Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

As always, I continue to hope that I am doing justice to the spirit of Star Wars as well the respective authors and characters from which I borrow. Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

Mandalorian (Mando'a) words

Ner vod (nair-vohd): "my brother/sister"; colloquially also "my friend"

Buy'ce (BOO-chay, BOO-shay): helmet; Colloquially: pint, bucket

Ika (EE-kah): diminutive suffix written as 'ika - also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form, e.g, Ord'ika - Little Ordo

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Chapter 14

I can see how women grow smitten around these clones. They are honor-bound men, whose sole purpose is to the duty of the Republic. There's something poetic in that, and for whatever reason, many women are attracted to poetic fantasies. Of course, there is also some likely truth to the saying about a man looking dapper in an armored uniform.

Gan Pohin, training sergeant to Crimson Squad, discussing the rumors of the clones in other squads developing relations with women

Tochin Moon III, 784 Days ABG

Mouse stood to Arlesse's left while Jas took her right. The quiet commando kept his attention looking out around them, prepared to drop the princess into Jas' grasp in case he needed to grab his Deece.

Jas had put his arm around the princess' waist to try and take some of the weight off her, but he found it a little bit uncomfortable with the odd angle he had to use to hold her. He still had some trouble adjusting to her tiny frame.

Suddenly, Mouse raised his arm in the halt position, and his Deece was steadied in his hands. He trained his visor on something, and his body movements went extremely still.

Arlesse looked around them concerned that there was another nest of snakes or something worse, but the dizziness quickly made her close her eyes again. 

Jas scanned his eyes into the forestry, concerned that if he took his arm from her, she would fall onto the ground. 

Arlesse swallowed hard, trying to fight against the hypnic buzz that filled her head, and she feared distracting Mouse, as she was certain he was tracking something.

"Carnivorous flightless avian. Fang-bird approximately forty feet away at my eleven o'clock," Mouse explained softly, reading out loud the facts on his HUD. "If it caught the scent of her blood..." Mouse trailed off for a moment, deciding not to explain that part while he continued accessing the database in his HUD. "The fang-bird doesn't fly, but it runs, and the damn thing feeds a family of six."

"What's the plan?" Jas asked.

"I'm hungry and want a real supper," Mouse grumbled as though it was obvious.

Jas knew better than to ask if Mouse could make a clean kill on it, but his brother's shooting skills weren't his concern. Instead, he replied, "Both of us can't leave her."

"Good, you stay," Mouse answered, he began slowly and silently moving into the underbrush of the forest. "I want meat."

Jas sighed quietly knowing that Gath was not going to be happy about Mouse splitting off from them. 

Besides that, Jas calculated that the rocks were still a good half-dozen yards away, and he couldn't bear the thought of twisting his height down to the princess any longer, especially not while trying to carry his kit and weaponry, and especially not while she was on the verge of falling over.

Opting for a different tactic, Jas brought the princess in his arms, holding her with his one arm supporting her legs and the other arm around her shoulders. He carried her the last remaining yards towards the rocks that Gath had indicated.

Arlesse brought one of her arms around Jas' armored neck, trying to keep her head from spinning and trying to keep her balance. His actions had suddenly confused her between surprise that he had done such a bold move and admiration that he had lifted her so easily.

"I made a mess of things, didn't I?" she asked gently. "We were moving just fine until.."

"None of us knew the nest was there," he answered with an interruption to her concerns. He didn't want her to take the blame for a creature that they should have been more careful about detecting. "It's our fault for our lack of observation, not yours."

"But you can't watch every last creature in these forests," she tried to reason.

"And neither can you," he replied quickly. "So we call it a draw."

She decided not to argue this soldier's logic, not that she could have thought of anything else convincing with which to protest. She had just proved with Dusty a few minutes ago that she was not quick-tongued, and it frustrated her that she could never develop clever comebacks.

Suddenly, though, Arlesse found that her thoughts had strayed elsewhere and complaints shut themselves down. Being so close to the soldier's helmet, she began studying the blue visor and the curves of the faceplate. 

She could see little scratches and dents in the helmets' armor, and she briefly wondered how the helmet had acquired them. Her eyes drifted down to a large mark of carbon coring on his chest plate and her free hand moved to touch it. 

As her fingers grazed the blemish, she felt herself being gently lowered onto one of the boulders.

Jas carefully placed the princess onto the large rock. He was aware of her staring strangely at his armor as though trying to understand the damage that it covered. 

He saw her fingers move toward one of the marks his armor had received in the firefight prior to rescuing her, and he wondered for a moment if he should mention the dangers that they undertook to get her safely away from the Separatist base.

Instead of talking about their battle, however, he took his kit off his back explaining, "There should be something in the med-kit to clean and close the bite to your leg."

Arlesse looked to Jas' gloved hands wondering how he could do any kind of intricate things with them on. She watched him open the backpack and pull out a small, rolled package. 

Despite the gloves on his hands, he unrolled the pack with no effort, and Arlesse saw that the medical roll contained some basic first aid necessities as well as a few syringes, some stitching line, a few needles, a wad of bacta gauze, and a couple of medical tools that she found she didn't want to think about how they were used.

Looking at the medical equipment made Arlesse realize that there was the potential of his hands being upon her, gloved or not, and it left her with nervousness that didn't feel entirely wrong. 

Clinically, she knew he would only be trying to alleviate her injury. However, it was the thoughts of her imagination that were biting into her logic.

Forcing her eyes away from the medical kit and the Republic soldier for a moment, Arlesse pushed any further thoughts ridiculous fantasy thoughts from her mind and blamed the snakebite on them. 

Since she was fourteen years old, she had her heart set on Duke Caspan Cruee, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who seemed chiseled from a sculpture of what a perfect sovereign should look like.

However, as soon as Arlesse thought about Caspan, she suddenly wondered why she needed to defend her allurement to the duke. He never took the initiative to acknowledge her or her infatuations, and it had broken her heart every time he looked at another woman instead of her. 

In those rare moments when Caspan did look upon Arlesse, it was always in respect for her position as the princess of Tochin—never a potential companion.

While Arlesse silently struggled with her thoughts, Jas took off his helmet and set it next to him on the boulder, knowing that wearing it at this moment wouldn't do him any good. It had night vision, enhanced visuals, and enhanced audio, but it didn't have any kind of body scanning devices.

 Besides, sometimes he just preferred his own eyes, and sometimes he just liked to be free of the HUD visuals that were constantly in motion. He found removing the helmet occasionally helped to give his eyes and thoughts a rest.

Arlesse looked to this soldier as he finished setting up the medical kit, studying his dark hair and deep brown eyes. He was so different from the men she had been exposed to her entire life. 

In her father's court, everyone always held themselves with an air of power and poise. Those men did their best to make a show of their appearances, seeming to display how power came only from within but from a high level of care on the outside as well. 

Jas, however, was a man humility, doing a duty he had been trained to do: he followed orders and did not command them. His appearance was one of a young man who could be deadly and innocent.

The thin shadow of stubble that started to set on his cheeks made him momentarily seem older than he should be, yet his eyes remained childlike and young. Jas was a contradiction that Arlesse wasn't entirely sure she understood but had begun to find fascinating.

Aside from her fascinations, Arlesse found there was something appealing about this soldier. She realized that his dark features were not without their own charm and attraction. 

His appearance was just different from what Arlesse had been accustomed to seeing her entire life, and she knew that Jas deserved much more respect than the silly fantasies of a sheltered girl.

Jas confirmed that he had everything accessible from the med-kit that he might need, and he kept his buy'ce close by with the volume loud enough so that he could hear his brothers over the speakers if they needed him. He had laid his gloves beside the helmet, just in case, they would have been more restraining than helpful.

"Les'ika," he said nervously, "I need you to..." Shab, he thought, as he realized she was going to have to raise her skirts so he could see her leg. He wondered if there was an appropriate way to ask her to lift her clothing, but nothing came to mind.

Arlesse took a deep breath as Jas' voice abruptly broke her thoughts, the deep sound of it interlaced with that unusual and exotic accent that she was certain she would never forget. She realized for a moment that she had grown quite fond of that accent and that his voice alone could seep right into her. 

It was almost like he knew that she was thinking about him in a capacity that wasn't acceptable, and he knew that his accent would wake her from her petty and childish daydreaming.

For a moment, Jas thought he had insulted her when she took in a sudden intake of breath. However, he watched her hands move toward the edge of her skirt to lift it away from the injury, and he thought that maybe she was as nervous about his question as he was.

Jas decided to kneel next to her, as it seemed more appropriate than being before her. He looked down at her legs and saw that they were covered with a pair of plain leggings that she wore beneath her dress. 

He felt instantly relieved at the extra layer of undergarments because he wouldn't have the helmet to hide his roaming eyes this time if they decided to be sinful again, and he didn't want a slap across the face if his moved of their own volition to places he had no business viewing.

"Les'ika," Jas said softly. "Would you...?"

Arlesse leaned forward and realized that she had forgotten about her pantaloons. She slipped her fingers under the material near her shin and pulled it farther toward her knee.

 While doing so, she was vaguely aware that her face was inches of this soldier, and she could see more scoring marks along his wrist gauntlets as well as his torso plate. She briefly wondered why she never noticed the battle damage on him before when it was so glaringly obvious.

Jas looked down to the exposed leg and then brought his eyes to the princess, forcing himself to stay focused on the task of healing her injury. "We'll start with some bacta spray. It will kill any infections and help the bite heal faster."

Arlesse shifted her gaze down to her wounded leg. There were four large holes on the side of her leg and blood was smeared all over her calf. She moved that material of her pantaloons and saw more blood in addition to the identical holes in the cloth.

Jas reached for the bacta spray bottle. He gave it a quick shake to make sure it hadn't settled when he was aware that her small hand touched upon his wrist gauntlet, and the gentle pressure was enough to stop him dead. 

Jas was confused, as didn't understand the strange feelings that started to emerge, and why he noticed them so clearly all of a sudden. 

He knew that she was the mission objective, the reason they were assigned to Tochin, and thinking of her in any beyond that could be dangerous to both the mission and her. 

But, how exactly was he thinking of her? That was what he still couldn't figure out or understand.

Trying to shake his overwhelming thoughts away, Jas began to think it was his lack of female interaction, and that he should have been taught more about women. 

Unfortunately, the Kaminoans failed to have foresight in their creation and planning of the clones to think that Jas and his brothers would need lessons on females. 

Crimson Squad, like so many of the other clone troops, was only created for one reason: to fight a war. Female social interaction was never part of the training plan.

Arlesse felt her heart pounding in her chest and didn't understand why. Certainly, a motion that was simply as touching Jas in such a manner could not be the sole cause for her strange reaction. 

None of the male suitors of her father's court had ever made her so nervous, not even the young men whose affections she tried to attract. And, not even Caspan for all her infatuations with him had ever been able to make her feel quite breathless.

"Is something wrong?" Jas asked, aware that the longer her touch stayed on him, the more it felt like she was burning him through his armor.

"What if you need to be that instead?" she replied, forcing herself to breathe so that she could talk.

Jas looked to the little bottle in his hand and then to her small hand upon him. He decided the bacta spray was easier to comprehend. "We can't risk you getting an infection. It would potentially end this mission a lot sooner than any of us had planned, and I think your ability to walk right now is our priority. We can't continue unless you can."

Arlesse took her hand away abruptly and nodded absently. She heard Jas open the top to the bottle and felt the cold as he sprayed the bacta over her bite marks.

Jas then pulled out a small packet that contained gauze prepared with a gentle cleanser. He touched the small gauze to her leg, attempting to swab away the smears of blood that had streaked over her skin.

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