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Senator Amidala was one of the nicest Senators to guard. She always greeted her shadows for the day with a smile, allowed them to sit if they were alone or with good company in her office, and she provided them with all sorts of strange snacks to try. She did all this despite her countless arguments as to that she could provide her own bodyguards (who were as equally pretty and scary as she was), and certainly had no issue in protecting herself (there was a blaster disguised as a bookend along the far wall, and that didn’t include whatever firepower and multitude of knives she was packing under the many folds of her dress). But the Chancellor cajoled her (to little effect) and General Skywalker (who was certainly not involved with the Senator) pleaded (with much more success), and so Amidala had a rotation of Guard while she was present in the Rotunda.
Rys liked Amidala duty, especially when there’s a surprise assassination attempt or a random building explodes and he gets front row seats to the utter chaos of beautifully scary ladies wielding blasters and knives with vicious efficiency and make him feel as if he was actually doing something worthwhile with his life instead of wallowing on Coruscant. His partner, Jek, usually spent the time pinpointing all the hidden weapons (which were on rotation, apparently), and staring down other Senators through his bucket like a shriekhawk eyeing prey. Jek appreciated the availability of weapons, but Rys knew he- like every other Guard- wanted to be out in the field and actually fighting, but he tolerated Amidala duty because at least it was her and not Senator whats-her-face who always looked like someone farted directly onto her face whenever she saw one of the Guard marching by.
(Several months later he’ll get his first actual taste of the front lines while working under General Yoda and decide that he preferred Amidala duty over dealing with cryptic green Jedi. At least Amidala couldn’t do sixteen backflips and act as if gravity wasn’t a feature. Jek, however, would be granted a transfer to the Ranger Corps).
Today they got to sit on the obnoxiously plush couch in Amidala’s office, Jek lounging with an arm thrown over the back but from the tilt of his bucket Rys knew he was still very much alert and watching the movement of the speeders outside the windows. Amidala was off in a side room for one of her totally-not-secret-holokisses with General Skywalker. Her scary and pretty lady guards were out of sight (but Rys didn’t doubt for a second that they wouldn’t materialize out of thin air at a moment’s notice).
Rys eyed the large bookshelf, filled with trinkets and holobooks. The bookend blaster was still there, now joined with a ceremonial knife that certainly wasn’t sharp, of course not.
Bored out of his mind, Rys started to scan the books, lazily imagining their contents by their titles alone. The title of one made him pause, tilting his head sideways to help him parse out the script along its spine.
“Flowers can talk?” he questioned out loud. A titter of a laugh startled him so badly he’d nearly leapt off the couch entirely, not realizing Amidala had finished long distance kissing her Jedi lover and was back in the main space of the office.
He could feel Jek’s judgmental ‘really?’ boring into the side of his head.
“Not in that way.” Amidala breezed over to the bookshelf, thumbing the book in question. It was so old it wasn’t even a holobook, fancy in its leather bindings and flimsi pages with gold lettering. “Back in the day, flower arrangements were used to send secret messages. Sometimes it was as simple as tying a bloom to someone’s door handle, or dozens of flowers in a bouquet. Servants used to make arrangements outside of foreign dignitaries’ doors to tell each other who was trustworthy and who weren’t, and the Queen would wear crowns weaved of fresh blossoms to convey her sincerity in her duties.” She sighed, a soft smile on her face as she plucked the book from the shelf and ran her fingers over the cover. “Nowadays it’s considered old fashioned. It’s all about what matches the dress and the room colors now.”
The book was suddenly held out just within reach, Amidala’s face kind.
“I have another copy in my apartments. You may keep this one if you’d like.”
Rys stared.
Jek kicked him none too subtly in the ankle.
“Thank you, Senator,” Rys stammered out, accepting the book with the carefulness as if it were made of glass instead of leather and flimsi.
The book ended up in the common space of the Guard’s headquarters, devoted to its one singular shelf that it was placed back upon after every use. It was filled to the brim with colorful drawings and detailed meanings of singular flowers and when paired up with corresponding others. There were flowers from Naboo and Alderaan, from Corellia and a dozen others. Some flowers had overlapping meanings, others were unique all on their own.
And to a group of clones who craved individuality but had no means to express it openly upon their armor like the rest of their brothers in the GAR, the idea took root as fast as the mildew in the fresher stalls.
Thorn was the first to slide up to Etch with a request, and to this day the tattoo of the Stormflowers on his lower back had yet to be completed in how much detail the Commander wanted out of it. Fiercely Reliant, the deep blues and electric white petals stated boldly for the Guard to see whenever they were in the communal showers, blooming from thin, thorny vines reaching out from the eye socket of the skull and damp with delicate raindrops. It was a masterpiece, the others had agreed, and it would be magnificent once it was complete.
One by one the others followed suit, perhaps not as detailed or massive as Thorn’s, but none the less beautiful at Etch’s hand. Loyalty Above All, stated Hound’s singular purple Iwao blossom, its petals curled at the corners and tucked just high enough on the interior of his forearm for his blacks to cover it if he ever had to remove his gauntlets. Thire hopped on the extravagant train alongside Thorn and had an entire sleeve marked up with Passion For Life in bright Peli’s Lace scarlet and Focus On Me! in the ombre blues of the Giant Theedwhistle that signified his ability to only focus on one task at a time. Stone hadn’t decided on one yet, but there was no missing him looking over other people’s shoulders to examine the flowers depicted with the same intensity of dismantling a bomb and Prim told Thire that Stone had earmarked a page for the Forever Watchful Owl’s Eyes- mostly because the flower looked as if each petal had an eye on it and Stone would never admit that he liked how it looked more than what it meant.
Rys got just the outline of two crossed stems on his ankle- Dangerous with Healer’s Mourner and Alderaanian Tealily for Boredom In Absence as a constant warning to his brothers that he was dangerous when bored. He bullied Jek until the man caved and got Assassin’s Kisses in neat, tiny little blooms in a line around his collarbone to state quite baldly that he was Armed and Dangerous.
It wasn’t as bad as Potshot’s thorny blood-red and deep violet Sweetwater Rose on his thigh that declared him an Enemy of the State, which caused that wrinkle between Fox’s brow to crease drastically as he closed his eyes and sighed at the declaration of treason under his very nose. He put Potshot on front desk duty for a month, much to the man’s chagrin (it was a well-known fact that Potshot hated desk duty, but then again Potshot hated everything, so maybe the symbolism of the flower wasn’t too farfetched).
Unknown to everyone but Fox and Etch, the Coruscant Guard’s stoic, silent medic quietly went to Etch soon after, sitting for the full twelve hours it took to complete the outline of the medic’s entire spine and the tiny, climbing vines of thorns and small, delicate, feather-like flowers that started out white before bleeding into red at the tips of their miniscule, dainty petals.
(Penance, the Climbing Ashthorn decreed, and only Hacksaw knew the full extent of what it meant).
For the longest time, Fox made no motion or comment of ever getting a tattoo like the others. But one day he did- although no one knew about it until the rare chance of one of the other CCs catching a glimpse while Fox was getting dressed in the shared Commanders’ bunk (because Etch may be a mouthy bastard, but mum was the word when it came to keeping secrets if asked). This one wasn’t in the book- a weed that was native to Coruscant and continued to exist in the lowest of levels and in the cracks of concrete while every other plant perished under the urban sprawl, bound and determined to grow. In Spite of Everything, I Thrive, the Poorman’s Remedy shouted from Fox’s hip, hidden unless he was stripped bare of his even his blacks.
It became a tradition, along with the saving of the paint until a shiny’s first month was survived. They couldn’t individualize their armor out of necessity, their paint uniform and precise. But a tattoo was more permanent than hair dye or piercings, paint on the armor of their flesh than the armor of their plastoid. And so they went to Etch and their personhood was painted into their skin. They studied the book like regulations, learning how to read their brothers as they mark their skin and rolling flowers into their words during ops where code was needed. They spoke in a secret language only the Guard understood, safe from strangers, set apart from the GAR’s hand signs and the spotty Mando’a.
The Coruscant Guard were isolated from their brothers, developing their own micro culture and language. They thrived like the Poorman’s Remedy, in spite of the harsh treatment of most of the Senate, the long hours and painful firefights with criminals and the ignorant comments of their peers. They may look seamless together in their impersonal armor, but they had to only look past the armor to see the flowers growing between the cracks, to see the individuality and life that were the Coruscant Guard.
They only had to look down at the insignificant weed growing in the sidewalk between their feet and see beyond its descriptor.