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Sometimes, Kote will look at Rex and suppress a chill, occasionally even do a double take, as his brother looks at him with too many eyes.
The first time Cody notices it, Skywalker is involved which, really, should tell him everything he needs to know.
Cody gets enough gray hairs from Obi-wan. While he and Skywalker work well enough for as often as they need to, with the 212th and 501st being brother-battalions, he’d take the general he had now over Rex’s particular headache any day. Still, he’s glad it’s Skywalker with his vode.
He’s seen the Five Oh-First pull off osik that would age any brother fifty years and still they’d come out grinning, blood through teeth, Skywalker’s blue blade glinting in the reflection of their buckets. The fact that Cody has personally witnessed Rex laughing in his general’s face while Skywalker merely smirked back is just another mark in his favor. A jetii you can laugh with is a good sign in his book.
Every battalion is different, one of a kind – the product of an ever-changing slew of soldiers as brother after brother ships in and dies out and of course, there are also the idiosyncrasies of whichever jetii leads them. The 501st is no exception to this rule and, as with the other battalions lucky enough to have some form of leadership stability, their actions and decisions, from favored strategies to signature starfighter spins, are emblematic of their general. Skywalker is bold, fearless, imaginative: stubborn, reckless, ten screws loose of a full kit. The man has a knack for surviving situations that would mean death for anyone else and he’s deeply, unfailingly loyal. His men match him step for step.
These are things Cody knows and things he’s thankful for every day because whatever Skywalker’s reputation, the 501st routinely ranks as one of the battalions with the lowest casualty rate in the GAR. Considering that they're also regularly assigned to especially high-profile missions, the statistics are more baffling and relieving for it.
Crazy as Skywalker is, whatever he’s doing clearly works.
But, back to why this matters now.
Two nights ago, the Seppies clipped Cody’s general in the shoulder and thigh, bad enough to keep him locked away in the Negotiator’s med-bay, though not entirely removed from monitoring the movements of the front (to both Cody and Skywalker’s consternation). It’s the reason why the 212th and 501st are fighting with only one jedi between them and feeling that loss keenly. They’ve been stuck behind these trenches for nearly two weeks, their combined forces free-bleeding for every bit of gained ground against the seemingly ceaseless sea of battle droids and droidekas. Neither Cody or Rex has slept in forty-eight hours, not since Obi-wan first went down and they scrambled, reassessing their strategies to account for one less general, and by the occasional glance Rex shoots Skywalker, he’s certain the other man is no better off.
He'd bet the next good meal from the mess hall that Skywalker's doing much worse.
Cody isn’t force-sensitive by any means (not for lack of trying certainly, since proximity to Skywalker and Kenobi’s antics has taught him force-sensitivity would make putting them both down for sorely needed bedrest much easier), but he doesn’t need to be to have a healthy respect for Skywalker’s clear prowess. The jedi’s abilities often yield nothing short of pure dominance on the field, offering an easy comfortability with dodging and kicking in the air as slashing and spinning on the ground, and Cody has lost count of the amount of times Anakin has pulled a trooper out of the path of a blaster since the start of the day’s battle. Skywalker’s ability with the Force is more than Yoda’s, if rumors are to be believed, which means he's normally capable of more immediately absurd things than Obi-Wan – pulling off truly breathtaking feats of power and violence.
If he thinks about it, and somehow he finds the time in between covering his vode’s ass and trying not to die himself, Cody’s pretty sure every instance he’s seen Skywalker thoroughly exhausted after a battle was because of physical damage rather than what Obi-Wan had once explained as ‘Force exhaustion.’
So, when the moment comes, the first moment (what he later recalls as the First Incident), it’s preceded by the sight of a damaged vulture droid dropping into a suicide run towards their trenches.
By now, there is little distinction from a trench dug by the Two-Twelfth and the Five-Oh; both battalions had blended over each other half an hour into their gunfight. Cody is barely one meter from Rex, who is two meters from his general, and it doesn’t matter so much that they can cover each other with relative ease whenever a droid breaks their line, because that same proximity means when that starfighter makes inevitable landfall, the Open Circle Fleet of the GAR will simultaneously lose three of their most experienced fighters, not to mention countless members of Cody and Rex’s vode.
The vulture droid is closing fast; it’s all Cody can do to raise his voice with Rex’s in a bid for someone – anyone – to shoot it down. Succeed and they’ll inevitably fall victim to a hail of shrapnel and fire, but both are survivable with some effort. Fail and the alternative is certain death.
Cody has seen Skywalker crush a droid tank like it’s nothing more than flimsiplast. He has seen him fall from forty meters and land with the same grace as an unrumpled tooka. But a starfighter –
A starfighter is several tons designed to kill, to destroy lives and topple regimes, and kriffing fast. It cuts a wound in the sky with fire on its wings (the absence of accompanying cannon blasts is as much an explanation as it is a mercy) and Cody has maybe three seconds to consider his various regrets before his world whites out. With this, surrounded by his brothers, buried to his knees in bodies and metal and mud, he will have earned his namesake for the thousandth time.
But.
But.
A jedi drops his lightsaber.
Skywalker pushes out both hands, gloved flesh and metal. Focuses.
Anakin halts the end of the world.
Cody doesn’t see white. What he sees instead is a flaming vulture droid floating nose-down a scant meter from the mud of their trenches. He sees Anakin Skywalker throwing his arms outward as several tons rip asunder, away from their battalions and away from his brothers.
What follows is red.
Red from Anakin’s ears, his nose, his mouth. Seeping out, slowly but surely, coupled with a distinct glassiness in the general’s eyes that hadn’t been there prior.
The jedi drops.
Two nearby clones jump to catch him.
And Cody-
Cody-
Rex.
Cody watches Rex freeze for all of one second, two, and suddenly what Cody sees makes little sense at all. Even less sense than Skywalker stopping what felt like a hurtling star at the apex of its path.
Rex’s helmet shimmers with a thousand-thousand eyes, a dozen arms and claws where his guns should be, and he’s blurry around his edges, like a predator from another world superimposed over a holo of Torrent Company’s captain, of Cody’s brother. He rises from their trench without a backward glance, not so much dancing out of the way of the concentrated blaster-fire as veering left, right, up, down with promised death haunting his steps. His movements are economic – efficient and clearly filled with menacing purpose.
Cody knows his brother is good. He’s personally witnessed Rex’s skill enough times to worry for him the least whenever they’re in a fight.
But the way he moves.
It’s not any way Cody is familiar with at all.
Rex with his thousand eyes avoids fire like he’s got a 360֯ view of the battlefield and nails shots on targets that are too far to guarantee success. His aim is faultless, precise. Cody’s brother is a one-man devastator who breaks the separatist line in under two minutes.
Catching on quickly, the 212th and 501st – save for a group of heavily-armed medics with steel in their eyes guarding Skywalker’s body – follow behind the captain in decimating the droids’ defense. Cody breathes hard, limbs heavy with sustained exertion, but he shakes off his stupor and doesn’t linger. Every few footsteps, he passes by droids with vicious gouges across their chestplates, mechanical bodies sparking around wounds that would otherwise ooze thick blood if they were organic. Cody keeps his eyes on Rex-who-isn’t-Rex, with his dozen arms and long, razor-sharp claws. He sets aside his hundred questions and stays ready to provide cover his brother doesn’t need.
Rex-who-isn’t-Rex keeps one shimmering eye locked on Skywalker’s position the entire time.
Around them, the members of Torrent don’t react differently and later, Ghost Company will write off what they saw as the delusion of too-hot battle blood and exhaustion. Not Cody – Cody hasn’t survived for as long as he has by doubting his instincts.
Battered but not altogether beaten, the 212th and the 501st Battalions claim victory in their two-week war of attrition with an unconscious jetii strung across Rex’s back, three medics following close by. Cody says nothing in the silence.
To Kote, this is the first time he sees his vod become something more than his meagre skin and sinew.
The truth of the matter is: this isn’t the first time Rex has done it.
A month passes with the 212th and the 501st on opposite ends of the galaxy, Cody and Obi-Wan chasing Grievous while Rex and Anakin transport refugees, liberate villages, and litter the stars with Separatist remains.
The second time Cody witnesses the phenomenon that is Rex-who-isn’t-Rex, Skywalker is nowhere to be seen and all of Rex’s focus is on Cody.
Separated from their jedi on a mission to reclaim the hijacked venator-class Ajax, Cody and Rex make slow headway in their journey towards the bridge. Initially accompanied by five other vode, their numbers have dwindled down to only the two of them. Obi-wan had disappeared a few levels prior, chasing an injured Grievous, and Rex’s general was outside with Gold Squadron keeping most of the clankers’ attention thoroughly engaged. For all intents and purposes, Cody and Rex are alone on a burning star destroyer overrun by droids.
One of their commlinks pings incessantly in the empty hallway, and Cody chances a glance down at his arm to confirm while Rex keeps his blasters trained at their front and back.
“Cody, this is Skywalker, do you read?”
“Loud and clear, sir. What can we do for you,” he replies, a mix of wired and weary but ever by-the-book.
“You can start by telling me how you boys are. My captain still alive, commander?”
“Fine, general, but you should know it’s just Rex and I left. Cycle, Mis, Karboy, Kefi, and Delight are gone and we’ve lost sight of General Kenobi. Evidently, Grievous was onboard, but Rex and I aren’t that far from the bridge and we’re certain we can still capture it, sir.”
A half-second of silence passes as Skywalker presumably weighs the loss and their chances. “Knowing Master, he’ll probably meet you there but, commander, if it gets any dicier, you comm me immediately, alright? It’s not so bad out here that the men can’t spare me for a few minutes. The plan’s already shot to hell, anyway.”
Privately, Cody doesn’t really agree. He and Rex know what they signed up for. Both of them accepted the implications of failure. Better a clone commander and captain than their many brothers fighting outside, or two jedi in case the ship blows before they can retake it.
Skywalker interjects his thoughts, voice hard and brokering no room for disagreement. “That’s an order, Cody.”
“Affirmative, general. Cody out.”
“Oya, commander.” The commlink goes dead.
Cody almost runs into the wall and barely stops himself in time before eyeing Rex from his periphery. He adjusts his grip on his blaster.
“You teach him Mando’a, vod?”
Rex scoffs, “I claim no credit. He taught himself, picked it up two weeks to the start of the war, after he heard some brothers gossiping in the mess.” He shoots downs two patrol droids rounding the corner and weighs his next words carefully. “He’s more than welcome to it, ori’vod.”
Cody feels the initial tightness in his gut relax.
They make it to the bridge and take it with little fuss, with Grievous gone the remaining droids offer little resistance, especially as distracted as they are with coordinating the Ajax’s guns with the nearby Separatist star destroyer. He’s finishing off the last droid when he gets the wind punched out of him a moment later as a droideka rolls into the bridge from the corridor and nails him with two blasterbolts to the belly. Rex dives forward and beneath it, bypassing its shield and making quick work of disabling it with his guns while Cody slumps against the one of the control chairs.
He checks himself over as his brother closes the door to the bridge, disabling the access panel and sprinting back, Cody breathing shakily against the feeling of melted plastoid on cauterized skin. With some luck, he’ll live but getting up is another matter entirely and Rex – he doesn’t like the thought of his brother defending the bridge by himself, already counting the scant few minutes they have until a droid squad arrives to try and take it back. Rex comes to stand beside him, attention split on the door and Cody’s abdomen. His vod’s helmet peers down at the injury.
Cody shivers against a sudden chill, hairs on the back of his neck standing up as the jaig eyes on Rex’s helmet seem to wink one at a time, slow and otherworldly.
He comms Skywalker through the shock. “General, minor setback.”
Anakin’s reply is immediate even as Cody makes out the sound of Artoo’s high-pitched beeping in the background. “How bad?”
“I’m down but we’ve taken the bridge and it’s secure for now. Should also mention we still haven’t seen General Kenobi again, sir.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine, but I don’t like the thought of you two alone up there. I’m heading for the nearest access hatch.” Skywalker’s voice turns faint for a moment, the muffled pitch characteristic of sudden distance between him and his comm as he turns back and yells, “Chart me that path now, Artoo!”
Kamino had branded the anatomy of war beneath Cody’s flesh, but it had been every skirmish, every ambush, every setback, and every siege since that had seared battle into his bones and bled him dry of hesitation. There was simply no room for it, not when a hundred brothers could lose their lives from one second of uncertainty. Kamino was where he had earned Kote, a secret kept only by those worthy, by aliit, while the rest of galaxy remains distant and clueless. The Republic can have Clone Marshal Commander CC-2224. He gives his acquaintances, his friends, Cody. But family deserves Kote and Kote will never do them the dishonor of anything less.
Kote has no reservations about living past this war. He knows his duty like he knows the GAR can’t afford to lose the Ajax – not fresh from the production line with its new guns and better medical facilities – and he knows that dying here, as long as he can make it mean something, would be far from the worst way to go. This would be a worthy death.
He chances a glance at Rex, spine stiff like hammered steel with his guns steady and unnaturally still. The longer the silence goes on, the more Rex’s body seems to blur, all smokey edges and the barely audible sound of feathers ruffling in agitation even though there is nothing so soft on either of them.
“Commander, I’m docked two levels below and going up. Is Rex still with you?”
Rex. Kote’s stubborn little brother. The worst and best of them all in one. “We’re both here, sir.”
“Good, that’s good. Give me fifty seconds, you two.”
It hasn’t even been ten seconds when the low hiss of a laser-cutter sounds from behind the door to the bridge. The metal sparks in angry reds and oranges as a circle builds its circumference, so different from the blue of their generals’ sabers when they’re similarly caught and have to use their weapons to open a blocked path.
Cody shields his burn behind the plastoid armor of his arm and gets his gun up from beside him, only to have most of his view blocked by Rex’s legs.
“Vod’ika,” he warns, testily. Cody understands the sentiment well-enough; currently, Rex is the most able-bodied between the both of them. He’s the one with two guns and who doesn’t have to take shallow breaths or periodically clench his jaw from the pain of charred flesh stretching and tensing against each slight movement. It’s smart of him to cover Cody.
Doesn’t mean he likes it.
Annoying little brothers and their logic.
Cody leans just enough around him to get his sight clear and switches his blaster to his left hand. Rex is silent above him, back tense with that tried-and-true, battle-tested readiness, as the clankers finish cutting a circle around the door. The metal collapses inwards instantly and three droidekas roll forwards, flanked by eight battle droids. Both parties start shooting immediately and, almost too-late, Cody realizes neither of them has moved to get better cover since he first fell down.
Small mercies for the droids’ poor aim as Rex downs five of the battle droids and Cody picks off the remaining three.
The droidekas are a problem, though. Cody nearly throws himself forward, calling out in surprise as Rex makes to repeat his takedown from earlier, but his cry cuts off at the sight of another body mirroring his vod’s maneuver. A bright blue lightsaber decapitates two of the droidekas with swift, smooth slashes and catlike grace. Rex lurches onto his knees as both men spin towards one another, twin blasters pointed squarely between Skywalker’s cornflower blue eyes.
The bridge is silent as none of them dare to breathe - the corridor just as quiet, free of any oncoming droids. Cody’s peripheral vision processes a mess of parts in the hallway, the sparking remnants of Skywalker’s destructive path to get to them, but it captures such an infinitesimal portion of his attention that he pays it little heed. Somehow, an irrational part of him – the part that’s all instinct but none of the reason to back it up – tells him someone is going to come to irreparable harm if he averts his gaze. He can’t explain it, can’t spare the braincells to examine this thought or how true it is in the moment, but he thinks of a month prior.
Of Rex from the trenches with his thousand eyes and claws and preternatural sense, cutting across a muddy, metal-streaked battleground, and simultaneously, he thinks of Rex from earlier – his careful stillness not unalike a loth-wolf about to pounce, all coiled muscle and suppressed strength, and Rex’s bucket with its winking jaig, cloudy borders where there should’ve been familiar, human edges and the simple sigh of his breath beneath the willful settling of invisible feathers and the leather of wide wings.
Kote has feared for his vod many times, but he has never been afraid of him.
Idly, he thinks of how he hadn’t been the only one awarded before shipping out from the closest planet they could call home. Rex had earned honor at Kamino, too. Hard won after the mass sacrifice at Geonosis, and he bore the evidence of it on his bucket every single day.
Jai’galaar’la sur’haii’se.
Like the shriek-hawks of Mandalore. Storied and peerless predators.
In this moment, he is as afraid of Rex as he is afraid for Skywalker.
The thought cracks through him as sharp as lightning: if Skywalker dies, Rex will be decommissioned. Cody – Kote won’t be able to delete the bridge footage in time and Obi-wan – Kenobi, he corrects himself, because they will be dealing with the general and the jetii not the friend – will be here soon.
Where there is Skywalker, Kenobi will soon follow.
Kenobi trusts Cody and vice versa, but he will never forgive Cody for this. He will not be merciful. Not if Skywalker dies. Even the Jedi have limits.
And clones were born to serve.
Blessedly, Rex hasn’t pulled either of his triggers yet but nor has he lowered his blasters, body locked in a crouch and clearly promising violence on his jetii. It’s lucky that Kenobi hasn’t come barreling through the doorway yet because Kenobi isn’t blind. Rex is poised for treason.
Kote doesn’t know what to do. Kote – Glory, how can glory be helpful right now – doesn’t even want to risk breathing in case it sets Rex off.
Rex who is wrong and hazy like fog all throughout now, blurriness no longer kept at his figure’s edges.
“Captain,” Skywalker starts, low and gentle. “It’s just me, captain. It’s Anakin.” He’s so still and, belatedly, Kote realizes Skywalker’s saber has been powered down since he finished the droidekas and before Rex could fix his guns in a point-blank killshot. “You protected your ori’vod, captain. He’s alive, he’s safe.”
Rex doesn’t shift, doesn’t relax, doesn’t let up and yet Skywalker seems to notice something Kote doesn’t. Maybe it’s the distance, maybe it’s through the Force, but the general lowers his weight onto his calves and clips his saber to his belt. Kote’s brother hasn’t moved beyond a miniscule correction, blasters fixed on the center of Skywalker’s forehead; the jedi apparently doesn’t take this as the threat that Kote does. He also doesn’t seem to be sharing Kote’s visual experience regarding Rex’s disturbing appearance and general air of disquiet.
“Rex,” Skywalker whispers. Little more than a minute has passed since he first dove into the bridge with them. “Rex,” he repeats himself, just as quiet but matter-of-fact now where it was imploring earlier. “Stand down, captain.”
Rex drops. Both Skywalker and Kote lurch forwards as if to catch him, the former managing it much more successfully with their close proximity.
“Anakin,” he gasps out.
Skywalker – no, it’s Anakin right now, trusted and friend – bears his vod’s weight, Rex’s helmet bouncing off his shoulder with the sudden catch before settling there.
“You’re alright, I’ve got you. I’ve got you both.”
Rex’s arms hang limply around his sides, blasters still in hand, but fingers off the triggers now. Something like ten long seconds pass in silence, all three men seemingly taken to voicelessness, before Rex eases out of Anakin’s hold.
There’s a language that develops between a jedi and their clones, sometimes in innocuous turns of phrase, sometimes in the huff of a breath or a dropped shoulder, and it is no different for Rex and his jetii. Kote is left to merely witness and remember.
They rise together.
Anakin keeps his body open towards his captain, back pointedly turned against the hallway and vulnerable – although he never really is, not with his sense of the Force, not with Rex right beside him – and meets Cody’s gaze through his helmet. Anakin breathes out and Skywalker takes his place. Rex straightens up, his body so much more solid than before, the jaig eyes on his bucket completely unmoving. They walk towards him as one, an unspoken agreement between them as Rex slips Cody’s arm over his shoulder and lifts while Anakin unclips his saber and glides sideways to cover them from the door.
“Scale of zero to ten, ten being about to pass out, how’s the pain, commander?”
“Four, sir.”
Rex taps his shoulder once and Skywalker lifts a dark eyebrow.
“Seven, then,” he cedes.
“Hm, well hopefully Yularen and the men are almost done outside, and we can get you taken care of.” Skywalker pats at his robes with one hand. “Don’t think I have any bandages on me but maybe bacta,“ he falls silent abruptly, eyes narrowing before they roll in exasperation. “Oh, now he gets here.”
Obi-wan bounds into the bridge, barely ruffled. “Anakin, what are you doing here?” He takes a moment to process the sight of them, jogging over. “Are you alright, Cody?”
His heads-up-display lights up as the force of an explosion rattles the ship around them, the separatist star destroyer breaking into fiery pieces through the bridge’s viewport. Cody replies to his general while Skywalker accepts the beeping of an incoming comm.
“General Skywalker, this is Admiral Yularen. Aside from any battle droids left on the Ajax and the remaining vulture droids being swiftly disposed of by your Gold Squadron, I do believe the mission is a success. We’ll be sending a platoon shortly to help you secure the ship.”
Skywalker smirks pleasantly at their gathered group. “Very good, admiral. Please send Kix over with the first wave, Commander Cody needs medical assistance.”
“Will do, sir. Admiral out.”
By the time Kix arrives, Cody is sitting in a command chair with a bacta patch placed carefully atop his raw skin. Skywalker and Kenobi banter near the makeshift doorway, guarding carefully for all that they’re trading catty barbs about Grievous escaping and ‘What plan? The plan went to kark two minutes into the assault, Master, honestly.’ This time around, Rex is the one with nothing to say.
It keeps happening.
Rex sheds the skin and limitations of his clone body with the well-acquainted repetition of replacing armor that has done its job and outlived its use.
The Two-Twelfth and Five Oh-First share the next half dozen missions and Cody watches Rex become something more at least ten times on the battlefield. He slips again, twice, when Skywalker gets taken and then when Skywalker crashes yet another starfighter, precariously close to death even more than usual. At some point, he and Rex are discussing strategy while walking through the Negotiator when Rex tilts his head and a hundred eyes open along his face. He’s not wearing his helmet this time and they open on exposed skin, blinking intermittently – more than a few trained on Cody – before Rex shakes his head and they disperse, the skin of his vod’s cheeks, forehead, and neck once again smooth and undisturbed. Cody almost says something right there, but Rex doesn’t halt his stride and simply goes on like all is well.
Cody… Cody might be losing his mind.
Maybe.
Just a little bit.
He starts noticing other things too.
The way Jesse takes to pacing in preparation for a mission or battle, height the same regulation as every non-mutated clone but all disproportionately long limbs, lean and loping in his stride like a vornskr on the hunt. He’s the same brand of off Rex gets to being at times, only Cody never hears feathers or sees extra eyes; he sees Jesse’s shadow move once, completely out of sync with the trooper himself, swinging and twisting like a prehensile tail and snapping back into form after a moment. Jesse smiles into one of Echo’s jokes right before putting on his bucket, and Cody swears he sees inordinately sharp canines.
The Domino Twins are less pronounced, subtler in their peculiarity though, because the effect is compounded two times over, perhaps the strangeness evens out. They walk the length of the Resolute’s hangar in one uninterrupted stride, matching hand to foot, and breathing as one entity. Cody has to stop looking at them head-on. They don’t quite manage the aura of a starving predator the way Rex or Jesse do, but they’re unsettling enough in their own right.
Cody never visits the Resolute’s sick bay if he can help it. The less that’s said about it the better.
He debates approaching one of the Five Oh’s shinies. Ghost Company is little help, all of them eager to write off what they each believe is battlefield hallucination – it happens less when both battalions are simply relaxing together, no blasterfire in sight, and Cody has to believe this is by design – and no other battalion spends as much time with the Five Oh-First as his does, so asking them is out. The 501st’s shinies are his only option, but they’re so new, so fresh, shiny for a reason and he can’t even begin to think what he’ll sound like. Maybe they’ll think he’s joking or that he’s losing it, Clone Marshall Cody finally as crazy as the jettise around him; one outcome is much worse than the other, though neither will yield much useful cooperation, regardless.
Cody strikes asking the shinies from mind.
After a while, despite it being counterproductive to what he’s learned in order to survive on the front, he starts genuinely questioning his own sanity. No one else seems to balk at the troopers of the 501st the way he does. No one else seems to notice their… oddities, least of all their own jetii. In fact, Skywalker almost seems normal by comparison. No one else reacts like Cody does.
Not until Skywalker’s padawan.
Ahsoka Tano flinches the first time she sees Rex clean his guns like a shriek-hawk picking its teeth with its claws. Ahsoka Tano stumbles out of the Resolute’s sick bay looking green in the face for all that her natural skin tone is closer to orange. Ahsoka Tano laughs with the Twins, but she doesn’t look them in the eye, always just to the left.
Cody releases a sigh.
Okay. Okay.
It’s not just him, then. Very well. He can work with this.
“Rex’ika?”
“Yeah, Kote?”
“..Is it still you when you’re,” he gestures vaguely and asks – once and only once – when Rex is propped up against a destroyed droid tank after a battle. “Do I need to be concerned?”
He skirts around it, doesn’t call it what it is exactly, because he has no words for this. Doubts that even Rex does.
“No, you don’t need to be concerned, ori’vod.”
Rex answers what he can answer and Kote accepts, always accepts. Neither speaks on Kote’s first question, how it cannot be spoken for. Cody accepts this part of his brother as seriously as he accepted Kote and tucks his aliit’s secrets in the same space as the promise in his own name, quiet and private and safe.