#galaccias

If the Padawan’s master hears the shuffling, she gives no sign for it, no twitch of her brow, no flutter of the eyelids, not a quirk of the fingers. She sits unbothered like moments before, like she's done for countless minutes, immersed in a meditative trance on the cushion opposite of Cirz.

But Cirz shifts again, unable to contain his impatience. Unlike his master who closed her eyes, he stares at the figure of the older Jedi intently, unblinking almost, as if it can signal his urgency. He hears himself take a breath eager to break the silence 

His master opens her eyes.

"Cirz-"

"Why didn't you tell me about the battle losses? Shouldn't I know?" He feels himself lean forward and ball his hands on his knees, discontent threatens to escape him.

In response, he receives silence.

His master suddenly seems tired, with a face thinner than it usually should be. Heaviness rests in the Force around her like some cloak, like wet wool, making Cirz's shoulders feel heavy with a phantom feeling.

He licks his lip. “We can’t be losing. Are we losing?”

The master replies with the most gentle tone, or perhaps her voice simply lacks strength. “I'm afraid this is what success looks like."

“Like dead soldiers, master?”

Surprise spills across their bond. Then sadness, the same heaviness. 

Enah brings her hands together. “In war, many people are lost, regardless of the outcome, beings die.” She lets out a sigh, studying the fierceness of her padawan’s gaze. ”The troops you speak of who joined the Force… They have created a path for the remaining Battalions to retake the planet.”

“Then… Then should you not be down there with the men, master? Should you not help them?”

Enah shakes her head. “All of our troops are fighting on the ground. Tell me Cirz, what happens to the relief team we are escorting, if no one stays on the ship to protect them?”

Cirz straightens in the most serious, most determined way an eight year old can be. “I can protect them.” 

Then recognition flickers on his face. His expression deflates, scrunches in a miserable display. “You don’t think I can protect them.”

He waits for his master to deny the claim, but she doesn’t. It hurts him with a burning feeling rising from his belly, just like a death of thousands of men might. If only he had more experience to be useful in a situation like this, perhaps no one would die. But how can he gain more experience, if master Enah keeps sending him away?

“I miss the missions when you trusted me with more.” He mutters.

“I trusted you to follow my plan and stay on the ship with me… Yet, you attempted to leave with the clones, isn’t that so?”

Cirz stirs.

His large eyes drop to the floor. He has no idea how master Enah knows, but it’s true. He approached the Alpha Arc Trooper and tried to talk him into letting him join the operation. This is how he learnt about the many casualties of the campaign. 

Not even from Enah. 

By accident.

As if already knowing all the emotions that rise in the boy, Enah moves closer, reaching to place her hands on Cirz’s tightly closed fists.

“I apologize, Cirz” She says, “My wish was… that you wouldn’t need to witness the war so soon. It is too soon, Padawan, and it is not the galaxy I wished you to see… Yet, it seems the truth has found you, regardless of my intent.”

She gives his hands a gentle squeeze. “Now you can’t turn your back to it.”

Cirz tells himself that of course he won’t turn back. “I’m your Padawan, master. I go where you go. I see what you see”.

“.... No Cirz,” Enah rises at last. Her previous exhaustion seems to have disappeared. “I was in the wrong to bring you here, I see it now... Force help us, when we return home, we will find you more suitable tasks.”

He doesn’t like this decision any better, but before he gets a chance to answer, his master’s comlink signals an incoming transmission. — All droids on the planet Gondagali are deactivated. The relief team can enter the atmosphere.

This means their meditation time is over.

“For now come with me, Padawan. There are still things you can do, which do not involve sending you to the battlefront.”

I showed you Rex with his natural curly and dark hair and THIS IS HOW YOU PAY ME! YOU UNGRATEFUL, UNGRATEFUL BITCH! I'M NEVER BEFRIENDING A BRAZILIAN AGAIN!

“The Council made a good choice.”  He says as they are on their way to leave the temple.

He requested to join master Koon as soon as he learnt the man would depart for Teeva. They were to examine a force-sensitive child, and if it really was one, then it would be the second Teevan to join the order this century. Tru was the first.

“Teeva’s closed off and has little history with the Jedi, so it might ease the family to see a familiar face. No offense to your face, master Koon.”

⚔️ - Bossk for Boba

Send me   “ ⚔️ “   for my muse to defend yours from an attack.

Cradossk was disappointed.

That was nothing new. Bossk had long since gotten used to disappointing his father– nothing was ever good enough for Cradossk, and even if he acted like this time Bossk had exceeded expectations on just how much of a disappointment he was, Bossk was used to it. He was, however, not used to the reason why he'd disappointed his father this time around.

The child was small, soft and squishy in the way human children tend to be. He looked a lot like his father, with the stark difference that Bossk hadn't even seen Jango Fett show much emotion because of that helmet he wore, while the boy looked absolutely terrified. He looked so pathetically scared, trying to make himself even smaller than he already was in hopes of going unnoticed among all these bounty hunters but sticking out like a sore claw, that even Bossk felt bad for being the one that brought him to the bounty hunter guild, the fact this whole operation never sat well with him also didn't help make him feel less like he'd done something wrong. Jango Fett had the reputation he had because of his skills, and if he'd time and time again humiliated the bounty hunters of the guild by outsmarting them, then that should encourage them to become better so that they might one day outscore Fett, not cheat like this: by ordering Bossk to steal something important from Jango —his only child— so that they could use it as leverage to make Jango step down from the competitive bounty hunting field.

Cheating was dishonorable, that's what Bossk thought. But Cradossk didn't care what he thought. He didn't even think that he'd stolen the boy, because he claimed that Jango was still in his prime, he could father a replacement.

It didn't take long for the other bounty hunters to realize who the boy was related to, and they clearly wanted to get back at Fett. None of them were brave enough to actually try and get the boy, mostly just intimidating him with glares and words– until a hand grabbed at the child's arm.

Bossk's own hand wrapped about the offender's wrist, something snapped under the force of his ruthless squeeze and the boy was released. But that wasn't enough for Bossk, he twisted, yanked and lifted the hunter by the arm until he screamed for mercy- which Bossk would give him... in a minute. First, he had to make a point.

"Nobody touches the boy," Bossk growled, glaring at the gathered crowd. With his free hand, he grabbed Jango's spawn by the shoulder, pulling him closer. "He's mine."

He dropped the hunter and lifted the boy, carrying him under his arm and against his side, and out of there because Bossk didn't like the crowded areas of the guild anyway. He'd take the kid back to the Hound's Tooth.

Plotted starter for @galaccias

If he closed his eyes long enough, Myles could still feel the arid winds of Mandalore on his skin, the smell of the sporadic storms in his nostrils, and the warmth of another's body against his own. That'd been so long ago. His life before slavery felt like a dream– a beautiful dream that kept him sane through all the hardships he faced in the Zygerrian arena. Zygerria wasn't Mandalore, it might share the type of hot and dry climate, but it was not his home. Myles refused to die anywhere but in his home, and then, once he managed to flee, he refused to die altogether. He had a man to find.

Jango Fett had made quite a name for himself.

The best bounty hunter in the galaxy, that's what people called him. Myles didn't doubt that was the truth, he'd heard plenty of stories, but most importantly, he heard about what happened on Galidraan when he paid a visit to the Governor, intending to retrieve his armor, only to find out —through a cathartically violent interrogation— that it'd been stolen from the Governor years ago by Jango himself.

He briefly returned to the Mandalore System to get a new set of armor, painting it the same as he did his old one, and soon, he became The Copycat. It was ironic. The armor Jango now wore was Myles' first, the color pattern was of his own making and yet, HE was the copycat. If it wasn't for the fact that it was Jango, Myles would really mind the misunderstanding, he would have killed his copycat– and Jango would have, too. That's why Myles' plan would work. Just like the stories about the great Jango Fett spread like wildfire, the stories about Jango Fett's copycat travelled through the galaxy faster than any ship thanks to holos and comms.

All Myles had to do was stay on one planet, and let it be known he was staying on that planet. But he wasn't always in the same place– he was a Mandalorian, a slave on the run, and there were more people than Jango after him.

Nar Shaddaa had a lot to offer when it came to hiding in plain sight and entertainment. Few people stood out there, and those who did did so in a way that told others not to mess with them. That is what Myles believes without a shadow of a doubt– or he did, until he came across the CHILD while walking around the crowded streets full of eye-sore inducing holos and neon lights.

At first, Myles was certain he was hallucinating. Then, as he watched people knock into the kid and it became clear that was a tangible, REAL child, he began blaming his age, the thousands of lights, even entertained the possibility of not being as mentally sound as he believed himself to be because that child looked exactly like Jango when Myles met him. To the point it caused what Myles could only describe a whiplash-like effect on a mental and emotional level. However, it didn't last long, because the kid was in trouble and every pinch of Mandalorian DNA in Myles' veins burned with rage as he watched some thugs shove the kid around.

He approached with the quiet yet intense stride of a seasoned hunter, shoved past one and grabbed the one closest to the child, punching the guy in the throat and shoving him towards his buddies. Myles' blaster was out in a moment, aimed with one hand, while the other went to grab at the kid's arm so he wouldn't run off. He might not be okay with strangers roughing up a child, but he needed answers.

"The kid's with me," he said. "And I don't take kindly to strangers putting their hands on my kid."

Whether it was because of the very real threat of the blaster or because they, like many others, fell for the idea that he was Jango Fett, they stepped back. Myles didn't care. Either option worked for him, because they stepped back and dragged their still recovering idiot away with them. Myles' expressionless visor remained on them until he lost sight of them. Then, and only then, did he turn his gaze to the child.

@galaccias said

The turbulent storm showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. Rain pattered against the Hound's Tooth's bronze-colored hull. From the cockpit, Bossk could see the waves as they crashed violently, the motions of the water painted distorted sights with the light's reflection every time lightning split the darkness like a lightsaber cutting through solid metal. If he stared for too long, he could swear he spotted things moving in the water. Maybe he was imagining things. Then again, he wouldn't be surprised if a planet where the biggest landmasses were island littered around the ocean and connected by —often quite precarious— bridges was also home to some nasty sea creatures.

Either way, he was safe on land. So that wasn't his problem.

What was his problem was the humanoid figure he spotted approaching his ship from the side farthest away from the shore.

Bossk's lips curled back as he growled, pupils pulsing with uncertainty, as he didn't know if this was a threat or just someone who happened to be walking past. Someone who, for some reason, was walking around during such a storm. The probability that this was just a passerby was reduced to zero when there was a repeated thudding against the hatch, a hard sound, hollow on his end, metal against metal- kark, did he leave the ramp down? He must have. But in his defense, he didn't think enough would be stupid enough to quite literally come knocking on his door.

Standing from his seat, Bossk grabbed his blaster and moved to the hatch, aiming the gun with one hand as the very tip a thick finger's just as thick claw tapped the controls to open it.

The smell of rain and blood assaulted his senses the moment the seal between the two halves of the hatch broke to allow them to slide upwards and downwards respectively. Bossk's blood ran cold and his chest felt as if he'd just gotten stomped on by a Wookiee- not because of the scent of blood in itself, but because of who it belonged to.

"Boba." the name left his sharp mouth as a punched-out breath. Carrying decades of concern for the armored man currently standing in front of him, injured.

Bossk's blood boiled.

He hadn't seen the boy- no, not a boy anymore, a man, in what felt like an eternity, and their last encounter hadn't exactly left them on the best of terms. Yet, Bossk didn't hesitate to reach out, get a hold of the younger bounty hunter's chest plate, pulling him into the ship before making quick work of closing and locking the hatch before any more rain got blown into the Hound's Tooth by the relentless wind.

Myles watched, the smile on his face having become a permanent feature since the moment he'd been allowed to hold the boy– their boy, in his arms. He let Boba hold onto his index finger, playfully shaking it just to feel him squeeze harder, and rubbing the back of his hand with the pad of his thumb and an impossibly soft touch.

"Oh, look at you..." he cooed. "You're so tough."

He didn't dare raise his voice above a whisper, afraid that even raising his voice would hurt Boba, hurt his little ears– how could someone's ears be so tiny? How could someone be so tiny? It wasn't the first time Myles saw a baby. Sure, there weren't many babies among the True Mandalorians faction, especially not late into the war. But he'd seen babies, on Mandalore, on his journeys. None had ever seemed as small or as fragile as Boba. Then again, he never held any of the other babies. He only watched them from a distance as they were carried around by their parents, who didn't seem as affected by their child's minuscule size as he was by Boba's.

But he was perfect, their little boy. Perfect and strong and so observant already, staring up at him like he was studying him. He actually managed to make Myles feel a little judged. But he would let this child judge him any day, he'd let this child do literally anything. Boba wasn't even a year old, nor close to turning a year old, and yet, he already had Myles wrapped around his finger– his impossibly tiny finger.

Slowly, Myles leaned closer, letting his forehead brush against Boba's, before he pulled back only a little bit, enough for his vision to focus so he could admire the boy's features from up close.