Chapter Text
In a little house lived a little cat and a little mouse.
The cat had a mother, but the mouse had no other.
The cat, clever was he, about earning his treats.
The mouse, a fine actor, played dead in the mouth of his captor.
Shared the spoils did they, pretending away.
And the mother did wonder why the mice were so great in number.
Know little did she, that the mouse she did see
Was a friend to the cat, and would keep coming back.
- "The Cat and the Mouse" from Temple Tales for Younglings
“Here you go, little Took,” Ahsoka said affectionately as she placed a bowl of milk on the floor for a scrappy looking Tooka cat. “That was the second mouse today! I wish I had something better than milk to give you.” The Tooka cat purred and lapped up the milk with enthusiasm as Ahsoka stroked its back.
Anakin chuckled from the corner of the dingy apartment Ahsoka and him were camped out in. “I don’t know, I kind of like the mice,” he said teasingly. He didn’t care one way or the other about the mice, but he did like to make his padawan cringe.
Ahsoka rolled her eyes at him. Anakin was a contrarian by nature, but Ahsoka was only compelled to such an attitude when he teased her. “Well I prefer finding my ration bars without nibbles in them,” she returned as she scrutinized her lunch for evidence a mouse had gotten to it first.
“I don’t see why you’re okay with feeding the cats and not the mice. That doesn’t seem fair.”
“Cats are hunters,” she replied without missing a beat. “Took earned his snack. The mouse didn’t.”
Anakin glanced at her and thought again of how much she reminded him of a cat. Her small frame and lean body allowed her to be much faster and stealthier than he could be, and then of course there was her attitude, likable and fiesty at the same time. Perhaps it was her feisty spunk that made Anakin like her as much as he did.
Ahsoka didn’t cower when she was scared, but would plant her feet and make herself seem fierce, just like Tooka cats did when you surprised them in an alley. There was a feral-ness about her that he had grown to appreciate. It had complimented his skills well on the few missions they’d had together thus far. It’s no wonder she has more respect for the predator, he thought. She relates to it.
Anakin casually picked up an insect that was crawling across the window he was looking out of and popped it into his mouth along with a bite of his ration bar. “That’s true enough, I suppose,” he agreed after swallowing the strange combination, “but I think the mice keep things interesting for the cat.
“If we let them starve, they’ll die and the cat will get bored. Besides, it’s nice to change up the ration bars every once in a while. The mouse bites add flavor.” He winked at her, laughing to himself at the annoyance in her expression.
Ahsoka wanted to tell him that eating insects from old apartments was unsanitary, but she knew he didn’t care and that he was mostly trying to get a rise out of her. “Mine tastes fine the way it is,” she said plainly. “And Took won’t get bored if I’m here, will you, Tookie?” Ahsoka picked up the scrawny animal and kissed the top of its head while it gently protested.
“You and that cat shouldn’t be getting attached to each other, Snips. We don’t have time or space for a pet. I already have my hands full with you.” Ahsoka had made a habit of collecting pets along the way, and Anakin found it both endearing and annoying.
She protested his comment, and a playful argument about the superiority of cats ensued between them. They were interrupted in their banter by a quick knock, followed by Obi-Wan entering the dimly lit room.
“Haven’t either of you bothered to clean?” he asked with slight disgust as he pulled back his hood. “It smells very strongly of Tooka cat waste in here.”
“That’s Ahsoka’s fault,” Anakin said quickly. “She’s feeding the vermin.”
“Correction, I am feeding the vermin exterminators . Besides, this decrepit ambiance helps with our cover. No one wants to snoop around this place.
“Well, you’re right about that, Ahsoka. How can you eat in here without feeling nauseated?” Obi-Wan asked them incredulously while he looked for a clean place to sit.
Ahsoka laughed. “Anakin doesn’t make it easy,” she said as she turned over an empty waste receptacle and offered it to Obi-Wan as a seat.
“Thank you, Padawan.” Obi-Wan looked at her appreciatively as he sat upon his makeshift chair. “Now, Anakin, are you eating insects again?” Watching Anakin consume insects had nauseated him in the past, which undoubtedly was why Anakin enjoyed doing it, and he expected it had a similar effect on Ahsoka.
Anakin grinned mischievously at them and opened his hand to reveal a beetle. “I am willing to share. Can I get you folks anything?”
Obi-Wan and Ahsoka groaned at him in unison. “Suit yourselves,” Anakin said before making a show of savoring the beetle as if it were a delicious treat and patting his stomach in satisfaction.
“So uncivilized,” Obi-Wan returned, only a little amused with his old padawan’s antics. “If you’re quite finished I would like to discuss the mission.”
Anakin nodded and sat on the floor between his padawan and his former master. “I’ve been looking out that window all day, and it still looks like a normal factory to me. If they’re smuggling weapons, they’re hiding it well.”
Anakin and Ahsoka had been on a stake out in the underworld of Coruscant, acting on intelligence that there was an illicit smuggling operation in a small cat food factory in the lower levels. They had been tasked with watching from a distance and looking for suspicious activity and the comings and goings of any potential persons of interest. While they watched, Obi-Wan had been working with a team to gather intel on the factory operations.
“It could be nothing but a desire to cut costs, but the factory has laid off more than half of its workers,” Obi-Wan said.
“Hence our luxurious accommodations,” Anakin interjected sarcastically, referring to the empty apartment that would normally have been occupied by a factory employee.
“Which would suggest a reduction in the output of goods,” Obi-Wan continued, “but from our intelligence, there has actually been an increase in the output.”
“Is it some kind of filler?” Ahsoka suggested. “It isn’t a premium food. Who knows what’s actually in it,” she remarked, remembering that she’d seen the cats around the apartment show little interest in eating the factory cat food.
“It could be, but I’ll need to get a closer look at the operation and compare the ingredients to the shipping manifest to see if everything checks out. According to our anonymous tip, the arms dealer responsible for the operation will be meeting with a Separatist buyer at this location. If that turns out to be true, I’ll need you both close by and to stay undetected, should I uncover him.”
“What happens if you do?” Ahsoka asked excitedly.
“I’ll call for your assistance, and I’ll leave the details of that plan to your master.” Obi-Wan smiled and chuckled to himself. Anakin changed his own plans so often that Obi-Wan felt it was best he didn’t get attached to one at the beginning.
“I’m going in undercover tomorrow, so the important thing is to lay low and keep watch. We do not want to engage too early and risk alerting the ring leader we are on to him.” Obi-Wan spoke firmly, hoping to caution Anakin against doing anything hasty and compromising the mission. “Glim Shisto is skittish, and has had a way of escaping police before. No one is sure what he looks like.”
“Perhaps a changeling,” Anakin thought out loud, remembering his last encounter with a changeling, a bounty hunter hired to kill Padme. He couldn’t help feeling particularly edgy about them.
“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan agreed. “So we will need to be extra careful on this one.”
“Who, me? I’m always careful, Master,” Anakin replied with a boyish grin.
“Yes, I’m sure you are,” Obi-Wan returned with a hint of sarcasm, resisting the urge to roll his eyes while Ahsoka was present. “Take shifts keeping watch tonight. I’ll join you in the early morning to prep before I head in.”
“Where will you be all night?” Anakin asked with mock accusation.
“Sleeping in a decent room,” he replied teasingly, “without cats,” he added, lifting his robes off the floor as he thought about how many of them lived in the small space.
Obi-Wan did not have an affinity for pets and did not understand why anyone would want to share a space with an animal. After suffering through his master’s constant collection of helpless beings, he was always grateful that Anakin’s affection was mostly for droids. One did not have to pick up after a droid, and he’d had enough to do keeping up with Anakin.
Anakin and Ahsoka laughed at Obi-Wan’s discomfort, which he made a bit of a show of just for their benefit before he left them to rejoin the intelligence team. He smiled to himself on his way out. The youth had amused him as they so often did when they were not tiring him instead.
Anakin spent the long afternoon looking out the window while simultaneously drilling Ahsoka on her lightsaber forms. Anakin said he was doing her a favor by completing the less stimulating task by himself, but when Ahsoka grew tired she accused him of “relaxing” on the job.
“Okay,” Anakin conceded. “You can have a break and take my place for a bit.” He gestured toward the window, and she sprinted to it gratefully.
“And now do I get to drill you on your forms, Master? You’re probably a little rusty with all the sitting you’ve been doing,” she teased.
“Very funny, Snips, but listening to you do all that work has made me tired. I think I need a nap,” he joked as he pretended to yawn.
Before Ahsoka could respond to his teasing, the Tooka cat zipped up to her with another mouse in its mouth. “Great job, Took!” she exclaimed affectionately. “Get Took some milk, Skyguy. I’m busy doing the very important work of sitting here.”
“If you insist on giving the cats your milk, be my guest, but I’m a growing boy, and I need mine.”
Ahsoka did not say a word, but simply looked at him with large and pleading eyes, and he was again reminded of a cat. “Alright, let me go get the milk,” he said chuckling.
As he went to retrieve his own carton of blue milk, he noticed the Tooka cat slipping to a different corner of the room and looking back over its shoulder at Ahsoka. She was appropriately preoccupied with keeping watch, so she did not notice this action. Anakin suddenly felt suspicious of the animal, and as he watched the cat drop the mouse his suspicions were confirmed. The mouse scurried quickly away to a small hole in the bottom of the wall, and the cat turned around as if nothing had happened.
Anakin started laughing so hard that he needed to hold his sides, and Ahsoka looked over at him in confusion. “What is so funny?” she asked, waiting for him to stop.
“How much will you like your little friend when I tell you he’s been playing you?” Anakin asked, grinning with satisfaction at having something new to tease her about. He wasn’t going to let her forget this for a long time.
“What do you mean?” Ahsoka asked as Took jumped in her lap, evidently hoping to encourage her to get up and give him some more milk.
“Do you remember that temple tale for younglings? The Cat and the Mouse?”
“Yes... But what does that have to do with...” Anakin waited patiently for his padawan to connect the dots. “Wait, are you saying he hasn’t been eating the mice?” she asked.
Anakin laughed again. “Honestly I don’t even think it’s ‘mice.’ I’m pretty sure it’s just the one mouse. That’s the game.”
Anakin was referring to a children’s story often told to Jedi younglings about a cat that made a deal with a mouse, promising not to hurt it as long as it let the cat pretend to eat it whenever the cat’s owners were watching. He recalled the tale as soon as he saw the Tooka cat let the mouse go, and he surmised that Took and the mouse had a similar arrangement. Ahsoka did not want to believe him, but she knew he wouldn’t find it so humorous if it weren’t true.
In the end, Ahsoka couldn’t help finding it a bit funny also. She realized that Took must have been slipping away with the mouse every time she was occupied with pouring the milk, and that was why she hadn’t noticed before. “Now what am I going to do with you, Tookie, you clever little minx?”
“You’re going to stop giving him milk so he learns to eat his own dinner,” Anakin replied firmly, but still full of humor.
Ahsoka sighed but did not disagree with him. Despite this discovery, her fondness for Took had not diminished, and she continued to pet the clever little animal while looking out the window. She was comforted by its warmth and its soft, tangled fur that she worked to make smooth with her fingers.
That’s cute, Anakin thought to himself as he watched the display. Now my cat has a cat. “Don’t get used to that cat, Snips,” he said aloud, patting her head affectionately.