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Cody sat with his back against the shelves, his bucket resting on the ground next to him, his datapad in hand. He felt a little bad for hiding, so he was doing flimsiwork in the dark. The General hadn’t seemed to mind, had understood when Cody had needed to duck off of the bridge, trying to escape both the well wishes for his decanting day and the buzzing of the lights that was trying to permeate his skull. He had even told Cody one of the places he hid when he was ‘overstimulated’. Cody hadn’t had the chance to look up what that meant because it wasn’t work and it was still time for work.
He could occasionally hear people moving in the corridor outside of the supply closet, but as the General had said, no one disturbed him for several hours.
When the door did slide open, it was only Davijaan who stepped in.
“Hey vod.” He said, pulling his bucket off. “Can I sit next to you?”
Cody nodded, setting his datapad to the side, glad to have an excuse to not look at the bright screen anymore. Davijaan sat and knocked their shoulders together.
“Can you believe it’s been almost half a year we’ve been off of Kamino?” He asked, pulling a set of dented metal shot glasses from somewhere. They had been painted with geometric patterns of 212th gold since the last time Cody had seen them and they shone dimly in the light thrown from Cody’s datapad.
“Not really.” Cody said quietly. He took the shot glass Davijaan handed him and they tapped their glasses together and knocked the shots back. The moonshine burned on the way down and Cody coughed into his fist.
“I was told the next batch will have stone peppers in it, one of my pilots has started growing them.” Davijaan said, seeing his shot glass down on the shelf behind them. “Peggy said she’d bring a chaser.”
“Stone peppers would make the ‘shine better,” Cody said, “but it probably wouldn’t agree with Pegasus’s chasers.”
“Probably not, they’re always sweet and fruity.” They fell into silence. Of the three members of the CC-2000 batch inexplicably all assigned to the 212th Davijaan was the least taciturn, but that wasn’t saying much.
The door slid open after an undetermined amount of time, admitting Pegasus. While Cody had been trained alongside Davijaan, their numbers relatively close together, Pegasus had a designation hundreds of units away from them. Cody wondered briefly what CC-2227, his brash and bold sister who had been decommissioned alongside CC-2231, both of them gone for gender deviance and disobeying direct orders, would have thought of the soft spoken softshell that commanded the complement of naval vode assigned to the Negotiator.
He pressed his eyes closed briefly against the swell of grief, hoping his batchmates would think it was just because of the light.
When he opened his eyes again Pegasus was handing Davijaan a jar of bright pink liquid and settling down against the left wall of shelves.
“I also brought glasses. I had. It’s a weird story actually, how I got them. I encountered Senator Organa last time we were on Triple O, and well. It doesn’t really matter actually.” She rustled in her bag and when she pulled the glasses out Davijaan immediately started to cajole her into telling the story.
They were beautiful glasses, not the sort of thing a natborn would just give a vod. They reminded Cody of the delicate wineglasses Senator Amidala had used at the dinner with various Senators that Kenobi and Skywalker had taken Cody and Rex to. Those had been etched with flowers. In contrast, these glasses looked too heavy to have stems, and they were covered in intricate geometric patters that reminded Cody of mountains.
His mind drifted back to their batchmates who hadn’t made it off of Kamino and when Cody zoned back in he had missed most of Pegasus’s story, but she was laughing, they both were, something Cody rarely heard. Their laughter warmed the hard knot of grief in his chest and it made him all the more glad that they had elected to join him in the supply closet when surely their commands would be more than willing to celebrate their decanting day with them.
Then Davijaan was pouring them more shots and Pegasus was pouring out the pink juice and they toasted to those who marched on, those who still marched with them and many other things besides until Cody felt fuzzy around the edges.
Davijaan was peering at the inside of his bottle when the door slid open again and the General peered in.
“Do you mind if I join you for a moment?” Kenobi asked.
“Not at all.” Davijaan said, and Cody and Pegasus echoed their agreement.
Kenobi settled cross legged in front of the door, unslinging a bag from his shoulder.
“It is my understanding that vode like to give one another gifts on their decanting day.” He began, the slide of the zipper grating on Cody’s ears. He slumped sideways against Davi, turning his face away from the offending noise. Perhaps getting slightly tipsy while he was already having a bad day for external input hadn’t been the best idea.
“Sure, but it’s not a big deal. I brought alcohol and Pegasus brought juice and Cody brought us his glorious presence.” Davijaan said, and Pegasus and Cody both groaned at the half-pun.
“Go fuck yourself Odd Ball, that’s not my name.” Cody said into his shoulder, and Pegasus burst into peals of giggles. “Besides, I did bring you gifts.”
“If it’s flimsiwork, I don’t want it.” Davijaan said, pushing Cody back into a more upright position.
“It’s not flimsiwork Davi, that’s not a gift.” Cody said and unlatched two of his belt pouches. he had been carrying them around since he had finished them because he couldn’t have borne it if he had lost them.
Gently he pulled the first of the soft figures out of the pouch it had been living in, a palm-sized pegasus in pink and pale blue and white, with button eyes of 212th gold. The buttons had been the easiest to get ahold of, but only because he hadn’t had to trade outside of the battalion to get them.
Pegasus gasped as Cody handed it to her, turning it over in her hands before pressing it to her cheek.
“I love it, thank you Cody.” She leaned over and pulled him into a hug, heedless of his armour. Cody hugged her back instinctively. Davijaan pressed himself against Cody’s back, reaching around so that he was hugging both of them, Cody squished in between them.
After a long moment Cody wiggled until they let him go.
Deciding what creature to make for Davi had been harder, but he had ultimately chosen the purrgil over the aiwha, both of them animals Cody knew Davijaan had a fondness for as a pilot.
The little stuffed purrgil, more natural colours than Pegasus’s gift, though he had elected for more buttons in 212th gold for the eyes because the only blue he could find to be traded was 501st blue, was received with more hugging.
Kenobi seemed to have slipped out at some point during the gift giving process, but he reappeared as they straightened themselves back out, resettling against their respective shelving units.
“They’re wonderful,” he said as he sat. “Cody was reluctant to show me the finished projects, which I do not begrudge him, but I was curious as to what they were.”
“Do you crochet in meetings with the General?” Davijaan demanded, turning to Cody.
“When else am I supposed to do it?” Cody asked rhetorically “I don’t have that much downtime.”
“That’s fair I suppose.” Davijaan heaved a huge sigh, as though he was terribly put upon by Cody’s answer, and Cody thought he heard the General chuckle.
“They are wonderful.” Pegasus said, ignoring both of them. “Cody is very talented.”
“That he is.” Kenobi agreed and Cody flushed with the praise. “I am afraid I am not very practiced in gift giving, as Jedi typically do not celebrate birth days as they are often called among natborns, largely because many Jedi, especially in the past, had no ties to their brith family and thus would not know the particular day on which they came into the galaxy, but I have brought gifts for you.”
“Do you know when your decanting day is sir?” Cody asked, and he cursed the alcohol for loosening his tongue and letting his curiosity about his General and about the Jedi flow free. Kenobi only smiled.
“I must keep some secrets to myself my dear Cody. I suspect that if it because known when my decanting day is or might be the troops will have a similar response as they have had to knowing yours.”
Cody considered that. The constant well wishes for his decanting day had been a little annoying, especially because they were causing more input, and he wouldn’t want to subject his General to that but: “We can keep a secret sir.”
“I know you can.” Kenobi said. “I will tell you when you are all more sober. In the meantime, I have gifts for the three of you.”
He began to pull objects wrapped in cloth out of the bag. The first was handed to Pegasus.
“I was unsure as to why the Force was calling me towards one of the gifts until I arrived here this evening.” Kenobi said as Pegasus ran her fingers over the fabric. Awe painted her face and Cody could only imagine what it felt like. “Everything I have just handed to you is for you to keep my dear.” Kenobi said gently and Pegasus nodded, carefully unfolding the fabric from what came to resolve itself as a simple wooden box.
The piece of fabric, based on the size likely a blanket, ended up draped across Cody and Davijaan’s laps and Cody buried his hands in it. It was even softer than he could have possibly thought.
“Is it for the glasses?” Pegasus asked as she opened the latch and peered into the box.
“That is its purpose, yes, though you are more than welcome to do whatever you would like with it.” Kenobi said. Pegasus nodded, setting the box down and lifting a drawstring pouch out of it. She upended its contents into her palm and her smile grew even larger.
“They’re so pretty!” She exclaimed and Cody and Davijaan both leaned over to look at the earrings. There were two sets. One was a set of absolutely tiny pegasi that she could wear while on duty now that the Jedi had talked the Senate into letting the softshells have some form of personal expression while on duty. The other were clearly not for duty, they were as collection of brightly coloured feathers that would dangle down to her shoulders when worn. “Thank you so much General Kenobi, may I give you a hug?”
“I would be honoured.” Kenobi said, and Pegasus handed Cody the earrings so that she could pull their General into a hug. Cody studied the earrings, wondering if it was something he would like for himself.
Cody continued to hold the earrings as Pegasus removed the ones she was wearing to replace them with the feathered ones.
As she did that, Kenobi removed another gift from his bag and handed it to Davijaan. It looked to be wrapped in a similar piece of fabric, though this one was a different colour.
Davijaan’s gifts from the General were much like Pegasus’s, utilitarian but beautiful in their simplicity and Cody wondered if that was something particular to their General or if it was a trait of Jedi more generally.
The first, besides the blanket, was a padded leather case that had both a shoulder strap and a belt clip. Davijaan looked delighted and Cody assumed it had to be for his holocamera. The second was a datachip, which made Davijaan scowl playfully and make a quip about flimsiwork as he put into into Cody’s datapad, requisitioned without permission as he had apparently not brought his own, to discover that the ‘chip had been filled with photography resources.
Cody’s gift from Kenobi had been saved for last, and it made him think of the green and blue yarn he had hidden away in his quarters, plans for a gift for Kenobi having surfaced as he was finishing the gifts for his batchmates.
He carefully unwrapped the blanket, spreading it across the other two. He picked up the larger of the two objects, a canvas roll that reminded him of the way surgical implements were stored in the med kits, or wrenches in the tool kits, but neither of those things made sense. He undid the ties and discovered it contained a dozen crochet hooks of varying sizes.
He ran his fingers over them, the metal smooth and cool under his hand.
“Thank you.” Cody said, not looking up at Kenobi. He wasn’t sure what his face or his emotions were doing, and he didn’t want to try to make the appropriate emotion show on his face.
“Of course.” Kenobi laid a hand over Cody’s. When he had gotten close enough to Cody to do that, Cody wasn’t sure. “It was my pleasure to get gifts for you all. Though you will have to forgive me the second thing Cody, the Force was quite insistent.”
Cody picked it up in his free hand and frowned at it for a moment. It was clearly meant to go on a belt, but he wasn’t sure what it was for. Then it dawned on him and he started to laugh.
“This is for a lightsaber,” he said, holding it out towards Kenobi, who was turning pink, “this is for your lightsaber.”
Kenobi nodded, clearly attempting to look solemn and dignified before beginning to laugh himself.
The four of them laughed long and hard, and for a while every time they almost settled back down someone would start to giggle again and it would set them all off. Cody’s ribs hurt by the time he finally began to get ahold of himself, but it was a good ache.
Davijaan, still giggling, gathered all of the shot glasses together, producing the fourth of the set and pouring out the last of the moonshine evenly. Pegasus did the same, and soon they all had shots in hand.
“To the General!” Davijaan announced, raising his glass.
“And to my Commanders!” Kenobi added.
“Cheers!” They chorused, clinking their glasses together.
“Oh that is lovely.” Kenobi said, setting his glass down in the wake of the shot. “They really have out down themselves this time.”
“They have.” Davi agreed. By mutual unspoken agreement they began to gather their things as Kenobi stood and bowed.
“Happy decanting day.” He said, and swept out of the supply closet to a chorus of thank yous.