Chapter Text
Ahsoka Tano left the Jedi Order, her heart heavy with grief and with betrayal running deep. A quiet grief simmered within her, one she carefully held in check, but the loss of her title and everything that came with it pained her.
As she walked down the long stairs from the Jedi Temple, Ahsoka thought of Barriss Offee, her friend and companion who was still dear to her heart even now.
There was no comfort to be found in the knowledge that the Mirialan would be rotting in a Coruscantian prison for the rest of her life, no satisfaction.
Ahsoka looked down on her hands as she turned another corner, walking aimlessly, but heading downwards into the darkness of Coruscant . ‘Useless,’ she thought.
Barriss had been a friend. Ahsoka had wanted her to be more, had felt lightheaded whenever Barriss had been around. She couldn’t help but think that maybe Barriss could have become more, if Ahsoka hadn’t failed her.
Ahsoka hadn’t even been able to save her friend, to see her plight before it was too late. What good was she if she couldn’t even protect the ones she cared about?
Ahsoka wondered at her situation as she sat cross-legged in the drab, grey room, her attention wandering from the attempted meditation.
She was in the underbelly of Coruscant, far beneath the upper terraces where the Sun cast its warm light upon the cityscape. Sunlight hadn’t touched this place for hundreds of years, and somehow it felt right to Ahsoka that she should be here in her moment of failure.
Ahsoka had wandered further beneath the surface than she had ever gone before, eager to put distance between herself and the Order. Finally, when she’d been tired to the bone, she’d found this dirty, simple room that no one cared about enough to even rent out. And here she sat — alone and away from the Order, just as she’d wanted.
Despite her eagerness to disappear from the Order’s watchful eyes, Ahsoka missed them already. The Jedi Order had been many things and Ahsoka knew more intimately than most that they weren’t perfect, but she had been raised in the Temple.
Every Jedi there was a sibling, a mentor, a parent. To Ahsoka, the Jedi would always be family, no matter the mistakes they’d made.
She could return, Ahsoka knew that in her heart of hearts.
They’d forgive her her minor transgressions without asking questions. They’d look past her unbridled display of emotion and attachment and initiate her as a Knight of the Order, Master Obi-Wan would make sure of it.
She’d be able to see Anakin again, to hug him close and heal their fractured bond.
She could soothe the pain and worry that crept through it even now, even diminished as it had already become.
She’d get to sleep in her own quarters surrounded by the comfortable familiarity of the Order.
The Council would keep her busy and she wouldn’t have time to dwell on what had happened, she’d be in the field, offering aid wherever she went and bringing a bit of peace with her.
Ahsoka wanted none of it. The mere thought of returning, of the members of the Council looking down at her from their elevated seats with benevolence and forgiveness that wasn’t theirs to give, sent a twinge of anger into her stomach.
‘No,’ Ahsoka thought, ‘there will be no returning to the Jedi Order.’
All Padawans toyed with the idea of a life outside of the Order, some more than others. Ahsoka herself had considered it in a fleeting, hypothetical way, but she’d always found comfort in knowing her position and her mission.
Sighing, Ahsoka gave up on meditating and lay down on the hard floor. The cold seeped into her bones quickly but she’d slept in worse places during missions, and at least the room was shielded from the masses on the streets.
Ahsoka laid on her back, and listened to the sounds of the streets surrounding her tiny flat.
There was danger here, signs of crime and disease echoed through the Force. Ahsoka shuddered as she took in the sensations.
The people who lived on these levels were poor beyond measure and many lived lives she could hardly imagine. She could feel their squalor through the Force, felt their longing for the surface, for a better life.
And underneath it all… There was hope.
Hope that someday, something would improve. Their hope bled into desperation, into fear and anger, and back into hope.
Ahsoka didn’t understand. In this place with so little to give, how could they keep going on hope alone?
It was comforting, in a sense. Ahsoka had always thought of herself as durable and independent, she’d gotten out of no-win situations countless times before. She was alone now, alone and afraid of the future, but hope would return.
This wouldn’t break her, she decided.
Ahsoka Tano left the Jedi Order, and she didn’t know what she would do next.
But she knew that somehow, someday, she would be alright.
The lingering fear and anger in the pit of her stomach was easy to suppress.
Hope would replace it soon enough, she was certain of it.
Asajj Ventress carried Quinlan Vos’ limp body to the Jedi Temple after the fight with Dooku.
The fight was burnt into her mind, blurry with rain and the pain of the head wound she’d suffered. She and Quinlan had tried so hard to carry out their mission, but in the end Dooku had proven too much for them, again.
She’d fallen to the balcony below, so terribly far down, and had only seen flashes from the lightning.
A scream had escaped her throat as she’d seen Quinlan’s body topple over the railing and disappear into the void below. Asajj had swayed as she’d gotten up, her concussion making her vision blacken for a moment.
She’d cast a single glance at Dooku as he stood far above her, lightning still crackling at his fingertips. He had been too far away for her to see his face, but she hadn’t needed to see it to know his expression.
Asajj knew it well.
She’d seen the tightness of his upper lip countless times before, curled in distaste and disappointment. Sometimes she still saw that face in her nightmares, followed by cruel words or distant memories of pain.
Asajj had looked away from her former master and jumped into the darkness, hoping against hope that her lover had survived the fall.
Now she stood in the courtyard of the Jedi Temple with fury in the set of her back, and demanded attention.
Quinlan Vos lay before her, his body broken and his spirit gone and Asajj hated being here, hated waiting, hated the corpse in front of her.
It took only seconds for the Temple Guards to notice her as she stood with rage pulsating off of her in waves. They rushed forward, and with ignited lightsabers they formed a front between her and the rest of the Temple.
A tiny green creature pushed his way through the line of Guards. He was so small and ancient, so seemingly harmless that Asajj still had a hard time believing that this was the great Jedi Master Yoda.
Asajj waited until Yoda was close enough to see the trickle of dried blood on Quinlan’s face.
With flinty eyes she watched his ears droop as he took in the sight of his fellow Master, a man who had been so full of life and vigour, now lying cold on the ground.
In an instant, the ancient Jedi Master seemed hundreds of years older.
»Brought him to us, you did. For this, we thank you,« the goblin spoke softly and sincerely, and Asajj hated him, hated how genuine he sounded.
»You did this, Jedi,« Asajj snarled with venom in her voice. »Dooku struck the final blow, but you lot sent him to the slaughter.«
Asajj heard the incessant drumming of her blood in her ears. She felt the fury rise within her as the green imp just looked at her with sad eyes.
She heard the Dark Side calling her, screaming at her to let go, to draw her saber, and bring righteous justice down upon the Jedi.
Asajj looked at the Jedi that had gathered, the Padawans, the Knights, the Masters, and a grimace twisted her features into a snarl.
She blamed them, every single one of them, wanted all of them dead. Asajj was tempted to give herself over to the blind rage of the Dark Side once again, to throw away the balance she’d precariously maintained for so long.
Asajj tore herself from her fury.
She pulled back, forced herself to balance on the edge of the Dark Side once again, and loathed the smile on Yoda’s lip as he felt her do so.
The Dark Side was a part of her, now and always, but Asajj refused to be governed by it as she had been before. Never again.
»You all did this,« Asajj spat at the crowd and turned to leave.
»That’s an oversimplification,« a familiar voice rang out, and Asajj swivelled on her heel. She knew this man well, she’d fought with him at her side and had even grown to enjoy their encounters to a certain extent, but now…she loathed the sight of him.
Obi-Wan Kenobi stepped through the crowd and Asajj saw his face tighten at the sight of Quinlan on the ground. They’d been close, she knew.
A small flicker of sympathy ran through her despite her anger — she knew the pain on his face, knew it intimately.
It was hers as well.
The red-haired man tore his eyes from the dead man between them. »This was your doing as well, Ventress. We sent him to you, that was our mistake, but you…«
A sneer of disgust disfigured Obi-Wan’s otherwise lovely features, and Asajj thought that, had the man been less civilised, he might have spat on her. »You twisted him, turned him from our teachings. You made him weak. This is your fault, as much as ours.«
Asajj drew in a sharp breath as she reached for her lightsaber, every fibre of her being urging her to strike the man down where he stood for his words.
Yoda stilled her hand with nothing but a small sigh and a tap of his cane.
‘Such power,’ Asajj thought, suddenly remembering how easily he’d stopped her on Rugosa.
Their meeting on the moon had been a small eternity ago, she was stronger now, far more in control than she had been back then, but the immensity of power that radiated from him overwhelmed her. His Force Aura lay as a heavy blanket in the air, and Asajj was stopped dead in her tracks.
»Stay with us, you should,« the Master said and for the shortest of instants, Asajj felt tempted. To learn from this Master of the Force, to give herself over to the Temple, to gain the life the Rattatak warlords had stolen from her so long ago…
The moment passed and Asajj stepped away from the body in front of her, casting one lingering gaze at his pallid features.
Even in death he was striking. The harsh yellow stripe running across his nose, his sharp jaw and the curve of his lips made her heart feel tight and pained.
It all reminded her that she would never again get to shake her head at his inane jokes, that he’d never wrap her in his arms again. Asajj felt bile rising in her throat at the knowledge that Quinlan Vos, Jedi maverick, jester, lover, was irrevocably dead.
Asajj walked backwards a few steps, away from the tiny green imp and his theatre of followers, her eyes trained on the man she had thought would be her future everything.
With a fleeting glance at the Jedi gathered in the courtyard, Asajj Ventress turned her back on them and walked away with the simmering fury in her belly as her only companion.
The Galaxy was changing.
Everyone felt it, from the furthermost reaches of the Outer Rim to the inner workings of the Republic Senate.
The Clone Wars raged harder than ever and worry seeped into the very pores of the citizens of the Republic and the Separatist Union alike.
Ahsoka Tano felt it on her path wherever she went. She walked among the people who lived in the middle of the war, seeking their companionship. Everywhere she felt their desperation and fear and saw the way that they would bend their backs as if they wanted to curl in on themselves.
Ahsoka saw the worry in the faces of children who had never known anything but war and suffering, and in the faces of their elders who were slowly but surely losing hope that the horrors would ever cease.
She found the injustice to be infuriating and unnecessary, and soon any mention of Jedi Generals would sour her mood without her noticing.
Asajj Ventress walked alone.
Wherever she went, she brought her grief and suffering with her, intent on spreading it as far and as wide as she could.
Losing Quinlan had wounded her and the mere thought of never seeing his stupid smile again made her heart ache. Sharing the pain made it easier to bear.
Bounty hunting paid well during the Clone Wars, and when Asajj took down a mark, she saw her pain reflected in the families of her marks, felt some semblance of the connection that she longed for.
She craved that moment of shared anguish, though the thrill of satisfaction it sent down her back made her nauseous.
The lure of the Dark Side was no stranger to Asajj.
She knew it as well as she knew the back of her hand, but it beckoned her continually. It called to her and made promises of peace and companionship, of closure if she’d just lean into it entirely, if she’d just give herself over to it, body and spirit. Asajj ignored it as best she could.
She teetered on the edge of the knife’s edge, taking care to balance herself more carefully than she’d ever done before.
She wasn’t sure that she always succeeded.