I - The Climb
It was cold. So cold.
Even wrapped in rude, purpose-made clothes, Boba Fett shivered as the desert night wind raged about him.
His hands were numb, scaling the rough cliff that was first part of this last trial.
He will never forget how the Tusken tribe had saved him from his near-death from the Sarlacc and was honored to be welcomed into it.
The winds were so cold. The stone, even colder.
With gritted teeth and all the strength his tired body could gather, he continued his climb.
He had to endure.
Both of them had to.
Was it just a fortnight ago when the clan mother or the w'aea—the Tusken's anointed link to their gods—had explained to them the final step in their journey?
It seemed a lifetime ago…
A few feet above him, also scaling the near vertical cliff was a Tusken by the name of A'Met.
This too was his ordeal.
"M'piki k'rua ki te P'o te M'aaram" she had explained to them, You both must climb the Pillar of the Moons.
Such was the name of the holy mesa they had crossed the desert for and now had to scale—the tribe had gone ahead and were waiting from within the holy eminence.
That is, if they survived. So far, they had succeeded—fighting all sorts of beasts while literally tethered by the waist to each other by a rude metal chain.
"Ta'i, me w'kamat'u, ko mana ki te W'aea Kor'aha. Kata'I ka wak'e ia kia ha're t'nu koe" the clan mother had instructed them over the beat of drums and the scent of enchanted smoke. Together, prove your worth to the Desert Mother. Only then will she allow you to proceed.
Both of them had become as brothers during their great ordeal—Fett's becoming a member of the tribe and A'Met regaining his place among them.
As they continued to climb the merciless cliff, memories continued to flash through the Mandalorian's fevered mind.
They had just finished a hunt and the delicious smell of roasting meat and hubba gourd wafted across their campfire.
A'Met was a man of few words. But such things had reason.
"Ko t'ku r'penta t'ne ka m'aia e au nga mea k'ta e t'ka an'a. Me koe?" he had replied when Fett had asked him he had to work with an outsider to prove his place. This is my penance and I will do everything I must. And you?
By then Boba Fett had mastered the Tusken tongue, however rough it was.
"E t'ngata no a'hau e nga'na ana ki te w'ai uara'I" I'm just a simple man, trying to make his way.
It was good enough explanation for the stoic Tusken.
A'Met had admitted in shaming the tribe and recounted the day when he and his blood-sibling had gone on the ceremonial hunt for Tuskens who had come of age.
"Matak'u a'hau". Coward was I.
Even through the Tusken's head-wrappings, the Mandalorian could sense his utter shame.
"Om'a a'hau i tew ae hia'ha ana toku tuk'ana ki a'hau," the Tusken spoke somberly over the flame. I ran when my brother needed me.
The krayt dragon that he and his birth-brother were supposed to have slain had instead killed and eaten his sibling.
Only the intervention of the tribe allowed him to survive.
"Matak'u a'hau."
He had been branded craven and would have been put to death had he not managed to land a desperate killing stroke to the dragon.
Their ways dictated that only he and his brother could fight and thus kill their quarry—that the tribe had to intervene was a mortal sin to the very gods.
Standard years had passed since then, and A'Met had gone through much and more. Determined he was, no matter what it took.
Be it sun, sands, or blood—whatever offering was needed, whatever sacrifice was required, the disgraced warrior had prevailed.
He had even embraced Fett as student, still an outsider and in need of a teacher to the ways of the People, when the m'kap'a, the clan father and warchief, had decreed it so.
Whenever he would be asked why he persisted by those who either had come to begrudgingly respect him or had come to rub salt into old wounds was this simple reply: "K'nei te hua'rl." This is the way.
The way was hard.
But such as it was on this world of merciless sand, stone and sun.
To be a warrior.
To be a survivor.
That was what it meant to be Tusken. As a Mandalorian, Fett respected and took to this to heart.
He too had come to emulate the disgraced warrior's fight for honor.
Together they had forged a path to glory in blood, and had then been on the cusp of triumph.
Such as it was upon that fateful night when the last ordeal had been revealed as was decreed by the gods.
W'akaw'kanga. The Test.
The w'aea had already explained the first part of their journey—to cross the desert together and climb the sacred mesa, a herculean task in itself.
To fail that task was certain death to the survivor as well.
But that was not all.
"K'tahi an'ake ka ta'a." Only one shall prevail.
"Ta o'ra," Your life. She had motioned to Fett. "Ta o'ra r'nei" Or yours, turning to A'Met.
"Ki nar'o r'nei nga e r'a". Or both forfeit.
Harrowing words were they, and they rang as loud and cold as the relentless wind.
They were so close…A'Met had already managed to climb upon the outcrop that was their destination.
Suddenly, the human's numbed hands lost purchase—his grasp had chipped free a portion of the sandstone cliff.
Fett shouted in terror only for a bandaged hand to grab his flailing arm to save him from falling to certain death and dragging his fellow outcast with him.
"Ha're m'ai! E kor a'hau e t'ku te on'e ia t'ngo to tat'u koror'ia! A'Met roared at the breathless human. Come on! I will not let the sands take our glory!
That was all Fett needed—with a roar of his own, he scrambled upward as A'Met pulled.
The cheers of the waiting tribe welcomed him as he collapsed on the sandy ground.