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It was a tune that Din hadn’t heard in years. Nostalgia tugged at him, drew him out of his self-imposed isolation in the bay of Slave 1, breaking his dark thoughts.
Slow and haunting, and yet, with memories of a happier time. Din forced himself off the floor where he had dozed off, and slowly walked towards the music.
He found Boba, helmet sitting next to him, playing a bes’bev with his eyes closed. Din stood there, leaning against the wall, silently listening to the tones that whispered of war and glory, of brotherhood.
The music dipped into the chorus, and Din found himself murmuring the chant to himself softly. Sa kyr'am nau tracyn kad, Vode an.
Boba’s eyes opened then, though he didn’t stop playing. Here, Din could hear the other’s breathing, soft and steady.
Soon, he reached the end of the song and placed the instrument in his lap. Din waited for him to speak first.
“My father used to play it for me,” Boba murmured. He turned, offered Din the bes’bev, blade turned towards himself.
Din looked at it for a long moment. He hadn’t even thought of the instrument when searching through the dust of the Razor Crest. For the other man to have recognised what it was, and retrieved it…
He grasped the body of the instrument, memories of his own buir playing the instrument for him made him smile.
Looking up, he caught Boba staring at it, lost in his own thoughts.
“Was he the one who taught you to play?”
Boba snorted, eyes flicking to the ground before back at him. “Yes.”
“We used to sing... in the covert. My tribe, we tried to keep some of the old traditions alive.” Din sat down, turning the instrument over in his hands. “Part of our training. I didn’t quite get why music was so important, kind of hated the music part actually.” He chuckled wryly. “Liked the combat part.”
Din held the blade of the instrument up; being made of beskar had made it razor sharp. He hadn’t sharpened it in years, and it would probably still be able to cut open the toughest hide.
“My father did the same thing. I know all the old Mandalorian war chants. He drilled them into me.” Boba smiled, the expression twisting at the scars marring his face. “Told me that they were our history. Our legacy.”
“Was he wrong?”
Boba shook his head. “Most Mandalorians would have nothing to do with me. They would deny that heritage.”
Din frowned.
As if Boba could read his expression beneath the helmet, he elaborated, “Jango was no dar’manda no matter what some di'kut say. I don’t really care what they think of me, but my father was Mandalorian.”
This Din time was silent. He didn’t really know enough about the other man to comment, so he didn’t.
Boba continued, “My father, Jango, trained the clones of the Republic army. He taught them the same song, though with some minor changes.”
“Like what?” Din found his interest peaked. He knew of the clones, though he had never seen one. It hadn’t been the Republic that had stood against the droid Separatist armies on his home planet.
“Coruscant instead of Mandalore for one. Though that bit always amused me. ‘Wrath of Coruscant,’” Boba snorted. “Slaves of Coruscant might have been more accurate.”
They fell into a silence then. Din didn’t really know much about the Clone Wars himself, only vague notions that the Empire had won and then ruined Mandalore.
“Thank-you.” Din’s voice was soft, but he needed to say it.
Boba blinked, looking genuinely confused.
Din looked at the bes’bev he held again in his hand; a reminder of their shared history and the pain of history lost.
“For this. For…doing more than anyone has really done for me in a…long time.”
Boba’s face was relatively blank, but then he nodded. “A child needs their father.”
Din tilted his head. There was a shared pain there. He could understand that.
He nodded, “This is the Way.”