Chapter Text
“It’s a symbol of clan Vizsla,” Satine said, looking at the lightsaber like an enemy. "Whoever wields it can rule all of Mandalore.”
Obi-Wan studied the saber in his hand. It was unusually built, an archaic design. Heavy. The power unit must be massive.
“It’s a lightsaber,” he decided.
“Well, obviously.”
He saw her annoyed expression and grinned.
“So any Jedi can rule all of Mandalore?”
“Ben,” she huffed.
“Sorry, that isn’t something I should joke about.” Smooth Kenobi. Make light of a civil war. That will go well.
“It’s not a prophecy,” Satine said seriously. “It’s a warning. Mand’alor Vizsla had the blade returned to the Jedi after their passing.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes, it’s common that a saber is retired after the death of its Jedi. A way to let it rest, and a memory of the one that came before. Jedi don’t have graves.”
“Exactly. This is a grave, Obi-Wan,” Satine said. “The marker of one of our greatest leaders. House Vizsla desecrated it and now uses it as a symbol of war.”
“That’s…” it felt… sacrilegious. It wasn’t a feeling Obi-Wan struggled with often. Only in places the darkness rose. Unnatural bending of the Force, imbalance. “A Jedi’s weapon is not meant for that,” he finished. “A lightsaber is meant to be the last resort to end violence, not the cause of it. Not the first strike.”
Satine’s smile was soft and sad.
Obi-Wan held it out to her.
“Then you should have it. You understand far better than Vizsla.”
Satine laughed.
“It’s not a joke,” Obi-Wan insisted. “Won’t it help us when we speak with traditionalists?”
“It would,” Satine said. She reached out and put her hands over his pushing them gently so that the handle rested against his chest. “It might change some minds, seeing me hold the darksaber, but I cannot wield it. Even if you taught me I would never use it how they would want me to use it, and besides, it’s not mine. It’s not ours. It’s true, Tarre Vizsla was our leader, but the Jedi were their family. This blade doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to you. You’re the one that has to protect it. You need to let it rest. Let it be a grave again.”
Obi-Wan’s mind whirled. The weights of all the cultural implications and messes that could make. Jedi didn’t value the material. We are luminous beings, not crude matter.
But a lightsaber—it’s crystal, it wasn’t crude matter. It was a part of the Force.
Then trust it, a voice that sounded a lot like his Master said wryly in his head.
“Just… one minute then,” Obi-Wan said.
They had set up their camp and now night was falling. Obi-Wan knelt, putting the blade before him and fell into meditation.
Infinite sadness.
That was what it felt like.
An unending grief echoing inside the heart of the blade.
Obi-Wan understood. Satine was right. The saber had been stolen and used to make war. To murder. To see the world of its wielder become ash, both in the physical and the spiritual.
It's... core was wounded. It's soul.
“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said.
The saber pulsed in the Force. He felt it fall in tune with his own Force signature. A strange magnetism. Grief shared.
It was a part of himself that he wasn’t familiar with. He had grieved, mourned, but never to the same depth as the saber had.
“Possible futures,” a clear voice said.
Obi-Wan opened his eyes. Across the fire was an armoured mandalorian. The blade floated between them, over the open fire.
It was the saber! This must be a reflection of its wielder.
“Just as I hold on to possible pasts.”
“Possible pasts?” Obi-Wan asked. “The future is always in motion, the present is the here and now, but isn’t the past written?”
“It’s written by those that write it,” the figure countered. “Attempting to change the past can be just as dangerous as attempting to change the future. Do you understand?”
“I believe so,” Obi-Wan said slowly. “There is the version that happened, and the version that people believe. You have your point of view, but you also have the beliefs of those who held you. Many of them conflict with each other. You mourn for so much more than what actually happened.”
“Yes. Just as you hold on to grief you have yet to experience.”
An ominous portent.
“How do I let it go?”
“You are a Jedi, vod’ika. You accept it.”
Not the most satisfying answer.
The figure chuckled. “You’re still young. Strong possible futures. Points in time that shatter with every move you make.”
“Oh is that all?” Obi-Wan said, his natural sarcasm slipping out.
The figure was delighted rather than offended.
“You need to learn endurance and patience,” the figure decided. “What form do you follow?”
“Form I follow? Well, my Master is a Master of Ataru and is training me if that’s what you mean.”
“A fine form. It would suit you. Quick, sharp. Ends the battle fast with grace and wit, but you need to learn beyond that. Soresu. Endurance. Patience. That is what you will work on.”
“But I—” Obi-Wan began to argue. Soresu had very little interest to him. His Master’s form was the form he had always been most drawn to, and it was the most exciting, but he realised what the figure—what the kyber was requesting. It needed to heal.
It was dressed in heavy armour. Its wielder wouldn’t have been able to move through the flips of Ataru in beskar. They would need a form that not only would conserve energy, but be able to draw it, taking it from their opponent.
Tarre Vizsla was a master of Soresu. The way of the Mynock. The Resilience form.
The truth of the kyber flowed through Obi-Wan. ‘Ori’vod’ Tarre who was stubborn. Who listened to all sides of an argument to find understanding and then argued his own until everyone else was too exhausted to disagree. Who accepted every challenge and never struck a blow, the fights ending with surrender or exhaustion. A frustrating person. Endless patience. Endless determination. A Mandalorian’s spirit, a Jedi’s desire for balance.
“I understand.” Obi-Wan said. The figure was gone, the saber back in front of him. Satine was watching him, riveted.
“You floated,” she muttered to herself when it was clear he was out of his meditation.
“That… can happen,” Obi-Wan scratched his head.
She frowned at him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re—Do you understand me right now?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Why?”
“You’re speaking Mando’a.”
“No, we’re speaking basic.”
“No, we aren’t.”
"Satine, I don't know more than what you taught me!"
“You make me sigh,” she said in a very familiar tone. The one she used when she called him Ben.
He looked up at her sharply. “Wait. That’s what that means?”
“See?”
He was speaking Mando’a…
He cleared his throat and focused.
“How about now?”
“Basic.”
“Alright, that’s good.”
“What happened?” she asked. “Is that… normal?”
“For a Jedi you mean?” Obi-Wan asked. “No… I don’t think so at least. The kyber was … very strong. Very sentient. We formed a bond which is very rare for ancient kyber. Sometimes those close with the wielder might be able to find balance with the blade of a fallen Jedi, but… generations later? That’s weird.”
“Tarre Vizsla has always been an exception,” Satine said. “The idea that a Jedi led Mandalore would be spat at now, except not for them. To this day everyone still respects them.”
“He–they seemed like quite the character,” Obi-Wan said honestly. Ori’vod Tarre liked to mess with people, Obi-Wan was sure of it.
“I thought it was funny,” Satine said. “Your names mean the same thing. A Jedi with the same name as Tarre Vizsla.”
“Pardon?”
“Remember? We were talking about name meanings—” she stuttered a little. Her name was from a part of a poem, the finishing refrain of a line that her father was named after. She had been so proud. That she was a continuation of her father, just as she would be a continuation of his work. She didn’t know it would be so soon.
“I remember,” Obi-Wan said, gentling his voice. “Yours is a poem. Mine is something like traveller’s endurance, child traveller. It’s… a traditional name for foundlings and orphans to be named Kenobi on my birth planet. A child travelling from the village. As for my first name, I don’t know if my name was always Obi-Wan. I’ve always thought that maybe it was a message to me. To endure being away from my birth family. I’ve always felt a silly kind of guilt. I don’t remember them enough to miss them.”
“Tarre means Resilient Boots. It’s a similar sentiment. I thought it was funny. One of the Jedi helping us would have a similar name to the Jedi Mand’alor. Maybe it’s fate.”
“Synchronicity is the Force’s smile,” Obi-Wan quoted. It was a phrase Master Poof was fond of. It meant coincidence didn’t need to have deep meaning to be special.
“It’s just the Force having a sense of humour. Nothing overly mystical about it!” He would laugh as a youngling tried to argue how it must be a sign of something.
Obi-Wan felt a strange wave of homesickness. He realised it wasn’t purely his own, but the kyber’s.
“Hm,” Satine said. “We would call it a shooting star. Your ancestors have thrown something at your head and you’re to pay attention.”
Obi-Wan laughed. “Really?”
Satine grinned. “It’s not meant to be so literal of course.”
Obi-Wan rubbed the back of his head. They had been running from Deathwatch when an explosion hit. Obi-Wan leapt on Satine, covering her with his body, but he didn’t get a steady enough force shield in place and a piece of debris smacked him in the head.
The saber.
Vizsla must have been in the party hunting them and lost his grip when the shockwave ripped through the air.
Recognising it as a lightsaber Obi-Wan grabbed it and put it on his belt, then led Satine through the smoke, slipping their pursuers. Fighting broke out. Another faction had shown up. Vizsla’s focus must have shifted because no one was following when they escaped the city into the desert.
“So you’re going to keep it?” Satine asked.
“You’re right, I have to. Only a Jedi can heal it. Right now it’s unbalanced.”
“I’m glad,” she said, moving to his side. “It gives me hope. For change. I have to believe we can change.”
The wind picked up. Obi-Wan pulled off his cloak and wrapped it around the two of them, sharing their body heat for the night.
“We lost them, Alor.”
Jaster wasn’t pleased by the news. He looked to Jango who had been standing silent in the back.
“Why?” He directed the question to Jango, voice hard. “You’re already three weeks late on this mission. You are tasked to bring two pups barely old enough to wear a full set. Why is this giving you trouble?”
He didn’t like calling Jango out like this. The boy was the son of his heart, but someone loved is not someone to coddle. He wanted the young man strong enough to stand on his own two feet, not riddled with the weaknesses nepotism brought. That was the sin of Vizsla, not Jaster.
“The Jedi,” Jango said.
“I’ve been led to believe the boy is only an apprentice,” Jaster wasn’t about to accept the name of a cultural boogeyman as reason enough for failure. Especially when it wasn’t even a fully grown one.
“He’s wiley,” Jango said, knowing there was no way out of this very public conversation. It wasn’t Jango’s strong suit, another reason to make him do it. “He’s good at hiding their tracks. Good at blending in. He has an expert understanding of guerrilla tactics. He’ll come out of nowhere, fight swiftly, and pull back after Kryze has escaped. He uses his surroundings to his advantage, from dense city centres to open desert. He’s like a ghost.”
Jaster might admire that if it wasn’t so aggravating.
“It would be easier if we could just shoot him,” Jango pushed back.
Jaster would have approved his defiance, except for the stupidity of it. “You can shoot him. I want you to shoot him.”
“You can’t stun at long range,” Jango countered. His temper was flaring, which meant the conversation would need to end soon before he embarrassed himself.
Jaster tilted his head back, disappointed. “No, you can’t. So you need to get closer.”
“Kryze will be helpless without the Jedi! We don’t need him alive.”
“I want him alive,” Jaster said. “I want both of them. So why aren’t they here? The boy is talented. Good, he interests me more now, but you had them cornered in Briirud village.
“And Death Watch showed up.”
“And you got distracted,” Jaster finished. “You could only see Death Watch and lost sight of the mission.”
“Death Watch is the mission!” Jango exploded. “Why are you having me follow cowards and enemies when I could be helping you?”
“Why are you hindering me by failing?” Jaster said coldly.
Jango shut up. He was too expressive, even with his helmet on, obviously hurt, obviously rattled. It was a plain as the paint on his armour.
Jaster wanted to soothe the hurt.
Wanted to coddle.
Despite what people might see, it was in his nature. He wanted to shelter and protect. He wanted to pull the young man into a hug and tell him to forget it.
But it would mean his life one day if Jaster was soft. Jango was his obvious heir. One day Jaster would die. That was the way of things. If Jango couldn’t stand alone that was Jaster’s failing. It would mean he hadn’t loved him enough to teach him properly.
And Jaster loved the stupid brilliant boy with his whole heart.
He closed his eyes behind his helmet, a brief moment to centre himself.
“Everyone is dismissed.”
He planned to have Jango join him for dinner to show he was still in his regard, but learned the squad went back out directly after the meeting.
That eased him a bit. Jango wasn’t sulking, he was putting his anger into productive things.
He had a good feeling. Soon he would have Adi’s daughter and her protector in his grasp.