Chapter Text
In retrospect, Cody wasn’t quite sure what made him bold enough to ask the question that burned in every clone’s mind. Maybe it was the sight of hundreds of husks of plastoid scattered across the lost battlefield. More likely it was the fact that at least half of those were lost in a seemingly pointless command to recover a fallen Jedi Padawan’s body, despite their having died in such a high-risk section of the planet. Most probably it was because General Kenobi was so visibly distraught by the extra carnage despite having been the one to issue the orders that led to the needless slaughter.
Whatever the reason, while they stood together in front of the funeral pyre, the words slipped from Cody’s mouth in a rare moment of candor: “Why are Jedi bodies recovered, when everyone else is left behind?”
Kenobi startled so badly and in such an uncharacteristic move for the normally composed man that Cody immediately regretted asking. “Apologies, please disregard, sir,” he quickly backtracked, snapping to attention and only just barely stifling an instinctive attempt to salute. “That was out of line.”
Kenobi was quiet for a moment, face pale as he stared into the flames that were just beginning to catch from the kindling to the Padawan’s robes. The poor aquatic-specied being was far too young for the violent ending they had received, likely barely old enough to begin blaster training if they were a clone cadet instead of a Jedi-in-training, but despite now being covered by more blackened plasma burns than once-beautiful lilac scales, their expression was curved in a deceptively peaceful smile.
“I suppose I should have expected this question,” said Kenobi finally, voice quiet and solemn, shadows from the flickering flames highlighting soft stress lines until they looked carved into his skin. “After all, it could be—should be—considered unfair. Why go back for a single body, as if they are worth more than the dozens or hundreds lost alongside them, and the just as many sometimes lost to retrieve them?”
Cody was silent, although he eased out of his ramrod-straight stance into something looser. Kenobi nodded as if he had spoken aloud, then asked, “Have I ever shared with you the Jedi Code, Cody?”
“…no, sir,” said Cody, a bit blindsided by the seeming non-sequitur. Kenobi nodded his head again, expression solemn.
“It is considered one of the most sacred and important teachings for our young.” The flames were just catching the Padawan’s scaled skin, now, and for a second Cody deluded himself to think he saw the peaceful expression turn into a furrowed frown. “It goes such:
“There is no emotion, there is peace; there is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity; there is no chaos, there is harmony.”
Kenobi paused for a moment to take a deep breath, then, tone dark, said, “There is no death…there is the Force.”
After letting the line settle, he huffed a sad excuse of a sardonic chuckle, pulling one hand out of where they were clasped in his sleeves in a wave as if to shoo the sentence away. “It has changed over the years, of course, as the Order has, but the core message is the same. And the last line is the reason why we must retrieve our dead.”
Anger surged through Cody at the admittance. Dozens, hundreds, thousands dead, all over an ideology!? Before he could even contemplate how to express his rage, Kenobi went on, unwittingly drawing his attention back.
“It sounds like utter hogwash, of course,” he said almost idly. “When the Jedi are taught to put the many before the few, why risk the many for the few? Why put others before our selves, the antithesis of our teachings, due to a Code whose meaning is constantly debated even amongst our own?” For the first time, Kenobi darted his gaze away from the flames, and the sarcasm in his expression turned into solemnity once more as he caught the Commander’s eye. “The simple answer, Cody, is because while the majority of the Code is open to interpretation, the last line is quite literal.”
Cody froze. Surely…surely that didn’t mean—
Once he saw he was understood, Kenobi hummed and turned back to the pyre, and as Cody followed his gaze he realized that once again the Padawan’s expression had changed:
Where once there was a peaceful near-smile, then an upset frown, now barely visible through the flames was
a contortion
of outright
a g o n y —
“Without the body being completely destroyed, there is no true death for a user of the Force,” whispered Kenobi, expression haunted, and as the Padawan’s face began to crumble into ash Cody felt nothing less than numb horror.
The Jedi had always been a symbol of nothing so much as hope to the clones, and for Cody in particular, that had been and would remain true. But going forward, he knew his opinion had forever changed.
After all, what did it mean, if one could be killed—but unless their corporal forms were destroyed, were impossibly unable to die…?