Chapter Text
She had looked over and Jon was gone, but Fay wasn’t alarmed. She checked with the Force. He was fine. He had something to do, and would be back soon. A little over four hours, and he would find her easily enough when he returned.
She gave the nascent frisson of concern to the Force and relaxed again. All would be well, and he was exactly where he needed to be. She had hoped she could keep him a little longer with her, but the Force had been so clear that he would need to go his own way for a time once he reached full mastery, at eighteen.
She checked with that again, though honestly hadn’t expected anything different, given all the other times she’d checked again and yet again.
Oh!
It had changed!
Jon would be with her beyond his point of mastery!
Fay’s heart leapt and she blinked away the tears, not giving away her joy to the Force, but sharing it, and her relief. She smiled easily with the little being she was healing in this rural patch of a lovely moon.
Jon would stay with her until he was… twenty-six! And at some point things would switch from Jon following her on her missions to her following Jon on Jon’s missions? Well! It was the Will of the Force, and certainly they would get much accomplished!
She sighed happily.
Jon really was the sweet little child of her heart, for all that he was also deeply broken by Kuro’s experimentation and a formidable weapon of justice.
Fay continued her work in the community until Jon quietly returned to her, looking just a bit different than before.
He had new robes, more weapons… and bandoliers? Hm.
They were Mandalorian, some of those weapons.
When she asked the Force if Jon had somehow nipped off to Mandalore for four hours of weapons acquisition, the Force said yes.
How peculiar.
“Master Fay,” Jon said quietly. “We are needed elsewhere.”
Fay raised a brow, and yes, yes the Force was being quite clear about that. “I see. I think… Yes, we’ll need to go to a different port town than the one we arrived in. Let us wrap up here with our hosts. Are you up to shadow walking us there?”
Fay could wrap shadows, but it was difficult for her, and she did not even try to do the more Cosmically Aligned Feats that Jon did so easily. It was enough that one of them could, as they travelled.
“Of course. I’ll tell you about the situation on the way.”
“And about your adventures on Mandalore,” she said with a grin. “Don’t think you’ll get out of telling me those, too, my dear one.”
Jon smiled and Fay’s breath caught.
Not so easily did her Jon smile, but he was now.
“Only if you tell me about your adventures on Mandalore. Buir,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.
Fay almost choked on a laugh and hugged Jon to her. And oh, it was invitation enough!
“I know your name as my child, Jon Antilles, and I will know your name forever,” she said, in the native language of her own adopted parent.
And then she realized he was also wearing armorweave. She dissolved into pure laughter and kept hugging him to her.
What stories he had to tell!
Jon had many more credits than he’d had the day before, and enough to buy a small gunship in rough condition with more bunks than they needed, even considering that on his adventures he had acquired a padawan. Rough condition though it was, at that price it was a fair trade and it was spaceworthy, and the pricetag left them enough left over to buy many more rations than Fay was used to Jon admitting were necessary, fuel the sublights, buy some droid parts and get a move on. If they were going to keep the ship, it would need more work, soon. Which meant they would need to either barter for the work, acquire credits, or end up somewhere where the ship would be fixed up for free, but free was a fascinating concept, and all such ‘free’ things came with strings attached.
But possibly they would need to head to the Temple, anyway. She was not asking the Force about that before it was time… but it was just a slightly foreboding feeling she had.
Still, they meditated together in hyperspace and Jon was prepared to get rid of so much more shame than previously, and Fay was so incredibly proud of him. Somehow during his four hour foray into the future, and into Keldabe Keep, he was able to get so much more context for Kuro’s ill-treatment of him, much more so than she had been able to gently impart to him on her own, and occasionally with Nico and Knol’s help.
He had repudiated An’ya Kuro!
Oh, it was cause for celebration, though a picnic in a meadow would suit Fay better than a dusty gunship in hyperspace, she made do and Jon blushed as she told him how proud of him she was.
And they traded stories.
It became abundantly clear that Fay would have to go back to the Temple, and for a number of reasons, really. She had some Jedi to yell at, for one. She’d need her armor back. And she had a few things to file, which may or may not happen in person. And Obi-Wan had a dataclip that needed to be delivered, and that was very important. And… she needed to visit Little Keldabe. She could request beskar and cortosis of Clan Vizsla through the armorer there, without actually having to deal with the politics of her clan, and it was very clear to her that Jon and Obi-Wan needed to be wrapped in beskar before they returned to Mandalore, which they were obviously going to go to when all was said and done.
Oh, it would hurt.
She sighed and gave it to the Force. It would not do to dwell on the pain.
And yes… somewhere on Coruscant they were going to need to do a little Sabacc work while they let the Jedi Temple fix and upgrade the gunship so it could be a decent living space for a few years.
Well.
Well.
Wouldn’t that be a fascinating mix between interesting and horrible?
She turned her mind back to what Jon had told her of his trip forward in time. That version of her had, with Padawan Kenobi’s permission, severed his training bond with his former master, and Jon had already formed a good, strong bond with him that he had reported was much stronger than his own training bond had been with Kuro. He couldn’t quite talk with his new padawan at their current distance, but he could tell his emotional state, which she assured him was a good sign.
They had talked early on about how to be a good master and a good teacher, and it turned into an ongoing conversation, because Jon was clear he wanted to be more like Fay herself was, than Kuro, but wasn’t exactly sure if he was going to be able to do that. Fay thought it showed considerable self-awareness on his part, and promised to help, and continue to help.
Jon tinkered with the broken maintenance and cleaning droids as they went, and was able to get two of four of them fixed with the tools and parts they had acquired, which was significantly better than Fay could manage. She could do similar work with plants, in a pinch, helping crops to grow and getting rid of various forms of blight, as it was not so different than healing, but she was not mechanically inclined in the slightest. While he tinkered, they talked, and Fay was continuing to teach him Mando’a. And while Jon slept, Fay had permission to read a datapad he’d brought back with interesting articles, modern cultural and language modules, and a rather large work that had been written within the last fifty years codifying a reform tradition that was remarkably moderate for Mandalore, all things considered. She quite liked it.
And three days later they were arriving, and oh! the planet was in pain. And so were the people.
Jon hissed when they dropped out of hyperspace. “Obi-Wan is okay. He says hello. I’ve given him fair warning that you want to adopt him, too, and he’s fine with it. It’s a hell-hole, though.”
“It’s not worse then Coruscant, my dear one,” Fay warned.
Jon grunted in displeasure, and it brought a little smile to Fay’s face. He was so like a little feral tooka kit sometimes, the comparison was surprisingly apt, even if it was Knol who had first made it.
Fay was piloting and Jon was co-piloting and they quietly did the work to enter atmosphere and fly quickly toward the gutted, war-torn planet that was neither Melida nor Daan, but some raggedy thing left over from both groups tearing themselves and their world apart. They landed in a clearing outside the last remaining semi-habitable city, and there were clear marks that other starships had landed there recently.
Fay checked with the Force.
Two weeks. They would need to stay for two weeks, which would be an incredibly long time, she could tell.
The ground was poisoned.
The air was poisoned.
The water was poisoned.
Every adult left on the planet save herself, was poisoned.
Fay quietly sighed as she followed her sweet child through the little ship and toward the cargo bay door that was lowering fairly quickly for its kind. Odd that that should be upgraded, but people did get a bit strange about their ships, she considered.
A rather young Senior Padawan strode out of the tree line with a wide smile on his face, bearing even more weapons than Jon had on him. He was certainly a malnourished Stewjoni child, and that would have to be fixed as soon as they got out of here.
Jon walked a little faster and Fay smiled to see them meet in a crushing hug. They whispered something to each other, but Fay let them have their private moment and waited until they were finished.
Jon pulled away and introduced them.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Senior Padawan Kenobi,” Fay said, testing the waters.
“Master Fay,” the Senior Padawan said in a posh core accent that only some raised at the Temple managed. He bowed respectfully. “You look as well as you did when we first met last week and several years from now.”
She chuckled. “This may seem precipitous, but I’d rather adopt you now, so there are no questions later. If I don’t, fights will break out between the Mandalorians when they arrive, over who will get the honor to ask you first.”
The Senior Padawan blushed a full and complete red. “If you think it best, Master Fay. I consent either way.”
She said the name and soul words over him in Mando’a and again in Basic. Then she opened her arms. “Hug?” she offered.
He shyly accepted, and after a moment, melted into it. Then Fay opened one of her arms and Jon joined them.
“You’ll never be abandoned in a war zone again,” Jon whispered, and kissed his forehead, as Fay often did to him.
“I promise to love you, care for you, protect you, heal you, and train you both to the best of my ability,” she promised.
Then she stopped a sniper rifle blaster bolt aimed at her head, closed and locked the gunship down with her mind, and sighed. She was bored of this war already.
“Dear ones, it begins. Shall we?”