Work Text:
◿♢◺
“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”
◿♢◺
In the Crèche, Ahsoka had celebrated Life Day with her clan-mates and Crèchemaster Vereixem by exchanging gifts of candy and performing acts for service for the public at large; playing their instruments for patients in long-term care in the Halls of Healing, manning the soup pots that fed hungry Coruscantis, even picking up garbage that the sanitation droids missed on the streets near the Temple. Maintaining a one-handed handstand for three hours straight was not how Ahsoka expected to spend her first Life Day as a Padawan. Her lekku were beginning to throb from all of the blood that had settled in them. Her whole body shook like jelly from the effort of maintaining her form.
"How're we doing, Snips?" Anakin asked, his aura gentle yellow with amusement. The jerk had his feet up on the sofa in their private lounge-turned-meditation-room, a datapad on his lap with podracing playing on low volume and a bag full of puffed silkworms at his side, the very picture of leisure. Ahsoka was dripping with sweat and had turned fiery red long ago.
"Super, Master," she said through gritted teeth. Her skin was so raw from her salty sweat that the white linen training gi she wore felt like sandpaper on her skin.
"Center yourself, Padawan," Anakin said calmly. "This exercise is not just about what your body can endure. Reach out to the Living Force and let it rejuvenate you."
"I'm trying to!" Ahsoka protested.
Anakin snickered. "Stop trying and do it, then. There's a whole bottle of tartro in it for you at the end of this."
Ahsoka took a shaky breath and tried to focus. The Living Force didn't feel as strong on the ship as it did on the surface of a planet, but it was still present. More than two thousand souls traveled aboard The Resolute that she could feel, not to mention the Bocce frond in the corner; it had been decorated for Life Day with a string of tiny, plascrete, light-up porgs and cleverly-folded paper creatures courtesy of Greene and Coric. She reached out as best she could to the Living Force and tried to draw enough strength to at least ease her exhaustion.
She knew the basics, even if she hadn't ever had to do it this far at her limit. Her spine tingled and her arm hurt a little less, but the difference was almost unnoticeable. She shifted her hand and tried not to cry.
"Focus, Ahsoka." She heard Anakin toss his snacks aside and cross the room. He crouched down until they were almost at eye level. "Draw upon the Force. Don't try to muscle through with only your body."
Ahsoka's arm wavered. "I can't concentrate without falling," she forced out.
Anakin rolled his eyes. "If that's what you think, then you've learned nothing from this exercise. Go ahead and drop if that's how you want to be. We'll call today a failure and start over tomorrow."
Ahsoka glared at him. "I'm not a failure!"
"Prove it." Anakin stood up and began to slowly circle around her. "Stay up for thirteen more minutes, or drop now and start again in the morning."
Ahsoka's elbow nearly buckled. She took another deep breath and exhaled slowly, focusing on her mantra. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.
"The Force flows through all living things, Ahsoka, you know this. You're allowing your physical discomfort to unbalance you." He paused for a moment. "You know, on Tatooine there's generally one good rain per year, usually in what passes for winter. On the edge of the salt flats where it transitions into desert, the sand is pretty shallow and these pools of quicksand pop up. Scary stuff. Do you know what happens if you fall in quicksand?"
"No," she grunted.
"Nothing, as long as you don't struggle. The harder you fight to get out, the faster you sink. The only way to survive is to let go and stay afloat on the surface. Let go of your pain and find your center. You're struggling when you should be floating."
She took another deep breath in and out and tried to do as he said, to relax and allow herself to just float on the flow of the Force around them. Her exhaustion and the pain in her wrist made it so much harder to concentrate than normal. Her Padawan beads felt like glass rubbing against her throbbing lekku.
"You can do it, I know you can," he said encouragingly.
Tears escaped despite her best efforts. They mixed with her sweat and leaked down her forehead, widening the puddle on the floor. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. Her burden became a tiny bit lighter as she separated her mind from the overwhelming physical pain and exhaustion. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.
"What you feel right now is a buildup of lactic acid. It's why your muscles hurt, it makes it more difficult for the tissue to oxygenate. Take back control of your body. Let the Force support you so you can focus on flushing it out."
Her breathing steadied as she finally sank into a meditative state. Anakin's aura supported her with gentle green encouragement-peace like a warm cloud and bolstered her concentration. Gradually, her muscles and tendons stopped twitching as badly and even felt coolly refreshed.
"Very good, Ahsoka." Anakin's aura beamed with royal-blue pride. "Five more minutes. You're so close."
"Yes, Master." Ahsoka readjusted her hand and hissed at the sharp, stabbing pain that shot up her arm.
"Why do we celebrate Life Day?" Anakin suddenly asked, coming to a stop.
"Presents? Sweets?" Ahsoka was too exhausted to question the random subject change.
"No, that's how we celebrate. Why do we celebrate?"
"Wookiees?" she asked faintly. "It started on Kashyyyk."
"Yes. It's the day they celebrate the core tenants of their society—family, joy, and harmony."
"O-Okay?" Her arm began to shake again. She needed to focus, why was he distracting her?
"They spend the day with their families in peaceful reflection, and celebrate it with presents and sweets because those things bring them joy. As Jedi, we celebrate in a similar way, but it's not only about the joy we bring ourselves. It's about the joy we can bring to others. It's a day for us to reflect upon our roles as guardians of peace and defenders of life. Life Day is more than just a day to stuff our faces and exchange gifts. It's a reminder of our responsibility to the galaxy, one that we can't fulfill if we can't rise above the limitations of a normal body."
Ahsoka would have laughed if she had the strength for it. She could almost hear Master Obi-Wan's voice gently speaking under Anakin in the lesson being passed on. He began to walk in a slow circle again. "We are not like the Sith, who pervert the Force and bend it to their will. We must instead master the ability to direct its flow, and to keep ourselves afloat in an overwhelming current. Two minutes left, Ahsoka. Don't quit now."
I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. Ahsoka's muscles burned and the tendon in her wrist felt like it was going to explode. Two minutes. She'd done almost three hours already, she could do one hundred and twenty more seconds. Every muscle in her body, not just her arm, was starting to spasm. She maintained her balance, barely, and fought to hold on to her hard-won focus.
"You know, Pommatt is a forest world." Anakin's aura flared around her with silvery-green determination-encouragement. "We're going to be here for at least a week getting this base set up. Plenty of time for you to go on a hunt."
"Really?" Ahsoka squeaked, her heartbeat thundering in her montrals.
"Oh, yes. And there's some pretty good-sized herbivores, from what the survey says. Big, hairy, pig-looking things. Very edible. Stay up, and I'll give you a whole day to yourself for a hunt."
Ahsoka's mouth began to water. The pain faded into the background with the sudden surge of excitement, granting her a much-needed second wind to finish. A hunt. She could go on a hunt. Tartro and praise were great motivators, but there was no better reward for a Togruta than a hunt.
"Time."
Ahsoka wavered for a moment, slightly stunned, then dropped to the floor in a boneless, pungent heap. "I did it," she said faintly, not moving.
"You did it." Anakin summoned a bottle of tartro from his pile of snacks on the couch and popped the bottle open for her. "Well done, Snips."
"Thanks, Skyguy," she said into the floor, still twitching.
"And now you get a reward for all of your hard work." He helped her sit up and held the bottle of sugary fizz to her lips for her. Once she'd swallowed a quarter of it, he put it to the side and massaged firm circles up and down her quivering arm with his thumbs. "I'm impressed. It took me two tries to go the full three hours when Obi-Wan was training me."
"Really?" Ahsoka rested her heavy head on his shoulder. Her arm tingled where he rubbed and she wondered if he was channeling healing energy into the limb.
"Yep." He carefully extricated one of her legs and rested it over his lap, moving on to massage her twitching calf next. "I'm still going to tell him it took you two tries, though. I can't have you upstaging me."
"Hey!"
Anakin chuckled, his aura awash with warm, coppery gold humor-affection. "I've got a standard of excellence to maintain, you know."
She blew a half-hearted snozzberry. "Boo."
"Alright, little one." Anakin pushed up to his feet and dragged her up along with him. "Go hit the showers, then meet me down in the mess. You need protein and electrolytes to recover or you won't catch anything bigger than flies on Pommatt."
"Okay." Her legs felt like they were made of pudding. She took two steps and tripped over the threshold of the sliding door.
"I got you." Anakin caught her before she could bash her head on the floor and gently stood her upright with the Force. He touched her forehead with the middle finger on his left hand and tugged on their Force bond at the same time, flooding both touchpoints with soft, refreshing energy that triggered a taste like fresh icewater in the back of her throat. Her muscle spasms calmed, and the bone-deep exhaustion that had stuttered her feet only moments ago was eased. "Better?" he asked, smiling.
She blinked a few times, still in a mild state of shock, then nodded.
"Good. Go shower. You stink." He gave her a goodbye pat between her montrals and stalked off in the direction of the turbo-lift.
"You could have done that the whole time?" Ahsoka called after him sharply.
Anakin flashed a smug grin over his shoulder. "Obviously, but I already knew I could do it. The point was for you to do it, which you did. Kind of. We'll work on it." He waved and disappeared around the corner, leaving her to scowl alone.
◿♢◺
.