Work Text:
From The Ashes
Paz Vizsla was a sentry in the shadows.
He was not among those who heartily welcomed Bo-Katan Kryze and the once-apostate Din Djarin back into the fold of the Covert.
Perhaps if Djarin came alone, he would be more forthcoming. He would be gracious; even impressed. He would be proud. Din was a brother who had faithfully walked in the Way until the moment he had gone astray. Din’s reasons for breaking the Creed were unimportant, the Armorer had told Paz. An oath was an oath, and one can only be redeemed by ritual rebirth—bathing in the Living Waters deep into the mines of Mandalore.
Paz had come to believe nearly all his life that Mandalore was indeed cursed. Bo-Katan, moreover, had a hand in compounding that curse. He believed all what he’d believed, because the path of Clan Vizsla had been so dark, so convoluted, so rife with misfortune that Paz had only wished for a simpler faith—and yet, one not so simple. He had put his faith on one Creed alone. He will walk only one Way and not the hundreds of other paths which the Vizslas of old had fought over among themselves, and tore the Clan asunder. Perhaps that was why his ancestor, Tarre Vizsla, had thought of means to unite their people. That was why he created the Darksaber.
The Darksaber was a weapon of legend, but now Djarin wielded it. The Living Waters were thought to be no more, yet Djarin had claimed to have bathed in them. Paz could hardly stand to remain in the same cavernous hall with Din when the Armorer confirmed the truth of Din’s assertions.
The sun seemed to be setting on Clan Vizsla.
The situation was made all the more grim by yet another contender to that glory: Clan Kryze. The Kryzes and the Vizslas were Houses that had shared the same burden through the centuries in varying degrees: the same victories and sorrows, the same philanthropies and misdeeds. They were ancient houses that fought alongside and against each other.
Paz had no inclination to fight alongside a Kryze at the moment. Not after the doom she had spelled upon their people once.
Grunting, he uncrossed his arms and left the celebration. He crept into a low hallway. He went as quietly as he could to check on the children.
He knew that Ragnar, his foundling son, would be with the other young ones in their classes, under low sandstone ceilings in their makeshift schoolroom. Mandalorians needed more than just the teachings of the Way, albeit it held high priority. A Mandalorian should learn the basics of literacy: to write, to read, to do their calculations. Ragnar was doing well in all fronts. Under the helmet, Paz allowed himself a modest smile.
He didn’t expect to see Ragnar standing at the mouth of their schoolroom threshold. The child’s helmet was fixed on him; the boy stood alone.
“Where are the others?” Paz asked without ceremony.
Ragnar’s young voice was firm, but the words came out softly: “They’ve joined the other grown-ups, Dad. The teacher says there would be no school for the rest of day.”
“Why?” Paz knew the reason, however.
Ragnar seemed to hesitate. “Because the apostate has been forgiven. That’s what they said, Dad. They said redemption is always worth celebrating. So… they’re celebrating.”
Paz scoffed—but in front of Ragnar, it sounded more out of amusement than derision. The boy might as well have looked at him with his bare eyes in the place of his helm. Paz had become more acquainted with Ragnar’s thoughtful seriousness. Most of the time, Ragnar stood apart from the rest of the foundlings. The rest would giggle and play. Ragnar would be the observer.
There was a dormant fire in the child. Friction from tribulations brought about by the Way would ignite a spark in Ragnar, and the boy seemed willing when the Armorer had once broached the subject to him. Ragnar, who was all of twelve then. He had sworn the Creed the day he turned thirteen, as was the ancient custom: the Verd’goten was a rite of passage when a child was no more, and a warrior stood in their place.
Paz had chosen Ragnar to carry the Vizsla name.
Yet again, Ragnar was setting himself apart as the only child who chose not to join the festivities. The happy shrieks of children and the laughter of others among the Covert, reverberating like jubilant ghosts through the cave walls, didn’t sway father and son.
Paz slightly tipped his helmet, silently motioning Ragnar to join him in their quarters, if the boy would like.
Ragnar seemed to light up, and the child followed.
When they were most likely out of earshot, Ragnar thought to break the ice with his father: “You don’t like them, do you, Dad?”
Paz knew whom Ragnar referred to. He’d rather be straightforward with the boy right now. “I don’t.”
“Will you always hate them?”
Paz’s helm pinned the child in place. Ragnar can be laconic in his own way.
Paz was silent. He truly had no answer to that, not while he hadn’t cleared his head from that morning’s revelation. His mind was swimming with questions and rationalizations, more so than he ever had from the beginning.
There was only one Way. Only one and nothing else—that was why he had Ragnar swear the Creed.
In the end, Paz shook his head. “No.”
Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze were reunited with the Way. All this had taken Paz by surprise; his refusal to participate in their little redemption party did not devalue Din’s efforts in any way, or begrudged him of salvation, both his and Bo-Katan Kryze’s.
Ragnar hadn’t moved or spoken since they’d settled in their quarters. The child stood by the foot of his cot, a much smaller one beside Paz’s monstrous bedroll.
Paz cleared his throat. He motioned Ragnar once more so the boy stood closer by his side.
Wordlessly, Paz reached from under a mound of hollowed rock, took out a vault of mixed durasteel and hint of beskar. He tapped the code; it opened. He took out a tapestry the size of a child’s tunic and unfolded it in front of Ragnar.
The boy gasped.
“Dad, isn’t that what you call the jai’ga—um, the jai—“ Ragnar fumbled for the word in Mando’a.
Paz chuckled. Laughter he shared with his son was belly-deep. “Jai’galaar,” he corrected Ragnar.
“Jai’galaar,” repeated the boy. Ragnar reverently took the tapestry and studied it when Paz handed it to him.
“It’s the shriek-hawk, ad’ika. It’s an ancient bird of prey that used to thrive on Mandalore. It’s also the ancient signet of House Vizsla,” Paz explained. This would be the first time he would be explaining the signet to Ragnar, despite the boy seeing it painted on some of the Covert member’s pauldrons or it adorned on sacred spaces of the Covert.
Ragnar trailed a finger over the tapestry, tracing the shriek-hawk’s image over and over again in wonder.
“Dad, I thought Clan Vizsla’s crest was the red-flowered branch?”
The flowered branch was the emblem raised in a banner during Ragnar’s verd’goten.
The hulking warrior nodded. “We have tried to honor both crests throughout the long years, Ragnar, but…”
He stopped himself. Was he ready to tell this part of the tale? Ragnar would be hearing it for the first time. It felt as if Paz himself would be hearing it for the first time, after neglecting that accursed part of his family’s history for decades.
Ragnar, with a child’s perceptiveness, caught him easily. “But… what, Dad?”
Paz shuffled a little; he took a moment to sit on his bedroll. Ragnar jumped right beside his father, his legs swinging, his helm angled in anticipation. The child’s stubby fingers, stripped of gloves, were grasping tightly at the tapestry where the jai’galaar peered out at Paz, almost accusingly.
“Ragnar,” Paz began carefully as the child remained rapt in attention, “our Clan, Clan Vizsla… is one of a very tainted past, one which could have brought deep shame to all of us. But the name Vizsla also carries with it tremendous power and glory. Our ancestors fought for that glory. They lived by it and died by it.”
Paz had reached a dead-end in his thoughts, suddenly overwhelmed by the cares of millennia’s worth of burdens. Why did it have to be him? Were the Mandalorians so spent that all in his bloodline had all but been wiped out in the Purge?
“Then what happened, Dad?” Ragnar broke through Paz’s thoughts.
“Then it was taken away from us, Ragnar.”
Ragnar was still for long moments. The child looked ponderous as he stared at the tapestry in his hands. He smoothed his fingers over it, as if the fabric were an array of prayer beads.
The boy’s helm slowly looked up at Paz. His visor glinted under the scarce light of their quarters. The sounds of merrymaking faded away, insulated by the thick cave walls.
Almost with no warning if not for a small gasp which emanated from Ragnar’s vocoder, the child had wrapped his arms around his father’s torso. Paz was so massive and the jetpack strapped to his back further encumbered Ragnar’s attempts to take all of his father in.
“Dad,” said Ragnar, his voice clipped and small. “I’ll be here, Dad. I’ll help you. Whatever they took from us, we'll take it back.”
Paz sat there, dumbstruck. Ragnar’s seemingly blind devotion may cost them both someday, but it may also be his brightest guiding star.
Paz unclipped the jetpack from his back so it fell soundlessly upon the bedroll. Immediately, Ragnar’s arms had wrapped around the rest of him more easily. The boy had buried his helmed head under his father’s chin.
The hulking warrior thought of the weight he carried as the seeming last survivor of Clan Vizsla, one of the true bloodline since the age of Tarre Vizsla. He himself had no way of tracing it, but he had been submerged into that theory since the day he was born. All those centuries of falling from grace, and rising again, and then there was the present: one Paz made sure that he had agency over, despite the circumstances.
He held Ragnar back, and placed a palm over his son’s head like a mantle. Paz’s days insofar had been a trek in very dark, murky depths. Ragnar was a buoy to his sinking spirit. Paz wished his gratitude bled into his words when he declared them to his son.
“We will, ad’ika. Someday, we will.”
***