Chapter Text
Jaster Mereel was sitting.
That in and of itself wasn't very special, but the location where he was doing the sitting was .
He was currently seated on the co-pilot seat of a small jetii freighter . It was en course towards the actual, real-life Jedi Temple on Coruscant.
And he wasn't even in manacles!
This was the chance of a lifetime !
Next to him, the actual pilot of this craft and Jaster's 'savior', was punching in the coordinates for the last hyperjump. Human, as far as he could tell, scraggly, all limbs and barely over twenty. The pale beige robe - a genuine article! Unlike Jaster's costume - let the man look paler than he actually was. The effect was amplified by the also pretty light blonde hair that was currently tied back in a haphazard, messy ponytail.
Back when Jaster had awoken slightly groggily (copious amounts of tihaar and late-night historical battle reenactments with actual weapons took their toll), the younger man had introduced himself as 'Knight Feemor'. Something about a 'watchman assignment' in mandalorian space.
Jaster had to figure out what that was about later.
Right now he had more pressing matters to attend to.
Namely, coming up with a reasonable enough alibi for his new jetii- persona.
He wondered if he could press the 'memory loss due to physical trauma' trope. That one verd had hit him pretty hard back on the camping grounds. But then again, weren't the jetiise supposed to read minds and stuff? Feemor would probably know immediately if he were lying.
Maybe he could just use the backstory he had come up with for the character anyways!
Jaster wipped with his feet excitedly. Never in his dreams would he have guessed that their game of historical action dress-up would present him with such an opportunity!
Of course, when he had ( accidentally , sometimes mando'ade played a bit rough) been knocked in the head real hard by one of his fellow co-roleplayers, he had felt things like indignation. But he would never have guessed that this would result in him being 'rescued' by a genuine, real-life jetii .
Ka'ra , he was excited!
The jetii coughed slightly.
Jaster looked up from where he had been inspecting the make of this ship.
"Let me preface with that i am obviously aware that I must have interrupted your undercover assignment, and for that I am really sorry," the young man, looking apologetically at Jaster, started, "But I wasn't sure if you had the situation under control and that mandalorian really hit you pretty hard, so I made the decision to extract you from there."
He bowed his head stiffly.
Hastily Jaster raised his hands.
"Oh no, there is nothing to be sorry about," internally he cringed at his hopeless attempt at a corellian accent, "You actually have done me a, uh, great service."
Remember Jaster, no lies. They can detect lies.
"Really?"
Oh kriff, why did this jetii look so adorably hopeful. Stars, could he adopt a jetii ? Was that a possibility?
He should look into it.
Jaster cleared his throat, trying to fight down the attemt at taking over the steer and dragging this young man back to Mandalore.
"Yes, really."
"Thank the Force." Feemor looked visibly relieved.
Hng. Must. Resist. The. Need. To. Adopt.
The jetii looked back up at Jaster, who tried to smile as disarmingly as possible.
"I'm Knight Feemor, I think I already told you my name, but you were a bit concussed at the moment, so…" He laughed awkwardly. "And you are…?"
Oh shit.
Name.
Osik .
"I'm… Master Jereel," Jaster said, panicking. When in doubt, just switch around letters, right? It had worked with bounty hunting before after all, right?
The younger man's eyes widened.
"Oh, Master Jereel, really, I had no idea!" And more to himself, he muttered, "No one said anything about a Master being stationed on Mandalore…"
Okay. something had happened just now, and Jaster wasn't entirely sure what. But as long as it didn't end in violence, he guessed it was fine.
"Uh, yeah," the Mand'alor, emboldened by the apparent success of his previous lies, continued, "I have been away for a while now. It makes sense that you haven't heard of me."
To his unending joy, the young jetii actually swallowed the lie.
They spent the next few hours bonding quite nicely. Jaster was feeling better and better about those prospects of adoption. Jango would love being an ori'vod . Or vod'ika, they did seem to be quite close age-wise.
Well, he could always ask later.
…
"What did you say again your name was?"
"Master Jereel," Jaster smiled blindingly at the frowning korun man standing in front of him.
The man frowned harder.
"Jereel, huh?"
"Yep."
The man's arms crossed. "I don't have that name on any active duty roster."
"Oh," Jaster said with the trained ease of a newly minted serial-liar, "you wouldn't have. I was deep undercover."
Dark eyes squinted even harder.
" Is that so ."
…
Qui-Gon was squinting at the unfamiliar Master that was cozying up quite blatantly to his former padawan.
This Master Jereel .
Something felt off about him, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.
Rumors had it he was a Shadow who had been deep undercover on Mandalore. Until Feemor had saved him when his cover had been blown.
Qui-Gon did not like the competition.
…
Cin Drallig was having an amazing time.
He had found a kindred soul in Master Jereel.
The man had been a true wellspring of fascinating knowledge on all kinds of combat techniques, ranging from hand-to-hand to mounted combat. He also had turned out to be truly great with the initiates and younger padawans, a departement where Cin himself had quite a bit of trouble, and had been an incredible help wrangling them these last few days.
Excitedly humming, he entered the training grounds, a whole bag of holocrons on ancient lightsaber forms slung over his shoulder.
Jereel already was there, going through some to Cin unfamiliar katas with the training saber he'd gifted him. (Apparently his own blade had gotten lost during the time on Mandalore. Cin had already inquired with the Ilum Temple when they would be allowed to take a quick excursion to the caves to find a new kyber for the man.)
"Oh, Cin!" His new friend exclaimed enthusiastically as he approached, "I was already waiting for you! I hope you are ready for a treat, my a- my contact on Mandalore managed to send me those spear forms we talked about last time!"
Really, Cin was having an amazing time.
…
Jango was having a horrible time.
Because of course his buir had to get himself kidnapped by a jetii during one of those historical reenactment thingies he and his friends did from time to time.
Kidnapped by a jetii who thought he was rescuing another jetii . Jaster truly went where no Mand'alor before him had gone.
And now Jango was stuck with pulling random documents about nerd stuff from his buir's library because he really had hit it off with another one of the jetiise . He hated his job. (It wasn't even a job. A job would mean getting paid, his monthly allowance wasn't enough to count for this.)
What made the whole situation even worse, was that, apparently, the jetiise had an amazing library of their own, so realistically speaking, nothing short of a full-scale invasion would move Jaster's shebs off Coruscant.
Sometimes, at night, he wondered if his buir had planned this. It would be in character.
Jango truly hated his job.
And he hated that Myles was laughing about it.
(He made Myles do all the paperwork as revenge. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.)
…
There was a scruffy looking man in outdated Jedi robes standing in her Archives.
There was a scruffy looking man in outdated Jedi robes standing in her Archives editing historical records .
Jocasta wouldn't let that fly.
By her honor as Head Archivist.
This vandal would be stopped.
-
So, it turned out this was the much talked-about Master Jereel, rumored Jedi Shadow and freshly returned from a top secret mission on Mandalore. And he had been editing those records because they had been historically inaccurate.
She had heard from Cin that the man was a true wellspring of information on fighting styles. She hadn't guessed that would extend to knowledge about Mandalore's history as well.
Jocasta was entranced.
The two of them spent the whole afternoon comparing their knowledge of historical events. Eventually they even drafted up an outline for a new research paper discussing how the inherent cultural biases of both mandalorians and jedi had shaped their understanding of their shared history.
It was truly fascinating.
And his investment in all things historical also explained his old-fashioned garb. When she mentioned it, he told her he had sewn it himself and that he was glad that it had turned out accurate.
If only the initiates would be so enthusiastic about their Order's history!
…
"Strange this master Jereel is."
The other Councilmembers looked at Master Yoda. The diminutive Grandmaster was tapping his stick pensively against the rest of his chair.
"Oh, I think he is a quite enthusiastic young man," Master Yaddle mused. Even though he wasn't one of her Shadows like everyone claimed.
But he seemed cut out for the job. The fact that he hadn't refuted it once alone made him qualified. Quietly she wondered which Temple he originally came from and if they'd let her take him under her wing.
She should stretch her feelers out.
"That he is," the amused voice of Plo Koon, who only recently had gotten the post, sounded out. "I have heard he is a great help to both Master Drallig and the Creches."
Master Tyvokka roared in agreement. Rarely the more active jedi actually took their time to go and visit the younglings and initiates. Yet Master Jereel could be seen in the Creches almost daily, usually with one or more children hanging from him.
Though it was a bit concerning that he seemed to try to teach some of the kids how to stab people, but no one could be perfect, right?
Mace Windu, who had been uncharacteristically silent the whole session, piped up. "Yan, your grandpadawan found him, no?" The korun Master massaged his head. Shatterpoints were haunting him even in his dreams lately. And he gravely suspected this to have something to do with their mysterious Master Jereel. "Did Feemor ever say something about him? To you or to Jinn?"
Dooku stood awkwardly silent for a moment.
"I don't know." He eventually admitted. "Qui-Gon never introduced us and after his knighting it seemed…" he let the sentence fade out, looking pointedly away.
"Yan Dooku you never even have talked to your grandpadawan?" Jocasta Nu leaned forward in her seat, scandalized.
Dooku sighed.
"Qui-Gon has… kept him from me, I fear."
Grandmaster Yoda stood suspiciously silent during that whole conversation.
Jocasta pointed at her longtime friend. "You will go remedy that. Now ."
Plo Koon chuckled behind his mask.
…
Feemor was… cautiously elated?
His grandmaster had very unexpectedly reached out to him. So far the man hadn't shown any interest in him and Feemor had already thought that he'd done something wrong.
But now he had an invitation to talk over tea and he'd be a liar if he said he wasn't feeling a bit of stage fright.
He had seen Master Dooku from afar. It was a mystery how someone so prim and proper could have produced a Master like Qui-Gon Jinn. And obviously there had been some sort of falling-out between them, because Qui-Gon never talked about his former Master.
Maybe Feemor would find out more that evening.
"Good things happening, Mor'ika ?" Master Jereel, his constant shadow (ha! pun!) these days and great company during meals, looked up from his datapad where he without a doubt was compiling something for either Master Drallig or Head Archivist Nu.
The older man had taken to calling him by a mandalorian nickname as he had explained after Feemor had been very confused the first time it had happened.
The cover truly must have been deep, if Master Jereel had even studied the mandalorian language for it.
Feemor was a bit jealous. He'd long had a passion for languages, but under Master Qui-Gon it had been quite difficult finding a quiet spot to study conjugations without some sort of carnivorous plant trying to gnaw on him or his pad.
Maybe he could ask for some language modules on it later.
After the dreaded tea and dinner.
"I think so," Feemor smiled back. "My Grandmaster, whom I never really talked to, just reached out to me. We'll have tea later this afternoon."
"Wait, you never talked to your ba'buir ?"
Feemor stumbled upon the unfamiliar word.
"My what? Sorry I don't know that word."
Master Jereel hissed a few curses under his breath, but then switched back to his happy-go-lucky demeanor.
"It means 'grandparent' in mando'a . Sorry, I keep falling back to it." He made a vague gesture with his hand. "You know, I was so deep undercover…"
Feemor nodded compassionately.
That must have been really hard.
…
Dooku had expected Knight Feemor.
He hadn't expected the tanned, crooked-nosed face of Master Jereel behind his grandpadawan.
"You must be Master Dooku," the man, completely without manners, stepped inside Dooku's quarters. "I haven't heard much of you yet."
Dooku's eyes narrowed .
He knew a challenge when he heard one.
"Well then," he replied, voice fake sweet, "let us remedy that."
…
You better bet that Jaster was going to thoroughly interrogate this 'Master Dooku'.
How dare he suddenly try to steal his new ad .
No matter how pretty he looked.
…
"Hm."
Yaddle, Master of Shadows, gazed contemplatively at the report that had just come in from her little network.
<<There is no record of a Master Jereel in any of the known Temples. Even Jedha doesn't claim him.>>
That was interesting.
She would have to meditate over that.
…
"Can I tell you a secret?," Jaster slurred, leaning over the little kaf-table in Dooku's quarters. He was swaying only a little bit.
Dooku frowned, his eyes wandering over Jaster's face slightly unfocussed. "What ki- what kind of secret?" The jetii set down his - stars, Jaster had lost count of how much they had been drinking a while ago - glass of alderaanian ale.
Jaster waved him closer.
"I," he started fake-whispering, "am not even a jetii ."
He drew back, grinning.
"He just kidnapped me." Jaster proudly pointed at Feemor who had passed out on the couch. Then he leaned back in.
"And Imma adopt him. And you can't do osik about it."
…
"Not a Jedi Master?!" Cin exclaimed in disbelief.
"Nor a Jedi of any capacity." Master Yaddle said mourningly. There went her new Shadow-candidate. "It seems like we let a complete stranger into our midst."
Force, he would have been perfect .
"That can't be!" Now Jocasta also crossed her arms defiantly. "No stranger would have known as much about the Order's history. He must have some affiliation with the Temples."
Plo Koon shook his head. "I know it is unbelievable, but none of the Temples ever heard of him. And neither have the Agricorps, the Exploracorps, the Educorps or the Medicorps."
"Then who is he?" Mace Windu, ever the realist, asked into the room.
No one had an answer to that.
The Force was laughing.
…
Jango and Myles were standing in front of the imposing gates.
The coruscanti jetii Temple truly was gigantic. And his buir had mentioned that this was only the topmost level of the building!
"Halt! Who goes there!"
Two completely masked jetiise suddenly appeared, brandishing identical sabers at them.
Myles took off his bui'ce and waved towards them. "Hi! The name's Myles." He grinned cockily and Jango felt the need to facepalm. "We're here to come collect this one's father." He pointed at his friend.
One of the jetii guards tilted their head slightly.
"There are no mandalorians in the Temple."
Myles just smiled.
Jango groaned. Oh, how he hated this. This was so embarrassing .
"Yeah, no, he's probably dressed like a jetii . Not that tall, tanned, dark wavy hair that comes to here," Jango indicated a length a bit over his shoulders,"might be sporting a ridiculous accent. Probably spends all his time buried in books or coddling children?"
There was a brief pause.
Then one of the guards pulled the other one closer and they started whispering.
Jango could feel the tension-headache forming.
…
Jaster was being suspended upside-down in the middle of the air by jetii magic when suddenly the doors to Master Dooku's quarters were pushed open.
"Oh hi Jango!" He managed to say, twisting around to face his ad .
"Who are you?!" Master Dooku, looking disheveled and pointing back and forth with an ignited lightsaber between the intruders and the dastardly grandpadawan-kidnapper he was keeping afloat.
Afloat and securely away from his precious Feemor, who seemed to sleep like a stone.
"That's my other ad ! Jango, go greet your new ori'vod's grandfather!"
Jango crossed his arms. "No buir , you have caused enough chaos for this month. We're here to take you back to Manda'yaim ."
Myles slinked out from behind Jango and waved. "Hi Mand'alor, hi Jango's new ori'vod's ba'buir !" And then, towards Jaster, he shrugged apologetically. "I tried to buy you time, Alor , but Jango made me do your paperwork and I figured it would be better for Manda'yaim if you returned."
Jaster snorted. "How very considerate of you, Myl'ika."
" Wait ," the harsh but audibly confused voice of Master Dooku cut through their touching reunion. The man seemed to have considerably sobered up within seconds.
"What does he mean with 'Mand'alor' ?!" The dark haired jetii pointed his - still very lit - saber back towards Jaster.
Jango lamented everything that led to his existence.
" Buir , what did you tell them ?"
Jaster shrugged innocently (which was quite difficult, still being, you know, suspended head-down in mid-air). "Oh you know," he said, "this and that. But did you know that by switching the first two letters of my name I get an actual jetii rank? I didn't."
"Mmh, very interesting." Another, long suffering sigh. "Master jetii , if you would be so kind as to release Mand'alor Mereel from your jetii magic, I would be eternally grateful. It is a long journey back to Concord Dawn." Jango gave his buir the stink eye.
Jaster protested immediately. "No! We cannot go without your new vod ! Jango!"
…
"What did you just say?"
"Jereel's the Mand'alor," Syfo-Dyas muttered, rubbing the growing bump where he'd hit his head on the back of Yoda's seat when the sudden vision had sprung itself onto him.
"What?", Plo, more concerned about his fellow Councilor's wellbeing, leaned in closer.
"Jereel's the Mand'alor," Sy repeated himself, "and he's trying to steal Feemor."