found. | Din Djarin

Prologue

I never knew life under the Republic, it fell in the months surrounding my birth.

All I ever knew was the Empire.

For years Mandalore was able to hide from its wrath. Under my mother's leadership and protection they were able to silently resist and carry on without slaughter.

Until Darth Vader discovered my father still lived and hunted him to the ends of the galaxy. To Tatooine where he trained me, his only daughter.

Until then for most of my life I'd been raised on Mandalore, my father cautiously spending his time between there and Tatooine to watch over the son of his fallen apprentice, to avoid the suspicion that he was my father. In the absence of the Jedi and with Mandalore as fragile as it had ever been, he and my mother Satine reluctantly agreed that he would train me in the ways of the Jedi and that my aunt Bo-Katan would train me in the ways of the Mandalorian.

It was a balance.

Until the inquisitors turned their sights onto me and the daughter of one of the rebellions leaders, Leia. Until they forced my father to expose himself to save us, the daughter of the man he called a brother and his own. That was the very day whatever childhood I had ended and my Jedi training truly begun.

Eventually, as the threat that was posed towards Luke on Tattooine lessened and the hunt for my father faded he stayed on Mandalore, in the secrecy of the palace. Hidden under armour as her guard, only my mothers most loyal supporters knowing his identity.

Until the Empire finally turned its attention to Mandalore, or more specifically our beskar. At the beginning she allowed them to mine what they could for the sake of peace but the mines went dry, and whatever beskar was left was within our walls and our armour.

Diplomacy began to become little more than a fragile dream. The people grew afraid and desperate, some grew murderous, and that's when they discovered my father was on Mandalore with his secret daughter and the Empire came. Whether they cut a deal or were tortured into the confession I'll never know, but Vader knew he was alive. Vader knew that Lady Kyra Kryze, heir to Mandalore, was his former masters daughter and as he would soon discover, a member of the Rebellion. However it would not be until years later he discovered it was his own daughter who drew me into rebellion to fight beside her against the Empire.

In retaliation for my mother hiding my Father for so many years who unleashed hell upon Mandalore in the form of Stormtroopers putting the city under siege and killing all those who resisted, a hell that only stopped when my mother surrendered for the sake of her people and placed Bo-Katan as regent while I escaped to Alderaan.

And so Leia and I risked it all for the Rebellion, for our planets. Two rogue princesses, defiant and willing to do whatever it took to fight. Little did we know that in mere hours we would be two orphaned princesses sharing a cell, awaiting execution.

But not until I found her, my mother.

While Leia and the rebels smuggled out the intel we had received I fought my way into the cells where my mother was being held, cut down the door using my saber and found her there in chains.

"Kyra?"

"You're alive," I whispered running in and checking if she was hurt. Which she was. "We need to go, now!"

I took her hand and tried to pull her to her feet but she couldn't stand and had greater worries than her safety. "Bo Katan?"

My aunt who ruled as regent with the Darksaber. Who ruled over what little of Mandalore was intact after the civil wars and stormtroopers had battered and stripped it raw, it had begun to fall long before the purge that was to come.