Chapter Text
She should’ve known. She should’ve known the moment she saw the paper garment bag hanging up in her quarters, accompanied by a small note in clean, precise script that told her to be in the temple hall tomorrow morning wearing the enclosed outfit. Obi-Wan had signed the note, which had been completely unnecessary—no one in the entire Jedi Order wrote as neatly as he did. No one was neurotic enough to leave dry cleaning in her room with hand-written instructions attached to it, either.
Inside the garment bag were Jedi robes. Well, sort of. They looked incredibly expensive—they were a deep crimson with embroidered edges, along with boots and a thin belt that was entirely useless and only meant for decoration. These weren’t ceremonial robes, and they certainly weren’t her new officer dress blues. She’d rarely seen fabric of this quality except on senators and kings.
She really, really should’ve known better than to follow the instructions. Anakin’s perpetual need to be contrary with his Master, no matter how trivial the command, suddenly made a lot more sense to her. Maybe she should take a page out of his book more often where Obi-Wan was concerned—especially when his requests involved dressing up in formal attire before breakfast.
Still, stupidly, naively, she did as he asked. She was six minutes late to the hall for their meeting, which she decided to blame on a lack of food and caffeine, and her tardiness meant that she was the last person to arrive. Apparently she wasn’t the only one Obi-Wan had sent clothes to.
“Ahsoka,” he called the moment she entered, far too chipper for so early in the morning. The tables and chairs had all been pushed to the sides, revealing a vast, unbroken stretch of marble floor. In the middle of it stood Obi-Wan, dressed in similarly exquisite robes. They were a deep brown, nearly black, with an outlined floral pattern imprinted across its surface, along with a grey-blue undertunic for colour. His sleeves were cuffed at the wrists, and attached to his decorative leather belt was his lightsaber. Even his boots were new, freshly polished with sharp broguing along its edges. She’d never seen him so dressed up, even for medal ceremonies. It made the still-healing black eye and stitched cut over his cheek look that much more out of place.
“Hi,” she said slowly, tearing her gaze away from him and finally looking at the other occupants in the hall. Anakin was about as far away from Obi-Wan as he could get without leaving the room entirely, sitting in a windowsill and looking thoroughly unamused. He was wearing a nearly identical outfit to his Master and herself, though his robes were a shiny black with a crimson accent. Rex, Cody, and Fives were also there, dressed in single-breasted jackets with capped shoulders that were similar to the dress blues they wore on the decks of naval vessels. They looked even more miserable than Anakin, though they were all standing straight-backed near the rear door.
Her eyes flicked back to Obi-Wan. “What’s uh, going on?”
“A ball,” Obi-Wan declared, and was met with a groan from Anakin that he ignored. “In a few days, the Senate will be holding a formal gathering to celebrate our recent victory on Umbara, among other things. All parties present have received an invitation, which is why I called you all in here this morning.” He smoothed a hand down his chest to settle his robes, and they glinted faintly in the morning light. He must’ve ironed them right before coming here. “I’ve taken the liberty of picking out your attire in advance to avoid any potential upset.” He aimed the last comment directly at Anakin, who rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful.
“They gave out party invitations to people who did all the work?” Ahsoka asked doubtfully, looking back to the clones. “That’s nice of them. What about all the others?”
“They’ve invited the platoons, though only the officers are required to attend.”
“With respect, sir,” Rex said, clearing his throat. “If I made any of my men attend a ball, they’d be staging a mutiny for me before the night was through.”
Obi-Wan turned, a small smile at his lips. “As I figured. But you may bring a few you’d like to torture as your plus-ones, if you wish.”
“We’ve all been tortured enough, I think,” Fives interjected, doing his best not to sound insubordinate.
“Not quite, I’m afraid. They didn’t teach you how to dance during training.”
With that Anakin slouched further into the window-sill, groaning loudly enough that it echoed in the hall. “If they really wanted to help us celebrate our victories, they’d give us a few barrels of wine and diplomatic immunity on Coruscant for the next forty-eight hours,” he declared to the room, throwing an arm over his eyes.
The clones chuckled at that until they were given a hard look from Obi-Wan, who then unfortunately turned his attention back to Ahsoka. “Do you know how to dance, my dear?”
That was a trick question. She looked to Anakin, to Rex, then to the floor, stalling for time. None of them gave her any answers—certainly not any that would get her out of whatever Obi-Wan was about to inflict on all of them.
“Enough to get by,” she finally settled on. He nodded like he’d been expecting that answer, then held out a hand.
“I’ll refresh you on the basics, then.”
“I should be studying,” she told him, taking a step back towards the door. Rex shot her a look of furious betrayal. “Master Yoda says that—”
“That you are weeks behind on your philosophy readings already,” Obi-Wan finished for her, as if she didn’t know. “Another morning of shirking your studies shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
“What if I can’t go?” she asked, trying for a different tact. “Maybe I’m busy that night.”
“And what night is that, dear?”
“Uh….”
Anakin hopped down from the window, his freshly-polished boots clattering on the marble. “None of us want to go to this thing, Obi-Wan. It’s torture, like Fives said.”
“That’s hardly the point, is it?”
“What does that even mean? It’s a party for us!” Anakin stabbed a finger into his own chest for emphasis. “It should be what we want. I shouldn’t even be going, anyway. I was barely there on Umbara,” he muttered, casting his eyes to the floor.
“Neither was I,” Ahsoka chimed in. When all three of the clones gave her dagger stares, she hurried to add, “and Anakin’s right. We’re all soldiers. We don’t go to balls, especially not clones.”
“We are peacekeepers,” Obi-Wan corrected her, and by the tone of his voice she could tell he was about to launch into a lecture. “Part of that duty includes diplomacy. Our victories are the Republic’s victories, and it’s poor form to blow them off as nonsense.”
“They are nonsense!” Anakin cut in, making Obi-Wan look back at him.
“Your opinion of them is irrelevant,” he replied curtly. “They serve to maintain high spirits amongst the people. They also serve as free positive press, something we can’t get enough of these days. It’s important that we all attend, including you three,” he added, turning to Rex, Cody and Fives. They straightened where they stood, though they couldn’t quite hide their sour expressions.
“Of course, sir,” Rex said, answering for all three of them. With a satisfied nod, Obi-Wan turned back to Ahsoka once more, hand extended.
“Last to arrive is first up,” he informed her, and she swore she heard delight in his voice.
Technically speaking, it wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to her. Maybe being caged up in a slaver’s palace was where that title belonged; or maybe it was being hunted down for sport. Those were definitely worse. Probably.
“Left foot forward,” Obi-Wan instructed, sweeping a leg under hers to bring it flush with his own boot. “Try it again.”
“No normal person moves this way,” she informed him, resetting their position on the makeshift dance floor. Despite his protests to keep her head up, she watched their feet as they moved; his with an effortless grace, her own with fumbling reluctance. It meant that she had her face nearly pressed into his robes, and she frowned up at him when they began to move again. “Are you wearing cologne?”
“It smells disgusting,” Anakin chimed in. He’d reclaimed his seat on the windowsill and had more or less ordered the clones to join him, forming a small gallery from which they occasionally lobbed barbs at Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. “Like the cleaner they put in landspeeders.”
“I am,” Obi-Wan answered calmly, ignoring the ribbing. “It’s not—Ahsoka, left foot!”
“I’m trying! But these stupid—boots—” She kicked her heel against the marble, making a clacking sound. “They’re uncomfortable.” And this wasn’t at all like the combat acrobatics she’d learned during training; it had too much structure to it, too many unnatural movements.
“They’ll break in,” he assured her. “It’s why we’re practicing in them.”
“I thought you just wanted to play dress up,” Anakin interjected. Obi-Wan stopped them in the middle of the floor, forcing Ahsoka to grab onto his arms to keep from falling.
“Would you like a turn, Anakin?”
“I know how to dance,” he shot back.
Obi-Wan reset their position once again, readjusting her hands. “You can begin teaching one of the officers, then. Decide amongst yourselves which one goes first.”
All three of the clones immediately jumped down from the windowsill and stepped away from Anakin. Their movements were so synchronised it almost looked like a kind of dance in its own right.
Now with the license to suddenly inflict this horror on other people, Anakin’s mood brightened. He shot Rex a grin as he hopped down to the floor, who was doing his best to look everywhere except for the general.
Obi-Wan brought her attention back to their lessons with a tug that threw off her centre of gravity and forced her to concentrate on where she placed her feet.
“I think it’s only fair you go first, Rex,” she overheard Fives suggest. She was too preoccupied to watch them, but she was sure a shoving match was imminent.
Ahsoka frowned up at Obi-Wan. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
He gave her a coy look. “Did what?”
“Oh, pfft. You know what I mean.” She removed her hand from his shoulder for a brief moment to gesture at the clones. “Make them fight over who goes first.”
His expression turned conspiratorial, and he lowered his voice so that only she could hear. “If you’re all going to torture me with endless complaints, I’ll do my best to give you something to complain about.”
Ahsoka swallowed down a laugh and did her best to follow Obi-Wan across the floor. She wished there was some sort of pattern on the ground to help guide her; everything about this felt counter-intuitive, more routine than rhythm. It was exactly the way she was taught not to move.
“You’ll have to attend a great many of these over the course of your military career,” he told her, sensing her frustration. She had to strain to listen to him speak above the argument that began raging beside them. “And you will be asked to dance. Many times.”
Ahsoka nodded, more in defeat than agreement. “Are you supposed to talk and stuff while dancing?” she asked, looking up at him. When she stepped on his boot, he only smiled and moved onto the next position set.
“It would be a bit awkward if you didn’t,” he replied dryly, which was a relief. It was easy to talk with Obi-Wan; there was no pressure to fill every pocket of silence with noise, or to find something interesting to say in order to impress or amuse him. She imagined doing this with a random senator instead, and felt her stomach sink.
“What if I don’t have anything to talk about?” she continued, following his movements across the floor. His hand was warm and dry in her own. “I don’t have a lot in common with diplomats.”
“They like talking about themselves,” he responded, glancing briefly over at the sidebar. Apparently Cody had been chosen as the unlucky first dance apprentice, and was currently being counselled by Anakin on where to put his hands. “Ask them a couple questions and then let them do the rest. It often works for me,” he added with a wink, looking back to her.
“So like talking to you, then,” she said, giving him a surreptitious glance that made his mouth tug up in a smile.
“I don’t bore you, do I, Ahsoka?”
She shrugged. “Not usually.”
He laughed. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Your cologne isn’t gross, by the way,” she added, and he sobered a little, as if suddenly self-conscious. “It’s nice.”
He looked down very briefly at himself before raising a brow. “It’s not too much, is it?”
“Maybe a little less,” she reasoned, ducking forward to sniff at his robes. “Depends on how cozy you want to get with people.”
Anakin and Cody nearly bumped into them as they twirled awkwardly across the floor, but he managed to steer them out of the way of a direct collision. “Oh, he’s getting cozy, all right,” Anakin said, overhearing their conversation. “His girlfriend is showing up.”
“She’s not my—Anakin, your form is wrong. Right hand on the waist—”
Anakin turned suddenly, bringing Cody with him, who grunted in annoyance. “Cody’s still got a couple broken fingers. We’re switching it up.”
“Avoid Senator Tarze, then. He’ll think poorly of you if he catches you dancing like that.”
“And I’ll die of shame if he does,” Anakin lamented, then tapped the front of his boot to Cody’s. “Step back a bit.”
“I don’t have any leverage if I stand like that,” he protested, leaning back with his shoulders to compensate.
“That’s what I said!” Ahsoka cut in, and Cody gave her a helpless look.
“Because you’re performing a dance, not getting ready for battle,” Obi-Wan reminded the both of them, ending that particular line of protest. Cody muttered something about distinctions without differences before adjusting his feet, and Anakin pulled them into another twirl that made his eyes go wide.
“He’s talking about the Duchess of Mandalore, right?” Ahsoka asked quietly so they wouldn’t be overheard, and Obi-Wan looked back at her. She tried not to shrink under his gaze; Anakin had told her about Obi-Wan and the Duchess in a hush-hush sort of way, but she’d been too scared to ask him how true any of it was. Knowing Anakin, at least fifty percent of it was pure fabrication, but it was difficult to sort out which fifty percent of the story that was.
The tension cut when she stepped on his boot again. “Sorry.”
“Chests close, legs further apart,” he instructed, stepping forward in a half-lunge that she remembered to lean into this time. “And yes, she’ll be attending.”
Ahsoka frowned. “Why? It’s a Republic ball, right?”
“Formally, yes,” he replied. “But several diplomats from neutral systems will be there. They want to congratulate us on freeing the people of Kiros. Good standing with any faction that liberates independent colonies without pressuring them to join their war effort after the fact helps keep both us and the Separatists from engaging in the sorts of attacks we saw on Kiros. That’s the thinking, anyway,” he added, more to himself than her.
“But the Togrutas are joining us,” Ahsoka said, frowning as she tried to remember the footwork pattern. She was getting better at not stepping on him, at least.
“They haven’t made any official declarations yet, and I doubt they will for a while.” Obi-Wan pulled them into a twirl, and this time she didn’t slam into his chest. “They need time to heal first. Joining us immediately would put them on a timeline to begin training and reassignment that they may not be ready to keep up with.”
She absorbed that, doing her best to commit it to memory. There was just as much strategy to diplomacy as there was to waging war, and she should probably start paying more attention to the former.
Conversation died down as the dancing lessons continued. Despite a fair amount of complaining and apologising, she managed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. It wasn’t intuitive, much less comfortable, but it did follow a set pattern of careful body movements and hand positions that she eventually memorised. It was still stiff and awkward, but she wasn’t bumping into Obi-Wan or stepping on his polished boots any longer. And despite how much she despised all of this, he was a good and patient teacher.
Her quick learning was immediately punished when Obi-Wan instructed her to begin showing Rex the dance as he paired off with Fives. The captain was still displeased with her attempts to weasel out of dancing lessons earlier this morning, and she spent the next twenty minutes cajoling him back into a good mood in between instructing him on where to put his feet.
“I was gonna figure out how to get you guys out of it, too—”
“You were not,” Rex interrupted her. He was doing his best to look annoyed, but she could see his mouth twitching. He was easy to win over if she pushed the right buttons, and she prided herself on knowing most of them.
Ahsoka grabbed his hand on her shoulder and readjusted it, then pulled them both left as she stepped back. “I was! I would’ve planted a, a bomb or something—”
He scoffed, and corrected a short stumble as she pulled them suddenly in the opposite direction. “If the general let you be excused, you would’ve left without a thought.”
“To come up with a plan to bail you all out!”
Rex shook his head, not breaking. “Nope. You owe me one, kid. All three of us.”
“What about Anakin?” She looked over at him and Cody, still locked together in a clumsy waltz that hadn’t improved much in the past hour or so they’d been at this.
“I have no doubt that if we left the two of them—” He nodded to Obi-Wan and then Anakin, “alone together for five minutes, there wouldn’t be any dancing to get out of.”
“That’s probably true,” Ahsoka agreed, then looked back to Obi-Wan. “Who taught you all this stuff, Obi-Wan?”
“My own master,” he replied easily. “And I taught it to Anakin when he was your age. I see he’s been slacking in that respect.”
“I’ve been too busy teaching her other things, like how not to die,” Anakin shot back, lunging closer to Obi-Wan. “You know, boring stuff like that.”
“I hope you’re still familiar with your table manners,” Obi-Wan continued, as if he hadn’t heard his former padawan. “We’ll be moving onto those next.”
She looked back to Rex, horrified with the realisation that this was going to be far more than dancing lessons.
“I’m sorry, sir, I’ll have to amend my earlier statement,” he said to her quietly. “You owe me a lot more than one favour.”
It took a lot longer than just the morning to get through everything Obi-Wan wanted to cover. Ahsoka tracked the movement of the sunlight pouring through the hall’s windows as the day progressed, wondering which angle it would settle at when they were finally finished.
As promised, after dancing lessons, Obi-Wan instructed all of them on proper table etiquette. It was an easy break for her—she couldn’t go a single meal without someone critiquing the way she held her cutlery—but Rex, Cody and Fives struggled to keep up, used to wolfing down their food in large mess halls. She tried to send calming thoughts in their direction, but they were still miserable.
After that, they were given a crash course on conversational etiquette, and that eluded her entirely. How to greet diplomats, what topics were off-limits—which included basically anything interesting—and what was appropriate to drink at different times of the day. She absorbed none of it, resolving to stick to a series of cue cards that she would make copies of to give to the clones later. It was all nonsense that no one cared about unless they’d never done anything more thrilling than stand on a rooftop balcony, and she had no intention in interacting with anyone like that.
“Many of the people in attendance will know you by face, if not name,” Obi-Wan told all of them. Anakin looked like he was fighting sleep behind him. “But be delicate if they get your name wrong. Most of them don’t like being corrected.”
Fives snorted at that, making Obi-Wan turn. He didn’t even sit up in his seat under the curious gaze of the general—they must be really out of it by now, Ahsoka thought.
“Fives?”
“Nothing, sir,” he said with a resigned sigh. “We’re used to it, anyway.”
Obi-Wan gave them a sympathetic smile. “Senator Amidala and Organa are both kind people. Stick near them if you’re hurting for conversational companions. But don’t crowd them,” he added, directing that at everyone. “You need to work the room. We can’t give the impression we’re favouring anyone.”
“Even foreign dignitaries?” Anakin asked with a self-satisfied smirk, and that seemed to finally snap Obi-Wan’s careful patience.
“Or esteemed Senators,” he shot back, his voice low and full of warning. Anakin shrunk down in his seat, and Obi-Wan returned to lecturing them again about diplomatic decorum.
Ahsoka decided that she would ask Anakin about that later.
It was evening by the time they were done. The only meal they’d been treated to had been the one where Obi-Wan incessantly badgered them about how to eat and drink, so she was famished. The setting sun cast the entire hall in an orange glow, and the direct sunlight made her sweat in her robes.
“That will have to do, I suppose,” Obi-Wan murmured, stroking his beard. He seemed to be talking to himself more than anyone else. “Most are sympathetic to faux pas as long as they come from soldiers. Many find it endearing, even. But do your best regardless,” he added, giving them all a firm look. “Everyone will be watching.”
“That makes me feel a lot better,” Ahsoka muttered, casting a wistful glance towards the door. “Can we eat now?”
“In a moment. I need a list of any adjustments you may need to your outfit. You’ll be wearing it for several hours, so it’s important that it’s comfortable.”
“The jackets are tight in the shoulders, sir,” Cody cut in, and Fives and Rex nodded in agreement. “And the cuffs are too slim.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Obi-Wan said with a nod. “But a lot of that has to do with the fit of the jacket itself. You shouldn’t have full range of motion in formal wear.”
“We do,” Ahsoka said. “I mean, the robes are pretty loose.”
“They’re inappropriate for anyone who isn’t a Jedi,” Obi-Wan told her. “Dress blues are the next best option. Unless you’d like to accompany me to the tailor’s tomorrow for a full refitting?” He directed the last question to the clones, who all shook their heads.
“These are fine, sir,” Rex said hurriedly, making Obi-Wan smile.
“As I thought. You’re dismissed, then. Make sure to change before you do anything else—especially eat. We’re limited in time, so if you spill anything on it or rip the fabric, you may have to suffer with it at the ball.”
Nobody had any qualms about changing out of their ridiculous clothes, and all four of them hurried to leave the hall. The moment the door clicked shut, Rex slouched his shoulders and huffed out a breath.
“This is going to be a disaster,” he murmured, looking to Cody and Fives for moral support. “We can’t keep pace with a roomful of politicians.”
“It’s easier than it sounds,” Anakin assured them, putting a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Forget most of the stuff Obi-Wan said about etiquette. Everyone’s going to be too drunk within the hour to care about anything except themselves.”
“You’ve got more experience with them than I do,” Rex said, rather diplomatically, and then looked to Ahsoka. “I know General Kenobi said not to mill about in one place, but—”
“We’ll stick close by during the ball,” she promised them, and all three of the clones relaxed. “You guys are the only people I wanna talk to anyway.”
“Go eat, take a nap, relax,” Anakin told them all, stretching out his arms. She heard something pop in his back, and he let out a sigh. “That’s what I’ll be doing. And try to avoid Obi-Wan the next few days,” he added. “He’ll always think up something he forgot to ‘teach’ you.”
“Noted, sir.” Rex nodded to Cody and Fives. “Come on, boys. We’ll take the back entrance to the barracks.”
“Don’t want your troopers seeing you in fancy clothes?” Ahsoka asked, smiling.
“Not if I want them to keep respecting me,” Rex said grimly, and with that the three of them departed.
When they were gone, Anakin nodded in the direction of their own quarters, and she fell into step beside him. “What about you, Snips?”
“I could study,” she said, pursing her lips. “Or... I could go for a nap, too.”
“Well, I can’t tell you to skip school….” Anakin gave her a shrug. “Less I know, the better.”
She grinned. “You’re a much cooler Master than Obi-Wan.”
He brightened. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“Don’t,” she insisted. “He’ll just give me more stuff to do.”