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People are shaped by their experiences.
If Paz knew the sparse and lonely existence lying ahead of him in Galvis’s underbelly, maybe he would not have fought so hard to get there. Maybe he would have defied the Armourer’s order to fly as the Imps spilled through the mouth of their Nevarro covert.
Through hot tears blurring his vision, the Armourer kneels at the tail of the catwalk, the void of space gaping before her. Straight-backed and stoic, she is as fearless as he’s ever known her.
He needs that silent strength now more than ever. Galvis is too quiet and too open. This place would have never been appropriate for a tribe with children underfoot, the blackness of space waiting to snatch those with the slightest misstep.
When the Imps arrived, the Armourer told him to usher their people to safety while she salvaged their heritage. Multiple ships dotted the sky as the tribe scattered to space.
“Guard them and I will find you,” she declared, and Paz did not doubt her for a moment.
He had one job.
He loses the first of his vode mere hours after leaving atmo. The tribe’s doctors were either in another ship or lost in the siege, Paz doesn’t know. There is no one on board his small shuttle with the skill to tend someone missing whole pieces of their torso. She is one of his infantry, two years past her coming of age. Her buire named her “Dar’chaab” perhaps in the hope the blessing would imbue her to face such a moment without fear. Paz thinks no less of her trembling with soft sobs, the strength of her grip slipping in his hand.
“D-did I… do enough, Al-Al’verde [Commander]?”
There is a customary blessing for moments as this, but it has been so long since Paz has had need of it. His heart thuds heavily and her forehelm clinks beneath his own as he does his best not to stumble over the words. She shudders in his arms, slackening with the departure of her breath, and he just hopes she heard the last of it.
At their side, the children bawl in grief, pawing at her limp thigh and arm. Paz burns her body with the shuttle after it stutters into port of a metropolis two planets out from Nevarro, irreparably damaged from the fire of incoming TIE fighters during their escape.
The childrens’ hands are tiny in Paz's gloves and they trail after him through the station’s bustle, linked hand-in-hand. There are four of them: three foundlings, Mavali, Ais, and Elen; the fourth is young Abesh [East], born of the tribe and too small to walk or understand why his buire are nowhere in sight. He clings to his big brother Mavali. Mavali is the eldest of them all and barely reaches Paz’s beltline.
Paz is accompanied by two other adults: one of the covert’s cooks and the children’s ba’jurir [teacher] who had chased this cloister when they snuck aboveground to watch the tribe the evening they went to war in the bazaar.
All Mandalorians of the tribe can fight but the best had been stationed at the walls with Paz's own infantry. They were still firing when Paz ushered the children onto the ship. The infantry were still at the mouth of the landing bay when the TIE fighters struck.
The cook they lose to frightening and infuriating circumstance. Steering his wards through the large crowd, Paz turns one moment and the cook is simply... gone. The children whimper and cling to each other at the pitch of his bellow, calling out above the crowd’s tumult, but it is futile. He never learns what happened to the man.
Then it is just the children, their teacher, and him.
Their commercial barge sails through space with the covert’s survivors sequestered in the lower decks. Paz feeds the children what rations remain and whispers with their teacher, Gida, of how they must settle at their next port to gather themselves, secure resources, or the children will suffer for it. Gida’s specialty is horticulture and already forms plans of what they can grow from the seeds they stowed in their bags. With the children’s hushed murmurs quieting with sleep, Paz allows himself to be buoyed with hope.
The problem with travelling under the radar is their choice of transport isn’t always up to code. Paz did what research he could, but their credits were limited, they had little to trade in kind, and discretion was of the utmost importance.
Also, captains lie.
The moment the rickety barge breaks atmo at their next planet, it shatters apart in a screaming fireball. Paz wishes the children had slept through it.
It seems impossible that anyone should survive that crash, and long after Paz crawls from the wreckage, he curses fate that it should be him. The Creed teaches to trust in fate’s hand, that Mandalore will persevere while its people hold faith, but as Paz shreds his lungs on engine smoke, shouting for survivors, all he can feel is helpless, furious anguish.
In the weeks that follow, he will understand: he survived because he had the best armour, the strongest constitution, and the worst luck. He mourns for so many, too young to march with the Manda. It's a sacrilegious thought, but the guilt gets the best of him.
He had one job.
Months pass and Paz ekes a reluctant living as a private enforcer for a local crime lord trading in water. It's easy work. He doesn't ask the details beyond who he needs to hit and how hard. He might have been satisfied with that simple life if he'd never discovered his employer's full portfolio.
One day, he's sent to retrieve a package: a container inside which, he learns, are hidden a pair of siblings, dirty and starving and scared. They look barely old enough to walk. He recognises these two from a recurring notice for missing children that's been blasted across the holonet for a week.
They cry when Paz appears in the doorway of the container where they're being stored, clinging to each other. It's a cold feeling, inspiring that in children. The adiik of the tribe never feared him.
You had one job.
In retrospect, he should have expected as much from the man who would trade in one of life's basic necessities.
The children tremble but do not resist when Paz gathers them up, they have learned to be quiet. Their shock doesn't lift even when they're being bundled with blankets into the arms of local authorities.
"Where did you find them?" The Trandoshan detective interrogates him under bright lights automatically dimmed by his HUD.
"I don't recall," he lies.
"You're one of Orlo's men, aren't you?"
"I don't know who that is."
They try to detain him, but laws are fluid things on Galvis and, more importantly, Paz does not let them.
Orlo Penn, water runner and human trafficker, is dead within the hour.
Paz wanders the dim streets home in a daze, his armour still streaked with the man's blood and viscera. His former boss had put up a fight, a pathetic effort not worthy of its name. His throat had parted easily under Paz's hands.
A new figure steps into his path ahead, haloed in starlight. Inside, he cries with relief and despair.
The Armourer looks as unruffled as she had ploughing through ranks of white Imperials on Nevarro, even the fur over her pauldrons is unsinged. Maybe if Paz had a tenth of her prowess and wisdom, the children might have survived.
"Where are the others?" She asks.
Paz's fists ball at his sides. He tries three times before the words come. "There are none."
She stares at him.
He withers under her silent judgment. He is prepared to tell her how he buried what he could find of the children, how he salvaged three of their four beskar amulets, how the burnt remains of Gida were found wrapped around them, protecting the most precious of their tribe to the last, as a warrior should.
He will not tell her how he has wished he burned with them.
The Armourer asks nothing and, somehow, that feels even more damning. Slowly, one boot at a time, she strides ahead to investigate the strata of this ring world where Paz has taken refuge. Her infantryman could not salvage a single soul, but she managed to bring her entire forge and they must find a place for it.
In his darkest moments of grief, he had hoped she would not find him. That fate would bequeath the mercy to nurse his shame for the rest of his days in obscurity. But, as his father had often declared: Vizslas had a duty to Mandalore. And Mandalore must always come first.
Time loses its meaning as Paz withdraws from the liminal life he established on Galvis, throwing himself into his former duties at the Armourer’s side with relief. If he can still be of service, he still has a purpose.
The days pass. The hours drag. They work with little conversation, the Armourer issuing clipped and precise commands. Paz’s heart pangs for the drone of casual conversation from their vode gossiping the meaning behind someone’s new armour paint or the children screaming with glee as they played where they shouldn’t.
All too soon, their refuge is fortified and the Armourer settles in to meditate in thanks to their ancestors with the calm of someone far beyond Paz's years.
One day, their perimeter alerts ping. Another Mandalorian has found them.
Paz watches from the wings as their former beroya drags himself across the steel catwalk, limping and hissing with pain. Too many feelings twist in Paz’s chest: vindication at Din’s evident difficulty but gratitude too because, after all they lost, surviving was the least the bastard could do. Din collapses at the foot of the stair and all the bitterness slips from Paz’s fingers feeling the echo of his own exhaustion in Din’s slump.
“Tend to him,” the Armourer says.
Din is trembling as Paz sinks to his side, examining the burn wound of his thigh. It's bad but nothing the bacta spray won't heal with time.
This close, the shine of Din’s beskar’gam is breathtaking. Paz barely had the chance to glimpse it before Din left them and he had been in no state of mind to appreciate it. If matters were different, the beroya would have been the pride of the tribe.
“I didn't know if I would ever see you again,” Paz says, without quite meaning to.
“Thank you for saving me on Nevarro.” Din’s breath rasps with pain, voice shaking and, for a moment, Paz sees another vod before him, voids in her chest, death rattling through her lungs.
“D-did I… do enough, Al-Alverde?”
Paz braces against the surge of grief in his throat. It was his decision to lead their tribe to Din’s aid as the Creed demanded and he can’t… won’t regret it. Such was the Way.
Din continues, “I am sorry for your sacrifice.”
Paz frowns, glancing at that flawless, unblemished face of beskar. Your sacrifice, not our? Had Din not also lost his vode that day?
From the corner of his eye, the Armourer studies the stars, does not curse Din Djarin whose choice to deal with Imps led to their decimation, so Paz pushes through the turmoil clouding his chest to focus on the one matter he can control: Din’s wound.
“There are three of us now. We'll put you to work soon enough.”
Din hisses as the bacta eats through bacteria and broken flesh to begin the ugly work of healing. Good. Let him feel the sting of their numbers, too.
At last, the Armourer takes interest. “What weapon caused such a wound?”
“This,” Din says, unclipping the item from his belt.
Paz stows the bacta spray in his medkit, glancing up. His entire universe slows to a stop.
For in Din’s hand lies the legendary totem of Paz’s own house and Mandalore’s leaders in ages past: the Darksaber. Paz had pored over holocrons of its likeness from old archives as a boy, head full of dreams and glory. That was before the fall of Mandalore. Now, the Darksaber is here-- that it is found is enough to steal Paz’s breath.
That their own beroya is the one who returns it to them? Din Djarin?
Paz stares at the man, stunned.
The Armourer calls for him, the order reaching him like sound through water and somehow he follows, limbs wooden, still disbelieving even when the weight of the Darksaber is cradled in his hands.
Din and the Darksaber have come home to them. And for the first time in Paz’s life, he does not know what to do.
///
There are a few things Paz learns to be true:
Din won the Darksaber by tradition and so it is his by rite.
The Darksaber belongs with Clan Vizsla, if a Vizsla can so claim it.
The thought of taking the Darksaber fills Paz with such dread, his stomach pitches and his tongue swells in his mouth. The burned remains of Gida and the children swim before his eyes, and he will not soon forget Dar’chaab’s bruising grip in his hand before death took her. The shame claws at his throat so he growls, deflecting its talons at the one who brought this problem to him. Din answers his questions easily enough and Paz takes stock, with heightening disbelief.
Din confronted the one responsible for the genocide of their people? Din salvaged even more beskar perverted into the threat of a spear, by allying with Jedi? How could one so unremarkable contain so many surprises?
“What should I forge?” the Armourer asks.
“Something for a foundling,” Din says.
The Armourer approves. “This is the Way.”
Paz watches them-- watches Din specifically and how the tension leaks from his shoulders when the Armourer concedes to fashion something for his recent charge. Grogu. A Jedi. So, Din succeeded in his mission.
At least one of them did.
///
Paz had one job.
“D-did I… do enough, Al-Alverde?”
The Darksaber belonged to House Vizsla.
"And when we get settled, we can start with the arbour roots…."
The Darksaber had finally returned to them… but at what cost?
"I have you, ad'ika, close your eyes--"
Had he done enough?
"I'm scared… Buir…."
He lived for the covert. And the covert would have its way.
///
Din Djarin's shoulders sag at the sight of him stalking across the catwalk.
"I thought it might come to this," the man mutters. With weary resignation, he falls into a defensive stance. The Darksaber flares to life in his hands like a black flame.
Paz stops just beyond striking range, blood pounding at his temples. His hands sweat in their gloves.
"Let's get this over with," Din growls.
The saber is bigger than Paz imagined even from records. The way Din rolls his shoulder, shifting his weight suggests it’s heavier, too. The man had only a few hours to heal since Paz sprayed his wound down and they both pushed the Forge into working order. He must be tired. Who knows how far he had come or how long he travelled to get here? Paz certainly hadn’t asked him.
“I just have one question,” he says, at last.
The white shimmer of the blade’s edge is hypnotic on Din’s beskar. “What?”
A fist closes around Paz’s heart as he reaches for the words. “Do you think you deserve it?”
Din does not hesitate, nor his form waver. “Let me guess: you do?”
Paz’s face falls and he stares at his empty, gloved hands remembering how small the children’s fingers had measured in his palm. His heart falls out from under him and his knees with it. The catwalk shudders with the clang of catching his weight.
"Din Djarin.” Paz kneels, head hanging in shame. “Mand’Alor. Mand’Alor… the Merciful, perhaps? What will they call you when they learn of the trials you faced, how you brought honour to our tribe--"
The shimmer of Din's saber falters. "Wait. What's happening?"
Shame churns hot through Paz’s body. His mouth pulls in an involuntary grimace, voice choking. “Th-there used to be more of us.”
Tension hangs over the two of them as a pulse of star-woven opportunity: a fork in the road of fate.
The saber retracts like the throaty hiss of a snake and Din sighs, deflating from his defensive posture. “I know. I’m sorry.”
No, he doesn’t. Paz shakes his head, the tears burning as they escape. “There were eight of us… on my shuttle. Leaving Nevarro. One after another… I-I lost them.”
Slowly, the other Mandalorian sinks to kneel opposite him in a posture of meditation, respectful. Waiting. The Darksaber rests on his thigh.
“Four were children,” Paz says.
Din curses quietly under his breath, head bowing. His hands curl to claws atop his knees. His tells were always so obvious.
“If I couldn-- couldn’t save eight… how am I going to save the rest of us?” Despair chokes Paz’s throat. He knows duty demands he put personal grief aside to challenge Din for the right to lead their people. But not long ago, they had been a covert that forsook all ancient houses and stripped names for a singular identity: each vod within a tribe only individualised by the nature of their service. Is it right to invoke the name of Clan Vizsla now?
Eight are enough deaths on his conscience. He doesn’t know if he can survive anymore.
A quiet scoff of laughter draws his attention back to Din.
“I don’t want to rule Mandalore,” says the one with every right to.
Paz stares at him, reining the instinctive part of him that clamours, ‘But, the honour!’
“You never did like attention.”
“You took it all, leaving little for the rest of us. Suited me just fine.”
A smile tugs at the corner of Paz’s mouth. He studies the Saber again. So, Din does not desire rule. It matches what Paz remembers of the humble young man who proved his mettle by quiet dedication and hard work. “You don’t think you could?”
“It’s a formidable weapon,” Din concedes, turning it over on his thigh. “I’ll carry it until someone stronger will claim it for our people. But I’m no ruler.”
An unfortunate axiom returns to Paz in that moment. “Some of our best leaders have said the same.”
Din’s head cants and Paz can feel the heat of his droll look, even if he can’t picture his expression. His last memory of Din’s face is muddled by time, but he recalls impressions: how Din's gaze was a contradiction of piercing strength, cautious warmth, and a deep, deep sadness Paz would rather beat out of him than admit he felt its echo in himself.
“So,” Din prompts him again. “Are you here to duel for it?”
Do it for the clan.
Paz holds his gaze and prays his ancestors will forgive him. “No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“It belongs with my House.”
“You just said you won’t fight for it.”
Paz nods, drawing a steadying breath. Warmth climbs in his cheeks. “That’s not the only way to restore the Darksaber to my House.”
Din shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”
Now or never. Paz is, at least, assured this might not be a terrible choice. There are worse options than Din Djarin, their Mand’Alor.
He bows his head in respect. “Din Djarin. You have journeyed far from the foundling we salvaged on Aq Vetina. In the beginning you were small. Scared. You are still small--”
Din groans, head falling back with exasperation. “Ugh.”
“You fight… adequately.” The words feel like bluster and Paz is almost embarrassed to speak them because if Din defeated the Moff who annihilated their people, his prowess spoke for itself. Perhaps Din had found ways to compensate for the short reach of his arm.
Din begins pushing to his feet. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“I see now you were not the worst choice to provide for our people. You uphold the Creed with honour.”
Din falters at that and it’s the only reason Paz is able to catch his hand, holding on when Din flinches back. Paz never touched him except in violence or to correct the sit of his armour. At least, not since they were adults. Paz loosens his grip on the other man’s fingers only enough to ensure Din won’t withdraw from him, grateful the man did not cleave his arm with the Darksaber on instinct.
For a long moment, they stare at each other as Paz gathers his courage and Din gauges what he did to earn the fresh heaping of insults.
And then Din’s shoulders drop. “No….”
“Din Djarin--” Paz appeals, closing Din’s hand in his two, graciously cupped.
Din tries to pull away, voice spiking amusingly high. “No!”
Holding on, Paz is forced to rise to one knee. It’s encouraging that Din has still not brought the saber to life. “Din… if you say it one more time, I will accept but please-- hear me. I will accept your rule. I will be your strongest support. None will stand in your way.”
With his free hand, Din hides his visor and strangles a sound of mortification.
“And if you wish to abdicate,” Paz continues quickly, “We will find one worthy to claim the saber.”
“We?” Din snaps.
“Yes. If you would honour me.”
Din groans like he just tasted something drastically unpleasant. He shakes his head tightly. Glares down at Paz on his knee like a supplicant begging benediction. “You don’t even like me! And y-- you want to… bond with me?”
Paz intertwines his fingers with Din’s and the man visibly shudders at the motion, shoulders crowding at the unfamiliar feeling as though something cold had just dripped down his spine. “I don’t… not like you.”
“Compelling, Vizsla. I hope you make a better effort with your actual riduur one day.” He tugs his hand free and Paz’s heart drops harder than he expected.
Paz clambers to his feet before Din can shut the door to his quarters in his face. “Din. My offer is serious.”
Din whirls on him, brandishing that beskar and black hilt at him. “The only reason you’re offering is because you want this saber back in your House! Not for me. Or anything I care about. The moment we find someone worthy to claim the saber, you’d have no reason to stay.”
“That’s not true.”
Din scoffs in disbelief, an ugly, hurtful sound. “Really?”
“You care about the tribe,” Paz concedes, throat tightening as it suddenly feels he’s speaking around a stone. “And the foundlings. As I do.”
Din stares at him, one foot over the threshold of his quarters. Paz leaps at the opening.
“You won the Darksaber and returned it to our people! You bested a mudhorn by your own hand! You have fed, clothed and armoured our tribe for years. You take deep conviction in the Creed, I have seen it.”
That does not earn the reaction Paz expects, Din’s chin falling to his chest. “It’s not…” He sighs, shaking his head. “It’s not always what it appears…. I had help.”
“Loyalty. Solidarity.” Slowly, ever so cautious, Paz reaches for his hand again. Din does not resist as Paz draws close enough to cast him in shadow from the station’s lights. Din is shaking. “This is the Way.”
He expects the vow’s echo and affirmation.
Din looks up at him. His voice trembles, small. “I’m not what you think I am.”
Paz sighs, curling a gentle hand behind Din’s neck. Their forehelms gently clink as they rest together, a mutual acknowledgement of loss, grief and guilt. “Neither am I.”
Din snorts under his breath. His fingers encircle Paz’s wrist, holding on. His voice is but a murmur, rueful. Paz is glad to hear him smiling. “I think you’re exactly what you appear to be.”
“No,” Paz protests. “I have… more. If you would permit me to show you.”
Din is quiet, pondering his appeal. They stand so close their chests almost brush, but it does not feel like the right time nor place to insinuate more.
“This isn’t a ‘yes’,” Din says at last, but that’s enough to set Paz’s heart soaring with relief and he smiles so broadly his face aches with it. “There are so few of us… it would be irresponsible not to try.”
Paz laughs at the barb. Ow. So that’s how that feels. He brings the back of Din’s hand to his forehelm, blessing it in gratitude and the hope for something more one day. Din allows it, though he appears to squirm with embarrassment, looking away.
“Then we must try,” Paz says. “For our people.”
Din’s head cants, studying him, and he grips Paz’s hand back, at last. “This is the Way.”