Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex Are Dead
Chapter 10. Tales of Clones and Togrutas
They lay under Shili's night sky, amid the waist-high stems of springtime turu-grass, and Ahsoka began to speak.
Ahsoka's Tale:
"But the World was empty, so the Sun and Moons reached down and each made a form. The Moons shaped red clay into a figure, and decorated it with turu-grass to make it beautiful, and breathed moonlight into its mouth, and that figure became the first Woman. The Sun shaped red clay into a figure, and decorated it with turu-grass to make it beautiful, and breathed sunlight into its mouth, and that figure became the first Man. And when the Woman and the Man met, they saw that though they were different, they were also the same, and decided to remain together for otherwise they would be alone.
"But the World was still large, and Man and Woman were only two, so the Sun and the Moons gathered together and fashioned more figures out of clay and turu-grass. When they made a kob, they called it Kob, and when they made a thimiar, they called it Thimiar, and when they made an akul, they called it Akul, and soon the World was full.
"Akul was the largest of the creatures, and the strongest, and he was jealous of Man and Woman, who were the first made. So, one day, Akul used his size and strength and great teeth, and chased Man and Woman across the wild lands, until they cried out to the Sun and Moons to help them. Because the Sun and Moons did not want to see their firstborn killed, they reached down and pulled Man and Woman up into the heavens, where they shed their clay bodies and shone brightly and became the first stars. When Man and Woman had Children, some of them remained in the heavens with their parents, but others declared themselves unafraid of Akul, and returned to the World.
"The Children who returned were clever, and they used their minds to tame Fire, and their fingers to build Spear, and when Akul came to chase them the way he chased Man and Woman, he found the Children had teeth and were warriors, and were no longer afraid."
Laying on the ground, Ahsoka breathed deeply and looked up through the striped lengths of the turu-grass around her. The tufted tips of the red and white stalks caught the wind and shivered, sending a wave of rustling across the plain. She lifted a faintly luminous hand and ran it through the grass, letting the stalks pass through the specter of her palm. She had visited many beautiful worlds as a Jedi, each with different beauties; the classic elegance of Naboo, the luminous danger of Felucia, the treacherous depths of Mon Cala, the glittering night of Coruscant. Shili's beauty was, perhaps, the simplest – canopied valleys with homes built into the roots of the great trees, lush savannahs rich with wildlife and claret-and-cream streaked turu-grass reaching for the skies. Two stars glittered extra bright, even among the moons in their many phases.
"Do clones have any stories?" she asked Rex, lying beside her, his free hand tucked behind his head and serving as a pillow.
Rex's face was impassive, still. "No."
"None?"
"Nothing like that. We came out of decantation vats, not clay or stars."
Ahsoka almost laughed at the comparison, but as quickly as the amusement came, it faded. She barely remembered leaving Shili as a toddler; the Temple was her home, where she belonged, where she grew up. The Jedi were her brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. But no matter where she was raised, she was Togruta, and would always be Togruta, and Shili would always be her home, and the Togruta would always be her people, no matter how distant she was from them, sometimes. She was made of red clay and stardust. Reaching up, she trailed a finger over the shape of the akul tooth headdress that framed her face. She was Togruta, and had proved herself a warrior and an adult the day she killed her first akul and breathed its strength into herself as it died at the end of her spear.
The clones were warriors, too. They worked together to defeat great enemies, just like the Togruta worked together for millennia to defeat mighty akul. It was wrong for them to have no stories, to have no history – or for what little history they had to be so…clinical. She squeezed his hand.
"No legends?" she tried again. "Not even of early clones?"
Rex opened his mouth to deny it again, but then paused, closing it and looking thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose there is one story," he admitted slowly. Seeing Ahsoka's hopeful smile, he took a breath and began to speak.
Rex's Tale:
"Back before I was born, there was this group of clones. They didn't listen, didn't obey. They were wild, unpredictable, everything they weren't supposed to be, except maybe intelligent. The Kaminoans decided they were defective, that they should be reconditioned. One day, the Kaminoans went to claim them, to take them to the reconditioning center.
"But a man got in the way, one of the sergeants. He wasn't anyone special, not really, at least not any more than any of the rest of the Cuy'val Dar. It wasn't like Fett put himself in the middle of it all. But he stood up to the Kaminoans and said, "These are my boys, and these are my sons, and you can't take them." There weren't too many of us back then, but it was the first time any clone ever heard of anyone talking back to the Kaminoans, other than maybe Fett himself. And that sergeant, he was good as his word, and he raised those clones as his sons, just like any other children. And they were just as disobedient and willful and troublesome as the Kaminoans thought they'd be.
"But the little brothers of those men, the ones who weren't defective or willful or disobedient, wanted to be more like them. Those older brothers were independent, and freer than anyone else, and they were the first family there was in the GAR. They were the first brothers."
They did have stories. Ahsoka lay still and looked at the stars. The clones had no culture of their own, outside of what they were given by the Kaminoans or borrowed from the Mandalorians, no origin, no history, but they still found stories to tell; of beginnings and bonds and brothers, of families that still formed, somehow, out of ranks of little boys and gruff old Mandalorian sergeants. Of clones who had what others did not: families and freedoms.
"I'm sorry, Rex," she said.
When she turned her head to the side, she could see his profile softly glowing. He turned to face her, expression slightly puzzled.
"I never asked you. If you wanted to stay with me." The galaxy seemed so very large, suddenly. She would be so alone, without him. But she offered anyway, gave him the choice, even if it was belated. She kept her hand in his relaxed. "I could let go."
He closed his eyes, and she returned her gaze skyward. Man and Woman were luminous among their children, bright and visible just beyond the high flying cirrus and the lambent faces of the moons.
Rex asked, "Do you want me to stay?"
This could not last forever. The turu-grass rustled around them, tall fronds catching in the wind. Ahsoka closed her eyes, but could still feel the starlight on her ghost-face.
"Yes."
He smiled, and she opened her eyes to see it, and was happy not to be alone.
I wrote this chapter out of order. It was actually the first thing I wrote, even before the prologue, and was one of the earliest ideas I had for this story (ghost!Ahsoka and ghost!Rex dancing in Padme's apartment being the first random image). Rex's tale should be familiar to anyone who's read Karen Traviss' Republic Commando novels. Ahsoka's tale is a mix of a few bits and pieces, predominantly inspired by general creation myth themes and a little bit of a Cheyenne legend I read not too long ago called Quillworker, as written by Terri Cohlene (it's an adorable children's book…highly recommended!).
Thimiar and akul are canonical species of Shili. A kob is a kind of antelope.
Music for this chapter is (again) Adiemus, by Adiemus (also known as Karl Jenkins).
~Queen