Chapter Text
<Oh would you look at that,> Yon’s gleeful voice crackled over the comms of Feemor’s helmet, <Your little admirers are back.>
<They aren’t my admirers, Yon,> Feemor sighed.
Except they kinda were. And sadly the felt entirety of the Temple Guard was aware of them.
Though Feemor guessed that it would have been a lot more cause for concern if they hadn’t. After all, if the Guard didn’t notice three mandalorian children lingering on the plaza across the main entrance on an almost daily basis, something was distinctly wrong .
<Aw,> Zessh chimed in as well, <They are so cute. Horrible at hiding, but cute.> Of course the togorian Knight would think so. She was the one they all had bet on to crack and take a Padawan on first after all. Even Master Cin had proclaimed that he already had the paperwork for her retirement from the Guard pre-filed and signed ready on his datapad. <Though I think they realized that I’m not you, Fee.>
<Oh?,> Yon seemed surprised, and, quite honestly, Feemor was too. < Wait, I’m coming over. >
<Abandoning our posts over children, we are not, Guard Tar.>
All three of them flinched at the chiding sound of Battlemaster Drallig’s voice. Figures that he had been overhearing their radiochatter out of all of them. Feemor wondered if someone had tipped him off.
<But imitating the Grandmaster of our Order we are?,> he teased back - Cin was quite literally the only person of his former lineage that Feemore was even remotely comfortable with anymore. Probably was due to the fact that the Battlemaster felt just as alien amongst them as he did, with Grandmaster Yoda quite literally having overseen his Knighting and the Knighting alone.
< Yes .> Cin didn’t seem repentant at all.
Well, if anyone deserved to make fun of the troll, it was him.
Suddenly Zessh’s voice crackled in again. <Aw, Yon spooked them. Battlemaster, tell him off or something.>
<Knight Tar, explain yourself.>
<I’m assigned to the east perimeter anyways,> Feemor could practically hear his former crèchemate’s shrug, <Going down to the east portion of the gate is not in contradiction to my orders.>
<Hm, good point. Proceed.> Oh, Cin definitely was using this to get a rise out of Zessh, wasn’t he? Probably payback for that time she used two infatuated Padawans to stall him from reaching the Guard mess hall in time to get his hands on the daily special desert. It had been goju plum mousse, and if one should know one thing about Battlemaster Cin Drallig, it was that he took no prisoners when it came to goju plum mousse.
Thus they all ignored Zessh’s subsequent complaints.
<Why do you have three mando kids pining after you anyways, little brother?,> Cin, feeling abnormally chatty apparently, eventually asked.
<If only we knew,> Yon sighed dramatically, <Then we could try to try to catch their attention as well. Alas, they keep running from everyone that isn’t Feemor.>
<Lies. They are at least ambivalent to me.>
<That’s nothing to be proud of, Zessh.> Feemor rolled his eyes, even if no one would ever see. He hoped that the feeling of it would still somehow reach the other Guard. After all, through the Force, anything was possible, no?
< Should I be concerned that apparently three mandalorian preteens are enough to reliably discern between several of my Guards?, > Cin was keeping his tone light, but they all knew that the question was - at least to a degree - genuine. As was his right, of course.
Especially since none of them actually did know how those kids did it.
Feemor sighed and sent a silent apology over the bond he had with Cin. Out loud he said, <They are mandalorian. It can very well be that they are just more used to discerning between fully masked people by criteria that are secondary to us. Height, weight, mannerisms. Smell, possibly.>
<Are you saying I stink, Feemor?,> Yon said with mock indignation.
<No, but you quite literally glow, you idiot. We don’t know their species, if they can see the UV-spectrum, you’re an actual walking signal flare.>
The part-diathim’s natural bioluminescence was the reason he was permanently banned from night shifts after all. They had tried once and immediately the Guard office and several of the Councils had been flooded by ‘ghost sightings’. The whole debacle had started a whole new philosophy - or at least given fresh fuel to an old one - about Jedi’s spirits lingering in the Force after their deaths and being able to cross over into the physical world. Yon of course had been proper horrified. And teased about it relentlessly.
Over comms, Cin sighed. <Okay, I’ll accept that explanation. But keep an eye on that, if it’s something that keeps repeating elsewhere as well, we’ll need to work on that. You are supposed to be indistinguishable from one another, after all.>
<Yessir.>
<Copy that.>
<We’ll keep you posted.>
Cin sighed once more and then went back to work. Or stalking some of the other Guard teams’ chatter. Or whatever else he did on a day-to-day basis.
…
– About one week prior, Kih’keldabe –
“And I tell you it’s true ,” Mar’e jabbed their tiingilar spork at Myles, who continued looking supremely unimpressed, “There’s a whole bunch of jetiise who wear masks and armor. Like mando’ade . My buir said she’s seen them a bunch of times on the upper levels.”
“Sure she has,” the redhead drawled and leaned back, “Like she has seen that headless bantha haunting the laundry aisle?”
Mar’e flushed a darker shade of green. “It was dark, okay?,” they mumbled in defense of their parent, “And to be fair, who throws a pelt over a gonk-droid?”
“Uh-huh…”
‘Someone who wants to dry their pelt?’ The last to their little round suddenly signed.
“What?,” Myles asked, looking confused.
‘Throwing a pelt over a gonk-droid. That might have been someone who wanted to dry it.’
“You know what,” Mar’e looked at Gai consideringly, “You might actually have a point there.”
The youngest out of them inclined his helmeted head. Gai - which wasn’t his actual actual name, but whatever - had only recently come to Kih’keldabe with his buire and parts of his covert. Apparently with kyr’tsad encroaching on their territories, the elders had decided to relocate anyone not of fighting age to sanctuary on Coruscant. Traditionalists were rare this far into the Core, but in Mar’e’s opinion mando’ad was mando’ad . No matter if they showed their face or not. Technically speaking the face was the least important thing even.
But Gai had seemed to struggle a bit with the concept of people showing their bare faces in public here.
Hence the stories about the masked jetiise .
To illustrate that on Coruscant, everything was possible.
Even pelt-covered gonk-droids that were mistaken for headless banthas.
“Eh,” Myles crossed his arms, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
‘The gonk-droids?, ’ Gai signed, tilting his head in a way that looked distinctly judgmental.
The redhead rolled his eyes. “You’re the gonk-droid here. No of course not, I mean the masked jetiise .” He ignored the frown Mar’e was throwing him. “Everyone knows they are jare’la enough to only ever wear those flimsy fabrics of theirs, even to fight zones.”
Gai shifted uncomfortably, as if the mere thought of that deeply distressed him.
“Nuh-uh,” Mar’e crossed their arms defiantly, “Those around the Temple wear armor.”
“You don’t even believe that yourself!,” their vod was brandishing his own spork now.
“Yes I do! Just you wait and see!"
'Wait, are we going to the jetii yaim?, ' Gai asked all innocently.
Both Myles and Mar'e stilled. Then looked at each other. Technically they weren't allowed to leave Kih'keldabe, especially not without adult supervision, but if no one knew…
The jetii Temple wasn't that far off from here. If they snuck aboard some public transports, it would take them not even twenty minutes to get there. That should be more than enough time for them to sneak a peek at some of those famed armored jetiise and get back before their buire realized they weren't where they had said they'd be. Or the communal caretakers, in Myles' case.
In the end, all mando’ade were creatures of impulse.
Thus, as it was said, it was done.
Getting to the upper levels was a bit of a challenge – especially shirking any concerned or well-meaning verde who wanted to accompany them on their ‘errand’ as they claimed whenever they were asked about their undertaking. But they managed pretty successfully.
When they arrived at the Temple level, they decided that just straight up walking over the big open space up to whoever was waiting on the other end would be jare’la , even for them. Instead they opted for the incredibly well-thought-out and safe plan of scaling the outer wall of the closest residential building to get a vantage point and scout out the jetiise’s armor status from above.
Only that the narrow edge of said building was not built for this. Especially not when one was wearing rigid pieces of armor.
Mar’e watched Gai try to duck under the balcony, but in doing so his shoulder pauldron got caught against the wall. As if in slow-motion, they watched their new friend tilt, try to compensate and fail to do so.
The last thing they saw was Gai’s blank visor slipping over the edge.
“ Gai !,” panic seized Mar’e and they tried to clamber back, almost losing their own footing in the process.
“Cautious, di’kut !” Myles dragged them back, eyes blown wide-open and face pale and bloodless under his natural tan.
Mar’e ripped themself from their friend’s grip and scrambled back to where their friend had fallen off the building. “Gai!,” they called out, fear tingeing their voice high and shrill, “Gai!”
Ka'ra , their new friend hadn't even completed his verd'goten yet and only came to Coruscant as a refugee a month ago! If Mar'e's stupid idea was the reason they would have to bring his broken body to his buire…
Breath catching in their suddenly much too tight throat, the young mando'ad peered over the ledge. Maybe, just maybe there had been some sort of… awning perhaps, breaking his fall, or a fortunately placed… hay carriage. Or anythi-
All thoughts raced to a screeching halt as Mar'e actually saw .
They stared down, owlishly.
The white-and-gold mask of the jetii down below stared right back. Tilted even a little, like some of the older verde would tilt their buy'cese sometimes when they looked at something particularly baffling.
Gai, who was safely caught in the apparently very strong arms of the jetii , had all but frozen, the rigid angle of his small shoulders broadcasting the shock and mortification for them all to see.
" Haar'chak! " Myles' surprised squeak had Mar'e flinch out of their stupor. "You were right about the jetiise ."
Vindication, annoyance and bone-deep relief were coursing through the mirialan's body all at the same time. " Shut up ," they choked out and boxed their vod into the arm, as tears blurred their sight. Ka'ra , they had thought Gai had been done for .
Next to them, Myles also choked back some relieved sobs.
…
Feemor was… feeling a lot of emotions at the same time. Which wasn't new, per se, but it sure was the first time the emotions were centered around a trio of what looked to be young Mandalorians?
The helmet the one in his arms was wearing sure matched the profile.
The young Mandalorian who, together with his friends apparently, had decided that climbing around the outer edge of a ten-stories-high residential building next to the Jedi Temple was a valid pastime. Granted, they had only clambered about on what looked to be floor… four? Five? Still, inadvisable for younglings that did not have the Force nor the training to mitigate a fall from such a height.
Light above, this kid sure had been lucky that Feemor's reflexes had been trained over years of his bro-... Xanatos' stupid pranks. Finally something good that came from that particular disaster, Feemor thought bitterly. Although he was sure that Xanatos would not have seen it like that.
Well, another key aspect where he differed from the other man. (Not that it had mattered, apparently. Qui-Gon had repudiated them both all the same, hadn't he?)
"Gai! Gai!," at that moment a panicked young voice shook him out of that unfortunate train of thought. He looked up.
At the same time the baby mandalorian in his arms shifted and now that Feemor was paying attention, he could sense the not small amounts of discomfort the preteen was projecting out into the Force.
A small, greenish face appeared far above him over the more decorative than useful ledge of the building. Young, possibly mirialan and a hefty dose of fear-concern-guilt dripping off them like the icing off a frost-cake left out for too long. Only seconds later, a second face appeared next to them - human, ginger, surprisingly tanned for a citizen on Coruscant, but maybe that was just their complexion.
The kid in his arms moved again, almost twisting out of Feemor's grip - which he instinctively tightened, the mandatory Crèche-service every member of the Temple had to do having coined that particular reflex. The wrong thing to do with a young mandalorian, apparently, as Fee got a hearty kick to his chest for his efforts.
Up above the other two children had started crying - whether it was in relief or because the Temple Guard mask had frightened them (that was known to happen), was up in the air.
There was definitely too much happening at once for Feemor.
He let the child in his arms have what it wanted; to be free. Unluckily for them both, they did not see Feemor’s good intentions coming, so when he shifted them to set them down gently on the floor, what actually happened was that he felt a biting pain bloom in his left arm and he simply let them drop. It took the Guard a full moment to realize that there was a neat little stiletto knife newly sticking out of his bicep.
“Kri- sshhh ,” Feemor bit down the bubbling curses and roughly released the pain into the Force, pushing it out far enough that it faded to a dull throb at the back of his mind.
Then he turned back towards the small mando. They had inched away, back now pressed up against the very wall they had made their quick descent down just moments ago. In their hands a second knife gleamed.
There were shouts from above, the other two kids waving their hands and calling their companion in a language Feemor didn’t speak, though circumstantial evidence pointed strongly towards it being mando’a . Now if only he had taken up Madame Nu’s offer to have his Grandmaster tutor him in the thing back then when he’d been freshly repudiated. Not that he’d understood what the Head Archivist had wanted to accomplish with such a thing – Master Dooku was already annoyed enough by everyone as it was, no need to add Feemor bumbling through a foreign language to the mix.
It sure would have come in handy now, he acknowledged.
Especially since these baby Mandalorians seemed hell-bent on avoiding using basic. (Maybe they didn’t speak it? Was that a possibility?)
Feemor didn’t know how Mandalorians worked, especially not the child version.
Yet somehow, he had the sneaking suspicion that he was about to find out.
…
In the end they had run.
Mar’e and Myles had hangled themselves down the building as fast as possible and then grabbed the seemingly shock-frozen Gai and had just sprinted off.
The jetii had made no effort to follow them, although they realized that only in hindsight.
“You stabbed a jetii !,” Myles whisper-shouted when they had finally arrived back in the sanctity of Mar’e’s room. He seemed torn between horror and awe of their new friend's actions.
Gai himself looked deeply uncomfortable, judging by the way his shoulder pauldrons almost reached his buy'ce .
" You ," Myles grabbed those very shoulders and rattled him, " stabbed a jetii ."
"Back off, Myles," Mar'e threw a pillow at the redhead, "Can't you give a vod some space?"
Myles rolled his eyes but indeed did scoot back, cradling the pillow to his chest as he seemed to mull over some thoughts. Gai mirrored the gesture with another pillow, which left Mar'e themself to bunch up the actual bedcover up and rest their chin on that . All three of them sat there in silence like that for several minutes.
Eventually, hesitantly, Gai signed something.
'I feel bad.'
"For the stabbing?," Mar'e asked.
A shy nod was their answer.
"Yeah," Myles leaned forward into his pillow, "I can see that. They did kinda save your life there…"
Another bout of uncomfortable silence descended upon the three.
"We can write a note?," Mar'e proposed after a while, "Let the jetii know that it wasn't on purpose? Not really ," they added after both Gai and Myles cocked their heads at the mirialan.
'A note is a bit little, no?,' Gai eventually signed, shoulders slumping.
Mar'e considered that.
"Oh!" They snapped their fingers. "I've got just the thing!"
…
Some days later, Feemor had found a small, lacquered lunch box tucked away half out of sight on one of his patrols. It wasn’t like the Force had led him to it, but it had been feeling more… anticipatory, that morning.
When he opened it, he was greeted by the sight of some sort of red hot stew and a side of brown rice. Even through the filters of his mask, he could tell that it smelled amazing and was probably eye-wateringly hot.
He debated if he should take it.
Technically the Guard wasn’t allowed to accept any goodwill from outsiders – or other Jedi, for that measure – as a precaution against bribery and blackmail.
But this was food and they were kids.
And there was a small flimsinote taped to the bottom of the box, that, in rather jittery written basic, read ‘sorry for your arm – Mar'e, Myles, Gai’ , which was just adorable . Even without any measurable talent in psychometry, Feemor could tell that the note had been written by someone who indeed had felt deeply mortified. Not that he’d ever faulted the armored little one for what they had done – it was a common enough panic reaction, lashing out, and Feemor had probably not helped the situation de-escalate with the way he’d just frozen in place as well. In his defense though, it had been a while since he’d interacted with any children and none of those interactions had ever involved the children falling from buildings and then stabbing him. Or being, you know, mandalorian.
So yes, Feemor took the food. Sue him.
Cin would understand, surely. And even if not, he’d much rather face some extra rounds on the sparring mats or some overtime charity work around the Temple than having to imagine the disappointed little faces of those kids if he ignored their peace offering.
It did garner some looks from his fellow Guards though, when he sat down to eat in their small private refectory.
“Whassat?,” Yon, who was losing a fight with some particularly slippery noodles in his soup, asked.
“No clue,” Feemor sat down, staring at the red hot and freshly heated stew in front of him. He was no stranger to spicy food, only the Light knew what Master Yoda put into that swamp stew of his to make it burn all the way to your stomach, but this seemed a new kind of daunting.
“Looks spicy,” Zessh commented, while twirling her fork between her fingers, “Where did you get it?”
Feemor threw her a glance. “Places.”
“Oooh, what’s that ?,” Yorra-Serra crowed and with lightning-fast reflexes snatched the small flimsi note that Fee had forgotten to tuck away from under the boxes’ lid. The harch’s mandibles clicked excitedly as she turned her back to Feemor, who immediately tried to get the thing back.
“Yorra!,” he exclaimed.
He did not get far, because Zessh immediately pulled him back in a restraining hug, ears standing to attention. “What does it say!?”
Feemor twisted and turned in her grasp, trying his best to wiggle out, but the togorian had the unfair advantage of claws, which she had hooked quite dastardly under the plates of his armorweave. Without damaging his uniform or her fingers, there probably was no escape.
Cursing, Feemor kicked a leg out towards Yorra.
It didn’t even come close to reaching her, but the commotion now had fully drawn the attention of every Guard in the room.
“Did Feemor get his first anonymous love letter?,” one of the Guard’s intern IT-specialists, a grizzled old toydarian who answered exclusively to the name ‘Hack’, called over.
“Wouldn’t be his first, actually!” Yon called back, grinning over the blush that was rising to Feemor’s cheeks. “That he got way back, within a week of joining even!”
“What?!” Hack sounded appalled at the fact that he’d missed that.
It was more of a game that the Senior Padawans played with the Guard, actually, the exchanging of those ‘love letters’. Feemor had been mortified, initially, when a small gaggle of whispering and giggling Senior Padawans had cornered him on one of his first ever solo rotations and one of them, a unfamiliar kesurian, had, with a giant blush coloring her morals an even darker brown than normal, shoved the neatly folded piece of flimsi into his his chest and run away. At first he’d thought that he’d given himself away, somehow – no matter that he hadn’t even known that Padawan – but the others had explained it to him.
That it was tradition for Senior Padawans who were going to be knighted soon to gift a ‘love letter’ to a random Guard, who then had to find or make a present for that Padawan and secretly hide it in their room, so that after they were Knighted and packed their stuff, they would find it. The gifts given often were something to remind the Padawan of their home Temple on their first solo missions as Knights – shawls embroidered with scenes from the gardens, datasticks with scenes of Padawan-shenanigans pulled directly from the Temple's security feed, packets of the special spice blends the Temple kitchens used… the possibilities were nearly endless.
And the Guard got a sense of belonging to the greater Temple.
It didn’t infringe on anyone’s anonymity, as there were no words exchanged beyond the initial letter and that was always formulated in a way that it could have pertained to any Guard on rotation (Feemor’s letter had gone into way too much flowery detail about the way their uniforms spoke to the author). Some letters they got apparently also were just addressed to the Guard as a whole, thanking them for their service and for looking out for the Temple.
It was a surprisingly sweet tradition that Feemor had been completely unaware of – probably because during his Senior Padawan years he’d been first grieving his first Master and then dragged by Qui-Gon from one disaster to the next.
As awkward as he’d first felt about the ‘love letter’ thing, he’d poured his whole heart into finding ‘his’ Senior Padawan something useful. He’d even asked Madame Nu if she could find out if the Padawan was already slotted for a specific mission after their Knighting, and if yes, to where.
The answers to those questions had been ‘yes’ and ‘diplomatic escort to Taris’.
Feemor then had settled for making her a lacquered bangle in his off-time, with swirling patterns that were indeed reminiscent of the lush greenery in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Taris was a city planet and Feemor knew only all too well how much one sometimes wished back the sanctity of the gardens when one was caught in such a place. Qui-Gon had always become more reckless when they had been on one, without any meaningful tether to the Living to ground him.
It had landed them in more than one pickle.
He did not wish that on anyone else.
He hadn’t stuck around to witness her reaction to the gift, but he had seen her months later, way after her return, still wearing it, so he counted it as a win.
“It’s not from a Padawan,” he sighed, giving up on plausible deniability.
“Yeah, no shit,” Yorra-Serra tilted her head and blinked her six eyes, “‘Sorry for your arm’? What’s with your arm?”
“Nothing,” Feemor didn’t meet her gaze. “...Anymore…,” he added, after feeling the imploring stares of a good half dozen Temple Guards burning.
“Wait,” a new voice joined the fray, Masin was rocking back on his chair so that he could stare at Fee, “Is this from whoever stabbed you on Taungsday?”
“You were stabbed ?!,” several people immediately exclaimed.
Feemor shot a glacial stink-eye to their part-time healer, whom he originally had made promise that he wouldn’t mention the stabbing to anyone . So much for patient-healer confidentiality.
“Only lightly,” he defended the mando kid’s actions, “And there were extenuating circumstances involved, okay? I’m fine and nothing bad happened, you could say it was an accident.”
Zessh released him and shoved him from her. “Explain,” the togorian demanded, her tail, which was freely visible since she was not wearing her kama, swishing back and forth agitatedly.
Her demand was mirrored in the faces of everyone around him.
Grimacing, Feemor sighed. Then looked back at the stew. Maybe bringing it here to eat had been a mistake.
Alas, it was way too late now.
So, he explained.
“A mandalorian stabbed you?,” Yon asked disbelievingly when his tale had finished.
“They were a child ,” Fee rolled his eyes at his former Crèchemate, “And had just fallen from a fuck-knows-how-may-stories building. The stabbing is understandable in such a situation.”
Zeshh meanwhile was back to eyeing the lunchbox. “Maybe, but now they are giving you food ?”
“Aw, that’s adorable !,” Yorra, evidently not having pinged the suspicion in the togorian’s voice, exclaimed. Feemor suppressed a comment on how that had been his exact thoughts as well.
“Take a bite,” Masin suddenly grinned and turned around on his chair, arms folding over the backrest, “I wanna see that.”
Feemor immediately got deeply suspicious.
The badly stifled, mean cackle from Hack did not help alleviate that sentiment. “ Ohh ,” the old coot got up from his place to get a better look at Feemor’s lunch, “Do you think that’s homemade tiingilar ?”
Something about the way he said that contained all sorts of implications.
“I guess we’ll find out after Fee takes a bite,” Masin seemed to be the only one who understood what exactly Hack was getting at. The older human stared expectantly at Feemor.
“What…?,” Feemor eyed them both, deeply skeptical now.
“Oh nothing,” Masin smiled something that looked downright angelic if you weren’t aware of the mischief he projected out into the Force, “Don’t mind us. Go on, little brother, enjoy your food.” He stared at him unblinkingly.
Feemor’s eyes flitted over to Kessh. She shrugged, “I can’t smell any poison, so…”
Yon leaned past her, basically sprawling over the table. “Poison? Are we assuming a bunch of mando kids want to kill Feemor with food?”
With an annoyed roll of her eyes, Kessh grabbed the lithe young man at the back of his collar and pulled him back off the table. “No, you idiot, I said no poison.”
Feemor relaxed.
While he hadn’t expected the kids to try something, he truly was painfully unaware of basically everything relating to Mandalorians.
Basically . There was one thing even he knew and he raised his brows at the two elder Guards.
“I’ll have you know,” he said, jabbing his spoon into the red hot broth, “That if this is about mando food being spicy , you’ll probably be very disappointed with my reaction. I can deal with spicy.”
"Mmh," Hack leaned back, his snout rumpled in clear skepticism.
Masin seemed equally hesitant to believe Feemor. "If you say so…," the older human drawled, amusement curling around him like fog over a lake in the morning.
Yorra-Serra sat down opposite of Feemor, her four arms folded under her chin, though not before making a quick detour to the fridge and grabbing him a glass of blue milk.
Fee rolled his eyes again. It was a nice gesture, but useless. He didn't lie when he said he could deal with spicy food. Again, the Grandmaster's stew enjoyed its questionable fame for a reason .
If it really was just spicy and not poisoned or otherwise spiked, Feemor could handle it.
He lifted the spoon to his mouth and took a bite.