Chapter Text
Kalevala is huge. It’s huge, and ornate, and so incredibly lonely.
Koska and Axe had tried their best to convince him to come with them when the remainders of Bo-Katan’s allies had abandoned her to pursue mercenary work. When she’d come back from The Reclaimer without the Darksaber, they’d all abandoned her.
All of them. Even her Nite Owls.
“Why would you continue to stay for a lost cause? Mandalore is lost, the planet is glass, and Bo-Katan is pursuing a dead dream,” Axe drove a finger into the clone Jedi’s chest, unaware of Kix’s silent fuming beneath his blue and grey helmet. “You have gifts that are better used elsewhere and you know it.”
“My sister is not a lost cause, you mir’sheb,” Kix snarled.
“If you stay, you’re delusional,” Koska interjected. The pair leaned against the opposite wall of the outermost doors to the Kalevalan palace where Bo-Katan had retreated after the loss of the majority of her allies. The only three remaining were Koska, Axe, and Kix. “Our efforts could use the talents of someone like you, Kryze.”
Kix removed his helmet to gaze coldly at Koska. Despite being renowned for once having the most youthful and bright eyes of the clones, he and Bo-Katan had been through enough together to have hardened him to the realities of the world he now lived in. Those youthful eyes were not so soft and innocent anymore.
He peers down the hallway at his sister as he comes into the throne room. Kix had been with her long enough to have seen her through some of the worst moments of her life. He’d been there to help her through them, to give her a sorely needed assurance and comfort she’d lacked through being alone, and to protect her when she couldn’t do it herself.
Like right now, at her most vulnerable.
"I am only loyal to three things,” He wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his saber and tipped his head slowly to the side. “Myself, The Force, and my Clan. My clan is sitting on that throne trying to reconcile with the fact that she has lost everything again. Including her most loyal. What’s left of her Owls.” With a sharp flick of his wrist, Kix opened the doors to the landing pad on the outside of the palace. “I refuse to be one of her long list of people who’ve abandoned her. If that makes me delusional, so be it.”
Both of them slowly backed out the door as a cyan saber ignited. Koska and Axe could confidently say that they feared little, but a Mandalorian Jedi was to be feared. They were not foolish enough to think otherwise.
“Kix-“
“Get out of her palace.”
Bo-Katan lifted her head and feigned a smile as he approached. “Me’suum’ika,” She murmured. “You’re still here.”
She’s said this every time he comes into her line of sight. Like she’s so far inside of her head, so far stuck in the past, that the sight of her vod’ika brings Bo-Katan back into the cruel reality where everyone has abandoned her except Kix. Where everything has gone wrong and she has failed. Again.
“Of course, I’m still here, buurenaar.” He murmurs. Approaching the throne, Kix stops just several feet away to use The Force and float the cup of shig he had made her to settle right beside where her hand rests on the throne. “I’m your brother.”
“And that still means something to you?” She queries.
“It’s always going to mean something to me, Bo-Katan. You know that.”
And she knows just by looking at him that he’s telling the truth. It’s the one thing Bo-Katan has been able to count on since the day Ahsoka brought him to her. No matter how convicted he is over a situation, Kix will always tell her the truth.
Something soft flickers across her eyes just momentarily before she reaches outward to collect the shig. “You love in a way that doesn’t make sense to me,” She murmurs. “But regardless, I’m grateful for it.”
“You’re just grateful to have someone to listen to your endless nagging.”
“I do not nag.”
Kix smirks around the rim of his cup as he perches himself on the edge of the throne. “You are an incessant, nagging, fussy older sister. You know it and I know it. Don’t try to deny who you are.”
When Bo turns around to promptly scold her brother is when the sound of heavy footsteps echoes from the opposite end of the throne room. Bo-Katan’s expression shifts into one of stone-cold static as Kix moves to step behind her, settling beside the throne with his helmet tucked under his arm and his hand on his lightsaber.
“Bo-Katan! It is Din Djarin. I’m here to join you.”
Kix resists the urge to snicker as the Mandalorian and the Child approach. Unknown to Din or Bo, Kix remembers the Child quite well from his earliest days in the créche at the Temple during the Clone War. There had been a handful of times when he’d been in charge of his medical care when he’d first come to the Temple. Since he was only one of three of that species to become a Jedi, there was little to go off of that would help Kix learn about the best way to tend to Grogu.
Most of what Kix had learned about Grogu came from the handful of experiences he’d had with him in the créche. He was sweet. So timid, kept to himself, so young.
He can’t imagine what he experienced during Knightfall. The horror, the fear, the guilt over being one of the only living Padawans to come out of it.
“There’s nothing left to join.”
“What of your plans to retake Mandalore?” Din asks.
“When I returned without the Darksaber, my forces melted away. The fleet went to make their way through the galaxy as mercenaries,” Bo pauses. Thinking about the last time she saw Koska and Axe walk away from her never got any easier. “Do you still have the saber?”
Din nods. “I do.”
“Then you lead them. Wave that thing around,” Disdain drips from her tone as Bo tilts her head at Din. “And they’ll do whatever you say.”
“So you gave up your designs to retake Mandalore?”
“Your cult gave up on Mandalore long before the Purge. Where were you then? The Children of the Watch and all the factions that came before fractured and shattered our people. Go home. There’s nothing left.”
While Bo-Katan continues to talk to Din, Kix remains still and silent as the grave from his spot beside the throne. He has absolutely no reservations about using The Force on other people who aren’t his elder sister. She has made herself abundantly clear on how she feels about his Force use on her since the week they met. With Bo-Katan’s trust already being so fragile, Kix has no intentions of breaking it.
It doesn’t mean he won’t use it on Din.
Closing his eyes, he exhales softly and begins to sift through recent memories just inside of Din’s mind. He’s discreet enough that The Mandalorian should never notice or feel his presence there. He’s had little to no interaction with Jedi. There’s no plausible way in which Din would be able to recognize the sensations that come with doing this.
There are flashes of memories. Rescuing a covert of Mando’ade on a beach. A conversation about repentance. Din’s desire to atone.
And right there in the corner of his mind is the memory Kix pulls the most from: His desire to bathe in the Living Waters underneath Sundari.
Bo-Katan just barely catches the hitch in his breath when Din begins walking back toward the opposite end of the throne room with The Child hot on his heels.
They don’t know him. Din doesn’t know clones, doesn’t know what they’ve done, but Grogu does. Grogu knows what the clones did to his family. To the other Jedi. What they nearly did to him.
The last thing Kix wants to do is frighten such a young child.
“Kix,” Bo-Katan says firmly. The sharpness of her tone draws him out of his reverie and shifts his focus back to the green eyes searching his own. “What did you do?”
It hasn’t occurred to him until then how empty the throne room is. He understands her need for solitude, her quiet desire to be alone and contemplate all that’s happened, but the one thing Kix will never understand is how she is okay with all of it.
How can she be so okay with being alone when it is people who often heal the wounds we cannot heal ourselves? Relationships, love, community… How is she so okay with her solitude when the one thing that can cure her is the one thing she no longer has?
“Used the Force to check his story and see if he was telling the truth,” Kix says softly. “He was. He’s trying to atone. And.. sadly… I understand him more than I care to admit.”
Kalevala is huge. It’s huge, it’s ornate, and it’s so incredibly lonely.
It reminds him of the last time he went to Coruscant. To the Tomb of the Jedi.
A long moment passes before Kix feels hands on his face. It’s been so long since he’s been touched - as it’s not something he goes actively seeking anymore unless the circumstances call for it - so for Bo-Katan to so willingly initiate it brings tears to his eyes.
There has not been a single moment since their earliest months that Kix has doubted how much she cares about him. Despite that, it always blows Kix away how deeply she loves him.
A Mandalorian is nothing without their family.
“Hey,” She whispers, green eyes wide and frightened as Bo kneels to meet him at eye level. Kix can tell she’s internally trying not to panic. It’s always a struggle for her to face her own emotions, so she’s usually caught off guard when his breaches the surface. “You disappeared there for a moment. Are you okay? Where did you go?”
And for the first time, he doesn’t have an answer, so he simply shakes his head.
“Okay, okay. I have an idea.” Bo-Katan hauls Kix to his feet. “I’m tired and you need to busy yourself. Braid my hair.”
That demand jars him back into reality. Onyx eyes snap over to meet the curious and now playful greens across from him. “Maker, you’re serious. You want me to braid your hair?”
“If it’ll make you happy.”
Blinking away the haze that’s clouding his brain, Kix moves to settle on the Kryze throne and laughs as she slides her head into his lap. It’s remarkable how at ease she is around him and somehow always knows the best way to alleviate his anxiety.
Bo would be lying if she tried to act like she hated the sensation of someone playing with her hair. Kix’s movements are deliberate, and calculated, but slow.
“I’m so grateful for you.” Kix murmurs. It’s odd, watching the braids come together. They’re messy and nowhere near even but she seems very content with the action of letting him do this. “I know I’ve told you that before... but it’s been a while.”
“You’re just grateful that I keep you from doing stupid things.”
Kix’s laughter causes Bo-Katan to open one eye and peer up at him. She likes seeing him happy. After all of his struggle to adjust to a new world, the very least he deserves is to be truly happy.
“Just for all the sentimental comments, I’ll find one of the remaining contingents of Imperial remnants for us to destroy.” He nods confidently. “Explosives. Lots of explosives. A couple of whistling birds, clean Westars, cutting through Imperials with lightsabers.” Kix whistles in disbelief. “Sounds like my kind of night.”
“Put a bottle of gal on it and I’m there,” Bo remarks absently. “Now shut up and let me sleep.”
“Yes ma’am.”
So that’s what he does. Kix continues to braid her hair, and Bo-Katan falls asleep precariously lounged on her throne in a way that no one else but her could do.
High in these hallowed halls of House Kryze on the planet of Kalevala sits a clone and a Mandalorian. They’ve been alone for a long time now, and that’s okay. Maybe that was why the universe brought them together. To carry the memory of the people who came before them.
Ironic, bringing together two of the most haunted and damaged people in the galaxy to make them a Clan of two.
Irony at its finest.