#jaster's off livin' it up on his farm and drinking tihaal

[crispyjenkins]

JangObi soulmate mark au where all Mandalorians know/can sense when someone is marked with their Mandalor [with Jango leading Mandalore as Mandalor after Jasters abdication and no clan wars]

(this is late because it turned into A Thing. and i love the Thing, but it’s still late.

i combined these ‘cause i got them within a day of each other and i thought, what’s better than an undercover meet-cute? undercover meet-cute with soulmates (ノ*´◡`) also this is a meet-ugly. anyways.

just want to touch on that this ‘verse absolutely includes poly soulmates of many forms and numbers, jangobi just happen to have a mono relationship in this based on the prompts 😌)

 “Your sur'gaankar will not share your symbol, you cannot simply look for a match, kih’vod,” Arla teases, poking at Jango’s bare chest where the head of his roughly-drawn mynock leers at them from over his heart. “Marks are companions, not twins; no one soul should be more important than another, so the Ka’ra gave us two. Who knows what your sur'gaankar's is, it could be of something that hasn’t even happened to you yet.”

  Seven year-old Jango wrinkles his nose down at his soulmark like it’s personally offended him. And it has. “Why the kriff do you get a beskad from your sur'gaankar and I get a bloody mynock?”

  Arla bursts into laughter and hopes their parents aren’t listening.

-

  “I beg your pardon.”

  The woman’s grin only widens, leaning right into Obi-Wan’s space, and he hadn’t really counted on running into any supercommandos until Sundari. “‘Haven’t seen your crest before,” the woman repeats, knocking on the painted crest on his chestplate. He had let Master Nu pick it for this assignment, he didn’t want to accidentally end up with a known clan symbol and have to explain any familial relation; she had said it hadn’t been used since before the Coruscant Temple was built, so there shouldn’t be any confusion. 

  “And,” she had added, tapping two fingers on the side of his neck, “it matches you rather nicely, doesn’t it?”

  And he supposes it does, a crane wrapped around a spike of wheat, but he now wishes it were something perhaps a bit less memorable.

  “My clan hasn’t been back to Mandalore space in a few generations,” Obi-Wan lies with his best apologetic smile, easily charming the other Mando as he tucks his helmet under his arm and tries to turn back to the ration stall he’d been restocking from. The Keldabe marketplace bustles around them, and Obi-Wan thinks it’s a miracle the woman had even spotted his armour through the crowd, with how tightly species of all sorts press together and jostle them along their way.

  “I’m Kryze clan,” she announces, wriggling around an Esperion to plant herself next to Obi-Wan, giving the rations a passing glance before focusing back on her captive audience.

  He holds back a sigh, pulling up his mental clan map that he had studied on the jump to Mandalore. “I’ve only been planetside for an hour,” he admits with that same smile as he pays for his box of jerky and taps a little salute to the stall owner. “I thought the Kryzes were further up towards Sundari?”

  Kryze bounces along behind him, red hair catching the sunlight quite nicely; Obi-Wan can’t fathom why she’s still following him. “Most of the family is, yeah, I’m the only supercommando. Where’re you from, burc’ya? Your accent sounds funny.”

  He gives a bewildered laugh at that; had she never been to the Core? Both ducking into a dimly-lit tech shop, Kryze waves at the Mon Calamari behind the counter like old friends. 

  “‘Family’s split between Coruscant and Odos,” Obi-Wan decides on, which would explain both his Core accent and why his Mando’a is more slurred than what’s spoken on Mandalore. “You got a first name to go with that clan?”

  Kryze’s smile turns playful, not quite flirtatious, and Obi-Wan wonders if she’s already found her starmark. “Bo-Katan, but Haat’ade can call me Bo. And are you?”

  He raises a brow through a shelf of droid parts. “Am I what?”

  “Haat’ade,” Bo-Katan grins, staying closer to the door while Obi-Wan collects a few upgrades for his speeder. “You don’t seem like a Journeyman Protector, but you’re clearly a fighter. So. Haat Mando’ade?”

  “Can I be Haat’ade if I haven’t answered my Mand’alor’s call even once?” It’s an amusing thought, to be seen as Mando enough to qualify for the ruler of Mandalore’s supercommandos; he doubts Bo-Katan would be quite so kind if she knew he wears their armour in deception. “No, burc’ya, one cannot pick and choose from the Resol’nare. I’m as good as dar’manda out here.”

  Humming in thought, she skips to join him at the counter to watch him try to haggle a lower price on his goods. “To be fair, you said your clan hasn’t been around other Mando’ade in a while, ‘lek? Hells, do you even know who the current Mand’alor is?”

  Obi-Wan doesn’t answer until he knows he’s not being ripped off by the Mon Calamari, and slips his new goggles around his neck. “Only his crest,” he says, and it’s only slightly a lie: the Republic has little to no sway in Mandalore space, he doubts anyone further than Concordia knows the Mand’alor’s full name. “Tell me, are you part of the recruiting committee?”

  Bo-Katan throws her head back to laugh, and it’s a good laugh, bright and sincere, still a little childish at the edges. “No, but I liked the look about you,” she teases, leaning on the counter. “You seemed... warm.”

  He lifts a brow again, wondering if maybe she’s Force sensitive. “I’ve never been called that before.” Which also isn’t exactly a lie.

  “Mm, maybe I just liked finding another redhead.” She smiles and wrinkles her nose cutely. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you didn’t give your name, stranger. Secrecy will only get you so far here.”

  “And if I wasn’t planning on staying?” 

  “Then you should still tell me your name because I asked so nicely.” Batting her eyelashes, she sets her helmet on the counter to cross her arms, the Mon Calamari grumbling but not telling them to leave just yet. 

  “Vhett,” Obi-Wan laughs, securing his new parts and his credit pouch in his pack so he doesn’t lose them to the sticky fingers in the marketplace. “Benyamin Vhett.”

  When he looks back at his new companion, her smile has disappeared for a troubled sort of blankness, as she looks at him even more critically.

  Then her surprise and glee is a flash in the Force, so bright it’s blinding as she launches back to her feet, grin returning with such a fury that Obi-Wan doesn’t even stop her from getting right back into his space.

  She must find some sort of answer in his face, because she puts a hand on his cheek with her eyes positively shining. “Utreekov!” she exclaims gleefully, “How could you string me along like that?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It figures you’d be just as difficult as him,” she says, spinning around to snatch up her helmet before grabbing his arm and yanking him back onto the street. “You should have told him when you got here, he— Corellian Hells, is this why he’s been disappearing off into Hutt Space?”

  Something in the Force tells Obi-Wan to hold his tongue, to let Bo-Katan guide him through the market as quickly as the crowds allow — some citizens even bounce out of their way once they get a good look at Bo-Katan. Obi-Wan’s been a Shadow too long to get lost even in a busy city like this, but he still has to concentrate to memorise the path she takes him, out of duracrete into clay and wood buildings that bake under the sun and whisper history far more alive than Obi-Wan is used to.

  She kicks open the door to an ancient-looking cantina that Obi-Wan doesn’t have time to read the name of before Bo-Katan is dragging him bodily inside and shouting over the din, “Mand’alor! I’ve got your sur’gaankar!”

  Something like terror lodges in Obi-Wan’s throat as every commando in the cantina freezes and stops talking all at once, staring at them in the sunlit doorway like the second coming of the Sith. Then all heads snap just as quickly towards a table near the back — all except one man lounging at the table who still stares at Obi-Wan with more than surprise, and this is where Obi-Wan’s entire mission falls apart. This is where every commando realises Obi-Wan isn’t whoever Bo-Katan seems to think he is, this is where they call his bluff and he blows his entire cover, and Quinlan is going to make dick jokes at his funeral.

  Bo-Katan smirks and marches right for the man, pulling a shell-shocked Obi-Wan through the cantina until she releases him to lean over the man’s table— the Mand’alor’s table. Obi-Wan wonders if he can somehow make it out one of the windows before anyone grabs him.

  “So, ori’vod,” Bo-Katan drawls, clearly far from meaning it affectionately, “when were you gonna tell the rest of the Haat’ade that you’d already found your soulmark, hm?”

  Ohh, and there goes Obi-Wan’s breathing. 

  This “ori’vod” blinks, first at Bo-Katan, and then at Obi-Wan, and he just had to be attractive, didn’t he. The Force couldn’t give Obi-Wan one break and make him someone, anyone, that didn’t shine quite like he does in the low-light?

  “I have never seen this man before in my life.”

  Obi-Wan lets out his breath, mentally preparing himself for the whole cantina to descend on him. 

  But Bo-Katan just stares back at the Mand’alor and, Obi-Wan looking around at other commandos, everyone seems to be in disbelief of him, and not— not Obi-Wan. Which is just a strange cherry to top his already frankly ridiculous day, especially when Bo-Katan leans closer to her Mand’alor to squint at him.

  “So he’s just some other ‘Vhett’, then?”

  Obi-Wan licks his lips. “Bo—”

  “No, no, I wanna hear what excuse he tries to come up with when we can all feel it.”

  Embarrassment prickles Obi-Wan’s neck, and feels even less in control than he had a moment ago; he doesn’t remember learning anything about commandos being able to feel things about their leader, but to be fair, he can’t remember much of any of his lessons right now.

  A Mando in gold armour across the table from Jango takes off their helmet, revealing a Rattataki that stares him down with a meaning far deeper than Obi-Wan is privy to just then. 

  “Mand’alor,” they say, tapping their first knuckle over the left side of their chest, and Obi-Wan’s neck prickles again. 

  And then every commando in the cantina does the same, tapping the chest of their beskar’gam and nodding towards Jango, as if one entity, as if they had rehearsed it; the prickle turns to a burn, Obi-Wan darting a hand up to his throat as something shifts in the Force.

  Bo-Katan finally seems to be catching on that they truly don’t know each other, but instead of angry, she perks up and yanks Obi-Wan closer to the table. “He’s from Odos, he has no idea what’s going on,” she says as Obi-Wan stumbles over his own feet. “Congrats, Mand’alor, I found your sur’gaankar for you.”

  Obi-Wan winces before he allows himself to finally meet Jango’s gaze, and doesn’t know what to make of what he finds: a curious sort of trust, disbelief but acceptance, and it’s only when Jango gets to his feet that Obi-Wan realises no one had said his name. That the wheat fronds over his collarbones and around his neck have never bothered him before. 

  That he’s probably going to have to call Quinlan to finish the job in Sundari. 

Mando’a: sur’gaankar — “soulmate”, lit. “picture heart” from sur’gaan “picture” and kar’ta “heart” kih’vod —”little sibling” (’vod’ most often used in fandom as “brother”; ‘kih’ intentionally used instead of ‘ika’) Ka’ra — an ancient Mandalorian story, ruling council of fallen kings, “stars” beskad — traditional Mandalorian curved saber made of beskar. burc’ya — friend (also used ironically or sarcastically) Haat’ade — lit. “true child of Mandalore”, True Mandalorians (slang shortened to Haat'ad/e)  Mand’alor — “Sole ruler”, contended ruler of Mandalore. Resol’nare — “Six Actions”, the six tenets guiding Mando life ‘lek — “yeah”, short for elek, or “yes” utreekov — “idiot,” “fool,” lit. “empty head” ori’vod — “big brother”, either older sibling or a special friend (used here ironically) beskar’gam — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy