“She approaches you know.”
“Know, I do Master Vos. Answers she seeks.” Yoda replied quietly in a contemplative manner, his wide eyes narrowed to the dim light of the tiny fire crackling away at small logs within the small hovel’s hearth, “and questions she has, prepared for them we should be.” He continued solemnly, blinking slowly through the hazy smoke that filled the small dwelling.
“She carries her anger with her, there is little room for reason.” Quinlan replied softly, his eyes glittering with a sorrow that was only magnified by the fire’s light as he turned himself toward Yoda’s speculative gaze.
“Beyond reason we all are Master Vos.” Yoda pinched at his chin with his small clawed finger, “Lost reason was when failed we did to stop Sidious from the beginning.” He leaned heavily upon his gimmer stick as he hobbled himself over to a small kettle hanging directly over the fire’s flame, tossing a well worked bundle of leaves into the hot water within. “Kept her alive, her anger has. Out of it a tool she has created.” He spun to face the silver haired old Kiffar once more with a subtle wink, “her resolution I suggest you trust, Quinlan.”
“She all but revealed Skywalkers son Master!” Vos pushed himself up from his leaning position, lowering his head to keep it from brushing the low ceiling above.
“Beyond the obvious you should look.” Yoda almost laughed through his response, “Why, asking yourself you should be.”
Quinlan puckered his features as he thought through the response, unable to perceive the aged Masters’ point. “There is clearly a detail or two I am not privy to Master Yoda because there is no logical ‘why’ to the question.”
Yoda chortled a brief chuckle, “reserve your judgment I would advise, bring forth the information you require her arrival will.” He finished as he let his laughter die out, the crackling of the small fire once again consuming the silence between the two, disturbed only by the occasional croaks of native amphibians and the shrill of lone carnivorous avian.
✦
“There is little I could do to sway this decision Lady Tano, so I do not know why you would ask my opinion.”
“Because it matters to me Huyang, do you need another reason?” Ahsoka replied as she eyed the shuttles navigational assessment monitors.
“You have already admitted to challenging the sanctity of Master Yoda’s exile once, it is not wise to threaten his secrecy a second time…” Huyang rebutted, turning from his own navigational monitor, Dagobah seated directly within the terminus reticle. He filled her profile within the sights of his photoreceptors, probing any significant vital readings they returned to his diagnostic programming.
“Huyang.” Ahsoka started, turning to him fully, “you’re going to have to get used to methods that are unorthodox, unwise and sometimes insanely questionable.” She was blunt and honest. “There is no rulebook for anything we are doing or that we will do going forward.”
“Fair enough Lady Tano, but that will not preclude me from injecting what voice of reason or level of common sense I may from time to time. We may not agree on everything, but I only ask that you utilize what wisdom twenty plus eons have taught me.” He replied, giving the woman the respect she had earned since he’d known her. He continued glaring at her, understanding that she had already shown him the same. Although she had turned back toward the canopy before her, the glare of hyperspace casting a bluish hue over her orange pigmentation, Huyang continued to look on, seeing beyond the woman he had known for what she had grown into. Several millennia removed from operating solely on his base programming, the ancient droid referred heavily to the vast databanks he had compiled regarding sentient behaviors and emotion. He narrowed his photoreceptors only briefly as he made his decision to follow this woman on whatever path she forged for them then returned his attention to the navigational monitor, Dagobah seeming a much more sensible destination.
Ahsoka was lost to her own thoughts following the brief conversation, letting the cyclical swirls of blue lead her mind into a calming meditation, laughing to herself almost instantly with memories of Kowani’s own ascension through the practice. The laughter died on her lips as she found the thoughts confounding, the two having taken similar paths toward the same concluding chapter with dramatically different outcomes. Yet the reality existed in which similar decisions had been made, certain temptations avoided through sheer will and fortitude, despite the promises of power or the unyielding graces of some dark force unseen. ‘It was all a lie…’ Her thoughts wound her down the same esoteric trap they always had, reciting a tale through her mind alone that she could never seem to break free of.
“We will arrive shortly Lady Tano. Is there any particular coordinates you wish to relay?” Huyang crackled within the air between the two, quiet yet demanding in its own right.
“The Force will guide us Huyang, just enjoy the ride.” Ahsoka stated with a smirk crossing her lips in turn, gently fluttering her eyes as she pulled herself free of the intentional state within her own mind, “we won’t be alone in any case.”
Huyang turned from the console before him, “In what manner am I to interpret that?” The clipping of his own vocater working to relay the measure of sarcasm he had intended.
Ahsoka didn’t answer, felt no need to entertain the ancient droid through some eloquent verbal dance that would ultimately lead them to the same conclusions, as well as destination.
The shuttle lurched forward subtly as the swirling masses of greens and grays that began to feel comforting snapped into spherical view outside the canopy. A comfort, Ahsoka admitted to herself, that began to form a divide between personal belief and the role the future itself could, and would, take, with or without her direct involvement, one that stood to contradict her own thoughts concerning the natural dissonance between the living and the dead. She could feel the truth of the conundrum before the ship had even entered the blinding, sensor depressing upper atmosphere of Dagobah, a spectral, and inexplicable, truth that shredded preconceived notions regarding one’s place in the cosmic Force before and after one’s final breath. As the view through the canopy turned into a soupy fog, one of a muted static gray, the transparisteel itself peppered with hefty drops of rain, she only closed her eyes. Ahsoka tuned herself in to the flows and paths of the more immediate and present Force around her, those that coursed between her and the ancient droid, the controls of the aged shuttle and even those of the stagnant pools of swampy water on the planet below.
Despite the imbalances and differing paths of atmospheric air drafts, the shuttle remained steady and on a course only Ahsoka was aware of, Huyang taking the only course of action he could and simply observed as she navigated the vessel through an endless cloud and thin, horizontal, rivulets of drenching rain that seemed just as endless. He said nothing as the Togruta smiled to herself, bobbing her head in a premeditated dance of its own that she mirrored with the ships yoke in her hands, expertly guiding them both through the same path she was clearly projecting mentally. “Some things require justification, while others require faith alone.” She said aloud, her eyes still shuttered. A resonant hum and the chaotic bursts of the ships maneuvering jets that suspended the notion of some dream like state of unwavering calm completed her statement for her.
Huyang turned to face her slowly, “faith takes time to restore Lady Tano…”
“But only requires the willingness to embrace it my old friend.” She replied softly, opening her eyes slowly as she turned to him. He could only narrow his photoreceptors in response, any audible retort contradicting his programmed sense of reason.
The path was unforgettably familiar despite having taken it only once before, the flows of the Force itself the well-known factor in the equation and the comforting element that defined her very destination. As she had guided the Morai so long ago based almost completely on feeling alone, Ahsoka shut down power to all systems but the shuttle’s repulsors. Although the T-6 didn’t boast the same modifications the D5 had, its repulsor array was sufficient enough in its own design to arrest control of the craft and skim the unseen tree tops that remained hidden by the thick gray of Dagobah’s natural camouflage as Ahsoka rotated the shuttles wing array horizontal to the fuselage of the vessel. She could sense the turbulence the shuttle was causing as it dispelled the mists below it canting the upper reaches of Shohwai in a cradle of broad leaves, and throttled down power to the repulsors, bringing the shuttle on an even course that would disturb as little as possible.
Within minutes, the monitor before Huyang chimed with proximity notifications as the ship’s scanners mapped the terrain below, alerting them both to the readings neither of them had expected.
“The flat expanse should be large enough, but that shuttle shouldn’t be there.” Ahsoka commented, tilting her head to assess the monitor set before the droid.
“By these readings, it has seen better days…” Huyang responded, adjusting the scanner to focus on the shuttle with more detail. “The class isn’t even specific to the craft itself….”
“It’s Vos…” Ahsoka understood immediately, riling up the internal struggle she had kept chained within since she witnessed the truth, and associated deceptions, first hand through her insistence to learn them both.
“Master Quinlan Vos?”
“The same.” Ahsoka replied while keying in the shuttles confined landing cycle.
“...I had no idea he had survived…” Huyang replied to himself, minding his own monitors and screens.
“Very few seemed to…” Ahsoka trailed off rising to her feet to secure the forward landing strut with a flip of a switch just out of arms reach.
“To have known? Or to have survived?” He asked turning slightly toward her.
Ahsoka paused slightly focusing on the droid’s inquisitive gaze, trying to convey her own feelings on the matter without uttering a word. “Both, I am sure…” She failed in her attempts before pushing herself up fully with a hand on the back of her pilot’s seat. She thought for a moment to elaborate but considered the wisdom of silence before leaving the cockpit outright for the ship’s circular central cabin.
The ramp lowered itself as she approached it, timed in unison with the calm rest upon the terrain below the landing struts, an easy recoil lifting the vessel back to a more natural state. An issuance of sharp air blasts displaced the calm for a moment as the ramp found the same dry ground she and the Morai had found upon her last visit to her Masters exile, and the unexpected image of another she had parted with some time before that.
“Master….” Ahsoka said more to herself in surprise as the translucent form glittered in a faint blue light at the ramps edge.
“Hello there.” Obi-wan offered with a genuine bow at the waist.
“I will remain with the ship if you don’t mind Lady Tano.” Huyang voiced from behind her, “this is clearly meant for you alone.”
Ahsoka turned over her shoulder slightly, “Thank you Huyang, I won’t be long.” She replied, turning to face the apparition fully as she decanted the vessel.
“And thus, I should assume your stance is changed concerning the proclivity of borders between life and death?” Obi-wan offered the moment Ahsoka’s feet left the ramp entirely. She paused to consider the shimmering form, each detail within the aged features of his face precisely as they had been when last they met on Tatooine, the folds of his unassuming brown robe rippling slightly in some unseen breeze. She folded her arms across her chest and canted her weight on her right foot, “who am I to question the Whills Master.” She replied with a sly smirk.
✦
“Of course I’ll walk with you Master, assuming we are headed in the same direction.” Ahsoka answered despite the assumed rhetoric, “unless of course it is somewhere else you wish to be.” She continued with a wide smile across her face, her eyes fixated on the myriad tangles of overgrown Shohwai root and twisting vines to prevent any fall. A few minutes of silence between the two measured only by a distinct plunge of her left foot into brackish water allowed Ahsoka the moments needed to voice the question she had wanted to ask, “why didn’t you tell me Anakin knew Master?”
Obi-wan folded his spectral hands within the confines of his translucent sleeves as Ahsoka hurtled herself over a shoulder high knot of roots, “There is no way I could have known that myself Ahsoka.”
“Forgive me for sounding the fool but you’ve known more than you would ever concede, regardless who was asking.”
“And so, the question itself isn’t worth the time to ask it, Ahsoka, patronizing me is of little use, surely you know this.” Obi-wan replied, his voice sounding so much older than she had remembered.
“So come to your point then.” Ahsoka stated, stifling her annoyance as easily as she could.
“Why would you inform him of his son’s survival?”
Ahsoka stopped on the spot, releasing her right hand from the trunk of the tree she was about to use as leverage, and turned to the spectral Jedi Master completely. She considered the question from his perspective, releasing herself from her own in the process. “Surely, you must have sensed that conflict within him Master...that divide that grows wider by the second.”
“The inner conflict that has been tearing at his soul since childhood...yes…” Obi-wan began, trailing off into silence as he witnessed the gentle swaying of her head in the negative.
“No...no Master. The conflict IS the divide. He strays from his own Master as Sidious strays from him. The divide is the severing of commonality and mutual purpose. The further it is driven the more dangerous either of them are in their own right. Do you not see?” Ahsoka was almost spewing forth the words as fast as they were coming to her.
“And what is it that I am missing young one?”
“Was it not you that had asked what I remember of the Crylethiumn system?” Ahsoka narrowed her eyes as she cocked her head to the side, not understanding how the man, in whatever form he took, did not understand what she felt was so clear. The confused look upon the spectral face of the old man answered her question for her, “the prophecy so few actually believed but everyone counted on Master. The power of the Father manifest only through the willingness of the Son. So long as the two remain estranged, so will the galaxy remain in turmoil.”
The vacancy even behind his spectral eyes continued to supply Ahsoka all the information she needed to know, ‘none of them truly understand…’ She thought to herself.
“The bridge is not building itself Ahsoka, what happened on Mortis was nothing more than a figment of our own subconscious.” Obi-wan replied.
Ahsoka wouldn’t have any of it, turning from the specter shaking her head with volition, “believe what you want Master, perhaps you are not prepared for the realities that only the truth can bring.” She uttered, leaping over the intended knot of roots, and continuing on her way astride the mist covered bog to her left. The pure scent of Hylesh and Tartun signifying she was on the right path toward the ancient Jedi’s hovel.
Without form, Obi-wan’s words were clear in her mind, “I do not claim ownership of the sum of all answers Ahsoka, only the clarity a natural bond to the Force can produce.”
“Then the answers are quite simple, the Father will rise, through the Son at the behest of the Daughter.” Ahsoka said without missing a stride, the white wash of the diminutive Jedi Masters simple dwelling appearing as if an apparition itself, the mists parting slightly.
“That is quite the responsibility you place upon yourself. More to the point, if we are to discern the prophecy through literal means, why would the Daughter not be Leia herself to complete the familial dynamic.” Obi-wan replied with a modicum of brash sarcasm.
“If you’re not going to take this seriously, than I am on the right path Master, because Master Yoda would consider all avenues of thought beneficial toward the goal of understanding what may not have been intended for us to.”
“A wise agenda then.”
“Perhaps.” Ahsoka replied, the sounds of the bogs around her imparting a natural calm she acutely appreciated, “unless of course I am wrong.” She smirked for her own benefit, “but why not Leia? Because her time has yet to come.”
“Ahhh, your test on Hoth then.” Obi-wan understood, at least her reasoning.
“The very same.” She replied softly as an odd scent overpowered the purposeful herb mixture, one she could not place yet found oddly familiar. The Jedi Master’s comment would not leave her thoughts urging a deeper contemplation, “are my actions truly of such great interest that they would garner such attention?”
“More than you could possibly imagine young one.” Obi-wan replied lightly upon the air.
Ahsoka breathed in the statement, letting the dense humid air cleanse the cryptic nature of his admission before she finished her approach toward the small domicile, the herb filled mixture mingling with the odd but familiar scent to define her own feelings of comfort and ‘home.’ The entrance stood before her, open as it always was to whomever should choose to visit, a small fire within dancing shadows throughout the interior of the hovel.
“Come, come Ahsoka, no need there is to stand so idle.”
“Masters.” She said as she entered, knowing full well Yoda wasn’t alone.
“Well met, again then, Miss Tano. Not much seems to escape your esteemed notice.” Quinlan Vos said patiently.
“Except the truth.” She replied immediately, her eyes locked on his without remorse.
“Lie with Master Vos, the fault does not, Ahsoka.” Yoda interjected quickly.
Out of her deepest respects for Yoda, Ahsoka only approached the short yet wizened Jedi Master and placed a hand upon his slender shoulder as she sat cross legged before him, she had yet, however, to remove her cold stare from Vos’ own.
“Fault implies a disjuncture with a natural order.” She stated directly, tilting her gaze toward the small opening that served as Master Yoda’s window, “Master Windu lives...doesn’t he? And you both knew….” Ahsoka replied to her own question, turning to face the two once again. She watched as Vos’ gaze snapped quickly toward Yoda’s own, “…..yet hesitation remains to share this truth….why?”
“Because your own actions defy reason, at least that we can perceive. They contradict rationality and they resist sanity.” Vos said quickly, his silver hair glimmering a torching red in the fire’s light.
“Your reason, your rationality, your sanity….have nothing to do with me. If you cannot find a path toward trust then I stand justified in my decisions decades ago.” Ahsoka said as kindly as she could phrase the statement.
“Accurate both points can be…” Yoda began, placing a small clawed hand on Ahsoka’s knee as he pushed himself upward from his kneeling position, leaning heavily upon his gimmer stick, he angled himself toward the fire’s hearth, “not exclusive are they to one another.”
“But they are Master, they clearly are. If I am going to be lied to by, or reprimanded by, anyone from a defunct order for doing what I believe is right, then they will always remain exclusive in view only.” Ahsoka fired back quickly, respecting the elder Master while admonishing the junior.
Vos was quick to double up his features, readying himself for the tirade he had prepared as long ago as Ambria, manifest further by the continuing influence his own intuition had pre-narrated. A sharp glance from Master Yoda, for his eyes only, offered the outlet his temper needed before an influential peace sought reason to avoid the dark avenues his own anger was directing him. Quinlan blew out a haggard breath, a long steady measure that everyone in the tiny dwelling seemed to latch onto. They all found themselves letting the tensions wrought by decades of indecision and wearisome helplessness float away. The words Vos had prepared where just as quickly lost to him as the vacuum from his own exhale left a vacancy neither he nor his verbal adversary were ready for. The crackling of the fire fully accepted the responsibility of filling the contemplative silence that ensued, Yoda, finding himself the only occupant with a smile on his face.
“Entrenched you both are, within the fortitude of sound resolve.” Yoda finally snapped the silence. Ahsoka, who had taken to resting her arms above her knees as she sat on her backside, looked up slowly, letting her steely gray iris’ return to their natural blue. Each second taking with it the urge to traverse deeper into the confines of her anger, her eyes an outward reflection of the emotional tidal wave taking place.
“I did not mean to offend you Ahsoka...these are challenging times at best.” Quinlan said softly into his own palms, his hands raised to face as he rubbed at his forehead, “and it is difficult to see answers when we aren’t even armed with the right questions.”
“Ahhh.” Yoda began turning from the fire to face the aging Kiffar. He struggled only a moment to align the gimmer stick properly so that he could lean upon it once more, “a wiser statement than has yet to be uttered I offer.” The ancient Jedi Master smiled crookedly, his eyes full and wide, “a mutual disclosure perhaps….trust cannot be built without its foundation firmly planted.”
Again, Quinlan blew out his breath as he dropped his hands from his face, eyeing his own Master for the sake of the wisdom imparted. He turned his gaze slowly toward Ahsoka, the faint trickle of a tear pinned under his lower right eye lid. “Those that have the ability to ask have requested training for you Ahsoka Tano.” A loose tangle of hair slipped in front of his eyes as he spoke, the silvery strands glimmering brightly in the fire’s light.
Ahsoka inspected the Kiffar as he spoke, narrowing her eyes to gauge his validity through the minute twitches astride his temples and at the corners of his own eyes. “Why were you on Ambria?”
The question was most unexpected, even Master Yoda turning toward her with an expression that could only be one of surprise. Vos stumbled quickly through a stupor before she could answer in a timely manner. “This bridge of trust needs to begin somewhere.” She offered a contemplative justification for the cold silence between the two, “if we are to indeed lay the groundwork for its foundation.”
“We were on Ambria.” Vos began, emphasizing the point that he was not alone, “because our Conclave saw us there.” He finished his statement boldly unblinking, “...because they saw YOU there.” Vos added, his bottom lip quivering ever so slightly.
“Do you understand what is happening Master Vos?” Ahsoka grew weary of half answers and cryptic responses.
“In what regard?”
Ahsoka flashed a glance toward Yoda before returning it to Vos once again, “neither of you do…” She hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but the statement had been made nonetheless, “Master Qui-gon understood but no one listened.” She didn’t have the mind to hold back once she had begun. Ahsoka narrowed her eyes slightly and lifted her chin a little higher, “for any vergence, there will always be a divergence. It may not be immediate, but it is inevitable.”
“I don’t even understand your reference Tano.” Vos bristled, fighting the urge to blow off the comment as nothing more than nonsense.
“And that is the problem…” Ahsoka stated firmly, unwilling to divest any more of her own thoughts without the attention necessary to comprehend. Shaking her head in extreme frustration, she thought momentarily through the final avenue at her disposal to make the man see reason.
“Master Vos, have you ever been embraced by the Dark Side...not just touched by it,” Ahsoka could only pause as her own experience flashed through her waking memory with gut wrenching clarity, “….fully immersed?” She finished the question, her gaze returning to the folded brow and tempest of fury behind Vos’ own after dropping it to the hard packed dirt floor for a moment. Ahsoka had expected the brazen look and welling storm within the old man, because she knew he had been.
“I won’t dignify the question with any response young lady, that is neither here nor there at any rate.” Vos finally said, working to calm himself with short quick breaths.
Ahsoka eyed him warily, narrowing her own gaze even further as she chanced a glance toward Master Yoda who only stood, turned as he was to them both, by the fire’s light. “I know you have Master Vos, I know you have.” She said after a long moment, the crackling of the fire at Yoda’s side sparking the internal clarity she could finally verbalize. “Divert all you like, harbor your anger, internalize your own struggles, it matters not.” She stole a second to take a deep breath. “The point is, we are still here...in this place, having this discussion.”
Vos relinquished the tenuous hold over his aggravation, pushing himself from a seated position aside the far wall, a fire of his own burning behind his iris,’ “you think this then a matter of flight? Take care your words Togruta lest they find you in more trouble than you can handle!”
“ENOUGH! My home this is!” Master Yoda shouted in a voice none of them heard before. “Think enough enemies we do not already have? The sound of bickering younglings this is and nothing more.” He blew out his own breath with vigor, both Ahsoka and Quinlan resting back into their original positions. “Done fine for herself Ahsoka has, trust she has earned through diligence and choice. Take nothing from her what you do not possess yourself Quinlan.” He said contemplatively to Vos, then turned toward Ahsoka. “Revealing itself the prophecy is….over time and in ways we cannot expect.”
“Then understand only this Masters,’ the Sith are splintered.” Ahsoka stated softly after letting the ancient Masters voice calm her own agitation, “but they are increasing in power.”
“The divergence you mentioned….it is manifest in what way?” Vos asked politely, Yoda’s masterful interjection having the same effect on him.
“Agenda Master Vos, agenda.” Ahsoka said quietly, lowering her gaze to the ground before her once more, “Skywalker…” she stumbled over the name slightly, “is pursuing the path he had always intended….” she felt her heart tighten slightly, “...in ways only he could. He will always remain a threat, but his agenda is his priority.”
“And Sidious?” Yoda asked with genuine fealty.
“Is on a path only Skywalker can manipulate.” Ahsoka said, lifting her head once again so either of the men could see that truth in her eyes.
“You said they were divergent Tano.” Vos said abruptly.
Long moments passed between the three of them, each pair of eyes set upon the dancing flames of Master Yoda’s cook fire. The crackling of hot embers exploded lightly into the dry air of the hovel, echoes nullified by the dried hard packed mud smoothed over each of the walls.
“Not that Skywalker…..” Ahsoka said finally, her sense of smell suddenly very aware of the odd scent once again, a musky scent that belonged to the tree dwelling indigenes of Halrun Kal, ‘the scent of the Pelec Baw….’ Her first instinct was to assume Bren had found her way to Dagobah then shirked the thought out of her mind thoroughly, ‘she would have no knowledge of this place…..wait...it could only be…’
“Your mind serves you well young Tano….” The voice came from behind her, deep and resonant but different from her memory as the native accent saturated every syllable.
All Ahsoka could do was whirl around to see what her hearing told her would be there, “Master?”