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Someone coming for her sister should have shown the truth of her character, that her people were fighters, even underneath all the trappings of pacifism. It was not a Mandalorian that came for her, not even a deluded one. That a Jedi had been caught trying to free Satine just filled Bo-Katan with more shame. Why of all the clans of Mandalore, had she been given this sister? A sister who not only refused to fight, but who relied on outsiders? An outsider who belonged to the old enemies of her world?
Pre sat on the throne, an image of a true Mandalorian in his beskar. Guards were holding her sister, keeping her kneeling before him. Bo-Katan felt a twinge at that. Satine was a pacifist, physically holding her in place seemed overkill. When Death Watch had taken their rightful place as the head of the Mandalorian government, Satine had practically handed everything to them. She had said it was to save lives, to put a stop to the terror her people had been subject to, but Bo-Katan knew it was because she was weak, and didn't know how to fight for what was hers. The people would come around to Death Watch, once they remembered what they were. Fighters. Survivors. Then the curfews and the patrols would stop. Once people knew the truth of themselves, then the broadcast restrictions would stop. Once the true Mandalorians had woken up from their pacifist fever dream, everything would be alright. With more Mandalorians at their side, they wouldn't need the Pykes to hold the planet. They would all be free.
Kenobi was at the foot of the throne, kneeling as if in some kind of meditation. Seeing a Jedi unbound but kneeling should have been a sign of great strength for the one he knelt under, but it just unnerved Bo-Katan. The man simply looked as if he was at peace. His eyes were locked on Satine's, and he was smiling faintly.
Bo-Katan's focus flickered to the stained glass windows, half expecting to see more Jedi smashing through them. As far as they could tell, he had arrived alone on some junker ship which was now in broken pieces all over one of their landing pads. Bo-Katan had honestly been expecting a bit more from the famed Jedi. How could her sister be worth a suicide run? She supposed it was a suicide run from a mediocre Jedi.
"I'm sorry for dropping by unannounced," Kenobi said, eyes still on Satine. "You know Mandalorians, you're all so independent I wasn't sure if I would be welcome. I decided to take the risk."
Was he actually making a joke right then? It matched his rescue attempt. Not that she had really needed rescuing from anything other than her poor decisions. Satine had been wallowing in a cell, not on a chopping block. There was no honor in killing a non-combatant. (How many people on Carlac had been unarmed? When they had stood up to oppose the might of Death Watch, that made them fighters. When their village burned it was so that they would always understand they were weaker. They screamed because their children would always know they had failed them.)
"You know us, we like to solve our own problems." Satine almost seemed to smile for a moment, before the sadness in her eyes pulled all other emotion from her face.
Perhaps it hadn't been a joke. It almost could have been an apology. Bo-Katan looked to Pre, uncertain of how long he would draw this out. He stood, and the lights at base of the throne slowly went out. He had called the set up frivolous when Satine sat in that chair, but he had made no moves to disable the mechanism since taking it for his own.
Pre's hand drifted towards the darksaber, but he did not draw it. "It seems you did not willingly conspire with this outsider to secure your freedom. Not this time anyway."
Satine closed her eyes a moment before looking over Kenobi and up at him. "Surely you appreciate an outsider's insights into Mandalore? The Pykes must be expensive-"
Pre jerked his hand and one of the guards holding Satine shoved her forward, so she had to catch herself on her hands. Kenobi didn't twitch but he seemed to stop breathing for a moment. Bo-Katan's hand gripped her thigh to keep herself still. Of all of the ways she had envisioned their return, she had never imagined this. The people were supposed to have pulled Satine from her throne. She was supposed to be dead before Bo-Katan came into the city.
When the guard didn't hold her in place, Satine slowly sat back on her heels, hands falling towards her lap. As if she were calmly waiting in line and not kneeling at the court of her own condemnation. They should have just banished her and left her to die as she had them. (Had it not been Pre who came to Concordia as its governor, the one they thought would listen, who told them to hide? To die? To wait for the right time to strike while he walked the clean halls of the palace? He knew what he was doing. He knew what was best for them.)
"Where was I?" Pre mused. "Yes, not this time. But when you took your throne you conspired with enemies of Mandalore to do it. And when true citizens of the system sought to free themselves on Concordia, you sent him again."
Bo-Katan had been busy coordinating their relocation. She hadn't been at Pre's side when he revealed himself to Satine on that moon. He told them all how she was easily overcome, but Bo-Katan had never got the full details of the story. Those who had been present were tight lipped about the affair, which had been unusual but not worth the effort of investigating amidst all the work to do once their leader had been fully revealed.
"This time your worm will not escape in order to burrow into our flesh again. His interference and your influence end today."
Satine's fingers tightened on her knees, knuckles ridged. Pre finished descending the throne, finally drawing the darksaber from his side. Bo-Katan's tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wasn't sure if she was going to be sick, or start laughing.
Kenobi seemed perfectly content to ignore what was approaching. "You know why I came for you," he said.
Satine nodded. "I know."
Pre grabbed Kenobi's hair and jerked his head back, forcing them to break eye contact. Bo-Katan frowned. So it was to be a dishonorable execution then, not a fight.
"Do you wish now you had dedicated yourself to someone capable of fighting for you?" Pre's question shook with suppressed glee.
"She has been fighting for a lot longer than I have. She has beaten you before, and she will do so again."
The smile that had been threatening to crack Pre's face broke into a snarl. He pulled back his arm and thrust the darksaber through Kenobi's back, the point bursting out from his sternum. His body seemed suspended for a moment, impaled, as the room took a breath. Bo-Katan bit the inside of her cheek, eyes on her sister.
Pre pulled the blade free and the onlookers burst into cheers. As Kenobi's body crumpled, Satine scrambled forward on her knees to catch him. For a moment it looked like they were cradling each other before his arms dropped limply to his sides. Satine moved gently, as if afraid of hurting him, shifting so that his head rested in her lap. She carefully brushed a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead back from his face.
The cheering died down, and the look of anger that had briefly overtaken Pre's face was gone. He extinguished the darksbaer and stepped closer to Satine.
How little a threat a pacifist was that he didn't even show her the respect of staying armed.
"Well? Nothing to say for once?"
The spectators took another breath, anticipating another victory, another death.
Satine finished settling Kenobi's arms across his stomach before looking up. "You are a coward and a hypocrite, Pre Vizsla." It sounded like she was giving a proclamation. "That sword is a curse upon Mandalore, and you will spend the rest of your life fearing someone taking it from you."
Whatever giddiness that had previously infected the room was gone. There was a new tension spooling.
"Know all who challenge you are more worthy to lead Mandalore, for the simple fact they oppose your shortsightedness and brutality."
Pre's cheek twitched. "Is that so? Then why don't you challenge me, Duchess? Pick up his sword and fight me for Mandalore."
Satine didn't move, still cradling Kenobi's body as she glared up at Pre. Bo-Katan's whole body felt like a live wire. She did not expect her sister to pick up the Jedi's lightsaber, but a part of her hoped she would. If she just stood up for once, if she just fought like the rest of them, she would have a sister she could be proud of. The whole throne room felt like it was being crushed by the weight of the moment, or maybe Bo-Katan had just stopped breathing.
Just fight! Why won't you fight!
Whatever Kenobi had meant to her, he was dead, surely that had to affect her? Surely she would do something? Anything other than nothing.
She didn't move.
Pre huffed. "I thought not. Get her out of here." He began to turn back to the throne and then paused. "Take the body too, we wouldn't want her grace to get lonely without her friends."
Satine's shoulders curled on themselves, bringing her closer to the corpse, protective. The guards approached slowly, as if cautious of the sincerity of her pacifism. For a moment Bo-Katan wondered if they were going to force Satine to carry the body, but they seemed to realize the futility of that quickly. One man grabbed her sister and hauled her off, two others going to take Kenobi by his shoulders and legs. The lock of hair her sister had brushed into place fell back over his forehead as he was hauled up. Bo-Katan watched them leave until they disappeared from view, slowly turning her focus back to the throne.
Pre was seated again, though his posture was more stiff than before. His fingers tapped against his hip where the darksaber rested. Bo-Katan tried to stare at him rather than it. He was the Mand'alor. Carrying that blade cemented that fact, it was not the only reason. There was more to his leadership than that blade. It was why she had followed him for years. She had known he was the true face of Mandalore. It was why, in the end, they had won.
He seemed to finally notice he still had an audience and scowled at those assembled. "You all have duties I suggest you get back to."
Bo-Katan decided she imagined the hesitation in the others before they turned away. They were simply taking in the presence of their Mand'alor, not the blade at his side.
Bo-Katan did not avoid going to see her sister, she simply had no reason to. She was kept busy as Pre's lieutenant (minister? No one had really discussed how things were laid out now they were in charge) and overseeing prisoners hadn't fallen under her purview. They didn't have many captives, honestly. Most dissenters were executed. What honor was there in killing non-combatants? They fought, that made them warriors. (Weren't those the Mandalorians they were trying to save?)
She kept her helmet on all the way to the cells, so the Pykes roaming the halls could not see her grimace. They should have all been gone by now, but their leader and Pre kept having longer and longer meetings. It would be better if Mandalorians saw Mandalorians leading them, not mercs.
She had no reason to see her sister now, after everything, except her name was coming up in whispers. The unrest in the people seemed to be carried on a current of her name. She hadn't even fought for them! She had rolled over for Death Watch! So why did her name seem to spark rebellion in them? When she had asked Pre what he intended to do with her, he had grown still, voice a warning as he asked Bo-Katan what she thought he ought to do. She had told him to repeat what he had offered her during Kenobi's execution, a chance to fight for Mandalore, but publicly. That way the people would see her refusal to aid them, and she would be diminished in their eyes. His hand had clutched the darksaber and he told her to leave. He had seemed worried more than angry, despite the tone of his words, and she didn't understand that. Surely he knew Satine would never fight him?
(Mandalore would, though. Mandalore had-)
Bo-Katan removed her helmet for the scanner and stepped into the cell block. Her walk down the hall towards her sister's cell seemed to stretch on forever, booted steps echoing in the air and reverberating back to her ears. It was like walking into a maze and slowly realizing it wasn't a puzzle at all, just one long winding path that seemed to go nowhere. She considered putting her helmet back on, but shook off the impulse. She paused outside the clear walls of the cell, realizing the figure laying on the bench that she thought had been her sister was Kenobi. It had been days, and still that corpse lingered here? The cells were cold, but there was no stasis field slowing down the rot that would be taking place. He was on the fucking bed too. Her eyes darted around, considering the possibility her sister was in a different cell or had somehow vanished, when she finally spotted her. She was sitting in the corner of the opposite wall to the bench, knees pulled up to her chest. She had seemed somehow invisible despite there being no real place to hide. Being able to see into the cells at all times for security was why the walls were transparent.
Bo-Katan thought about putting her helmet on again, though this time it was to combat the smell she knew was waiting for her. She took a deep breath to steel herself instead, and opened the door.
The stench washed over her and her eyes watered, and any warrior worth their salt would have attacked her in her moment of imbalance, but Satine didn't shift from her corner. She didn't even raise her head. Had she fucking crawled over there and died too? No, her body was too tense.
Bo-Katan walked towards her, staying near the wall and ignoring the corpse. The filters for this cell had to be broken or fucking disgusting after this.
She didn't have to think of what to say, for Satine turned her head and finally looked at her once she was standing over her. She looked greasy and unkempt. There was a paleness that was unnatural even on her. Had anyone been fucking feeding her?
"Bo-Katan." Her voice was quiet, though there were no signs of roughness if she had been tired. There were dark circles under her eyes, but they didn't look bloodshot from crying.
"Satine."
She rested her cheek against her knee, fingers laced together as her hands were wrapped around her legs. It was almost childish, except for the pervading smell of death in the room. Cell. Her sister was locked up.
Bo-Katan took a deep breath and immediately wished she hadn't. She bit her cheeks to keep herself from coughing.
Satine stared up at her from half-lidded eyes. "Did you need me for something?" Her words were muffled from being half-spoken into her knee.
"I-" Surely if they brought her out now the people would only see a broken thing. Perhaps that was the play, drive her sister insane. Didn't everyone deserve a chance to die with a weapon in hand, where was the honor in this? Satine had already refused though. She had chosen this. "No, no I don't need you for anything." Her words were thin because she didn't want to taste the air more than she had to.
"Do you remember," Satine spoke as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation. "When our home in Kalevala was bombed? So many houses were collapsed the survivors had to pick who they would help. They couldn't work on their own and accomplish anything, so we had to work together, but we had to pick which end of the street to start on. Do you remember?"
Bo-Katan was too startled by the chosen topic to protest it. "I remember."
"We were too tired to get to the end, and even in houses we went into, we only found some of the bodies after they started to smell." Satine lowered her voice, and despite herself Bo-Katan leaned closer to hear. "Remember how we were small enough to slip between the beams? We made a game of it. Who could save the most."
Bo-Katan's jaw was tense, but she was prepared to speak this time. Knew what to expect of the taste in the air. "How can you remember that, and still choose to do nothing for your people?"
Satine leaned back against the wall, raising her head, and for a moment she thought she would get to her feet, confront her, yell at her, but she just stayed on the ground and stared up at her. "How can you remember, and do what you've done?"
(They had screamed on Carlac, but they weren't Mandalorian. They cried because they were weak.)
"I did what I did so that would never happen again!"
Satine looked away from her then. "It had."
"You were killing us! You!" She hadn't meant to shout, but she couldn't hold herself back. Unbidden, she looked to the corpse, half expecting it to sit up from the noise.
"I'm not going to absolve you." Satine's face wasn't turned away, but her eyes stayed downcast.
"I don't need absolution," she spat.
Satine looked back up at her then, seeming more awake than she had at the start of their conversion. Her head tilted to the side, and for a second she almost seemed to smile. "Of course not. May you have everything you ever wanted Bo-Katan," her voice was light, and utterly sincere, "and never know a moments peace."
"Word of a dead Jedi finally reached the Republic. You'd think they would keep a better eye on one of their own." Saxon smiled across his plate at Bo-Katan. "Looks like we're in the war proper now."
The mess was noisy. The kitchen at the palace was one of the places in the city that still served meals and not rations. The Pykes and Mandalorians allowed to eat here didn't know how not to shut up about it.
Bo-Katan shook her head. "At least a war on three fronts means the enemy is always distracted."
Saxon smirked at her. "Didn't you hear? Mand'alor had a meeting with the Count. We're getting a surprise platoon of clankers to mow down those clone freaks if they ever try and land."
They had allied with the Separatists in the past and been burned. Why the fuck would Pre agree to this? The original deal has been about keeping Mandalore independent! Why the fuck would they treat with anyone now that they had their system back?
(The Pykes were still here.)
Satine had kept Mandalore independent despite all they had done to try and force her into the Republic's clutches. Pre hadn't even been in control for two fucking weeks.
(Mandalore was supposed to be free.)
Bo-Katan shoved her tray away, mouth too dry to try and continue eating. How had Pre had a meeting like that and not come to her first? Why the fuck was she hearing about this from Saxon? She got up, weaving through the crowd with only the intent to reach the throne room and yell. (The damn thing still lit up whenever Pre sat on it.) Saxon yelled something at her back, but she ignored it.
She was halfway to the door when a face grabbed her attention. He was cuddled up at a table of mostly Pykes, but he was Mandalorian. Almec. A rare prisoner of Satine's. He had been a supporter of her regime until he took the initiative to poison children. When the fuck had he been released? Why would Pre give another chance to that man?
Bo-Katan was caught between wanting to march over and punch his face, and continuing on to the throne room to yell even louder at Pre, but an alarm sounded. The raucous conversation in the mess stuttered to a stop, as if no one could believe it, and then suddenly everyone was scrambling. Bo-Katan shoved her helmet on and was one of the first out the door.
She didn't head for the throne room, she went to the cells. She would have liked to have said it was instinct, but the last time that alarm went off they had found Kenobi and her sister attempting to sneak out of the palace. Breach , that alarm meant. Breach, our defenses have already been penetrated .
Bo-Katan was slowed down by a group of Pykes and shoved her way through to the elevator. She almost got the door shut when an arm reached through to force it back open. Saxon wiggled his way inside.
"What the fuck you following me for?" She snapped.
"You look like you know where the action is."
She mashed the button for the cell block and didn't answer. Her foot bounced with impatience. They made it halfway before he started talking again.
"So, was it all a distraction?" His voice crackled through his helmet's vocoder.
"What?" She watched the floor indicators, hoping he would shut up.
"Someone outside causes a stir and you go and grab your sister?"
She grappled his elbow before he could draw his weapon, and shoved him until they collided with the back of the elevator. "I'm not working with dissenters you fucking backstabbing piece of shit." Who was he to question her? She had been Pre's right hand for years! Had been. Had. What the fuck was she now? "The last time we had this alert a fucking Jedi was in the cell block."
"I'd like to hear that story."
Bo-Katan's whole body seized up at the sound of the voice, and she felt Saxon do the same. They had reached the cells. She pushed off of Saxon, looking towards the newcomer. It seemed history was repeating itself, there was another Jedi incursion. Except, he didn't look like the Jedi Bo-Katan had come to expect. Lightsaber, sure, but he was dressed in ill-fitting Pyke regalia, and she knew he wasn't a Pyke because there was no way in hell one of those assholes got their hands on a lightsaber and stayed quiet about it. She could have sworn his eyes were brown, but she also would have said they were yellow.
Something was fucking wrong, but she and Saxon had enough understanding of the situation to draw their blasters and point them at him rather than each other. The first ricocheted bolt off his saber struck the elevator controls, the next thudded against their beskar chest plates. They both stopped firing before a bolt could find its way into the joints between their armor. Now they had only one distinctly blocked exit. Fuck.
"Huh," the man said. "I should have stolen one of your uniforms." He stretched out his hand and Saxon began to lift up into the air, clawing at his throat.
Bo-Katan braced against the back of the elevator before activating her jetpack and slamming straight into the man. The corridor was too fucking narrow to keep this up for long, but she kept her grip on him and dragged him across the floor while she tried to avoid bouncing off the walls. She heard the lightsaber hum before the world began spinning as she suddenly corkscrewed before coming to a sudden halt right into the corner of an unoccupied cell. Fucker had sliced one of the thrusters off her jetpack.
She tried to get to her feet but a force slammed her back to the ground, keeping her winded. Why the fuck wasn't he dizzy? Jedi bullshit. She gritted her teeth and tried to get a handle on the warning readouts now flashing across her helmet's screen. Yeah, power loss, no shit.
She heard Saxon shouting something before there was a loud crack, and then silence. Bo-Katan doubted the elevator had suddenly started working so he could make a quick escape. She felt something heavy settle on the center of her back. Her visor whited out for a moment as the edge of the lightsaber was brought up too close and it had to re-calibrate its sensors. Heat warnings flashed across her view.
"Now," he said. "What was that about Jedi in the cells earlier?"
The sound of footsteps raced towards them, and Bo-Katan knew better than to think it was back up.
"Anakin! Do you need-"
"Stay with the Duchess, Ahsoka. I've got this."
"...right."
The duchess. The fucking duchess. Why had she come down here? If Satine wanted to kill herself in another escape attempt, she should have let her.
"Where were we?"
The tip of his lightsaber began to melt a hole the ground next to her head. "Why the fuck are you asking me? Your duchess was there!"
"Who caught him?" The blade angled a little closer to her visor.
"Caught him? He practically tripped into our laps after his piece of shit ship exploded."
He kicked her. Bo-Katan was used to getting knocked around in her armor. Fuck, she even sparred a few of the Pykes since they started working together, their gear was practically foil against beskar. Apparently it didn't matter what his foot was wrapped in, not with the force behind it. Bo-Katan felt and heard something crack. When her vision whited out it wasn't because the visor was compensating. Trying to breath just made everything hurt worse. The pain spiraled from her ribs across her whole body, and it wasn't until she was instinctually curling on to her side that she realized the weight on her back had been lifted.
It took a moment before the image clarified and she could actually see the cell block again. She saw her sister, and a young torgruta who she had seen before (burning down that village on Carlac had been as simple as saying yes sir because Pre was in charge- he was right- he was-) between them was a basic stasis pod on a hover gurney.
She wondered how much they were really bringing with them and how much of Kenobi had sloughed off into the cell he had shared with Satine. After her visit earlier in the week she had thought about requesting the body be removed, but then she thought about the bodies they had uncovered in those collapsed houses as kids. She had been so scared to go into the first collapse, Satine had turned it into a game to help her be brave. The first body she saw, she couldn't have rightly said if he was alive or dead. She hadn't been able to get the words out, so she had just crawled out of the ruble and shaken her head. When he was finally pulled free two days later, definitely dead by then, she was amazed she had recognized the face through all the bloating. Maybe she could have saved him, maybe he had already been dead. Satine had told her to be brave and go into the ruins. It was a game, who could save the most.
She didn't remember who won.
"It may not be the story you want to hear, Master Jedi, but I can tell you what happened. I would just prefer you didn't kill my sister." Satine sounded like she was sitting in her throne room, calm, collected. She wasn't looking at Bo-Katan, and her voice softened. "There has been enough death, you do not need more."
It wasn't as simple as that. It wasn't that simple. It was never that simple.
The hum of the lightsaber extinguished, and the Jedi who had just cracked her ribs walked over to the stasis pod. There were tears on the torgruta's face as she looked up at him. His hand hovered over the pod a moment before he snatched it back to his side.
"Let's go. We need to meet up with Rex and Cody before the rest of the fleet arrives."
They all turned and walked down the hall, an odd procession. Satine never looked back at her, in fact she hadn't looked towards her once while saving her. Bo-Katan bit her cheeks to keep herself from screaming until her mouth filled with blood. New warnings flashed across her screen, but she couldn't read them through her tears.