Archive of Our Own

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.

Chapter Text

The shuttles land to a hush far more natural than the one that took Naboo, the breathless stillness of pre-dawn in a forest with the birds just waking. Atin takes one step off the shuttle and realizes with a jolt that he knows this place, even though it’s been decades in his own life since he last saw it

Concord Dawn’s smallest moon is heavily forested, its surface so thickly robed in pines and conifers that only the barest slants of light from the planet and the other moons reach the surface. Drifts of needles lie soft underfoot, slick when Atin steps down onto them, and the resinous smell of the wood fills his lungs, sharp and green and almost overwhelming.

The chill that curls down his spine is pure dread, remembered fear and fury, and it takes all of his control not to wrench back towards the ship, even with four blasters right behind him.

Yané shoots him a sharp look, sensing his hesitation, but before she can say anything, a hand in a heavy gauntlet curls around Atin's elbow. “Keep moving,” the captain in blue and silver armor says, voice low and tone firm but not harsh. “Too late to turn back now.”

“Isn't it normal for someone to have second thoughts?” Yané asks, cool, even as she slides in to take Atin's other arm with a light grip.

The captain pauses, head turning slightly. Keeping the Mand'alor in sight even as she moves away, Atin thinks; he remembers the motion and that particular split in attention well. Fett is escorting Amidala down a narrow, winding path between the pines, deliberately elegant like they're entering some hall of kings instead of a green-gloomed forest. A few soldiers are behind them, as are Sabé, Saché, and Cordé, but—not as many as Atin might have expected.

Of course, it’s possible the old training grounds here have long since fallen into disuse. After all, the trees lean so close around the landing pad now that it’s easy to see very few ships have been touching down here, and from what Atin remembers, this is the most open the forests ever get. The odds that someone simply found another landing strip are low.

“Even if it’s normal, it won't help,” the captain says after a moment.. “Keep moving. Your queen offered you up for this, and the marriage is happening whether you walk there or we drag you.”

The phrasing grates across Atin's nerves, and he sets his jaw so he won't say something inadvisable. Getting through the wedding is the first part of his debt paid, and after that, he can act how he wants, focus on his own survival. Killing his new spouse is likely beyond what the Mand'alor will suffer, given that she’s calling him her father, but—anything short of that, so long as it keeps Atin alive.

Yané’s fingertips press into his arm, a silent attempt at comfort, even as she says to the captain, “I heard that one planet has been sending large groups of convicts all at once, to see if any will survive.”

One of the soldiers behind the captain huffs, clearly disdainful. The captain tips his head just slightly, amusement in the gesture, and says, “They only tried it once. The Mand'alor takes this seriously. She doesn’t appreciate other people not doing the same.”

Her father, Atin thinks, and the slow seep of wariness is rising, tangled up in that word. Fett is Human, though having mixed families has always mattered very little to Mandalorians; a foster child, maybe, keeping her loyalty to a beast that raised her. There have been stories like that, across the generations of Mand'alore. Shortly after Mand'alor the First, there was a woman raised by mythosaurs after her family was slaughtered in a war between clans, who called herself beloved of them. But—what reason could Fett have for marrying so many people off to this beast, consigning them to death over and over? Even if she does consider him her father, it’s a strange choice to make, to default to marriage.

Death in battle is one thing, but death like this, at the hands of a spouse, sent into the marriage knowing that death is the most likely outcome? There's no honor in that. Not for the spouse and not for the one arranging the marriage, either.

“Will we be allowed to visit?” Yané asks, quiet. Atin glances at her, wary, but the press of her fingers comes again, halfway between apology and reassurance, and he contains a snort and turns his eyes forward again. Sentiment, clearly, and it’s not surprising in one bred in the cowering Republic, but he’d thought the handmaidens made of sterner stuff.

“If you accompany the Mand'alor and her wife when they come,” the captain says, unwavering. “The Mand'alor visits her father frequently.”

“Rex!” Fett calls back, and the captain immediately releases Atin, lengthens his strides to catch up with the Mand'alor. She turns to greet him with a smile warmer than any Atin has seen her offer, her fingertips skimming the blue paint on his armor as she leans in, and Rex leans back, says something low that Atin can't quite catch.

“She’s asking him to alert the guards on the house,” Rabé murmurs, almost soundless, her head dipped beneath the sunset-colored hood but her eyes fixed on Fett's face. “We’re close.”

Lipreading, Atin assumes, and contains the urge to ask if all the handmaidens are trained in such things, if such training is normal for the Naboo or if Queen Amidala's guards need to be especially vigilant. From Sabé’s words about the blockade, it seems that the planet isn't nearly as peaceful as it seems on the surface.

Logical, then, that the Mand'alor would look to such a world for a partner to help her rule. Especially if the Naboo are more covert in their viciousness than Mandalorians normally bother being.

The fact that they're so close is worth marking, though. The training camp that Atin remembers was at least another day’s march east, and while it’s a relief to know that the place Atin is expected to live for the next year isn't the same as the training grounds, there's a strangeness to it as well. This moon is full of predators, nocturnal and forever hungry, and the camp was built on the moon’s sole plateau, a defensible area where they could lock themselves in, keep the beasts out. In the lower parts of the forest like this, there are no such defenses. Who would choose to build any sort of house here?

Unless, Atin thinks grimly, the beasts are the defense. But they aren't defending the house itself; they're defending everyone else by keeping Fett's father inside.

One year. One year and one day. At the very worst, Atin can escape into the pinewoods during the daytime, only return to the house to sleep. Avoidance and hiding are things he was once skilled at, though it’s been a very long time since he practiced them, and for his own freedom, he’s more than willing to learn again.

Ahead of them, the muffled footfalls suddenly sharpen, ring out through the forest gloom, and Atin raises his head. A low, arched bridge crosses a lazy river beneath the pines, and beyond their leaning trunks there's a flash of dark stone, moss, climbing briars. A thread of cold unease slides down Atin's spine, and he almost pauses, almost hesitates before he can step up onto the bridge.

Someone really did build a house among the trees, and it’s sprawling, looming, a dark thing even against the tight, shadowed press of the forest. The only wall is a low stone border, halfway overgrown by moss and brambles that tumble straight down into the stream, and all of the house’s windows are barred with black iron, just thin enough to appear decorative at first glance. A balcony caught in the curve of the building is enclosed in glass, greenery pressing up against the panes as if it’s trying to escape, and there are no lights on within the building that Atin can see, even in the gloom.

Rabé’s breath slides out on an uneasy hiss, and she glances back the way they came, ignoring the other soldiers in blue as she looks towards the landing area where it’s hidden by the trees. “I don’t see any guards,” she says, low.

Atin taps a claw against her wrist, and when she looks at him, he tips his head towards a shadow near the far edge of the trees, past one wing of the house. There’s a smaller building tucked back among the trunks along the river, low and narrow with gabled windows half-hidden by drooping branches, and the door is just closing behind the bulky silhouette of an armored body. Not a guard for the house, Atin assumes, or even a guard for whatever is within; given the positioning, the bare handful of bodies moving behind the glass, it’s likely whatever force is left here is solely to keep the spouse from running. Or, at the very least, to mark when they do.

From the narrowing of Rabé’s eyes, she sees the same thing Atin does. There's a long second before she turns her face forward again, mouth faintly tight, and says, “Oh.”

It takes effort not to snort, but Atin contains himself, casting an assessing glance up over the house—

Pauses, startled, at the sight of a lean dark figure at the edge of one of the high gables, halfway tucked back behind the edge of a window but still visible as the very first of the morning light slants down through the tall trees. A man, Atin thinks. A Human man, with unkempt dark hair and a beard that’s grown in thick and long, gaunt dark eyes as he stares down at the procession approaching the house.

No. Not at the procession. At the Mand'alor, tall and straight in her gold and black armor, grim-faced as she approaches the briar-wreathed front door with long strides, with Amidala a pace behind her—

But when Atin looks back up towards the window, the dawn light has erased the shadow of the gable, and the man is gone.

“Vod’ika,” Fett says, brushing away a slant of cobwebs as she moves through the narrow hall. “Is he coming down?”

Little sibling, Atin thinks, watching Rex move to answer without hesitation, pulling his helmet off. He’s as blond as Fett, looks remarkably like her, and the realization makes Atin pause, hesitate over his certainty that Fett is some sort of foster child raised by a beast. If she has a blood-brother, if that man he saw in the window is her father—

“Cody's going to get him now,” Rex reports, getting the door at the end of the entrance hall. It opens out into a wide area, jarringly spacious given the tight press of the entrance, with a staircase of black stone that curls up to the next floor, faded walls hung with tapestries from Harswee showing Mandalorian battles Atin doesn’t know. It smells of damp and moss and pine in a way that makes Atin's skin prickle unpleasantly, and he curls his claws against his palm, trying to breathe through the old unease that expects a snarling voice, a hand grabbing for him.

“Good,” Fett says, and she doesn’t take her helmet off, just waves a hand, and a Mandalorian in silver and blue armor passes over a pad. She flips it open, scans what’s there, and then offers it to Amidala. “I assume you’re willing to sign in your sacrifice’s name, my lady,” she says, and the extra weight on the possessive is hard to miss. “You told me matters on Naboo had been dealt with.”

“They have,” Amidala says evenly, and glances back as Rabé and Yané lead Atin closer. “He is my ward for the purposes of this marriage.”

“Easier that way,” Fett says breezily, though most of her attention goes to the staircase as something above them creaks. Her hands curl, halfway to a fist before she catches herself, eases her posture, but Atin can feel her tension in the way she shifts, the turn of her head as she tries to find something to look at that isn't the staircase. “My people aren't usually big on ceremonies, so this will be quick, but I want to make sure my father knows just how much I care for him. He needs a spouse to see to his needs, after all. He’s getting older.”

Atin digs his nails into his palm to keep from saying anything. If there isn't a monster, if it’s just a Human man with an urge to kill that Fett is feeding all of these potential spouses to…

Not unheard of, among Mandalorians. Not even entirely uncommon, though those who only care about causing death or suffering can usually find far better ways to occupy themselves, given the armies and their needs. Atin knows that all too well. If this is just a man, though, and Atin is expected to endure without ever harming him in return—

Wood creaks sharply, and a door opens above them. There's a snarl, loud and vicious enough to make Atin twitch, to send Rabé startling back and make Yané grab at his arm as the other handmaidens jerk towards Amidala. Fett looks up, like she can't restrain herself for even one more moment, and just as her gaze lands on the top of the stairs, there's a growl, low and rolling like thunder. Something scrapes, something drags, there's a crash, a curse. A body in orange-painted armor slams back against the wall, pulling at a long tether, and another soldier in the same colors shouts a warning, drags.

With a hissing snarl, a black form lurches out of the darkened hall on all fours, and Atin's breath catches in his chest. A mythosaur, he thinks at first, but—the proportions are wrong. It’s smaller than a mythosaur should be, with thick, heavy limbs that don’t quite bend like limbs should, a longer jaw full of pearlescent teeth. Its horns curve like a mythosaur’s, though, and its eyes glow the same way, a vivid and arresting red as it snaps at the trooper in orange. Heavy leather leads wrapped around its sinuous neck pull it up short, though, and the first soldier backs down the stairs, dragging at the lead he’s holding, as three more soldiers follow one step at a time, the beast caught between their ropes. It thrashes, claws at the stone, snaps its teeth and snarls and tries to bolt back to the upper floors, but they drag it down with them onto the main floor.

There's a breath, ragged, a little raw, and Fett steps forward. “Father,” she says, deliberately light and warm, and the beast growls as it’s forced down into the hall, dragged forward to meet her.

“Don’t be like this,” Fett says, approaching with steady steps, like Atin can't hear the edge in her voice, not anger and not disappointment, but something else he can't quite identify. “I know you can behave yourself when we have guests. I wanted to introduce you to the woman I'm marrying.”

A pause, and the beast looks from Fett to Atin, crimson eyes narrowing. That low, rumbling growl tapers off, and it—he—rises from his defensive crouch, though he doesn’t try to approach.

And then, low, a thick and rumbling voice says in Mando’a, “Let me go, Arla.”

Fett steps forward again, presses a hand to her father’s skull between those wicked, curving horns. “This is for your own good,” she says, soft. “You can't control yourself sometimes, Father. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

The beast closes his eyes, shakes her hand off his head. “I congratulate you on your marriage, Mand'alor,” he says, “but I have no part in it.”

Fett takes a breath, hand curling into a fist, gauntlet creaking. “Maybe not in my marriage,” she allows after a long moment. “Not like this. But it means I won't be able to visit as often, so I brought you someone to keep you company.”

There's a hiss, startled, vicious, and the beast wrenches back with a snarl, thrashing, his claws skidding over the stone. With a shout, the troopers haul him back, drag him closer, and Fett seizes the web of ropes around his throat, pulls his head down. Grimly, she wraps one of the dangling ropes around his snout, clamping his mouth shut, and at the same moment, hands grab Atin's arms. He jerks, but the soldiers in blue drag him forward, right over to the beast as Fett forces his head down.

“Sign,” she orders Amidala, and hooks an arm through one of the beast’s horns as Rex does the same on his other side, holding him in place with the weight of their bodies and their armor. Atin considers struggling, because he could take the men holding him by surprise, but—

But Amidala meets his eyes though the heavy lace, her dark eyes full of fury but her body still, and Atin takes a breath, reminds himself that this is part of their deal, and allows himself to be hauled close to the beast, forced down onto his knees before it.

“Your new spouse, Father,” Fett says, faintly breathless as she contains the beast’s jerks, his attempts to throw her and Rex off. He hasn’t grabbed for her with claws, though, hasn’t tried to injure, and Fett strokes the scales around one eye with a light hand, the motion almost compulsive. “You forget yourself so much more if you don’t have someone close. I'm just trying to help.”

The beast growls, teeth bared. “This is not help,” he snarls. “Arla, let me go. Leave this place, let me go—”

“Never,” Fett says, soft, almost achingly so, and takes a breath that shakes. Raises her head, and says to Atin, “Hand out.”

Atin only hesitates for a moment before he curls a hand to hide his claws and reaches out. Fett doesn’t even give his grey skin a second glance as she pulls the silk back, then drags a white ribbon out of her braid. She loops the length of it around Atin's arm, then winds the ends around the beast’s horn, pulling Atin's arm flush against the horn and knotting the ribbon there, tight enough to be uncomfortable.

As soon as it’s tied, the beast goes still, that low grow still rumbling in his chest, but the thrashing forgotten as he glares at Fett. She ignores him, stepping away, and reaches for the pad Amidala is holding in a white-knuckled grip.

“I know this time you’ll be able to control yourself,” she says, and there's a bullish, almost fervent edge to it, almost manic. “It will work this time. All you need is someone to care for you.”

“Stop this, Arla,” the beast says, his claws digging hard into the stone. “Stop this.” He makes to rise, but at the drag of Atin's weight on his horn he goes still, tense and furious.

“It’s all for your sake, Father,” Fett says, and signs beneath Amidala's name on the pad, raises her chin. “Cody, you can let him go. Father, your vows.”

The beast bares his teeth, a heavy hiss breaking from his throat as the soldiers unhook the leads. “I have no vows for this,” he growls.

“You do,” Fett says, and she goes to one knee before the beast, before Atin, lays a gauntleted hand over their bindings. “You don’t have long, Father. Please. Don’t be like Tor. You swore you would try, at least.”

The beast closes his eyes for a long, long moment, and Atin can feel the tension in him, building, tangling into fury.

Can feel, too, the way it suddenly gives, collapses on a huff that’s all resignation and regret, long and low in the musty air as all the tension slides out of the beast’s limbs.

“You make me an oathbreaker, Arla,” he says, and it seethes with hurt and anger underneath the level tone.

“It isn't your fault,” Fett insists, stroking his snout. “Please, Father.”

The beast lowers his head, still not looking at Atin. “I vow loyalty and security until the end of our bond,” he says, rough, and—it’s one of the marriage oaths that was popular when Atin was Mand'alor, familiar enough to give him pause. He glances over, but the beast still has his eyes closed, his head bowed in surrender, and if he notices, there's no sign.

“Such an honorable man,” Fett says, soft and admiring, and Atin can't see her smile, but he can hear it in her voice. “And you? My father gave his oaths. You should give yours.”

It’s almost obsessive, her insistence on this being exactly as it would under normal circumstances, Atin thinks, and glances up at Amidala. She nods, just slightly, and Atin tries to strip as much of the Mandalorian accent from his words as possible, tries to flatten out the tone as he says, “I vow fealty and obedience until the bond is broken.”

The beast pauses, then opens his eyes, and there’s a dark anger in them, tempered by surprise and wariness. Not the usual response to his oath, Atin knows; those were the promises of someone from a conquered House marrying a victor unwillingly, but—it’s the truth in all the ways that matter, and he isn't about to try and take the words back.

He’s paying back the debt, but that doesn’t mean this is anything like Atin's own choice, and he refuses to pretend that it is.

“Good,” Fett says, satisfied, and rises to her feet. “We’ll leave you to celebrate, then. Father, this is Padmé Amidala, my new empress. We’ll be back to have dinner with you in a week.”

The beast’s gaze flickers from Atin up to Fett, and he pauses for a long moment, then breathes out in a huff of hot air. “Don’t come back, Arla,” he says, though there's no hope in his tone that he’ll be obeyed.

Fett ignores the words entirely, offering Amidala her arm again. “Cody,” she says. “Rex and his men will stay to reinforce you. Make sure my father isn't harmed. Protect him with your lives.”

“Of course, Mand'alor,” Cody says, coiling the rope over his arm. He moves away, catching the hand Rex holds out and hauling him into a shoulder-bumping hug, then tips his head. “We’ll escort you back to the ships, ori’vod. Wooley’s keeping an eye on things right now.”

“All right,” Fett agrees easily, and heads back towards the entrance, pulling Amidala along with her. Sabé and the other handmaidens follow quickly, though Yané hesitates for a bare moment, her eyes flickering to Atin. Saché catches her arm, though, tugs her along, and she shoots Atin an apologetic look and lets herself be pulled after the rest.

Distant, heavy, the door slams shut, leaving the house in silence. Atin turns his head, listening to the very faint thud of retreating footsteps, the voices, the Mand'alor’s laugh, and feels cold as snow, all the way through.

After a long, long moment, the beast raises his head carefully. “On your feet,” he says coolly. “You’ll have to be the one to undo the ribbon.”

Given the size of his claws, the fact that each one of his paws is as large as Atin's head, the odds that he can manage the deftness to cut the ribbon are low, and Atin nods, gets his feet under himself as the beast rises to his full height. Atin is tall for a Taung, but he still barely comes up to the beast’s shoulder, and—it’s hard to imagine that any of the soldiers here would have escaped unscathed if he had wanted to harm them.

But none of the spouses sent have survived, Atin thinks grimly. Either the beast doesn’t care about keeping them alive or something about the circumstances is different. And given Fett's continued insistence that the beast can control himself this time, Atin has a feeling he knows how matters are going to play out, at least in the abstract.

The knotted ribbon unravels easily with a few tugs of Atin's claws, and as the white silk flutters down, he takes a step back—

Motion. A lunge, so blindingly quick that it makes Atin think of Ulic and his impossible, Force-assisted speed. Too fast to dodge, though Atin wrenches back, fists coming up—

The veil swirls away, caught by long claws, dragged free in an instant. It flutters to the floor, and Atin rises to his full height, lifts his chin, meets crimson eyes squarely.

“Husband,” he says, sardonic, a dare more than an admission, and the startled hiss of the beast’s breath is shatteringly loud in the hush.

“You,” the beast says, almost a growl, and takes two steps back, retreats like he’s suddenly afraid. “You’re Taung.”

“I am,” Atin says plainly, not about to hide it—

The beast roars, furious, tangled up in regret and anger and loss, and then turns. He surges up the stairs, claws raking across stone, scythe-like tail shattering a tall and empty display as he vanishes back into the darkness of the upper level.

Chapter Text

The house is huge but entirely empty, and scarred like a dozen battles have been fought within its walls.

There's a seething sort of hush from upstairs, fraught and tense in the way of a lurking and furious predator, so Atin keeps to the first floor, checking all corners of the main hall for places he could potentially barricade or weapons he could possibly use. There's nothing immediately apparent, though, so he ventures down one of the corridors that leads towards the rear of the house. Several dozen rooms open off of it, but the doors on all of them have been shattered, leaving gaping spaces like ripped-out teeth. Some have even been torn from their hinges with such force that the hinges are gone as well, the stone scarred and pitted in their wake.

Claw marks mar the walls, the doorframes, the barred windows. Deep dents have been left in doorways, deep gouges have been dug into floors, and everything breakable and not made of stone has been removed, though Atin can see in the layer of dust on corners the places where things like cupboards once stood.

The beast’s claws didn’t score the stairs when they dragged him down for the wedding. He hadn’t managed to shake Rex and Fett off his horns when they held him still, either. But—to leave marks like this, his strength must be far greater than what he showed when he was fighting to get away. Atin doubts that he was pretending to oppose the marriage—the emotion in his pleas to Fett seemed genuine, after all—so that means his strength varies. Varies quite a lot, from the depth of the marks, and Atin presses his fingers into them with a grim sense of resignation. If the beast is at his strongest when he comes to kill his new spouse, Atin's chances of survival seem slim.

Even when the Taung first hunted the mythosaurs, pushing them back to lay claim to Mandalore, they wore armor, carried the best possible weapons, moved in squads. Atin, alone, unarmored, unarmed, is at an immense disadvantage, even if the beast is smaller than most mythosaurs.

The debt to Amidala still stands, too. It’s leveraged against his own life, his undone death, and if he kills the beast, angers the Mand'alor, Fett could take her wrath out on Naboo. Then Atin would have broken the deal, broken his own honor, betrayed the woman who saved him and sustained him. His soul would be cast out, no longer Mandalorian in any way that matters, and his own identity is the one thing that Atin has always had pride in, honor in. Even during the darkest days on this moon, even through all of the funerals, even in his lowest moments, he’s always been a Mandalorian of honor. That’s the reason he became Mand'alor to begin with, and it hasn’t changed now.

What Atin wishes most right now is that he could have gotten more information on the other spouses, either from the handmaidens or Fett's guard. Being married off to a beast isn't likely to have set anyone at ease, but Atin is sure that those sent, either volunteers or those conscripted by their governments, wouldn’t simply have tried one method of survival. Atin doesn’t know that, though, doesn’t know the differing odds between those who tried flattery or those who fought. Only one lasted five days, but—how? What made the difference there, when all the rest died quickly?

Uncertainty isn't a new feeling, given that all of Atin's life has been spent at war, facing opponents he could never know completely, but every time it’s equally unpleasant.

Flattering the beast seems difficult, given that Atin has never been skilled at flattery in general. He knows how to keep his head down, how to work quietly for survival, but—he’s always stood out enough that it’s more difficult for him than for most. When he was a child—

Well. When he was young, there were different reasons he stood out in the clan, and even more reasons that he chose to.

Phantom hands pull at his sleeves, and Atin closes his eyes, grits his teeth. With a few quick tugs, he strips off the flowing white silk the handmaidens dressed him in, the ivory undershirt. They’ll make decent bedding if he can't find somewhere else to sleep, so he folds them, leaves them off to one side in one of the rooms, and keeps going in just the darker pants, loose enough to move in and gathered at the ankle so they won't get in his way. It won't solve the problem of the beast’s impossible speed, but—it’s something. It’s a change that makes Atin feel as though he’s preparing, and that helps settle him at least a little.

There are no doors in the back of the house, either, but when Atin passes through a series of wide openings and out of the winding corridors, he steps out into soft light and bright glass, the sway of the pines so close that Atin can almost feel the breeze that moves them.

He comes to a halt in the center of the long, high-ceilinged solarium, set against the back of the house and looking out over a high, moss-green cliff. There's a gorge below, its edges curtained with more pines and a scattered handful of deciduous trees with long, trailing branches, the morning light burning off the mist that’s rising from the river below. The house leans out over the edge, an elegant tower full of windows built over open air and soaring up the back edge of the building, fighting its way through the heavy press of the pines to reach the sunlight.

It feels like standing on the edge of the plateau where the training camp was, watching the sun rise. A shiver slides down Atin's spine, and a grim sort of nausea turns in his stomach, full of snapping teeth. He turns, looking for a way out, and finds a shadowed doorway standing open at the edge of the tower, leading to a flight of stairs. Makes for it, strides a little too long, a little too quick, but—

Once he’s out of that press of light, away from the drop and up to the first landing of the steps, he feels better, and his breaths come more easily. Atin leans there in the darkness for a moment, trying to slow his heart, and doesn’t let himself look back, but the knowledge that the solarium is there feels like a thorn lodged beneath his skin.

He hasn’t reacted like that in decades. But—being sent off like this has brought too many things back to the surface, maybe. Being here has brought too many things back to the surface. Anywhere else in the galaxy and Atin would have more of a command of himself, but this moon is something…unpleasant.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Atin lets out a rough breath, disgusted with himself. It was decades ago, he tells himself, and leaves the solarium to rot, heading up the steps as quietly as he can. He would prefer not to disturb his new husband, but given how little there is on the first floor, there must be some sort of habitable level to this house. Fett had mentioned dinner, and Atin will need to feed himself at some point unless he wants to hunt for his meals. There might even be somewhere to hide himself, if he can get up to the roof. No doors will be strong enough to barricade himself behind, clearly, but if he can climb out a window, get somewhere the beast can't fit, it might be enough to keep him alive.

Of course, the spouses who came before him likely had the same thoughts, if they approached this tactically, and it wasn’t enough to save them.

Maybe, Atin thinks, grimly amused, he should challenge the beast to a duel. It won't help his chances of survival, most likely, but it will at least do away with the uncertainty.

The back staircase is more narrow than the one in the front hall, but unfortunately large enough to fit Atin's new husband, and marked with gouges from his claws to prove it. Atin traces them up the flights to a wide landing, then pauses, frowning. It looks like there was a fight, the walls scuffed, the bars on a narrow window choked off by the pines outside bent outwards like something large collided with them. All of the marks continue upwards, to a tight turn in the steps, and there—

Blood, Atin thinks, and crouches down. Someone tried to scrub it up, but the red stain is a stubborn one, spreads out across the dark stone in a pool that seems too large to have been survivable. There's a bit of hair caught between two protruding stones, too, a few golden strands with their tips blood-dyed to crimson. When Atin carefully, gingerly pulls them free, the blood is fully dry, but…not that old, likely. The smell hasn’t faded enough for it to be more than a few weeks since whoever was caught here died.

There's one more turn of the steps before they reach the upper floor, and Atin casts a glance up, then back down the way he came. Considers, for a moment, just how strong the urge is to avoid the solarium and that particular combination of morning sunlight and a long fall, but—

That man, Atin thinks. The one in the window. There's at least one other person here beside the beast, able to survive him. Maybe, if Atin can get up to the top floor, he can hide away wherever the man stays, and that will be enough to keep him from joining the unfortunate spouse who died where he’s standing.

Taking a breath, Atin pushes forward, keeps moving up the steps. There's no door at the top, just a shadowed hallway, the pines outside pressing close against the windows and choking out all light. More claw marks here, deeper and more vicious than the ones below, and Atin sweeps a careful look up and down the corridor, wary of stumbling over his new husband in the dark. He can't hear any sounds of stirring, though, and he makes his steps as light as possible, ghosts his way up the hall towards where the next staircase will hopefully be.

And then, hushed, with a hiss of scales across the stone, something moves in the shadows.

Atin stills, eyes narrowing, and turns his head. An echo, he thinks; there's a wide space ahead of him, and the beast is moving through it. His husband is around the corner of the hall where it runs away from the solarium, towards where Atin had been hoping to find a way up to the higher levels.

Of course. It’s not as though anything else in the past few months of his life has gone as it should.

Dark amusement twists itself up with resignation, and Atin glances at the barred windows, the curls of iron too narrow to fit through even if he wanted to break the glass and draw his husband’s attention. Going back to the solarium seems like his only choice, and it’s unpleasant, but Atin can bear it for long enough to walk through—

“You,” the beast rumbles, low and echoing through the dark hall. His voice is so deep it almost vibrates the glass, and Atin can feel the impact in his bones, takes a half-step back before he catches himself and tenses, ready to bolt for the stairs—

“Come here,” the beast orders, and Atin grits his teeth, closes his eyes. Stupid, to be so unsettled by a room and a drop that he’s actually considering playing the dutiful husband to a monster. Stupider, then, that the monster is winning out.

But even so, Atin takes a step forward, another, another. He walks up the hall, the thin tendrils in his hair twisting with the fear he can't swallow down, his heartbeat rising, but—he still goes. He walks right into the wide, columned space that opens up at the end of the hall, dimly lit by sconces along the walls and occupied by a monster with black scales and burning red eyes, staring right at him.

“Husband,” Atin says after a moment, wary. The beast isn't moving, though; he’s curled on a low, wide bed of black silk, sheened in a way Atin recognizes. Blaster- and blade-resistant, made by Harswee weavers and coveted all over Mandalorian space, impossibly hard to find in such quantities, but tough enough to endure even the beast’s claws. Fett's gift to her father, Atin assumes, and lets his gaze slide up to where the beast is watching him, attention fixed.

“Taung,” the beast returns, and raises his head, curved horns catching the light and gleaming dangerously. All of the mythosaurs were hunted to extinction long before Atin took up the Mask, but he can feel a curl of the same awe rooted in his belly that the original Mandalorians must have felt, first seeing the beasts that ruled Mandalore. His husband is a huge creature, seems even bigger here than he did during their forced wedding, and sleekly, dangerously beautiful, sinuous and muscular at once. Even in the shadows, his scales are blacker still, gleam like polished onyx in the wavering light. His horns and claws have a crimson sheen to them, like fresh blood, and his heavy limbs and long tail don’t drag the way Atin might have expected, but move with an almost unsettling grace as he shifts, resettles with his head on the mattress.

Despite himself, Atin takes another step forward into the gloom, skin prickling with a sharp awareness of his own size compared to this creature’s. Like his first glimpse of a basilisk war droid, or his first sight of the Mandalorian host fully assembled, there's an edge of awe, of fear, of something covetous.

Power, Atin thinks. This beast is powerful, and Atin has always wanted as much power as he can win himself, no matter what lengths he has to go to in order to secure it.

“You are Taung,” the beast says after a moment, watching Atin narrowly. “Not some genetic sport like I had thought.”

“Full-blooded,” Atin confirms, taking another step closer. “Is that so rare?”

The beast chuffs, like Atin made a joke, but the humor is a bitter thing. “Did Arla know?” he asks darkly, and his claws dig into the silk, drag at it. “Was it by her order that you came here?”

Atin weighs his potential answers, but—the truth seems like his best option right now. “By her new wife’s,” he says. “Queen Amidala of Naboo. She said that if I survived a year and a day with you, her planet remains free. The Mand'alor doesn’t know what I am.”

“Naboo,” the beast echoes. “Are there Taung on Naboo who survived? I never found evidence of any settlement there.”

A chill slides down Atin's spine, and he pauses. The beast is speaking like he’s never seen Taung, never spoken to one. And—Taung have always had low birthrates. Their species has spread slowly. There had been talk, among Atin's commanders and advisors, of opening up their society, of admitting worlds who wanted to join them as full Mandalorians, without the need to prove themselves with service the way they currently do. The Taung have been fading for a very long time, and it sounds, from the beast’s words, like they finally faded entirely.

It explains why Amidala felt the need to bring Atin back from the dead to find someone able to survive this marriage. Not just because of who Atin is, but what he is, something gone from the universe.

“I swore my loyalty to Queen Amidala,” Atin says after a moment. “And this was her request.”

The beast snorts, but doesn’t move. “I thought Arla had been playing with the cloners again,” he says, faintly sardonic, entirely bitter. “Of all the creatures in this universe, she sent me a Taung.”

“Cloners?” Atin asks, startled. That isn't a technology he had thought was so advanced, but—if the Taung had died out, it’s likely been a long while. It’s not entirely surprising that the science would have advanced.

“Her brothers,” the beast says, though his eyes narrow faintly. “The clone armies she uses for her conquest.”

Clone armies. Atin thinks of Rex, answering so readily to being called the Mand'alor’s brother, and Cody calling her his older sister. If such a thing really is possible, though, there’s a chance that it can be applied to other sentients, not just Humans. There’s a possibility that the cloners who made the army could apply the same technique to the Taung, bring them back in some way, let a whole species live again.

Atin takes a breath, another. He has to survive first, but—the moment Amidala releases him from this debt, he’ll seek out the cloners. Home can wait, if his people truly have died out.

“If the clones are the Mand'alor’s brothers, doesn’t that make them your sons?” he asks, pointed. “A whole family—”

“I,” the beast says, a low growl that echoes through the room, “am not Arla's father.”

Atin stops short, almost takes a step back in his surprise at the sheer venom in the beast’s voice. Hesitates, because the beast hadn’t even tried to correct Fett when she was marrying him off, but—now that Atin plays the memory back, the beast never once called her daughter. He’d humored her, though, given in to her insistence that he offer up vows, hadn’t tried to harm her.

Of course, if she controls every aspect of his life, if he’s just as much a prisoner here as Atin, it makes sense.

“Together,” Atin says quietly, as evenly as he can, “we could escape this place—”

The beast laughs, a low, rolling, rumbling sound that shakes through Atin like the thruster-hum of a descending basilisk droid. “Escape?” he demands, rising, and he seems huge in the darkness, vast and gleaming, a thing of pearlescent teeth and blood-sheened claws. “You want me to leave?” he hisses. “To devour the world outside? You would make even more of a monster of me?”

Atin wrenches back, but he’s too slow. The beast slams into him, bears him down to the hard stone, and Atin snarls, fights, but all of his strength can’t so much as shake the beast’s grip. Claws cage Atin's chest, and teeth as long as his fingers snap just above Atin's throat as the beast digs in.

“So arrogant,” the beast growls, and his voice is twisting, cracking into something more animal than sentient as he looms over Atin, bears him down into the stone. Next to Atin's head, claws dig in, carve furrows into the rock, and Atin jerks, gasps for breath as the beast’s grip on him tightens. He struggles, pries at the claws, but there’s no give to them at all.

“Stop,” he gasps, twists but only feels the beast lock its claws tighter. “Stop—stop—husband—”

The beast freezes like Atin just struck him, so still he doesn’t even seem to be breathing.

Husband, Atin thinks, and seizes on the word without hesitation. “Husband,” he says, gripping the beast’s claws. “I came to find you, not to fight—”

“Find me,” the beast echoes, a vicious hiss. “To die faster? If you seek death, I can provide, Taung.”

“To honor my oath,” Atin says. “Fealty and obedience. I swore to it, and I hold to it.”

It’s only partially a lie. The oath has weight, and Atin will keep his word, but the life debt he owes Amidala weighs more than any marriage can. But reminding the beast of the oath might be enough, with luck, to at least escape this meeting alive, if he’s willing to keep his oaths as well.

The beast isn't moving, though, just staring. There's a long, long second of silence before, quick, he casts a glance at the windows in the hall, the bare bits of light that steal in through the suffocating press of branches. He hesitates, then huffs, leaning more fully over Atin as his long tail sweeps the bed, and growls, “You don’t have the sense to run from danger, Taung? I wonder how many of your kind died hunting mythosaurs, just from overconfidence.” He leans in, and Atin twitches as the beast presses his snout to Atin's throat, breathes in deliberately. “You swore obedience, husband. What if I want you to lie with me and fulfil your duties?”

The words jolt through Atin, a bolt of ice followed almost instantly by a wash of heat. His breath catches, tangling in his lungs, and he has to force his hands not to lock around the beast’s claws. Despite himself, he casts a glance down the beast’s barrel, taking in his sheer size, the weight of his body on top of Atin, the boiling heat of him.

There were raunchy whispers, when the training let up long enough for the gaggle of young warriors at the camp to fantasize, of what it would be like to get fucked by a mythosaur. Half-joking, always, and halfway to forbidden, more myth than anything grounded in reality, but—

Atin had gotten himself off to stories like that more than once. He’d enjoyed them, the thought of a creature with such power and ferocity either submitting to him or overwhelming him, depending on his mood. More the latter than the former, often a bloody and wild fantasy, deeply indulgent. And now—

His new husband isn't so large that he would break Atin entirely. It would hurt, and it would be a struggle, and Atin would likely feel pillaged and taken for days afterwards, but—that only adds to the pull in his belly, the twisting knot of want that’s already pulling tight.

“What would you prefer first, then, husband?” he asks, and doesn’t even try to hide the rasp in his voice, the bob of his throat as he swallows. “My mouth? My body? I swore them both to you just a few hours ago, and my honor rests on my word. If you want me, all that you need to do is order me, and I’ll answer you with fealty.”

The beast jerks, recoils. He takes several scrambling steps back, just like before, and Atin pushes up on one elbow, shaking back the spill of his long, dark hair. Could take advantage of the opening, his husband’s shock, but instead he seizes all of his boldness, all the shreds of those old fantasies, pulls them up like courage.

Whatever methods the other spouses before him used to survive the beast, he’s willing to bet that this isn't one of them. But if fucking his husband is enough to keep Atin alive for the year he’s promised, then he’ll do it gladly.

Instead of bolting for the steps, Atin cocks his head, watches the beast go still, staring at him like he’s something just as dangerous as the beast himself. Deliberately, he slips a hand down his own body, presses his palm to where his cock is starting to slide out of its sheath. Thinks of the beast, a mythosaur, on top of him, fucking him, taking its pleasure in his body as Atin simply gives in and lets it, and shudders, a moan dragging free of his throat. He lets his head fall back, stroking himself, not trying to hide, and feels more than hears the beast’s low, desperate rumble. Claws scrape, and Atin opens his eyes, looks up at the looming bulk of the man he was given to.

“Husband,” he says, an invitation, a dare, and with a rumbling growl the beast surges forward, catching him in dangerous claws, dragging him up. Atin hits the bed on his belly, clutching at black silk with a gasp, and a bare instant later a huge body settles over his, pressing him down, covering him completely with burning heat.

“Husband,” the beast says, low, an answering dare. “If this starts, there will be no stopping it, even if you want to. Until this evening, I will take whatever I want.”

Atin can't help the shudder that shakes him, the way a groan slips out before he can stop it. He clutches at the beast’s long claws, tendrils wrapping around the beast’s wrists, those burning-hot breathes against the bare skin of his back, and gives the only possible answer to that threat. That promise.

“Then take it.”

Chapter Text

Want has always been an uncomfortable thing, for Atin, in the years since he left this moon.

Before the moon, before the camp, it was new and gleeful and easy to indulge in. After, it twisted itself into an uneasy feeling, something that rooted too deeply, something he would rather push down and ignore than indulge unless it was wholly a fantasy. Mythosaurs and basilisks and such things—safer to want images of those, to touch himself with the thought of such vast, powerful beasts in his head, and at the same time scorn the beds of other warriors as he rose through the ranks. Satisfying, always, with a thrill of the forbidden that added teeth to what had turned nebulous and unsettling, that made wanting feel like it used to.

This is Atin's husband, his spouse, a marriage bed. But even so, it’s strange enough, feels fantastical enough that it slips right past his unease and pools in his gut like heat as slick scales slide over his bare back, as long claws grip his thighs. The beast is on his back, legs braced on either side of him to cage him in, and he can feel something huge and thick and even hotter than the rest of the beast, slick with something that’s already soaking through the thin fabric of his pants as it slides up to press against his ass.

The head of the beast’s cock is thick and flared, spade-shaped. It burns as it rests there, a promise and temptation, and Atin's stomach knots with want and anticipation and an unease that only drives the need higher. He can't help the groan that shakes out of him, and above him the beast huffs, lowers his head to press his snout to Atin's back.

The slide of a long, hot tongue, rough like a cat’s, across his skin makes Atin jolt, and the beast rumbles like the reaction pleased him.

“So sensitive,” he says, and it could be mockery, but instead the words are low, hungry.

Atin groans, sliding a hand beneath himself, tight with the beast pressing him down into the silk. His cock has almost fully emerged, the fastest he’s gotten aroused in years, and he grips the shaft through the silk of his pants, then jerks his hand away. A few more touches and it feels as though he’ll come.

“Desperate for my husband’s touch,” he counters, but it’s too breathless to be a taunt, too honest for Atin's composure.

That tongue strokes up his spine, a long, slow drag across the deep grey chevrons of Atin's markings. It’s hot, slides across Atin's skin and makes him gasp at the prickling heat, and the beast rumbles above him, pleased. He shifts a leg, and long claws wrap around Atin's hip, holding him still as the beast noses against his ribs, down the dip of his spine. The heavy body pinning Atin shifts, rises, and a moment later the beast resettles right on top of Atin, that massive cock sliding slickly between his thighs. Atin jolts, cries out as it pushes between his legs, dragging at the fabric of his pants, sliding against his own cock beneath the press of his body. The beast grunts, rocks himself between Atin's thighs in a line of impossible heat that almost sears his skin.

Atin wants that cock inside of him so desperately that he feels a little mad with it.

Realizing that feels like a shock of electricity down his spine, bright and jarring and unfamiliar. Not just nebulous, imagined want, but specific, so clear that he can almost feel the slide of it, shifted from where the beast is rutting between his thighs to what it will feel like with the beast rutting into him. Atin's whole belly knots with the force of his desire, and he sinks his fingers into the mattress, shuddering. Clenches his thighs tighter, rocks back into the beast’s weight, and feels his rumble of approval as he fucks up under Atin's body.

“Don’t think we will be done so easily, husband,” the beast growls. “But I want to be able to take my time with you after I've eased the edges.”

Atin gasps, shuddering at the rumble of that deep voice as heat bolts down his spine. The fabric between his legs is soaked with whatever liquid the beast is leaking, precum or lubricant, twisted up and dragging more roughly with each thrust, and the press and then rise of the beast’s broad, heavy chest on his back with every shove is almost as desperately hot as the catch of flaring ridges as that massive cock swells between his thighs.

Blood-sheened claws dig in hard, and the beast grunts, shoves harder as he presses Atin's legs tighter, and Atin rocks back as best he can, gasping, moaning as his cock drags against the beast’s, only thin cloth separating their skin. The beast lowers his head, clutches the mattress tighter, and Atin grabs one of his horns, slick like polished wood under his hand. Its feel jars the realization home again, sends the understanding cascading down Atin's spine. He’s fucking a mythosaur. It’s a mythosaur on top of him, groaning as he fucks between Atin's legs, grinds his cock up into Atin's body as his own body presses down hard, bearing Atin into the mattress.

A cry, too loud, too desperate, jars out of Atin's throat, and he rocks his hips down desperately, tries to fuck his own cock against the heat of the beast’s much larger one—

With a groan as loud and deep as thunder, the beast bears down, slams himself up in the tight space between Atin's body and the bed, and comes. Liquid so hot it makes Atin moan spills between them, thick and slick and silken, so much, and Atin shudders and gasps and throws his head back.

Long claws tangle in his hair, and the beast lifts up, catches his hip, pulls. Atin goes spilling over onto his back, his skull cradled in massive, red-black talons that could break his neck as easily as a tooka would a songbird’s, and the thought alone makes Atin cry out, arch, but there’s not enough—

Huge claws skim his side, hook in the waistband of his pants. No delicacy, no hesitation; the beast tears the fabric with one sharp tug, strips the fabric from Atin's body and drags it aside. Atin sprawls out on his back beneath the beast’s bulk, massive body between his too-hot, slick-drenched thighs, claws twisting through his hair and pressing close on either side of his face, and feels a bone-deep shudder wrack him, all desire in a way he’s never felt for another living creature.

“Your name,” the beast rumbles, and his claws stroke up one of Atin's legs, draw it out wide. The drag of his scales, faintly rough like velvet and warmer than any skin, makes Atin close his eyes, fight not to press up into the exploratory touch as hot breath gusts over his cock.

“Atin,” he says, almost reaches for the name of House and clan, but—this is too sweet a moment to spoil with darker thoughts. He slides a hand down, glides fingers over his own shaft, but a bare instant later the beast catches his hand and drags it away, pins it to the mattress instead.

“Atin,” he echoes, and cocks his head, the claws in Atin's hair stroking the strands back. Atin twitches at a touch ghosting over his tendrils, too sensitive right now, and the beast rumbles in interest. He shifts his grip, claws closing over Atin's torso again as he leans in, and Atin clutches those long talons as another questing touch slides through his hair, gasps as the beast delicately catches nerve tissue between his claws.

“These are a surprise,” he says, and lowers his head, tongue flickering out. Atin shouts as rough-soft heat explodes across his nerves, the sound breaking in his mouth. His vision spins, gone spotty and dark as his whole body twitches, and the beast rumbles a sound halfway between intrigue and satisfaction.

“Now I see what the helmets were meant to protect,” he says, pleased, and presses his snout to Atin's neck, flicks of his tongue stroking up the column of Atin's throat.

Atin shudders, and he catches the beast’s horns in both hands, clinging like that will be enough to ground him as his husband nuzzles into his hair, hot, gusting breaths sweeping over the tendrils. “Skulls—skulls are just as important, I've been told,” he manages. Whines, high and sharp, at another pass of that hot tongue, and squeezes his eyes shut as his cock jerks, the knot of heat in his belly so tight it feels like he’s about to tip right over the edge.

The beast huffs in amusement, lifting his head slightly. He shakes Atin off his horns, then sinks back, curling his huge body and then reaching out to catch Atin's arm. “Come,” he rumbles, and drags Atin forward, right up against his chest and between his forepaws. Atin catches himself on velvet-soft scales, startled, only to jerk hard as claws curl around his cock. the beast noses in close at the same time, and Atin grabs its horns again, jolts with a cry breaking from his throat as that long tongue sweeps up his shaft. He curls forward over the beast’s head, but he doesn’t even seem to notice Atin's weight, all of his attention focused on Atin's hardness.

Atin grits his teeth around another cry as the beast licks up his shaft, as a forepaw curls around his back and holds him still. It feels like exploration, like interest as that hot tongue laps at him, dips down. Rough heat presses against Atin's slit, and he almost convulses, shouts as he curls over the beast’s head, and the low, heady rumble as the beast opens his mouth makes Atin whimper. He shoves up as the beast’s mouth closes around his cock, all those dangerous teeth and the rough slide of his tongue against the underside of Atin's shaft as another rumble shakes through them both—

Comes, gasping, shuddering, harder than he can ever remember coming before.

The beast makes a low sound of satisfaction, though he doesn’t ease back. He keeps Atin's softening cock in his mouth, even as that long tongue chases the retreat of it back into Atin's wet slit. The pleasure is so sharp it almost hurts, shivers across Atin's nerves like a wildfire, and he holds himself desperately, breathlessly still, clutching the beast’s horns, as that tongue slides up into him. A rough as it feels on his skin, that’s amplified a thousandfold as it pushes inside him, and Atin whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut. The beast licks into him, a stroke out before he pushes even deeper, and Atin shudders, curls over his horns, gasps for breath as the beast licks in as far as his thick, rough tongue will go.

The slow drag of his tongue drawing back feels like it takes all of Atin's sense with it. He cries out, thighs clenching, body almost convulsing, and pleasure shatters through him, so vast and bright that the whole world spins dark for a long, long moment.

When the world reasserts itself, Atin is on his back, sprawled out, and the beast is watching him, hungry and hot enough to make Atin shiver.

“Husband,” he rasps, reaching, because everything about him feels greedy and wanton right now, like he’s made of live nerves and desire.

“Jaster,” the beast rumbles, but he catches Atin in his claws, drags him close.

He’s still hard, or hard again, dark red cock pressed up against his belly, and he sprawls on his side, shoves Atin right up against his cock with clear intent.

“Until you're hard again, use your mouth,” he orders, low and just as greedy as Atin feels.

Atin wraps his hands around the thick shaft, even wider around than two cocks together, and strokes lightly up the length, breaths rasping in his throat as he tries to breathe through the want. It’s as hot as it felt against his skin, impossibly slick and dripping, with narrow ridges he can just barely feel beneath the velvety skin. They’d flared out, when Jaster came before, and Atin thinks of how they’ll feel inside him, locking that huge cock inside his body, and shudders.

“I won't,” he says, when he has control of his mouth again, and glances up to where Jaster is watching him, crimson eyes gleaming in the shadows. “Not for a day at least. Once is all a Taung can manage.”

Jaster pauses, eyes narrowing, and his claws dig into the black silk—

“You’ll just have to fuck me instead,” Atin says, a challenge, and sweeps some of the hot slick onto his fingers, then presses them up into his slit, all three at once. Groans through clenched teeth, trying not to buck his hips into the pressure too visibly, trying to keep some dignity—

Claws catch his hips, drag them back, and Jaster growls. His snout shoves between Atin's legs, and he orders, “Your mouth, husband,” half an instant before he licks up into Atin's body again, right past his fingers. Atin shouts as pleasure bolts up his spine, but a paw on his back forces his head down, and with a whimper he opens his mouth, lets Jaster press the broad head of his cock past his lips as he rubs his fingers inside his slit, the almost-painful strokes of Jaster's licks pushing as deep as they can go.

There’s no quarter, no time to bask in the coiling, seething sort of pleasure, full of teeth. Jaster forces his cock right down Atin's throat with hard hitches of his hips, clenches long claws into his hair as he pushes Atin down on him like he’s going to force Atin to take every inch of his shaft. At the same time, he licks into Atin, past Atin's furiously working fingers, licks across his soft, small cock where it’s hidden in the soft folds and then pushes deeper. Atin can't breathe around Jaster's cock, but he doesn’t want to, takes more and then more as burning thickness forces his throat wide. The slick is salty-sweet, only faintly bitter, and Atin moans around Jaster's cock, strokes what he can't swallow with his free hand, working it desperately. Jaster's balls hang huge and heavy at the base, and Atin wants them in his mouth as well, wants everything—

Another growl shakes through him, and Jaster drags his mouth away, snarls as he grabs for Atin with both forepaws. Atin doesn’t fight as he’s dragged back, then shoved forward, as Jaster's huge body curls around him, back claws digging deep into the silk as he thrusts into Atin's throat, punishing strokes that slide as deep as Atin can possibly take them. Slick spills out around his shaft, drips from the corners of Atin's mouth and spills down his chin, and he moans as the ridges in Jaster's cock flutter, as Jaster hunches over him and snarls.

The spill of his seed is a flood, thick and sharp and impossibly hot, more than Atin can swallow, and he chokes even as he drives three fingers up into himself, grips his soft cock between the digits, and feels Jaster shove his head down hard, grinding up into his throat.

There's no chance to recover. Jaster rumbles a heavy, hungry sound, dragging Atin off his cock, spilling him down onto the mattress on his back. Atin gasps, but before he can even push up Jaster settles on top of him, heavy body pressing Atin down flat. Atin jerks, grabbing for something to hold onto, but Jaster's barrel is wide, his scales slick and smooth, and he’s almost entirely covering Atin. His tail sweeps the bed, and he growls, more animalistic than even a moment ago, the vibration of the sound enough to make Atin shiver, a gasp catching in his throat.

Jaster's cock slides right up between his thighs, the point of the head catching the edge of Atin's slit, and Atin throws his head back with a cry as nerves burn. The massive head presses, and presses, and Atin's body resists despite the stretching, despite the slickness Jaster's shaft is still weeping. It should fit, because Atin had it in his mouth, can still feel the imprint of it forcing his throat open, but it’s like Jaster is even larger than before, and Atin cries out, claws at the mattress—

His body gives, all at once, and Jaster slides in, in, in.

It feels like Atin comes, even though there’s no possible way for him to get hard again. His whole body convulses, back arching, ragged cries tearing their way free of his throat as Jaster's cock drives deep. It burns inside him, or maybe his nerves are burning, stretched to their very limit by the invasion. The head of Jaster's cock is so deep it aches, and he’s still sliding in, driving himself into the tight clutch of Atin's slit with hard, jerking thrusts, no quarter given as Atin twists and cries out beneath him.

Finally, finally, there's no further Jaster can go, and he curls over Atin, groaning deep in his chest, fully sheathed. His cock throbs, and Atin can feel every single inch of it, the massive press of the head, the flutter of the ridges. He’s stretched so tight it’s like he’s going to rip apart, and it hurts, but the ache tangles up with the heat until they're indistinguishable, until Atin is panting and keening as he claws at Jaster's chest, at the long claws sunk into black silk on either side of his head.

“Jaster,” he gasps, wants to tell Jaster to move, to take him, but can't manage anything but his husband’s name. “Jaster, Jaster, Jaster—”

Jaster groans, deep, rumbling through the point where they're connected, and reaches down. He curls a paw over Atin, pinning him in place on the bed before he draws back, and Atin loses every bit of air in his lungs, clutches at Jaster's claws, his legs, his nails scraping hard at obsidian scales. If Jaster even notices, there’s no sign, no hesitation as he drives his cock back in to the hilt, and Atin tips his head back and shouts as another overwhelming wave of heat crashes through him, the sound jarred right out of his chest.

Jaster fucks him through the dry orgasm, grip bruisingly tight around Atin's chest, growling breaths the only sound he can manage. Atin fights through the cresting, burning sense of too much, fixes his gaze on Jaster's face, and—he’s panting as he drives himself into Atin's body, red eyes hazed with pleasure, claws dug hard into the black silk. He looks lost in the coupling, lost in Atin's body, and Atin feels that realization like a hammer-blow, like a tremor right through him.

A mythosaur, the sign of his people, the beast that once ruled all of Mandalore, whose sigil Atin wore around his throat every day since he first picked up a weapon—that beast is on top of Atin, inside him, enjoying him. Atin's mouth is still thick with the taste of his seed, his throat is sore from the press of his cock, his slit is so full of Jaster that he’s about to split right in half, and—

He wants Atin, and Atin wants this, and it feels like being chosen, like being remade. Like want isn't some half-unpleasant inconvenience, or a fantasy to be kept private and hidden away. Like it can be this, overwhelming and impossible and still real, a choosing that Atin doesn’t have to resent, because Jaster chose him.

Atin reaches, catches Jaster's horns, drags his head down. Clings, each thrust driving a fractured cry from his throat, and Jaster buries his nose in Atin's hair, great heaving gusts of air in the space between them as he fucks Atin. He’s too large for Atin to wrap his arms around his throat, to hold on the way he wants to, but he clutches at what he can, rides those bruising, impossibly deep thrusts and feels the moment when the ridges on Jaster's cock start to swell.

Jaster drives in with a snarl, pinning Atin down, forcing him to take the full length of his cock, and Atin shouts as the ridges flare out, pressing his body impossibly wide and locking Jaster's cock inside him. He keens, clawing at horns, at scales, as Jaster's hips hitch once, then again, a third time, and he comes like that. His seed fills Atin's slit, so hot, so much that Atin feels a lurch of want, of need so big it swallows him whole, and he comes too, body trembling, cries shaking out of him as keening whines and ragged, winded gasps.

The world slides dark, then steadies, and Atin stares up into red eyes that are watching him with such intent, such desire that it feels like a weight against his skin.

Jaster bows his head, nuzzles into Atin's hair and right over his tendrils, and Atin gasps, grabs for his snout with clumsy hands. It makes Jaster chuckle, and he licks over Atin's heaving chest, his sweat-slicked throat. Licks his own drying seed off Atin's cheek, and says, low and rumbling, “Don’t think we’re anywhere close to done yet, husband. We still have hours left until sunset.”

Atin shudders, closing his eyes, and drags Jaster back in as that rough-hot tongue strokes across his tendrils, sparks phosphorescent fire across humming nerves.

He might not survive the first day with his new spouse after all, but—this seems like a much preferable way to die.

When Atin finally wakes, exhausted and sore and sated, it’s to the hiss of scales on the stone, the hurried scrape of claws, the flicker of a tail just disappearing up a set of wide steps.

Startled, head stull fuzzy with exhaustion, Atin pushes up on one elbow, Jaster's sudden retreat a jarring thing when Atin has spent the vast majority of the day split open on his cock. He sits up, careful, wincing—

A door slams, so heavy the crash resounds through the room, stone on stone and metal sliding.

There are no other doors in this whole place, Atin thinks, startled. He rises, unsteady on his feet but moving, and follows Jaster's path, keeping his feet as light as possible on the steps. They curve upwards, twisting up to the next floor in a long spiral, and at the top is a massive stone door, grooves from its passage worn into the flagstones. There's no other path, no way up past this block, and after a moment Atin gingerly sinks to one knee before the door, presses a hand to the cold stone as he looks for a latch.

A roar, so loud, so close that it makes Atin recoil, and something slams into the wall. The whole door shudders, but doesn’t give, and there's another roar, a howl, a crash. It sounds like pain, Atin thinks, frowning, and he hesitates over whether to call out—

The howl breaks, cracks right apart into screams, and something clatters. Something scrapes, dragged, and Atin thinks of the man he saw in the window with a lurch of realization and jerks back, heart pounding. The man screams again, a guttural, desperate, agonized sound, and Jaster snarls—

Silence, as heavy a hush as Atin has ever heard.

Grimly, silently, Atin rises, retreats back down the steps. He hesitates just for a moment in Jaster's bedroom, but after another second he curses himself, finds his torn pants, keeps moving without even pausing to pull them on.

Jaster left so he wouldn’t murder Atin on their marriage bed. That much is obvious. But that man, the one Atin saw—he may have died in Atin's place, torn apart because Jaster didn’t want to break his oaths.

There's no saying that Atin is safe now. Sex with Jaster kept him alive through the day, but the night is another matter entirely, and Atin still needs to find somewhere that’s safe enough to sleep.

Chapter Text

In the half of the house that Atin hadn’t had a chance to search, there's a heated bath.

Waylaid in the midst of his search for some sort of running water, Atin comes to a halt in the doorway, surprise quickly giving way to relief. The space abuts the solarium, the glass ceiling stretching above it as it wraps around the rear of the house, but with the pines leaning so close above it the light is gentler here, augmented by lamps along the wall as evening settles over the moon. The dark stone of the floor dips down into wide, deep pools that steam softly in the cool air, a connected series of baths that empty out into a pool full of waterlilies and green lily pads running right up against the glass walls.

Through the water, shaded dark by the stone, Atin can see the cliff beyond the house, the last few shafts of sunlight, and if he dives into the water, there will only be glass between him and the gorge.

It’s a place, Atin thinks, that’s large enough for a mythosaur to bathe, without looking strange in a house like this. There's no sign of anyone else’s presence, but just the thought of Jaster in here, soaking himself in the soft flow of the water, makes Atin take a step into the room, then another. He only pauses for a moment before he strips off the loose wrap of white cloth around his waist, the best compromise for his shredded pants, then steps down into the shallow end of one pool.

The stone is slick beneath his feet, and the water is hot, swallows Atin as he slides right into the deepest parts with a groan of relief. It’s so deep he can't keep his head above water and his feet on the ground, and he ducks under the surface, scrubbing at the sticky mess all over his body with a fervor. Against sore muscles, the hot water stings but eases the ache quickly, and Atin carefully combs out his hair, rinsing Jaster's seed from the strands, washing himself thoroughly.

As little as he minds the results of their couplings, being clean is a relief, and once the soft flow of water has swept away all traces of the sweat and semen, Atin finds a low ledge near the side of the pool and settles himself there, tipping his head back against the stone and just basking in the warmth. Above the pools, one of the glass panels of the roof is propped open, letting in fresh air, letting the steam swirl out into the misty evening, and Atin watches the white curls for a long moment before he closes his eyes.

There were hot springs in Keldabe, in his time. Atin only stayed in the palace atop its hills for the briefest span of days when he first won the Mask, but—he remembers the springs better than anything else, open to the chilly mountain air and so hot they were almost painful. As the new Mand'alor, Atin had had them entirely to himself, and it was the first time in years that he’d had the chance to bathe away from dozens of other soldiers, packed so tight in the belly of a ship that privacy was a dream and a second too long under the showers earned shouts and loud ribbing and shoving.

Those moments alone made Atin feel as though he could finally breathe again, for the first time since the clan had sent him off to training. He’d lain back in the steaming water, watching the stars come out, and even with a head full of tangled plans for the Crusades that were now his to wield, even with aches and bruises and a broken arm from the fight to win the Mask, even with the knowledge that he’d turned from the isolated, ambitious warrior who wouldn’t allow even those fighting with him close to the Mand'alor leading a whole empire through a millennia-long war—

Even with all of that, in those long hours alone in the springs, he’d felt settled, satisfied, right in his own skin for the first time since he was a child.

How far he’s come just to find himself back where he started, Atin thinks, closing his eyes to the sway of the pines overhead. He’s back in the place that made him, back under the pines and without a way to escape this moon. He has no command over his own life, but a path forward if he can just survive it. No power, but a way to gain it if he can make his way through this crucible. And at the end of it—

Cloners, he thinks, opening his eyes. The Taung have always been slow to reproduce, quick to die in their many wars, and—they're honorable deaths. But that doesn’t change the fact that even in Atin's day, they were dying out.

If cloners can step in, though, if more of his kind can be created in such a way, if everyone who wants a child can have one without struggling through the trials of infertility, maybe they can thrive as a species again.

Doctors looking to help with conception or fix genetic diseases took plenty of samples, froze them in vaults under Keldabe. Atin remembers the reports, knew one of the researchers well during his years as Mand'alor. There was little hope for fixes then, but…if clones are viable, if they're all sentient the way Cody and Rex are, that’s far beyond what the universe was capable of in Atin's day. Then, he and Sarad had hoped there would be some sort of solution with the Sith and their magics, rather than the science Sarad had devoted herself to, but—

Exar Kun never had any interest in turning his sorcery to their benefit, and Ulic was a fighter first and foremost, with little care for the magics Exar studied. An honorable way to live, but frustrating, when he was the one who would have helped the Taung without hesitation.

Atin breathes out, dips down and under the water again, then surfaces at the edge of the narrow channel that feeds the cooler pool, the current just rippling the lily pads beyond the opening. For a long moment, Atin treads water, watching the misty gloom of night settle over the gorge and the leaning pines, the trailing willows with their bright leaves to break the dark press. He finds himself picturing Jaster here, sprawled out in the steam, long, heavy body resting among the pools and curled beneath the rippling water.

It isn't a thought that should make heat coil in Atin's stomach, especially after how many ways and in how many positions Jaster took him earlier, but desire still rises regardless, a silken and heady thing. Atin hesitates for a bare moment, then catches the edge of the pool in one hand, slides his other down. He still can't get hard, but just for an instant he presses his fingers to his slit, thinks of sliding them inside, touching his soft cock, trying to recapture that wrenching, overwhelming jolt as he came dry. He’s never managed that before, but remembering the slide of Jaster's tongue inside him, licking impossibly deep—

Atin shudders, sinks his teeth into his wrist to muffle whatever sound wants to escape. Jaster had gotten rougher as the hours stretched, more demanding, more brutal as he took whatever he wanted, didn’t pay any heed to Atin's fracturing voice or the way it took him longer and longer to resurface from each breaking tide of wild pleasure. It had been clear, near the peak, why he would have warned Atin that he wouldn’t stop once they started, even if Atin had begged him to.

There was another reason entirely to beg, though, and it wasn’t for Jaster to stop.

The lack of control may have helped, Atin thinks, and presses a finger into himself, stroking the abused muscle. Jaster's seed is still inside him, slicker than his own natural wetness, thick around his finger, and Atin closes his eyes, sets his jaw to lock in his groan. The idea that he couldn’t have stopped Jaster, no matter what—that made if feel more acceptable to not tell him to stop, even when Atin should have. Letting another Taung fuck him so thoroughly, put him in so many degrading positions, take and take and take without care—Atin would have struggled, tried to hang on to his honor, his dignity, his position. He would have pushed back, ended things, walked away even if his body ached for more.

But Jaster is no Taung. He’s a mythosaur, sacred in the bloody, brutal way that matters to Mandalorians, an enemy and a deity and a symbol of everything they are as a people. It’s right, natural that he would overwhelm Atin, use him, take what he wanted and then demand more, and right that Atin would give it.

He’s sore. Sore and stretched and aching deep inside, but Atin still pushes two fingers up into his slit, finds the bruised-hot line of his soft cock and strokes himself, gasping, shivering as he clutches the pool wall—

A dragging, scraping thump, a snarl, a crash out in the hall.

Atin wrenches around, heat fled, instinct rising along with a surge of adrenaline, and he dives without having to pause and consider the motion. Sliding through the deep channel, he ducks among the lily pads in the other pool, swims to the far edge of the room in a few quick strokes and presses himself up against the dark rock where the shadow of the pines is heaviest. The grey shades of his skin and his markings are dark enough not to give him away, and he can hold his breath as long as he needs to, as long as Jaster doesn’t spot him.

Unease crawls down his spine, tangled up with wary anger. If Jaster comes hunting, Atin will fight, regardless of the fact that he was just touching himself to thought of Jaster. No part of Atin can roll over and present his throat, even for a mythosaur—

But it’s not a mythosaur that comes into view at the edge of the far pool. It’s the man from the window.

Atin stills, eyes narrowing warily as the man lurches forward, staggering like the simple motion of walking is unfamiliar. His face is slack, and he looks like a wild thing, unkempt and ravenous as his gaze sweeps the room. Another stumbling step and he collides with the wall, then snarls, shoving himself away from it—

His eyes alight on the white of Atin's abandoned pants, discarded on the floor, and he lunges, faster than a Human should ever be, faster than a Taung. As quick as a Jedi, and Atin tightens his grip on the stone as the man grabs up pale cloth, tears. The silk splits beneath his fingers, shreds like it’s nothing but paper, and the man wrenches pieces of it apart, then raises his head.

Something moves beneath his skin, a shadow, a ripple of darkness that contorts his features, and Atin's blood slides cold through his veins, an almost animal fear rising. He drags himself further down into the dark water, entirely out of sight, and watches the rippled reflection of the man as he paces back and forth, up and down the lip of the pool like he’s seeking Atin.

An unnatural thing, Atin thinks grimly. An unnatural thing wearing the skin of a man, seeking Atin like a hound on the scent, or a starving beast. And—

What a relief would it be, to see a man after being locked in this house with a beast? How would Atin have reacted, meeting him, if he hadn’t encountered Jaster first? He would have been glad, might have ignored all of his instincts if he saw this man on the stairs. Might have let him close, welcomed him, and then it would have been too late.

Stone cracks, shatters under a blow, and there's a snarl, guttural and vicious. Atin stays where he is, ignoring the ache in his lungs, the unease that sharpens with every dragging, lurching step the man takes as he seeks Atin's scent, his heat, his body.

Jaster had said that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself until sunset. He’d gotten rougher, wilder, more bestial as the sun rose higher, then regained himself as it started to set. And at sunset, he’d fled, retreated up to the place where Atin had seen the man in the window, just before dawn light struck the house. Fled behind the only remaining door in this mansion, trapping himself. Not to kill the man in Atin's place, but—to transform. To change his shape from one beast to another.

A mythosaur with the mind of a man, and a man with the mind of a mythosaur, changing places with the passage of the sun.

Finally, those lurching steps retreat, and Atin gives it a long moment before he eases up, breaking the surface silently. The man is still close, Jaster is still close, because Atin can hear the drag of his unsteady feet, the crash as he batters himself against the stone walls. Near the main hall, Atin thinks, and that’s far too close for comfort. Too close to slip away, too; one step out into the corridor and Jaster will see him. If he still has the strength of a mythosaur, the way it seems, as well as that blinding quickness, there's no way Atin can face him in an equal fight. Not barehanded and unarmored.

There has to be a way out, though. Atin can't risk staying in the pool for the rest of the night. If Jaster spends too long in here, if the need for air forces Atin to the surface at the wrong moment, he has no chance.

Desperation biting, Atin sweeps a look over the pools, the window, the gorge beyond, cursing silently—

Pauses, memories of the camp and the years he spent there rising like unwelcome but useful ghosts.

Hells, Atin thinks grimly, but he slides up and out of the water, grabs for the alcove where the closest lamp sits and hooks a foot in the gap. He hauls himself up, then leaps, catching one of the arching wooden beams above, rising. The raised glass panel that’s letting the steam in the room escape is just within reach, and Atin catches the edges, squirms through just as something crashes in the hall outside the baths. He swallows a curse, twists, leaps hard from the edge of the glass, right out over the gorge.

There's a lurching moment of freefall, of looming darkness surging up to swallow him as he drops down into fathomless shadow—

Catches, one of the wide limbs of a leaning pine bucking and twisting with his weight but holding.

Quickly, Atin pulls himself up onto the bough, slides back against the dark trunk. Through the steam in the bathing room, he can just make out Jaster's form, stalking in with a gait more suited to a beast on all fours than a man. He circles the room, clearly searching, and Atin watches with narrowed eyes as he pauses near the alcove with the lamp, at the edge of the pool where Atin slid out. Scenting, maybe, which means he has a mythosaur’s senses as well as its mind. Noticing the splashed water from Atin's exit from the pool is one thing, but he shouldn’t notice the alcove if that’s all he’s sensing.

At the very least, though, Jaster never looks up, never looks outside. He doesn’t try to break the glass, just leaves the room with lurching steps, and Atin can hear the echoes of his snarl, distant and strange with distance.

After several minutes without Jaster's reappearance, Atin lets out a long, slow breath, eases himself back. On the plateau, in the training camp, when lying still in his bed and just waiting for what he knew was coming grew to be too much, he’d slip away, climb the trees at the edge of the cliffs and sleep there. Would be punished for breaking curfew, for acting out, but—it was still better than the fear and dread and sickening sort of sleeplessness that came with lying awake, nothing to think about except what would happen later.

He’d passed his twentieth birthday just like this, hidden away, all of his thoughts fixed on survival, advancement, escape. Viciously, bitterly amusing that he’s right back in the same place, so many thousands of years later. Like some part of him is still in the camp, in the training barracks, in that wild and desperate fight to survive as he and all the others were honed, forged, broken down and built back up as the warriors the Crusades needed. Like some part of Atin is still waiting, stretched out in his narrow cot, every muscle tense and every sense straining, listening for the creak of the door.

Better, without doubt, to have death waiting instead this time, Atin thinks with dark humor, and tips his head back against the trunk, closing his eyes. Considers moving, but—he has space here to get away if Jaster notices him, and he wants to be able to keep an eye on the bathing room, in case Jaster keeps searching.

Mythosaurs are implacable hunters, impossible to escape once they catch a scent. The old stories are full of tales of them tracking those who failed to kill them for years, even decades, until they finally caught their prey alone and defenseless. If Atin is right, and this form of Jaster has all of those instincts, he’ll be back.

It also makes it clear just how all of those other spouses died, Atin thinks. Either dead to the wrath of Jaster in his mythosaur form or lured to their end by his Human face, hunted down in the rare event they escaped—

A wildcat screams somewhere close, and Atin opens his eyes, muscles tense, but there's no tremble of the branches below to mark the creature’s advance. A moment later something further down the gorge squalls, and the cat shrieks, and brush rattles, growing more distant.

Atin thumps his head back against the trunk, draws his legs up against his chest more tightly to ward off the chill, and closes his eyes.

It’s going to be a long night.

All the entrances into the mansion are locked tight, but Atin is cold and tired and still sore, so as soon as dawn breaks across the sky, he marches straight up to the guardhouse beneath the trees and bangs on the door.

The voices on the other side all go silent at once. There's a long pause, then quick steps, and a moment later the sound of a heavy bolt being undone. Locking Jaster out, Atin assumes with grim amusement. They’d been perfectly happy to manhandle him and drag him around in his mythosaur form yesterday, but clearly the Human form is the more dangerous of the two.

Finally, the metal door swings open, revealing Rex on the other side, dressed in a black kute that’s open to the waist, the arms knotted together around his hips to keep it up. He takes one look at Atin and stops short, eyes widening, but after a night spent drowsing in between bursts of adrenaline, Atin is entirely out of patience.

“Clothes,” he orders. “And food. And someone needs to let me back into the house.”

There's a pause, and Rex glances back at Cody and the other clones, all staring, then back at Atin. “You survived,” he says after a moment.

Atin snorts. “Clearly,” he tells them, unimpressed. “Clothes. I'm cold.”

“Some of mine should fit,” one of the clones who helped restrain Jaster for the wedding offers after a second, and pushes away from the counter where he was leaning.

“Thanks, Fordo,” Rex says, and tips his head. “Come in, it’s still early. How did you even get out of the house?”

“Desperation is a good teacher,” Atin says sardonically, but he follows Rex into the warmth of the long, low-roofed building and takes a breath of air that smells of caf and crisping meat, lets it out in a slow wash of relief.

If Jaster wants to fuck him today in exchange for his survival, that’s fine. Atin will take the excuse to occupy his bed, and Jaster can fuck him unconscious and then leave him alone to enjoy that huge, soft mattress in peace. It’s his fault Atin is itchy and irritable with sleeplessness, after all.

Rex huffs, like Atin isn't telling the truth, and then pauses. He trades looks with Cody, and after a long second offers, “We have food and caf, if you want it.”

“Please,” Atin says curtly, and catches the loose black pants and soft, well-worn green shirt Fordo tosses him. With some relief, he pulls them on, and—they're tight, a little short, but far better than walking around naked.

Hopefully, if he can survive the week, Amidala will bring actual clothes for him when she returns. As the one holding his life-debt, it’s her obligation to feed and clothe him, and she knows that.

Lightly, Cody slides a cup across the island counter, his dark eyes fixed on Atin, curious and sharp. “You survived the night,” he says. “Most people don’t.”

Atin takes the mug, wrapping his fingers around the ceramic and pulling it close to breathe in the heat. Just the smell seems to wash some of the fogginess out of him, and he takes a long swallow, then glances up to meet Cody's gaze.

“Your pet monster will not kill me,” he says plainly.

Fordo makes a sound of amusement, pushing out a chair for Atin and then dropping into the one across from it. “Arla will be happy to hear that the marriage is working out this time,” he says lightly. “She’s always crushed when there are irreconcilable differences.”

“Irreconcilable? Like the fact that I want to remain alive and Jaster wants me dead?” Atin asks sardonically, but he sinks down regardless, watches Rex return to flipping sausage at the stove. There’s hot bread, too, and sliced fruit and cheese, another pot of caf brewing off the heat, and Atin can feel prickles of familiarity, tangled up with the press of pine boughs against the windows, the particular song of the birds outside.

Of all the places to come back to, of all the places to watch soldiers preparing food for each other, he thinks, and closes his eyes, pressing the hot cup to his temple. Hells. He hates sleepless nights.

“Among other things,” Fordo says after a moment. and then, more quietly, “Once you're done eating, you go back in the house.”

Atin doesn’t even bother to open his eyes. “How many spouses before me have you seen to their deaths, then?”

“Are we counting all the ones who didn’t even make it past the wedding?” Cody asks, bland. When Atin snorts, he tips his head, settling back against the counter with his cup of caf, and says more quietly, “Enough to know better than to try and help you, no matter what you ask.”

They’ll offer a bit of kindness while Atin is alive, but—no more. Atin hadn’t truly expected anything else. Their loyalty is to their Mand'alor, their sister, and Arla is the sole reason for this marriage. None of her brothers will do anything to undercut it, especially not for a stranger.

“Tell me,” he says, looking up, and takes the plate Rex offers him. “The spouse who survived five nights. How did they manage it?”

Rex glances at Cody, then at Fordo, and breathes out, long and slow, as he settles into one of the free chairs. “She got up to the top floor while Jaster was on the ground floor,” he says after a long moment. “It took him five days to break the lock on the door up there, and now it doesn’t close all the way. Not from the inside.”

Not something Atin can repeat, in other words. He nods grimly, tearing off a chunk of bread, and resigns himself to coming up with some other path to keep himself alive.

He survived this damned moon once already, pushed forward, rose high enough to claim the Mask and the right to rule his people. Even if he’s back where he started, even if it feels as though there’s nowhere to go and no options, Atin refuses to reach for anything less.