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Chapter Text

Here , whispered the Force, swirling around Jon urgently, this one right here .

Crash-landing on this moon was not the plan. When the Force had urged him in this direction, Jon was hoping to find ship parts. 

“This one right here” was most certainly not ship parts.

It was, instead, a temporary Mandalorian encampment. A lone figure, fully armored with a red cape, sat by the campfire nearest to Jon. His body was tense with exhaustion.

Jon slipped closer, concealing himself with the Force and the shadowy dusk around him. The Mandalorian removed his helmet and gazed up at the stars, face lined with anguish.

He bowed his head, “Manda help us,” he whispered quietly in Mando’a, “bring our children back to us.”

Jon stiffened. The Force was almost overpowering in its sense of urgency. He carefully memorized the Mandalorian’s clan crest, and slipped back to his ship. 

He had not kept abreast of Mandalorian politics recently, but if someone was stealing their children, something was gravely wrong on Mandalore. It seemed some further research was in order.

***

“Mand’alor”, said the Goran be Keldabe, “you are needed in the Forge.”

Jaster blinked at his comm. The Goran was standing in his usual pose of contemplative attention, arms folded, but there was a stiffness to his stance that belied his air of composure. 

“I’m on my way,” Jaster said, setting aside his notes and pinging Myles.

The Forge of Keldabe was at the heart of the city, next to the Mand’alor’s Fortress, protected by heavy walls that dated back to shortly after the Dral’han. Some parts were even older, and the only Forge on Manda’yaim that could claim to predate Keldabe was in the Mines of Mandalore, far beneath Sundari.

The Forge was meant to be impenetrable without the complete defeat of Keldabe.

Jaster and the Goran looked down at the dozen small children currently sitting on the floor of the innermost room of the Forge. They were a mixed assortment of races and ages. The youngest, a small blue and white togruta, looked to be about two standard years old, while the oldest looked to be a near-human of about nine.

“Jaster,” the Goran said, and it was a sign of his disquiet that he dropped his usual formality, “there are foundlings in my Forge and neither I nor the Guard know how they came to be here.”

Jaster rubbed his forehead. A medic was moving through the group, checking each child for injury. Myles was speaking to them softly, asking for names and planets of origin. 

He turned and gestured for Jaster and the Goran, “Not all of these children are foundlings. Some of them are Mando’ade – over half of them are children that had been reported as kidnapped by Kyr’tsad within the last few months. The rest were enslaved with them, and have no homes to return to.”

Jaster’s jaw dropped. The Goran slumped with relief, then asked, “Did any of them say how they came to be here?”

“The nice spirit brought us back,” piped up one of the older children, “after they killed all the bad guys.”

One of the others, a tiny girl with red pigtails and no front teeth, nodded excitedly, “They were super wizard an’ tall .”

The Goran hid a smile, then asked gently, “Why do you say they were a spirit?”

“Oh,” said the redhead, as though he had asked a foolish question, “because they were tall an’ skinny, like bones , an’ they had a lot of scars like something tried to eat them , an’ their eyes glowed –”

A little Nautolan butted in, “AND they sounded old , like Goran be Kast –” 

He was quickly pushed to one side by the oldest, who contributed with, “They said the Mand’alor made a request and they were closest, and they walked through walls and turned invisible and stuff, so they had to be a ghost, even though they did carry Bev when she got tired.”

The little Togruta shook her head stubbornly, “No,” she declared, “Up!” and held her arms up to Jaster.

Jaster stooped to pick her up with a smile, his mind whirling.

Their mystery savior spoke old Mando’a, walked through walls, was tall and bony and scarred, with glowing eyes, could disappear, but was apparently corporeal enough to kill people and carry small children. They had also said they were answering the Mand’alor’s request and they responded because they were “closest”. It didn’t sound exactly like any of the old stories about spirits sent by the Manda, but there were similarities, and they certainly didn’t sound human .

Jaster looked up to make eye contact with the Goran. The Goran tilted his buy’ce slightly, “What did they mean that the Mand’alor had made a request?”

Jaster shook his head, “I haven’t shared information about our missing children with anyone outside the Haat’ade. The only request I’ve made about this has been to plead with the Manda to help us bring home our ad’e.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Well,” said the Goran thoughtfully, “I suppose the Manda decided to answer slightly more literally than you expected.”

Chapter Text

Jon stepped into the remnants of a battlefield, the Force shrieking around him with grief and pain. He was bloodstained and bone-tired from the hunt he’d just finished, still wearing his battered cloak and battle-worn armor over heavy synth leather and blaster weave.

He stepped carefully, tying his hair back into a serviceable knot as he worked his way through corpses, looking for injured.

He was just in time to see a cruel-faced blond man kill a woman in front of her screaming, struggling child, while his rami’kade stood and watched.

He recognized the aliik the man wore. Fay had drawn it for him many times, told him stories of Clan and House Vizsla, of her friend Tarre, who had been both Jedi Master and Mand’alor.

The Force cried out with sorrow and outrage.

Jon stepped forward soundlessly, ragged cloak streaming behind him in the grey wind.

The Mandalorians fell gradually silent as he approached. The blond man rose, snarling a challenge, “Who are you, aruetii?”

“So this is what has become of House Vizsla,” Jon said in Mando’a, ignoring him and kneeling to take the child out of the grip of the commando holding him, “cowards who kill parents and steal their children.”

He stood, holding the sobbing child on his hip, and raked his pale eyes across the ranks of warriors, “You have forgotten the Way.”

An uneasy ripple spread among the rami’kade, as beings shuffled uncomfortably under his gaze. The leader noticed the shift, and scowled at his men.

“Don’t listen to this scum,” he growled, “what does he know of our cause? Our Clan? Our right! I am the rightful Mand’alor, and my way is the Way!”

Jon deliberately looked him up and down, then snorted, “You are not the Mand’alor. You are not Vizsla. You are dar’manda, and any goran’e in their right minds will know you as such.”

The blond man gave a wordless howl of rage, and yanked a square lightsaber hilt out of his belt. Jon recognized it instantly from Fay’s stories – the Darksaber, once wielded by Tarre Vizsla himself.

Jon snorted, “You’re really going to try to attack me with that ?”

He dodged easily, even with a child on one arm. The man was clearly not Force sensitive, and equally clearly had never had actual lightsaber training before.

The man roared, and made another mad swing with the blade. Jon covered the child’s eyes, then flickered himself and the child through the Force, teleporting inside the sweep of his opponent’s arm to strike and knock the saber from his hand.

Jon caught the saber in his left hand, reversed it, and cut the leader’s head off in one smooth motion.

He looked down at the corpse at his feet where it lay, scant inches from the man’s latest victim, and spoke the words the Force whispered through him, “Tor Vizsla, you have claimed to be Vizsla and Mando’ad, yet you have not lived as such. You are dar’manda, you have no Name, you shall not march in the Darasuum Taa’bir. This is the Way.”

There was again a stunned silence, the only sounds the wailing of the wind, the crying of ravens, and the whimpering of a child who had lost his entire world. 

Slowly, one by one, the gathered rami’kade began to kneel. One of them, a heavily muscled Devaronian, removed his helmet.

“What should we do?” he asked, hesitantly.

Jon was suddenly tired. So tired, of blood, and death, and people . 

“Take his armor, and present it and yourselves to a goran,” he said shortly, “they will be your judge, not me.”

The assembled warriors bowed once more, then thudded their fists heavily against their breastplates in salute.

Jon wrapped himself and the child in the Force, obscuring them both from view, and left to find his way back to his ship.

He had a headache, the Darksaber, and a Mandalorian child he didn’t know what to do with. Maybe he should drop them off at the Mand’alor’s Forge, like he’d done with the last few batches of children he’d rescued. 

This could all be the Mand’alor’s headache now.

Chapter Text

“Help,” Jaster said.

Myles eyed him dubiously, “Vod, why does the weird stuff always happen to you?”

Jaster laughed hysterically, “I may have accidentally summoned a spirit of the Manda, and now it’s haunting me.”

“Ok, is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

Jaster gestured wordlessly at the unassuming bladeless hilt lying innocently across the papers on his desk. It was solidly made, darkened with age and use but still unmistakably forged from haat beskar.

“You tell me,” he said, picking it up and flicking a switch on the side. A pure black blade erupted from the hilt, singing with a chiming alien hum.

“Ah,” Myles said faintly, “I thought we had intel that Tor Vizsla was the current holder of the Darksaber.”

“Right, about that,” Jaster said, powering off the saber, “the Goran just commed me; a group of Kyr’tsad rami’kade arrived at the front gate of Keldabe about half an hour ago, carrying Tor Vizsla’s corpse and asking the Goran to judge them for their crimes.”

“So they’re the ones who dropped that off, then,” said Myles, enlightened and slightly relieved.

“Oh no, not them,” Jaster said, “the Darksaber was waiting for me on my desk when I got here this morning, well before they showed up.”

There was a brisk knock on the door, followed quickly by Kal Skirata.

Jaster raised an eyebrow, “Usually, people knock and wait for permission before entering, Kal. What if I had been naked?”

Kal grinned, “In your office? With someone as ugly as Myles? Not likely.”

He dodged Myles’ punch and sat down, propping his boots leisurely on the edge of Jaster’s desk, “Wanna hear something fun?”

Jaster and Myles leaned forward.

It was almost exactly what Jaster had been expecting to hear. The Kyr’tsad rami’kade had been perpetrating their usual death and violence when a tall, scarred man in dark armor appeared, rescued a child, killed Tor Vizsla, and disappeared again with the Darksaber. 

The part Jaster had not been expecting to hear was the part where the rami’kade were convinced it was the spirit of one of the past Mand’alor’e, namely Tarre Vizsla himself.

“Said he tore them all a new one for what House Vizsla had become,” Kal related gleefully, “then mocked Tor for trying to use his own kad'au against him, and disarmed him like it was nothing, all while holding a kid.”

Kal paused for maximum effect, then smiled like a shark, “And then , he posthumously declared Tor dar’manda right then and there, using the really old version of the ritual words.”

Jaster gulped, “Did he perchance happen to mention what he intended to do with the Darksaber after that?”

“Nope,” Kal said, shrugging, “just farted off into the sunset before vanishing into thin air like the ghost he is.”

“So nothing about this, I suppose” said Jaster, pulling out the Darksaber and switching it on again.

Kal made a choking sound.

Myles patted him on the shoulder, “Jaster has a ghost. It likes to leave him children and weaponry like a half-feral tooka donating rodent corpses to its favorite person.”

Chapter Text

Jon liked this bar. 

Sure, it was in a cheap, filthy region of Nar Shaddaa, but all of Nar Shaddaa was filthy and cheap, and unfortunately when following the will of the Force meant spending a lot of time in Hutt Space, this was as good as it got.

Jon liked this bar because the owner preferred to ignore his existence. 

All it took was one time using the Force to stop a Trandoshan slaver who was on a mid-air collision course for the shelf of glassware behind the bar, and the next time Jon stopped by, Jon’s favorite table carved into the wall at the back of the room had a tiny holo sign marking it as “Permanently Reserved”.

The owner never made eye contact, but everytime Jon slipped into his favorite seat, a serving droid would glide across the room with his meal and drink. It was the most painless restaurant experience in the galaxy.

Jon stepped down into the crowded main room of the cantina, shedding the hood of his cloak and dodging a harried waiter scurrying past. The first few times he had come here, he had forgotten to dispel his habitual low-level notice-me-not, and a waiter had almost walked into him. Jon had been so startled he had phased through the man to avoid contact.

Today, the waiter was serving a loud table half-way between the bar and the door. Jon glanced them over curiously on his way to his seat. It was not often he saw a group of traditional Mandalorians this deep into Nar Shaddaa.

The group quieted slightly as he passed, and Jon could feel eyes on his back as the rami’kade took note of the vambraces and greaves they could see beneath his cloak. Jon decided to ignore them.

The serving droid rolled over a few moments later, depositing a single glass of imported tihaar and a small bowl of stew, a chunk of bread laid carefully on top and sprinkled with salt. 

Jon chuckled inwardly. Lately, the meal had started to take on the feeling of a ritual offering. Alcohol, a single portion of food, bread and salt. The droid never took his credits, so Jon always ended the meal by leaving the exact price for his meal at his seat when he left.

Jon’s appreciation of his first slow sip of tihaar was interrupted by the sound of boots. Three of the Haat’ade from the dining room approached. The tallest, a woman in scarlet and black armor, nodded her head politely to him, fist to chest.

Jon nodded back, and repeated the gesture silently.

“Mand’alor Tarre Vizsla?” the woman asked in Mando’a.

Jon turned to look behind himself, “Where?” he said in the same language, bemused. 

Tarre rarely visited him; he spent most of his time with Fay or on Mandalore, although he also occasionally materialized in Coruscant to catch up with T’ra and help her prank the High Council. He knew there were some Mandalorians Tarre visited who could see him, but Jon had never met them before.

The woman in front blinked, then said cautiously, “So you’re not Mand’alor Vizsla, then?”

“Ah,” Jon said, “not sure where you heard that from, but no, Tarre is more of a friend of a friend.”

The black and green armored Mandalorian on the right made a squeaking sound. The blue one on the left looked like he was about to pass out.

Jon eyed him carefully in case he needed to catch him, then gestured to the chairs at the next table over, “Would you like to join me? I’m afraid I can’t actually order anything, this is the only tihaar I have, but you may have some if you’d like.”

The woman dragged a chair over immediately, “We would be honored.”

The blue Mandalorian headed purposefully for the bar and returned moments later with extra glasses and alcohol.

The three Mandalorians squeezed around his table, looking at him expectantly.

“So,” the one in black and green asked, vibrating with barely contained excitement, “can you tell us any stories about Mand’alor Vizsla?”

Chapter Text

“Kark it,” a young voice to Jon’s left said in Mando’a, “I might as well give this a shot.”

Jon was currently undercover. Undercover, in this case, meant mostly naked and in chains in the cells beneath a Hutt palace. He had gotten in fairly easily with the rest of the prisoners and slaves, then faded silently into the shadows near the back of the cell. 

Easy enough for the guards to forget a slave they had never fully noticed in the first place. 

Jon had been waiting patiently for the last few days for whatever or whoever the Force had brought him here for, but he was almost ready to call it and make his escape. Listening to people being hauled off to potentially get eaten by rancors or sold by the Hutts was getting old fast.

Jon was pretty sure genocide was not why the will of the Force had brought him here, but it was sounding better by the hour.

“Right,” the young voice continued, “so I tried to help a kid, which is good, so I guess getting eaten by a rancor still counts as dying gloriously or whatever. But Manda, if there’s anyone you’ve got handy, I’d appreciate not dying? Jango’s gonna be so pissed at me when he finds out.”

The Force was laughing softly. Help is here , it tried to tell the young Mandalorian, then poked Jon.

Jon let himself appear out of the shadows. He snapped the chains at his wrists and ankles, then stepped forward to stand in front of the cell’s other occupant.

The Mandalorian gaped up at him. He was a young man, barely into adulthood, wearing chains like Jon had been, and sporting a truly impressive assortment of bruises.

Jon rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and squatted down to look the Mandalorian in the eyes.

“Su’cuy,” Jon said, slipping easily into Mando’a, “it would be a shame if Jango were pissed at you, and we can’t have that.”

“It’s you,” the boy breathed, awestruck.

Jon blinked, “Yes, last I checked? Although I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Um, I’m Silas, and you’re naked,” the Mandalorian said, eyes bulging as he took in Jon’s extensive collection of scars.

Jon glanced down at his own torso, “Only mostly. So are you.”

Silas slumped dejectedly, “They took my beskar’gam, I fought ‘em, but I don’t know where they took it.”

“Well,” Jon said, clicking his fingers and shattering Silas’ shackles, “your chains are broken. How would you like some help getting out of here to get that armor back?”

Chapter Text

Jaster took another sip of his caf and scrolled further down the bounty listings.

“This is getting ridiculous,” he said.

“And yet, here you are, watching every single one,” said Myles, leaning over his shoulder to squint at the holovid Jaster pulled up.

The top listings were all variations on the same theme: requests for anything about their mysterious new ghost friend. Jaster had, of course, sponsored a standing bounty for any holo recordings, but others had also joined in. The Goran be Keldabe had listed a bounty specifically requesting any holos or information regarding the spirit’s armor or origins.

There were an alarming amount of bounty requests for holos or vids of the ghost naked; one of the more superstitious Guild moderators removed those posts as they appeared, but more were posted as fast as the old ones were taken down.

Jaster blamed Silas.

Idly sifting through the recent holovids for likely sightings had become part of Jaster’s morning routine. Confirmed sightings were surprisingly difficult to prove. While multiple people had seen his face and person, those with the presence of mind to record the encounter were few and far between. Some of this could be attributed to the fact that the spirit usually appeared in chaotic, dangerous, or otherwise stressful circumstances.

Understandably, none of the children he had rescued had had the gear for recording their savior. The Kyr’tsad members who had witnessed his execution of Tor Vizsla had also not been forthcoming with helmet cam recordings; Jaster was disinclined to believe that not a single one of them had been recording, but admitting to taking holovids while committing war crimes was perhaps not something he could expect them to be stupid enough to confess to.

Silas had not been able to record because he didn’t have his beskar’gam at the time. Because, as Silas liked to explain, volubly, he’d been naked. As had the ghost. Jaster had not been prepared for Silas’ glowing description of the spirit’s… everything .

The first actual holovid was from one of Vhonte’s squad at some grungy bar in Nar Shadaa. Jango had filled him in on the full story, but he, Vhonte, and Jor had been somewhat tipsy and none of them had had their helmets on, so the only recording was a blurry vid from across the room.

From there, the holos and vids became increasingly far-fetched. One rami’kad had taken a vid during a slog through a swamp for a hunt, zooming in and circling what he claimed to be a humanoid shape that was most definitely the ghost.

It mostly just looked like a smudge of mud to Jaster.

He skimmed down and paused at the next vid; this one was from someone he actually knew and considered trustworthy. Tsika Awaud was a rangy, one-eyed veteran from Vorpa’ya who had been with Jaster since the founding of the Haat’ade. For all that she constantly complained about being too old and needing to retire, she spent more time away taking bounties than most of the younger commandos.

Myles sniffed, folding his arms, “The old witch is finally losing it.”

Jaster stifled a grin and rolled his eyes. Myles and Tsika had some incomprehensible petty feud that he did his best to not keep up-to-date on; the last time Tsika had been in Keldabe, they had both ended up in the medbay, from whence Mij ejected them unceremoniously as soon as humanly possible before comming Jaster a four page document titled “Addenda to the List of Banned Species, Both Reptilian and Amphibious”. The first page of the document had been a list of actual creatures; the last three pages contained an invective-laden rant and dark warnings concerning the dismemberment of beings who in any way violated the sanctity of Mij’s domain.

Jaster pulled up the vid. Despite his grumbling sounds, Myles dragged a chair over and propped his elbows on the desk as Jaster pressed play.

The recording started shaky; Tsika was stumbling down what looked like a sand dune behind two other rami’kade. She found her feet at the bottom of the hill, and the vid stabilized. Clearly a desert planet; there was nothing but sand, hot blue sky, and the shimmering of heat waves.

The commando in front turned to look behind them, then shouted something that the wind snatched away. He activated his jetpack and started to burn max thrust upwards, pulling out his blasters to aim behind them.

Tsika started to turn towards what Jaster knew was the side her good eye was on, when there was a shrieking roar, and the rami’kad in the air disappeared in a blur of furious brown scales.

When the dust settled, a huge krayt dragon rose in front of them. The previously air-borne commando was nowhere to be seen. Tsika stood still, view shifting ever so slightly, clearly assessing the odds of different methods of attack and escape routes. The other rami’kad was panicking over the internal comms, a steady string of intermingled prayers and swearing.

The krayt roared again with concussive force, then began lumbering purposefully towards the panicking commando. Tsika, clearly resigned to fighting for the safety of the younger warrior, pulled her weapons and launched herself between them, firing a steady stream of shots into the approaching beast’s hide.

None of them even scratched the dragon.

Just as it seemed Tsika would surely be eaten, a raspy voice on her blind side said, “Mind if I take this dance?”

Out of pure reflex, Tsika shot him.

Or rather, tried to shoot him. Between one blink and the next, the blaster bolt phased through the spirit and melted a hole into the sand behind him.

“Excellent reaction time,” the ghost said without breaking stride, “excuse me for a moment.”

The ghost flickered and disappeared. There was a frozen silence where even the krayt stopped moving, bewildered, then a flash of brilliant green light. The krayt thrashed wildly and collapsed sideways onto the sand.

Tsika stood uncertainly for a moment. Just as she started walking cautiously towards the dragon, the spirit reappeared holding the missing rami’kad, now covered in foul-smelling slime and guts.

The spirit dropped him in a heap in front of Tsika. 

“Fortunately, we took the cleanest way out of a krayt’s stomach. Unfortunately, we took the cleanest way out of a krayt’s stomach,” the spirit said, picking a slimy piece of something unspeakable out of his dark hair. He held it between two fingers and examined it with interest before flicking it off onto the sand.

The rami’kad took his buy'ce off, looked at the guts all over his armor, then threw up on the spirit’s boots.

“And thus, I say goodbye to my streaks for ‘days since I was last covered in krayt guts’ and ‘days since I last cleaned another sentient’s vomit off my boots’,” the ghost said ruefully, “gone in one fell swoop.”

“Thanks?” Tsika said. The ghost laughed.

“No debt,” he said, the shape of the words softened slightly by his ancient-sounding dialect of Mando’a, “it’s what I’m here for.”

As the ghost walked away, Tsika called out one more time, “Ret’urcye mhi.”

The ghost turned, the hint of a smile on his scarred face, “Ak’urcye tug’yc.”

The holovid ended; Jaster leaned back in his chair, zoomed in on his first look at the face of the spirit he had inadvertently summoned from the Manda itself. The spirit’s pale blue eyes seemed to be staring through the holo and into his soul.

“Myles, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked, rewinding excitedly to when the spirit first appeared.

“Yeah,” Myles said, nodding, “that was hot.”

Jaster blinked. Myles blinked back.

“Obviously that goes without saying,” Jaster said, exasperated, “but I was talking about the implications of having actual audio of him speaking! We should be able to do a vocal cross-reference with our linguists’ archival footage and find out exactly what time period he’s from. The vocabulary alone is a start, but there has clearly been at least one major vowel shift since –”

Myles stood, scraping his chair back from the table, “Right, do what you gotta do, Jas. I’ll be in my bunk.”

Chapter Text

Jon was bored.

It wasn’t often that he visited the Coruscant Temple, and while it was peaceful to be surrounded by the gentle lights of other Jedi, he was used to being on the move. He was not used to being in range of Temple-trained medics who tried to make him get sleep and threatened him with bacta for his already (mostly) healed wounds.

Currently, the Force was not pressing him urgently to be anywhere, so he had taken the afternoon to lurk at the top of his favorite tree in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. It was in one of the oldest parts of the gardens, tall and sleepy and borderline sentient. 

Jon flipped so he was hanging off his perch by his knees. Maybe being upside down would help.

He considered his options idly, crossing and uncrossing his eyes to bring the gardens into and out of focus. Maybe he could craft something with the krayt teeth he had brought back from his last trip to Tatooine. The Haat’ade he had helped had left the krayt’s corpse to the locals who had contracted them, and while the locals had ventured out to harvest the krayt pearl, they had left the entire rest of the body to the sands and the scavenger birds.

Jon had felt bad leaving the great dragon dead as though it were worthless, so he had helped himself to a few teeth and claws.

Something for Fay? Probably not; the longest tooth was longer than Jon’s torso. Fay traveled almost as lightly as Jon usually did. 

He already had plans to make some of the smaller claws into knife sheaths for Knol and Nico. He could find ways to use the other claws and teeth, but the largest of the teeth were the ones he didn’t know what to do with.

Who else would like a gift made out of an enormous krayt tooth?

Jon sat up with a jolt of excitement. What about the Mand’alor? Maybe something nice for his office; it could do with some decoration. Besides, Jon felt a little guilty for spying on him the first few times he had dropped off children.

It hadn’t been intended to be intrusive; Jon just had to settle a little understandable paranoia about the kind of man he was leaving the children with, even if it was because of the man’s own request that Jon was rescuing children in the first place. 

He had hidden and waited, vibrating with cautious tension, to watch the man’s reaction to the foundlings. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for the Mand’alor to cry tears of exhausted relief in the privacy of his office.

Jon had slipped away into the shadows, feeling like the trespasser that he was.

He wondered if the Mand’alor had been happy to receive the Darksaber; he hadn’t felt comfortable staying to find out. He probably should have hunted down Fay and asked her to ask Tarre what Tarre wanted done with it, but he highly doubted Tarre cared. Tarre was clear about the boundaries between being alive and dead, and he was a Jedi just as much as Jon was.

Letting go of possessions was just as much a part of death as it was of life.

***

Jaster paused outside his office, one hand on the door. He sniffed the air testingly.

“Kal,” he said, “what is that smell?”

Kal narrowed his eyes at him, “I took a sonic literally an hour ago. If you’re smelling something, it’s probably your own filthy boots.”

Jaster shook his head, “No, it smells like plants . And dirt?”

They exchanged glances, then activated the air-seals on their helmets. Jaster pinged Mij, using the alert for potential exposure to unknown biomatter.

Mij showed up in a matter of minutes with a bio-haz team, who carefully entered the office first while Mij scanned Kal and Jaster. 

Mij grunted. “Readings are normal,” he said, showing them the scans.

One of the techs appeared in the doorway, looking bemused. He tipped his head to Jaster.

“You’re all cleared to come in, alor. We’re still running tests to determine species, but all our tox screens are coming back green. And uh. It’s for you?”

He handed Jaster a scrap of torn flimsi covered in spiky handwriting. Jaster plucked it out of his grip; Kal and Mij squeezed in to look over his shoulder.

“sorry about dumping saber on you, couldnt keep it – i hope you like plants they(re) good for stress levels & got one s that are sacred for mandayaim,” Jaster read out, squinting as he tried to decipher the letters.

“I hope you like plants?” Mij asked incredulously. The tech waved a silent hand towards Jaster’s office. Jaster moved past him to look inside, and stopped on the threshold, dumbfounded.

There were plants everywhere. Several tiny planters, carved from what looked suspiciously like bones or claws, swung gently from the ceiling, trailing green and orange vines. A delicate orchid the color of blood twisted upwards from another container perched on his desk.

But the pièce de résistance was a giant planter by the window. It was a single tooth, clearly from something massive, settled on its side. Holes had been carefully drilled here and there across the top, then filled with soil and plants so that a riot of colors and textures spilled across the enormous bone.

Jaster was entranced, running his gloved fingers carefully over a patch of turquoise moss. The shimmering golden flowers at the top of the arrangement twisted to stretch out thin green leaves towards him with a faint humming sound.

There was another note taped to the side of the tooth.

“the sundari golden bells like to sing & if you let them sit with the darksaber they will be friends, also the a’den blood orchid drinks blood but it will be ok without it if you remember to giv it iron regularly,” the note read.

One of the scientists made an incoherent spluttering sound.

“Some of these species have been considered extinct since the Dral’han! This is, I need, wait here –”

Kal nudged his way between hyperventilating scientists to stand next to Jaster. He hooked his thumbs in his belt, eying the plants consideringly.

“So what I’m hearing is your hot ghost is now leaving you ghost plants,” he said, smirking, “what’s next, ghost armor? Maybe a ghost vambrace —”

Jaster lunged; Kal beat a hasty retreat, cackling madly with Jaster in hot pursuit.

Chapter Text

“The Goran be Sundari will be here within the hour,” said the Goran be Keldabe, handing Jaster a mug of shig.

Jaster raised an eyebrow, “I thought there were no goran’e left in Sundari after Kryze started actively discouraging citizens from wearing beskar’gam.”

Duke Kryze’s pacifist views and rejection of traditional Mandalorian values had intensified over the last several years as Death Watch’s violence grew. His stance on beskar’gam had been the final straw; the goran’e in the city had collectively denounced Kryze and left Sundari, followed quickly by anyone still wearing armor. Their departure and Tor’s death had swelled the ranks of the Haat’ade, and more continued to leave as Jaster’s faction solidified itself.

The Goran shook his head, “As long as Manda’yaim stands, the Forge-fire of Sundari will not go untended for long.”

“Who was bantha-brained enough to stay?”

“Run’ar Kast.”

Jaster grinned, “Kryze won’t even know what hit him. No one out-stubborns the old man.”

The Goran tilted his helmet in amusement, then froze. Jaster eyed him warily.

“He’s standing ominously right behind me, isn’t he?”

“Good to know the perennial disrespect of ad’e for their elders never changes,” a deep voice rumbled close to Jaster’s right ear. Jaster turned and let himself be pulled into a fierce hug.

It had been almost five years since the last time Jaster had seen Goran Kast. Run’ar was as short and broad-shouldered as he remembered, but the lines around his eyes and mouth had deepened and his curly hair was almost entirely white now. 

His armor had changed, too. Before, Jaster remembered a striking figure patterned in the green-and-blue chevrons of dedication, with the concentric teal-and-grey circles of wisdom painted across his chest. Now, his armor was almost entirely the deep grey of mourning, trimmed by the scarlet of defiance that veined outwards from his bes’karta.

“I thought you had retired,” Jaster said, sobering as he took in the older man’s appearance, “you were going to get a little cabin with your strill and the Manda for company, shooting trespassers for target practice.”

The Goran be Keldabe chuckled, “There is no such thing as a retired Goran,” he said, handing the older Goran a cup of shig.

Run’ar shrugged, “I’ll never forge again,” he said, holding out one hand so they could see the tremors that had prompted his “retirement” in the first place, “but that is not all that a Goran is. My hands can still keep the Forge-fire burning, I am still a Seer, and my heart still remembers the Way. Perhaps right now, those are the things Sundari needs the most.”

“Now,” he said, turning to the Goran be Keldabe, “why am I here?”

For the next few minutes, Jaster and the Goran be Keldabe retold the stories of Jaster’s ghost, not leaving out a single detail. Jaster showed him each of the confirmed sightings, as well as the Darksaber and holos of the plants and children the spirit had dropped off.

Run’ar listened, arms folded and head tilted thoughtfully, until they got to the holovids showing their spirit’s face. He grunted in surprise, but waved Jaster to continue.

“We have a rough estimate on the dating of his dialect, but not a lot of records from that time period. We know as a Seer you can sometimes speak to the spirits within the Manda, so we figured you could, um, ask around or something?”

“No need for that,” Run’ar said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Tarre says he knows him.”

Jaster perked up with excitement, “Mand’alor Vizsla is here?”

“Yes, and he’s currently dying of laughter.”

Jaster groaned. The two Goran’e looked at him inquisitively.

“I get it, dying of laughter, because he’s dead?” Jaster said, glancing between their unimpressed faces, “Too soon?”

“Tarre says you are a man of culture and it is never too soon to make cringe-inducing puns about being dead, especially when the deceased died over a thousand years ago” Run’ar said, “I, on the other hand, can feel my respect for you diminishing as we speak.”

“So would you say that makes you feel… dead inside ?”

The other Goran cleared his throat, “So he knows Jaster’s ghost?” he said, clearly attempting to get the conversation back on track.

Run’ar squinted into the middle distance for a long moment, then nodded, “He says that’s his vod’ika’s bu’ad.”

“Really? That’s all he said? It sure seemed like whatever he had to say took longer than that one tiny sentence,” Jaster said skeptically.

Run’ar glowered at him, “Would you really care for me to give you, verbatim, the list of highly inventive manners of death or bodily harm he is currently threatening you with?

Jaster blinked, “Why would he be threatening me?”

“Your ghost is his ba’vod’ad. Tarre says this is a warning for if you harm or upset him in anyway,” Run’ar said, glaring at the air, “I’m reasonably certain it’s not humanly possible to fit a vornskr up there – do not say ‘all things are possible with the Force’ with that facial expression.”

He looked up, “Ah, he also says thanks for telling him those stories, this is the juiciest gossip he’s had in years.” 

“Proud to be of service,” Jaster said, saluting dramatically towards where he thinks Tarre currently is.

“Oh I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” Run’ar said, smirking, “He just left to rat you out to his vod’ika.”

“Wait, he left ?” Jaster said, panicking, “I didn’t get to ask him about the Darksaber yet!”

Chapter Text

Mando’ade, as a general rule, were not inclined to worship.

Or not, at least, in the sense most of the rest of the galaxy would understand. Most of the old gods, Kad Ha’rangir and his blood-soaked Vod’e, were ancient memories to be feared from a distance at best. Drawing their attention to oneself was beyond foolishness. When Mando’ade had been primarily a religion rather than a secular Creed, ritual combat and conquest had been their acts of worship. Even now, there were still traditional splinter-cells who clung to the old beliefs that deified warfare and weaponry further beyond the tenets of the Resol’nare.

Even the Manda itself was not worshipped as other beings worshipped their ancestors, with offerings and gifts left at gravesites or familial shrines. The hallowed spirits of the Eternal Dead marched untiringly through the stars, above and beside and before. They were what was past but simultaneously what each Mando’ad was and would become. They marched ahead, and they did not ask for or give gifts.

This left Jaster’s ghost situation unprecedented. Jaster was tired of unprecedented. Unprecedented meant there was no lore, no historical records, and no theological imperative which he could fall back on.

First and foremost among his current headaches was the issue of debt. Every Mando’ad paid their debts, and the Mand’alor most of all. Normally, Jaster would have assumed that help from a spirit of the Manda would not incur debts, as the dead had no need or desire for what the living valued.

This particular assumption had been neatly turned on its head by his ghost’s unsettling habit of gift-giving. Or more accurately, the notes that had accompanied said gifts. Specifically the one in which the ghost had acknowledged and paid a debt he owed Jaster , which he had incurred when he left the mess that was the Darksaber in Jaster’s office.

The revelation that spirits (or at the minimum, Jaster’s spirit) were bound by and fulfilled debts meant that Jaster, Myles, Kal, and two Goran’e were currently huddled in Jaster’s library trying to a) quantify how much debt Jaster owed, and b) what payment they could possibly tender that would satisfy a ghost.

“Well,” Kal said cheerfully, poking Jaster’s cheek, “look on the bright side; you get to document this for posterity and write a grimoire about it, or some osik.”

“ Me moir,” Jaster corrected, batting Kal’s hand away from his face. He stretched, popping his shoulders, and glanced around the room. 

Myles had given up and was using the stack of books in front of him as a pillow. 

The Goran be Keldabe had started rationing his swearing part way through his third tome, and was now limiting himself to a new swear after every book that held no answers. Jaster was impressed with the extent of his vocabulary. There had thus far been no repeats.

Run’ar had also given up and was now ensconced in the window-seat, nursing a bottle of tihaar. He was also teasing the A’den Blood Orchid that now inhabited the library, courtesy of Jaster’s ghost. Jaster had moved it to the library from its former place on his desk after he’d got tired of tiny tendrils reaching out to caress the veins on his forearms while he tried to write.

“So,” Run'ar said thoughtfully, waving a bloodied finger just out of reach of the orchid’s grasp, “I don’t suppose you can just ask your ghost what he would accept as payment?”

Jaster groaned, rubbing his hands over his face, “He doesn’t seem like a particularly talkative type. I’ve never even seen him, even though I am apparently the one he’s haunting in the first place.”

Myles deigned to crack an eye open, “We may not even be on the right trail to begin with. He told Tsika ‘No debt’ when she tried to thank him, remember? That it was literally what he was there for?” 

The Goran be Keldabe closed his book with a snap and an alarmingly descriptive phrase in Ryll. 

“And what? Because a debt is denied means we are exempted from properly displaying gratitude?”

Kal squinted, scratching the back of his head awkwardly, “Uh, ye–” the two Goran’e skewered him with identical glares, “I mean, no? Because that would be wrong?”

Run’ar hummed distractedly. The orchid seized its chance, and his finger.

“The main problem isn’t really the size of the debt, because it frankly can’t get much bigger. It’s already a life-debt of stupendous proportions, several times over.”

Kal raised a hand, “That’s good though, right? Because it’s a life-debt, yeah? And he’s kriffin’ dead , which by my math cancels that out –”

Kal was once more favored with withering stares from all the other occupants of the room. Even the blood orchid paused cleaning the blood off of Run’ar’s finger to twist judgmentally in his direction.

Myles sighed, “The issue is we don’t know what ghosts want, or what could even begin to pay such a debt in the first place.”

“That, and the leader of our people owing an unpaid debt of such magnitude is an unmitigated disaster,” the Goran be Keldabe said bluntly.

Kal scratched his chin, “Right, but who says this all has to be paid by Jaster? He’s the one that summoned the spirit, sure, but the Manda is a part of all of us. And we have all benefited. Our ad’e returned, our people freed and defended. Just because Jas got the cool sword and the plants doesn’t mean he has to do all the heavy lifting.”

“Maybe your brain cell isn’t lonely all the time,” Run’ar said, “it’s at least a start.”

***

Jon stared down at the little packet in his hand. This was becoming a pattern.

***

The first time it happened, he had written it off as a bizarre, one-time event. He had been gently carrying a barely conscious verd away from the flaming wreckage of a fluke shuttle crash, when the warrior had stretched one bloody, shaking hand out towards his face. 

Jon froze, carefully tipping his head forward to let them touch his cheek with their fingers. They had lost their helmet, and they smiled shakily up at him, trying to speak past the blood filling their mouth.

Jon settled to his knees, propping them back against his chest.

“This will hurt,” he warned in Mando’a. The warrior nodded, hope and a blinding trust in their brown eyes. 

Jon splayed his hand across their chest and willed the Force into their flesh, the blade-sharp surge of battle-field healing snapping ribs back into place, knitting tissue and expelling the fluid from their damaged lungs. 

They heaved in his arms, coughing blood across his armor as he finished flash-healing their injured throat. 

“My belt,” they managed to choke out even as they continued to cough, “pouch.”

Jon held them steady with one arm and found the requested pouch with the other. He held it out to the warrior, but they shook their head and tried to feebly push it towards him.

“You want me to open it for you?” Jon asked.

“No,” the warrior said, between ragged breaths, “for you, for our debt.”

“There is no debt.”

The warrior huffed a shadow of a laugh, faint and exasperated, “No debt then, a gift.”

After they were safely asleep in Jon’s medbay, he opened the little gift. Inside were a tiny bottle of homemade alcohol, a carefully wrapped cake of dried fruit, and a beskar pendant engraved with a simple blessing for peace and rest.

Jon wore it next to his heart.

***

The second time was a small Mandalorian child who had gotten lost in the lower levels of Coruscant. Jon was not used to being on Coruscant, and this was the second time in less than a Standard year. 

The little girl had been facing down a group of thugs, knife held gamely in one hand and stuffed tooka clutched in the other. After she had cried desperate tears of relief into Jon’s neck, one small fist clenched in his cloak, she had spent the rest of the trip back to Kih’Keldabe asking him about being dead.

Jon, who was used to the morbid curiousity of small children, explained the concept of death as a Jedi and Mando’ad would view it. He told her stories about the Manda, but also about Force ghosts and echos, holocrons and haunted artefacts. She was a good audience, gasping and giggling at all the right moments.

When he set her down outside the Forge be Kih’Keldabe, the little girl reached solemnly into her pocket and handed him a slightly grubby handkerchief tied into a packet.

“For you, Kyr’am ori’vod,” she said, hugging him.

Jon stared after her, bemused. “Big Sibling Death” was a new one, but then again, he had just spent a lot of time telling her all about death. Children were odd .

The gift had contained two pieces of candy, a shiny sea-shell, and a scrap of flimsi with a child’s drawing of a flower and “Vor’entye” in wobbly lettering.

***

The third time was not just one.

He dragged himself, aching and weary, into the cantina on Nar Shadaa. The familiar ambience washed over him, the owner barely not-meeting his eye like usual. 

He made it to his spot at the back of the room, and stopped in his tracks. 

There were things piled on his table. A small round of specialty cheese, only manufactured on Manda’yaim. An endearingly lopsided glass vase, filled with fresh flowers. A box of deathsticks and matches, propped behind a deck of ornamental sabaac cards. Handwritten notes in Mando’a, blessings and prayers for gratitude and good luck, carefully traced poems he recognized as some of Tarre’s favorites, children’s drawings and little letters telling anecdotes about small faces whose names he remembered.

A throat cleared awkwardly behind him. The owner was standing behind him, gazing steadfastly at the wall instead of Jon. 

“The Mandos leave ‘em,” he said conversationally to the bricks just beyond Jon’s left ear, “I suppose I can clean ‘em all up if they make a mess, maybe tell ‘em not to bother anymore if need be.”

Jon swallowed, “No,” he said softly, brushing one finger over the blue flower petals, “no need.”

The owner stood next to him for a moment longer, glancing wordlessly at the pile of little drawings. He retreated silently to his place behind the bar, but a few moments later, the serving droid rolled over and lowered its tray to the table.

A glass of tihaar, a portion of stew, bread and salt. And if Jon ate a little more slowly than normal, carefully smoothing out each clumsy drawing, the owner studiously avoided noticing, except to send another glass of tihaar.

Chapter Text

Jon did not like Sundari.

It was a beautiful city, gleaming and pristine in the middle of Manda’yaim’s scarred landscape, but it had a glassy feeling to it that made Jon twitchy. It felt like an old piece of wood that had been ruthlessly sanded down and painted over until there were no imperfections left to tell its story.

There was also something unnerving about the lack of armor.

Jon was tired and nearing Force exhaustion, so he had not bothered with his usual notice-me-not. He was beginning to regret it, as more and more people pinched their mouths and hurried their children to the opposite side of the street when they saw his battered armor.

He walked faster, steadfastly refusing to otherwise react to the prickle of unfriendly eyes on the back of his neck.

The Force urged him deeper and deeper into the city. The streets started to look more weathered, steeply grading downwards as they descended away from the newer areas of the city. 

Jon turned a corner, and almost stepped on a child.

“Are you alright, little one?” Jon said in Mando’a, crouching instinctively to check them for injury.

The child nodded vigorously, their curly dark hair fluffing in the wind.

“You sound like Goran Ba’buir,” they said, grinning up at him. Jon blinked. Their Mando’a was the closest to his own accent that he’d ever heard, but still a little off.

“Who is Goran Ba’buir?” he asked, amused.

The child pointed the direction the Force was calling Jon, “He’s the only Goran left in Sundari, ‘coz the Duke is a kriffin’ hut’uun,” they said, carefully sounding out the insult and beaming up at him proudly.

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose, “Those aren’t nice words to call anyone,” he said, “even if they’re true. And if they’re true, then you should only say them to their face. Saying them to other people won’t help the person be better.”

The child considered this solemnly for a moment, then nodded, “‘Lek. Are you going to go see Goran Ba’buir?”

Jon smiled down at them, “I think so.”

“How come you only think so?”

“Because I’m on a special mission, but it’s secret so I don’t know what it is yet,” Jon said, lowering his voice confidentially. 

The child scrunched their nose, “Then how do you know where to go?”

“I hear it, in here,” Jon said, tapping his fist against his chest where his bes’karta would be if he were Mando’ad, where his new pendant hung and where he kept his kyber close to his skin when he was in Manda’lase, “and my feet follow.”

There was no fully accurate Mando’a word for the Force, and Jon was not about to try to explain the complexities dividing the Manda, the ka’ra, and the Cosmic Force to a six year-old.

The kid nodded, and held up their arms, “Then I’m supposed to go with you, ‘coz I know the way.”

***

Jaster’s ghost walked into the Forge with Run’ar’s youngest grandchild, Briik Kast, perched on his shoulders.

“Over there,” Briik said, using the ghost’s hair like reins to steer him towards Run’ar, “Ba’buir will give us Hoth chocolate if we ask nicely.”

“And how do we ask nicely?” the ghost asked, turning obediently.

“Just do what I do,” Run’ar’s grandchild whispered loudly. He straightened his tiny body on the ghost’s shoulders, and brought his fist to his chest in salute.

“Can we have Hoth chocolate, Goran Ba’buir? Ge’detye?” he begged.

“Now you,” Briik said, giggling. The ghost obligingly brought his fist to his chest, “May we have Hoth chocolate, Goran? Ge’detye?” 

Run’ar gaped.

“I think we might have broken him,” the ghost whispered up to Briik. His grandchild hummed thoughtfully, pulling the ghost’s head back slightly so he could look at his face.

“Did you do it right?” Briik asked, “You gotta make your eyes go big, like this,” he widened his eyes pleadingly.

“Hmm,” said the ghost gravely, “I believe I shall have to try one more time.”

“Yes, yes, you may both have Hoth chocolate,” Run’ar said hastily, as the ghost and Briik turned matching sets of devastating tooka eyes on him.

***

“I’m going to assume you had another reason to come here beyond helping my grandchild beg for sweets,” Run’ar said, slanting a look at where Briik was dozing, one hand tangled in the ghost’s ragged cloak.

Briik had enthroned himself on the ghost’s lap, and magnanimously offered to assist in finishing his mug of Hoth chocolate after polishing off his own in record time.

The ghost looked down, a tiny smile at the corner of his scarred lips, “Yes,” he said, carefully adjusting Briik’s head so he was resting against cloth and not armor, “but it would still have been worthy of my time even if that was my sole purpose for traveling to Sundari.”

Run’ar was suddenly filled with gratitude that Jaster was not here. He did not want or need to know if it was possible to make out with a ghost, but he was fairly certain his Mand’alor would try.

The ghost lifted the arm Briik was not currently sleeping on, and reached into thin air. Slowly, inch by inch, an object appeared under his hand.

Forget Jaster, Run’ar was about to kiss the ghost. A giant mythosaur skull came to rest gently on the floor of the Forge be Sundari. The ghost looked pale, and his scarred face was beaded with sweat.

“Found it on display in a Hutt stronghold,” the spirit said, ghosting the tips of his fingers reverently along the ancient, pitted jawbone, “normally I’d leave it for the Mand’alor in Keldabe, but it needed to be here, in Sundari.”

He cocked his head towards the hall that led down from the Forge towards the cavern of the Living Waters, “Listen,” the spirit said, smiling, “he is returned to Manda’yaim.”

An ululating wail, barely above sub-sonic, echoed up the passageway. Run’ar was suddenly shivering, an atavistic fighting instinct surging through his veins. He could feel the vibrations of the call in his jaw and in the marrow of his bones.

The spirit looked peaceful, unperturbed. Briik was blessedly still sound asleep.

Run’ar unclenched his jaw, as well as certain other parts of his anatomy.

“What,” he ground out, trying to keep his voice low, “the flying Sith- hells, was that .”

The ghost blinked, as though he had asked a foolish question, “His last living kin, welcoming him home.”

Run’ar would like to be alone now, thank you, so he could have his aneurysm with some semblance of dignity.

“ That was a mythosaur?”

“‘Lek,” the ghost replied, as laconic as ever.

“Arasuum’s saggy tits,” Run’ar swore.

“Ah,” the spirit said, raising his eyebrows, “would you by any chance be the reason Briik informs strangers that Duke Kryze is a 'kriffin’ hut’uun'?”

Chapter Text

Myles hated stealth missions, and this one was no exception.

There was a reason he seldom took infiltration, assassination or recon missions, and it wasn’t because he had a problem with shooting another being in the head. He would rather fight someone face-to-face (and then shoot them in the head) than spend hours prone in sticky mud gazing down the sight of his rifle on the off chance that he might get intel that would be useful so someone else could shoot them in the head.

His mood was not improved by the fact that this was not supposed to be a stealth mission in the first place. It was supposed to be a simple stun-and-grab bounty retrieval, not whatever this was turning out to be.

There was also the fact that this planet was creepy. Myles felt like he was being watched, even though he was supposed to be the one doing the watching. The ominous jungle noises were not helping.

“I hate swamp planets,” Kal grumbled over internal comms. 

“Too karkin’ right,” Tsika said. She, Kal, Silas, and the rest of his squad were hidden in the trees somewhere to Myles’ left. Vhonte’s squad was similarly hidden across the valley to his right.

“I’m pretty sure there’s something in my boot,” Silas whispered, “I can feel it sort of crawling around in there.”

Myles was suddenly extremely aware of the fact that he was lying on the ground in close proximity to unknown quantities of alien fauna. Including insects. 

“It must have a lot of legs,” Silas continued cheerfully, “it tickles something fierce.”

“Silas,” Myles said through his teeth, valiantly resisting the urge to scratch the phantom tickling of imaginary legs on the back of his neck, “lock the kark in and clear comms, I think I see movement near the objective.”

In the blessed silence that followed, Myles flicked on his range-finder and zoomed in. Their current bounty target, a spice smuggler who had run afoul of the Pykes, had gone to ground in the ruins of an ancient fortress. From the information on the bounty puck, Myles had expected this to be a fairly simple operation; the smuggler allegedly had few allies and was not a warrior.

The heavily armed band of Trandoshan pirates guarding the ruins was not part of the plan.

Neither was the small transport coming down for a landing. Myles swore under his breath. The numbers were not in their favor, and while one Mandalorian was worth more in a fight than multiple pirates, things were becoming complicated. None of the intel he’d been given was matching up with what he was seeing.

Myles did not like complicated. 

“Akela, standby,” he said, slowly crawling back from his vantage point, “stay in stealth for now, but be ready to scramble on my mark.”

“‘Lek, alor,” his pilot responded.

“Vhonte, start pulling back, without breaking cover if possible. Helmet cams on, we’ll want as much intel as we can get. Tsika, rear-guard.”

“Myles,” Vhonte said, voice strained, “there’s a group of heat signatures closing in behind us.”

Kal swore, “This whole thing was a set-up.”

“Contingency E’tad, scramble now ,” Myles barked, belly-crawling swiftly back to the cover of the trees. Comms went silent as every member of his team focused on getting out as quickly and quietly as possible towards their designated rendezvous point. 

Somewhere nearby, he could hear the pirates crashing and swearing through the undergrowth. The whine and hiss of blasterfire started up across the valley near where Vhonte’s squad had been.

“Hello,” a raspy voice whispered all of two inches from the side of his head, “why are we sneaking?”

If Myles hadn’t been prone, he would have jumped violently into the air. As it was, he came very close to stabbing Jaster’s ghost.

The spirit of the Manda was wearing his normal battle-worn black greaves and vambraces, but the rest of him was covered in a grungy cloak that Myles thought might once have been green. 

He was also standing comfortably on thin air, floating a few inches above the surface of the grey mud Myles was currently crawling through. The ghost considered him thoughtfully, then crouched down to Myles’ eye-level.

Myles met his unnerving blue gaze. The ghost extended a finger and poked his shoulder curiously.

“If you’re here looking for pirates, you’re moving in the wrong direction,” the spirit said, nodding towards the fortified ruins behind Myles.

Myles cleared his throat and finally found his voice, “We were after a bounty; it was a trap.”

The spirit tilted his head consideringly, “Would you like some back up?”

Myles blinked.

“I’m here to deal with the pirates,” the spirit said, eyes glowing eerily through the gloom, “they’re not supposed to be here. This planet is not terribly fond of the living, and not all of the dead here are kind. There are things in these ruins that should not be disturbed.”

“Kriff that,” Kal said over internal comms, “I prefer my planets ‘fond of the living’, thank you very much.”

Myles swallowed, trying not to appear unnerved, “We would be grateful for the back-up.”

The spirit smiled, and extended a hand to pull Myles up out of the mud.

“Let’s hunt.” 

***

The battle that followed was less of a battle and more of a slaughter. The pirates were heavily armed, true, but they were expecting to close a trap around unsuspecting prey.

They were not expecting a lean ghost with two squads of Mandalorian rami’kade howling at his heels like the hordes of Kad Haran’gir himself.

Jaster’s ghost moved through the fight like a promise of vengeance personified. Myles didn’t recognize the style of unarmed combat he used, but he struck hard and fast, weaving his way from one enemy to the next with dizzying speed. 

In a matter of minutes, the whole thing was over. Myles shook his arms out, breathing through the adrenaline haze as each member of his squad checked in over comms.

Akela was carefully setting down the dropship in the clear space behind him. Silas appeared to be clutching the ghost excitedly in his arms. Kal wandered over, grinning gleefully.

“The glowy eyes are a bit off-putting, but he fights like a dream,” Kal said, flicking blood off the retractable knife built into his vambrace, “Jaster’s gonna be pissed we got to fight with his ghost without him.”

Said ghost had finally managed to extract himself from Silas’ clutches, and was drifting through the group, touching a shoulder here, an arm there. Myles wasn’t sure what he was doing until he stopped in front of Myles himself, pressing one scarred hand over a gash where a vibro blade had skidded off Myles' vambrace and found flesh.

There was a jolt of lightning-sharp pain, then the ghost lifted his hand. Myles stared in disbelief. The wound was gone. 

“You can just do that? What – how ?”

The ghost squinted, scrubbing a hand over his face tiredly, “That. Um. Is hard to put into words?”

Myles snorted, “Jaster would never forgive me for not asking.”

Jaster’s ghost sighed, crossing his arms, “Well then, if it’s important to the Mand’alor, I suppose I can spare some time to attempt an explanation of the more complex theological concepts involved. While we sit here in the haunted ruins of a planet of the dead.”

“Forget I asked,” Myles said, saluting briskly, “Jaster doesn’t need to know that badly.”

Kal laughed, and held out an arm for the ghost to shake, “Lovely to meet you, I’m Kal. You’re very flexible. Big fan. The way you kicked that Trandoshan in the throat? Super hot.”

The ghost stared. Myles groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“Ah,” the ghost said, as though he had come to a realization, “I haven’t healed you yet, have I?”

He gently shook Kal’s hand, “Did you happen to hit your head on anything during combat? Brain injuries are harder to heal, but I can at least relieve some of the swelling.”

Myles laughed until he couldn’t stand up any longer.

Chapter Text

Fay took a slow sip of tea, eyes closed. The gentle floral flavor blended comfortingly with the scent of the trees blossoming above her table. Bees hummed in the flowerbed behind her.

“When’s the last time you saw Jon?” Tarre asked.

He was lounged casually on one elbow across the stone half-wall in front of her, ankles crossed, poking idly at the bees with one gloved finger. His ghostly finger went through the bees without disturbing them, but Fay supposed it was the thought that counted.

Fay cocked her head to one side, thinking. The bond she and Jon shared lay quietly in the back of her mind, healthy but blurred by distance. She could tell Jon was alive and unharmed, but that was all.

Fay had served as Jon’s Master the last few years of his padawanship after removing him from Dark Woman’s tutelage. She and Jon were still close, but they tended to operate independently of one another.

Her calling was as a Healer; Jon’s talents lay solidly in the realm of combat. She had almost despaired of knowing what to do with a Padawan who was so comfortably fitted to training as a weapon. Tarre’s help and advice had been instrumental, and she had found herself guiding Jon closer to the footsteps of the Way than a traditional Jedi.

Fay herself had never become a Mandalorian, but Tarre considered her his sibling and claimed Jon as part of his family by extension.

“Several standard months ago, on Felucia,” she said, cradling her teacup with both hands, “why?” 

“No reason,” Tarre said innocently, flipping over to lie on his back with his hands comfortably clasped behind his head.

Fay eyed him suspiciously. Tarre was more dramatic than even Yoda’s lineage; he would bide his time for the optimal moment to say what was on his mind. The best option was to ignore him until then.

She ate a biscuit, turning her attention pointedly towards the flowers next to her table.

Tarre watched her unblinkingly, slowly inching closer and closer until he was sitting cross-legged on the table in front of her, glowing eyes fixed on her expression.

Fay took a sip of tea and pretended he did not exist.

“Jon’s courting the Mand’alor,” Tarre said.

Fay spat her tea in his face.

Unfortunately, Tarre was an immaterial manifestation of Force essence, and the tea phased through his face to splatter harmlessly on the flagstones behind him. He was also cackling unrepentantly.

“Hod Haran unknit thy soul and floss His fangs with thy thews and sinew,” Fay swore in archaic Taung.

Tarre laughed harder, doing exaggerated somersaults in the air above her table.

“Would you like to hear the good news first, or the bad news?”

Fay dropped her face into her hands, “What did I do to deserve this.”

“Right, bad news first then. The Mand’alor hasn’t technically accepted his courting, because he thinks Jon’s dead.”

Fay threw up her hands, “He thinks he’s dead? What happened? Was Jon injured?”

“No, no, Jon’s officially considered a spirit of the Manda, and there’s no precedent for dead people dating, so that’s how it is right now.”

“I become more confused the longer you speak.”

Tarre grinned toothily, “The good news is that Jon doesn’t know that he’s offered to court the Mand’alor, or that he’s being worshipped as a ghost. The drama potential is staggering.”

Fay gave up on speech and began to climb onto the table.

“Ah, you’ve progressed to impotent attempts at strangling,” Tarre said, beaming as he dodged her clutching hands, “this is the best day I’ve had in decades!”

***

Jaster thought he had become prepared to find improbable things in his office.

Improbable things like magic weaponry of religious and secular significance. Improbable things like blood-drinking plants, or giant monster teeth turned into flower pots.

He was not prepared for the tiny blonde Sephi in green Jedi robes sitting in the chair behind his desk like it was her office. 

Jaster stared.

The tiny woman stared back, hands folded neatly on the table in front of her. She looked him up and down with narrowed eyes, as though he was a particularly small and muddy child intruding on the sanctity of her office.

The silence lengthened. Jaster realized he was holding completely still, as he would in the presence of a hungry predator.

“You’re a Jedi,” he finally blurted out, breaking their uneasy tableau.

“You’re the Mand’alor,” the tiny Jedi said in Mando’a, appearing unimpressed. She had a similar accent to Jaster’s ghost.

“Why are you in my chair,” Jaster said, brain buffering as he tried frantically to remember any fragments of information about Jedi culture that might tell him what to do in case of passive-aggressive invasion by small and ominous Jedi.

The woman disappeared and reappeared in front of him. She was small enough that she had to tilt her head far back to meet his eyes, but it somehow was no less threatening when she said, “I’ve had a visit from Tarre Vizsla concerning my bu’ad.”

Jaster gulped. This was Mand’alor Vizsla’s vod’ika? 

“Tarre somehow failed to mention you were from the, uh, Jedi side of his family.”

The Jedi raised a tiny eyebrow impishly, “I see. Well. Tarre and I are just here for a courtesy call since he notified me that your Goran hadn’t properly informed you of his great concern for his nephew’s wellbeing.”

Jaster blinked, “You mean the threats.”

She nodded gravely. 

“It is always wise to properly set expectations before entering into a relationship, so we’ve taken the liberty of making you a list. For your edification.”

She handed him a sheet of flimsi, densely covered in neatly written Mando’a script.

Jaster squinted at the tiny handwriting.

“What does this word mean?” he asked, turning it to show her.

The Jedi stood on tiptoe to peer at the paper, “Ah, that’s a fun one, specific to a certain method of removing the testicles with a beskad. Not much used after the Neo-Crusaders. Tarre’s really fond of it because he’s a bloodthirsty little shebs.”

“Interesting,” Jaster said, shifting slightly in an attempt to inconspicuously shield his crotch, “how come I can see the two of you, but not Tarre?”

The Jedi batted her eyes innocently, “Tarre can reveal himself to non-Force sensitives, but it takes considerable effort. I have a considerably stronger connection to the Force than he does.”

She tilted her head to one side as though listening, smile growing, “I also have a sparkling personality and an infinitely superior vocabulary.”

Chapter Text

Waking up hurt. 

Opening his eyes also hurt. Jon squinted at the light filtering between his eyelashes. He didn’t know where he was, but a part of his brain supplied that this was all Jango’s fault.

“Jango?” he asked. Who is Jango, he wondered muzzily.

The world abruptly stopped moving. Jon considered this with interest. He hadn’t realized he could feel the galaxy moving before. This was new.

He worked an eye open, and the blur next to him resolved slowly into a piece of shoulder armor, battered and unpainted. Also a faded blue kute, and further up, a face.

Ah, Jon thought, enlightened. I am being carried.

The face resolved into a tanned woman with curly blonde hair cropped close against her skull. She had a blunt, crooked nose and a faded scar on her chin.

Knife, thought Jon fuzzily, not claws.  

She looked familiar.

“Look familiar,” Jon told her, frowning.

The corner of her mouth tipped up, amused.

“And you look like osik, freshly shat outta the wrong end of a sarlacc,” she said, starting to walk again. She spoke Mando’a with the remnants of a Concord Dawn accent.

Jon was fairly certain that was important somehow, but he couldn’t remember why.

Between the dizzying weakness of a bad case of Force exhaustion, and the pounding of his head, his thoughts were difficult to connect. 

He remembered being in the bar, and the blue kid ( Jango? ) had found him. Had asked for something?

The metal walls and lighting around them probably meant he was on a ship.

His stomach lurched ominously.

“Sick,” he informed the woman.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said, picking up the pace, “you throw up on my new boots, I throw your scrawny shebs out the airlock.”

She paused outside a dented metal door, kicked the sensor with one foot, then ducked through when it slowly hissed open to clatter down a short ramp into the ship’s cramped cabin area. 

“This piece of junk hasn’t got a real medbay, but I’ve got some supplies in here somewhere,” the woman said, using an elbow to hit a faded button on the wall. A narrow bunk folded down from the wall, and she lowered Jon onto it.

The bunk was cold. Jon was suddenly aware that he was missing some rather important things. Like clothes. And armor. And body heat.

“Armor,” he rasped out, clutching her sleeve.

She huffed a snort of laughter through her nose, “Don’t worry, they gave me all your stuff too, I just couldn’t carry you and it in one trip.”

She carefully detached his fingers from her sleeve, “Let me see what I can find for your head.”

***

The medical “supplies” the woman had mentioned turned out to be a few rolls of bandages, cheap painkillers, and one partially drunk bottle of alcohol.

“Hold still,” she said, scowling as she tried to clean out a wound on the side of his scalp.

He had woken up enough to bite her hand when she had poured alcohol on the cut across his left shoulder. Now she was sitting on the bunk next to him, one arm braced across his chest, hand holding his chin so she could deal with the head wound without further biting.

Jon subsided begrudgingly. 

“Why am I here?” he asked, trying to focus his eyes enough to see her expression.

She grinned, “Apparently, you were being held prisoner on a spice ship, led a revolt, killed the pirates crewing it, and hijacked the ship, all while half-dead, concussed, and high as a jaig’alaar. The rest of the prisoners who revolted didn’t know what to do with you when you inevitably passed out afterwards, so they dumped you and your armor on the nearest Mandalorian they could find.”

She paused to take another swipe at the crusted blood in his hair. 

Spice , Jon thought, that explains why my mouth feels so dry and why my head is full of cheerfully dancing bees .

“For a given value of Mandalorian,” the woman continued wryly, “not sure how much I count anymore.”

Jon took in her damaged, unpainted armor again. The once blue kute. The curly hair, the stubbornly familiar face. The Concord Dawn in the sound of her vowels and the turn of her intonation.

His scattered memories of the past few weeks slotted into place.

“Su’cuy gar, Arla Fett,” Jon said, smiling, “Jango misses you.”

***

Arla didn’t usually make a habit of following strangers into shady bars in the bowels of Nar Shaddaa. Even armored strangers who claimed to know Jango. Perhaps especially not armored strangers who claimed to know Jango.

She was still suspicious of the awful number of coincidences involved in his story. Jango thought she was dead for years, then heard from Death Watch prisoners after Tor’s death that she was alive, then Jango asked some stranger to find out if she was alive or dead, and that stranger just happened to be kidnapped by spicers and then dumped at her feet like a gift, feral and half-dead.

“This way,” the stranger said, turning slightly through a narrow doorway.

Arla squeezed in after him. 

Inside, the bar was dimly lit and full of low conversation, burbling music, and the clatter of dishes and bottles.

The stranger didn’t wear a helmet, but Arla wasn’t about to remove hers just yet. She rolled her shoulders, glaring down anyone who so much as glanced their way as she followed the man across the room. The bar-keep brushed a single glance over them, and went back to polishing his glasses without acknowledgment.

Her stranger moved confidently, gliding deftly across the room without a single trace of the concussion Arla knew he still had. He led her straight to a tiny table carved into the back wall.

There was a small holo sign hanging off the front of the table, marking it as “Permanently Reserved”. A glass vase full of fresh flowers perched above it, and someone had cleared a spot on the floor next to it for a low wooden bench. 

The bench was finely carved and painted like the wall hangings used for a kote kyram ceremony, the colors of aayhan: blue-and-green sky and earth for dedication, yellow rays for remembrance, and a fiery orange sun for the living who remained. 

It was also stacked high with tiny trinkets, children’s drawings, and carefully preserved containers of food and alcohol.

The stranger stepped around the bench and sat at the table. He moved the tiny vase of flowers further away from the table’s edge and gestured for her to join him.

She sat, scanning the rest of the room uneasily.

“Now what?” 

“Now,” the man said, folding his hands and fixing her with his pale blue eyes, “we wait. Jango will find us soon.”

“You couldn’t just comm him?” she asked, skeptically.

He shrugged, unconcerned, “I don’t have a comm.”

Arla yanked off her helmet.

“My boot, your face.”

The stranger blinked innocently, “I thought they were new boots and you didn’t want to get them dirty.”

She snorted, “Yeah, with puke. Blood is fine, it’s practically the Mandalorian way to christen a new pair.”

Before he could respond, a serving droid rolled up, deposited a single serving of stew, a piece of bread, and a glass of alcohol. Notably, in front of the stranger, and nothing for Arla.

“Food helps the wait,” he said, taking an appreciative bite.

Arla kicked back to lean her chair on two legs against the wall, arms crossed. “Right, then, where’s mine?”

“You just threatened to kick my shebs.”

“No, I threatened to kick your face. Not my problem if your face and your shebs are easily confused with each other.”

***

Jango cried. 

It was all very uncomfortable and full of feelings, but hugging her brother, Arla was prepared to stab anyone and everyone who ever made him cry again.

“I can’t believe it worked,” Jango said, laughing between hiccups, “Silas was right.”

“Can’t believe what worked?” Arla asked, pulling him down to sit at the stranger’s table next to her.

Jango snorted, “Can’t believe I got up the nerve to ask Jaster’s ghost boyfriend to find you, whether you were alive or dead, and he actually agreed. Actually finding him was almost a miracle in the first place.”

“Ghost?” said Arla.

“Boyfriend?” said the stranger.

Chapter Text

Jaster was in a mood. 

He had just gotten back from a frustrating meeting with the E’vaar’ade, his ship had sprung an oil leak on the way home, and he was currently covered in dust and engine grease.

He needed a sonic badly, but first he needed to drop off his work pads in his office and preferably never see them again. Jango was due home any time now, if Jaster was understanding his cryptic comm messages correctly. Jaster was looking forward to some family time.

He kicked open his door, and froze.

There was a man kneeling in the center of his office floor. No , Jaster realized, not just any man . It was his ghost.

Dark hair, scarred face, pale blue eyes, long scarred hands crossed neatly in front of him.

“Su cuy’gar, Mand’alor,” his ghost said, tilting his head back to look up at him. He had a quiet, raspy voice, the same strange accent Jaster now knew by memory softening and lengthening each vowel.

“Su cuy’gar,” Jaster responded on autopilot.

“Ah, yes,” his ghost looked vaguely embarrassed, “that does appear to be the problem.”

“Me’ven?”

Jaster took another step into his office, then paused as he fully took in his ghost’s appearance for the first time. 

He was not wearing a single piece of his armor, not even vambraces. Instead, he wore plain tunics the deep grey of mourning, the hems of the sleeves dyed the deep burgundy of guilt. It was an exceptionally rare and old-fashioned color combination that indicated the most abject humiliation and apology, and it was never worn on armor.

Something was wrong with his ghost.

Jaster circled over to drop his datapads on his desk, then settled to sit on the ground opposite him.

“Where is your armor?” Jaster asked gently, as he would any of his verd’e who suddenly deemed themselves unworthy of their beskar.

The ghost met his gaze carefully, then dropped into an extremely traditional formal prostration.

“It has come to my attention that you and your people consider me to be one of the sacred spirits of the Manda. This is not the case.”

Jaster blinked, non-plussed. Your people?

There was a garbled noise coming from the door behind him that led from his office into the library. It sounded remarkably like Jango attempting to say something and then being slammed repeatedly into a wall with someone else’s hand over his mouth.

His ghost cocked his head, and continued, “It has also been brought to my attention that I am incredibly bad at this.”

“At what? I’m still not even sure what this is .”

“An apology for sacrilege, blasphemy, and being ‘kriffin’ odd’,” the spirit said, in a passable impression of an incredulous Jango, his forehead still pressed against the floor by Jaster's boots.

The library door thudded open, and an exasperated woman with curly blonde hair stuck her head through the doorway. She was holding Jango effortlessly under her arm with one hand wrapped over his mouth. 

Jango appeared to be doing his best to gnaw his way to freedom.

“Your five minute window of uninterrupted, Jango-free time is up,” she said, “get the kark on with it before I die of second-hand embarrassment.”

Jaster felt like his brain was short-circuiting.

“But you are a ghost,” he said plaintively to the top of his ghost’s head, “you saved our children, you’re friends with dead Jetii’se .”

“Ah,” his ghost said, “that would be because I am a Jedi. Um. An alive Jedi, that is.”

Jaster spluttered.

Jango finally managed to free himself, and blurted, “He found Arla for me, just like I asked! Kriff, I owe Silas so many credits. Oh, Arla, this is Jaster, Jas’buir, this is Arla. And the Jetii’s nice, and not dead, so I told him he can be your boyfriend!”

The Jedi made a muffled squeaking sound. Jaster could feel his own ears turning scarlet.

This was of course the moment Kal chose to kick in his office door, “Jaster, Myles said– what fresh Corellian hell is this?”

Jaster looked at his madly grinning son; he looked at his son’s freshly back-from-being-presumed-dead ori’vod; he looked down at the not-a-ghost Jedi at his feet.

He looked back up at Kal, “Tell the Goran I need to find a way to kick the Manda’s shebs.”

Chapter Text

Myles took one look around Jaster’s karyai. Then another. 

Jaster’s ghost blinked up at him bemusedly from the couch over a mug of shig and a lapful of striil puppies. Jaster was in the kitchen in half armor and an apron, happily stirring a pot of tiingilar. 

The floor directly in front of the couch was occupied by Jango and a tall blonde woman, who were wrestling violently. The woman appeared to be winning.

“No,” Myles said, and began backing towards the door.

Kal grabbed his arm, grinning viciously.

“No way, vod, if I have to suffer through this, so do you.”

Myles swept an arm wordlessly across the room. 

“The kriff is this? The kriff is that? The kriff are you?”

“If by ‘this’ you mean ‘Jaster’s ghost showed up for tea and Jaster is bad at flirting’, it is exactly what it looks like,” Kal said, dragging Myles further into the room and shutting the door behind him.

“Except he’s not a ghost,” said the blonde hellion currently sitting on top of Jango. She saluted mockingly, “Arla Fett, but I also answer to ‘the kriff are you’ in a pinch.”

Myles choked.

Jaster’s not-a-ghost cocked his head thoughtfully, “So does this make me ‘the kriff is that’?” 

Myles glowered at him, then did a double take when he registered what he was wearing. That was one of Jaster’s kute. Nope.

“I would like to opt out of this conversation,” said Myles.

“Alcohol or caff?” Arla asked, untangling herself from Jango.

“Both,” said Myles, “both is good.”

***

“So anyway, that’s how he found me, and how we found out he’s not dead,” Arla said, casually pouring herself a fourth cup of caff.

“He had no idea about any of it,” Jaster said fondly, looking down at the Jedi curled against his side. Two of the puppies in Jon’s lap had fallen asleep; the third had climbed its way up onto his shoulder and was trying to gnaw on his hair.

“Which escalated into him dramatically revealing himself in the Mand’alor’s office,” said Kal, entirely too gleefully.

“Why do you have to say it like that?” said Myles, who had not removed his face from his hands for the duration of the conversation.

“Excuse me,” said Jon, reaching over to pinch Kal in the ribcage, “how was I supposed to know what to do? It’s not every day that I get mistaken for a spirit.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Vod’ika,” Arla said, pityingly, “your favorite place to eat lunch has a shrine in it built specifically for you. The bartender quite literally feeds you offerings like you’re a small god.”

“Ah,” said Jon blankly, “no wonder the service is always good.”

"Gar mirsh solus, it's lucky you're pretty."

Myles slowly lowered his head to rest on the table, “And how did all of this turn into a Fett v. Fett showdown? And where do the puppies factor in?”

“Ah,” said Jaster sheepishly, “I’m afraid Jango and I are both prone to overreacting.”

Arla kicked back in her chair, cackling loudly, “They panicked and overdid things a little trying to reassure Jon that he was welcome and not going to be executed for sacrilege. Also, whatever I do to Jango is completely deserved.”

Jon, Kal, and Jaster nodded along gravely. Myles eyed them suspiciously. 

“I did nothing wrong,” said Jango, turning his nose into the air.

“Jaster had just worked up to not-so-subtly inviting Jon to visit the Goran so that he could romantically encase him in beskar, and Jango decided to jump the gun and started loudly promising them grandchildren,” Kal said, chortling maliciously.

“He’s not even courting yet,” Jon said, perfectly straight-faced, “scandalous.”

“Bu’ade would be nice, though,” said Jaster, rubbing his chin consideringly.

“Children are wonderful,” Jon said, smiling at Myles innocently.

Myles threw his hands in the air, “That’s it, I’m making all of you into ghosts. So help me, Hod Haran!”

Chapter Text

“Wait a minute,” Silas said, betrayal in his voice, “so if you were naked, but it wasn’t because I was naked, why were you naked?”

Jon blinked slowly. 

The small group gathered in Jaster’s karyai had expanded to include the Goran be Keldabe, Goran Kast, and Silas. The goran’e had both been invited by Jaster. Silas had not. Jango had denied all knowledge of how Silas could possibly have found out; Jon chose this moment to helpfully inform him that Jedi could sense lies.

“I think I need more information,” Jon said carefully, “there are words I understand coming out of your mouth, but I’m not understanding the sentence the words are making.”

Jaster started coughing in an attempt to conceal his laughter; Myles groaned and slid down the couch like he was hoping the cushions might eat him. Arla returned from the kitchen with a slice of uj cake, and took a bite with the air of someone settling in to watch a good show.

Silas waved his arms dramatically, “I lost my beskar, I prayed to the Manda, you showed up, and then we kicked butt.”

“‘Lek, I remember. And?”

“And I figured that the spirits the Manda sends to answer prayers show up in the same state as the pray-ee? Pray-er? ‘Cos you were also naked. But now you’re not a ghost. So the Manda just made you naked in solidarity?”

Jon tilted his head to lean his chin on one hand, “You have a fascinating mind.”

“Thanks,” Silas said, crossing his arms triumphantly across his chest.

Jango scoffed and kicked him in the ankle, “That wasn’t a compliment, di’kut. If he’s not a ghost, why would you assume the Manda cares how he’s dressed?”

Silas huffed and made a swipe for Jango’s leg, “You’re the di’kut. He still works for the Manda, doesn’t he?”

“I suppose that is one way of describing my job” Jon said, amused, “although the Manda and the Force are not entirely synonymous, if you wish to be technical for the sake of theological accuracy.”

“I do not wish,” Jango said over the sounds of his and Silas’ rapidly devolving attempts to kick each others’ shins, “so did the Manda really tell you to be naked in solidarity?”

Jon laughed, “Not exactly, the Force sent me undercover so I would be in the right position to help Silas when he needed it.”

Eight heads swiveled as one to stare at Jon. Jon stared placidly back.

“Jon,” Jaster said slowly, “when you say ‘undercover’, are you trying to tell me you purposely got yourself enslaved by the Hutts?”

Jon raised an eyebrow, “Bold of you to assume the Hutts had any say in the matter.”

Jaster pinched the bridge of his nose, “You were in chains. In a Hutt dungeon. Pardon me for assuming.”

“Wasn’t that bad,” Jon said, shrugging, “at least they didn’t know I was there. And it was only for a few days this time.”

“There is so much wrong with everything you just said,” Myles said from somewhere in the depths of the sofa.

“Right,” said Jaster, “we are getting you into beskar immediately.”

“Get it, buir!” Jango said, gleefully. He and Silas had progressed past kicking each other and straight into grappling; their legs were now entwined to the point they appeared to be attempting to fuse into a bizarre new lifeform.

Arla reached around and thumped him without looking, “Quit playing footsie in front of my uj cake.”

***

The Goran be Keldabe leaped at the excuse to return to the Forge; he and Run’ar had been having a wordless argument composed entirely of increasingly emphatic facial expressions, which he seemed to have won.

Run’ar sighed, “Fine. I guess someone has to ask: you have considered the political ramifications of Jon being alive, correct?”

There was a long, petrified moment of silence.

“Jate, jate, how could I possibly assume any of you have more than one brain cell to rub together?”

“Pretty sure they’ve all been too busy thinking about rubbing other body parts together,” Arla interjected helpfully.

Jaster groaned resignedly, “We hadn’t gotten that far yet.”

“Thankfully not, wouldn’t want to corrupt my virgin eyes,” Kal said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Myles emerged from the sofa. 

“I’ll kill you,” he told Kal, smiling serenely.

“I’d just like to thank all of you personally for being the reason I’m now having to consider the possibility of there being a Jetti Mand’alor for the first time in almost a thousand years, all because Jaster petitioned the Manda and Jon decided it was a good idea to kill kriffin’ Tor Vizsla and take the Darksaber.”

Jon frowned, “I didn’t take the Darksaber; I returned it to Keldabe as soon as I could. I left it on Jaster’s desk.”

“You’re missing the point,” Run’ar said, shaking his head, “according to custom among certain of the Houses, the wielder of the Darksaber is considered Mand’alor until dead or defeated in a challenge. And the one who defeats them becomes the next Mand’alor. ”

“Absolutely not,” Jon said, “Jaster’s the Mand’alor. That’s the stupidest method of selecting a ruler I’ve ever heard.”

“But the Darksaber –” Jaster began.

“The Darksaber has only been in existence for slightly over a thousand years. How exactly do you think Mand’alor’e were selected before me?” a voice asked, and Tarre Vizsla shimmered into view in the middle of Jaster’s karyai.

Chapter Text

There was a long moment of awed silence, then the karyai erupted into sound.

“Mand’alor Vizsla?” Jango yelped. He was clutching Silas by the arm and almost hyperventilating with excitement.

“You couldn’t have stopped by to give your opinion, oh, I don’t know, anytime in the last year or two?” Run’ar griped, rubbing his temples in aggravation.

Jaster looked torn between the urge for hero worship, and the urge to rip out Tarre’s ghostly spine and beat him with it.

“Ba’vodu,” Jon said sweetly, “how kind of you to deign to make an appearance. As the only member of our lineage who is actually a spirit of the Manda, perhaps you’d like to explain yourself.”

“Yes, please– wait,” Jaster whipped around to stare at Jon, “what do you mean ‘the only member’? What about your ba’buir?”

Jon blinked, “Fay? What about her?”

“She’s not a ghost?”

“Not last I checked,” Jon said, bemused.

Jaster face-palmed.

***

Tarre grinned widely, hands on hips, and waited for the uproar to abate.

“Lovely to see you too, ad’ika,” he said to Jon, “I’m just dropping by to help clear up a misunderstanding, then I’ll be out of your hair and you can go back to snuggling with the Mand’alor in peace.”

Jon flipped him off and exaggeratedly snuggled closer to Jaster on the sofa.

“Clear up a misunderstanding? So now that’s a thing you do?” Run’ar said, outraged.

“Only if it’s something that wouldn’t be funnier left alone,” Tarre said, lifting a finger. The Darksaber lifted off of the table in front of Jaster to hover above his ghostly hand.

“Now then, children,” he said, tipping his helmet to acknowledge the rest of the room’s occupants, “how have Mand’alor’e been historically chosen?”

Jango squinted in thought, “I guess it used to be the Mask of the Mand’alor.”

“Not exactly,” Run’ar said slowly, “traditionally the Mask was a symbol of the office, but it was passed down to those who had been chosen to be Mand’alor’e. It wasn’t part of the selection process itself.”

“At least not until after Mand’alor the Indomitable,” Arla added, propping her boots up on the edge of the table, “but it’s lost now anyway.”

“So,” Tarre repeated, spinning the Darksaber slowly above his palm, “if not my ‘Saber, and not the Mask, how is the Mand’alor chosen?”

“The Clans,” Jaster said, “the Council of the Clans decides who they will accept as their leader.”

Tarre pointed approvingly at him and floated the Darksaber back down onto the table, “Exactly so. This is not the first time someone has tried to make up a shortcut to becoming Mand’alor rather than putting in the effort to be found worthy, and it will certainly not be the last. I’d just prefer they didn’t do it using my memory, especially when it’s clear they know nothing about me.”

“Understood,” Run’ar said, clearing his throat, “what would you like us to do with the Darksaber, then?”

Tarre raised his eyebrows, “As long as you’re not using it to make Mand’alor’e in my name, do whatever you want with it. Why are you asking me?”

“Because it’s yours.”

“Not anymore,” Tarre shrugged, “I’m dead.”

***

“So what happened to the Darksaber after you died?” Jaster asked curiously, returning to the sofa with a cup of shig, “did you initially leave it to the Jedi, or to the Vizslas, like Tor claims?”

“Didn’t,” Tarre said. He had stretched out and was lounging casually in mid-air a few feet above the ground.

“Didn’t what?” Run’ar asked.

“Didn’t make any arrangements for it. Lest you all forget, as it appears my relatives have, I was once a Jedi as well as Mand’alor.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Kal asked from his spot on the floor by Myles’ feet.

Tarre arched an eyebrow, “We don’t place a high priority on physical possessions. Have you never stopped to think why the most prominent Force sects in the galaxy are all, to at least some degree, monk-flavored?”

“Monk-flavored,” Kal mouthed gleefully at Jaster. Myles emerged from the sofa cushions to smack him in the head.

“You say that,” Jaster said, tapping his fingers absent-mindedly on the back of the sofa, “how come the Sith and other dar’jetii sects weren’t like that about possessions?”

Tarre narrowed his eyes, “That’s sort of a long answer. Would you like me to keep this more on the side of ‘pithy axioms about the nature of good and evil’, or ‘crash course on the theological basics of Force religions’?

“Jaster,” Kal said, warily, “Jaster, no.”

“Please no,” said Jango.

Jaster ignored them.

“I’ve got a general idea of Jedi philosophy, just from historical documents, but I’ve never had the opportunity to hear it explained directly by a Jedi. And I know even less about the Sith.”

“Right then,” Tarre said, scratching his jaw thoughtfully, “religious discourse it is. Ok. What do all sentient beings in the galaxy want?”

There was a long pause, then Jango said, “Happiness?”

“Eh,” Tarre flapped a hand dismissively, “next.”

“Oh, I know this one!” Silas piped up, “safety!”

Tarre raised an eyebrow, “Really? We are Mandalorians.”

“Fair point, forget I said anything.”

“True love,” Kal suggested, waggling his eyebrows in Jon and Jaster’s general direction. Jaster threw the nearest sofa pillow at him.

Tarre sighed dramatically and dragged both hands down his face.

“Freedom,” Arla said, crossing her arms defiantly when they all turned to look at her.

“Yes,” Tarre said softly, “yes. We all want to be free. The difference lies in how we try to achieve it.”

“Interesting,” Jaster said, leaning forward, “so how does this apply to the Jedi and the Sith?”

“Have you read the Jedi and Sith Codes? The Jedi find freedom by letting go. The Code begins, ‘There is no emotion, there is peace’; or, phrased another way, ‘Emotion, yet peace’, and so forth.”

Kal raised a hand, “Those versions seem sort of contradictory to each other.”

Tarre tipped a hand back and forth, “Not exactly. We let our emotions go, we give them to the Force, and peace is what remains. The emotions don’t just magically cease to exist, but they no longer control us. Similarly, the rest of the Code lists out other things we let go of, and the things that remain: ‘ignorance, yet knowledge; passion, yet serenity; chaos, yet harmony; Death, yet the Force’. We gradually become one with the Force, and in the Force we find freedom.”

“Fascinating,” Jaster murmured; he had his padd out and was taking detailed notes.

“The Sith, on the other hand, seek freedom through control. Passion leads to strength, strength to power, power to victory, and victory to freedom. ‘Through victory, my chains are broken; the Force shall free me.’ More often than not, the Sith in their pursuit of freedom only further enslave themselves. They are never truly free because they refuse to escape the chains of their own hatred and greed.”

“If the Jedi are all about freedom, then how come they basically run around functioning as the galaxy’s servants?” Myles said, emerging from the sofa again.

“Because freedom before we join the Force is an illusion,” Jon said. He had made himself comfortable on the sofa with a blanket pilfered from Jango’s room and his head pillowed against Jaster’s thigh.

“We all want freedom, but everyone serves someone or something. The only true freedom in life is getting to choose who or what you serve,” Jon continued serenely, all without bothering to open his eyes, “we Jedi choose the Force, and the Force has a soft spot for mortals.” 

“Okaaay,” said Kal, “see, you say stuff like this and then get confused when people think you’re some kind of mystical spirit.”

“I feel like at this point I should probably remind you that Jon and I are not exactly Temple-standard, and the views expressed here may or may not accurately depict the views of the current Jedi Council,” Tarre said, waving a hand vaguely in Jon’s direction.

“And how do you balance this with being Mando’ad ?” Jaster asked curiously.

“It sounds almost adjacent, actually,” Arla said, “like in the old poetry: ‘Kad Ha’rangir t’ad gaane gana; Kyr’am bal Mavan’.”

“‘Kad Ha’rangir has two hands; Death and Freedom’,” Jon translated, “I don’t think I know that one.”

“It’s from the Werlaarase B’ A'den,” Jaster said, sitting up eagerly, “I have a copy you can borrow, or I can recite it for you sometime, if you’ve never heard it before.”

Jango groaned, and tried to hide behind Silas, “Save me.”

Tarre chuckled, “Mando’ad philosophy does tend to fall somewhere in between. More driven by passion than the Jedi, more willing to let go than the Sith. Violently pragmatic.”

“Yet you’re somehow still a spirit of the Manda, even though you’re supposed to be the Force, or some Jetii osik,” Myles pointed out.

“Being a part of the Force and marching in the Manda are not mutually exclusive,” Tarre said, smirking.

“Wait,” Jango said faintly, “so you mean one day Jon might actually be a spirit of the Manda?”

Tarre cackled.

Chapter Text

Myles looked up from his comm, leisurely surveying the room with a shark-like smile.

“Laar just pinged me; the Goran ratted all of you out to Mij,” he said, with an unseemly amount of relish.

Jango swore and rolled off of the sofa.

“Who’s Mij?” Jon asked, cracking an eye open from next to Jaster.

Kal patted him solemnly on the shoulder, “Been nice knowing ya, vod.” 

“Baar’ur,” Jaster said, “the head medic on my staff.”

Tarre stood with alacrity, “Wayii, look at the time! I forgot I told Fay I’d stop by to fill her in on the tea.”

“Tea?” Jon said, indignant.

“Wait, you’re a ghost,” Silas said, pointing at Tarre, “you’re not the one who has to worry about getting hauled off to medbay.”

“Baar’ur’e fear neither man nor the Force,” Tarre said, straightening his ghostly robes, “I’ve spent a thousand years blissfully medic-free, and I’d like for that to continue.”

He threw Jaster a jaunty salute, winked at Jon, and vanished into a shimmer of blue light.

Jango was hurriedly buckling on armor pieces.

“Sorry, everyone, I’ve got, uh, somewhere to be. Right now. Silas and I agreed to spar with the rest of the Grunts this afternoon.”

Silas nodded vigorously, already in the process of shoving on his boots.

Jon frowned, “But we’re all in good health? What’s everyone worried about?”

Myles cackled. Kal rubbed his forehead.

“Jango brought two new people into the Mand’alor’s compound from off-planet without clearing it with Mij first. Mij has a paranoid streak a mile long and a check-list of established screening protocols that Jango conveniently ignored. He also happens to be one of our best hand-to-hand instructors.”

“Ah, good,” Arla said, grinning wickedly, “someone else to help me kick Jan’ika’s shebs.”

“You’re laughing now,” Jango grumbled, reaching for the door handle, “but just wait, you’re the one who’s about to get run through all his stupid tests.”

He opened the door to reveal Mij standing in the hallway, arms folded and eyebrow raised.

Jango shrieked and immediately slammed and locked the door.

“Window,” Silas said, grabbing the back of his kute. They both bolted towards Jango’s bedroom, tripping over each other in their haste.

Run’ar reached over and let Mij in. The sounds of two jetpacks sounded from the direction of Jango’s room, quickly fading away into the distance.

Mij propped his fists on his hips and swept an unimpressed glance across the room.

“You,” he stabbed a finger at Jon, “and you,” the finger moved to Arla, “are mine. Who’d like to go first?”

Jon groaned, then extended his hands towards Arla, one palm flat with the other resting on it curled into a fist.

“Tracy’uur, beviin, kad for who has to go first?”

Arla smirked, “Bold of you to assume you have a choice. Remind me, which of us in the last week has had a concussion, a head wound, multiple lacerations, and detoxed from spice inhalation?”

Mij tensed, like a hunting striil scenting blood.

“Medbay, now,” he said, “Jaster, I’m registering Jango for a remedial class on med and security protocols. He will learn to respect my protocols or die trying.”

***

Jaster propped his hip against the counter next to the caf pot. The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of caf dripping slowly into the pot.

Mij had hauled Jon away to the medbay, muttering threats under his breath. Run’ar had left to return to Sundari; Kal had excused himself for his usual evening patrol briefing.

The only remaining inhabitants of the karyai were Myles, who was sprawled across the sofa catching up on comm chatter, and Arla, who had come into the kitchen and was leaning against the wall across from him, waiting for her own turn with the caf pot.

Jaster cleared his throat awkwardly, “So. Death Watch?”

Arla grunted in confirmation, “Death Watch.”

“Um,” Jaster scrubbed a hand through his hair, “we did look, you know. We thought you were dead. But we still looked.”

She tipped one shoulder slightly, “Ru’cuyani. Did what I had to, and escaped when I got a chance. Not your fault.”

Jaster turned so he could face her directly. She was almost of a height with him, taller and leaner than Jango, more scarred, with the same tan skin and dark brown eyes. 

For a moment, he could see her as she must have been, alone and scared, but brave and stubborn, with blonde curls and big eyes like his Jango, and there was an ache in his chest for the little girl he had never been able to know.

“I adopted Jango,” he said carefully, trying to gauge her reaction.

“Someone needed to,” Arla said, lifting her chin to make eye contact, “he’s only got the one brain cell, and if today’s anything to go by, I’d bet he splits custody of it with Silas.”

Jaster chuckled, feeling the ache in his chest ease a little, “Tell me about it.”

“Only if you tell me about it, too,” she said, the corners of her eyes crinkling with laughter, “I’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

“You’re here now,” Jaster said, pouring himself a mug of caf from the finished pot, “welcome home.”

“Home,” Arla said, thoughtfully, stepping up to fill her own cup, “I suppose I'll consider it.”

Jaster grinned into his mug, “Welcome to Clan Mereel: we have caf and puppies. If Mij doesn’t have you longing for the cold darkness of hyperspace by the end of the week, Jango will.”