Private Eye Look Upon (Muad)

[Yasha Cadera]

Doc Allard rubbed the towel along his forearms to dry off. Moving Yasha from Eiru was a feat in itself. While she had been on ships since Mandalore, somehow this latest move was… otherworldly. Maybe it was the lack of Kaine Australis, the decision made to move Yasha off Eiru until her riduur returned.

He’d run off at a fast clip, many Clan Australis warriors with him. War stung the air, and if Theo thought hard, when he sat beside Asha Corek to share some stim-caf, he knew.

The Biot attached to Yasha’s right arm smelled the battles before they arrived. And it wanted blood. Setting the towel down, the Venan doctor gripped the sides of the sink and watched Muad ’s reflection in the mirror.

“All weapons. I’m not joking, not a single weapon, not even a concealed pocket knife. Leave all of them behind. No armour, no weapons when you talk to Yasha. It’s not worth the Biot going into protection mode. If it does, well… you know how to survive. Ambrose is in there with her, if the biot tweaks, he can calm it down. Something about the gurlanin triggers obedience in the arm. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you here. Been ten hours since I’ve had a break, and could use a bloody nap like an infant after feeding time.” Theo patted Muad’s shoulder, eyeing Ginnie as she gave him a nod and motioned her head to the side to tell him it was okay to go lay down.

Quiet clung to the room like another luxury, each inch of carpet, bit of wallpaper and furnishing as plush as Clan Australis could afford. Yasha lived now in a gilded hospital room, medical equipment hidden behind stained wroshyr wood panels. Draped in soft yellow chersilk, Mand’alor the Infernal sat on a chair which appeared to be more comfortable in the Queen’s Palace of Naboo than a starship. Gifts from her riduur.

Guilt-prizes to cover the slow crawl of death and recovery which surrounded the once proud warrior. Limbs once used to holding a hundred pounds of armour aloft sat unused, emaciated and thin. The soft yellow fabric flowed sleevelessly across her olive skin, caressing a chest which seemed frail. Delicate.

Yet, Yasha’s right arm was covered in mottled olive green skin. The alien Yuuzhan Vong biot swept up from pointed fingernail talons to the meat of Yasha’s right shoulder and upper back. A milk-orange eye opened in the ball of her right shoulder, the alien peering warily at this new stimulus. Muad was inspected as a predator inspects prey before the pounce, the muscles in her right shoulder rippling. The green vong-flesh swept in symbiotic tendrils up the right side of Yasha’s neck, spilled onto her cheek in cursive curls. Tendrils of the Vong flesh gripped into her décolletage like filaments or spidersilk after a storm. An imperfect web.

The talon-like fingers of her right hand clicked at the arm of the chair, as Yasha looked up from watching the space outside her viewport.

“Muad Dib.” The once commanding voice broke in whispers, as soft as her dress. She reached with her left hand to try and tug a woollen shawl over the biot and her scarred, scatter-shot mottled skin. Ambrose looked up from his nap curled on the floor by Yasha’s feet, his massive gurlanin form stretching from forepaws to hind legs as he reached with gentle teeth and fixed the shawl. “Has the Alor of Clan Farr come to say I told you so?”

Muad Dib

 

[Abel Forsworn]

Ever since stepping foot upon the Infernal's ship, Muad had the scent of death and decay in his nostrils. He had left his beskar'gam behind in the locker of the small shuttle, along with weapons he wore pretty much everywhere. His kal (a gift from Ijaat Mereel) his beskad, and his protector revolver snug in its holster were waiting behind as well. Today wasn't the time for a fight, but something else.

Ginnie Dib walked beside him, his vod and aliit. She was not the woman she had been in her youth, nor the woman she became after birthing the twins. She had healed in more ways than one. He put his hand on her shoulder with a slight squeeze before releasing her. The clan had endured dark times and emerged triumphant on the other side. But it was never easy and victory came at a price. A steep price. Yet one that was paid, and would be paid again if it became necessary.

He was listening absent minded as the Doc talked. Ginnie stood nearby following the orders carefully. Amma looked like her more than he had thought. Every year growing more like Ginnie. The Doc wrapped it up finally and Muad gave the other man a wink.

"We're mando'ade here. We are the weapon. But I understand mate."

Slowly he moved forward, his boots sinking into the plush carpet. Springy. The opulence in the room spoke of decadent frivolity, a waste of resources and in all honesty a bit of an eye sore. But what do you expect from a man running around shooting people in the dick. Maybe over compensating for his 'shortcomings' in an attempt to capture one in the atmosphere of luxury. The thought amused Muad and he made a mental note to add it to his list of insults for Kaine when next they met.

Finally it was time to look at Yasha, Mand'alor the Infernal. There was no denying that she was broken, perhaps in every sense of the word. As he watched the old gurlanain pull the shaw up Yasha spoke, and then the silence. Shrewd eyes watched the woman carefully. Or what was left of her. The obvious additions to her body combined with her state of health had Muad frowning slightly.

"Now what kinda guy would I be if I was to say that? Especially now."

He turned his head inspecting the wallpaper along the walls. Who in the seven hells wallpapered a room on a ship. Course that wasn't his problem. Course these days Muad didn't have too many troubles. Not any that could compare to Yasha. He spoke without looking at her.

"Oh, and I told you so."

He didn't hide the little smirk that crept across his face. Just because she was ready for the hoverchair races and looked like some odd spawn of a woman and a krayt dragon didn't mean he would change who he was. Facing her once more he nodded slowly.

"If that was the only reason I'd have just sent an ewok singing telegram … but those dang things are so annoyingly cute that whenever I see one I have the need to either pet it or punt it. And then I thought about sending a jawa strippergram, but I was curious what a jawa looked like under that robe. Let's just say I saved you from that sight which will haunt my dreams forever. Seriously, haunting."

He grinned but never clarified if he was joking.

"You were never my Mand'alor. It's unfortunate because I believe that we would have been the friends we each needed. The law on Manda'yaim was what kept me, and my clan, from returning. Ra wasn't my Mand'alor, not the least of which was his zealotry. Mia helped devastate Manda'yaim. I haven't followed a Mand'alor in a long time. I don't regret not following Vilaz, Ra, Mia … not one bit."

Muad looked to where Ambrose rested ever alert.

"I do regret not following you. That is a decision I shall carry the rest of my days. The issues are still there, yet the mando'ade had purpose, security, allies, our planet, and a leader who would stalk into the thick of battle with her people. Yes, a regret I shall carry forever."

Reaching into his pants pockets slowly, because ally or not you don't just go reaching for things quickly around warriors, Muad out out a pack of death sticks and flicked one in to the air to catch with his lips and a grunt of success.

"I owe you three fold. Once for not taking immediate action when I used the Force for Rhaegar. Secondly for caring for Rhae and Amma and Ginnie until I arrived, and even afterwards. Third, I should have answered when the banners were called at the end. So I give you two things freely. If you or one of your children ever need help, for absolutely any reason, ner aliit will answer the call. No matter what. And the other is that every year I will pay taxes to you for the years I did not pay into the coffers of your rule as Mand'alor."

He slipped the pack once more into a pocket while absently chewing the end of the death stick.

"But for my three transgressions I give you three wishes. Ask anything and it shall be done. Use them all today or hoard them, I don't care. But this is my penance."

Yasha Cadera

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“Thanks… if you need, I’m… I’ll be right here.” Theo turned and plunked down on a cot sequestered behind a screen in the medic prep room, his chest rising and falling almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Ginnie kept a comfortable silence, having covered Theo with a duvet. She hung back behind Muad as she usually did in the rare occasion where seriousness was called for. Truth was, she owed Yash. Sure, she remembered the feral young thing, the six year old she and Isley rescued from the Warlock Gate. Was a stroke of luck that Ginnie happened to know who Aditya was. Ginnie was the first face Yasha saw as a child outside of the Netherworld, the first contact, the first friend.

For a long time, the only friend. A friendship paid back in dividends the older Yasha got. Yet, once Aditya died, Ginnie buried her guilt. She ran from Mandalore before Jasper’s corpse was cold as Cold Iron City, didn’t think about her friend.

Didn’t think about Yasha being raised by monsters. Warped into a 13 year old soldier, who honestly believed she owed Mandalore her life, that the only reason she breathed was to serve thankless men. And even then, when Yasha was proclaimed Mand’alor the Infernal, Ginnie kept quiet. Course, death did that. And when Rhaegar returned her, using the very soil and blood of Manda’yaim, Yasha turned the other way. Gave them a place to stay, clemency… anything Ginnie needed.

And the Mandalorians ate Yasha alive. Yasha’s own riduur tore chunks off the Infernal’s flesh. They used her wholesale, to get what they wanted. Once she was spent, once she gave up her Mantle Ginnie hoped the traumatized child soldier would finally get rest.

“Aah, there it is.” But Mandalore beckoned, and once more Yasha was used wholesale, to get what the Mando’ade wanted. Left, a husk. Little more than flesh on bone. Decades of hell finally broke the Infernal. Turned her bravery to dust on a cheated grave.

“Heh. I went into battle to fight an Ewok once. Was six… turns out it was really a wookie, just… very, very far away.” Yasha shook her head slowly, as if the memory were caught in front of her, not quite settled on her wounded mind. “Gosh that was a shock… Didn’t stop the Jetiise there from trying to kill me, though.”

“Didn’t you shoot that wookie, Yash? I think I remember you shot him.” Ginnie’s voice was strong, but light. She pulled a chair from the corner and sat backwards on it, arms over the back.

“Did I… I…” Yasha’s face broke in a listless confusion, the images feeble as her heartbeat. “The gun was so big I held it like a rifle… smelled like… like Mama’s lab.”

Lips parting, Yasha absorbed Muad’s words, Basic never being her language of choice. Her mind worked to translate to her native Epicant, vocabulary emanating from a space beyond her, as most things were beyond her now. Ambrose’s head rose once more, pressing across Yasha’s thighs like a dog seeking head scratches. The old gurlanin’s eyes waited for a series of connective recognitions in his charge, the girl he trained to kill, trained to die for Manda’yaim.

The girl he put on the throne, when Ra went missing and died.

“I never questioned your resolve to follow your convictions, Muad. You had my respect for it. Still do. I did what a grasping twenty year old soldier does. Followed the law. My training. As I told you then, the Mando’ade voted to maintain that law. I stood by their decision, thought tearing down the TSAC’s and relaxing the law was enough… but Kaine was right… nothing is enough for a Mandalorian.”

Dull amber eyes peered through the fog of Yasha’s body.

“Thank you, Muad… Adara’s father was Clan Farr… I should have given Adara to you, maybe then… I don’t know.” She sniffed, chin descending in defeat. Her breathing increased in its’ pace, left hand clenching and unclenching in the fabric of her yellow dress. “You… you would… all that… I’m not worthy of it… I…”

Yasha’s chin wobbled, head twitching in search for something, anything to focus upon other than the twist in her gut. The shiver in considering her tenure as the Infernal.

“Kain’ik shot me, Muad… he shot me six times… he didn’t mean to hurt me, he wanted to kill Carnifex, but…” Wide eyes combined with a slack jaw locked in the horror of her memories. Her lungs sucked in panic. A soldier broken not by the twenty years of battle, but the six shots of friendly fire. “He hurt me… Kain’ik hurt me, I… he didn't... he wanted Carnifex, but.... I was in the way.”

Her husband’s trigger six times. Yasha’s shoulders quivered, incapable of voicing the slim hope that somehow, even though her Epicanthix mind was immune to mentalism, even though the Vong Biot made her Force Dead.. that when she closed her eyes, or heard anything above a heavy footstep it stopped sounding like the bang of the cherub pistol.

Muad Dib

 

[Muad Dib]

He chuckled at the story of the wookiee. And the the wonder known as Jedi entered the story as they always tended to do with a mando'ad. Immediately judging guilt. And on a child to boot. Muad listened to the story as the firebug reminded Yash the story ever so gently. The ache that echoed within Muad was palpable as the Infernal struggled with a simple memory.

It has been a long time now, for both of them, since he was in that alley with Rapax and Sol Damerin. Kentarch fell to Ra's wrath while Sol dragged Muad by a grappling hook down the street. Rapax had pulled a building down in an attempt to crush those who were attacking, not knowing the attackers were kids. One of which was Yasha. Then there were several run ins throughout the years. The kid, youth, and woman of his memories was there in the broken woman sitting before him. Buried deep.

"If you were not worthy I would not have come here let alone give you what you are due. If you were not worthy Ambrose would not have taken you in, followed you, and still stands beside you. My little firebug here knows you. She is ever on your side. Ginnie doesn't give loyalty easily, yet you have hers. You are worthy."

"Bloodlust."

Muad frowned as his mind flew on the wings of memory to that first meeting with Kaine Australis. The Confederacy and Mando'ade crossed blades, yet both Metus and Yasha had called a cease fire. However that hadn't stopped either Kaine or Muad. The passion of the moment had overwhelmed their sensibilities as they sipped from the well of madness. Time made her mark on them all. Muad faced the drug that was bloodlust and began to overcome its temptation. But it appeared Kaine had yet to learn his lesson.

"Bloodlust. You've tasted it yourself I'd wager. That characteristic is what makes these other words necessary. Acceptable losses. Collateral damage. The friendlies that will die because of the one in charge. It's a two-edged sword that slays the just and unjust without mercy, rhyme, or reason. Inevitably you are faced with a choice that could come at great personal cost to see the plan through."

His eyes stared through Yasha as he relived the past. A promise to return Rhaegar. A willingness to sacrifice himself for the gift of life. A daughter placed upon the altar to balance the damnable scales as Derek liked to say.

"You see, people like that win battles and even wars. But they lose their soul and their people. It's because these people will do anything to get the end results they desire. And at some point the price always includes a loved one. And that loved one pays the price. That's the kinda man Kaine is. And the kinda man I am. Or, at the least, was."

He didn't turn his gaze away from the ruination of her body, mind, or spirit. He would not pretend she was whole or that she had nothing to look at. But neither did he blanche at the marred image of the Infernal.

"That's the difference between you and Kaine. Kaine inspires fanaticism. His vision is a crusade. The march to glory. You, you inspire loyalty. A warrior. A leader."

He took a few steps closer to stand near her, always slowly. Why was it the women who always paid the higher price? He knew the answer, for only a mother could handle the pain and loss yet continue forward.

"I understand your pain. I was betrayed by a brother once. His name was Dresdin. Not my flesh and blood, but one even closer. We were young and foolish. We were Sith. Along with my riduur and our friend Atin we were known as the Sith Pack. But power and bloodlust drove in like a wedge, with blaster shots and lightsabers ignited. Words and wounds were shared. And as I healed I also mourned his utter betrayal. I was merely between him and his aspirations. His bloodlust. And I paid a price because of it. Much like you do now."

Tentatively he reached out to caress the hair at her temple in a non threatening manner to not entice the biots or the gurlanain.

"You are loved Yash'ika. And in time you will learn that just because one person hurt you, doesn't mean everyone will. I will never hurt you Yash'ika. Neither will Ginnie. Nor Ambrose."

Yasha Cadera

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“Pistol felt so big in my hands… these don’t feel like my hands.” Yasha’s voice warbled listlessly through the recycled atmosphere of the ship, hemmed in as it was in this bit of luxury. A healing space to remind her of manor houses left behind. Of any space which wasn’t clinical and cold. Yasha did always hate the cold.

Ambrose nuzzled his gurlanin nose under Yasha’s left hand in an attempt to gain any form of response. The elder gurlanin knew well the fate of warriors whose abilities at battle cost their minds. He’d seen it for lifetimes of the human scale. Chin dipping down, Yasha’s left hand twitched and slowly began to pet Ambrose’s head, her amber eyes trained on Muad’s shoulder.

“Yes. I have tasted blood… I love my husband. He didn’t mean to hurt me... he... he had the chance. He took it... I keep telling myself he took it... that I would too. But...” Shoulders shaking, Yasha's words descended to loose syllables in Epicant, before dissipating completely. Muad bent down to thumb the hair away from her face, raven hair which once was long and well tended, shorn short, growing in lazy curls down to her chin. She nuzzled into his touch, childlike, as if Muad were momentarily the parent who could with a brush of his fingers take the pain and stow it in a decompressing airlock. "I remember bloodlust. Drinking it, when I was thirsty. Mama said we could from a fresh kill. One we made ourselves, if it wasn't sick. Water tastes like tin... It should taste like copper. Never understood how it was clear."

Ginnie stiffened, head snapping up to watch Yasha fumble for syllables that matched the words in her Epicanthix mind.

"When she was six, she... She'd never seen water before. Aditya raised her in the Blood Plains, to cover their scent. I... Remember how freaked out Yasha was, clutching that dang broken spearhead and stabbing at the glass." It almost made Ginnie smile, as she thought back to the precocious six year old Hell Child. "Only thing I could get her to eat was raw steak, some chocolate... then a lot of chocolate.“

"Water's not clear under Kaas City. Black as the void... He held me under... 'Everything will be alright'..." Her voice faded off, back into Epicant. Regressed to her mother tongue. “It is a leader’s task to ensure one’s followers are safe and whole… I… he asked for so little. Teaching the children Epicant, Panathan names for the boys… he asked for such little things… what was my pride when my people… I served them. My life meant nothing, I was nothing but… Manda’yaim’s servant. He let me go.”

She gripped Ambrose’s ear, struggling against the shiver in her spine. The way the biot pulled her attention away from the memories in her mind. An integration broken before it could complete and proper symbiosis could resume.

“Promised... Koemi promised me everything would be alright.” Yasha’s whisper was hoarse, thick as the emotions tied to her memory. Her left hand snaked up to grasp at the biot, hold it to her. “Koe gave this to me... it saved my life… it crawls in my head and tangles my words until I can’t… Koe asked for such little things. Timid things to stave off Sith wrath from Clan Australis. Kain’ik never asked why Koemi sent no retributive attacks. Mandalore was safe, the people fed, armoured, ad’ike asleep in their beds with nothing to fear from our Northern neighbours… Koemi asked… for so… little… until I was gone. Adara is gone, too.”

Yasha’s eyes seemed to clear for a brief moment, her head shaking off the fog as she looked from Ginnie to Muad.

"Adara ran away with Tuuli Miles. Do your twins know... I... I didn't do right by her. She was in constant danger on Mandalore, but... She deserved better... Kain’ik thought she could handle the responsibility of ruling... taking care of me...“

Muad Dib