Watching
his General grumble about Ventress and her kriffing lioness form as
he took care of R2 while
sitting on the stamped down ground cross legged in front of it,
Rex glanced between the Jedi as a stray thought hit him.

The
two had been weird ever since they returned from Coruscant. Rex had
to admit and the battle seemed to somehow have relaxed them weirdly
enough but it made Rex curious about something he had noticed.

Turning
to the older Jedi, watching as Obi-Wan continued slowly sipping his
tea while reading from his pad from his position on a crate as a
chair, Rex decided that he was the safer bet to ask as
the more knowledgeable and the one least likely to take offense if
the question was somehow bad.
“General Kenobi, there’s something I’m curious about,” He
paused, waiting for the man to rest his pad in his lap and give the
captain his full attention. “Ventress changes her form quite often
and the battles… are quite fierce to be frank. However Count Dooku
has never shifted and all the notices on him says he ‘can’t’
shift. May I ask…” He hesitated, watching how Obi-Wan’s face
went from politely curious to a blank mask.

He
could see from the corner of his eyes that Anakin was wholly focused
on his droid now, scrubbing away with the polishing cloth on
clean metal without a word or grumble
as Obi-Wan seemed to debate despite his blank face.

Several
troopers were clearly curious but also very quiet now, considering
this was an out of the normal reaction and the fire crackled and
popped in the silence.

Holding
out under the eyes of the other until Obi-Wan
smiled,
Rex breathed out internally that he hadn’t
asked an offensive question.

“You’re
quite right Rex,”
General Obi-Wan
took
a sip of his tea and
set it aside on the crate.
“All Force sensitive are able to shift though some with more or
lesser ability and
duration on the forms,
however, the reason why Dooku never shifts…” There was a pause,
something in the General’s face twitching and General Skywalker
stopped pretending to be polishing the astromech. “…He’s a true
Sith, Sith break the connection between the Force balance that’s
required to be able to shift you see. They renounce the Force in a
manner that’s wholly and inherently wrong as
they turn their back on it to
use
it instead of working with
it.
Jedi can
do that too if we take it wholly in the opposite end of the scale but
most of us manage to find a middle ground where we are still light
but aware of the dark that exist in the galaxy and
it being natural to any sentient being.”
He smiled a bit.

There
was a deep snort, Anakin resting his arms on the dome of R2’s head
as he peered at everyone over it. “See, animals are just that,
animals. There’s no right or wrong, good or bad, justice
or evil.
But there is light and there is dark, there
is night and there is day, there is life and there is death,
there is survival and there is comfort as an animal sees it,” He
explained, sounding a bit bored. “For an animal, comfort is the
mates it has, the safety, the food and the territory. If an animal is
safe and is fed, it is generally pretty satisfied. But sometimes
that includes murdering others to keep that territory safe or to
feed… and we can’t call that bad or good, we can call it light or
dark yes but never evil or good. It’s
all survival, death and life in a constant cycle and balance.”
Anakin explained slowly, wrinkling his nose.

Frowning
a bit, Rex scratched at his neck as
he tried to absorb the reasoning as to why Dooku couldn’t out of
that frankly complicated explanation. Really, what did life and death
have to do with Dooku not being able to shift?

Cody
sat down on a crate next to his general. “So in a way they are…
severing a connection?” He asked curiously.

Nodding,
Obi-Wan hummed. “Just so, true Sith has to give up on that
connection that brings balance, that allows them to connect to the
wild and there are some deeper discussions on the cosmic Force
abou-aahh…” He trailed off as Cody frowned at him in confusion.
“Sufficient to say, the Force gives us the ability to shift but
Sith, true Sith turn their back on the connection that gives us that
in favor of dark magic, of
subjugating those around them to their
whims.
You can however be dark and yet still be able to shift, there is just
an inherent hold in the Balance of the Force that the Sith give up on
and embrace not only the dark but the pain too, the severing of a
soul.” He explained a bit sheepishly.

“So
Dooku can’t
change.” Rex mused on that.

The
two Jedi traded hurried looks.

“…He
could try
but the creature he could potentially become…” Obi-Wan hesitated
and Anakin went back to scrubbing R2. “He’d become something
monstrous without the guarantee of turning back.” Obi-Wan trailed
off.

Rex,
despite sitting so close to the fire, felt an ominous cold along his
back.