Work Text:
“Buir, Buir!” A little seven year old Bo bounded forward towards her father, a sprint unusual of the normally low energy child. “I’m seven today!”
“That you are,” Adonai smiled at his young daughter and ruffled her hair. “Today’s a big day, you know. Where’s your sister?”
Bo pouted and furrowed her brow. Satine had been awake with her to wish each other a happy birthday, and then Satine had run off to… to…
“I think she’s with Mom,” Bo finally said, but that made sense. Satine was getting their mother’s armor today. She had made the decision to go for her mother because they were much closer than Satine was to their father.
Which meant…
“Are you ready to take a look at your new armor?” Adonai asked her and Bo could feel herself starting to bounce. She had been waiting for this, counting down the days until they would take parts of her buir’s armor and fit it to her. Her parents had agreed that it would be on their seventh birthday that they would start to be fitted for armor of their own.
“Yes! Please!” She ran ahead, knowing exactly where she needed to go. She had spent a lot of time the past few days looking at the armor that her father wore before he became Mand’alor. The armor that would be melted down and reforged so it could fit her.
She followed the twists and turns of Castle Kryze, navigating herself until she came upon the armory and pushed open the doors to see their Armorer, a member of Clan Rook, standing before her.
Bo felt bad that she couldn’t remember her name.
“Is it time for you, Princess?” She commented, going down on one knee to be at Bo’s height.
“Yes! Buir says it’s finally time.” She bounced on the balls of her feet. “We’re going to make my armor today!”
“Where is your buir, so we can get started?” She asked, only for Adonai to approach not long after. “Alor,”
“Laara,” Adonai greeted, shaking his head as she went to get on one knee. Bo beamed, glad that her father greeted her by name so she would remember. “We have known each other too long for that. My daughter is of age to get her armor.”
“Yes, Alor,” Laara smiled and stepped away to get what she needed to get started. “Has our young princess decided what she wants to do with her armor? What color does she desire to paint it?”
“Clan Kryze colors!” Bo bounced excitedly, only to slow down and begin to pout. “No… Wait… Sat’ika is painting hers blue and purple… I don’t want to match her.”
“Very true, best not to match your twin,” Laara smiled and began to measure Bo to get her armor the right size while she was sitting still.
“How about Light Blue,” Adonai suggested, to which Bo looked up at him with her eyes bright.
“Yes Yes Yes!” She squealed, trying to not bounce as Laara took note on a datapad how big of a chestplate the young girl would need. “That would be perfect, Buir! Light blue for Clan Kryze!” It would be perfect! She couldn’t wait to tell Satine what she was planning on doing with her armor. Satine will be so excited to see it!
Finally, Bo felt like she was on her way to being a true Mandalorian warrior.
Eleven Years Later…
Bo was eighteen when her father died. The war had finally come to Kalevala. Satine was on Coruscant in a political academy while Bo was supposed to be training to be a protector. Her father had fallen more into the New Mandalorian ways as he aged and while Bo disagreed, he was her father and she would defend him.
But she failed, and now she was buying her father alongside her mother who had died two years prior.
The light blue of her chest plate was chipped and faded, stained slightly red with her father’s blood. It made her sick to see her armor stained like that.
She had been considering repainting her armor for a while now, hoping to not just wear the light blue of Clan Kryze but perhaps include another color as well.
Laara had taught her what the different colors of armor meant once she had been a bit older.
“The light blue you wear means Reliability,” Laara told a thirteen year old Bo-Katan as she reapplied the paint that Bo had ruined while in training.
“Do you really think I’m reliable, Laara?” Bo ran the brush against the armor, preferring to paint it by hand. There was something… comforting about the brush strokes against Beskar rather than using a spray paint or a machine to do it herself.
“Of course I do, you are the future protector of the Mand’alor after all,” Laara said with confidence. “Do you wish to know what the other colors mean?”
“Yes please!”
“Well… Red means to honor a parent, though it can also mean betrayal. Best not to use that one if you ever change. Black means justice and Gold means vengeance.”
“Aren’t those the same thing?” Bo looked up for a moment, tilting her head as Laara laughed.
“Perhaps to some of the more ancient Mandalorians, But to us, no, they are completely different.” Laara explained before she looked away. “White means a new start, and Green means Duty… though I hope you never have to paint your armor gray, Lady Bo-Katan.”
“Why?”
“Gray means Mourning a lost love, though oftentimes it is just a loved one, such as a family member or a close friend…”
The memory had come to Bo without warning and she had to wipe the tears from her eyes. Laara had also been killed that night, Bo having cremated her body as was her wishes.
Gray… lost love… perhaps that would be the best color for her breastplate. All she had lost tonight, all that she could continue to lose throughout the rest of the war, it was fitting.
Unfortunately, she would not have the time to repaint it by hand the way she would like. She’d instead have to find either a bottle of spray paint or one of the machines she knew that Laara used to paint armor so she could paint her chestplate gray.
It didn’t take her long to sneak back into the castle and to the Armory, where all the materials to create and paint armor were waiting for her. She set her chestplate down and got to work, covering up the light blue that it once was in exchange for gray.
Somehow this felt right, like this was inevitable. She remembered how excited she was to paint her chestplate for the first time, the light blue to represent her clan… now her clan was only two. It was just her and Satine now. She lost her father, she lost her friend…
Perhaps she would be in mourning for the rest of her life, and the gray would just become a permanent part of her armor’s color scheme forever…