Chapter Seventeen
The Jedi temple welcomed back master and apprentice with the quiet silence of the night, but Master Yoda was overseeing the entrance with his calm and peaceful gaze. He sighed at their sight, mostly at his own apprentice's, and as Master Shade sheepishly scratched the back of his head, Master Yoda gave him a flat gaze.
"Recklessness out of you, I expected not. The master learning from the apprentice, I did not expect."
Her Master grinned softly. "I think you did, Master Yoda. I think you did."
Master Yoda's flat gaze disappeared, replaced with a small smile. "Maybe I did, maybe. To rest, your padawan now goes. I and you, talk we must."
Master Shade nodded, and dismissed her with a nod of his head. Ahsoka bowed to Master Yoda, and then headed for her room. She dropped on the bed with a tired sigh of relief, and after unpacking the few things she had, she dropped her head against her pillow and closed her eyes. She really needed a shower, but she was too tired for it. She'd do it in the morning.
As Ahsoka closed her eyes, and slept her fatigue off, she knew she was forgetting something important. The infirmary, maybe? Well, she wasn't hurting more than before, and she could visit the medical droid come the morning. The sling her arm had been cast into wasn't that bad, and didn't annoy her overtly. She was just tired, and so she took a rest.
When her eyes opened in the morning, her bones ached all over. The phantom pain soon disappeared, but not before she could feel it coming from her master's body. He was still sleeping, and in his sleep, his mind was only slightly seeping through his thoughts and memories. Ahsoka bit her lower lip -she shouldn't peek, but again, she wasn't peeking, just trying to find out what had happened last night.
Alice, curiosity killed the girl.
The Cheshire cat grinned as it appeared from the shadow of the nearby drawer, smiling broadly as it gestured for the door with its tail. Ahsoka looked at the cat, and narrowed her eyes.
You want to know? Then follow me, along this cobblestone road. Come on, the Wizard of Oz waits for us!
"The who?" Ahsoka asked, but the Cheshire cat didn't reply, as much as slink through the crack below the door of the temple with a set of sordid pops. She walked to the door, which opened to reveal not the familiar hallway of the Jedi Temple, but the unknown darkness of a dank, and earthy tunnel with roots and fog. Ahsoka groaned. Why couldn't the Bond be something like a nice, happy diner? Maybe with food that wasn't the Slob? She'd take it. She'd take a grassy hill and a sunny day rather than this tunnel.
Quickly, Alice! Quickly and silently we must go or he'll see us, the Eye of Mordor!
"What are you even saying?" Ahsoka whispered to the Cat, who simply rolled its head with its cheeky grin and bright eyes along the path, a light in the fog. Ahsoka ended up going, because of course she was curious, and as she left behind her room, the door slid to a close and she was locked in the darkness. Except for the Cat's glowing eyes and mouth, coming from its rolling head, Ahsoka was in the dark. This wasn't the dark of a cave, where her echolocation would still help her navigate. This was utter darkness, silent and foreign to her senses. There was nothing her senses could pick, and so as she stumbled through the earthy tunnel, she gasped at the sudden stench of sulfur and death that assaulted her nostrils. She emerged in a swamp at the end of the tunnel, a swamp with a tiny hut nearby, abandoned and covered in grass.
The swamp boiled, and a tiny light shone from the depths of the murky waters. The Cheshire Cat grinned from below the grime and the filth of the swamp's lake, as if daring her to come in after him.
Ahsoka hesitated. She was in a Force trance -of that she was practically sure by now- and she was peeking in her master's head -although she couldn't understand half of what she was seeing- but going into a bubbling swamp? Did she even trust the Cheshire Cat not to lead her to her doom?
The Cat wasn't there for her benefit, but for her master's. Technically, he could be trusted to do things that benefited Master Shade.
"Come on Ahsoka," she whispered. "It's not like your master would allow you to die in his mind."
She was about to step into the bubbling pool of the swamp, when a glint caught her attention from the shore. She craned her neck and realized with a startled gasp it was the same mask she had seen on the face of that dark robed Sith back at the very start of her 'force visions'. It was a mask of polished metal, with thin slits for eyes, and it looked and felt heavy to the touch. It was also unnaturally cold.
Mandalorian Mask.
"With the mask, however, Revan was an icon, a symbol. He was the shaper of history, an individual defined by his actions rather than his thoughts, feelings, and beliefs," a female voice spoke crisply from the swamp's waters, and a figure appeared in the swamp. The figure wasn't well defined, and looked sort-of made of tiny blocks, like one of those old commercials or neon signs.
"Yavin Four," a very familiar voice whispered. "That's where the mask rested, until it was found again."
Ahsoka dropped the mask faster than she could think, and spun around sheepishly as the swamp receded, leaving the place to the grassy hill and the sunny sky. It was like watching a hologram suddenly switch location, and while mind-boggling, it didn't strike her as odd -if anything, it even felt natural for the scenery to change.
Her Master had his arms crossed in front of his chest, and looked at her with a half-disapproving gaze. She could feel his disapproval all the way through the Bond, and she wasn't really looking forward to his next words. "We'll talk in person," her Master said firmly, and with that, Ahsoka opened her eyes to find herself floating gingerly over her bed. She blinked, and gravity reasserted itself.
She fell with a startled gasp, a small cry leaving her lips as she hit the mattress and rolled forward, hissing in pain from the abrupt jolting. The door to her room slid open in the few minutes it took for her to regain her bearings, and when it did, it was to her Master lifting an eyebrow at her. Ahsoka looked down at the floor very hard, trying to hide the shame and the embarrassment at having been caught red-handed.
"So," her Master said, "Take a shower," he remarked, "Get to the infirmary," he added, "And then see me in my office."
With that said, her Master turned and walked away. Ahsoka blinked. Wait. What office? Since when did her master have an office!? She hurried to take a shower and change her clothes, before heading to the infirmary for yet another check on her conditions. The wounds were, for the most part, healed. She just had to avoid efforts for a few days -something she knew without having a droid, or a Jedi Healer, tell her. And after that, she was kind of lost.
Her Master had been awfully quiet throughout the Bond, so she had no idea where his 'office' would be. She resorted to asking. And yet, no one could answer her. In the end, Ahsoka decided to head for his meditation chambers -she now had no longer any doubts about those being his private chambers for meditation, and she wasn't at all surprised when in fact, it turned out that he was in there, sitting cross-legged on a rock, and meditating.
He lifted his right hand at her entering and gestured her closer, pointing at a nearby rock. The signs of her passage had all been erased, and if she hadn't been the cause of them, she wouldn't have even noticed the slight scratch marks that still remained faintly on the newly painted walls.
She sat down on a smaller rock in the sand garden, and watched as the imprints she had left behind on the sands slowly shifted away, disappearing into nothingness.
"Recite the code, padawan," her Master said.
"All of it?" Ahsoka asked. The Code of the Jedi was long, after all. It was really, really long.
"The mantra," her Master said. "Recite it."
Ahsoka took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "There is no emotion, there is peace."
The ground around them began to shift, Ahsoka could feel it through her echolocation, even with her eyes closed. "There is no ignorance, there is knowledge." The trembling did not abide, as the sand rose starting to lap at her crossed legs. "There is no passion, there is serenity." The ripples in the sand reached the upper side of her stomach, and Ahsoka gasped at the feeling of being constricted as she blurted out the last part, "There is no death, there is the Force."
"Is the Jedi Code true?" her Master asked.
"Yes," Ahsoka replied immediately, and the sudden flare of her Master's will made her wince as a flick hit her forehead.
"Do not give me the answer you have been taught to give!" her Master remarked. "Give me the answer you believe in! Knowledge taught is seldom left unchallenged by the trials of doubt, but the knowledge we believe in shall stand even against the mightiest of truths!"
Ahsoka's eyes remained closed, even as she felt herself grow weary. Was the Jedi Code true? Emotion did exist. Ignorance was there. Passion? How could one not be passionate? And death...death existed. As a Togruta, she knew of the ferocious Akul from her planet, and she knew of many a dear family member that had died because of them. Death existed. You couldn't deny it.
"It's not," Ahsoka said in the end. "It's not wrong." She insisted. "But...it's not right either."
Her Master remained silent for a short while, but the pressure of the sand seemed to lower around her. "Recite the main code of the Jedi Order, padawan."
"Jedi are the guardians of peace in the galaxy. Jedi use their powers to defend and protect, never to attack others. Jedi respect all life, in any form. Jedi serve others, rather than rule over them, for the good of the galaxy. Jedi seek to improve themselves through knowledge and training."
"Oh?" her Master replied. "Run the second line by me again?"
"Jedi use their powers to defend and protect, never to attack others," Ahsoka complied. "What of it?"
"See anything wrong with that line?" her Master quipped.
"We also use our lightsabers?" Ahsoka hazarded, and promptly received another forehead flick.
"Never to attack others," her Master said. "That line right there, you understand it means we are no longer Jedi following the Code if we take it for an absolute law, right?"
Ahsoka could -kind of- understand what point her master was trying to make, but there was something wrong about it all the same. "We aren't attacking the Separatists. We're simply defending ourselves."
"Are we?" her Master said with a raised eyebrow. "The Separatist movement merely wishes to remove itself from the corruption within the Republic, padawan. It didn't actually dislike the Republic, and if you actually studied your politics, you'd realize Count Dooku is merely the spokesperson of the Confederacy." Her master sighed. "This is not a clear case of good versus evil, of Jedi versus Sith, padawan. This is merely a matter of taxes," which he had explained, and Ahsoka had promptly forgotten because it was boring, "And corruption. That we, as Jedi, chose to get directly involved in this matter is nothing short than ludicrous," here he exhaled. "But of course, there was little choice back at the time. However, now it can no longer be stopped. The Republic won't stop until they've won, and the Separatist won't stop until their 'honor' has been restored." There was annoyance in her master's voice, she could feel it, clear as the day.
"Make no mistake. This isn't a battle of good versus evil. This is a battle between the lesser evil of the two. They're both despicable evils, one rife with corruption, the other with greed. They're both unworthy, but they're the only two choices we have at the moment," Ahsoka could feel the annoyance lessen visibly, until it finally disappeared. "But we are not here to talk politics. We are here to talk about the Jedi Code."
Ahsoka grimaced. "As you have understood, the Jedi code is not an absolute, but more of a guideline. Why then, isn't this common knowledge?"
"Because nobody got around to changing it?" Ahsoka hazarded. Here, her master merely chuckled. Another flick to her forehead, and she rubbed it, or at least tried to. The sand was gripping her all the way to the arms, preventing her every movement. "Master?" Ahsoka asked with a slight worry in her voice.
"Stay calm, Padawan. Doubt is truly a frightening creature," her Master's voice came as a whisper near her ear, but she hadn't felt him move. "First, it silently slinks near you, and waits. The moment you are distracted, the moment you no longer pay attention to it, it starts to climb over your body. Doubt makes you worry, because doubt means there is ignorance, mistrust, fear, and accusations start to pop up. If you doubt your friends, are they really your friends? If you doubt your allies, are they really your allies? If you doubt your teachers, can you trust their teachings? And when doubt grows, it slowly paralyzes you. It constricts you, it tightens its hold, and when the time comes, it snuffs the light out of you."
Ahsoka gasped for air, but the sand had already reached her lips.
"M-Master?" she croaked out.
"Fact is, you need to doubt in order to grow," her Master acquiesced. "If you do not doubt your teachers, you might not find out when they make mistakes. If you do not doubt your friends, you might not realize they're doing wrong, and in turn making you do wrong. In the end, you need doubt. Only, you don't need it on the important things."
The constricting feeling of the sand grew tight enough that Ahsoka began to have trouble breathing. She couldn't keep this pain ongoing, and whatever lesson her master had to teach her, he could teach it without this method. She concentrated, trying to break through the sand. Unfortunately, her master's strength was too much for her to face.
"When you realize that doubt is paralyzing you," her master's voice kept coming on peacefully, at ease even, as if this was normal, "We try to fight it. The problem lies in that doubt is a self-reproducing beast. On whom do we trust, if we did not trust our previous friends? Which teachings do we believe in, if those before failed us? How can we trust once more? How can we trust, if people betray?"
"I-I..." Ahsoka grunted in effort. It was getting harder and harder to hold the sand back from crushing her ribs. "I-"
Believe in yourself. Not in the you who believes in me. Not the me who believes in you. Believe in the you who believes in yourself.
Ahsoka gasped. She gasped and opened her eyes firmly. There was no sand holding her down, and neither was there her Master's power doing it. The Cheshire Cat grinned and swished its tail in front of her, the broad grin stretching its face from side to side. The more time passed, the more she was convinced a cat pelt would look positively adorable on her montrals. Or maybe she could taste roasted cat? Roasted cat sounded nice. "You," she growled.
The Cheshire Cat merely grinned, and the world around her shifted and broke into tiny pieces. This time around, Ahsoka's eyes snapped wide open for real -or so she hoped, she dearly hoped this was the case- and as they locked with the room she was in, she exhaled in relief. Her arm was still sore and she stank of sweat, but the morning had come, and she had woken up.
"I'm going mad," Ahsoka whispered as she carefully stood to sit on her bed. "I'm really going mad," she added as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Her reflection stared back. A small, tabby cat of orange and red fur with stripes stared right back at her with a cheeky and curious smile. It was a cute kitten. It was a cute kitten, and it was looking at her through the mirror with a tiny, fluffy paw patting on the glass surface.
"Scratch that," she said, gazing at the cat in shock, "I'm actually mad."
The cat meowed adorably, and Ahsoka sighed. Well, they said that students reflected their masters somehow. Her Master was mad. She was going down that path nicely, if she had to say so herself.
The cat inclined its head to the side, and Ahsoka stood up from the bed to walk near the glass. Her hand slipped on the surface right to where the cat was, and as she began to 'play' with the cat through the mirror, she couldn't help but chuckle.
"At least you're cute."
There was a knock at her door, and Ahsoka jumped back, scaring the cat who meowed and ran away from the mirror surface, disappearing out of sight.
"You done sleeping like a log, padawan?" her Master's voice came through, and she quickly walked to open the door.
"Y-Yeah," she said. "Uh, I-" she was sweaty like hell, and probably looked as if she had run a marathon. Her Master raised an eyebrow, a stray thought catching Ahsoka's attention and making her embarrassed. "I don't stink!" she blurted out.
Her Master merely nodded sagely, and dropped the line of thought.
A few hours later, Ahsoka had a clear bill of health, smelled of soap, slings in both her arms and was levitating a training lightsaber in front of her.
"One lightsaber's easy," her Master remarked in front of her. "Now try two."
Ahsoka winced as a second training lightsaber calmly floated in front of the first.
"Now make one go right and the other go left," her Master said dutifully. "Easy now, I don't want you to get hurt -they sting even though they don't chop."
"R-Really?" Ahsoka said nervously. "Why, I thought you'd be all for...pain being an excellent teacher."
"No," her Master acquiesced. "Pain...is not an excellent teacher, padawan. Understanding one's own limits and clearing one's mind from doubt before doing, that is excellent motivation. To train under pain...it is not something wise, or suggested. You do no one a favor by acting that way. You only hurt yourself for the self-gratification of saying 'I trained while suffering, so I am better than those who train and do not'. It's a vicious, ineffective cycle."
Ahsoka groaned and dropped both lightsabers, which clattered to a halt a few steps away from her body.
"Did you have to talk that long?!"
"It's part of the training, padawan," her Master acquiesced. "Now...again."
And as Ahsoka slowly and awkwardly began to make the first training lightsaber float, she couldn't help but feel something warm bubble in her chest. It was the purring sound of a fluffy, happy kitten. The second lightsaber came up even more easily than the first one, and as it did, Ahsoka grinned.
Mister Fluffles.
She decided she'd call it Mister Fluffles, because even hallucinations deserved a name.
