The Forge, The pyre

The Armorer gathers smoldering remains late into the night, hours ticking by on the chrono and the sun is beginning to rise over Nevarro but she can't see it. No light reaches her. She removes severed heads and torn limbs from their Beskar shells, faces she'd never seen before, and never will again. They are all thrown on the funeral pyre and the smoke fills the tunnels and ash collects in the fur on her shoulders but it means nothing to her. These are shells. Physical manifestations of each of their times here in the galaxy, sacred in their way, but empty. Bodies are just meat.

The Armorer has the most sacred of jobs. She performs the most holy of rituals. She knew this when she was young, an apprentice, ambitious to the bone. She knew because she was told. Now she knows because she feels it. Her job, her role. The bodies burning are just meat, as are all Mandalorian dead. Their armor, though, that is where the real undertaking happens. The real funeral pyre isn't the fire, it's the forge, beskar melting down as she watches and wishes each wearer well on their way. She crafts armor for the living, but she also cares for that of the dead, last rites the promise that their Beskar will serve another of their kind one day.

She remembers the fires melting down her mother's Beskar'gam only days after she'd died. She'd sat with the woman's body. Made peace with the idea that no one was home. She'd cremated her, too, on a pyre in the wilds of Concordia. But first she'd delicately removed each piece of her Beskar. The same Beskar that her family had worn for millennnia. She remembers it white hot, pouring into a mold, she and her teacher crafting together the armor that she wears today. She hadn't shed a tear until that moment. She remembers the pain she felt then, the heartache. And the pride. She feels those things now, too, but it's worse . She's alone now, and a weaker woman would break, and maybe she still will, but not until her job is done. Not until all the Beskar is collected. For her people, and for her, too. The Mandalorian funeral, taking care of her dead, melting the sacred metals down, it all heals her.

The work takes days. The Nevarro sun rises, it sets, and still she works. The bodies are gone, reduced to fragments of hollow, white bone. But her work isn't done until every bit of beskar is recovered. So many family lines ended here on Nevarro. So much of what she melts would have gone on to the wearer's children. But now it will provide for new generations of foundlings. Privately she believes this may be a good thing. All Mandalorians recognize the legitimacy of foundlings, but not all see them as the future, the way that she does. Blood means nothing. Inheritance does not a warrior make. Relying on dynasties is individualist, self-important. Mandalorians are stronger as a collective, a community. Their practice of adoption is part of their strength. Their focus on merit over matter being one of their oldest traditions. Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la. "Nobody cares who your father was, only the father you'll be."

Days into her care of the dead, two such foundlings come to her.

She had always liked Din Djarin. He was uncomplicated in his belief in the Way. He didn't posture. He didn't stir up trouble, unless he had a good reason. So when this chaos rained down upon them, she trusted that his intentions were pure. She'd have done the same for a foundling, or any Mandalorian. She felt no bitterness, cast no blame. She was, in fact, proud. Din was stoic and distant, but she knew his care for this strange little creature was unshakable. She expected he'd turn back up at some point, so she'd crafted a mold of a Mudhorn for him. The first of the reclaimed Beskar, already going to the most worthy home she could think of.

He and his companions were gone as soon as they'd arrived. Din Djarin had asked her to come with them. Of course he did, and of course she could not. More Beskar remained unclaimed. And though the Imperials pursuing Din and his motley crew would be upon her soon enough, she couldn't leave the ore for them to plunder. So much Beskar had already been taken by their kind, during the purge. They might kill her, though she doubted they could, but that risk was justified. She'd die before they could take more Beskar, before they could disturb this funeral.

The Imperial army had taken so much from her people. Their planet, their numbers, their Beskar, and much of their culture. She had no doubt that the tribe would rebuild. She knew than Din Djarin wasn't the only one that had gotten away. The Beskar was something physical to reclaim, but it represented so much more. Their songs, prayers, legends, customs. These would come after, as they rebuilt, but they would come. Against all odds, they'd survived Imperials before, and generations of their predecessors. She'd survive them now, too.

When the stormtroopers came, she cracked their skulls, and with imperial blood still on her hammer she got back to work.