Private Legends Heirs

[Tessa Thayne]

The durasteel wall was cold and hard against her back, the cuff a touch tighter than they should have been but she had punched the guard pretty fething hard when he’d taken a little longer than he should have to pat her down. Her tongue ran over the split lip she’d earned in response as she tipped her head back against the wall.

She wasn’t alone in the holding cell, there were at least half a dozen others that had been arrested at this checkpoint. Thieves, stowaways, some idiot that form what she’d heard had been trying to smuggle beskar out. Tess was only passing through with a very expensive shipment that would have paid for some long overdue repairs on her ship.

Apparently, the contact she’d collected the cargo from had never heard of durinium lined crates and hadn’t even bothered with the simple things like half a crate with dud weapons or supplies in. Amateurs. She knew she should have checked it before she left.

But, she hadn’t.

Rookie mistake.

Now she was exactly where she didn’t want to be stuck. In Mandalorian Empire space, in a mandalorian checkpoint, in a mandalorian cell.

“Welcome home.” she muttered to herself.

 

[Aether Verd]

Assets: Beskar'gam | Basilisk
Darksaber | Resolute Dawn​

PRECINCT 13, MANDALORE

The halls of the precinct carried a low hum, the kind that rose from datapads, clipped voices, and the steady churn of a machine that kept Mandalore’s order clean and sharp. Aether rarely stepped into these places. He trusted his Protectors to keep the line tight and to drag the foolish or the reckless into cells like offerings placed at the feet of justice. That trust had been earned many times over. Yet there were days when something careless found a way to land on his desk, days when a single cargo run from some unknown hand managed to stir questions that deserved answers from his own lips.

So he descended the quiet lift, the glow panels trailing over durasteel that had seen more criminals than any ledger could count. His stride was measured, never rushed, never uncertain, the motion of a man accustomed to having rooms settle beneath his presence. The deputy who greeted him stood straight enough to be carved from stone once he realized who approached. Aether accepted the salute with a brief incline of his head and followed without ceremony.

They passed cells filled with the usual assortment of misfortune. Petty thieves who thought Mandalore would be an easier mark than the Outer Rim. Stowaways who believed they could vanish into the cracks of an Empire built by people who refused to live in fear of shadows. Then the deputy paused, lifted a hand, and pointed toward the woman sitting against the far wall with a split lip and cuffs that clung a shade tighter than regulation intended.

Aether studied her through the visor of his helm. The narrowing of his gaze did not require words. He let the silence stretch, the room settling under the slow coil of scrutiny. Here was the one whose cargo had disrupted his afternoon and shifted the trajectory of an entire investigation. Here was the name that had pulled Mand’alor the Iron from his duties and guided him into a holding cell that smelled faintly of ozone and reckless decisions.

He lifted his dominant hand, palm angled toward her in a motion that cut through the mutter of the other prisoners. His voice followed, low and blunt, the kind of tone that did not invite hesitation.

"You. Come here."​

Tessa Thayne

 

[Tessa Thayne]

Tess's head had tipped back against the cell wall her eyes closed when she felt the energy in the room shift. It wasn't fear or anger, it was a sharpness that said someone important had just walked in. The others in her cell noticed it too, their conversations stopped, their bodies shifting as if recoiling away from whoever it was.

She lifted her head, sapphire eyes opening to regard him. Tingling ran up her spine a sensation she'd long associated with two things; dangerous people, and forcers, and from the way the tingling made the hairs on her arms stand on end this one waa definitely both.

She didn't flinch or recoil when his visor settled on her, she just waited paitiently for her assessment to be finished before his hand directed at her and his command called out. It was only then that she realised that not only did she recognise the armour, but the voice too.

Mand'alor.

Tess had to wrestle hard with her instinct to say 'make me'. She'd never done well with authority, and has this been anyone else in the galaxy, she might have welcomed the fight that would have undoubtedly followed those words.

With a sigh, she pushed herself to her feet and took her time to cross the cell to its door, her gaze locked on him as the door was unlocked and she was pulled through. She shot the gaurd who handled her a glare. "I have legs thay work perfectly fine without you touching me. Don't make me break your hands too."

She took a pointed step away from him before looking back at Mand'alor the Iron.

"Must be a real mess for you them to drag you down here, Mand'alor."

Aether Verd

 

[Aether Verd]

Assets: Beskar'gam | Basilisk
Darksaber | Resolute Dawn​

PRECINCT 13, MANDALORE

Aether stood anchored in the corridor while the deputy unlocked the cell. The woman’s sigh, the slow rise from the floor, the deliberate stride with her chin tilted in defiance, none of it drew so much as a shift in his posture. Yet behind the visor his attention sharpened, drawn to the spark in her stare and the quiet thunder of someone who had walked into trouble more times than she cared to count.

When the deputy’s hand reached for her arm, Aether’s eyebrow lifted beneath the helm. He watched the brief exchange, the glare she leveled, the threat she delivered with a tone that had enough steel to earn a few murmurs from the other prisoners. Once she stepped clear and faced him fully, her final remark drifted across the narrow hall.

He let the words settle for a heartbeat before he answered.

"A real mess doesn't begin to cover it."

The reply came flat and unadorned, a simple truth delivered without ceremony. He shifted his stance by a fraction, enough to turn the deputy’s attention aside as he continued.

"Normally, things like this never make it past the Protectors. They apprehend, they confiscate, they charge. Simple, clean, reliable." His voice rolled forward with the steady cadence of a man who had lived inside those systems and shaped them with his own hands. "But what you were carrying? That earned my attention."

His hand dipped to the utility belt at his hip. When it rose again, it held a sealed plastic pouch, the contents glimmering faintly as he lifted it toward the light. At first glance it looked like standard spice, but the translucent sheen that clung to every grain marked it as something far more dangerous.

"You are likely far too young to know the name Wildfire." he said. The words carried an undertone that darkened the hall, a shadow of memory echoing back to the years when Mandalore had been carved open by invading monsters. "But that is what you were smuggling. A lovely strain that the Graug adored after they broke this world fifty years ago. For them it was a mild high..."

He lowered the pouch slightly, the gesture precise and measured.

"For anything remotely Human, it is a death sentence. Even cutting regular spice with Wildfire is enough to drop people in the street."

He returned the pouch to his belt, the faint click of the clasp punctuating the space between them. When his visor settled on her again, the glare that emanated from behind the T shaped slit held no hint of softness.

"Wildfire has been banned in Mandalorian space for a reason. Even the cartels will not touch it. Kills more of their market than it serves. Which means this shipment was not meant to make credits. It was meant to harm."

His voice lost the small flicker of narrative as he finally delivered the question, stripped of anything resembling amusement.

"So, let me ask you...If you were in my position, what would you do with you?"​

Tessa Thayne

 

[Tessa Thayne]

Tess's brow furrowed as he spoke eyes settling on the pouch in his hand. There was always a risk that came with not asking too many questions. She took the bigger jobs, the ones others would stay away from. Tess knew they paid well and she could handle the heat if she got it. Afterall, its not like she had anything to lose.

This job had been different,not because no one rlse would take it, but because no one else had been offered it.

Of all the drugs and all the places, with her lineage? Seemed tllike far too much of a coincidence. Her gaze lifted back to the visor that she was pretty certain concealed a glare.

"I'd hope I would be smart enough to recognise the at the person I'm looking at is just a tool." She shrugged, the movement tugging the restraints in a way that made her wince. "I'm just a runner. People call me for the jobs with the biggest risk because I don't mind taking them. I've done this run a dozen times, but with other contacts. I haven't got issue with pissing mandos off, but killing them?"

She shook her head. "Not my style."

Aether Verd

 

[Aether Verd]

Assets: Beskar'gam | Basilisk
Darksaber | Resolute Dawn​

PRECINCT 13, MANDALORE

Aether remained still as she spoke, letting the cadence of her words settle into the narrow hall like drifting embers. The furrow of her brow, the wince when the cuffs tugged too sharply, the weary defiance threaded through every syllable, all of it painted a picture he had seen many times before. Runners who thought themselves small enough to escape consequence, smugglers who convinced themselves that taking the job without asking questions meant they carried no responsibility for what lay inside their crates. Most of the time, that illusion held. Pickup, dropoff, leave, then vanish into the void until the next client called.

But Wildfire shattered illusions the way glass shattered under a hammer.

When she finished, he took a step closer, not hurried or aggressive, simply deliberate. The low light of the corridor gleamed across his visor as he answered her with a steady, grounded calm.

"Surely you are smart enough to know you are more than a tool."

The scrutiny in his voice deepened. Not hostile, but unyielding.

"You are the key to answering the questions of who and why. Someone handed you poison that has not touched Mandalorian soil in decades. Someone trusted you to move it. Someone believed you could slip past my Protectors unnoticed. That is not the role of a tool. That is the role of a chosen hand."

He let that sit between them for a quiet breath, the atmosphere thickening with the shift in stakes.

"So help me understand this hand."

He tilted his head slightly, visor locked to her sapphire stare, the command in his next words spoken without fire but also without room for misinterpretation.

"Who contracted you for this run? Where did you dock to receive the cargo? Where it was meant to land when all was said and done?"

The final note came flat and unornamented, carrying the blunt truth of a man who did not bluff.

"As a tool, full cooperation is the best way to guarantee your survival. My ire belongs to those who wanted my people dead, not the unfortunate messenger they used to carry their intent."​

Tess Thayne

 

[Tessa Thayne]

The step he took into her space only served to ignite a particular brand of fuck you in Tess's eyes, the relaxed posture stiffened the weight in her feet shifting to give her advantage if she needed to move. He might not have stepped in with any aggression but the move spoke volumes. It was meant to be a reminder of who held the power in this moment.

Fething mandalorians.

She heard every word, every command, every presumption he made about her and her situation, the corridors fell away in her minds eye till there was nothing but the glint of his visor fixed on her and the force around her crackled as she fought every instinct that screamed 'drop him'. She took a pointed step back, deliberately putting space between them, letting the corridor come back into focus. It wasn't a retreat, it was a calculated move to prevent a messy situation.

"Someone chose me because I have slipped past your Protectors before. That among other things makes me think that I was meant to get caught. So I'll cooperate because it helps me figure out who wants to fuck around and find out. Not because the king of the bucket heads just threatened to kill me if I didn't." she let the pointed disrespect hang in the air for a moment before continuing. "You want answers, I'll take you to answers. But we take my ship."

Aether Verd