Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There wasn’t much he could do. Certainly nothing he could say, if he even got the opportunity. If the cadet would even listen.

Wouldn’t, probably. 

Might not even read the notes he’s scratched out on flimsi. Shouldn’t, definitely. 

It’ll look like a trap. Trainer still there, still with him. He can get it there another way. He’s smarter than that, or he’s lucky. 

No, not lucky.

Still might look like a trick. Maybe the kind from a brother who wants him to fail. 

He didn’t want that. He just wasn’t sure he could help.

The other choice was to do nothing. He could do nothing. Why would he even know the tat’ka’s trip was planned, even think he ought to do something about it?

A hand waves at the edge of his vision, and it jerks him from his indecision.

Ready? The handsign asks.

Ready . He flashes back. He folds the flimsi up, but not too small to look interesting, and he and the squad he’s been staying with nod like they are on his mission together. 

“We have two days with nothing to do, and this is your plan? Should we take a holo of the pretty trees and wear flower crowns?” Ransom hadn’t stopped talking since they’d left the bunk. 

That was what he did when he was bored. Talk, until someone tried to shut him up. Then he fought. Steady didn’t care about the talk since they weren’t looking for anything that would spook at the noise.

He had no idea what a flower crown was, or how Ransom knew. 

Sometimes Ransom switched to their version of Mando’a, just to make sure Steady didn’t understand him. That was even easier to not listen to.

The other brothers were different in ways he would never understand.

They had been walking for an hour at most, and nothing close to a challenging pace or difficult terrain. Most of the trek had even been shaded, cool in the late spring weather. The day was warm where the sunshine poked through, little splashes of light and heat.

“Fuck it. This is stupid. I’m going back.” 

Steady kept walking. He wasn’t sure if Ransom really would go back, and maybe he wouldn’t mind testing that. 

Instead, Jolly was the first one to speak up. “And do what? Play limmie with the CTs? Go watch the vod’ikase learn to swim?”

“You’ve been playing limmie with your little CT friend so don’t even–”

“Here.” Steady spoke, and they both stopped bickering. The clearing didn’t look like anything special, not much different than the other half-dozen they’d passed.

The three of them were silent for a long moment, but Steady didn’t mind. Of course they didn’t know what they were looking at.  

He knew. He’d known since his first trip on-world. 

Steady moved carefully through the grass and the others stood unsure at the edge of the woods. He held up a hand, halting them before they could step on anything without thinking. Carefully, he plucked a handful, and carried them back over.

“Tal kar'ta,” he explained as he held out his hand. Four little berries, each a lumpy rounded shape and no bigger than a thumbnail, were cradled in his hand. The thick red of their juice was already staining his finger tips, but Steady knew they were only ripe a few weeks a year. He could still recall the note that had stuck out just far enough from the back panel of the datapad and how very specific it had been on where he could find them.

“What do we do with do with them?” Wink cocked his head to the side, and Steady shifted his hand closer for him to get a better look. 

“Eat them.” 

“You can’t just pick up some random plant, vod.” Ransom gestured to Steady’s stained palm. “We might have been built resistant to all sorts of shit, you can’t just grab something and–”

And Jolly ate one. “Oh, shit. Vod.”

“Are you okay?” Wink asked with a shocked sort of concern. “Do you need to sit down?”

Steady only just barely managed to bite back his smile. 

“That’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” Jolly’s mouth was stained by the juice when he smiled.

Steady couldn’t help himself. “Better than pudding?”

Jolly grinned, bright and sharp. “Tied.” 

“What’s it taste like?” Wink looked from the berries still in Steady’s hand back to Jolly. 

“Sweet like pudding. Maybe sweeter. But juicy. A little sour.” Jolly shook his head before taking another one. “So good. Try it for yourself.”

Wink stole one look at Ransom, and Steady watched him clock the scowl.

He took the next berry anyway, and there’s the most gratifying shift on his face as his eyes widened in surprise as he chewed before he beamed up at Ransom. “You have to try one.”

Steady knew Ransom would, because Ransom never denied Wink anything. And Wink would follow him to the end of the Galaxy. Whatever it was between them, no one had explained it to Steady, he was glad they had it.

To spare him, Steady took the next one. He surprised himself. The flavor was more than he remembered, so intense it bordered on too much. Sweet and bright, and better than anything else he knew. He’d practically dreamed of them after he’d tried them the first time.

“Are there more?” Jolly asked, before Ransom was even done chewing.

Steady nodded glancing back over his shoulder. “A field of them.”

All three looked at him in disbelief.

“They grow here. Native.” He remembered belatedly, and he refused to glance at Jolly to see if he noticed the slip. “On hillsides in the spring. Follow the birds to find them.”

That had been the instructions he’d been given in the note, with a small sketch of the shape of the leaves and berries, that they grew on vines that sometimes twined up trees on sunny exposures. 

It had been enough to fill his belly when he’d been solo on survival training, without rations as the mission objective had required. 

To learn from the experience of others was what a smart Commander did. 

To reject that knowledge was to be arrogant. Self–satisfied.

Still, his secret intel had weighed on him. It felt like a gift unearned, like something he would answer for later.

“So you knew these were here?” Wink looked past Steady, taking in the field, the gentle drone of flying insects. “Knew that we could have them all?”

“To share,” Steady corrected. There were enough berries in the field for the cadets, enough on similar patches for everyone to have. It was only a matter of finding the fields at the right time, so the berries would be ripe. “To share them is – tradition.” 

In a way, that was how he'd come by them too.

That pause definitely earned him a look from Jolly. 

“You can bring some back for your little CT buddy.” Ransom snickered at Jolly and the two were moments from yet another wrestling match. If Wink, a little CT himself, had anything to say in response, it was lost to carefully sorting through the foliage, looking for more berries.

“These.” Steady pointed to a pointed to wide leaves with a neatly-frilled edge. He lifted the leaves with the back of his hand to show a cluster of the berries in varying degrees of redness. “Only the red ones are sweet.”

Wink reached for the reddest one, only to have to pop between his fingers. That earned a surprised laugh. “Explosive.”

Steady plucked another one by the short green stem.

“Guess we better get started.” Jolly clapped his hands. “Lots of brothers to share with.”

*

“Bacara?” Rex called from the door. “Expecting any mysterious, bloody deliveries?”

Could never tell with the Marines. Bacara eased himself from the chair to join Rex, looking at the careful cloth wrapping tied in a precise water knot, and the red stains seeping through the edges.

The whole bundle fit in his two palms, and he gently eased the knot open. If it was a gift from one of his, they’d find somewhere to watch, gauge his reaction. Baraca wouldn’t scan the treeline. They didn’t want to be seen. 

As the corners came loose, a few tiny red rounds tumbled out. Bacara caught them before they could fall to the ground, and he examined them. 

“Berries?” Rex peered at the loose few in his palm. “Have you had them before? Should I get the field guide?”

“I have had them. Tal kar’ta,” Bacara said, as the memories caught him. “Native plants. They are prized. Given to–” 

“Given to?” Rex was already grinning, the kind of smile caught between fondness and amusement. 

“Friends.” Bacara swallowed hard, putting one berry in his own mouth and then offering the next to Rex as he savored the taste. “Given to friends.”

Chapter Text

There was mud everywhere. Low-lying areas were saturated. The ground marshyin more places than not from recent heavy rain. The thick mud clung to his boots and splattering up the training armor on his legs. Whatever the length of day on-world was, it was too bleak and soggy to feel confident in daylight lasting long enough to make it to the meeting point without risking injury.

This area had scrawny, young trees with slim, trembling branche. Nothing that would support a hammock, nothing that would support his weight until the sun rose.

Higher ground. That might be dry enough to camp on for the night.

The drawings on the flimsi had all been simplified, but extra care had been taken with this one. The lines made careful scrolls, repeated in neat rows. It wasn’t much to go on, but in the falling light, he hoped it would be enough.

He smelled them before he saw them. Not more than a scattering, but the smell was everywhere. As the note had promised, the ground was solid and nearer to dry than any he’d seen in days. 

After walking a quick perimeter, he found a riverhead, raging with all the rainfall, but still a source of fresh moving water, not far away. He secured his location and set camp for the night, the scent of the blooms wafting the promise of safety. A reminder that someone had wanted his mission to be a success.

The tent, securely anchored in the firm ground, was a welcome reprieve from the endless wet and chill, the scent of flowers a sweet reminder of his secret information.

Yes, this would do for the night.

“They’re pretty I guess?” Jolly looked entirely unconvinced as Steady crouched down next to the small white flowers. “Let me guess, we eat them?”

Steady blinked at him. “Why would we eat them?” 

“So, you’re really stopping to admire a particularly nice bit of greenery?” Jolly crossed his arms over his chest. “We don’t eat them?”

“Poisonous,” Steady confirmed, trying to get to the root ball of the flower as carefully as he could. 

‘So you’re pulling it up? To… kill it?”

“To plant by the bunks.” 

“Vod.” 

Steady looked up when Jolly didn’t continue.

“You want to move poisonous plants closer to the vod’ikase? That is basically asking for one of them to end up in medical, and for us to end up–” Jolly caught himself, but Steady didn’t need to hear him say it.

They still didn’t know what would happen if they did something wrong. No one had gotten into any real trouble. Yet. Steady would wager that question weighed heavily on Jolly.

Not to say things were never hard for him on Kamino, but the worst thing that could happen to Steady during his training was to be discarded, sent back to train with the other CC cadets, or worst case, the CT cadets. That hadn’t been the worst case for Jolly.

After a moment of consideration, Steady recovered the rootball, drew his vibroblade and sliced off one blooming stem. 

“ Kin Gat’kate ,” Steady said, holding the flower toward Jolly. “Smell.”

After a dubious glare, Jolly leaned in close and sniffed cautiously. Jolly’s eyes widened. The gat’kate packed a punch, a heady scent, part rich and earthy and part acidically floral.

“Little white helmet.” Steady tapped each of the blooms hanging on the stem. “The smell is stronger at night. The ground is good where they grow, good to set up camp.” He considered his next words before glancing back to Jolly. “They bring safe dreams.”

“We were made resistant to poison anyway.” Jolly knelt down and started to dig up the next kin gat’kate bulb.

*

“The fuck is this?” Bev looked at the plant like it had personally insulted him.

“A gift.” Deke didn’t quite believe it either. But, the little scrap of flimsy that had been perched on the edge of the pudding cup container it lived in had literally had the words a gift written on it.

“ Why? ”

That was a question. No one knew them, not really. Other than the ones they’d trained with. No one who had trained with them would bring a gift. They weren’t the kind of cadets who had friends, and they certainly didn’t have brothers after everything. 

Deke shrugged. “Jolly dropped it off at the door. Said it’s poisonous.”

That got a dry laugh out of Bev. “That a hint?”

“Said keeping it here would help us sleep.” 

The words left a wide wake of silence. 

The nights had always been hard. They’d been free for a while now, but the nights were still the hardest part. Too quiet, too full of remembering, too many dreams that left both of them startling awake gasping.

“Sounds like osik.” Bev made no move to get rid of the little gift under his fingertips.

“Probably.” Deke agreed. Back before, he would have followed that up with something about Jolly being full of osik anyway, or it all being some ploy for the too-clever Four to try to sneak his way up the Rankings. He didn’t say those things, just looked at the little scrap of a plant in its little scrap of a planter on their tiny window sill in their little room and thought about how much he’d like it to do exactly what Jolly said it would.

Bev glared at the plant the whole time he climbed into his bunk. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“Can’t hurt.” Deke hit the light and climbed into his own.  Probably osik, but it was nice to have something willing to share a bunk room with the two of them at least. He drifted off to the wafting scent of the flowers on the window sill.

Chapter Text

The climb was more tricky than hard. The tree was tall and the branches sparse, but they forked widely, offering a safe place to sleep and excellent sightlines. It was also improbably full of things. His own pack was sparse, nothing like an unsupplied training mission, but this mission was different from other training missions, and different from the intel on the memo he shouldn’t have gotten. Those missions had been fully supplied. Even the mission objectives had been different. Different never meant anything good. He had seen that often enough.

The light was falling, and the shapeless rustling in the brush became more threatening in his imagination. There were predators, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He had a blaster and a vibroblade at hand. He’d been training for these missions all his life. The future he was training for was far more dangerous than some animal looking for an evening meal. Disgraceful. He was being a tubie about the whole thing. Still, he’d been told the tree was safe, and the note hadn’t been wrong yet. The warm, red dusk caught on a flash of silver, seated carefully between the next level of branches. It was probably nothing, but he couldn’t help but climb for it. 

The toe of his boot wedged securely in a gnarl, he stretched for it, just catching the smooth metal shape. 

He waited until he was secured in the lower vee of the tree before flipping open the smooth, secure lid. It was a compass. The simplified, magnetic kind that served a tat well when there was nothing else to fall back on.

Carefully scratched into the lid was no more information than a four digit number. It could have been anything, left by anyone, but he knew better.

1202

Someone, maybe someone like him, had left it there. Because they didn’t need it, but maybe, just maybe, he foolishly imagined, because they thought he might need it. He was the only being he’d seen for days, but at least for a moment, he could feel a little less alone. Carefully closing the lid, he returned the compass to its resting spot. He didn’t need it, but maybe someone else would.

*

“This one?” Jolly squinted up at the tree.

Steady considered for a moment, and then shook his head. 

It was close – tall and broad and it branched into two off the main trunk at a point low enough to climb to without too much struggle. But it wasn’t right, it was fuller and positioned in a way that the vantage would be limited.

Though of course trees grew and landscapes changed in the time that had passed since the last time he had walked through.

But he knew it’d be there. He’d know it when he found it, he was certain.

Jolly was not so certain.

“Geo-coordinates are a thing.” He grumbled as Steady continued on. “You could find exactly o ne specific tree on a whole planet by using them.”

Steady had never thought he’d come back to Concord Dawn. It hadn’t had any importance in the war, and like most, Steady had never considered After in any significant way. He’d never thought he’d want to return to one tree in the whole galaxy for any reason.

But things had changed. Things had been changed. Steady didn’t know how to explain it to Jolly, or if Jolly would give him that look that was equal parts disdain and concern and tell him he was being a di’kut . 

Jolly had never done his training mission to Concord Dawn. The Fanatic’s other two, the older two, had done theirs before Steady. He would never know the details but it had been made clear that Steady was expected to outperform them. Not that he had been told their mission parameters or results. Part of him still wanted to ask. 

Instead, Steady would pass the window to their bunk on his walk to the playfield with the littles and see the Kin Gat’kate on their window. The gat’kate were still on the stem, filling the room with a comforting hint of the world outside each night, and wonder if they slept better now.

“This one.” Steady couldn’t say why he knew, but he knew. The tree didn’t look all that different from the other ones they’d passed in any meaningful way. The cliff edge beyond it wasn’t any closer or further away. It was just as pale and sparse, and the branches grew in gnarled segments. The first split low down on the trunk, but still high enough for the need to climb. The branches were wide and sparse, stretched out like bony arms. From the strong boughs lower down, the whole valley, and his rendezvous point, would be clear over the edge of the precipice. 

Jolly appraised the tree slowly. Steady could hardly imagine what he was looking for, or finding in his inspection. Still, Steady gave him his time to assess.

“So, what? You stashed treasure in it? Climb it and you become Mand’alor? It’s just a tree .” Of course Jolly wanted to figure it out for himself. 

It was. There was nothing special about the tree. Nothing that made it different from the others. That didn’t mean Steady didn’t feel a little swell in his chest looking at it. The climb was much easier than he remembered, but he was bigger now, stronger. He also hadn’t been on an unsupplied solo mission for days. He reached the lowest branches in the tree and continued up, out along one of the wide branches and higher to the next split. 

It was less spacious than he remembered, but it had been nearly a full growth cycle ago. 

“The fuck is this?” Jolly’s fingertips skimmed the bark of the upreaching fork. “That’s the berry. And the–” his finger lingered over the rough shape of a kin gat’kate bloom carved in with the careful tip of a sharp vibroblade.”You made these?”

Steady didn’t answer. He hadn’t, but he had added to the carvings scratched into the branches around them. It had been the best method he’d found to include more information. He had tried at the other locations, looked for some way to leave a signal to the next one who would be out there. Maybe not another cadet, there weren’t that many who came to the planet. He had imagined it then as a crashed traveler, someone who was alone, and needed a sign that another being in the universe was on their side. 

Steady looked away from the notes carved into the tree, searching the higher twist of the branches until he could just make out the shape of the thing. That was why he’d come to find the tree. 

Nothing more.

Jolly was moving around, inspecting the tree or the things others had left in it. There wasn’t much up in the tree. The supply cache was in a break in the cliff, just below the tree. Not impossible to get to, but it wasn’t where what he wanted was hidden. Steady kept his focus on his task, pulling the small silver compass down and trying to shine up the top with the flat of his palm.

“You left this?” Jolly picked up a slim, waterproof cannister used for storing ration bars. Steady could say no, but his number was not fully worn off on the end of it. 

He hadn’t had anything in his pack with his number on it. Unlike the one who had left the compass behind. Steady hadn’t had anything of his own, and no one else to confuse his gear with, so there had never been any reason to mark something as his instead of a squadmate’s. Putting his number on it had been an indulgence at the time, and it felt even more foolish now.

Jolly shook the canister just enough for something to sound inside. He didn’t ask the question, but he didn’t have to.  

“Spare supplies.” Steady tried to sound casual. Nothing he’d carried had been spare on his mission. But then, someone had made sure he had what he’d needed. It was only right to leave his scarce supply of ration bars, some bacta patches, and a fresh vibroblade for someone else who might have less than him. It wasn’t much, but Steady had never had anything of his own to leave behind. Those three things and a bit of luck would be enough to keep someone going a little longer while they waited for rescue. If they waited longer, they would find the notes, and discover the cache below the trees. 

Jolly looked at the compass in Steady’s hands. “That all?”

Steady took one look out from their perch, taking in the view of the landscape. He was sure he could still see the meeting point. “Yeah, that’s it.” 

*

The tooka spotted the intruder first. 

It took a massiff at full gallop before the tat’ka slowed a step. But didn’t stop. Kept advancing, with slow, even steps, hands down by his sides. Not reaching for anything. He would have stepped in if he thought one of his was at risk.

Both the massif and the tat’ka.

The tat’ka reached the end of the walk, and stared out towards his front door, chewing on it for a long moment. Hound let him decide for himself. Sometimes, a tat’ka had a lot in common with a tooka or a massiff. Giving them a chance to decide how they wanted to handle a situation was one of those ways.

Hound waited until he reached the door before he let his steps fall hard on the trail. The hunting cabin wasn’t much, but it made for a nice couple of days away from the city. It was a good spot, surrounded by plenty of entertainment for his friends, and a good, easy kind of silence for him.

Which did make him wonder just what the tat’ka had come out here looking for.

“Lost?” 

The question got a quirk of almost-a-smile in return. Like it was funny in some way the tat’ka couldn’t explain. “Not lost.”

Hound didn’t think he was. This wasn’t where someone would get lost, and if they did, they wouldn’t have walked up past a bounding Grizzer to knock on the door of an empty cabin.

The tat’ka’s eyes widened when his gaze landed on Puddle. Hound reached up to give the mooka a quick scratch behind the ear. “Ever meet a mooka before?”

The tat’ka shook his head. 

“This is Puddle. Can’t fly. Still likes to be up high.” Hound eased Puddle off his shoulder and to the ground to let him dance around Grizzer, who still frolicked like a pup when the mooka came to stay. Hound didn’t look at the tat’ka, didn’t want to pressure him. If he had something to say, he’d say it when he was ready.

Meanwhile, Nugget was busy rubbing up against the tat’ka’s knee, trying to claim him as hers while she had the chance.

“CC-1202?”

He nodded and offered the tat’ka his hand. “Hound.”

“Commander. Sir.” The tat’ka frowned before reaching into his pocket. He was still dressed in standard issue from Kamino. Hound wondered who was responsible for getting the former cadets civvies. “For you.”

He held out a flash of silver and Hound picked it up, turning it over in his hand. His number scratched carefully into the case.

Hound laughed a little, but it was uneven. There were only so many people who would find it, and even fewer who would know why it was there. The tat’ka in front of him was so much like the serious cadet Hound had seen on Kamino, but also so different. “You grew up.”

Hound eased himself down onto the front step and gestured for the tat’ka to do the same. It was a long pause before he did.

“Don’t mean to intrude.” 

He hadn’t. It was just some time away. Nothing to intrude on. And yet, there was that familiar void in Hound’s chest. He would always believe it had finally gone away, until something came along and reminded him. Of the past. Of what might have been.

“Thank you. For the note.”

Hound took even, deep breaths. “How did you know?”

“There was no one else.” The tat’ka, a true tat’ka , gestured to the compass, with his number on it. That was true, they made for a very small brotherhood, if Hound counted himself as a member. A lineage three links long. 

“No one had ever done anything like that. For me.”

The note had been unsigned. There was no reason to put either of them at risk like that. He’d already been tossed back into the standard CC training before the tat’ka had begun, but when he’d seen the second cycle all alone, when he’d heard the mission was going off-world… 

Hound needed to try and help. He couldn’t have done any less than 1138– than Bacara– had done for him.

“The squad,” Hound stopped to clear his throat. Nugget, for all her murderous cuteness, wrapped herself around his shins. “My squad helped get the note in the ‘pad. Mission support.”

The tat’ka stared of, one hand slowly stroking Puddles’ belly as he thought. 

“Got a name, tat’ka?"

It took a few blinks for the tat’ka to come back from where he’d gone in his thoughts. Maybe replaying those days before the mission, looking for the op he’d missed now that he knew a squad had pulled it off. “Steady, sir.” 

“Steady,” Hound repeated. “Looks like Puddles likes you. Stay for dinner, and tell that tat of yours in the woods he can come, too.”

The momentary stunned look was worth watching Grizzer pacing halfway to the treeline, waiting for their other guest to join. 

Yeah, Hound thought he might like to be an or’tat someday.

“Did it help?” Hound had always wondered. Maybe Steady had never needed it. Maybe he hadn’t been as scared and as alone as Hound had felt when he’d been left behind on a strange planet. Maybe he hadn’t felt lost and small alone in the woods.

Steady nodded, flashing quick battlesign at the edge of the woods a whole squad of cadets near-enough Steady’s age came out into the clearing. Grizzer circled with an excited yip

“It helped,” Steady said. “Helped more than you know.”