Chapter Text
Concord Dawn:
One would think that, despite his lifelong commitment to disapproval as a full-time job, Jorad Vizsla might’ve managed a flicker of pride over his son becoming Mand’alor.
They’d be wrong. At least when it came to Lok.
Of course, when Tor did it, he got all the pride and praise. Nevermind that he grew his base by forcefully conscripting children, or that he ruled with all the ethics of a dar’jetii on a power trip. For some reason, when Lok did it without all the torture and unnecessary bloodshed, he was still a disappointment.
That was a tough truth to swallow, but Lok had gotten used to the taste of it by now. He’d just mentally added it to the ever-expanding list of reasons he was the worst son to ever disgrace the name Vizsla. Right up there at the top—above the near-heretical reformist leanings and the fondness for jetii tea rituals—was the fact that he’d killed Tor. Not out of ambition. Not even out of hatred. Just... necessity.
Though maybe that’s what made it shameful.
That sin never left him. No matter how many times he told himself it was self-defense, or how many nightmares reminded him what might have happened to Arla if he hadn’t. He knew it. Carried it. Woke up with it in his throat some nights. He didn’t need Jorad hammering it in like an anvil to the chest.
But alas, such was his fate.
Ironically, that same sin only made him a more popular figurehead among the rest of Kyr’tsad. Because if there was one thing they loved more than violent rhetoric, it was actual violence. Especially if it came with a tragic backstory and the illusion of righteous purpose.
He didn’t get it, but whatever. He didn’t need to understand them. He just had to survive them. For a little longer. Because they’d be Jaster’s problem soon enough.
Lok stirred his drink like it had personally offended him and mentally made a note to ask Sifo if there was a jetii technique that could fast-forward through family meals. Maybe if he concentrated hard enough, he could skip straight to the part where he was free of his lineage and its many delightful generational traumas.
One day, he was going to cut his parents off. But having lost too much family, he couldn’t bring himself to do that to Na’buir. More than that, he couldn’t do it to Pre’ika, who was adored by Jorad to a degree that dug up an uncomfortable amount of Lok’s childhood trauma.
Tonight, they were repeating a tired conversation.
“I don’t see why you won’t just let Pre stay with us,” Naera implored. Again. That would be the third time today.
The answer sat at the head of the table, swirling wine like he was orchestrating the entire farce. Which, let’s be honest, he probably was. Lok wouldn’t put it past Jorad to hand Naera a script and stage directions to make yet another bid for custody.
It was a waste of time. There was simply no version of reality where Lok let Jorad Vizsla raise another child. Biological, adopted, or otherwise. He had a track record. It spoke for itself.
“Just while you’re in Keldabe,” Naera added sweetly. “There’s no reason for Pre’ika to be exposed to such… unpleasantness.”
Lok didn’t roll his eyes, which he felt earned him some kind of medal, honestly.
The ‘unpleasantness’ in question was just a bunch of meetings set up to finally turn the ceasefire between Kyr’tsad and the Haat’ade into something more than a temporary pause in hostilities.
The more Lok dug into the mess that was the internal workings of Kyr’tsad, the more sure he was that a united Mandalore was a necessity, not simply a desire. Whatever hidden enemy they were up against, it was going to take more than a verbal “live and let live” agreement to be able to withstand it. So, they were finally going to sit down and find a way to put all lingering animosity between the two groups to rest and unite them under a single Mand’alor.
That Mand’alor being Jaster Mereel, of course. Lok didn’t have many demands going into these talks, but he had one single non-negotiable: the title of Mand’alor, and the cursed dha’kad’au that came with it, went to Jaster Mereel. He wanted none of it and he was more than ready to give it up.
Sure, tensions were high and the threat of sabotage was statistically non-negligible, but still.
It wasn’t like he was walking Pre into a warzone. Not this time, at least.
“But I don’t want to stay,” Pre whined in that entitled voice he had sometimes, mouth twisting in practiced indignation.
Look, Lok loved him. Truly. From the bottom of his heart. He’d walk through fire for him. Kill for him without hesitation. Die for him, if it came to it.
But the adiik was a spoiled menace on a good day. His ba’buire’s indulgence did not help things.
Tonight, that entitlement was working in Lok’s favor.
Thank the Manda.
It was their last night on Concord Dawn before heading to Keldabe, and while Lok had tried to weasel out of this latemeal, the universe had conspired against him. For the past week, they’d been staying with Veyli’s buire at the Kast stronghold. The couple was still grieving, but had adopted Pre’ika like he was some sacred relic of their daughter’s memory.
They spoiled him too, but in a way that actually resembled love, not status inflation.
Unfortunately, Lok’s own buire caught wind that he was planetside, and thus he now found himself at their table, nursing a drink and a headache, wondering if pretending to pass out would be too dramatic.
But he came prepared. He already had Arla hyping Pre up about everything they’d get to see and do together in Keldabe. The adiik was practically vibrating with anticipation. There was no way he’d trade that for quality time with his emotionally constipated ba’buire.
Thank kriff. It was one less fight he’d have to have.
The truth, of course, was uglier than that. Pre wasn’t just excited for Keldabe, he was anxious that Lok would leave him behind the same way Tor did. At the same time, he acted like he despised Lok. A feeling that was wholly justified.
Calling the dynamics of the situation complicated would have been a substantial understatement.
“Ba’vodu promised to show me the fortress and Arla promised I could see the old hangars,” Pre continued, oblivious to the way Jorad’s grip on his wineglass tightened like he was imagining someone’s neck.
Arla’s, most likely.
The Vizslas were…not fond of her, to put it mildly. There was a reason that “family latemeal” did not include her and it had nothing to do with space limitations.
Lok would have pushed back against that if Arla weren’t perfectly content to be excluded. In fact, she preferred it. She wasn’t shy about declaring that while she considered Lok to be aliit, the rest of them could kriff right off.
Still, he would never stop being quietly grateful that she’d accepted his adoption of Pre with such ease. It was never a question of whether he was going to do it, but he’d worried about how it might impact her. Apart from Pre being Tor’s son, he was almost an exact copy of his father.
But Arla took one look at Pre and saw him for what he was—a scared adiik who had just lost the only buir he had left, covering pain in anger. Maybe she saw a kindred spirit, he’s not sure and it’s not something they talk about, but he didn’t know how he would have managed taking on Pre without her help.
Arla liked to joke that if Pre was going to turn out anything like Tor, she’d personally launch him into hyperspace. But the joke always softened when Pre clung to her arm, all wide eyes and wounded pride, just desperate to prove he belonged somewhere.
She really was a great ori’vod. It made him proud.
Naera’s smile pinched at the edges, lips twitching as if she were trying very hard not to scold her bu’ad. “Of course you think you want that, darling, but—”
“But I do,” Pre interrupted, loud and stubborn in that way that made Lok feel a twisted blend of exasperation and pride. “I already packed.”
He hadn’t, actually. His clothes were currently spread across three rooms in a manner more akin to detonation than preparation. But it was the principle of the thing.
Naera reached for her wineglass as if drawing strength from fermented fruit, while Jorad finally deigned to speak.
“You let the boy talk back to his elders like that?” he asked, tone deceptively casual as he swirled the red liquid in his own glass. “No wonder he doesn’t know his place.”
Lok’s jaw locked and his grip on his spoon tensed enough that he had to consciously set it down before it snapped in his hand. He was not the one who taught Pre to talk back to his elders. That would be courtesy of Tor’s brief, sporatic attempts at parenting and Jorad’s refusal to enforce boundaries whenever Tor left Pre behind to go on one murder spree or another.
“He’s eight,” he said with a measured calm. “He doesn’t need to know his place. He needs to know he’s safe.”
And wasn’t that a daily struggle. Lok was doing his best, but between trying to turn Kyr’tsad into something that didn’t leak war crimes and the day-to-day osik that came with being Mand’alor to a large faction of Mandalorians, it wasn’t easy to give Pre the time and attention he needed to adjust to all the changes in his life.
Pre saw a mir’baar’ur regularly and they were making progress, but ensuring he felt safe and secure in Lok’s care was more of a priority than his manners. It was hard enough to convince an adiik to trust you when you’re responsible for their buir’s death without adding unnecessary criticism to the mix.
Jorad scoffed. “Safety is a lie. Strength keeps you alive. Order teaches discipline. That’s what you should be giving him.”
“Like you gave me?”
That shut him up.
The silence that followed was sharp enough to draw blood, but Lok didn’t care. He was done pretending that the Vizsla School of Emotionally Repressed Parenting was anything but a cautionary tale when their legacy was one dead son and another who was drowning in guilt and trauma so dense he couldn’t sleep most nights.
But sure. Let’s lecture him on discipline.
Naera stepped in before the silence curdled. “We only want what’s best for him, Lok. You look so tired. You’ve been so busy.” Her voice was almost kind, practiced concern laced with maternal guilt-tripping. “No one would blame you if you took a step back.”
“I’m not tired,” Lok lied, though the bags under his eyes had long since stopped pretending they were from bad lighting.
Something Jaster often commented on during their weekly call, which, these days, was less “status update” and more “why haven’t you eaten”.
Tired didn’t feel like a strong enough word for his exhaustion. Not only because the memory of his brother’s eyes haunted him most nights, but on a soul-deep existential level.
He just wasn’t cut out for this. He knew when he picked up the dha’kad’au that it wasn’t a weight he could carry and he only did it because he didn’t have a choice. The war had to end and there was only one way he was going to accomplish that.
But every day, he woke up and put on the mask. He pretended to be someone he wasn’t. When people called him “Mand’alor” it felt like he was…a fraud. Faking it until he reached the finish line.
Now, he was almost there. He could almost taste the freedom. One more formal alliance, one more political circus, and then he could shove the dha’kad’au into Jaster’s hands, mutter something vague about legacy, and vanish into blissful irrelevance.
“You’ve lost weight,” Naera pointed out, like it was a crime. ”I’m sure you could take better care of yourself if you weren’t caring for an adiik on top of everything else.”
“Thanks for the input,” Lok muttered, fighting off a laugh that probably would’ve sounded more like a breakdown.
Jorad made a noise—somewhere between a scoff and a warning growl—but whatever insult he was gearing up to launch died in his throat the second Lok turned and glared at him.
They all knew the truth. Jorad didn’t hold the cards anymore, and Lok’s patience had an expiration date. One they were getting dangerously close to every time this conversation happened.
Lok stood, because if he stayed in that chair any longer, he was going to lose whatever fragile hold he had on composure. “I’m not giving him to you,” he said, tone flat and final. “Not now. Not ever.”
Pre, who had been very busy pretending to sulk with maximum dramatic flair, looked up at that, brow furrowed. “Are we leaving now?”
Lok exhaled slowly. “Yes. Before I say something I can’t take back.”
Naera made a small noise like she wanted to say something else, probably another round of we only want what’s best, but Lok gave her the kind of look that said: Don’t. Not unless you want to find out how close I am to snapping.
To her credit, she shut her mouth.
He placed a gentle hand on Pre’s shoulder and steered him toward the exit, both of them walking in silence through halls that had long since stopped feeling like anything resembling home, past rooms that had witnessed more resentment than warmth.
“I didn’t actually pack yet,” Pre muttered eventually, eyes fixed on the floor.
“I know,” Lok replied. “We’ll do it together.”
A pause.
“…You’re really not leaving me here?”
Lok stopped walking. He turned and knelt just enough to meet Pre’s eyes, an ice-blue that was too damn familiar. He looked so much like his buir it hurt, but where Tor was always so arrogant and sure of himself, Pre looked insecure.
“I’m not going to leave you behind,” Lok promised. “Not ever.”
Maybe one day they’d get to a place where that was a promise Pre actually believed in without needing the reassurance.
Pre stared at him for a beat too long. Then nodded. “Alright,” he said. “But I’m not sharing a room with Arla again. She talks in her sleep. And kicks.”
Lok smirked. “Fine. But you’re responsible for your own stuff. I’m not wrestling your socks out of the ceiling vents again.”
Pre groaned like he’d been gravely wounded. “That happened once.”
Keldabe:
The council chamber still smelled faintly of solvent and scorched wiring, leftover reminders from the last time someone tried to set fire to the building. Allegedly by accident. Jaster didn’t buy it, but he hadn’t been able to prove it either.
Now, the long durasteel table gleamed under soft blue lights, littered with datapads, old reports, and mugs of caf in various states of abandonment. The usual battlefield.
Jaster leaned back in his seat, posture relaxed to the untrained eye, but every muscle tense beneath the surface. It had been nearly a year since he last saw Lok Vizsla in person. They’d kept in contact—regular holocalls, the occasional datafile exchange—but it wasn’t the same.
The last few months had carved exhaustion into the sharp lines of Lok’s face. His voice always seemed a little hoarser than the week before. Jaster knew better than to think his mere presence could magically fix that. Still. He wanted to see him. In person.
For… reasons.
“—and the perimeter rotation is finalized,” Myles was saying, brisk and efficient, as always. “I’ve doubled the patrols near the hangar just in case, but we’ve vetted the incoming delegates twice over. They’re clean.”
Clean. Jaster resisted the urge to smile. That was generous, considering.
The final agenda items wrapped with a few nods and grunts of assent. It had been a long meeting, and the arrival of Kyr’tsad’s delegation in the morning had them collectively bracing for impact.
Predictably, it was Vau who shattered the momentary peace. “I still think we’re making a mistake,” he said flatly, arms crossed over his chest, expression unreadable beneath the faint scar slicing through his left brow. “We all know who’s coming with that delegation.”
Jaster didn’t need the name. Every soul in that room knew who Vau meant.
“Walon,” Jaster sighed, straightening. “We’ve gone over this.”
So many times.
Still, he kept his tone even. “They’re coming to negotiate an alliance. In good faith.”
“In good faith?” Vau repeated, like the words tasted wrong. “You’re trusting good faith from the man half the Outer Rim’s started calling Mand’alor the Ruthless?”
Jaster’s jaw twitched. He hadn’t missed the rumors. He just didn’t put much stock in them. He tried not to look personally offended on Lok’s behalf. He failed.
“The name isn’t self-appointed,” he said, a little too quickly. “It’s propaganda.”
Terrible propaganda, at that. Anyone who’d spent more than five minutes around Lok knew he was about as ruthless as a striil pup meeting an ik'aad. Sure, he had a glare that could melt beskar and a death toll that made people nervous, but the man also apologized to droids when he raised his voice and once lost sleep over a sad-looking stray tooka.
But he supposed the rest of Mandalore didn’t really get to see the man behind the buy’ce. They didn’t see the toll it took on him or how every week, he looked just a little bit more worn down. And if Jaster maybe thought about that a little more often than strictly necessary, well. That was his problem.
“Is it?” Myles cut in, arching a brow. “I know you’ve read the reports. Indiscriminate executions. Imperial-style expansion policies. Integration centers for war orphans that are somehow even more effective than Tor’s. And you expect us to believe that Lok Vizsla isn’t going to walk through those doors tomorrow and finish what his brother started?”
“Yes,” Jaster said calmly. “Because I know Lok.”
“You knew Lok,” Vau shot back. “Before he claimed a title we once swore to tear from Tor’s cold, dead hands.”
A third voice piped up, dry and unimpressed. “You really know how to kill a mood, Vau.”
Kal Skirata leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers drumming thoughtfully. “I met Lok Vizsla on Coruscant, remember? That wasn’t some megalomaniacal tyrant. That was a disaster of a man trying not to unravel in front of a child.”
“That was two years ago,” Vau countered. “He’s gone through several transformative experiences since then. You think holding power over Kyr’tsad didn’t change him? All intel says he’s the new and improved Tor. You know how much damage Tor did with half a brain and a violent god complex? Now imagine someone competent.”
Jaster finally stood. It wasn’t dramatic, but it had presence, probably helped by the quiet undertone of I swear, if you slander him one more time, I will overturn this table.
“You’re not wrong about the shift in perception,” he said. “But don’t mistake the shift in tone for a shift in character. The reason people are calling him Mand’alor the Ruthless isn’t because he is —it’s because he’s been cleaning house.”
He tapped the datapad in front of him and turned it toward the room. “I’ve spoken with him. About everything, especially the rumored integration centers. I won’t pretend the initial reports didn’t worry me. They did. But I’m not going to screw this up by jumping to conclusions, so I asked about them.”
Vau didn’t reply, which was either a tactical retreat or a brewing counterattack. Hard to say.
Jaster kept going.
“Those centers aren’t indoctrination camps. They’re youth homes. They take in children who were already in Kyr’tsad’s custody. Lok’s first act as Mand’alor was returning every single child with surviving family. Every one of them. The only ones who stayed behind were the ones who had nowhere else to go… or didn’t want to leave.”
He glanced around the room, letting that sink in. “He created something stable.”
“A stable Kyr’tsad?” Vau asked bitterly.
“A stable community,” Jaster corrected. “They’re youth homes. Yes, they offer training, but not forced conscription.”
Vau made a noise, part skeptical, part resigned.
Jaster let it slide.
Kal tilted their head. “He’s popular, you know. It’s part of the problem.”
“More than popular,” Myles added. “People who once despised Kyr’tsad because of Tor are starting to reconsider.”
And wasn’t that what kept Jaster up at night. Well, that, and wondering if Lok had eaten anything besides caffeine and guilt since their last holocall.
Jaster straightened again. “And that narrative is not going away. So we can either resist it and fracture further, or we can meet it head-on. Kyr’tsad is coming to Keldabe in good faith. We’re going to meet him the same way.”
Vau didn’t argue, which was as close to agreement as he ever got. He just crossed his arms tighter and muttered something under his breath that sounded vaguely like osik and blind optimism.
Jaster chose to interpret it as progress.
Kal leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. “Well, if it all goes to haran, at least we’ll be able to say we tried diplomacy before we’re all shot in the back.”
“Optimistic as always,” Jaster said dryly.
“Just setting expectations.”
As the rest of the room finally emptied, Jaster stayed behind, trying to untangle the knot in his gut.
He told himself it was strategic readiness. Nerves, maybe. The usual tension that came with a historic political meeting. It had nothing to do with the fact that Lok Vizsla would be standing across from him again tomorrow after a year of holocalls and unanswered questions and lingering what-ifs.
He wasn’t looking forward to it, exactly. He just… needed it. In a way that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the fact that he still remembered how Lok looked the last time they stood face to face—grief-stricken, trembling, half-broken, and still trying to hold the galaxy together with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.
Jaster closed his eyes for a beat, then sighed and reached for his datapad. He had reports to review, security to triple-check, and a dangerously earnest Mand’alor to greet at sunrise.
He took one last glance at the door.
“Try not to look too relieved when you see him,” he muttered to himself, half-scolding. “Manda knows Vau would never let it go.”
Jango Fett stood on the landing platform next to his buir, arms crossed, boot tapping out a silent, increasingly aggressive rhythm against the metal.
The sky over Keldabe was gray and grumpy, and the Kyr’tsad transport was late. Not by much, but just enough to make Jango’s nerves itch.
Typical.
He didn’t want to be this impatient. Objectively, he knew—in a theoretical, grown-up, responsible kind of way—that this was a complicated political meeting between former enemies and not, in fact, about him. Sure. Fine. Whatever.
Still. He hadn’t seen Arla in person since Korda VI. That was a whole year ago.
He rolled his shoulders. Whatever.
They talked a lot over holocall, sure. They’d even gotten good at hijacking each other’s comm time during Lok and Jaster’s weekly check-ins. Bonus points if they caught one of them mid-eye roll. Bonus bonus points if they got Jaster to look like he’d just been emotionally roundhouse-kicked by Lok’s existence.
Honestly, great entertainment.
Jango had even spoken to Lok directly a few times. Which had been weird at first—because, well, Lok —but he was actually pretty okay. He was weirdly gentle, never spoke down to him, and didn’t flinch when Jango got mad, which was more than he could say for most adults.
But none of that was the point.
The point was that he and Arla had a plan.
Jango’s lips twitched. Not a smile. Just...tactical satisfaction.
It started innocently enough, with a casual comment during one of their longer calls, something like: Have you noticed how Jaster always looks like someone punched him in the gut after talking to your buir?
To which Arla had replied: Only when he doesn’t look like he wants to throw him over a table and swear a blood oath. It’s very romantic.
And then Jango had choked on his water and Arla had grinned like she’d won something.
From there, it evolved.
A few shared notes. A spreadsheet (yes, a spreadsheet, Arla took this very seriously) titled “Operation SMOOCH: Strategic Manipulation of Our Clueless Heads-of-household” …the title was a work in progress, but several bolded items included things like:
- Suggest latemeal. Regularly. Weaponize nostalgia. Emotional bait recommended: “I missed my vod.”
- Reassign living quarters. Discreetly. Fate works in mysterious floor plans.
- Feign ignorance when they act flustered.
- Do NOT let Myles or Skirata find out. They’ll make it weird.
Technically, they weren’t lying to anyone. They were just...facilitating destiny. For the good of Mandalore. Obviously.
And maybe because watching Lok and Jaster orbit each other like emotionally repressed moons was getting real old. It was exhausting. Tragic. Painful to witness. Something had to be done.
Jango scanned the horizon again. A low hum of engines whispered overhead. Finally.
The Kyr’tsad transport—a sleek, dark, and sharp-edged ship— crested the clouds with a low roar. Kyr’tsad aesthetics always were a little dramatic.
A ripple of tension traveled through the guards flanking the platform. No one really trusted Kyr’tsad yet, not even with Lok in charge. Maybe especially not with Lok in charge.
Jango wasn’t sure how he felt, either. But he trusted Arla. And if Arla trusted her buir, then that was good enough.
The ship touched down with a hiss of hydraulics, ramp extending slowly to reveal Lok Vizsla. His beskar’gam was a little different than Jango remembered from Korda VI—slightly darker colors, slightly different pattern—but his beskar’ta still stood out with a stark, contrasting white. The dha’kad’au was clipped to his belt.
The biggest change had to be the cape, though. Apparently, being Mand’alor came with a mandatory dramatic flair and a government-issued cape.
Jaster wore a deep red one, with the white Mythasaur skull of the Haat’ade stretched proudly across the back. Lok’s was black, with Kyr’tsad’s crimson jai’galaar embroidered in sharp, aggressive thread.
It was intense, but annoyingly, it worked.
Arla followed two steps behind her buir, flanked by one of Lok’s commanders—Wren, maybe—and Kas Rook. As soon as her boots hit the platform, her buy’ce locked on Jango’s.
“Hey,” she said, like they hadn’t been plotting political romance espionage over encrypted channels for weeks.
“You’re late,” he replied.
“Your face is late,” she countered, deadpan.
“Did you bring the datapad?”
She pulled it from her satchel and handed it off like it was contraband. Because, technically, it was, if you considered “blatant emotional manipulation in spreadsheet form” a crime. (Which it shouldn’t be. They were heroes.)
Jango tucked it under his arm like a soldier cradling an explosive.
“So,” he said, just loud enough for Jaster—standing a conveniently short distance away—to overhear, “I was thinking… maybe your buir would want to come over for latemeal tonight. You know. For unity. And healing. And togetherness.”
Arla tilted her head just slightly. The universal expression for: Really?
“That’s subtle,” she muttered.
“I’m incredibly subtle,” Jango replied, glancing back to make sure Jaster was finished with his eavesdropping. “I’ve been told I’m the master of nuance.”
“By who?”
“Myself.”
Arla nodded like that tracked. “Fine. We’ll start with latemeal. I’ll make sure my buir can’t wiggle out of it.”
Perfect.
“I still think we should’ve started with locking them in a storage closet,” Jango grumbled under his breath, mentally reviewing his shortlist of ideal locations based on door durability, ventilation, and plausible deniability.
Arla shrugged. “Too obvious. This is better. A subtle, strategic slow burn.”
Jango looked past her to the two grown men supposedly in charge of the fate of Mandalore, who were currently standing close enough to definitely be inside each other’s personal space, but also avoiding eye contact like it might kill them. Lok was pretending to check something on his datapad. Jaster was very interested in… a crate. Just a plain crate. A crate that had apparently never been more fascinating in its entire wooden existence.
There was enough unresolved tension between them to power a capital ship and at least three bad decisions.
Yeah. They were so doomed.
And if Jango and Arla had anything to say about it, they’d be married by the time either one figured it out.
For the sake of Mandalore.
Obviously.