Private West of Where the Sun Dies...

[Ijaat Mereel]

Location: Mandalore, just outside Keldabe Spaceport Ruins
​

As the sun began to stank low, a lone figure on the horizon stopped. With a stabbing motion it rammed home a hoe, and put down a L.E.R.P. pack from Akar Rhonvogg of Phoenix Initiative that he had picked up at Ecosystems of the Future Scientific Exposition aboard the Radiance Home, the pack full of ori'ramikad tree seeds harvested from Concord Dawn specimens. To reach full maturity this grove would take years of work. But the work of a generation started with one, or at least he kept telling himself that. Nearby an aging war still lounged, tongue hanging out as it panted in the heat. A crude hut of veshok saplings and foilage lay with dugout cellars and entrance, a hut much like the Iron Father had grown up in.

Though work from Danger Arceneau and ATC had done much to restore the atmosphere and stability of at least this sector of Mandalore, the climate was still extreme, and was months and months away from being similar to how it was when he was a lad. But it was a start. As he leaned on the farm implement, Ijaat looked over to the horizon.

The ground tremored slightly, even as distant as the beast was. But it brought a smile to his heart to see the ancient mythosaur from Ashin Cardé Varanin striding across the homelands. Nearby he could hear the sounds of wildlife. Bit by bit, sector by sector they were healing the land, culling the monsters the Sith introduced, and reintroducing many beasts and plants from the Mandalorian diaspora.

He still wasn't sure about the Murder Tooth they had let go in the southlands of this regions. Not after being eaten by one once.

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

The Next Morn
​

Sitting on a rock outcropping, Ijaat nursed a camp-stove to life. Tucked away safely nearby was the Svarog, so he could be reached if needed, but otherwise he was living a simple existence for a while. Farming, and today saw him cooking a breakfast of jai'galaar eggs and bacon with a bit of black kaff. Except the stove he had brought wasn't quite the best, and kept sputtering out in the high wind and rains of the mornings here.

Regardless, after much cursing he sat back with a cigarra and kaff, sipping it and watching the sunrise. Eventually he stood, grinding out the stump of his morning smoke and draining the last of the kaff from a durasteel cup before hefting a pick axe to his shoulder. Neary stood a slight dugout, lined in rock. It would do for a smithy eventually, for basic work. Nothing fancy, but it was his opinion that this time spent should be spent getting in tune with the feel of the planet, rather than just rushing in and making it as it was before. It would never be that again.

It would be something, but never that again.

Heftin the pickaxe, he swung the beskar implement with a harrumph into the rocky soil and began his task anew, lengthening the dugout. Hopefully the pit would be mostly done today.

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

A few days had passed. A crude plasma forge with several tanks had been drug from the ship, and Ijaat was making his way over to it from a long day of working a beskar clutch. Two buckets sat stung across his shoulders with heavy ore, which from it he might get enough to make a knife or two from. The process was inefficient and slow, but the basics had been lacking too long from his life. There was a simple, visceral joy and challenge in just the flame, himself, and hammer united with the anvil to a battle of wills against beskar itself.

With a twist and groan of fatigue, the Iron Father dropped the buckets in front of the smelter he had cobbled together and began tuning the sputtering flame to get the device even hotter. Beskar required a constant, precise heat to forge. But smelting it was even more finicky, and the ciridium he had on the ship laid near by. It would help with density and weight, and lend a bit of spring and flex to the resultant piece.

He intended one to go to Ashin Cardé Varanin , a ritual knife he would be visiting a volcano soon to fix the final bits into. The other for Mia Monroe from that same volcano, but attuned to a wholly different purpose.

As the flame hue turned white-blue, he began to add the ore to the stack, leaning back against cool stone wall and sighing as he watched the ore glow and heat.

 

[Kasmion Duum]

The hut proved to be less remote than Kasmion had feared. Not easily accessible by any means — he'd covered the last stretch in an armored landspeeder — but straightforward. Portions of Keldabe had been rebuilt in the heyday of MandalMotors, after the volcanic devastation but before a Sith incursion of some kind. The nuances of local tragedy eluded Kasmion and we're arguably irrelevant. Broken-down and dusty people had the same thoughts here as on his homeworld: drear and defiance and desperation and hope. He knew the flavor of a ground-down, cut-down world that had the strength to regrow, but perhaps not the option.

Kasmion pulled up outside the hut and left the speeder. He had the measure of the area — the minds of its wildlife, and the very, very few people around. Ijaat Mereel had likely felt him coming.

"Hello the house!" he called in an old manner, raising a bottle.

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

He had felt the guest, and smiled a bit. At least with this man, he had a measure of him. They both shared a weight and realism few but those who had been through the hells they shared could understand, let alone bear. As Kasmion pulled up, Ijaat had banked the fire to die slowly and was just bulling his face and upper torso from the positively frigid waters of the quench tank, shuddering at the bracing temperature of the water as he dried off on a nearby towel, hands gleaming faintly in the sun with their metallic skin.

Despite his life calling for armor at almost all times, this day he had decided that his visit to the former grounds of Beskar'yaim and the volcano where he had committed his treason to his people maybe would be smarter without the armor. So he had went plain garbed in working clothes. Nearby on a work table sat two gleaming knives of beskar, ready for handle work and their blades gleaming as if mirrors rather than implements of death. One echoed comfortingly, and would feel light and in the hand but heavy when swung. The other, to the telepath, would seem like an echo of tragedy and immeasurably sad, yet comforting and faded all the same.

"Hail the guest! Welcome to the humble abode!"

Even trusting the new man as he did, Ijaat still checked the holdout blaster in the small of his back. Friend or no, Ijaat was a Mandalorian after all.

Kasmion Duum

 

[Kasmion Duum]

Normally, on an approach like this, Kasmion would cast his mind out to get an overview of what he approached through the eyes of a passing bird. It was a talent he'd learned from an old, old tradition on Gelgelar on the edge of the Scar Worlds. Mandalore's ecosystem being what it was, though, there didn't happen to be suitable animals nearby just now. He got a glimpse from a lizard and that was about it.

He approached the hut bottle-first. It was a bulbous bottle of boga noga, the strong Huttese red ale, Kasmion's drink of choice. Weapon of choice too, in some circumstances. For actual protection had had a blaster in his robes and a personal shield belt too, inactive at the moment.

On closer approach, he took in the workplace, the workman, and the work in question. In the interim he'd run certain searches for the name Ijaat Mereel and learned what could be learned. It was difficult to square that information with the plainspoken, driven, reasonably well-intentioned man he'd met at the trade expo. Then again, who didn't contain multitudes?

"Boga noga," he said, passing Ijaat the bottle. "A hut-warming gift, so to speak. I like the area. Are you planning to build larger, or keep it to a small retreat?"

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

"Small is the plan. I've ran whole planets. Don't aim to do much that large again, though what one aims and what one does... "

He gestured, almost futiely, and turned to eye the hut and now finished forge, a tanning rack and few other conveniences next to it. A rather large egg sat off to one side, oddly enough covered in baked mud that was drawn all over in Mando'a glyphs and others besides. He took the offered bottle and gestured to a veshok wood table hewn and fashioned by himself. Like most the homestead, it wasn't going to find a place in high-society fashion. But like the smith himself, it exuded strength and solidity, a sense of dependability.

Kasmion Duum

 

[Kasmion Duum]

Kasmion settled into a seat at the wooden table and rested his hands flat on the tabletop. A table wasn't a mind, but he could still feel something of the substance and significance of this thing. The hospitality of it, the craftsmanship, the fact that the wood meant something on this world and to these people.

"I've come to believe that most people have an external locus of control. They turn - for initiative, for motivation, for meaning - to someone else who can provide them. They have a missing piece, or a protein receptor. They cling. They cluster. They need their leaders, and we have only so many of those connections we can make. Nobody can lead anything personally. They lead their three, four, five top people, who lead their teams in turn. But the clawing, grasping follower throng can't see that there is no room for them, like a swarm of pups at the teat. Bleak, to be sure, misanthropic, cynical, but I suspect you agree in part: followers will swarm a leader and take more than he can give. So I very much understand what you mean: the scope of leadership wants to expand. Past your capacity and past what is wise.

"But I pontificate. I apologize. I had some boga noga on the way."

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

Smiling deeply, Ijaat gestured around them as he took a seat across from his new friend. The wood smelled faintly rich and earthy, or maybe that was affectation on his part. Still, he took in the words, and waved away the apology. Idly he grabbed two goblets of plain durasteel and placed them on the table, pouring more of the boga noga into the cups for himself and Kas, raising his glass in toast to the guest.

"Ke'gycir jetii rejorhaa'ir akaan. Like ordering Jedi to declare war... Me leading, makes no sense, but it seems to happen anyway. As for the words... Think nothing of it... Just makes truth flow, the drink does. I used to look in the mirror and see a dozen maybes for each decision made. And I wonder how much of what I struggle for here and now is in vain. Or if others will spit on the offered hand because of the arm attached to it. But I've learned something this time around..."

Here he took a large swig of the Hutt ale and nodded, an appreciative response to the bracing liquid.

"The work is a reflection of my character, not theirs. And that's the difference, that fine split that most don't see. It's partly why we're better off, as a people, without a Manda'lor... Most of us can't see past the next charge and our own thoughts of self-honor. I know I still struggle with it. But the work has worth, as the saying goes..."

Crookedly he grinned, nodding to an empty bottle on the back of the table.

"I may have had a few after working the forge today as well. Tihaar does it's work well..."

Kasmion Duum

 

[Kasmion Duum]

Kasmion took a long drink of the boga noga.

"What has more longevity, an empire or a knife? The knife will still be here in thirty years.

"Let me ask you something I've often wondered. In Basic, the term 'honor' or 'honorable' means keeping faith, keeping one's word, truthfulness. But it also means face, outward-facing dignity. And it also means someone who is honored, recognized, for bravery and similar virtues. These are widely different and prompt different values and behavior." Slurp. "Does the Mandalorian word have the same confusion, or is there more than one word?"

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

A deep drink, and a considering furrow of brows. Then a reply.

"Truth, vision. The word has it's roots there in Mando'a. It gets confusing, and I'm no linguistic scholar... But the connotation is that one who is honorable to my people speaks truth and is a person of vision, but also one to realize that vision rather than just espouse it. It's why the words for sealing a pact or bond root to them in basics. Truth, honor, vision. The placement is drawn from when the language belonged to the Taung, and is no accident I feel. The truth and vision of a Mandalorian make up the honors, pillars that he or she may stand on."

Another drink as he thought, then another statement that could have been a question.

"But what is a warrior to do when he lacks vision, but attach himself to another who does not and move to grow that vision of the other. It's what makes us, as a people, natural mercenaries... Honor is subjective, not objective, to us."

Kasmion Duum

 

[Kasmion Duum]

Kasmion blinked. "A natural subjugation? That's perilously close to saying the Mandalorian way is rooted in being a follower, a good follower, and if that's so, how does that vision develop? How can followers produce leaders? Frustration leading to, hic, transcendence? Get tired of following someone else's poor vision and develop a better one? Understand that I'm trying to think of your people's way as a process that transforms, and I'm so curious about how that works. What kind of metal is being forged, and how it becomes what it becomes."

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

"To some degree, it has become such. A weakening of the spirit. More clearly it means, simply, that the honor of others intent matters little to none when stacked against the reality of their actions. Your employer is slaughtering civilians? There exists enough nuance in Mandalorian morality to make it impossible to say how a singular member of my people would react, and the answer is as varied as the possibilities of the infinite chance."

Another drink. Kark, this stuff was strong and he was starting to like the flavor even.

"Transcendence could be one way of looking at it. A popular one, given modern times. But again, the path varies for each who walks it."

Kasmion Duum

 

[Kasmion Duum]

"So - and forgive me if this is blunt, I'm very curious - if Mandalorians shape their ethical choices based on the cause or the employer, how do they grow to be leaders? Doesn't vision imply, hic, convictions? I'm not speaking of the Ra Viszlas, the simple crusaders, I mean the builders and the connectors. How do norms like that create, say, a Gilamar Skirata or a, who was it, Emberli Garrett?"

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

"They don't, to be blunt in return. Those men buck the norms, and shape the Way. They see beyond the day to day. But, to me, that's true in any culture. The difference between a follower and a leader is the stones to stand."

The tonal difference on the words 'the Way' likely wouldn't be lost on his drinking companion.

Kasmion Duum

 

[Kasmion Duum]

"Hm."

Kasmion sucked boga noga residue from his teeth thoughtfully. His stomach growled.

"I'd always had a mental image of the Mandalorian way as one designed to develop strength, but I see now I should have looked deeper and dis, hic, aggregated. Different kinds of strength. So if you were to design a way of life to create leaders - people with vision and self-reflection enough to refine that vision - what kind of life would it take? What machine makes that product? And what raw materials could it work with - only the special, the innately qualified, or anyone, if the machine was good enough? Machine meaning culture, of course."

He was, by this point, slurring.

 

[Ijaat Mereel]

"Dependz on the project. A leader of war takes a different machination than a leader in peace, and even those two have variants. It takes belief to ultimately make a leader"