#Bo-Katan Kryze x The Armorer | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kalevalakryze · 9 months

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The Ghost Of You

Bo-Katan Week Day 3: Bo-Katan and Satine Pairing: Bo-Katan Kryze & Satine Kryze, Bo-Katan Kryze/The Armorer (background) Characters: Bo-Katan Kryze, Satine Kryze, The Armorer Warnings: Grief, Loss, Blood & Injury Mention, Force Ghost Satine (kinda) Notes: Look, listen… I may not know as much as I want about these two and their beginnings, but I know that I love them, and that Bo-Katan deserves to have someone looking out for her. Also, I am not great at writing anything motivational, but I’m trying. That’s all I can say. Tidbit at the end is inspired by this, also, big thanks to @beladonna02 for reading everything through for me ! Word Count: 3,565 Summary: Satine would appear in her nightmares, when the horrors were chased away by the woman that she had only reconsidered an older sister hours before her death. Satine never spoke in these dreams, and would disappear with the war zones she chased away. Tonight, however, as Bo-Katan tucked the darksaber under her pillow and reclined in her cot aboard the gauntlet, preparing to manage some rest before going home, to see if Mandalore could be saved, things changed. Her dream put her in a field in Kalevala, long grass tickling her fingertips as she pressed forward, muscle memory leading her to a clearing atop one of the many mountainous cliffs. There, Satine stood, looking as if she’d been waiting quite some time. “Satine…” AO3 Link: Here!

Nothing could ever be simple, not for Bo-Katan Kryze. There always had to be something to fight back against even in the simplest tasks, a trait she’d had since she was young. She would always argue the points of things, like brushing her hair, or doing things with her family, or, as she got older, their stances on the way Mandalore was run. During basic training, Satine had always been there, though Bo had never known just what her older sister had gone through to soften people’s reactions to the child’s brash nature, she’d never thought about how much Satine blocked for her, until she’d left, and there was no one to stand between her and the consequences of her actions.

Death Watch had been Bo-Katan’s chance to be something other than the little vod’ika who couldn’t hold her tongue, but she’d had to change so much just to survive, Pre had killed those he deemed weak, and he’d always pressed down harder on Bo-Katan for her relation to the Duchess of Mandalor, even if Bo-Katan had readily thrown away familial ties the second Pre had asked.

The girl who used to follow Satine Kryze around was as good as dead, compared to the warrior that sprouted in her place. She did exactly as Pre asked, kept quiet when her opinion didn’t matter, and recognized a true Mandalorian, had aided in every operation to take down her sister, even if it meant Satine would have to die, it was what Mandalore needed, right?

Bo-Katan would face the consequences of her actions when Pre’s operation with the CIS came to an abrupt end, when he’d allied with the dar’jetti, and she’d decided to speak out against it, against him. She had enough bruises to keep her quiet, for a time, until Pre met his end at the business end of the dark saber.

From that day forward, nothing had slowed down, the loss, the pain, the consequences she had to face for living her life while someone else took the blame.

Bo-Katan had exactly an hour of peace, an hour of forgiveness and the feeling of someone having her back in a way that even Ursa could not have truly provided. “There was a time when we weren’t enemies. Perhaps that time has come again,” Though neither of them could have ever guessed that it would have been a matter of minutes, before they were pulled apart once more, a mere matter of hours before the Jetti, Kenobi, was telling her of her ori’vod’s death, like she had some kind of right to be upset.

Air never came to her lungs without a fight since that day, every breath she took was a struggle to plant herself in the sand and declare that she wasn’t going to die, not yet. Without Pre to fill her head with how she was supposed to feel, or the threats of death at being seen as weak to keep her in line, the kid she’d buried in basic had pounded at the bars in her heart.

She didn’t just leave behind her family when she’d left for Death Watch, she’d left the kid who wanted to read her sister’s datapads with her work on it, or read holonovels about mandalorian history, the kid that would bug Satine into staying up to watch just one more documentary with her. Every day since Satine’s death, that kid tried to break down everything she’d spent so long building, the blood, sweat, tears, and mountain of corpses she laid as foundation for the woman she’d become, it all threatened to come tumbling down each time the adrenaline wore off.

Sometimes, when the adrenaline started to ebb from her veins and she had a moment’s respite in her ship, the redhead would fall into a fitful sleep. Warzones mottled with enough grief to have her waking up more exhausted than before were suddenly memories long forgotten. Some nights, she would be at her families castle on Kalevala, the blurry faces of her buir explaining something or another that Bo had found interesting, her ori’vod giving her piggyback rides around the grounds, or even the protectors showing her some of their moves, after she bugged them enough. The kid she refused to acknowledge as herself would grow quiet for a few days, after nights like this, and she would walk through war zones with an unabashed sense of safety.

Bo-Katan had never given much thought to the temporary shift from her nightmares, not until she was striking against the Empire. An explosion had sent a sharp piece of Durasteel through her side, an inch away from her armor that would have protected her. She’d hit the ground hard, had scrambled to try and stand instead of put pressure on the wound, had been busy firing at the troopers. The only thing she had been certain about that day was that she had been completely alone, and that she hadn’t called into her comms once. Bo-Katan hadn’t given any of her weird happenings any thought, until the feeling of hands pressing against torn skin, keeping both sides close together and keeping a great deal of pressure on the wound, within moments, Koska and Axe had been there, but she’d felt when the first set of hands had been replaced with Koska’s, the first set had been so cold, but they’d felt safe. It was all Bo could recall, after she’d woken up in the gauntlet with her side stitched up and enough batch to keep her down a few days, along with the knowledge that if she hadn’t applied pressure before Koska and Axe had gotten there, she surely would have died.

Bo had started to pay attention, after that day, to all the oddities that had occurred in her life. How her armor would be removed when she was sure she’d passed out with it on, or how a Niteowl would show up right when she needed a hand, before she could even think to call. Or how, when she lay her head down at night, there was an undeserved feeling of safety and love, and the ghost of fingers brushing the tangles from her hair after a long day.

Her dreams changed more often, the ever present nightmares were still there, but so was Satine. She would never say anything, but she would take Bo-Katan’s hand and lead her away, would lead her home, even in the nights since the Night of a Thousand Tears, even after Bo-Katan had failed to protect Korkie. Satine would lead her home, and Bo-Katan would sit in the fields on Kalevala, or would jump around the palace on Mandalore, looking at all the architecture their people designed. It had been relieving, until it wasn’t.

Satine’s presence in her nightmares were eventually met with anger and hate from the redhead, not unlike their last days as sisters, before Bo had grabbed her armor and left for Concordia. She failed to win the dark saber, and she couldn’t justify challenging Din Djarin, she failed, and her fleet left her. So why Satine’s ghost stuck with her when literally anyone else deserved her presence (wasn’t Kenobi still floating somewhere, she could go do ghost shit with him) was a loss on Bo.

She deserved the nightmares, and the anxieties, and the pain that pulsed through her being, day in, day out, as she sat on that throne on Kalevala. She didn’t deserve the haunting memories that offered respite, or a breath of fresh air against the ebbing darkness that consumed her. When the Imperials destroyed Kalevala, she figured she’d deserved that too. Until Din Djarin brought her home, took her to his people, and they accepted her as one of their people, as long as she fell in line.

It had been easy enough, just like with their predecessors, Bo-Katan had fallen in line, had kept her mouth shut about their ideals and just followed the creed the way they wanted. Of course, even the comfort of being told what to do by the tribe did not last. The Armorer had seen something in her, something Bo-Katan truly wished would die, just like the kid she had forced into the back of her very being.

She’d felt someone else’s hands against her own, when she’d taken off her helmet in the forge, the ghost of fingers brushing through her hair as she swallowed her anxieties and met The Armorer’s gaze. There had been a fear of being cast aside for good, that day, but the feeling of a hand in her own, and the reassurances from The Armorer, had loaned her the strength to find their people.

Now though, with the dark saber officially her own, under Din Darin’s technicality, their people united, and plans to reclaim their home, Bo-Katan had breathed easy for the first time in over a decade.

The dark saber was stuffed under her pillow in her cot aboard the gauntlet, The Armorer, still helmeted, lay already asleep in the space beside her, allowing her to find some semblance of comfort between the durasteel wall and the solid form of the other leader, Bo-Katan was able to relax. The kid had come with the comfort, however, bringing the redhead to curl into the warmth at her side, until the cold ghostly feeling of someone stroking the bridge of her nose lulled her to sleep.

Tonight, it was not one of hundreds of battles that played behind her eyelids, but the familiar sights of Kalevala, although, Bo-Katan had never visited this particular mountain, far off from the castle and too difficult to climb as a child who could never hope to reach.

A muscle memory she did not have had her walking through a long overgrown path, pushing past the brush to the small clearing on the other side. The redhead stopped cold in her tracks as she took in the view. Near the edge of the cliff, a figure clad in white stood, blonde hair falling loose down her back, caught in the breeze as the wind sung its way through the mountains. “Satine…” Bo’s words were no more a whisper as the wind, but the woman still turned towards her.

“I’ve been waiting for you, for quite some time, Bo,” The woman stepped away from the ledge, before lowering herself onto one of the large boulders that must have landed years before on the cliff’s top from mountains above. When she patted the spot next to her, the redhead moved, almost numbly, to drop inelegantly into the indicated seat.

“Waiting for me?” Her hands went to feel her own pulse point, feeling for the thumping of her own heart, which responded with rapid thumps into her fingertips as she pressed her fingers into her bare wrist.

“I was sure you would have come years ago,” Satine shook her head, an almost fond smile pulling at her lips. “Though, Obi-Wan said he hadn’t been able to see his master until he was good and ready either.”

“What are you talking about…?” Bo-Katan’s brows furrowed as she leaned forward, elbows settling into the tops of her legs as she stared hard at her sister. Satine still looked young, which was rather jarring to the woman pushing fifty, with wrinkles pulling at her face and age wearing her down. The drop it caused in her chest had Satine reaching to take her hand, as if she could feel it the spiral of Bo’s thoughts.

“I’ve always been around, Bo-Katan, no matter how you’ve viewed me, or yourself,” Satine offered, squeezing Bo-Katan’s hand.

The coldness of the hand against her own, the way blue eyes settled on her, it was… certainly too much, to real, and too familiar. “This is some force osik, isn’t it?”

A soft laugh, hidden behind her sister’s hand and the nod of her head met Bo’s ears. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Why are you talking to me now?”

“You let me in,” Satine’s brows furrowed in a way that was achingly similar to Bo’s own, as she looked to the redhead. “I was never able to speak to you unless you were ready, I managed to get through occasionally, when you needed me, but you always shut me out before I could say anything,” The soft pads of her fingers brushed against the top of her hand, bringing Bo’s gaze down to stare at the pale, unblemished skin, against her own, scars littering her knuckles and the backs of her hands.

“We had others in our clan,” Bo pointed out, forcing her gaze to a patch of wildflowers nearby. “They could have used your help more,” The stability of the dream shifted as she spoke, and Bo had to clamp her eyes shut to avoid the way Satine’s image had flickered into that of a corpse.

“Bo, if you shut me out, I will lose this connection, I can’t be here without your consent,” She reminded with a gentle voice. A beat passed before the dream stabilized once more, and Bo could open her eyes.

“I just, don’t get it, sometimes,” She let go of Satine’s hand to wrap her arms around herself. The kid she tried so hard to lock away soared at the comforting action, one the Mandalorian hadn’t allowed herself since she’d walked away.

“Talk me through it,”

“I walked away, Satine,” The blonde’s hand rested on her shoulder, a gentle pressure, until the redhead was tucking herself into the woman’s side, head dropping onto her shoulder, like they’d done so many times before. “I left, and I actively plotted to kill you, I took each opportunity I had to make things harder for what you were trying to do, and I only decided to change when the consequences of my actions started to catch up to me,” Her hands pulled at the soft fabric of her shirt, one she didn’t recognize as something she’d ever owned, but it was comfortable, at least, as her hands fisted into the fabric to release some of her frustrations.

“I tried to do something right, and I failed, at every, single, step.”

“That’s not true, Bo. You’ve united our people, you’re going to go to Mandalore tomorrow, and you’re going to lead our people into a new age, you’ve brought them together,”

“Until they find out exactly what I’ve done, Satine. Korkie is dead, because I wasn’t enough, because I gave up,” Bo’s teeth ground together as she flexed the muscles in her jaw. If it wasn’t for the arm wrapped around her shoulders, she probably would have stood and started pacing, just so she wasn’t sitting still.

“There was no way you could have avoided Gideon’s betrayal. If you wouldn’t have surrendered, you’d be dead with them,”

“Maybe it would have been for the best,” The arm around Bo’s shoulders disappeared, before her chin was being pushed up to meet the anger in blue eyes.

“That isn’t true,”

Before Satine could continue, Bo batted her hand away and stood, rising to meet her with just as much, if not more, anger. “You can’t say that and believe it, Satine. If you’d lived, Mandalore never would have been lost!”

“It would have, Bo-Katan, I could never convince the warriors to unite to my ideals, we would always be at war with each other, if I had continued. But you have learned, have you not? You have walked both worlds because you have seen what your actions have created. You have met the Children of the Watch, those who faced the consequences of your actions in Death Watch. You have fought, won and lost and everything in between to get to this point, and you are learning what no other has before. Too much Mandalorian blood has been spilled, there is a balance to this choice that only you can weigh. If you push for warriors that strike out against everything, you face annihilation, if you push for pacifism, you face annihilation, but you know the way to balance it all, because you’ve lived it,”

Bo-Katan scoffed and turned her back on her sister, though she kept her foot pointed towards her, afraid that if she closed her body language off entirely, she would lose her forever.

“I hate it,” She admitted after a moments deliberation.

“Hate what?” Satine’s hand rested once more on her shoulder, and once again, Bo-Katan leaned into the contact.

“I hate what I’ve become,” When she looked at her hands, she only saw blood, when she looked at her blasters, she remembered only the lives of her own people that had been cut out by the other end. “I hate that I survived, when you didn’t. . . I hate every year that passes, that reminds me I’ll always be older than you ever got to be, that Korkie never got to be as old as you, before he’d died, that there are Mandalorians out there who have never known Mandalore when it was full of life. I hate what I’ve done to survive, I hate Pre, even though I chose to follow him, I hate the way he made me feel, I hate it all, Satine.” Bo ranted, now able to pace across the clearing, creating a small path in the wildflowers she’d trampled.

“Well… What are we going to do about it?” Satine offered as she lowered herself back onto the smooth face of the boulder.

“There isn’t a ‘we’, Satine, you’re dead. This is just… a figment of my imagination gone wild,”

“You and I both know that isn’t true, Bo,”

“It��s easier than thinking this could be real,”

“Bo-Katan, just, sit, please,” Again, Satine patted the spot beside her, a smile pulling at her lips as the redhead dropped beside her. “You are worthy of love, in it’s many forms. Wether it be whichever way I am able to reach you, from your friends, or even from the woman you’ve allowed into your life,”

“How do you know about The Armorer?”

“Force osik,” The sisters laughed together, and Satine once more pulled her ‘little’ sister close, until she could run her fingers through her hair. “You have always been worthy of love, just like you are capable of change. You need to learn to love those things you hate, but-“ Her finger tapped the tip of Bo’s nose, “You do not have to do it alone,” each word was emphasized with a tap to the tip of her nose, until the redhead was crinkling her nose and lightly batting at her hand.

“I know,” Bo-Katan’s smile faltered for just a moment, as she dipped her head into her ori’vod’s shoulder.

“You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Bo. The Mandalorians at your side tomorrow are not there for the darksaber, they will be there because you’d proven that you’re capable, even at your lowest, you’ve saved their younglings, had brought new foundlings to the tribe, and are leading them home, together. There may come a point where that saber is gone, but they will still be with you, just as I am. Mandalorians are stronger together, you just have to let them in to help you. And maybe, you won’t have to be the person you’d become to survive, because you’ll be able to live,”

“How did I ever survive all those years without your motivational speeches?” Bo’s voice was muffled into Satine’s shoulder, though the blonde could feel the smile on her sister’s lips.

“Would you have listened, even if I told you this while you were moping around on the throne?”

“Probably not,”

“Exactly, so just, be quiet, and let me enjoy this time with you,” Satine shook her head, before her fingers found Bo-Katan’s hair once more, brushing it out as she pointed out different birds or talked about the flowers around them.

When Bo-Katan woke up, hours later, she was tangled entirely in The Armorer’s arms, legs interlocked, fingers grasping at the soft material of her flight suit, and the woman’s gaze boring into her sole. “Did you sleep well?” The Armorer questioned as Bo’s cheeks flushed and she started to unwind herself, nodding as she dropped herself into the space beside the woman. “Were you aware that you talk in your sleep?”

“There was a lot to talk about, apparently, I’m sorry if I woke you.” Bo-Katan reached to pull the dark saber from under the pillow, settling it on the edge of the bed to clip to her belt once she got ready.

“Your sister, Satine?” The Armorer questioned, bringing Bo to a grinding halt.

“How did you..?”

“You are not the first one she’s reached out to in the night,” The Armorer had left it at that, even with Bo’s continued questioning glances, and a stifled laughter in the air.

Days later, as Bo-Katan stood in front of the forge, in front of their people, she’d felt a familiar weight at her side, and as the torch was passed to her, there was another hand guiding her to lower it and light the flames. In the chanting of their people, she heard not just those standing around her, but the echoes of hundreds, of Satine’s own voice ringing in her ear. It wasn’t her song, but it was Mandalore’s. From Mand’alor the great, all the way to Bo-Katan Kryze, they were all there, in some way, shape, or form.

Translations: vod'ika - little sibling ori'vod - older sibling Jetti - Jedi dar'jetti - sith osik - shit kriff - expletive

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