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“They have purple leaves,” Obi-Wan said, rather excited, and pushed the holocaster Cody’s way – Cody’s, who, frankly, looked a little less enthusiastic than his partner. “Look, I mean – “
“Like Felucia? Felucia had plants with purple leaves too,” Cody muttered, only sparing the caster one short glance.
“Yes, yes,” Obi-Wan said impatiently, waving his hand. “But, see, the atmosphere filters light differently on Felucia. And here it’s just like Coruscant. I wonder what kind of evolutionary process would create flora like…”
“Alright, give me the helmet.” Cody reached out, plucking the Stormtrooper helmet Obi-Wan was absent-mindedly dragging his fingers over out of his lap. “You’re scratching the visor. You won’t be able to see through it. And you understand that if you take off the helmet, everyone’s going to recognize that pretty face, yeah?”
Obi-Wan grimaced, though the comment made his cheeks redden slightly, clear to see under pale skin. “Sorry. I didn’t notice that.”
“Habit,” Cody brushed it off and sat up straighter, placing their helmets together on the table next to him. There was a soft clunk when Cody pushed them together. “So, what do you think happened?”
“Hm?”
“What happened to the plants? Why are they purple?” Cody grinned, watching Obi-Wan blink rapidly a few times as he processed Cody’s question. “Come on, I can tell you’ve got theories.”
Truth to be told, Cody couldn’t have cared less about purple plants and evolutionary peculiarities. But when Obi-Wan spoke of whatever wonders he could speculate about off the top of his head, eyes shining and hands gesturing subconsciously, Cody always seemed to somehow develop at least a little bit of an interest in it.
They were always only ever told the technical things about the planets they were coming to. The rest – the good stuff, in layman’s terms – they had to find out for themselves, if they had the chance to. For example, they were told Alrota III was an industrial hellscape with disease in every step – but not how advanced the locals’ preservation of their architecture and art was due to the unwelcoming environment. They were told Kharra Major was almost impossible to traverse due to the thick jungles and the scorching deserts – but they were left in the dark about the fact that the beings who were native to the planet had worked out paths around all such difficulties.
While Obi-Wan appreciated having all the information he needed in order to – well, not die, it boiled down to that, the real treat was seeing the planet before they left to return to their ship and the rest of the rebels. Sometimes, it was over quicker – whatever they had to do, rescue an officer or bypass Imperial security and get to some vital piece of information – whatever it was, sometimes, they had time. It was a rare occasion, sure, but it’s not like they had vacations, so if a few rebels would decide to leg it away from Imperials and take the scenic route, well, they rarely heard any objections.
Devrea was another densely populated planet they’d come to with something they’d barely call an objective. With three orbital rings constructed around it, the levels were almost as difficult to navigate as they were on Coruscant, and there wasn’t much of a local populace. It was something of a vacation planet.
Once they touched down on the spaceport and let the group dressed as Stormtroopers - Cody and Obi-Wan among them - go about their mission their own way, they found out quickly why this was. The planet orbiting Devrea - 4687 Terytis Minor – was closer to its surface than most others of its kind, behaving almost like a moon in its place, completing about one rotation every local cycle. It was certainly a pretty picture for tourists – not that Cody or Obi-Wan had much time to go sightseeing.
Not before or during those that were their working hours, anyway. Afterwards, all the natural beauty the planet had to offer was fair game before a ship showed up to pick them up. They usually made use of it.
The evening had settled a certain sleepy atmosphere over Devrea, it seemed to slow everything down. Especially as their adrenaline wore off, their breathing returned to normal, they finally began hearing the chatter of civilians around them and none of the yelling of any legitimate Stormtroopers, and they stopped running. They walked, slower and slower, side by side, arms barely brushing.
Obi-Wan hardly minded it, the opposite, in fact, but it’s not like he would be the one to do anything about it. What a concept. There was something between them, yes, but perhaps a second war was not any better than the first, and he just wasn’t that interested in mucking up anything in this tentative friendship he had with Cody.
Instead, he turned his head to the side, and let his gaze drift along the sky.
And, honestly, Obi-Wan wasn’t as prone to getting distracted as Cody liked to claim. He wasn’t reckless or a masochist, which Cody admittedly didn’t claim, but it didn’t take much to see he was thinking it, sometimes. But, where it mattered, Obi-Wan was focused, he was determined. But - he couldn’t deny that he froze now, his eyes locked on to the horizon, unwilling to move.
It was evening on this part of Devrea, and it was as if the Force had made the moment and all its beauty itself.
The clouds were near-purple, bleeding into the deeply blue sky. Traces of light were filtering through, making it seem like the clouds had flooded the sky from somewhere far above in the cosmos, sliding smoothly across the skyline and leaving tangled weavings behind. The light blue of it all, too, was replaced by something darker, more vibrant, soft, almost dream-like. And all of it moving, swirling in untraceable patterns.
When he took a glance at what the sky ahead of them looked like, it did not cease to amaze him. There, the tones were warmer, orange and yellow and red and everything inbetween painted and spun together like strings of seafoam of transparent light on the waves.
And, of course, then there was Terytis. It was not an exceptionally large planet by any means, but it was certainly larger – and closer – than any of Devrea’s moons. It had an asteroid belt circling it, obstructive in part and ridiculously beautiful as well; it gave the planet a warm, almost pastel hue, in spite of its dusty realities. And it was close . It was just passing the side of the planet they were on, larger than life and almost taking over half the horizon. It looked close enough to touch and yet blurry enough to believe that it was indeed a good few minutes of travel with no hyperdrive away.
This was the beauty of the Galaxy, this was where the touch of the Force was the clearest. It would’ve been a great shame to have ships disturbing the delicate blanket that seemed to be draped over the planet, warm and beautiful and impossible to miss.
It stole his breath from his chest.
Cody was walking on, watching the people. He always watched the people. It felt safer, that way, it felt right.
Obi-Wan let out a slow breath.
“Cody,” he whispered, tugging him back by the shoulder. It was a comfortable touch, one he’d learned to appreciate, however brief, however longing. “Cody, hold on. Hold on.”
“What?” Cody turned on his heel, worry flaring in his voice even through the helmet’s filter. “Is it your leg?”
“My leg is fine,” Obi-Wan said, only a tad impatient – his leg may have been a little worse than fine, but that was beside the point right now and it didn’t hurt that much anyway and it was just a little scratch – and so he nodded his head at the sight behind Cody. “Look.”
Cody turned, and – and, oh .
If Obi-Wan had been able to see what his face looked like under the helmet, perhaps he would’ve found it amusing: Cody’s eyes slowly widening until they looked round, skittering from one side of the sky to the other, between and above and below the clouds, his gaze sliding across the belt surrounding the planet. He saw the same things, the same beauty, and it took his breath, too.
That would’ve been, of course, if Obi-Wan himself hadn’t been bewitched by the sight, and if Cody’s fluttering wonder in the Force hadn’t told him enough to put a picture together. Cody’s presence was a special thing as it was, light and beautiful in spite of everything, but this, this, this was so much more wonderful, just a moment of forgetting, of wilful, blissful ignorance of all that was around them, all of it taken away, leaving just him and his curiosity and admiration and that was such a calming feeling to find by his side that Obi-Wan thought he could collapse.
Hating to interrupt the moment but wanting to preserve it nonetheless, Obi-Wan slid his hand down to Cody’s palm, closing his fingers around it and squeezing a little. That, he could allow himself. That, he could give them both.
“Come on,” he said, quietly, afraid of breaking the silence. “Let’s sit down on the side, we’re holding up traffic.”
Cody’s helmet twitched to the side like he’d snapped out of a trance, then turned to look at Obi-Wan. “The mission – “
“Is over,” Obi-Wan cut him off, pulling him gently away until they were at the side of the road by the railing installed on it. They stood on a bridge atop a sandy beach a good dozen meters down, looking out to a large body of water. “We’re out, and no Imperials are targeting this part of the planet anymore. And no one else is at the rendezvous yet. We can spare a click or two.”
Cody let himself be led away with no protest, eyes glued to the horizon, obvious even with the helmet. “Alright.”
Once they got to the edge of the bridge, Obi-Wan lowered himself to the ground and glanced up to look at Cody, blinking expectantly, as he stared out at the sky.
“Take the helmet off,” he suggested, holding out his hands. Cody obeyed without thinking, lifting it off his head and passing it to Obi-Wan, who tucked it under his forearms, leaning on it lightly, deliberately mindful of the visor.
Cody had seen his fair share of clouds in his life. Mostly dark and gray. For a decade, on Kamino. They weren’t that impressive; while he couldn’t say that when he’d seen one, he’d seen them all, but once he’d seen one, he wasn’t exactly interested in seeing another. Shinies joked, sometimes, that the paint design on his chest warded off rain. And he’d certainly had more than enough rain by the time he was five years old.
Maybe that’s why he’d missed – well, this. The light dissipating in all different directions, shining down on him and Obi-Wan and everyone and everything, too much of it and too little at the same time. It was dusk, the light would be gone soon, it was all so temporary - and it was all so irreplaceable. Unrepeatable. Cody didn’t want to tear his eyes away; it would’ve been a regret for the rest of his life. He remembered the threatening skies of Kamino, and compared without thinking. No, if he was forced to spend his life on one or the other, he’d be staring out into this warm sunset for the rest of his life.
Terytis was another wonder in the scene, larger than Cody and life and everything, and blatantly nearly there but covered by the clouds, its rings wide enough to see the layers in them. There were none of the orbital rings in sight – and what a blessing that was, no durasteel, no fuel, only the sky. Only them and the sky.
It was something unable to be captured or caught, an atmosphere possible only to be brought back in memory.
Finally, Cody joined his Jedi. They sat together, their legs hanging off the bridge. No one would’ve been able to tell who they were from just their backs.
Cody pointed at something he wasn’t even sure was there, a speck in the great and puffy surface of the sky, and Obi-Wan leaned closer to him to better follow his glance. Cody grabbed Obi-Wan’s hand. Positioned it right – and when they saw a ship diving through the clouds, they laughed. Cody didn’t let go of Obi-Wan’s hand – but it was not truly intentional.
Obi-Wan marvelled at the sky, at the warmth of Cody’s palm on his, even through the glove, and mediated between looking at his very interested Commander and staring somewhere into the depths of the horizon.
“Quite the sight, wouldn’t you say,” Obi-Wan told him, smiling faintly his way.
“Yeah,” Cody breathed – barely, if Obi-Wan had anything to say about it. “It’s – yeah, it’s… Hm. It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” Obi-Wan agreed, warmly, with only a dimmed sting to his heart. If it was up to him – if it was up to all the Jedi, really, the clones would’ve seen thousands of sunsets and sunrises already without having to worry about being shot dead from behind any second. If it was up to him, Cody could sit here for hours if that was what he wanted, all throughout the night, unbothered and untouched, not chased by anyone, safe.
Instead, they got another war, another duty, mountains of more bodies, and no promises to survive; again . Perhaps they’d die fighting and never get to see a sunrise like this again. Perhaps they’d see all of it through, outlive the Empire; maybe Obi-Wan would take Cody here again, or maybe it’d be the other way around, and they’d watch this unfold, all of it.
Like he’d heard his thoughts, Cody stirred, eyes sharpening from where he had relaxed looking forward. “We should – We should probably go.”
Obi-Wan hummed, staring at Terytis. “Hm. A few minutes more, if you would.”
And it did frustrate Cody to argue, but he had to – no matter how beautiful the sunrise looked, no matter how much he wanted to sit here with Obi-Wan warm by his side and maybe something over their shoulders, and this detested armour as far away from them as possible, as far away and dusting as those rings around the planet, no matter how much he hated it, he had to argue.
“Your leg,” Cody pointed out. Blood had slowly been dripping down Obi-Wan’s calf guard for a while after his injury, but it had stopped, now. Obi-Wan had told him it was numb, a bit ago, meaning to reassure him, but only worrying him further. “You’re still - you know.”
“It’s going to be alright,” Obi-Wan assured, and, at the sceptical quirk of his eyebrow, lifted his leg onto the edge of the ground next to him. Well, at least he could move it. “Just a gash, the blood's left over, don’t be afraid of a few droplets. We’ll get a move on soon enough.”
But, staring at the sky, Cody found that he sort of – didn’t really want to. He didn’t want to move, didn’t even want to look away from the sky, didn’t want to be urged nor hindered. He wanted to watch, he wanted to see the ways the clouds disappeared from the sky and the way night took over all of it.
Obi-Wan was not bleeding anymore, he was saying it was fine, and, for once in his life, Cody wanted nothing else more desperately than to take him at face-value.
“If I end up having to carry you… “ He looked up, shook his head, and focused back on the rings in the horizon, chuckling. “No, actually. You’re right. No point in a lecture.” The sight was too good.
“Delightful news,” Obi-Wan chirped, knocking their shoulders together.
“Maybe you’ll stop grumbling about it once your knees are holding your legs together on two veins and a prayer,” Cody figured, earning an elbow to the side from Obi-Wan.
“I’m not that bad.”
Cody shook his head at Obi-Wan’s scoff, unable to stifle the little smile on his face. “Can it and look at the sky like the rest of us, you.”
Obi-Wan canned it, blessedly, turned his eyes to the sunset, and held onto Cody’s hand like it was the only thing he needed. The clouds passed by, Terytis spun on forth, it was warm, and it was beautiful, and they were beautiful.
It was a lovely evening.