#wwann

finished the alt version of this that you can see without turning your screen’s brightness to 110%

have a bit of worship the ashes <3

Doc Tani appeared like a sleek-furred ghost beside him, having leapt the eight-odd-feet from a standstill. She settled on her haunches like she’d been born to perch on a bombed-out wall, lit deathstick pinched between her carnassials. “Pretty sunset. Get a good look, I guess, before Kadgalaar lands.”

The good doctor took a drag, then offered the smoke to him. Jaster filled his lungs.

“She’s going to burn this planet down,” Tani continued upon reclaiming her deathstick.

“I’m close enough to burning it myself,” Jaster admitted, staring out at the ruins and the spectacular light show above. “This is some shit.”

“You’re not listening to me.” She twisted to face him, leaned a degree into his space. “You’re not clan-bound, with a dedicated Armorer, right?” He wasn’t; he’d been just one more clanless hopeful when he’d joined the Journeyman Protectors. In later years Ardanna had sponsored him and served House Mereel such as it was, but she’d been very clear that she wasn’t his Clan Armorer, to take his part and throw elbows on his behalf when push came to shove. Jango’s Armorer certainly had little time for the man who’d gotten a branch of their Clan wiped out.

Tani mrred. “I don’t know how closely you’ve worked with armorers before, real metal-singers, but they’re fucked in the head. All of them. Comes with the territory.” Her tasseled ears danced with the force of her head-shake. “Arlanov’la specifically is hot and cold between the best and worst goran alive. There’s kids involved, so she’s going to try and make Hammerborn look like a two-legged strill by comparison. A drunk two-legged strill.” 

Tani stubbed out her deathstick and immediately lit another. That was the problem with those novelty sorts; the less objectionable the taste, the shorter the burn.

“How many weapons and explosives are we packing, plus whatever’s already here? How much metal fixings in the Young’s tunnels? Kriff, how much ore in the bedrock?” It was, Jaster knew, the Concordian Armorers’ collective hold on the planet’s beskar ore that held it more-or-less together, kept the magnetic fields flowing, kept the atmosphere from being stripped off in minutes.

“You got yourself a battlefield armorer, Mereel. I hope you’re prepared for what that entails.”

“Why d’you know so much? About this armorer?”

“Before I met Mij, we were engaged.” Tani answered his wince with a humorless twitch of her whiskers. “So this is going to be fun. And by ‘this is going to be fun’ I obviously mean ‘this is the nightmare scenario.’

@ficwip's word this week is "type" so here's a bit of Worship The Ashes <3

“I don’t know if I want to be a Mandalorian. I don’t ever want to have to fight a war again. And I definitely don’t want to lead anyone into battle again. But I also don’t want to ever be defenseless.”

“While every soul should be able to fight to the best of their abilities, not all are soldiers; less than one in ten. Your Young have only met a very few specialized types of Mandalorian, the supercommandos and mercenaries and medics and myself. More than that, you have seen more war already than most ever do, and only the very worst, caught in the teeth of it.”

She paused a moment, and Cerasi tucked her hands beneath each opposite armpit.

“There is no less worth in the life of a Mandalorian who makes our plates and cups, or who grows the crops that feeds us, or who orates great pieces in public forums, or who keeps the trams running on time, or those who create beautiful spaces of rest and combat both.”

Yes. That. She wanted to bring people together and have them feel the same wonder she was. She wanted to stand under a high ceiling set with tile that wasn’t shattered or blackened, and know that in a few thousand years another child might be struck by that wonder, too.

“There’s precedent, if we consider the sacking of Kuar in Indomitable’s reign, and Hammerborn’s plans for Naboo, and of course Vindicated had the...” She trailed off, head tilted, staring off into the space between them. Mereel shifted, opened his mouth to respond, and her attention sharpened. “There can be no argument that the governmental structure in place is worth keeping.”

Her hand splayed flat on the table, pressed hard enough that the tips of her fingers, visible through transparent nails, turned pale with lack of circulation. “Once the Elders are killed or broken, make Melidaan part of Mandalorian space. It’s already right on the spur of it. There are Crusader ruins in the outer asteroid conglomerate.” 

Mereel shook his helm. “We’d be justified, no doubt about it, but the stakes are too high to be hasty. Death Watch will take it as my stance weakening, while the New Mandalorians will take it as proof that the Haat’ade and Kyr’tsad are the same. The Republic, too, would call it slaughter, and they would be right.”

The armorer barked a single harsh laugh, tossed her head to momentarily bare her throat for that extra bite of derision. Goading. “What was your contract on Korda VI if not a slaughter? A hired one, contractual, and one your forces did not fulfill, since something more important came to the fore. But still a slaughter.”

In the blink of an eye she’d drawn her hammer to stretch across the table to just touch Mereel’s iron heart. Alpha knew that tone of voice. He braced the balls of his feet that much more firmly on the floor, just in case.

“Here then is your contract, Mand’alor the Headhunter; I speak as the elder sister to the leader of unified Melidaan, and I say you will take this world in the name of its Young. This waste planet may fall but its children shall not die for your fear of being thought a conqueror.”

fic.