To the Author The Nameless Scribe: Many thanks for being my coconspirator.
AN: Thank you to the reviewers supporting this story. There are a lot of time skips because I am not writing fifty pages of filler.
Powerful Female Characters: Is my Rey a Mary-sue or is she Aang, the Last Airbender?
Chapter 13 - The Mandos
"One could say that went exceedingly well, wouldn't you say Senator Sabe?" Bail asked the young Queen.
She looked up at him with amusement, "One could only hope our own proposals are met with as much excellence."
Sifo-Dyas sighed, "Politicians." Though he too was amused as he led them through the Jedi Temple to a Depa Billaba's rooms. Her main room was big enough to comfortably seat guests and it was unlikely that today anyone would walk in on them.
Dooku was talking animatedly to the younger Vopaad Master as Mace made everyone tea.
"Ah, Senator Organa and Queen Amidala, welcome."
"Nothing gets past you, does it, Coun- Master Dooku?" Padme asked, bowing her head.
"Count or Master, either is fine," he answered.
"Congratulations on your success today," Padme said.
"Is that what you would call it?" Mace grumbled as he set the table and they all took their seats.
"You de-escalated war and forced the Republic to acknowledge those it lets down, yes, I would call that a triumph," she said, then nodded to the tea, "Thank you, Master Windu."
He nodded as he took his seat, "Yes, one could only wish the rest of the Republic saw it as you do."
"I think far more people support your motion than are represented on Coruscant," Padme said.
"The Jedi have been proving themselves in the last few years to be more valuable to the galaxy than just as military threats, meaning no disrespect, Masters," Bail said.
"Yes, our peaceful victories aren't the ones that are shared around the galaxy," Mace said with only a bit of bitterness.
"Perhaps," Padme said, "or perhaps you are a secretive lot with your understated library. I hear I'm not the only 'politician' to make use of Jedi wisdom."
"Master Yoda has been taking great joy in throwing our most cryptic, long winded, academic, and curious Masters at the politicians who think they can spin a tale with Jedi backing. They find themselves flummoxed, I think we've converted a few."
Padme let herself smile, having had the opposite experience asking Masters Dooku and Jinn for advice.
"Speaking of Master Yoda, where is he?" Depa asked.
"He isn't coming," Sifo-Dyas said, "He said that if his two old Padawans, Mace and Dooku could agree on anything, then chances were good that he would agree."
Depa hid a smile as Mace and Dooku exchanged an almost fond glare.
"So what other trouble are we to place in the works?" Depa asked.
Padme and Bail both reached for their datapads.
"As I'm sure you are all aware, slavery is still a very real reality throughout the Republic, not to mention in the outer rim," Padme said, "We would like to impose an amendment."
"An amendment would take years to go through," Mace said, his voice sounded strict, but Padme caught the look of sadness in his gaze. He hid it well.
"Yes, but Master Jinn gave us an idea by asking a rather obvious question," Padme said with rising excitement.
"And what did our esteemed Master Jinn ask?" Mace asked with a long suffering side, and again, Padme caught the spark of humour in his gaze.
She imagined many people found this man intimidating and hard headed, but Padme saw through him, saw the brilliant mind behind the cynicism.
"He asked, why does slavery exist? In a galaxy where droids can be programmed to do about just about anything, why does slavery exist?"
"Wealth," Sifo-Dyas said, "slaves are expensive, but it is easier to intimidate a person than get a droid programmed. Slavery, unfortunately, proves more lucrative in the long run, no matter how hard we make it, no matter what face it wears."
"But wealth for whom?" Bail asked.
"The slave owners," Depa said.
"Slave owners don't make the laws," Padme remarked, "mostly, anyway."
Mace tapped his fingers on the table, his tea untouched, "The Senate benefits, the politicians."
"Why?" Bail asked.
"Because they are paid off," Dooku answered. "Are you suggesting we bribe the Senate to get an amendment passed?" He sounded disappointed, "You know that will never hold."
"No," Padme said, "what Master Jinn meant was that we need to make it more lucrative for politicians to end slavery than to aid it."
Dooku's curled lip sent a thrill of terror down Padme's spine. She liked Master Dooku, she really did, but he also scared her. There was just something about him that said if you pushed him too far, there wasn't anything in the galaxy that could save you.
"What did you have in mind?" he asked.
Bail answered, flipping to a drafted bill, "We were sort of inspired by the way criminal enslavement laws function. If a person is convicted of a crime they can be enslaved, if they have children with other slaves, then the children are slaves also. Well, we thought, anyone who refuses to conform to the Complete Abolition Amendment, will have their property seized from them. Ships, territories, accounts disbursed throughout the Republic from the top down."
It was stunningly simple, yet-
Depa grinned, "Oh, that, that is splendid. If you market it as that it will-"
"Cause a great deal of chaos," Mace finished, "Damnit, how does Qui-Gon manage to cause this much trouble when he isn't even here?"
"We've been working on this for months, and well, with the current situation on Naboo-"
"You mean you are holding two government positions as you elected your body double as your temporary Senator?" Mace asked riley. "I must admit, Queen Amidala, your penchant for being in two places at once is quite remarkable."
"Sabe is an excellent Senator," Padme defended.
"So are you."
She blushed, but went on, "I do truly hope we find Senator Palpatine soon, but things have been- I mean he was beloved, is beloved by our people, but things have been running smoothly for us since his disappearance. He wasn't direct enough on the Senate, too willing to -to play the games."
"Senator Palpatine is no loss to the galaxy," Dooku said coldly, "I think you should keep 'Sabe' as your Senator even if the -" he took a breath, "even if he is found."
Padme looked at him, caught off guard by his harsh tone. She was a bit scared of this Master, but this is the first time she had seen him be scary. She didn't want to ask what Palpatine had done to put that look in his eyes.
Bail had no such qualms, "Senator Palpatine has always spoken fairly for his people."
"Shame about his family," Mace remarked, his tone light, his eyes dark, "Of course, Qui-Gon's Padawan doesn't speak of it. I found the Nubain records of the Palpatines' 'accident' rather lax on details."
Padme stiffened. "I was told it was a horror, but I cannot say I went looking for details." She thought of the excitable girl she had first met fixing her ship on Tatooine, who had later been discovered to be a Jedi. "She wasn't there, was she?"
"As I said," Mace responded, "she doesn't speak of it."
Padme sensed there was something more to their words, and she tried not to think that there was something sinister about the man she had looked up to for years. He was more than the rich nobleman many saw him as, Senator Palpatine was a brilliant mind, if a bit too ambitious for her to be wholly comfortable helping him achieve the position of Chancellor.
And she supposed that thought in and of itself was a sign that maybe Palpatine wasn't as trustworthy as she wanted him to be.
Bail touched her shoulder, and she looked up to meet his warm brown eyes, "Sometimes the difference between the people we trust and the people we shouldn't is time."
"Is Palpatine someone I shouldn't trust?" she asked out loud.
"Yes," said Mace, Dooku, and Sifo-Dyas.
Bail and Padme looked at them taken aback.
Depa asked, "Do you know something about the Senator's disappearance?"
"No," Dooku said, "And we shall not discuss it any longer, but it is our council that you should treat Senator Sheev Palpatine with caution, he is not what he appears."
Padme felt her shoulders knot, "Then what is he?"
The Count shook his head, but Padme was nothing if not tenacious.
"He is one of my people, if you know something-"
"We know nothing we can prove," Dooku cut her off, "And perhaps if you want to know more about his character, you might want to ask Padawan Palpatine."
She kept her face neutral, "She wouldn't be the first child given up for adoption."
But Dooku was a politician too, and Padme had discovered, Jedi Masters were good at controlling their emotions when they wanted to, "No, sadly, I suppose her situation not wholly unique." He looked down at the datapads as if he had found a new determination.
"Very well, is she around?"
"She is currently on a mission," Dooku said, "Now, shall we get back to the matter at hand?"
Padme nodded, but she would not let this go. It simply wasn't in her nature.
A month or more had passed, and they found several more small bands of Trandorans. Which they had subsequently killed.
Rey had mixed feelings about this, but she didn't hesitate when the blasters went off, and those mixed feelings dissipated whenever she looked at the three Wookie children.
Their extended families were quite a ways from where they had found them. The Wookies had been on a hunt and taken ships where their guardians had been ambushed and taken.
She knew Obi-Wan was North of them and Qui-Gon East of them, as they travelled on foot through the dense foliage.
Rey loved it.
She especially loved jumping through the trees. She had never seen trees like this before, the curated gardens of the Temple could not compare.
She dropped from one of the tall branches and Harris jolted when she landed near silently beside him.
With his helmet on, she couldn't see his glare, but she felt it.
She smiled.
Briggs shook her head, "You do realize the children can't even keep up with you, right?"
Rey shrugged, stretching her arms as they walked. She liked the children, although the Mandalorians knew better than she did how to care for them. However, she was better at keeping them entertained on their long journey through games and stories, though the latter was likely because she was the only one who could understand them.
She didn't say anything as they walked now, she had nothing to report. The Mandalorians seemed to be slowly warming up to her, they had begun trusting her at least to scout ahead, though that was probably because no one could match her endurance of going back and forth while continuing to press forward.
She didn't mind this, even this constant hiking was light compared to the training she and Obi-Wan had been doing. She made it a point to practice her Ataru flips in the tree branches. She had given up on practising Shii-Cho on this mission, as her lightsaber seemed to agitate the Mandalorians.
"Seriously," Briggs went on, "Don't you ever get tired."
"Of course," Rey said, "I sleep."
"We've been on this damned planet for many weeks, travelling, on foot, and you look as fresh as the day you got here."
"I'm not sure if that's a compliment," Rey said, thinking about her dive in the ocean.
"But you -even when you scout, doubling back and forth, you have the same vigor."
"The Force is with me," Rey answered, tapping Harris's shoulder. It was early still, and the Wookie's hadn't wanted to get up this morning.
Harris, Tolkien, and Maas were carrying them on their backs as the children dozed. Harris stopped, and carefully slid Dewlanna, whose name she had informed them, translated to 'Fierce Roar', onto Rey's back. Harris took her staff, strapping it on around his shoulder, he walked on straighter.
"The Force. Seems like that's the Jedi answer to everything," Briggs sniped.
Rey adjusted the Dewlanna's near dead weight on her back, before saying, "You asked where I get my physical strength from, training and the Force is the answer."
"Is it really necessary for you to do all those flips?"
"No," she said, "but it's fun."
"You haven't asked why we are here," Harris remarked.
"That's not really my business, is it?"
"You're travelling with us."
"I'm travelling with the Wookies who you are also helping."
"Most Jedi wouldn't trust that," Maas pointed out, "Most Jedi would accuse us of bringing the children back as our bounty."
Rey raised her brows at them, "Aside from the fact that we have since met many other Wookies, I know that Mandalorians aren't slavers. I've never seen or heard of any of you going after children. I had assumed it was a part of your code or something."
"It is," Tolkien said. "We protect our children."
Rey didn't point out the obvious, but asked instead, "How do you define your children?"
"Mandalorian is not a race, but a creed," Tolkien said, "These three have no one, they are under our care until we reunite them with their people or until they came of age."
"Just like that," Rey asked, "You would adopt them?"
"Yes," Maas said, "And we would train them, when they came of age, they could decide whether to leave or follow our Canons of Honor."
Rey thought of all the Mandalorians she had encountered throughout her life. They had been employed by the Hutts or others, but they- she had never been afraid of them, not the way others had. Maybe the Force liked them? Or maybe surrounded by criminals and people of desperation, the honour the Mandalorians held themselves with had been a tangible reality to her.
"Who can become a Mandalorian?" she asked them.
"Anyone," Tolkien said, "Even a Jedi, we've had Force sensitives join in the past. As long as they follow our codes, live by them, die by them, they are Mandalorian."
Her mind spun. She wouldn't have left Jakku on her own, not after she had won her freedom. That sounded contrary even in her own head. But she had no way to get out of the outer rim safely when she was younger, choosing to wait for her parents had been -in part, a way of making peace with that reality.
She had learned that about herself in her countless meditations over the last two years. Even if she still couldn't determine the future or the past together, she knew herself.
And she now wanted to know that if Master Jinn hadn't found her, she might have had a path to freedom at her fingertips all along.
"So, if a five year old girl had asked you for help, asked to join you, the Mandalorians would have taken me?"
Briggs huffed, "Of course we would have helped, but I fail to see how a daughter of the Senator Naboo would need saving -ah yes, princess, I recognized your name; Palpatine."
Rey flinched, as much as she was trying to remake her name, it was sometimes still hard to be called his daughter. To know that rich and well-liked Senator Sheev Palpatine and his wife had sold her away.
Aside from being cruel, the only cold logic she could make of it was either they had despised her being a Force sensitive, or had wanted to ensure that though she lived, their paths would never cross again.
The latter seemed most likely, especially with her father's refusal to acknowledge he remembered her.
Briggs kept poking when Rey didn't say anything, "You gave us that rubish about Tatooine, but you're a rich Nubian-"
"I was a slave," Rey interrupted her, "I was a slave and I earned my freedom with no one's help. Now I am a Jedi, Senator Palpatine owns no part of me."
The last she said more to her own feelings as she let them flow to the Force.
Briggs was rendered silent.
Chakraborty, who was the de facto leader and had not talked much to Rey at all after that first day, asked, "You were kidnapped."
Rey didn't look at him, not that his masked face would have done her much good anyway, "My parents sold me when I was five years old."
"Why?" he asked her, voice hard.
"I don't know, my father has not said. Though I suppose I haven't given him many chances to."
"There isn't a reason good enough."
She disagreed, if only to retain hope that the mother and father in her memories who had loved her had been real.
She held those memories close, and she knew she avoided her father, not because she hated him, but she feared that the truth of him would cast those memories into grim reality.
Better to have been loved and betrayed, than from the start to have mattered nothing to them at all.
Chakraborty spoke, drawing her from her thoughts, "To answer your question, yes, if you had asked for help at any point, we would have helped you, child."
"You could join us now, in fact," Tolkien said in a sing song voice.
Rey laughed, Dewlanna stirred on her shoulders, "Thanks, but I have a family now, the Jedi are good people."
Briggs said something in Mandalorian.
If they kept doing that Rey was determined to pick up on the lanaguage.
Maas said, as Jiwarr slid down from his back, staggered then trotted ahead of them, "It's the fancy swords, isn't it? We have those too you know. Impractical things really, though, blasters are better."
Rey let Dewlanna off her back as she joined Aribecca and Jiwarr, picking off various berries on the path they were treading.
"I actually still favour my staff to a lightsaber or blaster. It's what I grew up with. Besides, levitating ships and rocks have been pairing pretty well with it," she said, putting more cheer into her voice then she felt in that moment.
Maybe in another life she could have been a Mandalorian, maybe in another life the Jedi could have found her sooner, maybe in another life her parents had loved her enough to keep her.
Or maybe she had always been destined to live and die in the deserts of Jakku, alone, friendless, and her passing a matter of no importance to anyone.
She shook herself, focusing on her breathing, remembering what Master Jinn said to her as much as Obi-Wan, Focus on the moment, only the present requires your action.
She was Master Qui-Gon Jinn's Padawan on her first ever Jedi mission. The maybe's and could have been's were passed, and she was happy with her life as it was turning out. There was no other version of herself that was her.
The Mandalorians had gone oddly quiet looking between each other. She was beginning to believe that this Mandalorian language they seemed so protective of was really made of interrupting different types of silent, expressionless looks.
But even Rey could read body language.
"What?" she asked.
Chakraborty said, "Would you mind scouting again? I think we are getting close."
Rey nodded and leaped straight up, her feet hardly having time to let her weight touch the branch before she was moving on.
She heard Briggs swear in a long stream of Mandalorian.
And Rey smiled, even if a memory tugged on her of that language. Of the heartbroken tone of one Mandalorian arguing with another.
They had paid her to fix their ship, they had been travelling a long way and their ship had been old, very old, but in good repair. It hadn't been difficult to fix and she had been grateful they had asked her rather than one of the professional mechanics.
She remembered that incident well because only that morning someone had stolen her portions.
She had listened closely to the Mandalorians despite not being able to understand their meaning to distract from the cramping in her stomach.
Maybe Tolkien would translate the words for her.
oOo
They had indeed been close.
A family of Wookies came out to them, wary at first, but unlike the Mandalorians, became warm when discovering Rey was a Jedi.
Rey played the translator for them all.
The Wookies said that a Jedi -her Master, had come through a few weeks ago and stopped a Trandoshan ship from carrying off their Wookie captives.
Aribecca and Dewlanna's father had not made it, but their mother nearly strangled them in a hug on being reunited.
Neither of Jiwarr's parents had made it, but his relatives and the larger community welcomed him home with as much love as could be wished for.
In answer to the Mandalorians' question of their mysterious bounty, the Wookies gave them a report to the Northern border of an intruder that had stolen food but had snuck away before anyone could catch a solid look at him. They knew only that it had not been a Trandoshan.
They camped there for the night, and Chakraborty asked if she wanted to continue travelling with them.
She reached out through the bonds, Obi-Wan, where are you?
Busy, Padawan.
Direction? she asked.
North.
She pulled back, not wanting to distract him from whoever he was fighting.
She told Chakraborty she would like to go on with them, seeing as the further North they went, the more trouble there seemed to be.
She stayed out late scouting with the Wookies that night.
Rey felt Master Jinn's thoughts touch hers, Get some sleep, Padawan mine. You need it, and I have just received word that Rael, Quinlan, and Padawan Aayla were successful in their mission. We will stay at least another month, rest tonight.
Not really sure how Master Jinn knew she was beginning to push herself, she managed a few hours before dawn.
She had finished breakfast when she found Jiwarr sitting on his own, legs swinging from the balcony that had been worked artfully into the tree trunk.
Wookies lived in trees as it turned out, and the trees of Kashyyk were mighty enough to house them without much strain.
She could now feel the presence of the Mandalorians in the Force, their presences as familiar to her as Jiwarr's.
But though the Wookie children she had been travelling with had been hyperactive and adventure filled, their fear made worse by every Trandoshan party they met trying to hunt Wookies, sorrow now hung heavy on the young child's shoulders.
To lose both of one's parents...
She sat down beside him, "You know they loved you, and no matter how much time passes, they will always be your parents. That love is real, and no one can ever take that away from you."
He turned to her, his brown eyes sad, "~They took us from our homes, Jedi Rey.~"
She put her hand on his hairy back, "But they couldn't take your homes from you. Wookies are strong, Jiwarr, the whole galaxy knows that. The Trandorans know that, that's why they had to be dishonourable to even hope to capture you."
"~My parents died fighting.~"
"Your parents fought for you, Jiwarr, for your home, your future. As long as you live, your parents will never die."
She wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say, but it felt right, and Jiwarr hugged her.
It was worth the bruises.
When they parted for the last time, Rey unstrapped her staff from her back. She bowed to Jiwarr, holding the staff out to him.
He looked at her wide eyed.
"It's a little long for you now, but you'll grow into it."
Jiwarr took it, his deep brown eyes filled with emotion, "~I will protect it with my life, Jedi Rey.~"
But Rey shook her head, "No, Jiwarr, this is to protect your life, as it has protected mine. Live well, my young friend. May the Force be with you."
Clumsily the young Wookie bowed back, hugging her staff to him, as he repeated in his own speech, "May the Force be with you, Friend Rey."
She bowed again, and waved goodbye to the rest of the Wookies as she continued North with the Mandalorians.
She felt, for a lack of a better euphemism, unmaned without her staff, but she thought Jiwarr might need it more than she did. Besides Obi-Wan was probably going to be disappointed in how seldom she had used her lightsaber on this mission so far.
Chakraborty said to her as they walked on, "He will, you know, treasure that staff. Probably decorate it in feathers and beads as is Wookie custom, but treasure it nonetheless."
She didn't look at him, "I hope he does better than I did. I spent so much time looking back, I rarely thought of life off-" Jakku. "I never thought I could be more than a daughter."
He nodded, "If this was your intent for such a gift, then yes, I suppose it would lead him forward. You told him in word and action to fight, to fight with honour. That staff will pass down the generations with that mantle."
She blushed, "I didn't mean for all that, I just hoped- I just wanted to give him something other than sorrow to hold onto."
"You live with honour, child, and that is bigger than you will ever be."
Rey suppressed a smile, much more comfortable with the backhanded compliment than the idea of generations of Wookies from now cherishing her staff.
"Careful, Mando, you're starting to sound like a Jedi."
Chakraborty sighed, "You do know the Jedi is a brain washing cult, correct?"
"It's a religion, not a cult," she said with a grin. "Besides, they aren't brainwashing me, they're teaching me the art of the flippy."
"So they wish you to believe. And I think your acrobatics must be considered a form of torture on at least serval planets."
Rey laughed.
oOo
They travelled another week before the Mandalorians finally shared what they were hunting with her.
"He killed two of our warriors in their sleep and three of our children for sport," Briggs said. "The damn coward is hiding out on this planet because he heard of the chaos happening here. But he thought the Wookies would fight us off."
"I think we have been more slowed down from saving Wookies from those lizard goons than the Wookies themselves," Harris remarked. "I didn't realize Trandoshans were quite so suicidal."
"Greed outways common sense far too often in this galaxy," Tolkien said mournfully, staring up at a particularly tall tree.
Rey had been slicing Trandoshans in half lately now that she didn't have her staff or children around to traumatize. She didn't care what anyone said, lightsabers were not diplomatic weapons, they were killing weapons.
It bothered her that they had no weight. She felt the death of her foes in the Force, but her hands on her handle, the weapon she decapitated them with, she might as well have been slicing through butter.
And there was something almost -almost intimate about killing someone with a lightsaber as opposed to shooting them or dropping large objects on their heads. And with her staff, she had been in complete control of if she wanted to hurt someone or kill someone.
The saber was so dangerous that she felt that control stripped from her. Even if she meant to kill them, it felt different.
She asked, "Are you going to kill him or-"
"We are bringing him back to Mandalore," Harris said, "where he will either be tried and executed, or our government is going to have a revolt on its hands."
"Wait," Rey said, her attention snapping from a stone that bore a saber strike, likely Obi-Wan's as it wasn't one of hers. "You guys have a planet?"
They all looked at her.
Harris remarked, "I thought you've met Mandalorians before?"
"I have! No one mentioned there they were from to me. What's Mandalore like?"
"What do the Jedi teach you in that Temple?" Maas asked.
"I've only been a Padawan for two years, and it's a big galaxy. I haven't memorized it, much less heard all the stories of all its people."
"Two years?" Chakraborty asked, stopping to face her, "What do you mean two years? The Jedi found you on Tatooine when you were young, no?"
"They found me two years ago," Rey said, "Hense how I really do know Mandalorians, Hutts pay out the nose for everything."
"The Jedi don't take in Force sensitives that old."
"My Master convinced them otherwise."
"Explains why she's jerky with a lightsaber," Briggs remarked.
"I am not jerky," she said, walking past Chakraborty, "I just- well, I don't have the basics down yet."
"Baby Jedi," Briggs sniggered.
"So you are a foundling," Maas concluded.
"A what?" she asked.
"One of our found children," Tolkien rephrased.
"I'm not a child," Rey argued, "I'm a Jedi."
"A baby Jedi," Harris said, putting an arm around her shoulder.
She glared up at him, "I have been taking care of myself for as long as I can rightly remember, Mando, I haven't been a child for a very long time."
Maas came up to her other side, putting an arm over Harris's, "No, you're definitely a foundling."
Rey was almost grateful when she heard an angry Wookie call ahead of them.
oOo
After that day, two weeks passed, where they found Wookies, but no Wookies in distress. Every other settlement or camp they found greeted Rey with recognition as a Jedi, because they were following Obi-Wan's path North.
The Trandoshans were indeed retreating, somewhere even leaving the planet.
But most were going Eastward, hiding behind the places Master Jinn had already helped as they ran from Obi-Wan. Master Jinn had ordered Rey to come at the marauders from the SouthWest, effectively pinning the last group they knew of.
It seemed Rey had been more successful in killing every Trandoshan they crossed as she had the extra, nay, excessive, fire power of five Mandalorians with her.
When she told the Mandalorians she needed to part ways, the group offered to split to go with her, but she shook her head, "I thank you, but I am meeting with my Master and friend. Three Jedi will be enough."
"May you find the Way, Foundling," Chakraborty said.
"And may the Force be with you, Mandos," she said in turn before bowing to them.
And they bowed back.
oOo
Rey met up with the Mandalorians again before she reached Obi-Wan and Master Jinn, or more precisely, she met the Mandalorians' prey.
He was a runner, and she felt his path in the Force, felt the five Mandalorians chasing after him.
Their armour must be stifling on this planet, Rey thought as she hid behind a tree, saber hilt in hand.
She waited two minutes.
The man, with wild blue eyes, unkempt beard, and shaved head, went down like a sack of sand when Rey came around the trunk of the tree swinging.
Between her drawing on the Force, and him running full tilt, the blow was enough to knock him silly.
"Foundling," Chakrabocky said, his voice a bit breathy. He took off his helmet to give her a look, "I don't think that's how those were intended to be used."
"I built the extended hilt, it is not a design fault."
Harris came trotting up, he knelt by their prey. "Hey, look, the baby Jedi didn't kill him," he said cheerily as he rolled the man over to put a pair of manacles on him. He then proceeded to disarm and gag the man.
"You said he was to stand trial," Rey pointed out.
"Yeah," Briggs said, "But we wouldn't have been in trouble if a Jedi put him out of his sorry excuse of an existence."
Harris pulled the guy roughly to his feet, "Well, I guess we can finally get off this sweat pit."
Chakraborty shook his head, "No, we will help the Jedi. No one is going to say we owe you one."
"That isn't necessary," Rey told them, even as she felt both Obi-Wan and Master Jinn, open the bonds to tell her to hold position and be ready. They were two to five days out.
He jabbed a thumb back at the prey, "We didn't need help either, but you gave it. And though you might not think the Jedi need our help, in my experience, overkill is simply a matter of opinion."
oOo
Later that night when they made camp, all the Mandalorians were in a far better mood than Rey had ever known them to be. Their ship had been brought down to them by a droid.
So high were their spirits, in fact, that kept switching to Mandalorian speech, and Chakraborty gave the all clear for them to teach her a few choice phrases.
But when she asked technical questions, Tolkien's face lit up as he began to truly teach her some Mandalorian.
Rey was pretty sure they were trying to convert her from Jedi to Mando, a feeling which intensified when Maas had her try on his silver helmet.
When she took it off her hair was a mess and the firelight seemed overly bright, the helmets having decent night vision. She began to take out her buns to redo them, "The Jedi didn't make me change outfits," she quipped.
"You're telling us you always dressed in straps of cloth?" Harris asked.
"I don't understand you can wear that much armour all of the time," she said in turn, "especially on a planet like this."
"How do you survive on a snow planet?" Briggs countered.
Rey made a face.
"Little Foundling, are you missing your staff?" Maas said in a teasing tone, "Your poor saber is going to get damaged if you keep using it as a bludgeon."
She sighed, "I am just going to get better at using it."
Maas hummed, his grey eyes closing as if he was picturing something in his mind. She found the half smile on his wide lips a bit eerie if not disturbing.
Chakraborty was watching his man with a similar wariness.
"Foundling," Harris began, "What else do you know about Mandalorians?"
"I've learned more with you lot than I have had with any other dealings with Mandalorians."
"Any pressing questions?" Harris asked.
If they were seriously trying to convert her they were going to be disappointed. "Not reall- you know what? I think, well, I overheard a conversation between two Mandalorians I was hired by once. And you don't have to translate if it is sensitive information, but it stayed with me. Just the way the words were spoken… I just always wondered."
Tolkien sat forward, "Certainly, if you think you can recite it clearly enough."
Rey closed her eyes, and spoke the words slowly, haltingly, not at all as they had been said in her memory. But the graveness of the words remained clear in her mind, as if the Force itself held them for her.
When she opened her eyes the faces of the five Mandalorians were confused and sombre.
Rey shook her head, "I'm sorry, it was personal, wasn't it? You don't have to share-"
"No," Tolkien said, "It wasn't personal, Foundling, it was profoundly odd. You mispronounced a few words but your... I can't think of another translation or what else they could have meant. But it is a strange thing for any Mandalorian to say."
She waited, refusing to push more than she already had.
"Our world was shattered by the Empire," Tolkien translated, "Where our strength was once in our numbers. Now we live in the shadows and only come above ground one at a time."
Briggs looked down at her hands, "That does not make sense, none at all. But you couldn't have- I mean unless you are really, really good at playing dumb, you couldn't have crafted those sentences yourself."
Rey was fighting to control her own breath, the Empire.
Again her past life betrayed her. The words of the black masked giant filled her mind, You do not belong here, girl. This is not your time, they are not your Masters.
She breathed deeply, letting her fear go to the Force.
She wasn't going insane. The Force was real, she was here. Screw the timeline, she was here and she did belong. Master Jinn and Obi-Wan were her masters.
Screw that vision giant.
He wasn't real, she was.
The Mandalorians had been speaking between themselves when finally, Tolkien asked, "Jedi have visions, correct?"
"Yes," she said, really wishing she didn't.
"Could this be a vision perhaps, a warning of sorts of what is to come?" he asked.
She tilted her head, "It feels like a memory, but-" I may be crazy. "But, I suppose it is possible. Though, even if it is, I warn you, our Grandmaster says to be ever wary of Force gifted visions. They show possibilities, reflections of our fears, and the future is always in motion."
"So what's the point of having them?" Harris asked.
Rey shrugged, "Only the Force knows."
Harris narrowed his eyes at her, "You've been brainwashed, Foundling, we can save you, if you let us."
She laughed at his tone of voice as much as the tension breaking, "Honestly, is the history between the Mandalorians and the Jedi really that bad?"
Resounding silence.
She sighed, "I'll take that as a yes."
"How can you not know?" Briggs asked.
"Don't take it personally," Rey said, folding her legs up to her chest, "I thought the Jedi were a myth before I met my Master. Obi-Wan was quite upset when I didn't know there was a Temple on Coruscant."
"That damned palace," Harris cursed, "What kind of home is that for people who claim to give up all attachments, turning their backs on their kin?"
Rey rested her chin on her knees, "I don't like the Temple much, I don't like Coruscant much either, but they are my people, and I would follow them anywhere."
Another silence, and finally Maas said, "What if I told you we could make you a staff that was lightsaber resistant?"
She tilted her head, "What do you have in mind?"
"Do you trust us?"
Her lips turned up, "Maybe."
"I think I know how to upgrade your saber. I keep a forge on my ship-"
"Because he's a hopeless tinkerer," Harris shot in.
"He's one of our greatest weapons masters," Chakrabocky chastised.
Maas finished, "and it would only take me this night and a day."
"You want to redesign my lightsaber into a staff?" she asked.
"I hear mistrust in your voice, Foundling," Chakrabocky said with a smirk.
"You want to forge for me a Jedi weapon?" she asked Maas who put a hand to his plated chest.
"I'm a Mandalorian, weapons are a part of my religion."
AN: Thoughts, reactions, ideas, requests, or Wookie hugs? I have 10,000 words to go to meet my goal by Monday, so please if you enjoyed this at all drop me a comment?