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amiedala · 3 years

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SOMETHING DEEPER

CHAPTER 16: Andromeda

WARNINGS: canon-compliant violence, descriptions of blood and injuries, familial death, explicit mentions of past abuse

SUMMARY: Yavin still fills her heart like home.

Novalise—Andromeda—steps onto the warm green earth with an odd, radiant sense of peace. She’s not afraid. She’s not scared. She lived her life as Andromeda Maluev—sole surviving rebel girl—after losing her parents, her belief in goodness in strangers, and nearly stumbling her way into death. She’s faced the Calicans. She killed Xi’an. She found love and lost it and then found it again, shining brighter than the sun. She held Moff Gideon off with her hands. She could punch a god in the face and come out swinging.

Ladmeny Sparmau doesn’t scare her—Novalise. Not anymore.

But Andromeda is angry.

If you’re a newcomer, my fic “Something More” is the first installment of this story! <3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: HELLOOOOOO & HAPPY SD SATURDAY (AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE)!!! this chapter has been in the works for months—since i wrote Chapter 16 of SM all the way back in April. i've been honing this whole storyline ever since, and i can't even tell you all how much this one means to me—just that it resonates with you as much as it resonates with me. <3

Long before a Mandalorian, a strange Force bond, a little green alien becoming her child, a decision to lean directly into the Rebellion, a throne she never expected, a home anywhere else than Yavin, and Novalise Djarin exploded into existence, Andromeda Maluev was just a Rebel fighter pilot whose eyes shone with millions of ceaseless stars.

She came into the world like the Big Bang did—epic, eternal stardust. Andromeda was born aboard a starfighter, a tiny ball of screams and a symphony of jet-black hair, up there in the stars. And she was loved the same way she lived—vibrantly, endlessly, with the weight of the cosmos beneath her.

The only daughter of Piper and Arokel Maluev, Andromeda held everyone’s attention. From the second she burst into existence, she was a beacon. A heart that felt like a supernova, just after the impact and years before the eventual burnout. Her first word, unsurprisingly, was star. Murmured in that tiny, sweet voice, determined and sustained. At night, under the warm cloak of Yavin’s greenness, Andromeda would sneak out of her family’s bunk room and tiptoe to the end of the hall, perching on the inside of the windowsill, head tipped backward to fill up her vision with the galaxy. If she squinted, if she got the angle of it just right—there was nothing in her periphery but the glittering, endless night sky, living on for centuries longer than she ever would.

It comforted her, the forever crush of space—as a starchild, there was nothing scary about the galaxy’s edges. Even in the midst of the war, even as the Empire won, nothing could terrify Andromeda away from the stars.

Even her own parents. Even the adults on the base. Andromeda knew how to use her smile, all those glittering white teeth, to charm herself past security, into the landing bay, up the ladder of the closest X-Wing, and into the cockpit. She was six or seven—far too young to sport the traditional Rebel jumpsuit—but Andromeda was outfitted in orange, from head to toe. She pushed up on her tiptoes, flipped all the switches she’d spent months memorizing, and got the ship off the ground. Like it was easy. Like she was meant to fly.

And she was. No one batted a single eyelash at the tiny Maluev girl piloting the ship outside of Yavin’s atmosphere and into the stars above—no one, of course, except Wedge Antilles, who, honestly, secretly watched Andromeda pilot that starfighter like an expert for full minutes before he called it in, smile wide in glee.

“This is Red Leader,” Wedge’s familiar, slightly amused voice filtered through the comm system in the X-Wing, “I’ve got our little rogue one.”

And Andromeda was grounded. Not for long—her feet didn’t belong on the earth, they belonged, starstruck, in the sky—but momentarily. For a kid who never wanted to get in trouble, who couldn’t even give someone a mean look without feeling guilty for it, Andromeda was itching to eschew Yavin’s gorgeous green earth and trade it in for the endless expanse of the starry sky.

“You need to be careful,” Piper chastised her once, kneeling down in front of her, folding her tall, lithe body limb over limb to be compact enough to look straight into her daughter’s green spitfire eyes, one dark-skinned, gorgeous hand tracing a line across Andromeda’s cheek. “You’re not invincible. And you’re certainly not infallible.”

“Mom,” Andromeda had said, sighing with the weight of a seasoned fighter pilot, “out there, I feel like I am.”

Piper’s stern, serious expression had flickered for a second, faltered entirely, and took great force to reinstate. “I know you do,” she whispered, tucking a stubborn, dark curl behind the shell of her daughter’s ear, “you’re a Maluev.”

And Andromeda was proud to be a Maluev. Fiercely, determinedly so. Even as a child, even before she could walk on her own two feet without stumbling, she shared her mother’s love for mapping the galaxy, her father’s love of languages. Every time Andromeda looked in the mirror, she was met with fragments of both of them—Arokel’s sparkling eyes, muted into an early sage green; Piper’s gorgeous, curly hair that hung down her back instead of haloing out from around her face. The slope of Andromeda’s eyebrows and the bow of her upper lip curved in the same way her mother’s did. The tiniest smattering of freckles across her nose, a shade or two lighter than her deep, bronze skin, were a fraction of her father’s starfield. At night, her parents would tuck her under the covers and watch over her like Andromeda was her own fixed luminous point, like her body held vigor and stardust.

She loved them. And they loved her, endlessly, without abandon. As Andromeda grew from a tiny toddler to a small spitfire of a kid to a vibrant teenager, she didn’t shrug off her parents. She spent days poring over linguistics books with her father, and painstaking hours walking over large-scale cartography with her mother. In the middle of a war—this war, the one the Empire seemed to keep winning—there wasn’t any life to waste. The kids who were born on Yavin, on the Rebel base—they were a different kind of children. They were forged with greenness and fire, their bones a compound of starshine and determination. And in all of them, regardless of how different they were in every other regard, their hearts burned orange. Bright and furious and brimming with a fight that felt more like love than war.

“Miracle child,” Piper called Andromeda, brushing out her thick, cascading curls in the mirror of the shared, communal bathroom. “Starkid,” Arokel would say, his lopsided grin growing wide. The three of them were everything. Andromeda knew it, even with nothing else to compare it to—she grew up with a family. She grew up loved. She grew up knowing danger was out there, brimming on the horizon, but she never felt the evil invading the Rebel base, even in the darkest of times. She was protected. Her parents threw themselves in front of the world for her.

The battle of Scarif left Andromeda planted on the ground of Yavin. Even if she wanted to fly her X-Wing, go straight to the Death Star, and hunt down Darth Vader herself, she couldn’t. Rebels were few and far between. So many of them died standing up to the Empire—blown to nothing, reduced to pink mist, catching bullets between their eyes. The base stopped being green and gorgeous and untouched. All the gallantry and novelty of being a Rebel who lived in the heart of Yavin turned somber and silent.

Piper was meant to go. As a mapmaker, as the starchaser herself—delivering the Death Star plans into the hands of the Alliance instead of the Empire was a mission not many other people could take on. But Andromeda was sick, forehead burning up in fever, eyes flickering off somewhere between reality and dreamland. When Piper got up to leave, to join Rogue One, Andromeda’s tiny hand shot out in the darkness.

“Please,” she whispered, small voice shaking with something that cut Piper down to the bone, “please stay with me, Mom.”

So Piper did. Andromeda staved off her death once, twice—celestial mosaics that neither of them could ever fully quantify. Something had shifted, just beyond the veil. Neither of them could put their finger on it, but it beat on, a sucking, threatening heartbeat.

Weeks passed—days fleeting like ships popping in and out of warp. Andromeda was fourteen, on the cusp of fifteen, her hair to her waist, her jaw set in concentration. She was piloting X-Wings at six, and nine years later, she could fly in a way that put every single squadron to shame.

“How do you do that,” one of the cadets had whispered, in reverence, eyes as starry as her own. Andromeda was the only child of the Alliance who could evade better than shoot. She was on the offensive—she never fired first unless it was absolutely necessary. She flew through the starry skies like she had a map of them written into her anatomy. In every simulation, the TIE fighters on the tail of her X-Wing would eventually shoot at her and get caught in their own crossfire. She perfected her signature barrel roll at ten. She danced through the sky like it was a stage.

“Intuition,” Andromeda had whispered, dropping down on one knee like her parents used to, making herself level with the child’s awestruck face. “Don’t shoot. Let them bring the fire to you, and then drown it out.”

Intuition was the word that fell out of her mouth, coiled right on the tip of her tongue. Intuition, inevitably, became the Force, but Andromeda didn’t realize that until she became Novalise.

“Hey, Maluev,” a loud, friendly voice from behind her shouted.

Andromeda turned, watching the oldest group of cadet teenagers walk by in their orange jumpsuits, moving across green, earthly terrain towards the landing bay. It filled her chest with a jealousy that she couldn’t quite name—a yearning for something more.

The one who had spoken grinned, sparkling white teeth igniting through the air like gunfire. His hair was as dark and curly as hers was, his smile friendly and daring, his whole body shaking with glee and promise and the fight her parents had always carried. “Nice job.”

Andromeda smiled back, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Don’t get shot out there, Dameron,” she called, a warm breeze lilting across Yavin’s surface.

“Impossible,” Poe yelled back, already climbing into his X-Wing, worn with years of stardust and gunfire and rebellion, “I’m what one would call ‘a hell of a pilot’.”

That same yearning caught in Andromeda’s chest as she watched the squadron of Rebel starfighters lift off of Yavin’s surface, jet fuel shimmering in the air around them. The girl who had been so enraptured with Andromeda’s flying demonstration was now equally as enamored with the liftoff of Rebel ships, dancing in their wake.

“Someday,” Andromeda whispered, her eyes on the skies, trying to remember they were rushing into the middle of wartime and that most of them wouldn’t come back in one piece.

Days later—a third of the starfighters returned. No one could look up at the sky without remembering the people they lost, mourning and full to the brim with grief.

The Empire had won enough to build the Death Star, to hand out death like credits. Yavin didn’t feel like sacred ground anymore. It wasn’t untouchable. Andromeda could feel it prickling on the back of her neck—the endless, ceaseless feeling of being watched. There was something so tangible about this war, this threat. It was jagged and stuck to her skin like magma, like something she couldn’t extricate. Like something looming and horrible was seeping into Yavin’s atmosphere, poisonous and raw. The kind of death that sneaks in instead of needing to be invited—insidious, horrible, eternal—and by the time you realize it’s there, you’re already dying.

Arokel left Yavin a few days later—headed to Alderaan to recover texts to decipher an ancient language he only found in fragments. Andromeda could feel the squeeze of his absence in her chest, cloying and stuck to her, impossible to shake off. For every hour he was gone, she stood under the sky of Yavin, eyes trained on the atmosphere, trying to will her father back home before something horrific happened. The blue sky, serene and cloudless, faded into a salmon fire, sun slipping over the horizon. The stars came out one by one, shaking off the cloak of invisibility that everyone called daylight. Andromeda knew every single one of them, where they shone and sparkled above her head. With a mapmaker for a mother and a star-obsessed linguist for her father, she had no choice in the matter. Even before she was out there in the cosmos, she knew how to name their luminosity.

“Please,” she had whispered to the stars above, to the Maker heavenward, “please come home.”

“Maluev.”

Andromeda turned, heart catching in her chest, thumping frantically. It was one of the generals—one who she never knew by name, but always felt his presence—and there was a grim set to his jaw that upended everything in her stomach.

“You’ve been promoted,” he said, gruffly, tossing a flurry of orange through the night air. It wasn’t until she caught it in her hands that Andromeda realized it was an orange jumpsuit. Without permission, without warning, she hopped into the nearest grounded X-Wing and spat herself into the sky before anyone could stop her.

Space—true, vivid space—still filled her chest like home was always meant to. She’d been up here more times than she could count, even now, even in the midst of the war, but she’d never left the pull of Yavin’s atmosphere without anyone beside her in the cockpit. She inhaled a steady, sucking breath, squared her shoulders, cracked her neck, and pulled all of the thrusters into her hands, heading towards Alderaan.

It was exhilarating. There was a rush from flying that felt more like home than it did a high. Andromeda belonged in the skies above, out here with all of the stardust. It was familiar and endless and she thrived on the luminescence in front of her, on the steady hum of the X-Wing.

And then she felt it. Like something was squeezing her heart from the inside out, her vision dizzied and awful. There was a ringing in her ears that faded down to nothing, and her eyes closed involuntarily. Everything ran out of her backward. It was murky in the in-between—in this vision—but Andromeda could make out two things.

Her father’s face, illuminated by an explosion.

Alderaan being blown down to nothing.

She couldn’t help it. She screamed, vivid and raw, cut down to the bone. When she popped out of warp, the planet exploded. Alderaan—gorgeous, mountainous Alderaan, with pink skies and forever sunsets—was wiped down to absolutely nothing. It was horrible, watching something manmade have that much destruction. And then, like a prayer from above answered, Arokel’s starfighter emerged from the blast.

When the two of them got back to Yavin, ships orbiting each other like twin stars, Andromeda fell out of her X-Wing, running dazedly towards her father. He smelled like old books and the cold scent of space and strangely, wildflowers. She squeezed her arms around his orange, jumpsuit middle like she couldn’t let go.

“I’m okay,” Arokel breathed, smoothing his gentle, delicate hands over his daughter’s hair. “I’m okay.” It sounded like an oath, a promise, a vow. For days after, when the Alliance started to reflect more fight than it did hope, the three Maluevs spent every night together, just the three of them, in their tiny, sanctioned apartment. Piper made maps of stardust and vantablack, Arokel pored over ancient texts trying to bring languages back from the dead. Andromeda stayed between her parents, soaking in every single little thing about them, trying to mirror it, to write it down to her bones, into her anatomy, so that her heritage could never be forgotten.

It was a Friday when Piper and Arokel died.

So much of the time surrounding their demise was blurred, marred by hurt and mourning. Andromeda only recalled the day in fragments—her father pressing his smile against her sleepy forehead, her mother clasping her silver necklace around her daughter’s neck. They smelled like green earth and summer breeze and smoke from a campfire, something else she couldn’t name, and home, always home.

But she knew it was Friday. Nothing bad was supposed to happen on Fridays.

“See you soon, baby,” Piper had mouthed, so quiet it barely roused Andromeda from her dream. The last thing she got from her parents was a dark room, dawn cresting on the horizon, and letting her loose from her orbit. Later, once the sun fully rose, Andromeda was supposed to report for duty—real duty, gaining her Rebel orange jumpsuit for missions other than flying and evading—but it was still dark, still before morning came on the horizon.

She felt it before she knew it. It woke her up, the jolt of it, like electricity was shocking her down to her bones. It pulled grief through her body before she could put a name to it. Andromeda felt it, felt it everywhere, the knowledge that Piper and Arokel were gone, the instant it happened. She heaved herself out of bed, sprinting down the long hallway, feet bare, heart thumping. She ran past the long rooms of technology and war, moving like a catalyst, trying to find anyone in charge to confirm it.

“Rebel girl,” she heard, and Andromeda spun around, long hair flying wildly, eyes flashing. Wedge was standing behind her, looking so ridiculously out of place in pajamas instead of his perennial orange jumpsuit, his shoulders heavy, grief written in the lines of his young face.

“No,” Andromeda whispered, her heart bisecting itself right down the middle, her feet losing the ability to keep her upward. “No, no, no—”

“I’m so sorry,” Wedge murmured into her hair, supporting the back of Andromeda’s head like a vice. He sank down to the floor with her, both of them heaving out sobs, tears shed for the most alive, vibrant people they knew, getting taken out of this world. Andromeda stayed there, folded up on the floor, with Yavin’s gorgeousness right outside of her grasp. But something internal, something raw, told her that she would never feel like this was home again, that she’d have to make her own out among the stars.

It took a handful of weeks for the Rebel Alliance to gather their resources and their heroes in one place to fight back hard enough to make traction. The glee of living on the base had completely receded, gone cold. Every Rebel was focused on one thing and one thing only—taking the Empire down.

Andromeda tried. She followed orders, she went on every mission she was meant to, she spent all of her waking hours either in the war rooms or in the stars, but everything felt empty, a void only rivaled by a black hole. When the Empire was finally defeated for the first time—thanks to Wedge and Luke Skywalker—Andromeda knew she was done. She couldn’t suffocate in this place, couldn’t pretend to be joyous.

She told Wedge alone. If a Rebel was to defect, to delay their involvement, they had to plead a case in front of the generals, but Andromeda knew she couldn’t face the people that had sent her parents—her artistic, peaceful, alive parents—to their deaths.

“I need to go,” she whispered to Wedge, voice croaky from disuse, packing everything she could fit of her own into her bag, trying to reduce her lost home into material things.

“I know,” Wedge had said, eyes trained on her, careful and observant. “Andromeda,” he continued, quietly, handing her her favorite shawl, “the Empire didn’t win.”

She had fixed him with a defeated, sad stare. “Maybe so,” she whispered, “but I lost anyway.”

Space, for the first time, didn’t feel like home. The stars were cold and quiet, like they had been sucked clean of their shine. The tiny hull of the X-Wing was so silent that it hurt in her chest. Andromeda coasted through the entirety of the Outer Rim, coasting by planet after planet, trying to find a safe place to land. It took days, full ones, before she set down on any of them, and when she did, a little Rodian girl and her mother begged her for a safe passage to Coruscant, to get out of an active toxic zone.

And then, that was home. Space, the stars above—they felt like comfort again. Andromeda traversed the entire galaxy, bringing safety and harbor to people who wouldn’t get it otherwise. Out there, there wasn’t danger, or abusive partners, or the threat of the Empire still lingering. It was the first time that Andromeda felt full after her parents died—making sure other people didn’t have their home stolen out from under their feet like she did.

Jacterr Calican blazed his way into Andromeda’s life on her fifteenth trip to Coruscant. She had dropped down in a landing bay just on the outskirts of the city. Everything in Coruscant glittered. It was artificial—never a match for the space above—but it was pretty enough to keep her grounded, distracted. The cantina Andromeda walked into was full of flash and noise and music, and she was desperate to escape the silence, to be loud so she couldn’t ever feel the crushing weight of the quiet.

“Wow.”

Andromeda turned in her seat. She was slouched over against the bar, taking small sips of something bubbly and sweet, popping like fizz and fireworks in the hollow of her mouth. The man in front of her was tall—muscled and lean, with a lopsided smile that felt like heartbreak waiting to happen—but his eyes held the stars of the cantina’s fake shine, and it was enough for her heartbeat to quicken, to give her the first real chance at happiness.

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he had whispered, dazed, hand spread-eagled over his heart.

Despite herself, Andromeda grinned. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

He shook his head, still moving in slow motion, staring at the contours of her face, the long slope of her neck, the way her sage eyes glittered in the low, sparkling light. “Maybe. But it wasn’t the truth until I met you.”

Her stomach flipped over. The stranger took the next barstool, and he was so dazzling that it hurt to look at him head-on. “What’s your name?”

Andromeda took a tiny sip of her drink, heart still hammering. “If I tell you,” she whispered, leaning in conspiratorially, “are you only going to refer to me as my name, or will you keep calling me gorgeous?”

He grinned. “I’ll call you anything you want.”

Andromeda squinted, sizing him up. “Andromeda,” she allowed, finally, crossing one built, thick thigh over the other.

The smile spread across his face made everything else fade out. “Andromeda,” he breathed, like he was savoring the taste of it on his tongue, “I’m Jacterr. Jacterr Calican.”

Andromeda’s grin melted over her face like the first summer thaw. “I like that you told me your last name.”

Jacterr grabbed her hand, pressing his mischievous lips to her soft skin. Everything inside of her lit up. “Good,” he said, his fingertips skating across hers as he pulled away, “you needed it. You’re going to take it someday.”

It wasn’t love. Maybe it was for a half-second, a fleeting moment, but after that, it was just devastation.

Coruscant turned from a soft melody of lights and noise and people into a prison. Everything felt too loud, too much, too suffocating. For the first few months, Jacterr was a perfect gentleman. He called her Andromeda like it was just another synonym for gorgeous. That grin, beautiful and charismatic, got inside of her and refused to get out. It burrowed in her belly like a toxin, seeping into her bones until Andromeda couldn’t get it out.

He kissed like he was teething. He fucked like he was starving. Both left Andromeda feeling wounded and malnourished. There was something haunted in the way Jacterr expressed need, movable and intangible. He gnawed away at everything until Andromeda got whittled down to bare bones, walking on eggshells to keep that smile on his face.

He left more than he stayed. At the beginning of their relationship, Andromeda tagged along for recovery missions—until she realized that Jacterr wasn’t preserving artifacts from the city, from the Jedi Temple, from everything Coruscant was before the Empire’s reign. He was pilfering, plucking relics and holy things from the rubble and selling them like they didn’t matter.

Andromeda was left on the ship, a hulking beast of a thing, filling her time with singing and showering and everything in between. Jacterr brought back a kyber crystal, dusty under layers of leveling, and something a lot like voltage shocked in her heart when she saw it, electrocuted.

“You can’t sell that,” she breathed, looking at the amethyst stone, her voice wavering.

She never saw the first slap coming. It collided with her cheek like it was magnetic. Tears sprung immediately into her eyes, horrible and loud, and she knocked off-kilter, a star getting torn off its axis. The durasteel of the ship’s floor was cold, so much harder than she was expecting, and the entire ten seconds in which it happened felt like an eternity.

When Andromeda looked up at Jacterr, trying to decide if he had really just hit her, there was nothing warm and charming left in his eyes. His jaw was set in a terrifying, evil way. There was no charisma left. Just darkness, betrayal, and something cold.

“Get up,” he snapped. Andromeda did, tears still flooding in her eyes, wanting to run. She couldn’t. She felt stuck there, glued down to the unforgiving metal and the man made out of misery. “Is this valuable?”

Andromeda swallowed. “I don’t know,” she whispered, honestly, “but it’s sacred.”

Jacterr considered it, pocketed the crystal, and turned to walk out into the overwhelming streets of Coruscant. “Don’t you even think about leaving,” he said, roughly, and then he pressed those wicked lips to Andromeda’s hand like it was the very first night.

It was weeks before she found the chance to get out. When Jacterr was aboard, Andromeda played the part to perfection—she stayed quiet and unassuming, she let him put his mouth on hers, she didn’t antagonize him. It was harrowing and scary and it made her fight or flight reflex pound inside of her chest, replacing her human heartbeat, but she waited.

Jacterr usually left for five hours. Five to pillage and pilfer, back to the ship for assessment, and then out for two more, hocking his spoils to the client that paid the most. After one hour, Andromeda gathered everything that was hers, wrapped her curly, signature hair up in her favorite shawl, and ran. She didn’t know Coruscant like Jacterr did, like anyone else would, because even though she’d spent close to three months living on the planet’s surface, she’d been in forced captivity, held on Jacterr’s starship like a prisoner.

But she was careful. She was intuitive and strong and forged from the best parts of her parents. Andromeda could make a map from nothing and then translate the dead language of it back to life. And for a second, a real second, she had a shot at escaping—a ticket in one hand, her bag in the other.

And if she hadn’t gone back into the cantina for a bottle of water to drink on the flight, she would have made it out so much earlier.

Merle Calican grabbed her by the hair and pushed her back under the water his brother drowned her under. Andromeda was dragged, kicking and screaming, back to his brother’s ship, and the way Jacterr treated her before was sunshine and daisies compared to how he did now. His words were fists and knuckles and steel-toed boots. Merle never hit her like Jacterr did, but he was unhinged, a live wire a second from sparking up like a pipe bomb and decimating everything down to flame.

At night, chained down to the floor, Andromeda closed her eyes, pretending that above her were thousands and thousands of stars, the home she’d never get back to without a fight, and whisper the word her father taught her to sustain her.

“Novay’lain,” Andromeda breathed, until the word felt like breathing, like surviving. She stayed awake through Coruscant’s illuminated, noisy night, and wished for silence for the first time since her parents died, for the safety of quiet, for something more.

The Jedi Temple was destroyed, leveled, brought down to rubble and ash. When Jacterr and Merle dragged Andromeda alongside the two of them, she knew there was a finality to it. They’d spent months ravaging the place, bringing it down to nothing, stealing everything sacred from the destruction, to pilfer the last memories of the Jedi out of existence.

Andromeda knew her time was coming to a close. She’d felt it for weeks, the way that the Calicans looked at her out of the corners of their eyes, the determined set of Jacterr’s jaw. When there was nothing related to the unknown and magical that Andromeda lived in left, she had no purpose to them. And they wouldn’t just let her go. That wasn’t how they operated.

So she was determined to either break free or die trying.

Merle had split off, ransacking a different room. She was loosely tied to Jacterr, sitting in the corner of what used to be a room before Order 66. Andromeda asked for a miracle from those stars above—to shine, to shine, to shine—and when Jacterr discarded the lightsaber, scoffing because it wouldn’t ignite, Andromeda’s hand moved towards it like something fated.

And, like magic, like the miracle she wished for—the thing ignited in her hand. Green and glimmering and a symbol of hope, the flicker and hum stronger than all of her fear. Andromeda cut herself out of the restraints and ran like she’d never run before. For her life. For the promises she made to the Alliance. For the chance to see Wedge again. For the stars above. And, more than anything else, for Piper and Arokel, for their sacrifice, for love.

The cantina came out of nowhere, Jacterr hot on her heels, and Andromeda disappeared through the entryway, trying to catch the breath that got sucked straight out of her lungs.

“Andromedaaaaaaaaaa,” he called, drawing out the word like venom, “I know you’re in here.”

When he found her, crouching in the corner, breath raggedy and exhausted, he wrapped a single hand around her throat, smiled, gave her a kiss, and then plunged a dagger into her stomach.

The pain was horrific. Awful, insurmountable. Andromeda looked down to see the blood running out of her in rivulets, spilling everything out in crimson. It was raw and terrible and the only reprieve was one, singular thought: I’m going to see my parents again.

She lifted up one, unsteady hand, and then, like it came alive of its own volition, the lightsaber flew from the dirt and rubble into her hand. Jacterr’s face, dangerous and sharpened, swam in front of her eyes, and then the thing ignited, as green and enduring as Andromeda’s eyes, running Jacterr and all his evil right through.

It happened so fast. It wasn’t intentional, and she was losing blood—fast—but Andromeda watched the horrible light leave his eyes. She gagged, still impossible to take in the horror of it all—killing someone, the gash in her stomach, and then everything went black.

Eventually, she made it to a ship—maybe hers, maybe not, it was impossible to tell—and got into the sky. The only proof of her injury happened hours later, blood clotted on her hands, wound in her stomach still hemorrhaging, a scream ripped itself out of her throat. She was able to see the space out of the front window, lost up here in the stars, and a faint, knowing smile flitted across her face.

Andromeda was born in the stars. She could die in them, too. It felt like divinity, like a cosmic rightness. And she was okay with it, really—she got off Coruscant, she stopped Jacterr Calican, and she’s out here, back amongst the stardust, exactly where she belonged. It’s okay, she thought. It’s better this way.

And then her father’s frozen, youthful face appeared, his ghostly hands clutching her cheeks. “Stay alive,” he whispered, with such vitality it brought Andromeda back to life. “It isn’t time.”

“You don’t die yet,” Piper’s voice sounded, traveling through the space-time continuum like an electric shock to Andromeda’s chest.

“Novay’lain,” Arokel breathed, low with the intensity of a lightning strike. To radiate. To shine in silence. To survive.

And then, the last thing she hears before using the lightsaber to cauterize her own wound, what quiets her scream—Novalise.

Andromeda doesn’t die. She’s forged from fire and stardust and Rebel orange, with stars in her eyes, with goodness in her heart. She’s too strong to go into death, to fade off out of life. So she recovers, out there alone in space, drifting through the Outer Rim, brimming with everything alive that the world tried to beat out.

Soon, she gets an X-Wing, she flies from planet to planet, she sustains. And she’s happy like that, she really is, without danger breathing down her neck, without needing to fight like taking in air.

And when she crash lands on Nevarro, stumbling straight into a metal, armored man and his adorable, strange green son, it feels like salvation. Like a second chance. Like something more.

Yavin still fills her heart like home.

Ladmeny Sparmau doesn’t scare her—Novalise. Not anymore.

But Andromeda is angry.

It lives inside of her, a gaping, sucking wound. It feels like fire, like the magma that flows through the rivers on Mustafar. There’s not enough words in any language to explain the gnawing pit inside of her that’s been growing, festering, eating away at her for ten years. It doesn’t matter that Nova just found out that it was Sparmau who was responsible for Piper and Arokel’s deaths. Andromeda has felt their loss for ten years.

Yavin is gorgeous, even in the nighttime. Millions of stars shine above the greenness, casting everything into dark, indulgent blues. A constant, restless breeze rustles through the trees, making them dance. It feels like a salutation, like coming home. The small parts of her that are still a child want to run into the abandoned base, seal herself in their tiny apartment, and live in the memory for as long as she can.

But Novalise is here to fight. And Andromeda is here for vindication.

She feels Sparmau before she sees her.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Sparmau hisses, her tongue laced with venom, spitting evil into such peaceful air. Nova turns around, facing the wide expanse of tall grasses and purple flowers that bloom out in front of the forest. It feels poetic that Sparmau isn’t blocking where her room used to be—no, she’s obfuscating the terrain of Yavin, its green anatomy, the flora and fauna that forged Nova down to her blood.

“I don’t break my promises,” Nova says, cool and collected. “You better do the same.”

Sparmau’s evil smile cracks her face right down the middle. “I revel in the thought of breaking this one, and slowly killing every single person you love. Especially Bo-Katan. And your husband, the Mand’alor.” The word—such a sacred, holy title—sounds bastardized and hardened coming out of Sparmau’s mouth.

Nova doesn’t bite. She can feel the power inside of her flicker and pulse, ready to spark to life. On her throat, she wears the silver pendant of the Alliance. On her thigh, she wears the blue Skywalker lightsaber. On her body, she wears forged Mandalorian armor. The second this turns into a fight—a real one—she’s letting Novalise Djarin disappear into her skin and become Andromeda Maluev. Right now, she’s toeing the line, walking down the dead center like it’s a tightrope, her hands in both of her lives, past and current. “But you haven’t. Because I agreed to your terms, and I came here alone.” She lifts her chin, squaring her shoulders, sizing up Sparmau. Another reverent breeze spills down the moor, rustling everything back to life. “And at the end of the day, you want me.” Nova cocks her head to the side, in perfect imitation of Din. “Why?”

Sparmau stares her down. Everything about her stance, her expressions, should indicate power, but there’s a tiny flicker of fear that appears and disappears so quickly that most people wouldn’t catch it at all. “Can’t you feel it?” she asks, starting a slow, slow pace, moving the two of them into an orbiting circle. “How badly the Dark Side wants you?”

Nova moves deliberately, one boot in front of the other, following Sparmau’s cyclical movements. “Oh, I’ve felt it. I’m just not impressed.”

A glittering flash of teeth. “There is so much yet to come. With me. With the glory of the First Order. With what’s in store for the galaxy. You will be.”

“No, actually,” Nova says, offhandedly, her chosen name rippling against her heart like a wave, “I don’t think I will.”

Sparmau grins. “Don’t you want power?”

“No,” Nova says, shrugging, palming the grip of the lightsaber in its holster, “and the Dark Side’s overrated. I’d rather have light.”

Sparmau stops. Nova stops too. She can feel Andromeda inside of her, a shaking supernova, coiled right against the quick, but it’s not time, not yet. She holds herself back, letting the inside of her marrow be turned into thousands and thousands of glittering stars. “You and I are going to do great things together, Andromeda. We’re fated for this—for each other, for a great destruction. I know you feel it. I know you fight it, but you shouldn’t. I don’t want to fight you. I want you to join me.”

Nova breaks formation, steps forward. Once, twice. Sparmau’s face, underneath all the torture and terror, is beautiful. Nearly symmetrical, strong eyebrows, a slope of a nose, glittering black eyes framed by long lashes. Her mouth is a scarlet O, enticing and alluring. There’s barely any cracks in her armor, but there’s something soft buried underneath all of those razors. In another life, Nova thinks, maybe they could have met in the middle.

“Don’t fight me,” Sparmau whispers, her voice muted around the edges. “I’ll call you by your real name, will that help? Join me. Join me in greatness, Novalise.”

Nova lifts her chin, licks the diamonds of her teeth, regarding Sparmau. She can feel the lightning strike, the spitfire, the fighter pilot forged out of fire and stardust and Rebel orange. “It’s too late,” she manages, and then she narrows her eyes, opens her mouth, and lets Andromeda fly free. “You killed my family.”

The lightsaber is in her hand before Sparmau can react. And Nova, the version of her that knows the limits of the Force, the version that prefers to evade rather than fire, disappears. Andromeda is here, and she wants revenge.

She runs towards Sparmau, something in her body unhinged and unleashed. With a roar, she brings the blue lightsaber to life, the Skywalker blade humming and molded to her hand. Nova’s out of practice, but she doesn’t need the movements she’s memorized over the last year. She doesn’t need to conjure certain strikes. She just needs to let the Force take over, channel it for this. She’s Andromeda Maluev, resuscitated and brought back to life. She’s powerful and she’s hungry and she’s unstoppable, and for the first time, embracing her former self doesn’t hurt.

Sparmau is caught off guard for a second—one single second—and then she screams, a guttural, piercing shriek that rattles through Yavin. Andromeda has taken over, uncoordinated and messy, but the one thing that she kept inside of her even when she changed her identity was the way she fought. On the offensive, using her intuition. Equal styles of fighting rise to her fists, knocking Sparmau back towards the abandoned base. The odd, eerie light of the azure blade illuminates across Sparmau’s determined, twisted face, and for a minute, Novalise has the upper hand.

“You’re good,” Sparmau marvels, her voice breathless, and then her evil, black-clawed hand cuts through the hum and forces Nova’s arm away from her throat. She’s not even touching her, and Sparmau is driving her into the ground, knocking the Skywalker lightsaber out of her grasp. “I’m still better.”

Nova chokes on nothing, and then, the topography of her scar meets the pavement, and a new surge of energy rips through her like a tornado. She survived getting cut through with a knife, with nothing but a lightsaber and her own hands to patch up the wound. She survived the loss of her parents. She survived when Din left her on Dantooine. She survived hell and she survived worse, and she’s sure going to survive this one.

The rip of energy tears through her body, a hurricane of moving parts and voltage. Nova heaves herself to her feet, holding one arm straight out for the lightsaber, the other stretched out in front of her to hold Sparfmau at bay. The weapon flies straight into the crux of her palm. The hand outstretched in front of her immobilizes Sparmau in her place. With a Herculean force, Nova steps forward, forcing Sparmau back.

“I don’t need to be better than you,” she spits, the blue glow of the lightsaber illuminating her hand, her face, the evil in front of her. “I just need to be stronger.”

Sparmau grins, her teeth sliding out from behind her lips. “I don’t want to kill you, Andromeda. But I will.”

Nova cocks her head to one side, pulling the hand holding the lightsaber with all of her might. She wants to slice Sparmau straight down the middle, bisect her just like she broke Andromeda’s heart. She wants to atone for everything Sparmau did to Bo-Katan. She doesn’t want justice. It’s not even that she wants revenge. She wants to save the galaxy. And, more than anything, she wants to prove that she can survive all of this, too. “That’s where you’re wrong,” Nova grits out, whole body shaking with brute force, “I do want to kill you.”

Against all reason, this makes Sparmau smile more. “There’s a little darkness in you, yet.”

“Maybe,” she says, and then Nova comes back in full force—Rebel, Jedi, Mandalorian. “But I’m not here for that. This,” she whispers, voice volatile, “is for Bo-Katan.”

With all the strength in her body, Nova surges forward, swiping at Sparmau’s face. When she moved defensively, she covered her abdomen, her neck, her heart. But Nova doesn't need to go for the jugular. She just needs to go for flesh. Sparmau roars as the lightsaber singes her cheek, gnarly and deep, and she gets knocked back a few steps.

“I didn’t think,” she spits, looking back up at Nova, blonde hair flying in the breeze of the force between them, “that you had that in you.”

“I’ll prove it,” Nova says, sheathing the lightsaber. The Force runs through her hands like an electric current, shaking and bright. It’s just Sparmau and her hands against Novalise and hers, and both of them clench their fingers and contort their bodies. Sparmau’s trying to wound. Nova’s trying to subvert the energy back on her enemy.

“When I kill the people you love,” Sparmau seethes, “I’ll make it like how your parents died. Screaming, scared, alone.”

Nova roars, but Sparmau breaks through. She wraps her taloned hand against Nova’s throat, and knocks both of them to the ground, the weight of Sparmau’s lithe body pinning Novalise to the ground Andromeda was forged from. Nova chokes as Sparmau’s hand closes around her throat. Everything fractures off into blackness, like the sucking wound of a black hole. She can see vivid, awful images—Bo-Katan being tortured, Din tied up and stripped of his armor, Wedge being suffocated, her parents dying, dying, dying. Her lips open and close, staring up into Sparmau’s evil face.

“What?” Sparmau asks, running her tongue over her awful, pointed teeth. “I can’t hear you.”

Nova’s eyes close, just for a second. She feels it all—the way she grew up here, loved; Andromeda Maluev still living in her bones; training alongside Grogu; the knowledge that she’s made up of the same cosmic stuff Luke Skywalker is; kissing Din’s bare lips in the dark; the beauty of the pink skies of Naator; the home in every Rebel base she lives in; Bo-Katan admitting they’re friends; the strange solace that Mandalore breathes into her lungs; Din, Din, Din, their life together, everything they share, something more, something deeper, something holy.

“This one,” Nova chokes out, hand slipping into her boot, curving possessively around the dagger laced with poison, “is for my parents, for the galaxy I’m saving, and for myself.” With one giant, heaving battle cry, Nova lets Novalise and Andromeda meet in the middle, glow out stardust, and shine, shine, shine. The taste in her mouth is like fighting back. Right before the impact, Nova sees a golden, shimmering heaven, and above her is the reflection of her saintlike self, ascended and holy.

Novalise plunges the venom-laced dagger straight into Sparmau’s chest.

It takes a second. But then Sparmau chokes on blood, crimson spilling out of her mouth and onto Nova’s neck, and with one shove, one horrible act of strength, Sparmau impales herself on her own weapon of incredible destruction. Nova can’t breathe, but she hauls herself to her feet anyway, everything around her amorphous and blurry, oxygen stuttering through her veins. She looks down at Sparmau, wiping blood out of her mouth, and when she falters, Nova touches two fingers to the Rebel insignia hanging from her neck.

For the first time in ten years, Andromeda Maluev feels peace.

Sparmau splutters, roaring even around the blade, and the noise alone jolts Novalise into a run. She moves through the tall grasses of Yavin, purple flowers parting like a wave around her knees. She can hear Sparmau dragging her poisoned, daggered body after her, so Nova doesn’t look back. This place is meant for revival, not for death—not even Sparmau’s.

Nova makes it onto Kicker, ignoring the incessant red flash of her commlink, and locks the gangplank behind her, pressing enough buttons that she hopes will lead her into the sky.

And then she passes out. Clean out, energy depleted, every single cell in her body exhausted.

Nova doesn’t know how long she’s out for. But when she wakes up through blurry, half-lidded eyes, it’s decidedly not on Kicker. She chokes, the feeling of Sparmau’s dangerous hand around her throat still suffocating, and she kicks out a worn leg at the man kneeling in front of her.

“Whoa,” he says, evading the impact of Nova’s steel-toed boot. “I figured you were a fighter, considering the shape you were in when we reeled you in, but don’t take the guy who saved you out.”

Nova stares, her vision still blurry and distorted. Faintly, and she can’t tell if it’s a dream talking, she hears a strange, animalistic roar. She shakes her head, pressing a hand over the scar on her belly, inflamed and painful, trying to get her bearings. She doesn’t seem to be in any danger, here—this ship is oddly circular, made more for cargo than passengers, but it’s warm, and there’s a game of Sabacc on a tiny table, and she’s wrapped in a blanket. Slowly, she blinks her eyes, trying to adjust to the surroundings, and then the same man she almost took out approaches her cautiously. He’s still blurry around the edges, but familiar for some reason, and then the roar sounds again, and Nova looks to her left.

There’s a Wookiee on this ship.

Finally, finally, Novalise’s vision focuses. In front of her is the silhouette of someone she’s only known through legends—and suddenly, all the strangeness of this ship turns itself the right way up. “Maker above,” she chokes out, her voice raspy from Sparmau’s lasting grip.

“Close, but I prefer to go by Han,” the man grins, and Nova blinks until he comes into full form. “Welcome aboard the Millennium Falcon.”

And then Nova plummets right back out of consciousness, gone before her head hits the wall.

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!! seriously, i cannot tell you all how emotional the journey of FINALLY writing this chapter was. i am so ready for you to read it, and i cannot wait to hear what you think. thank you endlessly for sticking with me, loving Novalise, and followed us both into something deeper.

i've decided to take a brief hiatus for the remainder of the holiday season to celebrate (safely) with my family and loved ones, which means that CHAPTER 17 WILL BE UP AT 7:30 PM EST ON SATURDAY, JANUARY 8TH!!!

i hope all of you have a restful end of 2021, and that the new year brings joy, solace, and hope. take care of yourselves, stay safe and healthy, and i'll see you in two weeks with Chapter 17 <3

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littlemisspascal · 3 years

Text

The Last Mandalorian

Chapter One: The Warrior in Carbonite Part 3

Fandom: The Mandalorian / Pedro Pascal

Eventual Pairing: Din x Togruta!Female!Reader

Word Count: 4,320

Rating: G

Summary: A series that is a mixture of Mandalorian, Star Wars, ATLA, and my own imagination. The Imps have seized control of the majority of the galaxy, including your homeworld Shili. You and your sister Ahsoka have developed a daily routine despite the stormtroopers keeping your village imprisoned. One morning you make a startling discovery that will change the course of your lives forever.

Warnings: I don’t know much about starship mechanics so probably nothing in this is accurate but it’s fanfiction people so cut me some slack please, reader gets a nickname 🥳, plot plot plot, discussion of loss of loved ones, worldbuilding, dialogue heavy, this is a slow burn but it’s also ridiculously self-indulgent so I’m including as many cute getting-to-know-you scenes as I can, reader is 17 and Din is 19 so I’m going to warn this as underage even though nothing sexual or even vaguely romantic happens in this chapter.

Author Note: Thank you anyone and everyone who has read even a sentence of this story! Special thanks and love to @dindja for creating this stunning, fantastic, amazing piece of fanart for me 💖💖💖 I still can’t believe how perfect it is. I mean, I’m such a sucker for pinky promises it’s not even funny and this is just beautiful 😍😍😍

Part 2

Cross-posted on AO3

For as grand and wide-reaching as the Galactic Empire has become in its ten years of existence, it had relatively small beginnings. A group of radical Force-wielders banded together under the leadership of an old, beady-eyed man named Sheev Palpatine who believed it was his divine destiny to seize control of the entire galaxy, rewriting the ancient laws to match his own beliefs. His cult, the Sith Order, gained attention by attacking Jedi temples, capital cities, places with large populations until every corner of the galaxy had heard of them. Most regarded them with fear, but over time they began garnering a startling amount of followers who were discontent with the status quo and willingly drafted themselves as soldiers in Palpatine’s fight for control.

At first everyone in your village thought Palpatine and his cult of followers weren’t worth worrying about—after all, Shili was a peaceful planet that never drew much attention to itself. But within the first year of its inception, the Sith Order captured Ryloth and the similar peaceful characteristics between the Twi’lek planet and Shili were too glaring to overlook. A seed of anxiety took root in every Togruta’s mind after that, and continued to grow with every planet seized as the years progressed.

The Decimation of Alderaan didn’t start as a tragedy, believe it or not. The Mandalorians, Jedi, and Alderaanians combined their numbers in an all-out fight against the Sith Order. It was the largest battle ever fought in the history of the galaxy, thousands of souls willing to die to defeat Palpatine’s followers. For the first three days of warfare, the fight seemed to be in favor of the allies with many noteworthy Sith members reportedly killed in the fray, such as Palpatine’s second-in-command Dooku and lethal Zabrak assassin Maul. You remember there was a sense of hope felt within your village as everyone listened to the news reports blaring across the Holonet. A belief that things were finally, finally going to return to normal after so much chaos.

But on the fourth day, the Sith Order brought their own ally onto the battlefield.

At the time there wasn’t a name for the droids that slaughtered every opponent they faced. They were described as indestructible, unharmed by blasters and the intense heat of Mandalorian flamethrowers. Not even lightsabers could damage them. The allies didn’t stand a chance, brutally murdered one by one, their dying screams echoing across the Holonet, forever haunting listeners far and wide.

The Dark Troopers were unleashed upon Mandalore afterwards and out of the ashes rose the Galactic Empire, except, in a twist nobody—not even the Sith Order—saw coming: Palpatine died before taking on the title of emperor, passing away in his sleep. A mediocre ending for the monster who permanently altered the foundations of the universe. One of his loyal followers from the cult’s early beginnings took control in his place, a vile man with a penchant for spilling blood and a deceptively bland name: Gideon.

Only seven years-old then, you didn’t understand the unbalance in the Force your aunt kept referencing. You didn’t understand the meaning of the word genocide either. But you did understand the galaxy would never be the same ever again, and the lesson was only further established as truth when the Imperials seized your village.

There is no normalcy to return to anymore.

And as long as Emperor Gideon remains in control, there is no future to hope for either.

Silence reigns in the aftermath of Maar’s explanation as the long list of tragedies hangs heavy over the four occupants. There is tension in the air as you await the Mandalorian’s response to the extinction of his people, whether that be an outburst of anger or tears, and each passing minute only intensifies the nervous energy thrumming through your veins. Your leg starts to bounce restlessly, a bad habit you have had since childhood.

The Mandalorian stands eerily motionless. Your eyes keep flicking from your lap to his visor though you know it is rude to stare. His helmet hides his expression, but you don’t need to see it to know he is floundering right now, mind scrambling to piece together all the details thrown at him. From personal experience, you know the loss of a loved one hits like a tidal wave, hitting you over and over again until you must decide if you are going to stand up or surrender to drowning. Grieving the loss of your parents is the hardest experience of your lifetime to date.

But this...this is vastly different. The Mandalorian didn’t just lose his loved ones. He has lost his friends, neighbors, comrades, acquaintances, everyone all at once. This loss isn’t a tidal wave. It is a kriffing avalanche, burying him ten feet under in total darkness, and there is no one he can count on to save him.

Finally, after the longest five minutes of your life, he shifts, resting his hands upon his belt with an unexpected air of seriousness. “I need to go.”

You frown, head tilting. That is his reaction?

“Go?” Ahsoka echoes, sounding as incredulous as you feel. “Go where?”

“To look for survivors,” he answers, blunt and harsh, the words forced through clenched teeth.

Ahsoka is struck silent, and you feel your heart break on his behalf. Your mother’s stories about the Mandalorians had always included, one way or another, their lifelong bonds with each other. You had felt those ties when you had connected with the Mandalorian, believed for a moment as strongly as he did that his fellow warriors would come search for him, that his absence would be noticed and missed amongst them. And here he is now, still desperately clutching to them, unable—or, perhaps unwilling is more apt—to believe a stranger telling him those bonds have been cruelly severed.

“What you need is to rest,” Maar says, gentle yet firm, letting her authority as the eldest in the room seep into her tone.

He shakes his head, not backing down. “I’ve been asleep for ten years. I don’t need any more rest.”

“Your ship, it, uh,” your shoulders hike up defensively when his visor snaps in your direction, pinning you with its blank stare. Clearing your throat, you continue with a slight grimace, “It’s going to need some repairs before it can take off. I can help you fix it.”

Ahsoka looks over at you in surprise, and then in worry. You don’t blame her, especially since the offer had slipped out without you consciously meaning it to. Once again, the Force is calling the shots and you are just along for the ride, a passenger in your own body.

He considers you for a long moment, then asks, “What do you know about the mechanics of a gunship?”

If anyone else had asked you that same exact question, you would have bristled at their condescension and retracted your offer in the next breath. But with the Mandalorian, there isn’t even the slightest hint of patronizing courtesy. It is a serious question prompted from genuine curiosity.

You sit up straighter, smiling at him now. “Enough to confidently say I’m your best shot at getting off the ground.”

“What’s your plan, exactly?” Ahsoka asks you, braced against the wall with one eye on you and one on the Mandalorian across the garage, patiently waiting for you to finish assembling your tool kit.

“Huh?” You reply distractedly, trying to decide if you should bring your carbon chisel or not.

“You don’t have one, do you?”

Not. There are bigger concerns than a bit of carbon scoring. You move to grab your favorite screwdriver with a tapered socket, only for Ahsoka to snatch it away, holding the tool hostage.

“Hey!”

“Have you thought about what you’re doing?” Ahsoka asks slowly, staring you directly in the eyes. “Once you fix his ship, he’s gone. And he’s taking our best chance at escaping Shili with him.”

A quick glance over your shoulder shows the Mandalorian studying the scattered BB unit parts on your workbench. You are missing a few vital components needed in order to bring the little droid back to life after a stormtrooper shot a plasma bolt through it for accidentally bumping into his leg, and haven’t had any luck convincing the village traders to track them down for you when they went to the capital.

“We can’t keep him here against his will,” you manage at last, turning back to your sister. “Otherwise we’re no better than the Imps.”

When Ahsoka doesn’t say anything, you shrug a shoulder, adding, “Besides, I think I’m supposed to fix it for him. The Force seems pretty insistent about it.”

She makes a face at that. “I liked you better when you ignored your Force instincts. You didn’t make me worry as much.”

A laugh escapes you, embarrassingly loud in the otherwise quiet space, and your cheeks immediately start burning. Ahsoka’s lip twitches like she wants to smile, but instead she schools her features into a blank expression when the Mandalorian’s head turns at the sound. Only once he diverts his attention elsewhere again does her stare lose some of its intensity, looking less like she wants to dissect him beneath a microscope. You can practically see her protective-older-sister-instincts buzzing, reacting to the warrior’s presence.

As much as he is a chance at providing an escape, he is also first and foremost a complete and total stranger. Even worse, he is a complete and total stranger who knows how to handle weapons.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” You squeeze her arm reassuringly. “Shouldn’t take longer than a couple of hours. You’ll be so busy smoothing the Elders’ ruffled feathers you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Ahsoka finally relinquishes the tool, exhaling a quiet sigh. “You shouldn’t make promises you don’t know for certain you can keep.”

Walking side by side with the Mandalorian in silence isn’t awkward, per se, but it definitely isn’t comfortable either. He is close enough your arm keeps accidentally grazing against his, the cold brush of metal against your skin startling you each time. You would have considered his nearness strange if you hadn’t heard Ahsoka threaten to castrate him if you wound up hurt before she sent him flying at the juni tree branch outside your window with an unnecessarily strong push of Force.

To his credit, the warrior handled her rough treatment with the same ease he has handled everything else thrown at him. You are beginning to think Mandalorians don’t just wear beskar—they are made of it too. Other than the few glimpses of frustration earlier in Maar’s office, he keeps his cards close to his chest, impossible to read.

He watches everything though, reacting to the slightest of movements and sounds. Constantly alert. You are certain he is watching you right now, despite the fact his helmet is facing forward, your nerves prickling in response to the sensation of eyes upon you.

To your surprise, he is the one to break the silence first. “You sneak out often.”

It is a statement, not a question.

You suppose the dots are easy enough to connect to reach that conclusion. Still, the certainty in his voice has your heart skipping a nervous beat. He hasn’t even known you a day and yet he is privy to secrets no one outside your community is aware of. “Yeah,” you nod your head after a brief lapse of silence, “Ahsoka can’t train in the village. Not with the stormtroopers around.”

“Has your village tried to run them out? Fight back?”

It is only because you know he is just trying to understand your village’s predicament with the little bits of information he has that you don’t snap at him for being so insensitive. He has no idea what these past five years have been like for you all. No idea the amount of losses and sacrifices the community has suffered.

Your grip on your tool kit tightens. “I was twelve when they came. The community is mostly traders and hunters, not trained fighters. The few weapons we had were nothing compared to their blaster rifles, but some of the adults tried to defend the village, including our parents. They...” You swallow, or try to, at least, your throat suddenly dry as sand. “Our aunt looked after us until last year we woke up one morning to find a note she’d left to join the rebellion. We haven’t had any contact with her since.”

The Mandalorian’s gloved hand brushes against your knuckles. This time you think it might have been on purpose.

“I lost my parents as a child, too. There was a riot and they died protecting me,” he offers his own private details with the same reluctance as one volunteering to have their teeth pulled out. “The Mandalorians took me in, raised me as one of their own.”

You say nothing about the way his breath slightly hitches when he says Mandalorians, appreciating his openness as it puts you both on somewhat equal footing with each other.

“I owe it to them to look for survivors,” he tells you, and your montrals detect the quietest hint of a plea in his voice.

“I understand,” you answer, keeping your tone light to preserve the fragility of this moment. This kind of situation doesn’t happen often—two strangers on the same wavelength, exposing their vulnerable underbellies, desperate to be heard and yet skittish at the same time—and it is oddly therapeutic.

A decision is made right then and there in the span of a heartbeat. And even more significantly, it is 100% your own choice without any intervention or manipulation from the Force.

You stop walking, causing the Mandalorian to halt as well. He scans the area for a threat, then visibly jerks when he turns back to find you have your hand held out towards him, pinky raised high, reacting as if you are pointing a weapon at him.

“I don’t understand,” he says, blunt and almost suspicious sounding. Are you just imagining it or can you actually hear him frowning? “What are you doing?”

“Haven’t you ever made a pinky promise with someone before?”

“...A what?”

You snort, ducking your head to hide your smile, and then reach for his hand. Surprisingly, he doesn’t protest your touch.

“A pinky promise,” you repeat as you make his hand form a fist, curling his fingers towards his palm, and then adjust his pinky so you can wrap yours around it. He watches the whole process wordlessly. “It’s a sacred vow shared between two people. The Elders say once it’s sworn, the promise can never be broken.”

He cocks his head, skeptical. “Never?”

“Never,” you reaffirm with a nod. Licking your lips, you look at his visor, right where you instinctively know his eyes are staring back. “I promise I’m going to help you. No matter the odds.”

And something leaks into your voice then, something resolute and binding and otherworldly. A tremor shoots down your spine, too quick for you to make sense of it.

Your sister’s words echo in the back of your mind, ‘You shouldn’t make promises you don’t know for certain you can keep.’

You try to pull away, self-doubt gnawing a hole in your stomach, only for the Mandalorian to wrap his pinky tighter around yours, holding you still. A gasp escapes your lips, muffled by the bleeding sincerity in his voice as he swears:

“I promise I will be there when you need me. No matter the odds.”

And although your sister could undoubtedly provide you with a long list of reasons why you shouldn’t, you believe his promise to be true.

The Mandalorian heaves a heavy sigh at the sight of his crashed ship.

“I can’t do much about the landing gear,” you inform him, believing honesty to be the best policy for cases like this. “And I brought some foam-jet for the cockpit viewport, but it’s not a permanent fix. You’re going to have to find someone offworld to replace them.”

“Right,” he agrees absently without turning his eyes away. It occurs to you then that this ship is the closest thing to a home he has now. One of the few precious relics from his past he can still physically cling to.

“Does your ship have a name?” you ask.

He looks at you, as if coming back to self-awareness, and answers, “Razor Crest.”

A good name, you think. Strong. A bit mysterious. Just like its owner.

You nod decisively. “I like it.”

His modulator crackles faintly, a quiet noise produced from a sudden exhale of air. You blink at the unexpected sound, surprised to realize you recognize it. A laugh. The Mandalorian just laughed at something you said. What is next in store for you? Are akul going to sprout wings and start flying?

He steps around you, heading for the side entry door still open from yesterday with its ramp laying on the ground, pebbles shifting noisily beneath his boots with each step. You don’t realize you are staring, oddly entranced by the swish of his cape and his purposeful strides, until he calls out your name to ask if you are coming.

You nearly drop your tool kit in your haste to follow after him into the Crest’s interior, ignoring the flaring heat radiating from your cheeks.

For the next few hours, you and the Mandalorian work in companionable silence, engrossed in rerouting wires and welding damaged components with your trusty hand torch. The gunship is older than you initially assumed, perhaps even as old as yourself, and you idly wonder if the Mandalorian found it in a scrapyard somewhere or maybe inherited it from another Mandalorian. You notice the way he handles each piece with an experienced and respectful touch; the same kind of care someone reserves for their most cherished possessions. Anyone with eyes can see how much he loves the Crest just by watching him.

Once you have finished sealing the numerous cracks dissecting the cockpit’s viewport like a spiderweb with foam, you approach the Mandalorian to see his progress on returning power to the dashboard. He is on his back beneath the steering controls, rearranging a mess of wires, and barely acknowledges your presence when you squeeze yourself into the tight space next to him.

“The red wire goes before the white one,” you point out, noticing the mistake immediately. “Fire hazard.”

He pauses, looks at where you have gestured, and corrects his error without criticizing your intervention. You bite back a smile, pleased to be heard. Within your community, even though you have proven your skills time and time again, some of the villagers, usually men, don’t always adhere to your advice, thinking you are too young and too female to know about technology, until they inevitably make their problems worse for themselves and come back to you with their metaphorical tail between their legs.

You help him reattach the cover plating once he has finished, screwing the bolts back into their corners, and then watch, fingers crossed, as he attempts the ignition sequence, flipping a series of switches.

None of them light up with even the faintest flicker of life.

“Dank farrik,” he growls under his breath, slamming a fist upon the console.

You take a tiny step forward, hesitant to direct his frustration your way. “Can I try?”

He tilts his head, probably thinking he knows this ship better than anyone and if it doesn’t work for him then you aren’t going to have any luck either.

Eventually he steps back with a shrug, uttering a simple, “Sure.”

Although you can’t remember the last time you were on a ship, it doesn’t take long to refamiliarize yourself with the various controls and screens once you take a seat in the pilot chair. When your hobby for fixing broken machines changed into a passion you wanted to pursue as a future career, you started memorizing any reading material you could find on the Holonet, including the flight manuals for different classes of starships. You flip through the stored information in your mind about gunships as you press a few buttons on the panel overhead, trying out different sequences for a response.

When your third attempt fails, you bite your lip, racking your brain for a solution. You think about Huno’s kitchen droid and how you had been on the verge of ripping off one of your head-tails trying to repair it after one of its fuses blew, causing it to malfunction. Your tools and knowledge hadn’t been able to fix it in the end. It had required a special remedy to bring it back to life.

You lay your palms flat on the console, just as you had held onto the droid’s square torso. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice the Mandalorian fidget, as if he wants to come closer but is hesitant to crowd you. You ignore him, pressing your fingertips harder against the metal, visualizing in your mind the unseen gears, cables, and components stiff and powerless. You imagine the parts working properly, a current of electricity running through each wire, life ultimately returning to the entire ship, and whisper under your breath a request to the Force.

“Please work, please work, please work…”

An invisible pulse of energy burns down the length of your arms and discharges through your fingertips, strong enough you jerk backwards against the seat. Every button and screen on the dashboard lights up all at once, beeping with alarm at being so rudely resurrected.

You sit there helplessly, stunned and breathless, hands twitching in your lap. The kitchen droid hadn’t required even half as much energy to restart, barely a pinch. Now your body feels like you have been thrown against the electric fence a dozen times. Wordlessly, the Mandalorian comes to your side to help, punching buttons and turning knobs until the alarms quit blaring. A distant part of your brain thinks the Razor Crest as a whole seems strangely soothed by his presence, not quite as cold and dark, but it is hard to follow that train of thought due to the distracting pain throbbing along your temples.

“That’s quite a spark you’ve got,” he says, not unkindly or accusingly, just a statement of the obvious. He looks down at you, not outright asking for an explanation, but giving you the opportunity to open up if you wanted to.

“Yep, that’s me,” you reply, forcing a cheerful smile, praying it doesn’t resemble a grimace. “Sparks Tano at your service.”

He chuckles again, oblivious to how your heart stutters at its raspiness. “Thank you, Sparks. I appreciate it.”

“Well, we’re not done yet.” You rub at your temples under the guise of adjusting your headband. “I need to take a closer look at the engines before we attempt flying out of here. I—”

“I’ll do it,” he cuts in, already heading for the ladder. “You stay here, see if you can update the navicomputer settings.”

You know he knows that updating the navicomputer is child’s play for you. Clearly you aren’t as great at concealing your pain as you thought you were and this is his way of giving you a break. A small part of you is irritated at being treated like a porcelain doll, but you push those negative feelings aside as quickly as they develop. Your aunt always used to remind you and Ahsoka it was okay to accept help when it was offered, that needing support didn’t in any way make you weak.

“Hey, wait a second,” you call out as you spin around in your seat, freezing him right before he disappears from view into the hull. He holds onto the ladder, waiting patiently for you to continue.

“Back at Maar’s place you didn’t introduce yourself and it’s weird just calling you Mandalorian in my head,” you say, awkwardly drumming your fingers on top of the armrests. He doesn’t answer, eliciting a sigh from your mouth after a drawn-out beat of silence. “What’s your name? You do have one, right?”

“I do, but I can’t tell you it,” he admits at last. “By Mandalorian Creed, only other Mandalorians or my riduur—my spouse,” he corrects, seeing your confusion, “are allowed to know my name and see my face. This is the Way.”

He doesn’t linger to hear your response, dropping down into the hull with a resounding thud. You slowly turn back around, staring absently out the glass. Every culture is unique, including your own, but you think there is something especially interesting about the Mandalorians’. It sounds like a lonely existence, only able to show your face while in select company. What would have happened if he had been unconscious and you had slipped the helmet off his head? What consequence would he have faced?

And if there truly aren’t any Mandalorians left besides him, his spouse will be the only one to ever know him completely. It almost sounds like a love story, if not a little bit heart-wrenching.

Two high-pitched dings from the console jerk you out of your thoughts with a wince. You look for the source, finding the radar lit up and actively scanning the area, and bristle when you see a pair of red dots moving across the screen.

Not even a minute later you are sprinting out of the cave, ignoring the Mandalorian’s alarmed shout from the roof of the Razor Crest. They’re early, you think with panic, looking towards the sky where two starships with Imperial logos are heading straight for your village. Why have they come back so soon?

You push your legs to run faster, your surroundings a blur beyond the trail in front of you, but the effort is meaningless. You won’t make it back home before they land.

And when your absence is noted, bloodshed is not a possibility.

It is a guarantee.

Series taglist: @pedro4ever @cannedsoupsucks

Din Djarin Taglist: @a-skov @pedrosbisch @quica-quica-quica @stevie75 @iamskyereads @banga-sama @dincrypt @ohlawdthebirds

Permanent taglist: @promiscuoussatan @vintagesaph @over300books @chibi-yuki @theocatkov @oh-no-a-whovian @absurdthirst @freeshavocadoooo @you-and-i-deserve-the-world @lin-djarin @happiestsparkleofall @randomness501 @gallowsjoker @coaaster @captain-jebi @leilei-draws @disgruntledspacedad @melobee @stilllivindue2spite @pointy-sharp @artsymaddie @waywardmando @asta-lily @thisshipwillsail316 @mylifeofcalculatedchaos @grogusmum @sherala007 @mejswho @uncle-kenobi @rogertaylorsfalsettogivesmehives @tacticalsparkles @mandocrasis @littlebopper96 @you-got-me-starry-eyed @kiss-evans @writeforfandoms @pbeatriz @anaaaispunk

#my fic #my writing #Mandalorian #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian fanfic #Din Djarin #din x you #din x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #togruta reader #ahsoka tano #the last mandalorian #pedrostories #art

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wildswrites · 2 years

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ROY G BIV tag

tagged by @druidx and @aalinaaaaaa. i love this tag and also it took me a long time.

warning for : depression, light gore (mentioned), abuse (physical), memory loss.

Rules: find the seven colours of the rainbow in your wips.

Red

“the flowers are red,” sunday says, that voice the most familiar thing that antonia has. when the silence is gone from her, when the cold has been washed away by the warmth of being above ground, when she is no longer alone and that is the most overwhelming thing of all, there is a certain comfort in the voice of a person that you have known for nearly as long as you can remember. that is true no matter the history between them.

Orange

“it’s a pretty sunset today,” she says, perhaps pretending that antonia remembers what a sunset looks like. she resists the urge to curl up under sunday’s arm like a child, longs for the days she doesn’t remember, tries to conjure up memories that she doesn’t have and catches glimpses. “the way that the orange blends down to the pink is so beautiful, and the clouds look like cotton against the horizon.” in her manufactured memories it is her mother speaking, and they are curled together here, and they have no fears and they have no troubles. “do you… would you want to see?” the memory shatters.

Yellow

to be fair, the decorations truly were something of a marvel. though she can’t seem to recall which of her parents had the knack for it, they were certainly quite talented. streamers lined the walls, blush pink and canary yellow for as far as the eye could see. pinpricks of light, magic woven into every aspect of the scene, and a feast of sweet treats laid against a pastel flower arrangement that she can see in perfect clarity. in retrospect it seems such a shame the way that everything fell apart. at the time it was simply the worst day of her life.

Green

she does not elaborate on that; antonia finds for the first time that she wishes the woman would keep talking. aspen and mahogany don’t sound like real names of anything, much less something to do with nature. emeralds she understands are a precious stone at least, though she can admit that she does not know much about them beyond that. they surely are not something that she has seen with her own eyes, but there is a hint of a memory there, a conversation with a face that she does not recall. green. emeralds are green, she thinks, and then the rest of the memory is gone in a flash. she lets it go. that is not what she is the most curious about.

Blue

depression is a blight unto the mind, a blue ocean that swells into being beneath the skin and makes a home there. it will rot you from the inside out if you give it the privilege, and you must never give in to the absolute ease of it. emerson is not afraid to tell her the truth of this, the truth of anything, and the truth comes from what emerson believes is true and nothing more. in a way that is refreshing, someone steadfast and steady in a world where antonia finds only turmoil. in a way it is devastating, for someone to believe so thoroughly when antonia cannot find belief in anything. yet emerson does not care for refreshment in the same way that she does not care for devastation. she cares only for those under her care, only for results, and on the day that she has found them antonia can hear the smile in her voice.

Purple

what would it be like if she could look at herself in the mirror? what would it be like to see the bruises blooming purple across her skin, to see the way that thursday’s touch marred her face, gouges cut out across her cheekbones? what would it be like to see the damage that was done to her, to know more strongly, more deeply than she can without sight? in these moments she wonders if it is a blessing, and curses herself for wondering.

tagging: @jostenwrites @razegold @rowenkrahn @sleepyowlwrites @echoing-sailor @hold-fire @italiangothicwriteblr @awhisperinthenight @galaxy-writer and whoever wants to do this!

#writing #writeblr #tag games #writing tag games #writeblr tag games #wip; sg #ch; antonia #ch; emerson #ch; mac #this literally took me like a week but that's FINE

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thatboomerkid · 3 years

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SpellJammer: Shadow of the Spider-Moon

Player’s Packet (ver 1.3)

for use with the First Edition Pathfinder Role-Playing Game

by Clinton J. Boomer

with special thanks to Andy Collins, Scott Schomburg, Chloe Michelle, Dennis Detwiller, David Gerrold, and George Loki Williams

additional campaign materials may be found here

The broad theme of the campaign is simple: “outsiders — criminals, rejects, freedom fighters, the lost, the abandoned, the desperate, and the mad — go balls-out, nothing to lose, against corrupt authority and nightmare monsters, surviving on the razor’s edge of the known & the unknown”.

It’s meant to have one foot in Serenity/Firefly, one foot in Pirates of the Caribbean, one foot in Guardians of the Galaxy, yet another foot in Princess Bride, plus little dashes of steampunk / dieselpunk pulp-action high-fantasy on top: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Aliens, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, The Mummy, The Fifth Element, The Rocketeer, and/or Big Trouble in Little China

RACES

Dwarf: a scattered people born of Moradin’s Forge*, 80% of whom now exist solely as slaves beneath the whip and bootheel of the illithid and their grotesque creations. Dwarves in captivity are stripped of their names, titles, and family lineage; for this reason, free dwarves often cover themselves in dense tattoos, transformed into living repositories of their clan history. Dwarves no longer have a homeland but make small communities on Fenris, the Crown-Moons of Garl, Gelth, and Callarduran, and across the Chain of Tears (especially the city of Discord).

For human occupants of Pyrespace, the illithid invasion – which the Church of Yondalla officially denies occurring, under pain of incarceration, transportation, and excommunication – happened ten years ago: half a generation past, when the very youngest of human spacehands were still in diapers.

For dwarves, it happened approximately last Tuesday.

Shepard Book, Zoe Washburne, and Drax the Destroyer are good examples of dwarves.

*NOTE: The Church of Yondalla, which does not recognize the divinity of Moradin, refers to the dwarven home-world instead simply as ‘the Adamant Forge’ in all official documentation.

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Elf: an elegant race in slow decline, born of Perianth, still recovering from the Unseelie War that split and decimated the species a millennium ago. For the elves, long-lived as they are, the wound is still very fresh: fewer than seven generations have passed since the end of the war, after all (for a human, this is perhaps comparable to a tragedy that occurred less than a century and a half ago).

Elves consume food, water, and air as Small-size creatures. Drow are a playable race, although they suffer a great deal of distrust from everyone … including other drow.

Inara, Simon Tam, River Tam, the Operative, Nebula, and Gamora are good examples of elves.

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Gnome: engineers and technologists born from the Circle of Gold, greatest moon of the Crown of Sapphire, now scraping-by on the Crown’s remaining moons and across the Chain of Tears: the devastated shards of their destroyed home-world, shattered two-and-a-quarter centuries ago.

Like the elves, of course, gnomes are fantastically long-lived: the very eldest gnomes can recall the true glory of their home world, seen with their own eyes; some of the most ancient were already well into their venerable years, over two and a half centuries old, at the time of the cataclysm. Even for the very youngest of gnomes, those who have never known a home-world other than the Chain of Tears, only about three generations have passed since the destruction of that moon (in terms that a human might understand, this is perhaps similar to an event that occurred 60-70 years ago).

Gnomes may choose to gain +2 Intelligence in place of their standard +2 Charisma; most have the Gear Gnome subtype. Nearly half of all gnomish pregnancies result in twins, and triplets are as common among gnomes as twins are among humans.

Kaylee Frye, Niska, Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne, Rocket Racoon, Miracle Max (from Princess Bride), and Twigg (from Pirates of the Caribbean) are good examples of gnomes.

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Hin: Undisputed rulers of Quelya above the waves, thanks much to their ingenuity in social organization & their bountiful harvests even in the most barren of lands. The vast monotheistic religion of the Hin offers prayers to Yondalla and to her Saints, including Davian and Asmodeus; all Hin estates contain a shrine to Yondalla. The priests and nuns of the Church may not marry, though their laity is expected to produce many, many children. Status within the Church is of paramount importance for all Hin; donations to the church can buy writs of indulgence, favorable legal judgment, and even sainthood.

Lord Beckett, Governor Swann, Elizabeth Swan, Captain Barbossa, and Commodore Norrington (from Pirates of the Caribbean), Badger (from Firefly), Buttercup, Prince Humperdink, Count Rugen, Vizzini (from Princess Bride), and the Collector and Grandmaster (from Guardians of the Galaxy) are all good examples of Hin.

A BRIEF NOTE ON HIN NAMING-CONVENTIONS

Hin identify, for the most part, as members of the Church of Yondalla first, as part of a culture second, and as citizens of a nation third.

Thus, a Hin living in Arvoreen, Beshaba, or Brandobaris can be expected to have an Arvorean, Beshabite, or Brandobarin name. However, a Hin living far away from the shores of Green Fields -- in Cyrrollalee or in Urogolan, for example -- with always retain a “proper” Arvorean, Beshabite, or Brandobarin name.

Hin with Urogalandic names, simply put, do not exist.

“Invented” Hin names, which are relatively common everywhere except on Quelya, are the major exception to this general rule: occasionally, a young Hin living off-world will choose to reinvent himself -- and, thus, rename himself -- often, but not always, as a means to get out from under the thumb of a particularly oppressive (or shameful) family.

Venturing forth into the unknown without the benefit of a longstanding lineage is, in fact, a tradition among Hin significantly older than modern Arvorean or Brandobarin society.

As such, a young Hin in Lagas going by the name of “Morgan Drake,” “John Smith,” “Alastair Chapman,” or “Sebastian West” -- for example -- might be looked down upon as a probable criminal or even as a pirate ... but on Ashen, Verdura, or out on the Chain of Tears, such an individual is likely to earn a mark of respect from all but the most conservative and close-minded of Hin.

Invented Hin Male Names: Thomas, Morgan, Smith, Hunter, John, Price, Bennet, Chapman, West, Tanner, Spencer, Walker, Jackson, Clarke, Parker, Mason, Drake, Corbyn, Everett, Garret, Simon, Alastair, Sebastian, Elliot, Fletcher, Graham, Ethan, Oliver, Felix, Callumn, Stanley, Richmond, Lennox, Ford, Jensen, Gabriel, March, Ellis, Wellington, Reginald, Chesterton, Alex, Solomon, Carter

Invented Hin Female Names: Beatrix, Cressida, Gemma, Joclyn, Scarlett, Elizabeth, Rhonwen, Maisie, Isla, Kaitlyn, Briony, Jane, Charlotte, Adalaide, Ivy, Gwendolyn, Kenzie, Finlay, Audren, Haley, Theodora, Abigail

Invented Hin Last Names: (any invented Hin male first name)

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Human: Humans come in many different colors, in many different sizes, and worship many, many gods – usually in the guise of Yondallan saints. Most humans pay at least some lip service to St. Davian, the great champion of Yondalla (who intercedes to deliver the prayers of humans to Yondalla), but humans very often also worship older, more-private familial gods. Humans may not, of course, marry into Hin families nor join in any Hin merchant house as a full partner; the best that a human can hope for, in many cases, is to be a servant remembered fondly by the children of the family he serves.

This, of course, leaves humans permanently at the bottom of the Quelyan (and thereby system-wide) economic food chain.

It is accepted fact, by those who study the pre-history of Pyrespace, that humans were once scattered across the system for unknown purposes and by unknown means, presumably at the whim of the mysterious Precursors. For this reason, the Church of Yondalla is active in seeking-out lost civilizations of humans who have spent unknown centuries far from the light of Yondalla’s mercy.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Captain Jack Sparrow, Westley the Farm-Boy, and Peter Quill are good examples of humans.

HUMAN OFFSHOOTS:

al’Zihad: Despite their bizarre appearances and hostile overtures, it is passionately believed that the curious ifrit, oread, sylph, suli, and undine populations native to Ashen were once human: servants of the Precursors adapted over the course of centuries to their alien environment. It is because of this belief that the Church of Yondalla has extended such a warm and generous offer of camaraderie to the “native” al’Zihad population, hoping to reintroduce them to their divinely ordained role as servants … this time, to the Hin.

Aasimar: Human families who commit themselves to the performance of good works in the name of Yondalla occasionally produce an angel-blooded or archon-blooded heir: born to serve the Church as beatific instruments of peace.

Dhampir: Some human children born beneath the Spider-Moon, along the Chain of Tears, or in the wilds of Fenris are infused with strange energies of death-magic. These children are claimed by the Church, for their own protection.

Fetchling: A strange subspecies of human – thought to originally hail from the lost forest-moon of Baervan (circling the Crown of Sapphire), infused with energies from the forbidden Library of the Eremite – these creatures are kept secret by the Church of Yondalla.

Ganzi: The children of humans exposed over-long to the energies of the Crown of Sapphire have been known to exhibit bizarre mutations; such creatures are taken-in by the Church of Yondalla to be kept safe.

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Half-Elf: Increasingly common throughout the system, originally the products of union between a male elf and female human: while elven females will often take human lovers, both male and female, pregnancies resulting from such unions are unknown: elven women must maintain a strict, meditative state of concentration to actually achieve pregnancy. As such, accidental fertilization is impossible, and even the act of impregnation is discomforting enough that no elven female would perform the act without sound – usually political – reason.

Elven men, therefore, are often shocked to discover that a brief rendezvous with a human woman has produced a bastard child.

Half-elves now breed true and have formed small communities in larger cities like Discord, Zionil, Dallah, and Lagas. Half-elves have no place within Elven society and possess little group unity.

Will Turner (from Pirates of the Caribbean) and Inigo Montoya are good examples of Half-Elves.

Half-Orc: True orcs (and their off-shoot species, including ogres, goblins, and hobgoblins) are not born and possess no gender: they are fungal creatures that emerge fully-grown from vast, reeking pits. Humans exposed to this fungus occasionally produce half-orc offspring; half-orcs are most-commonly born from humans captured by the illithid and taken to Moradin’s Forge (where airborne spores of goblin-fungus are dangerously common).

Half-orcs are prized by the illithid as a more perfect slave-stock than dwarves, orcs, or other monstrous humanoids, and have escaped their bondage to breed true: the product of any mating involving half-orcs (human/half-orc or half-elf/half-orc) is nearly always half-orc: their bizarre, altered fungus-genome is nearly viral in this regard.

Populations of “native” half-orcs intermingle with “native” humans across the wastes of Fenris, representing – to the Church – peoples long separated from the light of Yondalla.

Jayne Cobb and Niska’s leg-breaker Crow (from Firefly), Fezzick (from Princess Bride), Yondu (from Guardians of the Galaxy), and Bo’sun (from Pirates of the Caribbean) are good examples of Half-Orcs.

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Kuru: A bizarre subspecies of island-dwelling human driven all-but-extinct by the combined might of the Arvorean navy and the Church of Yondalla; kuru who bend the knee to the Church and denounce the worship of Dagon are given the same rights as other human offshoots (which is to say, not very much and certainly not as much as main-bloodline humans).

Skintwister: A vanishingly small percentage of humans – when directly exposed to alien fauna and extreme environment – rapidly adapt at a cellular level, taking on the most useful traits of a local native animal species within a generation. Human families on Quelya occasionally produce shark-blooded skintwister, while humans on Verdura can produce bat-blooded, bird-of-prey blooded, boar-blooded, crocodile-blooded, or tiger-blooded offspring, and humans on Fenris can produce bear-blooded, bird-of-prey blooded, boar-blooded, rat-blooded, tiger-blooded, and wolf-blooded young. These ‘near-humans’ are much prized by the Church as useful resources.

Tiefling: Human families who commit wicked deeds, marking themselves for eternal punishment in the bowels of Hell, occasionally produce a devil-blooded heir: born to serve the Church as weapons of war. In addition to the devil-spawn tieflings recognized by the Church of Yondalla, demon-spawn tieflings occasionally appear among the hinen (human servants) of Perianth; kyton-spawn appear among those humans on the Chain of Tears who venture too close to the forest-moon of Baervan, and rakshasa-spawn appear with alarming frequency among those humans assigned to toil the plantation-fields of Verdura.

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Warforged: Creations of the gnomes, the original warforged were long ago the original deciding factor in the wars against the ysoki. Redesigned in later centuries to act as adaptable, dependable assistants for gnomes, including the best possible defense against Hive (and later, illithid) incursions into gnome-space, the warforged were manufactured in the tens of millions.

All warforged, under the dictates of the Church of Yondalla, are property: they do not, and cannot, possess souls.

Each warforged is “born” from a generation creche; not a single such creche is known to have survived the destruction of the Circle of Gold (the gnomish home-world), and the technology to repair or re-fire a damaged creche – if one could even be found! – is utterly lost. For this reason, warforged are no longer treated as the expendable resource they were in the days of the Rat-Slaughter or the Hive Marches.

Data (Star Trek), C3-PO (Star Wars), the T-800 (Terminator), K2-SO (Rogue One), Baymax (Big Hero 6), David (Prometheus), Cameron (Terminator: the Sarah Conner Chronicles), Bishop (Aliens), GLaDOS (Portal), Wall-E, and the Iron Giant are all good examples of possible warforged archetypes, but many other interpretations are possible.

image from here

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Others:

In addition to the major races and civilizations of the system, two dozen or more other sapient species make their homes across Pyrespace.

Inhabitants of Ashen:

Kasatha: Swift and dangerous hunters adapted for the open desert, a rare few kasatha have left the holdings of their clans to seek bounty beyond their world.

---

Inhabitants of Verdura:

A huge number of native species make the wilds of Verdura their home, many of them armed with Precursor technology and decidedly hostile to strangers. Among them are the Catfolk (lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard, cheetah, puma), Giff, Ghoran, Gnoll, Grippli, Kobold, Lizardfolk, Nagaji, Orang-Pendak, Reptoid, Tengu, Vanara, Vishkanya, and Wyvaran.

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Inhabitants of Quelya:

Gargoyle: A strange species of living stone that laired near – and among – the Urogalandic people for unknown millennia, gargoyles struck a deal with the Church of Yondalla during the Siege of Mordheim to assure their own survival; now, more than four centuries later, these hulking devils serve the Hin as bodyguards, elite scouts, heavy infantry, and unstoppable delivery-mechanisms.

Locathah: The curious and grotesque locathah – who are said to intermingle freely with the humans of many remote island communities – are treated with grave suspicion by the Church of Yondalla, as they often act as spies, seducers, and saboteurs for the cults of Dagon. The few locathah able to earn the trust of the Church are still watched closely for any sign of heresy.

---

Inhabitants of Perianth:

Gathlain: In the deepest woodlands of Perianth, far from the oversight of Elven noble houses, the bizarre gathlain wander the twilight; these odd entities claim to originate from an “adjacent” reality, one to which the doors have been shuttered.

The gathlain whisper that older, hungrier, and infinitely more powerful spirits of “the Forest Behind the Word” also lurk in the long shadows, slowly rebuilding their strength after a humiliating defeat -- and centuries of enslavement -- at the hands of a nameless elven witch-queen.

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Inhabitants of the Chain of Tears:

Ratfolk: Nearly exterminated a dozen times over by the warforged armies of the gnomes, with whom they once shared a home world, the ysoki are a cunning species of survivors who have adapted to life across the Chain of Tears with endless tenacity.

Goblin-Spore (SQ): Some percentage of ysoki are carriers for a curious strain of the goblin fungus (which births goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, and ogres) to which they alone are immune.

These special ysoki gain low-light vision, are immune to disease and poison, and are treated as Plant creatures -- in addition to being treated as humanoids with the ratfolk subtype -- for the purposes of a ranger’s favored enemy, for bane weapons, for feats, and for purposes of spells such as antiplant shell and horrid wilting, and for all similar effects, although these ysoki do not gain any other normal immunities, benefits, or traits of a true Plant creature.

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Inhabitants of Fenris:

A fair number of native species make the wilds of Verdura their home, many of them armed with Precursor technology and decidedly hostile to strangers. Among them are the Catfolk (tigers and snow leopards), Kitsune, Syrinx, and Tengu.

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Inhabitants of the Adamant Forge

Duergar: engineered slaves of the illithid, built via a foul twisting of the dwarven genetic code, duergar are not a common sight anywhere in Pyrespace except, perhaps, in the company of their horrid masters. That said, some duergar -- such as those dwelling on the Forge-Moon of Duerra -- have shattered the chains of their bondage and now walk free.

Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Orc: various subspecies born of the same strange fungal blooms (all of which possess the Goblin Spore Special Quality, above), sapient members of these races are rare in the extreme. That said, it is not completely unknown for an individual goblin, hobgoblin, or orc to “wake up”: becoming something significantly more complex than a mere weapon of genocide and extermination.

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UNIQUE RACES: Verdura, Fenris, the Chain of Tears, several moons, and even the wilds of Quelya are doubtlessly home to additional sapient species, still as yet undiscovered.

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SETTING

The setting is a single solar-system, Pyrespace, with several major & minor worlds.

WORLDS & NATIONS The Pyre: an incalculably vast stellar engine of incandescent plasma; small dark shapes — rumored to be ancient artifacts of the long-vanished Precursors — orbit the star tightly, flickering low across the endless ocean of flame (burning at an average of 6,000 degree Kelvin), diving through 13,000-mile-tall solar flares that routinely reach 10-20 million Kelvin (up to 100 million); these eerie & barely-visible shapes, whatever they may be, are utterly inaccessible to any modern space-vessel.

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Ashen: A storm-wracked world of dust & salt drifting upon an ocean of vacuum, covered in an inhospitable white desert slashed-through with low, jagged, slate-grey mountain ranges; this world hides strange ruins & wondrous treasures of the Precursors beneath its oceans of dust; it is considered strategically valuable both for its rare natural resources; dotted with Hin refineries, forts, border towns, resupply depots, and mining operations; home to strange native populations of kasatha, alongside clans of ifrit, oread, sylph, suli and undine (collectively known as the al’Zihad), who claim to have come to Ashen while bound in the service of the Precursors: inscrutable masters who once dwelt in a mysterious city trapped deep within the Celestial Pearl.

Ashen has two moons:

Anachtyr the Shining: A blinding-bright tempest-world of endless, boiling amythest-hued ocean studded with towering fumarole-vents dozens of miles in height; mighty coils of eye-searing azure lightning leap eternally between titanic these waterspouts, and the steam of this roaring planetoid can be seen drifting into the void: a haze that glitters like diamonds.

Lessinor the Masked: A world of heavy fog, dripping rust, creaking black tourmaline, and unending gloom, mantled in long shadows which writhe with ancient echoes and whispers, it is said that visibility on this planetoid has a maximum of 100 feet. Vast keeps, palaces, and even lightless cities of cyclopean gold-draped skeleons have been reported dotting the curious surface, but not one has ever been found a second time.

Approximately 10% of Ashen is actively subject to mining, exploitation, extraction and terraforming operations.

Major Cities of Ashen:

Acheron: a dug-in black-site military base / fortress-city / arcane research facility controlled by the Hin nation of Brandobaris

Core: a city-sized, semi-mobile mining and oil-rig facility controlled by the Hin nation of Arvoreen; a joint project with gnome & warforged diaspora from the Chain

Salt Lake: a religious-outreach community controlled by the Church of Yondalla, which seeks to convert the native al’Zihad to the worship of the goddess; this is by far the largest city on Ashen, and the central hub for all rail-travel on the planet.

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Verdura: a world of shallow oceans, towering mountain peaks, massive waterfalls, sprawling cave-systems, boiling mud-flats, impossible plateaus, icy ravines, echoing jungles, smoldering volcanos, bewildering river-systems, ancient lost ruins, and — above all — rainforest seemingly without end; home to an uncountable number of near-human species all-but-universally hostile to outsiders, many of whom are armed with ancient Precursor tech.

Hin rubber plantations, lumber mills, exotic “safari” hunting lodges, and industrial logging-facilities are therefore sprawling, heavily-militarized affairs

Although it boasts no truly massive cities, Verdura is host to the Hin colony of New Arvoreen, the center of Covington Farms – soon to be the breadbasket of the Pyrespace system – and a mountain-set Brandobarin research-station known as Thaumir. In addition, a small community of gnome diaspora have established the technological-marvel nation of Markovia, named for its Founder, Monarch and Supreme Leader, Dr. Adlai Markovitch (and his three nieces).

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The Three Moons of Verdura:

Tiamat: A darkly-glittering, iridescent jungle of venom and razor-sharp glass, a shimmering wilderness of fog-shrouded valleys, viridian mire, and steam-wreathed peaks laid beneath a sky of eternally wheeling stars. Home to many of the deadliest insects and reptiles in the system, this endless deep-emerald hell is yet rumored to contain that most fantastic of treasures: the legendary la fonte della giovinezza: a mystic source of endless youth and vitality, guarded by an ancient knight – Sir Azharul of the Thorns – devoted utterly to the service of Yondalla … and to the execution of all unworthy seekers.

Bahamut: A golden moon of shifting desert sand and sky-rending thunderstorms, of dark clouds howling over rain-spattered platinum dunes, this world is sacred to many of the reptilian monstrosities that lurk in the jungles of Verdura. Priests among these creatures claim that once, long ago, doorways opened from their sacrifice-sites to a huge city of bone, a fantastic place fed by the twin rivers Luar and Kath, ruled-over by a red-skinned, leviathan humanoid: a grotesque thing, serpent-like, with four eyes and four ears, that shot flames from its mouth when it spoke. No true evidence of this fabled city, said to lie “behind the east wind,” has yet been discovered.

Chronepsis: A small, silver-grey ice-moon, this airless and barren world is riddled with vast doorways, leading down into bone-white palaces of titanic, cyclopean design. What treasure might lie within these pleasure-halls is unknown, as few who have ventured beneath the surface have ever returned. It is sung, by the heretical faith of Dagon, that two great serpents lair here – named Null and Faluzure – and that these creatures know, between them, the fate of the dragons … and time of their return.

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Quelya: a world of archipelagos, reefs, marbled sand, dark cerulean waves, and tropical island chains boasting only a handful of sizable land masses, dominated by the Hin (halflings) and their servitor-race, humanity; the hungry, expansionist, colonial-minded nations of the Hin are united only by the rule of a massive corrupt Church and a single vast, hyper-complex monetary system; the planet boasts but a single continent — the Green Fields of Yondalla – which are ruled-over by an ever-shifting array of Hin merchant-houses; in the furthest reaches of the world, shark skintwisters and locathah are rumored to bend the knee in loyalty to the strange and beautiful malenti, and to make horrid sacrifices to the coiling serpent Dagon.

HIN NATIONS / CITIES / HOLDINGS

Acheron: a Brandobarin military base / fortress-city / research base on Ashen

Arvoreen: an aggressive, militaristic nation noted for its perpetual war-footing, it maintains the finest navy in the system; the Arvorean Academy of War is famously egalitarian, admitting humans, half-elves, near-humans, and even warforged into its officer-training corps; national colors of red & gold.

Arvorean Male First Names: Alejandro, Fernando, Santiago, Antonio, Maceo, Francisco, Joaquin, Marco, Cristian, Javier, Rafael, Carlos

Arvorean Female First Names: Yamilet, Carmen, Valentina, Paloma, Lucia, Esmeralda, Alicia, Maria, Sofia, Luna, Catalina, Vida

Arvorean Last Names: García, Fernández, González, Rodríguez, López, Martínez, Sánchez, Pérez, Martín, Gómez, Ruiz, Hernández, Jiménez

Beshaba: The Hin holy city on the banks of the Rio Provendor (and its surrounding hills), most sacred site of Yondalla’s worship, currently self-ruled; the place where Gol-Kaa (the Last Human King of Beshaba) was slain by Saint Davian in single combat; national colors of white & sky blue.

Beshabite Male First Names: Dvir, Asaf, Asher, Elazar, Uriah, Reef, Aryah, Ofek, Yaheli, Arbel, Yinon, Idan

Beshabite Female First Names: Maayan, Danya, Liv, Shoshanna, Alean, Annael, Carmel, Eden, Avitel, Avia, Naama, Ofri

Beshabite Last Names: Ngaere, Zerbibi, Mishayev, Qablan, Magadla, Berdugo, Yayin, Sasi, Sharabani, Akiyva, Hagge, Siyvan, Tzviy

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Brandobaris: an elegant, cultured nation noted for its arts and refinement, it maintains the finest academies of learning – in alchemy, wizardry, engineering, medicine, mathematics, law, history, and space-flight – in the system; national colors bright yellow & light grey; home to the three bitterly warring institutes of higher learning:

Archives Timmestre-Falco: home of both the finest telescope array and most complete orrery in the system.

Sincomakti School of Sciences: known for the deep pockets of its alumni – for use in funding elaborate expeditions – and a particularly notorious library.

Universidad de Lepidottero: specialists in medicine, mathematics, and forensic investigation, on the cutting edge of xenobiology.

Brandobarin Male First Names: Luca, Filippo, Marco, Pietro, Giovanni, Nicolo, Davide, Diego, Giuseppe, Edoardo, Tommaso, Andreas , Cosimo, Lorenzo, Ottaviano

Brandobarin Female First Names: Chiara, Nicole, Ludovica, Gaia, Matilde, Vittoria, Francesca, Alessia, Camilla, Bianca, Arianna, Elena

Brandobarin Last Names: Rossi, Berlusconi, Ferrari, Brambilla, Ricci, Greco, Esposito, Marino, Bianchi, Morelli, D’Angelo, Piazza, Caputo

Chaldira: a massive mining-city on Fenris; although it is ostensibly self-ruled under the auspices of a gnomish coalition from the Chain of Tears, in practice the city bows to the “supervision” of a Brandobarin wizarding-circle. Core: a city-sized, semi-mobile mining and oil-rig facility on Ashen, controlled by the Arvorean armada; a joint project with gnome & warforged diaspora from the Chain. Cyrrollalee: former home of the last human king; an enormous, incredibly-fertile nation noted for its high population of humans (mostly farmers); rumors persist among the superstitious peasantry of “fairy circles” in the woods that lead to other realms; national colors of green & dark blue

Cyrrolaelan Male First Names: Odhran (Orin), Rory, Tadhg (Tag), Senan, Cathal (Kat-hal), Rodnan, Aodham (Aiden), Callum, Eion (Ow-en), Rian (Ree-an), Fionn (Finn), Cillian (Killian), Declan

Cyrrolaelan Female First Names: Aoife (ee-fa), Caoimhe (kwee-va or kee-va), Saoirse (seer-sha), Ciara (kay-ra), Niamh (neev), Roisin (ro-sheen), Cara (ca-ra), Clodagh (clo-da), Aine (on-yah), Aislinn (ash-lin), Alys, Avalon

Cyrrolaelan Last Names: Murchadha (Murphy), Ó Ceallaigh (Kelly), Ó Súilleabháin (O’Sullivan), Breathnach (Walsh), Ó Broin (Byrne), Ó Conchobhair (O’Conner), Ó Raghallaigh (O’Reilly), Ó Dubhghaill (O’Doyle), Mac Carthaigh (McCarthy), Ó Gallchobhair (Gallagher), Ó Cinnéide (Kennedy), Ó Muireadhaigh (Murray), Ó Cuinn (Quinn), Ó Mordha (Moore), Mac Lochlainn (McLoughlin)

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Dallah: a sin-soaked island city of gambling & revelry, part of the Tymoran island-chain; currently under self-rule; “national colors” of black & white Gixx: a floating city named for its watery host-moon, under Brandobarin control, orbiting the Crown of Sapphire Lagas: capital city of both Arvoreen and Brandobaris, existing along the border of both nations at the mouth of the Rio Provendor; a sacred city of the faith of Yondalla second only to the City & Lands of Beshaba

Important Sites in Lagas: The Rusted Sun Theatre, Parrish Place Bed & Breakfast, Café Molise, The Shuttered Door Academy

Important Hin residing in Lagas: Lord Mayor Emilio Dioceres, Archbishop Quirino Stephanos, Minister of Finance Alessio Villanova, Trade Minister Lazzaro Calistoga, Assistant Trade-Minister Dario Adalberto.

Moander: capital city of Cyrrollalee, built on the ruins of Dún Ailinne.

Mordheim: capital city of Urogolan, former home of “Uric, Last Human King of Urogolan”; this cold and half-tumbled fortress city, towering high above the treacherous stone of the Baía da Loucura, is choked in near-constant ice Perryroyal: massive island city at the far end of the Tymora island-chain that serves as the legendary “gateway to Xhiaae-La,” currently under the control of the Arvorean navy Salt Lake: a religious-outreach community on Ashen controlled by the Church of Yondalla, which seeks to convert the native al’Zihad to the worship of the goddess; this is by far the largest city on Ashen, and the central hub for all rail-travel on the planet Thaumir: a mountain-set Brandobarin research-station on Verdura Tymora: a particularly fertile chain of islands inhabited mostly by humans, currently ruled by the city of Dallah; the islands stretch from Lagas to Perryroyal.

Many traditional Tymoran names -- especailly those found in Dallah -- sound vaguely Greek to 21st-century human ears, but the islands are home to over 7,000 unique human cultures and no single list could possibly home to capure the length and breadth of the names used by Tymorans.

In addition, put bluntly, many people of the island chain simply do not think of themselves as “Tymoran,” but, rather, as members of a distinct culture under foreign occupation.

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Urogolan: grim, north-most Hin nation, noted for its vast mineral wealth, dense coniferous forests, fatalistic populace, and bleak weather; national colors of grey and black.

Urogalandic Male First Names: Ander, Hans, Johan, Ulf, Lars, Sven, Ivar, Leif (layf), Magnus, Ragnar, Sigurd (see-gurd), Herleif (her-leaf), Hjalmar (hyal-mahr), Njal (nj-al), Ødger (ed-ger), Roar (ruw-aar), Rune (ruw-n-eh), Sten (stehn), Trygve (trig-vah), Uhtred (oof-tred), gil (ee-yeh-gil), Einar (eye-nahr), Frey (fray), Geir (geyr), Gudbrand (good-brant), Gudmund (good-moond), Gunnar (guhn-nar), Hagen (hah-gen), Haldor (hahl-dawr), Halvar or Halvor (hahl-vahr), Jarl (yahr-al), Kåre (kehr), Aric (aar-ih-k), Arkyn (aar-khin), Brynjar (brin-yahr), Cuyler (kiel-ehr)

Urogalanadic Female First Names: Áma, Åse, Astra, Astrid, Borghild, Brynhild, Eir, Elli, Embla, Erica, Liva, Ragnfríðr, Revna, Rúna, Saga, Sigrid, Sif, Freya, Heidrun, Hildr, Hrefna, Hulda, Kara

Urogalandic Last Names: Any of the above Urogalandic male first names, with one of the following added to the end: sen, son, sson, søn, datter, dotter, or dottir

Xhiaae-La: legendary islands of gold & jade just beyond Tymora, source of human unarmed martial fighting techniques highly valued by Hin employers; currently under Brandobarin control

Xhiaae-Lan Male Names: Liang, Haoran, Zhen, Shufen, Ling, Lan, Kaihong, Taio, Shui, Qui, Jin, Chun, Ai, Bao

Xhiaae-Lan Female Names: Annchi, Baozhai, Changying, Chao-Xing, Chuntao, Da-Xia, Daiyu, Ehuang, Fenfang, Genji, Hu, Huian

Xhiaae-Lan Family Names: (spoken & written first) Shao, Long, Wàn, Zhāng, Qián, Tāng, Yǐn, Lí, Yì, Cháng, Wǔ, Qiáo, Lài, Gōng, Wén

Zuzadlara: an Arvorean military-base and floating “port city” on Perianth, established to assist Elven forces in maintaining peace across the system.

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Perianth: the elven home-world, a mist-wreathed, twilight-draped bioengineered “forest of prosperity” constructed by the Precursors via unknown means; the deep woodlands are said to hold terrifying gateways to other realms of existence; the courts of the elves are closed to outsiders, and non-elves are permitted access only to a vanishingly small number of sky-ports; the elves of both the Western Courts and Eastern Courts alike do a brisk trade in humans bought from the Hin, and some reports suggest that only 3% of the planetary population is actually elven.

Perianth is “ruled” by House Larethian, although the high throne of that House – that of the Phoenix Emperor (Western Court) or Moonlight Dragon (Eastern Court) – stands empty, as does the throne of his bride: Lolth, the Beautiful Eclipse (Western Court) or Lolth, the Crimson Empress (Eastern Court).

The favor of House Larethian is a currency traded by the other noble Houses; the Western Court name is given for each House first, followed by the Eastern Court name:

House Fleuris / House Kaika: painters, vintners, and rose-garden keepers.

House Sanglante / House Chimanire: the most-expert sword-smiths and sword-saints.

House Chanceux / House Kōun'na: Imperial record-keepers, known for their prodigious luck.

House Illustre / House Kagayakashī: the most beautiful and honorable house, known for their mastery of dance.

House Assombrir / House Kage-tsuki: the lowest of the noble houses, experts in medicine.

Perianth is not known to have any major cities, although each House maintains a number of holdings.

Western Court Male Names: Baillieu, Ménétries, Bachelot, Peletier, Bocuse, Marius, Théophile, Roland, Ancel, Thibaut, Sylvain, Médard, Chauve, Rémy, Maret

Western Court Female Names: Solène, Élisa, Émeline, Joséphine, Ameline, Neri, Mélanie, Coline, Émilienne, Iseult, Asselineau, Eulalie, Roxanne

Eastern Court Male Names: Hyotoki, Gatane, Yamitsu, Dainaga, Akihiko, Yori, Hideaki, Kazuhiro, Wantaro, Anoye, Gezushi, Sesuki, Teitada, Hiroaki, Noboru

Eastern Court Female Names: Haitsuke, Narino, Reinatsu, Maera, Benomi, Kohaku, Kayo, Miyako, Aya, Shizuka, Komina, Jionuye, Kakura, Amiri, Reiko, Yuki, Emi

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The Spider-Moon

The sole satellite of Perianth, a massive labyrinthine ruin to-which one third of the elves — the drow — were exiled long ago; the drow are no longer trapped beneath the surface of the Spider-Moon due to the hideous gifts of the illithid. This oversized nightmare realm is ruled by House Lolth and her loyalists: exiled members of all five noble Houses and their servants. This inhospitable world boasts only a single major trade-hub: the Dark City of Xogotha.

Any type of direct approach on the Spider Moon must find a way to navigate the tens of thousands of floating dead (and undead) – casualties of the Unseelie War – still drifting in orbit around the planetoid. For their part, the drow use this corpse-field as a blockade, employing necromancy to bypass the horror-show whenever necessary.

Drow names are identical to elven names.

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The Celestial Pearl: a mysterious planet-sized anomaly bearing what appears to be a perfectly smooth, bone-white surface: this ghostly pale sphere has no atmosphere and no magnetic field, no geographical features, no marks consistent with any meteoric impact, no evidence of historical habitation, a surface temperature of 3 Kelvin, and a core temperature zero Kelvin. The curious surface itself – which appears to be an impossibly-thin crystalline latticework of monomolecular razor-ribbons covered in a few drifting inches of ice-powder, white sand, ash, and stardust – cannot be landed-upon or even approached: weird, invisible, immovable “arches” — made of something harder than adamantium — protrude in a strange, coiling web of whorls into space, reaching up to 500 miles away from the surface.

Zionil: Largest space-station in the system, nearly a moon onto itself, this massive gnomish facility serves as an informal way-station -- a respected, nearly sacred neutral ground -- between the “inner worlds” of Ashen, Verdura, Quelya, and Perianth; and the “outer worlds”: the Crown of Sapphire and the Chain of Tears, Fenris, and Moradin’s Forge.

It also serves as the ultimate melting-pot of cultures across Pyrespace: here, humans dressed in fashionable gnomish top-hats & tails rub shoulders with dwarves travling to jobs on Ashen & half-orcs en route to Verdura.

Dominated by the enormous Cathedral of St. Deneir the Scribe and House of St. Mili, the Voice of Heaven, sprawling centers of worship for the Church of Yondalla, Zionil is also home to a huge Xhaaie-Lan population; the Lantan Shipyards are without a doubt the finest facilities in the system for the design & construction of Hin-built spelljamming vessels.

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The city is unofficially under the control of Baronet Giancarlo Lugocelli of Fenris, a devout human aristocrat admired across the system for his shrewd buisness accumen and unbridled civic spirit.

This artificial moon also serves as home to The Thirteenth: an emergency garrison of specially-designed warforged kept in reserve to make a surgical-strike wherever the threat of Hive activity is detected outside the heavily quarantined moons of Segojan (Hive Colony Euclid), Baervan (Hive Colony Keter), Baravar (Hive Colony Thaumiel), and Urdlen (Hive Colony Apollyon); this force is led by Inquisitor Francesca DiAccursio of La Universidad de Lepidottero as part of a massive anti-xenos taskforce.

An increasing number of dwarves from Moradin’s Forge also now make a holy pilgrimage here to the Muamman Duathal: a library of dwarven law, history, technological innovation, achivement, literary scholarship, and art nearly the equal to the catacombs of lost Dugmaren.

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The Crown of Sapphire & the Chain of Tears: an enormous, shining, many-ringed cerulean gas-giant, host to a dozen moons (listed below) and the long trail of an asteroid belt which follows behind it; the Crown roars with low heat and mild radiation, serving as a “second sun” to the system. As to the means by which the Precursors performed this “stellar uplifting” and manipulated the interior of the Crown, it is impossible to say.

About 70% of the “chain” following behind the Crown was originally the home-world of the gnomes – once known as Kruug od Szlatta, or the ‘Circle of Gold’ – and their many miraculous inventions, which was shattered utterly as the result of a run-away hyper-energy reaction; big money can be made out here, sifting the clockwork wreckage and mining interplanetary debris for rarities; the finest technology in the known universe can be found here: powering the cities, foundries, refineries, sky-docks, casinos, space stations, laboratories, and bio-manufactora which float together in complex nets through the wild void.

Moons of the Sapphire Crown:

Garl: now the largest of the moons, a gem-studded planetoid home to a huge number of scattered mineral-mining operations, including Blistavo Zlatta: now the default capital-city of the gnome people, formerly known best as a decadent, lawless, off-world trade-hub town full of casinos, amusements, cunning illusions, and other cheap entertainments.

Gelth: second largest of the moons, a dark spheroid of endless seething lava-flats, smoldering radioactive pools, toxic black smoke, and jagged obsidian blades miles in height. Home to a small number of mining-colonies (which are outnumbered 10-1 by the destroyed remnants of exactly such facilities).

Callarduran: third largest of the moons, a place of icy-cold wind whistling through thousands of miles of smooth stone tunnels, home to the finest stone-crafting workshops in the system.

Flandal: a hot, near-barren planetoid rich in iron and a number of other valuable metals … but, very specifically, boasting neither water nor arable land. Successfully cleared of all Hive infection after the eradication of Hive Colony Nehemoth in 1463; classified as safe.

Gixx: a fog-shrouded shallow-sea water-world currently occupied by a floating Brandobarin city.

Segojan: a smog-shrouded death-world of fungus and alien monsters, home to Hive Colony Euclid.

Baervan: a lost moon, once a twilight forest-world, now home to Hive Colony Keter; also home to the mysterious, floating Library of the Eremite.

Baravar: a shadowy crystalline moon now home to Hive Colony Thaumiel.

Urdlen: home to nothing but an icy, red-tinged ocean that flows silently between towering black spires, this bleak world now plays host to Hive Colony Apollyon.

Gaerdal: a heavily fortified workshop-moon, now 99% destroyed; original “birthplace” of the warforged.

Nebelun: the still-smoldering remains of a desert laboratory-world, dotted with blackened pits connected by a vast webwork of now-shattered elevated railways.

Rupa u Beskonačnom (the Hole in the Infinite): although not a true moon, this small artificial wormhole drifts in orbit around the Crown of Sapphire, occasionally spiting-out weird horrible alien monsters: the nearby moons of Segojan (Hive Colony Euclid), Baervan (Hive Colony Keter), Baravar (Hive Colony Thaumiel), and Urdlen (Hive Colony Apollyon) are infected with a terrifying strain of bizarre alien life; the wormhole is currently orbited by a small armada of mysterious githyanki ships native to another solar system.

Major Cities of the Chain of Tears:

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Discord: The largest city adrift in the Chain is also the largest city system-wide; in terms of sheer population, only the holy city of Lagas on Quelya even comes close. Discord is a sprawling affair, composed of innumerable asteroids and earth-bergs lashed-together with sparking remnants from hundreds – if not thousands – of derelict and damaged SpellJamming vessels. Although the gnomish population of Discord is lightly smaller than that of Blistavo Zlatta, on Garl, gnomes and their warforged security units run much of the city: High Master Artificer Krenlin maintains strict order among the scoundrels, spacehands, and fortune-seekers … at least, in the neighborhoods capable of paying for his protection. The black markets of Discord’s underbelly are run by gangs of ysoki (ratfolk), dwarves, half-orcs, half-elves, more bizarre human-offshoots, locathah, kasatha, unique creatures from the wilds of Verdura and Fenris, and even drow. Significantly more uncommon are goblins, orcs, and ogres – ancient enemies of the dwarves – and Perianth-born elves; although Hin are occasionally spotted here, it’s incredibly rare to see one without an escort … such as a lumbering Church-sanctioned gargoyle or a heavily-armed mercenary crew.

Serenity: Known better by its inhabitants as ‘Scarcity,’ this ugly warren of trash and filth is – to those with the keen eyes to see it – a goldmine of opportunity. If the ysoki can lay claim to a home-world, this is it: the majority of the population here is ratfolk, and their laws guide the city … for good or for ill. Part of a dense asteroid-field known for dangerous gravitational eddies, the port of Serenity is a haven for pirates and criminals wanted in every other metropolis.

Linger: The last glorious remnants of the Circle of Gold are kept here, a city-sized museum dedicated to the memory of that devastated world, and to honoring the uncounted millions who perished in the flare of its destruction. It is a place of quiet luxury and high technology, where the very wealthiest of those who do business in Discord can pretend – if only for a few hours – that the Circle of Gold was never broken.

Gnomish Male Names: Andrija, Nikola, Luka, Marko, Aleksandr, Jovan, Nemanja, Matija, Miloje, Miroslav, Rodavan, Vlado, Zivko,

Gnomish Female Names: Aleksandra, Teodora, Jana, Katarina, Petra, Malina, Milena, Maja, Hana, Anja, Milica (miy-LIH-ts-a), Sara, Nina

Gnomish Last Names: Jovanović, Petrović, Nikolić, Marković, Đorđević, Stojanović, Ilić, Stanković, Pavlović, Milošević, Katić, Sinđelić, Nedić, Marić, Višnjić, Janjić, Sarić, Miličić, Milenić, Natalić, Zorić, Smiljić, Anđelić

Warforged Names: any; names of warforged are self-selected, are not derived from family, and may be drawn from any culture.

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Fenris: A frozen, rocky world of icebergs & fathomless oceans, mighty fjords, roaring hot springs, steaming river-valleys, shrieking tundra, rolling steppes, drifting ice-floes, frigid marshland, deep emerald forest, and seething volcanoes; it is “ruled-over” by a minority population of warring giants, who tear themselves fully-formed from the simmering ley-lines of the living planet; in their long shadow, bold survivors face the fierce wrath of endless winter; some clans scratch out a meager, subsistence-level hunter-gatherer existence, while others build great longhouses, fortresses, and onion-domed cathedrals of wood & stone, defying the giants; beneath the surface of the world, enchanted mechanical castles — home to slumbering vampire lords — wait in silence to be called-forth for the night-hunt.

Humans and half-orcs “native” to Fenris tend toward Cyrrolaelan and Urogalandic names, suggesting some truth to the legends of doorways in the deep woods leading between Quelya and Fenris.

The massive, smoldering, heavily-entrenched mining-city of Chaldira employs tens of thousands of workers, including innumerable indentured humans and near-humans imported from Quelya by the hundreds through the Church-sanctioned penal transportation program; most such workers are branded, upon arrival, to prevent their disappearance into the local human communities. Specialized squads of “workforce retention agents” operating under Brandobarin authority maintain an uneasy peace with nearby human enclaves … though both groups wisely fear the fury of giants, who on occasion choose to assault the veritable fortress of Chaldira seemingly out of pure malice.

Beyond humans, dwarves comprise the bulk of Chaldira’s employees; outright violence in the barracks between dwarves and their orc-blooded coworkers is frowned upon, punishable by both monetary fine and loss of privileges, but is still not uncommon. Gnomes, warforged, and even ratfolk form the Chain of Tears are also common sights, as are Hin mages and their gargoyle bodyguards, although the only thing rarer than a native of Verdura here is an elf.

For their own part, the native catfolk, kitsune, syrinx, and tengu give Chaldira a wide berth: the huge, heavily militarized mining-city has, for the most part, nothing to offer them.

Moons of Fenris

Bahgtru: A hot, dark, ash-swept landscape of dense black forests, broiling deserts, flinty badlands, murky rivers, and foreboding seas, all bearing the ravages of constant war waged beneath a coal-streaked and starless sky. A dozen or more major orc-blood nations vie for control of this resource-rich, twilight-lit world; the largest single military force – the Broken Skull Clan, led by a hulking creature called Moragrek – dominates less than 10% of the planetoid. In the deepest woodlands, orcs fly crude marrow-stained, gut-stitched banners above fallen towers still sparking with ancient Precursor-tech.

Ilneval: Floating mountains, coiling moebius-spiral waterfalls, serpentine valleys filled with boiling fog, forests of glass, a series of artificial rings, cities of broken fractal room-recursions, walking Precursor-tech “transport-facilities” the size of nations, and stranger landmarks dot this bizarre world. Worse still, the goblin-fungus of this moon has underdone a wild number of dangerous mutations, producing varieties of dangerous goblinoid entities unknown anywhere else in Pyrespace.

Luthic: A damp, echoing, rain-drenched world with a low-burning core, this windswept planetoid sees surprisingly few dangerous meteorological events – considering the near-constant cloud cover -- and features only very mild tectonic activity. As such, impossible caverns filled with warm mushroom forests abound, grazed-upon by bizarre, blind half-fungal elk. This world is by far the economically valuable of the Fenris-moons, a veritable goldmine for its Brandobarin investors; transportation to this moon is a sentence dreaded by every human living under the Church of Yondalla’s laws.

Obould: Miles upon miles of long-fallen ruins – twisting, elegant citadels of what appears to have been ancient elven construction – crisscross this rime-coated world, buried in miles upon miles of shattered ice; unfortunately, whatever strange process causes the planet Fenris to vomit-forth giants from its ley-lines is also active here: titans of frost wander the wastes, obedient to three mysterious warlords: the Shogun of Crimson Snowfall, the Shogun of the Endless Dark, and the Shogun of Winterblind.

Shargaas: High above the roiling toxic cloud-cover, cold mountain-peaks spill miles-long waterfalls from smoldering calderas; far below, falling ash and acidic sleet fall silently on the dark glass libraries of the Precursors. It is said that nothing moves here, in the realm of dead furnaces: a planetoid fallen to night. In the winding passages beneath the dormant facilities, however – the strange passages linking the long abandoned “colleges” of Hopelorn, Cold Fever, and the Citadel of Vanished Audience – somethingold and unclean can be heard clicking-away … hungry, and drawing ever closer.

Vaprak: Trolls are an infectious, predatory presence known across Pyrespace: Verdura, Tiamat, the forests of Cyrrollalee and Urogolan, the wooded isles of Tymora, the Crown-moon of Baervan, and upon most of the Fenris-moons & Forge-moons; in fact, it is believed (but not confirmed by the elves) that trolls may even be known in the wild places of Perianth. No place, however, can be said to have been conquered by the trolls like this horrid planetoid: an endless morass of sinking stonework and icy-cold swamp, a place of stench and the low whine of blood-mad insects.

Yurtrus: Miles below the Brandobarin military research-facility of Khin-Oin, a planet-sized city of war-ravaged, long-overgrown Precursor-tech glitters in the cold sunrise … while another neighborhood, connected by monorails that blur between districts faster than the speed of sound, shines like an ocean of light on the other side of nightfall. The city – nicknamed “Fleshslough” by the researchers who drift in orbit high above, perpetually examining the curious urban properties – is a vast thing of austere, ever-moving wonderment: whatever incurable, perversely-contagious disease hangs in the warm air reduces skin to boiling crimson horror in mere moments.

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Moradin’s Forge: this hyper-dense, heavily volcanic planet is just over half the size of Quelya, yet it commands a significantly more massive gravity well. Although it boasts a minimal surface atmosphere, it serves as the home world of dwarves, goblins, ogres, hobgoblins, and orcs; it is also the staging-ground for an illithid invasion-force with control over a supermassive wormhole situated somewhere beyond the edge of the known solar system; illithid forces include any number of alien monstrosities (many mutated or bio-manipulated by the illithid) stolen from a hundred different systems, of which orcs are the newest prize; 80% of all dwarves system-wide live in bondage beneath the heel of the illithid.

A single rebel city, secret in the extreme, is hidden in the shadows of otherwise-absolute illithid dominance: Veil, last hope of the Forge.

Dwarven Male First Names: Hakk, Osrick, Drok, Brut, Muls, Grold, Urbrik, Aandrak, Buulrol, Kigrer, Fraysik, Korvin, Vog, Bellbaarg

Dwarven Female First Names: Yorgwyn, Urgwan, Rren, Inngva, Kledgeg, Lonnvull, Urrgvi, Kalbri, Khora, Sro, Ohlih, Hyylkis, Memrii

Dwarven Clan Names: Grandmaul, Stonehall, Winterstride, Thunderhand, Icevein, Wargold, Blackstone, Runelore, Heartstrong, Ironblaze, Steelfist, Greysky, Shieldhorn, Axetusk, Proudburn, Stormedge

A NOTE ON DWARVEN NAMING CUSTOMS

Dwarves are hardly a monoculture, and each dwarf has dealt with the loss of Moradin’s Forge in an intensely personal way. Some dwarves have taken to answering only to their Clan name (their first name forever, abandoned), while others refuse to speak their Clan name aloud until they stand once more in the re-taken hall of their ancestors; some dwarves have founded entirely new off-world lineages -- such as Clan Dustblade of Ashen -- and some have adopted themselves into existing bloodlines: Clan Malov, the “dwarven branch” of the Malovitch crime-family is, of course, the most famous of these.

Orc, Goblin, Ogre, Hobgoblin Names: Wurgoth, Gradba, Azuk, Speghat, Cagan, Wilaktug, Sbghat, Omegugh, Fogugh, Braugh, Oggugat, Yegoth, Oogorim, Vothug, Nildud, Golag, Bugharz, Zguk, Ombilge, Zudagog, Tothag, Sogg, Narfug, Ergoth, Xorag, Orpigig, Agronak, Orakh, Xulgug, Fudagog

image from here

Moons of the Forge AKA “The Morndinsamman”:

Abbathar: A shimmering world of vast iron pyrite slabs floating across a seething ocean of molten lead, shot-through with veins of plutonium. Extreme weather events triggered by mega-scale Precursor tech embedded at the moon’s poles – still barely understood, even in theory – routinely cause the surface temperature and atmospheric pressure to reach or exceed 4,000 degrees Kelvin and 18 gigapascals (2,610,680 pounds per square inch): converting portions of the atmosphere into solid, crystalline “red oxygen” while shattering the vast methane-plumes into sheets of pure diamond.

Berronar: A temperate world of steep valleys and winding natural cave systems, with a craggy mineral-rich surface marked by broad streams and small hardwood forests, this served for nearly seven centuries as the “second home” of the dwarven people, founded soon after first contact with gnomes from the Circle of Gold. The early loss of this quiet paradise-moon, along with the entirety of its population, to the illithid during their invasion was a brutal blow to the Clans of the Forge.

Clangeddin: A storm-wracked world of mighty fortresses and massive iron-foundries, this was the very last of Forge-moons to fall: its bleak surface is still marked with endless fields of the unburied war dead, broken banners, and mighty siege-engines half-buried in seas of ash. The endless lightning strikes are said to illuminate black rivers of goblin-fungus running between the most hallowed halls and treasure-filled tombs of the ancient dwarven kings: funerary-stone and pale gold circlets trod into the grey mud.

Duerra: In some ways, on certain battle-fronts, it can be said that the dwarven race yet stands: roaring in open, bloodthirsty, unrelenting defiance of the illithid and all their servants. On this inhospitable planetoid, a vast labyrinth of toxic metal-tainted pools, rusted razor wire, and dizzying mineshafts once used to extract silver, iron, gemstones, and titanium by the cubic ton, two rogue creations of the illithid – the duergar and the dark naga – wage endless war in the dark, focusing the psychic energies of their cold anger on killing anything that so much as looks at them sideways … and plotting, always, to escape the oubliette and shackle the universe as their slave.

Dugmaren: What was once the center of all dwarven scholarship – the eternal echoing repository of some thirty centuries of discovery, poetry, engineering, innovation, and invention, the epicenter of all history recorded by the Clans of the Forge, the memories of a people writ in rune – has been lost. None can say how many tomes and testaments were lost during the Battle of Dugmaren, put to the torch and the axe … nor how many of the great, austere library-moon’s sacred record-keepers were devoured by the rapacious illithid, their minds stolen to be used as horrid weapons against the living. For those who treasure the knowledge of ages, the fall of Dugmaren was perhaps the greatest loss of all.

Dumathoin: A lightless world, shrouded in constant slate-grey cloud-cover, riddled with dangerous – yet fantastically lucrative! – gemstone cave systems of seemingly limitless depth. In the many centuries of its exploration, it yet continues to reveal strange new secrets: some treacherous, some fantastic, all of them beautiful and curious in the extreme. Legends suggest that the winding passages here are truly limitless: that the halls curl back on themselves, leading to tunnels beneath the surface of the Forge, the Spider-Moon, the sands of Ashen, the tombs of Chronepsis, the vampire-castles of Fenris, and even the strange armor of the Celestial Pearl.

image from here

Gorm: A cruel planetoid, a howling nightmare of treacherous, winding obsidian passageways, covered in goblin-fungus and lit only by the low blood-red flickers of a hateful molten core, the Gauntlet of Gorm was once the final testing-ground of the greatest dwarven warriors and the finest dwarven armor: here, unstoppable heroes and unbreakable shields alike were forged. Fallen, now, to the illithid, the retaking of unassailable Gorm may yet represent the last, best hope of the dwarven people.

Haela: The imposing mountain peaks of this glimmering moon are carved with the likenesses of the great clan leaders, the eternal Kings and Queens of the Forge. Beneath their austere gaze, feuding clans have, for centuries, set aside their hate and their bloodthirst to settle generations-old grudges through honorable challenge: tests of skill-at-arms, bravery, strength, endurance, mettle, riddling, drinking, cunning, and even the gift of poetry. The halls here have fallen silent, picked-at now by lean, faceless nightmare predators: misshapen things born under unclean stars.

Laduguer: A hard world wrapped in chill grey mist, a moon of foul reputation and terrible whispers drifting on the winds beneath the stone. Under a steel-grey sky flickering with impossible darkness, bottomless pits sparkling with adamantine and black diamonds rend a jagged landscape of petrified Precursor tech: shattered alien weapons, armor, engines, towers, biological experiments, and massive shipwrecks of sea, star, and air, all transformed to iron. Vast, gaping holes in the surface – some miles across – open into mazeworks of silver and mithral, precious blood-onyx and fantastic skymetals, the tunnels lit by the twisting glimmer of an unwholesome and unnatural flame. The icy peaks of this foreboding moon are home to three long-abandoned dwarven strongholds: the Citadel of the White Rose, the Fortress Hammergrim, and the Throne Perilous.

Marthammor: A wild and far-wandering forest moon of geysers and thermal vents, known for its near-constant earthquakes, its towering native flora and fauna, its softly luminescent gemstones, it extreme and unpredictable weather, and – perhaps best of all – for its sprawling subterranean woodlands: vast, steaming caverns filled with trees adapted to survive seemingly without need of sunlight. Legends speak of doorways in the deep woods to other worlds, and ancient elven runes – some millennia old – can be found carved alongside incomprehensible alien glyphs on the many moss-covered marble pillars, stairs, ivory archways of long-fallen ruins.

Sharindlar: A dusky, crimson and rose-gold planetoid of impossible buttes, wide mesas, abundant hot springs, and huge naturally occurring stone “monuments” interlaced with warm shallow seas, all brushed with glittering, coral-pink sandbars, echoing grottos, and wide white beaches. The rare minerals and exotic plant life of this moon are said to possess a variety of astonishing medicinal properties, capable of restoring life, joy, and vitality to even the most crippled form. A massive temple – seemingly of dwarven construction, yet over 7,000 years old – rises from a golden hillside surrounded by circles of great standing-stones, marked by runes of indecipherable origin.

Thard Harr: Thought to be the ancient origin-point of goblin-fungus, the so-called Labyrinth of Life is home to terrible, primordial beasts seen nowhere else in Pyrespace. This bizarre, sweltering jungle world is stacked in “layers” of independently-floating, constantly shifting plateaus, all orbiting a single boiling ocean: the destination of all waterfalls and the source of constant warm mist and heavy rain. For reasons yet unknown, the maddening complexities of this moon are well-recorded in the oral histories of many monstrous species dwelling on Verdura, who claim to have walked star-paths to this place – for purposes of tending to a mysterious “Temple of the Deceiver / Serpent-Father” – in ancient days.

Vergadain: A small planetoid of gentle hills and clear lakes with a wide orbit, this moon was – for nearly seven centuries, since 1051 A.D. – the preferred meeting-ground to facilitate trade between the races of gnome and dwarf. In the wake of utter cataclysm befalling the shattered gnome home world (in 1492 A.D.), a number of wealthy and prominent gnomish merchant-families established permanent residence here at the heartfelt invitation of their friends among the Clans of the Forge; the casual annihilation of those families by the illithid at their outset of the invasion was a horrific shock to both races.

#pathfinder #spelljammer

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shinidamachu · 4 years

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What are some of your favorite InuYasha fanfiction stories? 😙

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE THE VERY FIRST PERSON TO ASK ME THIS QUESTION! PLEASE, CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINKS TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE:

Light Me a Lantern by @inuyashasforest: a lot of feelings for this one. It was the first Inukag multichapter fanfic I have ever read and boy am I glad I did. It’s a must read. I don’t know how Hanyo no Yashahime will fall into the Inuyasha universe, but if it turns out to be garbage, I’m more than happy to accept Light Me a Lantern as canon instead. Send tweet.

Little by Little by @little-known-artist: cutest post-canon fanfic in all land! It will make you smile. It will make you laugh. It will make you a little horny. That being said, it will also make you cry, but trust me: you’re gonna be grateful for it.

You Rescued Me by @keichanz: this fic it’s a party and I’m the piñata, there’s no other way to put it. Heather is a storytelling master, like... she could post her grocery shopping list and I’d be reading the hell out of it!

The Captain and the Hanyo by @goshinote: I love the whole premise of this fic and how much effort Jane puts in every detail. It’s like I’m living in it and I wish I was. It’s the story I’m currently reading and it’s so, so sweet and exciting!

Cruel Summer by @akitokihojo: you know shit is about to go down when Angie drops a Taylor Swift song titled fic. Now that Folklore is out I’m honestly scared for my life.

Pennies and Dimes by @witchygirl99: SOMEONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN THIS INTO A MOVIE PLEASE AND THANK YOU! (part one)

Delicate by @akitokihojo: SOMEONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN THIS INTO A MOVIE PLEASE AND THANK YOU! (part two)

A Night to Remember by @angelhartsblog: I want you to close your eyes. Now I want you to think about the perfect Inukag first time. Open your eyes. Did you think about A Night To Remember? No? That’s because you haven’t read it yet, pal. What are you waiting for?

The Gorgon and the Dog Demon by @cstormsinukagblog: I’m in too deep HELP!

Mating Fever by @clearwillow: let’s face it, this one is a classic already! The concept of this story was executed so well. Nothing was held back. You can tell Carra had as much fun writing it as we had reading it.

Pretending To Pretend by splendentgoddess: IF BOTH THE LAST HARD COPY OF THIS FIC AND MY COUSIN WERE ON FIRE... I’d still save my cousin but only because I reread Pretending to Pretend so many times I could probably write it down again myself, word for word. Also, my mom would never let me hear the end of it. But, like... it’s still a close one.

Bakin’ Cakes/Patty-Cake by @artistefish: if I had two lives to give to Bloodhound and Kitten then two lives I’d give them.

Risks by @stoatsandweasels: THE CHARACTERIZATION, THE DIALOGUES, THE SMUT... Definition of *chef’s kiss*. The stars really aligned for this one, let me tell ya. Good. Fucking. Food.

Cam You See Me? by @keichanz: Smut Queen at her best. LONG LIVE!

Inuyasha: Prince of Thieves by @starlingchildgazingatthestars: I feel like this fic should be written on a very big, very old, hard covered book. And someone should read it to me every night before I go to sleep. Every new chapter deepens the plot and the character so much. I’m hooked.

Belief/Resist by @dangerouspompadour: my first thought on it was “man, I wish I could leave a thousand kudos” because it’s one of my favorite tropes ever and the story was told with such delicacy and honesty. Nailed their personalities to their cores.

Freak Attraction/Freak Attraction: Seven-Man Circus by @artistefish: this fic is the epitome of galaxy brain. How do someone eve come up with something so incredible? The world building is so fucking good, are you kidding me?

Oblivion by @meggz0rz: this one needs no comments... But I’m gonna comment anyway: talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spetacular, never-the-same, totally unique.

Beautiful Stranger by splendentgoddess: WHAT A RIDE, MY FRIENDS! BUCKLE THE FUCK UP!

Missing by @ajoy3fanfics: it’s called ‘missing’ because after you finish the whole thing you just miss it so fucking much! I remember how obsessed with it I became, refreshing the page for updates. I was a woman possessed. I spent about 80% of my time talking about this fic, and the other 20% of the time, I was praying for someone else to bring it up so I could talk about it more.

The Delinquent Boyfriend by @artistefish: book one of Inukag Holy Bible.

Out Of The Woods by @dyaz-stories: okay so there are only two chapters so far but the plot it’s captivating as hell! And the writing it’s flawless. If you haven’t read it yet, please do and tell Dya I sent you and I miss her ass.

Guardian by @ruddcatha: my nerdy ass feels seen and represented.

Knit and Lace by @doginabirdcage: if you’re part of the Inukag fandom you’re legally obligated to read this fanfic. This is not even a joke. Do you know someone who hasn’t read it? No! And you shouldn’t because it’s fucking awesome.

Call You Mine by @lavendertwilight89: every word on this is a drop of dopamine I swear.

Enchanted by @akitokihojo: I was in the middle of studying for one of the most important tests of my life when Enchanted came around. Was it insane of me to drop everything to read it? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes.

The Half Breed’s Wife by @gypsin: I’m gonna be honest here, this better update before I die otherwise I’m simply not going. RIP to everyone who will pass away without knowing how The Half Breed’s Wife ends but I’m different.

The It Couple by @meggz0rz: OH, YEAH,THE COOL KID OF FANFICS! *Vogue by Madonna starts playing*

It's About Time by @akitokihojo: first fic by Angie I have ever read! Flashback to two-years-ago me picking her chin off the floor. I still can believe I could read this for free? It feels wrong that I could, but also, like: thank God!

The Maid and the Bodyguard by @dyaz-stories: this is the fic you want to take home to your mama. You’d get on one knee for this fic. You’d buy it a diamond ring. You’d profess my undying love for it and you’d spend the rest of your life trying to prove to this fic I’m worthy of it.

Something Real by Angelica Pierce: so this is one of the best oneshots I have ever read in my entire life. It is also the one and only work signed by this author known to mankind. Which I take as a personal offense. To me. Personally.

Mars and Venus by @doginabirdcage: have you ever read something so clever you’re mad about it? Like HOW DARE YOU BE SO SMART? Genius, really. I read it so long ago and it blows me away to this day.

I Knew You Before I Met You by @keichanz: book two of Inukag Holy Bible.

House Mates by honeybee31: “and they were roommates.” “OH MY GOD, THEY WERE ROOMMATES!” Domestic Inukag? In my fic rec? It’s more likely than you think.

The Language He Speaks by @akitokihojo: if I was half as beautiful as this fic... I’d be kissing so many mouths... The possibilities...

Fingertips by @shinjiteflorana: this is the level of writing I aspire to achieve someday.

PS: I could never, in a billion years, rank these fanfiction, so please keep in mind they are in no way ordered by personal preference. I just love them all. Also, I’m messy.

PS²: believe it or not, I really tried to narrow this down. If I were to tag every Inuyasha fanfiction I love ever, it would get insane huge. This is a not exhaustive, very humble list of my favorites as requested above and I had to draw the line somewhere, otherwise I’d just keep going forever.

PS³: I’ll never get tired of saying that this fandom is crazy talented! Making this fic rec was so hard because there are so many awesome creators out there putting out new content for us every single day. I would like you to know that, even if I had to leave some works out, I appreciate and support each one of them. Thank you so much for keeping the Inuyasha fandom alive!

PS⁴: if you’re reading this, feel free to recommend or tag me in Inuyasha fanfics. Add some of your favorites to this post. Give the authors some love!

#There are SO MANY fanfics I want to start reading but didn’t have the time yet #That’s a topic for another ask tho so if any of you are interested in finding out which ones I have on my to-read list come to my inbox #I’ll be happy to tell you #Anyway I hope I have satisfied your curiosity anon #Thank you for asking now come fangirl about these absolute jams with me #Gosh this took a while #Fic rec

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kinsey3furry300 · 3 years

Text

A very confused Star Wars Fan desperately tries to justify their belief that “Caravan of Courage” shows the way forward for the franchise. No, really.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved Star Wars. And I mean, all of it. The books, the games, the Lego, the spin-offs: I even enjoy the Holiday Special in a The Room so-bad-you-just-need-to-see-it sort of way. But particularly the films. But here is when we run into the big problem: I’m just the wrong age. The original trilogy launched before I was born, the prequel trilogy hit cinemas when I was already a teen and while I went and saw them and enjoyed them, I was at that age where I was self-conscious about seeing a “kids” film, and hyper-aware of how silly and cringy those films were in parts. So my indoctrination, my inoculation with the Star Wars bug didn’t happen in the cinema, and it didn’t happen with any of the main franchise works. It happened on home video, on a skiing trip in the French Alps in the early 90’s. I’d have been about 6, and this was the first time I’d ever been abroad other than to see relatives in Ireland. And I loved it: to this day I love skiing, but more than that, I have very, very fond childhood memories of this trip. This was shortly before I lost my biological mother to cancer, she’d have received her diagnosis just after we got back from the trip. This was when my younger sister stopped being an annoying screaming thing and became and became an actual person I could talk and play and share ideas with, this was before the combination my mothers long illness and my father having just launched his own IT start up meant I didn’t see him or her any more, despite the fact they were in the same house as me. This was this wonderful, nostalgic child-hood bubble when my family was intact, and nothing could ever go wrong. I skied all day with mum and dad, and would come back to the chalet in the evening. It was an English speaking chalet, I met my first real-life American there, and having grown up in the 90’s in the UK nothing was cooler than making friends with an actual American my own age. He had a hulk Hogan action figure with springs in the legs so if you put him on a hard surface and punched his head down, when you let go he’d jump really high in the air. We used to play with it together in the bath, back in that weird 90’s time-bubble when it was possible to convince two sets of parents that this kid you’d just met was you best friend in the world and of course shared bath time was, somehow, normal and appropriate. And fresh from bath time, tired from the day, the parents would give us some hot coco, dump us kids in front of the tv and grab the first shitty low-budget VHS they could find to keep us distracted while they went to the bar. In this particular time, in this particular place, that shitty low budget cartoon was the complete set of the 1985 Lucasfilm/ABC Ewoks cartoon, plus the two spin off movies, and to this day that cheap, kitschy, kind of bad series has a special warm and cosy place in my heart. I remember being enthralled by the world, in love with the characters, applied by the bad guys and the injustice they caused (to this day I’m still irate about that time Wicket lost his set of beads documenting his progress towards becoming a full warrior and the older Ewoks basically said, tough, you need to re-earn all those merit badges from scratch. This struck me as exactly the sort of bullshit an adult would pull, and pissed me off) and on tenterhooks about what would happen to the characters.

It was also, by a coincidence, the first ever Star Wars media I was exposed to, and the above combination of events probably explains a lot about me.

So I was surprised, the other day, when scrolling Disney+, to find they’d added Caravan of Courage AND Battle for Endor to the roster in my region. Surely Disney wouldn’t want their slick, cool brand associated with this old trash? Surely there could be no place for this in the post-Mandalorian Star Wars cannon? Surely this is a horrible mistake some intern made, right?

Unless…. What if I’ve miss-remembered? What if it’s not just rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, and it’s, in fact, secretly really, really good?

I rushed to my comfy chair, got a blanket, dimmed the lights, made some coco (with rum in it, because why the hell not?) and sat down to re-examine this lost gem.

And wow: it’s every bit as shit as you’d expect.

It has aged exactly as poorly as you’d expect a cheap, mid 80’s direct to video spin-off to age. Caravan of Courage? More like Caravan of Garbage, am I right?

And yet… I still enjoyed every moment.

And it was sitting there, in my pyjamas, watching a cheaply made direct to video cash-grab from just before I was born, seeing it again for the first time in nearly 30 years, and I realised something.

It doesn’t really matter if this film is bad, so long as I enjoy it. And if it doesn’t really mater if this is bad, then I, like many Star Wars fans, wasted a huge amount of time and emotional effort on being butthurt about stuff I didn’t like about the Rise of Skywalker and it’s ilk. Because somewhere, right now, a tired and frustrated parent is putting Disney+ on to keep their kids quiet for two hours. And they won’t think too hard about what they put on, so long as it keeps little Timmy busy for a bit. Somewhere, right now, a kid is watching Rise of Skywalker, and it’s the first Star Wars media they’ve ever seen.

And that’s okay. Because we don’t know what that kids home life is like. We don’t know if it’s good or bad. Maybe it’s great, maybe it’s about to take a dramatic plunge like mine did, and this moment here will be the cosy, warm memory they look back on in 30 years time, and that’s beautiful. They’re getting introduced to a fun, wonderful fantasy world that could be with them all their lives, through good times and bad, and as fans we should be happy about that.

Star Wars will never, die: it’s too darn profitable, Disney will never let it. And while I hope they learn from their mistakes and make sure every future Star Wars is a timeless gem of story-telling, statistically, if you keep making enough films, some of them will be bad. And while I’d like them all to be great, it’s still okay if they’re bad.

Because nothing can take away my memories of that week in that chalet. Nothing can take-away my memories of when they put the original trilogy on in cinemas for the special edition and I had my jaw hit the floor with how good it was on the big screen, not knowing or caring who shot first. Nothing can take away you memories of the Original Trilogy, the Prequels, or the Clone Wars. Nothing can tarnish the bits of the sequil trilogy that you like, and there are good bits in there.

But wait, what about continuity? What about the sacred, perfect written time-line that used to exist?

Well, what about it? Have you seen any other big, epic fantasy universe before? They’re all a mess. A work of fiction, particularly fantasy, can be extensive, or tightly written, but not both. Harry Potter is only seven books, and the last two feel, tonally, like they’re from an entirely different series. I love them, but the grim-dark kicked in so fast you’ll get whiplash. The Hobbit is a perfect written self-contained novel, and LOTR is *The* big boy high-fantasy trilogy: fast forward 50 years, and Christopher Tolkien is desperately squeezing every last drop of money out of his father’s corpse by finishing and publishing every unfinished note JRR ever wrote right down to his shopping lists. Even Dune goes of the rails with sequels. I can only think of four fantasy works that are both extensive and consistently tightly written, Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, Malazan: Book of the Fallen and Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe. And even then, the prequels and spin-offs mess with the timelines: the Dunk and Egg novella’s change some character’s canonical ages and timelines, Wheel of Time was going slowly off the rails even before the Jordan died, Forge of Darkness made what was a good metaphor for the creation of it’s world into a literal war deep in the past, and Sanderson’s first Novel Elantris got a re-write to bring it more in line with the rest of the shared universe. The MCU, oft held up as the modern example of tightly planned, well thought out ongoing storytelling, is a lie: it was never as pre-planned out as Disney wants us to think; the first Iron Man, apparently, barely had a script, with Downey ad-lib-ing most of his scenes. None of the MCU films are direct sequels to each-other other than Infinity war and Endgame. There are three Iron Man films, and Three Thor films, and none continue an ongoing story line across multiple films, and the Cap films barely continue an arc, but only where Cap’s relationship with Natasha and Bucky is involved. Much like these, Star War’s cannon is a complete, nightmarish, confusing, tangled, illogical mess. And it has been since 1984, as Caravan of Courage proves. It was never consistent and well planned.

And that’s okay.

I used to care about plot holes. I used to care about which works were cannon in Star Wars lore. I’m over that now. I’m happy to imagine the books, films and games not as a blow-by-blow historical account of a galaxy far far away, but as campfire stories from within this fun, imaginative world that we’re all invited to listen to. Stories that are in-universe myth and folklore, that we can all snuggle up and listen to while drinking highly alcoholic rum and remembering better times, knowing that wherever the future throws at us, no matter how the world goes to hell around us, we’ll still have the memories, and the ability to make our own new stories in the wonderful Star Wars world we all share.

And that’s okay. No, more than that: that’s beautiful.

Also Star Wars is completely unambiguous on the fact we’re allowed to kill fascists no matter how many times they keep coming back with a new logo, so that’s timely I guess.

So, there’s my hot take two-years after everyone else stopped caring about this stuff, as per bloody usual. Tell me why I’m wrong below, and does anyone else have any truly awful spin-off shows that they kind of have a nostalgic soft spot for?

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loki-hargreeves · 5 years

Text

Kylo Ren x Reader - You’re Kidnapped (dark angst)

Summary: The force connected you and Kylo Ren, who was now your husband. One of your old enemies, a wealthy weapon manufacturer and criminal kidnaps you. His stalker-ish obsession over you and anger towards Kylo Ren makes the enemy put you through the same pain he has gone through (in his mind). Kylo comes to rescue you, only to see how hurt you are which fuels him with rage. Prompt: “You will regret ever hurting her, that I promise you”

Word Count: 4,5K Warnings: Psychological torture, physical torture, angst, gore, stalking/obsession, mentions of sexual/breeding fantasies, killing (this got a bit dark. 18+, no smut) Author’s Note: Okay, so this happened. I really hope it’s alright. I was in the mood for dark angst. I stayed up all night writing this so it probably sucks @i-have-arrived-bitch here it is, the first one :)

Third POV

Garr Caine

He was a weapon manufacturer, past thief, someone Y/N once knew very well. Before they became enemies, they were friends, which was a very long time ago. It ended when Garr became scarily obsessed with Y/N. He would fantasize of a future with her and tell people they were together, when in reality they weren’t. When he was turned down, he was determined to make her regret her decision.

Y/N Ren, previously Y/N Y/L/N, used to be a thief too. Not that she had a choice. She was born into a family of thieves, forced to work for the rich. Her upbringing made her angry at the world. She learned she was force sensitive as a young adult. That’s what attracted attention to her. Eventually, she met Kylo Ren when she was turning in a man that the first order had been after.

Long story short, they were now married. Kylo Ren never thought he’d find anyone to share his deepest and darkest secrets with. Never did he think he’d fall for a force sensitive who was neither on the dark side nor the light. She was herself, lived by her own rules. Kylo adored that about her. Sure, she lived with him which meant she basically belonged to the dark side. She worked for them, but she didn’t necessarily side with them. She sided with her husband.

Years had passed and truly, Y/N had forgotten about Garr. He was irrelevant to her. She was happy with Kylo and being his wife kept her busy all day long, which she was content with. He had taught her how to use to force. Kylo completed her. She couldn’t be happier.

Unbeknownst to her, the word had spread in the galaxy that Kylo Ren had wed a commoner, someone who came from nothing. It was on the tip of all gossiping tongues. How they had found out, no one really knew the source. It became popular belief nevertheless, and eventually ended up in the ears of Garr Caine.

His old and unhealthy obsession slowly crept back into his veins in the form of pure jealousy and anger. She was his, not Kylo Ren’s! A devilish plan had sneaked into Garr’s head, he would make her his. As a known weapon manufacturer, Garr knew exactly what to do. You see, the first order often purchased weapons from Garr’s company.

For many moons, Garr’s plan developed and went by unnoticed. No one in the entire galaxy seemed to suspect a thing. They had a whole different kind of a war to think about. Garr would meet people from the first order while making deals. He expected to catch a glimpse of Kylo or Y/N, but for a long time that never happened. It wasn’t until Y/N and six stormtroopers were sent to purchase a new special weapon that Garr finally saw her again.

The men that worked for Garr had killed the stormtroopers in cold blood and eventually overpowered Kylo’s wife. That night, she never returned from the mission. It wasn’t until late the next day that Kylo Ren was informed of this.

General Hux had gotten the honor of delivering the message to Kylo. Sure, the ginger man was nervous of Kylo’s reaction, he was almost happy in a way. He hated Kylo Ren. Knowing that the one thing he truly cared about could be in danger was almost too good.

Kylo Ren was beginning to wonder where his wife was, but he knew she was on a relatively harmless mission, so he hadn’t been too worried at first. By the time she was several hours late, he began to worry…a lot. He had demanded his troops to find out what was going on. While waiting for answers, Kylo was working on another mission of his.

A knock on Kylo’s quarters’ door distracted him. As he turned around to see whoever dared interrupt him, he saw general Hux. He was accompanied by stormtroopers. Was he nervous of something?

“Ren, it’s…about your wife,” Hux started carefully, knowing damn well how temperamental Kylo could be.

“Yes?” Kylo encouraged him to go on, his mechanical voice concealing his worry. He sounded rather intimidating.

General Hux straightened his back, as if he was preparing for something terrible. “No one from the mission has reported back. Their movements can’t be tracked for the past…uh, seven hours. We tried to contact them and the weapon seller, but to no avail.”

Seven hours?!

The bad news stunned Kylo. He felt anger bubbling in his veins already, mixing with the worry he felt. He could sense that Y/N was alive, their force connection was wrong, but something was blocking it. It had never been so weak, strange almost. Immediately, Kylo knew that it must’ve been far worse than he imagined. She was in danger and he was angry at himself that this had happened in the first place.

Just the idea of Y/N being somewhere alone, injured and scared make Kylo sick to his stomach.

A daring stormtrooper decided to add fuel to the fire, “Their ship was found galaxies away from their target planet, sir.”

Kylo reached out his hand and used the force to pull the man right into his grasp, adding pressure on his windpipe in order to make the man wheeze.

“Find her!” Kylo growled loudly, his rage beginning to boil over. He let go of the stormtrooper and pushed him out of the quarters. Enough time had been wasted already. The stormtroopers and general Hux were already on their way, afraid to taste Kylo’s lightsaber if they stayed around long enough to see his emotions unravel. If he found out someone or something had as much as touched her hair, he would make sure to drag them to their personal torment and make them regret ever stepping foot in the universe.

Kylo grabbed his lightsaber and swung it at whatever inanimate material was around him. He yelled out in anger, unleashing it on the wall, watching how the red sunk into the metal like a knife into butter. Sparks of electricity and the sound of gnashing metal echoed in the corridor, mixed with Kylo Ren’s angry curses.

No one harmed what was dear to him and lived to tell the tale.

No one.

A throbbing headache forced Y/N to awake to a harsh reality. She was not on the starkiller base, not with Kylo and she was most definitely not safe. She could tell when she noticed she couldn’t move her body that was restrained to a metal chair. Special handcuffs were around her wrists, keeping her from using the force to free herself. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get rid of them and panic began to crawl underneath her skin.

Y/N realized she was trapped.

The last thing she could remember was meeting the weapon seller. A familiar face had met them. Y/N didn’t recognize the person at first. She remembered how unfamiliar soldiers had appeared and killed off the stormtroopers, but not her.

It didn’t take her long to realize she was the target. Or perhaps someone she cared about, such as Kylo. Nevertheless, she knew she was in grave danger and she needed to come up with an escape plan. It would’ve been much easier if it wasn’t for her condition. Her heart was stammering in her chest like a wild animal trying to escape a cage, her breaths got heavy and it made her aching head spin.

Calm down! She told herself and forced herself to slow down her breathing. If she wanted to escape, she had to get a grip on herself.

Instead of focusing on how ill she felt, she took in her surroundings. She was in a small, dark room. She could tell it was small by the way her breathing didn’t echo at all. There were no windows. Nothing gave away whether she was on a planet or on a spaceship. It smelled like dust, something metallic and chemicals. Not a good sign. Everything about the place made her fear the worst, that someone professional was behind this. Someone who could cover their tracks.

The heavy door opened, and someone turned on bright, white lights, nearly blinding Y/N. She squeezed her eyes shut as she got used to the light. “Oh, someone’s awake! Finally.” That voice, it was so familiar.

She opened her eyes to see her tormentor. It was the weapon seller. That’s when she remembered that face,

Garr Caine.

“Remember me, Y/N?” Garr wanted to know. He was mocking her, thriving off the fact that he had her under his control at last.

He was a sick bastard.

“Unfortunately,” she spat out angrily. Garr Caine had been nothing but trouble in her life. He haunted her teenage years with his possessiveness over her.

Garr pressed a button that made electricity pulse through Y/N´s body, stiffening every muscle which spread pain over her entire being. When the source of the electricity was cut, she let out a cry in pain.

She did not expect that.

“I’m in control, Y/N. Don’t make me angry. We could be happy together. You can forget about Kylo, he’s in the past anyway,” Garr threatened Y/N. She didn’t care about that, she cared about Kylo. What did Garr mean by that?

Her confusion became evident on her face, so Garr continued, “Your husband came looking for you, alone! How reckless. We got rid of him. Now it’s truly just you and me.”

“Liar!” She growled with hatred. Y/N refused to believe that nasty scumbag for even a second. She couldn’t even imagine a situation in which Garr could kill Kylo. He was lying, he had to be! Despite her disbelief, her hopelessness and worry got the best of her. She began to tug on her restraints vigorously, hoping to be released until Garr sent another pulse of painful electricity through her body, this time making tears roll down the sides of her face. The pain was excruciating, filling her every nerve with a hot sting.

Garr pulled a chair out of the corner and sat down next to Y/N. His filthy hand tangled into her hair and he yanked her head towards him so he could whisper to her, his breath landing on her soft skin, “Behave or I’ll just have to teach you better manners. I thought you’d be happy to see me! It’s been so long.”

Y/N hated him. Yes, she was scared of more pain, she was terrified that he was speaking the truth. In the end, she was disgusted by him and she would never give into his sick fantasies. “It’s not been long enough, you sick- aah!” She yelped in pain – he slapped her.

These restraints were too difficult to break out of. It was haunting for her to realize that if Kylo wasn’t coming for her, her chances of survival were incredibly slim. Knowing that Garr had her in his palms made her skin crawl in disgust. He was the worst person that could have ever taken her.

Shivers ran down her spine when he kissed her cheek, his dirty lips tasting her salty tears. The gesture made her freeze in fear. Suddenly Garr chuckled darkly and grabbed Y/N’s hand. “A wedding ring. How did I forget?”

Not the ring! Y/N’s heart swelled sadly as she feared he’d destroy the ring that connected her to Kylo. It was special. “No, please!”

Garr didn’t care about her plead. He tried to remove it, but Y/N curled her finger and used all her strength to keep it that way. Garr didn’t like that, not one bit, “You either let me remove it or else I will cut off your entire finger. You choose!”

He seemed dead serious. Even though, it felt like a disgrace, she did as told. He removed the ring, which left her feeling naked, oddly enough. He stripped her off from whatever reminded of Kylo. Oh Kylo, she really hoped he was alright.

“You’re mine.”

That sounded very much like a threat to her.

Kylo Ren and his knights had tracked down Y/N’s ship. It had ended up on Jakku out of all the possible places in the entire universe. A desert planet full of scavengers and outlaws. He knew that someone knew how that ship ended on the dull planet. Kylo Ren watched as his troops and knights searched the village they arrived at. He watched destruction unfold. He hated the place; it was never good for anything really. Villagers, greedy and afraid, screamed and cried in horror as the first order searched the place throughout. Nothing and no one could hide.

Finally, a knight of Ren brought a man, a strange creature indeed, to Kylo. “Sir, this man claims ownership of the spaceship.”

Kylo felt disgust against the creature. Greedy enough to claim it was his despite the fact there was a blaster pointed at him. There was no time for games. Kylo went straight for his mind, putting his gloved hand on the man’s forehead and digging into his thoughts. The force made the man cry out in pain. No one really liked to have their mind torn open.

He could see him purchasing scrap metal from starving villagers for barely a bite of food. He was thinking about his anger towards the first order, he had seen someone get shot and finally…

his memory of getting the spaceship.

This creature had bought it from a woman who was not from Jakku. Kylo focused on the man’s memory and learned the woman came from Cantonica. Of course, Kylo thought, it was exactly where Y/N and the stormtroopers were destined to go to. The woman had sold the ship for a bargain, threatening to kill the man if he revealed who sold it to him. By now, Kylo knew what he needed to know.

He let go of the man and nodded to the knight, giving him permission to fire his blaster. The man had no time to react before life slipped away from him. He was gone.

“We’re going to Cantonica.”

How long had she been there? Three days? Four? Maybe five? In the darkness, it was hard to tell. Y/N’s entire body was aching, not only from limited mobility, but the torture Garr had put her through after she refused to give into his sick dreams. She’d rather die than say she loved him just to please his screwed-up mind.

Garr clearly wanted her alive. He gave her water and he fed her something that didn’t taste too bad. Y/N had no choice but to accept the food. She was happy it wasn’t as nasty as him.

“Can I please walk around a little bit?” Y/N requested, hoping her sad voice would fool him.

Garr took a deep breath, as if he was disappointed. “You know I can’t say yes to that when I don’t trust you! You can use the bathroom later when assistance arrives. I’m sure there are other ways I could make you feel better though.”

The thought made Y/N’s insides squirm. She was lucky to be relevantly untouched by him, but he kept telling her about all the things he wanted to do to her, and it sickened her. Garr was probably a little nudge away from making it come true. She thought she couldn’t cry more. Y/N wasn’t a crier, but after everything that Garr had done, tears were only a small reaction. “I feel sick.”

“You shouldn’t have misbehaved!”

Y/N was convinced she was losing her mind in that room.

Garr ran his finger up and down her cheek, not avoiding the cut, just to remind her of what he had done. “When we have children, I really hope our first child is a boy.”

Sick, gross, fool, she thought. Keeping her mouth shut was incredibly hard, but she was weak. She wasn’t sure if she could handle any more of his sick ways on inflicting pain. Garr Caine was a torturer as much as he was a weapon manufacturer. His mind was creatively good at coming up with ways to bring as much destruction as needed.

“Would you like that? For me to knock you up? Mmh, you’d look so delightful with my child,” Garr seemed to really like the idea of having children.

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

“Y/N, we should’ve been together long ago. I should’ve never let you go! Look at yourself, you ended up with Kylo Ren. You could do so much better. Once we have children of our own, I really hope they have a better sense of judgment than you do, dear.”

“Shut up! Shut up, we will never have children! I would much rather die, Garr!” Y/N reached her breaking point. She didn’t want to listen to another word that left his mouth.

He really hated when she acted out. “You’ll change your mind eventually. It’s not like you have a choice either.” Garr walked to a table that was behind Y/N’s chair. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but she heard metallic sounds. He must’ve been handling some sort of blades. The sound sent shivers down her spine. What was he up to now? Y/N felt rotten to her core as she sat there. She hated to be so weak and helpless, just waiting for him to make her scream in pain.

Would it ever end?

Cantonica was another desert planet, but on the outside, it was much fancier than Jakku. The rich lived here, turning everyday life into races and parties. Kylo despised it. These people were drunk, reckless and they had no ambition in their daily lives. They had money and that seemed to be all the cared for.

Kylo knew that somewhere on that planet he’d find his wife. Something was still blocking her from the force, but Kylo sensed her presence, nevertheless.

After having roamed through the city, they gained valuable information. Apparently, a well-known weapon manufacturer had been missing for as long as Y/N, the one she was sent to meet. He had told the first order his name was Radu Drii, but Kylo found out his real name through a friend of his. The man they were looking for was Garr Caine. After searching the place well, Kylo located the woman who sold the spaceship to the scumbag on Jakku.

Of course, she didn’t make it easy, but Kylo was driven by rage. He would find Y/N, no matter what. After a trip to the woman’s memories, he finally knew where to find Y/N and the filth who called himself Garr Caine.

He was going to be so sorry once Kylo got his hands on him.

Garr had a huge warehouse right outside the city. There were never inspections, visitors, nothing. Kylo led his knights and the stormtroopers there and they stormed the place. Shots were fired, bodies piled on the ground and chaos erupted around them. Kylo held his lightsaber close, more than ready to kill anyone that worked for that disgraceful man. The warehouse was huge. It nearly looked like the inside of a spaceship, a large one. Metallic, cold and dark. Something seemed to push Kylo in the right direction and he eliminated anyone in his way coldly without hesitation. Kylo was deep inside his head, focused on finding Y/N and his target. His wife was more important to him. So anyone who dared to try and make him stop got wiped off Kylo’s way by his lightsaber. He killed them off like the bugs they were, small and worthless.

He just knew Y/N was nearby. He could feel it deep in his bones.

The man was close too, but Kylo couldn’t quite find him yet. Garr knew this place like his back pocket. He was hiding, but Kylo knew he wouldn’t hide forever. The place was full of trained soldiers who would find anything if ordered to do so. Kylo opened all doors that he came across, only to investigate rooms that reminded Kylo of medical facilities. It was confusing to see that in a weapon warehouse. It must’ve been used for something criminal.

Finally, Kylo opened the right door. His heart sunk in his stomach as he saw Y/N. It felt like being punched in the gut and face simultaneously – worse, really. She was strapped down like an animal, handcuffed and her delicate body was covered in bruises, cuts and blood. Seeing her like that awoke something in Kylo he didn’t know he could feel. He felt incredibly angry at himself for letting her out of sight. He felt guilt and he could almost feel her pain. Kylo also felt protective over her, he wanted to take her into his arms and heal her, to make her all better again. But above all, Kylo wanted to find Garr Caine and make the man relive the same pain he put Y/N through, only a hundred times worse. Kylo wanted to watch life slip out of his body because of his hands. Nothing could do justice for the anger and hatred that burned through Kylo Ren when he thought about the man who had harmed Y/N.

Y/N opened her eyes weakly to see Kylo standing there with his helmet on. At first, she couldn’t believe her eyes. She was scared that Garr was playing tricks on her, dressing up as her beloved husband to give her false hope. Hot tears rained down her face. Despite fearing the worst, she was hopeful that it truly was Kylo, it felt like Kylo.

When he took off his helmet, her fears were washed away. “K-Kylo…” A sob left her trembling lips. It really was him. She had never felt as relieved and ashamed at the same time ever before.

He felt speechless as he released her from the restraints, all too similar to the ones they used on their hostages. By using the force, he released her from the heavy cuffs. Her wrists, arms, neck and ankles were sore and bruised from her fighting against the restraints. Seeing the damage done on her was shocking, it was heartbreaking. Tears stung Kylo’s eyes. He didn’t care that she could see him like that. He only cared about the fact she was alive.

She was too weak to get up, too weak to raise her arms to hug him. Kylo felt it. She was exhausted. So Kylo wrapped his arms around her extremely carefully and pulled her into a hug, happy to feel her in his arms. She was overwhelmed with joy to be held by him. Her husband. The man she loved. “I t-thought…” Y/N tried to speak, but the words got stuck in her throat, drowned by her weak whimpers and cries. Each little sound tormented Kylo’s mind.

His beloved wife was a wreck and he blamed himself.

“Shh, it’s okay, you’re okay…it’s alright,” Kylo tried to comfort her, partly trying to convince himself of it too. He didn’t need her to speak now and frankly, she didn’t have the energy to do so either.

As her face was nuzzled in the crook of his neck, she failed to see the silent tears that spilt from Kylo’s eyes. His scent filled her lungs. His arms made her feel safe again.

Kylo’s lips trembled. A part of him wanted to speak, the other wanted to be quiet. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried and felt such heartache, but now he couldn’t fight it.

Someone had done this to his wife!

His wife!

He couldn’t grasp how anyone could ever want to harm her.

“Sir, we’ve captured the target. He is ready for you.” Now was a really bad time to interrupt Kylo Ren. At least, they remembered that Kylo wanted him alive. For now. He would’ve gotten up to teach the stormtrooper a lesson, but he didn’t want to let go of her. Not now, not yet. He could feel how badly she needed him right now. It’s like they were both afraid to let go.

“Keep an eye on him. Transport him to the ship. Then get out of my sight!” Kylo was furious. He didn’t have to tell him that twice. They were left alone again, which was a huge relief.

Kylo sat on the floor with his wife on his lap. She was so weak, it frightened him. This was the contrast of the woman she was the last time he saw her. She had to lean against him just to stay upright. Some of her wounds were fresh, bleeding onto Kylo’s clothes. He could smell the iron of her blood which stung in his nose. Gently, Kylo placed his hand above her stomach, feeling how her wound pulsed in the rhythm of her heartbeat. He noticed that her body was quivering. “You’ll be alright,” Kylo promised her gently. This side of him was so foreign, reserved for her eyes only. He used the force to heal her, focusing on transferring his energy into her. It was raw, he felt all of it. They were one through the force. Her most acute wounds closed and healed like magic – disappearing like they were never there. Finally, she had enough energy to be okay, as he promised. She’d need a medical droid back at home, but she’d survive now.

Y/N was strong enough to cup Kylo’s face and kiss him. He kissed her back, tasting her tears and blood, but he didn’t care. No words were a match for the love they showed each other through that kiss. It said everything they needed to know.

They were both alright now.

And Kylo was getting closer to revenge. Garr Caine would be the living form of regret for just long enough until Kylo would kill him. Kylo would enjoy every second of it.

At last, they were home. Y/N was being treated by the medical droids and an actual medic. Kylo could finally visit Garr Caine, which would be awfully unpleasant for Garr. Kylo was still outside the interrogation room, but he could sense that the man was terrified. His fear, cowardliness was radiating like heat from a star.

It would take a lot of self-control to not squeeze the life out of the man on the spot. Kylo wanted it to be slow, like torture he was so familiar with. This was personal.

Finally, he entered the room. Kylo was pleased to see that Garr was strapped down too. A taste of his own medicine. Their eyes met and Kylo heard the man’s thoughts which were awfully loud. He was scared out of his mind and surprisingly angry. Garr hated Kylo.

Silently, Kylo walked further inside and dug deeper into his mind. It was not a sight for sore eyes what he saw inside Garr’s mind, memories of him harming the woman Kylo loved while claiming to care about her. He saw the sickening fantasies Garr had that revolved around Y/N. He had wanted children with her, with Kylo’s wife. The audacity of this man continued to shock Kylo, making him excited to hear his painful cries.

Kylo saw red as he looked at him.

Kylo force choked the man, struggling to keep himself from snapping his neck immediately. It was more than just tempting, but it would be too kind for him. Garr was in for a living nightmare no one would wish upon anyone - not even their own worst enemies. “You will regret ever hurting her, that I promise you.”

_____

Author’s Note: okay so this is what my brain produces after 4 hours of sleep in 48 hours. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed writing it, but like I should probably sleep. For angst lovers, I hope you liked it.

#Kylo Ren #Ben Solo #Ben Solo x Reader #Kylo Ren x Reader #Kylo Ren Imagine #Kylo Ren angst #Ben solo angst #tw torture #tw gore #tw violence #tw sex talk #dark angst #Adam Driver #Kylo ren fanfiction

3K notes · View notes

togoodfriends · 3 years

Text

“What I have learned is that every order believes its way is the only way.”

Jedi knight Jacen Solo, The Joiner King (2005), by Troy Denning

#guerre stellari #star wars #dark nest trilogy #the joiner king #troy denning #jacen solo #seven beliefs in a galaxy far far away #7/7

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atelier-dayz · 4 years

Note

When you have the time/feel up to it, would you mind sharing what the parallels between Jedi and mandalorians are? Pretty please? 🙏

AYE HELLO I WOULD BE HAPPY TO \o/

So this is rough since most of it is straight C&Ping from my spreadsheets so hopefully you’re not expecting an essay LOL

And this doesn’t include the stuff that I made up for my own stories like Mando’paru vs the Seven Forms of Lightsaber combat, etc.

Starting off with these two excerpts from Star Wars Insider 86:

“Across five millennia, the Mandalorians fought with and against a thousand armies on a thousand worlds. They learned to speak as many languages and absorbed weapons, technology and tactics from every war. And yet, despite the overwhelming influence of alien cultures, and the absence of a true home world and even species, their own language not only survived, but changed little; their way of life and their philosophy remained untouched; and their ideals and sense of family, of identity, of nation, were only strengthened. Armour is not what makes a Mandalorian. Armour is simply a manifestation of an impenetrable, unassailable heart.” - Mandalorians: Identity and Language, published by the Galactic Institute of Anthropology

and

"But the Mandalorians are an exception. They adopted a culture and became completely defined by it. Their nearest parallel, ironically, is the Jedi – with whom the Mandalorians have had so much antagonism and conflict."

1) The Jedi and Mandalorians are two cultures in which they grow/expand their numbers through adoption. They, as a result, absorb a lot of different alien cultures. And members do draw from their home cultures (Shaak Ti and Ahsoka, Luminara and Barris, etc) but there's also a distinct culture of their own.

As pointed out in those excerpts, while Mandalorians have/had the Mandalore system, a major part of their identity is as nomads, a diaspora. And the Jedi don't really a "home world" in a sense. They have/had Ilum, but that’s not an inhabitable planet, and they are based on Coruscant, but people wouldn't consider them Coruscanti.

And there's not one species that defines them, as Jedi or as Mandalorian. Instead each of them are bound together by their culture and philosophy.

(more under cut because it’s Long)

1.5) To reiterate, the primary means of expanding their numbers is through adoption. And! Both cultures highly value their younglings / foundlings. Kids are Very Important.

2) There’s the Mandalorian saying "Aliit ori'shya tal'din" or "Family is more than blood.” Pretty straightforward, found families are a Thing for Mandalorians. And while the Order doesn't disparage against blood ties (see Depa and Sar, Tiplar and Tiplee, etc) blood relations aren't what they use to define family!

Along the same vein, another Mandalorian saying "Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la" or "Nobody cares who your parent was, only the parent you'll be." As SW Insider 86 states, “Mandalorians believe that you are what you do, not what an accident of birth dictates." Similarly, for the Jedi, it doesn't matter where you come from; it's about what you choose to do.

3) Varying however much in adherence, both cultures have a code they live by. The Resol’nare for the Mandalorians, and the Jedi Code -- whatever that specifically entails since we don’t have many details about it. (For those in the back, no, it’s not the same as the meditation mantra.)

4) The Mandalorians hold the education, the raising and nurturing of children (beyond schoolwork, really preparation for life and survival) (referred to as bajur), to such importance as to have it as one of the six acts in their code. As for the Jedi, they very clearly place great important in teaching and learning. To quote Obi-wan, "teaching is a privilege. And it’s part of a Jedi’s responsibility to help train the next generation.” An important part of a Jedi Knight includes teaching initiates and/or taking on a padawan to pass forward the knowledge they have as well as to learn from their own students.

Which leads me appropriately to the shared emphasis in learning, in self-improvement and personal growth. Yoda says in one of the Age of Republic comics, “Good, questions are. Ask them we must. Certainty in our understanding, to arrogance it leads. To the dark side." As for the Mandalorians, there’s a post by freckledmcree that articulates the idea much better, but they have a philosophy against arasuum - which is stagnation. For them, to live is to constantly adapt and grow, because that’s how they can survive and that’s how they become darasuum or eternal.

5) Which is a good segue into their philosophy on death! On a superficial level, both the Mandalorians and the Jedi cremate their dead. And in regards to death, the Mandalorians have what I’ve been referring to in fic as the Litany, something they recite in daily remembrance: “Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.” (“I’m still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.”) They also have a phrase about the dead as “Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la” or “Not gone, merely marching far away.” So death isn’t The End for them, merely a different journey. As for Jedi, one of the first basic beliefs we learn from the OT and onwards is that a Jedi doesn't really die, they pass into the Force. They continue on, following a path they all travel eventually.

6) Mandalorians and Jedi both have a physical object that distinguishes them as them. There’s the beskar’gam for the Mandalorians, and the lightsaber for the Jedi. However! To again quote SW Insider 86, "Armour is not what makes a Mandalorian. Armour is simply a manifestation of an impenetrable, unassailable heart.” A Mandalorian without his armour is still a Mandalorian. Likewise, to quote Cal, "Having a lightsaber isn't what makes you a Jedi." A Jedi is more than just their lightsaber; it’s their philosophy and knowledge and etc that makes them a Jedi!

7) Gender and gender roles are NOT a thing in Mandalorian culture. (I’m ignoring the gender roles bit in SW Insider 86 because screw you KT.) I can't imagine gender and the typical social constructs we think of that come with gender holding much importance to Jedi either.

Also attraction, for a Mandalorian, is based on character rather than physical appearance. Which I also imagine to be the case for Jedi if they chose to pursue relationships.

8) Training begins when they're young for both Mandalorians and Jedi, and they’re considered ready to venture out into the galaxy in their teens - roughly speaking. Mandalorians are considered "adults" at 13. Jedi become padawans and go out on missions sometime in their teens, though we don’t have a specific age range. (Typically older than 13 before the Clone Wars happened if we’re basing off remarks about Ahsoka in TCW.)

When a Mandalorian becomes an adult, they go through a rite of passage in military and survival skills that make them legally adults. This sounds similar to, of course, the Jedi Trials for a padawan to become a knight.

9) Both groups suffered the effects of genocide. It seems the Sith/Empire targeted any groups that would pose a threat to their power/rule, and these included the Jedi (Order 66 and the hunting of any FSs afterwards) and the Mandalorians (The Night of A Thousand Tears and afterwards).

10) Aaand this one is silly BUT if you want to keep a low profile, wear a poncho! 😂

#notactuallyadeviant #miya replies #not sure what to tag this hm #star wars #mando'ade #jedi order

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 3 years

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Resol’nare - Part Seven

A/N: This part has a lot of bits that I have been excited to share. There are a lot of pieces of my own HCs in here, as well as a few plot hint crumbs that I’ve had fun developing, so I hope you guys enjoy this one! (Also sorry it was late- we got power back late last night and I was too lazy to post after making dinner. oops. Don’t worry, I already formatted eight so this won’t happen again next week) Also, also... Fennec and Boba are fun to write :)

*this story will regularly be using words in Mando’a. for a good list of references click here.*

Summary: The Mandalorian makes the journey back to Tatooine to take care of some things back at the covert after his run in with Navina on Nevarro. More is revealed about the goings on in the upper levels of Boba Fett’s complex, we learn what he and Fennec are up to, as well as a little more about how things are run below. And we finally hear what Bo-Katan has been itching to tell him.

Warnings: descriptions of violence, death, talk of manipulating kids (if you’re unsure feel free to ask)

Word Count: 5.6k

Tatooine.

The suns were sinking into the Dune Sea by the time he pulled Peli’s rental speeder into one of the hidden bays at the rocky base of Fett’s palace complex. There were three other occupied spaces, leaving just the one to his left empty. A quick scan of the vehicles that were there told him immediately who wasn’t. Fennec. Hers was the easiest to recognize. She had painted it a heavy matte black, accented with a weblike design of crisscrossing red lines. It wasn’t inconspicuous but she didn’t want or need it to be. If one of her targets saw her speeder and made the connection, it was already too late for them to turn and run. She liked knowing that they felt some modicum of fear or at the very least panic in the seconds before she struck, and he couldn’t blame her. They had it coming.

For too long the scum that she and Boba were after had run nefarious crime rings that preyed on scared, young kids with nowhere else in the galaxy to turn. It was how they’d both ended up in their line of work, Boba swept into a life of violent instability in the aftermath of his father’s death, and Fennec developing a kind of admiration and a misplaced feeling of owing her employers for rescuing her from being sold to a brothel as a child. The slime had wasted no time in manipulating her, taking that gratitude and twisting it into something ugly and sinister, crafting her into a sniper, a trained, leashed killer, trading one horrible outcome for another. By the time she realized how trapped she truly was, the price on her own head had climbed so high it had very nearly gotten her killed.

He winced thinking back to when he’d found her crumpled form in the sand. His thoughts had flashed so quickly to Grogu, to getting back to where he was and ensuring his safety, that he had only given Fennec a cursory check for any signs of life. Had Fett not been tracking the Mandalorian in search of his father’s armor, the woman would have died there in the desert. But the grizzled wanderer had found her, and saving the assassin from the brink of oblivion had given both of them a second chance. Fennec had been freed from the things that held her feet to the flames, and Boba had been given a reason to care for someone other than himself. He may have never been in any real peril on Tatooine- Not even in that pit if how I’ve seen him fight is any indication of how he handled that Sarlacc- but two souls were saved that day regardless. Though they worked as a pair and while Fennec deferred to Fett at first, she gave him her loyalty because she chose to, not because she was made to, and he gave her his respect because she had proven herself to be just as resilient as he was.

Now, having taken the palace from the Hutt crime family and rooted out their presence on the planet, the two child killers turned vigilantes had started working on the galaxy’s other crime rings. Their sights were currently set on the Black Sun syndicate, and they had been working on picking away at one of their strongholds in Ord Mantell City, dispatching those who gave them no new information immediately, and freezing and bringing anyone who might have something useful to share back to the complex on Tatooine. Karga and the Bounty Hunter’s Guild on Nevarro had even been helping them, and more than a handful of the Mandalorians from the new covert had offered their assistance as a way to repay Boba and Fennec for providing them the space. Yes, they were taking the law into their own hands, but he had seen time and again how easily the New Republic could be made to look the other way, so he had no personal or moral objections to what they were doing.

And so far they had brought three children under the age of thirteen back to the covert. The kids were being held captive as leverage so that the Black Sun leaders could keep control over their parents, often threatening them with things unspeakable should they refuse to do what their bosses required of them. The youngest was no more than five. After they’d been fed and tended to by the Healer and given a place to rest in the tunnels below, Woves one of the Mandalorians he’d first met on Trask, had set out to get in touch with the guardians of the rescued children. Since joining the cause to unite the clans, Axe had become increasingly interested in participating in educating and caring for the covert’s children, even assisting the Instructor in teaching new sparring techniques or sharing the perspective of someone who had grown up on Mandalore when it came to more cultural or historical lessons. Though he’d tried to make contact multiple times using the information that he had on the children- only their names and home planets- just the two older boys had been claimed by living relatives.

The smallest, a girl barely reaching the top of Woves’ boot, didn’t seem to have anyone anywhere. Though he continued to try to locate the child’s kin, everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the Armorer was presiding over the gai bal manda, the man who had once been one of Bo-Katan’s most feared fighters kneeling in front of the entire Tribe and swearing to protect and raise the child as a warrior, as a member of his clan. As his own.

Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad. I know your name as my child. Grogu.

He felt a tug in his chest, just behind his rib cage as he dismounted the speeder, those big round eyes blinking at him from beneath that wrinkled green forehead and those over large ears filling his thoughts before he could guard himself. With a sigh, he wished for what could have been the hundredth time that he had been given the chance to take that vow, swear those words… Raise my son.

Slinging his bag across his body and ensuring that the Darksaber’s hilt was clipped firmly to his belt with one hand, the other went to one of the leather pouches at his waist. Without needing to look, he pulled the small silver ball from its designated spot, spinning it twice between his thumb, index and middle fingers. We’ll see each other again. I promise. The metal sphere slipped smoothly in his gloved grasp, the object giving him comfort. It was something tangible, a link to the thing he carried in his heart for the child that had upended his entire world. Bo-Katan might understand Woves’ choice if she… He let out another breath and tucked the ball away. But all she can see is Mandalore.

The sharp-eyed, orange- haired heiress was not too keen on her former companion’s sudden calling towards child rearing, but swearing an adoption vow, promising to care for a foundling, was such an integral part of Mandalorian beliefs, of The Way, that she knew better than to try to talk him out of it. She would lose any credibility that she had as a leader if any of the others caught wind of that. She still had Reeves, and Hast, one of the few that had made it off of Nevarro, had also volunteered to help her search for other hidden coverts and lone stragglers in the far reaches of the Outer Rim, on the quiet, often overlooked planets in the Mid Rim, in the corrupt and crowded cities of the Core Worlds. And if she wanted more help I’m sure there are others who would go.

He cringed, tilting his chin down to glance at the innocuous looking object knocking against the beskar tasset covering his left thigh with every step towards the tunnels he took. If she wanted, I could… He reached across his body to wrap his hand around the sword's grip. It still felt strange. Unnatural. I could order others to join her mission. Dropping it as soon as the thought crossed his mind, it hit the beskar beneath it with a loud clang that echoed in the dark passages that connected the speeder bay to the main hall. Leadership in a fight, in a battle, in negotiations, while all still outside of what he would have chosen for himself, were things that he could get his head around. But making demands? Setting punishments and enforcing laws? It was the things that ran in that vein of what it meant to be the Mand’alor that gave him the most pause now that the Armorer had assuaged some of his other doubts regarding the title that had been thrust upon him, unwanted.

Thing after thing. Loss after loss. Responsibility after responsibility. That had been his life for nearly four decades, and it didn’t seem like his burdens would be getting lighter any time soon. For the first time since he left Nevarro two days before, he thought of the woman he’d run into there, whose stolen vambraces he was bringing back to be reforged. Navina. Though he’d only spent a few hours with her he had picked up the impression that difficult trials and heavy hardships followed her wherever she went, too. He wondered if that was uniquely Mandalorian, or if there were others who understood the same level of loneliness that sometimes came when such strength was constantly required of a being. She had spoken of her clan; of losing her mother and being separated from her father and the foundling that her family had taken in, not knowing after all that time if they were still alive. He knew the odds and she seemed clever enough to know them, too, and though he had sympathy for her, it also made him feel less like he was alone in struggling to carry an ungainly load. I have to remember to ask the others about her father… Harsa. That was the name.

There were several things he had to do on this trip, asking about Navina’s family name just the latest addition to the list. After promising the Armorer on his last visit that he would begin training with the Darksaber, he knew that he would be spending at least two sessions with the Weapons Master, learning how to wield the legendary black blade. We’ll start with the beskad, though. He was firm in that and he knew that no one would argue with him. He wanted to check in with Fett, make sure that the arrangement was still working and that the man didn’t need anything from him. He had no doubt though, that if the man running things topside had any issues, he wouldn’t hold them back, not hesitating to contact the Mandalorian directly to launch his complaints. His directness was one of the things that he liked most about Boba, and one of the reasons that he had been so quick to trust him. I hope he’s free now. I’d rather start there then…

The last thing that he absolutely could not leave the planet without doing, was meeting with Bo-Katan for a debrief on the recruiting efforts and to begin discussing tactics for reclaiming their ancestral homeland. Hers, anyway. She wasn’t happy that he had put it off for as long as he had, but again, he knew that she wouldn’t voice her displeasure for fear of the optics of disagreeing with the Mand’alor. Politics. His top lip curled at the thought that he would have to get good at knowing how to keep people on his side, even when he knew that their endgames were slightly out of alignment with his. Maybe she’s in the sparring hall now. He knew that she spent hours training with Reeves and Hast whenever she came back to the covert, and he hoped that was where she was now.

If he was being entirely honest, something about her still didn’t sit well with him, but he knew that he didn’t have to like everyone to work with them.

Striding the last few steps through the winding passage, he finally reached the plain stone archway, a circular splotch of light from one of the torches visible on the other side of it. Two helmeted Mandalorians stood guard, but moved aside as soon as they saw the signet on his shoulder and the Darksaber on his belt.

“Olarom yaim, Mand’alor.” The shorter of the two spoke with a nod, welcoming him home in a voice that cracked too adolescently for the modulator in the newly sworn fighter’s helmet to hide. A kid. He recalled the first few years after he’d finished his required training in the Fighting Corps, the cockiness, the harsh lessons that no amount of studying or practicing in the sparring hall could prepare him for. He’s just a kid.

It was different though, the way that Mandalorians allowed Tribe members to swear additional oaths inducting them into the elite group of warriors at seventeen, than what the syndicates did, how they inducted their young members. We learn and train our whole lives for it. Understand what we’re agreeing to. Not like… He swallowed a sudden spike of rage at the thought that the quiet, innocent child that was likely still latched to Woves’ right leg would have otherwise ended up raised to be a mercenary -or worse- for the Black Sun. But she won’t now.

“Thank you,” he responded to the young guard cursing himself for forgetting the Mando’a translation. I need to do better with that. Again he felt his thoughts backtracking to Navina and the way that he’d heard several Mando’a words roll easily off of her tongue. Maybe she can… when we meet again in a few weeks, maybe she can help me with… He sighed. There was a long list of things he needed to talk to her about when he saw her next, just like the list of things that awaited him at the top of the staircase he was currently climbing. He wanted to know more about her pendant, about the seam they had found in the metal that hinted at a modification that was made well after the piece had been crafted that would allow the Mythosaur to hold the peculiar stone that shone purple. He wanted to know more about what had prompted her family to leave Concordia, why they were running and why they’d had to separate. He wanted to know anything that he could from her and any other Mandalorians he encountered that might help him be the Mand’alor that the young guardsman and everyone else in the covert seemed to think that he was.

As soon as he ascended the last few steps though, his thoughts were interrupted by a heavy arm falling around his shoulder. “Still in one piece then, Mand’alor?”

Boba Fett’s gruff, gravely voice was oddly comforting, and he knew that he was likely one of maybe two people who thought that. He returned the one armed thunk that he supposed the other man took for a hug. “Seems that way.” The man’s heavily scarred face pulled up into a jagged looking grin, the expression almost jarring on such a serious visage, but then a rumbling chuckle came out and took the smile with it, leaving his features in their natural scowl. “Everything alright here?”

The Mandalorian followed Fett through the large main hall, past the stone slab throne that he only occupied when passing judgement on those that he and Fennec brought back once any useful information could be wrung from them, and through to the long table that had been brought in for strategy meetings and sharing information with the Bounty Hunter’s Guild and others who agreed to offer help. “Everything’s fine,” he said with a grunt, gesturing flippantly with one hand, pulling a chair out from the table with the other. “The Princess wasn’t too thrilled when she found out she’d have to wait for you, but tell me, Mandalorian, is that woman ever truly happy about anything?”

He had never so much as seen her smile. Pulling out a chair of his own, he simply shrugged. It seemed unlikely. “I’ll meet with her as soon as we’re through here.” Fett nodded. “I had… urgent business on Nevarro.”

“Urgent?” One eyebrow rose on the man’s forehead.

“Yes, I met another Mandalorian, only she was,” he tilted his head to the side as the image of Navina’s silver-gray eyes staring at him through her shattered visor flashed in his mind. “Different.”

Boba answered with another gruff chuckle as he reached for the jug of spotchka that was never too far away. “Different, was she?” He took a long pull, the remnants of his teasing laugh still there when he lowered the jug and swiped the back of his free hand across his mouth.

What? No, that’s- He leaned forward, elbows on the stone surface as he made a quick slicing motion with one hand. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

It wasn’t. But as he dropped his palms back to the tabletop, he could recall the way it felt when he’d gripped her biceps, shaking her from her dreams. He had been concerned that she would hurt herself or more inconveniently, break one of the controls in the cockpit with the way she was thrashing in her sleep. But what he remembered now, hands flat before him, was how it felt to make contact with her skin, even if it was just through the thick padding of his gloves. He pressed his thumb down hard on the table like he had pressed it into the crease of her bent arm, squeezing the muscle there to get her attention. She felt strong and warm and solid and he almost held onto her for too long, caught up in the feel of another body beneath his hands. That isn’t what I meant.

He cleared his throat and went on. “She hasn’t sworn the Creed, but she carries out the traditions, she can fight, knows things about Mandalorian history-“ he looked up at the man across from him, Fett abandoning his ribbing to regard the Mandalorian seriously. “She had a helmet and a dagger made of pure beskar.”

“And you’re sure she’s not a thief?”

Technically she is. But she didn’t steal the helmet or the kal. She didn’t steal the pendant. “They belonged to her parents.” He explained what the woman had told him about how her family had been split up- how she had known for a fact that her mother had been killed, but that since it had been years since she’d seen her father or the other child in her family, she had no way of knowing if they were still alive. “She… she asked me to spread word here at the covert, in case anyone knows where to find her father. Harsa. His name is Gavil Harsa.”

Boba shrugged. “Don’t know any Harsa. But then, I’m no Mandalorian either. Your different girl and I have that in common.”

She’s not my-

But before he could protest what had just been said, voices from the same entrance he had come through caught his and Boba’s attention, the other man standing as Fennec’s dry, smirking tone could be heard greeting the guard at the door. “You’re back.” He stated, opening his arms wide, his voice booming across the otherwise empty space. “What took so long?” He dropped his arms as Fennec maneuvered a carbonite block through the doorway.

She cocked her head in the direction of the hardened, frozen slab containing what could have been any number of humanoid species, their features completely indiscernible but clearly contorted in terror. “Ixon here didn’t want to come quietly.” She turned to pull the block the rest of the way through, the unit hovering weightless and only needing her guidance for direction. “It was actually quite a workout.” She grinned. “For him.” Fett let out another gravelly laugh as Fennec turned her attention to the Mandalorian. “Mando,” she smiled and used one hand to push her long black braid behind her. “Good to see you.”

“Fennec,” he nodded a greeting. “You’ve been busy, I see.”

“Nothing for the Mand’alor to worry about,” she winked, shoving the block containing Ixon more roughly than necessary. “Just dealing with the trash.” She winked as she walked through, waving off Boba when he tried to assist her. “I’ll handle this one on my own.” She patted the side of the unit with an almost malicious gleam in her dark eyes. “It’s personal.”

“I’d pity him if he weren’t walking slime,” Boba offered her the spotchka jug but she declined with a flick of her wrist.

“He might not be walking when I’m done.” She gave the block another shove towards a door on the other side of the large room, her lips lifting in a quick snarl. “See you around, Mando,” she called over her shoulder, disappearing with Ixon, not waiting for a response.

“They say if you love your job you never work a day in your life,” he clapped a large meaty palm on the Mandalorian’s arm. “And Shand loves her new job.” That much is obvious. “Speaking of jobs, Mand’alor,” he gestured with his jug towards another set of stairs that led to the tunnels that the covert was using, the blue liquid sloshing gently as he did. “I’m sure yours is calling.”

He stiffened. “Yes.”

The man, gnarled by life and the things that had tried to drag him from it, set the jug down then. “Taking that planet back… well, you know what I think there.” I do. From first mention, he had not held back his opinion of the mission. “But bringing this many Mandalorians together under one roof? And they haven’t killed each other yet? I know you didn’t ask for this but,” he narrowed his eyes. “That’s no small feat.”

It was as close to true praise as Boba Fett had likely ever bestowed upon anyone, and he knew that. It was also the truth. He thanked the man and crossed the room to yet another doorway that led to a different set of stairs. This time though, as he shifted the bag on his shoulder, the metal pieces inside clanging together, he did not stop on the landing and wait to pass off the reclaimed beskar to a middleman. This time, he continued down the second set that brought him to the forge.

It was quiet, the Armorer taking a rare break from her unending task of providing the best protection and defenses that she could for her people. As a child it was easy for him to forget that there was a human beneath that pointed gold helmet. Her understated power, the sparks that flew frantically from her hammer, the ability she possessed to craft such stunning objects all contributed to the almost mythological status that he and the other small children regarded her with. He still admired and respected her and held her in higher esteem than anyone else in the covert, he knew that even the Armorer needed to eat, needed rest, needed to give her own ears a reprieve from the ringing of her tools battering hot metal.

Entering the room for the first time since the covert relocated to Tatooine, he gave himself time to take the space in. Slowly turning his head he scanned over the work table, all of the tools neatly arrayed, each one clean and sharp and shining, each one a weapon in its own right. The forge itself was unlit, the mouth that usually spat fire simply open in a gaping yawn, but as he ran his hand over it he felt the residual heat that never completely faded. He wondered if what was left of the forge back on Nevarro still retained any warmth.

Drawing his hand back, he stepped over to the small table that the Armorer used for meeting with the recipients of her work. Reaching into his bag, he took the vambraces that Navina had surrendered and set them on the surface between the two empty stools, leaving them for when the Armorer returned to her duty. She’ll know what to do. And where they came from. He would return to the forge the next morning to speak with her in more detail about the items’ provenance, and also to spread Navina’s family name to the member of the Tribe who was most likely to know it. He gave the room one last scan, slowly turning his head so that he could see it all through the eyeline of his visor, then left, continuing on with his own list of responsibilities.

A handful of the covert’s children, some in the second hand helmets of the older ones, others belonging to clans that didn’t cover their faces at all times displaying smudges of dirt across round cheeks, were gathered in the widest portion of the hall. Engaged in some game that he likely played himself at that age, they shrieked and laughed and jumped. The kid would love it here. He could easily picture Grogu waddling into the group of young Mandalorians and fitting in without a problem, and he hoped that he had other children to be a child with while he underwent his Jedi training.

Continuing on and following the fork to the left, he headed next for the sparring hall. Unlike the forge, it was not empty. He could already hear the sound of practice staffs clashing, and the Instructor’s voice calling out advice to his trainees. One of the fighters grunted as they lunged or swung, and he knew right away from the sound that it was Bo-Katan, the heavy footsteps he heard suggesting that she was training with Hast.

Since she was occupied at present, he stopped at the door beside the entrance to the sparring hall to arrange sessions with the Weapons Master. The man seemed pleased that the Mand’alor was ready to start working with the beskad in preparation for the Darksaber, and gave him his choice of available times for one on one training. Slating himself for three instead of the two he had planned on, he thanked the man and, with nothing left to do to push it off any longer, he entered the sparring hall and prepared to speak with Bo-Katan.

She was still locked in a battle with Hast, the hulking man nearly twice her size but incredibly nimble for his weight and width. Blocking a swing of her opponent’s staff, the helmetless woman gritted her teeth and gripped her own weapon, holding it horizontally in front of her chest to take the force of the blow. Her feet slid back but she dug them in and gave a strong shove. Staffs still connected, the push set Hast off his balance just enough for her to turn the staff and whip it down and behind the man as he tried to regain his footing. In a sweeping blur she used it to take his legs out from under him, and he fell hard to the ground. Following all the way through to the finishing position, Bo-Katan flipped her staff around, jabbing it a few inches from Hast’s helmet, signifying her victory.

It was impressive, but the Mandalorian knew that she was a skilled fighter, having seen her in live battle. She extended a hand to help Hast up, then turned towards the entrance. “You’re here.” It sounded almost skeptical, and he noticed the tiny twitch of her brow, hardly any sweat beading there after her workout. “Back from your,” she passed the staff behind her to Hast who took both of them back to the wall, the Instructor stowing them on their pegs. “From your urgent business?”

He’d been expecting her to be upset, so the bite in her tone wasn’t a shock. “Yes.” He answered simply, not willing to allow her annoyance to spark his own. “I’m ready to discuss plans with you.”

Her eyes narrowed, lips pressed together in a thin line as though that was the only thing keeping her frustration in. She swallowed, then let out a short breath and gestured toward the door. “Shall we, then?”

The Mandalorian nodded and once she’d thanked the Instructor and Hast for the session, she followed him out into the hallway, the two heading for one of the smaller halls that had been designated for closed door meetings. “Thank you, for your patience.” He knew that she hadn’t been patient, but that she wanted it to seem like she had. “I had things to tend to, but I’ll be here for about two weeks, and I,” he opened the door to the room, letting her in before him and then closing it after he entered. Letting out a small sigh that he knew she wouldn’t be able to hear, he continued. “Aside from training with the Weapons Master I can spend as much time as necessary working with you.”

Her cheek jumped as she gave a quick smile that was more of a forced smirk. “Well, that’s great news.” Pulling out a chair, she gestured for him to do the same, which he did. “Because we have a lot to discuss.”

She went on to tell him that she, Hast and Koska Reeves had come back with ten adult Mandalorians from a covert located in the Mid Rim, and four children that had been part of their clans. There were a few that had chosen not to come back to Tatooine, but he and the others had all agreed that no one would be forced into joining them, that it was a decision only they could make for themselves. Still, adding fourteen to the Tribe in just one trip was something of note. For most of his life he had thought that his kind were far closer to extinction than they were. It was encouraging to see their numbers grow after so much time spent thinking that they were alone, and he hoped it gave the others that joined them there that same feeling of hope. That even if the quest to take back Mandalore were to fail, they would still have a safe place there where they didn’t have to hide in the shadows and only gather in groups of twenty or fewer. At least they were united now. At least they had a home.

She went on to tell him about the old rebel base they had heard about on the remains of Concord Dawn, a planet in the Mandalore System that had all but been destroyed in the centuries of warfare that plagued that portion of the galaxy. Largely uninhabitable, and missing nearly a third of its mass, the planet had been abandoned ages ago. But it’s proximity to Mandalore made it a good candidate to set up a base of their own once the battle for their planet began. She outlined what would be needed in terms of weapons, fortifications and troops, and stated that once they had acquired and allotted the required supplies, she would like to accompany him on a trip to Concord Dawn so that he could see it for himself before the base was established.

Agreeing to all of this, he listened as she laid out her plans for obtaining what was needed, giving her another two hours of his time before exhaustion started setting in so heavily that he wouldn’t have been able to listen to much more even if it was the most interesting topic in the universe. Assuring her that they could pick up where they left off the next morning, he excused himself from the small room and headed for the chamber that he always slept in when he was at the covert.

He didn’t know why, but as he removed his helmet he thought again of the woman he met on Nevarro, and how he was about to begin a war to take back her home planet. Unbuckling the rest of his armor piece by piece and laying it out to be polished and cleaned, he wondered if she would ever go back to the place she was born once they had won it back, or if their own traditions would make her feel unwelcome there. Frowning, he hoped that wouldn’t be the case, that he would help build the kind of society that welcomed anyone who was an ally, whether or not they swore an oath. Would she take the creed? Pulling the breastplate cuirass over his head, he wondered if it was even something she would want to do. She said she wasn’t given the chance… what if she was?

Shaking his head to clear her from his thoughts, he finished taking care of his armor for the evening, focusing on the lightness in his limbs that came from removing all that weight, and sunk into the mattress, finding sleep as soon as his eyes closed.

But the head shake hadn’t cleared her completely, his dreams tinged with purple light and the echo of her name.

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tags: @something-tofightfor @alraedesigns @pheedraws @valkblue @malionnes @gollyderek

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