Archive of Our Own

For all its infinite size, for all that it holds, space can be very, very boring.

Jaster glares at the timer counting down overhead. This latest bounty had brought him a good distance away from his home sector, far enough into the vast Outer Rim that the micro-jumps needed to reach a workable lane had put enough strain on the hyperdrive to require giving it time to cool. So here he is, parked on an asteroid circling some nameless planet, stuck for six hours.

He has already wasted most of the time with menial tasks like cleaning and sorting his storage, then undoing said sorting, and rearranging it once more. He has stripped down his visor HUD to its parts and quit mid-way through wiring it back together. He has sat down and failed to edit the newest version of his codex - the words just don’t want to go. Now only fifteen minutes are left and he refuses to budge from the pilot’s chair lest he miss his jump window and have to recalculate.

Fourteen minutes.

Outside, beyond the transparisteel that keeps him safe from the deadly vacuum, vivid reds and oranges blot our half of the view. The planet, whatever its ID number is, is nothing but golden forests and red mesas all the way through. Canyons pattern it like veins, the largest visible even from so far above atmo. It’s a sharp contrast against the deep black of space and the blue shimmer of a vast nebula that spreads nearby, patterned with a network of glittering stars.

Beautiful, but stale as of five hours ago.

Jaster entertains himself by trying to count the tiny asteroids that orbit the planet like miniature moons as the path of the rock his ship rests on pulls him slowly toward the planet’s shadow.

Rol’eta cuir… rol’eta rayshe’a… rol’eta resol-

Jaster only sees it by sheer chance, as his eyes leave the sixty-sixth asteroid. A flash of light and a blip on his scanners. A ship crashes out of hyperspace dangerously late, almost in-atmo, and it leaves a trail of smoke among the sparse clouds as it vanishes over the curvature of the planet.

What was that?

He hurries to flip on the comms relays and scanners. There’s the trail end of a transmission, an encryption that, oddly, even his upgraded machines do not recognize. No mayday, nothing else follows.

Jaster reaches for the switch meant to redirect the power supply. Liftoff will add a couple of hours to the hyperdrive reset, but it will probably take just as long to investigate the crash. Luckily, he doesn’t quite make it to the trigger.

Three ships leap out of hyperspace nearly on top of him, probably directed there by the sector’s planetary beacons. They’re close enough that as Jaster looks out of the window he can tell the make, the weapons, and even the nose-art painted on the closest one. He knows the design. He knows it does not belong to anyone reputable.

Far from it, actually. Suppliers of a particular sort of cargo to the Hutt cartels - living cargo.

The turning of the asteroid soon hides the ships from view and his own dark vessel from them. Without the main power on, only whatever is cycling for the hyperdrive, he shouldn’t show on their scanners, though they sure show on his.

Three blots on the radar become five and sound begins to blubber through the receiver.

Like most of the galaxy, Jaster doesn’t speak tarc at any level approaching fluency. That’s probably the reason why the ships don’t even bother to isolate their transmissions as they coordinate, or they must think the sector abandoned, as it would be on any day but this one.

Yet Jaster likes to make sure to learn at least a couple words of importance in most languages, particularly in tongues used by the gangs he doesn’t wish to cross. Curses. Weapon names. Targets. Anything that would be of use when chasing a bounty, then a couple extra.

He hears one that this particular gang would only use for a single purpose.

Whoever was on the ship that had gone down on the planet, whatever they did to piss off the gang, there is a target onboard that the gang desires.

H’raga. Children.

Jaster doesn’t need to hear more than that before he mutes the chatter and starts flicking switches that would fire up the engines and direct his ship in a risky dive toward the planet. It would be a stain on his honor if he let such a thing stand.

Had he listened for just a moment more, maybe he would have heard another word he would have recognized loud and clear-

Jedi.

*****     *****

Feemor is running not for his life but for that of his charges.

With a wave of his hand, the branches in front of them press open enough to let the youngling through, him following close on the child’s heels before he sweeps his hand down and hears trees break and crumble under the pressure.

It’s not subtle, but it’s the only option he has now as he pushes the child ahead of him to run faster, over there, following the faint string of possibility that the Force shows him. Hope.

Far away, blasters discharge, though they are now too far to hit, Force-tricks having gained them just a little ground. The blaster burns on his ribs hurt and the only comfort Feemor has is that while the hunters were smart enough to aim to kill him, they weren’t stupid enough to aim for the kids.

The tiny togruta in his arms whimpers, but a nudge in the Force, an abstract order, keeps her quiet.

She wasn’t even supposed to be here.

Feemor’s Search - more a pick-up than a true Search - was supposed to involve only Tavi, the little grey zabrak that is slowing now, as exhaustion catches up and overtakes fear.

He’s almost four, though the Order had known about him nearly since his birth. His parents had planned to raise him themselves and Feemor had been the jedi Seeker assigned to help them if needed, to teach meditation and how to curtail a tantrum when your child can break not only toys, but people too.

It had almost been a surprise when they called the Temple to ask them to take the boy. Only almost a surprise, because the Outer Rim isn’t a kind place and there is only so much hiding one can do.

So he had gone to talk to the boy and his family, to help them decide if they truly wished to send their child to Coruscant. In the end, Feemor left with the youngling, ready to steer his ship into hyperspace and follow an uneventful path down a major hyperlane all the way to their destination.

Then the Force had screamed of things to come and he had turned his ship towards that new node of possibility, rushing into the unknown.

He hadn’t arrived in time to save her parents, but he had arrived at the right moment to cut the head off the bandit who had been aiming at the baby he now holds.

The fight had been brief and left him with a new crècheling, eight dead bodies at his feet, and a saber perforated by a very lucky blasterbolt. The village had demanded that he leave with their thanks for killing the monsters but also the so-called cursed child in tow. So he had gone back to his ship to introduce his first charge to his newest one.

He can only guess at her age - up to a year, but possibly as little as half that. She crawled around when he put her down, seeking mischief already as force users are wont to do, but she’s so very small that she might just be a fast learner. For all that Feemor’s trained in childcare, that doesn’t mean he is up to date on the growth stages of togruta.

Whichever the age is, it’s younger than what he had been prepared for when he left on this Search.

The stop at a port had been a risk, but not one he could bypass. He needed the supplies and he far more desperately needed the fuel that the detour had cost him.

In the market, all it took was a moment of distraction. Just a single slip of attention. Him - looking away for a moment to scan their surroundings, the baby - out in the galaxy for the first time, seeing something new and shiny. She had reached out and the item, just a particularly smooth pebble on the road, had flown into her hand.

Feemor could almost physically feel the target being carved into his back. He had taken his purchases, pulled Tavi away from the stall the boy had been inspecting, and left straight for the ship.

Maybe, he had hoped, he could take off fast enough to avoid being followed. They had enough supplies, maybe they could just head for the next port coreward.

His hopes were for naught.

One shot among many got through the shields as they departed atmo and was enough to damage the hyperdrive. Not so much as to keep him from jumping, but it had narrowed his escape options to only a few choices. In the direction he had been going, there had been only one.

So here he is now, running.

The forest ahead thins out and Feemor catches a glimpse of an endless plain cut through by massive cliffs. Two choices - stay up here where he can see far ahead, jump over those gaping earthen maws and hope their hunters can’t do so too, or go down into the labyrinth beneath.

He refuses to chance a sniper. Down into the dark it is.

“Tavi!” He barks and the boy stumbles to a stop. “Come here. Quick.”

When he scoops him up in his free arm, the boy clings to him desperately.

For the second time that day, Feemor jumps into the unknown.

Their ship must have crashed by now since Feemor had leapt from it still flying far above ground, trying - and failing - to lure the pirates into following the spiraling vessel. If the distress beacon hasn’t reached the jedi, then the disappearance of the ship’s signal will surely draw eyes.

Compared to the plummet from the ship, this one passes in the blink of an eye. The hit to his already drained reserves is just as heavy. He staggers before he takes off running once more.

The walls of the crevice box them in and blot out the sun. It’s cold here, but Feemor barely feels it. His feet kick up dusty red sand as he rounds corners, bypasses some turns and chooses others at the urging of nothing but instinct.

Here in this dark maze of jagged clay, sound echoes. The faint whir of jetpacks comes from somewhere far behind. The bloodied maw of stone seems to close tighter around him even as he turns into a wider passage when the Force urges him.

Yet as it always does, his luck runs out. The last turn down this passage brings him face to face with nothing but stone and a pitch-black crack that is far too narrow for him to squeeze through. He skids to a stop, nearly overbalances.

His arms ache, the deep burns aggravated by Tavi’s weight. He lets the boy down, feels his little hands dig into the tails of his coat and cling to his leg as the youngling burrows close and Feemor can only offer the meager confort of passing a hand between his horns while he looks around desperately for a solution.

He cannot head back. The path he had been following for this last stretch had been a single corridor with few viable diversions and surely his pursuers must have already reached the last good fork.

Above, the strip of light has grown from dim to dimmer, the angle of the sun barely letting anything fall into these depths. He could try to make the jump. It would be very risky, but if Tavi was on his back, maybe with one hand free he could chance to grab at something…

Stay, directs the Force.

You’re an idiot, thinks Feemor.

It’s too late to do anything about it anyway. No turning back now.

“Here. Be careful,” Feemor says. When he holds her out, Tavi takes the baby almost eagerly, holding her close despite the fact that her weight must be a strain on his small arms.

Feemor pushes them towards the crack in the canyon wall. If he reaches out with his mind, he can feel it spiraling out, far and further still, a child-sized maze that might just offer them a chance at escape. His distress signal should have gone out. If they last, if they can hide just a while, maybe help will come for them.

Tavi looks at him with wide eyes when Feemor doesn’t even try to follow them into the dark shelter, only throws off his pack and pushes it in too for Tavi to take.

“Go, hide. I’ll try to hold them back, okay? Don’t come out no matter what unless I call for you.” He orders. “Whatever you do next, trust the Force. Like I showed you, alright?”

The child is barely four, too small for such a responsibility, too small for the weight of the nameless toddler in his arms and the worn bag of supplies that might not be enough to guarantee survival.

But the galaxy is not kind to small things and neither is it kind to the Jedi. Feemor can only hope that it won’t choose to be cruel.

“Please,” He says, when the boy doesn’t move, only stares up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Leaving them feels like a betrayal. Such is the weight of duty. “Go.”

Danger draws ever nearer. It stains the air now, cloying, choking. They don’t have long left at all.

Trust, says the Force, stand your ground.

The children vanish into the dark. Feemor turns away from them. He reloads the gas cartridge of his holdout blaster, clutches a vibroblade in his offhand, readies himself for one last stand.

He needs not survive this. He only needs to last.

*****     *****

Jaster finds himself creeping down a steadily narrowing canyon crevice and curses his decision to take his jetpack with him. There’s a reason why he tends to leave the clunky thing behind and top of the list is the fact that it always gets in the way. However, needs must, and with one last swear muttered under his breath, he manages to get himself unstuck.

It really is quite lucky that the only thing alive on this planet is the vast variety of vegetation and not much else. It makes it easy for the scanners on his ship to pick up his quarry and their last location is still blinking on the display of his vambrace. He doesn’t have his buy’ce to show him the way - with the HUD out of commission, he was forced to leave his helmet behind lest it becomes a hindrance.

Not that he quite needs it anymore, as he can now hear the sounds of people moving, calling for one another. The thugs aren’t even trying to be sneaky. Either they’re sure that they'll overpower their quarry or they outnumber them. Maybe both.

As the passage Jaster’s forcing himself through opens up, he finds himself a good distance above the ground, just in time to watch as the collection of tarc, humans, and whiphids along with a lone trandoshan all turn a corner and come face-to-face with… nothing. The ground is disturbed. Clearly, someone had run in here recently, but whoever it was, they’re not there anymore.

Jaster only has time to wonder whether whatever species they were chasing were efficient burrowers when a flash of red light illuminates the rock around them and the leader of the thugs collapses, head partly gone.

The rest of the gang yell, scramble, and open fire, aiming up.

Jaster dives out of the way only to realize they’re spraying down the canyon wall opposite of him and from the narrow view that he has he can only spot a humanoid shape falling before the cadence of a new blaster joins the fight.

That’s as good of an invitation as any.

He drops down too, a flare of his jetpack’s thrusters slowing his fall at the last possible moment.

He lands on one of the whiphids, one that had been aiming at the back of the lone man decimating the ranks. The thug crumples under the weight of Jaster and his beskar’gam. It cushions the impact enough that Jaster bounces back easily and, just to make sure, puts a bolt through his target’s skull.

He looks up only to come face-to-face with a man - human, at first glance, with short-cropped blonde hair and sharp square features. He's a little taller than Jaster and with shoulders that speak of a fighter who wields a weapon requiring more arm strength than raising a blaster. Whatever weapon he must favor, currently he only has a vibroblade and holdout blaster in hand, as well as a fire in his eyes that says that this lack of weaponry won’t stop him.

“Truce?” Jaster suggests. “I’m no friend of theirs.”

The man nods before he dodges - how the kriff? - a blaster bolt and nails the combatant between the eyes with return-fire.

It’s a bit of a blur from that point on. The thugs are good - Jaster avoids some grievous injuries only thanks to his armor, though it still leaves him with scrapes and burns in spots beskar didn’t cover. His arm aches from where one of the whiphids had bodily thrown him against the wall.

One last blaster shot rings out before silence reigns in the canyon, interrupted only by Jaster’s panting breaths and his companion’s sharp wheezing. That doesn’t quite sound healthy. It still takes Jaster a moment to turn and look at the man.

There is a bleeding gash over his brow and a burn along the bottom of his jaw. The clothing he wears is too dark for Jaster to assess the damage comprehensively in this gloom, but with the way he holds his arm, some lucky strike must have gotten him in the ribs, or maybe high up in his gut.

“Why?” The man manages to ask between breaths.

“I am no friend of slavers. They were after children,” Jaster replies. But there are no children here, “Do you know where- are they safe?”

The stranger just watches him for a moment before he pushes away from the wall, leaving a darker stain behind, red on red. He stumbles towards the gap in the wall Jaster hadn’t noticed in the gloom, calls out something that might be a name or a word in a language Jaster doesn’t know.

Silence, then frantic scrapping of rock as a small figure stumbles out. The man hits the ground hard as he doesn’t as much kneel down to hug the child as he just lets his legs give out. No, not just a child - two. The sobbing little zabrak is holding an adiik close, a tiny togruta with pale blue skin and montrals that barely have tiny spots of brown.

The man pushes them gently away, after a moment.

“We should go,” Jaster warns. 

The man sighs, “Of course, let me just-”

He pushes himself to his feet.

“Help them,” The man says, words slowing, and Jaster barely has time to step forward before his eyes roll back and the blonde falls into his arms, unconscious.

*****     *****

It’s a pleasant surprise to wake up.

It takes Feemor a moment to remember why, exactly, that is the case. He just lays there, mind still foggy with the sense of having slept for far too long, before a sharp scuff catches his attention and snaps everything into focus.

He jolts upwards, something that he realizes is a mistake when sharp pain blooms across at least three points on his torso, liquid fire spreading over his ribs. He ignores it as he turns toward the source of the noise, taking in his surroundings in flashes of awareness.

Metal walls. Dim lights. Soft cloth beneath him and falling from on top of him, the pull of bandages. The shudder of a ship. There, by the door, a person.

Feemor can feel his metaphorical hackles rise at the sight of the man. No, not the man himself, but what he's wearing, and what such attire says about him.

The job of a Seeker is a delicate one. Negotiator, educator, wayfinder, defender. He needs to know the galaxy, all the ins and outs of the people he's likely to encounter, from the popular to the obscure.

This outfit is something padawans - stars, even some Initiates - would recognize, probably from scary stories told to them by older children.

The man himself is somewhat plain. A face one might almost describe as handsome - barely tanned skin covered with small scars from past cuts, short-cropped black hair, expressive brows over deep-set eyes in a chissled face a bit offset by a nose that's been brutally broken at least twice over. The story it tells matches his armor, greyish black and dark red, which could almost be intimidating if it wasn't scuffed and scraped up, parts of the kit currently missing.

Feemor distinctly remembers there being vambraces and some knee covers too, back on the planet.

It seems he had been too out of it during the fight to notice the most important detail, a little hexagonal piece right in the middle of the chest, like a heart.

Mandalorian.

The closest that a jedi has to a generational enemy smiles at Feemor, raising his hands as if in surrender before lowering them slowly. One is occupied with a cup. 

“Wayii! Didn’t expect you to be awake yet.”

He’s keeping his tone low, barely above a whisper. Why?

A twitch at his side draws Feemor’s attention away. He trusts the Force to warn him if everything goes wrong; this is too important for him to ignore it.

The source of the movement - Tavi lying between Feemor and the wall, his body curled protectively around the little togruta who clutches onto his shirtsleeve even in her sleep. Someone has thrown a second blanket over them both, since they are pinning down the one that’s now pooling on Feemor’s legs.

He gently tugs the sheet more securely around Tavi and the baby. They don’t even twitch, the Force around them singing of deep sleep. Unharmed, thank the stars, just exhausted.

He turns back to the mandalorian. 

"They were very insistent on staying with you,” the mando says cheerfully and raises his free hand, as if to wave. No, not wave - show. There's a set of tiny red marks forming a half-circle on his palm. Feemor guesses he could find a matching set on the back of the hand as well.

"I apologize, it has been a trying week for the children." He says even if it’s half a lie. While he doesn't condone biting strangers, it isn't exactly the worst instinct to have in a situation such as theirs.

And it has been a trying week - for the children and for him too.

"Oh, it's fine.” The man waves it off. “Shows they've got mandokar."

He has no clue what that means, but it sounds positive, at least. The mandalorian is also radiating a genuine sort of delight, so he must hold no grudges about Tavi trying to rip a chunk off his hand.

“It was quite a fight back there,” the mandalorian continues. “What’d you do to get on their radar?”

“Existed, I think.” Feemor shoots back dryly. “I was certainly lucky you were there.”

The mandalorian catches the unsaid question.

“Jump-stop.” He replies. “I caught their comms.”

“And you decided to help, just like that?” It might not be very jedi of him to judge, but he knows the most popular profession for mandalorians outside their home sector - can feel the echoes of it from somewhere in the ship, blood and fear and anger. It wouldn’t be inconceivable for him to have a bounty on his head. 

“They mentioned that they were hunting children,” the mandalorian declares, suddenly serious, “To turn away would make me dar’manda- uh- not mandalorian? Dishonorable? No, that’s not the word in basic, um-”

And just like that, the seriousness is gone as he smiles sheepishly.

“An oathbreaker?” Feemor suggests.

“That’s the one!”

Both of them glance towards Tavi at the slightly too loud proclamation. The zabrak only grumbles something and quiets as Feemor rubs a spot between the nubs of his developing horns.

“Whichever case - I am in your debt.” It is an oath not given lightly by jedi, but if this mandalorian holds honor in high regard, Feemor can dance to that tune.

“There is no debt.” He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be right.”

Nevermind, then. Okay, he knows who he’s with, if only barely, now - where?

“In any case - we’re in hyperspace, I hope,” he doesn’t quite ask. He can feel the faint tremble in the air, nearly negligible, that speaks of a working hyperdrive. Even if he didn’t, the Force is quiet beyond the confines of the ship, blurred, like nothing exists besides them in this very moment.

He receives a nod in reply. “We should reach the Corellian Run by the end of the day.”

It takes Feemor a moment to remember his star maps. He had barely glanced at them while making that last jump.

“The Laanic Spice Run would have been closer,” he says at last. Unmapped jumps burnt fuel faster, with stabilizers doing work that the hyperspace beacons often managed. Depending on their heading, the difference would not be negligible. The reason for choosing to make such a jump wouldn’t be either.

“It’s also neutral turf,” the mando explains. He leans his hip against the small medbay table, depositing the cup he had been holding on top in favor of loosely crossing his arms. “The Ju’Run Cartel don’t mess with the Pykes. If we merge into the Run next to the sectors they occupy, you and your ade should be safe.”

Ade? He probably means the younglings. Feemor feels one of Tavi’s horns dig painfully into his hip as the boy curls closer to his warmth, all but wrapping himself in the blanket. The baby in his arms snuffles and begins to purr.

“Where do you plan to stop?” Feemor inquires. He has half a dozen accounts designated for Seekers that he can siphon funds from to get them a ride back to Coruscant or, hells, even get a whole new ship if need be. He can’t do that if he will be dropped into the middle of nowhere, at which point he needs to plan to lay low until some knight can divert to their location.

On the outer rim, even good morals tend to leave when one considers the price tag on a jedi’s head. For three of them? That price goes from tempting to life-changing.

“Wherever you were going.”

That… was not what Feemor expected. He could spit out a name of a nearby planet that is safe enough, but, “What are you getting out of this?”

The mandalorian looks genuinely surprised by the question, or at least that’s what Feemor feels flash through the Force along with a simmering glimmer of indignation.

Feemor’s fingers itch to pull something heavy into his hand, just in case.

“My honor as mando’ad.” He replies with conviction that is rare to see. “As I said - if I did anything to let your ade and you come to harm-”

Feemor doesn’t miss how the children are named first, the clear priority. It’s almost a relief.

“- even by turning a blind eye, it would be against what I want my creed to stand for. I want to make sure you are safe, nothing more. Haat, ijaat, haa'it.”

Feemor knows an oath when he hears one, even without the Force to echo the heaviness of those words, like the stars themselves press in to watch, for just for a moment.

Oaths can mean little in the Outer Rim and this is a mandalorian that stands before him, someone whose history intersects with Feemor’s only in old ash and ancient bloodshed. And yet, he considers it.

Trust , says the Force, and Feemor has made stupider decisions than this on less.

He raises his arm. The cup that the mando still has by his side flits across the room and slaps into Feemor’s waiting hand without spilling a single drop. Without looking away from the man, Feemor brings it to his lips, takes a sip.

He hadn’t realized how parched he was until this moment. He brushes it off.

“Still up for having us?” He asks. His fingers curl around the metal like he isn’t planning to introduce it to his savior’s skull if he takes as much as a single threatening step forward.

The mandalorian looks up from where he had been staring at Feemor’s hands. They lock eyes for a moment and though Feemor follows no faith that would lead him to pray, he still hopes for the impossible. Then-

“I’ll set a course for Coruscant.” 

*****     *****

Jaster tries his best to control his excitement. He has a jetii on his ship! An actual jetii! He feels a little bad about being so fascinated with the man who, by all accounts, is entirely a stranger, but Jaster, like many people in the galaxy, has never met a jetii before.

Oh sure, Mandalore has quite a history with their order and Jaster has been to Coruscanta once or twice, if never close to the Temple - he knows jetii are not spacer tales like some treat them on the outer rim. Yet finding any reliable information is hard. The holonet is equal parts true reports and rumor when it comes to the order, so much so that it’s hard to discern fact from fiction, even for a critical mind. Jaster has done his research. Even mando’ade are not exempt from thinking that laser swords and magic powers are actually quite impressive.

So maybe he’s a little excited to find out, just a bit, which stories are true and which are not.

For one - it’s clear that even if he was the sort of traditionalist who believed the less-than-flattering tales about jetii, he would have had to throw all those preconceptions straight out of the airlock after spending more than five minutes in the presence of the man and the ade in his care.

Soulless child thieves, what nonsense. Oh, the jetii - who has now introduced himself as Seeker-knight Feemor - sure has an impressive sabacc face, though he barely keeps it on for a minute or two. Any time one of the ade demand his attention, he smiles, soft and so very warm. Every poke and prod he deals with with endless patience, not even flinching when the older ad burrows close into his side where Jaster knows the freshly-healed wounds would still be painfully tender. He calmly untangles the hands of the adiik when she pulls at his hair, tells her why she shouldn’t do it with gentle words that rumble low like the purr of an engaging hyperdrive, all the better for her still underdeveloped montrals to hear. When he teaches the boy odd games that have small toys floating through the air or cards stacking into impossible towers, the smallest achievement is rewarded with praise and the worst of failures - such as the man being hit in the face with a wooden block with enough force to bruise - are gently corrected.

The ade turn towards him like gripvines to the sun and cling equally as much. That kind of loyalty cannot be faked.

Jaster would know - he has gotten bit over it. That tiny zabrak, Tavi, sure has sharp teeth and a protective streak a parsec wide that has reared its head with a vengeance once he calmed down from the panic with the cartel. Even now he glares at Jaster anytime he comes within arms reach of the jetii. It’s unfairly adorable.

Every single time this happens, the jetii gives Jaster a quick glance and a smile like he knows what Jaster is thinking.

Does the jetii know what he’s thinking? Can the jetii really read minds or is that one of the fake rumors? Maybe only some of them can? Can the ade?

“You can ask.”

Jaster startles so badly that he nearly drops the vambrace whose wiring he was trying to clear of the grit that somehow always manages to get in. Kriffing sand. As it is, he fumbles the little scraper and sends it skittering across the floor.

Or, he would have, had the tool not stopped mid-air and then floated up for him to take.

“Thanks,” Jaster manages while his brain reboots, “And, um, what do you mean?”

The jetii smiles briefly. He is currently on the little couch next to the holotable, holding the adiik while she entertains herself with rubbing a hand against his stubble. “You have questions, You can ask.”

Oh, oh no. “Could you hear them?”

“Not as such, but your curiosity was quite loud.” 

“Oh.” Jaster blinks. Well, since the man offered… “You said it was…loud? But you can't hear me?”

Oh wow, that sounds stupider out loud than when he thought it. Good going, Mereel. Making the ka’ra proud, here.

“It’s like hearing you talk to yourself on the other end of a large room - hard to tell anything beyond tone and easy to ignore for the sake of propriety, until you start yelling.” The jetii pauses briefly to gently redirect the tiny hand once again reaching for his hair. “Telling anything apart becomes harder the more people there are - like filling the room with a talking crowd.”

“Fascinating.” It slips out before he can stop himself and he expects the jetii to disapprove but if anything, the man only relaxes further. Does that mean he can ask something else?

“We learn to teach and teach to learn,” the jetii tells him. “Ask.”

Well, you don’t have to tell him twice. Thrice. Whatever. He puts his vambrace down and picks up a datapad.

“So, is it just a dar’jetii thing to shoot lightning? It was mentioned in this old text from Canderous Ordo-”

*****     *****

Of all the things Feemor had expected a mandalorian bounty hunter to be, a hobbyist historian was definitely not in the cards.

Oh, the man does live up to some of the stereotypes Feemor has heard on his travels. For one, he has yet to entirely ditch his armor, going around with at least the vambraces on. They’ve also had a surprisingly in-depth discussion that lasted almost a whole hour about how various weapons in his extensive arsenal measure up to a lightsaber. Honor is a word that comes up often when JAster speaks and the pride he feels about his bounty hunting work shines bright whenever the topic comes up.

Yet there’s so much more. Jaster loves his culture with a passion and delights in sharing small bits of it, in particular the blisteringly spicy food, though the children are giving much milder rations for obvious reasons. He has numerous folk tales practically memorized, always ready with a new story whenever Tavi gets bored enough to demand one although the boy insists on maintaining the appearance of dislike towards the man. He goes as far as to pull up sources to back up his argument when, by some circuitous route, he and Feemor end up discussing Revan’s little jaunt from Light to Dark to Light again until Tavi starts complaining about them talking about things he cannot understand.

That had been as sure a sign as any to herd the boy off to take a nap before he got cranky enough to throw a tantrum. Though one of the two tiny crew rooms has been given up to the kids - Tavi on the bunk and the baby in a cobbled-together crib, just a large crate with blankets turned into a mattress - Tavi insists on sticking by Feemor during the day.

The zabrak boy is currently curled up on the couch in the living space in a bundle of blankets, because the mandalorian also proved himself both a mother nuna-hen and someone with a great distaste for the cold of hyperspace, which he automatically assumes everyone else must share.

Tavi certainly does, which makes the offering of extra blankets and stories the only things the boy will not throw suspicious looks at the man about.

As for the other child-

“Ad’ika, not again.” That chiding is a common refrain to be heard now.

Trying to contain the tiny togruta has proven to be a hopeless endeavor. She insists on moving whenever she’s awake and it seems that she has once again escaped Jaster’s newest attempt to keep her in place.

Whenever Feemor insists that he would sense if she was about to get into trouble, Jaster looks at him like he’s an idiot. Apparently he can trust in the abilities of the Force in most things, but keeping an eye on children isn’t one of them.

Thus the fruitless endeavor to confine the toddler to a makeshift playpen that she keeps breaking out of. Maybe Feemor should finally tell the man that the little one is simply using the Force to push open a gap, if clumsily and very slowly. 

No, that would ruin the fun.

“Don’t look so smug,” the mandalorian gripes as he walks past, the togruta now held in his arms. She is very happy about her new spot. Feemor thinks she likes feeling tall.

“All is as the Force wills it,” he drawls, glancing up at the man from his datapad. Jaster had lent him one; it’s mostly filled with historical documents along with a few rather cheesy holonovellas and a draft of some kind of codex the mandalorian had admitted to be working on.

Feemor has instantly gotten derailed with digging through the man’s sources. No sense in criticizing something he didn’t understand to the best of his ability and learning a new language is as good of a pastime as any, at least until they had a pause between jumps and he could properly access the holonet.

“That’s jetii for ‘I told you so’, isn’t it?” Jaster narrows his eyes at him, though whatever effect the glare was meant to achieve fails entirely as the baby decides to grab his nose and he’s forced to turn away. 

“That, or ‘I don’t kriffing know what’s going on either’, depends on the context,” Feemor shrugs.

“No swearing in front of ad’ike,” Jaster scolds.

“She can’t even hear me right now.”

Jaster casts him a chiding look and lifts the baby in front of himself to look into her eyes, “Good. You shouldn’t listen to the rude jetii, uh-”

A pause. Jaster looks past the baby at Feemor.

“Um, what is her name?”

Only took him three days to ask. “Good question.”

For a moment, they just look at one another. The baby reaches for Jaster’s nose again.

“You,” Jaster says slowly as he fights off grabby hands, “don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” Feemor agrees. The village had not offered a name when he had asked and he had left too fast to investigate anything beyond whether she had any living relatives he could contact about taking her in. He had found none.

“You didn’t name her?”

“I thought I’d leave the task to the crèchemasters. You don’t exactly need a name when you call someone by the shape of their being in the Force.” Feemor tries to explain. 

He’s also aware he is terrible at naming anything or anyone. Probably a leftover from his own home planet, where there were maybe five names at most to span the entire population, more titles than anything, and last names are nonexistent. Feemor’s own name identifies him as a strong force-user. Like slapping the label ‘jedi’ on someone and calling it a day.

Jaster frowns down at the baby, mind clearly thinking of something with how his presence coils, though Feemor can’t quite tell what.

An idea comes to mind. “You could name her.”

Jaster startles. “What?”

“Whoever she was before, it has been lost with her family. You’ve known her only three days less than I have and you also, for all intents and purposes, saved her life. If anyone besides me has the right to name her, it would be you.” Feemor shrugs. “It’s certainly better than just calling her ‘the child’ all the time.”

Jaster stares at him mutely, the Force around him stained with a sort of stunned surprise. He opens his mouth, closes it, then his presence clouds over with the focus of deep thought.

Feemor silently watches the man come to a decision.

"Nau, or Nauad, maybe. Would sure fit you, right?" Jaster looks down at the togruta like the baby would answer.

She mimics his inquisitive glare and then pats him on the cheek with the intense focus only children somehow manage. The mandalorian smiles like he has just been given a gift on his nameday.

"Does it mean something?"

"Light, or child of light." Jaster's smile turns sheepish. "Might be a bit stereotypical guess for a jetii, but-"

"Oh no, I think it will fit her quite well," Feemor assures him.

If only he could see the little light that, in the first days of comfort she must have experienced in weeks, has been shining brighter than Feemor had ever seen her.

Child of Light indeed.

“You’re Nau’ika now,” Jaster tells the toddler, booping her on the nose with a finger. She sneezes and digs her little hands into his chin, tiny sharp claws and all, making him yelp.

Feemor watches affection shine bright in the force and yes, this is definitely not what he had expected of the mandalorian.

It’s nice to be wrong sometimes.

*****     *****

As it has surprisingly become their daily routine, Jaster and Feemor tend to spend the late hours of the day together in the small kitchen, careful not to disturb the ade sleeping in the crew room down the hall.

Jaster uses it as a chance to catch up on projects he dares not work on around precocious children. In this case, it’s cleaning a vintage (or properly ancient, if one was to be less kind) slugthrower he had found on his travels and had dumped into the ‘I’ll fix it one of these days’ box in his quarters.

It’s boring work, trying to carefully undo all the screws and rivets that have long rusted over. It means meticulously removing all the gunk and rust and hoping that the screws don’t just break on him when he turns them too hard.

When he’s bored and has quiet company, he rambles. It’s a bad habit of his, probably a rather annoying one, but it looks like the jetii doesn’t mind simply ignoring him. That meditation thing he does probably turns out to be quite useful practice, doesn’t it?

“-but then there’s those who think that he headed for Malachor V...”

“Why?” The jetii interrupts, head not even coming up from where he’s carefully stitching closed a hem of his coat. Jaster had not been aware of how many hidden pockets could be hidden in fabric until Feemor drew him a diagram of all the hidden tools one could sneak into a jetti robe. “You said that there are complete records of him traveling to Rekkiad.”

“Right! Oh. Wait." Jaster finds himself stumped. He is used to being ignored when he starts to ramble. It’s ancient history. People don’t generally find it interesting. "You were actually listening?” 

“You enjoy the topic,” Feemor says with an absentminded shrug, like just the fact that Jaster is interested in the topic is enough. The needle still dances in and out of cloth under his guidance. He still doesn't look up. “Of course I was listening.”

Oh. That’s… huh. He isn’t sure why his face suddenly feels so warm or why he wants to smile. He focuses back on his slugthrower instead.

“So, the mask of the mand’alor?” The jetii prods after a moment.

“Right! Uh- Anyway, if you think about which planets were in his path-”

So he rambles about weird conspiracies and the jetii listens without seeming so. When he pauses an hour later to find a cup of tea by his elbow and the jetii nodding off over a datapad displaying the same old text Jaster had just been talking about, he wishes that this didn’t have to end quite so soon.

He shakes his head, trying to get rid of the silly thought.

It stays anyway.

*****     *****

Feemor rubs at his brow, where a headache has begun to form.

Oh, Tavi and Nauad can be wonderful when they feel like it. Increased awareness of their moods and needs through the Force certainly helps keep them happy, but children can only deal with cabin fever for so long.

Today was one of those boiling points and Feemor has never been happier to see the two asleep for the night because at least now he can plant his face on the cold tabletop and hope that the ringing sound of annoyed-overwhelmed-confused-too much-too little that has been coming from the kids will finally fade.

“Not a good day?” Jaster asks conversationally, like he hadn’t been dealing with the same hurricane too.

“You only need to deal with one kind of screaming.”

“That projection thing?” 

It’s almost adorable, sometimes, the way that the mandalorian tries to put Feemor’s explanations of the Force into the simplest of words. He’s trying to understand, though, instead of just writing it off as weird or other, and that’s more than most do. The curiosity is refreshing in its novelty.

Speaking of projection - he has to shore up his shields when Jaster comes to stand nearby, because the mandalorian is as exhausted and strung out as Feemor feels.

Something must show through, despite Feemor priding himself on his self-control.

“Am I doing it too?” Jaster asks. “I know you said something about natural shields…”

“Yes,” Feemor doesn’t sugar-coat it. “Your natural defenses are impressive, but they aren’t shielding per se. Doesn’t make you less loud, just more clouded. Shielding requires training.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Could you teach me?”

Feemor cracks an eye open to look at the mandalorian, raises a single eyebrow.

“What? It’s just a thinking thing, right?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Feemor waves him off as he pushes himself off the table. He has an idea of how this will go, but any result will fix the issue anyway. “If you really want to try, then come sit. Do you know how to meditate?”

Jaster, predictably, does not.

Feemor walks him through it. He has taught younglings more than once, but Jaster proves a more challenging student because he keeps questioning every turn of phrase with more complexity than a child would ever bother. Feemor ends up glaring at him, deadpan, until he apologizes and shuts up.

After that, it’s surprisingly peaceful, as Feemor feels the weak signature of his Force-null companion not as much shield off as just… settle. A couple minutes later, it slips deeper and then-

Feemor tamps down a laugh when he feels a head land against his shoulder. He opens his eyes to find the mandalorian slumped against him, entirely asleep.

He carefully extricates himself from the little bench, a careful nudge of the Force keeping Jaster from falling over, and goes to fetch the man a blanket. 

The warmth that has seeped into his side stays.

*****     *****

There were times, when he was young, that Jaster daydreamed about fighting a jedi one day. It had seemed like the ultimate challenge - to test oneself against someone who commanded the force of the stars.

He had imagined it as something brutal, fast-paced, adrenaline-fuelled.

He hadn’t expected it to be fun.

The jetii is not a master at hand-to-hand, nowhere near that flowing ease he had demonstrated when Jaster found him in the cargo hold going practicing katas with the broken hilt of his saber, but he is fast, and he is tricky.

This is not a style Jaster had ever encountered before. It trips him up, as the jetii feints left when all reasonable men would go right. He jumps some leg-sweeps others wouldn’t risk, tumbles through the air and over ground easily, regaining balance faster than a nexu on the hunt.

He tosses Jaster around whenever he needs to escape and Jaster learns that his only hope is to hang on like a strill digs into prey. He needs to use his strength and experience to his advantage in an attempt to pin down the flighty fighter.

The jetii also talks at the most inopportune times and knows it.

Jaster wraps a hand around his throat, trying to go in for a pin so that their score can equal out at 2:2, when-

“Harder,” the jetii quips and Jaster barely has time to snort before all breath leaves him as the man uses the slightly slackened grip to his advantage and elbows him in the solar plexus.

The jetii is laughing too, quiet snickers over panting breath.

“You are incorrigible,” Jaster tells him, as they circle one another.

They’re starting to learn each other now and the pace of the spar has slowed to something more strategic.

“You fall for it,” Feemor shoots back and, since Jaster can’t let such an insult stand, has to dodge a low tackle.

Yet all fun things have to end sooner or later. They have migrated to the edge of their impromptu arena when Jaster goes in for the kill, or at least the tap-out. It happens quickly. Jaster manages to catch Feemor when the jetii falls for his feint, but they go down to the ground a little wrong, with too much wiggle room, and suddenly the jetii slips out and there is a foot pressed against Jaster’s chest. All that strength that contributes to the jetii’s acrobatic fighting style proves enough to send Jaster flying too.

His face swipes painfully against the side of a support beam when his head barely misses cracking against it.

He lays there, dazed, for a moment before the pain kicks in.

“Jaster!”

“Haar'chak!” Jaster pushes himself up and when he raises his hand to his cheek, his hand comes away bloodied. His lips sting as he curses, he thinks it got ground into his teeth as he fell.

The jetii kneels down next to him. The open worry on his face looks wrong to Jaster’s eyes. He has only ever seen him composed, the biggest expression of negative emotion being a slight crease in his brow and a hardening of the eyes.

“It’s alright,” Jaster finds himself saying, “Practically a waste of bacta.”

“Don’t be foolish,” the jetii scolds him gently, “Come here.”

Jaster blames it on confusion, or maybe curiosity, that he doesn’t pull away when a hand lands on his cheek.

He hadn’t noticed it during their brawl, but Feemor runs warm. He has the odd urge to lean into the touch as callouses catch, ever so slightly, on his stubble. Yet he finds himself unable to follow through with that idea because he is trapped under the focus of that blue gaze, the jetii much closer than he has ever been outside of their spar.

He refuses to consider why heat rushes his face as those eyes look down to his lips, but whatever stupid, foolish thought that may have brought on - probably nothing worth thinking of in the presence of an empath - is dashed when he flinches away from the sharp sting of a finger brushing over the cut there.

The next moment, he doesn’t feel the cut anymore. He goes a little cross-eyed in an attempt to look even as he prods the spot with his tongue and- huh, nothing.

“Much faster than bacta,” Feemor says, a faint chuckle shaking his words.

Now the heat in Jaster’s face is there for a much different reason as he tries to smooth out his expression. Despite his embarrassment, he finds it hard to look away for long, especially since Feemor’s hand lingers on his cheek just a couple of seconds more.

When it withdraws, the cold stings more than it should. Jaster refuses to call it yearning. He also refuses to acknowledge the way his heartbeat speeds up as the jetii takes his hand in both of his, raising and flipping it over so that he can trail fingers up Jaster’s forearm. 

It’s entirely due to the pain of the forming bruise being upset.

The red that Feemor’s grip left there during the spar retreats, scrapes healing as the touch lingers over them.

At least Jaster is sure that they do. He can’t quite look down and away from the jetii’s face while the man kneels there before him, head bowed, looking down at his work. He looks a little more than… just more . Maybe there is credence to those spacer’s tales of jetii being something far beyond what their baseline species could attain. Jaster’s eyes take in the way that quiet concentration smooths out his features, the way that shadows play over his face, accentuating each detail in the sharp glare of the cargo bay lights.

The cold white glow doesn’t quite suit the warmth of him. Jaster almost imagines it, the golden hue of a Manda’yaim sunset, the way it would make that blonde hair gleam like the richest of golds.

“Why did you trust me?” The question comes out as soon as he thinks it, surprising him almost as much as the man before him.

“What?”

This is not the time for such questions, but it's not like Jaster can take it back, so he forges on.

“I mean- You’re a jetii, and we both know us mando’ade don’t exactly leave a good impression. You could have kept it a secret and asked me to drop you off at the nearest planet but you didn’t. You even asked me to name Nau’ika.”

“It’s because above all else, you are kind,” the jetii replies.

Jaster blinks a couple times. “What?”

“I told you how I see people in the Force, right?”

He nods. “Like light and then something more.”

The jetii had never explained what that something more was. It was like trying to explain echolocation to someone incapable of it, he had said, and Jaster accepted that some things weren’t for him to know.

“You are a bright light, Jaster. Your armor is stained with blood and I can hear the impression of all the bounties you have dragged to your employers in this very cargo hold.” The jetii presses his palms into his forearm then lets his hands slide down, into his. “But when you swore to protect the younglings you did so without a single ounce of deception. When you offered to help, you wanted nothing in return and I could feel it. You try to make things better just because you can. In the cold of the galaxy, you are warm.”

Oh.

“And you might also have a concussion, so maybe we should head to the medbay anyway.”

Ah. “Do we have to?”

“Do you want to explain to the kids if you can’t function tomorrow? Up you get.”

*****     *****

Almost two weeks into the trip, they stop at a little market on a planet called Iseno. 

Jaster’s ship had been well-stocked with supplies, but it had only been stocked with a single person in mind, so a stop was necessary sooner or later. Iseno, at least, is comparatively safe - inner rim, republic, and their military tradition has a honor guard patrolling most spaceports, which may not deter crime, but at least chases it away into less obvious places.

“Your armor is cooler,” Tavi declares with all the seriousness of a four-year-old deciding on what they now see as a new rule of existence.

There is a burst of slightly smug pride from the mandalorian.

They’re in one of the smallest port-cities, nothing much beyond landing pads, fuel depots, speeder rentals, and a market ready to sell overpriced wares or cheap knick-knacks to the travelers that are stopping by.

Feemor hands Jaster a credit chit he had taken when he fled his ship all those days back, points him towards the depots, and refuses to budge.

“You’re lending us your ship,” Feemor declares, “Let me at least contribute in some way.”

They haven’t even discussed him and the youngling catching a ship towards Coruscant from here. It’s safe enough and busy enough for a few spots to be available, if not in this port, then another. Feemor had found himself reluctant to bring up the topic and Jaster hadn't spoken a word about it either.

“I can’t accept-”

“I’m not asking.” Feemor cuts him off.

This continues until Tavi is whining that he wants to go to the market already and didn’t they say that they needed to hurry so they should definitely go, now. Jaster caves at the puppy eyes.

Feemor doesn’t feel smug about it, not at all.

It’s easy enough to find all the basics that they need and Feemor sometimes turns a blind eye to extra things he picks up that are not on the list. Spices that he had seen Jaster liberally dump into his own meal, tea he is sure the man will hate because he wants to see what face he will make, bits and pieces.

He’s not the only one, as when he’s eyeing a table of tech scraps, hoping that he can find something he can replace the last of the broken parts in his saber with, he feels a tug on his coat.

When he looks down to find Tavi looking up at him with the widest loth-puppy-eyes the boy can manage. He holds up his bounty towards him, clearly something he has picked up from a nearby stall Feemor had let him explore, one covered in small carvings and toys probably made by the elderly besalisk sitting behind the spread.

“You want that one?” He asks as if the answer isn’t obvious. Tavi nods enthusiastically. “Well enough, then. But pick something for Nauad as well.”

Somehow, Tavi ends up hiding his bounty from view until that same evening.

Jaster had clearly done some extra shopping of his own too. He lays out his armor on the table piece by piece, then pots of paint to match the chipped and scratched colors that cover it. As he carefully polishes the ruined coating off of his vambraces, he answers Feemors idle questions about the process.

In the doorway, Tavi shifts from foot to foot before he dares to dart in close and tug on Jaster's sleeve.

“Yes, Tav’ika?” The mandalorian doesn’t hesitate to put down his work and pay attention.

Tavi extends his other hand, the one clutching the toy that Feemor bought him back in the market. A little articulated figurine with somewhat familiar armor.

“Can you fix him too?” Tavi asks. “It doesn’t match yours.”

Jaster blinks down at the toy. In the Force, Feemor can feel him practically melt with affection as he gently takes the small figure from Tavi’s hands.

Feemor wonders if he should tell him that, if it isn’t accidentally broken beyond all hopes of repair, it’s likely that the tiny mandalorian will probably find himself traveling through generations in the Temple, the affection that Jaster layers down with the paint slowly drowned out by the of joy of the small hands that will pick at it.

A reminder of a kind man, immortalized for the moment.

Feemor hides his smile behind his datapad and continues picking through the codex.

This kind man needs to choose a better reference formatting system. Master Nu would hate him.

*****     *****

Jaster nearly startles right out of his seat when a cup suddenly floats in front of his face.

He cranes his head back to find the jetii standing behind him, arm still outstretched from where he had held out the caff before he dropped it to give Jaster a small heart attack.

“Something’s on your mind,” the jetii says. He has a habit of not asking questions when he clearly knows the answer, Jaster has found.

“Whatever gave it away?” Jaster looks away. He grasps the handle of the cup and knows to brace for the light jolt as it suddenly regains weight in his hands.

The warmth is comforting. He holds it while he returns to glaring at the datapad before him.

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably the broody silence.”

“I’m not brooding .”

“Of course not. The glaring and grumpiness in the Force is from Tavi, that’s for sure.”

He glances over to where Tav’ika is practicing floating things, an adorable look of concentration on his face. Nauad is sat in front of him, wobbling a little as she bats at the blocks that bob in the air.

Feemor had challenged him to lift three things at once this morning and had quietly told Jaster that it would probably keep the child occupied for an hour. It has been three, with only one frustrated tantrum interrupting the task. The boy sure can be stubborn when he thinks he has something to prove.

The jetii nudges him to scoot over before he too slides in to sit on the little couch that presses up to the kitchenette table. It’s a bit of a tight fit for two grown men, but Jaster doesn’t mind the closeness as much as he feels he should.

“Got a missive during our last jump-stop. Potential job with a mando’ad crew from Zanbar.” He admits.

“And that’s a problem?”

“The crew also has some ex-Protectors from Concord Dawn.” He has been open with the reason for why he avoided his home sector, lately. It had felt only right after Feemor had explained the issues with his - what did the jetii call their aliit again? Oh, that’s right- lineage, or new lack thereof.

The jetii had laughed and said that maybe he was happier this way, that the Force provides. Jaster wants to be even half as sure about his path in life.

“They did extend their invitation to you in particular,” Feemor points out. “Doesn’t that say something?”

“They just like what I talk about in my codex,” Jaster shakes his head. “Or maybe they just don’t like the lot that Vizsla’s gathering.”

“If they like your codex, then they will like you.”

“You can’t be sure about that. What if I can’t live up to what they want from me?”

“Trust me, you give yourself too little credit,” the jetii says. “I’ve told you this before - you’re a good man, Jaster Mereel, and in this galaxy, that is enough.”

Though his words have an odd weight to them, a ring of ceremony, his smile is genuine, soft and warm and just wide enough to crease the start of laughter lines at the corners of his eyes.

Beautiful, Jaster thinks, and then, oh.

Oh no.

*****     *****

Feemor finds himself trapped and it’s all his own fault.

He had been meditating, knelt on the floor in the corner of the little living space on the ship, while Jaster supervised the children. Tavi had been distracted by some sort of storybook Jaster had found for him on Iseno. The mandalorian had gotten quite skilled at noticing whenever Nauad was about to get herself into trouble and the living space is, by this point, quite thoroughly babyproofed, so she was left to crawl about under his watchful eye.

It wasn’t a bother when the tiny togruta had decided to try and climb onto his crossed legs, rumbling happily at the warmth while Feemor made sure she wouldn’t tumble to the floor once she had finally achieved her goal. 

He hadn’t quite considered that allowing the toddler to settle in would create a problem - she has now fallen asleep and Feemor finds himself trapped lest he wake her. Jedi or not, even Feemor eventually finds it tedious to deal with a cranky toddler, so he’s quite motivated to keep still, no matter if it means that he is now stuck sitting here for however long that takes.

He considers for a moment using a force-suggestion to keep her under while he moves to somewhere more comfortable but, no, mind tricks rarely substitute true rest.

He’s pretty sure he has heard the click of Jaster taking a holo. Feemor pointedly ignores it and continues to meditate, or at least somewhat pretend to meditate, since he’s more focused on making sure Nauad doesn’t turn over and fall. Unlike a tooka, she would not catch herself.

He manages to rest in the currents of the Force for a good length of time until the sound of his own name calls his awareness forward.

“Fee! Feemor! Fee!” Tavi is trying and failing miserably to whisper, probably because he too has no wish to deal with a crying Nauad either. Luckily the tiny togruta is not old enough to hear that specific pitch of noise quite well, so she doesn’t even twitch.

Jaster’s voice comes too, quieter. “Tav’ika, don’t bother your cabur.”

“But I want to know!”

“What is it, Tavi?” Feemor asks without opening his eyes. 

“See!” Tavi cheers, getting shushed by Jaster again. “Fee, how far can jedi fall before they go splat?”

“Far,” Feemor replies. He did jump from the ship with the children and that was a height of a couple kilometers or so. He isn’t sure how that would have come up in conversation. He’s also sure that Jaster would be much louder about it if it had.

“So if you fell off a cliff, you’d be fine?”

“Depends on the cliff.” Oh, the conversations you get to have with children. He hopes he’s not about to be part of another twenty-minute play-argument with Tavi who will choose to be contrary just for fun. Jaster has the unfortunate habit of taking the youngling’s side and egging the nonsensical debate on.

“Oh, the Maw of- uh-” There’s a chuff that Feemor has come to recognize as Tavi pouting at someone.

Jaster pipes in. “Cerar’uram. Maw of the mountain. It’s a canyon on Ordo.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t say,” Feemor chooses the noncommittal option. 

He’s quite sure he could survive the jump. He has fallen quite far at times and some trained knights have had to bail from ships in low or even upper atmo when shot down. After all, it’s not the fall but the stop that kills you. Terminal velocity is something you reach quite quickly and jedi younglings are taught how to catch themselves at an early age before - hopefully, before - they learn how to toss one another with the Force. He’d rather not inspire Tavi to try and learn it on his own. 

The crèchemasters would look at him all disappointed and Feemor would rather face a Sith. 

From the tiny huff he hears, that sort of answer is not taken as acceptable. “Why?”

“Because I haven’t been there,” Feemor answers with half a lie so Tavi won’t be able to call him out on his dishonesty. The Force seems to speak loudly to him on matters of lies and truths and Feemor has no doubts that there will be many consulars looking to mentor him, if he doesn’t feel drawn toward the jedi corps.

“...but you could go.” It isn’t quite a question, but is almost pointed like one.

Here we go again. Seems like pretending to meditate doesn’t help avoid questioning, where four-year-olds are concerned. “No, I cannot.”

“Why?”

How to put this in a child-friendly manner? “I’m afraid a jedi in mandalorian space tends to end up lost.”

“Why?”

Because maybe, just maybe, annihilating a planet seven centuries previous tends to lead to more than a bit of generational conflict. This is particularly true when, while Jedi are known to forgive but not forget, Mandalorians are known for doing neither and then pursuing what didn’t kill them the first time with bloodthirsty determination. 

“It’s a bit difficult to travel,” is what he settles on instead.

“Why?” Tavi demands again, interrupts himself with a little sound that must be a poorly muffled yawn. “Jaster has seen everything there and he isn’t even a jedi.”

At least the mandalorian chooses that point to take pity on Feemor and his creative oversimplification of truths.

“Easy problem to solve - I could show you around,” Jaster speaks up and though he sounds playful, there is an undercurrent of honesty in the offer all the same. “Manda’lase isn’t even that far from Coruscanta.”

“Yes!” Tavi cheers. “Can we go?”

“I think quite a few reforms will have to be put into place before it’s safe for jedi to be seen wandering around the sector,” Feemor replies like he isn’t considering the idea a little more than he should. “We make a good team, but I doubt it’ll be fun for Jaster to play bodyguard for that long.”

Jaster shines when he speaks of his home, in those late nights when they both can’t find rest and spend hours just talking about all the places in the galaxy they’ve seen yet always end up on the topics most loved - the vast arches of the Temple halls, the rolling plains of Concord Dawn.

“Careful, jetii,” Jaster says. There’s a grin audible in his voice. ”That almost sounds like a challenge.”

Feemor can’t resist - he gives up on his pretend-meditaton, cracks an eye open to look. He was right - seated on the edge of the little bench, pressed into the very corner to give space for Tavi’s sprawl, the mando is smiling. The grin is almost as bright as the Light of him, a little wild, a little stubborn and determined, all entirely genuine.

A smile like this suits him, Feemor thinks, just as much as his rambles about ancient history and his armor do. 

He is beautiful like this, he thinks, and then he thinks, oh.

Oh no.

*****     *****

Jaster doesn’t quite realize how comfortable he has gotten in the new routine he built with the jetii and his jetii’ade until that routine is upset.

He’s in the middle of drinking a cup of caff while he makes tea - why Feemor likes that vile stuff, he’ll never know, but the way the man smiles tells him that there is some kind of joke he’s missing, one he is happy to miss as long as that little smile stays - when an alert pings on the comm on his vambrace.

He knew it was coming, but he somehow never expected it to come so soon.

He pours the boiled water into the cup and swipes his own half-finished caff before he leaves for the cockpit. He settles into the seat, takes some extra time to check that the various indicators are all in the green and that all switches are in the correct positions. Finally, he looks at the navicomputer.

Around him, the room dims as the ship falls out of hyperspace and the console lights up, asking him to okay one last heading in their route. A short jump, under an hour. The last approach vector for small vessels towards Coruscant, set to drop out a little early like Feemor had requested because apparently jetii ran their own sublight approach lanes that would let them through to the planet faster.

He is almost tempted to stall, faced with the end of the road, to buy himself more time before they go back to being beroya and jetii, running around alone in different ends of the galaxy.

He wants to convince the jetii to visit Manda’yaim or Concord Dawn, to show him all the places the man has questioned him about, to see how they measure up to all the jetii has seen of the galaxy. He wants to be convinced to stick around on Coruscanta, to snub the job he’s being offered by Kast and see that room of fountains that the jetii talks of so fondly about, visit the archives and find out how the man fights with his favored weapon.

We each have our duties, he thinks as beyond the window, stars begin to once more blur into streaks of light.

*****     *****

“This is Padawan Leto on behalf of the Coruscant Jedi Temple. Incoming vessel, please identify yourself,” comes a response as soon as Feemor types in the codes to ping the appropriate beacons.

It surprises even Feemor himself, how much relief the greeting brings. He knows the name, the voice - a good friend of his is Leto’s Master, so they might as well be family. Tension he hadn’t recognized he had been carrying so long unwinds from where it coiled around his shoulders.

He is home.

“Seeker-knight Feemor on the Legacy, requesting landing authorization,” He replies.

A moment of silence on the line.

“Authorization codes?”

Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Jaster raise an eyebrow at the unexpected security in what Feemor had told him was a private line for jedi-only use. His head tilts in a way that Feemor now recognizes as a gesture meant to translate a question both with and without a helmet.

Probably didn’t expect much from what the galaxy tends to regard as a fancy monastery. If only he knew the sort of tricks the Guard has in store. 

Just corralling adventurous senior padawans can be harder than keeping out a whole crime syndicate. Feemor would know - he had been one of those wayward senior padawans once upon a time too and only got caught, oh, seventy percent of the time. A good run, considering the mischief he got up to.

Feemor doesn't quite want to tell him that the beacons now probably have all the registration codes and specs of the Legacy. They must have certainly noticed the mandalorian designations in the registry.

There had been more than one time in history that someone had tried to sneak into the Temple using a jedi as bait. It had never ended well - for the invaders, at least.

Feemor reaches for the transmission button again.

“Confirmation code-” He rattles off the series of letters and numbers. “Do you need the other two?”

The other two don't exist. Were he under duress, he wouldn't have asked.

When Leto calls back, the relief of having confirmation of friendly entry is clear in the tone of their voice. 

“Should have known it was you, Fee. Head to pad Aurek-17, Master Geten is sending someone to greet you,” the padawan says cheerfully, all protocol and jedi composure tossed straight out the airlock. There's a bit of a pause, a rumble on the channel of conversation not picked up, before Leto comes back with an amused, “Master says that of all the people, of course you’d be the one to commandeer some kriffing mando’s ship mid-Search.”

Feemor doesn’t turn to see what Jaster thinks of the impolite padawan, though he does feel a jab of amusement drift from him. He clicks the transmission open again. "Not exactly wrong, Leto, but seeing as the 'kriffing mando' to whom this ship belongs is actually next to me, I'll remind you that padawans should learn to watch their words."

There's a long pause.

"Ah," says Leto in all his eloquence.

The call drops.

The silence only lasts as long as it takes for Jaster and Feemor to glance at each other and then they're both laughing, loud and unrestrained until there are tears in their eyes and their sides hurt. It's not even that funny, maybe, but it's like the tension between them which has risen and risen since morning has burst like a balloon and this is what comes out.

Feemor has to go as far as to bodily turn away from Jaster because anytime they glance at one another another wave of giggles begins, laughter at their own reaction more than anything else.

He’d rather not end up crashed against a satellite because they were too busy laughing to pilot.

Soon enough, the commline beeps again, Coruscant flight control. Jaster reaches to answer. Feemor rubs absentmindedly at his breastbone, wondering at how quickly the weight that had sat there just minutes before has gone.

“I’ll get the younglings,” he says. Jaster waves him off, already looking for the correct vectors to respond with.

It goes surprisingly quickly, from that moment on.

By the time that he has wrangled Tavi into getting ready to depart, patiently answered the dozen anxious questions he has already answered at least three times before - yes, the jedi will like you, yes, I will come visit unless there is an emergency mission, yes, you’ll be able to spend time with Nauad, and no, the pirates would never be stupid enough to try anything here - then checked over for all the little items that they had forgotten around the ship, the ship rocks slightly as it lands.

Nauad in his arms, Feemor fetches Tavi from the cockpit, where the youngling is clinging to Jaster and demanding that he come with them too.

“I need to make sure the engines shut down correctly,” the mandalorian explains, “This is an old ship model. They can get testy.”

“Tavi, don’t you want to go see the Temple?” Feemor butts in right as the boy goes to repeat his demand that Jaster really must go with them.

That distracts the youngling real quick as he all but launches himself out of the cockpit, running in the direction of the cargo hold - and the landing ramp within.

They both watch him go.

“So this is it?” Jaster asks.

“You could come with us, I’m sure I could sneak you into the archives.”

“Don’t tempt me,” the mandalorian laughs. “But I wasn’t lying about the engines. I need them in good order for Zanbar.”

“Well, I guess then-”

“Fee!” Comes Tavi’s impatient call.

“Go get your ad,” Jaster tells him.

Feemor doesn’t quite feel like saying goodbye yet, so he goes without another word. The ramp unlocks with a pressurized hiss right as he reaches the cargo hold where Tavi is nearly jumping in place from excitement. The boy flinches a little as the opening door floods the dim space with sunlight.

Feemor takes his hand in his and they walk down the ramp together. Fresh air - as fresh as you can get it on Coruscant - is a reprieve from the recirculated damp of a spaceship.

Nauad fusses in his arms and he gently nudges her back into calm with a wave of sleepy reassurance. She tucks her face into his chest, squishes her stubby montrals against his chin, and ignores the world at large in favor of sleep.

Tavi, meanwhile, looks over everything with wide eyes. Coruscant can be overwhelming to outsiders - the crowded layers, the sight of nothing but durasteel and permacrete, neon that glints off numerous windows and glows even in the daylight that never quite penetrates beyond the uppermost levels despite the help of orbital mirrors. Traffic whirs around non-stop like swarming bugs. So much life crushed together in an ecumenopolis can be nauseating.

In the Force, the Temple drowns out all, a bastion of light and life that thrums with the echoes of all the Jedi that call it home. Feemor and Nauad in the same ship were the most force-sensitives that Tavi had ever met before this point. Now he’s facing the prospect of seeing thousands. The stone below their feet whispers of safety and home.

Only a couple steps beyond the ramp, Tavi comes to a halt, sniffles.

“It’s so bright,” he whines, burrowing his face into the fabric of Feemor’s coat.

“Is that a bad thing?” he’d have to warn the crèchemasters to focus on shielding training if it was.

Tave sniffles again, then, plaintively. “No.”

Feemor rubs a hand between his tiny horns, but doesn’t quite get time to answer when a poke against his shields draws his attention and he turns to look.

“Master Avran,” he greets though it’s not quite necessary, but it does get Tavi to let go of his coat to look and-

“He’s so tall!” Tavi gasps. “You said he was tall, not a giant .”

The old crèchemaster is a whole head taller than Feemor, who isn't exactly short himself. He also, as far as Feemor is aware, gives the best hugs in the entire order.

“If you get him to give you a ride on his shoulders, you’ll be taller,” He tells Tavi conspiratorially and that is enough to get the boy to let go and even carefully step forward when the giant zabrak finally draws close.

The introductions go quickly, the air warming with the feel of warm-safe-friend as the noises of the city outside seem to fall away into nothing, so much so that only Feemor keeping an eye out lets him notice the astromechs that trundle by towards the Legacy, or the other jedi that now mill around the landing pad.

The shielding of such scale is proof of years of work. It works too - Tavi only pays enough attention to ask if Feemor will come to visit soon - he promises that he will - before Master Avran is leading him away, Nauad cradled carefully in one arm while the other is currently captured by the boy who’s asking a thousand questions about the jedi.

A new presence draws close.

“Are you sure it was smart to leave your padawan in the control booth?” Feemor asks even as he turns to face it.

Sanna rolls her eyes so dramatically it moves her head too, making the beads in her hundreds of fine braids clink and chime. “You’re never going to let this go now, are you?”

“And miss an embarrassing story to share whenever Leto gets a padawan of his own? Absolutely not.”

She doesn’t even try to deny that. Embarrassing your students - and being told on in return - is practically jedi tradition. Since he has no lineage of his own, Feemor simply gets to blackmail those of his friends.

“You’re off to the Halls,” Sanna informs him, already nudging him away with a hand on his arm. “Before you try to escape - I know full well that scar wasn’t there before.”

Feemor dodges the poke that was aimed at his cheek.

“Thank you, I’m well aware.” The next poke, he bats away. From her smile, Sanna must take it as a challenge because she doesn’t lower her arm.

Why had Feemor been cursed with such friends?

He should go. Leave Jaster to the capable hands of the aces that man the landing pads, make sure that the younglings are alright with their new minders. But though he cannot call them his own anymore, his lineage had once been one of mavericks who took what they ‘should’ do as a mere suggestion.

There is a comm in his pocket, one he had picked up at that market weeks ago. The modifications to tie it to the temple network had been easy enough, Feemor justifying it as making a spare.

He has at least three down in his quarters, nobody would miss this one.

Because, maybe, he hopes.

“I’ll go in a minute, I just need to see Jaster off,”  He tells Sanna, trips her over with the Force when she goes in for another poke. The Master Jedi sticks her tongue out at him.

“I’ll sic the healers on you if you’re not down in ten.” She crosses her arms. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

She had always seen too much. Feemor rolls his eyes and turns towards the Legacy.

“Your trust in me is appreciated!” He tosses over his shoulder.

“Good luck!”

Feemor flips her off and pretends he doesn’t know what she’s implying.

He’ll need it.

*****     *****

Jaster barely glances toward the indicators in the Legacy’s cockpit, just a quick peek to see the counters moving up.

The jetiise, it seems, reward good behavior when it comes to helping one of their own. He’ll be leaving the temple with more fuel than he had when he first started this trip, fixed landing gear courtesy of the droids, and a batch of new rations too.

Maybe a few weeks ago, Jaster would have sat there and supervised, watched out for tampering since he did not know the astromechs crawling over his ship, nor had he met the person who sent them.

Now he barely makes sure that he did turn off the engines properly and that they’re not about to catch fire with the fuel gages steadily going up before he’s turning on his heel and walking right back out of the cockpit.

He walks to his room, picks up an item he had been hiding under the thin mattress of his cot, then walks back out ready to head to the cargo hold 

He pauses as the door swishes shut behind him. He can still reconsider this, this thing that he’s holding in his hand at this moment. He could put it down, walk out and calmly say his goodbyes. Leave without possibly throwing a wrench into the status quo of tradition he has lived with for so long. It’s more of a daydream than anything at this point, but what is that thing Feemor had told him?

Sometimes all you need for change is a tiny flicker of hope… and a creative misunderstanding of rules.

So, he hopes, and lets that same hope push his feet forward down the hall.

Jaster's so focused on not talking himself out of his course of action that he doesn’t even notice when the last door slides open to reveal someone already there.

“Whoah!”

His momentum has him tripping forward into the figure before him and they tip back into the cargo hold at an angle that will surely see them sprawling, but-

Warms arms and a pressure that has become familiar. Jaster catches his breath as the suddenly solid air helps him catch his footing.

“I’m sorry-”

“In a hurry?”

They both pause, having spoken over one another. Feemor’s hands fall away from where they had come up to grip Jaster’s biceps and he swears he can feel the absence of their warmth all the way through his beskar’gam. If anything, the heat on his face only intensifies.

“I thought you would be leaving for the Temple with the ade and I wasn’t sure if I could see you then…” Jaster trails off before he can dig himself into a new grave.

Feemor smiles, smaller than what Jaster had ever seen on him, but no less genuine. “I wouldn’t have left before saying goodbye.”

Is it delusion that Jaster would almost swear he hears regret in that tone?

“I just wanted to… uhm.”

“Yes?”

One last chance to turn back now. Maybe… okay, not even 'maybe', it is definitely hasty, but Jaster has always tried to hold onto life with both hands like a mando'ad should. That's what shereshoy was all about, that joy of living, taking whatever opportunities life throws at you and using them to experience it to the fullest.

Living in the here and now. Do or do not.

Though he doesn't quite feel joyful now, more anxious than anything, beyond the regret that their time together is drawing to a close.

Feemor must feel it in him - Jaster has been practicing the shielding thing, he has, but it will probably take years for him to truly figure it out, so it's likely that his nerves slip through. He looks at Jaster with that infuriating and oddly charming eyebrow rise of his.

Jaster holds out his hand and the item it clutches before he can think better of it. "It should make other mando'ade pause and, well, I want you to have something to remember me by."

Because a blade like this is not something that a jetii would have unless it was given. It's a simple thing, even underwhelming if one is unaware of the skill it would take to bend beskar and durasteel alloy into the subtle pattern that marbles the metal.

Jaster's aliik has been carved into the leather that wraps the handle. Feemor's fingers trace the burnt image of a mythosaur's skull as he carefully reaches for the blade, but doesn't pick it up quite yet.

Jaster wonders if the jetii can hear how his heart is trying to beat through his kar'ta beskar.

"You do realize that I read your codex in full. The references too, just for posterity's sake…" Feemor says slowly, entirely unconcerned. The implication is clear even though he doesn't say it directly.

Jaster's heart stutters and ends up somewhere next to his shoes.

That blade isn't only perfect as a warning, or maybe it's perfect as a warning because of the one other reason a mando'ad would give away such a blade - a courting offer. And the jetii knows this.

"It doesn't-'' Jaster begins. The pressure that Feemor's fingers apply to the blade he's holding out - light as a feather, heavy as tungsten - makes him stutter. "I mean if you don't-"

The blade is gone from his hand, slipped behind a belt right next to the half-mended hilt of another.

He's still processing the absence when Feemor's hand returns, curling over his now empty one, pressing it down so that it no longer stands between them as a jetii leans in and-

"Something to remember me by," Feemor's words are said against his lips as the jetii pulls back after a moment during which Jaster's world must have stopped spinning on its axis.

A wink and a billow of robes as the jetii is gone, striding away down the ramp to catch up to the ade and their minders.

In Jaster's hand, where a blade sat a minute before, the shape of an unfamiliar comm.

The breath he had been holding escapes in a quiet laugh and he grins, because-

"Yes!" He pumps his fist in the air and instantly feels stupid about it because he's an adult mando'ad and still visible at the top of his ship's ramp at the Coruscanta Temple. He presses that fist to his tingling lips, still grinning, and adds, far more quietly. "Wayii!"

Behind him, the beep of the ship's comm, probably another missive trying to remind him that he's needed at Zanbar.

He gives himself another second to celebrate before he goes to answer it.

He better get to work, if he ever wants to show his jetii around Manda'yaim.

He can't wait.