#though again i was still learning mostly from the imperial core | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deniigi · 3 years

Note

A fic from Boba’s POV as a babysitter seeing Din’s family dynamics isn’t self indulgent it’s indulgent to your readers - fuck, that sounds like the best, most hilarious thing ever?!? (With peppered in bits of Boba’s identity crisis/diaspora feels)

I say you release babysitter boba fic ;) It sounds hilarious

Ask and you shall receive, anons. Beware. It’s like 11k of world building lol.

(I will post here and not on Ao3 because I’m not ready for that level of commitment rn lol)

Title: in the plains of Zeffo

Summary:

“I don’t like him,” Karren told Din.

“Concurred,” Din said.

“Ad’ika,” the Armorer scolded.

“I will not be shamed into liking him, either,” Din asserted.

“Din,” Karren whined.

“I’ll consider coming home if it means there will be no space for Bojzka,” Din said.

(Din’s original finder’s old crush on the Armorer is rekindled after he helps her reunite with Din. He tries to win her favor, but keeps getting tripped up by Din who knows she’s not interested. Boba Fett’s POV.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

There was little more entertaining than watching Djarin snap.

Boba ten years ago would have spat at the very idea that such meagre fare would suit his humor, but he was getting old, man. You had to take what you could get, and Djarin’s bared rage was a sight to behold.

Currently, he was locked in combat with Urro Bojzka. The Urro Bojzka. The one who even Boba had heard of, growing up on Kamino.

Dad had had some pointed feelings about Mr. Bojzka. Mainly, they revolved around how it was unfair that everyone called him an opportunistic traitor when Bojzka continued to exist and thrive in the universe at large, but Dad also had more specific feelings about Bojzka that bordered on jealousy.

Urro Bojzka was said to be the ideal Mandalorian man.

He was big. He was strong. He sounded like he’d smoked six different kinds of spice for forty years, and nothing and no one could take him down.

The cherry on top was that he was notorious for rescuing kids. The man had snatched nearly two hundred up out of smoking ruins and battlefields. A good twenty or thirty had become foundlings and then Mandalorians themselves, and counted among their number now, to Bo-Katan’s absolute glee, was their sweet, precious Din Djarin.

They should have known. Din was the epitome of Mandalorian; it figured that Urro Bojzka himself would have picked him up as a child.

Din however, had little appreciation for this fact beyond that which was only polite. He made it very clear that he’d already thanked Bojzka for taking him out of his childhood hellhole. He’d done that bare minimum and so no one could ask anything more of him.

Bojzka had other plans.

It turned out that Urro Bojzka had a thing for Din’s covert’s Armorer. God, did he have a thing. And not only did he have a thing, but he’d had it for decades.

Apparently, a thousand years ago, when Boba and Din and all the others around them had still been rolling around on dirt floors trying to eat beetles and shit, Bojzka had attempted to court Din’s Armorer. He’d gone as far and wide as a young Mando could. He’d tried flowers, perfume, credits, displays of strength and courage. He’d tried gifts of food and offers of travel. He’d even stooped so low as to read a book.

None of it had gone well for him. And that was probably because Din’s Armorer had recently proven herself to be no less than one of the heiresses of the Katzkai clan.

The Renda Bears. Those people were hard-fucking-core.

When Bo-Katan found out that Din’s ‘Goran’ was, in fact, Nomri Katzkai, the second daughter of Lanlee Katzai and the official apprentice of Fii Katzkai, the imperial Armorer himself, she threw up her hands and declared all endeavors hopeless now.

Din was one of them; he just didn’t know it. And his buir, who had removed herself from her family to be even more hardcore than anyone would have thought possible, didn’t seem overly excited to start explaining shit to him anytime soon.

So here they were. With Din about to kill one of the most famous war heroes in recent Mandalorian history over a crush that wouldn’t quit.

Bojzka smiled at him with dark eyes with scars through both of his eyebrows.

“Just a message,” he lobbied. “One letter.”

Boba would’ve fucked him. Yeah, why not? Just look at him.

“She’s busy,” Din said. “You’ll have to submit it to Eegang Quodo. That’s E-e-g-a—”

“Yeah, see. Here’s the thing, kid. This letter’s gonna be kinda personal, if you catch my drift—”

“Q-u-o—”

“—probably not great for the eyes of anyone who ain’t, you know, in on this whole relationship—”

“—d-o. He’s usually busy, too. So you probably should submit it to Paz, instead. He’ll lose it for you forever. That’s P-a-z—”

Fennec hid a razor-sharp grin behind a clenched fist. She flashed it at Boba.

‘I love him’ she mouthed, pointing at Din’s hiked-up shoulders. Even his cape seemed to have gone stiff in Bojzka’s presence.

“Din, honey. Listen to me,” Bojzka crooned. “I know you’re protective of your mama, but—”

“She’s not my mother. Don’t you fucking dare call her that, you hulking piece of—”

“Ah-ah-ah. You’re not listening. Come on. Chin up. Ears open.”

Bojzka tapped at the bottom of Din’s helmet like a CO with a teenage recruit, and Fennec just about screamed when Din went completely still and silent.

Bo-Katan met Boba’s gaze out of the corner of her eye. She mimed a syringe. Boba shook his head. If this fucker got bit, he deserved whatever infection it brought.

“Atta boy,” Bojzka said to Din’s rigid silence. “Here’s how it is: your mama and me go way, way back. And you know, after your touching reunion the other week, she even went and had a drink with me, and we got to talkin’ and started to reconnect, the old folks do. And I could read her body language, Din-Din. She wants a man. And that man’s me. So instead of actin’ like a child over all this, why don’t we—”

“She wanted Naseem,” Din snapped. “But Naseem died. Twenty years ago, he died. You just wear similar boots.”

Get ‘im, Djarin. Get ‘im.

“I—who?” Bojzka snapped.

“Naseem,” Din repeated like he was an idiot. “Traditional, bantha-sized, green armor. He worked all the time to keep all the kids in the covert fed.”

Bojzka processed this.

“Naseem what?” he asked stiffly.

“He’s dead,” Din said. “And Hajka left. So no. Goran needs neither a man or a woman, and especially not you. What she needs is a break and for Karren to stop fighting people on sight.”

Bojzka backtracked like a champ.

“Karren, that’s her youngest, right?” he asked. “Well, I bet Karren could use some sisters. I bet he’s lonely over there on, uh.”

“Zeffo,” Din gritted out. “And no. He’s not. He has three sisters. One of which is still at the covert, terrorizing him left and right.”

Even Bo-Katan could only empathize so much with Bojzka, war hero or nah.

“Why’re you all up in arms, Din? What’d I do to you?” Bojzka finally asked. “Don’t you want your buir to be happy?”

Din’s shoulders finally came down from his helmet.

“Of course, I do,” he said. “Which is why if you set so much as a toe on Zeffo, I’m taking both of your knees with me to Yavin.”

Any parent would have been proud to have Din as their child. He took family honor to a level that even the Katzkai clan would have had a hard time sniffing at.

He had to have learned this from the wayward heiress. Although, if Boba was honest, he didn’t really think that the wayward heiress was all that wayward.

She’d come to visit Din on Tatooine. She was short and stocky and not terribly interested in the court or anyone outside of Din.

She wasn’t nearly as hostile as Bo-Katan expected either. She didn’t appear to love anything that she was looking at, no, but Din had explained that that was mostly because she wasn’t really a fan of him having become Mand’alor to start with.

When she came to visit, anyways, she was far more interested in getting a good fuss in to give herself peace of mind that Din was okay. That way she could then go back to dealing with the apparently endless series of crises at the new covert.

She was a great parent in that way. She even brought along her youngest, so that he could see his big brother.

That kid was fuckin’ adorable. Maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. Barely, barely, barely in armor. He was strapped into his leathers so tight, he looked like he was stuffed with straw.

He had medium-brown skin with yellow undertones and huge, nearly-black eyes. Coarse black hair poured into his face and curled around his ears—and if he thought he was going to stuff all that in a helmet one day, he had another thing coming.

He bopped after his buir when they entered the palace and stopped occasionally to stare up in awe at the palace’s high ceilings. Upon realizing that he’d lost his escort, he scampered along to catch up and did the whole thing again and again until buir had enough and snatched his hand.

He didn’t like that. He was fourteen-fifteen years old. He was too big for hand-holding, buir.

Never too old to be ignored, though.

“Goraaaaaan.”

“Hush,” the Armorer told him. “Keep up.”

He was handed off to Boba outside Din’s personal quarters, mostly because he was making such a fuss at the Armorer that she began contemplating leaving him at the palace forever. Din intervened and the kid latched onto him instead until Din convinced him that he’d be available talk just as soon as he and their buir were done speaking.

The kid’s name was Karren.

He and Boba were now best friends.

“—so Goran said, ‘I’m not having that idiot in my rooms.’ But then Eegang said, ‘we already have Paz in these rooms,’ and you’re not supposed to laugh, Mr. Fett, but we all did because we’re all stupid. So we had to do like, a thousand chores for eavesdropping.”

“So she’s not into him, then?” Fennec clarified. “He’s really into her, you know.”

“Of course, I know,” Karren lamented. “But Goran’s picky and the last person she was all close with was Hajka and we’re not allowed to talk about her anymore or Din’ll make you do two hundred push-ups while he watches.”

Amazing. Say more about Din’s oldest-child syndrome, little one.

“No, I like Din,” Karren sighed. “Now that Digo’s gone, he’s even nicer.”

Oh?

“What happened to Digo?” Boba asked as Bo-Katan joined them in curiosity.

“Digo’s a jerk is what happened,” Karren huffed. “She wanted Goran to give over the forge and join the elders, but Goran isn’t even that old. So when she said ‘no,’ Digo got mad and said that the only foundling Goran respects is Din. Which is bullshit because everyone knows that Goran has always been the nicest with Digo and Nasif—she made all sorts of excuses for them, Mr. Fett, like when they went out and got caught stealing parts like Jawas, she did four whole hunts to raise their bail. When Din gets in trouble, he takes care of it himself. He doesn’t ask Goran to do that kind of thing. And me and Shimmol just don’t get in that kind of trouble to start with—but no. Digo had to be all ‘if you don’t treat us as equals, then we’re gonna leave and start our own forge.’”

“No kidding,” Fennec said. “So they left?”

“Yeah, both of them ‘cause Nasif does anything Digo tells her to,” Karren said, kicking his feet. “And good riddance.”

Too many sisters, this one had. Boba felt for him.

“So Goran’s still recovering from that betrayal, I take it?” he asked.

Karren frowned and chewed a lip.

“I dunno,” he admitted. “No one tells me anything. I think that Goran’s been more worried about Din than them after all that happened. We thought he got crunched by the jedi—or at least I thought he got crunched. Paz says that Jedis compact Mandalorians into cubes of armor and Din’s got the best armor.”

Do not laugh at the child. Do not laugh at the child.

“I don’t think Jedis crunch Mandalorians,” Bo-Katan said generously, having snuck into the bare antechamber while everyone was distracted with the kid’s story.

“Well, I do,” Karren countered, with zero conception of who he was talking to.

Fennec beamed.

“Do you like this Urro guy?” she asked.

“No,” Karren answered immediately. “He’s sent Eegang four messages and they’re all gross.”

Yep.

It was gonna be a late puberty for this one.

“What makes them gross?” Bo-Katan asked.

“The mush,” Karren said expertly. “Bojzka calls Goran ‘Nomri.’ That’s a bad word at home. No one says that word. Goran is ‘Goran.’ The only people who call her anything else are the elders.”

“And you and your siblings, no?” Bo-Katan asked.

Karran cocked his head at her.

“Yeah, and ‘buir’ I guess, if we aren’t in trouble,” he said.

Bless him.

“Are you in trouble a lot?” Bo-Katan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I got a temper or something.”

“Is Din in trouble?”

“With buir? No, not like me and Shimmol. He’s too old to be in that kind of trouble. His trouble’s like ‘help, I fell a hundred feet off a cliff’ kind of trouble. He gives Goran indigestion, but she can’t make him reflect on falling a million feet out of a ship—Eegang says that’s called ‘rehashing trauma.’”

The covert on Zeffo sounded like it was holding itself together through sheer force of will and that alone.

Where did Boba sign up? It sounded like a fantastic experiment to pass the time.

“Are you a foundling, Karren?” Boba asked.

The kid lit up.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been with Goran for five years now. Six in a few months. My dad’s a piece of shit. He killed my mom, and Goran got him arrested for that and for what he did to my auntie.”

Well, fuck. That explained a lot.

“And you like it there—on Zeffo?” Bo-Katan asked.

Karren shrugged.

“It’s cold and wet,” he said. “I liked Nevarro better. Din was home more on Nevarro.”

Awww.

“Aren’t you proud of Din for becoming Mand’alor?” Bo-Katan asked as gently as she could manage.

Karren’s frown eased up finally.

“No,” he said. “Din should just come home. He doesn’t need to be Mand’alor or married to some jedi. He should just come home. It’s stupid; his foundling should have stayed with us from the start. We always have room for more foundlings. I dunno why he had to leave with his foundling at all.”

Bo-Katan sat back and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “If it helps, I think he just wants to come home, too.”

“So let him,” Karren blurted out to her.

Tough tits, kid. That wasn’t how it worked.

“I think we should perhaps focus on one thing at a time,” Bo-Katan said. “What do you think, Fett?”

What did Boba think?

Boba thought that he had a great idea to distract this kid from missing his big brother.

---

Karren was perhaps a little too small still to reach the brakes in the crawler, but you know what? So was Fennec sometimes and she did just fine.

“Gas,” Boba said, pointing. “Neutral. Brake. Park.”

“Gas, neutral, brake, park,” Karren repeated to him with his hands on the wheel and his knobbly wrists peeking out from the gap between his gloves and his leather braces.

Bo-Katan had refused to be present or responsible for this. Fennec had told them to wait while she went and took a shot first. ‘For safety’ she said.

“What’s neutral for?”

“You’re about to tell me,” Boba said, adjusting the rear view mirrors down to kid-height.

The sound of Fennec throwing herself onto the back of the crawler rattled through to their compartment.

“That’s our signal,” Boba said. “You ready to jam?”

“Jam?” Karren asked him.

Hm.

Punch it?

“Punch what?”

The fuck kind of slang did they use at the covert?

“Rock?”

“OH. Yeah, I’m ready.”

There we go. Onward march then.

---

An hour later, Din sighed with Karren whining under his arm.

“There is a reason he’s not trained yet, Fett,” Din said as Karren started chomping on the bunched-up flightsuit in his elbow.

The Armorer pressed both palms into the forehead of her helmet.

The crawler had perhaps seen better days. But it had also seen worse days, and Fennec was still going through little loops of cackling at the memory of having to chase after its open tailgate. Boba didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. The kid had done amazingly well for his first time at the wheel.

“I’m leaving all of you,” Karren grated out, trying miserably to escape Din’s elbow-prison. “I want to be Mr. Fett’s foundling.”

Bless him.

“You don’t,” Din told him forcefully. “Fett can’t handle a foundling.”

Ay, Boba would drink to that. He was happy to be a foundling-sitter and borrower, though.

“Buir,” Karren pleaded.

“You make me tired, child,” the Armorer told him. “Say goodbye to vod.”

“NO.”

Din sighed. The Armorer sighed. Karren, in a beautiful 180, latched onto Din’s ribs again.

“Come hooooooome,” he pleaded with Din.

“I caaaaaaan’t,” Din drawled back at him in a delightfully uncharacteristic tone.

“These people don’t need you. We need you. Shimmol took your bed and if you don’t take it back, she’s gonna keep it.”

Din’s shoulders dropped.

“I told Shimmol that she could take my bunk, Karren,” he said. “I’m not using it—”

“BUT YOU COULD BE.”

Boba took it back. He could take on a foundling. Fuck it, why not? This one was great.

“Come here,” Din said, dragging the kid up to his toes. He knocked the front of his helmet against Karren’s forehead with enough force that the bump was noticeable. That made the kid shut up and stand up straight on his own volition again.

“Soon,” Din told him forcefully. “Behave for buir.”

“Promise,” Karren demanded.

“Ehn.”

“Din, promise.”

“I dunno, kid. I’ve got a husband and all these damn kids to worry about.”

“Bring them. All of them.”

“No room,” Din said without missing a beat. “You have no idea how much space the husband needs to thrive.”

“Well, if you don’t come, then Urro’s gonna try to move in,” Karren snapped.

Din actually paused at that. The Armorer shook her helmet.

“Territorialism becomes neither of you,” she said. “If Urro wishes to join our covert, then we will treat him as we treat any other who wishes to.”

Din’s helmet seemed to squint at her. Karren glared outright.

“I don’t like him,” he told Din.

“Concurred,” Din said.

“Ad’ika,” the Armorer scolded.

“I will not be shamed into liking him, either,” Din asserted.

“Din,” Karren whined.

“I’ll consider coming home if it means there will be no space for Bojzka,” Din said.

“Carry on with your work and give my best to the jedi and the child,” the Armorer said with an air of dismissal. “Come, Karren. Thank you three for looking after him. Apologies for the vehicle. Come.”

Boba missed that kid already.

--------

Bojzka, Boba had to say, really had no shame and he could almost appreciate that. Either that, or Din’s buir was a catch that the rest of them were failing to appreciate.

“How bad can it be?” the guy mused at Din’s stiff, furious hands mere days after the Armorer and Karren’s departure. “It’s a helmet, right? You can take it off with the people who matter, no?”

“We do not take it off,” Din said from between clenched teeth.

“Right, I got that. But there are exceptions for kids and spouses,” Bojzka said. “Or did I misread that part?”

Din was going to start shaking at any minute now. Bo-Katan assigned Boba the task of making sure he didn’t commit War-hero-homicide while she went off to find a calming device. It was only polite. It wasn’t Bojzka’s fault after all that he’d come in right after a tense meeting with a dissident group from Mandalore itself that made even Bo-Katan’s jaw jump.

“I think the rule is more important than the exceptions here,” Boba pointed out on Din’s behalf. “Joining the Children of the Watch isn’t something to take lightly.”

Din pointed at him wordlessly. Bojzka lazily followed the finger and then pointedly ignored Boba.

“What I’m hearing is that if we marry first, nothing changes,” he said.

Din’s index finger curled in with the rest of his knuckles until it was a fist.

“She is not looking to marry,” he said.

“What, so you speak for her now?”

“She is not looking to marry.”

“I can repeat things, too. Wanna see? You don’t speak for Nomri, Din.”

Boba was getting the feeling that Ms. Katzkai sort of did let Din speak for her in these types of situations. He was, after all, her oldest. And it sounded like he was the most loyal of her foundlings, too. If she shared anything personal with anyone besides her second in command, then it was going to be Din. That was just how these things worked.

“Did you call Eegang?” Din asked.

“I did,” Bojzka said. “He’s not especially helpful, I have to say. He keeps sending my missives back to me with grammar corrections.”

No. No. Keep it in, Boba. Keep it stoic.

“Eegang is the second CO at the covert,” Din said. “If you won’t take my word for it, then you’ll take his.”

Bojzka arched a fucked-up eyebrow.

“Eegang, the same guy who is allegedly secretly married to his partner? That Eegang?” he asked.

Din balked. Boba felt like electricity had just rocketed through him.

“Eegang is—” Din started.

“Nomri told me about him,” Bojzka said off-handedly. “She seems to think that he’s bitten off more than he can chew with taking on his last kid.”

“Eegang—”

“Something about baby being blind? Funny, did you not think that she trusted me enough to talk about her people?”

Any more of this and steam would start rising from the lip of Din’s helmet.

Thankfully, Bo-Katan returned with the jedi, AKA the calming device. Skywalker even came equipped with Grogu. They both appeared very confused and innocent, what with Skywalker drowning in his formal robes. They looked like they were going to absorb Grogu at any moment.

A+ distraction work, Kryze. Well done making yourself useful.

“Who’s Eegang?” Skywalker asked.

The line pulled taut across Din’s shoulders began to loosen.

“A comrade,” he said sharply in Bojzka’s direction.

“Is he nice?” Skywalker asked. Grogu chirped at him and resumed trying to dig into his multitude of collars.

“Very nice,” Din confirmed, staring deep into Bojzka’s eyes.

“He’s got foundlings, too?” Skywalker asked.

“Two,” Din confirmed. “Who he adores. Regardless of all challenges.”

Ah. It wasn’t just Eegang Din was protective of. It was the baby. Bojzka had really stuck his foot into that one.

“I’m sure the foundlings are fine,” Bojzka said. “It was just Nomri’s concern that—”

“Stop calling her that in my presence,” Din said. “In fact, let’s drop the whole thing now.”

--------

Boba wanted to meet secretly-married Eegang. He sounded like he had a rich interior life. Din gave him a strong look and said that if the Armorer had left the covert, Eegang would not. One of them had to be there at all times.

Bo-Katan asked what Eegang’s speciality was.

Surprise, surprise: it was diplomacy.

Kryze was now invested. She followed Din around on his heels and suggested that if the Armorer gave words to Eegang to deliver during a formal meeting with the Mand’alor, then Bojzka might finally get the picture that Katzkai wasn’t interested in him.

Din thought about that.

He asked if this was not just a ploy for Boba and Bo-Katan to rally his covert comrades against him.

And it honestly wasn’t until he phrased it like that.

-----------

Eegang was tall, sea-green, and in Bojzka’s face without so much as a by-your-leave.

“Three tests,” he threatened Bojzka with a baby on his hip. “One: stop sending transmissions. Two: get Elder Fayrz to approve your presence. Three: make even one of Goran’s foundlings like you. If you pass all three, your admission will be taken into consideration.”

The baby was very pink with curly hair so pale it was almost white. Its blue-gray eyes moved rapidly back and forth as it cuddled into its buir’s teal armor. Bojzka glanced from it to Eegang’s chipped helmet.

“Where did you find him?” he asked.

“Please give confirmation of your understanding,” Eegang said mechanically.

“He’s kinda cute.”

“Please give confirmation of your understanding.”

“Are you a droid or somethin’?”

“Please give—”

“Alright, alright. Fuck. This is confirmation of my understanding.”

“Excellent. This conversation is over,” Eegang said. “It is your responsibility to contact the elder and earn the approval.”

Bojzka jerked.

“Wait, what?” he said. “How am I supposed to do that if y’all won’t even let me through the door?”

Eegang’s helmet tipped so daintily to the side that Boba could have shed a tear.

“That sounds like a you-problem,” Eegang said.

-----------

Eegang thereafter blocked Bojzka out of his mind and heart. He introduced himself with a dipping motion to Kryze and Boba that probably would have been more dramatic if he’d opted to wear a cape, which he did not. He revealed himself to be exceedingly polite and very fond of Din, though—if the gentle armor tapping and the use of the word ‘little brother’ was anything to go by. Din was usually receptive to gestures like that, Boba had learned, but not this time.

No, no. Din cared not for his ‘big brother.’ He cared only for the attention of Eegang’s baby.

“His name is Mesa,” Eegang explained after Din had kidnapped said baby. He introduced Mesa to Grogu who was stationed nearby, stuffed in the sleepy jedi’s shirt this time. . Grogu waved from Skywalker’s chest, but Mesa didn’t register the motion.

“His grandmother was quite ill, and it was her dying wish to see the child placed into the care of someone trustworthy. I have to admit, though, I may have made the decision a little rashly,” Eegang hummed as he watched Grogu lean as far as he could out of Skywalker’s clothing to try to make contact with his fellow foundling.

“Is he your first?” Bo-Katan asked.

Eegang winced.

“No, uh. I’ve got another,” he said. “She’s a huge fan of certain someones.”

“Me,” Din said without hesitation.

“And Paz,” Eegang said. “Which is a deadly combination.”

“She will be a mighty warrior,” Din informed Mesa and Skywalker. Skywalker twitched awake and didn’t understand anything that was happening. He noticed the baby, cooed, and waved with his gloved hand.

“She’s declared this one goat her nemesis and I cannot—I cannot—get her to just leave it alone,” Eegang said.

“A goat clan in the making,” Din said with approval.

“I’m hearing unnecessary commentary,” Eegang said without looking at him. “Please rephrase or shut up.”

Din seemed to gloat at the scolding. Skywalker glanced between him and his tall, teal comrade. He made his move and carefully came in to extract baby Mesa from Din’s arms to add him to his ever-growing collection. Grogu cooed again, closer now. He offered Mesa a hand, and this time, Mesa perked up and tried to grab at it clumsily.

“You manage the covert in the Armorer’s absence?” Bo-Katan asked Eegang. “You must be very dedicated to the Children of the Watch.”

“Define ‘manage’ and then ‘dedicated,’” Eegang said. “I prefer ‘accidentally charged with responsibility one too many times’ and ‘in too deep to turn back now.’”

“He’s being humble,” Din said. “Eegang has brokered peace between our covert and locals on numerous occasions.”

Eegang’s shoulders started to raise.

“Stop telling people that, they’re going to expect things from me,” he said, then popped back up like flipped switch. “Oh, I totally forgot why I even came. Jedi?”

Skywalker looked up from the conference of baby talk happening in his arms all wide-eyed, as though he’d been caught in the act of stealing imperial property.

“We did not welcome you into our covert,” Eegang said, “You must allow us to present you with a gift of welcome and entry.”

Oho. Very formal. Boba folded his arms and watched Skywalker for his reaction.

“A what?” Skywalker asked.

-------

Bojzka was somewhat justifiably upset at the double standard going on here.

Skywalker was a jedi and yet welcomed into the covert with open arms and no admission requirements. He was, in fact, measured against his will for a set of armor. This was what Din’s buir had actually been after when she’d sent Eegang along to say hi.

Boba found that he enjoyed the reciprocation of ulterior motives that they were getting from Din’s covert. Kryze had never been happier. This was a game that she knew how to play.

“Wait no, hold up,” Bojzka interrupted. “I deserve a chance. Din, at least give me the name of one of your siblings so I can track them down with the elder.”

Din didn’t want to; there were foundlings happening and another meeting soon, but eventually even he had to give the guy something.

An honorable battle required at least two willing bodies.

-----------

Din and Karren’s remaining sibling at the covert’s name was Shimmol. According to Din, Bojzka had next to no chance of gaining her favor because she did not leave the forge and therefore Bojzka had no access to her. Eegang corrected Din and said that Shimmol did, in fact, leave the forge, but never on her own volition.

She was preferred the dark. She hated social interaction.

To circumvent that, the Armorer had refused to induct her into the trade until she proved herself able to coexist with others. But Shimmol was eighteen, that fun age where no incentive or punishment was effective and digging your heels in was far more preferable to doing a damn thing your elders mentioned.

She’s announced that very weekend that she was officially becoming a recluse. Her present aspiration in life was apparently now to become a forge spider.

Bojzka, along with everyone else, had no idea how to receive this information. Kyrze took it upon herself to pat Bojzka on the shoulder and tell him to start with the elder. He might actually have some luck that way.

-------

It took two weeks for Bojzka to re-emerge from whatever hellhole he’d had to walk a tightrope across to locate the covert’s elder Fayrz. He climbed in through Din’s personal quarters’ window and interrupted him and the Jedi in a moment of infrequent intimacy.

The sound of a body being throw over a bannister had a special kind of thud to it. Boba was up on out of his quarters in an instant.

Din flung Bojzka’s helmet after him. Skywalker had the grace to cover Djarin’s face with his shirt and walk him back into the room before anyone caught sight of it, telling Boba and Fennec, who had also emerged from her bed, prepared for drama, that all was fine. There was just a misunderstanding.

His bare torso was covered in scars. Boba found himself somehow surprised and impressed as the jedi unsuccessfully wrangled his furious husband back in the direction of bed.

He and Fennec peeked over the banister to see what had become of Bojzka. He was fine.

Fennec informed Boba that she was claiming part of his bed ‘in case anything else good happened’ since he was closer.

-----

In the morning, Din was in marginally better spirits. Skywalker was to be found at his side, walking backwards and tripping over his cloak every four paces. He truly knew how to hit all Din’s ‘endeared’ buttons. If not to the earnestness and the near-miss of a disaster on the stairs, it would have looked like manipulation.

Bojzka attempted to rectify the peace by breaking into the court through one of the windows high up on the wall outside the second floor’s conference room. This time, to ensure that he had Din’s full attention, he removed the jedi from the equation. Or he tried to anyways.

The jedi, in a split second, decided that, all joking aside, today, he would not be moved. His green saber managed to glow even in the sunlight pouring in to the hall.

“Do not touch,” he ordered, with both feet planted and Din and Grogu securely at his back.

Bojzka cocked his head at the saber pointed right at his nose.

“That’s a fun trick,” he said.

“Do not touch,” Skywalker repeated. “Me, him, or the child.”

“I’ll think about it,” Bojzka said. “Stand down before you regret it.”

“Luke,” Din said testily. “He’s not worth it.”

“Make me regret it,” Skywalker said to Bojzka.

Bojzka’s eyes widened slightly in interest. He used the back of his wrist to try to nudge the saber’s tip away and snapped his hand away from the burn.

“Do you expect me to be afraid of you, jedi?” he asked, trying to play it off.

Skywalker’s eyes reflected the light of his saber.

“Ask him what the glove’s for,” Fennec called from the far hall. Bojzka scoffed. Skywalker didn’t move.

“What happened to your hand?” Bojzka asked.

“My father cut it off,” Skywalker said. “But not to worry, I got a new one. Now step back. Sir.”

Bojzka didn’t move for a long time.

“Does it feel good to walk in the presence of these people?” he asked. “Is it a kink for you the way it was for your master?”

Boba had officially lost the plot. These were old politics now. Kryze would know what Bojzka was talking about, if only she deigned to come out from wherever she was hiding, which she wouldn’t. Of course.

“Does it offend you? My presence here?” Skywalker asked back without emotion.

“It doesn’t,” Bojzka said.

“I’m glad. That’s very convenient for me. I’d feel terrible if you bled out on these tiles,” Skywalker said. “So move.”

And goddamn. The mountain finally yielded to the sky.

-------

Skywalker spent the rest of the day on high alert, with one hand on the hilt of his saber and his full concentration tied up with making fierce eyes into the palace’s corners to keep Bojzka at bay. It was really something to see. Din looked about ready to lay his fingers on his heart and swoon, and that was more than fair. If Boba’s spouse threatened to kill a man for looking at him wrong, he’d be touched too.

Fennec told Boba that she’d protect him from a man the size of a bantha but no larger, and it just didn’t have the same kind of ring.

She apologized and he told her it was fine. It was just in the delivery--and also, he’d murder anyone so blinked at her wrong, too.

She was pleased. Boba was glad they were on the same page.

“Let’s go find Kryze to negotiate,” Fennec said, “I need to know why Old Faithful’s back.”

--------

Kryze’s commanding voice wrang out of Bojzka the real reason for his presence. The truth of the matter was that, War Hero aside, he was having a hell of a time getting the covert elder to grant him a second look.

Din told him that that was the point. Elder Fayrz was like that all day, every day and he’d change for no body, spiritual or physical. He bothered people when he wanted to bother them, and the rest of the time, he liked to pretend he was senile. He only really ever showed up if someone was buying a round or their life was in the balance.

Skywalker said that he sounded a lot like his late master.

Din agreed and said that Elder Fayrz had dedicated his life to two things: the covert children and fungi. Somehow, he made those two interests overlap. Din recalled being twelve and being taken out on a ‘mission’ by the old man who had informed him that he required his nose.

Elder Fayrz had no sense of smell. For a man with a fungi interest, he called this ‘very dangerous business indeed.’

Kryze demanded to know if all the weirdest Mandalorian elders still living had congregated at Din’s cohort which he quickly confirmed. Bojzka, however, demanded to know what would make this elder look him in the eye.

Din told him to go find a deathbed and lay on it.

He remembered belatedly to add ‘nearby Elder Fayrz’ to that statement.

----------

After about a month of this kind of back and forth, the Armorer decided that she’d had enough. She did not come to the Dune Sea. She sent a missive to Din informing him that he was coming home.

‘To talk,’ she said.

Boba vaguely remembered Karren saying something along the lines of ‘Din doesn’t get into trouble anymore,’ and was pleased to find that that was not the case. Din already knew what awaited him at his home covert and anyone with slightly more than a rock for a brain could see that it wasn’t going to be hugs and kisses.

Bojzka volunteered to accompany Din as a guard when the jedi made himself conveniently unavailable. Kryze and Boba flipped a coin while Din resisted stabbing him, and of course Boba won. Kryze flipped it again to be sure, and Boba told her sweetly that he’d send her a postcard.

“Have fun with the schmucks lounging around this place,” he gloated at Bo-Katan’s rolling shoulders.

She gave him two naughty fingers.

Whatever, girl. Sucks to suck. Bye, bye, now. Come on, Fennec. There’s adventure to be had.

---------

It was a ways to the new covert on Zeffo. Several hours, in fact, many of which were spent playing ‘I spy’ with Fennec while Bojzka gritted his teeth and asked them if they were always like this.

Fennec got Din to join in at that comment.

Eventually they ran out of white dwarfs and capes to identify and settled down into silence until the ship declared landing to be imminent.

Karren remembered Boba and the second he set foot inside the curiously constructed covert entrance. The kid came hurtling up to tackle him and wrap arms around his middle. It was endearing. Boba checked the doors to see if a guard would notice a kidnapping.

Fennec reminded him of child-based expenses. Her wisdom was invaluable as usual.

Karren scrambled away from Boba and, for a moment, made like he was going to attach himself to Din’s armor, but instead wriggled past Din to go tearing down the hallway. He skidded, crashed, and then clambered into a different room at the dead end of what appeared to be a row of barracks. Seconds later, Eegang exploded from one of the rooms adjacent wearing no armor but his helmet. He flung himself through the same doorway Karren had vanished through.

Din tilted his head.

“It’s fine,” a voice said behind them.

Their small party turned to see a woman wearing a cool purple helmet with only her flakvest on. Eegang’s pale baby was sat on her hip, pawing at her chest, trying to find purchase in the vest.

“Sotra,” Din greeted.

“Welcome back, brat-child,” Sotra said. “We missed you.”

This had to be Eegang’s secret-wife; unless she’d stolen that gurgling foundling in the night or something.

“Electrical?” Din asked, pointing at the far room.

“Loft,” Sotra said. “There’s hay, so of course all the kids have to be in it.”

“Just hay?” Din asked.

“And goats,” Sotra said.

Ah.

“We raise goats now?” Din asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Sotra said, sashaying past him towards the room her husband had abandoned, “It’s either coexistence or war, I’m afraid. The forge is past the hangar, keep going through the kitchens. Voxie knows you’re here—he’s awake, by the way. Welcome home, Din.”

“Thanks,” Din said. “This is my advisor, Boba Fett and our friend Fennec.”

Sotra splayed her whole, tall body into the doorway of her and Eegang’s barracks just as a fearsome battle cry sounded out on the other side.

“Hi,” she said.

“RELEASE ME,” a child in front of her about hip-height with serious bedhead shrieked in Mando’a.

Fennec’s eyebrows launched up to her forehead. Boba felt like he needed to record this so that Kryze understood what she was missing.

“Vod Din is home,” Sotra told the child.

“DIN.”

“Shhhh.”

“RELEASE M—mmf.”

“Shhhhh. It’s quiet time,” Sotra said with her free hand over the child’s mouth. “We’re being quiet.”

Din chuckled.

“Hey, Samo,” he said.

Samo let loose an ear-piercing scream behind her buir’s hand and ducked under Sotra’s legs. She ran at Din like there was a bomb behind her. Din caught her and swung her up to perch on his arm and she kicked relentless at his tassets in excitement.

“Shhh,” Din said. “People are sleeping—”

“YOU’RE THE MAND’ALOR. YOU’RE THE MAND’ALOR. YOU’RE THE—”

Doors started opening all down the line of barracks. A few curious, hazy, and lopsided helmets poked out from some of them, and from others, calls of ‘EYYYYYYY’ and chats ‘ALL HAIL THE MAND’ALOR’ started up, to Din’s immediate mortification.

This, Boba was delighted to realize, was not a cry of honor.

These half-asleep fuckers had been waiting months to embarrass Din. And he’d known that this would happen.

“Be quiet,” Din snapped all around him. “The elders are sleeping, you’re going to—”

“Well, well, well, look who’s finally home,” a taunting voice rang out on top of the rush. “If it isn’t the Mand’alor himself.”

“Paz,” Din sighed. “Not now.”

“When could there possibly be a better time, your liege?” a huge Mandalorian wearing full blue armor despite the early hour drawled from the doorway he’d attempted to casually lean in. Samo’s braids flew as her round cheeks snapped his way.

“Paz, don’t be mean,” she told him from atop Din’s arm. “Or it’ll be to the goats with ya.”

“Fuck me, the goats, what ever will I do?” Paz scoffed.

“BUIR, PAZ SAID A BAD WORD.”

“I heard him,” Sotra said scathingly, right at Paz’s visor.

“To the goats,” Paz’s neighbor hissed at him.

The hissing was taken up just as quickly as the earlier ‘all hails’ had been. Paz told everyone to shut up and mind their own asses. He was publicly booed until Eegang emerged from the loft room with Karren stuffed under an arm and demanded to know why people were congregating in the halls. He reminded everyone that that shit was a fire hazard, and in doing so, his tone changed completely from easy-going to Commanding Officer and the effect was immediate.

People scurried back into their rooms like frightened mice until there wasn’t a single open door left in the whole line.

Eegang huffed and traded Karren to Din for his daughter. Samo happily climbed onto his shoulders and held onto his chin. Karren grinned mischievously up at her, winked, and then thumbed back to the goat loft.

“Not the welcome you deserved, but the one you got. I’m afraid nothing has changed here,” Eegang told Din compassionately, wrapping his fingers around Samo’s ankles. “I see you brought friends.”

“And foe,” Din said, gesturing at Bojzka who beamed.

Eegang’s visor contained a grimace that would otherwise have wracked his whole body.

“You got in,” he deadpanned.

“Sure did,” Bojzka said. “Lovely place you have here.”

And honestly? Yeah. It sort of was. Maybe a little ramshackle, what with all the scaffolding and haphazard support beams thrown into the walls to keep the wet earth above ground from crushing everyone below it, but for all the unsteadiness, it was oozing with comradery. Family.

Behind each of those doors was a little unit like Eegang and Sotra’s or perhaps a tired body, barely extracted from its boots, taking comfort in this honeycomb of tunnels and rooms.

Boba couldn’t help but wonder how he and Dad would have done in a place like this.

“We try,” Eegang said flatly. “I’ll let the Armorer deal with you herself—if she’s awake, I mean. Otherwise, you’re condemned to Shimmol. I’m going back to sleep. Vok is waiting for you, keep going straight through the kitchens, Din.”

“Thank you,” Din said. “Sleep well, Vod.”

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, Monster. No goats for now.”

Samo waved at Boba and Fennec with a smile as bright as the sun. She ducked expertly as Eegang passed through the doorway to their quarters. He closed the door behind them.

------

“You don’t see families like that much anymore,” Bojzka hummed as Din led their troop down the hallways, through a series of ladders into a kitchen and then from there into a surprisingly neat, up-to-date hangar with concrete floorings. Six crafts were parked inside, tucked into the tight space like fish in a barrel.

“We have a few,” Din said. “I don’t know how many people are living here now, though.”

Given the size of the place? Maybe fifty or so, if Boba had to take a guess. There had been several sets of boots lining the wall outside the barrack doors.

Din picked his way through the crafts to two tarps covered in piles of spare, rusting, and grease-covered parts. At the end of the aisle between the tarps was a rectangle bordered by wooden benches and to the left of that was a little box that a mechanic presumably operated from. The box, however, had no windows. Its door was slightly ajar.

Din knocked and a snort and a slurp answered him.

“Jus’ a mo,” a thick voice said inside.

Fennec looked at Boba with intrigue.

“Tool gnome,” she said.

No, friend. Just a grease-monkey.

“Tool gnome,” Fennec insisted.

The door opened and a man at least six feet, two inches peered out of it.

“Tool giant,” Fennec amended in a whisper.

“Is that you, Din?” the mechanic asked. His helmet was rusty red and gray. Its visor had a yellow tint to it.

“It is,” Din said. “It’s been a while, Vok. These are my—”

“Forget them. Goran told me what you did to Razor.”

Din cringed.

“I—”

“AH. No. I don’t wanna hear it,” Vok said. “I just—I’m glad you’re safe, but you ain’t touching any more of my children, you hear me, boy?”

Din sunk into his shoulders in shame.

“I hear you,” he said.

“You’re damn right you do,” Vok said. “Man, I had a whole speech written out and shit, and here you are, early as the fuckin’ dawn. Did you miss Paz?”

“We did not,” Din said.

“I tried to have him do an inventory, I did,” Vok said sympathetically. “But he wasn’t havin’ it. Took an IOU and everything.”

Din sighed.

“Thanks for trying,” he said. “Is the forge...?”

“That way,” Vok said, gesturing to the far end of the hangar, where a series of scaffolding led up to a dark hole in the wall. “Mind your step. Stairs are next on my list. Who’re your friends?”

Din introduced them. Vok considered Fennec and after a moment of thought, saluted her. She tipped her jaw to the side and gave him a once-over.

“Din’s got my number if you’re not busy,” Vok said.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Fennec said.

“I hope you do, my darlin’. You? Boj-whatever? I heard about you. You can go fuck yourself.”

“Thanks, Vok, we’re going now,” Din intervened.

----------

Fennec said nothing on the way up the scaffolding. She didn’t need to. Boba applauded her.

---------

The forge was the least finished part of the covert, and Boba could respect the Armorer’s dedication to looking after the flock before her own needs. Not that the forge wasn’t a comfortable place. Upon entry, Bojzka whistled at all the equipment inside. There were steel beams crossing in hatches along the ceiling. It appeared as though someone was working on a ventilation mechanism up there. Ropes and pipes hung down from the beams as though a pulley system had been recently removed.

The forge itself was a huge circular structure with a high wall around its exterior. It was built of a slick-looking black material. There were three water troughs set up in a line behind it and two rudimentary wood blocks with anvils set on them. Benches littered with iron tools sat next to the anvils.

Din appeared very at home in this place, despite not having even been in it. He wove around the accoutrements of the room towards a wooden door that had been placed on hinges on the far side like an afterthought.

He knocked.

“We don’ want any,” a sleepy woman’s voice drawled.

Boba jumped as a something brushed his elbow and discovered that Karren had followed them all the way down to the forge. His soft boots had hidden his footsteps, but, like Din, he was now in a place that he knew like the back of his hand. Din grabbed the scruff of his neck as he went for the door with both hands.

“You’re supposed to be in the nursery,” Din told him. “Shoo.”

“Shimmol, Din’s home,” Karren said through the door. “Goran, Din’s home.”

Very cute. Karren wanted to be the one to shared the news. Din pulled him back as shuffling started up on the other side of the wooden door.

It opened to reveal a fluorescent pink helmet with floral patterns painted down the edges in white.

“Din?” the young woman, who could only be Shimmol, asked.

Din’s brain stuttered.

“Uh?” he said.

Shimmol’s flightsuit was once white, but it was burned and smudged to gray all over. Her heavy gloves were half-burnt on both hands, too. She surged forward into Din’s chestplate. Din hugged her back awkwardly.

“Hello, sister,” he said. “This is, uh.”

“Do you like it?” Shimmol asked, pulling away from him to touch the edges of her helmet. “I thought it was cute. Wait til you see the pauldrons. They match.”

“They’re hideous,” Karren said.

“Did anyone ask you?” Shimmol flung at him. “No, I didn’t think so. Get gone, womp-rat.”

Wow. No wonder Karren was desperate for Din’s attention.

“I’m not a womp-rat,” Karren said. “I’m a Tooka. Goran said so.”

“You know, what you actually are is a ‘nuisance,’ so it doesn’t matter what—”

“Children.”

And lo and behold. The lady herself. Gold helmet and everything.

“Din,” the Armorer said, placing a hand on Shimmol’s side to move her. “Welcome home.”

Din accepted the helmet touch with grace.

“Bojzka,” the Armorer said next. “I didn’t expect to see you in my home so soon, or at all.”

Bojzka beamed.

“You’ve grown a beard,” the Armorer noted. “It does not become you.”

Boba coughed into his elbow to hide the bark of laughter screaming to escape his throat. Fennec thumped at his back.

“Let’s move somewhere with more light,” the Armorer said. “Karren, Shimmol. You’re dismissed for the next hour. Go eat breakfast.”

“But—” Shimmol started.

“Up, up, up,” Karren chanted, getting behind her and shoving hands into the small of her back. “It’s people-time.”

“Leave it. I hate people-time,” Shimmol said. “I thrive on darkness. It sustains me better than food.”

Din looked desperately into the Armorer’s helmet. The Armorer ignored him and told Shimmol that she knew this to false and to stop whining. Upstairs, now.

The kids relented and left the forge. Din pointed after them.

“I know,” the Armorer said. “Let her work through it.”

Din pointed even more insistently.

“No, no. It’s true,” Bojzka said. “Mine went through the same thing.”

--------

The Armorer sat them all down at a ‘u’ shape of benches on the far side of the forge. She turned on some overhead lights. They lit up the forge and threw its equipment’s shadows harshly against the floor.

“Thank you for coming,” she said lightly. “It takes a long time to get to Zeffo, even in the Outer Rim.��

“It suits you,” Bojzka flirted.

“It does not,” the Armorer countered unrepentantly. “And your flattery remains aggravating.”

Bojzka didn’t seem to process the meaning behind those words, too busy he was with basking in the Armorer’s presence. She ignored him to turn to Din.

“Eegang tells me that you have been aggressive towards Bojzka, ad’ika, is this true?”

Din hunkered down into his shoulders. He didn’t want to answer. The Armorer didn’t make him.

“This is unnecessary,” she said. “Bojzka does not bother me.”

Bojzka rounded a gloating grin at Din.

“He is delusional, but I’m afraid that head trauma does this over time,” the Armorer said lightly. “There is no need to defend my honor—I’ve already had this conversation with Eegang, so know that it is not only you who I’ve spoken to about this. And Bojzka.”

“Yes, dear?” Bojzka hummed.

“I would appreciate it if you ceased in antagonizing my foundling and second.”

“I’m not trying to, Nomri.”

“I know,” the Armorer said. “And that is where I believe this tension arises from. Din, you and your advisor may leave. I’ll handle this. In future, know that it is not your place to speak on these matters in my stead, yes?”

“Yes, Goran,” Din mumbled.

The Armorer waited.

“Buir,” Din corrected.

“Thank you. The last thing I need is the Mand’alor becoming invested in old-standing relationships. You may go.”

Din stood and Boba and Fennec stood with him.

“He is not Naseem,” Din said right at the doorway.

The Armorer’s helmet turned slowly his way.

“No one will ever be Naseem,” she said. “It’s okay. Go.”

-----------

Boba need the full story on this Naseem guy approximately yesterday, but all he had at his disposal in the kitchens where he, Din, and Fennec had been banished was a collection of foundlings all staring up at their party looking guilty as hell.

In the midst of their group was a ten-year-old holding a glass jug absolutely brimming with frogs.

Boba had never seen this many foundlings together at once before, and he had to say: these traditionalists knew exactly what they were doing. There was nothing quite like a whole mass of youths to shift the mood.

The kids made a break for it.

Fennec was the fastest of all of them, but even she was not as fast as the bodies that popped their heads out of the rattling back room and launched themselves without warning over the few rows of tables set out in the main space.

Din’s covert collectively looked after the little ones, he explained when one of these bodies returned with the wrist of a shrieking Twi’lek child in their grip. The shrieking cut off when the nurse dropped down into a crouch and flattened both of the child’s hands against their helmet so that they left splotchy prints behind.

Two of the folks who filed back into the room covered in mud did not wear helmets. Din didn’t recognize them until they spoke and said their names. They’d removed their helmets back on Nevarro, apparently, and they had not to put them back on. Now, they wore veils and headscarves—neither of them comfortable with their whole heads and faces on display.

One of these was a woman named Madda. She saw Din’s helmet and froze by one of the long tables.

“Din, I’m so glad you returned,” she said with hitching breath. And then she took her newly-acquired jug of frogs and went tearing back down the hallway towards the covert’s main entrance. Din watched after her, confused.

“Is the transition difficult?” he asked one of the other Mandalorians next to him.

Their helmet showed zero emotion, and yet Boba gleaned from it everything he needed to know. He put a palm on his forehead.

“Djarin, come here,” he said.

-------------

Din chased after Madda to apologize for fucking up what was probably a years-long infatuation at this point. Fennec watched after him with a sly grin. But the Mandalorian with the flat helmet turned to Boba with far more open shoulders.

“You got through to him like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.

“It’s his secret talent,” Fennec told her.

“What was your name?” the Mandalorian asked.

“Boba Fett,” Boba said. “And yours?”

“Jhuvac.”

“Nice to meet you,” Boba said politely.

“Aren’t you the clone-guy?”

Welp.

“I prefer ‘Fett,’” Boba said.

“Nah, I feel that,” Jhuvac said, tossing her scarf over her shoulder. “Paz calls you the ‘clone-guy’ is all. That shit’s wild, by the way. But you can’t help your dad’s decision now can you?”

What was this? Understanding? From a traditionalist? Kryze would lose her shit.

“I can’t, although everything after that was totally me,” Boba said.

Jhuvac glanced back at him.

“Including the Solo stuff?” she asked.

Boba lifted a brow.

“Is there something you would like to know?” he asked.

“No,” Jhuvac said. “I know everything I need to. But you know what’ll make Vok’s life miserable?”

---------

The mechanic was a huge fan of Han Solo, and he had a list of reasons why Boba should cease hunting the man about as long as one of his lanky arms. He listed them out one by one in his hangar full of metal scrap. Jhuvac was very correct when she said that the mere mention of Solo meeting his maker would cause Vok immense misery. Boba could see how it could be entertaining.

Fennec made it even more entertaining by poking holes in each of Vok’s carefully laid out arguments.

He kept asking her why she was hurting him like this. Was this a domination kink?

Fennec asked him if he wanted it to be.

Vok walked it all back and told her to do her worst.

Jhuvac decided that she suddenly had other things to do and invited Boba to accompany her on these things. Boba assented and left Fennec to her business.

----------

In the end, Boba found himself outside in a group huddle with a handful of covert people, two with no helmets, watching the feud between the foundlings and the local wildlife. The covert, he learned, broadly did not like Zeffo. They hated how wet it was. They hated how cold it was. 90% of them had grown up in desert climates, the remaining 10% in ice climates.

Zeffo, as far as they were concerned, was a backwater hellhole that they’d had little choice in selecting.

“It was this or breaking up and forming two coverts,” Sotra explained, removing Mesa’s captured snail from his face area for the third time. She gave the snail to the guy next to her who got up and took it down to the edge of the nearby river. He stooped to set it in the grass, then froze in shock when a fish’s wide mouth erupted from the water and encapsulated his whole glove.

It left the glove wet and empty.

“But you didn’t want to do that?” Boba asked.

“No, if we separated, it would be Eegang at the head of the new covert,” Sotra said. “And that’s just not in the cards for us right now.”

Gotcha.

“The children didn’t want to be separated either,” one of the Mandalorians with no helmet said. “Goran gave them the option, but things were frantic, you know. They cling to each other when they’re young like this.”

More than understandably, in Boba’s humble and correct opinion.

“What do you all think of Bojzka?” Boba asked them.

“Who?”

“The bull with no helmet? Beard?” someone said.

“The one trying to court the Armorer?” Sotra asked.

Everyone clambered back onto the same page in the face of this descriptor.

“He’s supposed to be some kind of hero,” Jhuvac said. “But I dunno, man. He seems a little, uh.”

“Goran’s too good for him,” Sotra interjected simply. “Imagine stooping so low after a life of respect and service.”

“He’s not ugly,” the Mandalorian who’d lost the snail pointed out. “I’d bang him.”

“You’re not a good bar, Ban.”

“I could be.”

“You’re the lowest bar, Ban.”

“Can’t be disappointed if your expectations on the floor.”

“Go bang him for Goran then,” Jhuvac said. “I can’t tell if she thinks he’s kinda cute or if she wants to stab him in the heart.”

“For the good of the covert, I will endure this hardship,” Ban said.

He was unceremoniously yanked back down when he started to stand.

“Din mentioned some guy named ‘Naseem?’” Boba asked.

The name alone sent the group into titters.

“Naseem was so nice.”

“Naseem was great, you have no idea. So respectful.”

“He wanted to take Din on so bad, it was almost heartbreaking. He and Goran were perfect for each other. He was so happy around her; I don’t think he ever talked in front of anyone else.”

“God, when he died, I cried so hard. I cried for days.”

“Same.”

“Kind of a tough reputation to beat, then?” Boba asked.

“Oh definitely,” Jhuvac said. “I mean, there was Hajka after him, but she was just so explosive. Like, she made Goran laugh a lot, I remember that, but she was kinda awkward, too. There was a battle on her home planet and she left everyone here to defend what was left of her people.”

“Goran collects the awkward ones, they’re her favorite,” Sotra said.

“You can’t judge her, you collect Eegangs,” Ban pointed out.

“There is only one Eegang.”

“Girl, we know.”

There was a pause while Sotra handed off her child so that she could beat the shit out of Ban on the lumpy grass. Jhuvac handed Mesa over Boba’s lap to the quiet person at his right. They took the baby without question and laid him on their chest.

“Where did you grow up, Boba?” Jhuvac asked. “Sorry, Fett. Do you like Fett?”

Boba was taken aback. It had been ages since someone had called him by his first name—and a Mandalorian no less.

“Boba is fine. I grew up on Kamino,” he said.

“With a covert?”

No, no covert. No anyone, really. Boba was what people in white coats tended to call ‘under-socialized.’

“That’s sad,” Jhuvac said. “It must have been lonely.”

It was, actually. Especially after Dad had died.

“That’s so sad, I’m gonna cry,” Ban said. “Join our covert.”

All helmets and eyes rounded on Boba and he felt like his collar was suddenly digging into his neck. He shook his head.

“I’m not really a Mandalorian,” he said. “It’s not right—”

“Bullshit.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Jhuvac, let ‘im talk.”

“No, that’s bullshit. Listen, Din has ‘don’t trust people’ syndrome. If he trusts you enough to bring you with him here, then you’re Mandalorian enough for us,” Jhuvac said. “And anyways, being a Mandalorian is about what you do, not who you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re clone-guy so long as you follow the Creed in a more or less northernly direction.”

Boba stared at her and realized that everyone was staring at him again. He cleared his throat but found that he didn’t have any words trapped back there like he’d thought.

“Or easternly,” Ban offered to break the awkwardness.

There were still no words on Boba’s tongue. He struggled to say at least something.

“I—th—that’s kind of you,” he eventually managed. “I don’t think I could cut it here, but that’s really kind of you.”

The Mandalorians exchanged looks and shrugs.

“Know that the offer stands if you feel any pull towards it later,” Sotra said. “We have a number of reformed who converted and who move in and out of our covert. Not recently, but when we were children, there were more. Goran, too, was once a reformed Mandalorian.”

“My buir, too,” Jhuvac added.

“My ba-buir was reformed,” Ban said. “But she might have caused a public riot. Or two. Or three.”

“Speaking of which,” Sotra said. “Elder Fayrz has emerged from his cave.”

“I’ll get him,” Jhuvac sighed.

Boba frowned and looked from them out to the hill the foundlings had selected to gossip on. A Mandalorian in black and white with a green cape was, indeed, now kneeling among them. Every face was turned towards him in wonder.

“I’ve heard of this guy. He looks fun,” he noted.

At least one hand from every body came up to clutch at their face.

“That’s exactly the problem,” Ban said.

------

Din rejoined Boba in the midst of Elder Fayrz’s attempt to recruit him into the covert. He somehow knew Dad. That in itself was a little disarming. At first, Boba hadn’t believe that the elder was speaking the truth, but then he started up with alarmingly specific training corp numbers and mentioned off-handedly that he used to work in the corps, training kids from six to fourteen.

It made sense now why, in old age, he was considered the most dangerous person in the covert to have around the foundlings.

Grandpa was a serial spoil-er and mischief-instigator. The children saw in him everything they wanted out of life and were loathe to be separated from their most favorite old man.

Din got between him and Boba and informed the Elder that he’d just gotten married.

The Elder’s attentions went rocketing in the opposite direction. He wanted pictures, he wanted to know all about the reception, he wanted to know why Din hadn’t brought his partner home with him, what color their armor was, where they were presently based—the whole barrel of spotchka.

Boba appreciated the save.

He also appreciated the moment when the Elder fully realized that Din had, in fact, married a real jedi.

“YOU STUPID BOY.”

There it was.

The children bustled and whispered.

“This is what happens when we do not teach them to read—where is your buir? I told her, I told her that you needed more lessons. Always with the dogs, I knew it would have some effect—”

Din couldn’t even argue. He and Kryze had been over the very same deficit about sixty times. If they were lucky, Bo-Katan gave him a day or two off in between scoldings.

While the old man was outraged, Din signaled to Boba that they would be leaving soon.

--------

Bojzka joined Boba, Din, and Fennec at the ramp of their ship about ten minutes late. The Armorer personally showed him out of the covert and told him to return only if the galaxy began to collapse in on itself. She was at least cordial about it, which, in hindsight, was probably why Bojzka was having a hard time reading the glaring ‘please desist’ sign flickering over her head.

“Be safe,” she told Din while Karren made sad sounds behind her.

“Will do,” Din said. “Next time, I’ll see if Luke will come.”

“We would like to have him,” the Armorer said.

She dipped her helmet to Boba and Fennec and they returned the gesture.

“I hope you were well-received by the others,” she said. “Bojzka, good bye.”

“Talk to you later,” Bojzka hummed.

“We shall not,” the Armorer said.

---------

Back in the Dune Sea, Kryze was waiting in one of the conference rooms. Din avoided her and all her probing questions. Boba did not. He was in a sharing sort of mood and Fennec had a ‘thanks for the lay’ message to compose to Mr. Vok.

Kryze crossed her legs and gestured for him to join her at the table.

He did and crossed his legs right back.

“So?” she asked.

“Shocking peaceful,” Boba said. “Violent mostly towards their own members. Tried to recruit me at least three times.”

Kryze’s eyebrows did a little dance.

“Surprising,” she said.

“Not very,” Boba corrected. “Din is one of the more reserved members. He resembles his buir more than I expected.”

“And Bojzka?” Kryze asked.

“Soundly rejected, but somehow optimistic about it,” Boba said. “The good news is that Din’s been forbidden from trying to kill him.”

“That is good news,” Kryze agreed.

There was a long pause.

“Are you thinking about it? Joining, I mean?” Kryze asked.

“No,” Boba said, “But it is nice to occasionally be around Mandalorians who don’t have sticks up their asses.”

“Unicorns,” Kryze said.

“A whole covert of them,” Boba told her with a smirk. “Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s you all.”

“I beg to differ,” Kryze said. “If the issue is resolved, then I suppose we’ll have to move back on to official business.”

That was no fun.

“Why is Fennec so smug?”

Oh, that was more fun. Sit back down, Lady. This is going to be a bawdy one.

#the mandalorian #the armorer #din djarin #boba fett #dinluke #ficlet #don't mind me I just need answers #and in their absence I make them myself

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highladyluck · 3 years

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“Magic Dagger Curse Is My Middle Name” & Human Evil in Wheel of Time

Part 2 of a series of essays on the theme “Tuon is Mat’s Replacement Shadar Logoth Dagger”. (Part 1 was “Stealing Is The Way to Mat Cauthon’s Heart”.)

This discusses the many parallels Tuon has to Mat’s dagger on a symbolic level, covering both her and her role as leader of Seanchan. But mostly, I talk an extraordinary amount about how the Shaido, Whitecloaks, and Seanchan reflect the archetypal in-universe human evil of Shadar Logoth.

Magic Dagger Curse Is My Middle Name

Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag (now Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag) has a lot of names, and I'd found puns or references in most of them. There's the "Lady Luck" pun of "Empress Fortuona". There's the very appropriate "Kore" (Persephone's and Tuon's pre-kidnapping moniker, meaning "Maiden") for a girl who gets kidnapped and dragged through both the human underworld (a circus, and a dive bar that's literally called a hell) and the death-related underworld (a literal ghost town full of ghosts, and the hell of guerilla warfare). There's "Devi", a reference to divinity, which replaces "Kore". Paendrag is of course an Arthurian legend reference.

But the one name I never quite understood was her only other permanent name- "Athaem". The 13th Depository Blog suggests it was meant to evoke both "athame" - a knife or dagger used in magic rituals - and "anathema" - a curse, especially one that exiles someone. Go on, let that sink in. Tuon's middle name is "Magic Dagger Curse". Tuon "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. Fortuona "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH THAT TUON'S ACTUAL MIDDLE NAME HAS ACTUALLY BEEN "MAGIC DAGGER CURSE" THIS ENTIRE TIME.

Basically that's all I actually need to say here to prove that Tuon is the symbolic return of Mat's sexy cursed magic dagger that isolates the bearer via paranoia and suspicion, but let's throw in some of the other parallels just for fun and so you have time to recover from the psychic damage I just dealt you. There's some fun ones just around rubies specifically and the color red.

The Shadar Logoth dagger has a large dark ruby on it, the size of Mat's thumbnail. Mat estimates it would buy a dozen farms back home, and when Mat first meets Tuon, he notices she's 'wearing a fortune in rubies'. Also, before she becomes Empress, Tuon's signature color is red; she's got red fingernails, red and a very dark green are the imperial colors as seen on the Deathwatch guards, she buys a lot of red silk in Jurador, and presumably the roses in the Raven and Roses imperial sign are red, as she treasures Mat's present of red silk rosebuds. (Interestingly, she starts going more blue once she becomes Empress- I'm thinking specifically of the blue nails and dress she has when she declares maritime Ebou Dar her capital.)

Tuon also has other physical similarities to edged weapons in general, and the dagger specifically. Like the dagger, she looks ornamental but could absolutely kill you. Mat describes her hands as "bladed like an ax" when she strikes a footpad in the throat to save him. She's also sharp, in the sense of being very intelligent and canny. Also, she could learn to channel, and in being a sul'dam is a conduit for magic, so she fits that aspect of the dagger as well. And, last but not least, like the dagger, Tuon is a fascinating and deadly artifact of a powerful civilization that embraces a uniquely human form of evil.

Shadar Logoth as Ultimate Human Evil

In the books, Shadar Logoth is our loadstone for what is described as a specifically human kind of evil, separate from the absolute, somewhat abstracted "evil for evil's sake" that is the province of the Dark One. The Dark One's ideology as practiced by humans ends up being nihilism, or rather, self-interested nihilism. (Ishamael isn't a pure nihilist, he's ok with getting worldly power while there's still a world.) In contrast, Shadar Logoth's downfall is a kind of corruption; evil things done in the name of, and for the sake of, good things. There are other cultures that do that, of course, but Shadar Logoth is the purest example of 'the ends justify the means', since their 'end' was fighting the Dark One.

"The victory of the Light is all. That was the battlecry Mordeth gave them, and the men of Aridhol shouted it while their deeds abandoned the Light. [...] No enemy had come to Aridhol but Aridhol. Suspicion and hate had given birth to something that fed on that which created it, something locked in the bedrock on which the city stood." -Moiraine, The Eye of the World

The goal of opposing the Dark One (an abstract idea of evil) at any cost led them to turn on and destroy not just their allies but ultimately each other.

Mat's Shadar Logoth dagger is a part of Shadar Logoth that has most of the powers of the whole. When carried by an individual, it can brainwash, induce (semi-justified) paranoia, kill via corruption, and infect others. These are all powers associated with Aridhol/Shadar Logoth. About the only thing the dagger can't do that we see other elements of Shadar Logoth do is shapechange or snatch bodies (#JustMordethThings) and move semi-instinctually on its own (like Mashadar). Shadar Logoth is established as Peak Human Evil, an evil so archetypal it has undergone a sort of dark apotheosis and become both a physical and metaphysical force.

Because it is so archetypal, we should expect to see aspects of it reflected in other Randland cultures that are antagonistic to our heroes, but which are not explicitly pledged to the Dark One. We should also expect to see the same part to whole dynamic in those cultures' leaders. Rand is a great example of this part-to-whole dynamic; as the Dragon Reborn who is 'one with the land', he struggles against increasing paranoia and self-hatred, which leads him to act as his own antagonist for much of the series, even as he explicitly fights against the Dark One. It's the Shadar Logoth struggle writ large. Therefore, the leader of a corrupted, Shadar Logoth-esque culture will be a powerful and faithful representative of the traits of that culture; you could say they are the purest expression of that culture.

This is a tenet of Robert Jordan's worldbuilding and narrative, and applies to more than just the antagonist leaders; protagonist leaders also stand in practically and symbolically for their culture or group. Over the course of the series, nations and groups end up led by the 'best' people for the job, where 'best' is some combination of 'most representative', 'most competent', and/or 'best adhering to their culture's ethical tenets' (which often happen to be our protagonists). This has the possibly unintended/unconscious effect of justifying autocracy, monarchy, etc in-world because it's all adhering to aristocracy, 'rule by the best', where 'best' is rather culturally relative. It's also an artifact in-universe of the world moving to a wartime footing; anyone who isn't the best person for the job gets tossed out of the way in the name of prepping for Tarmon Gai'don, by some combination of The Will of The Pattern as well as actual effort on the part of our heroes.

On a more meta level, Robert Jordan's choice to use third person limited points of view means we get a lot of POV characters who are very embedded in their cultures and serve as an immersive cultural crash course for the reader. They tend to be either main or secondary characters who are movers and shakers in the plot (justifying the time we spend in their heads) or there to provide an outsider reaction to main or secondary characters (again, justifying the time we spend in their heads.) Robert Jordan's writing is concerned with the use, abuse, and fluctuations of power, but it's worth noting that he doesn't give us POVs of characters who are structurally and permanently without power.

POV characters often have moments of powerlessness, either in the beginning of their narratives or at the end, but if you happen to be a WoT character who never had power and never will, RJ isn't interested in showing us the inside of your head. For example, we don't ever get a POV from an ordinary da'covale who spends the entire series out of control of their own destiny, even though that could be a very powerful outsider perspective. Instead, we get POVs from sojhin, who are movers and shakers in their own right. (These are great POVs--Karede's POV in chapter 36 of KOD is maybe my favorite of the entire series, it's a work of art--but again, there's a bias here in who we observe observing.) In a series where people bemoan or celebrate being constrained by fate and consciously question if they have free will, we somehow don't hear from those who have never had worldly power; we only hear from those who do, or once did.

(I find this disappointing, and it's one of the reasons I find it difficult to recommend the Wheel of Time books- which are obviously deeply personally significant to me, and which I find fun, interesting, and more often than not, well-written- without caveats. The series is so obviously about power and choice and the ways they influence each other, and uses third person limited POV so skillfully, that it is surprising and disturbing to me that we are not exposed directly to the point of view of those who have been permanently and structurally deprived of power. We miss an opportunity to engage with the core themes on that level, and also uncover an authorial bias that hasn't aged very well and which makes me look at some of RJ's other choices with a more jaundiced eye. I believe WoT would have been stronger and richer thematically if it had grappled directly with the realities and perspectives of those who remained powerless throughout the events of the series. And whether it was an unconscious or deliberate choice to leave out those perspectives, not having them there lessens my trust and acceptance of Robert Jordan's takes on power and choice. But I digress!)

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Shaido

So, there are other antagonist cultures that we spend a lot of time with but which are not explicitly allied with the Dark One (though we are always shown their leaders being subject to the Dark One's influence, through their advisors and high-ranking coworkers, who are Darkfriend characters that have positions of structural power and influence.) Overall, the Shadar Logoth archetype means we are looking for structural corruption, fear, hatred, and the cultural belief that the ends justify the means. In-universe, that's what human evil looks like, and we expect to find it in our secondary antagonists.

So let's take a look at the Shaido, who are attempting to recapture a glorious (fictional) past by imposing a corrupted version of their original values on others; the Whitecloaks, who spread authoritative dehumanization and bigotry in the name of order and righteousness; and the Seanchan, who have the dubious distinction of doing *both*, which is why they win the door prize for Most Problematic Antagonist Who Isn't Literally Allied With The Dark One.

The Shaido are an example of a corrupted culture that imposes its corruption on others, especially others that do not meaningfully consent to be assimilated. Their corruption starts with suspicion and fear and leads to brainwashing; they choose to believe a lie because it is more palatable than the truth, and because they fear becoming powerless and losing their cultural identity. They and the Aiel that joined them cannot accept Rand's truth bomb about the origins of the Aiel as pacifists. It's an idea so counter to modern Aiel self-image and culture that the secret was carefully hidden and used as a test of character for Aiel leaders.

In the test, the knowledge that they had betrayed their original ideals to survive was presented in the original emotional and logistical contexts, which may have helped the Aiel who went through the test survive learning about it; it's easier to empathize and overcome fear and disgust if you know why people made the decisions they did. To survive, and to self-govern, the honor-bound Aiel leadership has learned to forgive themselves for their corruption, while not losing the lessons they learned from it, and empathize with people almost entirely unlike themselves. (How effective are they at that? Your mileage may vary.)

Normally, only those who could accept the information could reach the highest leadership roles. Sevanna, whom the Shaido exodus coalesces under after the death of Couladin, is the only Wise One who didn't go through that testing process (she got in on a technicality), which makes her uniquely qualified to lead the group that can't accept this information. Like that group, she lacks humility or the ability to accept unpleasant truths; however, she's self-confident, politically skilled, culturally competent, and has a clear vision for her people, which are the other qualities that the Aiel select for in their leaders. (I cannot believe that today I woke up and said nice things about Sevanna!)

She's presented as somewhat 'corrupted' by wetlander ways, greedy for wealth and power, but I think it's more that she's off the leash of strict Aiel morality; she goes on a reign of terror, taking more than she needs of any resource, and capturing non-Aiel and keeping them as permanent gai'shain. This is clearly slavery in a more modern sense. The Aiel proper have a sort of ancient-style slavery, based on taking prisoners of war, that is time-bound, highly regulated, and that everybody more or less consents to by living in that society. (I say more-or-less; not sure your average civilian Aiel precisely consents the way a warrior might consent, but then again, everyone in Aiel society is a little bit of a warrior.) Sevanna's unconsenting, permanent, non-Aiel gai'shain are a clear violation of all of these tenets, and resemble the bodysnatching and invasive nature of the Shadar Logoth evil. Fear turns into hatred of both kinds of uncorrupted Aiel (the originals, and the modern) and of those groups of people who are not like them. In the end, the Shaido dissolve, their corruption having weakened them so that they fall prey to outside forces.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Children of the Light/Whitecloaks

The Whitecloaks are an obvious heir to Shadar Logoth, as they persecute channelers and anyone they consider a Darkfriend in the name of order, righteousness, and the Light. Whitecloaks represent the paranoia, assassination, and brainwashing powers of Shadar Logoth, and insofar as they have assimilated Amadicia and make forays across borders, they also cover invasion, though to perhaps a smaller degree than the Shaido (or the Seanchan). The Whitecloaks are also good intentions, corrupted; yes, Darkfriends are bad, yes, the Light is good, no, not everyone you don't like or who has power you want is a Darkfriend! They turn neighbor against neighbor, harrass, torture, and murder the innocent as well as the guilty, and generally do all the bad behavior you would expect of a military quasi-religious order that considers itself above the law. Also, Mordeth/Fain literally got his grubby hands all over the Whitecloaks early in the story and made them even worse.

Galad is a really good example of the 'best man for the job' ending up in it; Galad's extremely uncompromising morality is most likeable and practical when he's fulfilling a 'reformer' role in a group that really needs it, and when he's not in that role, his entire deal can feel excessive and alienating. (Although I will note that if you think about how his mom abandoned him to pursue what she was told was her duty, and his dad was a real asshole, you can kind of see why Galad has such a strict moral code and won't let something like family or feelings get in the way of carrying out his duty... anyway just having feelings about Galad, don't mind me.) When leading the Whitecloaks he recalls them to their original ideals and purpose, which is literally fighting the Shadow on an actual battlefield, and makes them hew to ethical standards from the original Lothair Mantelear text and his own personal extremely high standards.

He purifies the Children of the Light, insofar as they can be purified, purging the corrupt people and practices. This allows the Whitecloaks to ally with the Light, rather than sitting out the Last Battle or killing important Light-allied groups. But the Whitecloak channelerphobia is not going to be eradicated so easily, and that's mostly what Galad’s family was objecting to about him joining the Whitecloaks in the first place. And even Galad starts to succumb to it by the end of the series, although to be fair the White Tower had definitely done a number on his family by that point. Post-Last-Battle, Galad is really going to have to grapple with 'what is the practical purpose of a bunch of armed busybodies who think they're better than everyone else and who have a very deep-seated hatred and fear of channelers?' One hopes he'll convert them to a peaceable monastic order doing community service. If anyone can do it, it's probably Galad, but I think it's not going to be easy and it's also not clear to me if Galad is going to have the same opinion about the necessity that I do.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Seanchan

So, now we come to the Seanchan, who are a rich, complex, fascinating culture that combines the best and worst thematic elements of both the Shaido and the Whitecloaks. Twice the fun, twice the flavor! Like the Shaido, they are the corruption of an honor-based culture that now assimilates other people and cultures without their consent. The Seanchan have a strongly-held honor system that uses public and private shame as a deterrent to unethical behavior, similar to ji'e'toh, but like the Shaido, they apply it to conquered peoples under duress; even if the Seanchan themselves are ok living this way, there's no real consent happening when they conquer.

Like the Shaido, the Seanchan claim to be the true heirs of an ancient legacy, the children of the child of Artur Hawkwing, but have spent enough time in Seanchan to absorb all sorts of concepts Artur Hawkwing never had (slavery, taming weird beasties, exploiting Aes Sedai rather than just avoiding or fighting them). Their culture is also built on convenient fictions; the knowledge that sul'dam can learn to channel, and that some can be held by the a'dam, is likely to produce a truth bomb down the line, one way or another. And the Seanchan are an imperial power, which means they automatically follow the natural growth and rules of empire; always be expanding, always be consuming, always be exploiting. They're Mashadar, baby!

Let's zoom in on the slavery, since that's one prong of what makes the Seanchan evil. It's a kind of bodysnatching and brainwashing, and there are some really interesting parallels here to the Shaido and Aiel. The Seanchan have three forms of institutional slavery; so'jhin, da'covale, and damane. So'jhin, hereditary upper servants of the upper class, have the most power and are analogous but not precisely equivalent to normal Aiel gai'shain. Like standard gai'shain, they are considered property that can be traded, have some level of autonomy and ability to direct their lives, certain rights and privileges, and in theory can be manumitted.

Unlike gai'shain, they actually can have more political power than free people. Also unlike gai'shain, they are not guaranteed manumission after a set time, and while I think the gai'shain consent issue is a little muddy (Aiel can't help being born Aiel and thus subject to Aiel raids) so'jhin are born into slavery and have therefore absolutely not consented to it. So'jhin appear to be based at least partially on Byzantine examples of high-ranking slaves, and slavery in other very complex and bureaucratic cultures where those in power needed highly competent administrators, but didn't want the administrators supplanting them.

Da'covale are equivalent to Shaido gai'shain; often (but not always) captured from other cultures, absent the rights and privileges of regular gai'shain or so'jihn, and bound to involuntary servitude for life, although they can in theory be manumitted. (Shaido gai'shain have the option of trying to escape, I guess.) They have very little autonomy and power to direct their lives. It may be possible for da'covale to become so'jihn, so again there is a kind of internal mobility/potential access to power that doesn't have an exact equivalent with the Aiel models, but that's offset by the lack of consent; da'covale can also be born into slavery. One can be made da'covale as punishment for defiance or anything else the Seanchan see as a crime, or born into it. It seems historically equivalent to ancient, prisoner-of-war-type slavery, mixed with the carcereal state; you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you fucked up, and that's the justification for making you a slave.

Damane have some points in common with both regular Aiel and Shaido versions of dat'sang; they are all slavery in the form of the carcereal state/slavery as an outcome of the justice system. Dat'sang are 'despised ones', usually those accused of being Darkfriends or who have committed heinous crimes. It's a punishment that is apparently permanent and unrecallable, and they are sentenced to the most shaming labor in the worst conditions. They are cast-out from the community and forced to serve it in the most degrading way. Marath'damane, channelers with the spark who are not leashed, are treated like dat'sang are, in that they are cast out of their communities and shamed for their 'crimes'. Once they are leashed, though, they become integral parts of Seanchan society and are told to take pride in the service they can provide, which is very unlike the dat'sang cultural experience. Damane are enslaved and exploited for their talents, ostensibly to keep the general population safe from their magic powers and their potential political power, but also because they're an incredibly powerful military and infrastructure resource.

The first damane was created out of a combination of fear, greed, and hatred. One Seanchan-local Aes Sedai captured a rival and brought her to Luthair Paendrag, who she knew would be receptive to constraining the power of channelers. What she didn't count on was that solution being institutionalized, and that she'd eventually fall prey to it herself; a classic Shadar Logoth "do a shitty thing unto others and eventually you'll just be doing a shitty thing to yourself" move. Both the existing Seanchan population and Luthair's group had already othered, hated, and feared channelers, the Seanchan possibly for logical contextual reasons (seems like the Seanchan Aes Sedai were all independent Americans who didn't want to be governed by a universal code of ethics or subject to institutional oversight, which is not conducive to living in a society), and Luthair because of Ishamael’s original corruption of Artur Hawkwing.

In the end, the combined Luthair group/original Seanchan institutionalized their channeler bigotry, saying that the ends (preventing channelers from exploiting non-channelers) justified the means (exploiting channelers). Damane are never, ever freed and now the Seanchan think of channeling independently as inherently a corruption and a crime; something that makes the involuntary channeler evil and unhuman. They also break channelers, brainwashing them into thinking that this is for their own good (and not just for the good of the state).

(Another meta aside: Because involuntarily channeling is a genetic trait that the channeler has no control over, leashing damane feels to a modern reader, especially US ones, I think, very much like the race-based slavery of our recent past. Especially the idea that the enslaved person is enslaved as a punishment for a crime; this is something that would hit a US reader pretty hard, given that the US's booming prison population is the only legal slave labor force in the US and is also disproportionately made up of people of color. I am pretty sure that explicit parallels between racist slavery and the practice of leashing damane would be supported by Robert Jordan, especially since he literally put the Seanchan on post-apocalyptic North and South America. They have other influences, including Imperial Japan and Imperial China, and the Byzantine Empire, but in this way, and also because of the Texas accents, they are very, very American.)

The Seanchan are also similar to the Whitecloaks; they're both military groups who hate and fear channelers, and they are particularly susceptible to paranoia and assassination/extrajudicial murder. The Shadow didn't have any trouble infliltrating either the Whitecloak command structure (especially the Questioners) or the Seanchan Blood; there's a certain background level of 'the ends justify the means' going on in Seanchan and Whitecloak power centers that makes them fertile ground for recruitment. The Whitecloaks and the Seanchan both have a kind of secret police; Questioners and Seekers (they even have similar names!) who operate under certain strictures with respect to their upper management, but who can basically do whatever the hell they want to ordinary people. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that secret police are PEAK Shadar Logoth; they were always judging everyone else, generating paranoia and mistrust.

The Blood and Imperial family are also a really great example of Shadar Logoth values creating a (somewhat) functioning society full of extremely fucked-up people; the more power you have, the more delicately you have to step and the harder you have to watch your own back. The higher up you go, the less trust you are able to have in others, until you reach the point where people are sending assassins after an imperial baby, and the imperial baby grows up thinking that's completely normal and fair and it's their fault if they are ever not good enough to dodge it. (Hi, sorry, please excuse me and my many, many feelings about Tuon.) That kind of thing makes you very, very sharp, assuming you survive; it also makes you very inured to violence and most comfortable when you've got a high baseline paranoia going at all times. It puts you in danger and it gives you the means to survive danger; it's very Shadar Logoth dagger, which attracts Darkfriends but also gives you the ability to sense the Darkfriends right back, and incidentally stab the hell out of them.

A Part With the Power of the Whole: Tuon and the Seanchan

So, we have all the sins of Shadar Logoth united in the Seanchan; they're invaders, they brainwash and bodysnatch, they're paranoid, they assassinate and murder, they've institutionalized hate and fear, they're structurally corrupt in that power in their society is based on lies and exploitation, and they think that when it comes to dealing with their mortal enemies (channelers), the ends justify the means. And their leader, Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag, Empress of Seanchan, is indeed many of these things wrapped up in one efficient and deadly package.

She's a sul'dam and she enjoys her work breaking and training damane; she's had siblings assassinated and we've seen her kill onscreen; she's deeply suspicious, always second-guessing and skeptical (except about received values and information from her culture); she embodies and enforces Seanchan culture and power. She is all Seanchan in one person, and she'd tell you that proudly. She tries to assimilate *herself* into the state, because she thinks that's what she's supposed to do, to best serve her people. She wants to be the part that is an exact mirror of the whole, and she wants the whole to be perfect, so she wants herself to be perfect, too.

Do you see the shades of Galad, here? Like Galad, she has a strict and impractically idealistic moral code that makes her somewhat unpopular wherever she goes; she's too unpredictable, merciful, and flexible for her counterparts in the Blood (she's always surprising them with her unconventional choices) and too perfectly Seanchan for her allies (who are all horrified by the damane thing, or the da'covale thing, or the assassination thing, etc etc.) The things people grudgingly praise her for are sincerity, competence, compassion within the bounds of her ethical structure, and (sometimes) a willingness to consider new information or accept oversight, the last of which is only impressive because of how enormous her ego is and how thoroughly she's been indoctrinated to believe she's inherently correct and all-powerful.

She is the best of Seanchan, within the context of Seanchan: she survived, took, and kept power, making her the most competent imperial daughter; she's very ethical within Seanchan strictures, not striking first unless threatened, working to acknowledge and correct personal faults, keeping her word, showing concern and mercy for those she believes are suffering, being thoughtful and careful of consequences when she exercises power; she is most representative of all of Seanchan's flaws and virtues, as a sul'dam, Empress, and Lightside ally. (That said: is Tuon the most ethical Seanchan within a broader cultural context? Hell no, that's Egeanin, who goes through a long and painful process of realizing and rejecting the corrupt and nasty parts of Seanchan culture, after it rejects her.)

To conclude: just like Mat's Shadar Logoth dagger, Tuon is a fascinating and dangerous tool of a powerful, antagonistic civilization that embraces a uniquely human form of evil. Her middle name is literally "Magic Knife Curse", Seanchan is the most Shadar Logoth-y of non-Shadow-aligned antagonist cultures, and she also follows the very Robert Jordan pattern of leaders fractally reflecting the culture or group they lead.

#wheel of time #wheel of time meta #meta #shadar logoth dagger #tuon paendrag #problematic fave tuon #tuon is mat's replacement shadar logoth dagger #part 2 #shaido #whitecloaks #children of the light #galad #galad demodred #sevanna #I'm sorry this is 9 pages long in a word document #I had a lot of thoughts

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comradekatara · 4 years

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hi. which of the character is most likely to be trans (in your opinion) and why? personally, I'm alternating between toph (nonbinary) and zuko (trans guy) but I'd love to hear your thoughts. (if you don't have thoughts you can also just answer in a shitposty way)

okay so just a disclaimer that we are both cis, so take these with a grain of salt, but here are some thoughts. i did run this post by a trans friend before posting.

smellerbee is a trans girl. this is pretty much canon, as we see her distress when iroh misgenders her and her relief when longshot reassures her afterwards

i like to think kyoshi is trans. she’s resilient in the face of intolerance and has a sense of resolve and inner strength that comes from dogged survival. the way she gravitates toward concealing her identity with face paint also suggests both a complicated relationship with femininity and a desire for privacy born out of hypervisibility. and we see in the rise of kyoshi that her appearance is often hurtfully remarked upon and used to single her out, even when she is a very young child

on a related note, it would be pretty rad if the kyoshi warriors were a group of trans girls, or at least mostly trans girls. certainly suki could be trans

aang could be nonbinary! i don’t think that’s controversial. see @gayavatarstyle’s iconic post where aang laughs in the face of gender like he laughs in the face of gravity (haha! ...gender)

aang and suki are the only members of the atla gaang who i can really see as trans, but damn if they’re not legends!

on the other hand, any of the LOK core four could be trans! this exchange comes to mind from last year when orianne and i were talking about it and i said korra and bolin could be trans at the EXACT same second that she responded “trans asami trans mako.” so there you go, all-trans friend group

[ID: a whatsapp conversation between me and orianne, exactly as described above. we both reacted with amusement to saying opposite things at the same time. end ID]

jinora and kai, also both bi and trans, simply because they’re too cool and smart not to be

[ID: a whatsapp conversation between me and orianne. i said “also trans jinora??” and orianne responded “DUH.” i said “Jinora is too genius to be cis” and orianne replied “She’s bi & trans and so is Kai DUH.” end ID]

finally, i’ve long had a trans headcanon for jeong jeong. specifically i think jeong jeong could be read as a trans woman who’s still working towards coming out. (to avoid confusion, and on the advice of a trans woman friend, i’m going to use they/them pronouns here, but to be clear i do think that the endpoint of my analysis is that jeong jeong would identify with she/her.) the first thing we learn about jeong jeong is that they were forced to serve in the fire nation military until they took a big stand by deserting. deserting, of course, is unthinkable to most fire nation citizens, and it’s made jeong jeong an outsider, but jeong jeong is an unusual citizen. so what does it say about them that they deserted? well, throughout the series, the fire nation’s objectives of conquest and imperialism are strongly linked to masculinity; we see this most clearly with zuko as he aspires to perform socially acceptable masculinity and struggles to find a relationship with masculinity that he can stomach. jeong jeong, too, rejects norms of masculinity, which is strikingly shown in contrast to aang--who is hardly a traditionally masculine character either. aang's haste to learn to control fire is understandable (sozin’s comet is a ticking clock, after all), but jeong jeong correctly observes that there is a degree of boyish carelessness and even arrogance to the way aang behaves in this episode and it puts everyone around them in danger. (incidentally, it’s very unusual for aang to act this way, and he pretty much never does it again, as his recklessness gets katara hurt and causes sokka to blow up at him. aang only needs to learn that lesson once.) and so aang and jeong jeong’s philosophies are contrasted. jeong jeong is advocating for patience and self-control, attributes that would have been critically important to, say, a closeted trans woman in a hypermasculine military culture. and aang’s behavior in this episode is then characterized as the more masculine tack for dealing with this subject, as he argues in favor of haste and reckless action. if aang is the more masculine operator in this interaction, then jeong jeong is the one whose behavior aligns with womanhood. furthermore, it’s not just the fire nation that’s linked to masculinity through their actions. it’s the elements themselves, too. jeong jeong’s principles of strict emotional control are at odds with the sweeping, out-of-control nature of fire in the wrong hands. jeong jeong resents fire for this reason. it’s not in their nature to relinquish control, or to destroy. (i don’t think their distaste for the element could be solved by a meeting with the dragons, either, though it might have helped them to understand how some people can bear it.) and if the element of fire is often linked to masculinity, then water, its opposite, is often linked to femininity. we see by the episode’s end that jeong jeong has dedicated time to researching waterbenders and has a profound admiration for them. upon watching katara heal, jeong jeong even tells katara:

[ID: two screenshots from "the deserter.” jeong jeong has just watched katara heal her burns from aang’s firebending. with a pained look, jeong jeong says “I’ve always wished I were blessed like you--free from this burning curse.” end ID]

this is a very telling exchange. jeong jeong is uncomfortable with fire and thinks of it as a curse, something they were born with but never wanted. fire pains them. they see how it consumes and destroys. they long for an association with water instead, something they view as healing and restorative. i also think it’s worth thinking about how waterbenders who can heal might be able to use their abilities to change the body, and why jeong jeong might be particularly wistful toward that gift. in watching this episode for the first time, it was instinctive for me to read this character as a trans woman. their aversion to the element they were born with and rejection of the hypermasculine culture they were expected to adhere to demonstrate a physical and emotional dysphoria. meanwhile, jeong jeong respects and admires a different, opposite way of life. and the stress they’re going through is really hard. while jeong jeong is a very kind and generous person, the pain of living a life they don’t want (and the expectation to teach the avatar how to bend an element they hate) is taking a toll. jeong jeong is depressed, anxious, and quick to anger. jeong jeong is in a dark place at this point in their life. but i hope that by the time the war is over and they’re reunited with their friends in the white lotus, they can begin to find themself and live the way they want to live.

so those are our trans headcanons! if anyone else wants to weigh in on any of these (especially trans people!), pls let us know <3

#c #asks #catsarecutebutaliens #good url btw #anyway i've been thinking about jeong jeong and trans womanhood for a LONG time (since i first saw the episode in fact!)#so i'd be happy to discuss it further!#jeong jeong #aang #suki #jinora #kai #kyoshi #bolin #asami #mako #korra

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kyber-heart · 3 years

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The Saga of Lord Vindexa: Part I - Chaos in The Capital

A ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’ fanwork

[UPDATED & FINALISED]

Darth Marr has died. A death that has been felt across The Sith Empire. In the wake of this tragedy and the destruction caused by the unknown invaders from the Unknown Regions, anarchy has descended within the borders of Imperial Space. The Dark Council has fractured due an inability to settle upon a suitable replacement for Marr.

While the other councillors engage in open conflict across the empire, the allied forces of Darth Marr have begun fighting amongst each other to claim their fallen master’s place on The Dark Council.

Even now, the dark lord’s fortress on the planet Dromund Kaas is under siege. Vindexa, his last apprentice, tries desperately to hold out against the forces of Lord Regeus Drellik in her bid to claim her place...

------Another explosion rattled the main building.

‘That bastard will reduce this place to rubble with those bombers’ Vindexa thought to herself. She had retreated deep into the fortress ops centre with a number of advisors and tacticians who had sworn loyalty to her. There were not many who did. Regeus had been Marr’s former student before her. Their master’s people knew him longer, and his position as Lord of The Sith gave him a right to more respect and fealty that she deserved as an apprentice. The few men and women who had pledged loyalty to her, amounted to only a large garrison of troops. It would not be enough to secure victory through sheer force. At this point, they were only stalling for the hope that they could exploit a weakness in the invading forces defences. She looked across the holotable in the centre of the room. An older officer, Captain Vand, spoke with junior officers. Another tactician, younger than Vand but certainly older than Vindexa herself, deftly danced his fingers across a datapad, running statistics. Her eyes returned to the projection, her gaze fixating upon the rear guard where she knew Drellik would be commanding his forces at this very moment.

“My lady, if I may-” The young tactician’s words pulled her attention, and in the worst way. She silenced him mid-sentence. Her head snapped to meet his eyes and with a quick clench of her raised hand his words were cut off, replaced by a strained gargling for breath.

‘My lady’

The phrase repeated in her mind. The term, while respectful at face value, never failed to anger the young Sith. While it was one of many accepted terms of address, to her it felt like an insult. She had only been an apprentice for a couple of years. Still young and with it, came the doubts her ability. She was aware of it. It was the reason that so many of her master’s allies sided with Drellik against her. A mere Apprentice would simply be swept aside she knew they said, and she knew that even the people in this very room still harboured doubt. That they still only saw her as an apprentice, not fit to be addressed as a Lord of The Sith.

“I am Sith, and you will refer to me as ‘lord’. Do I make myself clear?” She stared into the eyes of the one who insulted her. In them, she saw fear, her own corrupted yellow eyes reflected against deep brown irises. She tightened her grip up on the man’s windpipe for emphasis.

“Y-ye-ss”

She relaxed her grip as the man crumpled to the floor, gasping for air.

“Yes what?” she demanded, her voice cool and steady. A trait learned from her master.

“Yes. yes, my lord.”

The thrill never wore on hearing that. It felt fitting and right to her ears. After all, she had stepped up to take control. She would carry on her master’s legacy and forge her own. She would win this day and she would demand the respect she was due, both here and now and from the Dark Council once she crushed Drellik. Yet that was still the pressing issue. Looking back over the holoprojection of the battleground she tried to find something that could serve as an advantage.

“Captain, report.” She looked to the older man. His features stony as he stroked the mustache that decorated his upper lip. The regret however, saturated his eyes.

“Not the best, I’m afraid. The anti-air defense turrets have been rendered inoperable, my lord. The outer wall is only minutes from being breached. We have pulled what’s left of our infantry back into the main building. At best, we have thirty minutes before his soldiers will have entered the building.”

Vindexa cursed to herself. The situation just became gradually worse.

“I will not surrender to him. What about artillery? Heavy weapons?”

He sighed and tapped upon the datapad to his left. Vindexa’s eyes shifted back to the projection. The red lights which signaled enemy forces were drawing ever closer, and the bombers were coming back around for another run. Sure enough, within seconds the building shook and a control panel by the side sprayed it’s user with sparks before bursting into flame. She watched as a few technicians rushed to the other officer’s aid and to extinguish the fire. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tactician speaking two other officers quietly.

“We have five walkers in the vehicle compound but getting our forces out there risks a lot, besides, the bombers would take them out easily.” Her advisor reported, pulling her attention away from the tactician.

“Then it’s a risk I wi-“

Suddenly, alarms rang through the ops centre. Looking down at the holoprojection, the cause was clear. The walls had been breached, and the dots of red began to pour in. Vindexa began to feel herself tremble. She had worked so hard to get to where she was, to become the student of the great Darth Marr. She would have been bestowed the title of a Lord of The Sith soon, she just knew it. Now, she could feel her future falling through her hands like sand.

“Arghhhh!” her frustrated growl echoed through the ops centre chamber as her fist came down on the holo-table, an act which cause the projection to stutter briefly.

“My Lord I-” Vand began when his whole frame suddenly shuddered and crumpled to the floor. Behind him, two officers stood with blasters raised. She took a step back in surprise only to jump forward again in fright upon feeling something press into her back. As she turned to see, she saw the tactician who had insulted her pointing a blaster at her. A blast of blue light came hurtling towards her. She felt the hit connect with her. The electromagnetic blast shook her to the core, and she could feel herself losing control of her body causing her to fall to the floor. As her consciousness began to fade and her vision turn dark, she saw the face of the tactician leaning over her. His voice, seething with contempt, was the last thing she heard.

“Sorry, My Lady”

--------

First, there was the sound. A repeating rhythmic sound. Vindexa strained to hear it more clearly. Second, sensation began to return. She was moving, almost like she was flying? It was a weird experience. Her entire body ached still and her limbs only began gradually returning to her control. Lastly, as the dark cloud began to lift and her vision began returning to focus, so did her mind. She saw the dark metal flooring of her master’s fortress, specifically the polished upper levels. In that near obsidian mirror she saw her own shadow gliding across it flanked by two others, one on either side of her. Her memory began to fill in its blanks. She had been betrayed, yet they had not killed her, they had captured her. Though still feeling the effects of the stun blast, she willed herself to look upwards as they stopped at a doorway. The soldiers stopped dragging her. She could hear voices but did not register the words. She let her body go heavy, allowing her to fall out of their grip. She tried to move her hands but found them cuffed.

The soldiers were quick to react and were pulling her back to her feet. A loud hiss rang out and suddenly she was being pushed through the doorway. With her strength returning to her, she managed to catch herself and steady herself onto her feet. She looked around the room, a wide-open space stretched out before her. Statues, busts, display cases and trophies lined the walls, save for the furthest wall which was taken up mostly by floor to ceiling window that overlooked the Dromund Kaas jungle. Flashes of lightning threw additional light into the sparsely lit room. In the middle of the room, was her master’s throne. A replica of the same type that stood in the Dark Council chambers on Korriban. However, in it sat not her master, but a pale skinned human man, with brown hair styled impeccably and glowing yellow eyes like her own. He began to chuckle as he rose to his feet.

“I have to give you credit, Apprentice. You held out longer than I expected you would.”

Regeus Drellik sneered as he took slow steps towards her. His suit of Sith armor causing each step to be punctuated by a metallic thunk against the metal floor. This was not their first meeting. He had been their master’s previous student. As such, he was constantly returning to the fortress to receive new instructions from Lord Marr. The man oozed overconfidence and it made her want to bash his smug face in every time they met. She wished she could do so now more than ever.

“You had agents in my fold all this time?” Her voice was venomous, it caused Drellik to grin wider in amusement. He came to a stop just in front of her, clasping his hands behind him.

“On the contrary, they defected. They hoped that by presenting you to me, it would leverage them some bargaining power in their bid for survival.”

“And did it?”

“Oh yes” the grin shifted to a smirk. He began to stroll around her. “You see, I am not without a heart. I welcomed them and now-” he paused. Vindexa felt a hand on her shoulder as he leaned in and he whispered near her ear “- I will do the same for you”. The rage inside her threatened to boil over. She shook her shoulder free of his touch, causing only another bout of infuriating laughter.

“Wake up, Vindexa, you’ve lost. I’m offering you a chance to be a part of something bigger than you could have accomplished alone.”

Vindexa stopped listening. Her eyes flicked around the room, searching. Her own lightsaber was gone, but there was more than a few that her master had collected over the years. Her eyes lit upon on to her left.

“- Zhorrid, Rictus, Aruk... all gone. The one who rises from the ashes of this mess will be the next emperor. I’m offering you a place at my side and together, we could become rulers.”

She returned her attention to Drellik. She knew the promise was only a platitude. This was no path to power. Drellik cared only for himself and he would throw her aside at a moments notice. She wanted to break her chains, not accept new ones. Besides, he would never become emperor, certainly not if she had anything to say about it.

“Never.” she spat. Summoning what strength she could, she used the Force to push Drellik into one of the glass cabinets along the right wall and quickly turned to her left and summoned the mounted lightsaber she had spotted there. Activating the saber, it crackled to life with a violent hiss as an unstable orange blade materialized. She managed to sever the connection on the binder cuffs. Holding the blade aloft she readied herself as Drellik got to his feet, lightsaber in hand. It sprung to life with more power than the ancient weapon she held, and its blade was a deep crimson in comparison. The two began to circle one another.

“You’re just an insect in my path. I have faced more powerful adversaries than you.” Drelik hissed loudly at her through gritted teeth

Vindexa unleashed a haunting scream as she leapt forward, launching at the other Sith. Red and orange blades crashed against one another as sparks flew. However, it was soon clear that age and experience were triumphing in this fight. Drellik fought fiercely, a Juyo stylist through and through. His fast and erratic strikes quickly became overwhelming for her, even as she tried to switch her style to the Soresu hybrid Marr had been fond of. It happened when her guard slipped. Drellik’s saber hit against her face twice in succession, clearly not deliberate, yet the pain caused her to stumble backwards. A terrible mistake as she found herself struck by alchemic sith lightning. The tendrils of electricity wrothe around her. She screwed her eyes closed as she let out another yell, this time of agony. Before she could even fall to the floor once again, she felt an invisible force collide with her body. She felt herself soaring again as the electric energy continued to burn her. As she opened her eyes once more, she registered that she was about to crash through the massive window. With only seconds to impact, she braced herself. Her body connected with the glass, shattering it upon impact as she fell from the fourth storey. With a final yell she surrendered herself to fate.

-------

#anto's adventures in writing #swtor fanfiction #oc: lord vindexa #cc: regeus drellik #gore tw #mutilation tw #torture tw #any suggestions for tags is appreciated #will i make this a regular series?#perhaps #but today i felt especially inspired #tbh i rushed through this #so it's probably not as up to par as i want it to be #i will probably go over it tomorrow before posting to ao3 #still it's here and it's what it is #i'd love to hear people's thoughts on it all the same #even if you hate it #call in. we're standing by #i miiiiiiiight also do a few parts that detail regeus and his plans #i also have to decide if i want to make these characters a part of my legacy canon #or call them a side project au #honestly it wouldn't affect much i think #although... it *might* depending #anyway i'll shut up now #hope it's enjoyable #or at least entertaining

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years

Text

From Chin To Yon Rah (Part 24)

Thought that I’d update this one since it’s been a while.

The town they arrive in is rather small. Not quite as small as Wujing had been but smaller than Chin and Caldera city. Her eyes are still misty with sleep and her muscles ache quite thoroughly. Mostly her arms, but she also feels the burn in her core.

She can’t help but resent how out of shape she has let herself become. Though she supposes that nearly dehydrating in an endless grassland is as good an excuse as any. One of these days she will have to get back into her firebending routines.

One day when she isn’t feeling so melancholy. One day when her body isn’t fighting the remaining vestiges of fatigue and sickness.

Hao-Bai leaps down from his cart with a hearty laugh. “Looks like we finally beat the rest of ‘em, Min-Ta!”

“The rest of them?” Azula asks.

“Other lumberjacks.” Min-Ta replies. “We’ll be treating ourselves to the expensive ales this time around.”

Hao-Bai gives Azula a sturdy pat on the back, “ya were a good help, how would you like to pick the restaurant?”

“I appreciate the offer.” She replies. “But more coins for a boat would take me further than one meal.” She wonders if she is, at best, pushing her luck or, at worst, being rude. Demanding more payment than her work had been worth. She hadn’t felled nearly as much timber as the couple.

“How does a hot meal and a ride with us sound?”

“It sounds...too good to be true.”

He manages a soft, almost bitter chuckle. “Life has done a number on you, hasn’t it?”

“It pays to be cautious.”

The man nods. “If a handful of coins will make you feel more comfortable, I’ll hand them over and we can part ways.”

She feels some of her apprehension taper off. She has met many a stranger on the road and the bulk of them have been good natured and caring. She supposes that if they meant her any harm they’d have taken her out when they were alone in the forest. “I...it’s fine. I could use the company.”

“Wonderful.” He pauses, seeming to hesitate on whatever he is about to say. She feels herself growing uneasy. “I hate to ask, you’ve already done so much for us.”

“But…?”

“Min-Ta can’t do much heavy lifting these days…” he gestures to the swell of her pregnancy.

Azula’s heart gives small pang, absently she brushes her fingers against her own abdomen. She gives a small nod. “I can help you unload your haul.” She can already feel her muscles going limp.

“You’re a gift.” The woman sighs.

Azula gives another nod. She climbs back into the caravan and watches the town pass by. It is starting to drizzle, she can hear the soft pitter patter against the caravan’s tarp. She lays back and closes her eyes. They will wake her when they need her.

That day she learns what it is to find comfort in bringing comfort.

.oOo.

Caihong winces as the man tightens his hold on her hand, it instills within her a very nearly unrestrained sense of loathing. With much more force than she had meant, she yanks her hand out of Sokka’s.

“Azula, wait!” He shouts.

But she is beyond waiting.

“Rikka!” She squeals again, this time with a feeble effort to tug herself free.

The man she stands before is gruff and bulky, more than twice her height and at least that much in weight. He glares down upon her as though she is nothing more than a minor inconvenience to be swept away by a swing of his arm. “Can I help you?”

She points at Rikka, “she’s mine.”

“Yours?” He asks.

Azula nods. “Mine.”

He snorts, “she looks more like one’a them hog-monkeys than she does you.”

“She’s, mine.”

“If she’s yours then you’re a piss poor mother. Found ‘er outside of’a rundown village.”

“You stole her from the village you razed.” Azula growls.

Something flashes upon the man’s eyes. She hopes that it is a debilitating combination of fear and shame. She’ll instill it in him if he can’t find the decency to feel it on his own. She finds that he is not a decent man. “You wan’ ‘er then yer gonna have ta pay for ‘er. She’s worth a good fortune.”

She is worth burning the man to smoking bones where he stands. “And you’re going to hand her over free of charge.” Her tone is boundlessly more level then it really ought to be.

“‘S that right?” Caihong winces again when he tightens his grip further still. He doesn’t know that he is one more once away from a bath of blazing blue.

“Yeah, it is.” Sokka puts in. “If you know what’s good for you.”

He chuckles. “You think that you can take me on, a lanky man like you?”

“Lanky!?” He shouts before collecting himself. “You’ll be thankful if I’m the one you fight.”

His eyes fall upon her again and his laugh booms louder still. “That small thing?”

“You don’t know who you’re talking to, do you?” Sokka asks. “That ‘small thing’ infiltrated Ba Sing Se and…”

She shoves him aside. She has had more than her fill of taunting. To have humored it at all was a mercy.

“Something tells me that you have one more chance to just hand the kid over.” Sokka declares brazenly.

“He doesn’t even have that.” A small bolt bounces from her fingertips to the man’s wrist. She only cringes at Caihong’s sharp cry. And when she snatches the girl up, she feels the vestiges of the bolt licking her own skin. She thrusts Caihong into Sokka’s arms and…

She ducks under the man’s beefy arm. She deflects his other arm with a burst of fire. In a way it is exhilarating; familiar and empowering to find herself in the midst of combat with an agile gait and every bit of prowess that she had been known for in her prime.

She ducks down and kicks a windmill of fire. The man goes down easily, mightily, his own impressive bulk is his downfall. She still has her touch, that efficient spark, that powerful flame.

Azula smirks as the man gawks up at her. She could end him right then, put him out with one fiery fist. She feels strong again. Stronger than she has in a very long time. As though she is reclaiming the dignity that had been reaped from her by the man with one blind eye. As though this could make up for the weakness that had gotten her family killed.

She locks eyes with the man as she calls the lightning to her fingertips.

“Pl-please, no.” He whimpers. “You can have the girl.” He lifts his hands, “free of charge, she’s yours.”

“You had your chance.” She sneers. She brings her hands closer, he flinches as sparks shower his face.

She tosses a look over her shoulder. To Sokka. Sokka who turns Caihong away from the scene. Away from the ugliness of death. And she falters. The lightning flashes uselessly into the sky.

She thinks that Sokka sighs with relief. She knows that the man does as he lets his head fall back to the floor. She doesn’t realize it, but she sighs too. She steps back to observe as the imperial firebenders come to collect the man.

“Rikka?” Caihong’s voice trembles. Oh, Agni, is she glad that she hadn’t killed the man right in front of her. Azula kneels down and scoops the child into her arms. And it all comes back to her, crashing down around her. “Sokka,” the tears are already forming in her eyes before she can stop them and she doesn’t know from which emotion they are born. “Sokka, she’s still alive. I found her.” It is all she is able to manage.

She squeezes Caihong tightly to her, stroking her hair as the child cries into her chest. “It’s alright, Rikka, I’m going to take you home.”

“To Wujing?”

Azula tenses. “To my home, Caihong.”

“Yer Fire Nation home?”

Azula nods, “my Fire Nation home.” Their Fire Nation home. Agni, she doesn’t know how she is going to tell Caihong that there is no Wujing anymore.

.oOo.

It is one thing to read about Azula interacting with children and another thing entirely to see it right before him. Admittedly, it is disorienting to see her holding a child. He thinks that it shouldn’t be not after watching her quite enthusiastically tend to a garden and nuzzle her face against a stuffed badger-mole. Raava’s tendrils, she even cuddled the thing after sewing a rock into it. And now she cuddles a little girl.

He lets them have their moment. Only when Caihong’s cries begin to slow does Azula get to her feet.

He can only imagine how she feels. Overwhelmed, he decides, she is probably overwhelmed. “Come on, lets get both of you home.” He suggests softly, letting his hand rest between Azula’s shoulder blades.

He thinks that she might be shaking some.

“I thought that I lost her too, Sokka.” She mumbles into the girl’s hair.

“Well she’s here now.” Here and bringing Azula back to a place that might be difficult.

He takes a deep breath and takes her free hand. He hopes to Raava that he will be able to help her through whatever is to come. He thanks Raava that she is on good terms with Zuko, Mai, and TyLee.

He gives her hand a little squeeze and her grip tightens. She holds onto him as though she may lose him at any moment.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Sokka #Sokkla #Fanfiction

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 years

Note

Fandom racism anon here and yeah absolutely (I didn't realise I had anon on lol)

Because while LOTR has problems within its themes (ie the orcs can be seen as to be coded as people of colour, especially since they ride elephants) the explicit message of the book is evil bad

Because the only people who work for sauron are evil. There are no morally grey people, they aren't misguided or tricked they just are evil and want to take over the world

And yeah I totally agree that this is more of a literal take on like empirical war (is that the word) and that makes total sense considering Tolkiens history

Whereas I would say that the allegories in shaowhunters is way more based on racial conflict within a country itself especially slavery, I can't remember if this is show Canon but is it that they have the warlock tropheys? I remember that in the books magnus talks about shadowhunters hanging warlock marks on their walls? (sorry to bring the books up)

Idk it's very hollow to me, unlike with LOTR though it's a different allegory it's totally irritating to show many of these supremecists as morally misled. LOTR says bad guys are bad guys, shadowhunters says well yeah they did follow a guy which thinks that downworlders are subhuman and should be eradicated but they just made a mistake

I want to compare this to tfatws which while it isn't really fantasy I just feel like it shows how the priorities of the writer can impact the message of the show so powerfully (I know u aren't up to date so I'm gonna be pretty vague)

There's a scene in tfatws where the new white perfect captain America does something bad and doesn't pay for the consequences - done to comment on white privelege and how America condones white supremacy and how Sam is in comparison to that

Mayrse and Robert revealed to be part of the circle! And paid no consequences Shock horror my parents were the bad guys (even rho they were either implicitly or explicitly extremely racist the entire time) also I haven't finished the seires but do the lightwoods ever try to get their parents to face the consequences?)

Only one actual really critiques the situation and the reality behind it whereas the other one is just to centre the white characters once again and present them in a further sympathetic light

AND ANOTHER THING! I was mostly talking about show Canon here and I'm sorry to bring up the books but I literally can't believe I hadn't picked up in this before.

So like downworlders = people of colour, Simon is a vampire so is coded as a person of colour. However in the books in the last one he stops being a vampire and becomes a shadowhunters instead, coincidentally that's also when he starts dating Izzy HOW IS THIS ABLE TO HAPPEN!!????

I mean I know cassandra clare is lazy right? The original seires is by far the worst of all her writings but come ON!!!!! By the allegory has he become the white man!????? These books made no fuckin sense when I read them at 15 and they make no sense now I'm digressing anyways

I don't know man I wrote this ask because I was trying to find some fantasy book recommendations on booktube and SO MANY of them were about slavery or general ly extrême préjudice with à White protagonist to save this 'poor souls'.

Also I was watching guardians of the galexy the other day and realised nearly every movie set in space is just bigger stakes imperialism - planets instead of countries. Literally star wars, star trek, guardians of the galexy 2, avengers infinity war - all are facing genocidal imperialistic villains without actually paying much, if any attention to those effected

Just writing this ask made me exhausted I'm so tired of lazy writing and exploiting other people's struggle. I'm white and I'm trying to be more critical about the movies, shows and books I watch and read but let me know if I said something off here❤️❤️ you gotta get up to date with tfatws man, Sambucky nation is THRIVING!!!!

i'm not sure i agree that the whole "the evil people are evil" thing is a good thing, because i feel like more often than not making the bad characters just like... unidimensionally evil just means that the reader will be like "lol i could NEVER be that guy" and when it comes to racism that is a dangerous road to take because white people already believe that racism is something that Only The Most Evil People, Ergo, Not Me, Can Do, which makes discussions of stuff like subconscious racial bias and active antiracist work become more difficult because people don't believe they CAN be racist unless they're like, Lord Voldemort

which is not to say that racism should be treated as morally ambiguous, just that the workings of racism should be represented as something that is not done only by the Most Hardcore And Evil, but rather as a part of a system of oppression that affects the way everyone sees the world and interacts with it and lives in it

yes the warlock trophies are mentioned in the show, albeit very quickly (there is a circle member who tells magnus that his cat eyes will make "a nice addition to his collection" and then it's never mentioned again because this is sh and we love using racism for shock value but then not actually treating it as a serious plot point or something that affects oppressed ppl). and you are absolutely right, shadowhunters (and hp, and most fantasy books) has genocide as its core conflict and treats it, like you said, in a very hollow way, treating racism as both not a big deal and not something that is part of a system of oppression, but really the actions of a few Very Bad People. it's almost impressive how they manage to do both at the same time tbh

i think you hit the nail right on the head with this comment, actually. for most of these works, racism is SHOCK VALUE. it's just like "lol isn't it bad that this bad guy wants to kill a gazillion people just because they are muggles? now that is fucked up" but it's not actually an issue. in fact, when this guy is defeated, the whole problem is over! racism is not something that is embedded into that world, it's not a systemic issue, it's not even actually part of what drives the plot. the things that led to this person not only existing but rising to power and gathering enough followers to be a real threat to the whole world are never mentioned. it's like racists are born out of thin air, which is dangerously close to implying that racism is just a natural part of life, tbh

anyway my point is, it is never supposed to be questioned, it is never part of a deeper plot or story, its implications are barely addressed except for a few fleeting comments them and there; so, it's not a critique, it's shock value, even though it is frequently disguised as a critique (which is always empty and shallow anyway. like what is the REAL critique in works like hp or sh/tsc other than "genocide is bad"? wow such a groundbreaking take evelyn)

about simon and the book thing: i actually knew about this and the weird thing about this is that, like... simon is jewish, and he's implied to be ashkenazi (calls his grandma bubbe which is yiddish, which is a language spoken by the ashkenazi ppl), and it seems like cc is always toeing the line between him being accepted by shadowhunters and then not accepted by them, which sounds a lot like antisemitic tropes and history of swinging between (ashkenazi) jewish ppl being seen as the model minority myth and thus used as an example by white christians, and being hated and persecuted. i'm not super qualified to talk about this since i'm not jewish and i'm still learning about/unlearning antisemitism and its tropes, and i don't really have a fully formed thought on that, tbh; it just reminds me of the whole "model minority" swinging, where one second simon is part of the majority, the other he's not, but always he is supposed to give up a part of himself and his identity in other to be "assimilated" by shadowhunter culture. this article (link) covers a book on jewish people and assimilationism into USan culture, this article (link) covers british jews' relationship with being considered an ethnic group, and this article (link) talks a bit about the model minority myth from the perspective of an asian jewish woman

it just really calls to my attention that cc chose to make her ashkenazi jewish character start off as a downworlder and then become a shadowhunter. i don't think she made that decision as a conscious nod to this history, because it would require being informed on antisemitism lol but it's incredible how you can always see bigoted stereotypes shining through her narrative choices completely by accident. it just really shows how ingrained it is in our collective minds and culture

and anyway, making a character go from the oppressed group to just suddenly become the oppressor is just. wtf. not how oppression works, but most of all, really disrespectful, especially because she clearly treats it as an "upgrade"/"glowup" that earns him the Love Of His Life

also, out of curiosity, are you french? it seems like your autocorrect changed a few words and i'm pretty sure extrême and préjudice are the french versions of these words, and since u said ur white, that's where my money would be lol

#anti cc #anti tsc #anti tmi #anti sh #racism tw #antisemitism tw #reference #ask #residenthottiesamwilson

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snarwor · 3 years

Text

moon and old stars - chapter 4

edited because i CAN be arsed apparently

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

----------------------------------------

It was a setup.

Fennec had picked up a coded Imperial signal that mentioned a location and the blood-chilling phrase “terminal location of the asset.”

They managed to splice a little into the feed before they moved out of back-range, but they had something they didn’t before, and in the moment of panicked uncertainty, the four agreed to steer Slave I there.

It was a moon of Lothal, and mostly made up of vast colonies of feral Loth-cats. The tourism industry on Lothal had been branching out to the creepy little fuckers, but Din seemed to like them, carefully side-stepping tails and paws and not-so-subtly petting one when he “dropped something” while passing by. Cara and Fennec said nothing, and Fett just kept watch while Din allowed himself this.

When they’d come out of hyperspace and woken from their nap, Din had been shy. Fett had expected this, but didn’t fault him. Din had a few questions, just to clarify things, spoken in a raspy voice that meant he hadn’t recovered entirely from blowing Fett just a few hours prior. He was calm after the questions were answered, and no longer felt on the back foot.

The moment he had his beskar back on, Din had said, “Don’t you dare try to drag me by my helmet again.”

Fett laughed, loud and amused. “Don’t give me a reason to, then.”

Okay, that was fair.

When they cut through a dense forest to the Imperial facility they located on the trackers, something uneasy crept into Din’s gut. He was sure the others felt it too, though none of them spoke in the dense silence, no one wanting to put a name to the dark feeling.

The facility looked well-disguised. There were no patrols skulking around, all the ships looked like they’d been deserted after the Empire fell, it was a ghost town.

Cara took a step toward the fence line.

Din noticed it through a thermal sensor - a tripwire. “No!” He shouted, surging forward to pull Cara back. She stumbled, caught off guard, and Din’s center of gravity wobbled on one foot before he fell backwards.

Instantly, he was swept up in to the trees in a net of wire, connected at the cross-points by small discs. He thrashed against the trap, while the others below shouted for him. He grunted and tried to get at his knife, something to pull him free, cut an opening, anything. The others were saying something but his pounding heart was too loud in his ears for him to understand.

The only thing he could understand was that this had been a trap. The kid was still out there, and they were chasing smoke. He was never going to get his kid back, never going to hold him or make him laugh. It made his thrashing that much more frantic.

And then the beskar gauntlet clicked against one of the discs.

Electric shocks, powerful and terrible, met between the plates of beskar. This trap had been laid for him. He heard himself screaming at the top of his lungs, his helmet connecting with one of the discs and doubling—no, tripling the pain. He felt his muscles spasm down his neck, shoulders, spine. He thought he could feel it arc between his fingertips. The display on his helmet was fried, all he could see was just that terrible blue light and the tunneling darkness with it.

Then.

There was green.

And Din was falling.

Idly, he felt himself caught, but the rest of his limbs were still lightly sparking and twitching. He’d at least stopped screaming, but the blood gushing down his chin told him he must have bitten some part of his mouth - his cheeks, his lips, his tongue. It was true that the body didn’t remember pain, and Din felt this, and the weight of his failure, in its entirety.

Whoever it was that carried him through the air set him on the forest floor some space away. The plates of beskar were ripped from him, releasing him from any remnant static. Footsteps approached, running. His rescuer barked, “TURN AWAY,” before Din’s helmet was pulled off.

Even the dimmed light through the boughs was too bright, and Din closed his eyes to it. “I know, I know, where’s it hurt?”

“Everywhere,” Din sobbed out, hands clenching and unclenching to distract himself. His breath was coming in fast, shallow pants, and he knew he’d pass out if he didn’t stop.

Warm, calloused hands touched his face, wiped away blood from his ears and nose and mouth, tugged his lips and mouth open to look inside. Fingers walked over his body, just a little too rough, poking where he was hurt.

It was like his soft and secret fantasy had been poisoned and laid bare at his feet to die. Din couldn’t help the sob that came to his throat. “Shh, shh, I’ve got you. Gotta get you back to the ship. Here.”

“Helmet…” Din moaned as he was picked up again, arms behind his back and under his knees.

“Shorted out, still sparking. We’ll sort it out. Gotta get you checked.” His head was hidden carefully by the frayed fabric of Din’s cape. The reduction in light and the familiar weave over his face calmed him greatly, and he heard the sound of beskar being stacked on itself. “Don’t you forget a single piece,” his rescuer said, not to Din but to the others there. “I’m flying on ahead. When you get in, get us off of this kriffing planet as fast as possible.”

He was barely finished speaking before he was back up in the air, the lift of the jet pack just a little whiny at the extra weight. Din clutched at what he could with his useless, spasming arms, and tried steadying his breathing.

“Almost there, jat’ika.”

Oh.

Boba Fett had saved his life. Again. And he was calling him things in Mando’a. Again. Emotions surged through Din’s blood like the shocks had before, but there was nowhere to ground his feelings to. He pressed his face to the chest plate, and just held on. They landed in a run, Fett rushing up the entrance to get Din laid out somewhere for triage.

The familiar shape of Fett’s berthing came into Din’s bleary view. Fett had a whole medbay onboard, why not there? The answer came to him as Fett tore the rest of Din’s armor off, including the cape.

Din lay bare on the sheets, burns from the edges of the beskar plates seared through his clothes and into his skin. He wouldn’t be able to stay in the medbay if Cara and Fennec were coming; Din didn’t know if he cared.

He had failed the kid, again. First at that stupid temple, and again here, not seeing the forest for the traps. How many more times could he fuck this whole thing up before the kid was lost to him forever? In the few seconds between Fett setting him down in bed and when he’d returned to bring what looked like half the medbay, Din had broken.

He’d been alone in his entire fucking life. He’d been chasing ghosts of affection wherever he could since becoming a foundling, and the kid was the first real right thing he had in his life. Due to his own stupid incompetence, he’d lost that one good thing, that he’d been trusted with. Clan of two. The kid didn’t deserve that.

The kid didn’t deserve Din.

“Hey, hey hey hey. What’d I miss.” Fett sealed the door, confident he’d grabbed enough supplies and that the others would do as told. He came onto the bed with Din, hovering over him, still in all his armor and weaponry, Din helpless as he’s never been.

Din could only shake his head and shudder through his tears. He didn’t see Fett’s face tighten in sadness, but he felt a cool sting of bacta spray along his arm, over his chest, his thigh. His fingertips were an angry purple, so Fett took his time there. “Gotta jab you.”

Din made no protest, but gasped sharply when his body was turned over. A hypo pressed into the meat of his shoulder, and the bacta spread an unnatural numbness to the abused muscle. More bacta and burn patches were applied to his back before he was turned over again. He was still a bit bleary from the pain, what it’d taken out of him.

Fett patched him up good, efficient and thorough as he would’ve been on himself. There was no use in denying injury, to him. He only had one of himself, despite there being hundreds of thousands of himself in the past, technically. He couldn’t get that legendary status as the Boba Fett without learning to be self-sufficient, either. Din was rolled onto his back, eyes still glazed over in pain.

This, Fett knew, could not be fixed by a bacta hypo. His heart lurched when the ship started to move, but remembered it was just Fennec and Cara. “How many systems we putting between here and ourselves?” A voice crackled through the intercom.

“Got a safehouse in the Hosnian system,” Fett said into the receiver.

“For real? You in the Core Worlds?”

“It’s not uncommon. Tell the ship to go to Point 4B.”

“How’s Mando?” Cara’s voice.

“Some burns. Might be a bit. We have what we need.” Din met Fett’s eyes at that. “You two handle yourselves.”

“Always do.” The comm cut off, and Fett locked its volume down. Din watched him with a wary look. He was completely bare while Fett was still mostly covered, but with the bacta in his blood, the boiling sensation receding from his brain, and the heartbreak still clear as day, Din couldn’t care.

Fett still stripped off his armor methodically, and didn’t speak. When he was down to a pair of skin-layers, he came up on the bed with a few more supplies. “You’re a biter,” he said, putting Din’s head in his lap. Din told himself he didn’t deserve to enjoy it, but from the first gentle touch of the damp cloth to the drying blood on his face, he melted.

“I don’t try to be,” Din said. A cut (bite) on his lip got some balm, and the bridge of his nose where it’d jammed against the fizzling beskar helmet.

A hand pet through his hair. He was sure it looked absolutely crazy, what with being electrocuted and the general insanity it already was. Din almost shook it off.

“Almost done, then you can rest.”

“Gotta find the kid,” Din said. “Can’t be caught off-guard like that again.” He tried to sit, but a firm hand at his neck, ready to pinch that bundle of nerves every Mandalorian knew about, made him freeze, and his breath with it.

“You are going to rest.” It was slowly-said and serious, and Din felt heady just from the order.

“But I failed.”

“We all failed. You’re just the one who had to pay for it. Jat’ika,” Fett said, and Din shivered. “Let me take care of you.”

Din turned his face, pressing it into Fett’s thigh again. Would be he able to relax? Allow this distraction? No, what was it Fett had called it?

A solution.

“Just til I’m better?”

“We’ll cross that bridge later.”

It was still a very long time before Din spoke, though Fett knew every moment was spent turning over the thoughts in his head like it was an old stone on a riverbank. Over and over, finding the best angle out of all the others.

“Okay,” Din whispered. “Okay, daddy.” Those fingers surged back into his hair, and may as well have been digging into his heart and soul. Din whimpered, and tried to relax his body some. “What do you want me to do?”

Fett stilled a little, thinking. They couldn’t get up to much physical activity, unfortunately, but Fett knew if he played his cards right, his boy wouldn’t be so wound up by the time he recovered. Maybe he’d be wound up in a different way.

And then they’d have some real fun.

“I don’t want you to leave this room. Better yet, this bed. If you need something you ask. If you want something you ask. Are you cold?” It had been raining on the Lothal moon.

Din almost shook his head no, but reconsidered, focusing on his body instead of his failures and shame. He was cold.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you come up here with me, then. I can warm you up better than a blanket can.” Fett helped him into the position he wanted, curled on his side and facing Fett. He was right, of course. The warmth bled into his bones almost instantly, one of Fett’s hands stroking up and down his back while the other stayed in his hair. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Din breathed. This close, he could feel the rumble of his voice through his chest. “Yes, daddy.”

Fett gave an amused huff and leaned down, pressing a kiss to Din’s forehead. At the sharp inhale he gave, Fett would have assumed he had touched on a wound Din hadn’t disclosed, but the arch in his spine and the rapid pulse against his thumb told Fett all he needed to know.

“You like when daddy gives you kisses?” Fett asked, voice dropping low.

Din’s wide eyes met his from below, full of emotion and curiosity. He gave a small nod.

“Have you ever been kissed before?”

A blush. A shake of the head.

“Do you want to be kissed? You have quite the pretty mouth for it.”

A deeper blush. Din hid in the crook of Fett’s neck for a bit while he continued to stroke his back.

Then, a voice.

“Yes, please.”

Fett wasted no time, moving his head out from his hiding spot and kissing from his forehead to his temples to his cheeks, to the tip of his nose, which made Din actually giggle and grin a bit. It was a beautiful sound, and a beautiful smile, two things Fett didn’t think he could go another second without indulging.

The kiss was soft and not as deep as Fett would have liked, but it made Din whimper into his mouth all the same, soft and hungry for more. Fett kept kissing him, over and over until he got the hang of it. We’re they standing, Din would have swooned, knees buckled like a newborn foal.

“There we are,” Fett said, pulling away with reluctance. Din was kind of wrecked, honestly. Fett’s hands had done a number on his hair, and he must have been extremely thorough in his job, because Din’s lips were swollen into a beautiful pout. “Did you like that, jat’ika?”

Din’s eyes fluttered shut at the name. Fett already knew how much Din liked it, but there was something else to be said about the little thrill he got when Din said, “Yes, daddy, I did.”

No, Din wasn’t going to leave this bed for awhile yet.

Read on AO3. | Part 5

#moon and old stars #my writing #star wars fanfiction #din djarin/boba fett #the mandalorian fanfiction

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mysticalmusicwhispers · 4 years

Note

if it’s not too much to ask... india/china hcs pls? i know u ship it so i’d love to hear what ur opinions are!!

Thank you for asking friend!! It’s never a bother :)

Length Warning: Very, Very Long, A Lot Of Rambling

Preface: I honestly don’t know much in-depth stuff about India-China history (all the “history ramblings” is based on my previous knowledge + Wiki), so I don’t have a lot of grounding in what their relationship is like. Also, when writing their history I realized I still see them as a brotp (so the first part isn’t very shippy) but there are romantic ship headcanons at the end. See this cool post for other hcs!

+++

HISTORY RAMBLINGS

- I guess in Ancient Times, I see them having a friendly trading partner vibe; my personal hc of Ancient China is of someone who builds friendships for convenience, and then starts getting attached with time, so I think this is how his attitude was at first. He and India probably had some vague contact through diplomats and travellers who brought back tales to their own country, and then once trading and influence and religious imports (ex. Buddhism) really kicked off, they started actually interacting with each other (as people, not nations) and over time, that just kicked off into being closer and closer friends until they were basically lovers.

- In Hetalia canon China goes along with Zheng He (Ming Dynasty, early 1400s) on his voyages around the world (the episode with a giraffe), and historically they did make stops at India, where they traded and visited Buddhist temples and stuff; this would be fun to examine in terms of Indchu. I’m sure they had more opportunities to visit each other in person (in contrast to Romechu, the true long-distance relationship) but I’d like to see them just checking in on each other, talking about the news of the day and stuff! Talking about trade and the places they’ve seen; Yao rambling on and on about where he’s headed next, India interjecting time to time about things he’s heard about places far away from them. A moment of peace where they’re just super comfortable and relaxed with each other would be amazing

- Ok fast forward a bit to the 1850s-60s: Qing Dynasty is resting in pieces, the Opium Wars have thoroughly beaten China, the government is unstable from the Boxer Rebellion and there’s a bunch of hate at the ruling people, stuff happens. India has been taken by Britain and it’s Not Fun; these two old men are down in the dumps and being bitter together. I don’t think they’re “dating” or whatever rn because there’s just too much on both of their plates, but they are still close friends and still mutually hate England together. I can see them having tense arguments with each other out of pure stress, complaining about who has it worse: India, who has been made into a colony! *gasp* “My pride has been killed, Yao!” and China, who is basically a colony to 5 nations all at once and also reeling from losing HK to Britain. They know exactly how to hurt each other by this point, but they also know they don’t really mean it, and things usually blow over after they’re in their right minds again.

****Also, Indian sepoys were used by Britain to fight China, and Indian opium was shipped to China as well; I think that might have been a sticking point for a while, but I think Yao would’ve slowly accepted that India was not the one making decisions in the end.

- The World Wars: India is in the Gallipoli campaign, conscripted by Britain, China is fighting on the side of the British and French but does not gain a single thing from winning, and has also lost the First Sino-Japanese War (I think Hetalia canon says China got his scar from there). Then Japan invades China, and he and India are fighting together in WWII against China’s estranged sibling/brother/vague relation. Both are beaten to the core, still bitter, but they keep reminding each other that they will just have to weather the storm and wait for their moment. This too shall pass. Same mood as the beginning of imperialism, but more tired and more done.

- After India’s Independence and China’s Government Overhaul: 1950s: India was one of the first non-Communist countries to recognize the PRC instead of the old ROC, but I think they started distancing from each other a little while after? There were territorial disputes with Nepal and I think both countries’ governments might have told them to cut it out and be less friendly with each other because they had rather clashing agendas

- Things seem to be relaxing just a bit, but then the Sino-Indian border dispute (1962) happens, and then there are other clashes near the border, and they don’t know if they can trust each other. Additionally, there’s the Sino-Soviet split, and India is getting help from the Soviets, and it makes things more complicated between them. The relationship is on shaky ground right now, and if they meet in person, both are putting on an impersonal facade. Not very friendly. I think they’re still cooling off until at least the late 1970s, when China’s economic reform happens.

- Skipping to Modern Day: they are cool again and are close friends again. However, they know their countries are competing in population, economy, world status/power, but they’re still friends. They know it might end badly, but I think they’ve learned to roll with the good times and savor it; their pride and hearts have been stomped on already so they don’t care anymore and take risks even if they might come out feeling a bit broken. They are buddies, and they might be dating, and they don’t really care about the boundary between friends and lovers. They are comfortable with each other.

- This article, published in 2007 by Harvard Business Review, presents an interesting take on China and India’s relationship, and in particular, their economies: it says that although people think they’re destined to be rivals because of their competing business sectors, they have developed complementary strengths and it’d be foolish not to work together. I think that could somewhat summarize Indchu’s relationship with each other in the hetaliaverse; they complement each other, and even if they might become competitors, it won’t affect their friendship/relationship because they just fit together. They click; it’s not forced friendship or whatever, they just integrate into each other so well (it��s almost like they’re meant to be together).

- There are border skirmishes (ex. the incident in June 2020), but I’m not really sure how that would factor into their relationship? Maybe they’ve gotten over it and they both know the other personification doesn’t like the fighting, and that their government’s opinions come first? Or maybe it’s still unresolved between them, because India has known Yao for a long time and knows what he’s capable of, and Yao knows what a potent force India can be when he wants? Idk. I think the idea of unresolved tension is more accurate, but I also like this ship because it’s soft and /mostly/ pure in modern day and I sometimes really want to ignore historical accuracy

ONTO THE GENERAL SHIP HEADCANONS!

- They argue with each other a lot, basically like an old married couple; their jibes at each other don’t mean anything though. China insists it’s so their wits stay sharp.

- Also they have debates over various academic topics; it’s basically their fun hobby by now. They’re both intellectually matched and read rather voraciously, so it’s a fun challenge (and keeps their wits sharp)

- I mentioned it before but it’s worth bringing up again: they know exactly how to hurt each other with their words; they just don’t get into bad fights often so they don’t need to cut each other to pieces.

- China is the less sentimental one, but they’re both really good at picking out tasteful, meaningful gifts for each other. “Experiences over material items/gifts” doesn’t really appeal to either of them; they’d much rather stay home being cozy than “gifting” each other a week in the Caribbeans or something.

- T e a l e a v e s (No Teabags unless Strictly Necessary). No coffee, sugar, cream, or milk. Sometimes India jokes about switching over to coffee or drinking tea the British way, and Yao just goes “You’re canceled”, dead seriously.

- They wear each other’s traditional clothing sometimes. Occasionally Yao asks India to wear a hanfu instead of a changshan (men’s equivalent of qipao) because he thinks it’s more traditional (qipao was invented in the 1920s). India has managed to stuff Yao into a qipao at least three times, and has pictures to prove it.

- India likes running his fingers through China’s hair (he says it’s really soft, a comment that makes Yao scoff every time) and he sorta hates his ponytail for that reason alone. Yao knows this, and he tries to make up for it by letting it down more on weekends, when he doesn’t have to look presentable (also India insists Yao looks presentable all the time, another comment that always earns a scoff).

- They teach each other their own dishes. China has been getting in the habit of substituting beef and pork for other things, mainly tofu/chicken/shiitake mushrooms

- They take walks together in the evenings after dinner when they’re in the same place. As long as it’s still light out and the weather’s not too bad, they will do it every day (even if it’s raining, they might just bring an umbrella).

- Their way of showing affection is a) with gifts and b) just talking to each other about anything. It’s their way of winding down for the day and being comfortable with each other; they have long talks about random, silly little things that happened, perhaps a funny (or stupid) meme/joke their siblings sent, or dumb stuff that happened with their boss at a meeting.

- I think they’d call each other nicknames in private. It wouldn’t be something too “sickly sweet” I guess, but something to show they care. They use nicknames sparingly as well, so it doesn’t lose meaning through overuse. (I personally hate nicknames so I’m not giving out any suggestions here, but I think Yao would use something like “亲爱的” for India, basically means “dear/beloved”. Not too flashy or sweet, but still affectionate.)

- China gifts houseplants to India’s apartment/house because he knows India likes them (I think he’s a green thumb). China doesn’t really bother with decorative plants; he prefers to grow spring onions and other low maintenance shit that he can use in his cooking lol he’s all about the practicality

- During ancient times, they had lengthy, invigorating discussions about mathematics, either through letters or in person.

- They aren't really affectionate in public; PDA is limited to hand holding and occasionally a kiss on the cheek. Neither China nor India are the type to “show off” their relationship or their partner.

- Adding onto that, they don’t really announce their relationship to everybody but if you ask them, they’ll tell you. Basically you have to be the one to notice something’s up; they just don’t think it's necessary to share every little bit of information about their lives with people. They're the “secretly married” couple trope; signs of affection are rather subtle but still noticeable because they don’t act that way to other people.

- China forced India to get a Wechat so he can send India 10¥ red packets every week just because he has the app

- Not really a ship headcanon, but these two would throw the best parties??? Like if you want a party that’s really loud and noisy and fun, ask them. They may be old and “not fun” or whatever but they know how to organize large scale events effectively and how to achieve the correct atmosphere, and despite all Yao’s siblings’ trash talk, they usually pull off very stylish, sleek functions/events. Maybe it’s a little tacky here and there but it’s barely noticeable, and everyone is just. Awed.

Yeet that’s it; thank you for reading! This got really long, and I feel like a lot of the headcanons were rather platonic, but yeah! Hope you like it!

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krayt-spitter21 · 4 years

Text

A Drink With The Past

It was a slow night on the bridge of the Chimaera. There hadn’t been a rebel spotting in a few weeks and the crew were beginning to get comfortable. Thrawn thought it dangerous. After all, one should always be prepared for the worst, even when the worst seems nonexistent. Thrawn was interrupted in his thoughts by the comm officer addressing him.

“Admiral, we have sensors picking up a vessel entering the system from hyperspace.”

“Designation?”

“It reads the Memory Sir.”

“Hail the ship.

“Yes sir.”

The image of a man lit up the view screen. No one noticed the microscopic tightness in Thrawn’s expression as he spoke.

“This is Grand Admiral Thrawn of the Galactic Imperial Navy. State your name and business in this system.”

“My name is Jorj Car’das and my business is with you Grand Admiral Mitth’raw’nuruodo.” The bridge went silent. Everyone on board knew their commander’s real name though none could pronounce it. Thrawn was silent for a few seconds before answering.

“Very well, you may dock in the Chimarea’s main hangar. I will meet you there shortly. Chimaera out.” The transmission cut out and Thrawn turned to his first officer.

“Captain Faro, you have the bridge.”

“Yes sir,” she replied. Faro noted the slight frown as Thrawn turned away from her and walked towards the doors. She put it out of her mind. If Thrawn thought it important enough to tell her if something was wrong, he would. She had served with him for years now and she considered him a friend. Whether that sentiment was returned was unknown as far as she knew, but she liked to think it was.

As Thrawn walked to the hangar he thought of all the possible reasons that Car’das could be here. In all honesty he had purged the man from his mind long ago. It had been nearly 25 years since he had met him and his friends in the Unknown Regions. 25 years since he was exiled and left on a planet all on his own. Absentmindedly he was surprised when the turbo lift doors opened and he was directly in front of the hangar entrance. He saw the small but elegant yellow ship in the contrasting gray and white of the massive hangar. As Thrawn approached, he could see that Car’das had already been waiting outside his ship with his arms crossed. For a moment they simply stared at one another.

“ I welcome you aboard the Chimarea Jorj Car’das.” Thrawn finally said. At this Car’das uncrossed his arms and bowed.

“Thank you Mitth’raw’nuruodo.” He rose up and looked Thrawn straight in the eyes. With all formalities put aside, he spoke again.

“Thrawn is there somewhere we can talk? There’s something you need to know. It’s about Thrass.” Thrawn’s eyes widened and he abruptly turned around. Behind him he said,

“Follow me.” The two took a turbolift in silence and then walked for a few minutes before stopping at one of the many conference rooms within the mile long ship. The door closed behind them and Thrawn held up a hand as Car’das opened his mouth.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

“Ar alani. She heard I was in the Unknown Regions and tracked me down. Asked me to give you a message about your brother. She couldn’t come herself and thought it would be better if you heard this in person.”

“What is the message?” Car’das seemed to hesitate and then steeled himself. Better to just say it. In the back of his mind he wondered how Thrawn would take it.

“They found him, Thrawn. They found Thrass.”

Thrawn was not a man who relied on hope. He was a logical and skilled tactician that planned for every move and counterstroke. However this may have been the first time in his life that he almost gave in. He hadn’t seen his brother since he left him on Outbound Flight all those years ago. Thrawn realized his brother was missing when Thrass wasn’t present during his exile trial and somehow knew something had happened. 25 years later and Jorj Car’das was telling him his brother had been found. Logically, Thrawn knew his younger brother was dead, and he learned long ago that hope was a dangerous thing.

Thrawn was silent for a hartbeat. He then spoke with a dangerous edge to his voice that only those who knew him well could notice.

“Is he dead?” The world seemed to slow. Thrawn involuntarily held his breath and waited for Car’das to answer. A part of him didn’t want the answer but knew he needed it. He needed someone to say it. To finally give him closure. Otherwise he could never truly move on. Car’das looked into glowing red eyes with sadness in his own.

“Yes. Thrass died on outbound flight apparently to save the lives of civilians that survived the radiation bombs. A Chiss exploratory team found a colony living on an asteroid with wreckage on it and discovered your brother’s remains along with those of a Jedi. They reported to Ar alani who identified them and has since been trying to find a way to tell you.”

Thrawn was silent for a handful of minutes as he stood staring stoically at the inky star studded void outside the viewport. Finally he spoke with a softness that surprised even himself.

“Did they suffer?”

“No. The medical report said they both died on impact.”

Silence fell again as Car’das joined Thrawn at the viewport. It was a comfortable;e silence if somewhat tinged with grief. Again, Car’das wondered what Thrawn was thinking. Without turning, Thrawn addressed his friend.

“Thank you Jorj, for delivering this message. You are more than welcome to resupply you ship and stay however long you wish. However, you should know that I am on a mission to find and destroy a rebel uprising in this system. Things may get dangerous at any moment.”

“Thank you Thrawn, but I only came to deliver the message. I have to get back to my family. I’ve been gone a long time trying to find you.”

“Very Well.” The walk and turbolift ride was silent again but neither of the two men minded very much. Outside his ship, Car’das turned back to Thrawn.

“I’m sorry. I know how much you two cared about each other. At least you know now.”

“Yes, after 25 years I have closure. I have you to thank for that. May warriors fortune be with you on your journey home.”

“And may it be with you as well, wherever you’re headed these days. Goodbye Thrawn, it was good to see you.”

“You as well, my friend.” Thrawn watched as the Memory lifted off and flew out of the Chimaera’s hangar. He then turned and headed for the bridge. As he walked in, a sensor officer spoke.

“The Memory has just left the system into hyperspace, Admiral.”

“Good. Continue to monitor any unidentified ships that pass through. There may be rebels here yet.” At his side, Captain Faro noticed the miniscule frown on Thrawn’s face. She knew that look even if it was heavily hidden. Thrawn had just lost someone. Someone important to him by Faro’s guess. Thrawn was no stranger to casualties and had remained impassive in the past. No, this one meant something to him. A family member perhaps? Or maybe a friend. It was hard to tell, but Faro knew she was going to have a talk with him about it later. Personal experience told her that people needed to talk about it in order to move on properly.

Hours later, after her shift had ended, Karyn went to the officers lounge. It had been a slow day, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t tired after 12 hours on the bridge. When the doors opened, she was surprised to find one a single occupant at the bar. Thrawn was seated at the bar and didn’t seem to notice Faro as she sat next to him. There was a glass and a half empty bottle of whisky in front of him.

“Whatever he’s having.” she said to the droid tending the bar. The droid placed a glass in front of her and poured some brandy from the bottle in front of them. Nodding her thanks, she swirled her glass before taking a sip. She made a face.

“Strong stuff if you ask me, eh Admiral?” Thrawn was silent, merely staring into his glass. Karyn wondered if Eli or Gilad ever had to deal with this kind of shit. Alright, whatever, might as well get to the point. She took a deep breath and spoke in a soft voice.

“My wife died.” At this Thrawn turned his head. He had the same reserved expression he always had but there was something else there that Karyn couldn’t quite place.

“I am sorry for your loss Captain,” he said equally soft.

“Thank you. Her name was Vivian. She was beautiful and she was mine. I’ve lived without her smile for about 7 years now. We married right after she was diagnosed with cancer. It’s hard sir, losing someone you love.” There was a somber silence that followed, each of them thinking about the past. Karyn was mostly thinking about Viv’s sweet smile. That had been the hard part. Watching her love’s smile as she died a bit more everyday was worse than when she actually died. A part of Karyn died with the smile and the sad eyes that accompanied it. Thrawn startled her when he spoke.

“I lost my brother 25 years ago. I never knew for sure what happened to him until today. He gave his life to save civilians and it was partly my fault. I should have listened to him when he told me not to get involved, perhaps then he would still be alive and I would not have been exiled.” Thrawn Looked into his glass again and saw his reflection. He wondered what Thrass would look like if he were alive today.

“What was his name if you don’t mind me asking?”

“His name was Mitth’ras’safis. Thrass was his core name.” Karyn looked at the sad expression on his face and realized she was crying when a tear had slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and grabbed the bottle of whisky. She poured another glass for them and then held hers up.

“Well then, To Vivian and Thrass, may we meet them again someday.” Thrawn was still for a second and then a small but sad smile appeared on his face. He raised his glass as well and said something in a strange melodic language Karyn did not understand. SHe had the impression that it was something along the lines of what she had said. They both knocked their glasses up and both made a face afterwards. Karyn laughed lightly as Thrawn simply smiled. The two friends remained at the bar for hours talking of their loved ones and drinking to ease their pain. Thrawn was glad that, although he was exiled by his people and given a mission that was light years away from his home, he could still have a drink with a friend.

#grand admiral thrawn #thrawn #outbound flight #thrass #star wars #canon mixed with Eu #karyn faro #jorj car’das #fanfic #enjoy yall #karyn’s gay fight me #also she totally drinks with thrawn #they have game nights with the officer staff

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countryshitposts · 4 years

Text

it all went wrong when your mirror shattered

The Deutsches Reich reevaluates his memories, from start to finish.

long awaited (by me lmao) fanfic of German Empire going through a runway of memories

Deutsches Reich felt death over take him in such an easy flow, him struggling first in the seas, trying to take the binds off of him, before ultimately failing as he succumbs to the stab wound Weimar - no, that’s not his cowardly son - had inflicted upon him. He was not ready for this. Was not ready for his child to act so harshly and criminal against his father. He was not ready for Weimar to turn to-

That is not Weimar.

Deutsches Reich’s eyes widen, his lungs filling with water, puncturing him with a thousand knives as he stops struggling, to be frozen in place. He looks at the amount of crimson that he has let out of his system and into the seas. He wonders if sharks will come and devour him whole, sparing no single thought to why he is here, why he is a floating carnage. They are, after all, predators.

The last thing he sees before his eyes clothes and drags him to oblivion is the shadow of his son’s - son? - boat rowing away.

He can feel his immortal body give up, heart beat slowing, his lungs numbing and knives stop puncturing the very core of his insides. He is now at peace, no matter how forgotten his body will be, no matter how humiliated he was.

He feels the stab wound heal itself, the skin sewing back and the blood drying, and he gasps.

His heart beat is gone.

His body is as cold as the seas that had murdered him.

His lungs were not functioning, yet he was breathing.

How was he breathing?

The Deutsches Reich opens his eyes, to find himself in such a light atmosphere he has to shield himself.

He was alive.

But how?

Why?

“D-Deutsches Reich?”, a familiar voice he never thought he’d hear again reaches his ears, yet his body is still cold.

He tries to remember who had that voice, a young, pre-adolescent voice whom had pleaded with he and Österreich during the last days of his life. The voice that had cried of how much it hurts, of how much he is hurting because of his condition. Österreich wept, Deutsches scoffs and calls them both cowards as he walks off and lets them have their alone time regretting their decisions.

He cannot help but miss the young boy, though.

Then he feels a small, thin body collide with him, not enough to make him fall but enough to startle him. He flinches as Confederate’s arms brushes up to his stab wound, but he calms himself down and hugs the boy he had lost in his life. Confederation was crying, and Deutsches Reich holds the urge to slap him like in the old days. He lets the boy’s tears stain his clothes, a modest shirt he had picked up in his dying years.

Confederation - finally - wipes his eyes, and observes the way Deutsches Reich now looks, and the man himself furrows his brows and tries to look away.

“You’ve… changed.” He awkwardly points out, and Deutsches Reich scoffs.

“Not quite, young man”, Deutsches says, “but I’ve learned enough not to bully you again.”

Confederation smiles a bit, as he embraces Deutsches Reich one more time. Such contact surprises him, as the boy hesitates to even touch him in the most friendly way. Perhaps a night or two in this strange realm changed his behavior slightly.

“So, where am I?”, Deutsches looks around to find himself on a field of flowers, then on a blazing and heated battlefield in the trenches of the Great War. He jumps back as he gags, trying to remember what it feels like for the mustard gas to come their way instead of the other. Confederation holds him for a bit, trying to comfort him in a sense, and he dislikes this. He dislikes the display he has become weak over the years, and so he shoves Confederation away from him, much to the boy’s surprise.

“You’re in the afterlife”, Confederation replies to Deutsches’ hanging question, “it’s where all the dead souls go. It’s meant to be a haven for us.”

“Then why did I see the… trenches?”, Deutsches chokes out, feeling himself growing colder and colder.

“It-it does that. It makes you remember your haunted past. Pray tell, how did you end up here, dead after all these years?”

“My damned son murdered me in cold blood.” Deutsches Reich says angrily, but he can’t help but hear a hint of hurt escape his voice, and he regrets that suddenly.

Confederation’s eyes go wide. “What? Weimar murdered you?”

Deutsches shakes his head, “That was not Weimar. That was something else. Weimar would not have the courage to murder me in such a mundane manner.”

“How… did you die?” Confederation was looking up at Deutsches Reich with those big worried eyes of his, and it is making him want to tell the boy all about his grievances throughout the years he was alive.

“I was stabbed on a boat in the middle of the night by my son - perhaps he is not my son - and pushed into the water while bound. End of story.”

“But… why would Weimar do that-”

“That was not Weimar.”

Confederation looks at him with a conflicted look upon his face. “W-what?”

“The man who murdered me is not Weimar.”

“And another member into the house hold!”, an elderly man exclaims as Deutsches Reich and Confederation finally enter the large home of the German Family. It was a short walk, right when Confederation was annoyingly talking about what he has done in the afterlife while Deutsches Reich was forced to listen to him. The man looks quite tribal or barbaric, no ounce of shame of not putting on proper clothes. He was holding a spear, his light hair surprisingly kept, his senile smile shining.

“Who is that man?”, Deutsches Reich whisper-asks Confederation, cutting his story short.

“Oh, that is Germania, our ancestor and the first person in the family tree”, Confederation says. “His son is the Holy Roman Empire.”

Deutsches clicks his tongue while looking up at Germania. “Ah.”

Germania instantly appears right in front of them, and Deutsches jolts a bit. He still has that old smile placated his face, looking at Deutsches with fascination. “Deutsches Reich, I have heard a lot about you.”

Deutsches crosses his arms arrogantly. “Where? From my late wife?”

Germania smiles. “Well, yes, but some are from the Rhine Confederation and his son. But mostly from your wife, saying you are a no good cheater who cheated on her with Österreich-Ungarn.”

They hear loud steps echoing from the inside of the house, and Deutsches Reich grimaces, knowing already who it was before she slams the door open to reveal Deutsches’ former wife, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Her stance was fixed imperiously as the woman glares right at Deutsches Reich, and for the first time in his life (or is this the afterlife?) he is uneasy.

“Ehemann”, Saxe says coolly with narrowed eyes as she approaches Deutsches coolly, “it is… nice to see you again.”

“We all know you are fuming and your ears are boiling, ehefrau”, Deutsches Reich shoots back coldly, arms behind his back. “But I am dead. Surely you wish to pummel me to the ground by now.”

“I am withholding my anger.” She crosses her arms, like the stubborn woman she is. “I shall get answers from you before I hurt you.”

Germania clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable while watching Deutsches Reich and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach have a lover’s quarrell. “People, please bicker inside of the house; it will make us look bad towards our neighbors.” Confederation seconds this by nodding.

All of them enter the house, so beautiful and majestic, yet so simple and modest. How does one design a building so consistently old fashioned yet it adds so many eras into one peaceful setting?

Deutsches Reich eyes the chandelier, remembering how he had met Saxe and danced with her all night, and then marrying her a month after they met, no regards of whether their relationship was strong enough to last in time. He remembers women flirting with him, how he had commented on their appearances, but yet he had never danced with the women during his father’s ball. Only when Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach arrives, he asks her. She was so elegant when she had come to the ball; dressed in her glamorous yet simple grün cocktail dress, her neck wrapped around in furs and her blonde hair stylized to look like a sweet, elegant and renowned lady.

He had felt a burning fire inside of him, a desire to get close to that strange and eccentric woman as she dances on the floor, denying men’s advances, letting her do what she pleases as her feet carry her body. The fire within him is scorching, is burning, is trying to slaughter him with his absolute curiosity of this woman. He has fallen head over heels for the way she moves and taunts him with her speed.

He had moved towards her, bowing like a gentleman would do as he asks her for a dance. To his surprise, she takes his hand, warmer than his gloves, and they start to waltz around the ball room. Deutsches Reich remembered how it feels like- scorching flames inside of him, spreading like wildfire aiming for his heart; butterflies soaring all around them as they help the couple waltz and turn; a hundred eyes upon them and Deutsches Reich could not help but stumble under the pressure, but the woman clings on to him tightly.

That was before.

Before he matured and turned to an adult he was destined to be, before he realized he didn’t have to listen to his wife, before he regretted thinking he could love her in the first place.

Before.

“What happened to our child Deutsches?”, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach demands as they reach a space closed off from others. Both Confederation and Germania were nowhere to be found; after all, they wouldn’t want to hear an argument between a couple.

“He is still alive, do not worry.” He doesn’t even know if ‘alive’ is a word for what he has witnessed happen to his son. Saxe puts an arm around her hips, pursing her lips as she looks at her former husband with a skeptical look.

“How did you die, then?”

“I was taken to the sea by boat”, Deutsches replies vaguely, trying not to remember the salty and cold sea water as it tries to break his lungs like an animal clawing for an escape. “I was bound by ropes, and then my perpetrator stabbed me and pushed me into the water to drown and die of blood loss.”

Saxe arches a brow, “Und was ist mit unserem sohn passiert?”

Deutsches tries not to break under his wife’s glare, remembering back when he used to respect his wife and treat her like a goddess. “Ihm ist nichts passiert.”

Saxe looks at him with her big green eyes. “Liar.”

Deutsches didn’t have time to open his mouth as Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach pins him to the wall. “Liar! What has happened to our son?!” Her tone was hysterical, her walls about to break in a minute.

“Nothing!”, he replies, tone higher. “Nothing happened to our son!”

“Who murdered you?”, she asks as she pulls on Deutsches’ shirt, tears in her eyes, “who murdered you?”

Her husband doesn’t reply, and so she presses him to the wall more, fingers digging into his skin like a hundred gnats. She will know. She knows, she knows, she always knows.

Sudden realization sparks in her eyes. She now knows. “He… murdered you.”

Deutsches silently nods, not having enough energy to even speak nor counter his wife. “I’ve observed him for so many years, and he has finally snapped under the pressure those allies have did to him.”

Saxe’s hands’ grip soften after the realization, the lady panting hard as she looks down to the floor. Deutsches stays in that position, and he will only move when Saxe tells him to.

“Did he murder Preußen too? Berlin? His children?”

“I cannot account if he will murder the children”, Deutsches says in a hushed voice, uncharacteristic of him, “but he will vanquish my father or keep him captive and break him.”

“Why? Who caused him to break?”

Deutsches’ brain supplies him an image of the allies laughing at their misfortune. “Pesky America, Frankreich and Großbritannien.”

Saxe curses under her breath, looking away from Deutsches, tears spilling down her cheeks. He makes no move to comfort her, stuck in his own limbo of emotions. They were all swirling in his head, and he doesn’t know which to turn to first. He hears Saxe starting to cry, and he can’t help but feel sorry for how they all ended up like they are- puppets to everyone, entertainment to watch, and personalities that beg to differ. He listens to her cry, tears pouring and escaping her hands that cover her face.

His dreams come to him with multiple subliminal messages, as he tosses and turns, trying to calm himself down as he remembers the cold night air and then the elongated water knives stabbing into him. He feels hands and their finger nails digging in to him, souls of the undead coming back to haunt him in dreading ways. He can see the pitch black eyes of the one he had considered a weak and pathetic son, now turned convict and has snapped under the pressure in all his life.

Then his dreams transport him back to the living world.

He finds himself in a room, a gathering of the League of Nations, he supposes. He sees Frankreich, smearing her repulsive face with lipstick, looking at her compact mirror. America was talking to her father, a serious expression crossing her face

Deutsches Reich blinks. Why was he here in the living world?

He hears the next sentence come out of America’s mouth and his blood runs cold.

“Weimar has been missing for a week”, she states, fixing her hair. “When I dropped by his home three days ago only Berlin and his children were there, all bruised and bandaged. They refused to tell me what happened to Weimar.”

If only they knew, Deutsches thinks to himself.

Why is he here? Why is he here observing what goes on after his death? He is nothing but a ghost now, existing in a different plane of existence where he can see them but they who still live cannot see him; an invisible man, a man of no life yet still watching them from beyond. Is this how ghosts feel like? To feel themselves stripped of their mortality yet be ignored by humanity and their family forever and ever, to the point they just wander as invisible lost souls until the end of time.

The door opens, and the air around Deutsches turns cold. He recoils, everyone’s heads turning to the man at the door.

It was Weimar.

But it was not.

Deutsches remembered those eyes.

So maddening and full of vengeance, wanting to take revenge against the allies like it’s the last thing in the world.

He looks towards Deutsches’ direction, and he flinches, knees buckling. Never has he ever felt scared for life.

No, he was looking right at him.

He smiles as he tilts his head in an odd angle, and Deutsches never felt the fear so alive in his cold, cold body.

The man who was in his son’s body lunges at him, and Deutsches instinctively shields himself from his attack-

But his son’s claws never went through him to tear him apart - perhaps he phased out like a transparent ghost. But he opens his eyes once again, but he did not find himself inside the League of Nations building. He found himself in a garden.

A garden he remembered.

A garden that was lost in time, trees dying and its wood rotting, flowers wilting and the bright and happy colors becoming forlorn and monotone. He had sold this garden to a builder, who had wrecked what was once the Garden of Eden and turn it to the same colorless buildings he keeps on seeing.

Deutsches looks at his hand. Is his conscience bringing him back in time? His body was transparent, the morning sun shining a light through him like fragile glass. Why was he revisiting a memory he was so intent on burying forever?

He sees himself- no, a younger version of himself, running towards the trees that were bearing fruit. Deutsches sighs longingly, remembering all the childhood memories he had in this Garden of Eden before his father took him away to join him in meetings. He follows his younger self, who was running with a smile across his face.

Deutsches stops as he finds who his younger self was running to.

A young woman - no - that is Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

She was reading a book, and Deutsches watches his younger self pick up a rose from a rose bush full of thorns, flinching as the thorn of the rose stem pricks his fingers. Deutsches can feel the pinch but it is nowhere to what he will feel over the years.

“Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach”, his younger self calls for the young woman sitting on the bench, and she looks up from her book, curious.

“Ah, hello again Deutsches”, she says in a calm and melodic voice. Deutsches watches their interaction, feeling nothing but their love becoming a naught and nuisance through the years. Younger Saxe looks at Younger Deutsches’ pricked fingers and stands, quite worried. “Are you alright?”

Deutsches shakes his head insistently, “N-nein, I am fine, I wish to give you this rose because it reminds me of you.”

The younger Saxe’s eyes shine, her face becoming as red as the rose. Meanwhile the older Deutsches looks at them with a stoic face, knowing how their love will turn out over the years.

How did this pure love turn to mismatched infatuation after a few years?

He grimaces. He was the one who proposed to her.

He sees the younger Saxe try and patch up his wound like the honest and caring woman she was and still is, but just not to him anymore.

To their son.

Where did it all go wrong?

He remembered the day when he stopped coming to this garden, having no more use of it. He had come back to the garden after ten years of neglect, finding it nothing but a botched up place and everything that made him smile gone- replaced by stoic nothingness; he just came back to sell it. He had felt chills running up his spine as he feels himself being watched by a hundred angry nature spirits, who had rotted away after their neglect, try to claw him to pieces for destroying their garden and destroying it more.

The garden, it seems, reflected upon he himself to- the Garden of Eden (of course he called it that) back in its youthful days was lush, healthy, and full of beautiful wonders, its beauty making it surround itself with other beauties. It reflects his old self; when he was a young, naïve and immature teenager, compliant and submissive to whatever the servants, his wife and his father say. Yet he was a happy child.

He furrows his brow, an ache on his chest.

He was happy like that.

He was happy as a fool.

He was happy with being the doormat.

Yet he was in love with his wife, in love with his life full of beauty and wonders and grandeur, where only his father worries of the government and not take him to meetings.

The meetings and military changed him.

His father said that he was not a man of steel yet, that he was all delicate flesh and soft bone.

It ruined Deutsches Reich.

And so he trained.

And trained.

He would always return to his wife, pregnant and bearing a child, angry and cold, and ignores her as she tells him that supper is ready. Deutsches often would just go to his room and read something that will not hinder his brain.

His love for Saxe would meet the same fate as the garden- wilting every second and everyday, frustrated at how masculine she is, frustrated at how she thinks she’s the head of the household, frustrated on how they have turned their son to the same coward he was when he was a child.

Yet his father let him be until he has came of age.

He never let Weimar be.

(He remembered holding his infant Weimar with such fragility, ogling at how small the baby is and how he did not deserve such a blessing in life. Deutsches had called Weimar his savior, and he was; he had saved him for a lifetime of stress that week, and Saxe looks pleased.)

Deutsches realized where it had all gone wrong.

It was he himself that has done all these wrong deeds.

He who ruined his life and made it crumble, shaking himself to the very core. Deutsches Reich had shattered himself to small, meaningless pieces and take the fragments of his old self that is necessary for his training, leaving all the other fragments of himself disintegrate and turn to dust.

Oh, how wrong he was to consider Saxe and Weimar were the ones who ruined his life.

He looks at his transparent hands, then stares to the void, no purpose, no turning back, no nothing.

Deutsches had turned his back on everything he had dreamt of to an even sadder and more pathetic story.

He can feel the whole world go blurry, but maybe it was his eyes.

Deutsches Reich can feel weight crash into his lungs, making him heave for a breathe, as he gets sucked back into another memory. He lurches, wishing to vomit, as he sees that he is in the old house he has purchased for his brand new family. He is still transparent, void, not existing in the plane his memory exists in; he is just a watcher, an ultimatum and a beacon to behold.

He hears the door open behind him, and the faint cry of joy.

“Where is my little Weimar?”, his younger self exclaims happily as he phases through the elder Deutsches Reich- he shivers for a bit before ultimately stopping as he watches the couple and the newborn baby, sound asleep in his mother’s arms.

(Deutsches remembered how he and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach got married; they snuck off to his bedroom one night, loving the way their bodies created the needed friction, their love a bliss throughout the night. He can still feel the soft kisses Saxe has trailed down the nape of his neck and he remembers loving her with such a passion.

A month later Saxe tells Deutsches she is with child, he panics and marries her.)

He looks on to the younger Saxe - who has not really aged much - smiling, holding Weimar gently in her arms. “Hier ist er.”

His younger self lets out a noise of joy, and Deutsches cannot help but wince, remembering what is about to happen when he holds Weimar. His younger self takes Weimar gently from his mother’s arms, softly singing lullabies (he remembers singing them until he realizes that Weimar does not like it) and cradling him slowly and surely. The infant opens his eyes, and the young father coos, his smile widening, before ultimately faltering as Weimar’s big sleepy eyes turn to look up at him and start crying.

“Ah, he must be hungry”, he reasons, giving him back to Saxe, who cradles him until he only whimpers and sniffles.

Deutsches Reich looks on, knowing that his son is not hungry, and, rather, he was afraid of his father.

No matter how many times he holds Weimar with such a passion, his son only sniffles and cries. Like he was a monster, a terror from the deep. Saxe thinks he was holding their son callously, but he protests that he was holding him gently. After a few more months, he gives up, accepts the fact that his son is way more attached to his mother than he will ever be to him. And like fire, his spite grew until it burnt his body, an everlasting fire of rage in him.

Then his younger self turn to look at the direction of the door, but not behind him- rather right at Deutsches Reich’s eyes. His younger self looks at him sadly, like he knows what is going to happen over the years.

Deutsches Reich’s eyes widen as he was involuntarily pushed towards the darkest recesses of his memories, where no light is shining, where he keeps his childhood memories locked up with no hope of ever surfacing like his corpse in the real life ever again. He looks around; nothing can be seen from the blinding darkness surrounding him, and he wonders if this truly is the abyss of his memories.

A faint light surround him, and he turns and sees a - discarded - memory. It was of him as a child, playing with the late Rhineland Confederation. He gulps, seeing how happy he is as a child, no care in the whole world other than his happiness and joy.

He reaches a hand through the darkness, to feel this memory, to remember how and why he had discarded one of the only memories of he and Rhineland that did not involve the latter in pain and agony for the rest of his days.

But as he touches it, the memory and faint light of it disappears, leaving he even colder. Deutsches shivers, the unexpected temperature taking a toll on him, but he can tolerate the cold temperature. As he walks towards nowhere, his steps echoing on the non-existent floors beneath him, he sees another faint light and another memory. He runs towards it, feelings its warmth with his own fingers- it was of him as an infant, his father Preußen cradling him gently as he cries. Once again, he tries to touch it, to bask in the warmth and light it displays, but it cedes into the darkness, like a dying fire. Once again, he feels cold, but this time it was a kind of cold that he only feels during winters. He shivers, exhaling and seeing his own breath. He hugs himself in his own barren clothing, walking alone.

Another faint light lightens the abyss in his mind, and he runs towards it, wishing to bask in its warmth for as long as it wishes. He sees his breaths as he exhales, trying to drown the shivering cold out with his running. But as he reaches and touches the memory - a memory of he and his father playing, what a delightful remnant - it fades to black, and his whole world becomes colder every second.

He wheezes for breath; it’s funny how cold he feels now, wrapped around the Snow Queen’s finger as he tries to help himself not freeze to death. He will not succumb to this coldness he is feeling- he is the Deutsches Reich, and he will never give in to the blizzard.

But didn’t he already give in?

Another faint light appears - a memory of he after Rhineland’s funeral, sobbing in his room - and he runs, no matter how his legs have become brittle from the cold, wondering where this cold air has come from- from his heart? If so, he is at his own fault for encasing the dearest of memories in ice. Just like all the others, it vanishes and he is left to a surrounding even colder than before.

Deutsches Reich’s footsteps slows in motion, his breath becoming frosty, hugging himself and trying to find another light that he reminds himself not to touch.

(But every time he goes near a memory, he cannot help but feel sad and alone and solemn, as if this memory is his only bridge to who he was before, to who he was before the mirror shatters. He cannot help but reach a hand towards these warm memories, but by the time he tells himself not to make contact with them the light and warmth has gone out.)

“How much would it take you to love me?”

Deutsches freezes as he hears that familiar voice, and he turns his head but did not see any light or memory anywhere. He resumes walking, feeling the air growing even colder and his legs stiff.

“I have caressed you many times- yet you only cry.”

He breaths, trying to find where that voice has come from; it is too familiar, yet that was not his voice.

“Are you afraid of me, child?”

He sees light, and he widens his eyes as he starts to run towards it, feeling himself freezing and dealing with the wonders of frostbite any minute. Deutsches finally sees the memory, and he gasps,

His father was caressing him as an infant;

And he was crying.

“Wo habe ich das schon gesehen?”, he asks himself, looking at the memory, feeling his eyes going blurry every second.

Perhaps it does run in the family.

Deutsches Reich has to go back to the past, back to where it all began. Back to the place where had kept all his memories shut in fear of it bursting.

Another faint light appears in front of him, and it was of he and his son talking about his children. He takes a step, turning back to the memory he sees before - not fading - and steps closer to a memory of he and Weimar.

He wonders. His steps become slower as he walks away from the warm light, but he steels himself- this memory is going to give him warmth.

But instead, as he walks towards it, he can feel his skin freezing over, and his teeth chatters ad he tries to tolerate the cold. He bites back the blurs in his eyes trying to take over. Deutsches sees himself and Weimar - uneventfully - arguing.

“You should have just abandoned them to that whore!”, his past self says, and Weimar rapidly shakes his head and instinctively shields his infant twins from his enraged father.

(Deutsches had silently scoffed when he had done this- what is he trying to do, protect his children from a monster?)

“Nein, father!”, Weimar replies, trying to be level-headed as he tries to cradle the babies in his arms to sleep. “I would be happy to have them in my life.”

Deutsches Reich can feel himself grow colder, and he looks around; the darkness has trails of snow and ice, like they were cracking under pressure. He finds another light- closer to the recent memory he has watched, and it was of him and his wife, in bed as they laugh and converse like a normal, loving couple.

“What should we name him?”, his past self asks in a hushed voice (it has been a long time since he’s used to be gentle), looking at the bump on Saxe’s belly and she smiles.

“What name would you prefer?”, she asks lovingly and the Deutsches who is watching this memory cannot move- either from his freezing veins or to how he and Saxe used to be loving.

The Deutsches Reich in his memory, a young strapping teen, looks down with a warm glint in his eyes, then back at Saxe with a warm smile. “I-I don’t know.”

They both laugh- such a warm memory.

Why did he put it here to rot?

Deutsches Reich tries to touch the memory, but his hands stop moving before he can reach the tip of the faint light, before it vanishes completely, leaving him in the dark, frozen. He tries to move his limbs, but he cannot; like he was a stone statue stuck in place, showing the glory - or humiliation - of the Deutsches Reich, like he was telling a story through his pained expression and his out stretched hand.

“Oh Lord, vergib mir.” He feels something warm slip out of his cheek, before hearing it drop to the floors, a silent echo following after it.

Is he going to stay in his vault of frozen and hidden memories like this forever?

Will he be locked up like his memories for eternity?

His memories are painful to watch.

Then something bright appears before him, like a faint light in the foggiest of nights in the sea, trying to guide the lost sailors to safety. Then it ultimately turns to an even brighter light, shattering the glass that is the darkness and abruptly putting an end to his frozen stare.

Deutsches Reich blinks as he stares at the majestic and golden light, glory and enlightenment in all forms. He feels warmth collide with his body, and he shakily sighs and receives the coolness with no hesitation.

The golden light then gives him a flurry of memories once again, a hallway of old and new remembrances that he both loathes and adore.

He composes himself; he maybe alone but he is still a man of iron. Deutsches tries to look at these memories unaffected, but every time he walks by a recollection there is an overwhelming feeling inside of him. Deutsches Reich chokes back a bit as he sees Preußen holding a bawling infant.

“These are all your memories”, he tells himself softly, “and you have thrown almost all of them into a vault to rot forever.” He feels something slide down his cheek, and with his bare hands Deutsches puts a hand to his face and brings it towards his eyes.

Tears.

Deutsches did not even know he was crying- these tears seem to have been plaguing him ever since he has seen a memory of his. It was like a river coming down his face, a release of all his frustration and sadness in all his years; it has been a long time he has wept.

He takes a deep, barren breath-

And sobs harder.

He sobs, cries, wails all of his hidden frustrations, trying to please the overwhelming inside of him, trying to please the repressed feelings inside of him for so long.

He cries.

All around him, his memories fade one-by-one, without a fight, the golden light that had saved him from eternal ice fading, but he either cannot feel it nor he did not care- he will release the sadness he neglected for all these years.

“You have finally realized what ruined your life, did you not?”, he hears her voice through sobs and sniffles, and he rubs his eyes as he finds himself back in his room, with his wife on the doorway with a look of complete imperiousness.

(Of course, when has she not looked superior against him.)

Instead of a snap, instead of arguing back at his wife, Deutsches Reich embraces her, and her choked gasp seems that she did not expect such close contact with her husband that he had disagreed, argued, and fought with over the years.

But Saxe lets him hold her like back in the old days.

Ehemann- husband Ehefrau- wife Grün- green Und was ist mit unserem sohn passiert- and what happened to our son Ihm ist nichts passiert- nothing happened to him Hier ist er- he is here Wo habe ich das schon gesehen?- where have i seen this before Vergib mir- forgive me

#mine #writing #Countryhumans #countryhumans second german empire #countryhumans prussia #countryhumans saxe weimar eisnach #countryhumans weimar republic #countryhumans germany #countryhumans east germany #countryhumans german confederation

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