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It’s still hard to believe. The rebuilding of Sundari and unification of the remaining Mandalorians had been something she’d swore to see through since The Night of a Thousand Tears, no matter the cost of it. Bo-Katan was fully expecting to have passed long before they could get to this point.
It had been a far-fetched dream when Kix had come around on The Reclaimer. A long time ago, she’d stood alone on the bridge of the Star Destroyer that Din Djarin had given to her to do this very thing.
She’d promised to give Kix a seat on her Council as soon as she realized how invaluable his talents were. Not just as a medic, but as a Force Sensitive. Maker only knew what kind of people they’d encounter now. Force Sensitive Mandalorians, though rare, weren’t out of the question anymore.
Bo swore to herself that she would give them - the children of Mandalore - a better upbringing. That they need not know only war. The last thing she wanted for the future of this planet was for another generation of Mando’ade to be raised knowing nothing but that. It had only spelled ruin for her and she refused to do that to anyone else’s children.
“Mmmm.” A thoughtful hum echoes across the throne room. Her younger brother stands just inside the doorway, dressed in his Jedi robes and cradling something quite large under his arm. “Royalty suits you. At least it’s not a dress though, I’m pretty sure you’d keel over before the Court forces you to put one of those on.”
Kix has been making that joke for years. Ever since she’d brought him here the first time, long before they’d rebuilt to see only ruined foundations, and Bo-Katan had found one of her dresses from before she joined Death Watch in the remains of the Kryze home. That same dress still hung in her newly furnished closet.
“What, are you going to make some snide comment about a crown now? That is the last thing I want to wear. I just want my helmet.” Bo-Katan griped, turning away from watching the families meander among the palace courtyards out the window and toward her vod’ika.
Despite how much older she is now, there’s still a deeply rooted ache in her chest that seeks something familiar. Satine’s ghost still travels through these haunted halls. They might have been remade into something mirroring their former beauty - as this palace had always been the pinnacle of beauty - but Bo-Katan knows she will never be anything like the ruler Satine was.
But her brother in all his stubbornness had insisted she let him help her with these earliest stages. Bo wasn’t about to turn him down when he had so much to offer her.
“You’ll get that helmet.” He said. Kix lowers the hood of his robes, and Bo takes that moment to look at him properly. There have been nearly two decades that have passed since she adopted him into her Clan, and there’s so little about him that’s changed since then. His hair is longer - he doesn’t cut it anymore, the lightning bolt tattoos have long since faded by now - and curly, streaked with silver at the roots. Kix had only just begun showing the signs of aging that most of the other clones were well advanced into by this age. “Before I ask you to come to walk with me so you stop moping, I want to give you something.”
Bo’s eyes flicker downward as he removes the gift from underneath his arm and begins to unwrap it.
Sitting in front of her is the refinished portrait of Satine that had once hung in these halls, moved to Keldabe Wren, and mended by the steady hands of Alrich Wren before being returned to Sundari to its rightful place.
Grateful didn’t even begin to cover how he’d felt after that.
Bo-Katan doesn’t speak for a long moment, and Kix is immediately struck with the notion that this was an incredibly bad idea. She hates it. She’s been Mand’alor for less than a month and I unintentionally opened an old wound and she hates it-
“You always did know how to get into my heart, you sentimental di’kut,” Bo mused, and then she’s laughing and crying simultaneously as she holds the painting toward the light. Alrich had captured Satine’s visage perfectly. “Vor entye, vod’ika. I know exactly where this is going to go.”
Even with the crow’s feet around his eyes, there’s still that youthfulness in his aspect that makes him seem so much younger.
“You’re welcome. After you showed me the room with the murals of Ahsoka and the clones who fought during the Siege of Mandalore, I thought I should return the favor with a piece of your aliit to hang in the throne room.” They both peer downward at the painting as Bo props it against the wall to be hung later above the throne. “Now, dear Mand’alor. Walk with me?”
She takes his arm almost as soon as he offers it. Bo-Katan learned a long time ago not to take a moment for granted. All these moments she had with her little brother were precious now. And as someone who had taken all her moments with Satine for granted, Bo-Katan vowed to never do that again.
She’d been making a lot of vows since coming back here.
They’re on the cobblestone walkway headed towards the gardens. Bo-Katan has barely ventured outside of the palace since they’d officially moved in, leaving the matters outside of the reunification of the remaining Mandalorians to the council she’d been in before arriving.
Kix. Alrich, Ursa, Sabine, Khaydith. Ahsoka came around from time to time to advise as well, but it was mostly the five of them.
“The gardeners you hired have put hours upon hours of work into this.” Kix motions with a gentle wave of his hand to the beginnings of the garden spread out before them. Maintaining something of this degree in Sundari is a challenge, which was part of why it was so small. Keeping it on the rooftop allowed for privacy and easy maintenance of what they were calling The Kryze Gardens. “It’s small, but it will be beautiful within the next few years with its prize exhibit being…”
Bo stops short. Just in front of her are a cluster of stunning violets and lilies. There are so many of them she’s not even sure she could count.
Etched into the stones that surround them is a plaque that reads, “In Memory of Duchess Satine Kryze, Sister to Mand’alor Bo-Katan Kryze.”
“Violets.” She whispers. “Satine loved violets and lilies. I think…” Her memory is growing hazier the older she gets, and it takes quite a bit of concentration to be able to picture the younger version of her sister from when she was small. The image of Satine is almost completely gone from her memory. “I think she wore lilies in her hair once.”
Neither of them speaks for quite a while after that. Kix is an ever-steady presence at her side, examining the newly rebuilt gardens around them and the citizens of Sundari milling around with their families just beyond the treeline. His fingers press against the inside of her wrist - where there’s skin that’s worn and smooth, one of the few places free of scars - to feel the steady thrum of a pulse that reminds them both that she is very much alive.
Kix finds the courage to speak first, asking the one question he’s been repeatedly asking himself since they started this venture months ago: “What would you say to your sister if she was here?”
“I would apologize profusely for ever having failed her in the first place-“ He huffs, clearly not satisfied with that answer, but Bo-Katan holds her hands up to silence him before she continues. “But I would also ask if she was proud of this.” Bo gestures to the palace and the gardens and the Mando’ade below, alive. “And everything I did to get us to this point. I would ask her what she sees for Mandalore’s future and if I did right by our family, and I would ask her how she felt about me adopting a clone into our aliit. There’s so much I would ask her, Kix… It’s innumerable.”
He sees a softened light in her eyes as she lifts her chin to gaze out at the city. It’s only something that’s recently appeared in her older age. Bo-Katan still has retained that fiery, fierce spirit she’d had when he met her, but she’s so much softer now. She smiles more. She finally seems happy for once.
But the older Bo gets and the softer she is, the more difficulty she has remembering things. Bo no longer remembers Pre’s voice, young Satine’s face, or the color of Ursa’s eyes when they’d first met. She doesn’t remember the original members of the Night Owls.
The Night of a Thousand Tears, however, will remain with her no matter how much time passes. It made her. Everything that had happened following The Purge was what fueled her fire to rebuild Mandalore, to be in this very spot.
“From what I knew of her…” Kix falters, leading her to sit on the bench overlooking Satine’s violet cluster. “She would’ve been so proud of you. For all of it.”
Bo-Katan doesn’t reply. She lays her head on his shoulder and eases her body into his side with all its aches and pains. His fingers are still pressed a bit too tightly into her wrist, but she doesn’t mind.
“Kix?”
“Yeah, vod.”
“Have I ever told you the Mando’a word for peace?”
Someone along the line has, but he’ll play stupid. Just for this moment. “No,” Kix says quietly. “I don’t believe you have.”
She has. Mirjahaal, peace of mind. There had been a time when Bo-Katan had explicitly told him that she believed she’d never obtain it. It's baffling to think of that argument, exchanged on the shores of a beach on Scarif in the middle of the night mere weeks after they'd met, and she'd been so sure. If only Kix could go back to that moment and tell her how wrong she was.
"I think we found it." She whispered. "I found it."
Tears prick the back of his eyes as Kix lightly squeezes her hand, leaning downward and willing his eyes closed as he kissed the crown of her forehead. "They're calling for me in the aay'han room. I think Alrich and the painters are putting the finishing touches on it today. Do you need anything before I go?"
"No," Bo murmurs. "I think I'll just sit here for a while. I like it here."
"Okay, buurenaar. I love you."
"Love you too, vod." And then Kix is gone, leaving her alone with the lilies and violets of her sister and the newly built city of Sundari. She rules this city and these people now. Bo has to do right by them. By Satine. "The last thing I would ask you is if you still love me, 'Tine."
And I'd pray the answer was yes.
Bo-Katan sits in the silence that follows, tipping her head upward toward the sunshine. There's the laughter of children and the sound of families and joy echoing in the distance, somewhere not too far from the palace.
If this is where she's going to spend the rest of her days, Bo is completely content with it. Her brother has never left her and has never betrayed her. The Wrens are nearby, ready to council her and to love her, and the remaining Mando'ade are willing to follow her.
It's all she's ever wanted.
From somewhere far away, Satine Kryze softens as her sister's words echo in her ears. There had never been a time she had ever found it in her to stop loving Bo. Not once.
"Oh, Bo.... there could never be a time where I stopped loving you." A pause. "And you could never comprehend how proud I am of who you've become."