gone, and outside things are as quiet as ever. The minutes pile up on each other in that terrible way they do when there’s no way to measure them, and Jango stares through the bars at the vambrace he can’t reach, the one still sticky with his sister’s blood, and he hopes if he goes mad at least that might be interesting.

Don’t ask favors, where the Ka’ra can hear - they enjoy sending challenges. He nearly jumps out of his skin, at what feels like nothing so much as a soft knock on the inside of his head.

Jango is never going to get used to it, kriffing jetii osik. In any other circ*mstances, he’d be kicking and screaming, but even invading his thoughts, Obi-Wan is so kriffing polite about it, and so he does his best to quiet his own. It’s still warm, the kid’s presence, nothing resembling that strange chill when he’d been staring down Zai. Only a shoulder to lean on, bolstering him up, like the jetii’ad can’t help but help. The tiny splinter of dread he’s been carrying since Tor had given his condolences disappears - it’s still him, still just Obi-Wan.

And then there’s Arla in his head, what must be some kind of memory the jetii’ad is sharing. She looks rough, tired and angry and determined. She looks like their mother, in the set of her jaw and the scowl knotting her brows. He needs to tell her that, if she’s still alive. Kriff, he can’t lose her again, not after they just -

The image vanishes in an instant, and as Jango scrambles to recover it he realizes his mistake, forces himself to calm down, to let his mind go as still as it can. Obi-Wan had looked like kark warmed over, obviously walking off more than a few hits, and this might be jetii osik but it doesn’t come for free.

Slowly, the image of Arla returns, clarifies in his mind. Arla going over the controls, for the ship Obi-Wan must have arrived in. Making Obi-Wan recite it all back to her. Arla copying the data from her vambrace over onto another, before smashing it, cutting herself and smearing her blood across it.

Arla glancing at Obi-Wan with a mix of worry and anger, watching him lift off, standing in front of a ship of her own - she hadn’t wanted him to come back alone, and she’s alive. Kriff, he’d grieved for her so long ago, he’d sworn vengeance - and now he can get her back. She is back - whatever she is, it isn’t Death Watch and he’ll take it.

“Is there anything that you want me to tell him?”

No surprise, that Obi-Wan remembers all the little details. Jango gets to watch Arla’s face do several non-expressions in quick succession, before she drops her eyes and shakes her head.

“After. Tell him… tell him we’ll sort it all out after.”

Jango didn’t need another reason to get out of here, but it’s a damn good one.

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

“Obi! You’re back! You’re all right!”

Cal rushes forward excitedly to greet him. Crosses the invisible line in the camp, separating the Death Watch from the ade.

Obi-Wan’s slap resounds loudly against the quiet dawn, although it’s the slight Force shove that really sells it, sends Cal reeling back over the line, stumbling to drop like a bewildered stone, eyes wide and disbelieving as they stare at each other for a long, silent moment. A few of the Death Watch are lounging against a nearby wall, watching the show. One of them laughs. The other one might even wince, though it’s hard to tell under the armor.

“I don’t - I don’t understand.” Cal says, voice slowly going liquid. Tears in the corners of his eyes. “I thought… aren’t you going to help us?”

“You want to be Mando’ade? Help yourself.”

Obi-Wan turns on his heel, doesn’t look back as Cal calls to him, but knows it’s Talni that steps in to help Cal up and pull him away while glaring daggers at Obi-Wan all the while.

The best performance they could come up with on short notice, to try and sell the idea that Obi-Wan had always thought the job of caring for them was beneath him, that he’d been eager for the first chance to leave them all behind. Less suspicion that they might be working together on anything, or that Zai would threaten them to get at him.

Too much crying? Talni says it might be too much. Cal’s voice is bright and wry in his head, unlike the muffled sobs he can still hear fading behind him, and Obi-Wan tries to ignore the sour pit in his stomach, unsettled even if it’s all fake.

You’re brilliant. Obi-Wan knows his emotions are half-mangled but shares them anyway - pride and affection, mixed with shame at ever having to pretend at violence - feels Cal’s embarrassment at the praise and the concern - not like you’d ever hurt me - and beneath that, happiness and determination and… kriff, faith. The same sentiment he can feel from Trilla, and probably Talni and the others, if he wanted to go looking.

Obi-Wan is here now, and he’s going to make everything okay.

Thank kriff he was Order-trained just long enough that his shields don’t waver, burying that flash of panic down where no one will ever know.

No stable ground - that was what the sages on their lost planet had believed. The Force a thing of constant motion and everyone and everything along with it. If Obi-Wan really stops to consider it, everything from the galaxy down to the beating of his own heart part of the same ever-shifting, ever-changing pattern - it’s dizzying, impossible. He can sympathize how it must have floored the Sith, even trying to comprehend it a thing that had to be done in motion. Learning the steps while dancing.

No stable ground - and he has some idea now, an invisible tightrope under him and swaying with every step, right from the moment he’d hit atmo. When he’d been certain Tor would be angry at Arla’s loss, at the investment in time and resources if nothing else. A good excuse to hurt whoever happened to be at hand. The way he’d had to spoil Cal and Trilla’s excitement - get ready to move - and they hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t protested. The obedience hurt, how fast they could go from children to soldiers.

He’d been bracing for the absolute worst - that Tor was already here, and the relief of that not being true was replaced with the shock of seeing the repair work, signs of a recent battle and his heart had been in his throat at the thought of not being there - they’d needed him, and he hadn’t been there - the sense of fear and concern from Trilla, toward Cal - it wasn’t even a big deal, I’m fine - the response warm and steady and obviously nowhere near the first time Cal had reassured her.

No time to ask, what had happened or when. He’d landed, near enough to see one transport gone and a few mechanics deep in the engine of the other, parts spread all around them and there’d been no time to think about that before Obi-Wan had to talk down the Death Watch who had him at gunpoint - amazing, really, they hadn’t blown him out of the sky - and the Dark hummed like a loaded blaster under his hand, full power and the safety off - and he’d had to pretend it wasn’t there. He could do a few things, could probably handle a few of the lesser-armored soldiers, but there was no way Obi-Wan could handle an entire camp of Death Watch, no matter what the Dark promised.

It loved to make promises.

Still, he’d been ready for things to go bad. Counting how many Kyr’tsad were in every room and open space they passed. Measuring the distance between the Darksaber’s swing and Zai’s throat, how many seconds of advantage he might have in the aftermath - even after Tor’s interrogation had thrown the both of them - as Obi-Wan realized he was being recruited.

The dar’jetii’ad at last living up to some of its potential. Tor had seemed as confident as ever, but things must have been going even worse than Arla had said, if Obi-Wan had started looking like an asset.

A stroke of luck, to catch the Mand’alor in a mood Obi-Wan might use to his advantage. He could have played it better - the impulse to remind Zai of the chip stupid and reckless and where the kriff had that come from? Obi-Wan knew exactly where it had come from, that same place that still trembled, angry and impatient beneath his skin, that thought Zai would be far more interesting in far more pieces, and had noticed Jango also hadn’t come through the time he’d been gone unscathed.

It still aches, where he’d been slammed into the bars. Obi-Wan knows it could have been far worse, if Jango had actually believed he’d turned traitor, that he’d betrayed Arla. He might not have walked out of that room at all - cage or no, Force or no.

The Dark liked that as well. The Dark found it all very interesting.

Obi-Wan wonders if the Mandalorians ever squared up against the Sith, over late payments or disputed territory or some other disagreement. He wonders how much of the aftermath is still out there, bits of rubble and sabers and mangled beskar all scattered between the stars.

At least a moment to try and catch his breath, pointed to what was little more than a musty, empty storeroom - almost certainly not where Arla had been given quarters, even if she hadn’t spent the entire time on her ship. Still, it was quiet and out of the way, with paths blocked from common sight lines that meant Obi-Wan might be able to move at least a little more freely without being noticed.

Obi-Wan braced for the headache he knew would be coming - too unbalanced, and he’d tried to meditate on the return trip to Mandalore to little success, resting even less effective - but he had to reach out to Jango, had to let him know Arla was alive, the relief and happiness he’d felt worth the pain.

A moment to settle up what he could, and then the plan with Cal - and then the tightrope once more.

He has to work not to curl a hand against his chest, that place in the Force the Sith had - bound to him, that understanding of how to draw on fear, to find those threads in others and pull. He does, just a little, just to watch a few of the Death Watch who’ve glanced at him look away, even if they're not sure just why.

The one thing that’s made it bearable - the Sith who’d given him this, it wasn’t about cruelty, it didn’t have to be. Obi-Wan is certain that this power wielded without mercy could be monstrous - but the Sith had preferred mitigation. Using fear to avoid doing damage, when he could, intimidating in a way that cost the fewest lives. He did not long for carnage - even if the Dark still sees challenges everywhere. Even if every person that passes by is someone to dominate, destroy, or both. A steady broadcast in his head now, and where it had been half-static before, washing in and out, it’s clear as kyber now. Obi-Wan can turn the volume down - but not off, not completely anymore.

And yet… it’s alive, isn’t it? The worst of the ugly, stagnant pain of this place is still nothing compared to the sterile emptiness of the dead planet. If Obi-Wan really is going to try and… be whatever it is he is now, he was lucky to have crashed there, to see first-hand just how easily one could become the other.

If the Sith hadn’t given him that knowledge of the Dark, Obi-Wan couldn’t have done… whatever it was that he’d done. And it had been worth it, to fix that. Whatever happens, it had been worth it.

He needs to meditate, for at least a lifetime or two, preferably somewhere distant enough that any mistakes he makes won’t hurt anyone. He needs guidance, preferably from old Jedi tomes, because old Jedi tomes won’t want to cut his head off at the sight of him.

What he has instead are two questions that have quickly become a makeshift mantra. Smashball mantra.

Do you want to take over the galaxy? No. Do you want to destroy all the Jedi? Also no.

Hardly the most rigorous defense against all possible evils, but it’s what he’s got.

Do you want to kill Zai Kaine?

No, but that’s not really a yes or no question - it’s mostly a when. The ideal moment would be after they’re ready to move but preferably before the other man has a weapon in his hand.

Zai is a terrible person, Obi-Wan can’t think of anyone who will mourn him, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t… but doesn’t it? Why should he care?

Because no matter what Zai does or doesn’t have coming, the Dark wants more, it wants everything and it is happy to use any rationale for the momentum - anything for terror and reckoning and blood for blood and to set the whole valley on fire and rise as Mand’alor from the ashes.

Does he want to rise as Mand’alor from the ashes? Still no.

It would be great, to know exactly when Tor would arrive, although Obi-Wan doubts he’ll get that either. Maybe Zai scrambling to make sure all is in order, or kriff, an advance wave of new troops beforehand, that he won’t see coming and - focus on the present. Obi-Wan swallows hard, and steps back into Zai’s quarters.

He could have guessed where the bulk of Zai’s attention would be, the Darksaber resting on the desk between them. A good distraction, maybe something he can use as chaff while they make their escape, buying some time by throwing the blade in the opposite direction. Obi-Wan is not at all worried where it might end up, certain the Darksaber can find its own way when it decides to move on. The kyber is as steady now as it ever was, and kriff, how he wishes Tor could feel that, the absolute indifference of this most sacred weapon to the entire existence of the Death Watch.

The Dark hums around them, an almost tangible current - and Obi-Wan remembers what Genet said about Xanatos, how to play on his insecurities and desires - it wants to tell him so many things, so many ways a man like this could be tempted and deceived and destroyed.

He’d been afraid to reach back for Cal and Trilla, in that first moment - afraid to reach out to Jango. Still worried that he might be damaged, corrupted in some way he couldn’t help but pass on. The way the Dark whispers now - about Zai, the man nothing but cruelty and ambition. He doesn’t look too closely, he can’t - but if Obi-Wan were better, more daring, more skilled, he could twist those impulses without Zai ever knowing, encourage the ver’alor into something truly foolish. Take the Darksaber. Steal the kriffing thing and run and have Tor chase him around the galaxy for a while.

If he were a better Darkside user, he could break a terrible man into tiny screaming pieces. Kriff.

“No kneeling for you anymore, hm?” Zai’s gaze is dark and dangerous - but Obi-Wan doesn’t let himself look away, keeps his posture soldier-straight. Still hiding just as much as ever, shuffling around his real intentions, but he can’t do it the way he did before, humility won’t work. “I suppose you think you’re something special now.”

“I only wish to be of use to the Mand’alor.” Obi-Wan says coolly, riding the edge between neutrality and arrogance - so many things Zai could still do to hurt him, so many ways this could all go wrong. He needs to push just enough, that the ver’alor thinks he’s an arrogant, overambitious child, that it’s worth giving him the rope to hang himself with.

“If only I’d known all it took was killing that kriffing schutta.”

Arla had mentioned wiping the floor with Zai on her way out the door - and Obi-Wan swallows back a sudden pang of loneliness. He wonders where she is, if she really listened to him and even now might be on Coruscant, tracking down Quin and -

“What do you want?” Zai’s sharp bark pulls him out of the thought he shouldn’t have been thinking, but kriff it’s hard to focus on the present when he hates all of it so much.

“I was told there was some damage to the camp, from the attack. I saw some of it when I landed. I’d like to put together a formal report of how things are going with the repairs.”

It’s a gamble, that Zai doesn’t already have a report - but if he says no, Obi-Wan might just try and do it anyway. Hopefully, it seems like nothing more than a blatant attempt to discredit him, collecting evidence of his failings as the camp commander and sucking up to the Mand’alor. Tor already started laying the the groundwork to pit them against each other, maybe deliberately or maybe simple habit, all he knows how to do.

Hopefully, it seems just that bit too pathetic and childish - easy enough for Zai to let him wander around doing nothing, and then rip the results up in front of him. Or maybe he’ll let it just play out - as if Tor would ever kriffing care, as if this camp will even resemble itself five minutes after he arrives.

Obi-Wan refuses to think about that, refuses to let anything show on his face - focusing on the one thing in this room that isn’t a threat, the calm, indifferent readiness of the Darksaber’s kyber - ten-thousand battles won, ten-thousand more to be fought.

A flare of violent possessiveness, as Zai notices where his gaze has fallen, his hand quickly closing around the hilt of the saber, hiding it from view.

“I hoped you could advise me on where would be the best place to start, or who I should talk to?” Obi-Wan says - knows it’s a risk, deliberately not asking for permission. He can feel the line of sweat against his back, where his own lightsaber rests. One move. He’s fast, he could have Zai’s head off before he could ignite the blade, which would cause more problems than it solved, but…

“What is it, do you think, that the Mand’alor believes you can do for him? What is he going to do to you, when you fail?” Zai says. “How the kriff did you ever get the better of Fett? I’ve never even seen any of those amazing osik'la jetii powers.”

“Maybe you have.” Obi-Wan says mildly. “Maybe I’m using them right now.”

Zai looks at him, and he stares back - the very lightest pull, on that thin thread of uncertainty and fear, the same as it had been in the tent with Jango when Obi-Wan first stood his ground - something wrong here, very wrong and very bad. Better to just stay away, let someone else deal with it.

“Do whatever the kriff you want.” Zai growls. “Just get out of my sight.”

—————————

Grudging, disgusted and reluctant permission is still permission. Obi-Wan grabs a datapad and a stylus and begins planning their escape right out in the open. Taking notes about the damage done, where they should shore up the defenses, all kinds of suggestions no one’s ever going to read while he walks the fastest paths from one side of the camp to the other - checks the sight lines himself, which ones have the fewest guards to deal with along the way.

Currently, the numbers are in their favor. A few casualties among the Kyr’tsad after the attack, and perhaps others called away to bolster Tor’s front line - the camp is running leaner than average, and of course their interest was never guarding the ade, nowhere for them to go.

Strange, that there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of heightened security, even if they were attacked by nothing more than the remnants of a clan so unfortunate they’d turned little more than bandit, desperate enough to make the attempt. Maybe Zai was feeling confident he’d scared them off, killed enough to deter retaliation - or he didn’t want Tor to think they were in trouble, that anyone had managed to even briefly breach the perimeter.

He’s never liked risking Trilla - hates thinking of her as an asset at all - but it’s worth it, now, if she can get a weapon to Jango, maybe even enough to try and arm up some of the older kids. Find a way to sabotage the rest, or at the very least the armory door. Anything to slow down the Death Watch, anything to cause chaos and confusion and if Jango’s in any condition to fight, how many might they be able to take down, before the rest even knew what was happening?

All of them. The Dark says, with the absolute confidence of caring only about the swing, zero interest in the follow-through.

Kriff, just imagine what the Sith Empire must have been like - any of them - primed for total war with their favored source of power cheering them all on while playing all sides. Destroy their enemies, their allies, themselves - as long as something happened, the Dark was all in.

Was it their cruelty that fed you, or that you encouraged it in them? Obi-Wan wonders. Which one came first?

Murder. It says. Murder murder murder.

Yes, thank you. Obi-Wan thinks. Hush.

He walks along paths altered with the recent attack, damaged buildings bolstered by stacked containers and waiting on more permanent repairs. He studies the armory, the main guns on the front wall, the hastily patched sections of the outer wall. Obi-Wan takes pains to look scowling and pedantic, whenever there’s soldiers present, fairly certain they’re making fun of him through their comms. The weird little dar’jetii'ad, thinks he’s going to be something special - but he’s strange, that Force osik is weird, comes from some place other than the stars. Fett… well, she’d probably blown herself up and he was taking advantage - but still, laugh at a distance, and just leave him alone, not worth the trouble.

“Obi-Wan.” Vyrelli says, and he’s glad that for the moment the main hanger is clear, no need to pretend he’s not glad to see the besalisk boy, all four hands coming up to hold Obi-Wan’s own, what would just be a hug if there wasn’t the risk of being seen, that he couldn’t let go in the next moment. “I heard from Cal…”

He nods, glances to the ship parked next to what he thinks of as his own, a few carts full of tools and diagnostic equipment scattered here and there on the floor. “How long before she’s ready to fly?”

“Two days.”

“What if we didn’t need her spaceworthy? Planetside only?” Having less options is never a good idea, but Tor’s return looms over every minute, every choice, to not be here when he arrives.

Vyrelli shakes his head, upset. “We had to flush and recharge the entire system once it was rebuilt, I can’t make it happen any faster. I’m sorry, Obi.”

“Can you make sure the other ship stays here, until they’re both ready to go?”

An eager nod. “Yeah. It’s an older ship. All kinds of things that can go wrong unexpectedly.”

Thankfully, there’s still no one around, so Obi-Wan can put a hand on his shoulder, give him a reassuring smile. “Two days. Be ready, as soon as it’s done.”

Vyrelli nods. Doesn’t ask questions, trusts he’ll be told what to do when it matters.

Obi-Wan is here now, and he’s going to make everything okay.

—————————————

The mess hall is staffed by the older children - a privilege of loyalty to serve the vode, and a few extra mouthfuls of food before the scraps are distributed. Brutal punishments, of course, for any pilfering in advance. A few of them took the position to care for the younger ones, passing the food along - but many are on their way to swearing loyalty Death Watch, including the one who hands Obi-Wan’s meal to him, the Dark seething around him with jealousy and annoyance. Obi-Wan looks back, unflinching, until the boy drops his gaze.

He won’t be able to save everyone, Obi-Wan knows that. So many of those preparing for ‘training’ would be happy to foil their escape, eager for the acclaim they think it would bring. The ones who look at him with envy and anger in the Force - Obi-Wan doesn’t want to give up on anyone, but it’s too risky. All he hope is that their escape, Jango’s return to his people might bring the war closer to the end, and if they haven’t put on armor, if they’re not in the line of fire - there must be a way, for the Haat or even the New - the New are pacifists, they must have some way of trying to undo what the Death Watch has done. At least trying to, at least for those who never took up real armor or fired a shot.

He tells himself that. He tells himself he believes it.

Obi-Wan makes his way to the far corner of one of the long tables, unsurprised to find himself alone even as the rest of the room begins to fill. The food is nothing special, standard soldier fare in standard Mandalorian spices, although the fact that it’s hotter than lukewarm puts it above most of what he’s used to. Every bite lands uncomfortably heavy, all the joy of eating spare engine parts, but Obi-Wan spoons it down methodically, trying to listen in on the buzz of conversation around him - trying not to let the Dark do what it wants, plucking at threads of irritation, all too aware of which sparks could be fanned into flames of violence.

If he was better with the Dark Side, he could make this camp eat itself, Obi-Wan thinks, as the Dark immediately leaps up in encouragement - why wait? Who needs better?

As if a lack of control is no need for concern. As if only a fool would hesitate.

Maybe… maybe he’s just beginning to understand that the Force is more complicated than he was taught - but he can certainly understand why the Jedi teachings about the Dark all bend toward ‘don’t touch, ever.’ Maybe the Dark isn’t how the Sith think of it either, not completely - but pretending he’ll ever be in command, the master of anything that exists to be wild and uncontrollable - especially with the Dark so eager to convince him how tame it is - it’s only slightly more stupid than grabbing his lightsaber blade-first.

“Hey.”

Obi-Wan blinks, as a tray slides into the space across from him, the vod sitting down a moment later. A second soldier, taking the spot at his side, and Obi-Wan feels himself go still and tense, waiting, until the helmets come off. It’s the soldier who’d arrived just as Arla had been preparing to drag him away, the one from this base who was never supposed to come back here - who’d cared for the trees. The other soldier is a Pantoran, slight and wide-eyed. Obi-Wan recognizes her from some of the salvage missions. Not high-enough ranked to avoid the scutwork, but she’d never taken it out on them, she’d never been cruel.

The Force hums - but for the first in a very long time, it is calm and clear and light.

“I hear things didn’t go so well out there.” The soldier says, toneless and very quiet. “It’s Zeyja, if you forgot.”

The slightest accent in the introduction, something that blurs a new sound into the middle of the letters, and he does remember then. Zeyja’s people were newer to the Outer Rim, had fled from one disaster straight into the next. For all that the Mandalorians are a people from everywhere, Tor prefers not just a common language but a very specific way of speaking it - his way, surprise surprise. Zeyja’s words were soft all over, when she’d left for training - now it only hides in the shadows of her name.

“Lim.” The Pantoran says, watching them quietly. Obi-Wan doubts she’s the one who decided they should come over.

“I don’t know.” He takes a bite, matching Zeyja’s lack of tone. “It seems like it went all right for me.”

“Mm.” She takes another bite. “You might want to keep some of that confidence to yourself. The Mand’alor enjoys ambition - to a point, and you’re not even fully trained.”

It’s harsher than Obi-Wan remembered her, but at the same time oddly blank - like she’s reciting words in a play. Or a test, just to see how he’ll take it - just who it was that returned to Mandalore.

Obi-Wan shrugs. “He didn’t care about losing Arla Fett.”

“He didn’t care yesterday. When you’re standing in front of him, maybe he’ll change his mind again.”

Oh, the stories of the Mand’alor changing his mind. He’d seen enough in Arla’s memories, to know just how fast that favor could turn. Bad enough to be in his direct attention when he was a hologram - they can’t be here when he arrives.

How had she done it, how had Arla ever survived trying to anticipate what a man like Tor Vizsla might do next?

“I heard you hit your little friend. The ad who used to follow you around.” Zeyja says, voice still calm and low and taking bites as if this is any other casual conversation. “I was surprised. I thought you were close.”

The Force is still steady, still at peace, and Obi-Wan grits his teeth and considers the options and the risk and… trusts it anyway.

“Maybe we still are.”

A glance passes between them, and Obi-Wan wonders if he’s just undone all his careful planning with one stupid move, when Zeyja leans in just a little closer.

“It’s good that you were able to find the Darksaber, bring it back to it’s rightful owner.” Another bite. “If you ever needed to do something like that again, get something back where it belongs - maybe we could help.”

Obi-Wan glances to Lim, who nods, just slightly.

“I’m… not sure it would turn out quite the same, a second time. It might be a little too... ambitious to gain the Mand’alor’s approval.”

“I’m not sure that we’d mind.”

———————————————

Obi-Wan doesn’t have a official rank, at least not until the Mand’alor returns. Technically, Zeyja and Lim have the right to order him to help them inventory a backup generator badly damaged in the fight, at least enough to know what parts it needs for repairs.

More importantly, the place it’s planted catches the wind straight from the ‘freshers what seems like one breath out of five, and so any patrols have found far better places to be. They still talk in low, careful voices, Zeyja pretending to point out parts while Lim pretends to try and bang them back into place, and Obi-Wan takes nominally legible notes. From a distance, they look like any other group of people not preparing to betray the Kyr’tsad.

Zeyja knows what’s coming, what Tor’s arrival means for the rest of the camp and the ade - a dark and distant look in her eyes, from wherever she’d been before, and Obi-Wan doesn’t ask. Lim had become her friend in the time while he was off-planet, and Obi-Wan knows even less of her story but the Force throws up no warnings at either of their words, no suggestion of treachery - not even from the Dark.

“The others here, they think it’s some great honor that the Mand’alor’s on his way. They think there’s a plan.” Lim’s dark lips thin further. “Who knows, maybe there is. It doesn’t really matter, when you’re still the first thing he throws in between you and whatever’s coming next.”

Lim’s been promised a decent jetpack, one of her own, for nearly a year now. Hardly that much of an investment in a loyal recruit who’d had the training - but it’s even less of an investment to send her out without one. A big, dramatic firefight with the rest of the half-armored vode, easy to make grand assaults when it didn’t matter who came back. Double duty in granting Tor some breathing room and clearing space in camp for the things he actually cared about.

Neither of them know when he’s coming. The common understanding in the camp is that Tor is planning out some brilliant strategy, that he won’t be where everyone is looking until he strikes them unaware.

Underneath that, quieter rumors, always couched in the right words so they never quite sound disloyal - that things aren’t going as planned, with New and Kryze and Haat forces all picking away at the Kyr’tsad lines, forcing them from systems and positions that have, perhaps, not been as permanent as the Death Watch had wanted to believe, each revolt fuel for the next.

At the very bottom, what might be nothing more than wishful thinking. Zeyja speaks low and fast, even here and alone - that Tor’s seeing enemies everywhere, and nobody knows who’s next on the block. Paranoia fueled by frustration - that if he can’t get to Jaster Mereel, or Bo-Katan Kryze or her sister, maybe it’s just as good to go for whoever’s in range.

He imagines there must have been many of these quiet conversations between them before he’d returned, the logistics of where and how and if anywhere was safe. The same conclusion he came to - returning Mereel’s heir to his own clan might be enough to buy a reprieve, at least long enough to disappear. Cause enough trouble for Tor Vizsla in the wake of it, that the Mand’alor wouldn’t have the chance to track them down.

… and they trust him, which is the most frightening part of all. A look in Zeyja’s eyes, the way she stumbles when she says dar’jetii - apologizes, jetii - not sure of which word he’d prefer she use. Faith, and hope, that whatever she doesn’t know about his Force osik is enough to make the difference. Lim is terrifyingly confident it will be, telling stories about things Obi-Wan had done on past runs, people he’d saved and Obi-Wan didn’t even know she was watching, doesn’t remember any of it being so impressive, but it’s what’s brought them both here, made them allies. Waiting on him, ready to follow his plan.

So he gives them the plan, such as it is, and they make suggestions on where to improve it. Offer up timetables, confirm who’s going to be where. Neither of them are that high-ranking, but there are things they can do. Zeyja can set it up with Vyrelli in the hanger, some spill or accident that the ade can come clean up, try and gather as many together near the ships as they can. Lim can temporarily lock down the armory, disable the radios - half the kriffing camp is held together by quick fixes and people yelling at other people, so there’s all sorts of things she can do that won’t look like anyone meant to do them.

The first step, of course, is dealing with Zai. He has codes on his vambrace, overrides for all kinds of useful things, and he’s already been known to lock himself away for hours at a time, not to be disturbed.

Do you want to kill Zai Kaine?

In the morning, the day after tomorrow - early morning, Lim agrees, when the shifts change. Obi-Wan will go and take him out at the same time Trilla’s getting a weapon to Jango, a weapon and a hopefully silent way to get through the door, a path that Lim’s supposed to be watching so no one will be watching. Have Cal trigger the alarms near the front, as many guns as they can pointed in the opposite direction while the last of the ade make their move and then… run. Run while Jango makes the call that saves all their lives and gives them somewhere to run to.

It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, and even after they’ve parted ways in the dark, all Obi-Wan’s mind can do is push against every possible point of failure, every unanticipated change that could lead to disaster. It’s what he does, it’s what he’s always done, enough to know there’s a point where it stops being of any use, even without Cerasi or Nield to distract him.

He doesn’t ask her to look after them. If Cerasi’s there, she knows.

It’s late, when he’s back in his dark, musty-smelling former storeroom, and Obi-Wan doesn’t so much step off the tightrope as slowly collapse where he stands, back against the cool wall and the only other sound beside his breathing not a sound at all, really - the soft chiming of his kyber crystal, two tones where there should only be the one.

It shouldn’t sound like that, it should be impossible… but it is and does, and it’s beautiful, and Obi-Wan knows as much as he knows anything that to try and purify it, remove the dark would damage it as badly as bleeding it. Forcing it to change for his convenience.

So he just… listens, until the absence in the room finally catches his attention. No sound or motion, there never is, just that space in the Force where something ought to be, which means Trilla’s fallen back into all her old habits. Watching him from the shadows, and at least she looks unharmed. He hasn’t had the time she deserves, to make sure she’s all right and she’s the most sensitive of all of them to the Dark, to things going bad which means if anyone would see how he’s changed, that he’s gone wrong-

“Trilla, I know I might… I might feel a little different in the Force, but you don’t have to be afr-“

The reassurance cut off, as she crashes into him, arms outstretched and mind wide open, fear and relief and joy breaking over him like a wave.

No one came back. No one ever came back - when people went away it was forever and always and she’d tried to be brave, she’d tried so hard but it wasn’t working, she couldn’t make herself not scared and everyone was scared and everything was terrible, she didn’t know what to do and then he came back-

He holds her tight. “It’s all right. I’m here. I’m right here.”

Thank kriff for all of it. That he’d Fallen. Thank kriff for Bandomeer, Melida-Daan and Mandalore and every terrible day in between, if any of that is the reason he can be here to comfort her now.

Trilla cries as silently as she does most everything, only the quietest, short gasp now and then to betray her. The Dark leans over his shoulder, curious and observant, taking swift account all the fault lines, the frayed threads of terror in her that he could unravel so easily. It isn’t even malicious, not really - this is just how it knows the world, what it understands.

What a strange, sad thing, to be a Sith, to see life - fragile, tenacious, irreplaceable - and think only of control. All the rest of it, all the living as nothing but the means to an end. Ripping what mattered up at the roots and thinking the wreckage was the point. What a terrible way to have to live.

As carefully as he’s ever done anything, Obi-Wan smooths down those panicked edges, tries to ease that fear, ready to retreat behind his shields forever the moment it causes her the slightest hint of distress - but it doesn’t. The Dark is less and less interested, receding as the worst subsides - and he remembers the protection the Sith had given him, that breathing room in a terrible, empty place.

The Dark shows him the opportunity, but Obi-Wan’s the one to choose if he’d rather mend or maim. Perspective.

Kriff, wherever Genet is now, Obi-Wan knows he’s gloating.

He’ll take the reprieve, just to sit and rest with her, the Force around them like a patch of warm sun as they share memories. Easier this way, to show her where he’d been - the sharp edge of anger from Trilla at the thought of Arla, the person in her memories a tall, implacable thing - not a person at all.

No, it wasn’t like that. Obi-Wan gives her the memories of Arla making sure he stayed fed, keeping herself between him and the enemy, a keldabe right when he needed it the most. She wasn’t the way she seemed at first. Tor scared her, he scared her very badly for a very long time, and he wanted her to always be afraid, and always be alone.

He shows her the beskar stiletto, that Arla had slid into his boot and wouldn’t let him leave behind - a backup plan for the backup plan. Remembers the maps she’d had him study on the vambrace she’d copied over, the most up-to-date information on the places they could run. How Mandalorians take care of their weapons and their ships and the people who matter to them, doing everything she could do to give him the best chance at victory.

After a long moment, a grudging, half-acceptance from Trilla. Not about to forgive that easily - but Obi-Wan knows she understands, the way they all understand what it is to try and live through fear and loneliness. How enough terrifying days can easily grind away all the best intentions.

The way Cal had almost… Obi-Wan sees it through her eyes, grazed by blaster fire, as he’d tried to get everyone out of the way. Nothing pointed directly at the ade, they weren’t important, but it had still nearly cost them Cal - had cost them two others. Two younglings, like some strange sort of echo of the two Tor had killed, the day Obi-Wan had arrived. Except he hadn’t known them, not like the ones they’d lost now. The ones that Cal and the others had already buried, who had nightmares and hopes and dreams - and they’d thought, too, that Obi-Wan was special, that he’d make things better.

Even the dead had faith in him, for all the good it did - when all he can do now is sit and think that he’s lucky no one was badly injured, that he doesn’t have to try and plan around that and he hates himself for it, hates to have to think that way - hates Tor Vizsla, in a way Obi-Wan’s not sure he’s ever hated anything before - and no, he still really doesn’t want to rule the galaxy, but a part of him wouldn’t mind seeing what it took to make a man like that understand. How long and how badly he would have to make Tor hurt, until he realized exactly what he’d done, really grasp what it meant to make a Jedi want to reach for the Dark.

It’s very, very silent in his head - and Cal is there too, listening in from the sidelines, maybe noticing when their thoughts had turned to the attack, the near-miss. Long enough to feel the worst - and Trilla is still in his arms, barely breathing, the way anyone would be trying not to draw the attention of something dangerous. Obi-Wan lets out a slow, deliberate breath, lets go so she won’t feel trapped, so she can disappear.

“I’m sorry.” As if that’s anywhere near good enough. He can only let it radiate in the Force as much as the anger had - shame and regret and apology.

What… happened out there? Cal finally asks. Where did you go?

Kriff, as if Obi-Wan even knows where to start, where it’s safe to start. If this were the Temple… kriff, he doesn’t even know where they put people like him in the Temple, not really. If it’s even in the Temple at all. He wouldn’t be here, of all places, wouldn’t be allowed to talk to Cal and Trilla like this. He’d be under heavy guard and Force suppressors, locked far away for everyone’s safety, for his own -

All those thoughts, yanked to a sudden stop by Cal - who isn’t usually this forthright in the Force, not confident enough in his own ability - but the sense of trust and camaraderie is like a rope around Obi-Wan’s waist, refusing to let him think himself any further down. It’s such a risk, he doesn’t even understand all that he’s risking.

Cal, you shouldn’t-

Well, I’m gonna. Stubborn bravery, that core of honest goodness - and Trilla hugs him, adding her own fierce agreement, like a blaze of bright fire.

He can hardly pretend they’re naive - they’ve lost as much as he has, if not far more so. They know just how ugly the world can be.

What place is there for the Dark, really, in the face of such selflessness? He’d been afraid he might hurt them somehow, corrupt them, that keeping his distance might be the only way to keep them safe - but Obi-Wan can see now what a terrible mistake that would have been. Isolation in uncertainty is perfect fuel for the Dark - it’s good to be reminded what other people actually think, and not just what Obi-Wan fears they will.

If he’s going to risk himself for them, he has to respect them enough to let them choose to do the same.

We’re going to get out of here, but when we do… I might have to be… scary, for a while, to keep everyone safe.

He reaches for that power again, a little less cold and a little more familiar every time. Pulls on it just enough to send a ripple of fear and uncertainty across the Force, feels Cal’s alarm and confusion and Trilla’s grip on him tighten and he holds the tension there for a moment, holds the threat of danger long past the moment where it should break, and hopes they understand.

It might be even worse, when we run. If I need to frighten the Kyr’tsad to make them not attack us, I might need to seem very scary - but it’s not real. It’s a big fear, but it’s empty - just an illusion. Like a tooka, fluffing up all its fur to look big. Or…

He’d seen a moth once, a pet of a visiting dignitary to the temple - large enough to perch on the man’s shoulder like a giant bow, and when it suddenly snapped its wings open there were startling, giant blots of color that made all the initiates jump. Eyespots, to surprise predators, to make it look too big, too dangerous to be a meal. But it had been so delicate and gentle, the weight of its limbs on his arm no more than a whisper, with a shimmer of glittering dust that had fallen around them all.

So you… learned how to be scary. Cal says, in the quiet that follows, as Obi-Wan lets the fear fade.

A part of it. Once we’re free, and there’s time, I’ll explain it all. At least, as much as he understands. Obi-Wan will also track down the right ancient map of the stars, and put a proper name to the place.

Once they’re free. Finally.

The sense of a question from Trilla in the Force, a quiet little nudge. Obi-Wan wonders if it was a mistake to try and explain it like that. If he should have waited, should have found some other way, and he responds with a wordless, open gesture of his own - apology, calm, concern.

… can I see the moth again?

Of course. Obi-Wan smiles. It’s not how any Master would have told him to find his focus, to calm his mind, lining up a half-dozen of his better memories to give them all something better to think about - but it works.

Chapter 34

Chapter Text

The stone sits in the river. The water moves around it, pleasant and cool, and the stone is warm and steady.

Be as the stone. Obi-Wan knows this, one of the earliest meditations for the youngest younglings. He wonders what little Sith initiates meditate over. Knives, probably, or something that bites.

“You know a Jedi meditation?”

Visualizing calm rivers isn’t exactly the peak of esoteric knowledge.

It doesn’t surprise him as much as it should, to find himself sitting on the ground, surrounded once again by the barest trace of old stone and ancient intent - the temple on the very edge of the galaxy that the Sith had shown him, innumerable glittering stars stretching out in front of him, like the patterned flank of some vast, unknowable beast.

He understands, has always understood the Dark as a thing to fear or fortify himself against, that exists to tempt and manipulate and seduce. A power in the immediate that knows him, specifically, and wants things from him, specifically. Sitting here, perched in the quiet at the edge of everything, it’s a little easier to imagine a Dark that’s far more vast and rich. One that moves on its own purposes, for its own reasons - beyond such small reckonings as time and place and all the things that silly little creatures do in the measure of it.

On a long enough line, most everything flattens out. As if the stars care who claims them.

“It’s… big, isn’t it?” Eloquence won’t bridge the gap, not when there’s so much he doesn’t know - so much Obi-Wan thinks he’s never going to know, let alone have the words for. “Every time I think I start to understand, I catch a glimpse of... I don’t know…”

One can hope. Genet says. You do wield your power well, little one, even so.

“It wasn’t mine.” Obi-Wan’s not trying to be humble, it’s only the truth. “I was just the mediator. I had… the clearest view of the problem, and was given the chance to fix it.”

The shade seems… sharper, somehow, the view of him clearer than before, although the cloak still hides most everything. Obi-Wan thinks he can catch glimpses of details, out of the corner of his eye. The glint of a mask beneath the deep-cut hood, like something Master Koon might wear. Or a Mandalorian.

“You’re cheating. That’s just cheating.”

Because you’d recognize my face?

Fair point, but Obi-Wan hardly has to admit it. “I didn’t think you could be here like this.”

Control that excitement, little one. It shouldn’t be so easy to tell when a faceless shade is smirking. It seems the more adept you become with the nuances of the Force, the easier it is for me to maintain some presence here.

“The better I am with the Dark.”

The Force. I was loathe to dwell on the particulars when you were fighting for your life, but we really must work on this fixation with duality.

Obi-Wan has the feeling he will be having some form of this argument for a very long time - if he has a very long time.

“What did… what did he do to me? The Sith?”

What do you think he did?

Obi-Wan throws a rock. In a vision, at a ghost. So it doesn’t accomplish much, but gets the point across.

It’s fun to play at cryptic mentor. You’ll appreciate it when you’re older. Genet says. You can sense it well enough, what he passed along, what you’ve been learning how to make your own.

The fear, bound to him - the pattern the Sith had woven into his mind. No time for a gentler instruction.

“It could have been worse, couldn’t it? If he’d wanted to… it could have been a lot worse.”

You were very fortunate he did not mean you harm, even diminished as he was. I would not recommend giving a Sith free rein of your mind as an opening gambit in the future.

“You think I would have learned my lesson the first time.”

At least you still have that sense of humor.

“What was he trying to do?” He rubs that cold spot over his heart, well aware there’s nothing actually there - and the chill isn’t nearly as noticeable as it used to be - more familiar, each time he reaches for it. “What would have happened, if I didn’t figure it out? If I didn’t… fix things, when I did?”

Obi-Wan is nowhere near confident enough to believe the Sith actually thought he could do it.

Genet pulls ever so slightly in the Force, on the darkness woven into his signature, one thin thread twined with the rest, no different than any other that Obi-Wan can see.

What does it look like to you?

“A… binding?” Obi-Wan says. “Down on the planet, it was like a… tangle in the Force. As big as the planet itself. I thought… I don’t know, if I could free it, if I could undo enough of it - is that what it was, really?”

It’s the Force, so…

“Yes and no.” Obi-Wan sighs, abandoning the question to study the place in the Force Genet had pointed out to him. “I don’t… it all looks the same.”

You’ve only just started learning, insight comes with time. Genet says. The Sith - when your physical body died, it would have… tripped a trigger he tied into your Force presence.

Obi-Wan can’t help but snort. “More exploding. Of course.”

With any luck, the results would have… damaged some part of the whole, bleeding it out slowly. It might have shortened their captivity by a few thousand years. Genet tugs, ever so slightly, on another part of the Force that also doesn’t seem any different. He tied this part back to himself. He would have taken what was left of you, to join the others under his protection.

“… oh.”

As an inheritance, it’s not the most obvious avenue to power. You are still a bit small, to inspire much fear at a glance - but perhaps there are more subtle ways to use it to your benefit.

As if he doesn’t already know what Obi-Wan’s been doing - and the shame comes, and the fear - that he’s learning how to use it, that he might even be good at it - and he’s not, it’s not regret exactly, for taking on this path but… Obi-Wan wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling the aftershocks, cutting ties and walking away from the life he knew. He wonders if he’d want to.

If you wish, little one, you do not have to keep it. Unbind yourself from it, as you freed the planet. I don’t believe he would have expected you to carry such a burden.

If Obi-Wan wanted to maintain any illusions about clawing his way back to the Light, he should have already rejected it - but that power had protected him. All those little lights the Sith had sheltered with the remnants of what he’d been. The path he would have chosen, that he'd tried to choose - certainly kinder than what he’d known or been told to want. A gentleness in him, when there had never been any reason it should be there.

The vast, empty expanse of a long and lonely life.

“He never had an apprentice of his own, did he?”

Genet doesn’t answer, not that he needs to, and Obi-Wan… doesn’t want to let it go. Even if it would be far easier, even if the rest of the galaxy might mark him forever as wretched and Fallen. He’s not, and the Sith wasn’t either, and to be that kind of coward in the Light, letting go of what mattered, what deserved to be honored because others thought he should, because he was afraid - it would be the worse burden.

If it’s any consolation, the Sith would find you just as much of a heretic as the Jedi.

“Incredibly comforting, thank you.”

You’re not going to let yourself have any fun with this.

“Fun.”

With power, you can make your problems everyone’s problems. There are worse ways to spend the time.

He could ask Genet, how he would handle their escape - but if the phantom had any interest, let alone particular insights, Obi-Wan thinks he wouldn’t have to ask, and that Genet’s preferred strategy would likely be less about the tactical retreat and more about surveying the blazing impact crater from atop a pile of shrieking beskar slowly bleeding out.

The soul of a poet. Genet says. Or perhaps I simply have confidence in your plan.

Right. Of course.

Obi-Wan rubs a hand absently across that cold place over his heart - lifts it up higher, to his throat, where he knows he would feel a scar in the real world. The chip - and Zai didn’t threaten him earlier but that didn’t mean anything, and removing it - he might be able to short-circuit it with the Dark, without an excessive amount of agony. Except the Sith, they used their pain, and if he could do that, it might be good insurance -

“Do you know how-“

Little one, if there were a way to make a candle burn at three ends, I have faith you would uncover it. Genet says. I find myself loathe at this point to instruct you on how to become a more successful martyr.

“I can’t let him take me down if-“

I can take the hit for you, should it come to that. Genet says. A Sith only accepts such damage when they’ve run out of others to put against the wall - and even that exacts a price. You already demand more of yourself than is at all sustainable.

“I’m fine. I can handle it. I’m meditating right now.”

No, little one - you tried, and fell over five minutes after you started. You’re exhausted.

“I don’t have time to be exhausted.” Obi-Wan fights for calm around gritted teeth. “I don’t have time for any of this.”

If the kyber in your lightsaber slipped out of alignment, would you continue to demand perfection until it cracked and shattered, and then blame the blade? Or would you pause just a moment, to set things back in their proper place?

“… Fine. Fine, you win. We’ll be the kriffing stone in the kriffing river.”

Obi-Wan grumbles - but grudgingly tries to relax, to let himself sit within the flow of the Force in… wherever he’s found himself. It takes a moment to remember he can’t demand from the Light, the way he does the Dark - the Force, as Genet would insist, although there’s saying the Force is the Force and then there’s every bit of training he’s had in his life up until now.

Whatever he wants to call it, if Obi-Wan wants to reach the Light - well, it helps to stop wanting. It helps to go still, and quiet, and let the Force come to him, get himself out of the way so he can stop trying to listen and actually listen.

… and there it is, the river. The Force, all around him. All there is. Calm and beautiful and bright - and the Dark is there too, like a layer of silt and mud at the bottom - and when it notices his attention it stirs, glittering in thin ribbons around his fingertips, but content to sink again out of sight, when there’s nothing he needs it to do.

“… I don’t know what I am anymore.”

Liminal. Genet says. The best possible state of grace. Stay here for as long as you are able.

Unbalanced - the best the Jedi would give him was wildly unbalanced, and getting worse by the moment.

Is it time for another meditation on corruption? Or should we finally unpack how the word balance works when you refuse to admit there’s more than one side? Genet sighs. You gardeners and your fixation on purity, it’s easily the worst thing about you. With no one left to provide perspective, no ‘balance’ - there’s nothing for you to do but obsess over increasingly irrelevant fractions of transgression. Challenge each other to see who can be the most inert. It’s amazing that you can even breathe under the weight of all that rarefied virtue.