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The thing about Life Days for the vode was that they were difficult.
Having 3.3 million brothers made it hard to track and things weren’t any easier if you just went by batchmates and tubies.
Tubies were rare, and it wasn’t unheard of for one of a tubie pair to be decommissioned for something before they even made it through training. It was the peril of having two clones be decanted from the same tube, genetic mutations had a higher chance of happening and the Kaminoans had a lower tolerance for mutations in tubies.
(Multiple breaks from the norm was not something that the Kaminoans suffered lightly.)
Batches, on the other hand, varied in size, some as small as three and some as big as eight. Added onto that the enhanced aging and, it was hard to find something to celebrate.
Especially for the newer batches the long-necks had started to produce as the war dragged on.
Most of them were speedies, who aged even faster than the other vode and whose idea of batchmates had been shifted by how the war had affected their training.
As brothers died more frequently and Kamino rushed the training of the new brothers, it was far more common for brothers decanted on the same day to be separated and thrown into training to fill whatever holes the dead left, with far less time to bond as much as the older batches had.
And cannon fodder didn’t really have a reason to celebrate Life Days. And the Kaminoians made sure that every vod understood that.
(A unit celebrating their existence, the Kaminoans believed, meant that they had a higher chance of being inefficient in their duties as a soldier. More likely to be selfish and save themselves than those they were made for.)
Life Days, as a result, was a topic that was a little bitter, a little sad.
The Jedi got weird about it though.
Commander Gree of the 41st Elite Corps was confused.
He hadn’t expected to be confused about something like a Life Day, but here he was, confused.
And while he would never blame his Jedi for that, he would admit that it was their actions that were the cause of his confusion.
And from Commander Barriss’ frown and General Unduli’s slightly bewildered look, they were just as confused as he was.
The Commander bit her lip, words slow and unsure, “What do you mean your Life Day isn’t important? It’s another year you’ve lived, another milestone passed.” She cast an anxious look at her master, “That’s—that is good, isn’t it?”
General Undulli settled a calming hand on her Padawan’s shoulder, something like grief and understanding in her eyes, “Of course they are Barris, for us. But I suspect that the men have a very different idea of Life Days than we do.” She met his eyes, “Is that correct Gree?”
Gree shrugs, “I guess so sir. I didn’t know Jedi celebrated them. I know that the Prime and his kid did but, the rest of us never really saw the appeal in it I guess? It was just another year we spent preparing for war.”
The Commander makes a soft sound of pain and even though Gree knows that there’s no possible way she could have gotten hurt while standing right in front of him, he’s seen enough weird Force osik to be weary, and he gives her a quick look over to see if anythings wrong.
But all the Commander does is purse her lips, “Surely you celebrate being alive? All life warrants that, the acknowledgment of their existence.”
Gree startles a bit because, well, that hadn’t really been how any of the brothers had thought of it. But even with that line of thinking, sure they were alive, but their lives were literally made for their Jedi, for the war, not for wasting on themselves.
(Except—
Gree stops that train of thought, ignores the fleeting memory of a tiny Boba—who was older than Gree and yet so much younger—being lifted onto the Prime’s shoulder, the toy he was gifted in his hands.)
Gree’s silence holds, and with each second he takes to try and piece together a response the more heartbroken Barris looks and the more sorrowful the General’s gaze becomes.
“It’s not that we don’t appreciate being alive,” he begins, careful words coming slow to his tongue, “But when we age so much quicker, Life Days just—well, they hold less meaning. It’s just a way to know which brothers you were decanted with and who’s in your Growth Group.”
And it’s a true response, it’s what every vod Gree knows has understood since they were Littles, after they quit longing for someone to celebrate their lives like the Prime so easily did for Boba.
After they set aside that desire for acknowledgment, it grew easier to just not care about Life Days, to stop being upset that no one cared about them outside of whether they would be good soldiers.
(It was harder, for Gree at least, to not resent Boba just a little, for what he was given. But Boba is a brother still, and Gree had learned how to set that resentment aside years ago.)
It’s purely coincidence that the answer Gree gives will also hurt his Jedi the least.
Neither of Gree’s Jedi seem to understand the way the vode would give their lives for them, both of them so upset over the thought of brothers dying for them.
Gree had yet to figure out how to explain that he and the vode were just, worth so much less than the Commander and General in a way that wouldn’t make them get that absolutely devastated look on their faces.
The General gives him a searching gaze and Gree tries not to feel like she’s stripping his soul bare.
Her words are careful and though her face gives nothing away, Gree suspects that she’s upset about something.
“Is it a fact that you and the men don’t like Life Days, or is it more accurate to say that you were all just raised to not give thought to yourselves, to place no value upon yourselves?”
Sometimes, it is very hard to convince himself that the Jedi are not all knowing. He flinches just the slightest bit and the Commander’s eyes widen, head whipping around to face her Master with a look that makes Gree want to bundle her up and protect her from everything.
The war has done enough to batter her spirit, Gree and his brothers do not need to contribute to that pain.
From the way the General looks at him, Gree suspects he knows what her guess is and it takes a second for Gree to reorient himself and think it through because—
He does give thought to himself and his men. He’s a Commander, he’s always thinking about how to keep the Jedi, the men, and himself safe. He always does his best to ensure that as many make it back alive as is possible.
And it’s not that they were taught to not give thought to themselves and their brothers. It was just that the Jedi were always more important than a clone ever would be, if you were given the choice to save yourself and another clone or the Jedi, you picked the Jedi, you always picked the Jedi.
That was just how it worked. Clones were replaceable and Jedi were not.
The General looks like she wants to keep talking and Gree shakes his head, battle signs a quick, wait, thinking, and tries to come up with an answer that doesn’t feel like a lie.
Gree knows that some of his brothers don’t like to talk about Life Days at all, he knows that some are confused about why anyone would celebrate growing older. And he tries to think about how he would feel about growing another year older if he aged regularly.
He can’t picture it, it’s not like trying to picture the end of the war. The war stretches on yes, but with every planet they take back, Gree can see the end coming, no matter how far off it feels.
No, picturing celebrating Life Days as someone with a full human base-line lifespan, as someone who was irreplaceable is a little like picturing a life after the war with the Clone Rights Bill passed and everything. It just doesn’t fit inside of his head.
It doesn’t match everything he knows.
He thinks instead of that quiet longing that had filled every cadet in the older batches, the surge of jealousy that all of them experienced everytime the Prime had so clearly rejoiced in Boba’s life.
Gree turns the thought over in his head, looks for the thing that keeps slipping away from him. The thing that pricks at him, sharp as a needle.
‘Is it that we dislike Life Days, or is it that we were raised to have no care for ourselves. No sense of value for our own lives?’ He asks himself, twists the question around in his head and thinks of how he had stared at Boba whenever he saw him, watched the way Jango had so obviously cared for and loved him, thinks of that jealousy and the aching need to be valued.
Oh, Gree thinks to himself faintly as he finally finds where the needle sharp thought has buried itself into his brain, it seems that in this case, the General is right again.
He brings a hand up, rubs it over his face and catches the tear before it falls.
“I think,” he starts, voice hoarse, “that it has more to do with the second line of reasoning than the first General.”
The Commander’s hands wring together and she debates something, expression darkening, she casts her Master a lingering look before she steps forward towards Gree. All careful hesitance and worry.
“Can I—Can I hug you please Gree?” She asks, hands reaching out.
Gree doesn’t have to think about the answer. He nods and reaches out to her, feels her tiny arms wrap tight around his middle and he cups the back of her head with a gentle grip, his other arm wrapping around her.
A hand settles on his shoulder, a warm weight, and when he lifts his head and meets the General’s gaze there is something protective there.
If Gree didn’t already know that Jedi do not hate, if he did not already know his General, he would think that it’s the kind of protection that rages against others. The kind that burns and consumes.
As it is, Gree thinks that it’s the type of protection that nurtures.
(Later, Gree will find Barriss and teach her how to shoot a blaster, he’ll give her a bracelet that he clumsily crocheted together with supplies he really shouldn’t have and tell her with stumbling words that he values her and always will.
He’ll ask her when the General’s Life Day is and what she would like for it and Barriss laughs, eyes bright as she responds.
But for now, he just hugs the little Commander, leans into the weight of his General’s hand on his shoulder, and battles back years of not being worth anything to anyone with this feeling of being wanted and cared for.)
After, there is a spark throughout the vode, a quiet one, none of the fire that gossip usually starts.
The buzz of excitement is laced with tension and unease. The younger batches are confused and the older batches are cynical.
(Life Day talks always brought mixed feelings, usually only cadets would dare bring it up, and even then only a few times and only at night to one or two other brothers.)
It’s hard to stop instinctively banishing the desire for someone to celebrate them and not the things they could do. It’s difficult to accept this view on Life Days that is so different than the one they all know.
It’s hard to actually reflect on how they felt about it all, even harder to recognize where their thoughts were twisted by being told repeatedly throughout their lives that they were replaceable. Separating what you actually felt versus what you were taught to feel.
But whenever one of his men comes to Gree, confused and off center, he asks the same question, “‘Is it that you dislike Life Days and would prefer not to celebrate yours, or is it that you don’t see the value your life holds?”
And it causes something to shift, some of the unease lifting from the men’s shoulders.
Gree can’t find it in himself to regret it.
Not even when the first batch whose Life Day comes up ends up blindingly hungover along with most of the other brothers who were celebrating with them. And for all Gree sighs as he places the whole batch on KP, he catches himself smiling.
His General fights back a smile and her Padawan giggles as she brings the poor brothers water.
And Gree has never felt lighter.