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In the end, the thing that convinced Fett to allow Veers to plan his best friend’s wedding was his discovery of the historical origins of Denon’s traditions surrounding the best man. To most of the Core, it was a frivolous position, one that merely made toasts and ensured the groom didn’t get cold feet. On Denon however, the best man had once played a very different role. In the days of the Republic, centuries before its fall, objections to Denonian marriages tended to be a little more violent than merely turning up at the venue and divulging one’s complaint.
In the earliest days of the tradition, it had been possible to challenge the groom to a duel to settle the matter but as he was about to be married, he’d be unprepared to face such a challenge. Thus, the best man, as the most skilled warrior of the groom’s acquaintance, would duel as the challenged groom’s proxy for the man’s right to marry his chosen spouse. Later, as the duels fell out of fashion, the best man became something more akin to a bodyguard or head of security for the wedding. And then, eventually, Denon had succumbed to the pressure of the Core and left behind the tradition of violent objections altogether. The best man was eventually reduced to a maker of speeches and a planner of the more genteel aspects of the wedding. Most of the galaxy, and indeed, large swathes of Denon, had forgotten the reason for the best man’s decorative sword.
The galaxy had forgotten, but Boba Fett, from one of the most renowned warrior cultures in the galaxy, had been very appreciative of the tradition when Veers had explained it to him in those terms.
And then Shand had insisted on being Fett’s best woman, because maid of honor didn’t sound dangerous enough and she also wanted a sword.
Fett had given them both gorgeous and very functional beskar blades and his blessing to plan the wedding.
It is something Veers is glad of now as he watches a crowd of uninvited bounty hunters storm into the bell wreathed gazebo, blasters blazing. He is down the steps and sweeping his blade through the throat of the lead man in seconds as Shand makes a run for her rifle. The auto turrets he’d had hidden in the shrubbery for just this eventuality take aim and fire.
Also, the beauty of having a wedding between a mandalorian and a military man means that very few members of the audience are unarmed or harmless. Veers can see a cluster of bounty hunters rise into the air, choking and scrabbling at their throats. Lord Vader’s black fist clenches and they fall with their necks broken. Motti has himself between Jerjerrod and the encroachers, teeth bared and blaster raised. Thrawn glides easily between his foes, breaking necks and noses as he goes. Hondo cackles, firing a blaster in a way that seems wild. As far as Veers can tell, the pirate hasn’t missed a shot once.
The bastards hadn’t even waited for vows to be exchanged. That was just rude.
And the grooms seem to think so as well, given the fury with which Fett has descended into the melee.
Veers is not Jerjerrod, to be so fussy over the details that he insisted on checking seven times that Veers used the proper shade of purple for the table clothes. Still, he had put work into creating a simple, elegant wedding with all Piett’s traditions. It’s hard not to be offended when Fett’s flamethrower sets the wedding cake on fire.
It had been that spicy chocolate flavor from Mandalore that Piett loved so much and an utter pain in the ass to obtain. Focus Veers. That isn’t the priority right now.
Piett fires over his head with his customary accuracy. Shand’s more powerful rifle joins in seconds later.
Of course, because Piett and Fett are that couple, they start flirting across the wedding venue turned battlefield. And this is worse than listening to them while he’s waiting to be let out of that holding cell, because Fett had not been kidding about how rapturous he gets when Piett fights.
“Such beautiful shooting, ner kote,” Fett calls over the din.
And Piett says, “Catch up if you can, Cródallón,” in that cocky tone he only gets when he’s taunting someone he’s close with.
The absolute worst, the pair of them. Lieutenant Commander Vanto huffs out a breathless laugh from where his back is pressed to Veers’s as they fight, amused by his grumbling. And something about it makes him want to hear it again but unlike Fett and Piett, he knows there’s a time and a place. Which is definitely not now. So when he and Vanto lunge apart, he doesn’t compliment the man’s stunning hand to hand, even if he rather wants to.
How Piett manages to be this much of a disaster magnet, Veers will never know. First stag night and now this. Veers doesn’t know why he’s surprised that the first person who’s needed a best man in the traditional Denonian sense in more than four hundred years is his best friend. And yet.
The interesting thing is, none of the bounty hunters seem focused on Piett. And Veers had been damn thorough about scouring Chandrila for rebel and cartel activity. He’s pretty sure that one ISB agent won’t take his calls anymore, but it’s not something he’s particularly concerned about. Nevertheless, there shouldn’t have been any kriffing trouble.
Though, after studying the man currently impaled on his sword, Veers isn’t entirely sure these are Piett’s enemies. As far as he knows, the admiral never had anything to do with the Crymorah syndicate. The only reason he recognizes the symbol on the occasional uniformed opponent is because he heard Tagge rant about them often enough back when Veers was still a colonel.
Shand, when she reaches him in a swirl of auburn silk, seems to agree. “It seems we forgot to consider one of the grooms when we were planning for interruptions,” she says. Her dark braid hasn’t unraveled any but her armor plated best woman’s dress is torn a bit around the midriff.
He grunts as an elbow catches him in the cheek. He headbutts back and his opponent’s nose breaks with a satisfying crack. “So they’re Fett’s enemies then?”
“We ran a job that upset them a few years ago,” is all she says in reply.
“For kriff’s sake,” he mutters, ducking a second blow to his face.
“The anti-aircraft measures seem to be holding up well,” she says smugly.
Veers sighs. “I thought we were just being paranoid with those.” Shand catches a brutal kick meant for his sternum, Veers huffs out a thanks and stabs the man aiming a dagger at her back.
“Well. We’ll know for next time,” she says, tossing her braid over her shoulder.
“When the kriff are we going to do something like this again?” he asks, snarling as he plants his feet and pulls his blade free.
She tosses a man over her hip with a grunt, conceding the point. “At least they’re having fun,” she says.
“I was trying to avoid thinking about the rampant flirting, thank you very much.” Veers flicks some of the blood off his blade. It splatters on the white aisle carpeting that he’d spent two hours arguing with Jerjerrod about.
Shand laughs and vanishes into the thinning melee.
Veers hears “Cyr’ika, have I told you recently how beautiful you look when you break a man’s kneecap?” over the dying battle. It takes all of his famed self control to avoid pinching his nose and getting disemboweled by his new opponent as a result.
And then the battle is ending. Veers sheaths his sword. Lord Vader extinguishes his lightsaber. Bossk heaves one of the last opponents standing down the grassy hill the gazebo had been built on. Jerjerrod is being helped off the floor by Motti. Thrawn is cleaning a knife on his white dress uniform, uncaring of the new stains he is creating. Vanto scolds him for this exasperatedly, his words falling on deaf ears. The medics Veers brought flood into the gazebo, searching for injuries. Piett is garroting a man with the blue marriage cord Veers had spent three days picking after visiting seventeen different artisans on Axxila. Fett is watching this with such a besotted expression that Shand has to take out the man creeping up on his blindspot.
He’s wearing a helmet. He should not be able to look besotted enough that Veers can tell this while he’s still wearing it.
“Mhi solus tome,” Fett says, ignoring the scuffle behind him.
“For kriff’s sake,” Veers mutters quietly as Piett looks up from easing the strangled bounty hunter to the floor, clearly intrigued.
“Mhi solus tome,” his best friend repeats back, tugging his blood spattered dress uniform back into proper form.
“The venue is a mess and they’re saying their vows now?! Conan!” is a scandalized hiss from behind Veers.
It pains Veers to agree with Jerjerrod about matters of taste, but really? Here? Now? Before he and Shand have even managed to get the place cleaned up or procure transportation to the backup location?
“Mhi solus dhar’tome,” both of the menaces say, Fett stalking intently across the bloodstained aisle carpet towards Piett. Veers resignedly goes to retrieve the marriage cord.
“Mhi me'dinui an.” Fett meets Piett where the altar had been before Vader had thrown an old clone wars droideka into it. Fett reaches out to cup the side of Piett’s face, wiping a smear of blood off his cheek even as his palm put more along Piett’s chin. Veers has to wrestle it away so Shand can wrap the blue cord around both of the grooms’s forearms.
“Mhi ba'juri verde,” they finish as Veers ties the marriage cord off in the ceremonial knot one of Piett’s acquaintances from the anti-pirate fleet spent several days drilling him on.
Fett fumbles his helmet off as Piett pulls impatiently and one handedly at the clasps. And then Piett is pressing up into Fett’s space, kissing him hard. Which was absolutely not the planned keldabe kiss.
They both seem to have forgotten they are absolutely covered in blood and in the middle of a battlefield. The only thing that makes them part is the blaring suddenness of the Axxilaan wedding bells ringing in disharmony.
Hondo cries out in triumph from where he had been fiddling with the broken mechanisms without anyone noticing. The discordance is likely due to the fact that the wire system Veers and Shand had rigged so that all the bells would ring at once had been severed, tangled, and otherwise caught on various enemy bodies. Thus, none of them ring together. A general scramble occurs to turn the mechanism back off.
“I thought I told you to lose his invitation when you sent them out,” Veers murmurs to Shand in the shuffle.
“I did,” she says back lowly, “Bossk invited him as his plus one.”
“Are they even dating?” he asks and she shrugs in response.
Suppressing a sigh, Veers turns around to find that his friend and Fett are pressed forehead to forehead. Fett is murmuring Mandalorian endearments. The pair of them are swaying slightly in the middle of the trashed wedding venue. Somehow, they look as radiant and in love as they had before the fighting had broken out.
Absolutely soppy and ridiculous, the pair of them. Maybe he can tack it into the ending of his obligatorily embarrassing best man speech. Veers is good at improvising.
Shand gives him a commiserating look over their heads. The appointment she booked for them to get their Axxilaan wedding tattoos will definitely need to be rescheduled. The pair clearly have no intention of separating for cake anytime soon and it’s apparently bad luck to get the tattoos without eating something at the wedding.
Not that there is cake anymore, given that Fett set it on fire. But Veers is pretty sure the other Axxilaan and Mandalorian finger foods he and Shand arranged survived mostly intact. And the fighting had been mostly kept away from the bar, though whether the alcohol had managed to survive Hondo was another question altogether.
Something to investigate. Especially since, after the stag night debacle, Veers doesn’t want to watch Fett and Piett flirt any more than he has to.
And if Vanto sidles up beside him at the bar and leans against Veers’s side while he thoroughly inspects the liquor stock, that’s just a bonus. Especially since Vanto did throw a good punch. Veers had always appreciated competence in a man.
Though he had other things to attend to, before he made the attempt to get Vanto’s comm number to schedule a spar or a hike. Like his best man’s speech and toast, or the fact that he could hear Piett saying, “What do you mean you accidently burnt the cake, Boba?” from across the room to general laughter.
“Duty calls,” Vanto drawls, a small amused smile on his face.
Veers makes a snap decision and scrawls out his own comm number on a bit of flimsi. “Perhaps you’d like to call me after,” he says and Vanto takes the flimsi, looking smug.
“We’ll see, General,” Vanto says, long fingers tucking the note away.
Veers regretfully leaves him leaning against the bar and wades back into the chaos. He begins wrangling some of Piett’s bridge crew into pouring out champagne for everyone and organizing a clean up of the bodies. Shand falls into step with him, muttering about the ETA of the new wedding cake and the progress of the team she has clearing out the broken chairs.
The work of the best man and woman is never done.