Who are you really? [Manda'lore]

[Lina Djo]

Dawn was Mia's favourite time of day, when half the people were still in a deep sleep and the only noise was that caused by the waking forest around her home and the whirring of her small collection of droids at work. She had retreated from the village where they had first housed her after the rescue the moment the doctors had agreed she no longer needed monitoring.

But Mia was far from recovered, and in truth she didn't think she ever would recover. What little social skill she had before was gone, her temper was short and on the odd occasion she did venture into the village for social events resulted in too much whisky and a fight or three. she smiled to herself at the thought, she had always been a fighter, her father was forever pulling her out the midst of a fight but the fights now were different, fueled more by hate and fury than her original love of a damn good fight.

So Mia sought her solitude, and occupied herself by repairing her droids and researching what she had missed. Battle reports, the manada'lore's call to aid the sith. They stirred more questions about this old man that was leading them than Mia would have liked. If she still had her ship, she would have simply left and done what she did best. Smuggle, sell her skills and chased ancient artifacts across the galaxy, but alas, she had no ship. She had credits to buy one, but hadn't yet found one she liked, so she made a decision.

To find out who her leader really was.

A brief message requesting to speak with the manda'lore had left her home, now all she had to do was wait. The astromech droid in front of her emitted a spark the caught her hand snapping her from her brooding. Cursing she withdrew it, shaking the pain of the small shock from her fingers. Oh how she missed her old astromech, this one would take months before it was up to Bandit's standard.

 

[Carbon]

A summons wasn't exactly something Emberli ever expected from another Mandalorian. That's really all a request was, anyway; a summons. Since Mand'alor was only in power so long as he was supported by the culture as a whole, he couldn't blow people off or make decisions that harmed the Mandalorian lot in the galaxy.

Dressed in his armor as he always was, he knocked quite politely on the residence Mia told him to come to. Most of what he could remember of Mia was of her capture, but the war hadnt left much time to get to know people.

So it was the two meter tall giant of a Mandalorian came to be on Mia's front porch.

 

[Lina Djo]

The Manda'lors knock would not be heard by Mia, out side the back of the house she was engrossed in the hologram in front of her a list of new ships and their specs available in the space port. An MSE droid shot out of a flap at the bottom of the door ramming into the giants feet with and angry beep. Retreating several inches, it gave another beep and disappeared inside again whizzing across the floorboards and out the back door. Mia looked down at it with a frown as it rattled of a series of beeps at her.

*Metal giant at the door*

Mia's understanding of binary was good, but even that made no sense to her. Picking the MSE droid up despite its loud and angry protests she moved insdei and opened the front door. "Oh, hi" she said looking at the droid in her hand. "Metal giant, huh?" shaking her head she put it down "I wasn't expecting you so early. Come through, you'll have to excuse the chaos," she said moving away and crossing the house "I'm still trying to work out whats what and which part belongs to who."

Mia's home was a simple design, a huge open plan room consisting of kitchen, dining and living area and a set of stairs leading up to her room at one end. An entire wall was dedicated to the various artifacts she had collected over the years, everything from simple stones engraved with ancient writing to old swords of surprising value. The chaos she was referring to however, was the surfaces that were littered with droid parts.

Outside the astromech droid was smoking and Mia let out a groan and flopped into one of two chairs that overlooked a small stretch of grass before a bubbling creek. "Of all the things that is still running since i was last here its and old MSE droid that i stole from the imperials. Everything else is either malfunctioning or fried." She took a moment to actually look at the Manda'lor properly, bristling slightly at the fact that he had come fully armoured. "Do you always do home visits fully armoured?" she asked, her voice betraying none on her annoyance at it.

 

[Carbon]

Emberli smiled beneath the helmet. "How many have seen my face? Know my name? I am my armor and my armor is me. I do just about everything armored. Not quite everything... But close." As ever, his quiet, if authoritative, bass of a voice is genial in tone.

Before even considering entering her home, he removed his boots as per Mandalorian custom; it was rude to go into another's home while wearing any footwear. Just as it was rude to decline food or drink offered: rude to the point of a fight waiting to happen.

"You're put off though; I can tell. Your eyes made sure I was fully armored before you asked a question implying that I might have decided to only show up here in full gear, as opposed to this being the norm. Then again I have a habit of reading into nuance."

Entirely true. But Emberli was an expert reader of people. That is to say when he wasn't blinded by his emotion or basic instincts.

 

[Lina Djo]

Mia gave him a cold look. "Put off by it? Yes. I am not my brothers, Manda'lor. I am not comfortable following a man who has no name and no face. Off world, I couldn't give a damn, but this is home, and I like to be able to see who i'm talking to at home. I like to know who I'm following. If you were paying me, I wouldn't care, but you're not." It was the politest way Mia could request that he at least remove the helmet, out of respect for her home.

She tucked her legs up underneath her and pulled the smoking astromech to her. "Imp," she called and the MSE droid appeared at her feet again. "Go and find me another motor, this one is fried." With an affirmative beep the droid whizzed away again as Mia picked up her tools and began to open the astromech up again. She needed her hands to be busy, if they were still she struggled to keep her, line of thought.

"Some time ago, you popped out of hyperspace above Taris in the oldest ship I have ever seen. You came, out of nowhere, conquered the Rebuilder and took you place as Manda'lor as tradition dictates. Now, my brothers might not question it but, some of them are all helmet and no head, and I was raised to question everything. Even if it was way above my station. A man is more than his armour, yet you say your armour is you." she looked at him as she lifted the panel free. "I disagree. You are not your armour, you just hide behind it, and i'm not a fan of cowards."

She let the last word hang in the air for a moment before returning her attention to the astromech droid. "I've been reading the battle reports. We lost concord and junction in quick succession, yet when we tried to take junction back, the manda'lor, that had come and conquered a perfectly capable, albeit flawed leader and also had lost us two planets, did an amazing disappearance and was un-contactable for some time during the battle. Some time after said battle, that same manda'lor took a fleet to Dromund Kaas to support the rise of a new emperor for the sith." there was no venom in her tone, no accusation, her words were simple, to the point statements of facts the motor came out, burning Mia's hands slightly. She cursed dropping it onto the table next to her and sucking her finger for a moment.

She stopped her tinkering while waiting for the MSE droid to come back with a motor "What were you doing on Junction? Where were you when my brothers needed you?" Now, she allowed the accusation to slide into her voice.

 

[Carbon]

"Why would I pay my own people?", he asks with every hint of amusement. She'd likely think he wasn't taking this seriously, but he was. Sometimes, though, he didn't want to be super serious. This was one of those times. Finally, slowly, he eases himself into the seat next to her, leaning forward so his forearms rested across his kneecaps.

There's a slow exhale that causes a blurt of static from his helmet speakers. "A man is more than just his armor, yes. But sometimes a man isn't what's needed. Sometimes you need that armor. That figurehead that could be anyone and everyone. If anyone is behind that visor, couldn't said person one day be you?", he asks quietly. It was a rhetorical question, obviously, but the point still stood.

He snorts though. "Coward? For what? Enjoying anonymity? Hardly. Knowledge is power; guard it well. You're making the same mistake everyone makes; a mask isn't always for a coward, you just want it to be for one so that you can affirm to yourself that you're right."

The visor looks straight at her, finally, the helmet still annoyingly on. "The Grandmaster, a Padawan and I went to the capitol to launch an assault on it. We were quickly outnumbered by Sith and the Grandmaster engaged the Emperor while I went to high ground - a roof - to get a better grasp of the situation."

All entirely true.

"While I was up there... plants started growing up the building and made a dome around it, locking me in with a Sith Master. A seductress. An amalgam of plant and something else. She looked more human than plant, but she was definitely leafy."

"She wanted to talk. We talked. Through it all she tried the cheesiest seduction moves I've ever seen, which I ignored. However, the entire time we talked, I kept wanting to burn her. But I couldn't. Something refused to let me press the trigger."

"I did research later and found out she was probably using pheromones; something I'm not used to. She was trying to get me to help her, and I refused. Either way, some things happened I'm not entirely proud of; No I did not help her, yes I did try to help the Grandmaster - alas I was too late."

He raised a hand and held up his index finger. "It wasn't a fleet. It was one ship. Ashin, the now Empress, promised to return Concord Dawn to us and end the war if I helped her out the current Emperor. I did what I had to do to ensure the survival of the Mandalorians. That is my job; to do my best so that my people may lead the lives they wish to live. We had not the materials to continue a war, and the Sith Empire was simply growing larger."

His head shook. "Are those the answers you were looking for?"

 

[Lina Djo]

Mia smirked at his description of the events on Junction. "A Zelosian." she confirmed with a small shake of her head. "Never come across one myself, but I've heard enough about them to know what 'things happened' means." She fell silent for a moment, pondering his final question. Were these the answers she wanted? Well, technically no, she already knew these answers, she had just wanted to hear him say them. His reasoning for making an agreement with Ashin was sound, but it didn't sit right with her.

"I don't know what I wanted to hear." she said looking out over the creek again, her eyes glazed over. "I think I wanted to find a reason to hate you, for siding with this new empress." she brought a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment her emotions sudeny on the surface. She pushed them back as best she could and sat forward. "You are right though. We do not have the resources for war. But war is coming whether we like it or not."

She looked at the old man again. "If this...Omni does not come for us, the Sith will come again. Do you have a plan to gain resources, old man?"

 

[Carbon]

"The Sith are heading along the trade spin to the South to engage the Republic. They'll come for us, but by then we'll have rebuilt everything we need to." There's a smile to that voice. "We have the resources, what we didn't have was the time. We have the time now."

His broad shoulders sag a little. "I just hope it's enough time."

"You can hate me all you want, honestly. So long as what I'm doing is good for the Mandalorian people, then I'm fine. But what's good isn't always what you want, and what's good will not always make you happy. Remember that and you'll never be worried about having to try and find a reason to hate me."

Despite the armor, he really was quite personable, all things considered. "I'm not that old, though. 30 or so, with adjustment for aging during sleep."

 

[Lina Djo]

"I don't hate you." she replied with a sigh "My experience with the sith haven't exactly left me loving them and you're agreement with them..." she trailed off, waving the matter aside. "Whatever, I'm a mando'ade with mental issues. If I flip out on you its nothing personal, just a voice in my head that told me to." She snorted with laughter at herself, before realizing that the MSE droid hadn't returned. "Imp, where's my motor?" she called into the house.

"There's never enough time." she said looking back at the manda'lor with a smirk "It's what you do with the time you have that counts. I'm assuming you have a plan?" If she was going to stay, unstable or not, she might as well help where she could. She was after all Jaxx's daughter and she owed to her father to help.

Mia raised an eyebrow at his staement. "Are you kidding me? The ship you rocked up in over Taris was an antique...wait...what?" her mind buzzed as she tried to process his last words. "During sleep? What do you mean during sleep?"

 

[Carbon]

He sighed, then dropped the bomb. "I was alive before it all began." It was clear he meant the Virus.

 

[Lina Djo]

Mia blinked, and found herself utterly speechless. That was not on her list of possible identities for the Manda'lore.

"Osik..." she breath softly "So you are an old man then?" It was easy to mock something, when you couldn't fully wrap your head around it. Rising from the chair she disappeared inside, returning moments later with two glasses and an unlabeled bottle, half filled with a dark liquid. She didn't ask Manda'lore for a drink, she just pressed the glass into his hand and half filled his glass.

The strong smell that came from it would tell the manda'lore it was whisky, but this stuff was old, and very strong. "It must have been hard," she said pouring her own glass and settling in the chair once more. "To see it all fall apart."

 

[Carbon]

She disappeared, then returned, and Emberli could only smile beneath his helmet. Sighing as she returned with the drink he realized she'd played her hand expertly. He couldn't refuse the drink, but he also couldn't keep his helmet on to drink it. Well played, Mia. Well played.

Setting the glass down momentarily, he pops his helmet off and sets it aside to reveal a surprisingly youthful looking face. Still, it was marred. A saber burn ran across his nose, and vicious looking scar tissue could be seen along his throat where, presumably, someone had tried to slit it.

"It was harder when my Generals and I realized the plague would prevent any strong leaders from ever emerging for long. So we made the decision to freeze me so that when it was over the Mandalorians wouldn't collapse like a deck of cards. We were never a large force; the Gulag Plague would decimate us."

"We needed someone who could lead to survive."

"The worst part was knowing there was nothing you could do."

There's a pause, then he takes a slow gulp of the alcohol.

 

[Lina Djo]

Mia could not help but smirk at her small victory. Now she had seen the face behind the mask, all she had to do was find a name. Considering the time period he came from, researching such a thing would be hard, most historical information from that time was either lost or corrupted.

She studied him silently for a moment taking in his scars as she pondered his words. "That's one hell of a decision to make based on assumption." He was right though, the re-builder served to unite them but his methods of expanding their territory had been questionable. Any longer under his rule and they would have crumbled again and slunk of to the four corners of the galaxy once more.

She brought the glass to her lips and took a small sip, relishing in the warmth that spread through her. "So, if you're the strong one to lead us, what is your plan? We owe a debt to the republic and the sith will only stay away for as long as it suit them, and sooner or Later Omni is gonna make a visit." The MSE droid appeared again with a fresh motor clutched in a mechanical claw.

"I should probably shut all my droids down before it does."

 

[Carbon]

"An assumption that couldn't be wrong. At the death rates we were experiencing, the average persons lifespan would likely be cut in half, on average. The odds of anyone, let alone anyone competent, surviving long were depressingly low."

There came a sad smile to his lips, "Well, that's where we get iffy. By virtue of our position we can't expand anywhere but South. But to do so puts us right back where we began; in the targeting sights of the Sith."

He shook his head slowly, lips quirking in thought. "The Republic will likely call on us to aid them against the Sith. While, for now, I've a non aggression pact with the Sith, my plan is to wait. If the Republic can hold their own against the Sith, they should hopefully not need aid from us."

"On the other hand, if we let the Republic fall, we'll be next. The Sith aren't united in their desire to leave us alone, although Ashin is trying to calm them. Our saving grace right now is that no one wants to fight us. Not because they don't think they can win, but because we'd exhaust them for someone else to finish them off."

Again he sighs and takes a small gulp of his drink. "The funny thing about plans is there are times you just won't have one. Right now is one of those times. There are too many variables to plan for; so we rebuild. And Omni already came, somewhat. We shut down our meager amount of droids pretty quick. Protocol and astromech droids don't pose much of a threat. Thankfully we don't much employ robot soldiers."

 

[Lina Djo]

Mia shook her head in disagreement, setting the glass down as she did. "Not true. We can go north, get good footing on the braxant run. If we don't the Sith will control most, if not all, the space around us. Non aggressive pact or not, we don't want them coming at us from all sides when they finally do come and they'll be too busy with the republic to waste resources on pushing us back."

She finally took the motor from the MSE droid and set to work fitting it in the astromech. "I like the idea of pissing a few of them off."

 

[Carbon]

"We could, but with the Witches and Echani around... and our abysmal state in terms of being able to protect our territories, our expansion would need to be slow and calculated. I know it's boring sitting around, but sometimes it's all you have to do."

He snorts, shakes his head, then slowly looks around. "The Sith are already pissed off. I crashed a ship onto their planet, got back both the ones they took from us, and their Empress has given us a free pass for the foreseeable future. Pissing them off further is about the dumbest thing we could do right now."

 

[Lina Djo]

Mia shook her head "Boredom has nothing to do with it. There's only so much I can do to keep myself busy. I can't go to the village without getting in a fight, pretty soon i'm gonna run out of droids to put together..." She set down her tools and picked up her glas again taking a large gulp and pausing for a moment before metting the manda'lore eyes.

"When I run out of things to do here, I'm left with two options. The first wait for you to make a move and be left alone with my thoughts in the meantime, which lets face it, isn't the brightest of idea's. I still have no idea what else is in here" she tapped her head, a flicker of fear crossing her face. "The second is to leave. Buy myself a ship, pack up and go and find work, do what I do best and keep myself busy."

"I need a purpose. So give me one."

 

[Carbon]

"Most right now are selling their services to others while we focus our efforts inward; I'd suggest you pick up the same. One of our tenants is to rally when called, so I've no problem with you all doing other things until you're needed."

An easygoing smile appeared on his lips. "I fight so that you have the option to do what you want. We're warriors, but warriors don't always have to fight. Enjoy life, Mia. Move beyond your past. Just come when summoned."

He wags a single gloved finger at her for a moment. "Although I'll warn you now, the former womanizer in me had a few things to say about finding you a purpose. I'll bite my tongue though; that's mostly behind me now."

 

[Lina Djo]

Setting her glass down again she nodded slowly, relaxing slightly she allowed a small smile to creep onto her face. Fro a brief moment she felt like herself again as her mind began to check off a list of people she could contact for work. "Alright." Standing up she began pushing things aside on the table in search of her comm so she could get in touch with the ship yard again and make an effort to find a new ship.

The manda'lore words cut through her happiness like an icy blade. She froze in her movements as whispers of a dark dream came back to her mind. Daxtons' voice sent shivers through her. Rounding on the Manda'lore her face contorted with rage, Mia no longer saw him, she just saw the zabrak that had ruined her mind.

"USENYE!" she shrieked at him, her right fist swinging for his jaw.

 

[Carbon]

Emberli, like any battle hardened warrior, merely leaned forward so her fist swung through empty air, before bringing an elbow up and towards her shoulder to knock her off balance. "Mia...", he begins sternly, "Calm yourself."