I Want You. - Oneshot
Summary : Her mild 'attachments' hadn't harmed anyone directly, save for perhaps herself. Looking at the dilapidated incubation columns now, a festering sickness stirred in her gut, dark mauve eyes darting across the array of shattered growth chambers. Shaak Ti was sure she'd seen nothing like the aftermath of the Separatist's sacking of Tipoca City. Or, Plo Koon comforts Shaak Ti after losing thousands of her clone infants.
Characters : Shaak Ti , Plo Koon , infant clones , Commander Wolffe [mentioned]
Pairings : Shaak Ti x Plo Koon
Rated : M
Word Count : 1.7k
Warnings : Gore , blood/violence , infanticide , ambiguous POVs , maternal Shaak Ti , hurt no comfort , heavy angst , war crimes , graphic depictions of corpses , no dialogue
Star Wars Masterlist / Masterlist
A/N : I mainly wrote this little one-shot for a mutual, and to get some practice-in on my writing (hi yes i dropped off the earth for a little ♡ but im coming bck). Going into this, you should know that I love both renditions (TCW 2008, Attack of the Clones 2002) of Shaak Ti's appearance (TFU we are NOT talking about you) so I naturally mashed their appearances together. anyway, enjoy !! comments and reblogs are appreciated ♡♡
Preceding the Clone War, Kamino had once been a mere rumor of word-to-mouth, uncharted on most of the galaxy's interstellar maps. For a short while, mainly after being anointed the rank of Master, there had been a morsel of... not doubt, perhaps uncertainty? For a young knight brought-up on the cusp of another dawning age, it had been murky for a time, and murkier then, when she'd been sent to this planet of vast seas and listless tempests to train an army that had been commissioned and reared in secret.
There had been no shortage of not understanding, at that time.
She did only what she knew, and even though being a Commanding Officer had been a rather foreign concept to herself, Shaak Ti took her role as a General and the Council's Overseer in stride. As such, Ti made a myriad of changes to Tipoca City's commissioned stock; The Clone Army. Copied from the genetic template of a formidable and prominent warrior, they were raised twice as fast as a standard organic, with a litany of behavioral and hormonal tweaks, gratitude of the Kaminoan scientists.
Often was Shaak Ti found in the nursery wing during the latter hours of the rotation when all personnel were either turned in or on a quiet post. Bathed in the cool, azure glow of thousands of identical infants free-floating in their incubation chambers, left to idly wonder under the quiet hums and trills of their numerous readings, a soft symphony that came together as a gentle rumble like the simulation of an expectant mother's heartbeat.
All simulations.
Attachments were forbidden, she would do well to remind herself of that; Someone always came to mind when she'd feel that shift of doubt in herself, again, soothing the troubled thoughts from her skull with a simple glance and deft ease. The mere thought of Plo brought her peace while she was away from Coruscant, and she often found herself drawing upon his memory when that inkling of doubt would return. Like a serpent, it threatened to ensare her mind, threatening constriction on her thoughts.
Her mild 'attachments' hadn't harmed anyone directly, save for perhaps herself.
Looking at the dilapidated incubation columns now, a festering sickness stirred in her gut, dark mauve eyes darting across the array of shattered growth chambers. Shaak Ti was sure she'd seen nothing like the aftermath of the Separatist's sacking of Tipoca City.
Gone was the idle cacophony of the growth chamber's vital readings; The ruined, soul-barren nursery would've been pin-drop-silent, had it not been for at least the six-hundred piercing I.A.S.S. (Infant Alert Safety System) alarms of broken or vacant tubes shrieking to be assessed for the missing vitals of their asset.
Cloned infants, all at varying stages of infancy, had been nothing but collateral damage in the end. Some may argue it had been inevitable, anyway; And perhaps it has been, they were bred and born for a general purpose, but this degree of carnage had rattled something within her. Strewn across the grotesquely crimson-polished white floors, they were either whole, mangled, or in pieces, innocent faces frozen in agony or terror; Being wrenched out of their warm incubation chambers too early, to be shredded by shards of glass before their plummet.
They were no different from their elder brethren; From conception to death, this is all they would ever be.
Shaak loathed the way grief engulfed her upon that revelation, her throat tight as she watched where she placed the toe of her boots. She was sure the ends of her robes had been fringed in their life-blood by now, but Shaak Ti willed herself to press onward, absentmindedly gnawing the inside of her cheek as she craned her head back to the bright, gaping hole over the nursery where the Trident-class ships had mounted the city and pierced the bulkhead. The light of the sun through thick smog left a dull, gray medium blanketing the interior of the nursery, only serving to make the Togrutan Master notice the stark colors of a massacre easier.
Nothing had ever felt so ... bleak before. It was a feat to keep her head right as her eyes cast from the gray, premature bodies littering the floor, to the intact incubation tubes that had still managed to fail with the city's outage. Only more than a few hundred incubation chambers were accounted for being operational, supported only by Tipoca City's secondary generators. The chambers that had failed on the surviving clones had cut off all warmth, nutrients, and oxygen being filtered into the tubes, but the foremost would matter little as soon as their oxygen was compromised. The incubation pods that had been washed in a watery amaranth finish, with the small, dark masses of the stillborn clones buoyant at the top, gave Shaak Ti an idea as to how many more 'intact' clones had died so simply as collateral.
So easily.
Glass skittered across the wet floor behind her. Her montrols picked up a gait that was familiar, but Shaak's senses had branched-out to subconsciously investigate just as she'd noticed. It was like a fresh beam of afternoon warmth at her back, spreading across her shoulders and furling around her dorsal lek until Plo's thoughtful hum from afar reached her montrals. He'd arrived with the Wolfpack for Tipoca City's clean-up, just as she would've guessed; Out of the whole of the Jedi Council, Shaak Ti was plainly sure that Plo held the utmost compassion for the clones -- especially those in his charge. Commander Wolffe would personally vouch.
It took a troubling amount of effort to draw a full breath that rattled on the way in, struggling to fill her chest and expand her belly with it before Shaak's strained sigh came tumbling past her lips, tapering off with a staggered sob as she brought a hand to her mouth. She'd managed to keep herself rigged together until this point, dismissing the clones that stood their deathly-silent vigil at the ruined nursery wing with an inscrutable tone, donning her usual grace with a sure set in her shoulders. That had all but dissolved, now, as she felt Plo reach out to her in the Force.
Like a Nautolan smells an emotion, Plo could sense a glimpse of Shaak Ti's distress from afar, and a whiff of her distress was all he needed to trot over. It was odd, feeling the juxtaposing mix of grief and mounting frustration, blanketed by Plo's yielding warmth as she felt his alluring presence approaching from behind. The idle noise of his mask's mechanisms cleansing the oxygen from his delicate airways wasn't loud at all, in fact, it was rather hard to pick out over the incessant alarms, but Shaak Ti found herself narrowing her senses onto it.
'Tssss.' Plo inhaled, a rumble sounding of disapproval passing through his modulator.
'Phfff.' As he'd exhale, a grainy sigh.
It was as if her montrals had been wrapped, packed, and muffled as she let her eyes slip shut with another trembling breath, dropping her hands to fold them before herself, ceasing her the idle prick of her canines pinching the inside of her lip. In a way similar to a humanoid cupping their palms over their ears, Shaak Ti could now only hear the roar of her own heartbeat in tandem with Plo's rhythmic, pneumatic breaths.
Another pulse would join her's, reverberating within her skull until it worked to drown out the cacophony bouncing around the nursery, washing over her like a smooth current over a rounded stone until she felt a taloned hand gently weigh on her shoulder. Plo didn't shake her, or squeeze her, and likely never even thought of turning her around; No, he was simply there. He could feel her frission of distress prickling through the Force, evening itself out as she found a focal point once more. Plo never even had the inkling to break that focus, especially when he could sense Shaak standing on brittle rime.
Plo's gaze had been drawn to the carnage as he traced Shaak Ti's signature with a lowered head, prowling into the nursery, scanning the slimey-carmine floors, his brows furrowing at the stink of congealing blood, ozone-smoke, and mangled debris. The clones -- cadets and active-duty alike -- had resisted the invasion valiantly, and he would admit to being distracted from the notion of innocent collateral for a spell.
Now, with it right in his face, feeling a gaping vacancy within the room, the high, on-edge energy teeming through the halls. The clones would grieve under cover, in private, as would their Commanding Officers.
Plo's grip softened on Shaak Ti's shoulder, and in response, she turned just slightly, the heavy sway of her lekku swinging with her head as she opened her inky mauve eyes, wreathed by thick lashes of varying black and silver, peaking around the flare of her montrals. He could easily make out the tear-tracks down her alabaster and scarlet cheeks, accumulating like dew on Shaak Ti's bottom lashes. Her lips were tight, not even a twitch in her chin to give away the origins of her tears, which could've easily been swept away with a sleeve, had anyone else approached.
Aside from her cool, almost eerily calm expression, the stars in her eyes held a debilitating weight; Nearly masking it entirely within the force, Plo had been taken aback to see otherwise in Shaak's eyes. Even now, he adored how those deep, dark pools would pull him in, telling him all that troubled her right on it's starry surface.
"Plo," would echo in his mind with her voice as another tear beaded along her waterline, and Plo gently guided Shaak Ti the rest of the way to face around as it fell down the same clean path down her high cheekbone. She'd welcome his capped thumb-pads as he carefully brushed them away with hardly an acknowledging whisper. Everything that needed to be said could be felt with intense ripples through the force, and Plo allowed Shaak Ti the brief reprieve to crumble at his feet now with unbridled, agonized sobs for as long as need-be, holding her together or against himself until they'd inevitably have to dust off, separate, and return to their own duties.
Footnotes : I had fun with this !! I enjoy trying to write-in the mechanisms and innerworkings of the force (though I hardly understand it myself), especially without dialogue. Hope you enjoyed !! comments and reblogs are appreciated ♡♡
