#battlebirth

he appears strained and distraught when he coughs up his vague explanation, gesturing down to the blood smeared over his bare palms. obvious statement aside, kida scrambles to locate the source of the bleeding, forcibly holds him steady (and nearby, so rex doesn't go running off elsewhere), and soon locates the bleeding cut on his forearm, wide and gash-like. maybe he thinks he can just appear on atlantis after a few years away, act like nothing happened, and carry on like the soldier he no longer is... but kida, frantic, anxious to see him and speak to him, refuses to let rex go far. tugging him away from view and into a nestled-off spot surrounded by large trees and tropical plants, she sits the clone trooper down on a rock and drops to her haunches in front of him. her skirts brush the stone ground, and her body balances carefully as she leans in. "give me your hand." they will talk of the past once he stops bleeding. kida will ask about the republic's fall, and wonder how the clone is here, alive, safe from the empire's clutches. once his wound is healed, she'll fill his head with desperate questions and worry over him and his safety. until then, he must sit, obey, and stay still.

ginger hands push his clothes back from the wound. he's not in armor anymore (or if he is, the piece on this arm is gone, revealing the deep gash that bleeds and drips down to the stone below). without words, kida tugs her crystal off her neck, pulls it up over her hair, and holds it like a pen between her fingers. her eyes glow as she finds rex's gaze. she is steady. "wait." a single word. it will sting a bit when the crystal grazes his skin, but it will be worth it in the end. she ignores the blood. she stares at her old friend, forlorn, heart squeezed in her chest. "hold still."

one touch, and the cut shines. kida shoves her hand atop the wound, palm searing into his arm, and, when she lets go, the glowing mark of her fingers fades in seconds. the blood is gone. the wound is, too.

"don't let skywalker hear you say that." the tiny smile on her lips vanishes at the next wave of blasterfire, arra's saber shining brightly across her face as she deflects each attack. at her side stands bultar swan, a dear friend, a fellow jedi, and one of the only people in the galaxy that arra truly feels understands her. there's a certain type of bond that forms in deep grief and painful war, the kind that pervades even the more innocent of dynamics. trauma connects. war both rips through remnants of happiness and glues the broken pieces back together. it's funny. the longer arra fights alongside bultar, the more she understands the jedi's purpose. they aren't meant to form attachments, but bultar is, without a shadow of a doubt, a very close friend.