#the manda has decided its keeping obiwan and no one else gets a say

[epicmusic42]

Obi-wan had ...some awareness of what happened around him while he was the darksaber. It wasn't much, and Tarre's death decreased it more.

But it is enough that he knows Tarre didn't entirely have a choice in becoming Mand'alor. The memories are faint and blurred and distant. But he remembers how Tarre fought it, remembers that it was the Manda crying out for relief that demanded he become alor.

It is enough, that the moment his body reforms, Humanoid for the first time in millennia, he knows that Tor is a *threat*. That Tor is *dar'manda* for all that Obi-wan does not call himself, does not *want* to be mandalorian.

He is still tied more tightly to the Force than he should be, than it is *safe* for someone of his training to be. He is still a part of the Manda for all that he has no love for those who drove his parents to send him away in desperation.

(The Manda is the collective soul of all Mandalorians. There are more than enough mandalorians who long for, who believe in peace, that the Manda will cling tightly to those few who can serve as its voice. It would take far worse actions than Obi-wan Kenobi would ever consider for it to release him now that it has him).

It is a thought. Not one with intent behind it. Not yet.

The mandalorians, the ones who feel so like the Dark figures of his childhood, like those who grew his parents' fear until they resorted to sending him away, go flying.

Obi-wan runs.

-----

It is several long hours before he can separate his mind from the whirling chaos that is the Force, that is the Manda.

By then, he is exhausted. It is the work of desperation that sees him safely to a cave hollow which he can only pray holds no danger.

----

He wakes to the chaos still hovering on the edges of his mind.

It takes time. He has to remind himself to meditate first—and then has to do so despite the hunger gnawing at his belly.

But eventually he realises it is the Manda. Eventually he recognises it as the Manda.

A part of him wants to hate it. He can remember it. Faintly. From his childhood.

Remembers when it was a source of comfort that Grandmother encouraged every child in the village who was more Stewjon than Tuang to lean on.

He remembers too, when the mandalorians came and brought *their* Manda with them. The ice and cold that seeped into everything even in the dead of summer.

It is a relief to feel the light of a Jaieh, of a jedi master, on whatever planet he has been brought to. Even if they are like Tarre, he thinks, they will be able to help.

So I saw this post and brain started to brain:

I have seen multiple jangobi fics where Obi-wan is a personification of the darksaber. And it's a fun concept. So let's go with that.

Tor isn't dead at the start of the Year on the Run. But he hears that A'thonha Krys'e got a jedi protector for his daughters before Tor managed to kill him. And there's a very real chance that he'll end up having to fight the jedi.

And Tor is a coward.

The darksaber does *not* cooperate with him. If anything, it actively fights him. But he does have access to some ...interesting records.

There's a ritual, which doesn't actually require a Force user. The records say that it will make it easier to communicate with the dark saber. Tor, like most modern mandos, assumes it's metaphorical.

When the ritual is done, the darksaber is gone.

Instead, Tor's left with a jedi padawan that bolts the second they have the chance. More than one member of Death Watch thinks he's managed to curse them somehow.

------

The last time Obi-wan Kenobi was awake, both his master and Tarre's were dead. They'd managed to escape the sith temple, but not without costs. Tarre had been injured, practically blinded between the severed tresses and burns, and Obi-wan had been bleeding out. Neither of them had had their lightsabers.

It had been a *stupid* idea, but it had been the only one they had. Tuang blood or not, Obi-wan was still stewjoni and Force-sensitive. The stories Grandmother had told them said that before the tuange had come, Stewjoni could *become* kyber.

But Obi-wan had not been trained as a Stewjoni. His parents had sent him to the Jedi in a fit of desperation when they realised there was no hiding his Force-sensitivity from the mandos. He didn't know *how* to become kyber.

Somehow, he managed it.

-----

Qui-Gon Jinn is exasperated with the Krys'e heirs. Satine, made Dutchess far too young, wants peace even as she rages with an anger that reminds him all too much of Xanatos. Bo-katan is a traumatised child, and it is ...easier, in ways. He has taken classes before on helping traumatised children for all that it has been too long and he's never spent exte.ded time with a child who wasn't... wasn't his.

It is a very good thing that he is a jedi master. If he were not, then when he comes across a padawan, alone, in mandalorian space, without a lightsaber, and all too willing to kill—

Well. As it is, he still takes the first opportunity to trust the now three teenagers to someone else and go have a meltdown. (First *safe* opportunity, that is).