#clone oc: commander juke

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I Have No Mother, Only A Brother

Warnings and Information: Not a new story, just a more masterlist-friendly format since I'm unable to make the edits I want to the original written last year so things fit a little more in-line with the rest of the series visually speaking. Reference/allusion to canon-typical violence, injury, death and loss. Bad health conditions for civilians as a result of a Separatist blockade. Clone OC backstories and how they died. Several characters are not explicitly named as of this installment, just like in NTMY,B. Narrative and stylistic use of italics. No Mando'a here. Use of Star Wars and real-world swearing. Canvas doesn't like the Kaminoans, he's rather scared of them.

Word-count: 3,027

"Isn't it a little sad?" the nat-born child who's been asking so many questions starts up again after five minutes, the allotted break time as asked. The little one's parents sigh wearily. Here we go. There's beckoning hands, straining arms. 

"Is what sad, little mite?" The trooper only resituated their hold on the child with a twisted ankle they'd been carrying for several klics now. They still had a long way to go before they reached the Republic camp where these starving people on a far-flung planet had been subjected to horrid war crimes by the Separatists. No; let me hold them a little longer, it's fine. They weigh far less than a supply crate, this is easy for me. 

"Well… is it true that you don't have a mommy like people say?" This little one was born just before or near the very start of the Clone Wars, supposedly, and part of a humanoid species, so they're different from human nat-born children and develop differently… but the level of intellect and insight is still surprising. 

"It is," the trooper starts, mentally shaking away the thought that he'd have to dumb this down for the toddler who was meeting Clones in the flesh for the first time now. "We don't have any mothers, except for Kamino. That's where we come from." Don't think of the long-necks. Don't think of the long-necks. Don't think of the long-necks; think of your brothers! 

"So isn't it sad?" they ask again, cuddling sweetly against the stiff and impossibly firm surface of plastoid that encircles the trooper's body with a great pout on their face. That can't be comfortable for the kid. The trooper wishes he could take off the helmet so the little one can see the sympathetic smile, touched by the concern and sadness a nat-born child has for a man without a mother. But he's offered to carry this child until they get to the camp and the hospital tent where a medic-brother can splint the bad foot. There's not a great way to carry his own helmet should he remove it; other hands are busy with helping men, women and children too emaciated and weak to make this trek unsupported, or are leading the livestock with firm hands, or like the little mite's mother, carrying even littler children. An infant. 

There are so many infants. The General has cut their cloak into long strips so the brothers who have volunteered themselves to carry a suffering family's baby have something to buffer and soften the swaddling arms in plastoid armor. The three brothers who carry the five orphans of the village are quiet. They move so gingerly and are so tender to allow these little ones to sleep as long as they can; the best sleep these little ones have had since losing their mothers. 

"I guess many would see it that way. But it's hard to be sad about it when I have so many brothers to keep me company." The little one looks up at the trooper in awe and excitement. Brothers. They had something in common! The baby swaddled to the woman's chest with a meager blanket is a little boy, apparently. Born just before the Separatist's blockade and occupation. 

"How many brothers? Hundreds?" That'd been the popular guess when he and his brothers showed up with several Generals to offer aid and support to one of these many villages clustered near one another in this sector of the planet. 

"More than that."

"A thousand?" 

"Haha. More than that, little one." 

"Ah… a million? O-or the one that's bigger than that! That many brothers?" 

"That'd be "billion". A billion is bigger than a million." 

"You have a billion brothers?!" 

"Probably. Even I don't know. There's not enough time to meet all of them when we're helping people like you, ya little mite." Some he'd never get to because they were already gone. Some were already lost to this war well before he stepped off Kamino. Some shortly after. 

Cocky nerf-herder though he was, brave Gunnar… he'd been the first. Selfless. He wasn't immediately fond of the Force-wielders. The Jedi. Not like the other Shinies.

"We're their canon fodder, they don't care about us. Throw enough brothers at the problem until it goes away and then don't so much as mourn us!"

It changed when their General was cradling the body of a badly-injured brother while they were waiting for the team medic to find their position. Their General held the dying trooper and promised the medic-brother was on their way, "just hold on, son. Yes, he's coming. H-he's going to take care of you. You were very brave out there trying to keep your brothers safe."

When the battlefield medic trooper had finally reached their position and could take over for the General in taking care of this brother, he'd succumbed to his injuries only seconds later. Their General got up and left, stoic and unspeaking, and Gunnar had enough and wanted to give the General a damn tongue-lashing. But when Gunnar found the General, back pressed into the dark trunk of those towering trees and weeping silently, he suddenly realized he had their first General all wrong. 

"I think I had 'em all wrong… guess some of those Jedi really do give a banthashit about us. Found the General mourning that brother who died as soon as the medic got here. They're imperfect, brother. These… peacekeepers aren't sure how to be warriors. Not all of 'em. They're tryin'."  

Cryfar had been the second to perish. Oh sweet, well-meaning Cryfar.

To their batch, it was an in-joke that it was a miracle this son of Kamino had made it as far as he had. Either one too many blows to the head during a session of hand-sparring in one of the training centers, or something went awry with his jar, but the kid could not get his left-and-right or his phrasings sorted out when he got overexcited.

Which was often.

"Hahaha! Just wait til I send those Seppies runnin'! This war'll be a cryfar from-" The entire batch groaned, Gunnar the loudest before taking a breath to explain why the other, older brothers were laughing at the excitable Shiny with a glowering look over his shoulder. The seasoned troops stopped, recognizing the look.

"It's "a far cry from", brother. It's okay. They don't mean to be mean to ya, I'm sure… You just get excitable. Not your fault. Remember to be careful, right?" 

"R-right! I'll be careful!" 

"Watch out for the pits, too." 

"Sure thing!" 

Faro had been third. Pushed the other two brothers out of the way of danger time and time again. They'd lost Gunnar, and they'd lost Cryfar. Faro was not going to lose these brothers too.

He was gruff and stoic much in the same way like Gunnar without the impulsive streak, but about just as much patience as Gunnar had. ("You were going to kriffing lecture the General? No of course this Jedi cares about the Clones if you just paid attention to them for five min- That's the stupidest- If you would stop being so gun-ho about certain things for five minutes the COs would finally let you in the gunner's mount like you've been asking and- What's that look for!?")

Every time he'd saved their skins he'd simply sigh sharply at them before asking if these two bucket-heads really expected him to save them every time. So that last time… he looked at those yet-unnamed brothers and fondly murmured he'd do it each and every time in a heartbeat, staring up into the great and endless starfield above him with the remnants of a BX-series droid commando scattered around him.

"It's just gonna be the two of you now, brothers. I-I don't think I can watch out for you anymore. Clanker bastard got me real good with that fluke shot… but I'd do it all again in… a d-damn… heartbeat." 

Fluke took the name from Faro's dying words as a way to remember him. Maybe he shouldn't have. The word became a curse, an omen. It seemed to seal his fate. He shouldn't have survived that droid commando encounter, it was just a lucky chance that Faro accidentally strayed a little too far from his post and found his brothers getting attacked when he did.

He was thrown from a speeder-bike after getting shot and narrowly avoided plunging into a deep chasm. Two sets of ration packs fell out of the supply crate and were exposed to direct sunlight for several hours before anyone noticed and put those back in with the others. He and another brother both felt a little sick after dinner and each said he'd be turning in early to try to sleep it off.

"Guess it's just not agreeing with me, or something. I'm sure it's nothing… I'll see you in the morning, yeah? Love ya, brother." 

"Love ya too, Fluke. Goodnight.

"G'morning Fluke, you feelin' any better? Want me to get the medic to… Fluke, c'mon brother, this isn't funny; talk to me. You really feeling that bad? Y-you're cold! Wh-why are you so… FLUKE!!"

"Do you get along with all of your brothers?" The Clone unit escorting this village's survivors were getting closer to the refugee camp, so it was time to squeeze in some last questions and they'd been quiet for a while now. Canvas just chuckled. He'd been carrying this little one for a while now, watching as they turned one of his most precious possessions in their hands over and over again. The whittled nest of endangered birds from his first campaign. They'd taken great care not to drop it. Carver would've appreciated hearing that such a crude replication still held up to approval; he'd gotten so much better and thought all his old stuff was junk (save for the General's Mudhorn and this nest-set owned by Canvas). 

"Some better than others, but I get along with most of them, yes. All siblings have their squabbles; even us Clones. Maybe one day you'll drive your parents crazy by arguing with your little brother once he's big enough." The toddler grinned brightly up at the dusty helmet peering down at him and once again smoothed their hand over Fluke's scuff. Then Faro's. Cryfar's after that. Lastly, Gunnar's. Canvas's brothers all within easy reach, surrounding the scuff mark across the chest plate this little nat-born child was leaning against. Surrounded by the memory of his brothers, those who never judged him for not yet having a Name and respected his wishes not to Be Named yet. 

"Nuh-uh. I love my little brother! I never wanna argue with him when he's big enough." The little one's parents just smiled quietly in the lengthening shadows as the sun sunk behind the hills. They knew it wouldn't end up staying that way, but the sentiment was too sweet to correct. One day the screaming matches would come, and the accusations that they weren't sharing toys would rattle their eardrums, and a million other things. A welcome future to look forward to because the Republic answered their desperate plea for help and promised the inhabitants necessary aid.

"He'll tell you how lucky he feels one day that you love him so much." Canvas replied sagely, eyes staring ahead into that middle-ground where the light of the camp crept over the last ridge. That red splatter he was looking for was flying high over the center of the camp. Good. They'd gotten the medical tent set up.  

"One last question for the nice trooper before your father carries you to the medical tent, little one. Better make it count before he has to return to his commanding officers." the child's mother warned in a sweet voice. Oh he hated the way the little one frowned, Maker help him. His hold firmed up one last time. 

"I can carry the little one to the tent. It's no trouble."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes ma'am. It's no trouble." Canvas nodded affirmingly. 

"Thank you… ah, I don't believe we ever asked you your name, I am sorry." 

"Canvas. My brothers named me." he says with pride. How one came to Be Named by a brother happened in a variety of ways. Sometimes it was mockery. Sometimes it came from a joke. Even done completely unintentionally. But often it was done with love as they helped one another find an identity. More than a string of two letters and four numbers, brother. 

No mothers to name us, only brothers. 

"Your brothers named you?" the talkative toddler inquires, brightening up as Canvas continues to carry them through the camp. There was time for more questions after all. 

"They sure did." 

"And do you like your name?"

"I love my name." That name was a gift from his brothers. All of them. Its poetic origin meant too much to do anything but love it. 

"Which brother gave you your name? Was it one of them?" The little freckled fingers touched each scuff mark reverentially. (Maker, to think his own fingers were ever that little for a short time.)

"One of my commanding officers." They pass by a commanding officer with these words, entirely a funny little coincidence. But it's not Canvas's, this officer bears a different color. 

"Umm… Who has the funniest name? A-are there any?" 

"I have a brother named Scruffy." It's safe to make fun of Scruffy's name. Scruffy makes fun of his own name all the time because he knows the circumstances behind Being Named (accidentally) were silly. 

"Whoops, hair's gotten an inch past the standard cut… Think I'm starting to look a little-"

"Ahem."

"A-a little, uh, unkempt! I was gonna say unkempt!"

"Sure-sure…" 

Just three tents away from medical. 

"Who made you the bird nest again?" Canvas takes the whittled treasure back, tucking it away in his utility belt alongside the wooden worry stone. 

"My brother Carver." he reminds the toddler. Two more tents. Something's cooking nearby. It smells good. Really good. The families making their way to the camp will have their first good meal in a long time tonight. There's neatly stacked crates in front of the medical tent. That has to be Cairn's doing, but Canvas doesn't see any sign of the brother in the flesh. 

"So if he made you the bird nest, are birds your favorite animal?" 

"One of 'em, yeah." Canvas chuckles, nodding down at the child and then back up at the brother with the shattered cross painted on his plastoid. "Kid's in need of a splint, think you can help the little one out, brother?"

"Sure can, Canvas. Set up on the second cot for me, and grab yourselves a hydro pack each. You marched a long way in if you came from the southwest. No one's getting dehydrated on my watch." 

"Thank you, brother." Canvas nodded gratefully as he nabbed two foil pouches of filtered, treated water from a crate. He opened one and gave it to the child after gingerly lowering them to the second cot as indicated, and finally shucked the dusty helmet, hearing that familiar hiss as the vacuum broke. Much better. Was getting stuffy in there. "Hope you're ready for a talker." 

"Always." the medic laughs. It's promising. "I like the talkers now and then. You sit down and rest your feet." 

"But I should really go report in to the Cap-"

"Medic's orders, brother." Oh very well. Canvas just concedes; it'll be easier than trying to sweet-talk a brother who takes the mantra of "brother looks out for brother" so deeply to heart that he makes it a specified pathway beyond just his creation as a soldier. (Don't think of the long-necks… think of your brothers.) You're a fool to make these brothers upset with you. He takes a seat on an upturned crate put out for visitors to the med-tent, balancing his bucket on his knees as he cracks open his hydro pack and takes a deep swallow of water. He regrets it, but he'll be scolded for spitting it out.

Ugh. These are not the chemicals he's used to in Kamino's filtration and emergency desalinification systems. What planet treated this water? Coruscant? It's so bitter and heavy on his tongue… There's no touch of sweetness in the water like that of a bolster of emergency supplies from Naboo that had been sent by Senator Amidala. It's sour and tangy in such an unpleasant way. 

But that's not worth fussing about when he gets to listen to the little one start peppering the medic-brother with questions now as he prepared to set the bad foot in a splint so it will heal correctly and quickly with proper support. 

"Do Clones have a favorite brother?" Woof, what a loaded question to ask a medic. 

"Hah, get a load'a this kid, asking the tricky questions. Some do! Some brothers grow very close together, practically joined at the hip and I have to let the other brother stay so I can take care of the sick or injured one. Then there's Clones, like me, who love all their brothers equally. No favorites. Too many brothers to love and take care of for me personally to have favorites. But I know of a few who are someone's favorite brother." 

The medic-brother looked at Canvas over his shoulder briefly to first make sure he hadn't slunk off before he was properly rested AMA, but even in that quick look, Canvas knew there was another meaning in those warm, smiling eyes. Seasoned troopers tended to hear if a fresh-faced brother needed some extra support and became a favorite; whether that was for life, or until the Shiny found their feet under themselves. 

Canvas knew that applied to him in each sense; he was so grateful for it now. Grateful for those brothers who took care of him because they had a rather… unique mother. (Forget the long-necks.)

If Kamino was their mother, and all her sons were brothers, then they should take good care of one another. 

We have no traditional mothers. Just a billion brothers.

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Nice To Meet You, Brother

Warnings and Information: Not a new story, just a more masterlist and reader-friendly format since I'm unable to make the edits I want to the original. What was written with the idea of being a one-off became the establishing story for the main bulk of my Clone OCs, so this was written at a time not much had been planned in advance. Reference/allusion to canon-typical violence, injury, death and loss. Several characters are not explicitly named as of this installment. Narrative and stylistic use of italics, capitalization, and colored text. No Mando'a here. Minor language. My takes on Clone culture and their brotherly bonds have more thematic and narrative elements than how it's shown in the series, perhaps, as a heads up.

Word-count: 3,264

"Get a load of these plastoid puppies…"

They're getting new Shinnies to bolster their forces, and Maker, these boys just look younger and younger every time they get more Seppy blaster fodder reinforcements… It makes the hearts of the commanding officers hurt seeing how fresh-faced and bright these boys are.

The armor looks fresh off the assembly line and fitted onto little children fresh out of their growth jars. But they're all children. These are babies in the eyes of the Commanding Officers.

And they know the numbers of these plastoid puppies who are almost afraid of getting their armor scuffed, but no names. So young. Too young, General, please, send them back for more training...

They were never Named by their batchmates or their brothers under the rains of Kamino. They'll have to find their names out here in the galaxy. 

That will have to come later. But first it's the unofficial marring ceremony a Captain came up with before they were KIA.

Scuff the armor before they even see their first Seppy encounter.

If they get it over with now, or if they allow themselves to be scuffed by their COs, the sequential scuffs will be easier to accept. Take a knife, a wad of steel-wool used for weapon cleaning/care, or just a little rock and scratch your armor.

No really, you heard me. It's for, uh… good luck! Each deployment has their own traditions, in-jokes and superstitions. We scuff our armor for good luck. (Thank the Maker, they bought it.)

That's okay, rookie, you take all the time you need to scuff your plastoid. I can wait nearby if you need me to. (We want you to steal that first scuff for yourself so the Separatists do not have the satisfaction, brother.) 

They worry about the young brother who takes an hour to decide where to scuff his chest plate. He might be the first of the Shinies they lose. One of the Captains wants to keep an eye on him, close under his command in place of the Marshal Commander's ranks. The effort is probably as good as a Separatist's credit out in Republic space, but brother looks out for brother. They're all glad most of the Generals understand that. 

Sure, Captain. Take the Shiny. Show him the ropes. Keep him safe.

Took-an-hour survives their first encounter since the bolster of reinforcements; the Captain kept him safe. He's shaken. He's lost his closest neighbor-batchmate (the batch that was below his, in this case) and he's mourning. He's dropped his blaster in the mud of the trenches and he's having a hard time cleaning it now that they've pulled back their forces. His weapon is no good to him if it's jammed up with the thick, sandy mixture.

The Captain has to tell him to stop attempting to clean the DC-17.

"Forget it. Throw it in the dirty bucket next to the graffitied helmet on the gunship. Take a fresh blaster. Take a breath."

(Take yourself back to Kamino, please… You're just a kriffing kid. We're all just kriffing kids.) 

There's a kid who's gonna get his paint design out of this inevitable ambush and he doesn't even know it. He's a plastoid puppy with two left feet when he's nervous and keeps following the General and the Captain like a second shadow. They keep pulling this kid out of the naturally formed pits of the planet by the "scruff" of his armor. They're impossibly patient with this Shiny. The Captain has given the kid his Name when he pulls this brother out of the seventh pit and says "It's like scruffing a rowdy Tooka kitten!" with a mighty heave.

(Heh, any guess what that kid's about to get from the Captain, General?)

(You mean other than "on my nerves", Commander?!)

The kid likes the sound of the word, but he wants to change it a bit, first…

Welcome to the galaxy, Scruffy. It's nice to meet you, brother. The whole unit celebrates Scruffy and his name and his new paint and his identity. He's no longer just a number. (The General takes the time and tells him he is and feels unique in the Force, like all his brothers the General has served with, to make the moment all the more memorable.)

Scruffy is still falling into pits and still getting pulled up by the scruff of his armor by his COs and his brothers, but he's no longer a Shiny. He's no longer scared to get his armor scuffed. He's actually helping others, much later on, get their armor scuffed when they step off the gunships, and the COs see that he's got the same 'oh by the stars these boys are just plastoid puppies' look in his eyes now too. He'll show these Shinnies his deliberate, superficial damage he's so proud of and carry on the new tradition of it's for good luck!

The kid the COs have been secretly referring to as Took-an-hour is struggling. He's the last of his batch now. His last batch brother was alive just last night and never woke up. Something about the food. Something spoiled. He won't eat anything out of fear. You can't have a hungry brother out on the battlefield. You have to do something. The appetite stims just make him sick. This is hardly the right set of conditions to cook food. The only thing that placates him is the General's rations that they themselves are in charge of.

They're different and better suited for the General's metabolism and nutritional needs, but it has to be better than nothing. The General takes the rations in field supplies marked with the CT's number.

It takes an hour for the man to take his first bite. He's almost sick immediately after because the anxiety is paralyzing. But he's assured again and again by the General that the rations will be safe, he needs his strength, eat.

Scruffy (of a different batch out of the bolster of Shinnies) just sits with this brother and fellow soldier until the food is gone. It takes an hour. It's one hour less of sleep for both of them. But Scruffy doesn't complain once. He's also now keeping an eye on this nameless brother, along with the Captain, the Commander, the General. He's falling into a few more pits than usual the following day, but he just blames it half-jokingly on something flying overhead distracting him.

This brother refuses Naming. He doesn't want to Be Named. He's certain he's not long for this galaxy. He's convinced he'll join the rest of his batch soon enough and Being Named will give him hope.

"I'm a string of two letters and four numbers and I'll never be anything else."

Not on Scruffy's watch. 

Not on the watch of the COs.

Not on the watch of the General.

You will Be Named is not a threat. It is a promise. You are an individual, brother. Our paints, our tattoos, our haircuts are all signifiers: We've found our Name. We will help you find yours, brother.  

More scuff marks are added to the plastoid. The scuff marks of his fallen batchmates. He won't add them in paint. He'll add them in the same ways that they did. It takes the expected amount of time to complete the task. 

Welcome to the galaxy, Carver. It's nice to meet you, brother. He was inspired by the nameless brother who bares his batchmates scuffs in his own armor, and carved little etchings into his helmet with a vibroknife he picked up somewhere. He's quite good at it.

(Scruffy thinks it would be funny to ask Carver to add GRAB HERE in Aurebesh lettering in the ring of paint on the back-plating of his armor up near the neck, but the COs don't share the sentiment.)

Lots of troops ask Carver to, well, carve little pictures in strips of thick bark that have shed from the trees indigenous to the planet. Flowers they found pretty. That scary hellcat with four eyes they heard about once. The General cutting a clanker in half. No wait! The General cutting a TANK in half, that would be so cool! (Hey, Commander, here's the coordinates to rendezvous with the General. Once you've memorized them we can add it to the fire.) Do you think you can whittle? Guys check it out, Carver figured out how to whittle!

Oh the General is gonna love that little Mudhorn, Carver! 

The General does in fact. They keep their little Mudhorn in their pocket at all times and regard it with love. When the sour tang of the loss of life feels too heavy in the Force around them, the General holds Carver's little Mudhorn and feels the deliberate shape of the gifted token as they meditate to clear their mind. This campaign has been hard for the peace-keeper, but the little things, like this whittled Mudhorn, are cherished when things seem bleakest.

Scruffy asks Carver to make him something he thinks might help the nameless brother (and others). He's not sleeping well because he's having bad dreams. Dreams about the brothers he lost. Heard about them on the Holonet somewhere, they're called worry stones. They look like this, they're small and discreet and will be easy to carry on his utility belt. They'll be easy to replace if they get lost and misplaced.

"Whaddya think? You'll do it? You're the best, Carver, thank you."

Carver makes several, enough to give all the COs and General a worry stone, and slips the last worry stone into the nameless brother's things in the middle of the night. It's found in the morning and almost discarded, thinking it's debris in his drowsy stupor that he was about to toss without looking, but the smooth divot in the wood catches his attention. It… feels strangely nice to roll his thumb back and forth in this little space.

Okay. He'll keep the thing. He'll get rid of it if a CO tells him to. Except he later notices the COs also have one. So if they have "non-GAR contraband", he's not about to get into trouble for having it himself, right? Well then again they're COs and they'll be allowed more "luxuries".

He almost gets rid of it again after that thought. But the Captain catches it before it's kicked into the fire that night when they made camp and says it "was a close one, kid nearly lost the gift a brother gave him. That would have been a shame". Oh. Oh kriff. He nearly burned a gift? Carver made this? 

Carver wouldn't have been mad if the nameless brother had burned it. He's made so many at this point. The nameless brother was always a little tighter on the rules than most other brothers, he'd probably have been reluctant to keep "contraband".

He and Scruffy had seen him using it on a few separate occasions. The tension seemed to melt right out of him, even just for a moment. He'd grabbed it at least once when he woke up from a nightmare. Carver wondered if he would be able to find the material to make a really small one and put it on some string so this poor not-a-Shiny would have a way to keep one on him, maybe under the armor, under the bodyglove, so he'd never have to worry about not having a worry stone on him if he really needed it. Sometimes just holding his worry stone was enough for the brother. 

One not-a-Shiny claims the name Cairn finally. (He'd been given many nicknames, open to Being Named, but none had spoken to him until someone said the word "cairn" in front of him.) He's ended up with so many of his friends' worry stones one way or another that he'll build the little or big towers of wooden 'rocks' for the fun of it.

Sometimes the General uses gentle nudgings of the Force to make the towers take impossible, gravity defying formations. It boosts morale. It makes the men wonder if Cairn can find a way to replicate the upside down formations the General sometimes does with the right sized worry stones. Welcome to the galaxy, Cairn. It's nice to meet you, brother. 

It takes an hour to get this not-a-Shiny to get out of one of the towering trees after a Separatist ambush. He made for an excellent sniper, to the surprise of the Captain who'd taken care of this nameless brother since he'd gotten there nearly a month ago. He's on the comms channel, voice high and tight with fear that if he comes down he's going to knock this bird's nest out of the crown on a branch he'd need to use to get down.

They're endangered. They can't fly yet, Captain. I don't want them to get hurt if I climb down. One already fell from the nest and-

Oh the General found it? Did it… survive the fall? Why is the General scaling the other tree with only one hand; did they get hurt in the Seppie ambush?

Oh the General is okay? Thank Kamino's rains. They… found the bird alive?

The bird is returned to the nest with the Force, and his General uses the Force to pluck him out of that tree and lift him over to the other one so he can crawl down, finally. He's sorry for getting worked up about some blasted birds but they just… He got kinda attached to them because he had imagined he was protecting not just his brothers and the General from the Seppies, but those birds too. He's sorry, General. It was silly.

The General assures the trooper that the compassion and empathy he had for the birds was not "silly". In fact, they were unaware that these birds they'd been seeing for so long on this planet were endangered. They thank the nameless man who takes a long time to do certain things for teaching them something that day. Maybe one day that thinking will make him a brilliant strategist, too.

(Yeah, the Jedi are a little weird. But that's okay, brother. Apparently when you come up in conversation now, the General hears the fluttering of these birds through the Force… Good question, don't know if they hear anything when our other brothers are brought up in conversation with the General…) 

The nameless brother is just beginning to feel better, hopeful, the longer they've been taken care of by the likes of the COs, General, and Scruffy. Mostly Scruffy. Maker, Scruffy nearly cries when this brother, bearing all the scuffs of his batch additional to his own on his chest plate, asks the General if they want their rations, because he thinks he's ready to start eating his again.

He's not afraid to eat the rations meant for himself anymore, he thinks. That's a step in the right direction. 

There's a few survivors from the first bolster who still don't have names, but only because they don't know what to decide on just like Cairn did. There's another bolster scheduled to arrive soon. They've decided on their paint patterns, at least.

The brother who takes an hour to do things when time allows is the only unpainted man of the unit. He looks like a Shiny, so out of place. Everyone aside from him is vying to find a Name except for him.

But it feels like hours or days after the COs welcome their new brothers who now have Names… they get picked off by Separatist forces. Hello, and goodbye, brothers. 

"If I find my Name now, I'm cursed" is the new sentiment. The new anxiety that replaces my rations are spoiled and I'll get sick, I'll die if I eat them.

"I'm just two letters and four numbers and nothing else. Please don't name me. Please don't doom me, brothers…"

Maybe it's best that when the second bolster of Shinnies and other, more seasoned troops arrive, this brother is… sent back to the Jedi cruiser. We can't have him sent back to Kamino by now, there's no telling what the long-necks will do to him.

Wipe him clean with reconditioning? Decommission him? No chance in the galaxy they'll let their brother go through that. They'll turn him into a spacer instead before they'll let the Kaminoans decide.

So the COs are trying to find someone to go with this brother. Scruffy is willing, he's already done so much to take care of this brother, this will be a piece of meiloorun cake to accompany his anxious brother. If it wasn't a result of mistreatment at the hands of the… bounty hunters hired to be "Trainers", then it wasn't his fault something probably went wrong with his growth jar. It wasn't the fault of a brother who had a leak in his acceleration chamber that made him hyperactive and impulsive if the rumor mills are to be believed. They, all brothers, blame that on the Kaminoans. Or the Trainers. They do their best not to blame their brothers.

Brother looks out for brother. 

"Took-an-hour" is used less and eventually abandoned. The COs call him the Unpainted Brother as a nickname, now. U-Brother, or just Brother, for short. It's easy enough to pass off as a general term of addressal.

He's far from a Shiny, he's not open to Being Named, he's clearly not finding his Name out here.

"General… please, send Brother back to the Jedi cruiser when the next reinforcements come." We're… scared for him that he's just getting worse out here and he'll get himself killed the next time the Separatists attack us. 

"Another General will take him? And Scruffy? Thank you."

Brother, before you leave with Another General, we want you to take some of Our color. You may have been "unexpectedly" reassigned to another unit, but you'll always be one of Us.

Don't forget us, we won't forget you.

Carver and Cairn have a few little presents for you to remember us by. (A whittled nest of those endangered birds.) You take care of yourself, our painted Brother. Maybe your painted scuff marks will bring you good luck.

Maybe your brothers, Gunnar, Faro, Cryfar, Fluke, will bring you good luck. You, heh… kinda look like a paint canvas, now! All your batchmates scuffs glazed over in Our color. Your scuff on your chest plate is still naked, but that's okay. Maybe you can pick up the color of the unit of Another General and paint your scuff in that color, really make yourself look like a canvas. 

… 

What's that?

Oh. 

(Oh, brother. Now? When he's about to leave with Another General?)

You kinda like that, eh?

Well…

"Canvas: it's very nice to meet you, brother."

Do you want to go, still, or do you… want to stay?

Will you stay? You know our brothers are going to want to celebrate you and your name. It'd break their damn hearts if you left now, Canvas. After all that's happened up to now, the experiences that shaped up to finding a Name for yourself and have marked your armor… 

Of course, Canvas. You're welcome to stay with us longer. You're always going to be Our brother. I'll let the General know so they can let Another General know there's been a change of plans. They'll get it sorted out. Now, go grab Scruffy and let him know we'll need his skills with a brush. Need to add a little more paint to our Canvas.

Wouldn't ya think, brother?

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How older brothers in the 302nd and 417th deal with younger brothers' arguments

Faro - Put distance between squabbling brothers until cooler heads prevailed. Was not afraid to scruff or frog-march them by the back of their armor. (Unless Gunnar was involved. Then Gunnar got yelled at because as the second-oldest of Faro's batch he should have "known better".) There have been times Canvas really wishes Faro was still here to do this following his passing.

Commander Juke - Congratulations! You're now battle-buddies with him in the next firefight. If you all make it out in one piece, you can expect to have a "short chat" about the argument to make sure it's behind you.

Captain Law - Congratulations! You're now battle-buddies with each other, and he'll be keeping a very close eye on you. You can expect to expect to have a "short chat" about the argument, but rarely does it ever happen.

Scruffy - Expect to "hug it out" once the matter is settled. He knows brothers can't get along all the time, just ask him about his own batchmates... *Cough* Scuffle *Cough* But smoothing over the ice after a disagreement, no matter how minor, is important.

ARC Trooper Kessel - He's made many brothers learn to properly recite Vode An (Brothers All) in Mando'a together following heated arguments. Yes, he noticed you're not actually singing all the words to the war anthem, so he's going to "help" you make sure you really get it. (Better get friendly with your study partner to make this easier for everyone.)

ARC Trooper Nockite - Once he's put on his helmet, argument's over. He's done mediating. Expect to scrub blaster marks off the gunships if you feel like continuing after that. He doesn't mind helping his younger brothers with their disagreements but after a while he can't take the cadet-like bickering.

(Bonus) Carver and Cairn - No one really knows who's older between the two of them, but Cairn and Carver do plenty of "big brother" duties in Mudhorn Company. The twins would rather be the fun older brothers who keep things light-hearted, but they can also dole out the tough love when the need arises.

They actively discourage younger brothers from sorting out arguments the way they do (which often means wrestling and biting each other).

(Bonus Bonus) General Caelen - How would everyone like to hike somewhere quiet to meditate with them to clear their minds? Doesn't that sound nice? (This is not a rhetorical question. You will be hiking at least a mile out from camp so they don't have to discipline you in front of both deployments.)

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Protecting Little Brothers

Warnings and Information: Third installment in the NTMY,B universe which are [NTMY,B] & [IHNM,OAB] respectively, but this time, we’re focusing on clone oc: Scruffy. Reading the first installments will make this make more sense, so be sure to go give those a read first or check them out some other time!

Scruffy's penchant for not looking where he's walking leads to a very scary time for certain brothers. While he was only clinically dead for a few minutes at most, it feels much longer than that for everyone involved, and those introduced. Vague descriptions of blood, nausea and injuries. Star Wars and real-world swearing. Temporary death by explosive device. And you're probably not supposed to use a bacta tank that way, but kriff it. Scruffy meets the ghosts of Canvas's brothers and receives some very important instructions. Some minor expansion of Faro, Gunnar, Cryfar and Fluke's story and my takes on Clone Culture. No Mando'a here, just maybe lots of tissues. My usual use of italics.

Word-count: 3,782

How could he be so careless? Again? 

"SCRUFFY!"

He never watches where he's walking. In some ways he's still a plastoid puppy with two left feet. 

"LOOK OUT!" The COs warn him. Some are pulling other brothers away while one, the Captain maybe, tries to nab him by the back of his armor, racing after.

A tripwire. He should've seen a damn, glowing tripwire. He's thrown back ten, maybe twenty feet with the force of the blast. The pain is white-hot. The planet around him is swimming in and out of focus, vision growing darker than the dusky sky above him. 

"No-no-no-! Scruffy!" Canvas. Canvas is screaming across the field, booted feet tearing up the golden grass with every step. He's faster than he'd ever think possible for a brother who once took an hour to eat a small ration pack. The hard, white shell of his helmet is plucked from his head and thrown behind him along with his sniper rifle  in the grass as he races to make his brother's position. "Scruffy!!" His vision is so hazy now, but he sees the unfettered panic in Canvas's eyes when he drops to his knees. "No-no-no-no-no! Please don't- Don't leave me, brother!" 

"H-hey, 'Vas I-I'm going to b-be fine… don't worry." he rasps, hearing the clamor of the COs calling in all available medics to convene on their position. Sounds like the Captain had been thrown as well. "They're c-callin' the m-" Something heavy and metallic claws its way up his throat, interrupting him and painting his brother's knees in crimson when he's thrown on his side so he can't choke on it. 

Canvas's voice is fading fast. "O-over here! Hurry! He's-!" 

Back on Kamino. Scruffy is suddenly back on Kamino in one of the massive training rooms, flat on his back. Sitting up slowly, he expects to find he's got company for a moment. That he's in a massive training exercise in his sweat-slick training uniform and he's a cadet again, that one of the Trainers will be along down the training floor and sharply telling him "That was sloppy, CT-××××! Get up! Again!" but the order never came. He found he was alone in this room. 

Strange. Maybe he'll find someone out in one of the halls. "Hello…?"

Except that's too empty, too. All of Kamino is. Kamino isn't supposed to be empty... Growth jars. The halls. The mess. His old bunkroom. There's nary a Clone to be found. It's just him. As far as he can tell. "Hello?"

There's a steady pull just behind his navel that seems to direct him to another part of the cloning facility. He's not sure what the long-necks called this place officially. Doesn’t really give two banthashits what it is, either; Scruffy prefers the nicknames and in-jokes he's heard from older brothers when he'd been caught snooping around the area once or twice as a very young cadet by the brothers who were a part of the Kaminoan security unit. 

"Hey: CT-×××× to command, it's just a trainee out of his bed. We'll take care of it. Aww look, someone's found an excuse to wander into the Build-a-Brother lab."

"Can you blame him? There's something… so calming about the nurseries. But you're not supposed to be here, little brother. C'mon. Back to bed before the long-necks get angry."

"Hello?!" He's getting desperate and unsettled. Kamino isn't supposed to be desolate and silent, his mother-world was always bursting with brothers even before the Clone Wars started, traversing Tipoca City was like swimming in a living sea of identical faces and voices. There was unspoken comfort in that uniformity as a cadet. There was always someone who may not have been the brother you were looking for, but would help you find the brother you needed. 

Needed. Oh what he needed was to find someone. Scruffy has to understand what's going on, why the pulling sensation is getting stronger when he enters the next section of the nursery. Why his chest feels so heavy with rhythmic pulses of pressure. He can't be dead, can he? 

"HELLO?! Will someone tell me what the kriff is going on?!"

"Hey-" calls a particularly brusque voice, but a brother's voice, unmistakably, "Cut that out. There's no need for yellin'. Not in here." Scruffy stares at this brother who seems to have blinked into existence in front of him, wearing armor just like him. There's a scuff mark and three "blaster-blooms" that mar his armor kit. Two in the chest and shoulder plate, and one in the kidney armor. Scruffy remembers that damage in the kidney armor. The ruined flesh beneath it. The BX droid commando's fluke shot. The injury that this brother shortly succumbed to not too long after he had gotten his Name. 

Scruffy can't believe it. "F-Faro? That really you? Where's the oth-" If Faro's here, would the others of Canvas's batch be too? Fluke? Gunnar? Cryfar? Maybe they're somewhere in this section of the embryo lab with him, hiding in another row of machinery ordinarily containing little, growing brothers sleeping in their jars. Someone sighs when he turns around to look behind him, flashing them the ring of paint around the neck of the back plating of plastoid. More have joined him and Faro. "... it's not him. It's Scruffy." 

"Who's-?" asks a third.

There's a fourth new voice, patient with the third while trying to mask the bitterness of disappointment. "Scruffy's the one that kept falling into the pits like you, Cry." 

"Oh, right-right-right..." the third one replies.

Scruffy turns back around, finding a frowning Fluke, confused Cryfar, and the last brother, Gunnar. Scruffy never had much of a chance to get to know each of these brothers. He would've liked to. There were as much his brothers as they were Canvas's batch, "his" brothers, and he… Scruffy was never as close with his batchmates. He loved them, sure. Scruffy loved all his brothers. But the three remaining brothers of his batch weren't quite as close as he would've liked. That kind of closeness didn't interest or suit them. 

"A batch isn't a bond for life, Scruff… you know that. I don't need you to coddle me." 

"C'mon, of course I do know that, but-"

Fluke approaches Scruffy at long last, laying a comforting hand on the deep injury cut into the plastoid chest plate by the explosive he triggered stepping through the tripwire. "I hope that was quick and you didn't have to suffer… C-can I ask-? Wh-where's-?" 

He doesn't know. "Hopefully he's… Oh Maker, hopefully Canvas is okay…" He faded so fast. One moment he was listening to the sound of Canvas's voice becoming more and more submerged before… nothing. He remembers trying to blink the haze from his eyes, and when he next opened them, he was on the gridded floor of the training center instead of the golden field. 

"Canvas?" It's a chorus of confused, delighted voices.

"Did he choose his name?" Faro inquires, his stoic expression brightening with a sense of curiosity. "Fluke, you were with him longest, did he-?"

Fluke shakes his head solemnly. "No…he still hadn't found or chosen a name before I died." Fluke says grimly. "Besides, I would have told you he found his Name. Or had come to Be Named."

They keep talking around Scruffy, excluding him from their conversation. "Dank farrik. Right, no, of course." Faro grumbles before his face is like stone again. Gunnar shooed Fluke off, pulling Scruffy aside to speak by a more "private" row of machinery. Scruffy grimaces seeing the jars up close. 

They shouldn't be empty. Even if this was the afterlife, if he was dead, this dreamscape of Kamino shouldn't be so empty… where are the little brothers? Where are the future soldiers and heroes of the GAR?

The grimace is noticed, and Gunnar tries to console him. "Hey, it'll be okay Scruffy… the longer you're here, the more you'll kinda get used to it. Details will start to fill in and it won't be so bad. We can see 'em… all ten fingers and toes. I've been here the longest between the four of us. I remember being scared too." Gunnar says, gesturing to his batchmates before gingerly laying a hand against the glass. "Hard to believe we were ever that small…" 

"G-guess so." Scruffy forces out between stunted breaths. He can't see the brothers inside these jars, and he's suddenly feeling this wave of dread the longer he looks. His eyes scrunch up before he has to duck his head urgently. He feels… nauseous. Lightheaded. Do ghosts get nauseous and lightheaded? What the hell is going on? Gunnar notices the distress, and thinks he's just not taking the news of being dead so well. Fluke certainly didn't; sobbing for leaving their brother behind on his own. Faro had been silent for weeks, stewing with worry over Fluke and… Canvas. His batchmate finally had a name! "So… he went with Canvas, eh?" That was not the thing to ask perhaps, but it was the first thing that came to mind. 

There's pressure in his chest, or maybe on his chest. Like he's being sat on by a Reek. Scruffy can't breathe. He's going to be sick, he's going to be sick- 

"Far!" Gunnar cries as Scruffy falls to his knees, trying to clear his throat, cough, something, to relieve some of this pressure on his rib cage.

"What, Gun?"

"What's going on with him? You think he's-?"

Faro comes closer, stooping down to Scruffy's level as he's on his elbows and knees, gasping desperately as he tries not to dry-heave. "Yeah. I think they're trying to bring him back." 

"They can do that?"

"For the lucky ones, Gun. For the people who go before it's their time. It's not his. I think… I think someone still needs him." 

"The Republic needed us and we-!" Gunnar shakes his head sharply in self-regulation, apologizing for losing his temper. "Sorry. Guess some sentiments never change and make my temper flare… Wanted to tell off the General like a real idiot, for kriff's sake. I'd have knocked my own head clean off too, Faro." 

"Here. Sit up, Scruffy." Faro's steady hands pull him up to his feet best he can before he's scrutinized by Canvas's batchmate; there's a familiar aura around him, lurking in the depths of his eyes. A rich, deep brown that reminds Scruffy of the mud from their first campaign together. How Canvas and Fluke used to poke around in the older trenches after rainfall, looking for bugs together. Faro's way of keeping them out of trouble. 

"I'm going to speak with the Captain or Commander about seeing if we can't borrow something a little more permanent than filmsi… Would be nice to know what kind of friends you two are finding in the mud by looking everything up one of these days, and we'd need records to do it. Maybe I can convince one of them to use a spare datapad. Or, something." 

"Hey look, this one's green!" 

"You two bucket-heads didn't hear a word I said, did you?" 

The tired eyes of the oldest brother of Canvas's batch looks at him, softening at last when he's satisfied with his study. "Can I ask you something before you go, Scruffy? One oldest of the batch to another?" Of course Faro would figure out Scruffy was the oldest of his batch. You could always tell. Somehow, you could always tell. Sometimes it was the posture, the way they carried themselves. Or the way they kept their brothers in line. A nurturing aptitude. Extra compassion and patience. A helpful and reassuring disposition. A sacrificial nature.

Scruffy wonders what gave it away. "An-anything." Plastoid clacks together, and for a moment the weight in his chest abates as he's encircled in a hug by one Clone-brother. Then another as Gunnar joins in. Cryfar and Fluke don't hang behind for long. "Ask me anything…" he promises once he’s been surrounded by these brothers bearing scuff marks he’s become very familiar with by proxy.

"How or when did our brother get his Name?" 

"When the CO tried to ma-make him a spacer. He was so lost without you, he wasn't doing well. He adopted all your scuff marks. We got worried about him and thought… It's something they said to him. Well he adopted all your scuff marks and eventually painted them in Our color and the CO said he'd eventually paint his in the colors of Another General after he was transferred most likely and he'd look like a paint canvas when he was talking to him and… H-he liked the word." Scruffy explains, feeling all arms tightening around him with every little gasp to alleviate the sensation. We're here, we have you, the gesture seemed to say. Something he never got from his own little brothers much. They didn’t care to be coddled or taken care of the way Scruffy often offered. There was nothing wrong with that. They were allowed not to want their older brother to offer comfort and help and security. 

“Hey. I’m gonna be okay. Medic made sure the cut’s gonna heal up.”

“Oh… good. That’s good to hear, Stick.”

“Have you checked on the one brother yet? How’s he doing?”

“He’s…”

“He’s not doing well, is he?”

“No…”

“You should go take care of him. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, Scruff, I promise to let you know if anything changes. He needs you more than I do right now.”

The scene around him was fading out. His body felt like it was being pulled in all directions and nothing would hold him down much longer. One by one, Canvas’s brothers released him except for Faro. Faro held this brother close, sheltering him for a moment longer. The medics nearly had him back, they figured. It wouldn’t be long. It wasn’t his time. The galaxy had other plans for him. 

Faro did too. “Promise me something, Scruffy...”

“Anything.” Scruffy swore. Anything at all. He’d swear by the seas of his mother-world and his own blaster if asked. He’d swear he’d always watch where he was going from now on. No more getting so distracted he forgot to look ahead while keeping his eyes trained on the sky looking for more birds to show Canvas, or more sweeping the treeline for spotting scrap wood for Carver, or finding weather-worn rocks to give to Cairn to add to his collection of “proper” rocks. 

“Keep looking out for our baby brother.” Faro requests. It all snaps into place for Scruffy. Canvas was the youngest of his batch. Now he was the last of it. The last brushstroke. No wonder his two older brothers, Faro and Gunnar,  seemed… so worried about him in particular out of the other three from the moment they stepped off the gunship and heard the COs murmuring to themselves. Never scolding him for his lack of adherence to the rules because Canvas made sure to try to follow them to the letter as a Shiny. Never needing to remind him to stick close because he followed so obediently after them. Of course… he should have noticed Canvas was the baby of the batch… (But, maybe he did, deep down.) “Canvas still needs you. Can you promise me that? Can you promise me you’ll protect my little brother for us?”

“I always look out for my little brothers. Brother looks out for brother. I-I promise. I promise I’ll protect him. I’ll protect your little brother, Faro…” he vows fervently. Faro, satisfied with this answer, nods gently before he tries letting go of Scruffy (but Scruffy still holds tight). He trusts this brother to keep his word. Scruffy had never rushed Canvas to find his Name or Be Named, even telling other Clone brothers to back off if he thought that Faro hadn’t heard someone harassing his batchmate. (“He’ll find his Name when he’s ready, leave him be, brother.”) Scruffy had seemed to be concerned about this little brother, just like Faro's batch, when he realized he didn’t have an answer to their questions. It seemed they’d gotten close since they’d died and Canvas was the last survivor of their batch. Maybe Scruffy needed Canvas as much as Canvas probably needed him.

“Thank you, brother.” Faro says before Scruffy slowly fades away in his arms, once again encircling him in embrace around his lower body this time. “Thank you.”

Scruffy comes around slowly, gently, feeling most of his body enveloped in a sense of weightlessness. Nothing below his feet provides any resistance when he tentatively stretches out one leg. He must be in a bacta pod. He tries looking around him, to get a sense for what's going on around him. What's hooked up to him? A couple of leads fixed to the fingers of his left hand that he feels dragging through the solution when he flexes his fingers, so maybe a pulse-OX and heart monitor. There's the breath-pipe and mask attached to his face of course, but there's… two of the oxygen tubes in here feeding in from the top? 

What the hell? His clouded eyes follow the second tube, finding the tense, scrunched face of… 

Canvas. 

His arms are anchored around his lower body, the same area he'd been held by Faro after he made a brother's oath. The promise to look out for Faro’s little brother. Their little brother… Canvas was his little brother, too.

“Commander…?”

“Yes, Carver?”

“What happens to the brothers who lose all their batchmates, Sir? Is it… common for them to be “adopted” into another group, or do they…?”

“...It’s entirely up to that unpainted brother, Carver. Believe us,” he said, nodding to the Captain not far away at the time, “we’re very worried about him too. We’re… trying to find some methods to keep this man safe. There’s an idea that seems promising, but we’re not sure he’d go through it alone. If we sent two people-”

“I’ll go with him, Commander. I’ll go with our brother. It doesn’t matter where.”

“Scruffy…”

“I mean it… uh, Sir!  I’ll go with him.”

The bacta levels are dropping now that the sensors have picked up that the occupant within has begun to show a prolonged period of consciousness. He knows he should brace his legs to support his weight ordinarily, but he’s got Canvas practically glued to his side, head tucked under his chin with one cheek planted snugly on Scruffy’s chest. He’d probably been sedated in order to “allow” him to stay with Scruffy, a smart act of mercy from an understanding medic-brother. Some brothers grow very close together, practically joined at the hip and you have to let the other brother stay so you can take care of the sick or injured one.

The glass shell of the bacta pod opens, allowing three people to step in and support the brother-pair coming out of the medical slumber. It looks like a medic and his Commander, but who was the third who stepped behind them? “Easy, easy,” his Commander urges when he tries craning his neck over his shoulder and feels an unpleasant pull, “you need to take it easy, Scruffy. You’re pretty lucky to be alive. We’re on the Jedi cruiser.” the CO promises, keeping his hands on both brothers as the medic removes the equipment. It finally allows Scruffy to talk without obstruction, though his mouth feels full of thick cotton. “Wh-what do you mean, Sir? A-are you telling me I didn’t die?” 

The medic-brother’s face flashes with an expression that tells him “ah, so he knows” all too plainly. “We were lucky to get you back. You were clinically dead for a couple of minutes, but we managed to get your heart restarted.” He nods his head to the mysterious third person behind Scruffy and Canvas, arriving with a dinged up supply crate wide enough to comfortably seat two.

“We?” Scruffy could guess that the field medics were a part of the effort, naturally, but… Who’s behind him? Had Canvas been involved, too? “Who’s-”

“Hey, Scruff.” the mysterious third announces themselves, finally stepping into Scruffy’s line of sight. It’s his batchmate. It’s the little brother with a silly sense of humor similar to Scruffy’s who named himself Stick. “Turns out the scrawny little Shiny who couldn’t complete a push-up in a full armor kit can do some pretty impressive chest compressions now.”  Scruffy stares at him incredulously, almost missing the moment Canvas stirs against him.

“Stick…? That really you, little brother?”

Stick grins broadly at his batchmate. “Sure is.”

“D-did you-?”

“Sure did,” Stick confirms, bobbing his head once before growing a little more timid, “I was near one of the medics when the call came in for help. When I realized that my batchmate was behind the man-down call, I… found myself running after to help so Canvas wouldn’t lose you. So… I wouldn’t lose you. While I was waiting here with the medics on the cruiser for you to wake up for… a-about half an hour…  I realized I’d rather have you embarrass me by trying to take care of me like I’m a cadet all over again than… be gone.” Scruffy is having a hard time wrapping his head around the words coming out of his batchmate’s mouth, surprised by the confession that Stick cared about him still. He thought Stick was still stuck on the adamant sentiment that Scruffy embarrassed him to be around from the last time they’d talked. 

He’d been sent back by the galaxy, Sith’s hells, maybe even the Force itself for all he knew, to protect one little brother now awake and blubbering in his arms. Maybe he’d been sent back to protect a second brother, too, if he wanted to reforge his relationship with his batchmate. Kamino’s rains, just how badly had he been hurt? Well, no matter. There was time to suss that out later. “Hey, it’s okay, little brothers…” he hums softly, taking Canvas and Stick under each of his arms, “it’s okay. I’m still here.” 

“Count yourselves lucky, boys,” the Commander replies with a solemn voice and a nostalgic smile that speaks to his storied past, “not every day we get to keep those so devoted to protecting little brothers from death itself. We’ll give you some time to comfort your little brothers.” Scruffy wants to thank his CO for this small mercy and act of compassion for their situation, but he’s silenced with a merely mouthed shush you. That comfort isn’t just for them. 

You’re someone’s little brother too, Scruffy, he’s reminded.

We’re not just protecting the Republic. We’re protecting our little brothers.

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Shameless "Dashboard Simulator" with my Clone OCs for more characterization practice.

Whoops: this has been buried in my drafts for a while, but I added new stuff.

☀️ knight-caelen

Very well, @cc-juke-417 I made the account, now what?

🎹 cc-juke-417

Hold on, one second, General! Let me tag Captain Law.

@capt-law-302 now you can share the funny bantha videos.

📋 capt-law-302

I have so many more saved in my bantha tag, General.

#bantha #video files #welcome to the holonet General #302 legion

( 302 notes )

🪺 fabric-feathers

I don't really wanna talk about, like, the war and stuff like a lot of other clone troopers are so maybe I'll do a bird blog instead?

🔪 toaninchofyourlife follow

You totally should, Vas!

🪺 fabric-feathers

Um? Who are you?

🔪 toaninchofyourlife follow

Oh it's me, Carver! So sorry! I thought all the woodcarving and knife care would've made it obvious that it's me. (It was the username, wasn't it? You can thank @stonestack (Cairn) for that one, I can't figure out how to change it.)

⛰️ stonestack follow

You're welcome.

besh-trill-wesk @rowdytooka ... Vas FINALLY made a holoblog.

🦁 rowdytooka

CANVAS! :D Ya finally made one ya lil scamp! You should totally do a bird blog!

#hi little brother!! #now we just gotta convince cypher to make a bug blog and maybe you guys can like collab or something :') #lil nerds putting their heads together (affectionate)

( 5 notes )

🔪 toaninchofyourlife

⛰️ stonestack

HEY

🔪 toaninchofyourlife

hELP how do I change the "at" to "to"? I meant to say I was gonna make more of the worry stones Cairn likes to use for his stacks and I posted this when I was half asleep!!!

I was thinking of giving them to him as I made them I swear I swear

🔪toaninchofyourlife

@capt-law-302 CAPTAIN LAW HELP

📋capt-law-302

@medic-riddance You may have some patients coming into the medbay, soon. It's the twins again.

#these boys... #I voted for the mudhorn egg

( 14 notes )

❤️‍🩹medic-riddance

Gentle reminder to the 302nd Legion of the GAR:

Around this time of year for many planets, it's cold and flu season. So please keep up with regular handwashing protocol! - Rid

🥼hes-a-wylie-one

NOT SO GENTLE REMINDER BECAUSE RID IS TOO NICE TO SAY IT: WASH THE FILTHY GERM-PILES YOU CALL HANDS, YOU DISGUSTING PETRI DISHES!

ct-deactivated4043098348

okay fess up who got wylie sick again

🥼hes-a-wylie-one

WHEN I FIND OUT WHO GAVE ME MALONGO POX I'M GONn

[Hi brothers, please let me know over on @medic-riddance if Wylie's posting anything strange or unusual. Treatment for Malongo pox involves sedatives, so while it should mean he's sleeping, who knows what he'll start posting again when the first dosage wears off! He's sleeping right now, at least. Thanks and all the best, Rid.]

ct-deactivated4043098348

poor wylie

( 417 notes )

🦁 rowdytooka

... Carver what the hell is your #knife husbandry tag?

#please tell me that's cairn's doing #kriffing??? knife husbandry??? #you know we can all see that right?

( 22 notes )

🪲ilikebigbugs

@ruff-n-rowdy Fess up. Why'd you change my username? I can't change it back to cyphers-and-codexes!

🥊ruff-n-rowdy follow

It wasn't me, Cypher, honest. You can thank @shortfortactical it was his idea. I did sneak him your datapad, though.

🐺shortfortactical

I can give you cyphers-and-codexes back if you really want it.

🪲ilikebigbugs

I still don't believe you that figuring out the "bug trick" from this Arcadia friend of yours was a happy coincidence, Tack.

#I'm gonna keep the new username for now #brothers in my legion kept misspelling 'codexes' and could never tag me properly in things... #you're forgiven. for now.

( 104 notes )

[FFF Masterlist] [Clone OC Masterlist]

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Comforting Little Brothers

Warnings and Information: Scruffy's story continues on in the fourth installment of the NTMY,B universe. Canvas is not having a good time since Scruffy's brush with death, so Scruffy's paternal instincts are on full display. Are there recreation rooms on a Venator class starship in canon? Maybe not explicitly mentioned, but we can pretend chances are good given the size of and the multiple purposes these ships serve in SW canon. Some more minor expansion of Faro, Gunnar, Cryfar and Fluke's story with more emphasis on Stick and Scruffy, and my takes on some softer aspects of Clone Culture. The Clones are artistic AF because I say so (*gestures at their armor designs*). That bird exists in SW because I say so [there's only so many times I'll open Wookiepedia for species that probably have one or two lines of Canon/Legends information]. No Mando'a here. Star Wars and real-world swearing. My usual use of italics.

Word-count: 5,324

He felt, in a word, just terrible, really. Canvas had been doing so well since finding his identity, getting his Name from one of their COs, but since Scruffy’s brush with death - only a matter of two agonizing minutes for this little brother - he’s… regressed. Canvas has regressed badly in the week and half they’ve spent aboard the Venator class ship that’s been stationed above the planet while Scruffy recovers to the satisfaction of the medical crew.

Scruffy can’t blame the lack of sleep he’s been getting, sleep that would accelerate his recovery and get him combat-ready sooner, on poor ‘Vas…  

Poor ‘Vas who’s been having nightmares about the tripwire and detonation. The feeling of the brother who took care of him fading away under his hands, and the chest compressions Stick performed on Scruffy failing to bring him back. The detonation was Scruffy’s fault in the first place. If he’d only watched where he’d put his damn foot, his little brother wouldn’t be having these nocturnal terrors about losing more brothers close to him. 

Nightmares that were only getting worse, leading to a devastating and vicious chain reaction of consequences. The worse the nightmares, the less he slept, and the less he slept, the more paranoid he would become. Paranoia that worsened the nightmares. 

Nightmares where Gunnar hadn’t just tried to race across No Man’s Land to selflessly provide cover-fire for a trooper who wasn’t dead after all, but he had triggered the landmine nearby instead of the CIS battle droid. Where Cryfar hadn’t just fallen backwards into a deeper pit and presumably broken his neck or his skull after losing his footing on the soil softened by the rains, but had either drowned or been swept away in a flash-flood. Where Faro hadn’t just been shot by the BX commando, but had his spine broken over the clanker’s knee, too. Where Fluke hadn’t just been effectively poisoned by his spoiled rations and died in his sleep, but he’d been… Maker, poor Canvas couldn’t even say. 

And now, he, Scruffy, was showing up in these nightmares. The more the medics said he recovered and got closer to battle-ready, the more Canvas seemed to regress. 

Scruffy couldn’t let his little brother go on this way, but he wasn’t sure how he could break the anxiety spiral this time. All the worry stones in the galaxy couldn't help him right now. Sedatives just made him fitful and sick to his stomach. They'd tried; many times. It was hard to think at 0300 in the morning as he listened to Stick trying to coax Canvas back to his bunk while he feverishly messaged the CO back. 

“Hey, do… you want to try one of those strategy games they gave us as cadets, Canvas?”

“No.” Canvas snaps back, squeezing his knees tighter under his chin, thin GAR-issued blanket draped around his shoulders as he sits, hunched, in a corner of the room.

Sir, please, with all due respect, I’m not sure the sedative is the best call. Yes, I know he needs sleep, believe me. But he was sick for an hour afterwards the last time we tried it. He’s not eating regularly again.

Placating hands are raised to chest level, trying to show the lack of threat. “Okay-okay. What about walking around the ship to tire you out?” Stick suggests gently, trying to buy Scruffy time to find or outsource a potential solution. 

“We’re not supposed to leave our quarters,” Canvas drones in a flat intonation, “we’d get in troub-”

“Well not if a CO said it was okay!” Stick blurts in interuption, a wide-eyed look thrown Scruffy’s way. He remembered the warning from his batchmate that this brother of a different batch was once pretty tight-fisted about the rules and regulations as a Shiny, because they offered comfort and stability to a cadet with a higher than typical obedience before he learned that the regulation manuals couldn’t teach you everything. The reg manuals couldn’t teach you about the effect losing your brothers has on a soldier. Canvas stopped being quite such a stickler for the rules when Gunnar disobeyed the order to retreat to the natural cover provided by a ridge before returning fire and-

> Good idea, see if walking around the ship will help him. Permission granted.  

Thank you, Sir.

He pitches the communicator onto his bunk and strides across the private quarters suggested by the medical crew that was mercifully signed off on by the COs. “We’ve been granted permission. C’mon, you two.” Scruffy declares, hoisting Canvas up to his feet by the wrists. “Let’s go stretch our legs, little brother.”

Canvas slumps forward, fatigue weighing down his every limb. He’s so tired. He’s so paranoid. He’s so traumatized. “O-okay…” Scruffy supports him on one side, Stick the other, and the three Clones leave their temporary quarters to walk the ship aimlessly. Scruffy didn't have anywhere particular in mind, just anywhere else away from the room Canvas has effectively made into a foxhole. 

I should thank the brothers in Laundry for sneaking us all these extra blankets, soon, Scruffy thinks to himself, tucking the blanket Canvas had essentially swaddled himself in back over his shoulders when it slips. 

“Hey, Scruff? I thought of somethin'. You know where the replacement armor depot and rec rooms are on this level, right?”

Scruffy gives his batchmate a quizzical look. “Yeah… why?” He'd already gotten the parts of his armor that couldn't be repaired after the detonation replaced and repainted in their unit's color. He'd had to make several secretive runs to collect more paint after he kept knocking over the containers in his haste to rescue Canvas from yet another panicked awakening several nights in a row. Had to send several sets of sleepwear to Laundry after hastily smearing paint on them to clean his hands. Clean hands Scruffy needed to clean up his brother's tears or hug him or pull him out of bed to settle him down.

"Back so soon, Scruffy! This is the second time tonight. Whaddya need?"

"Clean set of sleepers, please… Got paint on em, don't want the stain to set." 

"Uh oh. Canvas again, yeah? Poor kid. Here… Fresh set of sleepers for the three of you. Blankets, too."

"Thanks… appreciate it. Off to the armor depot to pick up some paint remover."

Stick scratches behind his left ear to think. “Well I uh… heard a rumor that if you ask someone in the depot for it, they've got a bad batch of armor paint they're trying to find uses for. Say it's too thin and runny to properly adhere to plastoid but it'd probably be better suited for wood or something." 

It has turned out that more Clones than just Carver, and Stick, as Scruffy had come to find out, had a penchant for finding and collecting the odd scrap of wood here and there as little tokens from this ongoing campaign. Or as art material. The General has joked fondly on more than one occasion that they must have cut as many logs as they have battle droids with their lightsaber in the name of their men so the troops have more manageable sized pieces of wood to work and create with.

"How beautiful it is that so many of these men desire to breathe creation into this galaxy, each work of art as unique and distinct as them all." 

"So… that's a 'yes, I nicked myself with my own lightsaber and would like my team medic to check the wound' because you got excited rather than tired, then, General?"

"Hah, I suppose so."

Disposable canisters of paint and brushes from the depot, some whittled token for Stick to work with and paper-like material for Scruffy in case he doesn't care for the wood he's selected from the scrap pile, they find an empty, circular table in the unofficial rec center and "make camp", so to speak. Scruffy is flanked by Canvas on his left, Stick his right, to allow him to keep Canvas close in the way that's most comforting to him while keeping his more dominant hand free. In the matters of painting, Scruffy found his right hand was better suited for controlling the brushes, while he felt he was better with a blaster in his left. 

They were trained to be dual-handed, ambidextrous, on their mother-world of Kamino. But brothers tended to favor certain hands for certain tasks. Stick always ate with his left hand, and shot primarily with his left, too. However, when he creates, like Scruffy, he's right-handed. Canvas is the inverse; primarily right-handed when it comes to how he eats and fights, but left handed for most other matters. Scruffy was more balanced, equally comfortable using either hand for anything at the end of the day. 

Canvas doesn't want to do anything but watch, too tired or too uninterested, arms stitched tightly around Scruffy's waist with his head laying over his brother's heart. Stick is more interested in rifling through the colors the crew stationed in the depot gave them for their creative efforts; decided on what carved item he wishes to paint, at least.

He's not sure what he wants to paint yet, but Scruffy knows that he should at least get started on something to keep himself calm instead of actively fretting. If Canvas's ear was just above his heart, then he was probably using this organic timer to measure out his own clarity and calm. "Hey, could I borrow the blue?" Stick requests in a soft voice. By following his batchmate's lead, maybe, hopefully, Stick hopes Canvas will be kept calm enough to decide to test his luck and sleep. 

"Sure. Whatcha paintin'?" Didn't look like anything Carver made to his memory, so it must have been one of the friends his little brother made during his time as a Shiny. Looked to be some kind of livestock from some far-flung corner of the galaxy.

Stick shrugged. "Uh… I forget what he called it. Just remember he said it was mostly blue." 

"Fair enough." 

"What're you painting?" 

"Mm," Scruffy hummed in thought, laying down a washing of white paint as a base coat on the wood square in careful, steady strokes, "thinking about that still. Maybe an Aiwha. Or a bird. Or… something." Just needed something to keep him busy, keep him engaged and focused on something that would keep Canvas's mind occupied on anything else. Anything else than the memory or thought of the dreams he's been having about losing his brothers. If silent observation was what he wanted, found comfort in, Scruffy would give that to Canvas.

He'd go so far to give the armor with the collar of paint around the neck off his back to a brother in need. Whatever it would take to uphold that oath to Faro. 

I'll protect our little brother.

I'd do anything to comfort him, too.

So yes, we're now sitting in the rec room at nearly 0400 after spending half an hour walking around aimlessly before we got the paints, and-

"You've gotten really good with a brush, Scruff." 

The compliment throws him off track for just a heartbeat, the break in the comfortable silence only punctuated by the soft inhale and exhale of breath between the wet sweeping of paint-laden brushes unexpected. "Thanks, Stick." There's a muted hum of agreement from Canvas that he can feel through his brother's chest. "Thank you too, Canvas. How're you feeling right now? Sleepy?" 

There's no reply, verbal or otherwise, and the soft patter of his heartbeat Scruffy can just barely make out being held so close, like he'd drift away with the tide if Canvas relaxed his arms even a fraction, changed only slightly. 

"That's okay, brother. You don't have to answer. Only wondering." Scruffy assures him, the arm draped around his shoulders constricts softly to give him a comforting squeeze. "Like… have you been told why his name is Stick, yet?" Scruffy feels the answer, a gentle bumping of Canvas's chin against his chest as he shakes his head no. 

His batchmate chuckles quietly. "It's silly. I scratched my CT number into a stick I found nearby and used it to hold my place in line for receiving our evening rations because I desperately had to, y'know, "help a thirsty tree"... One of the COs was wondering why there was a gap in the line and asked why there was a stick in line when he went to inspect things, asked what a stick was doing in line right around the time I came back. Looked the CO straight in the eye and said "Oh that's me, Sir!", completely serious-like. I accidentally named myself Stick."

"And… you didn't want to change it?" Canvas asks in a small voice. It's the first he's spoken since he suggested he believed they'd be in trouble if they were out of their room after-hours on this part of the massive Venator-class ship. 

Stick smiles brightly, surprised just like Scruffy that Canvas was actually talking. "Nah. The look on the CO's face was too funny and the joke got away from me quickly. Took on a life of its own so fast that other soldiers actually kept using that placeholder I made to keep my spot in line several times. I just decided to lean into it; claim it for myself." 

"Do you… still have it?"

Stick nodded, blotting the smallest brush clean for Scruffy so he could use it next. "Yeah. It's in one of the lockers with the rest of my things back in the room, actually. Here, trade with you so you're not trying to use the edge of such a thick brush to paint such thin lines, Scruff." 

"Oh, thanks…" Scruffy murmurs, finding the tiny tip much easier to control to properly convey the shape of his subject. A little bird sitting in cupped hands.

"Is that a… uh, what'd the General call them again? Spearoos?"

Scruffy chuckles, amused by the mispronounced attempt. "Sparrows. Little birds they'd see at the Jedi Temple, apparently. They sounded cute." he admits with a shrug. The more he learned from Canvas about the various birds of the galaxy, the more he could understand why they fascinated this brother from another batch. There were just so many. So many fascinating evolutionary niches, adaptations, colors, sizes, even types of plumage. There was no shortage of information to learn about avian life of the galaxy outside their rainy mother-world. 

"What kind of…?" Canvas yawned halfway through his question, head drooping a little deeper.

"Oh… I dunno yet." Scruffy suddenly had an idea. He'd come back to working on the sparrow. Hands cupping the sparrow now found themselves at the ends of bent arms encircled in armor. "You'll get to decide once I'm done painting you." 

"... me? You're gonna paint me?" Canvas stubbornly blinks away the fatigue steadily tugging his eyelids shut the longer they're in this quiet recreation center. Every Clone who comes in from the outer halls of the ship, initially bursting with exuberant laughter, falls silent when they see the three brothers sat around the little table, one of them slumped so far down in his chair while draped in a blanket, practically sharing his brother's shadow. The rumors have gotten around fast. 

If for any reason you see a particularly anxious trooper huddled in the hall outside the infirmary, that's not a Shiny scared about his check-up. Please seek out Scruffy or his batchmate Stick immediately. They'll be the only ones who can settle Canvas down. 

The permanent crew has heard of the ordeal just a week and a half ago, and they've made sure to advise all brothers and batchmates to show Scruffy, Stick and Canvas some extra support and patience because this "I'm having too many nightmares to sleep properly" cycle has been going on for four days, at least. Those entering the room become hushed with one quick glance at the trio. 

Scruffy waves in return to those entering to be polite. At last, he answers Canvas with a "Yeah, why not?" paired with a little shrug and gentle nod. "Would be good practice, too." 

Thank Kamino's steady rains and her endless, yawning seas… 

Canvas was actually asleep. 

This whole time, Scruffy just needed to hold Canvas close and sit in relative quiet in order to coax his brother into sleeping. With any luck, a sleep that was not burdened with pain-soaked memories of how he'd lost his batchmates to this galaxy. Hopefully that sweet-tempered, tiny smile was brought about by dreaming of happier times with those brothers. Maybe he was dreaming of Faro holding him and maybe all his brothers close during one of the rare times they had no training, no studies to complete. Or remembering a time he perhaps straddled Gunnar’s shoulders to reach or see something on a high shelf, maybe even racing down the halls pretending they were riding on the back of an Aiwha, instead. Maybe he was hand-sparring with Cryfar for fun, throwing sloppy punches with the intention of making a brother crack and break down into peals of laughter that lasted until their sides ached and their heads felt light. He could have been fantasizing with Fluke all the planets they’d see once they were shipped off to fight in the name of the Republic, the name of their brothers, their homeworld. 

Fantasizing and brainstorming their Names. Their paint patterns. If they’d get brave and step outside the uniformity of the regulation haircut and get wild with it. If they’d be lucky and survive long enough to no longer be Shinies, but be the seasoned, experienced soldiers they’d been bred for, bred in the after-image of a late bounty hunter. Wishfully thinking they’d outlast the war.

Similar things Scruffy had done himself with his own batchmates. 

“Who’s scuff mark is that?” Stick mumbles, whispering in a sleepy voice as he points to the scuff that spans across the split in the chestplate that denotes the “pecs” of the armor, just under the chin of the Phase II helmet.

“Faro’s…” Scruffy whispers back, carefully dabbing his brush to gather a miniscule amount of black paint to mix into the white on the makeshift mixing palette to make more of the light gray. “His scuff mark is above ‘Vas’s… almost like he’s…” 

Looking down on his little brother. 

Oh how poetic. 

“Kriff…” Stick murmurs, thinking the same exact thing, bottom lip quivering. He’s heard what Scruffy experienced in those two minutes, heard the dreamscape he wandered through, heard the promise made to a fallen brother. “Do you… think he is, if he’s able to?”

Scruffy never had the time to ask Faro questions like that. Questions he wished he’d thought of at the time in hindsight. “If Faro can, I hope he does…” Could Faro see how confident and self-assured Canvas had become after adopting a name from the words of a CO? Did Gunnar feel honored that his bravery inspired Canvas to offer support to their brothers in the middle of a firefight? Would Cryfar laugh knowing that Canvas would take a deep breath to settle himself if he got overexcited or stumbled over his words? Could Fluke find it in him to be glad rather than guilty that Canvas inspected his rations for signs of spoilage no matter how tired, how hungry, he’d be to avoid preventable sickness? 

Would ‘Vas’s batchmates never doubt for a moment that they’d asked the right person to take the task of protecting their little brother?

"Wow… it really looks like him so far." Stick whispers. 

Scruffy needs to give the work more color still beyond the shading of the white armor and the paint of their unit. He'd done all the linework and painted Canvas in his armor and his six little scuff marks. But now he needs to take care to mix up the paints available to him to get the skin tone just right. There had been no basic brown in the depot to build off of, so he'd have to create it himself. 

Let's see… complimentary colors could make brown in most cases. And Canvas… in natural light, in perfect health, didn't he have more red undertones to that bronzed skin? Almost a less saturated mahogany? Hmm. He'd have to play around with the color mixing for a while to make sure Canvas didn't end up looking so light and pale, or too dark. 

After a painstaking process of getting the shade perfect, Scruffy could finish capturing his brother's likeness. The jaw and broad nose looked less flat and stiff with the color introduced by his brush. Carefully building up that color, Canvas's face on the cut of wood became softer, rounder, more humanized. 

Human. They were all human. Their General told Scruffy when he first found his name that they, the Clones, the sons of Kamino, all of them felt unique in the Force. Cut from the largest bolt of cloth the galaxy had ever kriffing seen to anyone else, but distinct to the Force-wielders. 

"There is a protective nature to you, son. You might make a fine leader for your brothers in this war. I can feel it; how many of them feel safer with you watching out for them. Perhaps… even the ones who don't want to admit it. But especially to that brother who I came to assist in his descent from the treetops, just the other week." 

"M-me, a leader? Oh, uh… Thank you, General… I don't know what to say." 

"You are very perceptive, Scruffy; it has been hard not to take notice. And I can sense that you have questions. You are welcome to ask." 

"Do you still hear the fluttering? When talking about our brother we're all worried about, I mean."

"I do. The sound has… gotten slower, less frantic. But I do not feel it means he's giving up. I sense it means something else for him." 

Scruffy has to pause for a moment, giving the paintbrush to a half-asleep Stick so he can adjust his support on Canvas, carefully sit him up so he doesn't strain his neck with an uncomfortable angle or lack of support after he's practically doubled-over since sitting at the table. "Easy… please stay asleep…"

Stick gives his batchmate the brush again, murmuring that he's just gonna lay his head down on the table and rest his eyes. The sun is slowly peering over the horizon on this side of the planet and it's getting in his eyes. It's almost daybreak. 

"Go ahead, I'm almost done. Just need to… paint one last… thing, then we can see if we can carry him back to the room before this side of the ship officially wakes up." 

The little sparrow. Scruffy just needed to finish the little sparrow, but Canvas was likely in a deeper sleep now because shifting him didn't cause him to stir in the slightest. So he wasn't available to say what kind of sparrow Scruffy should try painting. But at least Scruffy knew his brother's favorite color. 

Orange. He could make the little sparrow orange.

Not just any old shade of orange, either. A very distinct orange. 

Saffron. 

A beautiful surprise sometimes found in the middle of golden and blush-pink sunrises. Dramatic and demanding in the red and purple sunsets. Canvas hoped to try something with Ithorian saffron in it one day. And as far as oranges went, to Scruffy's recollection, it didn't show up in many birds and their plumage across the galaxy. 

Stick yawns and tells him not to be a perfectionist about it. Just paint the bird orange, add a few details and call it good. Scruffy carefully hums in agreement, saying it shouldn't take long. He should be finished soon.

The CO strides down the hall, hearing the chatter through the Clone rumor network that the trio from his unit could be found in the rec center. There's been a lot of chatter.

"They've been in there since almost 0400. It's nearly time for the mess to start serving breakfast for this side of the ship. You think they're okay?" 

"I dunno. You've heard how Scruffy's brothers have been since the guy got himself blown up and came back from the dead; Stick actually wants to talk to him again and the other one… what's his name again? Vas?"

"Canvas."

"Ah, got it. Well Canvas has been inseparable from Scruffy ever since-"

Why were so many troops of a different unit stopped in the hallway, slowly peeking into the doorway of this level's rec center in groups before moving on to get some sleep? "Boys, you know what safety protocol is for the halls." Too many brothers lingering in the halls made for dangerous bottlenecks. Too many lives to potentially lose in one place if they were to come under Separatist fire. There's a mixed rippling of apologetic sorry sir-s and we'll go-s and you should see it for yourself-s that makes the CO sigh gently. "That's what I'm here for, trooper. Get yourself to bed and sleep well." 

"Yessir." The reply comes with some salutes.

The CO finds the three young soldiers of his unit, his brothers, slumped at the table together, asleep, save for one. Head propped in his hand, elbow firmly on the table, Scruffy was just teetering on the edge of consciousness, his left arm curled around Canvas. Almost all Clone brothers have the same rich, brown eyes, but there's something that is profoundly, simultaneously doleful and calm when Scruffy looks up from the table to politely acknowledge his superior officer. 

"Good morning, Sir. Sleep well?" 

He can tell Scruffy hasn't gotten so much as an hour, or even half, of sleep since granting "permission" to roam the ship to ease Canvas's paranoia. He wonders whose idea it was to stop by the depot for the bad batch of armor paint and come into the recreation center on this level. 

"Well enough, I suppose… Have you gotten any sleep, soldier?" 

"No, sir. But…" Scruffy glances down at Canvas, still fast asleep, still bearing that tiny, tender smile, "...that's okay. I'll get an opportunity later. I think… I think this is the way to help 'Vas, though." 

The CO is slightly surprised. Holding him while he sleeps, like a little nat-born child? Was it really that simple in the end? 

He has to check,"Did you get a sedative from Medical?"

Scruffy shakes his head. "No sir."  

"Huh. Well, if it works-"

"-don't kriff with it." his soldier closes out the saying held close to the heart of many a battlefield medic. "Should… probably get back to our room so others can use the rec room without needing to walk on their toes. Stick. Wake up, brother. C'mon…" Created and trained for war, but so perceptive and kind, Scruffy is telling his CO indirectly that he'll get the three of them out of everyone's curled hair.

Scruffy will have his hands full carrying Canvas back, and Stick is bleary-eyed as he stumbles to his feet, swearing sharply under his breath when he drops the whittled farm animal. (Hmm, he's curious as to who made that; it doesn't seem like Carver's work.) The CO stoops down and reaches under the table, "Here, just follow your brother, Stick. I've got it." He collects the other item that bears evidence of importance to his brothers, and with relief finds the paint is long dry. He'll return to clean up their table later. 

"Thanks, sir…" Stick yawns, trying to clear his vision. He nods simply, hand on Stick's shoulder to better guide him after Scruffy back to their room. 

As they walk in relative silence, aside from Scruffy's soft-spoken "conversation" with himself, seemingly. 

That's been a new quirk for this soldier, since the detonation. Since his batchmate brought him back from the brink. Talking to himself. 

Except just as they reach the quarters temporarily assigned to the trio, the CO catches Scruffy drop a name for the first time. "Wish I knew what your favorite color was, Faro. Maybe I could've made your brother's portrait even more symbolic by making your scuff mark your favorite color instead of the color of Our unit. Really make Canvas look like a painter's pallet or something; wouldn't that be funny?" 

Scruffy was talking to Faro. That was the third batchmate Canvas had lost not long into his first campaign off of Kamino. He remembers Faro for his stoicism and a fond eye he only seemed to hold for his batchmates, for whatever the reason. Sadly the COs and the General never had the opportunity to get through to this soldier before he was forever lost to the galaxy not long after finding a Name. 

For the first time, before he'll have to give it to Scruffy, the CO takes a closer look at this thin sheet of wood he picked up off the table.

It's a face that millions, maybe billions of Clone troopers bare, but it's still undeniably Canvas. The portrait has his gentle, coal-dark curls of hair and the dark, doe-like eyes that exaggerated his emotions. He remembers seeing Canvas, then just a number, a plastoid puppy, when he disembarked the gunships full of reinforcements. The kid had such an expressive face. And here, it was captured in a perfect expression of serenity. 

Canvas has been painted in his Phase II armor, save for his hands at chest level; lacking the gloves and gauntlet plates. Cupped in his hands is a little orange bird, backdropped by his gray-ish scuff mark. But his scuff mark near the plackart is not glazed over in Their color. It's completely barren of paint.

The scuff marks of his batchmates are coated in paint, however. Faro's above Canvas's. Gunnar's is on the left shoulder bell and part of the shoulder on the chestplate. Cryfar's is on the left, on a lower part of the chestplate just before it touches the seam where chest and backplate meet. Fluke's is on the right side of the chestplate, near the space the arm comes through. 

His batchmates' scuffs surround his own with color to frame Canvas's gentle hands, carrying a little orange bird, and the CO can see with each deliberate stroke of the brush that this entire portrait has been carried out with the sentiment of another brother's love for him. 

Bacta, nysillin, both were some damn good stuff in the way of medicine out in this galaxy, but love… 

It didn't matter the type. Romantic. Platonic. Familial. Love was some of the best medicine to soothe a troubled mind, a fearful heart, a struggling brother. It was far from Canvas's fault something in him was so fearful, so frightened again; like he had been from the very first step off the gunship. 

It was far from Scruffy's fault as well, the CO hearing the thin GAR-issue mattress creak with the additional weight as two troopers sandwich Scruffy once Stick joins them. They were young. These three were more experienced than when they had been Shinies, but they would all have their slip ups. Even him, and his other commanding officer who he worked with regularly due to the nature of this campaign. 

The General blames themselves for trying to warn Scruffy too late about the laser trip wire. Each CO individually blames themselves for not looking out for his brother better. They'd just rather Scruffy not take the blame while he's focused on trying to take care of a slightly younger brother once again because he has so much love for his brothers. 

That was a good thing. 

"Sleep well, boys." He sets the portrait of Canvas down near the bed, pulling one of the many, many blankets he finds on the floor up and over Scruffy and his little brothers. 

A brother's love could be such a healing thing.

[FFF Masterlist] [Clone OC Masterlist]

Tagging @stardust9905 just to make sure that you see this, since you had asked if there was going to be more. 🩷

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Brothers & Batchmates [Part 1]

Warnings and Information: Made a real mess for myself in the NTMYB narrative by giving one Jedi command of both a battalion and a legion, which just goes to show I didn’t plan this far in advance from the beginning when what was meant to be a one-off has become a Whole Thing. (Ah well. You live and you learn who the hell’s in charge here. This is me fixing my mess and fleshing out the story.) I missed writing about my boys. Reference and allusion to canon-typical violence and war crimes. Reference and allusion to death, injury and loss. More takes on Clone culture. Still no use of Mando’a here. Star Wars and real-world swearing. The usual use of narrative and stylistic italics. Clone OC Scuffle is his own damn warning (perhaps just for this installment as a whole). *Use of a character’s deadname. Reference to the transgender Clone named Sister. Like her Clone OCs, the author can’t stop making up fake birds.  *Jedi OC Caelen is genderfluid, and while any pronouns are applicable, they/them is primarily used in the story for clarity. Caelen’s deadname is brought up ONCE in an establishing flashback, as a warning, to those who are sensitive to such things. (I want it to be very clear it is not done with disrespect, however.)

Word-count: 6,272

The combined unit eyes the three-dimensional map with bated breath. They were warned this morning that the commander and captain needed to conduct a last-minute mission to move against the Separatist forces - an opportunity to deal a critical blow - but they could not take the entire combined company. There is a chance many brothers will have to be apart, a very long twenty-four hours for some. 

All Clones are brothers of course, though batchmates are most often the closest of all brotherly bonds. And for those who have been adopted into these batch-bonds, the potential to be split apart proves more stressful. 

But duty takes precedence over such feelings. 

Their commanding officers are apologizing before they even make their verdicts, who will be going with the commander, and who will be staying with the captain. "We're sorry for what's to come; we never want to split our forces unless necessary of course after growing used to this… unusual arrangement. However, Captain Law and I have agreed this could make the difference between an early victory or a crushing defeat in this sector of Republic space." Hundreds of brothers reply that they understand in the affirmative, however begrudgingly for some, and however anxiously for others. 

"Commander Juke will take volunteers first, and if necessary following that point, we'll select and recruit additional troops into the task force." Captain Law further explains, switching the holonav off for the time being. 

One soldier steps forward out of the lineup, picture of perfection in formation position with his helmet carried in the crook of his arm. There is a jagged notch cut out of his right ear that makes him stand out. This is Nockite, one of the oldest brothers in the combined forces under a singular Jedi’s command. 

"I will go." Nockite’s simple pledge is an unwavering oath, and the first break in the ice of hesitation for many of his other brothers. If Nockite will go, many who look to his example will follow.

He's thanked for volunteering himself, but Commander Juke doesn't need them right away. The only timeframe they are supplied with is “soon enough”. Juke says he is only telling his brothers now to give time to think it over so the call doesn't come as a complete surprise. Where he can avoid it, it is not in the commander's nature to create rude awakenings for the men, whether they be from his battalion, or Law’s legion. He’s proved he cares about preventing the decay of overall morale on many occasions before.

They’ve taken many blows as it is, these brothers. 

The death of General Kalsamm. 

Many of these last planets, festering with CIS battle droids, have proven for staggering losses of life in the name of tentative victories. 

Knowing that though they’ve proven capable thus far, one singular Force-wielder cannot maintain the command of a legion and their late master’s battalion on their own forever; the arrangement brothers have grown used to will eventually come to an end…

Fortunately this dividing line - when that time comes - will not have too great an impact on a group of Clones who admittedly have grown very dependent on one another, in one sense or the other. Canvas, the baby brother of one batch, now adopted into the fold of another, would have been utterly inconsolable if he had been separated from the one brother who’d come to mean the galaxy to him. And Scruffy, equally attached in his own fashion to not just Canvas, but his batchmates Stick and Cypher and twins Carver and Cairn too, would not be capable of taking such orders without challenge. Join the ranks of the battalion without his chosen brothers? Remain in the legion without the brother who spent the most time ensuring he did not die a rookie?

Sat together, not far from where the COs had made this announcement, Scruffy and his brothers consider if they should volunteer to go to assure they don't become fragmented. Do they just say nothing and hope enough brothers will volunteer themselves? Commander Juke is taking a relatively "small" response force for this opportunity, maybe only fifty or so brothers, so surely these slots would fill fast between the legion and the battalion, right? 

The more they all sit and think about it, the more one of them grows nervous about particular possibilities. "Maybe we… should? If we tell the Captain we volunteer to go together then we won't be split up." 

"Is that what you wanna do, Vas?" Scruffy asks, carefully picking leaf after leaf from Canvas’s tight curls of hair. He’d fallen in a patch of bluefern this morning, chasing after a Seppie probe droid. Damn thing nearly got away too, had the Clone with five scuff marks on his chest plate not recklessly thrown himself forward in hopes of catching the thing by one of its many thin appendages and succeeded. 

Lost his helmet in the process, but Canvas looked so damn proud of himself for slowing the recon unit down just long enough for a marksman to turn the droid into scrap-metal. Captain Law had been proud too, once he had talked himself out of lecturing his brother on account of the recklessness. 

"I think so. While it's not that I don't like the look of the situation, I don- can't lose my brothers…" Canvas replies, screwing his eyes shut in his admittance. "I just can't." Out of all his fears - and there are many - the thought of losing his brothers paralyzes him. Battle droids don't frighten the Clone who bears the marks of his dead batchmates like they once had, save perhaps BX commando droids and for every good reason. 

On more than one occasion since being accepted into Scruffy's fold, Canvas has woken up in a bundle of emotionally shattered nerves with hot, thick tears trailing down his face after waking from a dream about losing his batchmates, and then his closest brothers; leaving him all alone. Sometimes the worry stone that sits in his utility belt helps. Other times it's nothing more than whittled wood that has become smoothed through repeated use. 

Cypher looks up from his datapad at long last, breaking away from studying his page on a specimen of carnivorous invertebrates. "Should we ask the Commander before you change your mind?" 

Canvas scuffs the dirt before him with the toe of his boot, taking a moment to ponder. Should they? What if the others didn't want to go? The twins hadn't said anything since Commander Juke and the captain informed them of the plan. 

"Cairn? Carver? What do you think; do you want to do it?" 

"I'm still considering it." Carver admits in a grumble through gritted teeth. Someone has his vibroknife for the time being, and he's been somewhat unhappy without it. He’s always thought best with his hands occupied. His twin, Cairn, on the other hand has his mind made up. 

"I'd go. I'd love to lay waste to a couple of clankers. Tear 'em limb from limb!" 

"Cairn, you worry me." Scruffy's batchmate Stick says plainly, grimacing in concern after sharing a glance as the oldest and next oldest. Yeah, this is normal for him, welcome to my galaxy little brother. "And you too, Carver. You're not usually so… moody." Stick adds with a shrugging gesture. 

"I can't think when I don't have my knife on me." Carver reminds him. 

"That is kriffing terrifying, thank you." Stick replies hurriedly, no longer grimacing, but actively recoiling from the grumpy brother beside him. "I wasn't aware the knife was quite that important."

"It's part of his identity. How he got his Name." Scruffy explains, fishing out a folding blade that's part of his batch-brother's kit after Cypher says he's welcome to take it and use it for the time being ("I needed to collect some cuttings the last time I used it; just… don't get anything on your armor.") apologizing for the purple sap stuck to the edge of the blade. "Back before Canvas had his name, he added Faro, Gunnar, Cryfar and Fluke's scuff marks into his armor after Fluke died. Took him about an hour to do it with nothing but the rough edge of a rock. Carver found an old vibroknife somewhere, and dug a couple of designs into his helmet after watching what Canvas had done. You can guess the rest from there." 

Stick plucks up the whittler’s helmet to examine it for himself at Carver’s invitation when admitting he’s never noticed the designs before. Simplistic renditions of marching bantha and the twin suns of Tatooine. “Heh. Reminds me of the day the captain was talking about naming us Bantha Company, for a while. Not half bad at all, Carver.”

Having honed his skills as quickly as he has, Carver often hates much of his early work; there are at least four known exceptions. His worry stones, the General’s Mudhorn, Canvas’s whittled bird’s nest, and now the helmet carvings. “Thanks. Think that’s what I had on my mind that day as well. Some day, I want to add a great, big old Mudhorn on the other side, now that we’re the Mudhorn Company.” Yeah, maybe he’ll look like a kiss-ass by adding the captain and Jedi’s favorite creatures to his helmet, but so what? (He’d have to add Commander Juke’s favorite creature - a scarab - to really sell the idea anyways.)

“Could paint one for you,” Scruffy offers before reminding him he needs to start thinking on his decision since getting him the temporarily-loaned knife to think, “but you’re not allowed to blow me up in order to make that happen.”

“Don’t worry. Was considering breaking my favorite arm instead.” Carver promises, continuing the gallows humor a moment longer, “Or provoking stone-stacker to.” A small pebble glances off his thigh armor with a sharp tok! in response from Cairn; something Scruffy quickly puts an end to before the behavior escalates, as it often does. 

“Cut it out,” he warns in a paternal tone, confiscating the next pebble from the palm of his brother’s hand, “now’s not the time.” Carver is fixed with a firm look next, one disapproving and unimpressed. “You know he doesn't like that nickname. Let's not have another fight if he's going to come along and you stay behind.” This will be all Scruffy needs to add to make his point to each brother out of the twins before returning to picking out the tiny bits of powder blue foliage from Canvas’ hair. 

“Hold on a second,” the researcher among them requests as he remembers something, reaching for Cairn's right hand which he had recently injured, “I’m not certain you should join the task force with a healing tendon injury.” 

They're unable to recall what he'd done to sprain one of the major tendons in his hand and wrist, and with no great way to treat it out here in the field other than pain-killing stims and compression wraps, Cairn had been given certain restrictions in how much he could safely lift. 

“Oh shit- ow!” Cairn mumbles as Cypher experimentally rolls and prods Cairn’s wrist, and finds it responds less than favorably even now, “I'd already forgotten about that. Maaaaaybe I should reconsider…” 

The brothers and batchmates have made up their minds, now that they're certain Cairn has come to his final decision. Carver and Cairn will be staying behind, and Canvas, Scruffy, Stick and Cypher will be volunteering to join the ranks of the task force. There are precautionary goodbyes, just to be safe. With few specifics given, there’s no telling what is in store for these brothers, what they’ll face in the line of duty. 

That reality is concerning, but it’s what they were made for. That’s how they serve the Republic. 

"Captain Law, we'd-" Canvas begins to volunteer himself and his brothers, but the C.O. holds his hand out, flat palm and splayed fingers, to halt him. 

The scarred brow belonging to his superior officer furrows harshly. "Actually, Canvas…" Captain Law looks to Commander Juke for a moment, for confirmation, and the furrow deepens when all Juke offers is that solemn nod. The decision is final. “I’m… I’m afraid you can’t go.”

Getting hit with the stun setting from their DC-15s when doing training drills with the Carbines hurt less than this, worse than the total-body paralysis that follows after the tsunami of numbness. What does his captain mean he can’t go?

Risking wrath or reprimand, he challenges the call. “But, sir, I-” His mind races, but he tries not to give into the rising panic. “Why can’t I go? I want to go.” What reason does his brother, his captain, have for retaining him? He’s a willing and able soldier, according to his last evaluation. Does the captain know differently?

“Sir, Vas hasn’t been talked into this by any of us, he’s more nervous about staying than going if this is about his anxieties.” Scruffy steps in to not only defend Canvas’ claims, but of course to support his brother. “Honest, he wants to go.”

“This isn’t about his anxiety-” Captain Law begins insistently at risk of being interrupted, “- this is about other things, boys. The rest of you may go, but Canvas needs to stay behind.”

Before Canvas can get in a word about talking to the captain in private for a moment, Scruffy turns his voice steely and defiant, and that’s unlike him. 

“Then I’m not going either.” 

“Son, mind your tone.” The commander’s warning to Scruffy is more out of habit than true distaste for how his brother is conducting himself right now. He understands the how and the why of the behavior, fully prepared for this. “Let’s not be so hasty. There’s still time to deci-”

“Respectfully, there’s nothing to decide, Commander Juke.”

No, that’s definitely enough now, Canvas decides. “Scruffy… can I have a minute to speak to the captain, alone?”

If he can speak with Captain Law, one on one, maybe he can make more sense of this decision. Maybe he can sway the mind of his immediate commanding officer, and together they can have a discussion with the commander about his participation in the task force. Then he still gets to go. He still gets to prove himself a capable, competent soldier for all of his set-backs and faults, and his older brother won’t get himself in trouble with their even older brothers. 

Canvas feels confident that this discussion could reverse the captain’s decision, if he just has the chance to speak without Scruffy interjecting on his behalf. And though Captain Law agrees to humor him, suggesting they speak a short ways off from everyone else, the pained expression on his face does not bode well.

“I’m sorry, brother… I know you’re hoping to convince me, but I’m afraid the decision was not mine to make in the end…” Captain Law begins, hoping to ply Canvas with apology and reasoning as he reaches forward and takes the younger by their shoulders. “I wanted you to go, too, little brother. I truly did.”

He is not going to cry like a child who didn't get his way. He is a grown man, a soldier. He knew this was a risk from the moment he was old enough to partake in the tests and the training on their motherworld that he would either lose his brothers, or be separated from them, at some point in this war they would be fighting. Every damn one of them knows this. 

I was created to march a war that had not yet started. I was created to serve, to fight valiantly and loyally. I was created with my brothers, and I will lose many of them in this war. If… when… I lose them, all I will have to remember them by is a cut scrap of their body glove. No helmets. Only my memory and their smell in my nose. 

Canvas has the scraps of their black bodysuits all Clones wear under the plastoid armor that once belonged to his batchmates - Faro, Gunnar, Cryfar, Fluke - though unfortunately, they no longer smell like his brothers. 

Captain Law has apologized again and again for what he's had to do. Commander Juke has taken him aside and tried to say something to him too, but the reaction remains the same. 

"Please just try to stay safe." If he speaks anything beyond these six words, Canvas knows how it will end. How his resolve will crumble. How he will accuse his commanding officers of singling him out, babying him like a cadet and lying about it. Abandon the logical understanding of why he has to remain behind with the Captain and why Scruffy, Stick and Cypher are going to be a part of the task force. 

And the General from a planet called Little Archossi… they haven't liked the arrangement either, but the Force-wielder has given full control of this strategized attack to their officers. When they come and speak to Canvas themselves, using the affectionate terminology of their culture and homeworld, they are very, very careful not to sound as though they mean to infantilize anyone.

"Young one, I heard you won't be going with your brothers. I am surprised to see you look so calm."

Canvas can only lift his shoulders stiffly before they are quickly dropped. He doesn't know what he should say to that. He certainly doesn't feel calm, and the Jedi Knight can probably sense that. "Captain Law explained why I'm staying behind, why my brothers have been asked to go. I know what's been asked of me, General." His statement makes the gray-skinned General frown sharply, and he worries he's made it sound like he's waving off sympathetic efforts. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be… like that." 

"It is only understandable, young Canvas, to feel as you do. To understand that your task keeps you here while your brothers will walk another path with trust and acceptance speaks to your training." A calloused hand is laid on his shoulder for a moment, an expression of comfort and compassion. There is understanding when the General speaks next, but also some pride. "And to understand that while you are perhaps very upset about this, you still conduct yourself in spite of your feelings in a way that speaks to your maturity. You prove time and time again that you understand your duty to the Republic without forgetting these are your brothers." 

"I don't always feel very mature, General." Canvas admits gently, shamefully. He can't decide if the admittance is supposed to be bitter, or regretful, or full of remorse and disappointment instead. His feelings are too much of a tumultuous tailspin to make sense of everything on his own. What would the General sense from him? "I'm not like the others…" 

They seem taken aback, short of balking in surprise, starmelt yellow eyes blinking rapidly. 

"No, in a sense you are not. But whatever do you mean, little one?" 

It's too much to explain. Canvas isn't sure where he should start, if he did. Did he tell his General that now that he's been away from Kamino for a while, he suspects one of the Trainers there of abusing the soldiers? Would it be a good idea to tell them that he doesn't always think he's fit to be a soldier; there's some "minor" defect or a mishap with the equipment during his development that explains why he has a perpetual undercurrent of anxiety beyond the pale for someone in wartime? Does he explain that more recently, he dreams he's… decommissioned? Or reconditioned if he's lucky? 

"... nevermind, General. It'd take too long to explain."

"I see, then... perhaps another time. I would like to understand what it is that troubles you."

Canvas thinks on it, seeing no real harm in the General knowing, but ultimately he decides against what he initially had to say. "Perhaps another time would be better to talk about that, yes… but I did have a question about something else. Something I just want a little clarification on, if it's okay." 

The Force-wielder blinks curiously. "What would you like me to clarify, young Canvas?" For a moment, they must believe it's another case of confusion regarding the gender-presentation of the temporarily combined unit's leader. The matter of gender fluidity wasn't a completely rocky concept for their men to navigate like it has been elsewhere in the galaxy, remembering how their first days of command played out.

“You look troubled, my friend. Come.” Master Kalsamm tells them privately, ushering his former pupil into one of the battered command tents. 

There in the sparse shade, the Togruta can find the thin cloths they’ve used before to soak in water, where they then apply it to the sun-flushed skin of the other. Coming from a small world where much of the people are nocturnal, his pada- former padawan does not have certain adaptive traits that protect them well from the light of the sun. Ideally, tolerance to ultraviolet rays would have continued to build over time, but with the state of the war, his former padawan had grown somewhat impatient, and believed the time had come to brute force it instead.

It will be the physical trial I will willingly bear if it means I am able to protect the peace of the innocents of this galaxy before it is too late, Masters. 

His heart pangs, knowing that though they have tried to hide it, these developing sunburns are among the worst his student has suffered. “You’re in great pain today, my friend. Pulling away every time I put down another cloth, shielding your thoughts from me… Are you regretting your decision?” Kalsamm has always had such a trusting bond with his student, very rarely does the other find thoughts have been concealed from the greater current of the Force. 

“I’m sorry, Master Kalsamm. There’s just a lot on my mind. Feel like an overwhelmed padawan again with everything I feel I must remember.” the newly-appointed Jedi Knight admits as their teacher lays another cooling rag to burning skin, doing their utmost to remain still this time. “I do not regret my decision.”

The 302nd Legion of the GAR is mine to command. A Clone captain named Law who offered to find me a new name today after one of the few conversations they had together so far.

“We know you introduced yourself to us as General Caelum, but is there a name you'd prefer to that? Or a name we could… give you? Like we give our brothers?"

They blink in confusion, unfettered curiosity. Scarcely met their commanding officer, explained that though they were born with the body of a boy, they are not limited to this ‘singular capacity of self’. When explaining ‘he is sometimes she is sometimes he’ only a short time ago, already, the one who called himself Law has shown more understanding than people they've spent significantly more time with. 

“You don't seem confused, Captain Law. I am… surprised.” 

Law was only newly promoted, unused to the change in rank, then. It's him who balks next. “Well, um, I don't see why it's something to be confused about. It's not my identity to question, only to respect, General.” 

Indeed… didn't Master Kalsamm try explaining before that the Clones were engineered with things like obedience and respect for command in mind, given that the Kaminoans view them as… property? How heartbreaking. 

If only I could let others feel what I do - that unique sound in the Force every lifeform takes, like a fingerprint. Captain Law: he is a beating heart, keeping time with the slow but relentless surf. 

“Speaking with experience, young one?” they ask habitually. Most Clones haven't gotten used to the cultural quirk. Some hate it. Some don't care for it, nothing more. Others still, after buffeting the initial confusion, love it. 

Captain Law does not indicate disdain for it. 

“Young one's definitely applicable here because she's a couple of Growth Cycles older than me, I imagine, but… Yes.” Captain Law answers with a knowing chuckle and affirmative nod. “Yes, there's a Clone among us who was named Sister, by other brothers. So she knows she belongs.” 

A new name can be thought up by the legion, so the General knows that they belong, too… If that's what they want.

Whether it is shouted across the battlefield in a rally cry, or whispered out of fear when the night is darkest, or spoken with naught but reverence, hearing their new name, given to them by their brave men, sparks a little more love for it with each passing day. 

"Are Jedi forbidden to love, General Caelen?" 

Caelen smiles gently, fondly. Firstly because of the use of the gifted name, followed shortly after by the surging feeling of interest and wonder. They cannot promise the best explanation, only their best effort to give it. "We are not. Love is only natural. It takes too many forms to make it forbidden, too. Compassion and empathy are siblings to the greater concept of love. To live is to love something, someone, not just other than yourself, but along with yourself. It is attachment that is… discouraged. Yet, attachment is only too natural. Jedi are not forbidden from loving, or to love. Common misconception." A gentle and curious 'why do you ask?' remains unspoken for now.

Canvas chews his bottom lip in thought for a moment, one of his hands grazing a scuff mark that mars his armor kit. "I see… Thank you, General Caelen. I was just curious. It's… something I've been wondering about." 

"It was something Gunnar wondered." General Caelen deduces, recalling which of Canvas's batchmates that scuff mark once belonged to prior to him adopting it. "And something rooted up the memory within you, recently." 

Canvas does not, or perhaps cannot elaborate at the time, instead only capable of nodding. Glancing towards the heavens, he studies the Jedi cruiser where it sits just out of reach of the planet’s gravitational pull. 

The Harmonious. This ship was at one point under General Kalsamm’s command; but with Kalsamm’s untimely demise (which General Caelen emphasizes was a test meant for them, by the Force), it has been turned over to Caelen’s command instead. Same as the battalion, for the time being.

Ironic that he spent two weeks growing increasingly paranoid out of his mind on the Harmonious, after what happened to Scruffy, honestly. If the Force is capable of doing things like providing tests to (for?) the ones who can harness the many gifts and abilities within it, is it capable of having a sense of humor as well? (Albeit, a twisted one?)

“I still think of your batchmates, young Canvas,” Caelen shatters the otherwise contemplative silence that has elapsed between themself and their soldier, “though perhaps not as often as you, granted. While they were courageous men I had the honor to fight alongside, for a time, they were so much more to you.” Caelen omits the word only here, refusing to boil down any part of that memory where it is not necessary (like discussing matters regarding the Clones with the long-necks, whose discussions must reluctantly be carried out in terms of property and product for the duration of). 

“I sensed at one point you were deeply ashamed, or perhaps embarrassed by how much Gunnar once disliked me. Perhaps… even hated me, for one particular moment.” General Caelen admits. 

‘We’re their cannon fodder, they don’t care about us. Throw enough brothers at the problem until it goes away and then don’t so much as mourn us.’

Canvas can do little but wince when the words come back to him. Those bitter, stinging words said in a moment of great frustration after five long, grueling days of trying to brute-force their way into a Separatist outpost. So many brothers had been hurt, or picked off by enemy fire. The respective medics of the legion and the battalion had sacrificed so much of their sleep, their sanity, tending to the wounded and the dying in vain hopes of helping them limp along until the next volley, the next thermal detonator, the next anything. He still remembers the way Gunnar’s face fell just a fraction, chipping that shell of stoicism, when the brother’s body suddenly went limp almost the moment the medic, Rid (short for Riddance), took over. 

“You didn’t deserve what he said about you, General…”

“It’s okay, young one. I harbor no hurt in my heart for your brother’s words.” General Caelen assures Canvas, “Grief takes many forms. For Gunnar, it was anger. For Faro, it was protectiveness, was it not?”

Maybe it was. It felt more like it was more a matter of having an impatient, second shadow, honestly. 

Keep up. Don’t fall behind. Yes, it’s not fun to lug a 4.15kg gun, but that’s no excuse to leave it laying around. 

If something happened to you… I’d never forgive myself.

“I guess.” Canvas admits with a shrug. “I’m sure what you saw of Faro was… different, General.”

The Jedi from Little Archossi bobs their head, the movement slow. “He was always so reserved. But, I never once questioned for a moment how much he cared about the larger cause when he did not devote his time to your batch.” The General pauses here for a moment, offering a wistful, but reflective expression to accompany the smile. “While the Force could not tell me everything in the times I meditated for answers, answers I sought trying to meet the needs of my men while aiding my former teacher in his assignments, it told me enough. Faro would have sooner deserted the GAR than bury another batchmate were it not for the guilt of abandoning all his other brothers just to save you and Fluke, on the days his grief was strongest.”

Short of accusing the Force-wielder of lying, Canvas challenges that claim. “I don't know if I believe that… that doesn't sound like something Faro would do.” The notion is disturbing to him, immediately speaking. Desert the GAR? Discard his sense of loyalty and honor for something so… so selfish and self-serving? All because of grief? 

He can't imagine that of Faro, he tells the general. He doesn't want to. 

“No… of course. I'm sorry for upsetting you to suggest such a thing.” General Caelen apologizes in earnest. “I was wrong to do so. Forgive me, for any malice.”

A solitary trill sounds from their respective comm devices, a warning. It’ll be time for the task force to depart ten minutes from now. Canvas won’t have the time to finish, maybe even amend, the conversation with General Caelen and see Scruffy before he has to leave like his brother asked. So it’s time to smooth the ice, “I should go see Scruffy like I promised; but General, before I go… Please don’t be so hard on yourself, just as you encourage us. I know what you said wasn’t meant in malice. I swear it.”

The Force-wielder born on a strange little planet before spending many years in the Jedi Temple to hone their connection to the great galactic tapestry sacrificed not complete connection to, but rather a full immersion in the culture of their home planet. The Chossi conduct themselves in a clan-like structure, placing great importance in paying penances for their acts or words of malice, if they do not feel it is deserved or justified. 

Fact of the matter is that Caelen sees their unit of troops as a clan on a symbolic level; to say I swear it acknowledges the process of offering penance has started, but will not be necessary. 

And so Caelen returns the acknowledgement. “So you swear it. Thank you, young Canvas.” 

He has been dismissed, so he wastes no more time, calling “May the Force be with you, General!” as clearly as he can before breaking into a run; knowing where he will need to go in order to find Scruffy is some way off, and he needs to hurry if he wants to get there with time to spare. 

“Ouch!” “Ow!"

They'll likely bruise one another's brains with the force their buckets have knocked against each other, given how Canvas didn't slow down in the slightest as he was bottoming-out the small hill he had just run down to get here. The stars in the fuzziest edge of his vision are only just beginning to clear, fire in his lungs sputtering out. 

He doesn't let a little thing like the fretful way Scruffy gives his helmet a once-over for any chipping (the same way a young nat-born’s mother inspects a scraped knee, minus the cooing and fussing) give him any pause in what he has to say. 

"You gotta promise me to come back." 

Scruffy looks at his little brother from the same Growth Cycle, a different Batch, with nothing but deep, emotional pain and hurt. "Canvas you… you know I can't. You know what Commander Juke says about those kinds of promises." 

The desperation in him does not care. Not right now. "Yeah-yeah-yeah the poetic kark he read somewhere, but please -" Strong arms throw themselves around him, and helmets knock against one another a second time as Scruffy initiates one of those hugs he's become famous in the combined unit for. Hugs where he pulls you in close with one arm, cupping the back of your head, reminiscent of how one holds an infant's head when they're adorably too young and floppy to support the weight of it themselves. 

War has not stolen all Scruffy's warmth and tenderness, his love for his brothers. It has not made him bitter. It has changed him; chewed him up in its cruelty and jagged edges and spit him out with little regard for how softly he will land… but Scruffy has not lost his spirit in spite of all that. 

Nor his patience. "I will do my best, Canvas, okay?" Scruffy pulls Canvas tighter, if possible, and he hopes Vas can’t hear the heavy swallow in his throat. It may prove difficult, but he’d rather not cry if it can be helped. With a clearer head, the shame has hit him that he was so… oppositional with his commanding officers. Defiant. He should be punished for daring to be so- so insubordinate! He’s never given them problems before, why did he have to start now?

“Maker, I should be in so much more trouble for talking back to Commander Juke like that…” 

Canvas hums thoughtfully, not quite in agreement, while pushing back from Scruffy. Let me go, please, it asks. He’ll feel constricted before long if Scruff had his way in this state. He agreed to stay on the task force only because the time to depart was getting down to the wire, and no other brothers had volunteered themselves. He’s there, admittedly if only to make it less of a hassle for Commander Juke, and to keep the peace. 

“I don’t know. Maybe the commander will let it go…” It seemed plausible, to Canvas. At least in the moment. “You do a good job of hiding it, but you tend to take things pretty hard when you feel you’ve messed up ever since the… well, the tripwire. You’ll punish yourself worse than any reprimand.”

There’s a soft and breathless chuckle from under the helmet. “Do I, now? What gave it away?” When Canvas doesn’t answer, perhaps considering how best to explain, Scruffy changes his tune after a note of the time. “Actually, pretend I didn’t say anything: not exactly a lot of time before I have to go.”

He probably had five minutes at the most before Commander Juke called upon his brothers and it was time to embark on this mission. It would be strange, seeing as they are doing this without General Caelen to guide them, lead them, for the first time since the Togruta Force-wielder perished. They’ve just grown so used to this arrangement; attached to it even, if they had to admit to it. And they have. But the Clones recognize this isn’t the healthiest situation for the Chossi-born General. 

This is so much responsibility for you. You were only ever meant to lead one legion. You can’t do this forever. It’s just not feasible. 

“Give those clankers hell for me.” Canvas requests when the call comes in to board the gunships on Scruffy’s comms. Quickly and gently as he’s able, he and Scruffy touch their helmets together, hoping the other is peering through the t-visor back at him. “For the General, too.” Canvas softly adds, knowing that while his brothers will embark this mission alone out of trust, the Jedi would still desire to accompany them out of principal and bond. 

This, Scruffy can promise. This is what he was made to do, after all. This is what necessitated his very creation: to fight the coming pan-galactic threat it was believed the Republic would one day face. A being of flesh and blood, far superior to any metal amalgamation. This is the grander purpose he’s been made to believe his every breath is dedicated to. 

And it is true. But it isn’t everything his breath is given for.

Scruffy leaves his younger brother with an oath before he must run for the LAATs, mustering as much conviction as he can into a soldier’s creed to make it as meaningful as any loving expression. 

“For the Republic. For my brothers.”

[FFF Masterlist] [Clone Masterlist] [PREVIOUS] [B&B Part 2]

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

A Brother's Love Will Heal You

Warnings and Information: We're making up birds for Star Wars as practice for "Wounded Wings". When it comes to writing how young or old Clones are I'm not sure how it all works in canon like everyone else, so we're working on a system just within the NTMYB universe, we're going from "Generation" and breaking it down from there; they're all the same Generation, but they have different Growth Cycles. Growth Cycle "A" would contain multiple Batches, and from there everything works the same as before in previous installments where you have "oldest" to "youngest" within a Batch. (Generations > Growth Cycles > Batches.)  Canvas hasn't gotten completely better (congratulations on the new phobias and trauma, baby boy!), but he's doing a lot better since PLB and CLB. He's back fighting with the brothers of the GAR and his General again, at least. Scruffy's made his peace with the fact that wherever he goes, the brother he's taken care of and has become bonded for life with will follow. The Clones aren't just soldiers, they're brothers. Every last one of 'em.  Note: Some named Clones are not part of my list of 18+ Clone OCs, but that could be subject to change. No Mando'a here as usual. The usual use of italics. As an explicit warning: there are allusions to how this Growth Cycle was treated by a Trainer on Kamino. It can be interpreted as mistreatment at best, abuse at worst. 

Word-count: 9,136 [holy sh-]

Suu-weet! Suu-weet! Suu-weet-weet-weet!

"What was that?" a Shiny from a newer Growth Cycle asks, craning his neck and looking into the thick tree canopy above the marching unit. 

"Uh oh… Better be careful." Scruffy chuckles, imagining the widening eyes under his brother from another batch's helmet; Canvas had heard the younger brother's question about something he's intimately familiar with. He nudges the Shiny-brother playfully, something that often helps little brothers find their confidence the more the seasoned and battle-hardened brothers encourage and reaffirm. This younger Growth Cycle was lucky and most found their Names on Kamino. 

Scruffy and many others of the same Cycle weren't too sure why exactly they never found their Names while training on their mother-world. Maybe there was a sour phase from one of Kamino's three moons, or something. 

(Not that Scruffy believed in that stuff. The phases, risings and fallings of the moons and the planets and stars didn't dictate his life, only a good blaster and a watchful brother did. But hey, each their own. It was a far more humorous reason than the truth, besides…)

Canvas is jogging through the underbrush now at the second round of Suu-weet!-s, shedding his helmet and using his binocs. "What? What'd I do? What'd I say?" the brother named Cubby asks, sounding nervous and slightly embarrassed over the vocoder crackle. 

"Canvas really likes birds," Scruffy elaborated for Cubby as Stick made his way closer with their brother's helmet tucked in the crook of his arm, "and he's probably going to try to find it if he can without straying too far from marching formation." 

The helmet is given to Scruffy. "Uh-uh. More like really, really likes birds." Stick jokingly corrects his batchmate. 

"Oh." Cubby says simply, the three of them now watching as Canvas continues to sweep the leafy branches with the binoculars. Even the General has now stopped to watch, having been marching in the middle of the formation with their men as well. 

"Has he found it, General?" Scruffy asks the Jedi. Once again, Canvas has been kept a close eye on by the COs and General since Scruffy's return to duty. He was greeted so warmly by Carver and Cairn when they stepped off the LAAT, and helped acquaint them to his batchmate. Carver especially had practically squeezed Canvas until both were blue in the face, relieved to hear Canvas was sleeping once more since their last update. 

"You little nerf-herder, I was so worried about you!"

"I-I'm sorry, Car- I didn't mean-" 

"Hush, don't apologize to me. We're just glad you're doing better..." 

The Force-wielder hums thoughtfully for a moment before perking, standing slightly straighter than before after a glee-filled yelp echoes through the forest. "Your brother is very excited about this one. I'll take your brother's helmet, so you can-"

Scruffy doesn't need to be told twice, even once, before he's giving his brother's equipment to the Jedi to go see what has 'Vas so excited that it's affected the General. "Thank you, Sir!" He carefully skirts through the underbrush and takes care not to fall flat on his face because of hidden roots, slightly breathless when he gets to his little brother's side. "What is it, 'Vas? What's up there?" 

"That's a flame-throated- wait… no wait! Flame-bellied bunting! Those are even rarer than the flame-throated buntings! Look, look!" The binocs are thrust into Scruffy's hands, and looking where he's directed, a deep fork in the canopy to the southwest of their position off-trail, he can make out the feathered critter thanks to the magnification. It's a small little thing, it's back, wings and head an ashy gray and the throat is dappled in red and yellow before it bleeds into a beautiful blaze of orange. He understands where it gets its namesake, the bird's belly looks like the heart of a fire in all those glorious tones of orange that covers the whole underside. Small, almost beady little gray eyes and tight, conical beak. 

Scruffy wolf-whistles below his breath. "That's a beaut of a bird, 'Vas. I'm going to guess… male? Seed-eater?" 

"Y-yes! Wait, how'd you know? Did I already tell you? I don't think I did…" 

He shakes his head at Canvas, giving him the binoculars again so he can continue to observe this prized find. "I've been paying attention to what you tell the General, little brother." Speaking of, the Force-wielder has joined them, the remainder of the company has now stopped to rest on the trail as they call over their shoulder that they can't leave their brothers too far behind.

Packs and heavy gear are lowered for the time being from weary but seldom complaining shoulders. "Yessir!" Clones chorus together. Any excuse to rest is welcomed. 

The hem of the Jedi's outer cloak is gathered higher so it would not drag through the leaf litter as they carefully make their way down the gentle slope to join their men. "What have you found, son?" the General asks with interest, peering above them into the broad-leaved crown of the towering tree. 

"Canvas called it a flame-bellied bunting. Beautiful bird, sir." 

"Here, General," Canvas offers the equipment with excitement to share his find to another interested party, trying to direct his superior on where they'll find the flighted creature and see for themselves, "it's to the right of the-!" 

Gone on the wing, the bird drops from the branch and flits away deeper into the forest in a dazzling flash of color before the Jedi ever gets the chance to have a proper look. 

"Blast it." Canvas whispers dejectedly. "Sorry, General…"

"Don't be, son," the Jedi assures him, returning the equipment, "there could be other chances to see this beautiful bird, Canvas." 

The trooper with all his brother's scuff marks slouches the more he talks. "I doubt it… it's rare to see them so deep in old-growth forests." Canvas murmurs with unfettered, bitter disappointment that he can't help for the moment, regretful that he's letting such emotions get the best of him. "B-but… maybe. Hopefully." he adds softly, filling his lungs with the rich, clear air of the forest to calm and steady himself. Look on the bright side. Have hope. "The… Force works in mysterious ways. As does nature. So I… like to imagine they are very intertwined." Scruffy and the General give him gentle smiles, his brother throwing an arm around his shoulders as they walk back to the others and join them for the rest break.

"It is good to have hope, Canvas." 

"Agreed, sir. C'mon little brother, let's see who the General gave your helmet to and we'll go rest our legs." Scruffy follows up, steering Canvas in the direction of their brothers when Stick gives an over here! wave that was hard to miss. "Maybe we can find someone with a catalog of the planet's fauna and see if it has anything on the flame-bellied bunting. You could show the General that way, at least. Woah-woah, mind the roots!" He warns as Canvas skips off, enticed and excited by the idea of using a planetary catalog. The General rumbles with soft laughter at the Clone's deep sigh when the warning is hardly heeded, and Canvas's feet find the bare pathway through the forest without trouble. 

"It is always so endearing; how much you all care for one another in your own little, unique ways. The camaraderie… unlike anything this galaxy has ever seen." 

The words, the mantra, comes as naturally as breathing at this point. Scruffy hardly realizes he's said them for the hundredth time perhaps in answer to the Force-wielder's observation. 

"Brother looks out for brother, General." 

"Indeed you all do…" They seem almost grateful when they smile at Scruffy, clapping a steady, calloused hand in a gesture of comfort around the armor that protects the Clone's shoulder. "It is a wonderful thing, to witness such dependable, valiant men I serve alongside find the bravery in being soft and vulnerable to another brother. Now go rest with your brothers; you're still recovering." 

The last sentiment was… peculiar. Something about the way the Jedi said it. "But, General, I- I was approved for combat and deemed to have properly recovered." Scruffy reminds them, hoping the reminder comes across respectfully.

"In that sense, yes. That is true, Scruffy." the General tells him sagely, which only serves to confuse the soldier further.

"But-"

Stick cups his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice and get his batchmate's attention. "Hey, Scruff! You'll never guess who had a catalog of fauna found here!" His left hand makes a scooping motion, urging him to get over here! already. Scruffy exhales softly, turning to his left to bid the General a polite good-bye, that he should go see what's going on, but he finds that the Jedi is already gone, several paces ahead in the blink of an eye. Strange… he hadn't so much as heard a sound through the leaf litter. 

"Scruff, c'mon!" Stick was getting insistent. Better go see why. 

Canvas can't believe it. 

Neither can Scruffy, apparently, as he's cupping this brother's face in his hands to scrutinize the tattoo tucked near the hairline on his left temple. "Cypher? You- wow. Look at this! When did you get a tattoo?" The datapad Canvas is borrowing from is another of Scruffy's surviving batchmates, it turns out. (The notes Cypher's taken on all the wildlife are incredibly extensive, too.) 

"Another member of the planetary reconnaissance and research party," Cypher replies, trying and failing to nudge Scruffy just a hair out of his personal space, "the ink was sourced from a very pigmented plant found here on the- hey! I'm trying to explain, back off a bit!" 

Scruffy apologizes for the third time, stepping back before inviting his batchmate to continue. "Sorry-sorry; found where on the planet?" He doesn't mean to repeatedly encroach his batchmate's space, honestly. He's just so surprised to see just how much his second youngest batchmate has changed on him since the last time he's seen Cypher. 

"The sector to the southwest, past the large canyon formations." Cypher explains, gesturing with his thumb at the holomap laid on top of his things with a highlighted section pulsing in blue on the HUD. "Which is where we've seen a strange number of naturally occurring cairn-like formations." 

A stack of worry stones goes scattering as someone kicks his foot out in surprise. "Hey! Wait a minute!" Cairn's head now snaps up from the huddle around Canvas as he sifts through Cypher's notes for birds. "No wonder I recognized your voice; you're the one that ended up inspiring me and I finally found my Name because of you! I had no idea you were Scruffy's batchmate." 

Cypher's expression is somewhere between a regretful grimace and a touched smile as they shake hands. "Yeah… There was a reason for that… But I'm glad I ended up helping you find your Name even if I didn't realize it, Cairn. Nice to meet you." 

Cairn senses there's a nerve he shouldn't trod on, and so he leaves it alone even though he's brimming with questions as to why yet another of Scruffy's batchmates didn't want to associate with him. Scruffy was easily one of the nicest, most helpful and patient brothers a young Shiny could hope for, and he'd counted himself lucky that he was created in the same Growth Cycle as him, at the very least. "Nice to meet you too, officially, Cypher. Thank you. F-for the Name. And for letting us borrow your research notes so Canvas can figure out if you have his bird, too." Maybe, maybe, he could ask about it some other time. But he wasn't going to hold his breath. 

"Sorry if it's not organized in a way that makes any sense to you, Canvas. It, uh, makes perfect sense to me with the way my brain's wired, but… it's definitely not alphabetical or even by color and animal type." Cypher offers in apology, nails skimming over the back of his head to self-regulate. 

Canvas shrugs softly, glancing up at Scruffy's batchmate with an easy smile. "That's okay, Cypher," he tells him. "I'll find it, I'm sure." 

It's another few minutes of carefully clawing through data before the idea strikes him to look through the photo files. Surely, at least there was a chance of finding his bird in there this way. He'd tried asking if Cypher had the bird in his records, but the name or description didn't spark any recognition for him, so he allowed Canvas to look through it himself.

"Knock yourself out."

Oh wow. So many birds. At least in the photo files things got sorted automatically thanks to a feature in the system. And with so few orange birds in the galaxy (sadly), it shouldn't take long at all before Canvas's eyes caught that living flame made of feathers. 

"Yes!! He has it!" Canvas declares triumphantly, pumping a fist into the air that narrowly avoids Carver's temple. "Oh, s-sorry Carver!" The huddle of brothers closes in around him as he opens the image file from the thumbnail, the image expanding to fill the screen, waves of awed murmurings rippling through the group. "Hey, Cypher said knock yourself out, not someone else!" Carver teases, ruffling his curled hair as payback after he's had a good look at the flame-bellied bunting. "Where's the General so we can show them before we have to start moving again?" 

Scruffy looks around, sweeping the forest for the Force-wielder before they're spotted on a wide, flat rock; legs folded under them and head bent deliberately. "Meditating." 

"Maybe chow time will be better to show the General, then. Don't want to… y'know." Canvas gives the datapad back to Cypher and begins gathering his own things, balancing his bucket on his knees so he could don it in a moment's notice. 

Many Clones in this unit were often hesitant about approaching their Jedi General if they were taking the opportunity to meditate, oftentimes with Carver's Mudhorn in their hands as they did so. They aimed to be respectful of what little time the Jedi could dedicate to their way of life, or maybe it was better described as a religion, during the war. It was mostly understood by the soldiers of the GAR that even if they couldn't understand it, they should aim to respect it. The Force is what their Generals found strength in, found courage in, found help in. Perhaps without the Force, more brothers would remain trapped in cave-ins, more brothers would have been picked off by hidden Separatist forces… and lost to detonations. 

Had the General not called out in warning that Scruffy was walking towards a laser tripwire, his brother might not have slowed down or hesitated enough and- 

He would've been down to just two brothers from other batches (who weren't COs) that could give enough of a kriff on the regular to take care of him when he didn't want to take care of himself. The "twins" of another batch different from his own and Scruffy's, Carver and Cairn. 

Canvas taps one on the shoulder as they get the call to start moving forward again. "Hey, Carver, don't forget your All-Kit." 

Carver's hands quickly pat down his utility belt and find the tool is in fact missing. "Oh! Thanks brother. Don't wanna lose this." He shakes his head in agreement with Carver. They weren't sure where the Clone had found the old vibroknife or the All-Kit, but both had been invaluable in this soldier's creative hands.

"Blast it! Sealed shut. Where would we find a fusion cutter way out here, to get in?"

"Oh, Commander, I can let you borrow this, I believe it has a fusion cutter setting!" 

"Carver, that's- Where the kriff did you find this?" 

"Not sure, Sir, to be honest. Just… found it near the airfield. I-I think." 

The Commander hails the General on the comlink, requesting they help lead the way forward as they begin their march. The whole company will have a long way to go before they reach their position to make camp for the night. They have to make up for lost time. There's some grumbling at the front of the marching company asking if it was some kriffing rookie who was slowing them down this time, and the voice belongs to someone of an older Growth Cycle, from the sound of things. 

It's a hoarse and unhappy vocalization. It's not missed by the General. It's not missed by Scruffy, more importantly. Scruffy hauls off before he can be stopped, and it's several minutes later before Carver, Cairn, Canvas and Stick find their friend and brother reaming this other soldier out while everyone else walks past in formation. His back is plastered up against the trunk of the towering tree, hands at chest level with his palms out towards Scruffy imploringly, the t-visor wagging almost anxiously as Scruffy lays into him, fingers like battering rams into the impossibly firm material of their plastoid armor. 

"Uh-oh. Sounds like Snapper's getting a taste of his own medicine. Whaddya reckon he did?" a trooper behind the quartet asks. It's another older brother, one of their few permanent snipers in the unit, so he doesn't get many chances to interact on a personal level with his brothers of the GAR. 

There's a gentle laugh. "Made the mistake of assuming the reason we got a break was because of a rookie." his companion replies, bumping elbows in a gesture of unspoken communication. Canvas can guess these brothers behind them are gesturing to him. He's grateful he's wearing his bucket. "Hey! Snapper! Tell Canvas thank you, you ungrateful nerf-herder, and maybe Scruffy will let you off easy! You don't have to love every Clone-brother you meet but at least be nice to them." 

Hands pat the backplate of Canvas's armor, a soft touch intended to be friendly and non-intrusive. Probably from the sniper. There's a murmured thanks for the break, brother and a genuine glad you're back with the company that's nearly lost in the hundreds of feet drumming over the soil and leaf of the forest floor. The words invoke a tingle in the corners of his eyes and comfortable warmth in his chest to hear he'd been missed by brothers he didn't know well in the three weeks he, Stick and Scruffy had been aboard the Venator-class ship. 

The company comes to a halt a standard hour after the sun has sunk behind the hills on this side of the planet. The imposing formation of men clad in white armor had taken on a nearly romantic glow as the dying light of day washed them and their paint patterns in the vivid hues of yellowed oranges and sweetened pinks. It doesn't take long after the lanterns have been activated before Cypher returns to this segment of the formation, completely stepping past Scruffy with the same uneasy silence an unmarked, decaying grave invokes in the men as they march past. 

Cypher won't make eye contact with him when he seeks out Canvas to loan the datapad to him once more, this time the HUD is loaded up to a file just for the bunting; no need to dig this time. 

He's polite with Stick, nodding in silent greeting. But there's not even so much as a polite hello for Scruffy. It's like he's not there. It stings a little. What did he do wrong? What does Cypher still hold over his head? 

"Hey, Canvas. I'll need it back soon, but you can show the General your bird, now."

With childlike glee, 'Vas takes the device gratefully, carefully getting to his feet and dusting off his plastoid armor before trotting off to find the Jedi. "Oh, thanks, Cypher. Appreciate it!" 

"Mhm." His gloved hands ball into fists the moment Canvas has left the radius of light from the lanterns they're using to illuminate their camp, voice a threatening purr. "Would you stop staring at me already?" 

"Why are you still mad at me, Cy…?" 

Scruffy wishes he never asked when the upper lip curls into a wicked, cutting snarl, and the fury increases tenfold as Cypher whisper-yells to avoid disturbing the other Clone brothers nearby. "I never needed you to try to be some kind parent to me just because I'm the second youngest of our batch, just because I'm a Clone! I just needed my brother! And I needed him to not embarrass me all the time by-!" 

"Cy!" Stick cries out louder than Cypher with a jolt, looking mortified. "Cut it out! Is this about that old data drive, still? What happened on Kamino when we were all trainees and cadets was an accident and he's apologized a million times for it! Scruffy never meant to erase your drive. And he was only trying to-! To… And was it such a crime that he was only trying to make us laugh if this isn't about the data drive?" 

"In front of the Trainers? We were supposed to be showing them we were combat-ready and fit to fight for the Republic, show them we meant business and could rise to any occasion, like we were made for. And goofing off in front of the Trainers never did us any favors." Cypher growls, hands squeezed so tightly the gloves creaked. 

Carver and Cairn study their spats and boots, faces flushed with discomfort as they listen to two of Scruffy's batchmates lay into one another. They abruptly stop once Canvas comes jogging back into the radius of light with the datapad, his expression bright and perky. Cypher stalks off the moment the device is back in his hands, Stick hits the dirt and trails after, hot on Cy's heels. Scruffy sits on top of his pack, motionless. They aren't sure if Scruffy is about to cry, or just bottle these feelings up and pretend they never happened so he doesn't worry Canvas.

He's not sure how to answer his little brother when Canvas speaks up in a timid voice, noticing how many of them look uneasy, his face falling with worry. "What happened…? Why'd Cypher leave?" Maker, the look of uncertainty and confusion is crushing. Canvas has such an expressive face, and he doesn't always have the self-discipline to not "make too many faces". (Whatever the kriff the Trainers meant by that.)

"Cy, uh… doesn't feel like having his rations with us, I guess." Scruffy offers lamely, breaking into his sealed, GAR-issued MRE to add water into the pouch. He didn't feel like eating. But 'Vas, so bonded to him, so intrinsically entwined… he needed a good example, still. His batchmates had been taken from him one by one as a Shiny before he was ready to decide for himself if he would strengthen or sever those batchmate bonds.

He promised Faro. 

"Don't you think that's too much water?" Cairn prodded, looking at how much water the Basic instructions dictated they should add to soften the food. 

Scruffy shrugs half-heartedly as Canvas takes a seat and breaks open his own ration packet, and then pauses to scrutinize the water. "It's better when it's softer. Makes it easier to mix all that seasoning in, no dry pockets." 

Carver blinks in surprise before reaching out to nudge Canvas's shoulder. "Hmm, good point. I'll, uh, give it a shot. See if it actually makes these things palatable. Good news is the hydro packs are from Naboo again, too, so 'Vas won't get stingy with his water intake." Canvas ducks away, softly whining something about how the Coruscant water is kriffing disgusting and he thinks there's something wrong with it. 

"...'Sour'? Really?" Scruffy asks, hearing this curious observation for the first time. He doesn't recall anyone else vocalizing that sentiment for the water rations supplied by one of the Core Worlds.

"Naboo's water is sweet!" Canvas insists of the Outer Rim planet's export. "C'mon, you're telling me that a planet shared by the Nabooians and Gungans aren't gonna make serious efforts to take care of their water?" he added as he dribbled in water from his hydropack to moisten the rations. 

Scruffy nods, conceding to his little brother's reasoning. "Okay-okay… I guess that makes some sense." He waited until he was sure that Canvas had begun to eat his own rations before returning to his own, taking his time to savor the food and think before they would get the call to go dark that meant they would be expected to kill their lanterns and get some sleep, or at least keep their traps shut so those who could sleep could do so without disturbance. 

The relative silence is disrupted with the call of a brother's voice from far away. "Hey! Canvas!" Startled, the group's heads perked up in unison, swung in the direction of the voice. 

"Huh? Who's that?" someone asks.

"Shiny named Cubby. He's the one who noticed the birdsong." Scruffy explains shortly, nodding in greeting as the Shiny breaks into the warm glow of the lantern from the shadows. "Hey, brother. Good to see ya again." 

"Oh, hi, nice to meet you, Cubby." Canvas and Cubby shake hands, trading toothy, friendly smiles, "Likewise, Canvas. Hey listen; I've got a group I'm already planning on eating with tonight, but I was wondering if maybe you can tell me all about that bird I heard earlier this afternoon in the morning? I'm told you're the brother to ask."

Canvas nods, eager. "Sure, sounds great." Cubby grins practically ear to ear as he repeats the phrase back to Canvas with a word of thanks before he walks off to join his group, some pep in his step.

Stick never makes it back to their group before the COs call out "go dark, boys!" and one by one, groups down the line kill their lanterns once they've gotten their things situated for sleep. Packs arranged in a circular formation, blasters in an arm's reach. Men in every other grouping will take watch, and luckily for his group, no one's expected to be awake. Canvas's eyes scan the treeline in vain, looking for Stick. 

Where could he be? 

What had happened?

There's a hand on his lower back, coming up from the forest floor. Scruffy has already laid down and made himself comfortable. "Hey, you need to get some sleep if you can, 'Vas." 

"But where's…?" Why wasn't Scruffy concerned about his batchmate not being back? What had happened in the two minutes he was away to show the Jedi the image file of the bird? Why did Cypher seem so upset? "Where's Stick? Where'd he go? What-" 

"He'll come back, Canvas…" Scruffy forces through a yawn, "he's got a light. C'mon, try to get some sleep." Reluctantly, Canvas hesitates to drop onto one of his shoulders and try to sleep away the fatigue of the day. There's something wrong. He hasn't known Stick as long or as well as he's come to know Scruffy, so he can't say with certainty if the behavior is normal for this brother. But Scruffy… something's up. 

"Did Cypher say something to upset you when I was gone?" Canvas asks, knowing it's likely a long shot. It was always such a long shot to ask these questions as the baby of a batch, much less the baby of a totally separate batch. Not your batch, not your burden, some older brothers might say. You typically learned to keep your nose out of it… Typically. "What happened? A-are you okay?" 

Scruffy doesn't answer that at first, at least not verbally. Scooching himself closer on the forest floor, Scruffy throws an arm around his side, effectively pinning Canvas down. "It's not your job to worry about me, little brother… I should manage my own feelings." 

"B-but-" 

Scruffy means business, voice firm, arm pulling him closer. "In the morning. I'll tell you what happened in the morning, Canvas. We need to sleep." 

He feels his breath hitching. "But Scruffy…" 

Someone sits up, and the pik! of a compartment on a utility belt popping open punctuates the silence. The worry stone is tucked into the palm of his hand, strong fingers closing his fist around it. The object Canvas used as an anchor since he was a Shiny, usually so effective, does little to abate the threat of tears presently. Why the kriff is he crying like a damn cadet? Again? He thought he'd gotten better and could rationalize that Scruffy was going to be okay, he was going to be okay out in the field again, once this brother from another batch had found the trick to getting him to sleep when the anxiety got the best of him and he couldn't be rational on his own. Why is he kriffing crying?!

"Can I do something to help?" Carver offers to Scruffy once he's sat up, able to pull Canvas to his chest once he's shed the chestplate, laying the sensitive, fleshy shell of Canvas's ear above his heart. Scruffy wags his head softly, taking slow, measured breaths. "I've got this handled, Carver…" If he just held Canvas to his chest like he did in the unofficial rec center on the Venator-class ship, hopefully it wouldn't take an hour for his little brother to calm down. Wouldn't take an hour for him to fall asleep.

"Why am I like this? What is wrong with me?!" Canvas demands under his breath, hoping he can, somehow, get an answer out of himself. Something had to be wrong with him. He was far too anxious for a Clone trooper. To the opinion of some of the galaxy that he was technically a child, he had the strength and body of an adult, and perhaps in most areas, the mental maturity and age of one, were it not for this cursed anxiety. He probably never should have left Kamino much like Cryfar with some of the head injuries he likely sustained while keeping up with the demands of those bounty hunters; the older Clone brothers were never so heartless, so… cold. There's something wrong with him. 

There's something wrong with him, he shouldn't be so soft! Pathetic! He's not fit to be a soldier! The aspects of him that are so "childish" make him unfit for what he was made for. He's defective; there's something wrong with him!!

"Hey, no… Don't say that." Scruffy says with an admonishing tone. Fingers slide through the closely-shaved curls of the regulation-length cut as one of Scruffy's hands cradles the back of his head. "Nothing's wrong with you. It's not your fault you're like this. It was the Trainers who did this to our Growth Cycle. Blame them. Or a malfunction in your jar. Or the Kaminoans. But it's not your fault." 

Words meant and completely intended to be comforting only make him cry harder, only make Scruffy begin to panic himself. Canvas can hear the quickening heartbeat against his ear. But he can't seem to catch his breath just yet, promise that he's not more upset, but the opposite. He's just so swept up with this swelling tidal wave of emotions that he just needs the frothy crest of the wave to finally break and crash, first. 

"I-" he tries insisting, feeling how choked he must sound. Someone else adds their arms to the mix, their chest against his back. It might be Carver, the comforting hand on his upper arm belonging to Cairn. 

"I-I'm o-" 

There's collective whispers and murmurings rippling around him. Dozens of concerned or confused brothers. Lots are asking what's going on; is it one of the rookies having trouble adjusting; is it Canvas?

He, Scruffy and Stick have only been back a couple of days. Medics have warned the Captain, Commander and the General that while Scruffy is fit for duty again, meaning his little brothers who were worried about him are too, they had concerns that their "little Canvas" may need the Shiny-treatment for a while. Easy tasks. Easy responsibility. Lots of supervision. Lots of encouragement. So much patience. 

Brother needed to look out for brother.

Scruffy, patiently, continues to hold Canvas close, verbally waving off other Clones who come to see what's going on. "Hey-hey, it's okay. Go. He'll be-" 

"M'fine… m'fine." Canvas insists, this time successfully finding his voice without sounding so choked. Brothers are dismissed by Cairn and Carver so Scruffy can just softly talk to Canvas. 

"Are you going to be okay now, 'Vas?" 

"I-I don't need to go back to the Jedi cruiser… I'm fine. I'm ready for this." Canvas promises, trying to dry his face. Really, he is ready for his duty to the Republic again. He's just not sure why he wears his heart on his plastoid quite so much. He's not sure why he got so upset. 

Scruffy exhales slowly, deliberately. For just a moment, it reminds Canvas of Faro. "That's not what I meant. What I should have asked instead was if you were going to be okay to talk about things in the morning." Scruffy really reminds him of Faro right now… and for a moment he wonders if Faro and Scruffy would have gotten along. 

Faro valued discipline and attentiveness above many things… so he rarely got to see a side of his oldest batchmate that wasn't that.

"Canvas?" He's been silent for too long for Scruffy's taste. "Are you going to be okay to talk about it tomorrow?" 

"M'not sure…" Canvas mumbles, avoiding eye contact with the brother who "adopted" him into his batch. It's the same inquisitive tone Faro, occasionally Gunnar, used with him when he had to complete a training exercise under the supervision of the long-necks. It's making him feel mixed up. "C-can I decide in the morning?" 

It's the question he never dared ask Faro. Canvas could use it on Gunnar, but it was too daunting to test on his oldest brother. He never had any reason to fear Faro, but for some reason… 

Maybe he just didn't want to disappoint his brother. Or worry him. Something. 

Stick is suddenly back. Canvas didn't hear him return. "Good idea, brother," Stick yawns behind him, throwing himself on his side, "decide in the morning. Get some sleep." 

"Where've you been?" Scruffy demands, almost angry. "You didn't eat your food, you nerf-herder." 

Stick yawns again. He's not taking the concern for him so seriously, it seems. "I did eat. I was studyin'. Had a long talk with Cy. If you can promise to do your best to get some sleep, he might be able to show us something in the morning." Acting on intrigue, one by one these brothers slowly turn back to the soil of the planet for sleep. Carver pipes in, asking what's on everyone's mind when everyone settles down against the forest floor: "Psst! Who's "us", Stick?" 

"Whoever's interested." Stick replies. It'd be cryptic if he wasn't so sleepy and more importantly warm as he closes off the other end of the 'Canvas sandwich', tapping his boot against Scruffy's. "And that's for calling me 'nerf-herder'." Scruffy only grunts half-heartedly in return, returning his arm around Canvas to cap off their new-found sleeping routine before whispering good night-s to each brother nearby. 

Canvas slept a lot better when he had his brothers nearby. Sheltered from the Kaminoans. The Separatists. The galaxy at large. Safety in numbers, almost… 

Almost like a nest, he decides. 

Birdsong wakes Scruffy before the sun. Before Cypher has completely made his way back to them. 

-weet-weet-weet! Suu-weet-weet-weet! Breeeee!

The sound is sweet, serene. It ends on a buzzy note he didn't hear the other day when Canvas had tracked down the bird and offered to show him, and the General. 

Canvas… He wanted to share something so important to him to people he cared about. Or possibly, as a way of thanking them. 

Scruffy remembers that once when he was a lanky little cadet, he helped a nearly full-grown brother hide something from the inspectors. An innocuous little item, just a packet of chewstim. But because it could be used to make a mess on the underside of the tables around the Cloning facility, it was considered contraband. It wouldn't be a problem if a younger Clone had it, however, as they were afforded a little more leniency. So Scruffy hid it for that brother until he'd passed inspection. 

The day he returned it, the older Clone found him in the mess hall and slipped him an extra helping of food typically reserved for the near-mature cadets. 

"Share that with your batchmates, little brother." 

"Why're you giving this to me, Chews?"

"Because you helped me. It's to thank you, uh… What's your name, little brother?" 

"Oh… I don't have one yet. I don't get much time to think about the name I want because of the Trainers. And because I'm trying to cheer up my brothers since the Trainers are so hard on us..."

"You're the oldest of your batch, aintcha?"

"Uh-huh." His hair had been ruffled affectionately after that by the older Clone named Chews. 

"Keep an eye out for 'em; we brothers need each other. Don't take the 'not your batch, not your business' banthashit to heart quite so much. And don't worry about the Name stuff. One day you'll find your Name… or your Name will find you…" Chews flashed the packet of chewstim he kept in one of the deep pockets of the cadet uniform and winked. 

Because of Chew's words, something changed in Scruffy that day. Thankfully, for the better. Not just for himself, and his batchmates, but all his brothers. If they knew ahead of time a fresh-faced Shiny or two would be stepping off the gunship, the Commander would usually ask Scruffy to stand beside him while welcoming the new troops and explaining their unit's unofficial "scuffing ceremony". Steal the first imperfection in their plastoid on their own terms. A mark of their autonomy, their agency, their uniqueness. 

The Captain would ask him to help with the brothers who were having a hard time making friends or integrating into the unit. Help these brothers find their strengths the same way he helped Carver find his. Help the medic-brothers calm a scared soldier. And just yesterday, when they started marching in the morning, served as a cautionary tale. 

"Mind your feet and where you're walking." He warned a rough-housing Shiny. (He would have gotten along well with Scruffy's middle batchmate.)

The Shiny rolled his eyes before plunking the helmet on his head. "Hah! Big words coming from the brother named 'Scruffy' because the COs had to keep pulling him out of pits by the back of his armor." 

"That's true that's why I have my Name…" Scruffy said with a casual shrug, glancing over his shoulder to see how far away Canvas was before his voice became as cold as meltwater when he added: "But I triggered a tripwire about three weeks ago; and I'm damn lucky I was dead for only two minutes before they were able to bring me back. Watch. Where. You. Walk. Or you're going to end up upsetting a brother close to you, and you may not be so lucky." 

He's never once told anyone but one of the COs (and he's likely told the second, which was fine) that in those two minutes, he found himself back on Kamino. The promise he made to Faro. 

Scruffy's not sure how - or if - he should tell Canvas. The poor kid, with everything he's been through, both the good and the bad, had practically sobbed when he saw the little portrait of himself painted on that slab of wood after that first good sleep in days. Repeating the same six words over and over again. I love it, Scruffy. Thank you.

The birdsong begins again, and now Scruffy can feel Canvas stirring slowly out of his slumber by the sound. There's two buzzy notes this time. 

Suu-weet-weet-weet! Breeeee! Breee!

"...G'morning, Scruffy." 

"Mornin', 'Vas. Sleep well?" Scruffy hopes so, he can now hear Cypher carefully making his way over, creeping over splayed limbs and sleeping brothers. It looks like he's followed by the General and the Commander. "Can you hear that? Sure sounds like a lot of those buntings." 

"They're… primarily active just before dawn." Canvas yawns, wiggling out from under his arm to sit up and rub the sleep from his eyes. 

"Which will be perfect for us." Cypher's made his way to them, looking down at their sleeping arrangements. "... Looks like personal space isn't much of a concept around here." 

He can see the fond smile of the Commander over Cypher's shoulder, and the silent chuckle as he looks at the mess of tangled limbs and the odd piece of armor that's been removed in the night. The General is a ways off. "Just the way we like it." Scruffy says with an easy smile. "Plus it helps him sleep." Canvas leans away from the hand reaching out to pat his shoulder, looking shyly away. "Helps me sleep better, too, turns out. So I can't complain or make too much fun of anyone." he admits, now sitting up and reaching over to prod Stick awake. 

Scruffy, Canvas and Stick are joined by Cairn and Carver after some additional encouragement to wake up before they would typically, and follow after Cypher. The five of them, plus the Commander and the General, take Cypher's lead half a kilometer off-trail and into a snug clearing in the forest. They leave most of their armor behind to quiet their movement through the trees.

"Canvas probably knows what phishing means when it comes to birds. We don't like using the technique in the research team too often, but what my research partners don't know won't hurt them." Cypher explains, indicating where they should try sitting and waiting. 

The Force-wielder hums thoughtfully. "I should take this to be a… controversial technique, then." 

"Yessir. It…" Cypher stops, shaking his head, getting a better idea. Let the brother who this kinda thing clearly meant a lot to do it would be more meaningful. "Y'know what? Canvas? Would you like to explain?" 

Put on the spot, Scruffy can see Canvas's ears going red, but he tentatively nods before he launches into a digestible explanation to his brothers and the Jedi. "The technique mocks a scolding or alarm call of most passerine - which means "perching" - birds in the galaxy. Because it disrupts natural behaviors, it's best to do the call sparingly. Same goes for audio playbacks of any kind of mating calls, for example. And… personally… I'd find using the calls of a predatory bird too mean to even entertain." 

"Why would someone use a predatory bird's call, hypothetically speaking?" Cairn asks carefully, noting the pained wince in Canvas's face. 

"It'd scare them away. Be slower to return, if at all. It's a riskier move, in my opinion… just to see if you can flush them out of hiding and see them in flight." 

"Which… is… why…" Cypher is tapping away on his datapad before he hands it over to Canvas, "all my audio files are painstakingly marked. You can choose if we use a playback or try phishing to see if we can't spot a flame-bellied bunting here. I'm told that areas like this, with a little handful of blue-thistle seed, might entice them to come investigate by someone in research and reconnaissance." While Canvas pours over the audio selection, Cypher goes and scatters the seed over a low boulder and into whatever branches he's able to reach before rejoining the group. 

Without major delay or dilemma, to Scruffy's minor amusement, it doesn't take Canvas an hour to decide on something to play-back in hopes of attracting the feathered rarity. 

«Suu-weet-weet-weet! Breeeee! Breee!»

Scruffy takes a peek at the HUD, just under Canvas's finger he finds the word "TERRITORIAL" added after a comma to "forn-besh besh". So call he and Canvas woke up to was the flame-bellied's territorial vocalizations, most likely. Smart of his little brother to feed into natural behavior. And he sees his batchmate nod approvingly to himself; Cypher must also have realized the deliberate choice Canvas made. 

Carver stuffs a knuckle into his mouth to keep himself silent when the first bunting arrives, flared feathers in all directions to make itself appear big and blustering to an imaginary challenger. Cairn's face splits into a wicked grin. The Commander looks at the bunting with silent amazement next to the Jedi, and Canvas… 

Well, he looks just absolutely delighted. And no one calls him silly for softly complimenting the bird, either. "Oh, what a handsome little man you are. Your coloration is so strong! That's good. That means you're healthy." 

There's an unspoken understanding that unless a Clone's interest or talent comes at any extreme detriment to their health, safety or duty, you do not mock a brother for what fascinates them. Especially in this unit with how many never found their Names until leaving Kamino, for kriff's sake.

So Scruffy is thankful that, though Cypher may have a strained relationship with him personally, he's been very willing to take them out here this morning. And he didn't even know Canvas that well. He just learned only yesterday that a brother within the same Growth Cycle really, really likes birds, and Cypher is already opening up to him in strides. 

The Jedi speaks up carefully as not to disturb the number of flame-bellied buntings still gathering in response to the territorial call. "Your brother is right, young Canvas. They are very beautiful birds." They echo Scruffy's words from just yesterday when Canvas had tried offering the binocs to the General. "And, we didn't see just one, as we hoped. But a whole group of them." 

"Blaze." Cypher and Canvas reply in unison. It surprises them both, and they promptly break into stifled laughter. 

"Blaze?" the Force-wielder repeats curiously, "Why the word blaze?"

"The collective noun for flame-bellied buntings, specifically, would be "blaze", Sir," Canvas explains, eyeing a particularly orange bunting that hops his way, "and the flame-throated buntings' collective noun is a "burn". There were once flame-crowned buntings, too, but they've… gone extinct." 

"A pity… And what was their collective noun?" 

Cypher shakes his head with the smile that means he knows something. "Actually… I've heard a pretty credible rumor that there's a captive breeding program for the crowns. If that's the case, that makes them extinct in the wild, not the galaxy as a whole. It would be nice to see wreaths of flame-crowned buntings." 

The Commander chuckles, watching as the bunting Canvas had been keeping his eyes on jumps from the low boulder and takes to the wing, making a short, quick whet-whet! sound just before it lands on the Clone's shoulder. 

Scruffy can hear the hitch in his little brother's breath, and the stifled klic! of the datapad that had been returned to Cypher moments before. He briefly wonders what that bird call means, but he'll have to ask 'Vas, or Cy, later. Right now the two of them were counting on the silence of their brothers and General as well as their own so as not to sully such a moment. These are docile and timid birds. If one of them decided Canvas would be a suitable perch, he'd hate to kark up this moment.

"... h-hi there." Canvas stammers, voice soft and quivering with contained excitement. The little bird is so close, realistically if he wanted, Canvas could softly pet this feathered friend. "Galaxy and all her stars… you're such a perfect little thing." The flame-bellied bunting chirps a single, clear note - tweep! - and gives his head a little scratch with the left foot before taking to the wing.

There's a soft feeling of tiny, tiny talons when the male bunting lands on Scruffy's shoulder next, once more tweep!-ing. It's surprisingly loud for such a little creature, but it makes some sense with the bird so close to the shell of his ear. Scruffy is careful to hold himself still as possible, glancing at his brothers after taking a moment to soak in this moment. 

Cypher has his equipment in his hands, either taking notes or pictures as quickly as he can manage before this bird flies away for more of the thistle seed. Carver and Cairn just flash him little thumbs up signals as he glances over them. Stick mouths out the words you lucky bastard, to which Scruffy agrees by means of a single, slow nod. 

The Commander is talking softly to the Jedi, and he hears both make mention of both him and Canvas. 

Canvas of course, visually follows the flight path the bird makes when it takes off from Scruffy's shoulder at last, lifting the spell of silence. At last everyone can make his comment about the birds, or the weather, or how lucky Scruffy and Canvas must feel to have been "chosen" by the flame-bellied bunting for a moment to perch and rest on. 

"Remarkable birds," the Jedi begins, speaking reverentially, "and a truly special moment to start the day with and share with everyone. I thank you, Cypher. Now: we should return to our company before the Captain begins to worry." 

Canvas is the last to climb to his feet of all his brothers, obediently following after their General the half kilometer back to their unit. From here, they can hear their brothers just beginning the process of prepping their morning ration packs. 

"You're surprisingly quiet after such a close encounter with what I can assume is one of your favorite birds, young Canvas," the peacekeeper-turned-warrior notes when they find they don't hear his voice among those of his brothers, "so I would guess you're committing your experience to memory?" 

"That…" Canvas replies after a long, contemplative pause. "And just thinking, General." 

"Ah-hah. I see now; simply in thought." 

With the edge of his elbow, Scruffy prods his younger brother for further answers. "What about, 'Vas?" They're all equally curious, but sometimes the General is just too polite to ask these follow-up questions themselves. "I mean, it's pretty clear it's most likely about the flame-belliedies, but, in particular."

"Their symbolism." Canvas answers, carefully climbing over the same, large root they came across on their way down to the minuscule clearing. "Whether or not any of it's true is just up to personal opinion, of course, but there can be a lot - or a little - of symbolism attached to birds." Canvas kindly offers a hand out to Scruffy so he can steady himself as he comes down the other side with the confidence that he will not fall. (Since the tripwire, he's become a lot more conscientious than before when it comes to traversing these often hostile, unfamiliar planets.)

"Thanks, little brother… What sort of symbolism is attached to a bunting?" 

"Strangely specific symbolism." Cypher chimes in, having keyed up the question into the search function that pulls information from the Holonet. 

He gives the datapad to Scruffy to read once they return to their spot in formation where he, Canvas, Stick and Carver and Cairn had slept. He reads aloud from the information he finds in the source his batchmate has selected. "Let's see… 

"It's widely accepted that the Flame-bellied Bunting, discovered by two brothers over a hundred years ago, symbolizes a perhaps rather niche partnership in the galaxy. The fraternal bond. Mr.Val and Mr. Leys Helios were identical twins who took on their mother's interest in the avian wildlife the galaxy had to offer at a young age. In their mid-twenties, Val and Leys discovered the Flame-bellied Bunting (thought to have evolved from the Flame-throated) while they were out camping together. Leys reports the bird, though very shy and skittish, landed on both him and his brother as they intended to observe their new finding. 'The moment sort of bonded something in us.' Leys claims, which was later a source of great comfort when…" 

Scruffy stops reading aloud for a moment, swallowing the lump in his throat that's been building the closer he has gotten to where he'd read ahead. 

"When what?" Stick asks, the rest politely waiting for Scruffy to continue. 

He continues reading from the article, voice full of gentle pauses to allow his brothers time to process what he reads.

"Later a source of great comfort when shortly after, Val became very sick and unexpectedly collapsed one afternoon, never regaining consciousness… An otherwise healthy individual, medical examiners could not determine how Val lost his life so suddenly while out camping with his twin. (Maker, that's just awful.) Leys says shortly after a memorial service for his brother, he invited a renowned galactic ornithologist to see the bird he and Val claimed to have discovered, seeking validity in what he feared would have been the first and only bird he had confidently discovered for the first time with his brother. 

"'When I returned to the site of our discovery with the scientist, I quite honestly had no hope of seeing the bird again. I didn't want to. Not when Val was gone.' says Leys Helios. 'But it happened again, incredibly. Another flame-bellied bunting, a little male who'd barely seen his first spring, came and landed on my shoulder. And something within me believed it was my brother; like it was Val coming to say "Hi!" because I felt that same sort of feeling again, that bond again. It was unmistakable. I just sensed, somehow, that this was my brother checking up on me. So I no longer thought about giving up my interest in birds just because Val was gone. And in his memory, I loaned Val's name to the scientific name of the Flame-bellied Bunting and our brotherly bond to its symbolism, because our mother loved the symbolism behind birds. She thought it was a sweet little gesture. And I'll n-never forget what she sa-said to me'..." 

Scruffy's tears become too thick to read through to continue any longer. Everyone is properly emotional, the Commander and Canvas are the first to step in and offer their physical comforts; a steady hand on his shoulder as once the datapad has been collected so he and Canvas can quietly weep together once the final words of the article have been read. Cairn, Carver and Stick are next to come closer and make this a group hug, which Cypher (stiffly at first) joins once he too reads those final words over the shoulder of the Commander. 

What you felt wasn't just your bond with your brother when that little bird landed on your shoulder, but his love, too. A brother's love will heal you, and keep you safe, just like anything else in this galaxy.

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