Chapter Text
Vevut’ika – diminutive nickname, literally ‘goldie’
Gotal'ur - to make, create
—-----
21 BBY. Circa the Clone Wars. Death Watch is in full swing.
—-----
“This is all we found on her,” Pre Vizsla said flatly. Bo’s gaze flickered down to the hammer he’d tossed on the desk, charred and cracked from years of use.
“A forger’s hammer?” Bo asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“So, who is it?”
He propped up his boots on his desk as he spoke. “Right now, we’re thinking Sundari blacksmith. But we don’t know for sure ‘cause she won’t say a word to us.”
She raised her eyes to meet his. “Nothing at all?” She picked up the hammer, testing the weight of it in her hand. “Then why involve me? If she’s being difficult, just get rid of her.”
“Because,” he continued, drumming his fingers on the desk, "she was carrying a shipping log that lists the import of three hundred pounds of pure beskar into the city."
That piqued her interest. "Three hundred…?”
“That’s right.” He uncrossed his legs and stood up from the chair. “We’re thinking we just found the forger working for the Duchess herself.”
At the mere mention of her sister, Bo’s face twisted into a scowl. “But this prisoner, she won’t talk?” she asked, a new distaste brimming inside her.
“Correct. That’s where you come in.” He walked over to a cutout of the tent that served as a window, lifting the draped fabric that covered it. He peered outside and said, “She’s down in that tent over by the dirt ridge. You do some convincing, find out what she knows.” He turned back to her with a thin smile. “Consider it good practice,” he added.
Bo wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t a fool to what Vizsla was trying to accomplish here. His sardonic mention of the Duchess, the implied chance to prove herself.
He was testing her. For what, Bo didn’t know. But she couldn’t just up and ask. Bo set her jaw and stared back at Vizsla.
She was new to Death Watch. But not stupid. And yet, there was nothing she could decide rather than to agree.
“I’ll see her first thing tomorrow,” she said thickly.
Vizsla’s smile grew.
—-----
Bo circled the rim of her spotchka glass with her fingers, mind and eyelids beginning to grow thick and heavy with drowsiness. The bar's hazy lights refracted through her glass, casting shimmering patterns across the scarred tabletop.
She shifted in her chair and tried to focus her thinking onto the prisoner, and of her interrogation planned for tomorrow morning.
She’d never done this before before. Dealing with prisoners was a job always given to more senior Mandalorians, never to a young member like Bo. She couldn’t hide the sense of anxiousness that pooled in her gut, that she’d mess this up somehow. Something like this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was unthinkable for someone like Bo.
She brought the glass to her lips and eyed the other patrons of the bar, who all glared at her with a default look of distaste as they went about their own conversations.
Bo thought to herself, Maybe this is for the best. Maybe this is a chance for myself.
As soon as the other Death Watch members had learned of her relationship with the Duchess, any attempt at showing any degree of respect towards Bo was lost immediately. And Bo, just having joined Death Watch a few months ago, was powerless against their scorn. She remembered slumping onto her bed that first night and remembering the loathing looks she’d received upon her introduction.
But now, here was a glowing chance to change all of that.
She could earn their respect. She was sick of being treated like she didn’t even exist at the camp.
Bo downed the rest of her glass in a quick gulp, slammed it down on the table, and breezed out of the bar and into the night air with a newfound sense of determination.
—-----
Bo shot out of her tent the next day and readied herself far before anyone else in camp had awakened. The sun was just beginning to peek out over the horizon, sending warm rays that cut through the morning mist. Bo headed over to the solitary tent that had been set up across their camp. She was grateful for the helmet, since the biting cold wind was beginning to pick up.
She found the tent where Vizsla had said it would be. Bo first heard the sound of the fabric of the tent flapping in the wind that never seemed to let up on this starsforsaken planet. She steadied her hands and stopped at the door flaps of the tent, staring at it, silently readying herself.
Bo was never formally lectured on how to carry out an interrogation, but she’d watched plenty. You just had to scare them a bit, make sure they knew who they were dealing with, and they’d start singing like a bird. It was simple. At least, that’s what she told herself.
Bo exhaled a shaky breath that fogged her helmet. In one swift motion, she lifted the tent door and stepped inside.
She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light, and the first thing she thought was: Oh.
Bo wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting of this prisoner; she had some vague idea of maybe a hardened mercenary or some wartorn assassin.
Certainly not the quiet, golden-helmeted woman who sat on the floor of the tent who was looking up at Bo expectantly. Her armor, which was clearly a newer set, was all polished and clean save for her muddy boots. She sat on her knees, hands cuffed in front of her. An odd mixture of resilience and vulnerability came from the way she held herself.
Bo stepped further into the tent, watching the early sun catch and reflect on the other woman’s golden horned helmet. The woman’s gaze followed her around the room. Even though it was barely daybreak, she gave no indication that she had been sleeping.
The tent was about the same size as all the others in the camp. A battered tarp offered some cover from the cold floor while a threadbare cot and lantern were set up. It seemed the solitary tent also served a second purpose as storage: old fixtures and electronics were stacked up against one side.
Bo stopped a few steps in front of the woman and tilted her helmet.
“Sleep well?” Bo asked sarcastically, surprised at the considerable confidence in her voice.
The other woman didn’t so much as move a muscle. Rather, she continued to stare up at Bo. It was sort of unnerving.
“Not one for small talk. That’s alright, me neither.” She paired the sarcasm with a smirk. “Let’s start with your job as a blacksmith on Mandalore. You’re an apprentice, right?”
A pause.
“You’ve no right to even speak the name.”
The other woman’s voice was controlled and steady, though it all did little to mask the audible fury that dripped from every word.
Bo quirked an eyebrow up. “What, Mandalore?” She took a few steps toward the woman. “Of course I do. I’m Mandalorian too.”
Seeing the woman’s continued glare, Bo went on.
“You think all us Death Watch warriors are disgraced, corrupt, dishonorable. But that’s far from it. I’ll prove it to you. Tell us what we’d like to know, and you’ll be free to scamper back to Sundari.”
Her reply was instant. “We both know you’d never let me leave this place alive.”
Bo’s face twisted into a scowl. As she fumbled for another line, she watched as the other woman tilted her helmet and took in Bo’s pauldron.
“I’ve met a Kryze sister before,” she noted, nodding at the signet. “I can’t say the same for the other, but the Duchess is noble—”
“Stop.”
“—loyal,—”
“Enough.”
“—honorable, kind. What a shame—”
“Shut it,” Bo snapped. “Shut up. If you haven’t noticed, I’m not the one chained to the floor here. I’ll do the talking.”
This wasn’t going well at all.
“Who do you work for?”
“Your sister.”
“She’s not my sister,” Bo lied as soon as the words left her mouth. Weeks of harassment from other Mandalorians upon first glance at Bo’s shoulder pauldron had incited a near automatic response from her. If the other woman noticed her bluff, she didn’t show it.
Bo stopped a pace she didn’t realize she was walking around in and turned to face the prisoner. “And you worked in the Great Forge?”
“You know that much already.”
Ignoring the comment, Bo continued. “What were you planning on making with three hundred pounds of beskar?”
“A government commissioned project.”
The other woman took Bo’s loathed silence as a chance to stab her own question. “You won’t even ask my name?”
Bo set her jaw. “Don’t need to know it.”
Bo expected the woman to share it anyway. She didn’t.
“Good,” the woman tacked on.
Another odd detail of hers. Bo just added it to the growing list and went through last night's plan for a stubborn prisoner.
“Don’t change the subject. Three hundred pounds of beskar…? What sort of government project is this?”
The other woman offered no response. She stared up at Bo, silent and posture straight.
Bo sighed and thumbed the blaster on her holster. “Listen. I am one of the nicer ones. I’m not looking forward to seeing you carved up and half-dead next time I come by. And believe me when I say that they will not hesitate.” Bo threw a quick glance at the tent window, fashioned from a quick slash of a knife in the fabric. “Do us both a favor here.”
Silence.
Bo stared at the prisoner. She stared back. Her steeled gaze and the brooding golden helmet was starting to unease her.
In the early and even morning light, Bo could more clearly see the careful ridges in her helmet, the rich scarlet color in her armor, the cape carefully arranged across her back. The mark of an artist. Everything about her exuded detail and marksmanship.
All except for the stark splatters of dark mud that cracked over and stained her flightsuit. Bo didn’t know why the sight of it made her feel a twinge of unease: a work of art tarnished.
Only the light sound of the grating wind outside cut through the quiet. The other woman did not speak more. She turned to face forward, toward the door.
Bo knew she wouldn't get anything more from her today. She left the tent with more questions than answers.
—-----
“What did you do with my beskar?”
Bo looked up from where she was standing in the tent. It was the first thing the other woman had said during today’s entire interrogation.
The last thing Bo expected this chained-up prisoner to be worried about was a bunch of metal. She smiled under her helmet.
“Listen—” Bo started, fumbling for a name and remembering she didn’t have one for her. “—Vevut’ika, as I've already mentioned, we've taken it all. I’ve been meaning to thank you for your contributions to the Death Watch armory.”
The other woman— The Armorer, Bo mentally labeled her for lack of a better name— stared back up at her. If it was possible to glare through a helmet, she was doing it.
She didn’t say much for the rest of the day.
—-----
The prisoner is a woman of few words. Bo learns that over the course of their meetings. It’d be hard not to, when the only response she provided to most questions these days was “I am an Armorer.”
So that’s what Bo began to call her. It became the unofficial-official name in the Death Watch records, and to Vizsla, and to Bo.
“--the Armorer this week, ask her about the–”
“New intel from the Armorer, apparently–”
“--of prisoner 0452-9, known as the Armorer–”
“--and when asked, the Armorer only–”
For a while, it was odd. To call someone only by their job title. But soon enough it’s a familiar word to Bo, synonymous with the golden-helmeted woman sitting in the solitary tent across their camp.
Ar-mor-er.
Bo hardly realized how familiar the term had become until the woman herself pointed it out.
“The Armorer?” the prisoner repeated. “Uh-huh,” Bo said, at her spot on the stool across from her, absently picking dirt off a dagger. “Since you didn’t seem to offer any alternative.”
She didn’t object to that. And, as Bo guessed correctly, she didn’t give a substitute. “I'm not even a true armorer. Technically, I'm still an apprentice.” “And I’m technically supposed to be interrogating you. Speaking of which, what’s your pay like on Mandalore?”
“Thinking of a move?” the Armorer mused. Seemed like she was getting comfortable enough for sarcasm. “No,” Bo said, scrunching her nose.
“I don’t even know yours.”
The tone in her voice told Bo she wasn’t talking about salaries. She paused in her polishing and glanced up. “What, my name?”
A deliberate nod from the Armorer.
Bo scoffed. “Well. You can call me ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am.’”
The Armorer said nothing to that. She shifted in her chains, sending sunlight glinting off her helmet.
Her armor really was impressive. She’d have to ask her about it one day. On a strictly interrogative basis.
Bo realized her mind was wandering and pointedly cleared her throat. “So. When did you become a forger?”
“All forgers are born with the heart for it; the passion. I was always fated to become one.”
“Drop the poetry,” Bo said with a mild snarl. “When did you start your apprenticeship?”
The Armorer shifted in her spot. “I thought you were supposed to be asking me about the beskar, not my life.”
Bo stilled. She was right. Why was she asking this sort of question, anyway?
“Just getting the full picture,” she came up with, hopefully with an air of confidence. “Need all the details.”
“All the details,” the Armorer repeated drily.
Bo squinted at her. “Yes. All of them. So, go on.”
She did.
—--
The walls of Bo’s tent were thick enough to shield from the biting wind, but not enough to drown out the noise of the other Mandalorians.
Today they were celebrating something. Another successful attack on Mandalore. Bo didn’t exactly know what it was; they never told her anything. Something about Sundari and a fire and a courthouse.
She heard the distant clinking of glasses and laughter that echoed through the frozen tundra as she laid in her cot, staring up at the fabric of her tent.
Yes, they never told her anything, and Bo didn’t ever ask, but she couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting.
She could go out right now and join the others. If she wanted to. But they wouldn’t talk to her at all, wouldn’t even look at her except to shoot an annoyed look anytime she’d come near, like she was some sort of bug that had flitted into camp.
So as Bo laid in her cot, closing her eyes to the sound of the echoing chatter and mirth, she thought of how funny it was that the only other person probably doing the same was the Armorer.
—--
The next morning when she saw the Armorer, she thought, shit.
Bo had pulled up the fabric of the tent door and stepped inside with a sarcastic greeting at the ready, but when she saw the other woman, it immediately died on her tongue.
Someone had visited overnight.
If Bo thought the mud put a spoil on the Armorer’s armor before, it was ruined now.
Her perfect golden armor was edged in blood, her flightsuit covered with it, entire body slumped over slightly with her helmet hanging low.
Bo was grateful for her own helmet that covered the shock surely showing on her face. She dropped the fabric of the tent door behind her, and stood uneasily a few steps from the Armorer, who slowly angled up to face her.
“Your friends were here yesterday,” she said thickly. “You’re right, they didn’t hesitate.”
“I—What?”
The Armorer let out a light wheeze, either a laugh or from pure exhaustion. “They tried to see what I knew.”
Bo knew the rest. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I didn’t tell them to do that. I didn’t know. I’m-“ She cut herself off. What she was going to say was, I’m sorry. Bo pressed her lips together and tried again. “They weren’t supposed to be here.”
“Is that pity? What, isn’t this what you wanted?” The Armorer asked, and in too pleasant a voice when considering her current position. A drop of blood ran along the bottom of her helmet and dripped onto the floor.
Bo couldn’t take her eyes off of it. Her fists clenched at her sides, she replied curtly, “I’m not– Yes. No. I— No, I’m just pissed they did this without telling me.”
When the Armorer didn’t respond, Bo stared back up at her and snapped, “Don’t think I put them up to this.”
“I believe you just fine.”
Uncertainty filled Bo. She didn’t quite know what to do at the moment. Or what to feel, for that matter. Anger for the other Mandalorians, for roughing up her prisoner behind her back. A mix of pity for the Armorer.
Bo stood and wrung her hands behind her back as she watched the Armorer shift in her chains.
It was beyond odd to see the perfect metal in this state. A royal set of armor smudged and caked in blood; even Bo could see the irony in it.
Bo almost went and offered to get her a medpack. She bit her tongue for it.
“Are you really from Mandalore?” Bo asked against her better judgement.
The Armorer looked back up at her for a moment, before back down at her dirtied gloves. “I think you already know that much,” she said, rubbing some of the caked grime and blood off of her hands.
At the sight of her armor again, Bo couldn’t help but blurt the question that had been spinning in her mind for a while now.
“Can you tell me what it’s like?”
The Armorer paused. Glanced up. “What it’s—?” She trailed off. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Mandalore. What is it like these days?” This time, Bo couldn’t keep the quiet desperation out of her voice.
The Armorer continued her stare up at Bo.
Carefully, she began to talk.
“The Great Forge had new stained glass installed two weeks ago. The graduating class of Sundari had its ceremony recently. The festival of Gotal'ur was… well, yesterday,” she said, like she’d just remembered. She kept her voice steady, but with an odd sort of wistfulness about it. “I was supposed to have a table.”
She paused for a moment before continuing. And Bo felt like she wouldn’t be able to move her feet even if she wanted to. It’d been so long since she’d seen the domes of Sundari.
“Mandalore is prospering under the Duchess. Of course, except for the Death Watch attacks,” the Armorer said, as if she weren’t talking to who she was.
She resumed her thumbing with the chains that wrapped around her wrists. “They bombed a park some weeks ago. Did you hear?”
(Yes.)
“No.”
“A shadow fell on Mandalore that day. To target a park…” the Armorer’s voice splintered off into silence.
“I didn’t know.”
(I was there.)
The Armorer looked up almost apologetically. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”
(I stepped off the ship. I gave them all their guns. I heard an explosion. Then another. I couldn’t find my balance from all the shaking.)
“I remember the day,” the Armorer went on. “I was on the way to my afternoon lessons.”
(I just stared at the smoke. I watched the ash flakes stain my armor. I heard everyone’s wet sobs ring through my ears. I heard the laughter of the others.)
“I heard a sound. Then there was the smoke. I ran.”
(I thought I saw blood on the park tiles. I looked away quickly so I could forget it sooner. I watched as they chained a woman in golden armor.)
“That was my last day on Mandalore,” the Armorer said quietly.
Bo looked up with a question on her tongue.
(I mumbled something to the Death Watch Mandalorian next to me, Pre Vizsla:)
“I thought we didn’t take prisoners.”
(“I thought we didn’t take prisoners?”)
She didn’t answer.
(He didn’t answer.)
(Another explosion rang out.)
Bo left the tent without another word, her leather gloves creaking audibly as she clenched her fists and breezed out of the tent with tears stinging her eyes.
—--
It was raining slightly when she stepped outside. She tore off the helmet and found her face hot and wet with tears she didn’t really notice were falling.
The Armorer didn’t get to make her all this worked up for something she thought she was done thinking about.
Bo thought she’d never have to think of that day at the park again.
She’d joined Death Watch because she loved Mandalore. Because she wanted to hang on to the last bit of herself that was still clear. She convinced herself every day that this was what she wanted.
But every day, also, it clawed at her. She wished she could go back. Way back. When everything was just okay and Bo didn’t have to interrogate prisoners or equip terrorists that bombed parks.
Back, way back, when all she did was play dolls with Satine in their childhood home. Back, with sunlight that filtered through the tall stained glass windows adorned with pictures of Mando’ade history that Bo could never tear her eyes from.
Back home where instead of flimsy tent walls was a familiar and warm home. Where instead of the glaring looks Bo winced away from all day were soft smiles and faces of pride from her father.
The rain kept coming down, splaying her wet hair across her face and sending water running down her armor. Bo stared down at the black visor of her helmet.
But now her father is dead. And Death Watch bombed most of the Kryze home into dust years ago.
Bo put on her helmet.
—--
She swore she would never come back. Not after last night. She would march up to Vizslas tent and tell him the prisoner is hopeless, uncooperating, and they should just dump her at sunrise.
She found herself sitting on a dingy stool across from the Armorer the next day anyway.
She never did go to Vizsla, instead staring at the door flap of his tent at night before going back to her own shelter with a grimace.
“I didn’t think you would come back,” the Armorer said eventually.
Bo huffed a laugh. “Can’t get rid of me that quickly.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Sure,” she hummed. “Where’d we leave off last time? Your apprenticeship at the Forge?”
The Armorer said nothing.
Bo gave a small pause before asking her next question. “How long have you been apprenticing for?” “Seven years.” Bo practically tumbled off her stool. She cleared her throat. “Sorry? Seven–?”
“Yes. For seven years I have been training in the art of metal,” she said.
“Seems like a long time. And yet you’re still an apprentice. You never get tired of it?” The Armorer threw up a glance. “Maybe to restless Mandalorian terrorist organizations it seems like a while. But I wouldn’t expect a group like that to understand.” Bo sent a glare to the Armorer she hoped she could feel through the helmet.
“Speaking of which,” the Armorer continued, moving to look at her chains. “I thought they’d be torturing me by now. Why aren’t you?”
Bo noticed that this happened often— the Armorer would twist their conversation and ask questions of her own.
She sighed and answered anyway, as she always did. “Maybe because I’m the only one assigned to you, so what I say goes. And I say, you haven’t been annoying enough to warrant that.”
A pause.
“It’s only you?” the Armorer repeated in an odd tone of voice.
“Yes,” Bo squinted at her. “Just me.”
“Bo Katan-Kryze joined Death Watch just two months ago, if I remember correctly.”
(Two months, four days since she’d left Mandalore. But who’s counting?)
“You are.”
“So how can it be–” “Listen,” Bo cut off. She knew where this was heading. “Maybe they just like me. Maybe I’m good at my job. Maybe I’ve got a good head on my shoulders and I understand the– the hypocrisy of Sundari.”
“And maybe you’re fooling yourself. You haven’t stopped to ask what they’re really up to?”
“Listen,” Bo interrupted smoothly. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about me. Your job is to sit here and answer my questions.”
“Then why do you answer mine?”
Bo almost, almost responds.
And there it was again— the Armorers' hidden little talent of being able to turn the conversation any way she pleased. She was the one chained to the floor, the one stripped of any weapons, the prisoner, and yet she was able to slam any question she wanted at Bo and leave her reeling.
Bo propped her elbows on her knees and sent a glare to the Armorer she hoped she could feel through the helmet. It wasn’t her best work.
“Listen. Enough with the questions. I don’t… I don’t want you killed. The sooner I get the intel I need from you, the sooner you can go back home.” She was aiming for a balance between honesty and insistence.
A long pause. The Armorer just loved dragging them on.
“We both know,” the Armorer said, finally, in a tone almost too casual, “that they will never let me leave here alive.”
Bo fixed a look down to her hands. She doesn’t really know what to say: a feeling that'd been happening a lot these days. She thought about the two of them, how branched they were from each other and yet so similar.
They have the same calloused hands, but while Bo’s were from a grip on a rifle, the Armorer’s were from a scorching furnace.
“What a pair we are, huh?” she said bitterly. Mostly to herself.
The Armorer didn’t even get to respond before Bo left the tent, and, like every time, with a whole lot left unsaid.
—--
Bo curtly avoided the solitary tent the next day. She needed some time to herself.
She always set some time aside in the morning to polish her armor, wiping down every ridge and surface with a rag while seated on her cot.
She was staring down at the visor of her helmet, cloth in hand, when a cold wind breezed through her tent and she looked up to find the ever-smug face of Pre Vizsla.
“Sir,” she said, already standing up.
“Please. Sit,” he countered, and she did. He remained standing, a thin smile playing on his face. “How goes work with the prisoner?”
Foul, she wanted to say. She pursed her lips instead and said, “Making good progress.”
“Really? What’s she shared?”
She glanced up at him unsurely for just a moment before responding. “She’s a forger for the Duchess, like you said. Works at the Great Forge on Mandalore. Weapons and armor.”
Something about saying all of that felt like a betrayal. She forced her gaze back down at her helmet and resumed her polishing.
She could also tell it’s not as much as he wanted to hear. Bo quickly thumbed through her memory, for anything else she could tack on.
“She was working on something for the Duchess before her capture— Something important.”
“Right. Well. Figure it out.”
He turned for the entrance before Bo quickly remembered something.
“Wait. Sir.”
A pause, and he stepped back to face Bo. He hummed for her to go on.
“Did you— order somebody else to go and talk to her? A couple days ago?”
Vizsla sucked in a breath and smiled. “Yes, I did. I heard things were going slow for you, so I thought I’d set up a little catalyst. Just to speed things up.”
“You didn’t tell me,” she said back, actively keeping the anger from her voice.
“I did you a favor,” Vizsla said, palms up. “Hope it worked. You’re welcome.”
Bo furrowed a brow at that. But Vizsla just maintained his smirk.
“Bo, you’re doing good work. Honest. Just, speed things up a bit, no?” He tapped a foot. “Don’t really feel like having to dump another body. Frozen tundra. Doesn’t cover up well.”
Bo stiffened. “You said you wouldn’t kill her.”
“And I won’t. Not unless she stops telling us what we want to know,” he said, eyeing her modest tent of a room. He ran a hand along her makeshift desk. “Though, if it ever comes to that, you’d tell me. And then you’d take care of it. Right?”
She forced herself to meet his gaze, hand tight around the rag. “Of course.”
----
Bo usually sat in her customary stool within the solitary tent, but today she chose the floor, sitting cross-legged and eye level with the Armorer.
She gestured to the stack of food trays that had been haphazardly piled in a corner of the tent. “They feed you well?”
The Armorer’s gaze shifted from the trays to Bo. “Yes,” she answered slowly, her voice catching a guarded tone, as if it was some sort of trick question. Bo hated the fact that she thought it was.
She was never around when the meals were brought in. To be honest, she planned her visits around them, since seeing the Armorer’s face would be jarring at this point in time.
The thought struck a question to Bo.
“Just now realizing I’ve never seen your face.”
“And I, yours,” she mused back from her spot on the floor.
Bo tapped her finger on her foot and thought for a moment. She pulled her helmet off with a faint hiss and set it by her feet.
“Since we’re getting to know one another so well,” she said with a bite of sarcasm.
“I won’t do the same, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I know,” Bo said, and she meant it. That wasn’t ever her goal. “Can you tell me more about Mandalore?”
And, as always, she did. It didn’t matter that most of what she said had nothing to do with forging– Bo did not interrupt.
—--
Bo was tired. No— exhausted. The sort of tiredness that seeps into the bones, where it feels as though you’ve been covered in a thick blanket and forced to keep moving. The sort of tiredness where keeping your head up is the only thing you can think about.
Bo hadn’t slept in a good week and hadn’t seen the Armorer in two.
Death Watch’s last illegal weapons shipment had arrived faulty, and the under-the-table deal made it impossible to track the shipper down for a return. Being left with twenty crates of dead guns was not acceptable for a group of people like Mandalorians.
Bo was the one who had spent hours finding a fix for them; a vain attempt to put herself on Vizsla’s good side. It proved to be a successful mistake; the repair worked, but she found herself with crates of broken guns dumped on her desk, a tight deadline, and everyone's daggered glares.
Lesson learned and lesson earned, she told herself somewhere between crate nine and ten.
Vizsla arrived at her tent while she was working through crate eighteen. She expected a pat on the pack for her dedication, a pleased smile for her ingenuity.
All she got was a yelling-at for neglecting the interrogation of the prisoner. She was expected to keep a balance.
And so, with dark circles under her eyes and a killer headache, Bo trudged to the solitary tent.
It was pitch black outside, the stars shining through like pinpricks in the night sky. She swayed a bit as she stood in the doorway of the tent she didn’t remember making the walk to. She was so tired it hurt. Her gloves were still smudged in oil and cramped from spending the day repairing rifles.
The tent’s interior was dark, save for a lantern's soft glow. The Armorer was still awake, and with a dingy tray lying beside her, it seemed she had just finished eating. The Armorer, helmet reflecting the light, gazed up at Bo from where she sat.
“It’s the middle of the night,” her voice held a flat note.
Bo blinked the spots from her eyes, all at once realizing that she wasn’t wearing her helmet. “Oh.”
The Armorer tilted her helmet curiously. Bo pinched the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t realize.”
The Armorer’s voice took on an odd tone, somewhere between confusion and concern. “Are you alright?”
“What?” Bo snapped. “Yes. I’m fine. Just— Just wanted to make sure you weren’t up to anything.”
The Armorer raised her chained wrists in silent response. Bo squinted at her and sighed.
She was too tired for this. Everything was hazy and slow. It couldn’t hurt to sit down for a moment.
“I’m going to just,” she said, exhaustion weighing on her as she sat down across the Armorer and leaned across the wall, “sit down and watch you here. For a while.”
“Alright.”
Bo tried to shoot a glare at the Armorer. But with her heavy eyelids she knew it wasn’t getting through.
“Rough day?” the Armorer asked.
Bo didn’t even have the energy to form a half decent lie. “You could say that.”
She sat blinking the sting away from her eyes and flexing her cramped hands.
The Armorer watched Bo for a moment before peering up through the tent's ceiling cut. Noticing the Armorer's shift, Bo also looked up to the star-studded sky.
The cut was supposed to be used as an opening for smoke from cooking fires, but here it served as a decent skylight.
“No rain. Stars are out tonight,” the Armorer noted.
Bo also looked up to the inky sky, dotted with stars, some bright and some dim. The one good thing about this rural iceball of a planet was that the stars were almost always visible. A rare solace on the otherwise dull planet.
“Do you know your constellations?” The Armorer’s voice was soft.
Bo slowly shook her head no.
“Canis Major is that group of bright stars there. Eight of them. Follow Sorene, to Wezen, and Aludra.”
Bo stared out of the skylight. To the stars.
She never really cared for constellations. But with the Armorer’s voice going all soft, and Bo’s mind thick with exhaustion, she squinted and gave it a shot. With her shaky grasp on astrology and her heavy eyes, Bo traced the outline of the shape in her mind.
“What’s it s’pposed to be?” she asked.
“A watchdog. Mandalore the First was said to have used it to find his way home in his exile.”
“Huh.”
For a few minutes they sat in silence, transfixed by the lights up above.
“How d’you know so much about the stars?” Bo asked drowsily, continuing to stare out at the night sky.
A pause.
“Not much else to do here.”
They both left it at that.
Bo felt her eyelids grow heavier as she watched the sky, a comforting silence enveloping them. No interrogating, no demanding. Just silence.
And in that quiet stretch of time, with nothing but the cool air and the light of the lantern and stars, a sad truth uncloaked itself:
Bo was horribly, sickeningly lonely.
It was the truth. She didn’t know anybody else in the camp, not really. She spent a lot of time in her own thoughts. She wouldn’t talk to anybody in Death Watch for days at a time, until she would say a word or two again and realized how dry her throat had gotten and how much she’d almost forgotten to speak.
So, yes, the solitary tent became a sort of solace for Bo. The opposite of solitary. It was an embarrassing thought, admitting that she had found comfort in this strange and silent something she had with the Armorer, but it stuck nonetheless.
And she wouldn’t say so, not out loud, but in moments like these, she’d think about how it was almost nice to finally have someone to talk to.
It felt good, to have a conversation with someone about something other than attacks and guns and bombs.
Bo blinked over to look at the Armorer, leaned back and quietly watching the night.
Maybe she was getting too comfortable in her own thoughts.
Bo’s sluggish thoughts blurred together as she drifted off to sleep, watching not the stars up in the sky, but the ones reflected in the metal of the Armorer’s armor.
—--
Bo jolted awake with a sharp inhale, and the first thing she felt was the cool air on her skin. The second was the morning light streaming in from the windows.
She blinked around her surroundings as she heard the Armorer’s voice, reminding her where she was.
“Sleep well?” the Armorer mused, up and awake as always.
Bo quickly scrambled to her feet. “Fierfek,” she cursed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Seemed like you needed the rest.”
“You don’t get to—”
At that moment, the door flaps of the tent breezed open and Bo whipped around to face them. A Death Watch Mandalorian stood there, mild surprise etching his face, carrying a meager meal tray.
“Er. Bo-Katan,” he managed to say after finding his voice. “It’s, like, six in the…”
Bo set her jaw. “Just wanted a head start. You can leave now.”
Without so much as another nod, he set the food down on a crate and dashed out of the tent.
The Armorer's voice held a lilt of a smile. "...'Bo-Katan'?"
Something about hearing her name coming from the Armorer sent a weird feeling up Bo’s spine. She spun around and jabbed a finger in her direction. “Don’t.”
“So you are a Kryze sister.”
Picking up the tray, Bo stepped over to the Armorer with a scoff. “You finally figured it out. Good on you.”
“No, I’ve known. But I had wanted to hear it from you.”
The tray smacked to the floor. “Yes. I’m Bo-Katan Kryze,” she said sharply. “I ran away, I joined Death Watch. And now you’re going to eat your slop so you can tell me all about your work on Mandalore.”
A suitable tone for an interrogator, but jarring coming from Bo. Especially considering the past few shared weeks.
A silence stretched before the Armorer picked up a fork and looked up to Bo.
And so, she swept out of the tent, stopping out of pure muscle memory to grab her helmet before remembering that she didn’t bring it. She realized her bare face had a considerable flush of warmth on it.
Shaking her head, Bo walked a little ways away from the solitary tent and leaned against a tree, sliding down to take a breather. The morning air was crisp and cool on her face, the meager patches of grass wet with the early dew.
Her proper night of sleep left her feeling more refreshed than she had been in ages— But in the solitary tent of all places?
The Armorer had very likely watched as Bo slept soundly. The realization gave Bo a stupidly warm feeling that took a moment longer than comfortable to shake.
Would the Armorer call her by her first name now? She wasn't sure how to feel about that. Although—
“Kryze.”
The voice of Pre Vizsla jolted her back to the present as she snapped back to reality, suddenly realizing how lost in thought she was.
She stood up and swiftly clasped her hands behind her back.
“Pretty early for an interrogation, no?” he asked, nodding over to the tent.
“Well. Just wanted a head start,” she echoed.
“Lots of those recently. What’s your take on her?”
An expected question. Bo blinked. “She’s been… useful. She knows a good amount about the inner workings of the Mandalore armory, and their blacksmithing procedures. I’m thinking we could look into studying—“
Lifting a hand, Vizsla cut her off mid-sentence. “No, I mean, what do you think of her?”
“Of her?” Another curveball. Bo bit her lip. “She’s… a piece of work. Stubborn, but otherwise decently cooperative.”
A short hum from Vizsla. Where was he going with this? To him, a prisoner was just a means of getting intel. He would never bother getting to know anything more about the Armorer. Because to him, that’s all she was— an Armorer.
“And how do you think she stood back home in Sundari?”
Bo combed through her memory of their last couple of conversations. “She was a good apprentice. Had the skills and the merit. Met with the prime minister on a few occasions.”
“So they must’ve probably realized that their beloved blacksmithing student has gone missing. What’s it been, a month?”
A month, a week and three days, Bo didn’t say. That day at the park didn’t slip from her mind easily. “About so. You haven’t received a message from anyone on Mandalore, I’m guessing?”
“No,” he said tightly. “Bastards probably think we killed her already. Would be a moot point to reach out.”
Bo couldn’t blame them for the assumption.
But the news brought a sinking feeling in her gut. A prisoner with no new information and nobody paying for her return was just dead weight. A dead weight that the Death Watch wouldn’t hesitate to dump.
Though, that wasn’t anything new to Bo. Why did it bother her so much this time?
Vizsla was equally sunken in thought, though probably for very different reasons.
He thumbed through a side pocket and pulled out a recording holo. “Alright. Here’s what we’ll do. More specifically, you. Take this, make her record a little hello to her friends in Sundari. Make sure they know she’s alive, and will be, so long as we get a nice payment. Leave the amount vague, I want to bait a response.”
She stared at the device being held out to her.
“A ransom?” she asked.
“Yes,” Vizsla said with a frown. At Bo’s continued silence, he grabbed her hand and dropped the device in her palm. “By today.”
At that, he turned and left. Bo watched as he ducked into his private tent and disappeared.
Left alone, Bo turned the recording holo over in her hands and chewed her lip.
Recording a ransom note for the Armorer, with the Armorer. Bo couldn’t help but think of it as a disloyalty to the woman, the only other person she really spoke to. A prisoner, any less.
Her gaze flickered back to the solitary tent, then up to the sky. The last of the stars from last night had blinked out of sight and joined the smooth light of the early morning.
Canis Major, Bo thought vaguely, and headed toward the tent.
—--