STAR WARS EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones 00:52:24

Though never explicitly named as members of the Cuy'val Dar, El-Les and Bric from The Clone Wars are two of the mercenaries training the Clone Army on Kamino - so that is a bit of speculation on my part, but I think it makes sense. If anything comes out to contradict that I'll amend it as needed.

Following on from my Jango post, I want to talk about the Cuy’val Dar.

The same warning as that post applies. This is largely my speculations based on canon, but not actually canon.

A note about Legends canon: Unless it is directly contradicted by the current canon, I choose to include Legends canon as canon.

So, the Cuy’val Dar (Mando’a meaning those who are lost) are the trainers Jango recruited to train the clones on Kamino. There were one hundred of these trainers, and seventy five of those one hundred were Mandalorians. The other twenty five were probably bounty hunters and general mercenaries.

Of the seventy five Mandos, we only know the names of 12 of them. Two, Isabet Reau and Dred Priest, were Death Watch sympathizers if not full on members. The other 10 have no stated allegiance but it’s my speculation that at least some of them were True Mandalorians under Jaster and Jango.

There are two whom I am almost certain were True Mandalorians. Kal Skirata is said to have known Jango for years, so he was obviously at least affiliated with the True Mandalorians. He was found by his adopted father, Munin Skirata, when Munin was on a mission with a group of mercenaries. My guess is those mercenaries were Jaster’s people, and possibly even included Jaster himself.

Rav Bralor was a close friend and comrade in arms of Kal Skirata’s long before Kamino, so obviously if he is a True Mandalorian, it stands to reason that she must have been one too.

There are two others who are potentially True Mandalorians. Llats Ward isn’t stated to have any particular affiliation but his chest plate has a whacking great mythosaur skull on it, which is the sigil of the True Mandalorians. Of course, it’s also just a generally important symbol in Mando culture, so Llats could have it on his armour for entirely different reasons.

Miij Gilmar, the trainer of the clone medics, wasn’t born a Mando but became one after he married a Mandalorian woman. She was murdered, unfortunately and he vowed revenge. It’s noted that he had a deep hatred for the death watch allied Dred Priest and Isabet Reau. My speculation is that his wife was killed by Death Watch and he may have joined (or already have been part of) the True Mandos to avenge her.

There is one more trainer I want to discuss in detail. His name is Cort Davin, and he was a Journeyman Protector on Concord Dawn. Obviously this is the same profession as Jaster and Fett Sr, so this suggests he may have been a colleague of theirs. It does seem that he stayed in the Journeyman Protectors until he was recruited into the Cuy’val Dar, so I don’t think he was a proper member of the True Mandos, but he could have been their ally.

We know virtually nothing of the remaining five named Mandos of the Cuy’val Dar, B’arin Apma, Swart Swifto, Wad’e Tayhaai, Vhonte Tervho and Walon Vau. I have no idea if any of these people were True Mandalorians. It’s possible.

A side tangent about Wad’e Tay’haai: one of the few things I could find about him is that his preferred weapons were a traditional Mando spear and a bes’bav. A bes’bav is a Mandalorian flute that doubles as a stabbing weapon. Of course the Mandos have a musical instrument that is also a weapon. Of course they do. It makes me wonder how many other musical weapons exist in Mando culture. And how many other things Mandos have made into weapons. Many, many things probably.

Anyways, this brings me onto the point of this post: why would any True Mandalorians would agree to train the clones despite it going against their well established code of protection over children? And how did Jango feel about these people that were once his?

It’s my personal speculation that any True Mandalorians that joined the Cuy’val Dar on Kamino did so for a number of reasons. The New Mandalorian pacifists were in charge on Mandalore, so anyone wishing to keep their culture couldn’t stay there. I can’t imagine that Mandalorians are welcomed in many places in the galaxy, so it’s possible some of them joined because it guaranteed a place to live and a source of income and food.

Some might have joined out of loyalty to Jango. Perhaps they thought he wouldn’t allow the clones to be treated badly and by the time it became apparent that he would, they couldn’t back out. Perhaps they wanted to help him and therefore help the clones.

I doubt any of them were actually told what they were being recruited for. It was a secret, after all, and I don’t think telling a bunch of Mandalorians ‘there’s a facility where they’re cloning children to be trained as child soldiers for a war in which they’re likely to die’ would go well.

I had a lot of trouble figuring this one out, for a while, and then I was writing Cort and Mij talking about Jango and Spar and this happened.

***

“They really act like siblings,” Cort says, watching the tihaar in his glass.

“As far as what they’re concerned, they are, thanks to what they’ve chosen to do about the memory transfer,” Mij says, sitting down next to him once he’s put the bottle away. He wonders how long it took before Jango was willing to let Cort see the both of them like that.

Cort grimaces and sips the clear liquor. “We were both younger siblings when we first met. Then his aliit was gone, and now...now he has a tat’ka himself.”

For Day 5 of @jangobiweek, Competency Kink.  I ended up doing it as a follow up to my fic Bring You Golden Rings (Only Want Your Hand To Hold) (which can also be found here and here (part 2) for those who don’t have an AO3 or just want to read it on tumblr)

Chapters: 36/?

Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker & Qui-Gon Jinn, Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi

Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Quinlan Vos, Shmi Skywalker, Siri Tachi. Dooku | Darth Tyranus, Ulic Qel-Droma, Hondo Ohnaka, Jango Fett, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Like a million OCs

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Qui-Gon Lives, Bounty Hunter Obi-Wan, Dark Obi-Wan Kenobi, Found Family, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Not A Fix-It, Space Politics, Sith Shenanigans, Breaking the law creatively

Previously:

Hondo's initiative to claim Porla the Hutt's fortress met with some minor misadventure, but proved successful in the end.

Kamino era confessions uwu

Initial plan for these was to make them entirely character focused but this combined with a current WIP made me go "haha but what if." So.

6. hiraeth - a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past

Cort’s older siblings have the family vhetta. Sena went JP before he ever did. And, well, Cort’s dreams of a happy, normal life vanished ages ago.

They’d first flickered out when he was ten, and his family had learned of the Fett clan massacre. They’d barely existed back then, but he’d start to build them up like any foolish child whose heart beats fast does. Six years later, after he’d begun building new ones, they’d all been pushed aside with the renewal of those early dream, with Jango Fett’s return to Concord Dawn.

The two of them had slowly built up dreams of later-later-later with each other, building and hoping and—in the end—promising.

Jango had come back after being enslaved for years and fallen asleep in Cort’s bed, and those dreams were destroyed because he knew, from the scars and the hunted look in Jango’s eyes, that he was never going to be able to do that. He still swore things to himself, but it all fell away from reality.

Sometimes, Jango still lets him come up behind him and hold him. Sometimes he doesn’t, he jumps or he punches or he cries. The kid with Jango’s memories always looks at him with pity and he can never meet the kid’s gaze very long.

He thought it would all work out, for a long time. As long as he was there, as long as he could hold on, as long as Jango was alive. As long-as long-as long.

He’s been a fool for a long, long time. He can’t stop now. There’s never going to be a yaim on a vhetta with family nearby, because the Fett vhetta burned. There’s never going to be happy children, because they’re training soldiers, not raising them. There’s never going to be returned love, because slavery dug out all of the love Jango had before and the new love has fragile roots and is unrecognizable to what had been there before.

On a quick jaunt to Concord Dawn with Jaster and Walon to get information on Death Watch movements in the area, Jango joins Cort Davin for a swim.

T. 1k words.

Cort Davin/Jango Fett

background Jaster Mereel/Walon Vau