Chapter Text
“Get up,” a woman’s voice hisses, low and urgent, and Atin is moving before he registers the motion, pushing up even though exhaustion clings to every limb like spider silk, tries to drag him back down as it muddles his thoughts and blunts his reactions.
There are unfamiliar hands on him, though, pulling, helping, and Atin tears himself free of the sticky, unpleasant daze that’s trying to smother him, blinks heavy eyelids open even as he hauls himself to his feet. The woman who woke him takes his weight, pulls him on even as Atin tries to make the world focus.
“Enemies?” he rasps, reaching, but he isn't wearing armor, isn't carrying a weapon even though he hasn’t let his axe out of his reach in decades now. His fingers close only on empty air, and he almost wavers, almost glances back—
But there's only a red glow behind them, only dark shadows and a bone-deep hum like some vast power generator, and the woman doesn’t stop.
“Worse,” she says, grim. “Allies.”
A huff of laughter jars itself out of Atin's chest, and he leans on her as they approach a set of stairs, ornate and sweeping as they rise. “Far worse,” he agrees, and stumbles up the first step, limbs heavy and uncooperative. He feels drunk, almost, or maybe deeply hungover, but there's no close memory of drinking, of drugs that might end with such an aftereffect.
In fact, there's no memory of how he came to be in this place at all, and Atin pauses, trying to think of where he is, what happened—
A fight, he remembers vaguely. Dxun, the jungle close and tight and ravenous around him, and one of the beasts lurching out of the trees to collide with him, bear him back and slam him into the ground—
“Hurry,” the woman says, pulling, and Atin lurches back into motion at the urgency in her voice, stumbles up the next few steps before he finds his balance. His head is full of a ringing sort of realization, so loud it drowns out the beat of a heart that shouldn’t be in motion any longer.
The beasts of Onderon tried to kill him. They did kill him. The Mask tumbled from his fingers, clattered away into the trees as they descended on him, and some phantom sensation of teeth in his flesh remains, dug deep into his muscles. Atin shudders, clutching at the thin shoulder braced against his ribs, and it’s far from his first encounter with wild beasts, but—
He died. He died to their teeth this time, and his mind knows that even if his body no longer seems to.
Under his arm, the woman glances up at him, her red mouth tightening, sympathy in her dark eyes even if she doesn’t waver. “Only a little more,” she murmurs, and Atin can feel the steel in the words, the grim intent as she takes his weight on the next step, pulls him on as quickly as his unsteady feet can go.
“Of life left in me?” Atin asks, the words wanting to catch in his throat. “Or of the stairs?”
She pauses, then smiles ruefully. “All the life is back in you,” she says. “But we’re almost to the surface.”
A shiver runs down Atin's spine, and he glances up towards a white arch above, just coming into view. There's sunlight just starting to spill over the pale stone, birdsong in the air, but no other noises. No speeders, no voices, no steps across the ground, and Atin feels the weight to the air, the heaviness like a looming predator just out of sight.
He doesn’t know this woman, this place, but he knows that hush so intimately it may as well be a part of him.
“What comes?” he asks, fingers aching to close around the haft of his axe, limbs yearning for the weight and protection of his heavy armor. “This attack—”
“I told you,” the woman says, grim. “Allies.”
“My lady!” another voice calls before Atin can respond, and another woman, almost identical to the first, hurries down the last few steps. She gets Atin's other arm, and between them they haul him up into the morning light, cool and humid and thick with fearful dread.
“Sabé,” the first woman says, relief clear. “Anything yet?”
Sabé nods, pulling Atin towards a high-walled square, elegantly beautiful and entirely empty. “The Mand'alor is on her way,” she says, low, even though there's no one close enough to overhear, and Atin almost starts, almost pauses to hear his own title so clearly used for another, but neither woman hesitates, just drags him on. “She said to be ready to fulfil your part of the bargain as soon as she lands.”
The lady’s mouth twists, almost pained, but she nods sharply, then comes to a halt. Steps away, turning to face Atin, and Sabé does the same, ducks out from under his arm and away so suddenly that Atin staggers. His knees give, and before he can catch himself he hits the ground at the lady’s feet, the impact shivering through his bones. Curls there for a moment, just trying to catch his breath as he fights the betrayal of his body, and feels slim, cold fingers, tacky with something red and metallic-smelling, catch his chin, tip his head up.
“We saved you from death, Mand'alor the Indomitable,” the lady says, even. “My world and myself. You owe us a life-debt that no Mandalorian would deny.”
Atin pauses, eyes narrowing. It’s true, and the fact of his continued existence is undeniable, but at the same time unease rises in his chest, suspicion with teeth that bite as hard as the Onderonian beasts. She saved him for this debt, and that doesn’t make the debt any less real, because it’s the actions that matter and not the intent behind them, but—
Something is happening, and this whole planet is braced for it. This woman, this ruler—she’s doing something to save her world. Atin knows that ferocity well.
She’s saving her world from the current Mand'alor, and using Atin to do it.
“If you want me to fight the Mand'alor and win,” he says, not even trying to knock her hand away, “then you should have woken me earlier and given me time to recover.”
The woman’s expression twists, and she sinks down to her knees in front of Atin, red gown pooling around them like blood. “I woke you as soon as I could,” she says. “But I don’t want you to fight her.” She hesitates, and then says, plain, grim but vicious, “I would sacrifice anything to save my people, Mand'alor.”
Her hands are covered in blood, Atin thinks. Her fine gown is splashed with it, and there’s a bared blade in her soul, a thousand times stronger and deadlier than any planetary ruler he crushed during the Crusades.
“This world,” he says. “Where is it? Who are you? What would you have me do?”
“I am Queen Amidala,” she answers. “And this is Naboo, in the Chommell sector of the Mid-Rim.” A pause, less a hesitation and more a steeling, and she meets Atin's eyes and says, “I'm going to give you up to a monster to save my people. You're going to marry him, and I’ll try to help you survive it.”
A Mandalorian life debt is no gentle thing. It starts heavy, the sacrifice of resources and safety and time to save another, and once a life is preserved, it belongs to the one who saved it. There is no easy way to pay it down, either; the debt accumulates with each day lived, because each new day is owed to the savior, is debited to them by their act and can't be undone except with a gesture of equal weight.
Debts like that don’t come without obligations. A life is a heavy thing, and the one who saved it takes responsibility for it, can’t let go so simply and send the one they saved off to die elsewhere unless they want to break apart their honor in the process. But the one paying the debt bears most of its weight, the responsibility of service and loyalty until the ledgers can be rebalanced.
Few would act recklessly, taking on a debt like that. Especially with a Mand'alor like Atin, who already bears the responsibility to his people and would pass on such a thing. But—
But there’s another Mand'alor, and this is a different time and place, and Queen Amidala bears the weight with a vicious and elegant grace.
Atin couldn’t refuse the debt and keep his honor, even if he wanted to. But—he’s alive, alive again even when he knows down to his bones that he was torn apart on Dxun, and there’s a price to pay for a gift like that. Atin is Mand'alor, was Mand'alor, was a Crusader and a Mandalorian warrior and part of a clan once. He knows what life costs, what life is worth, and even if he’s died for others, he wants to live in his own right. wants it desperately, viciously, hungrily, and has since the very first time his life was sold away without his consent. It’s what set his feet on the path of a Mand'alor in the first place, and even here, now, Atin won't waver. He’ll fight to live, no matter what it costs him.
Several nearly-identical handmaidens whisk Atin off into the pale stone halls of the palace, Sabé at their head, while two more hurry after Amidala as she turns down another hall. All the women are grim-faced and heavily armed, though they're more subtle about it than Mandalorians would be.
“Rabé,” Sabé starts.
“Everything is ready,” the young woman gripping Atin's left arm says without hesitation. “And the bath is drawn. Saché has the queen’s wardrobe in hand.”
Sabé hardly looks pleased by the report, but she nods, catching Atin's other arm as he stumbles. “Yané, make sure Panaka knows to delay the Mand'alor as long as possible.”
“By what, challenging her to a duel?” Yané mutters, but she turns off—
Obligation, Atin thinks. A debt is a debt, even if he never asked to be saved from death.
The bites ache, phantom pains all up and down his body, and he takes a breath, lets it out on a huff.
He wants to live. That means he accepts the debt. The laws are simple.
“Offer her and her men ale and cake,” he says. “Dark ale, if you have it, or strong caf given the hour, and heavily spiced cake. If the queen sends it as a showing of hospitality, and provides for her soldiers, the Mand'alor will accept.”
Yané and Sabé exchange glances, and after a second Sabé nods. “The kitchens, there should be—”
“It’s left over from the meeting, but I’ll tell the cooks to do what they can,” Yané agrees, and hurries down another hall, taking the steps at the end three at a time.
“Thank you,” Sabé tells Atin, even as the unnamed handmaiden opens a door for them. “It’s been a long time since anyone in the Republic dealt with Mandalorians like this.”
Making treaties, or at least negotiating, Atin assumes she means. “How long have my people had your planet blockaded?” he asks evenly, and Rabé shoots him a narrow look.
Sabé doesn’t even blink, though. “Two weeks,” she says, just as steady, and doesn’t look back as she gets another door for them, ushers Rabé and Atin through and into a wide, steam-filled chamber. “Naboo knows how to bear up under a blockade, though. And the queen is working to keep us safe.”
The queen is desperate, Atin doesn’t say. He sweeps a look over the room, the sunken pool, the folded white cloth laid out on silver trays. Clothes, likely, and given the way all the handmaidens are dressed, the excess of flowing cloth that seems customary here, he can guess that it’s meant for him.
“Who did she kill?” he asks Sabé “Your queen. Who did she sacrifice to bring me back from the dead?”
Sabé pauses, takes a breath. Still doesn’t look back, but she raises her chin, her shoulders perfectly straight, and says, “Her husband and her mentor. Their memories will be honored by the Naboo for what they’ve given for the good of us all.”
“This way,” Rabé says, before Atin can answer. She pulls him over to the pool, and the third handmaiden joins her in stripping off the thin clothes Atin is wearing before they shove him into the water. The heat of it makes Atin hiss, but they don’t hesitate, just grab for brushes and cloths and start scrubbing. Atin grimaces, not fond of such treatment, but not unused to it, either; some of the more ceremonial roles of the Mand'alor required such things, given that he had to don and remove his helmet during celebrations or ceremonies.
Sabé is the one to get at his hair, lathering it with quick hands that only hesitate briefly at the curl of Atin's tendrils, hidden among the strands. She casts a quick glance at the door, then says quietly, “The Mand'alor will accompany us to meet your new…” She breaks off, just for a moment. “Your new spouse. You can't speak until after the ceremony is over.”
Atin snorts, closing his eyes against the slide of soap. “You mean to hide the fact that I am Taung?” he asks.
“Yes,” Sabé says plainly. “The Mand'alor might take offense, but…” She pauses again, the barest instant of hesitation before she says quietly, “Queen Amidala couldn’t think of another species, or another person, who might survive this. She had to sacrifice someone, but—if you survive, Naboo survives. It’s worth it.”
Fierce words, Atin thinks. Fierce belief, in the queen, and a ruthlessness that would be admirable in one of Atin's warriors. He didn’t expect to find such a thing in a citizen of the Republic. “And this spouse?” he asks, glancing back at her as Rabé pours a pitcher of cool water over his shoulders. “Who are you sacrificing me to?”
Sabé and Rabé trade looks, and Sabé takes a breath. “A monster,” she says, which is only what Amidala already offered. Apparently seeing Atin's dissatisfaction, Sabé smiles crookedly. “We don’t know much more. The Mand'alor is looking for a spouse for him, and he’s killed every other contender given over to him. A few months ago, the offer went out that any world that supplied a spouse who survived a full year would be admitted to the Mandalorian Empire as a member planet that next day, without having to surrender their independence.”
Strange, that a Mand'alor would go so far as to make an offer like that, Atin thinks with a frown. This monster of hers must be important, for her to be so desperate to provide for it. “The others. How did they die? The monster is not to be harmed, I assume?”
“We don’t know that anyone can harm him,” the third handmaiden says quietly, catching one of Atin's hands to scrub down his claws. “But the Mand'alor treats him like…” She trails off, struggling to find a word.
“Like clan,” Atin supplies, because it seems that way from their summary. Obligation to a clan member, even a troublesome one. Though this sounds like far more than simple trouble this creature is causing.
“I saw a holo of one of the bodies,” Sabé offers after a moment of silence, and rinses the soap from Atin's hair, immediately brushes conditioner into the strands. Her hands are perfectly steady, though Atin can feel the tension in her. “It was torn apart, and the face was…savaged.”
A monster, Atin thinks. They truly mean the label, then. “How long?”
“No one has lasted more than a few nights,” Rabé says. “Five, I think, is the most.”
One week. If Atin can survive that long, he’ll have made it past the part that killed all the other spouses. “If I do this, and I save your queen’s planet and her people, that clears the debt,” he says, and means it as a warning. Once the debt is cleared, he has no obligation to the people of Naboo, only to his own people. Amidala saved him from death, and that weighs heavily, but saving her whole world outweighs one single life, or even a year of extra days lived.
“We know,” Sabé returns, not even hesitating. “This is to save Naboo. None of it is personal, Mand'alor. After a year and a day, the debt is fulfilled.”
It means surviving for a year and a day, but—Atin became Mand'alor the Indomitable, led the Crusades at their height, came so close to taking Coruscant that it shook the whole of the Republic. If this monster wants to kill him, it will have to try harder than the Krath, the Sith, and the Jedi Order all together.
His muscles twinge, a deep and burning ache like teeth carved all the way through him, and Atin presses his palms to the places where the beasts seized him, feeling a twist of unease rise in his chest. Once already monsters killed him, but—
This little queen brought him back to life, removed the stain of death, and Atin owes her for that. All he has to do is survive for a year and a day, and then his soul is his own again. And then—
It’s been a very long time, Atin thinks. This is a galaxy he doesn’t know, a Mand'alor he doesn’t know, but Mandalore is still his home.
When this is over, he can go home.
The Crusades kept him from Mandalore for the whole stretch of his reign. It’s been so many years since Atin last breathed Mandalore's air that he’s all but forgotten the place of his birth, though the lack of memory hasn’t dulled the ache of longing.
After this year and a day, he’ll leave his monstrous spouse, go back to Mandalore. Go home, and even if every bit of it has changed, it will still be Mandalore. Atin knows that much.
The handmaidens dress him in white, in white and silk and a veil of lace that hides his features, most of his build. Atin slides his hands into draping sleeves that cover his claws, bows his head to conceal his greater height, allows himself to be led at a steady, almost funereal pace up through airy halls and out into the sunlight of a garden with winding paths. That heavy hush still lies over everything, but this time it’s broken up by figures in soft blue and dark red uniforms, carrying blasters and so tense they're twitchy. The sight of the handmaidens makes them ease slightly, and Atin flicks a glance up and over the straight line of Sabé’s back in her sunset-hued dress, the way the guards defer to the handmaidens as they pass.
Clearly Amidala is a popular queen, or at least commands immense loyalty. All of the handmaidens are young, look delicate and demure, but the much older and more hardened guards defer to them immediately, allow them through without pause.
“Sabé,” Yané murmurs as they approach the noise of a fountain, the low murmur of voices.
“She’s fine,” Sabé says, equally low. “Saché would have sent a message if she were in trouble.”
From the pull of Yané’s mouth, that wasn’t what she was worried about, but she doesn’t offer any protest as they mount a short set of stairs, emerge into an open courtyard edged by a riot of roses in deep crimson. Amidala is at the center, dressed in black with silvered pearls in her dark hair, mouth painted scarlet like fresh blood. And with her—
Not Crusader armor, which is jarring even if Atin knows in his bones that it’s been a long stretch of years since the Crusades, regardless of the fact they haven't told him what year it is. Sleeker, less intricate armor, the same gold that Atin's own suit once was, but highlighted with black in vicious streaks like claw marks. The Mand'alor is a Human woman, her helmet off and tucked under one arm, her blonde hair a thick plait down her back that’s been woven with thin grey ribbons. Her expression is lazy in the same way as a dire-cat deciding whether it’s hungry enough to pounce as she leans against the side of a chair set opposite Amidala's, and around her are half a dozen Mandalorians in armor painted a deep jewel-blue. They’re watching the pair of handmaidens behind Amidala's chair as if they know exactly how dangerous they are, and there are no weapons in Mandalorian hands but plenty visible.
“My lady,” Sabé says, quickening her step just slightly to approach Amidala first. She dips a curtsey, first to Amidala and then to the Mandalorians. “Mand'alor Fett.”
“Handmaiden,” Fett returns, and her gaze flickers up. Through the intricate lace, Atin watches her study him, keeping himself still. She doesn’t approach, just lets her attention slide back to Amidala as she smiles, slow and lazy. “Queen Amidala, you found someone. I’ll admit, I thought you were just buying time to produce a secret husband.”
Amidala's fingers curl in her lap, just slightly. “Your offer for our hand was discussed, and we came to an agreement,” she says, and that voice has nothing like the vicious determination Atin heard in her before. It’s careful, modulated, precise and regal, a veil just as much as the one covering Atin right now. “If you mean to take a wife from the Republic, we will serve.”
Atin pauses, holds still to hide his reaction. Not just his marriage to whatever monster the Mand'alor is keeping, then. Amidala is offering herself up as well. He hadn’t expected that, and it curls in his belly, the familiar lurch that comes with realizing all of one’s maneuvering and plotting and desperate gambles are going to fall well short of any sort of success. Not his this time, but—he knows the feeling all too well.
No wonder she brought him back for the life debt, if she’d already spent every single bit of her own power and found it lacking.
The feeling of small hands pulling at his clothes is only a phantom, in the sunlight. Atin breathes through it, the memory that wants to take him, and doesn’t let himself move. Just watches Fett as she deliberately sets her helmet on the chair, pushes upright.
“Serve?” she asks, and ignores the way the handmaidens behind Amidala tense as she approaches, leaning down over Amidala's seated form. Amidala stares up at her without wavering, whitened face ghostlike in the sunlight, bloody mouth a flat dare. It makes Fett smile, though her eyes are still chilly, and she reaches out, takes one of Amidala's small, cold hands and raises it to her mouth.
“I don’t want a servant, lovely,” she says, light. “I want an empress.”
Amidala takes a breath, eyes sliding shut for just a moment before she opens them again. “An empress and a sacrifice,” she says, plain, that modulated voice cracking to show the sentient underneath, and Sabé goes perfectly, dangerously still.
Fett pauses, her expression darkening. Atin is no Jedi, can't read the roil of her emotions, but he doesn’t need such a skill to see the fury that flashes across her face, the vicious, steel-shod grief that follows it. Her eyes slide back to Atin, hold for a long moment, and then she forces a smile back to her face, though it doesn’t even begin to touch the arctic waste in her brown eyes.
“Two separate matters,” she says dismissively. “The sacrifice is a challenge for all the worlds we take. You, little queen, are something else entirely. Something I’ve had my eye on for a while.” She smiles, just barely hiding her teeth. “I heard there's a Jedi who tried to swear himself to your service, only to have you reject him. Do I need to worry about the competition, Padmé?”
Her hands were covered in blood when she dragged Atin out of death. A Jedi's life, he thinks, watching her. A devoted Jedi's life, taken in one last, desperate attempt to save her blockaded planet. He wouldn’t have thought the ruler of such a pretty, elegant Republic world would be so ruthless.
So Mandalorian, truly.
“No,” Amidala says, crisp. She doesn’t move a single centimeter as Fett strokes a thumb over her knuckles, back and forth, watching her face as if she’s looking for a tell. “Our hand is yours, Mand'alor. Whatever you require, we will provide.”
“Good,” Fett says, and uses her grip on Amidala's hand to drag her up to her feet. One of the handmaidens behind Amidala's chair take a step forward, bristling, but the other woman holds her back, flashes a quick look at Sabé, who shakes her head quickly.
Fett ignores the byplay entirely, tucking Amidala's arm through her own as she turns back, sweeping another look over Atin as her smile turns to steel.
“Today is a good day for a wedding, it seems,” she says, and the lightness in her voice is an ugly, jarring thing, viciously deliberate. “My father has been without someone to care for him for so long already. I don’t see the point in making him wait even another day. Let’s see to the ceremony immediately.”
Atin drops his gaze as she turns, pulls Amidala up the path with long, ringing steps. Her soldiers fall in behind Sabé, Yané, and Rabé, hands near their blasters like they're braced for Atin to try to run, and Atin can feel the way the handmaidens tense, though they don’t show any other signs of fear.
“So quickly?” Yané murmurs, but Rabé hushes her with a gesture, takes Atin's arm with light fingertips, and tugs him along after the Mand'alor and the queen.
It feels entirely too familiar, this sort of thing, Atin thinks, though he doesn’t try to pull away. Just moves with them, blasters at his back, and tries not to think of small hands, desperate whispers.
Being sold for a benefit is nothing new, and at least this time, Atin can seen an endpoint. At least this time, it’s Atin's own life that was the collateral, rather than someone else’s.
All he needs to do is survive for a year and a day, and then the debt will be wiped from the ledger. A year and a day, and then Atin's life is his own again.
Last time, there was no potential end, and he still endured it. This time, even if it’s a marriage, knowing that the sunrise will come eventually is all he needs to keep fighting.