Chapter Text

in which there is a monsoon wedding.

(or, five weddings that din and boba almost had + the one that they managed.) 

ushib. 

Boy, Ushib said, flicking her fingers in A’Shek’s direction. The suns were rising above them, warming the desert in every direction, and Ushib didn’t want to waste daylight. She had important things to do today. 

A’Shek, from where he was crouched in the sand studying a stick-sketched map of the Spotted Anooba’s tuskbal, lifted his head. Grandmother, he replied. 

Ushib snorted. A’Shek would be so lucky to be a child of her line. Though it was probably for the best that he wasn’t – if A’Shek had been one of her grandchildren, Ushib might’ve had to kill him for scaring her half to death a few times over. The way he’d challenged A’Karan for leadership of the Spotted Anooba, with no one but Boba to back his claim and nothing to defend himself with but his gaderffii – 

Ushib shook those thoughts away. She needed to focus on the task at hand. Find me a bantha’s width of undyed cloth, Ushib said. It is time to make a wedding tent. 

A’Shek’s hands froze, but only for a moment. He always had been quick. Much quicker than A’Karan, which was why A’Shek led the tribe now and A’Karan was dead. Why Ushib had decided to back A’Shek’s claim herself, despite his youth, his lack of allies and his penchant for charging headfirst into any fight that looked like it would provide A'Shek with a good story to share around the campfire. 

Certainly, Grandmother, A’Shek said, his hands careful. Who is the lucky warrior? 

The shaped-word for “lucky,” in tuskra, was the same as the word for “gored by a bladeback and left to die in the suns.” Ushib snorted again. 

Not for me, sun-brain, Ushib said. She was entirely too old to take on another blood-mate, and even if she’d been ten or twenty seasons younger, she had loved her husband dearly and still mourned his loss.  

Never mind that some of those Mandalorians are bloodthirsty enough to survive out here, she thought, almost idly. She’d met many Mandalorians over the last season or so and for ghuy’ra, Mandalorians were as close to being tuskra as any that Ushib had ever met. They were a hardy, sensible sort of people, she’d found. That one in the pale blue and white armor was tall and fine, too. A skilled warrior, to be chosen as one of Din’s chief advisers, but old enough to have worked through most of the sun-blood fever that so afflicted younger fighters and made them silly and quarrelsome. 

Ushib was past the age of rearing children, but if the tall, fine fighter in pale blue and white was past the age of rearing children too, perhaps he would be interested in the courting dances of Ushib’s people. 

But that was something to think about later, because Ushib’s only remaining son – for all that he’d refused the final adoption rights that would have made him so – was living improperly.  

A wedding tent for Boba, Ushib explained, shaking away idle thoughts again to focus on her task, her hands shaping the sign she had chosen for Boba’s name among their people. A'tiqaat, the revenant, the spirit who rose from the lands of the dead to walk the sands again. 

A’Shek’s hands froze again. For Boba? he said. The hesitation in his fingers spoke of his confusion. Is he not already married? 

If he is, he hasn’t done it right, Ushib replied. And if you think I’m bringing him – or Din – to the maraat hayma without making sure they’ve done things properly, you should go off and die. 

(The shaped-word for “go off and die” was, coincidentally, also “get gored by a bladeback and left to die in the sands.” 

Tuskra was an economical language. Many words shared the same shape, and the same intention.) 

Old Elhama of the White Bantha – a cousin of Ushib’s, and a horrible gossip  – would never let Ushib live it down, if Boba and Din showed up to the Festival of Tents improperly married. Such things were tolerated among the young, with their moon-marriages and their quick little courtships, their stumbles in the sand behind the dunes, but not among those of Ushib’s age. 

No son of mine is going to show up to the gathering moon-married, Ushib thought. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. Ushib had gone through most of her life trying to avoid the trap of pride – what was pride in the desert, anyway? – but now she was old and content and thought that she finally deserved to indulge in a bit of ego. 

Why shouldn’t I? Ushib thought. She was advisor to a chief, a respected jida of her people. She had one son who was a king – higher than any chief, though even A’Shek was too galled to admit it – and would have another who was a different king in his own right, once the marriage was seen to. Boba and Din would give Ushib many fine grandchildren, she was sure; they were young enough yet, and Din in particular loved children. 

Grandmother, A’Shek said, shaping the words very, very carefully. His caution was something to be proud of, too – if A’Shek hadn’t respected Ushib and her skill with a nisa’sik, he might not have spoken so carefully. I think that the customs of Mandalorians might be different from ours. 

Ushib huffed. So? she said. Let them be wed the Mandalorian way, if they like. But they are tuskra, too. 

Boba was a man of the Spotted Anooba, and Din of the White Bantha. There were expectations for proper tribesmen. Ushib couldn’t speak to how Din had been raised, when the White Bantha had adopted him, but she knew how Boba had been raised, and Boba’d been taught the right way to do things. He’d hardly been able to do anything but learn, that first year. He hadn’t been well enough to hunt or fight, so Ushib had told him stories to keep his strength up. Taught him tuskra, shaped and spoken. 

So he has no excuse for thinking that he can get moon-married like a misbehaving youngster, Ushib thought, narrowing her eyes underneath her mask. Weddings, proper ones, were done before the tribe. There were words shaped and promises sung, and blessings and gifts given by all the tribe. There was dancing and feasting and posturing among the young unmarried warriors, and advice given from elder to youngster. Ushib supposed that she could forgo the usual gift of a fat young bantha calf, since Boba hardly had anywhere to keep one, but as for the rest of it – 

None of Ushib’s blood-children had made it to their own weddings. She had never dyed a wedding tent for her daughters, or painted a marriage-mask for her sons. Boba was not a son of Ushib’s blood, but he was a son of her spirit. 

By the mountains, she thought. And by the sands, we are having a proper wedding. 

As you wish, Grandmother, A’Shek said, his arguments exhausted. That was another reason why Ushib liked him – A’Shek respected his elders. A’Karan had strutted around like the biggest krayt in the canyon, heedless of everyone, but A’Shek knew when to take council. There has to be some undyed cloth around here somewhere. T’Asa brought some in her dowry, I think, and T’Hadi has been weaving… 

A’Shek scuffed his map out of the sands and loped off in the direction of the tribe’s hunting-camp, muttering to himself as he went. Ushib nodded to herself, pleased – T’Asa was a chief’s daughter from the Shaking Mountain band, and her wedding tent had been lovely, all blue-dyed cloth, and draped with gifts, strings of um’ar and zurd, braided safi willows and blessings carved into snips of japoor wood and curls of cedru bark. She and T’Hadi had fit nearly all of the Spotted Anooba and the Shaking Mountain both beneath their tent, and the celebrations had lasted from the suns’ setting in the evening until their return at dawn. 

It was bad luck to reuse a wedding tent, of course – Ushib would never take T'Asa's to gift to Boba. But T’Hadi was a weaver and T’Asa a dyer, and between them Ushib was certain that a tent for Boba and Din could be made. 

The japoor and cedru blessings, Ushib could manage herself. Everyone in the tribe would be happy to carve or sear one for Boba and his spouse. As for the gemstones – Moons and mountains, as for the dowry, Ushib thought, her eyes widening behind her mask, there is more work to be done. 

Boba was of the Spotted Anooba, so he wouldn’t traditionally need to be dowered – it was the spouse leaving the tribe of their birth who brought a dowry with them, though Boba of course would need to provide hada to Din, to prove his worth as a blood-mate and provider – but Ushib would have to consult some other grandmothers to make sure. 

And the Mandalorians, too, she thought. Emeralds and other precious stones were traditional gifts from the tribe to the newly married, but Mandalorians wore their armor instead of any sort of jewelry or decoration. Perhaps Din would prefer gifts of metal or weaponry instead of diamonds or rubies or krayt dragon pearls. 

And, Ushib thought to herself, feeling twenty rains younger as she made her way towards her speeder, a spring in her step, perhaps that tall, fine Mandalorian will be there, too. Perhaps he would have an idea or two for how to actually get Din and Boba beneath a wedding tent, so they could be married properly. Perhaps he’d help. 

Underneath her mask, Ushib smiled.