I hope you enjoy my first fanfic! It is pretty long already so I'll start posting the finished chapters here over the following days until it catches up with the story. If you don't want to wait for it to catch up, you can find me on AO3 under the same username.
39 BBY, Sundari, capital city of Mandalore
A year had passed since the latest in a long list of Mandalorian Civil Wars had come to an end. The four-year-long conflict between the New Mandalorians and the martial traditionalists had been particularly devastating. Many clans had been decimated and some of the smaller ones had been entirely destroyed in a war that seemed like it would never end, leaving Clan Jansek with only two options: to keep fighting alongside the traditionalists and risk extinction, or to change sides and ally with the New Mandalorians in a bid to survive. They chose the latter.
The ancient Clan Jansek of House Kryze had been one of the most prestigious and well-known clans before the war; its lineage tracing back at least to the later years of the Taungs. Now it was reduced to less than fifty members, with about half a dozen of them living on Mandalore to represent the clan in Duchess Kryze's new government and the rest living in their ancestral home of Belsak. Yet despite all of these tragedies, hope still lived on in Clan Jansek as they welcomed their newest member, the first one since the war. The newborn laid on his mother's arms as she sat on her bed after giving birth to him, an exhausted but joyful smile appearing as she looked at the boy she held in her arms.
"He's beautiful," her husband Hamar whispered in her ear, trying not to wake up the baby. Both smiled at their son sleeping peacefully.
"He is. What should we name him?" she asked as she turned to face her husband.
"What about... 'Orar'?"
"No, it doesn't sound good." She turned back to her son as she rocked him in her arms.
"Then what about 'Karel'?"
"Karel." She repeated the name and after a moment she smiled again at her son. "Welcome to the Mandalorians, Karel."
Hamar put an arm around his wife's shoulders, hugging her from the side as he rested his head on top of hers. A few moments later an older man with grey hair and tan skin appeared at the room's entrance. His old but strong frame instilled respect and fear in equal measure to anyone. Unsurprising considering he was the leader and Count of Clan Jansek, and now a proud ba'buir.
"Am I interrupting something?" He looked at the happy couple with their newborn child.
"Not at all, buir, come on in," the younger man said as he motioned his father to take a closer look. He walked to stand on the opposite side of the bed facing the new parents, the look on his face one of pure joy.
"How are you feeling, Asha?" the older man asked the mother.
"Much better now," she replied calmly as she looked at her son sleeping peacefully.
"What's his name?" He leaned to see the baby was a boy.
"Toruk, meet Karel," she said smiling at her father-in-law before looking back at her son. "Karel, this is Toruk, your grandfather."
"Can I hold him?" Toruk asked, trying to sound calm but was unable to keep the excitement in his voice from escaping. Asha carefully passed him the baby wrapped in a white blanket. He examined his grandson's face closely before looking up to his son Hamar. "He has your mother's smile."
"And his mother's hair," Hamar replied. Toruk passed him the baby as he started to open his eyes and he turned to look at his wife. "His eyes are just like yours, too."
"Is there anything he took from you?" she joked and Toruk and Hamar laughed quietly, the latter returning his son to his mother's arms.
"He has my lips and my ears," he boasted as the baby woke up from his sleep and was about to cry, but he stayed quiet as the warmth of his mother's arms reassured him that he was safe.
A new Mandalorian had been born, and his birth had given hope for halcyon days to an entire clan ravaged by a war they never even wanted to be a part of. For better or for worse, his birth had sparked a new era for Clan Jansek.