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frostycatblr-fandom-files · 10 months ago

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Brothers & Batchmates [Part 2]

Warnings and Information: I missed writing about my boys. So much so that the Brothers & Batchmates installment as a whole spiraled out of control, and I decided I should split it into parts. There are warnings for the installment overall, and subject matter specific to each part. Reference and allusion to canon-typical violence and war crimes. Reference and allusion to death, injury and loss. **There are some slightly explicit mentions and/or hints of suicide and suicidal behavior/ideation. Explicit mention of Kaminoan culling practices of defective Clones, and brief reference and allusion to old isolation and reconditioning practices.** 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). Jedi OC Caelen is genderfluid, and they/them pronouns are used in the story for clarity. Like her Clone OCs, the author can’t stop making up fake birds.

Word-count: 9,224

As a mark of respect, no one brings up how odd, how strange it can be, to hear a Jedi commune with the Force. Not when General Caelen openly wishes for the safety of their men, addressing them as kin. “Do you find it an agreeable request? Will you watch my brothers in their brave quest? Will you protect them, guide them safely home… as many as you can?” There is a long stretch of silence, punctuated only by birdsong, before the Force-wielder speaks again, still conferring to the very Force itself. “Are they doing well? Please let them be doing well.”

Discreetly as he’s able, one of the medics between the combined forces creeps past the Jedi in order to make his way to where he needs to be. Coming to a collection of crates in the middle of the encampment, he breaks the latch to a medkit in order to treat a brother’s wound. An injured Clone following behind is directed to sit on one of the other crates while the medic rifles through the kit to procure everything he needs.

“I’ve got you, brother. Hold still for me while I have a look at that burn. You’re probably going to be shooting with the opposite hand for a while.”

The sharpshooter sucks in his teeth sharply as the bacta spray hits his skin, then follows it up with a remorseful apology. “Sorry to trouble you, Ryker. D-damn, I should’ve been paying better attention!” The burn-pattern in the middle of the brother’s palm doesn’t look recognizable to Canvas, at least this far from where he’s been sitting, cautioned not to stray far from Captain Law’s sight. If he notices a shift in the planet’s avian behavior, he’s supposed to report in without delay.

Unfortunately for the burned brother, the extent of his offered sympathy will have to be offered from here. That looks unpleasant is communicated through pursed lips and a pinched smile.

The marksman wags his head three times each direction in return. No kidding! Hurt myself like an idiot.

“Take it easy… Accidents happen.” the medic replies soothingly, “Oh, feel I should add that I’m not Ryker, just so you know. I’m Riddance. You’re thinking of my batchmate.”

“Oh sorry.”

“Hey, no hard feelings.” Riddance promises with a chuckle, tucking a length of gauze over the burn to keep the smearing of bacta gel in place for the marksman, “Get too used to it when I’ve been called every name under the sun. Mostly it’s “you fucker!” when I hit them with the boosters they were hoping to avoid.”

And the other medic whose name starts with a wesk, what about him, asks the marksman with a soft chuckle. “Is he settling into the unit okay after being a spacer for so long?”

“Oh, Wylie? He's quiet, but I can't complain.” Rid replies shortly, busying himself with cleaning up his spent materials. “... No, actually, I could. But not for the reason you think. Poor bastard got sick while he was still aboard the Harmonious and whatever it is, it's stubborn. He's on the mend, at least.”

“Slow progress is still progress.”

Rid takes a moment to think it over before coming to a decision. “Yeah, that it is… I’ll need to keep that in mind, starting very soon.”

That's a peculiar sentiment coming from a medic, to Canvas. What could be happening in the near future that Riddance is aware of? Some kind of proprietary information regarding the progress of the war, or maybe a projection for another super-spreader event? If he asks, would this be something his brother could tell him, or something he has orders to keep close to his chest?

It’s worth a shot to ask.

“Hey, Rid!”

The simple vying catches the attention of not just the medic, but Captain Law as well. Whether curious or concerned, Law has his sights trained on Canvas for a long moment, the idle chatter with General Caelen dropped like a live droid-popper, expression unmistakable.

Why is my brother calling over the unit medic? Do I need to be concerned?

Hastily scraping up the last of the refuse and cramming it into the appropriate receptacle within his kit, Riddance wastes no time to jog over, “Yeah, little Vas? Everything okay?” Dark eyes dart over every inch of plastoid and naked skin, Canvas’s face studied longest of all, but Rid finds nothing immediate. “Starting to feel a little sun-stricken, again? I know you have your assignment with the captain, but we can’t have our favorite art surface collapsing on us, so if you need me to pull you from it, I will.”

With the nature of his name, and relatively unpainted plastoid, Canvas found himself sporting all kinds of artwork not just from Scruffy, but a few other brothers whenever they had significant downtime. (And by significant, it was anywhere upwards of 15 minutes.) On another assignment escorting civilians from their war-torn homes to safety, a child had given Scruffy her extra felt-tipped markers after hearing that he liked to draw, too. They discovered these worked on plastoid after Cairn wrote “KICK ME!” on Carver’s skidplate while he was asleep.

“No-no, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Canvas promises the medic, “I don’t need to be pulled from my assignment. I only had a question for you.”

The edge of the elbow-plating taps against the other’s upper arm as Riddance takes a seat on the rusted crate beside Canvas at the brother’s invitation, his question one of his many jokes.

“It’s not where nat-born babies come from, is it? Because that’s different species to species, Canvas-”

Canvas groans. “Oh my stars.” Here Rid goes again. If he doesn’t let Rid complete at least most of the joke before interrupting, he’ll get all pouty that he doesn't get to practice his “best medicine”. Riddance loves a good joke and a warm conversation; a brother’s hearty laugh is his favorite thing in the galaxy, or at the very least a smile. He’s been at the bedside of many a wounded trooper, datapad in hand opened to his patient notes, where here he adds what kind of jokes they like best along with how much bacta and antiseptin-d he’s given them.

Slinging his arm across his brother’s back and shoulders, Rid’s voice changed into a dramatic, drawling tone. “You see, when people who want to become parents - or people who are real damn ignorant on how you become parents - love each other verrrry much, they-”

“Perform a very intimate hug with a little trading of sperm and egg cells on the side. C’mon, Rid, I’m what, technically eleven? I know where most nat-born babies come from!” Canvas says with a laugh, giving Rid a playful and half-hearted shove. “That’s not what I called you over here to ask about.”

“Alright, alright, had to make sure.” Riddance insists with a large, beaming smile before slipping the hook of his arm further up Canvas’s back to better reach the back of his head, offering the coal-dark curls of hair an affectionate ruffle. “What was your actual question?”

“Do you know something we don’t? Your remark about needing to keep ‘slow progress is still progress’ in mind very soon was, uh, rather curious.”

For a moment, Riddance’s expression grows grim, a low hum in his throat. “Mm. That.” The hand threaded in the shallow depth of the crew-cut falls back to Canvas' shoulder. “There's a… sensitive case I’ve been made aware of.”

His heart sinks. “Oh.”

That’s where the questions and any desire to know more ends. It’s not his business, he tells himself firstly. Given Canvas was (...still is…) distinguished as a sensitive case at one point, he’s familiar with what this means. Can mean. Sensitive cases suggested significant traumas, horrific ordeals, and went so far as encompassing the terrible notion that a brother wanted to have nothing but a blaster for his last meal.

So far as they’ve been told - and it makes only too much sense to report it in such a way - that is rare in the GAR… The soldiers that make up the Republic’s grand army, terminating themselves, is unthinkable to most.

But there are stories spoken of only in reverential whispers among the surviving brothers, brown eyes that glitter with unshed tears as they reap what knowledge they can from grainy hallway cameras and warbled comm-chatter. Brothers make good on their threats that they will never talk to Separatist scum, and would rather die than jeopardize the lives of their brothers! before that singing shot cuts the ambient static, for the Republic.

Brothers, young and old alike, sole survivors of LAAT crashes on Separatist controlled planets, picked up by the microphones of nearby, half-functioning helmets; pleading to the stars for someone to remember his and his brothers’ names when they find the crash site. He’s all alone, the poor little mite who he just redid the padawan braid for was the last alive next to him but… he didn’t make it. Maybe he’s one with the Force now. (Just like he’s about to be.)

Pilots, offering fervent goodbyes and take care brother-s as their ships become little more than specklings of flame amidst the starry backdrop of space, taking down as many battle droids as they can while their controls seize up, one by one, and they really can’t bring her down safely in the hangar with the landing gear karked up. Static, static, static. Maybe a scream. Sometimes a crescendoing warcry. Then nothing.

Together, with his arm still wrapped around Canvas’ shoulders, Riddance gently rocks, swaying him and his brother side to side like the leaves bobbing in the water just down the hill. He’s lost in those same memories, while also thinking about the more delicate parts of Canvas’s history; Canvas knows without even needing to ask.

“Other than missing more than half of your new all-time favorite brothers, you’re holding up okay, I hope, Vas?”

By the plaintive and soft nature of the medic’s expression, he knows Riddance still worries about him. Is worrying about him right now, in fact, but he’s trying to keep the fretting to a minimum. Most of what Rid knows and does involves fretting to some capacity, given how he’s chosen to help his brothers in a very taxing, often thankless position. Fools would argue it’s no glorious station to be the one cradling the sick, the dying, the departed with nothing but a song on your lips, shakily sung in states of utter exhaustion or the deepest of ruts of grief.

And Canvas would argue right back that there would be few better suited than brothers like Riddance.

“Other than missing my brothers, yes, and being nervous about getting any sleep tonight, I… I’m holding up as best as I can be.” He pauses, allowing himself to feel how firmly that hand squeezes his shoulder in silent answer. Okay, thank you for your honesty, it tells him. “What about you, Rid? Are you holding up okay?”

There’s a twitch of a surprised expression with the sharp lift of a brow, and his blink-rate quickens. It’s been too long since Rid’s heard someone other than the commander, the captain, and the newly-transferred medic ask him that question in return, and not merely to be polite. “Well, same as you; nervous about getting sleep tonight.” Riddance admits. Assuming for the moment he didn't need to be awake in order to care for someone tonight, he’d be awake regardless, hoping Commander Juke and the rest of their brothers were safeguarded, somehow. Hoping that when those brothers came back, it was in one, big piece.

“You’re not like me, I hope,” Canvas breaks the quiet spell, shrugging off his brother’s arm in order to lift his scopes to the sky unhindered, “where the sleep inducers don’t work for you.”

Riddance affords him as much silence as he can give while Canvas performs his routine sweep of the sky and treeline for avian activity, waiting until the scopes drop to speak with the greatest sympathy. “I wish they did work for you, brother.” Nights like tonight would be when he’d need those most. At least Canvas had the twins for company, and that was of some comfort for the medic.

“Oh well…” Canvas utters under his breath, “But do they work for you?”

“Yeah. Most part.”

There is no expected bitterness, or envy, from the brother sharing his crate with the medic when he speaks again. “Must be - or feel - nice. I mean, I can only assume.” Every attempt to utilize the sleeping inducers, no matter how small the dose, has all ended in the same way for him: returning his last rations, or being too nauseated to think about sleeping. Too wrapped up in a myriad of miserable sensations and symptoms, where even the kindest hand offered by another brother laid on the small of his back is overwhelming, even painful. The feeling of his heart practically bruising itself against his ribcage in its maddened, frenzied race. And the vertigo.

Stars and Maker above, the vertigo could be the worst of it.

Among the many thoughts that swirl the medic’s mind, one returns to him with an aura of hopefulness in the epiphany. “Maybe we’ve just been trying the wrong form.” He’s been giving the oral pill form to Canvas every time, he explains, but there’s other administration methods. Gels have just hit the shelves in nat-born health practices, and autoinjectors have been around for a while, with plenty of well-studied formulas. “Remind me, you’re not uncomfortable with needles, are you?” That’s not what Rid would want to try on Vas first and turn his poor brother into a pincushion, but the nature of them is better understood.

The other shrugs. “Uhhh… I mean I don’t like ‘em. But afraid? I don’t think so.”

That’s promising enough for Riddance. “I’d like to give one of those a try with you, sometime. I’m confident there is something out there that will work for you, brother.”

Canvas, perhaps habitually in spite of the touched smile, politely turns down the offer. “Oh, you- You don’t have to do that for me, Rid… Th-that might be a lot of effort only to find it doesn’t work, and-”

Interrupting his brother before he can say something to the tune of I’m not worth that effort, some sentiment that only serves to put himself down, Riddance cuts in. “I’d feel like a damn lousy medic if I didn’t want to help my brothers, little brushstroke.” His grip on Canvas’s shoulder is firm, but not uncomfortable or painful. The grip-strength is weak enough to pull oneself from without a struggle, without the need for another to free you. From where his hand is draped over Canvas' shoulders, Riddance can glaze over Gunnar's scuff mark with the tips of his fingers, lost in the memory of one brother out of hundreds gone too soon.

They may be soldiers, created with the very intention to carry out orders until their ends, but they would still miss their brothers, dammit. They would still mourn the dead, still pity the survivors they left behind. A thousand Clones have died before him, and thousands more will die in the time following.

This was their inescapable destiny. This was their fate: sealed the moment credits changed hands, and Jango Fett allowed for the replication of his DNA; a sea of sons belonging only to Kamino.

“Don't say it…” Canvas begs him plaintively, salt water burning in the edges of his vision as he warns the three-hundred-and-second legion’s medic not to say another word. “Don't say it, or you will have to pull me from my assignment. Don't say anything about my batchmates.” He doesn't want to hear how they would have been proud of him, or a humorous anecdote from one of Cryfar’s many visits with Riddance, or anything of the sort.

He doesn’t know if he could take it.

“... I acknowledge and respect your boundary, Vas.” Rid promises; though he’s done his best to mask the emotional quaver in his voice, there is still enough evidence to suggest there are emotional investments of his own he’s had to shoulder. “It can wait.”

Good thing that it had.

Some fifteen minutes later, just when Canvas had gotten his nerves about him once again, the treeline was rife with agitated avians. Cawing and scrawing, many are taking to the wing, swooping between branches. As he’s been asked, he calls it the moment the activity becomes atypical.

“Captain, I think this is our warning!”

Many of his brothers, previously either lazing about or nose-deep in Sabbac, spring to their feet with the order coming down hot on the local comms. “Boots on the ground; let’s make this quick, boys!” Canvas made sure to stay out of their way but still be of help, opting to hold the ropes, stakes and hammers for his brothers until they were needed. ARC troopers weave wild-looking knots and drive the stakes deep into the soil with bewildering ease, and it’s hard not to find yourself entranced in the presence of Recon Commandos.

Best of the best, they’re often called. (That’s if you exclude their commando brothers, for a mere moment.)

Canvas can certainly see why. This brother with the double-pauldrons makes the knot-tying look like he’s channeling the Force, throwing and catching and twisting the braided cable quicker than Canvas can keep up. Damn. Kessel is good.

“Rope please, brother!” someone to his left calls around the five minute mark into the organized effort, making a general bid for more material to work with when he finds his current length of rope will be too short for staking. Coming closer, Canvas realizes this is the brother who had called Snapper an ungrateful nerf-herder some time ago. He recognizes Canvas too, the concentrated frown becoming a splitting grin in an instant. “Oh, Canvas! Hey-hey! Good to see you, brother, thank you.”

“Welcome, Ezee. Good to see you too.”

Ezee only needs a glance to see what’s missing, or rather who. “Surprised.” he admits curtly, “Didn’t want to go?” he adds just as curtly. Canvas kind of appreciates that right now. Helps him keep the quiver in his voice to a minimum.

“Captain Law asked me to stay. For… for the bird behavior. Weather clues.”

“Ah. Well if the captain asks… ‘Weather clues’, hm?” Throwing the rope around the tarped crate for good measure to secure the excess cord before it is staked, Ezee tries for keeping his brother talking with a subject change. “Guess that means they didn’t get whatever it was we were using for telling the weather before to work again, if they’re having you use what you know about our bird buddies. What are those birds, anyways?”

“Crows, for the big ones. And wrens, of some kind or another.” He hadn’t identified them down to the trill, just yet, but Canvas knew the agitated flock wasn’t comprised of sparrows or finches, at least. “Between you and me, I don’t know exactly what kind. It’s the best guess, statistically speaking. Most of the birds that size on this planet belong to a greater wren family.” He wants to know, of course, so he hopes when the rain passes it’ll still be light out and the flocks will return, assuming for the moment he’s not tasked with anything else by Captain Law.

“Well, guess we thank the Maker and the birds we’ve got the last of it secured just in time, by the sound of ol’ Kessel.” Ezee says as the first of the rain splatters and plips against their armor.

The difference from drizzle to downpour is mere seconds, about as long as it takes Kessel to call to command that everything has been tarped and tied. It was like the clouds, maybe the very sky itself had suddenly been torn asunder. The water made in the heavens high above was determined to thoroughly soak anything and anyone who was not fortunate enough to find adequate shelter.

Kamino’s salt-soaked sons paid the weather little mind, some even whooping with delight as they went stomping through the forming puddles, determined to make the biggest splash and outperform their brothers. It was General Caelen who was encouraged to stay under the least-leaky weather tarp that had not been used to protect their equipment, less used to rainfall that was often stinging-cold.

“Don't worry about us, General,” Captain Law assured the Jedi, “this feels just like home to a Clone. I'd be more worried about keeping yourself dry, sir.”

They now just had to hope the equipment stayed dry. If it was kept safe from the elements, the Republic may be able to glean valuable information provided the Separatists were foolish enough to leave something important behind when they abandoned their perverted outpost. Those tinheads had turned a small village’s sole house of worship - a holy and indiscriminate place - into a war room and command center. The Force suffered a great wound there, apparently: more than just holy drink had been drunk by the flagstones of the consecrated ground.

When moving the heavy wooden benches out of the way, the Clones discovered that the floor was not made of red marble. It had been stained in blood. Something that turned more than one stomach, affecting the Jedi perhaps worst of all. Nauseated and woozy over the realization, the General had gone from completely upright to nearly doubled-over, hand grasping a fistful of their robes over their stomach.

Had it not been for someone immediately behind the Force-user, able to quickly usher them outside, there’s fears Riddance would have a medical emergency on his hands. (How exactly one would treat the symptoms caused by a disturbance in the Force was unclear; but fainting, that was something that could be treated at least.) Canvas still remembers how visibly shaken the Jedi had looked then; the façade of discipline and steadfastness the Clones had come to know many of the devotees to a religious order for was more than disturbed.

It was broken.

Like the time one of their men succumbed to his wounds the moment Riddance had reached their position, General Caelen openly wept for the dead, for all the Clones to see.

It had been liberating for many of the more stoic brothers who opted to continually bottle their emotions. If their General was not afraid to show such raw, visceral emotion in front of them, then what had they been disciplining themselves so harshly for? The fear of a brother’s judgment? Had it stemmed from the rigidity of their training? It didn’t matter much in the end if the experience proved to be a largely positive influence between Clone and commanding forces.

Hoping to find Carver and Cairn, whom he’d brushed shoulders with a few times trying to help things become properly tarped and covered, Canvas passes by the command tents with intentions of asking the captain if he would be permitted to take an hour by the water. With the twins, he hoped to spend some time doing a little bird-watching, perhaps. Something to occupy his mind. Center himself.

Just anything other than stewing in his misery that he was not there in Commander Juke’s task force. He had to hope that the General could not sense it when he drew near, or at least not comment on it, just for now.

“Well done, young Canvas!” General Caelen calls from under their shelter; it’s congratulatory and praise, unmistakably. “With your help, there’s some hope the tech remains viable.”

“Just doing my duty, General.” comes the humble reply, purely from a place of habit. With a small smile, he adds, “But thank you, sir. Have you seen the twins, by any chance?” He lost track of them while he was talking to Ezee, and they're capable of making themselves scarce with frightening ease.

There’s a nod and a smile in return from General Caelen. “Carver and Cairn are among the gunships, you should find them there.” Canvas offers a grateful nod, but before he leaves, he’s asked to stay for just a moment. There’s something more the General wishes to say, something they’ve been thinking about after Canvas had been permitted to go before Juke’s team departed in order to say goodbye to his brother. “I thought this may be of some interest to you,” the Force-user explains, procuring a datapad from somewhere within the folds of Jedi attire before it is offered to the Clone. “This contains stories, from my time at the Jedi Temple, some of my Master’s teachings on the Force. There’s a… slightly humorous and embarrassing story from when I was a youngling, that I was reminded of. And, perhaps elsewhere within the pages, it will answer more of your questions on the Force.”

There’s a strange chill that overtakes him, holding something so personal, so private, that has nothing to do with the weather. “Oh, General, I… I-I don’t know that I should.” There has to be a culmination of private thoughts within the datapad, at least a small portion of it might be, so would it really be a good idea to read this? What if there’s a story in here that the 302nd Legion’s guiding hand has forgotten about that’s for their eyes only?

He makes a motion to give the datapad back, but his hand is stayed by the child from the star-worshiping world of Little Archossi. “It’s quite fine, young Canvas…” Caelen promises with a reassuring smile, a steadying hand on his cold and rain-spattered shoulder. “I know what’s written. What you’ll find.”

Perhaps, when he finds his friends, they’ll show their own interest. The General promises that the twins are welcome to read it as well, once Canvas locates them, before he’s sent on his way.

Canvas is grateful he does not have to worry about the General’s ponderings on the Force melting away in the rain like a stack of flimsi scraps would, free to read off of the borrowed datapad while he's sat on the water’s edge between the twins at the bottom of the hill.

He’d fetched them from one of the LAAT/i gunships that had been forcibly grounded (and then later gutted of all viable parts), Carver hard at work helping a couple of Shinies in forcing one of the blast shields closed, and Cairn largely observing because of the tendon injury.

The idea was slightly ambitious to be accomplished within the day, but well-meant. If the sap green legion and umber brown battalion could seal up some of the larger fissures in the roof to prevent the rain from getting in, and clean up most of the soot and scorch-marks off the walls, then the Clones could turn this busted larty into a slightly more secure, weather-tight shelter for General Caelen than a drippy old tent. It’d be a shelter from the sun, too, in the absence of cloud cover.

“Oh, my brothers… you don’t have to do this.” The Force-user struggled to say through a voice choked by emotion. But they wanted to. General Caelen thought of the Clones like kin, a family unit forged by and of the heart. The grateful soldiers felt it was a reasonable way to show them thanks, given the projections for how much longer the combined units would be staying here.

Three more weeks.

And then? It was hard to say where the tides of war would pull them, what far-flung, suffering corner of the galaxy they would be traveling to. How many brothers they’d lose, and how many they would have the time to bury. How many more would be left to decay where they fell, left for the scavenger droids to pick over.

What birds they’d see while traveling and doing reconnaissance.

Canvas, currently nose-deep in the datapad, his attention held rapt to a story about General Caelen accidentally falling into a shallow basin in one corner of the Room of a Thousand Fountains - the seven-story greenhouse found in the Jedi Temple filled with plantlife from all over the galaxy - is quietly roused from his reading by the twin on his right.

There’s a tap on his wrist.

“Hey.”

“Hm?” Lowering the datapad, he gives Carver his attention; he directs Canvas’s gaze out into the middle of the body of water, where a long-legged waterfowl can be seen methodically plodding along in a strange, convoluted fashion. The bird is shuffling each foot forward, rather than lifting and stepping back into the water like expected. Tracking fish, maybe - hoping to flush them out of hiding among the reeds and roots?

“What’s that, Vas? Ol’ stilt-legs over there.”

Stiller than stone, the slate-blue and stormy-gray bird has now paused in its hunt. Like it had done so just for the benefit of the middle man sitting on the banks, allowing itself to be identified, named, and discussed. This was a heron, based upon the serpentine structure of the neck and head, undoubtedly, but there was one prized characteristic Canvas hoped to see at the end of these scaly, yellow legs.

“I hope it’s a firefoot heron. That’d be a treat.”

“Wait, don’t tell me,” begins Cairn on his left, “they’d be called that for having orange, maybe red feet. Am I right?”

Picking up someone’s scopes, Canvas directs his attention to the heron’s spearing head. “Uh-huh… I think that's a female, given the blue crest feathers. Males have black crests.” He just wants to see her lift a foot out of the water in order to display the coloration of the foot and its four long, thin toes. Even if it’s only partial, a glimpse will afford a wealth of knowledge, and it would be another bird to add to his blooming life-list. If in the end it turns out she’s nothing more than another slaty-backed heron, his complete count of all birds he’s successfully identified will remain the same, but at least something good will have come out of the day.

“If she’s a slaty-back, hopefully she has some good luck for us under all her feathers. Old fisherman's tales here say they bring good luck if it’s raining.”

“Maker knows our brothers need good luck.” Carver says of the task force, heart hanging heavy in his rib cage knowing the risks of this operation. A little bird-based symbolism or superstitious thought, whether that came from the Holonet or the locals, that claimed any birds were lucky was welcome compared to the creeping tendrils of fear that burrowed in their hearts.

Though now he wondered if the she-heron were not a slaty-back, what it was supposed to mean to see a firefoot heron. Would it mean something good, maybe even better than the rather generic concept of good luck?

When at last a foot slowly draws out of the water to quickly deal with a troublesome patch of feathers on the heron’s throat, the brothers are delighted to see that flash of orange before the bird takes to her wings, threading into the treeline for dry shelter.

Cairn whoops triumphantly. “A firefoot!”

Playfully thumping Canvas square in the middle of his back while his twin carries on in celebratory fashion, Carver congratulates Canvas for having another bird to add to his list of sightings in his own way. It does not escape his notice that Canvas had begun to partially turn himself at the waist in order to look for Scruffy, like he always had upon seeing a new bird, before stopping himself, remembering that their brother is not here.

He faces the rippling lake, crestfallen, just for the moment.

“I know, Vas...” Carver offers in a sympathetic mumble, laying his hand on his brother’s opposite shoulder.

When next he tries to fit his hand best as he’s able under the shoulder-bell, he can feel the partial dampness of the armorweave. They have been out in the drizzle for quite a while now, a cold one at that; so long as his brother’s body felt warm underneath it all, they wouldn’t have to find shelter. Riddance and Wylie had drilled it into all of them since first landing on this wet rock of a moon to continually check the brothers around you if the rainstorms lasted more than an hour. You can tell yourself you’re plenty warm still all you like, but a brother is harder to lie to.

“Good, you’re still pretty warm...” Carver finds to his relief. Canvas checks Cairn next, working down the line, and he’s pretty well-regulated as well. When Cairn closes the circuit by checking his twin, he frowns however. You could be warmer, it tells the other.

Offering a second opinion, Carver allows Canvas to remove a portion of the vambrace to get to a dry portion of the body glove. The result is the same: not cold, but could be warmer. He's probably stayed too still while out in the rain.

“We should go back.” Canvas decides, steadily gathering up a few of the items around the three of them. A slight tremor overtakes his hands when he picks up the General’s datapad, some expression of confusion flashing over him after glancing down at the screen upon its awakening. “That’s… not where I left off.”

He’d been reading the recollection of General Caelen falling into a water basin in the Room of a Thousand Fountains as a youngling, stubbornly trudging through the greenhouse sopping wet, refusing all attempts from the creche-masters and other, kind Jedi to get them dry clothing. The amusement, but also the shame that they’d been so difficult a prevalent undertone to the story. ‘How lucky was I that we Jedi are practitioners of patience, even in the face of headstrong children.’ had been the last sentence Canvas had read of the story before Carver asked him what the heron was.

Now the screen was opened to another segment of the Force-user’s ‘field journal’, this one full of the Knight’s quiet musings and half-formed poetry in relation to the Force, or their time at the Jedi Temple, or their time thus far in the war. The tonal quality of each fragmented passage shifts often, and jarringly. The passage that catches his eye and gives him pause is unfinished, but it’s a rare mention of the late Jedi Master who taught Caelen, by name, instead of the typical verbiage that’s been used throughout their written thought.

I seem to recall one particular thought Master Kalsamm taught me nearly every day, without fail. About the Force, it should be no surprise. ��It weaves through every living thing. Belongs to every living thing. Found in every heart.’ I see proof of this everywhere. I see it in the strength and resiliency shown by ARC trooper Kessel, in the Jaig eyes - an icon taken from the culture of Mandalore - he wears with humility over his heart. In their camaraderie, I see the Force’s harmony in brothers like Scruffy and Canvas. Our legion’s ‘twins’ Cairn and Carver, when they work in flawless tandem. The 417th Battalion’s commander, Juke, too. Oh how the Force seems to bleed off of

The passage ends rather abruptly, to his disappointment, but Canvas supposes he’s read enough for the time being. The next passage has been completed, but it’s fraught with despair and horror. It’s dated well before the prior passage, written after a visit to Big Stormy.

I had questions for my teacher that he thought would best be answered by Master Shaak Ti regarding the Clones, before I was to be knighted and take command of my own forces. I wish I could say her council brought me the comfort I needed for all of my concerns. Kamino… it’s a sterile world; but so much pain has bled into the fabric of the Force, here.

He reaches to turn it off, but Cairn asks him to hold off on doing that, reading off the screen along with him.

“Hey wait-”

“Take it. I don’t wanna think about Kamino right now.” Canvas plants the datapad in his brother’s hands, trading it for the helmet full of worry stones inside to carry instead. If Cairn wants to read about the Jedi’s visit to their mother-world, he was more than welcome to. Quite honestly, he’d rather not find out why the serene Togruta’s words failed to provide their combined unit leader with enough comfort for their worries, or what else they had discovered within the halls of the stilted, oceanic city of Tipoca.

Would Caelen have stumbled upon the hollow shells of the retraining pods in some cordoned-off, disused sector? Would they have sensed the loneliness, the anger, the grief soaked into every thin linen and wall-seam in such a horrible place? The Jedi had put an end to such a practice before General Caelen had pledged their kyber-blade to the service of the Republic, but the evidence was still there in those stark, blinding white halls.

Divergent behavior was punished, and genetic defection was cleansed. Culled. There was no coating sweet enough in all the galaxy to make such a harrowing reality a palatable work of fiction.

Especially not to a brother who, in all reality, should not exist.

Were it not for Faro and Gunnar spending every waking hour sheltering Canvas from the star-streaked eyes of the watchful Kaminoans and the hateful tongue of trainers like Jaccynn, he is certain he would not have lived to see Tipoca City breathe a sigh of relief with the arrival of Shaak Ti, sent all the way from Coruscant as the representative of the Jedi Council.

And now here, in the arms of the greater galaxy away from Kamino, brothers like Scruffy, and the twins, and the captain, deal with these defections without the dark threat of disposal.

You’re our brother. You’re far too loved to treat you like the long-necks would. And we wish you wouldn’t treat yourself the same way the Kaminoans treated us.

When the rain has let up and the clouds begin to part, the rays of the late-day sun gratefully washing over each and every Clone and their Jedi, Canvas finds himself being asked to speak to Kessel by Captain Law.

Lowering the binocs in his hands, he peels his attention away from the foraging flock of wrens - the same sort as before that he’s identified as speckling wrens - and considers why Kessel might have passed along the message through the captain rather than coming to Canvas directly about wanting to talk.

“Does he… want to talk now?”

Law, shaking his head, reassures that there is no urgency to the request. “Not right away. Just, eventually. Kessel’s not in any rush.”

“Did he say why?” Kessel can be pretty reserved (from Canvas’s point of view) but has had no trouble socializing with the brothers of his legion and the assisting battalion before or since completing his ARC trooper training on Kamino. He's not tight-lipped like Nockite. So going through Captain Law just to ask to speak to somebody breeds lots of curiosity.

“Why not come to me himself?”

While considering how to answer, Law looks over at twins sitting cross-legged just a few feet away with Riddance. Partly precaution and partly medical care, Rid has been helping Cairn through the tendon injury with physical therapy exercises: coaxing, coaching and encouraging him as everything heals. Carver, in solidarity with his surviving batchmate, participates in the PhysEd as well.

Right now both of them are testing their grip-strength, something often done before Riddance typically moves on to testing Cairn’s range of motion.

“I imagine Kessel was trying to be mindful of how things have been today. Lessen the amount of anxiety for you.” Captain Law speculates, adding that he can't say with any certainty if these brothers have spoken much beyond exchanging a few civil pleasantries, either, but that’s more of an aside to himself than to Canvas. “He’ll let you know exactly why he asked for you, if you simply ask.”

“Afraid it had the opposite effect, Captain…” he admits a little bluntly, speaking on the matter of his anxiety. “But I understand the intentions were good. I’ll, uh… I’ll eventually go see him.” Canvas promises the captain, who smiles appreciatively in light of his brother’s honesty.

He’ll wait until the twins have finished the physio with Riddance before he goes to see what Kessel wants, he decides. He just wants to make sure Cairn’s recovering okay, or at least without much issue. Health becomes different, once they reach maturity. Too clearly, Canvas still recalls the decade-worth of accelerated growth, the stretch marks that decorated his skin in angry ribbons and lightning forks; the first of the lasting marks of a speedy childhood.

Who’s he kidding?

There was no childhood for a Clone. Their testing, the simulations, and rigorous training all leeched into what little recreation they had. And all the while, their bones burned with the fires of unrelenting growing pains; fire they would simply have to swallow down with the nutrient-dense mush at every measured mealtime. “Childhood” ended once you left the bustling nurseries and egg labs, once you were old enough to remember your designation code.

You’re CT-××××; and you’re a good soldier.

You had to be, otherwise it was only your blurred reflection in the walls of an isolation tank for company while you were retrained, reconditioned for unwavering obedience. You had to be, or the long-necks would termina-

Abruptly, he finds his eyes stinging with salt, and Riddance’s hands on each of his shoulders. Canvas assumed he had just zoned out, but he must have started to panic while doing so, thinking about Kamino. Was he crying? What happened?

“Vas? Hey, hey now brother, what’s going on?”

More than a little confused, Canvas shrugs his shoulders under the medic’s hands. “I’m… I’m honestly not sure, Rid. I just kinda started thinking about Kamino, and-” Pausing, he briskly tries to brush away some of the budding tears in his vision, gulping down a breath. “I-I-I’m really not sure I… Maker-”

“Okay; easy, easy…” Rid advises him, digging through the leftmost compartment of Canvas's utility belt for the worry stone he’s partial to. “You need more time to settle down before we even think about parsing out what happened.” Riddance offers the worry stone to his brother, but it isn’t immediately taken or pushed away. Together with Canvas, the medic goes through one of the deescalation breathing exercises, the whittled wood sitting in the palm of his hand all the while.

“Good. You’re doing good, brother.” Rid soothes, deliberately acting oblivious to the few brothers around them slowly drawing nearer, something Canvas is struggling to do too. “Hey, they’ll back the fuck off if you need them too, okay? I’ll get Wylie if you ask nicely enough.” Riddance raises his voice just loudly enough to be noted by the nearest brothers, and to hopefully draw the attention of their captain, too.

Canvas laughs best he can. “But Wylie’s still sick.” It’s a veiled but mostly joking threat, almost certainly.

“Yeah, poor bastard,” Riddance tuts sympathetically, “But you know he doesn’t play around with affording brothers their personal space.”

“Would hate to see just how short his temper is when he’s sick…” Captain Law murmurs off to the side once he’s come to inspect the situation for himself, ushering for the curious brothers to take a few steps back. Breathing room, please. Brothers of the 302nd and Commander Juke’s battalion wisely listen and do as suggested, giving the medic space to help a panic-stricken brother.

A panic-stricken brother who now thinks he can explain when Cairn asks him what might’ve happened. He and his twin squeeze themselves on either side where Canvas sits, lacing their arms across his back for support and comfort. It’s what Scruffy would have done, if he were here rather than on the task force.

“I… made the mistake of thinking about Kamino.” Canvas explains with a slight halt in his voice. This is when he takes the worry stone from the palm of Rid’s hand, running his thumb in the indentation for the reprieve it brings from those anxious, racing thoughts. “I was planning on waiting until Cairn was done with the field physio before seeing Kessel - hoping his injury wouldn’t heal too differently now that we’re grown - and I… shit. I shouldn’t have been thinking about how the Kaminoans used to treat us… shit, I feel sick.”

“Bye. Sorry, Vas.” Carver offers before hurriedly departing; he’s got the unfortunate trait of being a sympathetic vomiter among the legion's brothers, something that’s followed him ever since he was a squishy-faced trainee. He’ll be of no help to Canvas if he’s also sick to his stomach, but at least he can fetch the Jedi.

Gulping back an anti-nausea tablet with a mouthful of canteen water, Canvas takes deep, measured breaths. It had always been for very good reason when Faro coached him not to think of their creators on a rain-soaked world out in the Wild Space region of the galaxy.

The Kaminoans terrified Canvas, so bidding his batchmate to think of his brothers instead was Faro’s way of redirecting the fear.

When we’re sent off, protecting the galaxy, I want you to remember who you’re loyal to. The Republic. Our brothers. And Kamino: because that’s where our brothers come from. Damn the Kaminoans, they don’t deserve your love and your loyalty just because they think we belong to them! We’ll belong to nobody but our own when this war is over.

When their noble cause comes to an end… he’d always imagined in foolish optimism that his batchmates would be there with him. But now Faro, Gunnar, Cryfar, Fluke are… What was that Mandalorian phrase again? ‘Merely marching far away.’ or, something.

At least he has his other brothers. He’s not alone.

He never will be.

He has General Caelen, who dipping from a seemingly endless well of compassion sacrificed their own individualized rations for his sake as a struggling shiny. Food that was scarcely better than his own at the end of the day made a difference over time; keeping him fed, and importantly, alive. General Caelen has spent many hours in Canvas's company, willing to learn and observe the plethora of avian life around them. (And however serious or jokingly, Caelen says that they much prefer this exercise in patience than any they underwent at the Jedi Temple.) They’ve been so patient and compassionate with him, these last few months.

He can count on the friendship of Carver and Cairn; they’ve always had his back. In late hours of the night, finding himself unable to sleep, they’ve invited Canvas to join in their little batchmate games. Recently he learned they both love the color purple, but different shades of it. Carver loves the richness and bold body of dioxazine; Cairn finds lavender visually soothing, but the proper plant’s aroma gives him a slight headache. (And Cypher finds that funny.)

He’s especially grateful for their company today.

And Riddance… Well like the Jedi, Rid has compassion in spades. It makes him an excellent medic. It makes it easy for anxiety-wracked brothers and civilians alike to comply with his instructions; the sick and the injured always feel so comforted in his presence.

“Antiemesis helping?”

“Yeah… thank you.”

“You’re always welcome, Vas. Your anxiety seems to be coming down, too.” Rid fluffs out the dark curls at the nape of his neck to further soothe, sending a slight, involuntary shiver down Canvas’s spine. “Which is good - sorry ‘bout that - because that means I don't have to sedate you.”

Scoffing, Cairn asks what Rid would need to do that for.

“Oh that was… that was just a joke. Thought it might make him laugh.” Rid admits with a sheepish laugh just as Carver returns with General Caelen. “I don't actually need to sedate Vas. That'd be irresponsible if he didn't genuinely need it.” Irresponsible, and a waste of precious GAR medicine.

Wylie would be on his fellow medic’s ass for using resources so flippantly.

Finding Canvas in better shape than expected, both express their relief that he's improved in so short a time. General Caelen is first while Carver rejoins friend and twin where they’re sitting, something soft-spoken and apologetic. “I am sorry if my entry about visiting Kamino before I was knighted played any part in this spell of anxiety, young Canvas… I do understand there are complicated feelings shared by many of your brothers.”

“Entry? What ent-?” The brows pinching in confusion quickly pull apart when Riddance realizes what the Jedi must mean, and bravely, he gives the Force-user the most displeased face Canvas and the twins have ever seen from him thus far. “General, you should have warned him about that one.”

“I didn’t read it beyond a few sentences.” Canvas promises Rid, hoping to quell the lecture likely building on his tongue. “I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea today.” Not with Scruffy gone. And there was a chance it may not be a good idea, ever, to read General Caelen’s account of the meeting with General Ti, and her council, and the whole… fabric of the Force thing. Not for him. Not with his anxiety so many brothers have had to hide from long-neck and bounty hunter alike before the Jedi and their overarching compassion acted as an inoculation against so much mistreatment and abuse.

“That was wise, Canvas.” General Caelen says in partial praise, in great relief. “Did either of you read it?” they add to the twins, sharing a passing glance with the sap green captain.

Cairn admits he got part of the way through the entry, but he didn’t finish it. “No sir. I, uh, got too distracted by the big flocks of speckling wrens returning when the rain stopped to give a kriff about finishing it at the time. And Carver was too busy getting warm.” He's still got the datapad with the rest of his things, so he can return it now.

It'd probably be for the best.

“Agreed.” says Captain Law, taking a look at the time on his chronometer. “Just so it isn't forgotten later. It’s nearly time for chow, and I’m sure we’re all starved.”

“Think that’s just you, Captain. You skipped lunch.” comes a voice from behind the wall of brothers that have spent the last few minutes watching the medic’s every movement in treating Canvas. These watchful and concerned brothers painted in green and brown step out of the way, parting the sea in a whisper of awe. Kessel, with his helmet clipped to his belt, pays the star-struck expressions little more than darting glances as he approaches at the captain’s bidding. Many of the brothers' eyes are largely drawn to the curling angles of the icon painted over the ARC trooper’s heart, the shriek-hawk of Mandalore.

Captain Law doesn’t deny missing a meal, instead he chuckles, impressed. “You ARCs with your sharp eyesight and wit… Something you need, Kessel?”

“Came to give this to Canvas, sir.” the ARC explains, extending his right hand out to Canvas with a folded slip of flimsiplast between forefinger and thumb. “Here, brother.”

He reaches to take the flimsi from Kessel, ensuring he has it before the ARC lets go, otherwise it’ll fall into the mud, and dissolve away before it has the chance to be read. Canvas is ready to thank him, but the icon at eye level is distracting.

Jaig eyes are a combat honor, a mark to set them apart for outstanding bravery. Kessel has never divulged what he’s done to earn the eyes of a fearsome, predatory bird; one likely slated to extinction long before the creation of the Clone army.

Peerless hunters, they were often called. Dive-hunters who descended from above, talons outstretched, wings folded back as they closed in on their prey. Speculated by some to have keen eyesight suited for low-light conditions, as it’s been told their piercing cry was one of the most haunting sounds you can hear under the glow of a pewter moonlit night on Mandalore, long ago.

They were deadliest when defending a nest. Something Canvas has seen in the brutal manner Kessel has demolished droids that have managed to pick off their brothers, the force of which was something to behold.

Before it’ll be forgotten, or dropped, Canvas quickly reads the crimped flimsi scrap, and finds a simple request to come find him before the task force returns, not later today, but the next day instead. ‘Sorry to add to the anxiety. We’ll talk about everything I want to show you tomorrow instead. I think there’s been enough high emotions for one day, brother.’ Kessel ends the request in thin letters, written in a hurry.

Canvas gives the scrap back to the ARC trooper with a shaky smile and a choked laugh, “I can agree… B-but it’s okay, Ke-Kessel.” He feels the twins’ arms encircled across his back plate dropping away as he braces his feet in the soft mud in order to stand. Sitting is making him feel small, compared to an indomitable brother like one of the 302nd’s ARC troopers, even though they stand the same 1.83 meters tall. “Not your fault my brain just… kinda seems to h-hate me, sometimes.”

It’s the kindest way he thinks he can put it presently, without disparaging himself in front of General Caelen or the captain. Or Riddance, who trades a few expressions with Kessel before the reminder comes.

“It’s not your fault, either.” Rid begins, once more reaching around the back of the other's neck to perform that soothing gesture. This time there is no shiver or responsive twitch when he performs this comforting act of service, just stillness and acceptance. “Every brother gets anxious at one time or another; comes with the territory of being sentient. It takes time to find what helps each of our brothers work through it.

“We just need extra time for you, yeah?”

Brothers all around him playfully scold Riddance for renewing Canvas’s tears, even if these are the tears of a grateful sibling, so touched that they show him so much patience, so much understanding. It’s more than he feels he’s deserving of on days where things feel bleakest, and he believes he’ll never taste the bittersweet end of this war. His voice is too choked by both his tears and his emotional state to offer any kind of utterance of this overflowing gratitude, though he tries several times while he weeps into the medic’s arms.

General Caelen’s hand finds his shoulder amidst the tangle of comfort Canvas’s brothers weave around him. “They know of your gratitude, Canvas… You can trust your brothers to know it runs deeper than words could ever tell. It's okay. Allow yourself to be. There are no judgments here.” The encouragement of the Jedi, voice full of promise and assurance, is further comfort to the young soldier now that he's freed from the compulsion to force his voice, just to tell his brothers what they already know.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. A thousand times over, thank you.

[FFF Masterlist] [Clone OC Masterlist] [B&B Part 1] [B&B Part 3]

#frostfics #Brothers & Batchmates #star wars #swtcw #sw tcw #tcw #star wars headcanons #clone oc: canvas #clone oc: cairn #clone oc: carver #clone oc: medic riddance #clone oc: captain law #clone oc: arc kessel #jedi oc: caelen #fictional birds

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