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The moons of Concordia and Kalevala showed bright in the sky over Mandalore, their light shining through a rare pocket of clear skies in the otherwise tempestuous atmosphere of the planet. It was quiet on the planet now, at the end of another long day. Two months into reconstruction of the old city of Sundari, and with more refugee clans of Mandalorians arriving each day, the city edged closer and closer toward regaining its beauty. Already, many of the salvageable dwellings within the city were being sanitized and filled with new residents. Demolition of dangerous wreckage was also proceeding apace, providing scrap for new building materials and armor for foundlings and children of the returned Mandalorians.
Perhaps most impressive of all was the freshly planted ring of gardens around the ring of the city’s old dome on the surface. Each Mandalorian group had been offered the chance to learn how to grow the indigenous plant life that the survivors had cultivated in the shadow of the Empire, and some of the later migrants had brought with them still more species of plants, including many staple crops that found purchase in the soil of the undamaged parts of the land. The result was a verdant garden stretching for miles in a ring around the city, and the likelihood that the population of the rebuilding city could sustain themselves indefinitely once the crops were ripe enough to harvest.
Wandering through the garden ring, surrounded by the new growth and her path lit by the phosphorescent vines that had come from a group of Mandalorians who had been on Umbara, Bo-Katan paused to look up to the moons before responding to the small projected and blue washed image of Din that shown from her gauntlet.
“So he just gave you the keys to the cabin? And it was already built?” Bo-Katan was taken aback by the generosity of Greef Karga. Certainly, she and Din had discussed his past relations with the High Magistrate of Nevarro, and she had even grown a sort of fondness for the way the man treated Grogu as a sort of grandchild. But she wouldn’t have predicted the gift of a homestead on the Nevarro plains where the resurgent Mandalorians had prepped the retake their homeworld.
“Yes,” replied Din, the image of him arbling slightly from the holoprojector on Bo’s Gauntlet, “I think he wants to ensure good relations between our world and Nevarro. Perhaps it could be an outpost for the training of future Foundlings, as well as a diplomatic mission for Mandalore.”
“That’s not a bad idea, We’ll need all the planetary allies we can get,” Bo spoke, trying not to sound too tired. The first few weeks on the planet had kept her running nearly around the clock. There were so many meetings to attend, so many ruling council decisions to be made, laws to determine, and reconstruction work to supervise. It seemed as if the work of the Mand’alor was all consuming; her only down time had been stolen chats like these, when her duties could wait until the next morning, and Din would call in, sometimes with Grogu, but often after the child had been put to bed for the night.
“Well, you’ll have to thank Karga for me personally,” Bo spoke, a wry smile teasing her lips, “And maybe when I get the chance to visit, we can have him for dinner.”
“You’ll have to cook,” Din jokes, his head turning to the side, “I’ve been burning Grogu’s Pog Soup.”
Bo laughed out loud, imagining the sight of Din, clad in an apron over his armor, desperately trying to put out a fire on the stove.
“Oh, Din,” she chuckled, doubling over with laughter before responding, “I needed that.”
“How has the political situation been developing?” He asked in a more serious tone, intuitively knowing this was what she needed to talk about, “Has the New Republic responded to your request for recognition?”
“Not yet, unfortunately,” Bo sighed, exhaustion sounding plain in her voice, “It seems they are so focused on demilitarization that the idea of a resurgent Mandalore isn’t exactly giving them something to be excited about.”
“What about Plazier’s promise?” asked Din again, his helmet again tilting to the side, this time as a pair of small green hands asked to be picked up. Din took a moment to cradle Grogu, who waved to Bo with a toothy grin before quickly snuggling against Din and seemingly falling asleep. Din continued, “Have Bombardier and the Duchess been in touch?”
“Yes, and they are doing what they can, but we will need to rally more planets to our side as soon as possible,” Bo let out a long breath, arching her back, before continuing, “I will say their gift of droid workers to aid in construction and demolition has been extremely helpful. I’m just not sure who to reach out to next.”
Din was quiet for a moment, his helmet tilted slightly down as though in deep thought. When he spoke, it was clear he was unsure how she might respond.
“Bo,” He began cautiously, “I know someone I can ask. He’s not the most legally recognized ruler but…”
Bo groaned, knowing exactly where this was going from Din’s composure and choice of words. “Tell me it hasn’t come to that, Din,” She sighed.
“I know you’ve had your disagreements, Bo,” Din said soothingly, “But I’ve known Boba Fett to be an honorable man. And like you said, you need allies.”
Bo paused in thought for a moment. Suddenly, there was a loud snoring sound, and her attention was turned back to the hologram, as Din looked sharply down at Grogu.
“The little guy seems tired,” Bo said lovingly, “Why don’t you take him to bed?”
Nodding, Din said, “It is late. Before I go, though, I just want to tell you I miss you. It’s nice here. Quiet. And if you ever need a break…”
Bo smiled at him, “I wish I could join you more than you could know. I’ll see if I can set aside some time for a visit. And as to your friend… reach out to him. Please.”
“Headed that way tomorrow anyway, Time to begin Grogu’s tracking training,” Din nodded again, his helmet masking his features and yet also conveying the deep appreciation for Bo’s trust in him, “I’ll make sure to stop in. Goodnight, Bo.”
“Goodnight, Din. Stay safe and come to me for anything,” Bo returned, trying not to let the small disappointment she felt at the abbreviated conversation show too much in her voice. After all, they both knew that this would be difficult, and talking over the comm had always been more difficult for Din. Still, she thought, at least they were able to check in with each other. And that was something.
With that, Din signed off the comlink to take Grogu to bed, and she was once more alone in the garden. For a moment, Bo closed her eyes, and tried to ground herself in the present, rather than letting the intrusive thoughts of all her duties for the next day in. It was a method she had learned long ago from another gifted force user who had crashed into her life, Ahsoka Tano. The young jedi had kept in touch over the long years since their fateful shared campaign to retake Mandalore, and along the way, they had traded practices like these. Bo found that the meditative practice was one she particularly enjoyed, and while she could not commune with the force, she found the self reflection helped her overcome the anxieties she faced both from her past trauma and from day to day stresses.
Opening her eyes again, she took in the view of the gardens under the stars. Many crops were in patterned rows and crosshatches, but here and there fragrant flowers, lit by phosphorescent light in their leaves grew in ornate patterns. The view was truly breathtaking, and not for the first night, Bo thought about how much Grogu would have loved to see it this way. How Din would have told her that gardens matched her beauty, and how she might have convinced him to make camp here for the night, just the three of them.
She smiled as she thought of it; Grogu toddling around chasing the small insects that inhabited the garden, picking flowers to show to her. She thought about Din taking the child through the basic hand to hand techniques that he had learned in the fighting corps, and her heart filled with joy at the idea. She imagined the child leaping into her arms as she held him in the air, as though he were using the Rising Phoenix. She could almost picture the three of them, laid out on a blanket looking up at the stars, as they had the first night on Mandalore.
Sighing to herself, Bo looked once more at the stars, trying to suss out which one was Nevarro. How, she wondered, could it be that something so small as a speck of light so far away that it represented the past could have become something so important to her. As a child, she had always been excited to travel out to those distant lights. She had confided to her father once, when she was not much larger than Grogu, that she meant to see them all. Her father had scooped her into his arms and put her on his shoulders as he charted the nearest ones for her, teaching her to navigate the moons around Mandalore. That memory brought her comfort as she looked out at the galaxy in the night sky.
It hadn’t been too much longer before the civil wars had begun. The conflict had gone on for years, and while the family had stayed together at first, as the fortunes of war rose and fell, so had their fortunes. Her Father had been killed two years into the war, further destabilizing the balance of power. Satine, all of 17 at the time, had been put under the protection of the Jedi, while Bo, still young, had been sent to live with distant relations and kept hidden. After that, Bo never saw her mother again, and it wasn’t long before her loneliness had driven her to-
At the sound of a boot crushing some loose gravel, Bo-Katan whipped around and drew her blasters, training them in the direction of the sound in the space of a heartbeat, before dropping them when she recognized the horned helm of the Armorer.
“Greetings, Lady Bo-Katan,” the Armorer said, bowing her helmet slightly, “Have I disturbed you?”
Bo holstered her pistols as she tried to calm her voice, “No, just deep in memory, I’m afraid.”
The Armorer nodded, responding, “I myself often walk these gardens to ponder the past.”
Bo favored the Armorer with a smile before offering her arm to the leader of the Children of the Watch. Linking arms they began to walk through the garden slowly. Presently, the armorer spoke again.
“When we were cloistered on Concordia, we too had a garden. Nothing so pretty as this, mind you, but a sufficient source of food and spicing. I remember many days when my Cyare would till the fields with the foundlings as I set off to our humble forge. By the time I would return, the week’s crop had been culled and he and the foundlings would be practicing their hand to hand combat skills.”
Bo stopped, trying to come to terms with the new information the Armorer had shared. In all the time they had lived together among the covert, Bo had never been able to pry any information out of Din or anyone else about the woman’s origins. Now, to be given this information freely left her completely nonplussed. The Armorer stopped as well and turned toward Bo, continuing.
“Din loved garden time. When he first came to us after being rescued by one of my Cyare’s men, he spent a lot of time by himself. But tending the garden seemed to calm him, and slowly he became one of us.”
“I must admit that gardening wasn’t a pursuit I would have expected from Din,” smiled Bo-Katan, her heart going soft as she thought about the young, orphaned boy working in a garden such as this, “though to be honest, I know little of his past.”
The Armorer didn’t respond, though her helmet tilted to one side as regarded Bo, almost like a mother evaluating her child’s first love. Bo blushed at the attention and the silence, thinking to herself that she must have overstepped. Did the Armorer know of the affection between Din and herself? They had taken steps to keep it quiet since the battle of Keldabe, but then as the leader of Din’s covert, the Armorer seemed to be privy to matters far beyond those she directly interacted with. Could someone have seen their goodbye?
“It is obvious the attraction between you,” the golden helmeted mandalorian intimated, a touch of laughter to her voice, clearly able to read Bo-Katan like an open book. “I have seen how close you two became while we were cloistered together. I have also seen the way you care for his son, as though he were your own.”
Bo nodded, hoping that this was not the beginning of a line of reproach.
“It is easy to care for the child,” Bo-Katan responded, “and Din has been an honorable man throughout the time I’ve known him.”
“He cares for you, you know,” The Armorer replied, “beyond even the bonds you share as allied warriors. Even beyond the first blush and excitement of romance. Such a bond as yours is rare.”
Bo nodded, as the two of them continued walking together through the garden before coming to a stop near a meiloorun tree. Already, the phosphorescent vines of the nearby brush were weaving its way into the branches of the tree, creating a sort of natural light pole. The effect shaded the two warriors in neon pinks and greens.
“What was his name, your Cyare?” asked Bo-Katan, hoping to shift the conversation away from the deeply complex feelings she had about Clan Mudhorn and whether she had a place in it. The Armorer looked up into the branches of the tree before looking back to Bo.
“Sal,” she said at last, “Sal Ruug. He was our leader during the time of the purge. When the time came, much as it did for Paz Vizsla, he earned a warrior’s death allowing our covert to escape the empire.”
Bo nodded, offering, “I would have liked to have met him.”
They shared a pleasant silence for time, the stars wheeling overhead into infinity as each pondered the deep questions and memories in their souls, before the Armorer spoke again.
“Well,” she said, turning to face Bo once more and bowing to show her respect, “I believe it is time to retire for the evening. Tomorrow, I will be introducing some of the initiates to the practice of the forge.”
Bo-Katan smiled and replied, “This is the way.” She then returned the bow before clasping both their forearms together.
“A last word, Lady Kryze?” asked the Armorer, “Din has never been much for emotions since we fled Concordia. But in the time you have spent with us, he has begun to show signs of his old self. I believe I have you to thank for this. But take warning. Life can be cruel and short. It waits for no one. If your feelings are true, do not be afraid to express them.”
With that, the Armorer made her exit, soon disappearing behind more of the phosphorescent vines, and Bo was once more alone with her thoughts. After a moment, she took a deep breath and punched a code into her holoprojector.
In a moment, one of the guards, a young night owl she recognized as one of the volunteers from the landung party who was now stationed near the makeshift airfield answered.
“Good Evening, Lady Kryze. How can I help you?”
Bo Smiled, acknowledging the formal title with a bow before responding.
“Have my ship fueled and stocked,” She ordered, “And inform the ruling council I’ll be attending a conference on Tatooine. It is time we make contact with the Daimyo there.”
“Very good, Lady Kryze,” the young soldier said, “shall I prepare the standard guard of escorts?”
“No, not this time,” Bo said, a hint of devilish delight in the lilt of her voice, “I’ll be rendezvousing with Din Djarin. He and his son can provide security.”
The young guard paused, as if about to say something. Bo arched an eyebrow and the guard immediately acknowledged the message would be forwarded as she asked. Closing her comm unit down, Bo Katan took one last eyeful of the garden before putting her helmet on and turning in the direction of the airfield. A smile crossed her lips as she thought about the surprise trap she was about to spring on Din. It would be an eventful crossing of paths to say the least.