#neyo writes

Eya snorts at the very literal translation of what they assume is a Basic phrase they don’t know.

“It was… bad?” they inquire, cocking their head to taste the air. It turns sour and rancid when Fives shakes his head and sighs deeply, letting out all the air as if it was so heavy it could weigh him down.

“It was bad,” he agrees. “But… I would like to say it was worth it in the end. I’d like to say we were heroes, that we saved everyone and everybody thanked us on their knees for the help we provided… for the vode we sacrificed to make it.”

He pauses, takes a sip. Eya doesn’t press him. Fives rarely ever talks about the missions, like it’s an unspoken law. Maybe he likes remembering the crack of necks under his hands as little as Eya does.

“So… I would like to say it was worth it,” Fives eventually continues. “I- I just don’t know that it was. The mission itself was bad enough. Lost a lot of brothers down there, and it was- it was so stupid. Intel was bad, nothing was worth anything, and there was nobody worth saving. It was a ploy, it must’ve been, something to get our hopes up that it might turn the tides of war- something that let us think for a second that we could maybe win. But the worst part was that we were so… hated. From the second we touched down, everything went wrong and it wasn't even our fault. It wasn't even mistakes that could have been avoid, it was just- These people… osik, Eya, they didn’t even want to be saved. Not by us. They would rather have stayed Separatist slaves than look any of us in the face. Unnatural, one of them called me. A mistake of creation, an error of judgement, a lapse of reason. Would rather have died than be touched by me, said so himself.”

Fives downs his drink in one go, slams the glass down and signals the bartender for another. Eya doesn’t stop him, even if they don’t agree with the choice. They never have been one to drown their sorrows in alcohol, but thinking back, that might have been healthier than the alternative they picked.

“It doesn’t… please me that you were treated like this,” they offer, extending a hand to lay it on Fives’s warm forearm. He flinches, but then leans into the soft touch.

“You have an odd way of putting things sometimes, do you know that?” he mumbles. Eya’s hand seems so large on his small form. Slowly, they let their affection sink into his skin until the lines of rage are smoothed from Fives’s face.

“Mhhm, so I’ve been told. Not all of us grew up on Basic, vod’ika. Excuse me for having a family that stuck to the way,” Eya teases lightly.

“Believe me, if I had gotten to choose the language in which I was raised, it would not have been this one.” The words are tinged with anger, a bitterness seeping into Eya’s skin. “If I had gotten to choose the way I was raised, it would not have been this, if I had gotten to choose the man I wanted to become… I don’t think it would have been this.”

“Gar ori’jate verd, vod’ika,” Eya whispers, basking in the familiarity of their mother tongue saying words any Mando’ad should get to hear every day growing up. “Why would you-”

“It’s not about that.” Fives’s voice breaks even in those few syllables, and the deep lines of sorrow return to his face. “I never… Eya, cyare, this was never the way for me. I don’t think I would have ever chosen to become a soldier if I’d had a choice. Doesn’t matter I’m good at it. Doesn’t matter how many I kill, doesn’t matter that most of them aren’t even alive, are just droids, nothing more than violent machinery.”

He lowers his voice even more, speaking treasonous words that ring in Eya’s ears.

“I would never have chosen to fight in this pointless war. If I’d had a choice… some days I would have rather not been born. Not even born, Eya- Gods, I wasn't even born, was I? Decanted.” He spits the word out like it’s poisonous. “My creation was for one purpose only, do you understand that?”

“Gar sosol ti ni.” Eya’s words are meant to be consolation, but Fives’s eyes flare with anger at them.

“Nayc,” he disagrees passionately. “You had every option, Eya. You could have been whatever you wanted, you chose-”

Rage bubbles up in Eya’s chest, hot and bitter and ugly.

“Could I have?” they hiss, and notice that Fives leans back and away from their touch at the bitter words. They pull back their hand from him – they have no affection to give right now. “Really, vod? Go on- tell me what I could have been, since you seem to know so much about my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

The words sound strange off of Fives’s tongue. Maybe because Eya has rarely ever heard them before, not from anyone.

“You should be.” Eya’s kyram’edeem dig so hard into their lip that they taste blood, salty like the seas of their home. “You are important to me, Rayshe’e. But don’t ever assume that you know anything about my past.”

“Only because you never tell me anything,” Fives grumbles, but he doesn’t sound angry anymore. The air is filled with… frustration, yes, but also curiosity. He leans forward until his arm touches Eya’s again – a gesture of reconciliation.

Eya sighs heavily. Sometimes, fights with words are like this: Quick and sharp, and easily resolved. They prefer it to the quiet anger that smoulders and grows behind closed doors.

“It’s better this way, better that you know nothing,” they try to convince Fives, who has this expression on his face like he is about to ask a very dumb question. “It doesn’t… matter. I don’t want it to matter. It’s not important to who I am today.”

“Our past makes us everything we are,” Fives contradicts, and Eya has to hold their tongue.

“If that is true, then you should be running screaming,” they mumble, staring at the blank slate of the bar before them.

“Is that so?” There is a challenge in Fives’s voice, and it’s so stupid. It’s so, so stupid. Jare’la vod’ika.

Eya takes a deep breath and decides not to get mad at Fives. He doesn't know what he is asking.

“Elek, vod. That is so. Let’s leave it at that.” Eya knocks on the sealed wood of the bar with their mareve and revels in the sound of them, in the quiet warning that their weight carries. Fives, though, is seemingly resistant to that warning.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he drawls, drawing out each word like chewing gum. “Have you… have you ever lost a fight?”

Memories come crashing in, making Eya’s head spin: Someone whisked away from them, the sounds of explosions in the distance. More recent: black blood on their hands, the stench of their own blood in the air when they pick metal-covered bone splinters from the cut-up palm of their hand. Dead yellow eyes staring up at them.

They pull a small knife from the holster on their hip and start twirling it between their fingers, forcing themself to be grounded by the repetition.

“Naysol soletar.” Their answer is cold, detached, betrays nothing of the turmoil inside their head and hearts. Fives cocks his head.

“Too many to count, huh? You don’t seem like a person who likes to lose.”

Eya grits their teeth and clenches their fist, knife twirling faster in the other hand until it seems to blur between their fingers.

“Never said I liked it. I was a sore loser when I was younger… maybe I still am. Haven’t had many chances to find out.”

The only fights they have lost were the ones that really mattered. Not fights you leave as a sore loser, but fights where you lose a piece of yourself if you lose them. Fights of life and death, and destiny. One fight they have avenged already – not that they feel any better for it. It was never that one that really mattered in the end.

Fives stares for a moment, processing their words.

“Kyreya, cyare- tell me. When was the last time you lost a fight?”

Eya shrugs.

“Depends on what you count as losing. Or a fight for that matter.”

“A duel, preferably one on one, where you were beaten in fair battle and had to give up.” Fives’s answer comes to quickly. He shrugs at the expression on their face. “What? You asked for a definition.”

Eya shoves the memories down and down and down before they answer, twirling the knife between their fingers almost like they are bored.

“‘bout a year ago.”

“And before that?” Fives presses, eagerness dripping off of him like he is a puppy waiting for his treat.

“Few months before the last one.”

“And before that?” Fives asks impatiently.

Eya sighs and decides that it’s inevitable. Fives is pushy today, he is spoiling for a fight, eager for it, this has to be what this is about. They can feel it in their gills. He is leading them somewhere with his probing questions.

“When I was a tadpole. Just a wee one- I mean, I had legs and everything. But I was… young. A child, by your definition.”

Fives gawks, the expression on his face almost funny in its dumbfoundedness.

“Gev, utreekov,” Eya mumbles.

“You have lost… two… battles… in your entire lifetime?”

“Just told you I haven’t. Lost many more than that. Nobody is born a warrior, no matter what they tell you at that stupid army of yours. It’s a learned skill like anything else. For some people, the… learning curve is just steeper that for others.” In spite of everything, Eya can’t help the undertone of pride that sneaks into their voice.

Nobody is born a warrior, that’s true. Some ad’ike just take better to a fight than others. And they had been the best their créche had seen in ages.

“I’m talking about fights that matter,” Fives waves his hand impatiently. “Not training fights, not… not the fights that kids fight. I’m talking about the battles you have fought since you became the warrior you are today.”

“Those would be none,” Eya says coldly, surprised by how much his words hit the bullseye of their pain. “I am Mando’ad, but I am no longer Mando’verd. I don’t fight anymore, not like that. I swore an oath.”

“To whom?” Fives demands.

“To the only person who matters,” Eya retorts, feeling almost childish in their secrecy, but they are not ready to open that can of fish just yet.

“Will you elaborate?” Fives asks, the eagerness back in his voice.

“No.”

Silence envelops them for a moment. Fives hasn’t touched his second drink. His fingers tap quietly on his knees, like he is trying to hold something in… and failing spectacularly.

Eya braces themself for the next question he is bound to ask. When it comes, it’s not a question at all. It’s bait.

“I bet I could take you,” Fives murmurs, under his breath and almost so quiet that Eya can’t hear it. Almost.

“Mhhm.” They shrug noncommittally. 

“Do you not think so?” Fives asks, seeming genuinely curious. Gods, his eternal curiosity. One of these days it’ll get him killed.

Eya has to will their tendrils to calm down. They knew this was coming. They know Fives won’t give up, not unless they are very harsh about it. Thing is- they don’t want him to give up, not really. He is too cocky for his own good, too sure of himself. He could use a reminder that despite everything, despite all his training and teachings, he is not the best warrior this planet has ever seen. Not even the best warrior this rundown shithole of a bar has ever seen… not so long as Eya is here.

“Maybe you could,” Eya says slowly. “I’m… a bit out of practice.”

That’s a lie. The dojo they go to is very good, even if there is nobody that can really match them. Not even other Mando’ade; too many have forsaken the way, have grown soft and used to their gadgets. There are warriors more skilled with a sword, with a dagger; certainly more skilled with the graceless violence of a blaster than Eya. But nobody beats them at hand to hand, not ever.

Nobody except Brutus ever managed that, and Brutus is… well. Brutus is dead, Brutus bled out on the floor of a dirty arena with his throat ripped out and his horns crushed, the taste of his viscera on Eya’s tongue, the black of his blood eternally on their hands.

Fives pulls them from their sanguineous remembrance of the dead. His voice is the lifeline in the darkness that grips their hearts.

“I think I could,” he says confidently, sizing them up once again. This is what he has wanted from the start, Eya realises. This is what he came over to ask for, even before he talked about the war. He wants a distraction, and Eya is about to make his night a whole lot better… or worse, depending on how you look at it.

“Well, if you think so, I’m sure you could, verd’ika.” The nickname is intentional, just condescending enough to make Fives bristle from it.

“I don’t like to assume things,” he says, leaning over and looking at Eya with eager, shining eyes. “I’d like to put my theory to the test.”

“Would you now.”

Fives nods, and Eya bares their fangs in a beskar-coloured smile of death. To his credit, Fives barely shudders and his voice remains steady.

“I would, cyare. Would you do me the honours?”

“If you don’t stop calling me that, I most certainly will.”

Fives grins his sunniest grin.

“Oya, cyare. It’s a date.”

Eya shakes their head, but the promise of a fight between friends puts them in a good mood. While they are certain that Fives will be the loser in a fight against them, he will certainly be a challenge. They were not lying when they said he was a good soldier- they have seen him fight, they have been told many stories by him and his vode. Fives will not go down easy, and he won’t be too precious to cheat and use everything he knows to his advantage. Hopefully.

Eya’s tendrils dance at the thought.

By Nephto, this will be fun.

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» Part II: The Path of the Sword

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Mando'a:

Oya, vod. - Cheers, man. Su cuy'gar. - What's up? (Lit. You're alive) an ka'gaht - everything (went) south Gar ori'jate verd, vod'ika. - You are an excellent soldier, little brother. cyare - beloved Gar sosol ti ni. - You the same as I. Rayshe'e - 'Fives' Jare'la vod'ika - Stupid little brother. Elek, vod - Yes, brother. Naysol soletar. - Too many to count. Gev, utreekov. - Stop it, dumbass. Oya, cyare. - Come on (in this case in the sense of: alright)

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Taggies for all of youse who love Eya as much as I do. Huge shoutout for my eternal and beloved beta @baba-fett and to @ulchabhangorm who is the most wonderful reader of all times and has godlike inspiration abilities.