Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Obi-Wan, you need to eat,” Nield said. Well, whispered. Everyone whispered to reduce the chances of Elders finding their hiding place in the sewers.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “The babbies need the food more,” he said. “It’s harder to scavenge now that it’s winter. Besides, I have the Force. I don’t need as much food.”

“But you still need some, I’m betting. You haven’t eaten in four days. As the medic, I’m putting my foot down.” Khiyosh was firm.

Obi-Wan grumbled but took one of the rodents they had killed - there was no shortage of them in the sewers, even after the water system had broken down - and poked several holes in it with a knife before sticking it in a scavenged nanowave. It had been one of their better finds, and paired with scavenged solar panels they didn’t have to worry about the smoke from a fire betraying their location. While the solar panels aboveground might give away their location, they were much less noticeable than a pillar of smoke. Also, Obi-Wan seemed to have inadvertently placed a Force Suggestion around the panels of nothing to see here. Obi-Wan only wished that they could have more food stores than they did, but the rodent meat went bad within several days without any freezing.

Maybe they would find a cooling supply unit somewhere?

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you took the smallest one,” muttered Cerasi.

“I think I’m going to go on a food run tonight,” said Obi-Wan. “I can carry more with me since I use the Force to levitate more bags than I could otherwise carry and the Force might point me to where to get food.”

“If any even exists on this miserable planet, that is,” Nield added, huffing.

A Young not much older than a Babby came up to Obi-Wan and tugged on his robes. “Obi, can you tell me a story?” Besa whispered.

Obi-Wan felt a pang through his heart that even a child as young as Besa was knew to whisper for fear of death.

How could Qui-Gon have left them?

“Sure,” he whispered back, and began to tell a story from the creche. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose grandmother loved her and gave her a red cap. She wore it all the time and became known as Little Red Riding Hood…”

***

After the sun set, Obi-Wan, Mawat, and Joli snuck outside the city to the countryside. They luckily did not encounter any Elders, and made it nearly to where Mawat said there would be berries that grew in winter with only one minor incident. Joli had gotten startled by a noise and used his sling to kill a squirrel-like animal.

“I thought it was an Elder,” Joli said as Obi-Wan and Mawat tried to calm their racing hearts.

“Well if it had been you would have just announced our location, genius,” sneered Mawat, before sighing as Joli picked up the animal and put it in his bag. “More meat won’t hurt, I guess,” he said. “I also set a couple of traps by the berries so I’m going to check those while you two pick the berries. We should be coming up on the location in about half a klick.”

Obi-Wan nodded, scanning the area for any Elders. The three boys were walking as fast as they could while remaining low to the ground, and Obi-Wan paused as the Force nudged him. “We should go that way,” he said, pointing to an area around the eight-o-clock position to where they were facing.”

Mawat frowned. “It’s out of the way, Obi-Wan.”

“Not that far - I think we just need to go less than half a klick. It’s only a short detour and the Force wants me to go there.”

“Fine!” Mawat said. “But if we die, then it’s your fault.”

Twenty minutes later, they were standing on top of what looked like a area filled with shrubs and several boulders. “There’s nothing here,” said Joli.

Obi-Wan held out his hand and one of the boulders lifted to reveal what looked like a bunker door.

Mawat stared. “Maybe your magic was actually onto something, then,” he muttered as he pushed the door open.

The area inside was small, but well stocked. If one ignored the skeleton rotting on the floor, it was a miraculous find.

“There’s a cooling supply unit!” Joli said, pointing at a box that was roughly a cubic meter. What was inside was long spoiled, but the unit itself was as precious as gold.

“And bacta!” Obi-Wan breathed. There were only a dozen bacta bandages in the first aid kit, along with long-expired antibiotics. But Obi-Wan hadn’t even known any bacta was left on the planet. There were even some painkillers that, while they had expired, the Force wasn’t warning him against like it was the antibiotics.

“Weapons, too,” said Mawat. “Some knives and blasters. Sorry for doubting you, Obi-Wan.”

They stuck the bacta, and weapons in the newly emptied cooling supply unit before scanning the bunker for any other useful items. There was a map, some extra canisters of tibanna gas, and a bunch of water bottles, which they also tossed in.

“How did they get all of this?” Joli asked.

Obi-Wan was paging through a journal written on flimsi. “From some poor bastard who crashed on the planet, apparently,” he said.

“Who crashed? A bounty hunter?” muttered Mawat, poking at a roll of fabric. “Is that armorweave?” he asked incredulously.

Obi-Wan looked at it more closely. “I don’t think so,” he said finally. “Armorweave is stiffer. But it could still be useful; let’s shove it in the cooling supply unit.”

By now, the unit was growing full, so they shoved a blanket in it and closed it before Obi-Wan levitated it with the Force. Size matters not, Yoda had always said. It was still bigger than most of the things he had tried to levitate before.

“So should we take this back before we go on the food run?” Obi-Wan asked them.

Mawat nodded. “If we die on the food run then the Young should still get these supplies.”

***

“Well, you may not have come back with any food besides the nut-rat that Joli killed, but this is a great haul,” Nield said, whistling lowly. “We’ll give the blanket to Elia,” he continued. “She always gets so cold at night. And I’ll give the medical supplies to Khiyosh. And Yura can probably make clothes from the cloth. You three should probably get going for food before it gets light.”

Obi-Wan nodded and they set off, going at as fast a pace as they could. Joli managed to kill another nut-rat, as did Obi-Wan, before they managed to reach the berries. There were several bushes with purplish berries on them, as well as trees with bigger yellow fruit.

As Mawat checked his traps, Obi-Wan used the Force to pick the fruit on the trees while Joli picked the berries on the bushes. Mawat had gotten a young Grove-Deer in one of his traps, which could likely feed the Young for quite a while now that they had the means to freeze meat. Unfortunately that was also the only trap that had sprung. Obi-Wan concentrated and lifted the deer and his bags of fruit and berries with the Force and the three boys returned to the sewers just as the sun rose once more.

Obi-Wan went to lie down to sleep, but kept finding himself overthinking everything. When he had joined the Young, he had thought he might be able to make a difference. He was a Jedi, and Knights and Masters were often sent to try to stop wars. He was a Padawan that had almost washed out, yes, but surely he would be a help to the Young?

He had helped. Just not as much as he had hoped. Not enough. Obi-Wan was able to help strategize. He was able to use the Force to help the Young fight.

But he couldn’t make food appear out of thin air. He couldn’t conjure bacta, or clean drinking water, or antibiotics. He couldn’t save the Young who died from their wounds, from infection, from starvation, or from illness.

Yes, the materials they had found in the bunker earlier would help. For a time. Then it would go back to how it was before, with the members of the Young slowly starving as they fought off two stronger, more experienced, more well-equipped armies.

Obi-Wan had long since stopped hoping the Jedi would come back.

He wasn’t a Jedi anymore, after all. Obi-Wan knew it was the right choice to make. He couldn’t leave them to die by themselves, when they were fighting for peace and for their own future.

He still didn’t understand how Qui-Gon could have left them. Weren’t the Jedi meant to help people like the Young?

It figured that the one time Qui-Gon followed the mandate of a mission would be when Tahl had been in danger.

And Obi-Wan didn’t begrudge Qui-Gon from saving Tahl. But couldn’t he have called another fighter? Or come back with the one they had been using? How could Qui-Gon look at an army of children, most of them not even old enough to be Padawans, and leave them to their fates?

For someone so connected to the Living Force, you would think Qui-Gon would have noticed their plight.

Or he did notice, and just didn’t care. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what was worse. Obi-Wan had wanted to become a Jedi Knight for as long as he could remember, because Jedi Knights helped people at their own expense. Qui-Gon had noticed that determination when Obi-Wan offered to blow his collar to let them escape.

From what he knew of Tahl, she was also self-sacrificing. Obi-Wan wondered if, had Tahl been conscious, that day where he had been stranded on this wartorn planet would have worked out the same.

Obi-Wan didn’t think so. He had a suspicion that Tahl, like any good Jedi, would have seen the plight of the Young and ignored her own well-being to help them. It would have delayed her getting medical help, yes, but that was a risk Jedi were prepared to take.

Qui-Gon knew that. So why had he abandoned the Young?

Why had he abandoned Obi-Wan?

Surely Tahl was awake by now. Surely both she and Qui-Gon had impressed upon the other Jedi the plight of the Young? The Council might ignore Qui-Gon, but surely they wouldn’t ignore Tahl, right?

Obi-Wan wondered what his friends were thinking. Quinlan was probably bugging Tholme to let him go and help Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan hoped that Quinlan stayed far, far, away from this planet, no matter how much he wanted to see his friend again. On a planet with this much violent history, so much as an accidental brush of the hand against an old tree, rock, or building could cause Quinlan to have a horrible reaction. It was bad enough for Obi-Wan seeing the present day suffering on Melida/Daan. He didn’t want Quinlan to have to see hundreds of years of fighting.

And Bant. Oh, Bant. She would be horrified at the conditions of the Young, at what little Khiyosh had to work with. No matter how much her presence here could help the Young, again, Obi-Wan wanted her to stay far away from this planet. If for no other reason than the lack of clean water. She would need to stay hydrated, and with as contaminated as the water was by years of war, she could fall ill to the pollutants rapidly.

He then thought about Garen. About Siri. And then wanted to cry as he realized once more that he would likely never see them again. And why hadn’t any of them come for him, or convinced the Masters to come? They knew how much Obi-Wan wanted to be a Jedi Knight. So surely his friends would realize just how serious the situation was if Obi-Wan had left the Jedi Order, right?

So why had nobody come?

He would die here, probably, at the hands of some Elder. Be buried in a hastily dug grave with the bodies of whichever other Young had fallen on that mission. He wouldn’t get a pyre. It was too risky to light a fire - the smoke would reveal their location. He’d be buried here, far away from the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan had known, when he had been determined to be a Jedi Knight, that he may someday die in the field. Jedi weren’t always sent on safe missions, after all.

But he had always pictured dying as a Jedi. Getting a pyre. He shoved that aside. The Young had welcomed him as one of their own, despite the fact that he wasn’t born here. It would do him no good to dwell on his past. He had to remain in the here and now. He may no longer be a Jedi, but he would still live as one as best as he could.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath and released his feelings into the Force as he tried to get to sleep. He might need less sleep than the others, but he had used the Force extensively earlier and therefore needed the rest. It was just that his mind wasn’t letting him.

After what seemed like ages, Obi-Wan finally fell asleep, which is why he missed the initial commotion of a Mandalorian ship arriving by Zehava.

Chapter Text

Jaster:

Jaster stretched as he got out of his desk chair after sitting in it for hours going over datawork. When he had become Mand’alor, nobody warned him just how much datawork would be involved. And of course his leg was now asleep, because of course it was. He rubbed the part of his leg not covered by his beskar’gam, trying to introduce some feeling back into his numb limb.

At least everything was going well. The slavers had stopped encroaching on Manda’lase, the Republic didn’t seem inclined to bomb them into haran again, Tarre had mostly rehabilitated his clan from the indoctrination of Kyr’tsad, and they had a thriving ecosystem again.

It still seemed surreal, whenever he left the planet, to see vast swathes of green along with the blue of oceans. He was used to seeing a vast barren landscape. A decade ago, anything else would have seemed like an impossibility. But the Haat’ade, together with the Vhett’jetiise, Kaminoans, Vexans, and many other groups had collaborated together to make the planet habitable again before reintroducing life to Manda’yaim.

A year ago, Jaster, Arla, and Jango had gone to visit a tropical island for several days. To Jaster, that island had always been a mountain in the middle of a desert. Now it was an island in the middle of an ocean. It was mind-boggling. The scientists hadn’t been able to perfectly recreate the island, as many of the species that had lived there were endemic, and their genetic code had not survived. But they filled it with the most closely related species they could, and had replaced the old coral reefs that had once surrounded the island. They had gone snorkeling, and Jaster’s mind kept having problems processing everything. He would be going about his day like normal when suddenly he remembered that a bit more than ten years earlier the whole planet had been a barren wasteland, and the sheer scope of what they had achieved was hard to comprehend.

With Manda’yaim acting as proof-of-concept, Jaster had given the go-ahead to try to rewild the other crippled planets in the sector. Rii Liss, Tarre’s Vhett’jetii friend, had been given the go-ahead from the Vhet’jetiise to stay in Manda’lase and had already written several papers about the process.

Jaster had glimpsed one of those papers and his head had swum. He knew the historical and scientific importance of what they had achieved, but that didn’t mean that Rii’s paper made any sense. Why couldn’t scientists write in plain basic? Basic was Jaster’s second language, but he was still fluent, and he was convinced that scientific papers were written in a completely different language.

What Jaster was able to understand was the historical importance. It was a momentous achievement, quite possibly one of the most complete revitalizations of a planet in galactic history. And Jaster had been the Mand’alor when it had happened. Jaster was ori’bajurla be ruyot, he knew the importance of primary sources. Therefore, he was adding to his library of published works by writing his memoirs, starting from when he was a Journeyman Protector on Concord Dawn. Hopefully future historians would find it useful. Jaster had been in charge, or at least present, for several very important events - the end of the Civil War, fighting Darth Plagueis, the banishment of the New Mandalorians, and the Revitalization of Manda’yaim. Jaster knew that the memoirs of a leader who had similar accomplishments would be a very valuable source for him, so he was writing down his own experiences.

It was a different sort of publication to what he had published before, but it would join his treatises on the attempted cultural genocide perpetrated by the New Mandalorians, the history of the New Sith Wars, and his treatise on the history of different coming of age rituals.

I never set out to become Mand’alor, he began. Somehow, though, I became Mand’alor anyway…

Tarre:

“You wanted to see us?” Jolin Vizsla asked. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with his dark hair falling free to frame his face. His armor sported silver and blue. Jolin was accompanied by his riduur, Cora, whose bright orange hair spoke of some non-human ancestry. Her armor was orange and purple, which shouldn’t have worked well together, but somehow did.

Dai and Vai Vizsla, a set of identical Zabrak twins, had also come. Tarre was only able to tell them apart by their presence in the Force, since they had painted their armor identically. They frequently took each other’s places and always seemed disappointed when Tarre could call them by their correct name. He hadn’t yet told them that he was using the Force to tell them apart, partly because their antics were legitimately amusing.

Tarre nodded in response to Jolin’s question. Jolin and Cora were formerly Kyr’tsad, but despite that had been rehabilitated enough that he would trust them to have his back. Dai and Vai were nineteen, and had therefore never participated in any fighting for Kyr’tsad. While Kyr’tsad may have abducted, indoctrinated, and trained ade, at the very least they hadn’t sent them out in combat.

Which was a very low bar, but small mercies.

“I have a job for us,” Tarre said, sending the file to their padds. “There’s been reports of criminals trying to build a shadowport on the asteroid Vergesso. King Veruna’s administration - of Naboo - wants us to capture them and shut down the building of the shadowport. They’re close enough that they don’t want the shadowport to become established. Pay looks good,” he continued. Tarre might not want to go to a planet that had unknowingly elected a Sith to the position of Senator, but he couldn’t blame the populace, which by all accounts was lovely, or King Veruna, who had only recently been elected.

Jolin looked through the file. “There’s not much detail here on how many criminals to expect to be there,” he noted.

“That’s probably because whoever sent the request was too much of a hut’uun to get close enough to find that out,” muttered Vai under his breath.

“Well, that’s what they’re paying us for,” said Dai, shoving his twin lightly, but then they both calmed down when Tarre turned towards them.

“So, to summarize, we’re going to Vergesso, capturing whoever is there, and delivering them to Naboo and leaving the Nubians to figure out the rest, ’lek?” Cora asked.

“According to the contract, yes,” said Tarre.

“Well then Oya!” said Cora. “I’ll go get my DL--44.”

Five hours later, the five of them were taking off from two separate ships, Tarre taking Vai and Dai in his ship and Cora and Jolin taking another larger ship with extensive brig space, since they didn’t know how many criminals they would be capturing.

“Does it look different than when you were born?” wondered Dai as they left the atmosphere. “Manda’yaim, I mean.”

Tarre finished entering the coordinates for the first jump to hyperspace before he answered. “We had enough records that we knew where the coastline used to be and where the forests were,” he finally said. “We were able to replicate the large scale things like that, so it looks pretty similar from orbit, not counting the memorial. But when you’re actually on planet, then you do notice some differences. It’s much better than when I first came to the future, though.”

“Our buireused to talk about how they’d get revenge on the Republic after they’d wiped out the dar’manda calling themselves Mando’ade. It didn’t seem entirely unreasonable. You know, when you looked at what the Republic had done,” said Dai. “I don’t think they ever could have imagined bringing it all back, though. They just wanted to see the Republic burn like we had.”

Left unsaid was that their buire had both been some of the Kyr’tsad members that had been unable to be rehabilitated.

“Most beliefs have a truth in them,” Tarre said. “It’s when you’re picking out the truth from the lies and the misdirections and exaggerations that you have to be careful.”

“Is that something you learned from the jetiise?” asked Vai. “Picking out truth from lies?”

“Well, having the Force certainly helps, although it isn’t foolproof,” said Tarre. “But no, I was a bit busy fighting the Sith to have any practice in diplomatic missions like today’s Jedi. I learned most of my lessons in politics as Mand’alor.”

“Why didn’t you take the position back?” Dai asked. “I mean, you just gave it up once you woke up - why is that?”

“Aside from the fact that I knew no Mando’ade of the present day? That I knew nothing of the situation in Manda’yaim or the wider galaxy? That Jaster was already serving quite capably in that position? That he’s a man I don’t mind following? That I was quite glad to give that headache to somebody else?”

Dai had a wide-eyed look on his face, like he had never before considered the drawbacks of being Mand’alor.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Tarre. “It’s an honor to be Mand’alor. And Mando’ade deserve to have someone honorable to swear to.If Jaster hadn’t been there, and the only choices were between Kyr’tsad and the New Mandalorians - I would have become Mand’alor again. But I didn’t have to, so instead I could focus on catching up on a thousand years of what I missed. I’m still Jaster’s second, though - if something happens to him, ka’ra forbid, then I’ll be Mand’alor again.”

Dai still looked dubious, but obviously didn’t want to argue with Tarre, so instead he turned to his twin. “Vergesso’s a couple days away by hyperspace, so I brought some entertainment for the flight there,” he said, pulling out a deck of cards and a bottle of tihaar. “Sabaac?”

“No,” said Vai quickly. Very quickly. “I am never playing sabaac ever again with a jetii, nu draar.”

Tarre hid a grin. “Were you playing with your buy’ce on?” he asked, chuckling.

“Nayc, I was eating while I was playing,” said Vai. “Why?”

“Because they would have been able to read your emotions without the beskar. It wouldn’t matter if you had a perfect sabaac face. But I’m different than most Jedi - I can sense emotions through beskar,” he added as Vai and Dai looked ready to put on their buy’cese. “We can play eyayah instead,” he said, pulling out two more decks of cards from a cabinet.

“I’ve never heard of that,” Dai said.

“It’s not played anymore?” Tarre asked, but didn’t give them time to answer, since he could tell the answer from the fact neither of them were familiar with what was in his time a fairly popular game.. “The rules are simple. Each of us has a deck of cards and in each round we all set the top card face up on the table from the top of our deck. Whenever the number is the same as another player’s, all those players say tat and whoever says it last gets all the matching cards. If the suit and the number matches, all the players - not just those with the matching cards - say eyayah and whoever says it last gets all the cards. Whoever gets rid of all of their cards first wins.”

Tarre won the first round, but Dai won the second as he started getting the hang of the game. Then Vai had the bright idea to make it a drinking game, and before long they were all getting tipsy, Tarre deciding not to filter the alcohol.

“I know - we should play would you rather!” said a drunk Dai. Vai nodded eagerly, then blinked as the motion appeared to make him dizzy.

Tarre shrugged. At least they seemed to be less wary around him now, although that may have been the alcohol.

“Would you rather … kiss a Hutt or a Rancor,” Dai slurred ten minutes later.

Tarre grimaced, wishing ‘neither’ was one of the options. “...A Hutt,” he finally decided. At least a Hutt was sapient.

The next morning - or what passed for morning in hyperspace - Dai and Vai were radiating misery in the Force. “Good morning!” Tarre said cheerfully, flipping on the lights in the small bunk on the ship, having filtered the alcohol out of his system with the Force before he went to bed.

“Not so loud,” groaned Dai.

“And can you turn off the lights?” mumbled Vai into his pillow, which he was attempting to block out the lights with.

“Nayc, rise and shine!” Tarre said brightly, before taking pity on them and speeding up the healing of their hangovers.

“Ah, so that’s how the jetiise do it,” Dai said, sounding like he had just had a major revelation. “You’re all cheating bastards.”

Last night’s game had accomplished its intended purpose, however - Dai and Vai were much less guarded and nervous around him, which was important when they were going to be going into a fight. If they were to guard each other’s backs, they couldn’t be nervous around their aliit’alor.

“Guess what I have,” Dai said, holding up a datastick. “The entire series of Briikasak be Beroya.”

“It went to osik after they made the third holofilm,” Vai sighed. “I don’t know why you still like it.”

“It’s still a good series!” Dai defended.

“You just like looking at Vara Rill,” muttered Vai. “And I don’t blame you, but one hot actress does not a good series make. The first holofilm is amazing. The second is okay. The third one and the ones after it reused all the jokes and plotlines.”

“What am I even watching?” muttered Tarre twenty minutes later as the beroya, hungover after a night drinking, opened the door to the hotel’s fresher to find a gundark in the bathtub. After realizing what was happening - which took a while - the beroya then quickly closed the door before turning to the drinking buddies - a Corellian, a Twi’lek (played by Vara Rill), and a Duros - that he had crashed in the hotel with the night before.

“There is a gundark in the bathroom!” the beroyasaid.

“You’re the Mando, you deal with it,” groaned the Corellian.

The holofilm was funny, though. Even if half the time Tarre had no clue what the haran he was watching.

***

“You four take them back to Naboo,” Tarre said after they had captured or killed all the criminals on Vergesso. There had been two dozen of them in all, but they had fallen relatively quickly against five Mando’ade.

“You’re not joining?” asked Jolin.

Tarre shook his head. “The Force is screaming at me,” he said. “I need to go to Melida/Daan, which is only a short distance away. You four go to Naboo in the bigger ship and then head back to Manda’yaim.”

Jolin nodded and they split up, Tarre punching in the coordinates for Melida/Daan and using the holonet to look up information. It had apparently been in a civil war for centuries, and a Jedi had recently been sent to negotiate peace. They failed.

There was no other information, and Tarre cursed. He hated going into a situation blind, especially when the Force was screaming at him.

He activated his shields as he landed outside the capital, and very quickly found what was happening on the planet. The Daan that approached his ship, blaster raised, was very talkative once she realized that he had just come from a bounty hunt.

She wanted him to hunt ade.

Ade that had gotten tired of the civil war and banded together to try to stop the fighting.

Ade that were being hunted and killed by their own families.

Ade. Ade. ADE.

Tarre felt sick.

Chapter Text

Tarre:

“Could you please repeat your request?” Tarre spoke slowly, and in a low voice. It would be apparent to anyone who knew him that he was barely holding back from killing the woman right there and then, but she seemed oblivious to his slowly mounting anger.

He released the anger into the Force, only for it to come rushing right back as soon as she opened her mouth. “The children are betraying their people! They should be honored to help defeat the Melida! My so-called son joined the Young! There are Melida among the Young! I know I don’t have much, but you can take whatever you want from the Young you kill!” The woman was speaking with righteous indignation.

“Really? You want me to kill members of a group your son belongs to? Shouldn’t you be wanting to protect the children?” Tarre asked, giving her one last chance to repent. Most Mando’ade would have killed her as soon as she opened her mouth, but Tarre was also a Jedi, and therefore willing to give her a chance.

Which she immediately squandered. “He’s no son of mine,” she said coldly. “Are you not willing because I can’t pay? I can give you a good time tonight, if you’d take that as payment,” she continued.

Tarre had given her more than enough chances. He drew his blaster and fired at her chest, not wanting to sully his kad’au with her blood.

The woman crumpled to the ground, and Tarre reached out in the Force to see if there were any more threats. Nothing. He went back to his ship and sent a message to Jolin, Cora, Dai, and Vai, telling them the situation and asking them not to return home yet in case he needed backup. Also to please buy supplies on Naboo so they could get food, clothing, and medicine to the Young.

Now how to find the Young, and, more importantly, how to get them to trust him enough to help them?

***

Tarre was thinking about how to best approach the Young when the matter became a moot point. He looked up when the Force alerted him of something happening about half a klick from his ship, and Tarre grabbed a spare medkit before flying over with his jetpack to see what was happening.

There seemed to be a three-way firefight happening. Two groups of adults had just stopped firing at each other as he approached, instead banding together to take aim at the cluster of bone-thin, weary, ade that had emerged from behind a derelict-looking building. Tarre cursed and flew faster towards the Young, kad’au parrying the blaster bolts away from the children before he had even landed.

It was laughably easy. Even if he hadn’t been using Soresu to block all the hits, they would have been ineffective when faced with either his beskar’gam or his armorweave kute. Soon, encouraged along by both Tarre’s own blaster and the bolts he deflected, the adults fled, leaving him standing in front of a group of scared ade.

Wonderful. He loved ade as much as any Mando’ad, but usually those ade weren’t terrified of him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in Basic, but forgoing holding up his hands, well aware it would be a useless gesture when they had just seen him use both his blaster and a kad’au.

The ade looked at each other before the oldest of them - still not old enough for his verd’goten - stepped forward. “You’re an Elder,” he said suspiciously. “We can’t trust you.”

Tarre sighed internally. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated. “Are any of you injured? I have a medkit.”

“Like we’d tell you if we were,” said a girl who looked to be about ten years old.

“We can get Obi to do his magic,” whispered the youngest among them, a boy of maybe seven, but Tarre still heard due to his HUD picking up the noise. “Tell if the Elder’s lying. I don’t think he’s from around here.”

“Don’t mention his magic in front of a stranger!” hissed the girl, and from there it devolved into heated whispers that even his HUD couldn’t pick up.

“I’ll go back to my ship while you decide what to do,” Tarre said, dropping his medkit on the ground in front of them. “It’s half a klick that way,” he added, before igniting his jetpack and flying off.

***

It didn’t take long before two Young approached Tarre. One was a dark-haired boy with a piercing gaze and another was a redhead that looked suspiciously like the holos Yan had sent Tarre of his new grandpadawan. The boy was even wearing what looked like worn-out, beaten-up Jedi robes.

Xahx, Yan he moaned internally. What the kriff is your grandpadawan doing alone on a wartorn planet?

As he emerged, the redhead did a double-take. “Master Vizsla,” he said slowly, obviously recognizing his armor or Force Presence from one of Tarre’s stays at the Jedi Temple.

“Padawan Kenobi,” he returned, and the boy grimaced.

“Not anymore,” said Kenobi.

And slowly, under Tarre’s gentle questioning, the whole story came out. How Obi-Wan and his Master had gone to rescue Master Tahl. How Obi-Wan saw the plight of the Young and wanted to help. How it had come to them drawing their lightsabers on each other. How Qui-Gon had left his Padawan, sans lightsaber, on a planet in a civil war. How he had become one of the leaders of the Young, along with Nield and Cerasi, the former of who was the boy next to Obi-Wan.

“Well,” Tarre said finally, not shrinking from Nield’s steely gaze. “It looks like I have a call to make. We’ll get this war finished, ’lek?”

“Qui-Gon made it clear that no help would be coming from the Jedi and that I was no longer a Jedi,” Obi-Wan said flatly.

Why exactly did you allow Qui-Gon to take his trials, Yan? Tarre shouted internally. His junior padawan is showing more selflessness and empathy than he is! Since when was somebody kicked out of the Order for trying to help children? Out loud, however, he just laughed. “Good thing I’m not just a Jedi, then. All I have to do is make a call and Haat Mando’ade will be coming to this planet in droves. What do you say?”

***

While Obi-Wan and Nield discussed Tarre’s offer of aid with Cerasi, Tarre made another call, this one to Yan. “Have you learned nothing from the whole Xanatos isn’t actually dead fiasco? Like how to make sure your Padawan is telling the truth?” Tarre demanded as soon as the other Jedi answered the call.

“Hello Tarre, I’ve been well, thanks for asking. How about you?” Yan said pointedly.

“I’m not in the mood for that, Yan. Do you know what your Padawan’s done now?” Tarre seethed.

“No, I do not know what Qui-Gon has done,” Yan said calmly. “At least I’m assuming that Qui-Gon is the one about whom you are speaking?”

“Yes, I’m talking about Jinn!” Tarre snapped. “He left his Padawan without a weapon on a planet in a civil war! He’s been a leader of the Young for months now! And yes, that name is a description of the ages of that side! Your Padawan looked at a kriffing army full of ade and decided to go on his merry way and said Obi-Wan wasn’t his Padawan any longer when Obi-Wan decided that hey, maybe these kids need help! And yes, kids, because Obi-Wan is one of the oldest among them! A junior Padawan!”

Even through the blue of the holo, Tarre could tell that Yan was growing pale. “Qui-Gon said he left the Jedi for a girl.”

Tarre laughed mirthlessly. “Maybe, if that’s what Jinn calls meeting a child general, who yes, is a girl, because she’s a kriffing child soldier,” he scoffed.

Yan sighed heavily. “Oh Qui-Gon, where did I go wrong with you?”

“Just get Obi-Wan’s lightsaber back so he actually has a weapon here,” Tarre said, and was about to end the call when Sifo-Dyas walked into the room.

“Yan, I found some interesting tea varieties several levels down,” he said. “One of them I think you’ll like, it apparently has a spicy floral - oh, agisti, Tarre,” said Sifo-Dyas. “How are you?”

“Not that great,” said Tarre, “since your friend’s padawan decided to abandon his own padawan without his lightsaber on a planet mired in Civil War. Call a council meeting and address that, would you?” Tarre asked sweetly. “I’d call the Council myself, but the three child generals - one of which is Former Padawan Kenobi - are going to be telling me their decision soon, and I think I’ll be calling Jaster so he can help me do what Jinn didn’t - help ade.”

Sifo-Dyas groaned and closed his eyes. “Damn you, Qui-Gon Jinn.”

***

A short while after Tarre ended the call with Yan, Obi-Wan and a redheaded girl approached his ship. “We put it to a vote,” said the girl. “Obi-Wan and I agreed to give you a chance to bring us peace. But don’t you dare leave us out of the fighting - this is our planet - and don’t give me that look, Obi-Wan. You’re as much a Young as any of us are.”

Tarre winced. “Letting a bunch of ade - children - under thirteen fight isn’t going to go over that well with the other Haat’ade,” he warned them. It wasn’t going over that well with him either.

“That’s our condition. Take it or leave it,” said the girl who Tarre assumed was Cerasi.

Tarre sighed heavily. “I have four members of my aliit - family - nearby,” he said. “I’ll give them the go-ahead to come here and bring the supplies I told them to buy, then.”

“Supplies?” asked Obi-Wan, who until then had been quiet.

“Food. Medicine. Clothing,” Tarre said, and Obi-Wan looked grateful.

“Thank you, Master Vizsla,” he said emphatically. “You don’t know how much this will help the other Young.”

“You too, Obi-Wan,” Cerasi said with the tone of a long-held argument.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “The Force will provide for me. I don’t need as much food or medicine.”

“Ob’ika, unless what they teach to a junior Padawan has changed in the last thousand years, you should not yet know how to enter a healing trance nor how to use the Force to lessen your caloric needs,” said Tarre suspiciously.

Cerasi threw up her hands in exasperation before pointing to Tarre in a clear gesture of ‘see? What have I been telling you?’

Tarre wanted to strangle Qui-Gon Jinn.

***

“Do you want to be present while I call the Mand’alor?” Tarre asked Obi-Wan and Cerasi after sending a message to Jolin.

They nodded, so Tarre pulled out his comm.

“Su’cuy, Tarre!” Jaster said as soon as he answered the comm. “How did the bounty go?”

“It went well,” Tarre responded. “But I’m not calling for pleasantries. Jaster, the Force told me to go to a planet called Melida/Daan,” he said, and in short, terse, sentences explained what he had found to the growing ire on Jaster’s face.

“So you’re the al’verd’ikase, then?” Jaster asked, doing his best to force a smile. It didn’t work.

Obi-Wan and Cerasi nodded. “We don’t have any way to pay you, Mand’alor Mereel,” Cerasi said. “But we’ll find a way once we’re back on our feet.”

Jaster shook his head. “No payment is needed if we’re helping ade,” he said warmly. Or, attempted to - his voice was still tinged with fury.

“We don’t take charity,” Cerasi said, chin held defiantly in the air.

“Then how about you let us use your planet as a refuel and stopping place in the future, then?” said Jaster.

“We’ll discuss it further once you’re here,” Cerasi returned.

“Well, oya!” Jaster said. “We should be there in less than a tenday.”

“Oya!” Tarre returned viciously.

Chapter Text

Yan:

As soon as Jaster ended the call, Yan hung his head. Where had he gone wrong with Qui-Gon? How had he missed this? Because surely Yan should have seen the potential Qui-Gon had for this sort of careless cruelty while he was still a Padawan. There had to have been early signs, right? Signs that perhaps Yan should have waited before nominating Qui-Gon for his Trials. If nothing else, he should have noticed the signs after Xanatos.

Maybe he should have seen the signs when Qui-Gon had repudiated Feemor after Xanatos Fell, despite Feemor having nothing to do with Xanatos. Maybe Yan should have realized when Qui-Gon had refused to see a mind healer. And, as Tarre had so rightfully pointed out, Yan definitely should have noticed something was wrong when Xanatos was revealed to be alive despite what Qui-Gon had said.

Was Yan just cursed when it came to Padawans? Qui-Gon Jinn had just proven himself to be a man who would leave children to die. It was unbecoming of anyone who called themselves a functioning member of society, much less a Jedi Master.

Komari, his current Padawan, wasn’t much better. She was overly aggressive and had a disturbing fixation on Yan himself. A romantic fixation. Force, he was old enough to be her grandfather!

At least Rael was not problematic. Despite what Rael himself thought, his Padawan's death had not been his fault. No, Rael had been forced to kill his own Padawan after she had been mind-controlled. And while usually a Jedi couldn’t hold a position of power on another planet ever since the Ruusan Reformation - there was a reason Yan was not the Count of Serenno - Pijal had specifically asked for a Jedi to rule. (Tarre’s position as Jaster’s second was another exception, as Tarre was a Jedi since before the Reformation, and Mandalore wasn’t part of the Republic anyway.)

Although Yan had caught Rael having Death Sticks that one time, so clearly Yan had failed somewhere.

Yan was the common denominator among them. What did it say about him as a Jedi Master, as a man, if two out of his three Padawans were very troubled?

Had he been too strict? Too lenient? Not set a good enough example? Where had Yan gone wrong?

At least there was one thing he would be able to do. Padawan Kenobi needed his lightsaber. Yan could get it from his wayward Padawan and return it. It was the least he could do, as obviously Yan had messed up severely in order for Qui-Gon to think his actions had been in any way acceptable.

Sifo-Dyas:

Sifo-Dyas hadn’t seen this coming, and that was saying a lot, coming from him. Really, what had Qui-Gon been thinking? Well, clearly he hadn’t.

As Yan’s closest friend, Sifo-Dyas had been there to watch as Qui-Gon grew up. He had a hard time reconciling his memories of the teenager who had snuck injured animals to his quarters (much to Yan’s consternation) to heal them with the man who would leave child soldiers to their fates. It just didn’t compute. Sure, Qui-Gon could often be careless, but this?

How did the man who was the best at feeling the Living Force among his agemates, who delighted in picking up pathetic life forms, land on a planet full of child soldiers and decide that the best thing to do was ignore them, and more than that, to abandon his Padawan there without a lightsaber?

Sifo-Dyas hadn’t needed to be a seer to realize that giving Qui-Gon Jinn another Padawan would not turn out well. Yoda had disagreed though, and had somehow managed to manipulate events enough that a promising initiate was now a child soldier. It was actually rather disturbing how much influence one man had over the Jedi Order. Yoda could and did easily disregard the procedures put in place to protect the Younglings. Sifo-Dyas supposed that was what happened when everybody looked up to the same person for centuries and started treating his word as if it had come from the Force itself. He started to believe that he could do whatever he wanted, because everybody was too cowed by Yoda’s reputation to stand up to him.

And look where that had gotten them.

Sifo-Dyas opened a drawer in Yan’s kitchenette and placed the tea in there, and pulled out a bottle of fine brandy. “Mind if I have a shot?” he asked, sighing. “I’ll need it to deal with the Council.”

“Sy, you are on the Council,” Yan said dryly, but then waved his hand. “Go ahead.”

Jaster:

As soon as he got off the comm, Jaster let out a yell of incoherent rage. He had assumed that, after roughly ten years of Tarre not uncovering anything alarming, that his fellow Mand’alor had stopped stumbling upon Sith plots and other disturbing discoveries. Apparently, however, the ka’ra had decided that Tarre wasn’t done yet, and had pushed the man to land on a planet that had been suffering through centuries of civil war.

Tarre had found an army of child soldiers who had banded together because they wanted peace. An army that a Jedi Master had looked at and done nothing about, in fact leaving his Padawan there stranded without a weapon. On a planet where dar’buire were hunting and killing their ade.

Jaster took a deep breath before sending a mass message out to all the Haat Mando’ade, informing them of the situation and asking them to gather supplies for the Young before leaving. Jaster then went to his quarters to throw his things together to leave himself, only to find that Arla and Jango were arguing over who would have to remain behind, having already read his message.

They had already grasped the fact that if Jaster was leaving to join Tarre, then one of them would remain behind to have an alor on Manda’yaim. Arla and Jango, as Jaster’s ade and proteges, were the presumed future Mand’alore if something happened to both Tarre and Jaster. So they knew one of them would remain behind.

And neither wanted to be the one left behind. Eventually, however, Jaster heard Jango shout excitedly, and assumed that the younger sibling had won. “You cheated!” Arla accused loudly.

“How the kriff do you cheat at ruus-haashun-kal?” demanded Jango. Jaster almost snorted at the means they used to decide the argument, although he supposed it was better than fighting when the people they really should be directing their anger at were the Elders on Melida/Daan.

Jaster sighed before he checked his comm again, which was blowing up with messages, everybody wanting to help the Young yesterday.

He resigned himself to having to direct a gaggle of Mando’ade all baying for blood, all while he felt the same urge to kill every single member of the Melida and the Daan. He told them to wait until he arrived before doing anything other than dropping supplies off, and that set off a whole other flurry of messages. He kept getting messages even as he was about to drop into hyperspace, so he just sent out one last message: Oya!

Obi-Wan:

Master Vizsla was on his comm again almost immediately after he ended the call with the Mand’alor. It was another Mandaorian, and Obi-Wan couldn’t understand what either of them were saying - they were speaking in what Obi-Wan assumed was the languages the Mandalorians spoke.

“Four of my aliit - family - are on their way. They should be here in less than a day,” Master Vizsla said. “They’re bringing food, medicine, and other supplies,” Master Vizsla told Obi-Wan and Cerasi. “And Ob’ika, don’t worry, I asked Sifo-Dyas to clear up what actually happened here with the rest of the Council so they know what actually happened here.”

Not that it mattered, Obi-Wan thought. He was no longer a Jedi. Qui-Gon had made that clear. “Master Vizsla, you didn’t have to call a Council member!” he protested instead.

“I didn’t,” Master Vizsla said mildly. “I called your grandmaster to tell him that his Padawan lied again. Sifo-Dyas is Yan’s friend and walked in just as I was about to end the call, so I asked him to take the matter to the Council for me.”

Cerasi huffed. “The Jedi didn’t want Obi-Wan and it’s their loss. He’s Young now. And you, Vizsla, are both an Elder and a Jedi, so be grateful I’m trusting you at all.”

“Cerasi!” Obi-Wan hissed, mortified.

“Understandable,” Master Vizsla agreed. “And I agree, it’s Qui-Gon’s loss. Obi-Wan seems to be mandokarla.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Cerasi.

“It means he has the qualities that make a good Mandalorian - guts and spirit,” Master Vizsla said, and Obi-Wan couldn’t help but notice that Master Vizsla had said nothing about Obi-Wan having the values that made a good Jedi. And other than the first time, Master Vizsla hadn’t called him Padawan Kenobi, either.

Apparently Master Vizsla could tell he wasn’t cut out to be a Padawan. That didn’t stop him from remaining behind as Cerasi left to join Nield. “Master Vizsla?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes, Ob’ika?” said Master Vizsla kindly.

“Will - will you meditate with me?” he rushed out, embarrassed as soon as he got the words out. Of course the answer would be no. Master Vizsla likely had much more important things to do with his time than humor a failed Padawan. He was about to speak up again, mutter an apology for the presumption, when Master Vizsla surprised him.

“I will, Ob’ika,” the Mandalorian Jedi said, taking off his armor that had been muffling a large part of his presence in the Force. Obi-Wan had no clue how Master Vizsla could stand wearing it if it cut him off from the Force that much.

Obi-Wan breathed out his worries as he fell into meditation with a Jedi Master. He wondered what it said about him that it was so much easier to join in meditation with Master Vizsla, who he barely knew, than it was for him to meditate with Master Jinn. Tonbrei enoah foh midaial ru enoah dai mifoh'al.

Plo Koon:

As soon as he took his seat in the Council Chambers to find Mace Windu nursing a headache, Plo knew that whatever Sifo-Dyas had called a meeting for, it was likely to be important.

“I admit that I made the exact same mistake,” Sifo-Dyas began. “I am not blameless. But perhaps we should have realized that Qui-Gon Jinn was prone to twisting, bending, and outright breaking the truth after we encountered Xanatos alive and well.”

“What has he done now?” groaned Poli.

In response, Sifo-Dyas pulled out a datastick and stuck it into a holoprojector. “This is footage Master Vizsla sent me from his HUD,” he said, and then pressed play.

Plo and the rest of the Council were treated to the horrible sight of first a grown woman trying to get Tarre to kill a bunch of kids, and then two groups of adults switching from trying to kill each other and then turning on some kids that weren’t even old enough to be Padawans. It culminated in Padawan Kenobi and another boy around his age explaining to Tarre what exactly had happened on Melida/Daan.

“I told you,” said Tyvokka. Plo had seldom heard his Master sound quite so dangerously close to unleashing the famed Wookiee temper. “Yoda, I told you that Qui-Gon wasn’t ready for another Padawan. And now look what’s happened.”

Yoda’s ears were drooping. Plo couldn’t find it in himself to feel that sorry. Yoda had pushed Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon together, and now Obi-Wan, a child, was a child general in charge of other child soldiers.

Maybe Plo would be able to take leave and go to Melida/Daan? Hearing about a planet full of suffering children triggered all of his instincts and he itched to dispense some Judgment of the electric variety on the Elders.

Yes, the Mandalorians probably had it well in hand. But surely they wouldn’t begrudge him expressing his own displeasure on the Elders, right? And while the Mandalorians would also likely be adopting the Young, Obi-Wan was now Masterless. Qui-Gon Jinn didn’t know what he had given up.

Plo wouldn’t yet a youngling like Obi-Wan go Masterless for long, though. Although judging by Tarre’s interactions with Obi-Wan, Plo might have some competition.

More important, though, was a way to make sure that this never happened again.

Chapter Text

Yan:

The good thing about Qui-Gon having been dragged in front of the Council, mused Yan, was that it gave Yan a window of opportunity to search his Padawan’s quarters for Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. Hopefully Qui-Gon had kept the saber, or at least the kyber.

It was anathema to carelessly discard a lightsaber, but then again it was also anathema to take a lightsaber from a Jedi, so clearly Qui-Gon did not care much for the proper respect of the bond a kyber had with its Jedi. Yan thought he had taught his Padawan better than that, but Yan had also assumed he had taught Qui-Gon that it was a bad idea to leave a Padawan in a warzone without a weapon, so obviously something had been missed.

Then again, Yan had thought something as blindingly obvious as not ignoring an army of child soldiers was something that did not even need to be taught, so maybe Qui-Gon had actually needed to be taught how to have basic morals. Yan wondered what he had seen in Qui-Gon in the first place to make him select the fool as a Padawan.

Or maybe Yoda had pushed them together somehow? Force knew that Yan’s Master enjoyed meddling in his lineage. Thinking back, Yoda had suggested Yan teach a Makashi course to the Initiates, and Qui-Gon had been leaving Yoda’s quarters when Yan had come for tea. Yan sighed as he opened up a drawer only to find supplies for keeping indoor plants healthy. Now Yoda had again meddled in his lineage, to much more disastrous results.

Yan opened up another drawer to find tea bags and packets of seeds, and closed it. He hoped that he would be able to find Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. The boy should never have been parted from his kyber in the first place.

After roughly ten minutes of searching, he found the lightsaber shoved in the back of a drawer. Unfortunately, due to his duties to Komari, Yan would be unable to return it himself. Therefore, he walked briskly to the Archives in search of Jocasta. Jaster Mereel would be heading to Melida/Daan. Hopefully, that meant that Jocasta would agree to go to said planet to return Obi-Wan’s lightsaber.

As long as Jaster and Jocasta did not run into any other Sith Temples, the reunion should go well.

Tarre:

“Good news, Ob’ika,,” Tarre told the boy. “I just got off the comm with your grandmaster; he found your lightsaber in Jinn’s quarters and is sending it here with Jocasta Nu.”

Obi-Wan seemed determined to ignore his relief at the prospect of being reunited with his kyber. “Master Nu?” he asked instead. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her out of the Temple!”

“Oh, she goes out of the Temple, alright,” muttered Tarre. “And drags Jaster into exploring Sith ruins with her.” And it wasn’t like that misadventure had cured the pair from exploring old ruins, as shortly afterwards Jaster had accompanied the Chief Archivist on yet another excursion.

“Sith?” Obi-Wan’s voice seemed to have gone up an octave.

Tarre nodded, and was about to elaborate when his comm pinged again. “That’s Jolin,” he said, looking at the text message. “He and three other members of my aliit - family - went to Naboo to drop off a bounty and pick up supplies. They just dropped back out of Hyperspace and should be landing shortly.”

“The others will be glad to wear clothes that aren’t falling apart at the seams,” Obi-Wan said.

“There’s clothes for you as well, and I messaged Jocasta asking her to get you new robes from the quartermaster,” Tarre said.

Obi-Wan flushed. “I’m sorry, Master Vizsla,” he said, looking down, and Tarre again wanted to strangle Qui-Gon for inflicting such low self-esteem on his Padawan. “I tried to keep my robes intact, I really did.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Tarre, releasing his anger at Qui-Gon into the Force, though judging by how the day had gone so far, it would likely just reappear. “Jedi Robes may be sturdy, but they’re not meant to withstand constant wear in a warzone.”

“But I’m not a Jedi anymore,” protested Obi-Wan, and elek, there was the anger again. “I shouldn’t be wearing the robes.”

“When faced with an army of child soldiers, you acted much more like a Jedi than your Master did,” Tarre responded firmly. “And furthermore, there are procedures that should be followed when leaving the Order, which you did not do. As far as I am concerned, you are still a Jedi.”

Obi-Wan’s face again tried to turn the color of his hair. “Thank you, Master Vizsla,” he said sincerely.

***

Tarre watched his aliit hand out supplies with a smile on his face. While usually a large gathering of the Young would have prompted the Elders to attack, it seemed that Tarre had made enough of an impression that the Elders didn’t dare to launch an assault when faced with Tarre as well as four more Mando’ade. Therefore, while the amount of Young that had come out from the sewers was small at first, as nothing happened, slowly more and more emerged.

Tarre was able to see the awe on the ade’s faces as they were handed clothes that weren’t rags or patchwork, plentiful food, medicine, and warm blankets. As expected of textiles of Nubian origin, the blankets and clothes were well-made and elegant. The blankets clearly were made for ade. Some had patterns with tookas, speeders, or butterflies on them, while others merely had bright and vivid colors. Tarre could see several of the Young swapping blankets to find their favorite already.

Despite their perpetual fear of adults, the Young seemed to be slowly warming to the cheerful Vai and Dai. It likely helped that both the Melida and Daan were humans, and therefore the two Zabraks didn’t set off a learned fear response.

Tarre spotted one member of the Young giggling as Vai and Dai pretended to be each other, and he smiled, only for the smile to fall as he saw the reaction to what Cora was handing out. She had brought a large chest of toys and was handing out stuffed animals, toy speeders, and meshgeroya balls.

Despite the sport’s galactic popularity, none of the Young looked like they knew the rules. Given that it implied that the civil war had been going on for so long that ade weren’t allowed to simply play, and therefore the rules of the most popular sport in the galaxy had been forgotten, Tarre felt his heart break a little.

***

An hour later, Tarre was ensconced underneath the streets of Zehava in a sewer system that luckily looked like it had stopped being used for its intended purpose some time ago. Obi-Wan, Cerasi, and Nield were with him as they tried to hammer out a preliminary draft of the contract that would excuse the presence of the Haat Mando’ade on Melida/Daan.

“Are we even allowed to sign a contract like this at our age?” muttered Obi-Wan.

“Yes, in fact," said Tarre. "Despite not having reached the official Republic-wide age of majority, the Republic is composed of many planets, some of which have different laws about the age someone can sign a contract. For instance, if the Nubian monarchs were unable to sign contracts, then their rule would be very weak indeed. And some Nubian monarchs have been younger than you are. Republic law allows for planetary rulers - or rulers of certain factions of divided planets - to sign contracts even if they are under the age of Republic majority.”

“So the contract is legal. We just need to figure out a way to pay,” said Nield bluntly.

“Again, there is no need to pay,” Tarre started, but Nield shook his head.

“We don’t take charity,” he said, echoing Cerasi’s words.

Tarre sighed, then continued focusing on the sections other than the payment. They could work that out later.

An hour later, a rough document was laid out on Tarre’s padd. The Haat Mando’ade would fight against the Melida and the Daan on behalf of the Young of Melida/Daan. Once the Elders were defeated, they would be the muscle to enforce the signing of a peace treaty. Some Haat Mando’adewould visit Melida/Daan every so often to make sure the Elders weren’t getting any ideas. Any Haat Mando’ad in need of a fuel stop, repairs, or other stop on a journey would receive access to Melida/Daan.

“That’s not enough payment,” Cerasi said, frowning. “I may not know much about contracts, but we are getting much more out of this than you are. And I can’t imagine your going rate is cheap.”

“As I’ve said,” Tarre said, sighing again, “no payment is needed.”

Cerasi humphed. “We. Don’t. Take. Charity.”

“We just accepted a bunch of food, medicine, clothes, and blankets,” Obi-Wan pointed out.

His fellow child general shot him a venomous glare. “Those were gifts,” she hissed.

Tarre was of the opinion that it was a distinction without a difference, but he didn’t express it. “Well, maybe this help can be a gift as well?” he suggested hopefully.

“But will the Republic allow that?” Obi-Wan asked skeptically. The rumor mill in the Temple after the Senate’s reaction to the defeat of two Sith had apparently reached even the Creche.

“It’s moot, because we will find a way to pay them!” Cerasi snapped.

“With what?” asked Nield, throwing his hands up. “We have no exports to speak of, we barely have enough food to feed ourselves, and we have no assets either!”

Another member of the Young poked their head through the curtain that had been set up to partition the area that Tarre and the three child generals were talking in. It was a girl of maybe eight. “I might have a solution,” she piped up. “Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear. Before my brother was sent off to the factories, he found an old abandoned gold mine. He said there was still gold ore in the tunnels, as it had likely been abandoned due to the war.”

“Haya, you’re a genius,” said Nield, and turned to Tarre. “There. The Haat Mando’ade will receive sole claim on all the gold that comes out of the mine once the fighting is over.”

“We’ll need to make sure the mine is stable,” said Obi-Wan. “I’ve had some bad experiences in mines.”

Somehow, Tarre had a feeling that said ‘bad experiences’ would make him want to strangle Qui-Gon Jinn again. “I’ll draw up a preliminary contract now,” he said instead of going down a path that would only lead to anger. “Haya, do you know where the mine is?”

“Not exactly, but Rorik said that it was near the ruins of Navara.”

Tarre nodded in thanks and after he finished typing up the contract, handed it over to Obi-Wan, Neild, and Cerasi.

“Well, Obi? You’re the one with the fancy education. Does this contract look good?” Nield asked.

Obi-Wan was still reading. “It looks sound,” he said finally, passing the padd to Cerasi, who read it before handing it to Nield. At this point, Tarre was just glad that Cerasi and Nield had been taught how to read and write.

“I’ll send it off to Jaster, then,” Tarre said, before leaving the sewers, not wanting to make the Young suffer the presence of an adult any longer than necessary. Hopefully, with time, they would be able to look at adults without flinching. For now, though, Tarre would accommodate by making himself as scarce as possible while still protecting the Young.

Sifo-Dyas:

As Sifo-Dyas had expected, Qui-Gon Jinn had not given any good reasons for his actions. The Council debated before sending him to mandatory mind healing and barring him from taking a Padawan again. Hopefully the mind healer would be able to tell what had happened to the boy who snuck in injured animals to turn him into a man who would abandon child soldiers.

As a droid brought their meals to them - they were far too busy to actually eat in the refractory - Sifo-Dyas looked at Plo Koon warily. During Qui-Gon’s testimony, Sifo-Dyas had seen electricity arcing between the Kel Dor’s fingers.

“If Master Vizsla hasn’t seen sense by the time I’m able to get to Melida/Daan, I’m taking Obi-Wan as my own Padawan,” Plo said resolutely as he attached his meal paste to his mask. Sifo-Dyas was thankful, not for the first time, that he was part of the majority of species that breathed oxygen, because his fellow Councilor’s food looked very unappetizing.

“Don’t count on being able to get there anytime soon,” Sifo-Dyas said. “We still have to debate the many holes in procedure that Obi-Wan’s case brought to light. That will likely take weeks in and of itself.”

“Don’t remind me,” groaned Plo. “It’s necessary, though. If one youngling could fall through the cracks, so could others.”

“The hardest part,” said Sifo-Dyas, taking care to speak softly so as to not be heard by Yoda, “will be curbing Yoda’s influence. Because you can’t deny that if one man can bend the rules to the detriment of a youngling, then that man has too much sway in the Temple.”

“No,” said Plo. “No, you really can’t.”

Jango:

Jango had always been Mando’ad. And while some people might look at them and think their ade were exposed to violence early, that wasn’t the case. Jango was an outlier at having participated at combat at eight years old.

Now Jango was heading to a planet with a whole faction of child soldiers. “How?” he asked Jaster on their first night - or what passed for night - in hyperspace. “How could people fight their own ade?”

Jaster didn’t have a good answer for him. Jaster also didn’t have much time to talk, seeing as he was constantly having to herd a whole force of angry Mando’ade that were angry about the situation.

Jango was furious too, but at least he wasn’t making life harder for his buir. Instead, he and Myles were getting their anger out through sparring.

“How many people do you think will be saying the gai bal manda?” he asked Myles as they took large gulps of water after pinning each other to the mats for the fifth time in a row.

“It depends on how wary the Young are of adults,” Myles responded after some thought. “They might not want any more buire.”

“We’ll see when we get there. But personally, I think that there’ll be at least a dozen more Mando’ade once all of this is over.”

“How many of the Young do you think that there are?” Myles asked.

“One is too many,” Jango responded, to which Myles replied with an emphatic nod before they were on the mats again.

Obi-Wan:

Two and a half days after Master Vizsla’s family arrived with supplies, Master Nu arrived on Melida/Daan.

“Padawan Kenobi,” she greeted him, and Obi-Wan wanted to scream that no, he wasn’t a Padawan any longer, but he stayed silent and bowed instead. “Under the circumstances,” she continued, and Obi-Wan braced himself for what she was about to say, “I will overlook the fact that you have two overdue items from my Archives.”

What?

He looked closer to see that Master Nu was giving him a small smile - which was more than she gave many visitors to the Archives. Oh. She was making a joke. He smiled back weakly.

She unclipped one of the lightsabers from her belt and held it out to him, and he took it reverently.

“Thank you, Master Nu,” he said, frowning at how he was now slightly disconnected from his kyber. He had been shaped by experiences his crystal had not been present for. “Excuse me, but I need to meditate with my kyber,” he said.

Master Nu nodded and held out a set of robes in his size for him. “These are for you as well,” she added.

“Thank you,” he said again, and went back to the sewers to change and meditate with his kyber. Once he was in sync with his crystal once again, Obi-Wan emerged so he could once again thank Master Nu.

As he approached Master Vizsla and Master Nu, he saw that they were deep in conversation. Master Vizsla looked up and was presumably about to greet him when he looked down at his comm.

“That’s Jaster. He’s arrived,” said Master Vizsla, and for the first time in his life, Obi-Wan saw Master Nu smile widely.

The Mandalorians were here.

Chapter Text

Jaster:

As Jaster’s ship got closer to the surface of Melida/Daan, he could see how years of war had scarred the planet. There were several cities that were completely in ruins, already overgrown with nature, and as he approached closer to the capital Zehava Jaster could tell that even that city was derelict and half-crumbling. Nevertheless, once he landed Tarre approached him, being followed by six Young as well as two of the other Vizslas that had come to Melida/Daan with him.

They looked better than they had in the comm call. Even through the blue of a holo, Jaster had noticed their rags and sunken cheeks. While still having a gaunt appearance, at least now they were wearing intact clothing. Nice clothing, too - not that Jaster expected anything else from Naboo.

Seeing the child soldiers in front of him, his rage welled up in him again. Jaster firmly shoved all his anger down deep inside of him to be used later in the fighting. It wouldn't do to scare the Young by appearing angry.

“The Melida and the Daan haven’t attacked us yet,” said Jolin Vizsla. “Tarre beat them soundly when he arrived and word’s apparently spread not to engage anybody in armor.”

“Jolin has looked around the city and there’s a building that should serve as a meeting place,” Cora added. “It’s not in danger of collapse and it has a room big enough for a couple dozen Mandalorians plus the main players of the Young.”

“Speaking of,” Jaster said, turning his gaze towards the Young as he took off his buy’ce so the Young could attach a face to his name, “I recognize Obi-Wan and Cerasi from the comm call, but who are the rest of you?”

“I’m Nield,” said a boy who carried himself like a leader, “and this is Khiyosh, Joli and Mawat.”

Jaster nodded. “I’m Mand’alor Jaster Mereel,” he said. “This is my son Jango Fett, and aliit’alore Nestor Bralor, Corin Kast, Ava Wren, Jasin Ordo, Falan Eldar, and Suha Awaud. You’ve already met Tarre. Now, should we go to the building Jolin found?”

“I’m just here to meet your medics,” Khiyosh said. “Let them know what they’re dealing with.”

“And I’m here to watch Khiyosh’s back,” added Joli, and Jaster felt his heart break a little more.

He nodded, then scanned the area for Makk’s ship and pointed it out before contacting the Kobok medic, who ran over alongside Saadis Min. “Khiyosh, these are baar’ure - medics - Makk and Saadis Min. Makk, Saadis, this is Khiyosh, the chief medic for the Young.”

Jaster turned away from the medics, one of them being way too young, and looked at Tarre. “Should we go to the building Jolin found?”

“Follow me,” said Tarre, before he set off, the others close behind him. For a second, it looked like there was a group of Elders - Jaster couldn’t tell whether they were Melida or Daan - who were about to attack the Young accompanying them. However, Tarre then briefly lit the Dha’kad and the group flinched and ran.

“As a Jedi, seeing that reaction brings me no satisfaction. As a Mando’ad, however … well, ibi’tuur jatne tuur ash’ad kyr’amur.” Tarre said viciously. “Preferably an Elder.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Obi-Wan.

“It means that today is a good day for someone else to die, Ob’ika” said Ava Wren, moving as if to ruffle his hair before obviously thinking better of it.

“Master Vizsla!” Obi-Wan said, sounding scandalized, and Jaster couldn’t help but laugh.

A short time later, they made it to the building, which was seated on top of a hill in the city, giving it the natural defenses of having the high ground. As Jaster moved inside, he spotted Jocasta and grinned widely.

“Jocasta, su’cuy!” he said brightly. “Tarre, you didn’t tell me Jocasta was here!”

“I wanted to surprise you,” said Tarre, and as Jaster moved to embrace his friend he saw Obi-Wan looking over at Jocasta with a gobsmacked depression on his face as she returned his hug. The Jet’ika then caught Jaster’s gaze and deliberately closed his jaw.

“It’s good to see you too, Jaster,” Jocasta returned, before leading them over to a large room that had a large table in the middle. Admittedly, parts of the table were splintered from what looked like a small explosion, and there were blaster-induced scorch marks on the surviving parts of the table, but it looked like Jocasta or Tarre had used the Force to move the splinters to a corner of the room where nobody would get hurt by them.

What ensued during the meeting was arguing. Lots and lots of arguing. Luckily one of the Young had figured out the payment issue, so Cerasi and Nield had dropped that.

Unfortunately, Cerasi and Nield, despite being some of a handful old enough to fight, were insistent that this was the Young’s planet and they were going to fight for their peace. And they had put in the contract that they had drawn up that letting the members of the Young over the age of ten fight was one of the conditions of their employment.

Jaster leveled a look at Tarre, who was clenching his jaw. “They must have added that after I left,” he said tersely.

Yet more haggling ensued, where Jaster managed to get Cerasi and Nield - Obi-Wan was remaining rather silent - to agree that only those twelve and older would be allowed to fight, and those under thirteen would be accompanied by a whole squad each.

“The others can make sure the rest of the Young are safe,” Jaster said.

“We’re not idiots, Mand’alor,” said Mawat, speaking up for the first time. “That’s a job you give to people who won’t be doing any of the real fighting. We’ve already proven ourselves, we can handle a battle. Especially because once you lot kriff off back to Mandalore, the Elders will try to start the fighting again.”

“Third page,” Jaster said, having looked over the contract. Tarre had included a promise that the Haat Mando’ade would come back whenever they were in the area and make sure the Elders would keep the established peace.

Mawat grabbed the padd, looked it over, and then huffed. “Yeah, a fat lot of good that’ll do for whoever’s killed before you lot come back.”

“Which is why Dai and Vai will be staying on planet after the rest of us leave,” Tarre said calmly. Jaster looked at him. “They told me earlier today.”

Cerasi, Obi-Wan, and Nield held a conversation consisting of furious whispers before they nodded as one. “We’ll sign it,” said Nield, and Jaster breathed out a sigh of relief. Good. That was one step closer to getting rid of some demagolkase. Jaster would rather be exterminating all of them, but the contract called for some restraint in that the Young wanted the Haat Mando’ade to establish and enforce a peace treaty, not kill all the Elders.

They passed the padd holding the official contract between the three of them before Obi-Wan passed it to Jaster. He signed, and then grinned, leaning forward slightly. “Now,” he said, “you’re the ones who know this war. How will we be doing this?”

Tarre:

“The Hall of Evidence,” said Cerasi. “Any threat to the Hall of Evidence will act as bait for a trap. We pretend we’ll be blowing it up and that will bring the Elders in, where we can fight them.”

“And then destroy the Hall of Evidence,” said Nield.

“No, Nield,” Cerasi said in a tone that told Tarre they had had this argument numerous times. “It’s better not to destroy them. It’s the only thing some people have left of their family,” said Cerasi. “And remember what Obi-Wan told us? That saying about repeating history if you don’t learn from it?”

“It’s also likely to reignite the fighting if done after the peace treaty, and foster resentment if done beforehand,” added Tarre.

Nield glared for a long time before huffing. “Fine. I can tell when I’m outvoted,” he snapped. “Be it on your heads if the fighting reignites due to us saving the messages of martyrdom.”

“Destroying those messages would make them into martyrs again anyway, Nield,” said Obi-Wan. “It’s too risky.”

“I said fine, didn’t I?” growled Nield, crossing his arms.

“Get rid of the majority of the messages,” said Obi-Wan. “They all introduce themselves at the beginning of them, right? Keep that part, and get rid of the propaganda. That way the names and faces and voices of the dead are kept.”

Tarre was again struck by just how stupid Qui-Gon Jinn had been to not appreciate the gem he had been entrusted to in his Padawan. Tarre would approach Obi-Wan that night, he decided. If Obi-Wan would have a temporally displaced former Mand’alor as his Master, Tarre would be happy to have Obi-Wan as a Padawan.

It wasn’t like he could do worse than Jinn, anyway.

“The contract says we’re not to kill the younger members of the Elders, correct? We’re to capture as many as possible?”

Cerasi nodded. “Many of them are forced to fight. They have no choice.”

Nield nodded. “That’s how my cousin died,” he said tersely. “She was seventeen and forced to fight the Melida. She was killed.”

Ava Wren let out a slew of creative cursing that Tarre was fairly certain wasn’t anatomically possible. Out of the corner of his

“Now Ava, don’t say that in front of the ade!” Corin Kast said.

“They’ve been fighting a war, Corin. I’m sure they’ve heard worse,” scoffed Ava.

Slowly, over the next several hours, they laid out a plan that would be implemented in two days, which would give time for more of the Haat Mando’ade to arrive.

By the time they adjourned the meeting, it was nearly dark, and as they drew closer to the entrances to the sewers, Tarre pulled Obi-Wan aside, sending a burst of reassurance through the Force. He turned to face the Younger Jedi with a smile on his face. “Obi-Wan Kenobi, will you do me the honor of becoming my Padawan?”

Sifo-Dyas:

After several hours of discussion on the possibility of revamping the procedures for assigning an Initiate to one of the Corps, the Council realized that the procedures were adequate. Or, they would be adequate, if they were being followed.

Yoda looked as ashamed as Sifo-Dyas had ever seen him as the consequences of his meddling were hammered home. His ears were drooping and he looked each of his many centuries.

“The overall problem,” said Tyvokka, “is that one Jedi has been allowed to accrue so much influence that our procedures were not followed to the detriment of a Youngling.”

“At least one Youngling,” Sifo-Dyas corrected. “There may be more that have slipped through the cracks.”

“Perhaps there should be term limits for how long someone can serve on this Council?” suggested Mace Windu.

“Resign from this Council, I will,” said Yoda, clearly reading the writing on the wall. “Go on a meditative retreat, I shall. Realize, I did not, how strong my influence has become.”

Sifo-Dyas called banthashit, there was no way Yoda hadn’t noticed how much influence he had, but he didn’t say anything, instead glancing at Mace as both of them rolled their eyes. The main objective - decreasing Yoda’s influence - had been achieved with little hassle. Yoda was clearly remorseful. Only time would tell whether he would slip back into old patterns.

“Then we need a replacement for Master Yoda’s seat on this Council,” said Mace, and Sifo-Dyas shifted in his seat in preparation for what would no doubt be a long discussion.

Obi-Wan:

Obi-Wan blinked, sure he had misheard. “Pardon?” he asked shakily. “I don’t think I heard you correctly, Master Vizsla.”

Master Vizsla’s smile turned sad. “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he repeated. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my Padawan?”

“You - you’d want me as a Padawan?” Obi-Wan asked. What was Master Vizsla seeing in him? He was too angry, he’d almost aged out, he had aged out until Master Qui-Gon had taken pity on him, and he couldn’t even do that right.

“You’re brave, principled, and empathetic, and you have mandokar in spades, Ob’ika. Why wouldn’t I want you as my Padawan?” said Master Vizsla, and Obi-Wan let out a shaking breath as he fell into Master Vizsla’s outstretched arms.

“Yes, yes,” said Obi-Wan, and as his shoulders heaved - release it into the Force, Obi-Wan, your blubbering is unbecoming of a Jedi - Master Vizsla rubbed circles onto his back. “Yes, I’ll be your Padawan.”

Chapter Text

Tarre:

Jinn had destroyed Obi-Wan’s braid when he abandoned him, and the boy hadn’t grown out his hair since then due to the sheer impracticality of having long hair in a warzone. Therefore, Tarre had instead procured three ribbons with which to weave the braid.

There was also a small painted yellow durasteel bead threaded into one of the ribbons.

“I’m nowhere near proficient enough with a lightsaber to warrant a yellow bead!” Obi-Wan protested, yellow being the color meant for proficiency with a lightsaber.

“Yellow is also used for combat in a broader sense, and nobody can say that you have not seen much combat. When I was a Padawan myself, almost every Padawan had this bead.”

“Because you were a Padawan during the New Sith Wars,” Obi-Wan said.

Tarre nodded, and as he began to weave the ribbons into Obi-Wan’s fiery hair, he also started to form the training bond between them.

Obi-Wan reached for the bond with the desperation of a Temple-raised Jedi who suddenly found himself lacking any bonds. Tarre had felt that himself upon first waking up, but the difference in their situations was that upon reuniting with his friends, Tarre had been able to quickly re-establish the bonds that had never purposefully been severed.

Jinn had deliberately broken his training bond with Obi-Wan, and if Tarre was reading the frayed edges in Obi-Wan’s force presence correctly, it had been done roughly and without any care for the other party.

Tarre felt his anger with Jinn, by now a near-constant presence, rise up within him and threaten to overwhelm him again. He released most of it into the Force until he didn’t feel tempted to strangle Jinn any longer, and instead kept just enough to be useful against the Elders tomorrow.

“We should rest,” Tarre said, eyeing the setting sun. “It’s getting late and there will be training tomorrow.”

“Training?”

“The Young who will be fighting,” here he scowled, still upset that ade would be fighting with them, “need to learn how to fight alongside the squads they will be accompanied by. It’s all a bit sudden for my taste, seeing as a squad cannot learn to act seamlessly in the span of a day, but then, if I had my way only those of you over thirteen would be fighting.”

“Master Vizsla, we can fight!” Obi-Wan protested.

“I’m going to borrow a phrase beloved by crechemasters teaching about appropriate uses of the Force here, Obi-Wan. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Obi-Wan:

Obi-Wan was trying to follow Master Vizsla’s instructions to rest. He really was. It was sensible advice, even if it hadn’t come from his new Master. But Obi-Wan’s mind couldn’t rest.

He was a Jedi again. Obi-Wan didn’t regret joining the Young. He hadn’t been lying when he had said their cause spoke to him. But in doing so, he had also failed the Jedi Order, as well as Master Jinn.

That’s what Master Jinn had said, anyway. Master Nu said differently. As did Master Vizsla. Who was right? It made sense that Obi-Wan would have failed the Jedi Order, though. He failed at everything he tried to do. He failed to get chosen as a Padawan. He failed to control his anger. He failed to significantly help the Young.

Somehow, though, Master Vizsla had taken a look at Obi-Wan and hadn’t seen a teenager with anger issues and numerous failures. Instead, inexplicably, Master Vizsla had chosen him as a Padawan.

Obi-Wan didn’t know what Master Vizsla saw in him. He wasn’t going to speak up and risk his new Padawanship, though. He mentally poked at his new bond, relishing in not feeling the jagged edges of his broken bond with Master Jinn anymore, as Master Vizsla had fixed that while bonding with him.

He received a pulse of tired amusement, along with a suggestion to fall asleep back from his new Master. Obi-Wan sighed and fiddled with his new braid, eventually falling into a shallow slumber.

Jaster:

“Don’t patronize me!” snapped Mawat, and Jaster sighed. “I’m not a baby! I’m a leader in my own right.”

“Mawat, we are not patronizing you. I know you’re upset at not getting to sign the contract. However, when you merged your Scavenger Young with Nield and Cerasi’s group, you ceased to be a planetary leader. Your signature would not be binding, and would in fact throw the others' signatures into doubt. We’re riding a fine line here, Mawat. This fight needs to be completely legal unless we want the Republic and Manda’yaim
to go to war again,” explained Jaster. “That contract signed last evening is the only thing preventing this from being a Mando invasion of a Republic planet.”

Mawat scoffed. “We’re barely part of the Republic. Why should they care that you're helping us?”

“Because there are factions in the Senate that would like any excuse to go to war,” said Tarre. “And we’re trying to end a war here, not cause another one. Be glad you’re even fighting, Mawat. There are many Mando’ade here up in arms over the fact that an ad is fighting at all. Why do you think almost the entirety of the Haat Mando’ade came to help?”

“I’m not a child. None of us are. We may be young, but we’re not children.”

“And yet you are not yet thirteen years old,” said Jaster. “Ava Wren seemed ready to kill me last night for only haggling for the participation of those twelve and older instead of thirteen and older.”

“And you would have deserved it, Mand’alor! They’re ade!” called Ava from where she was showing a Young how to properly use a vibroblade.

Jaster huffed. “I didn’t see you succeed at last night’s bargaining, either, so don’t try to place this all on me! If I hadn’t budged, they would have left to fight anyway, and more would die. At least this way we know where the Young are and can therefore protect them!”

“We don’t need protection. We can take care of ourselves, since nobody’s ever bothered before.”

Jaster sighed. “Mawat, knowing that nobody has ever bothered before is only serving to make us more rabid in your protection. I did explain about our view of children, correct? As well as adoption?”

Mawat nodded, looking skeptical. “I’m still looking for the catch.” With that, the cynical child turned away from Jaster to talk with the squad who would be accompanying him to the fighting.

Jaster turned to look at some of his other verde. Iozar’sofi was sitting and talking to a member of the Young who had lost an arm. Said Young looked much too, well, young, to have been in fighting that cost her a limb - she was maybe seven years of age. The Young was looking in awe at Iozar’s prosthetic lek. Iozar had luckily not died facing Palpatine, but had still come out of the fight against an actual dar’jetii missing a lek. That in and of itself could easily prove fatal for a Twi’lek, but Iozar had survived and had been fitted with a prosthetic, and after a lengthy rehabilitation process was now back in fighting shape.

Upon seeing the first Young missing a limb, Jaster had already called one of his baar’ure specializing in prosthetics to let him know that he would likely have a number of tiny patients soon.

Jaster figured that Iozar would likely come home from Melida/Daan with a new ad. So would Frimi Galilrral, who judging by Obi-Wan’s expression still had a nausea-inducing force signature. “Frimi, put your buy’ce back on - Ob’ika’s looking queasy!” Jaster called, and the Balosar sighed but complied before turning back to showing a Young how to get out of a chokehold. Just the fact that the ad already trusted her enough to submit to a chokehold, even for teaching purposes, spoke volumes.

Vess Awaud was having a conversation regarding plants with a member of the Young, who apparently had enjoyed working in his family’s garden before he left the Melida to be with the Young. He had absconded with a few seed packets when he left his home and had grown them to supplement the Young’s meager food supply before the garden had gotten destroyed in a fight.

All was going well for the non-human Haat’ade. Unfortunately, the human members had inadvertently triggered several panic responses so far simply by being human adults. Even Jango, young as he was, seemed to be too old for the Young to completely let their guard down around. Obi-Wan seemed to be the only exception, because even though Jinn had majorly karked up, Obi-Wan still had memories of trustworthy adults in the Temple.

The Young didn’t have that fallback. To them, all adults, especially human ones, were a threat until proven otherwise. Unfortunately, it was very hard to convince the Young that Mando’ade weren’t threats, mostly because Mando’ade were very much threats. The fact that no true Mando’ad would ever harm a child was irrelevant to the Young's ingrained trauma response to seeing an armed adult.

Hence why they were getting to know each other, because in a fight, viewing an ally as an enemy, even for a split second, could prove fatal. Jaster sighed as he was met with yet another dubious stare from a five-year-old girl. He forced a smile onto his face before kneeling down. “Hello, I’m Jaster. What’s your name?”

Obi-Wan:

The first engagement was going to be in one of the taller buildings in Zehava, where the bait for the trap would be laid - Nield was going to “accidentally” drop plans for an attack on the Hall of Evidence. Of course, the plans were all incorrect - the Mandalorians would be lying in wait at the Hall of Evidence for almost a day before the “planned” attack. Master Vizsla, Obi-Wan, Master Nu, and the few Force-sensitive Mandos would be using the Force to hide the presence of the Mandalorians.

Obi-Wan, Mawat, Cerasi, Nield, and a couple of other twelve and thirteen year olds among the Young attacked first, drawing the Melida and the Daan out. The Melida and the Daan had quickly learned not to attack children in the presence of Mandalorians, so the Mandalorians were on the roof, ready to drop down with their jetpacks as soon as the battle had started.

For two groups of people that rarely fought alongside each other, the Young and the Mandalorians still managed to work together far more seamlessly than did the Melida and the Daan. Though the two groups of Elders might have temporarily called a truce to attack the Young, centuries of enmity led them to make potshots at each other.

Everything was going well - or, as well as a pitched battle could go - until Obi-Wan’s sense of danger spiked. He looked to see a grenade land close to a barrel and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

That barrel was full of explosive powder, the Force screamed at him. Master Vizsla was on the other side of the battlefield, too far away to help.

“RUN!” Obi-Wan yelled as he turned his back to the barrel, augmenting his speed with the Force as he tried to contain the explosion with the Force.

It wasn’t enough. Obi-Wan was thrown high into the air as he felt heat heat heat pain pain pain along his back, and he only had time to catch his landing with the Force before blacking out.

The last thing he heard was Master Vizsla’s worried scream through their bond.

Chapter Text

Tarre:

Even using the Force, it still took Tarre too long to reach Obi-Wan. The two of them had been separated during the fight, and Obi-Wan had been holding his own, so Tarre hadn’t been worried enough to abandon his own fight to help his Padawan. Obi-Wan had been showing considerable promise in being a future Master of Soresu, in fact. None of the blaster bolts had even hit him, though the slower velocity caused by the degraded tibanna gas may have played a part in that.

All of that meant that when the Force yelled a warning, Tarre was too far away from Obi-Wan to do anything to help. All he could do was reinforce Obi-Wan’s shielding as the barrel blew before getting to his injured Padawan as fast as possible. His bond with Obi-Wan felt blank, but it still existed, which meant Obi-Wan was still alive, and Tarre desperately clung to that hope.

Tarre reached Obi-Wan just as Corin Kast reached Mawat, who had also been blown backwards by the blast. The Melida and the Daan had wisely gotten out of the way of the angry Mando’ad with a lightsaber, leaving Tarre’s path to Obi-Wan unimpeded. He had just been too far away.

At the very least Tarre’s HUD let him know that Obi-Wan didn’t have any spinal injuries, which meant he could move him to the roof of the tall building, out of the way of the fighting. He scooped his Padawan into his arms before igniting his jetpack, seeing Corin doing the same thing with Mawat.

“I’ll guard them,” said Corin. “You finish the fight.”

Tarre nodded harshly before jumping off the building, flying over to where he saw a Melida attempt to stab Nield with a Vibroblade. The Melida looked too old to have been forced into fighting, so Tarre felt no guilt at beheading the man before his blade could make its way into Nield’s back. Nield nodded at him and Tarre turned to help finish the fighting.

It was honestly a rout. The Melida that had attempted to knife Nield was one of the few that hadn’t panicked at the explosion. Both the Melida and the Daan seemed rattled by the blast, and while the Mando’ade hadn’t been expecting it either, the superior training of the Mando’ade showed in how none of them were fazed. Tarre suspected that the experience of the Melida and the Daan likely matched that of the Mando’ade, seeing as this war had been going on for centuries at this point. But experience wasn’t everything.

Tarre looked at Nield, who nodded, flashing the affirmative hand sign that Tarre had taught him. He’d dropped the ‘plans,’ then. A second handsign confirmed that an Elder had picked up the flimsi. Their objective was complete. The battle was over.

Tarre flew up onto the roof so quickly that it was almost like he had been blasted there by the explosion. “Let’s get them to Makk,” Tarre said grimly, and Corin nodded, scooping Mawat up into his arms.

“I don’t need to be carried!” the teen hissed.

“Ad, your leg’s broken. You can’t walk,” sighed Corin. “Yes, you’ll need to be carried if you want to get away from here at the same time as the rest of us.”

***

Makk shook his head when Tarre returned with Obi-Wan, and clattered his mandibles angrily when Nield joined them with an injured Mawat. It would probably have been easier for Corin to carry Mawat, but the ad wasn’t having that. Mawat may have submitted to being carried back to the base Makk had set up with the other baar’ure, realizing that a jetpack was the most expeditious way to return, but as soon as they landed Mawat left Corin’s hold, where Nield waited to support his fellow Young. Mawat was holding onto Nield’s arm as he hopped along on his left leg, holding his clearly broken right leg off the ground. Judging by the grimace every time Mawat breathed, Tarre guessed that Mawat had broken or bruised several ribs as well during the blast.

Nield helped Mawat into a chair as Makk looked over Obi-Wan. Another baar’ur, one Tarre didn’t know personally but that bore the aliik of Aliit Ordo, moved to help Mawat.

“Obi-Wan will likely need five days in the bacta tank,” Makk said finally, before looking to the Ordo baar’ur.

“Mawat, you’ll need bacta injections after we set your leg, and then some time in the tank for your burns, which aren’t as bad as Obi-Wan’s, so you might need only two days,” said the baar’ur.

“I may be able to cut Obi-Wan’s time down if I guide him into a healing trance,” Tarre interjected.

“Will they be able to participate in the fight in the Hall of Evidence?” Nield asked bluntly. “That’s in a week.”

“Maybe for Obi-Wan, as he didn’t break any bones,” Makk said after thinking about it. “I don’t like it, but if Mand’alor Vizsla can cut the healing time down then in a week the burns should be on the level of a bad sunburn. It won’t be pleasant to fight, but it should be doable.”

“Mawat, though, you’ll likely miss it. Fighting in a battle would likely re-break your leg, especially as you, along with several other Young, have weaker bones than most due to lack of calcium,” finished the other baar’ur.

Mawat huffed and crossed his arms. “And I’d just be a liability if I tried to fight. I’d be a distraction if I re-broke my leg. Figures. We’re about to end it and I get taken out of the fight. There’s no way you can get me calcium to make my bones stronger?”

“Long term? We’ve already been giving all of you the required nutrients you’ve been missing. Short term? Not quickly enough to get your bones strong enough to not re-break during the fighting,” said the Ordo baar’ur.

“This will likely hurt,” the Ordo baar’ur - Tarre really needed to get their name - warned Mawat.

“No? Really? I never would have guessed setting my bone would hurt. It’s not like we’ve had to do it for each other before. Oh. Wait. We have,” said Mawat derisively. “Just get it over with.”

To Mawat’s credit, he only gave a short cry as the baar’ur realigned his bone. Tarre had met seasoned verde who made more noise in the same situation. The baar’ur then pulled out the large needle needed for bacta injections into bone. Tarre winced in remembered sympathy from when he had broken several ribs that one time.

“This will hurt too,” the baar’ur warned, and Mawat rolled his eyes.

“I’m fighting in a war and you think I’m scared of a little needle?” he scoffed.

Tarre wondered if the baar’ur needed to give Mawat an eye exam, because that needle was in no way little.

***

Obi-Wan was lucky, if it could be called that. The healing trance that Tarre had guided him into during the brief time he had awoken prevented him from the sensation of being in a bacta tank, which Tarre knew was deeply unsettling to most people. Mawat, on the other hand, hadn’t been as lucky.

Tarre sighed. It seemed that Mawat still didn’t trust them enough to submit to sedation before going into the bacta tank, which meant both that he would feel the near-drowning sensation of being submerged and the several days of isolation that the healing would require. Both of those consequences had been explained to him, but Mawat had been firm in his decision. He didn’t want to be sedated, as it would leave him too vulnerable. Realistically, injured as Mawat was, he would have been easily overpowered if it came to it, but nobody wanted to override his decision, as these ade were so traumatized already.

Kara, another twelve-year-old member of the Young, had even offered to stand watch by Obi-Wan and Mawat, but Mawat had refused before going in the tank, saying that Kara should be preparing for the final assault instead.

Tarre had offered to stay with Mawat, but the ad had refused, citing the fact that Obi-Wan would likely want him to do something more productive than sit next to an unconscious person.

Mawat was right in that much. During the brief time he had been conscious, Obi-Wan had communicated as much through his bond. The fact that Tarre was certain that most of it was Obi-Wan’s Jinn-induced low self esteem didn’t mean anything. Tarre sighed as he left Makk’s ship. There were three bacta tanks attached to said ship, since they were too big to be moved around. They were expensive too, and Makk had only managed to buy them due to him saving the life of a very thankful - and rich - Muun who had suffered from a sudden hemorrhage of the aorta of one of his consciously controlled hearts. Apparently the Muun’s conscious control of said heart was enough to keep him from dying within minutes, but wouldn't have been enough to keep him from bleeding out without Makk having been there.

Several minutes of walking later, Tarre reached his destination, finding Jaster deep in conversation with Jocasta Nu - no surprise there. “Do you need my help with anything?” he asked Jaster, who was looking at him, startled.

“I thought you’d be with Obi-Wan,” Jaster said, sounding slightly disapproving.

“I would have if he hadn’t told me to do something more productive than watch over his unconscious body,” Tarre muttered.

Jocasta pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “You know, I seem to remember a time when Qui-Gon wasn’t such an idiot. I’m not sure when it changed. Although it’s not all Jinn’s fault. Obi-Wan was always respectful of the Archives, even as a Youngling, but he never had the best self-esteem. Qui-Gon just made it worse.”

“Some people shouldn’t be buire or cabure,” said Jaster. “Even among Mando’ade, that’s no shame, as long as you know your limitations.”

“The thing is, he used to be good with children,” said Jocasta. “He liked visiting the creches as a Padawan. And he took over Feemor’s training after Feemor’s first Master was killed. Feemor’s a good Knight.”

“Jo, your point is rather undermined by the fact that after Xanatos fell, Qui-Gon repudiated Feemor,” Tarre muttered. “It’s highly likely that he was never good with children, and was just able to hide it.”

“Hold up,” Jaster said. “You’re saying that Jinn’s second ad became dar’jetii and in response, Jinn disowned his first ad? And he didn’t see a mir’baar’ur?”

“No,” sighed Jocasta. “I suggested he do so. So did Sifo-Dyas. So did Yan. But Yoda said it wasn’t necessary, and mediation would be enough, so…” she trailed off, shrugging in a what-can-you-do gesture.

Jaster made a frustrated noise. Tarre commiserated.

Mawat:

Maybe he should have accepted the sedation, Mawat thought ruefully as he was placed into the bacta tank. He would have been vulnerable, yes, but at least he wouldn’t have been having flashbacks to that time he nearly drowned in Lake Weir. He wasn’t going to change his mind, though. He’d stick to his blasters.
He’d just ignore the fact that he felt like he was drowning. He’d think about something else. Anything else.

Mawat wasn’t quite sure how long he had been in the tank, but after a while of thought, he had determined several things:

Vai and Dai wouldn’t be enough to hold the peace. The other Mandos wouldn’t always be there. Obi-Wan would likely leave with Vizsla. That left Cerasi and Nield to help him keep the war from starting up again, and while Nield would likely be an ally in that, Cerasi was too hopeful, even after her experiences. She would likely think that peace was actually attainable. That was what she was fighting for, after all.

There was nothing for it. Mawat would act.

As soon as he got out of this kriffing bacta tank.

Yan:

Yan let out a large sigh as Tarre informed him of what had happened. “But he will live?” Yan asked intently.

Tarre nodded. “’lek. I took him as my Padawan.”

“Plo will be disappointed then, from what Sy says,” Yan responded. Qui-Gon’s failures were still begetting consequences, it seemed. “Let Obi-Wan know that I still view him as my Grandpadawan,” he said finally, instead of elaborating on Qui-Gon’s many failures and Yan’s own self-doubt on how he might have played a role in who Qui-Gon became.

Yan made a note to talk about it with his own Mind Healer in his upcoming appointment, the first in many years. Yan was many things, but he tried not to be a hypocrite, and he recognized that proper mind healing after the Xanatos Incident might have averted several tragedies.

“I’ll tell him that. My own Master is long dead, so the position is open,” Tarre said.

Yan nodded and turned off his comm before heading off in search of Sifo-Dyas. Surely the Council meeting would be over for the night by now, right?

Obi-Wan:

Obi-Wan, for once, was doing exactly as Healer - baar’ur - Makk told him. He needed to be recovered for the assault on the Hall of Evidence, so he was following Makk’s orders. Obi-Wan had apparently spent three days in a bacta tank, and had been in there for slightly longer than Mawat had.

Obi-Wan felt guilty that he hadn’t been able to protect his friend, but a mental nudge from Master Vizsla made him give that guilt to the Force. Master Vizsla was apparently concerned about Obi-Wan’s low self-esteem, and would mentally nudge him every time he felt unworthy or guilty through the bond. Obi-Wan’s protests that a Jedi was supposed to be humble and self-sacrificing only earned him an aggrieved sigh and a promise of a later discussion.

Currently, Nield and Cerasi were visiting him and Mawat, although considering Mawat seemed to be sleeping, they were mostly talking to Obi-Wan. The Mandalorians had even let Mawat keep his blaster next to him, and Obi-Wan’s lightsaber was clipped to his belt. Obi-Wan honestly hadn’t been surprised at that consideration from Mandalorians.

“I’m going to use the fresher,” Nield excused himself. Obi-Wan was of the opinion that it was likely due to Nield’s new addiction to Muja juice, since Nield had downed three glasses in the hour he had been visiting.

“Don’t forget we have access to soap now!” Cerasi called.

Obi-Wan was closing his eyes - the bright lights of the medical bay were giving him a slight headache - when the Force suddenly started to shriek in warning. Obi-Wan leaped out of bed and drew his lightsaber, deflecting the sudden blaster shot that had been heading towards Cerasi.

“I’ve got him!” Nield shouted in a strained voice, having come back from the fresher. The offending blaster clattered to the floor at Obi-Wan’s feet and Obi-Wan finally looked up to see who had been holding the blaster. He almost dropped his lightsaber in shock. Nield had subdued the shooter, holding the culprit’s arms behind his back with one arm while performing a chokehold with the other.

“Mawat?” whispered Cerasi, sounding like she was about to cry. “Why?”

Chapter Text

Cerasi:

Cerasi stared at her assailant in disbelief, not wanting to believe what her eyes were telling her. Nield’s wide eyes proved he was having similar thoughts even as he continued to restrain Mawat. Obi-Wan took several steps back to sit on his hospital bed again before reaching out his hand. His lightsaber returned to his hand from where he had dropped it.

“Tell her,” Nield snarled. “Tell us why you betrayed us.” He pressed his arm tighter against Mawat’s neck for a second before letting his grip go slack enough for Mawat to speak.

“I had to!” Mawat cried. “There’s no way the peace will last! Without her naivety you would see that, Nield. I didn’t want to but I had to!”

“You’ve seen how scared the Elders are of the Mandalorians,” Cerasi said, willing her voice not to waver. She had trusted Mawat. “Do you not think they can keep the peace?”

“Not when they’re parsecs away, no, I don’t,” he replied.

“Master Vizsla said he would be leaving Vai and Dai Vizsla here,” Obi-Wan said.

“They’re not even old enough to be proper Elders. And they’re jokers. You really think the Elders will be scared enough of them to not attack us?” Mawat asked skeptically. No, scornfully.

An unfamiliar Mandalorian rushed in upon hearing the commotion and quickly took in the situation. “I have a whipcord launcher,” he said.

Nield nodded and moved slightly to allow the Mandalorian a better angle to tie up Mawat. Five seconds later, a trussed-up Mawat was glaring daggers at everyone else in the room.

“You think the Mandalorians won’t be able to keep the peace, and your solution to that was to try to kill Cerasi?” Obi-Wan demanded.

“Obi-Wan’s going to be leaving with his new Jedi, everyone can tell that. Nield is practical and would see what I do if Cerasi wasn’t there. I didn’t want to, but it was the only way to save more Young,” said Mawat.

“You’ve gone mad,” said Obi-Wan sadly.

“We need to decide what to do with him,” Cerasi said finally, looking at Obi-Wan and Nield.

“I’m trying to save us here! You’re the mad one, Obi-Wan, if you think this so-called peace would actually last!” Mawat roared.
“And you just tried to kill your commanding officer!” snapped Nield. “I’m cuffing you to this bed, and the only reason you’re not in the cells right now is that you’re still healing.” The cells Nield was talking about had been added into their network of sewers to house the Elder prisoners of war they had managed to capture and interrogate for information once in a blue moon.

As soon as Mawat was secure, Cerasi bolted out of the room before she broke down. She had trusted Mawat. She knew that she was fighting a war, and was prepared to die at the hands of an Elder.

She wasn’t prepared to nearly die at the hands of a fellow Young.

Obi-Wan:

“You are very, very lucky,” Healer Makk told him. “If you want any hope of fighting in three days' time, you are going to stay right there in that bed. You so much as get up to take a shit and you’re not fighting. As it is, letting you fight is going against every instinct I have.”

“Mawat was trying to kill Cerasi! I had to stop him!” protested Obi-Wan.

“And it’s a good thing you were here to stop him. But it did set your recovery back,” Makk said calmly.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Surely you’re exaggerating and I can get up to relieve myself,” he protested weakly. And Bant wondered why he hated being in the Halls of Healing.

Even from behind the helmet, the sound Makk’s mandibles were making let Obi-Wan know he was annoyed. He pulled out a bedpan. “I’m not exaggerating.”

Obi-Wan groaned and laid his head back on the pillow. He couldn’t wait until he got out of here.

Nield:

“Are you not fighting, though?” Nield asked the Jedi librarian. What was her name again? Mu? Su? Yu? No, it had started with a Nern. Nu, that was her name. “Because the Mand’alor said you’re not bad in a fight.”

Nu crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “The Senate, after reading Jinn’s report, barred the Jedi from interfering on Melida/Daan. I had to sneak over here, but if I take part in the fighting the Senate is likely to punish the whole of the Jedi Order. They’re still sore about us killing one of their members.”

“Wasn’t that Senator a Sith? Like, an evil Jedi? Obi-Wan said so, at least,” asked Wenali.
“Sith are not simply evil Jedi, child,” Nu said, with the air of someone who had explained that fact many times before. “And the Senate fears us, and therefore limits us. It’s a delicate balance.”

“Why’d you even answer to the Senate, anyway? It’s not like the Senate actually tries to help anyone,” asked Nield.

Most of the explanation flew over his head, but from what Nield gathered, after the New Sith Wars ended, people feared the Jedi would become a conquering army, and so they gave up their army, navy, military roles, and placed themselves under the control of the Senate.

Nield thought it sounded like a horrible idea. Everyone knew the Senate only cared about worlds that were prosperous. Otherwise help would have come for Melida/Daan long ago. If the Jedi had truly wanted to help people, surely placing themselves under the control of the Senate was the worst thing they could have done.

“We need to come up with a plan for what happens if there’s another explosion,” Nield said, figuring he wasn’t going to get Nu’s help. Obi-Wan and Vizsla would have to be enough. “I don’t think they would store anything combustible so close to the Hall of Evidence, but you never know.”

“I know you said you can’t fight, Madame Nu, but surely you could remain on the roof of the Halls of Evidence and keep watch for any explosions and stifle them, or throw up shields. You could also tend our wounded, if the Mandalorians with jetpacks evacuate them to the roof,” said Cerasi. Nield noted that she still seemed shaken by the fact Mawat had almost killed her. Nield knew that it wasn’t almost dying that had disturbed her. All of them were well aware of their own mortality. But the betrayal - yes, that would have bothered Cerasi.

Hells, it was bothering Nield.

“I suppose I can do that,” sighed Nu. “If my presence is kept out of any reports and such.”

“Then it’s decided. We strike in three days,” said Cerasi.

“Oya!” grinned the Mand’alor.

Jaster:

“Hey, buir, I was wondering - never mind!” Jango said, face red, as he closed the door to Jaster’s ship. “I’ll stay with Myles tonight!”

On the one hand, he and Jocasta really hadn’t been doing anything indecent. They had been comparing historic hand-to-hand styles of both Jetii and Mando’ade. Yan had even been participating in the discussion through holocall. In fact, he had been the one to bring the topic up in the first place. On the other hand, considering that Jaster and Jocasta had proceeded to test said styles out, that Jocasta had stripped to her inner robes in order to better try out the old Jetii style, and Jango had opened the door to see Jaster pinning Jocasta to the floor, Jaster could see how Jango had misinterpreted the situation.

And it wasn’t like Jaster would be opposed to that happening. He just didn’t think it was likely. And really, Jango was in his twenties. Surely that was too old to be blushing about sex? Even if he was beginning to suspect that his ad may be asexual.

Whatever. Jaster still wanted bu’ade. Jango was old enough to say the gai bal manda for someone.

“Where were we?” Jaster asked.

“We were trying to piece together the Je’daii ancestral form of Shi-Cho hand-to-hand,” Jocasta said.

Jaster nodded. “I had my hand like this, didn’t I?” he asked, trying not to get his hopes up at seeing the slight flush on Jocasta’s face. Surely that was just because she was physically exerting herself, right?

***

“That’s him,” said Cerasi through the comm they had given her. “That’s my father, and he has several other Melida leaders with him.”

“There’s Daan leadership there too,” confirmed Keesi, whose father was one of the Daan leaders. Keesi had celebrated her twelfth birthday - as much as the Young could celebrate anything - two days earlier, so while she hadn’t been able to participate in the first fight, she was of age for this one.

“Wait for my signal,” Jaster warned, eyeing the battlefield below him. “...Now!” he yelled as Wehutti opened fire at his own daughter, causing Obi-Wan to block the shots with his kad’au.

Demagolka dar’buir!

Jaster landed heavily on the ground, turning off his jetpack as he did so. All around him, his fellow Mando’ade did the same, some of them remaining in the air. Tarre’s black blade was already blocking numerous shots aimed at different members of the Young.

In deference to the wish of the Young, Jaster did try to keep from killing the Elders. He made more of an effort for those around Jango’s age, recalling the possibility of them being forced into fighting, but the ones that seemed older than their mid-twenties? The ones that were happy to kill ade? Those he wasn’t exactly mourning if they happened to die.

His blood ran cold as he saw Wehutti point a blaster at Cerasi’s back. His own daughter. It wasn't enough he had already tried to kill her once today, now he had to do it from behind, like a hut'uun? Cerasi had nearly been killed by her own comrade several days earlier, and now her own father was trying to kill her? Again? Jaster snarled and pointed his own blaster at the man, regretting that it was set to stun.

He would have valuable information. And it was likely Cerasi still cared somewhat for him. For that, he got to live.

Jaster turned and fired several more shots aiming to stun. This wasn’t even difficult. Usually, in a pitched battle like this, it was safer to kill. After all, the effects of a stun only lasted for several minutes.

The skill advantage that the Haat Mando’ade possessed wasn’t even funny. It was child’s play for them to stun an Elder, tie them up with a whipcord, and fly them up to the roof after relieving them of their weapons.

When the only limitation they had was that they were beginning to run short on whipcords, it was a sad state of affairs.

For the Elders.

Jaster couldn’t find it in himself to feel sorry for them.

***

Over the next several days, after several mind tricks done by Jocasta and Tarre - both of whom seemed to view the task with equal dislike, even if Tarre seemed more viscerally repulsed by doing so - enough information was gathered to capture many more Elders, to the point that they were beginning to run out of room to hold them. Most beroyase had brigs on their ships to hold bounties, but not all of the verde sworn to Jaster were beroyase.

The Young were reluctant to house the Elders in the makeshift cells in the sewers for any extended length of time - it was hard enough for them to hold Mawat there - which left the only option being to find a place in Zehava or one of the other cities to hold them.

The jails were empty, since there was no functioning legal system on Melida/Daan, which would have been ideal, if they weren’t also bombed to the point of not serving as jails any longer. Only a select few cells were sturdy enough to actually house prisoners, and those were quickly filled as well.

“We could always just kill them,” muttered Nield as they discussed how to store their new Prisoners of War. Several of Jaster’s verde looked like they agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment.

The solution came when news came in from Manda’lase that several slavers had used the opportunity of so many Haat’ade being far away to try to launch another assault on the New Mandalorians. Jaster wasn’t a fool, though, and had left enough forces to repel any such attacks, and now he had captured several large slave transport ships. What was used to keep slaves contained could easily be repurposed to instead serve as a POW camp.

Now came the monumental task of trying to actually establish a peace treaty. Jaster had a feeling that would be much, much, harder than the actual victory.

Chapter Text

Jaster:

Jaster sighed as he looked out at Melida/Daan from his ship. It hadn’t quite reached the levels of desolation that Manda’yaim had, but the planet in front of him was still clearly on a path to environmental destruction. Even Tor Vizsla had realized that in order for him to be Mand’alor, he had to prevent the few amounts of vegetation in Manda’lase from being killed - and therefore, most of the battles had taken place on the planets already affected by the Dral’han, or on traps in planets outside of Manda’lase. The battle that had killed Jango and Arla’s birth buire had been an exception, taking place as it had on the Fett family farm.

The population of Melida/Daan didn’t seem to recognize that. Or, even worse, they recognized it and just didn’t care. Jaster wondered for a moment how any buire could so callously disregard their ade’s future, then mentally kicked himself as he realized that this was a planet full of dar’buire

None of them cared about their children, and the ones that did cared more about revenge and prolonging a senseless war. It had gone on for so long that in addition to the ecology, the culture of Melida/Daan had almost been destroyed.

Jaster had asked some of the Young about their culture, indulging in his curiosity, only to realize that the war had been the only focus of the planet for so long that most of their cultural practices had disappeared.

Holidays had long since been replaced by endless battles. Funerals by the Hall of Evidence. Coming-of-age rituals by killing a member of the opposing side. Cultural dishes had been lost once agriculture had mostly broken down.

Few things remained of their old culture. Almost nothing remained of their history, having long been warped by propaganda. Not even the reason for the war survived.

Personally, Jaster thought it may have started as a matter of religion, seeing as Yarin and Bannor seemed to be two different war deities called upon by the Melida and the Daan, respectively. Although other Daan expressions indicated that Bannor was likely a god of a monotheistic religion. The Melida had once practiced a polytheistic religion, if the surviving mentions of Yarin being the son of Jarla, or of the afterlife being Gorda’s domain, were any indication.

It was as likely a cause as any for the start of the civil war. Jaster could name plenty of examples off the top of his head of civil wars that had been started by religious differences. The Kyrmean Civil War, the Eneerva Civl War, hell, even the Jedi-Sith war could be called a civil war if what Tarre had said about both groups emerging from the Je’daii was true.

No matter how it had started, the effects of the war left one indubitable conclusion: the people of Melida/Daan would have to rebuild their culture from the ground up, to replace the rituals and practices that now all had to do with the war.

From what he had seen of the Young, Jaster believed that they had the will to rebuild. It was the Elders he wasn’t so certain about.

He sighed heavily. He wasn’t looking forward to supervising the Peace Talks the next day. He didn’t exactly have much practice in doing that, no matter how many history texts he had read. His only experience was rehabilitating the former Kyr’tsad members after … his own civil war had been concluded.
Fine, so maybe Jaster did have some experience in dealing with the aftermath of a civil war. It didn’t change the fact that a jetii or a Diplomat would have been much better suited to the task. Jaster could loom threateningly to make sure the talks didn’t devolve into more fighting, but actually having the Melida and Daan make peace?

There was a higher chance of Tor Vizsla doing charity work. And the man was dead.

There were three jetii on the planet, which was the frustrating part. Unfortunately, of those three jetii, one was an archivist and had chosen that path so early she had never even had diplomatic training. Another jetiihad spent all his time as a jjetii fighting in a war, so he didn’t have any more than the bare minimum of diplomatic training either. And the third jetiiwas a kriffing jetii’ad, who even if he had had the requisite training was one of the signatory parties and therefore ineligible to oversee the Peace Talks.

And they were trying to keep any jetii involvement hidden from the Senate, so they couldn’t request a fourth jetii to come to the Peace Talks either.

This was going to be such a kriffing disaster. He just knew it.

Tarre:

Tarre resisted the urge to bang his head against the table. Just as pretty much everyone had predicted, the peace talks had devolved into such heated arguing that Tarre was pretty sure only the presence of the Mando’ade had prevented it from coming to blows.

Next to him, Jaster looked just as done with everything as Tarre felt. Even Obi-Wan, a very patient person - Tarre wouldn’t have suggested he learn Soresu otherwise - was starting to develop an annoyance that Tarre could sense through their bond. “Does anybody actually know why you’re fighting?” Jaster asked after slamming his kom’rk on the table to get everyone’s attention.

“To avenge our fallen ancestors!” Wehutti snarled.

“Because they keep killing us!” a Daan representative exclaimed at the same time.

“That’s why you continue fighting. Does anybody here actually know why this war started?” Jaster pressed.

The Melida and the Daan were silent as they looked at the other members of their own faction, a silent conversation seeming to play out in which they all determined that no, nobody had any clue why the civil war had begun in the first place.

“It doesn’t matter,” said a Daan representative finally. “We need to avenge our fallen kin.”
Wehutti snorted derisively. “And good riddance to those fallen kin. The only good Daan is a dead one. You’d kill us all if you had the chance.”

Couldn’t those di’kute see that this cycle of revenge was the only reason this war had gone on for so long? No, they couldn’t, Tarre decided as Corin Kast held the Daan representative in place as he tried to lunge for Wehutti.

Obi-Wan sent a mental sigh Tarre’s way, which he returned with an emphatic mental nod. They weren’t getting anywhere.

At this rate, it would take decades before the Melida and the Daan decided to make peace. By then it would likely be a moot point, however, as the current Elders would then be too old or too dead to fight, leaving only the Young, who wanted peace.

That was the worst-case solution though.

“Why don’t we see if anyone has any old family journals or records that say why this war was started and come back tomorrow?” Jaster finally suggested. “Before you get any ideas, each Elder is going to be shadowed by two Mando’ade to prevent them from starting up the fight again.”

If looks could kill, Jaster would be dead. But it was a good idea, Tarre mused. Maybe if they knew why they had started fighting they could address that issue and actually make some progress in peace talks? If the first step towards peace was taken, surely the rest of the talks would come easier, right?

Tarre wasn’t going to get his hopes up.

Jaster:

There were three differing accounts of why the civil war had started. One claimed that it had started over water rights to a particular river. That river was now polluted with waste from munitions factories, making the fighting moot. Another claimed that the war started when a conference between leaders of both the Melida and the Daan had been bombed. Both sides blamed the other, only for the culprit to turn out to be from a now-extinct third party. The war had already been in full swing by the time that had been discovered, though, and so the fighting had continued, neither side wanting to admit that they had been wrong. The third claim was for religious reasons: there had been a millenia-old tree that both the Melida and the Daan viewed as significant in their beliefs. Said tree had been long-destroyed in the fighting.

No matter what reason was true, there was absolutely no reason for this war to continue. Now Jaster and the others just had to hammer that through the thick skulls of the Melida and the Daan. If Jaster had been viewing this objectively, it would have been a fascinating historical case study. Unfortunately, seeing as he was in the middle of it, it was more a source of frustration than fascination.

“Another day of feeling like I’m speaking to a brick wall, then?” Jaster asked Jocasta in a mock-cheerful tone.

She sighed. “I don’t envy you this task, Jaster. I need to return to the Temple, though. I have spent too long away from the archives as it is.”

“Ret’urcye mhi, then,” Jaster said sadly.

“May the Force be with you,” Jocasta returned.

Jaster tried not to feel sad as he watched her leave. She had her duties and he had his. They regularly kept in contact even when they were half a galaxy apart. Why, then, was it so much better to see her in person than over comms?

Obi-Wan:

It had taken the better part of three weeks for the Elders to stop arguing like children and accept the terms of the new treaty. Even then, Obi-Wan had a feeling that if it weren’t for Vai and Dai, as well as the Mandalorians that were staying for their newly adopted children, that they would have broken the terms within a day. Luckily for lasting peace on Melida/Daan - or Melidaan, as it was now called - the Elders were too scared of the remaining Mandalorians to act out.

So now Obi-Wan was leaving the planet that he had thought he would die on, a Padawan once again when he thought he would remain unwanted. The goodbyes with Nield and Cerasi were hard, but Master Vizsla promised him that he would be able to return to visit. Obi-Wan would have asked about attachment, but he didn’t want to question his new master.

Master Vizsla, instead of returning straight to Mandalore, was instead stopping by the Temple to discuss the terms of Obi-Wan’s Padawanhood - they needed to iron out how Obi-Wan would take his classes when he was on Mandalore, as well as if that would even be allowed.

Because Master Vizsla, as the Mand’alor’s second in command, needed to stay on Mandalore when he wasn’t out doing whatever it was Mandalorians did in the wider galaxy. Bounty Hunting, most likely. Obi-Wan tried not to voice his worry that, if Master Vizsla wasn’t allowed to stay on Mandalore and be his Master, that Obi-Wan would once again be without a Master.

There were only so many chances that Obi-Wan could have, after all. Master Vizsla sent him another mental nudge, sensing that Obi-Wan was being hard on himself again. Obi-Wan sent him the mental version of a sheepish grin back.

Finally, they arrived on Coruscant, where they were greeted by both Master Dooku and Master Koon.

Master Koon’s eyes crinkled in what Obi-Wan knew was a smile, despite his mask blocking his mouth. “I am glad to see you, Padawan Kenobi,” Master Koon said. “Know that if Tarre had not taken you as his Padawan, I would have.”

Obi-Wan felt his legs become unsteady underneath him. Why would Master Koon, a member of the Council, want him, of all people, as a Padawan?

Master Vizsla sent him another mental nudge.

“And I must apologize to you, Padawan Kenobi,” said Master Dooku, and Obi-Wan’s brain just about stopped working. Why in the world would Master Dooku want to apologize to him? “I did not realize that I had failed in teaching Qui-Gon, but I obviously did, if he could leave you and the other children on that planet.”

“Master Tahl was injured,” Obi-Wan protested meekly. “And I argued against Master Jinn. There isn’t any need to apologize to me, Master Dooku!”

Master Vizsla seemed to sigh mentally, even as Master Dooku frowned.

“The fact that you believe that you do not deserve an apology,” said Master Dooku severely, “proves to me just how sorely needed one is. Heleo, Padawan Kenobi. Heleo.”

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan:

“So you’re leaving?” Quinlan asked. “To karking Mandalore?”

Bant smacked him on the back of the head. “Don’t swear, Vos,” she said. “But he has a point. We’ve not been able to see you in almost a year since Jinn has kept you on back to back missions. And now you’re going to be on Mandalore? How will you even take your classes?”

“The Council seems to blame themselves for my situation,” Obi-Wan said. “Even though it was all my…”

Master Vizsla sent him a mental nudge.

“Obi, if you say it’s your fault I’m going to have to smack you,” said Reeft. “They should blame themselves. They completely disregarded their own procedures and you were the one to repeatedly pay the price.”

“I was too angry…” Another mental nudge.

“Banthashit. Yoda admitted what he did, you know. And wasn’t that a shock, when Yoda resigned from the Council! He wanted you in his lineage so he manipulated events to put you with Jinn,” said Garen.

“But if he hadn't, nobody would have taken me,” Obi-Wan pointed out.

Ob’ika, you are wanted. You are worthy. You have the makings of a great Jedi. Master Vizsla’s voice came through their bond. Obi-Wan flushed.

“We’re going to demand holocalls with you,” Bant said. “If nothing else, so we can boost your self-esteem.”

“Master Vizsla says that I’m too self-deprecating,” Obi-Wan said.

“And he’s right!” Quinlan threw his hands up. “ I swear, if you don’t get what we’re saying through your thick skull… Obes, you are entirely too hard on yourself, and everyone else but yourself and Jinn can see how great you are.”

“Enough mushy stuff,” Garen said. “I brought Corellian Blitz, Threat, and Bou.”

“I just got back from a war, I don’t want to play Threat,” said Obi-Wan. “But I’m up for Bou. Or Corellian Blitz.”

“Ah, but I brought Cards against Sentience,” said Quinlan.

“Nothing’s stopping us from playing all three,” said Reeft.

“Sounds like a plan,” Garen agreed, and took the deck of Bou cards from Garen to start dealing.

Obi-Wan suddenly felt tears spring up in his eyes. He had accepted he would never see his friends again. That he would die on Melida/Daan. But now he was home, and his friends welcomed him back like nothing had ever happened.

“Obi? What’s wrong?” Bant asked.

“I’ve missed you guys so much,” Obi-Wan said simply.

“Yeah, well, we missed you too, Obes,” said Quinlan. “And we’ll miss you when you’re on Mandalore too.”

“I’ll call as often as I can,” Obi-Wan promised.

“You better,” said Reeft, before he placed his red four on the red seven. “We’ll be holding you to that.”
“Yeah, we’ll storm Mandalore if you don’t,” said Garen.

“Somehow I don’t think that would end well,” laughed Obi-Wan. He loved his friends.

Tarre:

“And this,” said Tarre, watching as Obi-Wan looked at everything around him with wide eyes, “is the Compound of Aliit Vizsla. I’m the aliit’alor: the family head, so I’m often busy dealing with family matters, especially since much of my aliit is former Kyr’tsad. I’ll show you where your room will be - it’s not connected to mine like a Master-Padawan suite, but it is nearby,” Tarre continued.

Obi-Wan nodded, one hand fiddling with his braid as he followed Tarre through the Vizsla Compound. “Keersad?” Obi-Wan asked, and Tarre winced. That would not be a fun explanation.

“Kyr’tsad,” he corrected the pronunciation, before reluctantly giving Obi-Wan a rundown of the recent history of Manda’yaim, pausing only to point out the karyai before turning down the hallway that would house both his rooms and Obi-Wan’s. “I’ll leave you to get settled and unpack while I find out what I’ve missed when I’ve been away. I’ll also send you the learning modules that foundlings get, so you can start to learn the language if you have time after settling in. Then we can eat and I can show you around Keldabe if you’re not too tired.”

Not that Obi-Wan had much to unpack - he had several sets of Jedi robes, the Nubian blanket and clothes he had received on Melida/Daan, a black rock that the shabuir Jinn had given him, several holos of both his Creche clan and the Young, his lightsaber, and a lightsaber repair kit. Tarre also knew, from what Vai had told him, that the Young were planning on sending gifts to Obi-Wan. Several of them had taken up crafts now that they weren’t at war anymore, and Tarre looked forward to seeing Obi-Wan’s reaction to the paintings, glazed pottery, and beaded belts that the Young would be sending.

Several hours later, Tarre knocked on the door to Obi-Wan’s room.

“Come in!” came the response. Tarre entered. “Soo-cooey, Master Vizsla!” Obi-Wan said, and Tarre figured that the pronunciation could come with time. Obi-Wan was making an effort to learn Mando’a, and that was what was important.

“It’s time for latemeal, Ob’ika,” Tarre informed him. “And I apologize for not being available for the last several hours, but the work tends to pile up when I’ve been gone for more than several days. And yes, I am apologizing,” Tarre added as he caught more self-deprecation from Obi-Wan through their bond. “Because I shouldn’t have had to abandon you as soon as we got here.”

“You didn’t abandon me, Master Vizsla,” Obi-Wan protested.

Compared with what Jinn had done? No, Tarre hadn’t. Compared to what he wished would have happened? Yes, he had.

Ten minutes later, as Obi-Wan was gulping down bantha milk to mute the burn of one of the spicier dishes at the table - despite having been warned of the spice levels - Tarre figured that Obi-Wan would likely fit right in here. He might even be able to get Obi-Wan into a proper set of beskar’gam. After all, Tarre himself had proven it was more than possible to be both Jedi and Mando’ad.

Jaster:

Now that they weren’t in the middle of a war, Jaster could get to know Tarre’s new ad. Obi-Wan was fascinated by everything he saw, but also had the self-confidence of a piece of flimsi. He saw everybody else as much more important than he was, and Jaster had a bad feeling Jinn was to blame.

“What did your Council do to Jinn again?” Jaster asked Tarre.

“Meditative retreat,” Tarre answered. “And forced mind-healer sessions. And, at Jocasta’s request, copying out treatises on the proper treatment of those under your care. By hand.”

“That’s it?” Jaster didn’t want to have to complain to Jocasta that the punishment was too light, but this was the man who had seen an army of ade and turned away.

“I’m told that Jocasta chose a treatise that was nearly a thousand pages long,” said Tarre.

Jaster humphed. At least Jinn would be busy for a long while and unable to harm any other children. It still didn’t seem like enough.

Over the next several weeks, Jaster tried to get Obi-Wan more comfortable with him. It was a slow task, especially since Obi-Wan kept trying to get away, saying that, as Mand’alor Jaster surely had better things to do with his time. Jaster thought he was slowly getting Obi-Wan to believe him when he said spending time with ade was one of the most important things he could do with his time.

And, yes, Jaster knew that Obi-Wan was older than thirteen. But … he was still young. And had been through so much already.

After three weeks, an offhand comment by Arla, that Obi-Wan seemed almost as interested in history as Jaster was, led to a breakthrough. Obi-Wan got so engrossed in his discussion with Jaster on the Infinite Empire that he had seemingly forgotten that he was speaking to the Mand’alor.

Hmm. It wasn’t often that Jaster was able to have an in-depth discussion of history that wasn’t with Jocasta or some of his colleagues from the History Department of the University of Keldabe.

Maybe Obi-Wan would like to read the new book he was working on?

Cerasi, three weeks post-peace treaty:

Cerasi shouldn’t have been nervous. She was one of the generals who had won the war. She was Cerasi of the Young. She should not be nervous.

She was nervous.

Before she had formed the Young with Nield, she had an older brother, Fali. He had been sent to a munitions factory in the countryside and Cerasi hadn’t heard from him since. In all honesty, she had assumed he was dead.

But then Wehutti - he didn’t deserve the title of father - had reluctantly told her that Fali was still alive. Sure, he had phrased it in a way that implied that ‘at least Fali was doing his duty,’ but Fali was alive.

Fali was the one who had taught her how to shoot. Had borrowed Wehutti’s speeder to teach her how to drive it. Had taught her how to read and write. He was the one who had first suggested to her that maybe the war didn’t have to be an endless war.

He was more her father than Wehutti had ever been. And his name had finally appeared on the list of family members of the Young cleared to see their family, and she had immediately set up a meeting.

Which brought her to now, where she was nervously pacing across the office that had been set up for her while she and Nield tried to create a new government.

It was just Fali. She shouldn’t be nervous. Suddenly there came a knock on her office door. “Come in!” she called, and the door opened to reveal her brother.

He was older than when she had last seen him, but he still had the copper hair and pale green eyes that they both shared with Wehutti. He crossed the room in several easy strides, eyes not leaving her, as if he feared blinking would cause her to disappear.

“Cerasi,” he said simply, but the wide smile on his lips showed his joy.

“Fali,” she returned, rushing into his arms, wondering why she had ever been nervous in the first place.

Nield: three years post- peace treaty:

It was hard to believe, but the peace had lasted. Nield hardly knew what to do with himself during peacetime, besides throwing himself into his new role as one of the leaders of the planet. There were nine leaders - three from the Young, three from the Melida, and three from the Daan. The hardest part had been choosing who to be the third leader from the Young, as Obi-Wan had left and Mawat had proven himself a traitor.

He sighed. The Mandalorian mir’baar’ur had explained the circumstances that had lead to Mawat’s actions. And before he had acted, he had been a valuable member of the Young. So the fact that the mir’baar’ur had now declared Mawat effectively safe to be on parole shouldn’t worry Nield.

It worried him. There had been verbal arguments, and even a few fistfights, but nothing worse than a bloody nose had happened so far since the signing of the treaty, and Nield was waiting for the other shoe to drop, even as he slowly became more and more hopeful that the peace would last.

He hoped Mawat would be a productive member of Melidaan. Nield still didn’t want to see him, the betrayal still too strong.

At the same time, Nield wanted nothing more than to welcome Mawat back. Maybe he should speak to his own mir’baar’ur about his conflicting feelings?

He looked at the stack of flimsiwork on his desk. Therapy would have to wait. He swore that the stack bred if he left it alone for too long. He made a mental note to talk to Cerasi about the Mawat Situation, because surely if Nield was feeling anxious and betrayed, whatever she felt would be so much worse.

Obi-Wan, nine years post-peace treaty:

Nine years ago, Obi-Wan never thought that this would have happened. But here he was, about to be knighted after passing his trials.

He was glad the beskar’gam he was wearing hid the nervous expression on his face, although he was fairly certain that it showed through the Force, as his buy’ce was cortosis instead of beskar.

He knelt in front of Tarre in the council chambers, Jaster, who had come with him, watching with a proud expression. Master Dooku looked proud as well.

“By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force, I name thee Jedi, Knight of the Republic - protector of the light,” said Tarre, hovering his blade over Obi-Wan’s head and shoulders so close that he swore his hair was getting singed. And then his braid was cut, and he did smell burning hair, but he didn’t care. He was now a Jedi Knight. “Obi-Wan Kenobi, you may rise.”