Thanks so much for your requests and reviews! While I can't promise I kiss just yet (I promise, we're working on it!), I believe the second part of this chapter has something for angelacorus in it :)
Buir = parent (mother or father) in Mando'a
Over the regular hubbub of HoloNet and conversations between friends, a howl of astonishment echoed through the second floor's recreation space. Anakin may have only been in the Temple a few months but he had been there long enough to know that the voice could belong to no one but Senior Padawan Garen Muln. And it followed, naturally, that the news Obi Wan had warned him about had reached the Jedi Temple.
"Where's Obi Wan?" the voice boomed.
Definitely Garen Muln, and definitely that news. Garen was the only Jedi that Anakin really knew so far who acted normal most of the time, like a person with emotions. When he had first met Anakin he had introduced himself as Obi Wan's best friend, although Anakin suspected that they didn't hang out together so much now that he had come along.
"Obes, come look, your girlfriend's on-"
Garen Muln's face popped into the hallway where Anakin had been contemplating his escape, and his eyes lit up as he saw him.
"Anakin! Come watch the news with me. I'll teach you something about your Master."
Anakin followed obediently as Garen guided him by the shoulder to the common room. A large projection displayed the Duchess Satine standing and speaking on her balcony, Korkaran strapped to her chest by white silks. Anakin hadn't been able to go back and visit him yet; Obi Wan had twice gone alone. He hoped he would get to see him soon. It made him happy to see that Korkaran was growing nice and big.
"Do you know who she is, Anakin?" Garen asked with delight, pointing at the projection.
Anakin supposed it was safest to feign ignorance entirely. Everyone seemed to assume he knew nothing.
"Nope."
"That is the Duchess Satine Kryze of New Mandalore," Garen informed him. "She was brought back to the throne last year, thanks to the intervention of the Jedi Order."
The Senior Padawan's face flashed now with mischief.
"She's very beautiful, no?"
Anakin shrugged.
"Yeah, I guess so."
Garen leaned closer with a conspiratorial smile.
"Your Master thinks so too. In fact, he thinks her so beautiful that he nearly le-"
"My Padawan is supposed to be resting, Garen," came the aggrieved reprimand, as though on cue.
Obi Wan was striding across the room towards them, arms folded and a weary smile upon his face.
"Anakin has done very well in his classes today. His brain needs some time to be still, not filled with your gossip."
Obi Wan came to stand at Anakin's other side, beholding the HoloNet broadcast. His Force signature was calm and controlled still.
"I presume you're looking so excited because Satine is on the news?"
"Indeed," Garen agreed readily. "I've taken it upon myself to tell your Padawan the tales of Obi Wan in Love."
Obi Wan groaned and rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
"You don't trust that I haven't already told him myself, Garen?"
"Not at all."
Obi Wan grinned.
"I did, Garen. Seriously. I told him."
Garen's eyes narrowed as he regarded Anakin.
"He told me he didn't know who she was."
"I cannot fault my Padawan's loyalty," Obi Wan sighed, with a gracious smile, giving Anakin a squeeze on the shoulder. "Thank you for protecting my pride, Anakin. But Garen already knows that there was a time when I cared for the Duchess."
Anakin nodded mutely. He didn't trust himself to follow this complex charade of half-truths.
"We discussed it in light of Anakin being rather taken with another monarch, you see, the Queen A-"
Anakin punched his Master in the thigh, his cheeks flushing red.
"Alright, Padawan," Obi Wan acquiesced, lifting his hands in surrender. "I'll not tell Garen of it. But my point remains – it is a lesson that we all must learn. There is no shame in it."
Garen scowled in response to his friend's magnanimity, his unflappable Jedi calm.
"You've become such a dickhead since they Knighted you."
Obi Wan was unoffended.
"Only a few months until you become a dickhead yourself," he reminded him.
"I'll still be fun when I'm a Knight," Garen retaliated. "You manage to even make love sound boring."
"My apologies."
They fell into silence, watching the Duchess and the infant projected before them. Satine was unwrapping Korkie from his silks.
"How are you going to afford the child support?" Garen jested, forgetting his sulkiness and mounting another grin. "You'll have to appeal to the Council for extra allowance."
Obi Wan shook his head with a chuckle.
"You know that I was young and stupid once, Garen – but never that stupid."
Anakin tried not to gape at what a proficient liar his Master was.
"It's even strawberry blonde!" Garen exclaimed, gesturing at the Holo in disbelief, before shaking his head ruefully. "I'd love to pin this on you, Obes, I really would. But I don't imagine you can really get away with being secretly pregnant when you're on camera as much as the Duchess is."
"I'm afraid not," Obi Wan murmured in agreement.
They watched a ceremony unfolding on the Duchess's balcony. Wide eyes blinking bemusedly, Korkaran donned the first crown he would ever wear. It was a crown for an infant prince, a simple band of soft leather adorned with brilliant red-gold feathers.
"The feathers of the ve'vut'galaar," Obi Wan explained, voice soft and reverent. "The golden hawk. Very rare. The Duchess's father kept them as companions; he hunted with them."
There was a distant look about his eyes now as he murmured onwards, half to himself.
"Satine and I saw one only once, in our year on the run. It was a beautiful bird. It felt… It felt like a miracle, seeing it."
The crowned infant was wrapped in new cloths of Clan Kryze green and purple and blue, and held aloft. The crowd cheered their welcome for the foundling. Anakin felt the Force around Obi Wan begin to shift and change. Sadness began to rise up, seeping into the Force like moisture rising up from beneath the earth. Anakin hoped he had sensed it before Garen, who was still watching the projection with keen interest.
"I'm tired, Master," Anakin announced, tugging on Obi Wan's robes. "I need some time for my brain to be still. Can we meditate, please?"
And Obi Wan came to himself, grasping Anakin more firmly by the shoulder. Any turbulence in the Force was quickly smoothed clear.
"Of course, young one."
He nodded his farewell to Garen and looked down once more at Anakin.
"I'm sorry, Padawan, I got distracted."
As they turned their backs on the projection and walked through the empty halls, Obi Wan dipped his head with an uncharacteristic shyness. He seemed to struggle for words. It was a long time until he spoke.
"Thank you, Anakin," he said. "For looking after me."
Satine and Obi Wan had learned, in their hundreds of ideological debates during their year on the run, that the Jedi and Mando'ade shared at least one core belief: that any amount of suffering could be endured. The Jedi spoke of their Force and non-attachment and the Mando'ade spokeof their beskar hearts, but perhaps all anyone meant was stoicism.
Any misery could be endured until it became routine with time. And when misery became routine one ceased to feel the pain, and with further time still it became possible to find brief glimpses of joy.
Korkie's first year was a lesson in stoicism, and finding joy.
There was joy in finally being able to hold her child in the public eye, and to call him her child – if only as her foundling. Korkie accompanied Satine to her endless parade of meetings, in the early days sleeping serenely throughout. As he grew he became more inclined to wake and fuss, causing brief intermissions that probably did wonders for staff attention spans and hydration. And after those inevitable weeks of colicky crying, Korkie grew to watch the meetings with alert attention in his bright blue eyes, drumming his hands intermittently on the table before him. His hair grew to be the bronze-gold of the sunlight that he somehow brought into Parliament; no politician, no matter how old or sensible or battle-hardened, could begrudge the infant as he punctuated speeches with his cheerful chants of bu-bu-bu and ba-ba-ba. He could not yet wrap his tongue around buir.
There was joy to be found in Obi Wan's intermittent travels to Mandalore, for even the pain of missing him had become routine. Korkie seemed to beam – not simply smile, but beam happiness – when he saw his father. Satine could not begrudge Force trickery when Obi Wan levitated their awestruck son carefully from the floor. She had seen him use the Force to levitate and throw enormous hunks of stone rubble without difficulty but he was too careful to lift his son more than a few centimetres.
There was joy on the day that he brought Anakin to visit; Satine knew as soon as she saw the boy that he was happier and more self-assured than when she had seen him last, and knew that Obi Wan had done something good for the galaxy. That afternoon, Anakin lay on the floor and chattered away to his foundling-brother and quasi-parents for two hours without the slightest suggestion of boredom.
"And then, Obi Wan slowed down the ship and we drifted upwards like this," Anakin rambled, illustrating his point with a model toy ship of Korkie's. "So they came underneath us. It was pretty clever, but what a really good pilot would do is corkscrew this way-"
Korkie watched with wide eyes as the boy took the model ship through an intricate series of twists and turns.
"Look, Satine!" Anakin exclaimed, suddenly derailed from his story. "He's pulling it from me!"
The child was right. Although Korkie's chubby reaching fingers fell far short of their target, the toy ship moved in Anakin's hand, as though pulled by some hidden magnet towards the infant. Satine rubbed at her weary brow but could not help but smile.
And there was both joy and calamity as Korkie's gifts in the Force continued to present themselves.
"This blasted Jetii blood," Satine grumbled, good-naturedly, via holo-call to Obi Wan. "I can barely keep up. He's too young to be crawling, you know. He doesn't have the frontal lobe for it yet. But here he goes, with his absurd Jetii coordination…"
She leaned away from the comm and snatched Korkie up before his tiny grasping hands could begin their latest assault on the floor's ducted heating panel.
"I dread the day he walks."
And that day of course came far sooner than Satine could believe, and far sooner than she was ready for it.
"They're supposed to cruise for weeks, Obi Wan, holding onto something for stability. This child started cruising two days ago, and now-"
Korkie stomped across the camera view, arms waving wildly about his head.
"There's an old wives' saying on Mandalore. Infants who walk before they talk are ori'buyce, kih'kovid. All helmet, no head. He's not got any proper words yet. And I'm really thinking he needs some sort of helmet."
As though understanding the joke, Korkie attempted a running gait and toppled head-first, only to be scooped up by his mother moments before hitting the floor. Obi Wan laughed.
"I'm sure he has a brain in there somewhere, Satine. Perhaps he's a perfectionist, like me. Biding his time until he can say something remarkable."
"I've not detected any particular intelligence yet, I'm afraid," Satine quipped, with a wry grin.
But inexplicably, his father had been right; after months of incomprehensible babbling and chanting, Korkie's first word came in the same breath as his first sentence.
"Buir jorir Korkie at te pirun!"
Mama carry Korkie to the water!
Satine blinked her surprise, and acquiesced. She lifted him onto the low stone wall of the palace fountain where he liked to play and thanked the stars he couldn't climb it himself yet. Korkie splashed the water and laughed; droplets remained suspended in the air against gravity, quivering with his joy. He was not yet one year old.
Satine looked over her shoulder to ensure there were no witnesses to her son's wizardry and began to wonder what other sentences Korkie had stored away. Presumably, it was not far beyond him to articulate that his other buir visited from Coruscant and could lift Korkie without his hands.
It occurred to Satine then that perhaps the most difficult times were not necessarily behind her.
How cute is baby Korkie? Such a sweet pea in his special little feathered crown. Not to mention with his kamikaze mobilisation attempts. Satine is in for some hardcore child-rearing here.
And let's not forget sweet, sensitive Anakin taking care of his Master. A reward for him next chapter: we finally go to visit Shmi.
I hope you're enjoying!
xx - S.