AN: Short chapter but I posted the last few chapters only a few days apart. Thank you, Muffin!
Chapter 6 - Lost
Jango Fett knew he was dreaming.
He knew because these were the fields he had grown up in.
The ones that had burned after Tor Vizsla had murdered his parents and older sister.
The field smelled sweet and young, when the crops were soft to the touch and fragile to the elements.
"Hello there."
Jango jolted to his feet, across from him stood a younger boy.
His tunics were… Strange, homespun, contrasting oddly with his Beskar arm braces and shin protectors.
The boy looked down at himself, running his hands over the red painted armour.
Red for honouring a parent.
"I worried that these would not fit me anymore," the boy muttered to himself, rather than Jango.
"Why not get them reforged?"
The boy quirked his bow, his hair was golden-auburn, his eyes blue-grey, and his pale skin was freckled.
"Easier said than done," the Stewjoni boy said. "I have no gift for forging."
"Then your clan," Jango said.
The boy's gaze went distant, "I do not know if they survived. It has been many years."
Jango scoffed, "You're what, ten?"
"Twelve," the boy responded dryly.
Jango smirked, "Oh, big difference there. Bet your Buire wouldn't recognize you."
"I am older than I have lived."
"I'd believe it," Jango teased, setting aside the oddness of that statement if taken at face value. "You're Mando'a is archaic."
The boy glowered at him, "And you sound like you are from some back street gang who has never entered Mandalorian space before."
Jango smiled, liking the boy's fire. "You must be delusional. I'm from Concord Dawn."
"Stewjon," the boy responded, waving to himself. "Though I never lived there. My Joni'Buir didn't survive me."
Joni'Buir referred to a parent who was a surrogate for a child they had no intention of raising. Often Stewjoni as they were about the only people in Mandalorian space who had a cultural history of it. Even still, it was rare. Most people of Stewjoni bloodlines never left Stewjon. It was one reason why even centuries later, the Kryzes' single Stewjoni ancestor was still acknowledged.
Still Jango frowned, "I really didn't think Stewjoni did that anymore."
The boy shrugged, "Just because Stewjoni males can conceive doesn't mean it is always safe for them to do so."
Meaning his Joni'buir hadn't given him up exactly, but died birthing him.
"I'm sorry," Jango apologized, even though he was surprised that anyone on Stewjon didn't have proper medical equipment. "I lost my Buire too," he waved to the farm. "I lost them all."
"My condolences, —"
"Jango Fett," he supplied. "Who are you?"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Jango laughed, "Okay, you weren't kidding."
When legends talked. This was such a weird dream.
"What?" the boy asked, confused.
"You're the Lost Son of Mandalore."
"I am not lost."
"The Jetiiese stole you," Jango ammended.
Obi-Wan glared at him. "The Jetiiese are my aliit. They saved me."
"That's not how the story goes," Jango told him.
"I am not a story," Obi-Wan said. "I am a Jedi Padawan."
"You were the son of the Mand'alor."
The boy shook his head, "My buir was not the ruling Mand'alor when he sired me nor when he took me as his apprentice."
"That's not what the legends say, Lost Son."
Obi-Wan was quiet for a long moment before asking, "Are you lost too?"
"No, I was adopted."
"As was I, but I still don't know exactly where I am going or what the Ka'ra have planned for me."
"Jango!"
Jango's eyes snapped open, yanking him from his dream. He barely had time to see the ceiling before he fell onto the bed with a thud that took the breath out of him.
Jaster was above him in an instant, checking his vitals. "Get Mij," Jaster barked at Myles.
"I'm fine," Jango breathed. "Just a dream."
For once, not even a nightmare.
"You were floating," Jaster corrected, fear making him sound angry.
Mij was there, shoving Jaster aside so he could do a medical check.
"I'm fine," Jango insisted.
"He was floating," Jaster repeated.
Mij froze, before exchanging a look with Jaster over his shoulder.
Mij looked back at Jango, "You're Ka'ra touched?"
"No!" Jango spluttered, sitting up so fast that he almost gave Mij an unintended Keldabe kiss.
"Well, better to learn it now than when you were younger," Jaster said. "You're too old for the Jetiiese to abduct."
Jango scoffed, "Like I would let them."
The room was dimly lit but Jango could still see his buir's severe expression that he instinctually wilted beneath.
"The Jetiiese are dangerous, Jan'ika. Never underestimate them. The only way to best one is with fire and hand to hand combat. They spend their entire lives training with plasma swords that would be suicidal for near anyone else. Those swords deflect blaster fire better than beskar. And you'll never best them with a blade."
Mij eyed him, "Your advice for killing a Jetii is to get closer to the plasma beam?"
"They aren't the ones wearing armour resistant to the plasma beams," Jaster answered seriously.
Jango pictured the boy from his dream.
Mand'alor Tarre Vizsla's son.
As Jango was Mand'alor Jaster Mereel's son.
Two sons of Mandalore.
Are you lost too?
Jango hadn't thought so, but with the smell of the fields still fresh and sweet in his senses, he wondered if he knew what his future would be.
What the Ka'ra had planned for him.
oOo
Obi-Wan was pretty sure Depa was trying to squeeze the life from his body as she hugged him goodbye.
When she finally released him, she threatened, "You better keep in touch. I want to hear all about it."
Tahl laid a hand on his shoulder, "Unfortunately, Senior Padawan Depa, the Jedha monks do not allow their secrets to be shared over technology."
Depa gave the older woman a flat look, "Which means I'll have to wait."
"At least a year," Obi-Wan affirmed.
"Or three," Master Tahl jested, though, Obi-Wan wasn't fully sure she was joking when he saw Depa's expression.
Master Tahl put a hand on his shoulder, "The path forward is unknown."
"But the Ka'ra are with us," he said with a smile.
"Ka'ra?" she echoed.
"The closest Mando'a word equivalent to the Force, though most would never admit it."
oOo
Jango had been bored out of his mind since arriving on Kalevala, but after the night when he had woken floating in the air, he found his thoughts often elsewhere.
Was he really Ka'ra touched?
Had the boy in his dream really just been a dream?
"No one in my family is truly Stewjoni," Satine said as her sister ran off for her dance lessons.
Jango was highly amused by Bo-Katan's manoeuvring with her aliit.
The girl was going to 'dancing' lessons, but Myles was old friends with the dance teacher who was anything but a pacifist.
Bo was learning how to dance, and when she got older, dancing with knives would be a natural progression.
He was only half paying attention to Satine who had only this afternoon given up on convincing him on the merits of pacifism.
Because Jango couldn't yell at her or bop her over the head to shut her up, so he had stopped talking.
Bo had been a lot more friendly, and not a rabid pacifist.
"Seriously?" Satine asked. "I know you can talk."
He sighed, meeting the blonde's gaze. They were the same age, and she was beautiful.
Very karking beautiful.
But it was a cold beauty that Jango would never touch for fear of breaking. Or perhaps, for fear of cutting himself, like bare skin pulled across broken glass. For despite the stupidity of her politics, behind the extremism, was a mind of dangerous cleverness and ruthless ambition.
"Why aren't you Stewjoni?" he asked, proving that yes, he had been listening to her.
Unfortunately.
She huffed, but answered, "When Stewjoni leaves Stewjon, the genetic markers that make them more than human, are passed down through the male line. The daughter of a Stewjoni male is a Stewjoni, but not the next generation."
"So what was your last Stewjoni ancestor?"
"My great-great-grandfather," she answered. "All daughters. Because neither my father nor my brother has auburn hair, it's becoming more obvious."
Jango raised a brow, "So that's why you haven't kicked us out yet. You need outside help against Death Watch."
She scowled, "No, I was just pointing out why my sister might be the next heir, despite being the youngest."
"She's ten," Jango said flatly.
"Appearances matter," Satine said, though, by the tension in her shoulder, he guessed that she had no intention of stepping aside for her sister.
Maybe, she was even looking to get ahead of her brother.
Somehow, he mused. Taking all the culture away from a Mando, seemed to just make them more viscous.
"Appearance wouldn't matter," Jango argued. "If you wore armour. Appearance doesn't matter, nor your race."
"It matters if you are Stewjoni," she argued.
"The Stewjoni are only important because they feed the system and their fertility is a thing of envy."
She shook her head, "I am more than a Stewjoni descendant, just like you are more than your Taung ancestors."
"How do you know I have Taung blood? Jaster and I are not related by blood."
"You're the same age as me, aren't you?"
He nodded.
"Yet you are already wearing full beskar'gam. Most fifteen year old humans wouldn't be capable of that, at least not and carry themselves with the ease that you do."
She wasn't wrong, and despite himself, he found himself flattered.
Princess Satine Kryze was dangerous in ways Jango wasn't certain he could fully define.
And damn him if didn't find that attractive as hell.
Whatever came next, Jango's opinion that nothing good could come from the New Mandalorians was unshaken. If anything, he was more certain that this was all going to end in flames.
oOo
AN: Poor Jango and his teenage hormones. Thoughts, eels, or feedback, pretty please?