Playing Billiard With Fate SI/Star Wars...POV EXPERIMENT
Ahsoka Tano was ten when she was told a Jedi Master had taken an interest in her training. Her heart had actually skipped a beat at the thought that someone had actually taken notice of her skills, even at such a young age. Still, she was just an initiate, and it had merely been hearsay. She wasn't told who the Jedi Master was. She was just told he'd be watching.
Four years later, when she became a Padawan, Master Yoda assigned her to a man she had never seen before. Dark haired and dark eyed, a dark stubble of a beard and a thin, curled downward grimace settled on his face. He had a lightsaber by the side of his robes, and didn't really look that powerful. Heck, she couldn't feel an ounce of the Force rushing through him!
They were in the gardens of the Jedi Temple when they first met, his eyes adrift towards the wall and his legs crossed, hands rested upwards on his knees. He was breathing evenly, but a bare motion of his eyes told her he had seen her -or heard her, or whatever, it wasn't like she had been hiding her steps.
"Master?" Ahsoka asked.
"Is it a question, or a statement?" the Jedi Master replied, an eyebrow raised.
Ahsoka's mood soured pretty quickly.
"I was told he'd be in the courtyard," Ahsoka said, looking around. "You're the only one here."
"Am I?"
Ahsoka grumbled, "Look, you're the one who wanted me, right? Shouldn't it go a bit differently?"
"Oh? And how should it go?" the Jedi asked, his grimace slowly morphing into a scowl.
"Well," Ahsoka said, "Hello, my name is Ahsoka Tano, are you my Master? What is your name?"
"We rarely get what we want," the man pointed out, and exhaled as the sand drifted away in front of him, becoming a gentle spiral of sand that rose upwards. "But to answer your question, a Jedi does not doubt. Take your doubts, and discard them. Things are, or they are not. There is no 'try'. You do things, or you don't. That's one of Master Yoda's maxims, so you would do best to learn it. If you know not, find out. If you cannot, discover. If that fails, inquire or test."
Oh, he was one of those masters that nagged their Padawan until they drew their last breath, right-o. Wonderful. Really, couldn't another master have taken notice of her skills?
"Sit," the man said, and patted the stone floor next to him. She rolled her eyes -this was going to be such a boring thing, she just knew it was going to be something like 'breath slowly, become one with the force' and so on.
"Yes, Master-With-No-Name."
"Is the courtyard peaceful?" he asked calmly, and to that, Ahsoka blinked a moment. What sort of stupid question was that? The courtyard was peaceful. It was in the middle of the Jedi temple, of course it was peaceful!
"Duh," Ahsoka remarked.
"Close your eyes and concentrate, Padawan," the Jedi Master said. "Feel the silence. Feel the quiet. Feel the very air. Do not answer with what you think is the right answer, give me your own reply. Is the courtyard peaceful?"
Ahsoka quieted down.
She took deep, long and even breaths, and as she felt the Force around her, she realized that something was wrong in the courtyard. There was a ripple, a slight discrepancy, something completely and utterly wrong that made the Force stutter, lag around, or even outright feel wrong. She couldn't pinpoint it, but something in the courtyard was definitely not at peace.
"If you cannot find the answer here," the man said in a barely perceptible whisper, "look further away. Let it flow, make it a part of you, an instinctive piece of yourself. Become a leaf floating down the river. Where is it guiding you, I wonder?"
Ahsoka bristled slightly, feeling the concentration slip, but recovered pretty quickly. The force was flowing around the courtyard lazily, going further away, being the very life-force of the people walking and going about their daily life and making noise, which went through the air, and there were cars floating by, and as she finally understood what the problem was, she would have kicked herself in the shins.
"There's so much traffic they're diverging cars overhead," Ahsoka said as she opened her eyes.
"Which is why the courtyard is empty of all except for me," the man replied calmly. "I could be the gardener, but my attire makes it clear I am not. Yet attires can be changed. I could be a thief, who stole a Jedi robe and lightsaber. What makes you sure that I am who you think I am?"
Ahsoka hesitated, and then hazarded a guess, "The Force?"
"Are you stating your answer, or asking a question?"
Ahsoka grumbled a few choice words beneath her breath, and closed her eyes. Hand raised, she gingerly felt the Force around the man in front of her, who didn't try to stop her. The Force lazily drifted around the man as if it had better things to do than be bothered with him. She concentrated some more, and tried harder. Again, the Force just went through him, as if he was made of nothing but thin air.
"That's...a nifty trick," Ahsoka said, and whistled. "But this doesn't help me."
The man frowned, and sighed. "A Sentinel is a Jedi who devotes his life to hunting down those who would turn to the Dark Side of the Force, those who would use the Force for evil or selfish intention, and who are the protectors of the Galaxy hidden in the shadows. We strike unseen, and we leave unseen." He opened his eyes and for the first time, his gaze linked with hers. "I am Master Shade Night, and I shall be your Master henceforth, Padawan Ahsoka Tano."
Ahsoka blinked very, very slowly. She carefully brought a hand to her mouth and giggled. She muffled the sound with her hands, but the giggle erupted into laughter. "Now I understand why you didn't want Master Yoda to tell me your name!" Ahsoka guffawed. "Tell me it's a nickname, please! It can't be a real name, can it? 'Shade Night' man! The Edge in that name is enough to make me bleed just by hearing it!"
A cold unsettling chill dropped on the Togruta shoulders as she stared into her Master's eyes, who narrowed to thin lines.
The cold passed and disappeared, as the man stood up and turned as if to leave.
"Uhm...I'm still your Padawan, right?" Ahsoka asked.
"Yes, that you are, and that you will be, until you are ready," Shade replied with a wave of the hand in dismissal. Ahsoka sighed in relief, she had nearly fucked it up with that last remark. Well, her Master was touchy about his name -she'd be touchy too if someone had ever named her like that, though she'd have been the first to change it.
"Tomorrow morning, we will begin training in the gym," her Master said, and his voice bore no doubt on just how hard the 'training' was going to be. "Have no fear. Clear your mind. And have a will written down."
Ahsoka had begun to stand when she froze mid-movement. "W-What?!"
With a hearty chuckle, the Master walked out of the courtyard.
"W-Wait a moment! What did you say at the end, Master Shade? Hey! Don't leave me hanging-you didn't say that, did you? HEY!" Ahsoka rushed out of the courtyard, and past a perplexed Jedi Master she didn't know and a Jedi Knight she didn't care about. Her master had all but disappeared.
"If you are looking for Shade," the Master Jedi she didn't know said, "You can find him in the holo room."
"Thank you, Master," Ahsoka said, and hurriedly went the way of the Holographic rooms. The last thing she heard was a brief 'I don't pity the girl, Obi-Wan' 'Hush, Anakin, Shade cannot stand people like-'
But that soon went over Ahsoka's head.
Her master hadn't just said he wanted her to write a will now, had he!? What kind of psycho would want something like that!?
Or maybe it was a test?
Ahsoka stopped midway.
But if it was a test, what was it a test for?
She resumed her running. She'd think about it later.
First, she had a Master to catch and get some explanations out of!
Of course, she could refuse him as her Master...but she didn't want to. She had this feeling that if she did, she wouldn't like the outcome.
AN: SI Shade, but POV is Ahsoka's. One-Shot out.
So, the people liked HATE-FILLED DOKI-DOKI HIGHSCHOOL DAYS, uh!? Very well...let's see how deep the tunnel of the rabbit goes, then.
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