Ask Tatooine From the Sands Comes Revenge

[Randor Wren]

Mos Eisley || Tatooine, Outer Rim Territories

All eyes were on him the moment he stepped into the cantina. Mandalorian bounty hunters were never exactly unusual on Tatooine. Not since the Old Empire, at least. But they'd become rarer with the decline of their kind, and, anyways, whenever one showed up, it was never good news. Rand had not come to cause anyone a problem. Quite the opposite. He was fresh off a job, looking for another, but mostly hoping to sooth his aching muscles with something over the counter. But from the way the Duros bartender was staring at him from across the room, he figured he might not get that here either.

"You got a private booth? Somewhere in the back, perhaps, away from prying eyes?" he asked the Duros.

The bartender looked him up and down and replied. «We're not that kind of establishment. Kindly take your spice elsewhere.»

Rand sighed beneath his mask. "It's not spice. It's—" He hated this part. Non-Mandalorians didn't understand The Way. "I can't remove my helmet in the presence of others. Its my religion."

«Is that so?» the Duros said. «Well, we're not that type of establishment either.»

"Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Consortium."

The Duros snorted. «You see President Thorne lurking about in here? Listen here, pal. No one cares what happens on Tatooine. And ain't no one ever gonna care either. You wanna drink? Take your fancy hat off like everyone else. Otherwise, scram.»

And that appeared to be that. Rand wanted to argue, but he found his thirst had dried up. He would be content to just sit for awhile, rest up some place air-conditioned. So, he let the Duros get back to his customers and went and found an empty booth to sit in. He fished out a triage of pucks from his utility belt and slid them onto the table. They were his next jobs. None of them particularly high paying.

He huffed to himself.

News from home suggested a new Mand'alor had been chosen. He was calling other Mandalorians to join his Crusade. But Rand couldn't go back home. He was forbidden. So for now, these jobs would just have to do until something better came along. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

Whispers had brought Song to Tatooine. Word of a Mandalorian who wandered the dunes, who worked as a bounty hunter and mercenary, by the name of Rand. She’d traveled far and wide to find him, but she hadn’t come to arrest him, or to fight. No, they were both two sides of the same coin. Cousins—and brother and sister under the sigil of Clan Wren.

Although he’d been exiled by Ghent, her father and the current Alor, Clan Wren still had a need for him. Song had a need for him. Since she discovered the truth behind her uncle and mother’s death, since she’d learned the betrayal Ghent had committed against his own people, Song had been gathering a force to take him on. With Valeska, she’d managed to seize the Sword of Wren, and while she had plenty of friends on her side, she would need more than just clan outsiders and her mother’s band of rebels.

She needed Rand.

“Great,” said the Duro bartender as she entered the cantina, her cloak billowing in the wind. “More of your kind. I already told the last Mando—no face, no service. If you want a drink, you’re going to have to remove your helmet.”

“I’m not here for your cheap spirits,” Song said crossly. “If I was thirsty, I’d find better drink in the bantha feeds outside.” The bartender gaped then, but she brushed right past him, knowing he wouldn’t stop her from entering anyway. This was Tatooine. One dead Duro meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, and he must have known there’d be no fighting or arguing with her without dying in the process.

Once the bartender returned to his duties, Song did the same, scanning the cantina for her target. Then she spotted him, the Mandalorian resting in a somewhat secluded booth, and her breath hitched. She couldn’t quite believe her eyes. She had spent days searching for him through the desert, from Mos Espa to Eisley, and now that he stood before her, the words she’d thought to say to him left her mind like a flock of startled sparrows. He would be angry, vengeful, for what her father had done to him.

What would he do now?

She brushed those thoughts aside. Instead, she crossed the bar until she was standing at his booth, her visor glinting in the low light. “Greetings, vod,” she said. “Mind if I join you?”

@Mockingjay

 

[Randor Wren]

Mandalorians may not be rare on Tatooine, but Rand usually steered clear of his kin. They were, all of them, bad reminders of what he had lost. A home, comrades, his family. He sometimes saw them from afar, but never up close. And conversation was out of the question. But this one was different. This one had known he was here somehow. Sought him out. It wasn't hard to overhear her talk with the bartender. And not only did she not come for drinks, she came straight to him after dealing with the blue menace.

It took one glance at her to find out why.

Clan Wren armor was distinct. It was the first symbol of home he'd changed after he was exiled. His current armor bore none of Clan Wren's sigils or colors. They were his own. A skin of iron made just for him. But this woman was very much not hiding her affiliation. Vod. How long had it been since someone called him that? And yet he detested the word. Detested her for uttering it. He didn't even look her way when he replied.

"There aren't any bounties here for you to claim," Rand said, his tone icy. "Might want to try another cantina. Might want to never try this cantina agian."

The threat was clear in his voice. The longer this Wren remained in his presence, the more he was reminded who she worked for. The man she served. Rand had not thought of his uncle Ghent in months. At first, he had thought of nothing but Ghent Wren. His thoughts were consumed with revenge. When it was clear revenge was a long game, Rand trained his mind to think less of the man he hated, and more of how he would get to him again.

This might be a way. Beating the living shit out of one of Ghent's pawns might get the false Alor's attention. But that was hardly the Way. Wren or not, she was a Mandalorian. He was honor bound to give her at least one chance to back off. Then all bets were off.

And he was hoping she wouldn't take it. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

“I’m not here for bounties,” she told him. “I’m here for you.”

Song eyed him carefully, taking note of his attitude. His shoulders had tensed, the muscles in his fingers flexing, just itching to reach for a knife, and she knew this had been a bad idea from the start. But what else could she have done? Wrote him a letter? Sent him a flower bouquet with a note that said, ‘Sorry my father killed your father, let’s be friends?’ Ridiculous.

She had to see this through on her own, she needed to make things right, else the weight of Ghent’s sins would carry onto her, and she had enough of his shit already.

Still, she had to wonder how long her patience would last against Rand’s shit, too. She’d known he wouldn’t just jump from his seat and somersault into her arms, but she at least expected a modicum of respect, maybe brotherhood, from another member of her kin. Not contempt and ugly threats. She briefly considered smacking some sense into his head, but decided against it.

They were cousins, and they had both suffered under Ghent’s tyrannical rule.

His armor might be stripped of its sigils and colors, but Song knew this was the man she was looking for. Rumors said one thing, but there could be no other Mandalorians possibly lurking on a wasteland like Tatooine, not when the clans had united under their new Mand’alor. Not one, not even the richest bounty hunters, would refuse Fenyang’s call to action. Not unless they suffered exile or aligned themselves with the independents. She couldn’t be wrong about him.

“I know who you are,” Song said, a thread of understanding in her voice, “Randor Wren. I’ve come to bring you back home.”

@Mockingjay

 

[Randor Wren]

The sound of his name coming from her helmet was the straw that broke the bantha's back. "It's good that you know my name," he said, the evenness of his voice betraying the rage building inside. "Then you know why I have to do this."

He flipped the table. Someone shouted.

The Duros was cursing, but Rand would handle him later. The Wren woman was all that consumed him. For a moment in his mind, she was his father's executioner, bringing down the blade that separated his head from the shoulders upon which they sat. He imagined what he would do to the man who had killed his father for many years. Cooking him inside his armor with the flamethrower on his gauntlet was the most appealing option. The blasters on his waist would have done too. But in the heat of the moment, neither option was satisfying enough.

Instead, he seized the woman by her shoulders and slammed his helmet down on hers. The beskar plating would protect them both. It was hardly a fatal blow—which was intentional. Revenge was hardly sweet if it was tainted by speed. He wanted to take his time with her. Beat every day, month, and year of solitude and grief into her armor. And only once she fully comprehended what the Wrens had done to him would she have his permission to die.

In the meantime, no doubt his blow had dazed her. He used the opportunity to pick up the chair he had been sitting in. The one he had spilled into the floor when he rose form his seat. He brought it above his head to gasps from bar attendees, too stunned to intervene and too intrigued to flee the scene, and swung it down hard on the woman.

Into that swing he poured the rage that had been building in him. And even though the seat was made of plasteel—hardly a match for beskar—he imagined his hatred flooding into the chair. Corrupting it, transforming it, into a weapon that could strike through her armor. Were he in his right mind, he would know it was just wishful thinking. The chair was just a chair in the end, and the woman was far from defenseless. He just didn't care. In that moment, revenge was enough to bridge any impossibility. The seasoning that would make this meal of combat a true feast. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

Wonderful. Song should have known this was inevitable, and still she reacted like a stag in a speeder’s headlights, shocked and not quite understanding what was happening until she felt two hundred pounds of force slam into her forehead. Stars exploded in her vision. She’d been dealt plenty of buttheads in her life, some friendly and some not so much, especially from her brother during their training days, but Rand’s was something else, fueled by anger and grief and hate.

She understood those feelings all too well. She’d been in the same situation once, a long time ago.

Song reeled and staggered a short distance away from him. She thought to reach for her blaster, maybe one of the knives concealed on her body, but as her eyes refocused and she caught Rand snatching his chair from the ground, instead she raised her arms in a defensive shield. Not to take the chair head-on, but as a feint. Only as he swung it at her did she backpedal and throw herself into a roundhouse kick.

Instead of striking him, though, her armored foot would collide with the chair, sending it flying from his grasp and to the other side of the bar. There, it would crash directly into the bartender, who’d been busy serving drinks to a nearby booth. With an audible ‘oof,’ he’d fly back onto the table, a tray of glasses shattering onto the floor, wine splashing over the patrons.

That was when chaos would erupt across the bar. Men shot from their seats. Most started to fight or bicker, others quickly made for the door. As for Song and Rand? They’d just kept fighting.

If her kick was successful, Song would follow through with a flat-handed strike to his throat, intending to cut his airflow for a moment so she could reconsider her options. Whether it worked or not, she rather doubted it. This was a Wren. He’d also been raised in the blistering cold of Krownest, forced to traverse the pines and mountains. Bounty hunting might have made him rusty, but chances were they’d be an even match in terms of a brawl. Fists weren’t exactly her forte.

But swords? That was a different story.

@Mockingjay

 

[Randor Wren]

Rand let her knock the chair away. A small concession, borne more out of the fact that he didn't want this fight to end as it had begun. He had years of aggression to take out on the family that had wrongfully expelled him. It would be a shame for it to be over in an instant.

But when she she went for his throat with a flat-handed strike, he stepped to the side, letting the strike soar him past him. But before she could withdraw, he seized her outstretched arm, hauled her up, and flipped her down on the table with enough force to shatter the stone it was made from. It was a childish maneuver to try and stun a Mandalorian with such an obvious frontal attack. But she didn't strike him as childish. Arguably, that was worse—because it meant she was underestimating him. Perhaps she thought all this time off Krownest had robbed his reflexes.

But no.

The sands of Tatooine hardened all who lived out in them. The heat of its twin suns either baked you or molded you. Rand had not lost anything in all his years away. If anything, he had gotten better. The planet he had chosen to hide on might be a shithole, but the people who came through it were the roughest sort of criminals. Each one of them had made him better. Stronger. Some upstart minion of a false Alor wasn't going to best him. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

Out of a holster on his leg, he dug out a vibro-knife. From his left gauntlet, he produced a small, ring-like shield. He wasn't going to kick her while she was down. Let her get up. She had obviously meant to stun him so that she could have time to draw some other weapon, so let her get the weapon of her choice. When he had bested her at her best, when he had shattered her pride and had her on her knees before him, then he could finally end this. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

Surprise shot through her like a knife. She’d underestimated how sharp his reflexes were, and as her pointed strike missed his throat, Song attempted to backpedal in order to escape him. Too late—his hand seized her wrist, then with the force of a winter bear, flipped her onto the table. Stone shattered under her weight. Courtesy of her armor, she didn’t suffer anything more than a numb ache in her back, although it would likely blossom into a thin bruise by tomorrow morning.

Like she didn’t already have enough of that.

She rose from the broken table cautiously, dusting off plaster from her shoulders, before she cracked her neck. “Good form,” she grumbled, a respectful nod in his direction for waiting on her, but she doubted he’d offer it in return. Rand exuded anger like a hot fire, and it was her fault she’d sparked it to life. If she got burned, there’d be nobody else to blame except herself.

So, if Song wanted to talk, she’d have to get him to calm down. And while playing the role of punching bag might make things easier, she was in no mood to get her ass handed to her by a exiled bounty hunter, let alone a man.

Song reached for the sheath slung over her back. Metal flashed and in a blur of movement, she raised her blade over her chest, ready to fight. The Sword of Wren. Made of pure beskar, with a snakelike hilt the color of molten gold, its appearance was unmistakable. She wasn’t sure if Rand would be able to recognize it—after all he’d failed to recognize her as an ally—but she hoped he would. That maybe, just maybe, he would back down and they could finally speak in peace.

If only things were that simple.

“I’m not here to kill you,” said Song, taking note her cousin’s offensive stance. “But if you want to fight so bad, then fine, let's fight. Just don’t expect to win.”

@Mockingjay

 

[Randor Wren]

Of course he recognized it.

His father had told him all the stories. And he'd told him to disregard them. Beskar was meant for armor, not weapons. The Mandalorians that forged that blade did so out of hubris, and, just like the Vizsla who expected loyalty whenever they flashed their gaudy black saber, those Wren who wielded this blade thought it automatically gave them a right to respect. It did not.

"Did you expect I would kneel if you showed me that blade?" Rand asked venomously. "Still, I thank you for showing it to me. Now I know for certain who you are." There was only one woman Ghent Wren would trust with the blade of Clan Wren's leadership. His only remaining living heir: Song. "When I claim that blade from your cold body, Song Wren, I shall make sure the beskar it contains is forged into fresh armor for a Foundling."

He lunged. But not in the frenzied way he had before. Rand had no respect for what the Sword of Wren represented, but he did respect what it could do. Only beskar could cut beskar. That blade could sheer right through his armor like a lightsaber through durasteel. If he wasn't careful, she could butcher him with that sword, no problem. For a woman who claimed not to want him dead, she did a poor job of showing it.

Rand jabbed a probing stab towards her open abdomen, all the while keeping his shielded left arm up and ready for a counter attack. He needed to see how she moved, what she knew, before he could unleash an all out assault on her defenses. And he needed to do it before she figured him out. He had no intention of becoming diced Mandalorian today. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

“I don’t expect to earn your respect just by wielding this blade, but I hope I can by showing you how I do.” Song spun the hilt over her hand and the sword twirled dramatically, like it was a weightless thing and not a sharpened slab of pure beskar. “Very noble of you to melt down a sword with a thousand years of ancestral history, too. Just because it’s not armor, doesn’t make it any less Mandalorian—or any less family.”

She blocked his attack with surprising swiftness, then leapt back, ready for whatever he had in store.

The words of her mother came back to her now, unbidden. He will despise you, she’d told her, days after they had reunited in the Krownest mountains and resolved to take down Ghent, her former husband, who’d lied about her death in order to maintain his rule. Rand was a complicated boy. He loved his father, and when he died and Ghent exiled him for little more than existing, it broke him. He may not be the same Mandalorian you once knew. He may not be a Wren at all.

Seeing him now, her mother hadn’t been wrong. But Song could feel Rand’s devotion to the Way, to his kin, through every blow he rained down on her. She refused to leave him rotting here in the Tatooine desert, no matter how badly he wanted to rip her head from her shoulders.

For now, she stayed on the defensive. She only blocked his attacks instead of striking back, reserving her strength and stamina for the inevitable moment that he’d unleash his full force against her. She couldn’t beat him by sheer strength alone, but she was fast. Experienced. Despite only weeks of using the Sword of Wren, it had grown onto her like a third arm, to the point where even if she died, Rand would have to cut her fingers away to take it.

“Hate me all you want, cousin,” she said, hoping the term of endearment might reach out to him, though she expected it’d only enrage him further. “But I’m not here on Ghent’s orders. I’m here on my own accord. To talk.”

@Mockingjay

 

[Randor Wren]

"What is there to talk about?" Rand spat.

His blows rained down on her, and she responded with only what was needed to block or dodge his strikes. He was smart enough to realize he wasn't winning. The control she was showing was proof that, if she wanted to fight seriously, she could. It was infuriating. First, she showed herself and that blade here, in the place of his exile. Now, she insulted his honor by holding back in a death match? She was every bit her father.

He pointed his blade at her like an accusatory finger. "Family?" he said. "Is that what you came here to talk about? Family? That blade is as much an insult as your father's ass in mine's seat. Beskar is an armor to shield the future of Mandalore. To protect its children. That thing's existence is a threat to every Mandalorian who wears our armor." Were his helmet not welded to his head by right of honor and creed, he would have turned and spat at her feet. "You insult me by wielding it in my presence."

His patience was reaching its end. Punching out with one gauntlet, he fired a whipcord from its end to wrap around her upper torso and restrict her movement. With the Sword of Wren on her side, she could cut the chord with a mere flick of her wrist, but that was all he needed for an opening. He dropped his knife, dropped his shield, and, with his free hand, drew one of his blasters. He didn't care that it would be unsatisfying to kill her so quickly. He needed her gone. Out of his life. And perhaps her death would be the 'fuck you' to Ghent Wren he'd always longed to send. So, he pointed the weapon, squeezed its trigger, and fired three shots towards her center-of-mass.

Behind him, shrieks rang out. The chaos in the bar came to a disquieting halt as some of the bar patrons realized one of the Mandalorians had drawn their blasters. A Mandalorian with a gun was the most dangerous thing in the Outer Rim barring a Sith Lord with their lightsabers and space devilry. No single one of them would dare continue their ruckus while there was a chance a stray bolt could catch them somewhere vital and end their fun. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

She already knew Rand was loyal to the Way, but he had a pungent sense of honor and tradition. Worse than Ghent’s, perhaps. She was put in mind of apples and the distance they fell from trees, but at the same time, she had to remember this man was not her blood. He was raised as a foundling by her uncle. Still, Rand was as Wren as she was, if not more so, considering his unwavering devotion. A faith she’d been struggling with for weeks since discovering her father’s betrayal.

Since she’d decided to challenge and destroy him.

“Armor isn’t enough to shield us, Randor. If it had, maybe more of us would have survived the Great Purge and the Empire’s thermal bombs. Maybe it would have saved your father. Maybe it would have saved my brother. But it wasn’t.” Her words might only drive her cousin into a furious rage, but a thread of sorrow ran through her voice, a feeling of sympathy and loss. She understood him. Perhaps more than anyone else in the galaxy. They each shared a grief only family could understand.

Yet clearly, Rand didn’t care about family or blood. Made no difference if Song was his cousin, the one person who could truly relate to his broken past—not when he pulled out his blaster.

Instead of running for cover, like she should have, Song moved even closer. Since they’d fought close quarters, the distance between them wasn’t far, and she refused to let him loose even a single shot. With unnatural speed and strength, she swiped her sword through the air, its edge slicing into the barrel of his blaster. But it wasn’t enough. Rand managed to fire at least one shot, and despite trying to position herself into his blind spot, the heavy bolt grazed into her side. A searing, hot pain ate at her skin. She reeled, black crowding the edges of her vision.

Song staggered back. Her other hand grabbed at an overturned table in order to maintain her balance, but there was little to do with the pain that throbbed around her torso.

Her eyes cut to the sword Rand had abandoned, laying flat on the ground. She gritted her teeth. “That blade can be used to parry a strike, to cut through the armor of enemies and traitors to our clan. Traitors like Ghent.” She prayed that revelation would be enough to stop him from advancing on her and finishing the job. “That blade is to avenge the fallen, as much as to protect the living. Don’t you understand, Randor?”

“You want revenge. So do I.” She stared at him hard through her visor. “That’s why I need your help to kill my father.”

@Mockingjay

 

[Randor Wren]

She didn't get it. They never did. Beskar weapons were forbidden because they could cut through beskar, a feat not even lightsabers could accomplish. The existence of that blade was as much a threat to her as it was to him. It was a threat to every Mandalorian. And she proved it by using the blade to slice of the barrel of his blaster. Had his shot not found purchase and staggered her, the anger swelling in him then would have provoked him to finish the job, and damn her revenge against her father, that murderer.

He discarded the broken blaster and reached for the blade she indicated. His vibro-weapon was nothing compared to the Sword of Wren. He doubted it could do what she said it could. It couldn't even cut her, and her armor was made mostly out of durasteel alloy. "I was a slave once, you know," Rand said, the sudden softness in his voice betraying the rage that still burned within him. "My father, your uncle, found me as a child and freed me. Took me, gave me a family and a purpose, where I'd had neither before. He made me something other than a common mercenary. He made me a Mandalorian.

"Your father," Now, he pointed the tip of his blade at her like an accusatory finger, "stripped me of all of that. My family, my home, even my right to call myself a Mandalorian." He inched closer, passed destroyed tables and chairs, the wrecked bar now virtually empty save the bartender cowering behind a rack of liquor that would no better protect him than standing out in the open. "All those years, you were content to let me waste away in exile. You didn't seek me out. Not until you wanted to weaponize my hurt and anger to lash out against your father. And for what? To take a throne that was never yours to begin with?" He half chuckled. "You would really use me to take back my father's throne for yourself."

He was closer now. The tip of his blade rested underneath her chin. Her armor couldn't protect her there in the cradle of her neck. But he didn't push the blade through the soft skin there. Not yet. "So, now you're going to tell me why. Why did you wait so many years? Why do you think the throne of Wren is yours to claim? Why me?"

Rand didn't know if he wanted the answer to those questions. He didn't know if her response would make him attempt to take her life or spare her. But he had waited years to have his side heard. To make his uncle's family hurt even a fraction of the way he had. The rest, he guessed, now depended on her. @Song