Chapter Text
Many things—scratch that, everything about Jango’s situation is weird, no matter how used he may be getting to most of it. But surprisingly enough, the most disorienting part is not, in fact, having kriffing Jetii magic. Considering that having said magic means that he can sense people and objects around him in a weird conglomeration of emotions, thoughts, memories, a whole slew of inputs that he can only describe as not-actually-light and not-actually-sound and not-actually-temperature and not-actually-movement because they’re really kriffing close but still a solid step to the left, and some karking powerful instincts, that’s really saying something.
No, what’s more disorienting is the passage of time.
For one, time isn’t a concept that Jango has as an ik’aad. There’s only Now, and even that isn’t something that he comprehends because he doesn’t know that it’s something to comprehend. There’s just emotions and senses and the world around him, wants and needs, nice things and bad things. Actions and impulses are one in the same, as are the feelings that result from them. As an adult, Jango is used to being hyper aware of any and all time that passes. For one, general temporal awareness is a normal thing that all sentient beings have. For two, its instinct after working as a beroya for so long, timed oyat after timed oyat having ingrained the habit deep.
So regaining coherence and discovering that he can’t even guess how long it’s been since the last time he could think clearly is really kriffing disorienting. The odd disconnect between his ik’aad-memories and his adult mind isn’t helpful, either. It’s not quite a problem, as he’s still the one experiencing being and ik’aad and the ik’aad-memories are still very much his, all easily accessible—Jango’s pretty certain that he’s not developing Shuk’runi, thank the Ka’ra—but trying to actually make sense of said memories doesn’t . . . work. Processing the world as an ik’aad is drastically different from processing the world as an adult, and his memories reflect that. The best way he can put it is that they’re two different types of datastreams—he can pick out some key ideas, but otherwise, the two formats are incompatible.
He’d probably be able to come up with a better explanation if he actually understood how in the shab he can be a genuine ik’aad ninety-nine percent of the time but force himself to mentally be an adult for the last little bit. Jango would bet everything that his being able to do so isn’t normal even by Jetii standards.
He’s not really sure if the thought is comforting or not.
Either way, the fact still stands that trying to figure out time is karking disorienting. The best that Jango can do is guess based on his physical development, which is still only a very rough guess thanks to how much his accounting was thrown off by watching the—
He can stand now, anyway, as long as he’s holding on to something. He’s tried to do more, but his coordination, balance, and muscle control is all absolute osik. His vision is finally clear, which is great. He’s even got some little teeth, too, and more are definitely on the way, because his gums ache constantly. Even with the way that the caretakers soothe the area with warm, dancing Jetii magic, chewing on something or other is the only way to really make them feel better, something that Jango’s taken to doing at every possible moment, even when he’s managed to reconstruct his adult headspace. It took a lot less longer than Jango had expected to get used to the indignity because when Jango had finally realized that literally no one but him would ever know or care, he mentally said kriff it. He’s in a ik’aad body with ik’aad needs, and he has to endure much more humiliating things as an ik’aad, anyway.
Jango makes a very strong point of not being anywhere near coherent anytime he needs to be changed or cleaned.
Currently, trying to keep something in his mouth to chew on as he holds himself upright with the rails of his cradle is an annoyingly difficult challenge that Jango is tackling in an attempt to distract himself from his own thoughts. Turns out, if he doesn’t think himself into a breakdown or some sort of philosophical conundrum, he can actually remain coherent for a decent amount of time. The problem is, there isn’t actually all that much else to do. Even watching the older ik’aad’e play in the playroom can only entertain him for so long, and it’s technically nap time right now.
‘Technically,’ because the caretakers have decided that as long as no one wakes anyone else up, the more stubborn ik’aad’e—Jango, primarily—are welcome to entertain themselves however they want in their cradle.
Jango has just plopped back onto his butt so he can grab his fallen chew-stick for the fifth time when something changes. It takes him a moment to figure out what—even after months of having Jetii magic, he’s only managed a few hours of actually trying to figure anything about it out, and most of what he has so far is entirely based on instinct.
He karking hates it.
The change is him picking up on people approaching the nursery. There’s two of them, their individual runise blurred slightly as one encases and soothes the other. Jango focuses on them, blocking out the runise of all of the other ik’aad’e so he can focus better.
Jango pulls himself up again, chew-stick ignored in favor of watching the new people come in.
The adult Jetii—mostly likely a Knight, if Jango is judging the Zabrak’s age correctly—is holding a small bundle of dark cloth, bits of pale green-yellow skin just barely visible. The bundle is obviously an ik’aad, but unlike the other ik’aad’e in the room, this one’s runi almost seems to be curled in on itself, shivering with stuttering waves of what Jango conceptualizes as something in between deep blue light and the high chiming of tiny rods of beskar.
They’re scared, Jango realizes.
The Knight is trying to calm them, their own runi pulsing with orange-red care and clear-ringing warmth that Jango can feel even from here, but there’s an undercurrent of vibrating worry and dim exhaustion that’s definitely undermining it. Jango can understand why—their disheveled robes are streaked with at least four different colors of dirt and dust, and the hem by their knees has had a chunk burnt away by a blaster bolt. The Knight themself must have showered at some point, but if they got any sleep recently, it wasn’t enough.
The caretaker on duty—Master Keaolth, a soft-spoken Togruta who allows the more energetic ik’aad’e to climb all over him more often than not—rushes to meet them, a flickering chord of surprise sounding before his shields tighten, the song of his runi dimming slightly.
“Who’s this?” Master Keaolth asks warmly, reaching to brush the ik’aad’s runi with his own—but the ik’aad’s runi curls in tighter, almost flinching away. Master Keaolth retreats immediately, looking to the Knight with a worried, questioning flash.
The Knight's brow is furrowed. “Did—did you not get the datawork?”
“We haven’t received any datawork for a new youngling, no.”
The Knight sags, and Jango finds himself mildly impressed that their runi’s song doesn’t change. “Kriff.”
The look that Master Keaolth gives the Knight makes Jango have to bite his tongue so he doesn’t giggle.
The Knight winces. “Sorry—I just—”
“I know,” Master Keaolth cuts in gently. “You’re exhausted. I’ll take them, and you go get some rest and track down the datawork after. What’s their name?”
The Knight sighs. “Her name is Luminara Unduli. She’s Mirilian, sixteen months standard.” He doesn’t move to hand her over, though. “I . . . she—the people who had her, they weren’t—they were going to—” Master Keaolth gently hugs them with his runi, humming calm, and the Knight takes a deep breath. Their runi settles a little. “The people who had her were isolating her—they were going to hurt her. She barely trusts me . . .”
Jango clamps down on his surge of anger, keeping it where no one else will feel it. How kriffing dare—
But then, what right does he have to—
Jango shoves that line of thought aside. There’s a hurt, scared ik’aad right here, and as long as he keeps hold of his temper, he might be able to help.
There’s a few different sects of Mirilians, Jango knows thanks to having had more than one Mirilian in the Haat’ade. All of them are deeply religious, with traditions and practices that Jango honestly couldn’t even start to wrap his head around the few times he’d gotten stuck listening to one explanation or another, but only two of them have a habit of torturing their own ad’e if they turn out to not fit in with the rest.
Luminara must have been unlucky enough to have been born into one of those.
Jango focuses, slowly loosening his grip on his adult headspace—not enough to lose the ability to think, but enough that he loses some of his understanding of the world, his anger on Luminara’s behalf slipping away with the knowledge of what had happened to her.
He wants to help. Luminara’s scared, and the one holding her has to leave, and Jango can help.
Pressing his face as far as it will go between the rails of his cradle, Jango reaches out with his runi, making sure that his song is shiny and the light sounds pretty.
There’s a flash of surprise from the one holding Lumi and a short set of startled notes from the caretaker, but Jango ignores them as he carefully taps on the thin wall of Lumi’s runi.
Lumi startles, but then she’s reaching back with a cautious curiousness, blue light humming.
Jango pushes his tumbling emotions up against her shields—interest and worry and care and curiosity and excitement—for her examination, a dancing spark of emotion-thoughts that chirp a wordless greeting front and center, all the while careful not to push too hard.
Lumi examines Jango’s emotions a lot like Jango examines new chew toys, grabbing and pulling and poking and shoving and even nibbling a little. It’s not too different from when any of the other ik’aad’e examine him, full of innocent curiosity, except this time excitement is replaced by a tentative fear. But eventually, she seems to come to a decision.
Lumi relaxes against Jango with a flutter-quick note of relief. Jango scrambles to support her, startled, hugging her as best he can with his runi. Whether it’s due to age or because of the size of their bodies, runise do have some semblance of volume, and Jango’s is pretty much the same size as Lumi’s, so Jango can’t quite manage it as well as he’d like.
Maintaining the hug, Jango blinks his eyes open to find that Master Keaolth and the Knight are both frozen, their own runise sparking with surprise.
Master Keaolth reboots first. “Well,” he says faintly, “that’ll solve the issue of cradles for the moment, I suppose.”
Jango doesn’t really have the chance to process that before the Knight is setting Lumi in Jango’s cradle. Lumi’s runi yowls in protest, but Jango—who falls onto his butt first, unable to turn around on two legs—scoots himself towards her until he can hug her with his body as well, still focused on making his runi sing bright and orange.
It’s weird, hugging an ik’aad with an ik’aad body, because it means that the other ik’aad is a lot bigger than Jango is used to seeing ik’aad’e—in fact, Lumi, who has round, chubby cheeks and huge, teary, vibrantly blue eyes, is bigger than him by a solid measure.
Jango shoves the realization aside, tightening both his physical and metaphysical hugs. He can feel his headspace slipping, tipping towards the ik’aad mindset as his emotions escape his control.
It’s honestly a miracle that he’s managed to hold on for this long.
Lumi, for her part, latches onto him with a whimper, and Jango remembers—
—beautiful, precious Boba’s hands fisted in Jango’s shirt, his curls wet from the sweat of fever as he whimpered in his sleep. The Kaminoans’ medicine hadn’t kicked in yet, so all Jango could do was hold him close and murmur assurances that he’d be alright—
Tears prick Jango’s eyes as his chest aches.
Haar’chak, haar’chak—
And comprehension shatters.