Chapter Text
Duke Adanai Kryze, former warlord and mercenary, now pacifist ruler of Mandalore, halted at the entrance to his rooms in the Sundari Palace. His fingers twitched at his hip, for a weapon no longer kept there.
“Who would have thought that pacifists make such poor guards?” A voice he knew well spoke out from the corner of the room. At one time the voice would have brought a smile to his lips. Now, only a muted pain stirred in his heart.
“Not all who follow me are pacifists.” He stepped into the room, flicking on the light. “Besides, I thought we had an agreement. You and your people don’t try and kill me and I ignore how and what you move in and out of the sector.”
“Part of that agreement includes where the New Mandalorians receive their exports from.” Now visible, Jaster Mereel’s sharp gaze pinned him in place. “It included not making deals with the Republic. Especially the Trade Federation.”
Exhaustion swamped him and he shook his head as he walked over to the side table by his bed. “What did you expect me to do, Jaster? My council demanded—and I can’t find it in myself to disagree with them—that I live up to the lofty words that I preach. You’re a criminal and the trade you bring in is smuggling. It’s illegal. The Republic is already breathing down our necks and threatening to stop buying what little we export out and cutting off any imports we need from them.”
“Then you trade with me.” Jaster’s eyes were a storm but his face remained cut from beskar. “You trade and buy with me. I have the capacity, I have the ships—“
“It’s not about that and you know it!”
“Right. I’m a criminal.”
He dragged a hand over his face and opened the drawer, pulling out the bottle he’d stashed there for such moments as this. “You knew what would happen when you went down this path. Dammit, Jas, we could have ruled together, we could have done this the right way but instead you—“
“I did what I had to in order to protect my family and my people.” Jaster’s voice went cold. “It was your people and your Republic that labeled me a criminal for doing my duty.”
“Your duty didn’t include slaughtering any Mando’ade who stood against you.” He slumped onto the bed.
“I don’t have to justify my purge of House Vizsla to you, of all people, do I? Not after your riduur, or what they did on Concord Dawn.”
Taking a long drink, he closed his eyes and let the burn of the liquor roll down his throat. “Why are you here? You know I can’t back down. I’ve made my stand against the corruption in Mandalore. It’s done, Jaster, even if you kill me it won’t change anything.”
“I’m not here to kill you.” At last, real emotion leaked into his words and Adanai caught a glimpse of the same exhaustion he felt in Jaster’s face. “I came because, despite all evidence, I hoped you could be convinced to see reason. I had that dream too—once—us together for a better Mandalore. It’s not too late, you know I have enough support, I could come in and—“
“And what? Take over Sundari and the sector? You know what the Republic would do if that happened. It’d be war and this time the Republic will leave us with nothing.”
“Or we’d win.”
“We won’t win and the fact that you even could think that shows me how far you’ve fallen.”
“And what is the alternative? We let the Republic continue its slow takeover of the Sector? Do we let them bring in colonies and teach only Basic in schools? What of our traditions, our ways, and our faith? We’ve already lost so much to them, would you have us lose the rest?”
At one time Adanai would have been taken in by the fire in Jaster’s eyes. Now all it did was make him ache inside. “You cling to remnants of a lost religion. If the Ka’ra ever truly guided us…it is gone now. We are left with nothing but the dust of our planet. Our temples are gone. Our faith is ash. Open your eyes and see the reality of the Galaxy.”
“You believed in me once.”
He couldn’t look at his old friend any longer. “That was before Tor Vizsla. Before I saw that the Manda doesn’t exist and the Ka’ra doesn’t care.”
The silence stretched between them like a taunt string, seconds from snapping.
“Very well.” Jaster stood and the tension snapped. His knuckles were white around the edges of his helmet. “I have my answer. What I do next will be for the good of Mandalore.”
Bowing his head, Adanai waited until the door softly clicked shut before fumbling blindly for the bottle. He’d known this day would come but it didn’t make the pain any less. For years now he’d been lying to himself as he’d walked the delicate edge of the beskad between the Republic and Jaster Mereel, the Mand’alor, and a criminal with a price on his head.
It all seemed so pointless now. All his attempts for peace. All the work he’d done to try and keep the crumbling remains of a once mighty people unified. All that he’d given up in this pursuit. The alcohol burned as it went down but left his insides just as cold as they’d felt before.
A knock sounded on the door. “Father?”
He stood, downing the last of the bottle. The time for regrets was over. Time to do what needed to be done.