Prologue ━━━━
GLASS CASTLE (28 BBY)
"DO IT AGAIN."
The stars have not yet faded from her vision as Izumi Wren lies flat on her back, cold seeping through the fabric of her shirt from the solid weight of the rubber training mat beneath her. Her chest heaves rapidly as she sucks in eager gasps of air, finding it a relief to be able to breathe after having the wind knocked from her lungs. Everything aches and Izumi sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, ignoring the pangs of heat prickling behind her eyes as she pushes herself off the ground. Her half-siblings are laughing, not even bothering to hide their amusement at her defeat, and it smarts more than any injury she's received from training.
A bruised knee or elbow, Izumi has found, hardly hurts in comparison to bruised pride.
Her training staff lies on the floor a few feet away where her sister knocked it from her hands moments before sending Izumi to the ground alongside it. Warily, she picks the staff up again, weighing the familiar weapon in her hands before resuming her fighting stance.
"Are you ready for more?" Ursa taunts, her voice sharp and biting. "Or are you going to run crying to father when I knock you down again?"
Izumi scowls, narrowing her eyes at her sister. Ursa was always good at striking where it hurt most.
Running to their father had been a mistake that Izumi had made only once during her earliest days of training, after she'd been told by their drala to spar with her eldest half-brother, Ryu. It hadn't mattered to the master-at-arms that Ryu was nearly ten years her senior and far more skilled. (Someday, you will be forced to fight opponents twice your age, twice your size, with twice your knowledge; it is no excuse for surrender.) Ryu had not gone easy on her — no, he'd hit her so hard that she'd been unable to do anything but let out breathless gasps, the wind knocked from her lungs for several seconds until it came rushing back.
Tears followed and Izumi had gone to their father for comfort, yet she had received very little from him. He had not been cruel, but he was firm; resting a hand on each of her shoulders before telling her to cease her crying and leading her back to the training facility. "Our way is the way of the Mandalorians of old," he had told her, picking her sparring staff up off the ground. "You are a daughter of Clan Wren. A weapon for the greatness of our people." He offered her the staff and she took it. "You will learn to fight without weeping," he said, dark eyes fixed on her. "Tears will not win you any sympathy from your enemies."
Izumi hadn't cried since.
"Maybe I'll be the one to knock you down this time," she responds, shaking herself free from the reverie and returning Ursa's jab as the two of them circle one another like hunter and prey. "Or are you too afraid to find out?"
The only warning she receives is a twitch of her sister's fingers before Ursa strikes, staff meeting staff, and the two of them resume their dance.
Of her father's ade, Izumi is the youngest, the smallest, the weakest — she has never been as skilled as Kana or as brutally strong as Ryu; as quick as Ursa or as clever as Jiro. The only one of her siblings that she might be able to take in a fight is Yuki, but Izumi had seen very little of her ever since she had been enrolled in the Royal Academy of Government located off-world in Mandalore's capital city of Sundari. When it comes to sparring, Izumi's only saving grace is her instinct — a natural inclination that allows her a certain degree of foresight to know when to move or where to go before a blow comes. But that strategy has never been quite enough for victory and, more often than not, Izumi finds herself at the mercy of her older siblings.
Someday, she would be able to rival all of them in combat. Someday, she would be able to knock all of them to the ground.
But today is not that day.
The tail end of Ursa's staff seems to move in slow motion, yet still too fast for Izumi to dodge it. It strikes her across the face and she goes sprawling onto the floor. Her nose and cheek burn, flaring bright-hot with pain, but Izumi does not cry. She would not disappoint her father and be weak, nor would she give Ursa the satisfaction of seeing her tears. Instead, she bites the inside of her cheek and pushes up from the ground again, ignoring the way that her head is spinning.
"Very well done, Ursa," Enzo, their master-at-arms, praises her. "Your father will be pleased to hear of your progress."
"Thank you, drala," Ursa replies, bowing her head respectfully.
Their training master turns his gaze onto Izumi, who wants nothing more than to sink into the floor and disappear. "Izumi. Your form was sloppy and you were distracted. You should have been able to block that blow with ease."
"Yes, drala," she mutters under her breath.
Something warm and wet drips down her face and onto her lip, filling her mouth with the taste of copper. Izumi brings a hand to her nose and wipes, staring at the bright crimson stain in stark contrast with the paleness of her skin. "Go to the infirmary," Enzo says with a sigh. "Hama will patch you up."
"Again," Ryu drawls from his place against the wall, where he and the rest of Izumi's siblings were awaiting their turn in the ring. "You know, little sister, if you weren't such a shit fighter, you wouldn't have to visit Hama so often."
The blood in her mouth tastes bitter and Izumi spits it at her brother's feet, watching his expression transform from its usual sneer to a purpled mask of rage. "Why you little —"
A hand on his shoulder jerks him back before he can charge at her. "Save it for the ring, brother," Kana says, keeping her twin on a short leash. "You'll need all your energy if you hope to beat me."
Over his shoulder, Kana shoots Izumi an exasperated look and jerks her head saying go, now. Izumi listens, annoyed at the thought of owing Kana a favor yet grateful to have escaped before Ryu was able to get loose. She makes her way to the infirmary slowly. Her head is still spinning and her face stings terribly, but she does not cry. Father wouldn't want me to, she tells herself, blinking back tears when they threaten to spill down her cheeks. I won't disappoint him.
Hama — their household physician — looks a bit disappointed, but not at all surprised when Izumi knocks on her door, face bloody and grin sheepish. The elderly woman applies a bacta compress to her swollen face, easing some of the pain and inflammation. A dark purple bruise is already beginning to blossom across her cheek and the bridge of her nose, tender and sore to the touch when she pokes at it, but there's nothing truly broken and Izumi sort of likes the way that it looks. She thinks that if she can get up and walk away on her own after a hit like that without crying, then she has done something right — even if she did not win her fight.
She thinks that, at least, might be enough to make her father even the slightest bit proud.
Hama sends her away with an impatient wave of her hand once she's finished with her work. Izumi — having no desire to see any of her siblings quite yet — chooses not to return to the sparring ring and instead wanders the halls of her family's ancestral home. Krownest is a world of perpetual winter and the stronghold itself resembles a fortress more than a place of residency; a steel trap encased by misty walls made up of thick, impenetrable glass that bathe the interior in gloomy gray beams of light bleeding in from the outside. Ancient murals adorn the walls of the corridors, displaying images of Mandalorians in battle wearing suits of beskar'gam colored grey and gold and branded with the aliik of their clan.
Years ago, Mandalore had been ruled by such warriors before the young Duchess Satine Kryze rose to power. Satine had stripped their people of their warrior culture in favor of pacifism, seeking aid from Mandalore's enemies — the Jetii — to defeat those who opposed her rule. After the civil war had ended, with Satine and her New Mandalorians claiming victory, any warriors who refused to recognize the Duchess's rule had been exiled to the moon of Concordia. Though Izumi's father had fought with those in favor of preserving the Mandalore of old, he'd bent the knee to Satine in order to preserve their clan's ancestral home and title as the rulers of Krownest. But he'd never lost faith in the old ways, promising that one day Mandalore would return to its glory days — and that it would be Izumi and her siblings who were responsible for bringing about that era of prosperity.
Her siblings are something of an anomalous bunch. Save for the twins, they all hail from different origins and different mothers. Most of the women were people Izumi's father had met during his youthful days of wandering before the war. Kana and Ryu's mother had been a Palliduvan smuggler and they'd both inherited her lean frame, pale skin, and striking cheekbones. Kana was the eldest of the two by a matter of minutes, just barely beating Ryu out of the womb to claim the title of Taro Wren's firstborn and the rightful heir to their clan. Ryu had never quite forgiven Kana for that and his anger at being second-born was always bubbling beneath the surface, manifesting itself in displays of callous cruelty.
After Kana and Ryu came Ursa. Ursa's mother had been another Mandalorian — an old friend of Izumi's father from Clan Rook, who'd trained with him when they were both children and fought beside him in battle. She'd died during the civil war, killed in combat by a Jedi, and even though she'd been very young at the time, her death seemed to hang over Ursa like a ghost. It was a rare thing to see Ursa smile; even rarer to hear her laugh.
Then there was Yuki, whose mother had been a Pantoran diplomat. Yuki had inherited her mother's sharp mind and had tested into the Royal Academy on Sundari. Even though Izumi's father despised the Duchess's politics, he'd sent Yuki away all the same to receive an education right beneath the Duchess's nose. (Better to have one of our own on the inside, he'd said when Izumi had asked why.) Jiro was second youngest and an absolute terror. His mother had been a Mirialan podracer and Jiro had inherited all of her recklessness and competitive spirit. He was the wild card of Izumi's siblings — always unpredictable; surprisingly kind then creatively cruel; an enemy then an ally — there was no guessing what his next move would be.
Lastly, there was Izumi: the youngest of the six, with origins that were something of a mystery. Whoever her mother had been, her father never talked about her. All Izumi knew was that her name had been Jesa, she'd died shortly after giving birth, and (according to Hama, who had a bad habit of gossiping when she'd had too much tihaar to drink) out of all of his children's mothers, Izumi's mother had been the only one that her father had ever truly loved. No matter how hard she tried to remember her, Izumi had no memory of her mother. Except ... except sometimes she felt something when she thought of her. A presence that was both foreign yet familiar stirring inside her, desperate to claw its way out of her skin and into the light —
The sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway has Izumi turning down the nearest corridor and ducking into the first empty room she sees, wanting to avoid being spotted by any of her father's guards and sent back to Enzo's sparring lessons. Her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room and she realizes her mistake a moment too late, finding herself inside the confines of her father's study. All of her siblings were forbidden from entering this room without his permission. An acute sort of panic begins to work its way through her, prickling at her skin and sending shivers down her spine. The footsteps grow louder, continuing without ceasing, and Izumi recognizes that measured gait; the clipped sounds of strides taken with purpose all too familiar to her ears. She knows she has a decision to make: either allow herself to be caught and face the consequences or hide and hope for the best.
She chooses the latter, shutting herself inside the closet and holding her breath; just barely able to see through a crack in the door.
Her father enters the room seconds later and takes a seat at his desk. He pulls a datapad from one of the drawers, typing something onto it before a holoprojection flickers to life and the silhouette of a stranger appears, bathed in pale blue light. The man on the call is unfamiliar to her — fair-skinned and light-haired, with piercing cobalt blue eyes — but something about his posture and the presence he possesses makes Izumi think that, whoever he is, he must be important.
"Al'verde," her father says, bowing his head respectfully.
"Ver'alor," the man replies with a curt nod.
"I have no news to report from the capital."
The stranger looks displeased. "A pity. Any from the Jedi?"
Izumi sees her father scowl; the fierce expression darkening the lines of his weathered face. "Kenobi is persistent. He sends monthly communiques inquiring after her."
"Jetii calyarnr," the man mutters and Izumi's eyes widen. Jedi bastard. Why on earth would her father be communicating with a Jedi? The Jedi were the sworn enemies of her people; her father hated them and their Order more than anyone — "The man is a menace. Do you intend to take him up on his offer?"
"No," her father replies immediately. "My daughter belongs here. She has shown no trace of her mother's madness."
A quiet gasp escapes Izumi's lips. His daughter? That could mean any of her sisters ... except not Yuki, who'd been sent away to the academy on Sundari. Not Ursa, who was praised by everyone as the reincarnation of her mother, from her cool-headed temperament to her fighting prowess. And somehow Izumi just knew that he wasn't speaking about Kana — perfect, prodigious Kana; her father's rightful heir. That left only ... her.
"And what about her mother's abilities?"
Her father grimaces, mouth growing taut. "None of those either," he admits. "But Izumi is young. She is learning. The instinct is there — all she needs is more training, more discipline, and the abilities will follow."
Izumi claps a hand over her mouth, stifling the noise of surprise that nearly slips out. Her heartbeat stutters in her chest, skipping several passing beats, before it begins pounding furiously. The noise is so loud that it feels like thunder in her ears and she can hardly hear anything else. They were talking about her — her and her mother — but why?
The stranger laughs, yet the sound is cold and without humor. "I still think your plan is too risky. What if she does develop her mother's condition? What if she becomes too much for you to control?"
"What if she doesn't?" Her father counters. "The Jedi cost us Mandalore and seated the Duchess on the throne. But if we had one of our own, trained to fight on our side ... you know your family's history better than I, Vizsla. It could make all the difference in the world —"
Vizsla. Izumi knows that name. House Vizsla had been the rulers of Mandalore in the era before Clan Kryze rose to power and Clan Wren had been sworn to serve them. When the civil war was fought, it was the Vizslas who led the opposition against the Duchess. They'd been her strongest dissenters, refusing to accept her rule even after their defeat, and chose exile over submission to her pacifist principles. But even before the war, the Vizslas had been set apart from the rest of Mandalore by virtue of their family's unique past. It was their ancestor, Tarre Vizsla, who had been the first Mandalorian to train as a Jedi — and few others had followed in his footsteps in the thousand years that had come and gone since then.
But what did any of that have to do with Izumi? What did it have to do with her mother? Unless ... unless — she shakes her head fiercely, ignoring the faint stirrings of that strange something inside of her.
"Perhaps," Vizsla replies, sounding entirely unconvinced by her father's proposition. "But the child that you've described to me is no Mand'alor." His mouth hardens into a firm line. "I just hope you know what you're doing, Wren."
"All I do, I do for Mandalore," her father promises, dipping his head in farewell. "Ret'urcye mhi, Al'verde."
"Ret'urcye mhi, Ver'alor."
The projection vanishes, leaving the room cloaked in darkness. Izumi doesn't allow herself to breathe until her father has left the room and she is alone once more. She feels shivery and strange when she steps out of the closet, approaching her father's desk. Being in his study without permission was forbidden. Going through his things would certainly warrant an even greater consequence — yet she could not stop herself from moving forward. Her body almost seemed to be acting on its own accord, following an instinct that she had little control over. Something was calling her; it wanted her to open the bottom drawer of his desk. And Izumi didn't have it in herself to fight it.
Extending a shaking hand, she pulls the drawer open and begins to rifle through its contents. Izumi finds a strange collection of trinkets — a painted fan decorated with an incomplete circle covering the ridges; a faded gray headband with a gold insignia stitched into the cloth; a long, thin braid of darkened hair; a bouquet of blue roses whose petals had withered and died. She pays very little attention to such trivial things, eyes trained on a glint of silver from a cylindrical object hidden beneath the rest of the items.
Her fingers close around smooth metal and Izumi fishes it from the drawer; the solid weight both heavy and cold as it rests in her palms. She's trembling so hard that she can barely keep herself from dropping the relic, torn between fascination and horror. A jetii'kad — the sword of a Jedi, the weapon of their enemies. Izumi recognizes it from old paintings and murals that had depicted Mandalore's many wars. Her father had told her and her siblings stories of the Jedi for as long as Izumi could remember. Tales of their strange powers and unnatural abilities and how they'd used them to make Mandalore weak, knowing that their warriors were their greatest foes.
Evidently, he'd left out a rather glaring detail — that her mother had been one of them.
She doesn't need a confirmation from him to know that it's the truth. That foreign feeling — the one that wanted to tear itself from her body — is stronger than ever before, humming beneath her skin like a current of electricity. Horrified, Izumi shoves the drawer closed; unable to remain in the room any longer. She pulls herself up from the ground, stumbling blindly with the saber still clutched between her fingers. Her feet move without thought, carrying her all the way to the throne room of Krownest. Her father's ancestral seat is set against a backdrop of the finest painted murals depicting her ancestors at war. Izumi sinks to her knees on the cold stone floor, staring helplessly up at the art with blurred vision. Beskar versus saber, Clan versus Order, Mandalorian versus Jedi — the paintings almost seem to be moving, coming to life right before her eyes, and Izumi can easily envision them slaughtering one another; a thousand years' worth of bloodshed and violence ...
Quiet footsteps echo throughout the empty hall, but Izumi doesn't move. Her gaze remains trained on the images above her. "So," Ryu says, disrupting the still silence. "You finally figured it out."
Instinctively, her fingers tighten around the hilt of the weapon held in her hands. Izumi doesn't want him here — not now; not ever. "Go away," she hisses, grinding the words out through gritted teeth.
"It's about time you realized the truth," her brother continues, ignoring her request. His voice is gleefully vicious; as if he'd been eagerly awaiting this moment for a very long time. "The rest of us have known for ages, but father forbade us from telling you. It shamed him, you know. Your birth was his biggest embarrassment —"
Izumi shakes her pounding head back and forth furiously, feeling both hot and cold all over. Her breathing is too fast and she forces herself to try and slow it by controlling her thoughts. As much as Ryu found a thrill from physical violence, he equally relished in tormenting others with words — any way he could inflict harm was enough to satisfy him. That was all he was doing now. Lying to get a reaction out of her; seeing just how far he could push her as payback for the training incident. He wanted to see her break. Izumi wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"That's not true," she says, her voice surprisingly steady when she turns to meet his gaze. "You're lying."
A wicked grin stretches across his pale, sharp features. "Why would I lie when the truth is so much better than anything I could come up with?" He asks. "Even your whore Jetii mother didn't want you. She was more ashamed of you than father. Tried to get rid of you herself after you were born, but father stopped her. I guess you can thank him for tolerating you enough to not want you dead."
"No!" Izumi shouts, letting the saber fall onto the floor. Her hands come up to cradle her throbbing head, covering her ears to block out the grating sound of his voice. Everything suddenly seemed to be too much and that awful feeling from before had returned, feeding off not only her anger but also her brother's sadistic excitement. "It's not true! You're a liar."
Ryu always lies, she tells herself. Ryu always lies. Ryu always lies —
Her eldest brother approaches, crouching down on the floor in front of her. Izumi squeezes her eyes shut, clutching her hands to her ears even harder, but it isn't enough to block him out. "Deny it as much as you want, little sister, but you, Izumi, will always be —"
Whatever words he'd been about to say next are swallowed up by the sound of a million little cracks breaking across the roof and walls of the throne room, followed by the shriek of shattered glass as the world around them explodes. One moment, Ryu is there in front of her and the next he is flying through the air, tossed away from Izumi like a ragdoll into a crumpled heap. Shards of glass rain down from the sky, followed by howling winter winds that whip through the open air; tearing at her hair and her clothes and stinging the shallow cuts littering the exposed parts of her skin.
Izumi stares blankly at her brother's unmoving form, but makes no move to go to him. Instead, she keeps her hands pressed against her ears and rocks back and forth, feeling both wonderful and terrible all at once now that the awful feeling inside of her had finally subsided.
There is shouting in the distance, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. Her father comes rushing into the room, stopping short when he sees the horrible scene in front of him. Izumi watches as he takes everything in: the shattered roof and walls, Ryu's unconscious form, the blood on Izumi's hands. Most importantly, he sees the saber on the ground in front of her and his shoulders slump — as if he'd come to the realization that none of his grand plans for Izumi's future would ever come true; shattered in an instant alongside his glass castle. She had never seen him look so disappointed before and the knowledge that it was her fault stung worse than any of her newfound injuries.
Slowly, her father approaches, stooping to Izumi's level and offering her a hand that she reluctantly takes.
"Come, ad'ika," he says, the words heavy and tired. "There is someone we must call."
a/n: h-hewwo 😳😳 welcome to punisher. it's been 84 years since i posted this fic but i finally?? updated?? quick disclaimer: if this chapter looks familiar to you ,,,, that's probably because some of it IS 🤪 idk how many of you were around for my game of thrones/asoiaf era on this hellsite but at one point i had this jon snow fic called sand and a LOT of the oc backstory/family dynamic from that fic is what inspired this one which is why this chapter might be making your deja vu senses 🌀 ~tingle~ 🌀
↳ as always i like to give a few disclaimers: i took some creative liberties with the wren clan since we don't know too much about them outside of sabine's family + how they were portrayed in rebels/tcw. in this fic, they've got a martell family vibe with all the kids having different moms and then their dad having them trained to be able to fight as they grow older for.. reasons 🧐 i did my best to follow the canon timeline/events for everything regarding the mandalorian history, especially concerning the civil war and satine's rise to power, but we don't have a ~ton~ of information on that era since it's really only been touched on through passing moments of dialogue/conversation, so if i got something wrong i apologize for that!! that being said: bc of izumi's backstory/her mom's involvement w both the jedi order + her relationship with izumi's father, there will be little things that r different from canon. nothing HUGE but just some little tweaks here or there.
↳ i definitely intended for the backstory portion of this fic to be shorter. in my original outline, the prologue was going to cover izumi's childhood on krownest/her time in the temple and come to an end right at the beginning of ahsoka's season 7 arc, but it became clear to me while writing that rushing through all of that would have been a disservice to her character and this book as a whole, so i decided to break that prologue down into a few more chapters. we should hit season 7 by roughly around chapter 3-5 depending on my ability to shut up since my outlines always end up being longer than i plan for them to be 🧍♀️ sorry to disappoint anyone who was looking forward to getting into the siege right away, but i think this decision is for the best!!
thank you all so SO much for reading!! this was my first time writing a character who has mandalorian roots, so it was definitely a bit of a challenge and a little nerve-wracking, but i hope you enjoyed and i'll see you soon!! 🛴
MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS:
↳ drala = trainer
↳ ade = children/sons/daughters
↳ beskar'gam = armor
↳ aliik = sigil, symbol on armor
↳ jetii = jedi
↳ tihaar = alcoholic drink
↳ al'verde = commander
↳ ver'alor = lieutenant
↳ calyarnr = bastard
↳ ret'urcye mhi = goodbye; "maybe we'll meet again"
↳ jetii'kad = lightsaber
↳ ad'ika = little one, son, daughter, of any age
**** if i left any out, please let me know and i'll add them to the list. most of the translations came from the mando'a dictionary compiled of canon words/phrases, but i did use the coruscant translator website for words that were missing from the dictionary, so if the translation is off that's probably why!