Valla wants more than just vengeance (the_nephalem) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-04-28 21:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, ahsoka tano, li-ming |
Who: Ahsoka and Li, with an appearance from Yang
What: Talking about the disturbance in the Force that Ahsoka felt.
When: April 4th after this
Where: Their apartment
Warnings: Discussions of Vader's various crimes, including murdering children, otherwise pretty tame
To say that Ahsoka was conflicted was a bit of an understatement. Ever since she’d followed the Force to Anakin she’d been distracted, her mind going in a hundred different directions. She’d made some missteps, but she’d been so torn between excitement and fear that that was understandable.
Now though, meditation wasn’t helping her. Neither were video games. Yang was kicking her ass. She’d been hoping to take their minds off of both of their problems but it wasn’t working, at least for her.
“You know, you’re almost letting me win.”
“I’m just distracted.”
“You and me both but you’re really sucking.”
“Thanks, Yang.”
As Ahsoka had asked, Li had stopped at the liquor store on the way home to pick up the alcohol that was required for what she had to say. Li was concerned, and just hoped that she could provide some sort of comfort or relief to Ahsoka and not make things worse. She’d been feeling off of late, like there was something inside of her, crawling through her blood. It didn’t help that she swore she heard Diablo’s voice speaking to her, whispering in her ear with that voice that sounded like a thousand needles pricking her skin.
Stepping inside the apartment, she had a paper bag with the bottles of alcohol, she’d gotten more than one of course because it seemed like it was going to be that kind of conversation, her violin case in the other hand and her backpack on her back. She nudged the door shut with her foot, moving to set the alcohol bag down on the counter in the kitchen before she stepped towards the living room to see what video game was being played.
“Hey guys,” she greeted as she set her violin case and backpack down against the wall and safely out of anyone’s way. “What are you playing?”
"Injustice," Yang said, waggling her controller in Li's direction. She got up, moving to give Li a hug. "And I need a break, and I was gonna go pick us up some pizza."
She glanced at Ahsoka like 'and leave you two to talk.' Because she was just that kind of friend.
Li hugged Yang back, giving her a good squeeze for good measure. She liked hugs, after all. “Pizza is definitely sounding good. We may need it.” Li wasn’t sure about Ahsoka, but she knew that she hadn’t eaten since lunch. Which had been an early lunch at that. Drinking on a relatively empty stomach wasn’t exactly a good thing to do.
“A pizza and some calzones,” Yang decided. The kind of cheesy thing that could kill a lactose intolerant person in three seconds. Hopefully that wouldn’t be any of them.
Food? What was that? Ahsoka had spent a lot of time figuring out what alochols she could digest and which ones were bad for her. Beer was right out. Wine was actually okay, as was vodka. She could even handle fruit flavored vodkas. “Tell me you got the good stuff.”
“I think we’ll all die of cheese and alcohol overdose,” Li commented with a chuckle. She then looked over at her fiancée and looked mock offended. “Please Ahsoka, do you think I’d dare come home with the bad stuff?” She had to laugh a bit before she went to retrieve the bag of alcohol, setting it on the coffee table and pulling the alcohol out. And, of course, it was the good stuff, and probably more than three people could drink.
“We’d have to get divorced before we got married,” Ahsoka joked, scooting over so that Li could join her. She felt a sense of calm, as though Li were a rock to cling to in the storm. But then, she’d kind of always been that way for her. “If you did such a crime.”
“Well, have no fear, I come bearing the good stuff. No pre-marriage divorce is necessary,” Li chuckled as she pulled out the bottles. A couple bottles of vodka and a bottle of wine. Definitely the good stuff. She then sat down beside Ahsoka, leaned in and kissed her cheek.
“Perfect.” Ahsoka let out a heavy sigh, and leaned in against Li. “I just can’t focus or calm my feelings. My mind is a mess right now.”
“Talk to me, maybe talking will help get some of it out. And then what talking doesn’t help, we have alcohol for.” Li suggested, giving Ahsoka a little encouraging smile as she took her hand and threaded their fingers together.
“You…I told you about my master, right? Anakin. And how he fell to darkness?” Ahsoka looked down at where their hands were, and swallowed. “I sensed a disturbance in the Force, and I followed it. And there he was. There was Anakin.”
“Yes,” Li said with a little nod. She remembered Ahsoka talking about Anakin before. Her brow furrowed a little in worry at what Ahsoka said. “He’s here in Orange County?” That was...definitely something to worry about, especially if he became a Dreamer.
“Yes. It’s him. It’s… him before everything went bad. Before he became a Sith Lord. It was like looking at everything good and wonderful knowing how it could crumble.”
That would obviously mess with anyone to see someone like that. Li knew that if Leah ever arrived here, she’d have similar conflictions knowing what would ultimately happen to her. “That definitely couldn’t have been easy. I assume that he is unaware of the Dreams currently?”
“He is. I think I freaked him out.” Ahsoka looked sheepish, “I tried to test if he had the force and knocked him out with a tennis ball.”
That was the least of her concerns, though. “Li. What if he becomes Darth Vader? What if he becomes a monster?”
Ahsoka knew what she might have to do. For the safety of the county, for the safety of Anakin. Or at least his soul.
In other circumstances, and if Ahsoka hadn’t mentioned something so serious right after it, she would’ve laughed at the image of Ahsoka knocking Anakin out with a tennis ball. She squeezed Ahsoka’s hand. “If that happens, you are not alone. I’m here with you, and I will help you ensure Darth Vader doesn’t hurt people here.”
Li didn’t exactly have the Force, but she was a powerful magic-user. She could most certainly help fight Darth Vader if needed, even if she was only in a support role.
“And what do I tell him? If he dreams?” Ahsoka looked at her. She’d have to talk to Kanan about that too, but right now she wanted her fiance’s input. “Do I tell him the truth? Warn him? Or just try to be there for him, offer him more perspective.”
The Jedi weren’t evil, but he might believe that. There was a difference between pigheaded stubbornness and evil.
Li did think that over for some moments before answering. “I think that’s really only something he can answer. Everyone is different. Some probably want to be warned, others may prefer to dream it for themselves. Perhaps wait until he starts dreaming and let him adjust to that. Then after he either trusts you here or dreams of knowing you, see if he would rather be warned of things to come or if he wouldn’t. But regardless of how he might respond, be there for him.”
Ahsoka nodded. “He’d dream of me being younger first. That would probably make him want to ask questions or wonder if I know more than I’m telling.”
She sighed, “I wish Obi-wan were here, he might know what to do. Or maybe he’d mess it up too. Obi-wan was about as biased and blind when it came to the darkness within Anakin as I was. It was always there, we just..”
She’d asked herself a thousand times if she could have made a difference, done something different. Stop it. If she’d noticed. If she’d stayed.
She nodded a bit. “Perhaps wait until he dreams of you, then you can figure out how to best proceed there?” Li said. Though she listened as Ahsoka continued on.
“I know you have the Force and can sense these sorts of things, it doesn’t mean that you can always stop it from happening, even if you actively did something about it. Some things can be out of our hands no matter if we see them or not.”
How many times had Li wished she would’ve burned Adria alive with a fireball before she’d destroyed Leah’s soul? Li had been directly warned by Zoltun Kule as well, but she’d still remained blind, perhaps willfully so.
“Destiny.” Ahsoka made a face. “That really is the worse thing. It’s true, but...So many people died, so many people suffered. It didn’t have to be that way. A few things different, a nudge here instead of there…”
And there was no telling what might have happened, or theoretically been made worse.
“Perhaps it didn’t have to be that way, but how could you know that for certain? Changing something could’ve meant that someone else would’ve chosen the Dark instead of Anakin.” Li wasn’t well-versed in time travel or the butterfly effect, but she did feel that if Anakin had been kept from falling, someone else would have fallen in his place.
“If it had been someone else, things wouldn’t have been as bad.” Ahsoka lifted Li’s hand to her lips. “He was the chosen one. The most powerful force user in the galaxy. I’m pretty sure he was specifically targeted by the Emperor to fall and become his apprentice. It would be like if you’d become Diablo’s general.”
“Then Anakin clearly would’ve stopped the Emperor and everyone else. Then that would have been it. Nothing else would have happened. But that is the fate of chosen ones. We have the weight of destiny on our shoulders, and we use it for whichever side we are meant to.” Li was obviously a chosen one, just not one meant to bring balance to the Force or something like that. She was one of the ones meant to stop Diablo and the other Lords of Hell that were still alive. But no one that fought evil escaped it unscathed.
“In one of my dreams, I saw this world between worlds. A nexus where all time and all places are linked. Do you know how tempting it was? To take a chance. To save Anakin. My master. My brother.” She let go of Li’s hand, resting her face in her palms. “But you can’t alter fate. You just can’t.”
Li set her hand on Ahsoka’s shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. “No, you can’t alter fate. And because of that, it makes me believe that all of that had to happen for a reason. Lessons needed to be learned for everyone, including Anakin himself. Even you had lessons you needed to learn because of what happened.”
“Easier said when you don’t think about billions of dead,” Ahsoka pointed out. She didn’t snap though - this was Li and she wasn’t going to snap at her fiance. Besides, she hadn’t been snippy since she was, well, Snips.
“That does seem to be the way of it. Light, Dark, Light. Dark again. I feel like we’re missing whatever key thing is needed for balance.”
“Believe me, I understand that.” While the death toll in her own dreams had been far less than billions, it had still been far too many innocents dead. All those people in Westmarch had been turned into monsters, their souls sucked away by Malthael. And before that, how many times had the world been set upon by the forces of Hell?
“Then perhaps it is the key that must be found in order for balance to be maintained between the Light and the Dark. Maybe that is the reason everything is happening. True balance must be restored so the teetering between Light and Dark no longer happens.”
“I know I have a part to play in all that. But I haven’t dreamed that yet.” Ahsoka lifted her head again, and leaned against Li. “Something to do with the Daughter, and whatever she did to me to bring me back to life. And all of that related to that world between worlds.”
Li slid her arm around Ahsoka’s back and held her close when she leaned against her. “I have faith that it will all come together for you, and things can be made right again. Or at the very least some of them can be made right.”
“I love you.” Ahsoka scooted closer. “Thank you. You make everything a lot easier and I don’t know what I’d do without you. Especially when I don’t feel as old as I’m suppose to be and only as old as I actually am.”
“I love you, too.” Li said with a little smile, rubbing Ahsoka’s side a bit. “It must be confusing to dream of being older than you are in this life.” Technically, Li was older here than her dream self was, at least as of when she’d defeated Malthael. She wasn’t certain if she’d have any further dreams or not, but for the moment, she was older than her dream self.
“First, I dreamed I was 5 or 6 years younger. Then I’m suddenly in my 30s.” Ahsoka gestured to her body. “...I wonder if I lost 15 years of my life. Togruta don’t live much longer than humans and if this body is actually 36…”
“Well, if you’re actually 36, then does that make you old enough to be a cougar?” Li asked, a little smirk on her lips for a few moments before her expression went back to a more serious one. “Maybe one of the scientists here would be able to tell how old your body actually is? I can’t really comment on that experience myself since I’m older here than I am in my dreams.”
“Yeah.” Ahsoka smiled toothly, stroking Li’s face. “Honestly though? I’ve been afraid to ask. I’m sure it’s possible but…”
The thought scared her, and while she’d had it before this was the first time she’d voiced it. Seeing Anakin had really brought that to the forefront.
“I understand. You should only ask if you want to know. Besides, physical age and mental age don’t always coincide.” And not just in the sense of being a different age in the dreams either. Some people matured physically but not mentally, some the other way around.
“So you’re not bothered I’m robbing the cradle?” Ahsoka waggled her eye markings. But she did want to know. And she was going to ask. Eventually.
“If I was bothered, do you really think I’d be here right now? Or wearing your ring?” She retorted, wagging her ring finger a bit. “But no, I think you’re sexy, and I don’t care what your age is.” Li was a legal adult so it didn’t matter. If she’d been under 18, then there’d be a problem.
“Technically I’m twenty-one anyway,” Ahsoka replied, even if she had both a 15 year old and a 36 year old in her head. She caught Li’s finger and smiled at the ring. “There are people who would scowl very hard at me for putting that ring on your finger.”
Li had to smile at Ahsoka. “Well they aren’t here, so we don’t have to worry about the scowling.” Li thought there might be a couple people who’d scowl in her own dreams, though that was derived mostly from the fact she had bigger things to worry about.
“I can tell them where to shove it.” Ahsoka pulled Li closer, and then into her lap. She suddenly needed something. Intimacy. Closeness. A reminder that there were still good things in the world and that there wasn’t encroaching darkness. “Got any plans later?”
Sliding her arms around Ahsoka’s neck, she smiled as she straddled her lap. “Nope. I’m all yours.” Li responded, definitely not minding Ahsoka needing intimacy one little bit. She could probably use it herself to forget about her own troubles for a while as well.