It feels good to belong, even if it's just to one other person in this galaxy.
When one brother celebrated, they all celebrated.
Rex leaned against the hood of his borrowed speeder as the shadow of a low-flying freighter slid overhead, a momentary reprieve from the afternoon light. The ship's vents skimmed a path through Shili grasslands before landing, one eyesore among an otherwise untouched green plane that stretched out in every direction, only overrun by trees at the foot of the distant mountains.
Rex's brothers, the ones who chose to escape to the Mandalore system and form a clan for themselves—similar to the Mandalorians but still retaining much of their own, unique clone culture—were the first Rex contacted with the news that he and Ahsoka were getting married.
It took them half a week to travel to Shili for the ceremony.
"I knew it!" Fives shouted, jogging down the ramp. He barely stopped even after colliding with Rex in a hug that pushed the entire speeder. "You made me two hundred credits richer, and I appreciate that!" His goatee was more of a beard now, his hair nowhere near the days of his regulation cut in the GAR.
As the ship hissed through its cooldown routine, other clones followed. Jesse's tattoo was much less obvious now under a headful of dark hair. He approached with a wide smile and bestowed a blue handwoven necklace along with a hug. Tup sported a braid that would've never fit inside his bucket, and a confidence completely lacking in the army. Kix hadn't changed a bit.
"These di'kuts figured that you'd never get married, and you'd spend your days fighting alongside Commander Tano just like in the war," Fives teased during the series of hugs and forehead presses.
"People change," Rex said, taking in the proof standing around him.
He nodded to the speeder, his brothers not hesitating to scramble in. Fives was a little faster than everyone and called TC while he claimed the passenger seat.
"I still don't believe it," said Tup from the backseat, wedging himself between Jesse and Kix.
Kix shrugged. "I thought she was into girls."
"Anyone else coming?" asked Rex.
"For you, mate?" Jesse said, smacking his shoulder. "Everybody."
The sunset burst bright as it dipped below the sea, all orange sky and glistening waves, a brilliant display of beauty silently stifled by evening darkness. The line of stilted huts—nearly fifteen of them—that dotted the ridge all the way to the edge of a colorful jungle allotted the best view Ahsoka had ever seen: a long beach below, curving out of view, covered and exposed almost lovingly by orange and purple waves. This entire area, reserved by her family for the week leading up to her wedding, exuded enough simplistic peace to tint her recent encounters with the Empire as nothing more than a bad dream. Ahsoka got lost in it; the first time she retreated onto this wooden balcony overlooking the sea, the sun had been a fist length above the open horizon.
A soft breeze wafted scents from the neighboring jungle—ripening fruit and heady night flowers—and if Ahsoka listened through the song of insects and the frequent calls of nocturnal creatures, she could just hear the waves washing onto—
A sudden shriek catapulted from the hut behind her. Rolling laughter followed, a staple of the evening. Ahsoka winced, but couldn't find it in herself to feel aggravated. Sincere laughter had been just as rare in her life.
Nearly twenty Togrutas managed to pack themselves inside the summer hut, faces Ahsoka hadn't recognized but had been introduced to her as family. Her mother's laugh was the sharpest of them all, but Ahsoka was even starting to pick out the trill of her Aunt Ganesa—the only family member to not fly in from the colonies.
But those that had flown in from the colonies came eagerly. Togrutas being very social creatures, the news of a wedding brought them in droves to congratulate a woman they'd never met, but still couldn't be happier for. It was all hospitality and welcoming…
Yet halfway through the evening of trying to match faces to the names Ahsoka had only learned that day, and straining her montrals to barely catch fragments of what should've been her native language, Ahsoka had to take a break.
"Of course, my daughter— years ago—Have you seen—?"
"Yes—–humans—all look alike."
At least after nearly a week of this, the words had started drifting by a little slower. She still couldn't escape the perpetual frustration of feeling the translations to words she should've known slip just out of reach of comprehension. She'd excelled at language classes on Coruscant… she had to have learned something useful amid all the wooden dialogue practice.
"Ahsoka?" The bead curtain clinked in the doorway as Aunt Ganesa leaned out onto the balcony. For just meeting the woman within the past week, her infectious, easygoing disposition was such a magnet that Ahsoka felt closer to her aunt than most of the Jedi she'd lived with.
Ganesa was an older Togruta who usually wore her bright red lekku wrapped over her pale green shoulders. Although she didn't know Basic, she was one of the few people who attempted to speak slower for Ahsoka's sake. "You okay out here?"
Ahsoka glanced longingly down the line of summer huts, all spaced a comfortable distance apart. The few on the end closest to the jungle's edge, already lit up for the night—as far from her cabin as possible—were solely occupied by clones. Thanks to Togrutan customs, she and Rex couldn't see each other until the wedding. The intended couple traditionally had different rituals to observe during the week leading up to the ceremony, but because Rex was Human, the list of requirements fell only to Ahsoka.
"Yeah. Just wanted some fresh air. The view's great."
"Ready for your lekku buff?" Ganesa rattled a handful of beaded strings together in her excitement.
Wedding preparatory step number eighty-three: the mid-week lekku buff.
"Ready," Ahsoka said, smiling at her aunt.
The clones' huts had been nothing but laughter and recollection as more arrived over the course of the week, bringing familiar faces like Coric, Hardcase, and Echo with all his prosthetics. There was especially never a lack of entertainment once Echo arrived, because he enjoyed showing off exactly how many tools his hand could rotate into.
Rex retold the story of the marriage proposal at least four times for each set of newcomers, and each time the clones' smiles fell at the blandness of it. Apparently, they were expecting some grand, sweeping gesture fitting the relationship of a command team famous for the Citadel, Kadavo, and the Siege of Mandalore. What they got was: "It sort of came up one day at a refueling station. A mutual agreement that it was in our best interests."
This latest group of brothers stared blankly as silence fell, as if waiting for some kind of punchline to follow.
Rex shrugged at all the expectant clones sitting around the table; he never got any other reaction. "That's… it."
"Are you still repeating that duse?" Fives snorted from the doorway. "I'd definitely have come up with a better lie by now when the truth's that kriffin' boring. Kaysh mirsh'kyramud." Most of the other listeners nodded in agreement.
The clan-dwelling clones were on the brink of fluency in Mando'a after so many years, but anytime they tried to use anything but Basic with Rex, he'd stare them down until they slinked back into their shared language. Fives, not one to be intimidated, just stared right back.
Rex was much more receptive to Mandalorian traditions, half infused as they already were into clone culture from their earliest days on Kamino. Jesse, surprisingly, was the subject matter expert in this field, and Rex deferred to his knowledge whenever the former arc trooper explained the significance of any tradition.
One night, the furniture pushed to the perimeter in the main hut, Jesse walked a group of clones through a bridal dance, half the forms identical to the Kaminoan squad integration steps Rex remembered. Some brothers grew bored before it was over and left; others joined halfway through. Rex's attention veered to the front door each time it was opened by restless clones who couldn't decide if they wanted to be inside away from the bugs or outside with the view.
"Expecting someone?" Tup asked from beside him. Of the remaining 501st soldiers they were closest to, everyone had already arrived.
Rex shook his head. He knew Cody wouldn't be there. He'd kept tabs on the former 212th commander since the end of the war, through his promotions and eventual transfer to an instructor position at the Officer Academy on Mandalore. For as much as Rex had tracked him, he'd never been able to contact his brother.
Cody didn't even know.
Ahsoka's aunt and mother had guided her through Togrutan cultural traditions every step of the way since their screams of happiness had welcomed her to Shili. They'd taken her to the local fortune teller who divined which night would be best for the wedding—based on the combined luck of the moons to be in the sky—by rattling a hollow, bead-veiled gourd in her face.
The nearest matchmaker had determined what would be Ahsoka's luckiest color based on her natural skin tone by casting a slipper into a pond, and ever since, Ganesa had been measuring Ahsoka with a bolt of rich purple fabric. Between her mother hugging her and whispering "I'm so happy you came back" every few hours, she and Ganesa rattled off words of wisdom whenever the thought struck.
"The paint's a nightmare if you don't get it all off after the ceremony," her mother said with a wince of experience during Ahsoka's first authentic Togrutan lekku buff. She was a tall woman with a lifetime of knowledge to pass along, and although she didn't share Ahsoka's markings, she shared her colors.
Halfway through Ahsoka's skin spicing treatment, her aunt leaned in to whisper, "If he's not into biting, he's not a keeper." Ahsoka nodded obligingly at her still-single aunt.
"Make sure he gives you lekku massages," said her mother, her tone decisive. "If he's going to be the cause of headaches, then he better help treat them, as well."
With all of that preparation plus nail painting and montral marinating, there were still several days left before the wedding.
One evening sitting around the dinner table, space plentiful as only five cousins were there instead of a whole clan, Ahsoka's mother squeezed her hand.
"I know our customs are involved, but you're doing just fine."
"I remember learning a lot on Coruscant," Ahsoka said, the memories of her youngling years spent sitting in classrooms feeling like they'd happened lifetimes ago. "But it's different actually being here, living it, not just learning it." Especially when her youngling self was much more interested in picking up lightsaber forms than her own language shared by no other students.
It was odd to admit, but for the first time in her life, Ahsoka truly felt Togrutan.
Ganesa initiated the table clean-up, excitedly reminding the wedding party of their daily rituals.
Every evening saw the same routine. Ahsoka, her mother and her aunt visited the cluster of six stone pillars which stood at the top of the ridge, like weathered sentinels overlooking the winding path down to the beach below. Their faces worn smooth by passing time and the greedy jungle laying claim to them, this shrine had existed long enough to now pass for a natural occurrence.
The wedding party had left a gift for a separate moon spirit each night for a successful marriage. Last night, it was to leave sweetmeat on the offering plate at the foot of the shrine—now indistinguishable from the moss—for the spirit of bounty. Tonight, Ahsoka carried a cup of fermented ojiibik for the spirit of longevity.
Ahsoka tapped the tips of her montrals before sweeping her hands toward the moons, in tandem with her family. She'd caught onto the rituals by the third night.
"Not so high, these are only the moon spirits, darling," her mother whispered.
Well, she'd almost caught on. A quick glance to the rest of her family and Ahsoka lowered her outstretched hands to mirror them. To her credit, she'd mastered the other rituals: properly offering a gift on the mossy plate, clapping to call the spirits' attention, and bowing to each standing stone. Compared to the veneration of her aunt and especially her mother, Ahsoka still felt like an outsider, just mimicking the motions while others meaningfully participated in their true religion.
Her mother dipped a finger into the ojiibik before drawing across one of the six standing stones, following what used to be defined grooves but was now barely an impression. The stone of longevity.
Another dip of her finger and her mother drew the same design on Ahsoka's forehead.
"There," she said, eyes crinkling with pride. "For long partnership, and long life."
Her mother hadn't stopped smiling since Ahsoka returned, but Ahsoka couldn't remember her any other way. The last time she'd seen her mother was at ten years old, when Ahsoka returned to hunt akul. Her mother had been nothing but thrilled at her successful hunt, and Ahsoka's headdress had only turned out so beautifully thanks to her mother's guidance.
"Thank you," Ahsoka replied with the appropriate bow before taking the cup and leaving it on the offering plate. Linking arms with her mother, they walked back to their hut.
Ahsoka took advantage of several moons already casting their glow on the ridge to let her gaze wander down the curve of cabins, but those abutting the jungle were too dark to make out. She'd yet to see any of the clones except from enough distance to make them indistinguishable. But even now, she could hear them.
Rex sat on the steps tumbling down from the porch of the clones' cabin, the nocturnal jungle creatures competing in vibrancy with his brothers shouting and laughing inside. Blocking out distractions was second nature; his attention remained fixed on the ridge, like every evening, for the one daily glimpse he could get of Ahsoka since they'd been separated. Just her familiar silhouette was enough to bring a smile to his pensive face.
The wooden steps sagged in squeaky complaint as Coric descended to join Rex in the muggy night air.
"Nice place, here," he said, looking everywhere but in the direction of Rex's gaze.
"Kriffin' beautiful."
The jungle properly checked, Coric's attention slid to his brother. "Going back to your freedom fighting after this?"
Coric wasn't one of the ones to escape to Mandalore; he still helped the galaxy in manageable ways as a traveling medic. It wasn't fighting in a rebellion, but it was equally a difference.
"Yeah. Weren't doin' too bad before."
"Just had to pause everything and get married?" Coric asked with a genuinely curious chuckle.
When it was put into words, it sounded ridiculous—but that's exactly what'd happened. Clones certainly weren't designed with marriage and the normalcy of human life in mind, but they were made to adapt into functioning, cohesive units.
"The rebellion's been having a lot of setbacks. Bloody setbacks. Ahsoka and I… we had a close call of our own recently," Rex intoned. "So it's not so much the ceremony, it's the nature of celebrating: getting the people that really matter together and enjoying life. Plus, it feels good to belong, even if it's just to one other person in this galaxy."
Rex's gaze didn't leave Ahsoka until she and her family closed their cabin door behind them.
Somewhere halfway through the week, around the time the bolt of fabric took the shape of a dress and Ahsoka experienced her first authentic Togrutan montral buff, her mother warned her the wedding would start at three or four in the morning.
The thought didn't really click until Ahsoka stood in her dress at that dark hour, barefoot, as sleepy as the sky.
She'd been up for an hour already, getting dressed and made up and painted, but now, finally, she stood on the ridge next to the sentinel shrine—for the first night ever, muffled in an eerie hush. From here, the gravel trail down to the beach slipped into murky obscurity despite three of Shili's six moons hanging in the sky at this hour, basking the landscape in an ethereal haze. Their cold light shone brightest on the restless sea, but Ahsoka's attention was caught by a group of torches already posted in the sand below, burning like a hot beacon. As welcoming an endpoint as the faint glow on the horizon, promising a brilliant dawn.
And it all hit her. She was getting married.
She'd worked with Rex for over half a decade after the war ended. They'd gotten each other through devastating times and long-deserved accomplishments, both in the rebellion and out of it.
Yet now as the Togruta procession began winding down to the beach—four torch bearers ahead, her mother holding a large wooden umbrella above her and the rest trailing—Ahsoka suddenly found her lekku shivering and her chest tight.
She was getting married.
"This is not how I envisioned my only daughter's wedding would go," her mother spoke up behind her. "Or her life."
Ahsoka cast a sympathetic smile over her shoulder at the woman bathed in the glow of the cold moonslight. "I know I didn't come back even after I left the Jedi, nimaamaa, but thank you for going through all this trouble for me."
In just one week, her native people had accepted and embraced her as if she'd never left, and the feeling of hearty, complete belonging had never been this strong among the Jedi. She had to wonder if this was what the clones experienced all the time.
Wind lashed from the sea, spraying a fickle rain on the procession and biting at the torches. Twice it nearly carried away her mother with the umbrella, too—the one supposed to guard Ahsoka from evil spirits which would otherwise get lodged between her montrals. Her mother tutted as she readjusted her hold on the creaking umbrella.
"Well, hopefully this turns out better than your induction into the Jedi."
There were so many conversations she wanted to have with her mother but couldn't with such a limited vocabulary. So many things she wanted to explain and convey about her life that would have to wait months… or years, until her Togrutan fluency caught up. But that was more reason to return someday.
"It will," decided Ahsoka as the descent ended, and the procession walked across a cushion of sand. "I have a good feeling about this."
The sea splashed against the beach under the pull of three moons. Light from the four torches planted in the sand behind the clones danced almost as wildly as they did, warming the ethereal haze out of the vicinity. The light bounced and lept against the tall, sheer white cliff protruding onto the beach, though not quite bright enough to touch its peak crowded with dark, overhanging jungle indistinguishable from the sky.
The clones dancing in step, arms flying, bare feet stomping, slapping their chests and thighs, exacerbated the flickering cliff light, seemingly in time to the beat of the two standing drums positioned not far from the wall, the cliff their natural amplifier. The two clone drummers banged an identical, earthy beat, quick paced and invigorating.
Drums were as Togrutan as montrals; drumming styles were as varied as lekku stripes. Even Ahsoka, living so long removed from her culture, knew that, and Togrutan rhythm had always stirred her soul in a way no other music did. But the drum beats that rattled between her montrals now were Kaminoan—or possibly Mandalorian, and altogether unfamiliar.
Ahsoka found her legs quickening to match.
Despite all his movement, the wind still cut through to Rex's bones every time it rode in off the sea. His baggy pants—only clinging to his hips by something closer to a sash than a belt—certainly whipped and snapped of their own accord, and the paint on his chest, hours old, felt like it had yet to dry.
Rex was already barefoot, in a group of his brothers all following Jesse's lead dancing to the drums—a dance of welcome for the bridal party, the other clan. His brothers had all been given similar clothes to wear, light and baggy, in a variety of clashing colors that the clones adored. And their week together was enough time for them to memorize the steps of a gesture as uniquely Kaminoan as it was Mandalorian.
The reflection of the torches on their side of the perimeter helped the paint on Rex's chest to glisten. Another Mandalorian tradition—or so Jesse said—was for the couple to wear something of their intended's. Thanks to Kix's eye for detail, he'd painted proportionally correct designs on Rex's chest identical to Ahsoka's white face markings. Two diamonds on his chest, the forehead lines descending to his stomach, and the cheek markings fluttering across his abdomen—the bright paint was unmistakeable.
Clone chanting added to the mix as the Togrutan wedding party claimed their side of the unlit bonfire. The clones' steps grew faster; they slapped their skin harder.
The umbrella swept up, revealing Ahsoka in a deep purple dress; her skirt flounced in panels, and her top was barely bigger than the wrap she'd worn as a padawan. Beads hung from everything—fabric, jewelry, montrals—and clinked with every step she took. Thin bangles stacked up one arm, and a thick necklace of blue stones jingled in a much sweeter sound.
Just watching her, Rex almost missed a step.
The Togrtuas following Ahsoka posted their torches opposite the clones' and light and shadows clashed anew.
The clones pushed Rex forward to meet Ahsoka in front of a bonfire base erected in the middle of the beach, standing nearly as tall as they were. Mandalorian tradition promoted meeting one's intended mate and affirming that neither had been kidnapped or bought for the marriage.
Ahsoka's grin displayed more white than the rest of her face markings combined. "Rex, I never thought I'd be this happy to see you again!" she laughed in Basic. "Glad to see you made it through the week!"
"Sounds like I had an easier time of it than you." Rex hardly ever bit his lip, but he had to contain the stupid smile desperately attempting to escape. He circled her, taking in everything about the Togruta he'd been separated from, and having to remind himself not to touch her out of habit. Even with all the orange skin on display, he didn't notice anything resembling something of his. At least nothing as obvious as the Togrutan markings taking up his entire chest.
"You didn't do it?"
She playfully flounced her skirt at him. "Yes, I did."
Jesse and Ahsoka's aunt approached with torches in hand.
"Ready for this?" Ahsoka asked as she and Rex accepted the flames.
"It's not the craziest thing we've ever done."
Together, they stabbed their torches into the mountain of wood, the bonfire ignited bright and hot, and the wedding began.
Ahsoka wanted nothing more than to continue communicating in a language where she could express exactly what she meant, but as the flames jumped and sparked on the wind, Rex was yanked out of her reach and into the pool of shadows lurking between the bonfire and the perimeter torches, somewhere in the middle of all his brothers. She'd heard Mandalorian tradition liked to play keepaway, making the two intended fight against their own clans and earn the right to meet once more.
The drumbeat quickened, pulsing against her montrals, and Ahsoka found herself pulled back by her own family into the middle of cousins and neighbors, her people jumping at the chance to adopt new traditions. She picked up the second torch as her clan danced, graceful and effortless and unlike anything Ahsoka knew she was capable of, letting their fluid lekku as they spun impede Ahsoka's progress back to the bonfire.
A week had been long enough for Ahsoka to learn the steps and she followed her aunt's twirling lead, feeling the pull on her lekku with each spin, feeling Togruta. Just like the other wedding party, her people kept her inside their group. Every time she danced closer to the bonfire, someone would catch her and push her back towards the middle.
The bright orange glow of dawn building along the horizon showed Rex caught in similar frustration. He all but tackled Jesse to get back to the bonfire with a ferocity louder than the drums. Ahsoka sidestepped her aunt and dipped right under the arms of her mother—both too slow for Ahsoka's Jedi reflexes—to earn her freedom.
Rex and Ahsoka met in the center once more, torches in hand. The bonfire flared with the added flames.
Ahsoka didn't know why it thrilled her to see her own facial markings painted on him, but it did, and this time she couldn't resist the urge to reach out and touch them.
Ganesa descended out of nowhere and snatched Ahsoka's wrist back. Instead, mischievous smile taunting, she dropped a bowl of blue paint into Ahsoka's hand before rejoining the Togruta clan.
At Rex's confused expression, Ahsoka smiled sympathetically.
"Nobody told you about Togrutan customs, did they?" With the language barrier and the enforced separation, the clones hadn't had any local contact for the past week.
Rex almost leaned back, wary. "No…"
"This is how we mark our mates," she said. Her fingertips already drummed along the rim of the bowl in anticipation. "I paint my lekku stripes on your… well… your head, I guess, since you don't have montrals, and later I'll paint your body orange."
Ahsoka couldn't help but crinkle her nose; the tradition sounded ridiculous the moment it left her mouth. But Rex grinned at the prospect.
"Alright. Paint me up."
The bowl of blue paint flickered black in the firelight. Coloring her fingertips, Ahsoka slowly dragged lines across the side of Rex's face, from the back of his bald head to catch in the stubble along his jaw. He leaned into her touch, still smirking. Ahsoka couldn't tell if she was the one drawing closer to him or he to her, but if she just stood on her tiptoes they would be liplocked.
Clearing her throat at the idea, Ahsoka returned full focus to the task at hand until Rex wore stripes on both sides of his head, clearly resembling the design of her own lekku. In the firelight it glistened like warpaint.
"You could pass for a Togruta now," she said with a wink.
"My turn?"
When Ahsoka dropped the bowl of blue next to the fire ring, Ganesa once more appeared to pass a bowl of yellow paint to Rex.
"I… told them what color your hair used to be," Ahsoka said.
Rex coated all the fingertips on his right hand at once. His first attempts at painting were methodical: coloring in between the strings of beads bending gracefully from the rings decorating her montral points.
Smiling, Ahsoka advised, "Just paint right over them."
He slapped his entire hand into the bowl, curled his fist around her from the tip of one montral and slid it down the corresponding lekku, leaving slats of yellow.
Halfway down the second lek—the paint already run off his hand but Rex kept stroking—Ahsoka could've sworn he tugged her forward, closer to him. Ahsoka immediately complied, leaning in as the world faded out to the beat of the drums.
Hands clapping onto her shoulders shocked her back to reality. Two Togrutas held Ahsoka back from any contact while Rex repainted his hand to finish the task. He reached the tip, her montrals, front lekku and headdress successfully smeared with yellow, and just as her people dragged Ahsoka back among them, Rex disappeared into a ring of his brothers.
Pushed back to the perimeter, Rex grabbed a third torch. The fire was only a source of heat now that the sky had chased the darkness beyond the other side of the ridge in preparation for sunrise. His brothers slid into an overlapping formation—Fives and Jesse actually linked arms. Rex weaved among them. He avoided their halfhearted attempts at blocking him through dance, and ducked under their arms when the remaining clones followed the arc troopers' lead and formed a human chain.
He met Ahsoka at the bonfire, their torches adding another sudden flare to the fire. The swelling heat tired him faster than the ceremony.
Ahsoka had brought a bowl of paint with her. "Now for the rest of you."
Rex held his arms out to the sides, open and submissive while the clans around them danced to the drums. The paint sat cold on his skin as Ahsoka spread it in wide orange swathes, first around his neck, then from shoulder to shoulder, and down his arms.
He watched her intent fascination with perfectly avoiding the white markings large on his chest, carefully using fingertips instead of the palm of her hand as she'd been doing for the rest of his body.
"And you were the one who didn't want a ceremony," he said.
She cast him a puckered expression before coloring lower along his abdomen. "I was just nervous my people wouldn't really care about someone who'd been out of their lives for twenty years."
Rex lifted his arms higher as she tackled his sides with paint. Behind her, the Togrutas swayed sharply enough that their lekku resembled waves in the sea. They'd accepted this Kaminoan-Mandalorian blend of music as eagerly as the clones, while applying their own Togruta styles of celebration.
"Looks like they still care."
"I feel bad, but I still don't quite feel as familiar around them as I do with you…"
Rex drew closer to Ahsoka, reaching out to caress her arms and along her bare sides. A second later, laughter broke out from behind him—and he should've known it preceded interference.
Hardcase and Kix grabbed both of his orange arms, jerking them out to either side in solid restraint. Ahsoka dipped behind him and he felt the chill of paint slowly coating the length of his back. Her hands molded perfectly along the curvature of his muscles in a ritual that was starting to become a bad idea.
"All done!" she called. His brothers released him just as he felt a hard smack on his backside, but since no paint was left behind—and Rex immediately checked—he had to assume it was either Kix or Hardcase.
Rex glared at his brothers fading back into the clone dance before his hand dipped with a sudden weight. Ahsoka had passed him the same blue bowl she'd used to paint her montral stripes.
Already he shivered from the wind across his painted body. He attempted to paint lines down her arms similar to the 501st markings he used to wear, but they didn't turn out nearly as neat as his old armor. He tried to be considerate, stopping short of her stack of bracelets. Just by moving her arm, though, her jewelry earned a coat of paint, too.
Ahsoka didn't seem to notice; she smiled at her blue stripes. "This brings back some memories."
Slapping his hand into the paint once more, Rex covered every surface of skin he came across. The landscape above her purple top, her flat stomach, her firm back, skin equally cool as the paint all turned blue. She hardly resembled herself anymore.
"I look grea—"
Her voice faltered as Rex took a knee in front of her, coating both his hands in blue. Starting at her ankles, his hands slid up one leg at a time, caressing her knees and traveling up under her skirt. The second time, Rex couldn't help himself. He leaned in between her skirt panels to place a kiss on the inside of her thigh.
She gasped.
Three clones rushed to pull him back into their ranks, their surprise at his boldness apparent in their scandalized laughter.
Ahsoka's chest grew tight, but it wasn't from the paint. Rex had the ability to make her shiver in a way the morning couldn't.
Her family beckoned her back.
She picked up the fourth and last torch from her side of the perimeter now that the sky was ablaze with light. The moons had set; the sun was about to break. In Togruta tradition, the sun was what married a couple. The ceremony leading up to sunrise detailed the pledge to each other overseen by the moon spirits, but the sun goddess rising on the couple officiated it.
With the first rays of sunrise burning hot on the horizon, the drums sounded more impatiently.
Ahsoka's heart thumped in her chest. Dancing for an hour had winded her, but now the adrenaline surged. Her family playfully hindering her turned into a nuisance, and Ahsoka was done with the games. All the way from the umbrella still marking the perimeter, she leaped over her group, horns and all, to land next to the bonfire. She was about to wield her Jedi abilities once more and send clones tumbling if Rex hadn't broken through himself just then.
They met at the fire to simultaneously add their torches to the pile. The sun broke, bright and golden over the sea; the drums stalled. No one pulled Ahsoka and Rex away from one another this time.
And they kissed.
The paint mingled as Ahsoka slid her hands down his head to wrap her arms around his neck. His slipped along her waist as he tried to hold on.
Rex broke the kiss first, resting his forehead against hers.
"Ne'riduurok dinu!" Fives shouted from the pack of clones behind them. "Say ne'riduurok dinu!"
Her new husband didn't break their connection to return: "Shut up, Fives!"
Ahsoka smiled at him, running a finger around his lips already stained blue from his earlier stolen kiss. "What's that mean?"
"Just some Mando'a wedding vow. They've been trying to get me to speak it all week." His attempt to catch her fingertip failed; she was a little too fast for his mouth.
"In that case… ne'riduurok dinu."
Rex looked like he was leaning in for a second kiss—and Ahsoka knew for a fact she was—but their clans broke them apart with congratulations and cheering. They clapped Rex on the back and squeezed Ahsoka's hands.
Ahsoka's mother didn't even mind the paint as she pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm so happy you came back," she murmured.
"I'd never stay away, nimaamaa," Ahsoka said, holding another arm out for Ganesa to join their embrace.
The bonfire was left to burn itself out, as symbolic as the rest of its formation. The clans mingled on the beach to see the newlyweds off as they departed together, hand in hand along the shore, blue and orange.
After barely a minute of walking along, basking in the morning sun and kicking at the tide, Ahsoka gasped when Rex suddenly whisked her up into his arms, their painted skin slipping brown against each other. But Rex was determined to carry her, and Ahsoka tried her best to maintain a hold of his slick shoulders.
She wanted to oblige him, and she knew he could carry her to their destination, but something in the back of her mind shivered thinking that she'd end face-down in the sand before too long. "Rex… I can walk."
"It's not romantic?"
"If you want a romantic bridal carry, I'll carry you." A second later, her feet touched the sand.
They continued arm in arm to a secluded cove, where a stilted hut similar to those on the ridge stood solitary, dwarfed by the sheer cliff backdrop. The scenery was especially stunning sitting in the light of the low sunrise.
Rex pulled free of Ahsoka and walked straight into the sea, his silhouette dark against the brightness of the water as he sloshed into the shallows. His pants instantly inflated like a personal raft. He splashed himself with water, then splashed some more, then started rubbing his chest.
"Exactly how kriffin' thorough were you with the paint? It's not coming off!"
"It'll come off," she sighed.
The nearest sizable rock earned the distinction of being draped in Ahsoka's paint-smeared clothes. Just as she entered the tide—a strange balance of bright orange skin and smeared blue paint—Rex froze at the sight of her and the secret blue jaig eyes adorning her body, fulfilling her half of the tradition to wear something of her intended's.
"Oh," he said, staring. "That's where they were."
.Fin.
Translations
From Mando'a
Duse: rubbish
Kaysh mirsh'kyramud: He's boring me senseless.
Ne'riduurok dinu: My (love)bond I give.
From Ojibwe
Nimaamaa: mother
All my thanks to Sildae for beta reading! ^^
Hope you enjoyed! This story took me half a year to perfect, so if you liked it, I'd love to hear it!