Lio the Drawist - Comms Open

Mandalorians are selkies and the Kar'ta Beskar fills the role of their coat

The rest of the armor surrounding a Mandalorian does not necessarily begin as Beskar and is instead altered by the presence of the Kar'ta over time and will similarly revert if removed. This is one of Mandalore's greatest secrets.

They start out small and chubby and seal-shaped and grow larger and leaner and sharper until they reach their adult Mythosaur form (water type)

The Kaminoans confiscate the Kar'ta Beskar'e shortly after decanting to encourage docility

The child flinched. Jango curled his fingers into a fist instead, and pulled back.

He wondered why his own soul was still bright in the center of his skin, why it still rang as he step with the sounds of true beskar’gam, if the clones were… if this were real.

“How,” he whispered, opening another drawer, and another. How could they have hidden this from him? How could they have kept him from seeing this? How could the other trainers not have seen?

It beggared belief.

It made something uneasy curl in his gut and he glanced around, then up at the surveillance system in the corner of the ceiling.

“Get me something to pack these in,” Jango said.

“But, sir, we’re not allowed to touch them! The Kaminoans said so!” the child replied, flinching slightly again.

“These don’t belong to the Kaminoans,” Jango replied with a strange cold calm that felt like it would drown him— he, who could not drown.

“Yes, sir,” the child said, then they darted away, hopefully to get the required crates.

***

It came down to this, in the end: a firefight through the corridors, with half of Jango’s men taking up arms against him, the clone-children caught in between. They’d withdrawn from the barracks, from the training rooms, taking the children with them as they went, up and out of the great platforms of Tipoca City until they were wedged against the furthest side of the landing area, right up against the raging seas.

The half of his men who still remembered their souls, who valued their skin, alternatively provided cover and bent to press kar’tase into the hands of the clones.

“It’s fine,” Jango tried to reassure the child in front of him, tiny and shivering in the lashing rain. “Mandalorians do not drown.”

“It feels wrong,” the child protested, even as they cradled the kar’ta to their chest. “It’s sticky!”

“We’ll sort everyone out later,” Jango said, hoping that would be true. “I swear it. Take it. Your siblings are waiting for you, can’t you see them?”

And they were, the tiny blubbery forms of barely-grown mythosaurs bobbing below them in the turgid seas. A few of Jango’s men were with them, keeping them contained, their own forms sleek and fearsome as the waters churned around them.

Finally, the child nodded, pressed their kar’ta to their sternum, and dove over the edge of the platform. Jango didn’t have time to watch and make sure they bobbed back up to the surface; he turned to the next child and handed them a kar’ta as well.

“It would probably be faster if you just pushed us in, sir,” they said, then dove after their sibling.

🦭🦭🦭

In my heart, each of them gets a special bond with whoever’s heart they got in the initial escape.