I'm no Jedi (ahsoka_tano) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-01-26 01:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, ahsoka tano, leia organa |
Let me help you.
Who: Ahsoka and Leia
What: First meetings… as Ahsoka deals with her demons
When: 26 January
Where: Leia’s place
Warnings: Temporary dismemberment, rebels and TCW spoilers? lol
Status: Log | Complete
Ahsoka hadn’t wanted to go out into the fog. Not after what she’d felt two days ago. But she needed water, and something to eat. Her stomach was growling. Even so, two feet into the fog and nothing seemed to look right. Trees were twisted and dead looking, and buildings looked like the rotting skeletons of giants.
Everywhere around her she felt the Dark Side pressing in, the Force screaming at her. And though it was long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, she could still feel the echoes of dying Jedi. Ten feet, or maybe ten thousand, and she thought she was being followed. Familiar footsteps.
She whirled, sabers igniting in her hands. It wasn’t one of those monsters she’d killed before. This was a monster of a different sort. “..Anakin?”
His face was distorted and twisted, and she felt regret and guilt well up in her stomach. “I don’t want to fight you. I want to help you. Let me help you.” She backed up, and Anakin disappeared in the fog.
“God, god damn.”
She was alone again, but that was when she felt it. The cold. That was when she heard it. The breathing. This time, Ahsoka turned and ran. But as fast as she could, as hard as she ran, the coldness followed. Heavy foot steps at the edge of her hearing and that damned breathing sending shivers up her spine.
A voice, deep and foreboding, rang out in front of her. “I never thought you had it in you to run, Snips.”
Ahsoka backed up again as an imposing figure stepped out of the fog. Shrouded in black, with a mask that was twisted and deformed into something demonic, Darth Vader advanced towards his former apprentice, lit by red light. But then his voice...his voice was Anakin’s. “From me. From the Jedi.”
His strike was quick and powerful, and Ahsoka struggled to defend herself as Vader pushed her back. She’d fought some of the most powerful sith, but none of them could compare to Anakin. A red beam cut through her stomach and she stumbled to her knees, crying out in pain.
“You deserve this,” He told her, lifting his saber. Ahsoka scrambled back, leaving her right leg behind as the red lightsaber cut through her again. “I never wanted you. I never needed you. I hated you.”
Crawling, panicked, she spotted a door. Anakin’s voice followed her. “Die with honor, Ahsoka.”
She crawled up, and pounded on the door while trying to open it. “Let me in! Let me in! Please!!”
Leia was well aware that something was going on. She wasn’t stupid and while her parents seemed to think that it was just a dense fog, she knew there was more to it. And not just because she saw people freaking out about it on the network, not just because it was interfering with technology. No. It was a feeling that she couldn’t quite place.
At the moment, she was in the living room, book in hand. Her mother had managed to get to a conference so it was just her and Bail at the moment. Even the bodyguards were off doing their own thing. In theory. Leia wasn’t completely sure. She did her best to live her own life, to use her privilege for good.
Or there could be someone pounding on the door begging to be let in.
“What the…” Jumping up, the twenty-four year old dropped her book and went to investigate, opening the door, Ahsoka tumbling in. “Are you okay?!” She wasn’t really paying attention to much else. Just that someone was freaking out and needed her help. A quick look to the fog to see if she was followed was given as she helped Ahsoka in, but Leia saw nothing.
“Lelila, what’s going on?”
Looking up to see Bail, she shook her head.
“Someone’s hurt. It’s okay, I’ve got it under control.” She hoped.
Ahsoka clung to Leia for a moment. As soon as she'd been pulled inside, the fear had lessened and the dark side was no longer pressing all around her. Anakin's voice faded with one last threat, and when she looked at her leg, it was intact. Though blood stained her pants leg and her shirt, she was completely unharmed. She looked up into the woman's face. For just a moment she thought she was looking at Padme.
But that was impossible. Padme was dead.
And then she heard Bail's voice and did a double take. That too was impossible. Shouldn't it be? The last time she'd seen Bail had been in her dreams, as the rebellion was heating up... "You know, I don't even know what's going on right now but there's something really screwed up about that fog."
“Do I need to call for help?” Even though this woman was a stranger, it wouldn’t be like Bail to leave her to the streets, especially with the current weather. Still, something told Leia that it was better to keep her dad out of it, so she shook her head.
“No, I’ve got it. Really. Go back to your speech.” Once it seemed that he was satisfied that Leia had it under control, Bail returned to his study as Leia turned her attention back to Ahsoka, noticing how she seemed stunned by.. something.
“Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It was the only way to describe how Ahsoka seemed to react to her. Or Bail’s voice. It was hard to tell given Leia’s attention had been diverted by her father. Even so, she helped the younger woman in and closed the door.
“Yeah, I’ve definitely got that feeling from the fog. What were you doing out there?” Getting Ahsoka to a chair, Leia sighed as she pressed her lips together in thought. There was blood on clothing. “First, do you need water or something? Medical attention?”
That was Bail. That was Bail. Ahsoka’s heart ached for a thousand things that had gone wrong, but she looked at Leia, and chewed her lip. She knew, of course. Even if she hadn’t seen the movies she had finally looked some things up. “I uhm…” She shook her head, checking herself over. “I seem to be in a lot better shape than I thought I was.”
She checked her watch, rubbing her thumb over it, and she seemed to flicker between a normal girl and..something else. “But I could use some water, thank you. I’m Ahsoka Tano.”
“That’s a relief.” Even if Leia wasn’t quite sure she believed that, and her expression showed just that. She was fairly certain there was more to it than Ahsoka was telling her, but it wasn’t like they knew one another enough for her to push in this. Though as she seemed to flicker between normal and...alien, her eyes narrowed some. Something was definitely up.
And a sense of recognition but Leia pushed that to the side for the moment as there were more pressing matters at hand.
“I’ll go get that for you, Ahsoka. I’m Leia.” With a slight smile, she stood up to head to the kitchen, trying to make sense of what was going on.
"Nice to meet you, Pr-Leia." Ahsoka got to her feet, staring at the door for a long moment before following Leia. "And I'm really sorry to impose. I can't really explain what happened without sounding like a lunatic."
Strange fog, the force, jedi and sith. Yeah. She'd sound rightfully crazy. And if her glamour failed, she’d look crazy too.
“It’s no imposition at all. You needed help and I can help.” Shrugging, Leia filled the glass in hand with water before handing it to Ahsoka. Given how strange everything was, the fog and comments, the lingering images of dreams? She was doing her best to just… go with it. Panicking and denying really wouldn’t do her much good at the moment.
“My guess is it has something to do with that network?” It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. People discussed dreams like they were real and things that were happening while the official reports covered it up. She might not have answers or know the specifics, but piecing it back to the network? Not so hard.
Ahsoka’s hands weren’t shaking as much as they were earlier, but she still held the glass tightly as she sipped from it. And of course Leia would be smart and insightful. She couldn’t have expected any less. And if she was a dreamer, well there would be one way to tell. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but Ahsoka hadn’t always been the most subtle jedi.
She removed her watch and stuffed it in her pocket, her glamor fading until she was her orange self. “Probably.”
Well, there was no outward panic or freaking out on Leia’s part. While both brows rose some as Ahsoka suddenly dropped her glamour, that was it. She hadn’t been certain but she had noticed the flickering and just something in the back of her mind. Images from a book? Travelling? Leia couldn’t place it, but there was some form of recognition, small though it currently was.
“I’m guessing things like this happen a lot then.” She had noticed strange occurrences in the area, but there had always been some story to explain it away. Sometimes stories repeated like pathogens in the air or hallucinogens in the water supply, climate change. Because even if she wasn’t the princess and senator that she would come to dream of, Leia had always been a pragmatist and would look at the facts.
"You're taking this well." Ahsoka tried to sound flippant, but there was an alien in Leia's house and a creepy fog with force visions outside and she'd honestly be taking this a lot worse in Leia's place. "Unfortunately, you're right." She looked towards the window, half expecting to see Darth Vader peering in. But there was just the fog. She felt that guilt again. "Something about this felt a little personal, though..."
“If you want me to panic and scream, I can…” But it wasn’t like it would do any good. There of course was the concern that Bail would decide he wanted coffee but they would deal with that if it happened. “I can’t quite explain it, it just...doesn’t seem strange.” And that was all there was to it in Leia’s mind. Especially right now. There were more pressing matters at hand than an actual alien sitting with her.
“Personal? How so?” Because really, all Leia got from the fog was a really bad feeling and like there was something in it that she could never see. She hadn’t been attacked or anything like that. Just a feeling of unease. One that had roots in her past, of memories that were more feelings than images.
Deciding to not tell Leia yet that she had more than a passing familiarity to Bail Organa, Ahsoka sipped her water. It gave her time to think about what to say. “There’s something out there. I hesitate to call them monsters but they kind of are. And there was something else. I’d say it wasn’t real, just a product of guilt and insecurities and the dark side, except…” she gestured at the pant leg that was cut in half, and where she’d been slashed on her stomach. “I would have told you I’d lost a leg until I came inside and my leg was fine.”
“So. Magic is something I get to look forward to accepting as reality then. Fascinating.” Okay so she wasn’t really fascinating. As well as she was handling things, that didn’t mean she also wasn’t rather...annoyed? No, not annoyed. But she wasn’t necessarily excited either. Especially with what Ahsoka had mentioned.
“Well that certainly does sound personal and explains why it makes me so uneasy.” Not that she really had guilt or insecurities. Maybe guilt that she didn’t remember more of her life before being adopted and it was associated with fear and anger, the fact she couldn’t quite place what was missing. But nothing enough to manifest itself. “But it sounds like, beyond the feeling of ill ease, the effects are strictly within the fog.”
“Magic is one word for it.” And there was probably another reason that Leia felt so uneasy. But it was probably a little too soon for ‘there’s this thing called the force and you have it and you father had it and someone needs to train you and that someone is me’.
“That’s what it seems to be. The only reason I went out was because I’d ran out of food.” It took a lot to scare Ahsoka. The fog seemed to have figured out exactly what did. “I wonder what this coverup will be.”
It was a good thing Ahsoka didn’t go straight into talk about the Force. There really was a limit to how much Leia could take and that would probably be it. No. Better to let her deal with everything she was at least coming to terms with already and wait until things were a bit less hectic to go into that.
“That makes sense.” Leia couldn’t think of much reason she would go out in the fog right now. Only if she needed to. And well, food was a necessity. It wasn’t as if there were a weather forecast they could use as a gauge for such things (as if weather forecasts were ever accurate). “Well, according to my parents, it’s being reported as just an extremely dense fog.”
At some point, Ahsoka knew she and Anakin were going to have to talk, and that that talk would probably involve lightsabers if it went bad and that it probably wouldn't turn out good for her. She also knew she couldn't allow him to influence Leia, at least not if his path was unalterable.
At the very least, she could cultivate a friendship - Ahsoka wanted more friends.
"That's not a lie. And to most people that's what it will be. Whatever causes this fog and things like it, most of the county can't... sense or see what's wrong." She finished her water, setting the glass on the counter. "Does it feel strange to you at all? Beyond the obvious, I mean."
“Which explains why you don’t have special forces here investigating it.” Because really, if the general public and politicians were aware of what was actually happening in the area? Well, there would be a field of scientists and military to try and contain the situation. That was apparently impossible to contain and only remained secret because most people were just unaware. Easier to believe a lie that was familiar than to accept the strange.
Leia sort of wished she could do that if only because it made studying very difficult if she was going to have to be aware and worried about these sorts of things. But she also wasn’t the type who could just sit back and accept things as they were.
“It does. I can’t place it, it just makes me extremely uneasy.” But that could be for any number of reasons. “I don’t know how to explain it though.”
"There's a reason for that." Ahsoka only knew a little about it. An Agency that responded to threats and otherwise kept things under wraps to keep the government from deciding that turning a bunch of them into science projects would be a good idea.
"It's like a feeling, isn't it? Some people are more sensitive to it, in different ways." It was a round about way of telling Leia she was special, but also in a way that Leia could dismiss it as related to the strange occurrences.
“Unsurprising.” Leia had spent her whole life around politics and the like. So the fact some type of government agency could control the message? More than slightly believable.
“Yeah….” Part of Leia wanted to ask how Ahsoka had known what she meant though the younger woman clearly was more used to the peculiarities of the area than Leia was. Perhaps that was how everyone felt when aware. Just like how people claimed to be psychic or able to sense spirits. New age types.
She wondered if Leia had dreamed, and considered how to ask her. But she didn’t want things to be awkward, especially if she was stuck here until the fog lifted. She wouldn’t stay if they didn’t want her, but she didn’t want to go back out there if she could help it. “You’re on the valarnet, aren’t you?”
“Hmm?” Having gotten distracted by her thoughts and trying to make sense of what was going on, Leia blinked and looked to Ahsoka as she asked her about being on the network. “Oh. Yes. I haven’t posted beyond the first time but I do still read it.” Poe had been right. It was a bit addicting. But also, there was something about it that she couldn’t quite place.
“What do you think about it? A lot of people start to experience weird things after posting on it.” Ahsoka didn’t believe it was a coincidence. The Force worked it’s ways and it brought people together who might have otherwise not met.
“I have no idea. It’s very…. colourful.” That was definitely one way to describe it. But here she was, talking with an alien and not as freaked out as she should be about it. Able to feel something wrong with the fog and able to tell that there was something in it when her parents and their various employees saw nothing but fog.
“Honestly, it makes it easier to explain things to people.” She gestured to her lekku. “Usually only people who frequent that network can see me like this. I use my watch to avoid awkward questions most of the time. It’s like… a hologram.” Which was a bald faced lie but ‘magic’ wasn’t something she thought she could talk about.
Leia nodded slowly. “I suppose that makes sense.” Both in that the network made things easier to explain, and also that it was usually people who were on the network who saw Ahsoka as she currently was. Leia certainly could appreciate wanting to avoid awkward questions.
She wondered if there was some way to warn Leia about dreams. Like she should have warned Anakin. Maybe she could have helped Anakin before things got bad. But she didn’t know entirely where Leia’s dreams would lead. She smiled, a little quirk of her lips. “You’ve got a good head screwed on.”
“Well thank you. I’m sure there are those who would disagree with that assessment though.” The comment was said with an amused tone, though. She was pretty sure the Anakin she had basically grown up with would beg to differ and say she was insane because he was usually the one ensuring she didn’t get herself arrested in protests or rallies. But he meant well. And Leia did make sure to try and get all the information she could. “I suppose it helps growing up the way I did.”
“How did you grow up?” Ahsoka flushed orange. She quickly added, “Uhm. I mean if you wanna talk about it. Probably more interesting than my childhood.”
She was willing to talk about it, but she wanted to know more about the princess.
Well, she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to talk about it. After all, if they were going to wait out the fog, they might as well get to know one another.
“My father’s a UN Ambassador, so we travelled a lot. Politics, different countries. It puts things into perspective.” Even behind gilded walls, the travelling and staying in different countries was just one way to show that everyone was different, that things couldn’t always be taken at face value. Especially as Bail had also instilled a sense of humility, of making sure to get out and into the local areas, to really know about where they were staying. “He always made sure that we knew where we were instead of hiding behind familiarity. To really see what was happening and know that everyone is different and not to fear it. To not take anything for granted” It was a good upbringing. It left Leia with no real sense of home with all the travelling though. It was why for her, home was people not a single location.
“What about you?”
That was actually really awesome. Ahsoka grinned as she listened to Leia tell her about it. It sounded so much like Bail that her heart ached again. "That was really good of him. It's so easy to believe what you see on tv and you never really get the full story. Or even half the story."
She took a seat at the kitchen table. "I never knew my parents. I was adopted by a Buddhist. Practically grew up in the culture like that. But eventually it felt like I didn't really... belong. Not like he does."
And that had been a feeling that had started long before she'd started to dream. "But he never pressured me or anything. He left it up to me and let me read up on other faiths."
Leia nodded. “It really is.” It was easy to see it in how people responded or the things they said and believed. Sometimes she just really wanted to shake them all for being so complicit but she knew that would do no good. It was why she was so active in rallies and protests, of getting out there and trying to do something.
As Ahsoka spoke, Leia listened. She could understand that. The not knowing her parents, or not feeling like she belonged. She knew she belonged in a sense, but the fact was… she also knew she was adopted and that there was something missing.
“That’s good of him. I was adopted as well…. I don’t remember much of my life before, just feelings. Fear. But the feeling that something is missing? Of not really belonging…” It was with her. But she moved past it. She loved her parents, they were her home even if she sometimes wondered. “I don’t mind it though, it’s just part of life.”
Leia would make a good Jedi, Ahsoka thought. That was both a good and a bad thing, considering her opinion on Jedi was at a permanent low. But it hadn’t all been bad and certain tenants were still good to live by. “Are you going to go into politics?”
“I’m not sure. My interests are in human rights. So I’ve been considering the UN Human Rights Council or perhaps the International Criminal Court.” Which dealt more with things like genocide and state crimes. Less with politics. But she was politically minded, had her goals. And well, she was getting her PhD in political science. But if she wanted to get into politics themselves, run for senate or whatever? That Leia hadn’t decided.
“That...would be a valuable use of your time,” Ahsoka agreed. And she liked that idea better than politics, considering how easily democracy failed in her dreams and how easily the rights of sentients could be abused. Even under the best of circumstances.
Part of Leia could see why it would beneficial, in theory, to be involved in politics as it meant she could try and change things from the inside out but Leia also knew that didn’t necessarily mean those changes would stay in place. Politics were fickle. And she wanted to do something good. Which was why she was leaning more towards the UNHRC or the ICC. “What about you? Have you decided what you want to do?”
It was also difficult to enact change upstream, against an inevitable tide that could drown even the most idealistic and optimistic politician. Even someone like Leia could find themselves compromising their values just to get even a modicum of their agenda through.
“I’m still taking the basic classes. Getting all the general stuff out of the way. I haven’t really figured out what I want to do with my life. Kind of pathetic, huh?” In truth she felt lost and adrift. There was no rebellion to build here, no war to fight.
There was always that concern as well. What was the price for progress? What lines had to be crossed for the greater good? Was there a hard line? Politics was a dirty game and anyone who said those involved weren’t playing it were either naive, or lying. No. She would rather find other ways to enact change. She just found politics interesting and could use it for her work.
“I wouldn’t say it’s pathetic. If you’re getting the general stuff out of the way, that allows you a chance to focus on the rest once you figure it out. I’m just one of those weirdos who have always had an idea on what they want to do. But you see people like that also falter if they realise maybe what they always thought they wanted isn’t the case after all.”
She’d seen people she had gotten her undergraduate with in that situation. So convinced at the age of eighteen what they wanted and then at twenty realise they didn’t and suddenly lose their sense of self.
Ahsoka nodded. She’d spent so much of her childhood trying to emulate her foster father that she hadn’t put as much thought into what to do as an adult. It was a problem, but honestly she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t be trying to help people. “Right now, I do technical support. For the internet. And it’s not what I want to do with my life. I want to help people. But not like that.”
Leia nodded thoughtfully. “Helping people is very admirable. It can be exhausting but we need more people like that, the ones who think of others and try to make the world a better place.” Standing up to get herself some juice, she returned. “Do you have any idea where you think you’d be best suited? Obviously not technical support. But interests which you’re passionate about? There are a lot of local shelters and charities that could always use help. Perhaps if you did some volunteer work, see where you best fit?”
It was something. And given how broad helping people was as a term? It gave Ahsoka room to explore and figure things out for herself.
Now that was an idea. Ahsoka straightened, pushing her bad feelings from the fog behind her and focusing more on Leia’s words. “That’s a pretty good idea.” A thought occurred to her, a face floating up from her memories. Rex.
“I kind of think I want to help with veterans. The ones that everyone forgets about, I mean. I could start with that, maybe. There’s so many of them who got screwed over physically and mentally.“
“They can always use help. And with Oceanside being a military town because of Pendleton, there are plenty of shelters in the surrounding areas you can find volunteer opportunities at.” It was always in the news, always some other need to go to war. Support our troops, at least until they come home and then forget all about them. It was disgraceful. And they were close enough to Pendleton that the veteran population would be all over.
And if discussing this could help Ashoka with whatever it was she had faced in the fog? All the better.
She nodded. She’d been through a war, even if Leia couldn’t understand it, not yet. She’d seen what it had done to people. To the clones fighting, to the Jedi, to herself. It seemed like she was always doomed to fight a war in her dreams. Though at least she felt like she was on the right side again, finally. She picked up her water again. “Yeah, I’ll try that first. Maybe I can do some good.”
No, Leia could not understand going through a war. While the first four years of her life were spent in the midst of one, the memories weren’t concrete. Just the feelings. She didn’t recall before and after. She didn’t have ties to that life anymore, just what history told her, and then what her parents had told her as well. But she had seen the remnants of those left behind following conflict. The effect on the population from the humanitarian work her mother did, from the appointments her father had. And she saw the way the current political field was laid.
“I’m sure you will.”