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English
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Part 2 of Eldritch horror? No, eldritch Family
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New SW Canon Server Works
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Published:
2020-11-15
Completed:
2024-05-04
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2,042
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3/3
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60
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Expanding constellations (we hoped to avoid)

Summary:

She grew up knowing her senses were much more acute than those of her peers, that she was likely to notice their presence before they noticed hers, that she was more naturally aware of the local wildlife.

But this was different. Ever since she woke up in her Master’s arms on Mortis it had been different.

She had been different.

(Some musings as the trio leave Mortis. Ahsoka adjusts and Anakin worries.)

Notes:

Thanks to the lovely annessarose for inspiring me to finally finish this.

Chapter 1: Ahsoka

Chapter Text

Ahsoka was a hunter. 

 

She always had been, being a Togruta. Her akul-tooth headdress marked her prowess--having slain the only predator on Shili her people feared before she was even fourteen. 

 

And so she grew up knowing her senses were much more acute than those of her peers, that she was likely to notice their presence before they noticed hers, that she was more naturally aware of the local wildlife. 

 

But this was different. Ever since she woke up in her Master’s arms on Mortis it had been different. 

 

She had been different.

 

Something had happened back there. Her Master had done something and now it was like a star had been born behind her eyelids. Like she had been blind or asleep before and was now wide awake and squinting into the sun, but the sun was also herself, and her Master, and her Grandmaster, and everything. 

 

Ahsoka felt like she should be glowing from the inside out. Each spark of life around her, down to the microbes in the dirt on their boots, was its own flame, all blazing into an inferno within her. They sang, deafening, in her montrals and burned bright and hot inside her mind. Somehow, the tiny former spice freighter held a dizzying amount of life.

 

If she had been less distracted, she might’ve joked that Skyguy should really give the old girl a scrub-down. She could feel his worry in the Force--the scope of which was staggering now, despite her shields being what they always were--so he could probably use some humor. 

 

But her senses weren’t the only thing that felt fit to explode.

 

Ahsoka could feel vines and roots and tendrils twisting away beneath her skin, squirming and poking and begging to be let out. She clawed at her face without thinking, hoping to get rid of the itch, until Master Obi-Wan gently pulled her hands away. The tendrils stretched towards him of their own accord, chasing familiarity and the echo of sameness like leaves to the sun. 

 

“Don’t scratch at them, dear one,” he said softly, a few too many eyes all looking at her with sympathy and understanding, “they aren’t physical. You will only hurt yourself.” 

 

Instead, he showed her how to move them. How to coil them up tightly within herself so they wouldn't press so hard against the edges of her being. How to feel a little more in-control.

 

A little more normal.

Chapter 2: Anakin

Summary:

Anakin pilots the Twilight and thinks about his worst fear coming true.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Anakin clutched the controls of the Twilight a little tighter as he guided the ship out of Mortis’ atmosphere and, ideally, away from the horrible events that happened on the confusing, Force-forsaken rock. He was thankful to have a task right now. Flying had always put him at ease, the vastness of space mirroring his own. Even if the cockpit was small, he never felt trapped or cramped like he could on-world. He locked his eyes on a distant star and, trying to practice what Obi-Wan taught him in his first few days at the Temple, took a deep breath. 

 

In. 

 

Out. 

 

It wasn’t a true meditation, just something physical to take his attention off the biting chains of worry-guilt-terror constricting his chest--a familiar fear he had been desperately fighting off for so long now made reality, finally sinking in its fangs. 

 

And it was his own fault. When he saw Ahsoka lying there, limp and lifeless with eyes stark white and so so empty , he panicked. He couldn’t lose her; she was so young, so eager, so brilliant. Anakin hardly remembered anything but the haze of desperation, the pain of ripping huge chunks of the Living Force from his essence and pressing them into her as if to plug the metaphysical wound. 

 

(Anakin still ached beyond his human form, where he’d gouged at himself not long ago. It was healing but not regenerating, slowly scabbing over and leaving him feeling strangely lighter. He couldn’t remember if it had been like that with Obi-Wan or not. That had happened much more slowly, so much that neither of them had even been aware of it at first.) 

 

He thinks the Daughter did something too, said something before she died about helping the pieces integrate. He wasn’t paying attention to anything beyond his Padawan at that moment so he wasn’t exactly sure. 

 

What he does remember is how, when the still corpse gasped awake in his arms, there was something familiarly and incredibly vast underneath. 

 

Exactly what he’d always been afraid of.

 

Anakin had been so careful when Ahsoka was assigned as his Padawan. He stayed on his own end of the training bond, he never smothered her with his expansive Presence, he made sure his raw unfiltered essence didn’t cling, didn’t stick, didn’t fuse . 

 

He didn’t want to Change her. He knew better now.

 

Obi-Wan never complained. He might joke about it, but the man stubbornly refused to blame his Padawan. Even back then, while laid up in bed with excruciating migraines, or locked in visions lasting whole rotations, or clawing at the ethereal itch of eyes-that-should-not-be until his skin was red with blood, he was always adamant. He claimed it wasn’t Anakin’s fault, that it was the will of the Force and felt right . But that was supposed to be Anakin’s will too and he hadn’t wanted this. 

 

(He’d wanted someone to understand him but not if it would hurt.) 

 

Anakin knew his Master’s left shoulder still bore a scar from those self-inflicted wounds. No matter how unnervingly content he was, the fact remained. Anakin had caused that. Anakin had hurt him.

 

And now, Anakin had done it again. 

 

He took another steadying breath. It was shaky and came out more like a sigh, but it was probably progress. If he didn’t, he was sure that his racing thoughts would explode past his shields and that would just make things worse for Ahsoka than they were already. She didn’t need the crushing weight of his True presence in the Force on her newly expanded senses. He’d already done enough damage to her. 

 

A few wisps of energy licked at his skin but he pulled them back into the Force. His lesser form would be fine for now. He focused on the feeling of the console beneath his flesh hand, the hand he only had one of because he was staying contained and grounded on this plane and-- 

 

Another breath. 

 

He hoped Ahsoka would be okay.

Notes:

I might end up adding an Obi-Wan chapter bc Anakin ended up brooding a lot more than i expected going in and this is supposed to be fluff dammit! (well, fluff adjacent. probably.)

Chapter 3: Obi-Wan

Summary:

Obi-Wan muses on Ahsoka's Change, her future, and the will of the Force.

Notes:

May the Fourth be with you!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan could tell how tense Anakin had grown ever since they returned from Mortis. After so many years raising him, it was impossible not to notice the signs that the young man was practically strangling himself with his skin in an effort to stay contained. Luckily, those years also meant he knew how best to help. 

 

He gave Anakin a mental nudge and then opened the door of their bond. A wordless invitation that Anakin accepted gratefully, pouring into Obi-Wan’s mind like liquid and quickly filling the offered space. An ocean tide finding equilibrium. This had always been Anakin’s favored method of seeking comfort, though it was far more effective now that Obi-Wan actually had room up there. The action had become ritual had become instinct, words were no longer necessary--though Anakin rarely sought it out on his own after the onset of Obi-Wan’s Change. 

 

Just because he didn’t request it, however, did not mean he ever hesitated when it was offered. Within moments, Obi-Wan could feel the pressure Anakin was forcing upon himself begin to ebb away. 

 

“She will be alright, Anakin. The hard part is over, she merely needs to learn to adjust. And she has us to guide her.” 

 

“I just," Anakin paused, frustration and regret visibly vibrating in the air, "I was so careful with her. And now…” 

 

“I know. But she will be fine. I promise.” 

 

“What if there was another way? What if I made the wrong choice and she could still be normal?” 

 

A sigh that rumbled through multiple planes.

 

Obi-Wan responded with one of his own, the practiced exhale layered with fondness.

 

“Would you like to Look with me?” 

 

Anakin considered for a moment. It was a strange sensation to feel the gears of someone else’s thought turn within one’s own mind, but Obi-Wan had long gotten used to the peculiarities of training Anakin. 

 

“I… think I would, Master.” 

 

Obi-Wan took Anakin’s hands, physical and ethereal, and guided them both to sit on the floor. There were no meditation mats in Anakin's quarters, letting the cold metal impart its grounding chill.

 

Eyes burst open all across Obi-Wan’s body, it would be hard to tell where the original pair were--if not for the fact that they were the only ones closed. Anakin followed suit, though with far, far fewer of them. They had done this often enough before that it was easy to assume their roles. Obi-Wan used Anakin as a guide, an anchor mooring him to the shores of “Now” as he set off into the churning sea of the Future. Possibilities crashed like waves, the currents and eddies of Fate shifting before his many eyes, always in motion. It would be so easy to get lost here, in the ever-changing ocean of “could be,”  and never find the way back. 

 

The infinite tapestry of the Unifying Force never ceased to take Obi-Wan’s breath away. 

 

It was difficult at times, especially in these past few years of bloodshed, for Obi-Wan to reject the tantalizing allure of omniscience. To resist the urge to reach deeper and deeper into the future, the past, the present--into every*where* and every*thing*--until every second of every atom of every possible permutation of reality was known to him. The more challenges he foresaw, the more places and lives he observed, the more secrets he sifted from the silty depths of time, the more he could protect and guide the Galaxy. 

 

Until he ceased to be himself. 

 

Or, really, anyone. 

 

That was the true danger. The Point of No Return. To spread oneself so impossibly thin that you no longer existed anywhere at all. 

 

It wasn’t that Obi-Wan lacked the power to obtain it, nor was it some metaphysical punishment for hubris. Infinite Understanding was simply incompatible with something as finite as an individual consciousness.  

 

It was still tempting, sometimes. Despite him Knowing the futility. 

 

Perhaps that was why the Force chose to split this aspect from Anakin so early. 

 

Shaking himself from his musings, Obi-Wan returned his focus to the task at hand, Gazing outward into the crystal clear currents of time.

 

There were futures where Ahsoka was hurt, was weakened or pained by her Change, where she struggled and failed and was harmed. But of those he could See, those futures were weak, only the thinnest of possibilities. Obi-Wan had grown better at Seeing the strength of possible realities, and the silky cords of Fate tied his Grandpadawan to a number of bright Futures. She would not be broken by this.

 

Instead, she would harmonize with it. 

 

They could not take Anakin’s burden from him, the one inherent to his being, but they would help him bear it. Take up pieces of it to carry alongside him and spread the weight amongst themselves. That was what the Force had meant for them. From a certain point of view, he and Ahsoka had merely been waiting, sleeping, until Anakin’s blinding presence awoke them. 

 

The Force could not be balanced alone and it could not balance itself. Nor could one single being truly withstand the full brunt of it forever. Obi-Wan was glad to do his part if it meant his Padawan could rest, and he did not need to See to know Ahsoka felt the same.

 

The trio served to give agency to the Force and teeth to its bite. They could act where the Force alone could not.

 

Anakin had sown the seeds of stars and sprouted galaxies inside their heads. His power flowed from him when wounded, as sap from a tree. He leaked the Cosmic Force that gathers all, like gravity or death. 

 

But while he may have been the catalyst, all three were needed.

 

And Obi-Wan couldn't imagine any two people he'd rather share this duty with.

Notes:

Finally, it is Complete.

This has been sitting as a nearly-complete draft in my documents for literal years sdfghjk im so sorry. Thank you so much to everyone who has kudos'd and commented on this series during the meantime they always made me smile and i am still ASTOUNDED that there are so many notes on these fics.

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