((I swear I will get back to/answer all of these Eventually, sorry it took so long!!!))
There’s something about the smell of smoke that resonates with Bo-Katan.
It doesn’t matter what kind of smoke--the sharp scent of ozone in the wake of blasterfire, meaning combat is on the way or already begun; the bitter scent of burning flesh, which means the fight is over; the gentle scent of woodsmoke, which means the rare times in between.
Whatever smoke she smells, it makes her feel alive.
And, sure, some of that is adrenaline. Some of that is just…who she is. A Mandalorian warrior, leaning on the traditions her sister wanted to abandon, because they're important.
But some of it, strangely enough, is comfort. There’s something reassuring about smoke in the air. Something that lets Bo know that she is still alive. Even--maybe especially--if she has to fight for it.
Maybe, as with so many other things, it goes back to the civil war. She was sixteen when it started, and most of the time, she had only herself and her own skills to rely on; that, more than anything else, probably made her into the woman she is now.
She wonders, sometimes, what Satine would have been like if she hadn’t had her Jedi to rely on back then--she told Tano that she didn’t understand her sister’s idealism, and that’s true, for all she’d tried; but at the same time, she’s pretty sure she at least knows where the gulf between them, that gap in understanding, really started. Like so many other things, for both of them. With the way they’d lived through Mandalore’s civil war. With how they’d survived the blood and the chaos…and the smoke.
…and maybe that’s the reason. Why the scent of smoke resonates with her, speaks to something so primal at her core, something so hard to put into words.
For Bo-Katan, smoke means survival.
A call to arms.
A reminder that she’s still breathing.
Maybe that’s the same thing. She is Mandalorian, after all.
So, at the end of that brief, shining moment, when Mandalore was hers and the air was filled with woodsmoke and her people finally, finally got to rebuild--when the Imperial envoy comes to her Sundari and explains the new order in the galaxy, demanding her submission…
Bo-Katan Kryze tastes the acidic smoke laced through every word; feels her heartbeat kick up a few notches; knows she cannot yield.
Smoke; Bo-Katan at the end of the Clone Wars
There’s something about the smell of smoke that resonates with Bo-Katan.
It doesn’t matter what kind of smoke--the sharp scent of ozone in the wake of blasterfire, meaning combat is on the way or already begun; the bitter scent of burning flesh, which means the fight is over; the gentle scent of woodsmoke, which means the rare times in between.
Whatever smoke she smells, it makes her feel alive.
And, sure, some of that is adrenaline. Some of that is just…who she is. A Mandalorian warrior, leaning on the traditions her sister wanted to abandon, because they're important.
But some of it, strangely enough, is comfort. There’s something reassuring about smoke in the air. Something that lets Bo know that she is still alive. Even--maybe especially--if she has to fight for it.
Maybe, as with so many other things, it goes back to the civil war. She was sixteen when it started, and most of the time, she had only herself and her own skills to rely on; that, more than anything else, probably made her into the woman she is now.
She wonders, sometimes, what Satine would have been like if she hadn’t had her Jedi to rely on back then--she told Tano that she didn’t understand her sister’s idealism, and that’s true, for all she’d tried; but at the same time, she’s pretty sure she at least knows where the gulf between them, that gap in understanding, really started. Like so many other things, for both of them. With the way they’d lived through Mandalore’s civil war. With how they’d survived the blood and the chaos…and the smoke.
…and maybe that’s the reason. Why the scent of smoke resonates with her, speaks to something so primal at her core, something so hard to put into words.
For Bo-Katan, smoke means survival.
A call to arms.
A reminder that she’s still breathing.
Maybe that’s the same thing. She is Mandalorian, after all.
So, at the end of that brief, shining moment, when Mandalore was hers and the air was filled with woodsmoke and her people finally, finally got to rebuild--when the Imperial envoy comes to her Sundari and explains the new order in the galaxy, demanding her submission…
Bo-Katan Kryze tastes the acidic smoke laced through every word; feels her heartbeat kick up a few notches; knows she cannot yield.
Instead, she smiles.
“No.”