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In the quiet of the darkened cockpit, with his unwitting passenger in the hold of his ship unconscious, Jango had his memories for company.
He was eight years old and the Mand’alor be Haat Mando’ade was sitting in his parent’s karyai. Jaster Mereel was an imposing human male with dark hair, a crooked nose, and deep-set blue eyes. His armor was black with the duty green chevrons of a runi’aran, a blood red cape thrown over his shoulders. Beside him sat his runi’cuyan, another human with dark hair tightly coiled down her back, broad features in a pretty face and her armor marked with the blue chevrons of a sacrifice.
A’buir was tight lipped and worried where she sat with her cup of shig next to Mir’buir, across from their guests. “We will honor our duty and do what we can for you.” She said. “As is what is demanded, but we must also think of our ade.”
The Mand’alor nodded. “Your older ad, they are cin’runi.” He spoke with the knowledge of the runi’verde to sense one another. “The younger is runi’aran.”
“Elek.” A’buir said. “The danger to Arla is immense, should Death Watch discover us here.”
Jango knew Arla was special. His ori’vod was cin’runi, the pure soul, neither a sacrifice nor a fighter, but one who could be either. One upon whom any Name could be written. His buire had come here, to a remote farm on Concord Dawn, and kept her hidden here to protect her. Should the wrong person write their name on her, she would be theirs whether it was her will or not. If that person should be a fighter, and Arla their sacrifice, the result could be disastrous.
Tor Viszla had killed his sacrifice, his original runi’cuyan. The Mand’alor of Kyrstad had lost many of the old clans to the Haat Mando’ade with that death, for a fighter who could not even protect their sacrifice was darmanda to many. Viszla held the dark saber, but it would only mean so much if he remained a fighter without a sacrifice.
It was what had happened. In the night Death Watch had struck and Jango’s buire killed. Jaster and his squad had searched everywhere for as long as they could, determined to find Arla’s body. She had to be dead, they reasoned, speaking above and around Jango because Jango was eight and he was too young then to fully understood the horror of what fate awaited Arla, that death was kinder in everyone’s mind. A cin’runi could be a blessing to those who would honor them, the ability to repair a soul bond torn in two with the death of one, a filling of a missing space in one’s heart. Cin’runi were sacred and precious.
He was sixteen and Korda VI had been a disaster. Jaster and his sacrifice dead. Myles, Jango’s own precious runi’cuyan, in critical condition. Arla captured back from Death Watch, the two of them seated next to each other in the hold of the Legacy. She was so very different from the girl she’d been in his memories.
“I won’t live much longer.” Arla told him. “Once Tor realizes I’ve been captured, he’ll kill me to keep me from betraying him.”
Dull pain radiated from Jango’s chest at the truth of her proclamation. “You’ve given us what you can, Arla. You’ve helped us immensely.” He offered her his ungloved hand, and she took it in hers. “I won’t leave you again.”
“I know.” She whispered, and laid down, sprawled out in her armor, her buyce accusing him where it sat near her knees. She would die with honor at least, in her armor as a warrior should. “I’m sorry Jango.”
“It’s not your fault.” Tor Viszla had taken her. Jango had seen the name written across her forearm. She was bound to him, body and soul, her life no longer her own but belonging to her fighter, a man who had proved himself so cowardly that he would kill her at any moment, despite the promise that was supposed to be written in the name between them. Rumor had it – and confirmed by Arla – that Tor’s last sacrifice had met a similar fate.
“Tell me about your runi’cuyan. Myles?” She asked. “I want to know as much as I can.”
Jango nodded. “It’s like we were told. The moment I saw him and I felt the flare in my Name. I felt complete. He’s everything to me. I would die to protect him if I could.”
But he couldn’t do that. The sacrifice took what the fighter gave. Jango hadn’t suffered from so much as a papercut since he’d met Myles, shortly after arriving among the Haat Mando’ade as a child. Any injury to Jango became Myles’ own. That was the role of the sacrifice. The fighter defended; the sacrifice endured. It was why Jango could be here with Arla, because of what Myles had done for him.
They talked for what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes, a conversation that would burn itself in Jango’s memory. Tor struck midsentence, and Arla screamed as blood appeared from a wound beneath her armor, soaking her green kute and pooling on the bulkhead below him.
“Baa’ur!” Jango’s voice rang out, sounding as if it came from somewhere far beyond him as he watched his sister helplessly, even as the baar’ure rushed, to them. He knew it wouldn’t work. Knew when tiny cuts began to appear across Arla’s bare hands; Tor checking to see if she yet lived. “Gedet’ye, k’oyacyi.” Please, stay alive.
“Jango.” Arla said, voice soft. She winced and then relaxed as the baar’ur pressed a fast-acting pain hypo against her neck, to ease the end they couldn’t prevent. “Jango stop. Promise me.” She coughed again. “Promise me if anything happens to Myles and you find a cin’runi. Promise me you won’t force them. Please.”
“I promise.”
It was an easy promise to keep, and even after everything – after Galidraan, after the death of Myles and slavery and freedom so terrifying and exhilarating. After the burning need for vengeance faded to a simmer heat that remained, he saw the wars that had broken on in the Mandalore sector. It was no longer his right to call himself Mand’alor. That had died when he failed to protect Myles. Only a cin’runi could redeem him.
He's a jetii. Jango thought to himself. You’d understand Arla. You would. He prayed to the Manda she would. Finding the cin’runi on Manda’yaim with that darmanda hutuun ad Kryze had to have been a message. The Jedi had taken everything from Jango, so Jango would take the little red-headed jetii cin’runi from them.
He stood from where he’d been seated at the console and shoved his buyce back over his head, stepping into the cargo hold where he’d left the jetii. The red-headed teenager was still unconscious, lying on his back where Jango had left him stripped to his waist, Jango’s Name carved into the pale freckled skin beneath his right collarbone, the same Name that was marked across Jango’s own collarbone. Jango had taken the jetii’s lightsaber from them and it now hung from his belt.
Traditionally, Mandalorian sacrifices learned to fight and defend themselves alongside their fighters. In battle, it was the fighter’s job to defend their sacrifice to the best of their ability and the sacrifice’s job to keep themselves alive for both their sakes. They were partners who fought to complement each other, nearly unbeatable when trained for it. Myles had always been by Jango’s side or just behind him where Jango could defend him, where Myles was present but safe.
This jetii was not Jango’s equal, not like Myles had been. The soul bond did not command loyalty from him, so Jango would not indulge in any notion of it. As long as the jetii lived, it didn’t matter where he was, because his living would be the only proof Jango needed to reclaim the title of Mand’alor be Haat Mando’ade. He would not the let the Republic and the New Mandalorians and the Death Watch tear his home apart. He would not let the Jedi win.
In truth, Jango could let the little jetii go back to his people. The runi’verde were almost non-existent outside of the Mandalore sector so no one would recognize the new scar on his chest for what it was. They might wonder whenever the jetii became injured for no discernable reason. The Mandalorians may wonder why Jango did not bring his sacrifice around but would understand his hesitance. The cin’runi, like all Mandalorians, learned to fight and defend themselves, but when they offered themselves up as sacrifices to a fighter who had already lost one sacrifice, they stepped away from the battlefield permanently. They were too precious and rare for any fighter to risk losing them, especially after the traumatic loss of their first sacrifice.
But Jango was selfish, and the bitter burn in his heart that longed to see all the Jedi destroyed did not fade just because he’d taken one as his sacrifice. He would not let the little jetii go back to his people. He would not run the risk of losing the power he had over him.
It didn’t take long before the jetii awoke, groaning in the lingering pain of the blow that had knocked him unconscious and rolling to his side and up to his knees. Jango watched the awareness return to him and his sudden sharp focus fall on Jango, those blue eyes wary.
Silence lingered between them, and Jango watched, not interested in breaking it. Finally, the jetii exhaled and asked, “Where am I?”
“My ship.” Jango answered.
“And you are?”
Jango didn’t hesitate. He’d thought about this while the boy was unconscious, how he might introduce himself to the jetii. They were going to be in each other’s pockets for a while now. “Mand’alor Jango Fett.”
The boy narrowed his eyes. “There is no Mand’alor.” He said simply.
“There is now.” Jango answered, just as simply. He crouched down to the same level and asked, “What’s your name, boy?”
“Obi-Wan. Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi.” He tilted his chin up, defiant. “What do you want with me?”
“Nothing more than I’ve already taken.” Jango answered, tapping the lightsaber dangling from his hilt. He rose back to his feet and stepped back a moment, watching as the realization dawned on the boy’s face. A shame he wasn’t taking the bait Jango was dropping for him, but that was fine. They didn’t need to fight for the boy to realize what Jango had done to him.
“A lightsaber is a Jedi’s life. If you want to keep mine, you’ll need to go through me.” The boy replied, also rising to his feet and readying himself to attack.
Jango chuckled, humorless. “It is not the lightsaber that I wanted, but it was a nice trophy. You might want to think again about attacking. I killed six of your kind on Galidraan.”
The boy paused, his face shuttering even as he tensed warily. “Jango Fett. I wondered why that name sounded familiar. I was told that even though you lived, your soulmate died and because of that you could no longer claim the title of Mand’alor.”
“Soulmate is… a very Republic way of describing a runi’cuyan.” Jango told him, tone bland even beneath the vocoder of his buyce. “And they were wrong.”
“Oh?”
Jango didn’t particularly feel like explaining the intricacies of the runi’verde to an aruetii, even one who was one of them. Instead, he pulled his vibroknife out of his vambrace and carefully removed one of his gloves. “All I need to be Mand’alor is a sacrifice. Thankfully, you make a very convenient one.” He sliced the knife lightly across the back of his left hand, what would be a shallow cut.
The boy hissed and winced, grabbing at his left hand where a shallow swell of blood welled up from the cut that appeared on him.
“That.” Jango said, “Is what I wanted from you.”
The boy stared at him in horror as realization dawned, slow and oppressive, over him.
Jango smirked.