Chapter Text
Dawn found the Armorer elbow-deep in her ship’s storeroom, sorting through what she had managed to salvage from Concords’ dwindling population of forges. Although all the weaponry and munitions had been scavenged long before, much remained. It was a stroke of luck that she'd gotten to the fuel canisters before they were ruined entirely. Traveling had done a number on their chemical makeup – any longer without attention and they would have been too volatile to do anything to them, let alone counteract the stress of hyperspace. Working with very limited resources, the fuel would take the better part of the Concordian morning to neutralize.
This, she inwardly grimaced, working in a fury to stabilize the canisters, is why Armorers rarely travel. And why we insist on sub-light whenever possible. Most of her fellows preferred gyro-ships, but those were uncommon, expensive to maintain, and had a most disconcerting habit of spinning their components loose when asked to perform on impulse power outside atmo. Her own ship was easily hidden, and competent in all strata so long as it was treated well – and its pressurization chamber was sufficient to encourage the fuel canisters to release their accumulated bubbles fairly safely.
Considering that she would likely need to go into hyperspace at least a few times more before they were prepared to set up a new forge, securing the fuel was a priority. Although it was tiresome to do so after every hyperjump, the risk inherent to not doing so was untenable. Even knowing the stakes, it was an added labor she did not appreciate. A minor indulgence, she sighed aloud when it was done. Depressurizing herself, perhaps, for there was ever more work to be done.
Having dealt with the major concern, the Armorer was able to attend to the less immediate issue of sorting her spoils. Weeks and longer in poor storage had rendered a few of the more sensitive weapons components unusable. She had left most of the half-finished detonators and such to the same fate as the forges’ housings, but a few of the partial projects had been worth saving. There were many pieces that time and neglect had not corroded. These, she would be able to use, or break down and put towards other purposes.
In the meager space between everything else she already had, she wedged spools of wire, magnetic tongs, an intact casting ladle, and a nearly-intact ignition relay. But the undeniable prizes were her molds. Molds came just after the tools and forge themselves in terms of importance, and the Armorer had retrieved dozens upon dozens.
The oldest were from generations beyond living memory, the legacy of Armorers past. If there was no surviving record of how it was fashioned, entire styles of armor could be lost with their moulds. It would be the work of generations to regain what was lost in the destruction of a set. Indeed, the Armorer's own cuirass was a revival of a long-lost method, and its creation had secured her mastery. The curves and terraces alone had taken months to work out, and longer still to accomplish in the round. Reverse-engineering her cuirass from a panel of mosaics had been a challenge, to say the least. Mandalorian stylization was appealing to the eye, but it would have been far more helpful to have blueprints – or molds. The Armorer had saved the molds, and so those styles would survive. They took up a great deal of space in the storeroom, but their worth was such that it was an acceptable loss. Everything else could be replaced or recreated.
Certainly the hover-chest of tubing and pipes wasn't irreplaceable. They would need replacement in a few years anyways, for all were looking a little weathered. She directed the chest to the wall by the door. There, it would not be an obstacle, and it would be easier to remove them from the ship if need for space became a more pressing concern.
With everything at her disposal, she would be able to outfit a serviceable forge. Utilitarian. Lavishly decorated forges were a thing of the past. For those remaining there would be no fine robes or stained glass crafted in likeness.
The only nod to opulence in the Armorer's forge would be her mythosaur, and that was a matter of course. A forge must have something to signal its purpose, in the same way that an Armorer's helm was flared at the rim. It was a practical opulence, in the way of an armorweave cape.
For her, there would only be the satisfaction and knowledge that their people were safe — and that would not happen here, with Bo-Katan set on retaking Mandalore.
Their disagreements had escalated to arguments, to fights. Neither were willing to budge; things had been tense between them for a long time, and the Armorer's patience was waning.
In the quiet moments, few as they were, one might reach for the other, and every time she would pull away. It was becoming increasingly clear that Bo-Katan wanted her on her terms, at her convenience. It seemed that the Armorer's scant free moments served only to emphasize how little time she had for her riduur.
For her own part, Bo-Katan was acting like she'd not known the implications of having an Armorer as a spouse, and the retraction of her willingness stung.
She had known that an Armorer's first duty was to her people, not to her person. In the beginning, as an Apprentice Armorer, she had made certain Bo-Katan would be accepting of that. Or at least, she thought she had.
The Armorer's ossicones ached from the severity of her frowning. She had been frowning a great deal of late. Without success, she tried to relax her face. Distracted, she fumbled the next item, a collimator beam focuser. The metal hit the ground with a clang.
Dank ferrick.
She wasn’t thinking clearly, and it was affecting her performance of her duties.
Stars, what she wouldn’t give to be able to talk this over with her naur’vod. Ruusaan would know just what to say, she always did. Talking to Ruusaan was not an option, would never be an option — her beskar had long gone cold.
Her voice, low and warm, wasn’t easily forgotten. It was possible to imagine the sort of advice she would probably have given. Likely something along the lines of, ‘Well, darlin’, it wasn't your fault that Bo-Katan had never quite got down with the demands of the job. An Armorer's time’s never just hers — and it’s damn well not her spouse's.’
Ruusaan had never thought much of the riduurok. Frankly, the Armorer was seeing why.
The Armorer who had taught them was gone, and Ruusaan was gone, and so she had to step up. This was the Way.
A little steadier, the Armorer ducked down to pick up the focuser. When she rose there was another with her in the room. The youngest Viszla had invited himself in and taken a seat on the stool. He seemed content just to wait and watch her work, so she allowed it.
It was good to see that his spirit was returning. Irec Densun’s tirades had been legendary when she was a child, and his grief had only made him harsher. The Armorer grew increasingly concerned that she may have to involve herself, to curb his callous treatment of the youngest among their number. One had to expect a certain degree of chaos from young children, especially those who were learning what they were capable of. And, she prided herself, the children of their band were capable of a great deal – trouble, first and foremost, but their baseline competence was worth noting. Paz, Ziory, Koska, Tzalne and Nicca together were quite a force; there was a creativity to their combined will that the Armorer dearly hoped they wouldn’t lose with age. The Mandalorian people would need it in abundance in the coming era.
Ideally, it would be applied to things more constructive than the creation of games like “pour that water on the duracrete, we can run from the back wall to build up enough speed to hydroplane, then use the momentum to jump over the toddlers” but she would take what she could get. Little Mildeve was unharmed, and Paz’s cohort had been the recipients of one of Irec’s fearsome lectures. He still looked quite downtrodden, seated upon the low stool she kept out for that purpose.
She joined him presently, though her knees protested the squat in a new and interesting manner.
He had worn his training helmet to see her, as was proper. It would need to be replaced soon; already it was on its largest strap. “Armorer,” he began, only wavering slightly, “what will happen to us now? No one will say and I’m tired of always being shunted to the side.”
Ah. The ever-present grief of the young. To be awake to there being a problem, but not to any manner of addressing it, nor entrusted with helping. She knew it well — was that not how she had come to be here? Upon becoming Armorer, she had pledged to do better. Still, she needed to step carefully, that she did not become what she most hated. At its untempered, unguided worst, Mandalore was a malarial state — consuming Bornlings and Foundlings alike to become its new warriors, for it continually ran dry. Prevention of this, in part, was the purpose of the Armorer; to hold in trust the emblems of their culture until they were sure each person was worthy of their beskar. To enforce a limit on the rate at which the warriors in their care could spend their lives. It was a responsibility that the Armorer carried heavily. She needed to offer young Paz inclusion and responsibility, without putting him up to tasks beyond him.
“You know, by now, that we have saved only two from the ruin of Aq Vetina.” Paz dipped his head. He had been tasked with running water and clean bandages to the medics and med-droids, and had been present when the third child pulled from the rubble had passed away. “Then I assume you know the conflict around what is to be done with them.”
He nodded again. “It seems wrong to take them in only to kick them out again. We can’t be— we are the future, right? But they’re still needing a lot of care and they’ll need training when they’re better. So I think I get why some of the adults don’t want children here. But where else would we go?”
“Nowhere. There is nowhere you and the other children could go that would give you your due as Mandalorians.” The knowledge seared her like a well-done nerf steak. “I will not permit your cohort to be cast off as dead weight. You are our future. This is the Way.”
“This is the Way,” he acknowledged, sounding a bit heady — with relief, she thought. “Can I go tell the others? The little guy still hasn’t woken much, but the older one is worried. He’s been slinking around like a tooka that’s been yelled at. He’s all wired, I can tell.” There was some minor amusement in Paz, who roughly came up to her chest, calling anyone little. She could still recall how vast the difference between a verdling and a toddler had seemed when she was that age, though.
“Be compassionate, they have both lost a great deal." She considered his phrasing closely, because she knew him to be deliberate in his speech. "I take it that there has been no progress on getting their names.” It would make everything a great deal more difficult if she had to take the elder child with her to register them as Foundlings, for there was no way to do that except on the planet Mandalore itself. Satine had not been transparent in her attempts to kill off Mandalore’s warriors; without the sympathetic few that remained in hiding on-planet, they would likely die out in a generation or two, and a wholly stateless nation before that. She would need to encrypt a message to the seat of Clan Heron, to let them know to expect a visit soon.
“To answer your question; you may tell the elder children — hold your tongue around the youngest, for now. I trust you will find a suitably diplomatic way to phrase it.” Paz, in another life, would have made a fine orator or poet, with his love of words.
The youngest of the remaining Vizslas headed out. The Armorer rolled her shoulders and began to rise, but stayed herself when interrupted.
"Riduur."
Dank ferrick.
The Armorer looked to find a visitor both less and more welcome. "I should have known I would find you here. You weren't there when I woke up."
"The salvage of my forge needed to be attended to. Had it waited any longer I would fear for its stability."
"And it couldn't wait another hour? I thought you sorted them a few days ago." Bo-Katan moved in closer, eyes roving the Armorer's helmet. She knew that it bothered her, but they were where anyone could come in and see — there would be no removing of it until tonight. At least. If this interrogation continued much longer, the Armorer might consider extending that.
"It was handled roughly in our leaving. These are delicate components. All the things that make explosives dangerous with none of the fail safes in place."
At that, Bo-Katan relented. "Fine, you win." A smile teased at her lips, but fell quickly. "Also, did I just see one of the many, many kids leaving?" Please, not this again. She understood Bo-Katan's reluctance to take on more mouths to feed, but she did not agree. To let a child suffer for one's own comfort was anathema.
"He came to seek a satisfactory answer about his cohort’s fate." She did not think Bo-Katan would like to address this veiled reference to the growing schism in their covert.
"Would you like to sound a little prouder? May I suggest you ask his clan’s permission before initiating the gai bal manda? Or, I know this is crazy-talk, but maybe even mine?” Her riduur had more acid in her voice than the Armorer anticipated.
"I have no intentions of adopting the child, riduur.I merely recognize that he has potential." This was the truth. He had as much potential as any child that came into the hands of the Mandalorians.
"You have ambitions for him, Mirad. It's not subtle."
In the interest of inciting neither of their tempers further, the Armorer did not press the matter of her title. She did, however, make note. "I have ambitions for all of our Foundlings. They are our future.” That seemed to be the phrase of the day, irritatingly. Short of her ambitions, she would settle for the Foundlings being protected and cared for, by adults they could be sure did not resent their presence. Paz’s prospective future as an orator seemed equally likely, unless she did something drastic.
"We have a lot of Foundlings. More than we can handle. You were mending a damn stuffed toy yesterday." The toy was for the younger Aq Vetina child, whose strange toy’s antler had been caught in the wheel of a cart. The elder child had brought it to her, frustration written across his face and a great deal of tangled thread binding his hands. There had been a few clumsy stitches along the back seam — it was a good attempt for a child still familiarizing himself with the wonders of fine motor control. “You’re not even listening, are you?” The Armorer slanted her visor disparagingly, no matter that it might have had an element of truth to it. Bo-Katan’s aggrieved sigh was nearing a bark, not sibilant enough to be a hiss. "Use that line on someone who knows you less well. You're risking our chance at getting our home back, risking the future of our people even further, just to–"
" – just to ensure that we do not become worse than monsters." The Armorer ground her teeth to keep the tension from spreading to the rest of her body. This was shaping up to be a worse fight than usual. "Our future as a people does not lie in your sister’s domain, save for those children that choose to leave their bloodless existences to join the living. Sand, waste, and duracrete remain! Our future lies in our children." If it was to be her motto going forward, then by the gods Bo-Katan would hear it and heed.
"We barely have enough to provide for ourselves! Where do you even plan to raise them? Will you hide until Satine decides to drive us from here, too?"
She could feel the heat of her cheeks flushing – an unfortunate reaction to arguing she had never fully gotten control of. It was no matter; no one could see, and she had larger issues to contend with.
Riduur, you are not acting like a Mandalorian. The young must always come first, you know this. At her side, the Armorer had seen firsthand the pitfalls of Bo-Katan not thinking far enough forwards about consequences. That trend was a large part of why she was the Armorer and not an Armorer. Sometimes it took effort to not nurse a grudge.
"Not on Concordia. We will go far from this place." Come with us. Do not pit my self as Armorer against my self as your spouse. Or worse, against you as dar'manda.
"So you want to weaken us further? Divide what little we have? You're so focused on the present, you don't see what we could have if we stick it out just a little longer!" Sharp, quick movements had hair like molten metal whipping around Bo-Katan's head, held only by a band the Armorer had forged. There was a metaphor to be found in that, but the Armorer did not dare let her mind wander. Arguing with Bo-Katan was difficult on the best of days.
Despite herself, the Armorer found her ire rising in stride with Bo-Katan's. She could not speak calmly.
"You say you look towards the future, but you are looking only so far as you might live to see. Were we to fight now, we would die, and the most cohesive of what Mandakarla remains would die with us! Our own lifetimes mean little in the face of the eons Mandalorians have endured. Mandalore is, for now, lost to us, and we must look after the next generations."
“You do not have to look after the next generation! In all things we are one, and I did not agree to take in any strays.” Bo-Katan pacing now, fury in her eyes. “You swore that as Armorer, by Creed, the closest you would ever have to a child would be an Apprentice of your own. Are you an Oathbreaker now, cyare?” It was not the first time Bo-Katan had called her such with disdain, but it was the first time the Armorer had a ready response, and poise returned by degrees.
She could see now; it had been Bo-Katan's fire that had first drawn her in, and it would be the same fire that spelled the end of their riduurok.She would not trust this woman to care for children. She would not trust this woman to have her back in a fight. She would not choose to be near this woman at all.
There was no safe way down from this precipice. All that was left was the fall.
Eyes wet and mouth dry, she bit out, "I am the only Armorer we know to have escaped. The oaths and Creed I am sworn to as Armorer eclipse any I swore as Mirad."
The Armorer did not breathe deeply, for in this moment she could not breathe.
"I am the Armorer. I claim no kin nor clan nor name. I am in service to my people. I will guide those willing to follow. No child will be turned away."
"You're barely more than a child yourself," the woman who had been her wife snarled. She had never been one to bite her tongue, and it became ever sharper when she was in pain. As of just a moment ago, it was no longer the Armorer's place to soothe that hurt. She did not try.
"All others are dead or hidden. I will not be the youngest to have had a forge." Very possibly the youngest to have a community around that forge, though, she knew. She would not be ready to train an apprentice for many years, no matter how desperately her people might need another Armorer. There were some lines one did not cross, and an underprepared Armorer risking an apprentice was one such line. And Paz had displayed neither interest nor aptitude, no matter what Bo-Katan had been simmering away about when her mind was on more pressing matters. Perhaps this fight was about more than just the Foundlings, perhaps it was a shroud for some other deep-rooted problem between them. The Armorer cared not. This was enough.
"So that's it, then? You're just cutting your losses and giving up?" A bitter, disbelieving laugh. "You won't fight?"
"I fought. I'm fighting now. I shall continue to fight." I am fighting you, once-lover. Half the young outside were those the Armorer had led the charge to save. She had fought Bo-Katan and others on this matter before, and was fighting her again. Certainly she would fight more in the future. But not this battle, and not this opponent. She was done. “You do not see that I fight for our people and our culture, not a wastescape. We will need a living planet to survive.”
“You're not Mand'alor the fucking Preserver, Mirad.”
She was no Mand’alor at all. The time for Kings and Duchesses and prideful self-indulgence had passed. What her people needed now was an Armorer.
"I am also not Mirad. The name is mine no longer, and holds no sway." She moved for the door, and Bo-Katan did not stop her. “I will keep my Forge burning. I will keep my craft alive. I will ensure my people survive, and that the ones who have marched on are remembered. For your sake, I hope that a ruin of glass and rubble is worth dying for." She passed by Bo-Katan Kryze, with whom yesterday she had shared a bed, in silence. Once she could no longer see her, the Armorer spoke.
"I will be gone by daybreak tomorrow, to register the new Foundlings. I expect you off my ship within the hour." On the threshold, between before and after, the Armorer paused. This would be salting the wound, but it was necessary. Bo-Katan's wounds were no longer her concern. "Do not cross my path again. A Mandalorian who would turn away a child in need will always be an enemy. This is the Way."
There was no response. The Armorer left.
The hallway was lined with refugees, members of the Watch, and Foundlings. These were who she locked onto like a targeting computer. If anything could justify what she had just done, to others and to herself, it was the Foundlings.