KEYnote: Jango is not Force sensitive enough to be picked as a Jedi, he isn't even nearly as sensitive as Jaster but I love the idea that you can learn it. His connection to Obi-Wan is what started his awareness.
CREDITS: Integration by Millberry_5 kudos. Tor isn't all bad but he is unhinged and tolerant of acts of violence that you should be uncomfortable with.
WARNING!: This is not an uplifting chapter and there is abuse. Canon typical violence but take care of yourself.
Chapter 18 - Clans
Master Fey had felt her Obi-Wan reach out to her across the galaxy.
She had given up hope even as she returned to the Coruscant Temple every century or so to make sure that his status pod was still supporting him.
Her heart was light with the knowledge that her vod'ika was awake and a part spinning of the galaxy.
Her heart was less bright at the knowledge that her vod'ika was in trouble.
She could only hope she reached him in time.
oOo
Jango did not know how to use the Ka'ra or the Force or whatever.
But when had that ever stopped him before?
He was a Fett, a farmer.
But he was also the Mand'alor's son.
Jan'ika there is nothing wrong with you. But you must never trust the Ka'ra, it is fickle, beyond comprehension, and can be used against you. But your heart, that you must follow, because that was Ka'ra given too, only it is your own.
Jango's buir was a historian, a philosopher, and a nerd.
But his words had more truth to them than Jango had the wisdom to understand.
Yet even someone with a head as thick as his own was ready to listen.
He looked at his shackles before closing his eyes, imagining the mark of the Jetiiese on his wrist.
There is a reason why people fear the Ka'ra touched.
Jango imagined the lightness of being in Obi-Wan's presence as if the gravity of the stars were no longer important, or as if they had shared their pull between them.
Breathing in and then out, his breath caught at the sound of metal clanging against the ground.
He opened his eyes and saw the mark of the Jetii Order velvet against his skin.
Jango looked up to meet the bright amber gaze of the for-now-slave who had seen the cuff's drop and knew exactly what that meant.
Meant for everyone here.
Do not trust the shadows cast by the Ka'ra, trust your Ka'ra given heart.
Jango's heart was currently filled with light.
Hope was not a lie.
oOo
Obi-Wan woke in the strangest prison cell he had ever seen.
There were no windows and the door was locked from the outside.
But his bed was soft, perhaps too soft. Even had real pillows and blankets, not hospital standards. No restraints.
It was the desk beside his Master's hospital bed that was his salvation and damnation.
Salvation because she was alive.
Alive and healing.
He would like to say he didn't know why she hadn't been placed in a bacta tank as he had been, but he was pretty certain it meant nothing good.
Tor walked in, the Dark side draping itself over his shoulders like a tamed pet.
Tor was Ka'ra touched, but not someone who actively manipulated the Force, yet he was someone who was actively listening.
Obi-Wan glimpsed a guarded hallway behind him.
"I trust you are feeling better?" Tor asked in Mando'a.
Obi-Wan answered in kind, "Where are the Young?"
"The majority have been formally adopted and are attending schools meant to help integrate them into our society."
"And the others?"
"In other training facilities for older verde'ika, as they have not allowed themselves to be adopted yet, like yourself."
"Tahl is my buir."
"She's your Master."
"Yes, teacher," he corrected. "She is a Master of herself. That title is an acknowledgement of that truth and expectation of the responsibility to others."
Obi-Wan winced as he fell into old habits of mediating between his two cultures.
"Fascinating," Tor said sardonically.
"What do you want?" Obi-Wan demanded, itching for a fight and knowing he couldn't. They could kill Tahl with a button.
Tor sat in a chair at the foot of Tahl's bed and waited for Obi-Wan to take the only remaining chair.
He didn't sit.
"I want to bring you home. I want you to rejoin us. You are wasted as a Jedi."
"I am a Jetii Mandalorian, nothing is wasted."
"You claim to be of our clan yet you have not sworn to me as your Mand'alor."
"I've been a bit busy," Obi-Wan said dryly.
Tor took off his helm. Obi-Wan took in the dark hair and deep burn scars, malice poured off him but luckily not directed at Obi-Wan. This was an oily man, madness licking at the corner of his dark eyes.
This man was dangerous in more ways than could be fathomed.
He smirked at Obi-Wan, "You're not busy now."
"I will not swear nothing to my captor."
"I think you mean saviour."
Obi-Wan snorted, "I am not a fool. I gave you hundreds of young warriors. Many may forever struggle with battle fatigue, but we both know if trained properly they will be among the fiercest commandos of their generation."
Tor smiled with too much teeth, "Tarre raised you well. But I have to wonder, where your armour is, Ad'alor? We found your beskar kade but not a scrap of your armour."
Obi-Wan grimaced, "That's because you're wearing it."
He felt the resonance of it as he sensed his kyber crystal. But oh the suffering the metal had seen.
Buir had commissioned fresh ore for him, further distancing him from the clans. But the beskar was far from new now.
"Do you want it bac–"
"No!" Obi-Wan exclaimed. "No. It's yours."
Obi-Wan had zero desire to touch it much less wear it. Now that it was just himself and Tahl to consider, the Force was far less uncertain about Tor Vizsla.
"We are blood," Tor said.
Obi-Wan would have laughed in another setting. "No, we are not. Not that it matters, except to the Stewjoni."
"My line is a direct descendant of Jor Vizsla, the eldest of Tarre's sons."
Obi-Wan shook his head, "Laurna was the oldest." She had been a kind old woman who loved stories and leading her bu'ade in song.
"Of his boys," Tor corrected.
"No, he wasn't. Jor led the campaign to earn Kiros their independence."
"Under the Mandalorian Empire."
"No. Kiros is an independent system."
"Jor wasn't the oldest male."
"What does gender matter?" Obi-Wan asked, honestly confused.
"It matters to the Stewjoni."
"I mean, sort of? Being duelsex is a genetic marker that can prove your relationship to them but why do they matter? Sure, they are envied for all being able to bear ade but–"
"They are the biggest exporter of crops in our system," Tor interrupted.
Obi-Wan blinked, "Um, no, not last time I checked. Why are you bringing up such irrelevant things?"
Tor's voice turned more condescending, "Your mother was Stewjoni and you were the youngest of Tarre Vizsla's blood."
"I am Stewjoni," Obi-Wan agreed. "But I am the only blood kin of Tarre Vizsla. He had fertility issues all his life and so he adopted. By the end of his life, he had dozens of ade and nearly a hundred bu'ade. Ours is not a small clan."
"Today it is small," Tor said, annoyed.
Obi-Wan cocked his head, "You did a DNA workup on me, didn't you? You already know that we aren't blood."
"What I know, Obi-Wan Kenobi, is that you are more Taung and Stewjoni than you are human. What I know is that your existence should be an impossibility."
Obi-Wan arched his brow, "And how's that?" His pulse quickened, wondering if this man had a part in his buir's murder.
"You said you were in a coma for decades. Who told you that?"
"No one told me, exactly," Obi-Wan answered truthfully. "They said that I had been in a coma for years."
"Cowards."
"Excuse me?"
"The Jetiiese, they were cowards for not telling you." Tor oozed with self-satisfaction. "Let me ask you this, is anyone in your Order old enough to remember you?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan said, even though he hadn't met any of them since waking up. "Jedi can live longer than most.
"A thousand years longer?" Tor asked.
"Excuse me?"
"You haven't been missing for decades, Kenobi, but a millennia."
"You're lying," Obi-Wan said, refusing to believe it even as his mind began connecting things that had been frustrating him for years.
Tor smiled at his growing distress, "You know I'm not."
"What do you want from me?" Obi-Wan demanded.
"I want to adopt you."
"I already have a buir," Obi-Wan said again.
"You don't belong with the Jetiiese, you belong with us."
Obi-Wan stood, "I am a Jedi-Mandalorian. I will never stop being either."
"But Tarre is dead, your aliit is dead. I want you to be a part of mine."
"And the Young?"
"The adiike have been adopted, the older of whom will attend a day school. Only you and Nield are at this compound."
"And if we resist?"
Tor smiled, "Like you said, your survival is the difference between the adiike integrating or getting themselves killed. If you care about them, then you will go through the training."
"What training? I'm already Manda'ad."
"You have much to learn. Your Mando'a is practically its own dialect. And you have a thousand years of history to catch up on."
"And you want me to support your claim as Mand'alor," Obi-Wan said drily.
Tor smirked, "I am Mand'alor. However, I need an heir, don't I?"
Obi-Wan hissed at him.
Tor's expression grew into a smile, "The Stewjoni are a remarkable race."
"Kark you," Obi-Wan snarled.
Tor rose, "I'll leave you to your revelations and your fading buir, General Kenobi."
Obi-Wan felt the hiss-snarled rip from his chest through his throat.
Tor laughed.
Obi-Wan had slept, had been seen by baar'ur if the smell of bacta on his skin was anything to go by, but his Master was a hostage, he still felt like wrapped bones, and he was at the end of his rope. He lunged at the supposed Mand'alor.
Tor's manner flipped in an instant.
Obi-Wan yelped as the much larger man snagged him by his wrist and proceeded to nearly dislocate his arm as he slammed him against the wall.
Obi-Wan saw black spots bloom across his vision.
Tor whispered in his ear, "The Jetiiese have polluted your mind. I'm only doing what any good buir would do. What is necessary to re-educate you so that you don't bring harm and dishonour to our clan."
"Get karked," Obi-Wan growled through clenched teeth.
Tor's grip tightened to the point he feared his hand being crushed.
Obi-Wan gasped, actually blacking out for a moment as he was slammed against the wall. And then, the worst happened.
Something Obi-Wan didn't know to fear. His wrists were cuffed and the Force.
The Ka'ra.
The stars themselves; vanished.
Strength left him as he slid down the wall, gasping for air as his mind tried to grasp at the void.
His instincts, his connection to the galaxy, his understanding of reality, of himself, were ripped from him more surely than if Tor had pried open his rib-caged to tear out his beating heart.
"Are you crying?" Tor mocked.
Obi-Wan remained unmoving on the floor, suddenly hoping that Tor would kill him.
Would release his being back to the stars.
Tor kicked him in the gut.
Obi-Wan curled around himself, resigning himself to the fact that Tor was the type of sadist whose priorities centred around what would bring the most pain.
The Darkside of the Force was an addiction to those who could capitalise on the high of having power over others.
His death wouldn't be much fun, would it?
Obi-Wan didn't care about his tears, didn't care that he was giving Tor exactly what he wanted as his mind bled.
Tor laughed, toeing his chin with his boot, exposing his neck. "Look at that, the taint is gone. You are a Vizsla."
Obi-Wan wanted to protest.
He was No one of No Clan, because he wasn't meant to take sides with a singular clan but to help bring peace to the system.
To listen to the Ka'ra, to help others not be prosecuted for being born with the light of the stars.
Tor made a disgusted noise, before mocking him, "Verde nayc'rona."
Warriors don't cry.
Obi-Wan remained on the tiles and didn't hold back his tears.
His father, his true father told him, Ca'nara at akaanir. Ca'nara at rona. Haat verd suvarir bintar cuyir linibar.
A time to fight.
A time to cry.
A true warrior knows both are necessary.
Obi-Wan didn't have the strength to move, breathing felt painful and manual as if his body was trying to shut down and if he lost focus his body would give up. He didn't know how long he lay there, but he knew the only thing that kept him breathing.
That kept him from losing his sanity.
Was listening to the sounds of life support, keeping her alive.
He wasn't alone, even without the Force, he wasn't alone, and neither was she.
oOo
Jango hissed as the mark on his wrist faded, his head swimming as the spice fogged his mind further.
But his instincts kept him going. All that training for years with Jaster kept him on his feet. His hind brain carrying him through the fight.
"Fett!" his bound-sister shouted. "The slavers targeted the hyperdrive!"
Jango cursed, throwing an arm out to catch himself against the wall.
They were free.
They had commandeered the spice freighter.
But that mattered very little if they were dead in the water, stuck between blackness between stars.
Jango refused to lose now.
Months.
Almost a year had passed and he knew his buir was looking for him.
Hope was not yet lost.
oOo
AN: For those of you who have read Integration, anything you would like to see with Obi-Wan? I am hoping to introduce some romantic elements back into this now that Obi-Wan is approaching his eighteenth birthday, so now is the time to hit me with requests.
