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“Ahsoka.”
“Yes, master?”
“What are you doing?” Anakin asked his padawan.
“Roasting spacemallows,” she answered with a cheeky grin. “You want one?” The young togruta had a long, thin metallic stick in her hands with a cluster of white bouncy confections at the end of it. Fives was next to the girl, a beaming grin on his face but you wouldn’t be able to see it past his helmet that he still had on. He also had a stick in his hands and turned it carefully so all sides of the treat would brown evenly. Echo was next to his batchmate, his helmet held under one arm as the other pinched his nose bridge in disbelief.
Anakin raised an eyebrow and turned slightly to the left to see the girl’s ‘firepit’.
Anakin had been called by his captain to see the latest his terror of a padawan was up to. Knowing how much Ahsoka seemed to take after him, he held no expectations of what he could discover would cause his captain to sound so done with the girl’s antics.
Firepit was a generous word for what it really was.
Because in front of his dear padawan was a pile of AAT engulfed in orange flames that were tinted blue in the center. If Anakin was seeing it right, there was a minimum of five and were piled high to tower above them all. If Kix was here, Anakin had no doubt he would be having a conniption about contamination from using a tank as a roasting fire.
Spread out around the area, there was more than a good handful of his troopers with their own roasters that held their spacemallows close to the flames. Some of the veterans were showing the shinies how to properly roast the treat as they had never seen it before. There were cheers of delight as the men tried the perfectly roasted spacemallows.
In one corner, an assembly line of crackers and chocolate as some of the men made s’mores of their roasted treats. The shinies were getting the biggest kick out of them, and Anakin was pretty sure a good chunk of his men would be passing out from a sugar high later. Anakin didn’t even want to know how many s’mores his padawan had already eaten but he could tell by the smear of melted chocolate on her chin that she had already had at least one.
If Ahsoka was a terror on a good day, then she was a nightmare on a sugar high. Anakin could only pray to the force for all the patience he was going to need later to reign in his hyped up padawan.
Rex was shaking his head at the scene and kept trying to get Ahsoka to back up in case the girl’s improvised fire decided to explode. No matter how much Rex tried, she would just take a step closer to the flames that looked a little too hot for the captain’s liking.
“Where the kriff did you find spacemallows in a battlefield?” Anakin asked.
Ahsoka gave an offended gasp. “You think I wouldn’t have some on hand at all times?”
“You have no pockets,” Anakin deadpanned at her.
“Yeah, but the boys do,” Ahsoka rolled her eyes as if it was obvious. “They agreed to hold onto them for me as long as I keep an eye on their six.”
Anakin waited a beat, blinking slowly as he prayed to the force to give him patience. He had his hands pressed together in front of his mouth, taking a deep breath. “Just how many of the 501st are carrying spacemallows for you right now?”
Ahsoka looked contemplative as she started to mentally count. She placed the end of her stick in-between her teeth as she used her fingers to count and Anakin didn’t miss the way how she had to count multiple groups of tens.
“You know what – never mind,” Anakin sighed. He rubbed one hand down his face while the other was perched on his hip. “Padawan mine, pray tell, why are you using the clanker’s AATs to roast spacemallows?”
Ahsoka took the roaster out of her mouth and held it back out towards the flames. “Because why wouldn’t I?” Ahsoka snickered. She took a step closer to the flame and Anakin really wondered how the heat of the flames didn’t bother her.
“Commander, please, stop getting so close to the fire,” Rex begged as he gently pulled Ahsoka back again.
“But then I can’t roast them,” Ahsoka pouted at Rex as she jostled her spacemallows.
“Your spacemallows are on fire,” Anakin said as he pointed at the two balls of fire at the end of Ahsoka’s roaster.
“Force yeah!” Ahsoka cheered. She brought the roaster away from the fire and held it close to her face. Once the two spacemallows were completely charred on the outside, she blew out the flame.
“Ahsoka, I’ll get you new spacemallows. Please don’t eat those,” Rex begged.
Ahsoka ignored the captain’s words and quickly pulled off the charred treats to throw in her mouth. Rex grimaced at the action while Ahsoka breathed out hot air to cool the treats. “They taste the best this way,” Ahsoka said with a full mouth and smile.
“Snips, swallow your food then speak,” Anakin gently chided.
Ahsoka huffed a laugh but heeded her master’s words. Chewing the treats and swallowing, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before placing both on her hips. The roaster was held against her hip in her right hand.
“Can you explain why we’re have a bonfire?” Anakin asked. It was time to get to the root of the situation as he was wondering how they even got to this point.
Shrugging, Ahsoka jerked her chin to the roaring fire behind her. “We just finished beating these clankers and while we were checking there weren’t any stragglers, Fives started saying how much he was craving a s’more. Then the shinies were asking what a s’more was and I thought that was a war crime they’ve never tried one, let alone hear of it.”
“So, you took it upon yourself to start a bonfire with AATs?” Anakin raised an eyebrow.
“Only after Hardcase gave it the all clear,” Ahsoka answered with a proud smile.
“It’s not going to explode in our faces, general!” Hardcase piped up from the s’mores assembly line as he heard his name.
“Well, that’s comforting at least,” Anakin said dryly.
“I’m not an idiot, master,” Ahsoka rolled her eyes.
“I watched you use your lightsaber to cut nerf steak in a restaurant,” Anakin deadpanned.
“But it worked,” Ahsoka smirked with a waggle of her brow markings.
“You cut the plate and table in half.”
“Details,” Ahsoka huffed and waved a hand. “Don’t act like you didn’t eat it with me.”
Anakin shut his mouth as Ahsoka did have a point. In his defense, it had been a long day and Anakin had long since lost his last kriff to give. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, gave the two of them a long lecture about not destroying furniture while they split the meal between each other.
Deciding to change the topic, he looked around the space again. “Where did you get chocolate and crackers anyways?” Anakin asked his padawan.
“You think I wouldn’t have the supplies to s’mores hidden on at least two of the boys at any given mission?” Ahsoka snorted. “What type of savage do you take me to be?”
“I take you to be a menace more than anything,” Rex grumbled under his breath but Anakin heard it clear enough.
At another moment, Anakin might have agreed with Rex. He looked around at all the men of his legion laughing and having fun. This latest fight of theirs against the separatists had been tough. It was days of running around, hiding, and returning fire. No one had gotten a decent night of sleep in days and he knew none of them had been enjoying the stale rations they had been getting by on.
But right now, they were having fun and morale was high. Everyone was enjoying the treats and talking amongst each other like they weren’t ready to crash into their beds and fall asleep. All of them were scuffed and dirty but no one cared.
Maybe it would be okay for him to let the 501st have some fun for a bit.
“…you have an extra roaster?” Anakin asked.
Ahsoka’s fang tipped grin widened with a wrinkle of her nose as she reached onto her belt and pulled off another roasting stick. She clicked the small button on the side of it and held it out to her master. “Tup should have the extra spacemallows with him.”
The sound of the smack of Rex’s hand meeting his face was heard for a klick.
BONUS SCENE:
“The shuttles should be here in a standard hour to pick us up,” Rex said as he sat down next to Anakin.
“They shouldn’t have any trouble finding us,” Echo noted dryly as his eyes flickered to the roaring fire a short distance from him.
“Thanks Rex,” Anakin inclined his head towards his captain. They were waiting for a pick-up since the shuttles they used to get down to the planet to begin with had been shot down without hopes of being fixed. No one had been greatly injured but it was an annoying situation.
After eating no less than four s’more and eight marshmallows, Anakin decided to tap out. At the moment, he was sitting around a much smaller and more controlled fire that one of the veterans had set up. Everyone was in some state of relaxing or play, some men taking a quick nap while others pulled out a deck of well-worn cards for a game. Ahsoka had somehow roped a few troopers into a game of tag.
Her excited squeals as she dodged Fives bounced around the space and it brought a smile to Anakin’s lips. There weren’t many moments where the teenager could be a kid like she was supposed to be, so Anakin let her enjoy her fun the moments where she could. His men, too, were too engulfed in the war so it was nice to give them a reprieve.
In Anakin’s circle around the fire, there was Rex, Hardcase, Appo, Echo, a handful of shinies and Jesse. Some of the men had dragged over some fallen tree logs to give them a seat off of the ground. Anakin had grabbed a seat on one of the logs, hunching forward with his forearms on his knees.
“Man, I really could go for some hoth chocolate right now,” Anakin sighed. Sitting up straight, her cleared his throat. “Anyone got a packet of hoth chocolate on them?”
Every trooper in Anakin’s vicinity raised their hand.
“All of you?” Anakin raised his eyebrows.
“Commander Tano says that it’s a vital thing to have us on all times,” a shiny named Angler said.
“Because it is,” piped up Ahsoka right in Anakin’s ear.
“Kriff!” Anakin cursed as he jumped in his seat. He turned his head over his shoulder to look at his cackling padawan. “Stop doing it!”
“But it’s so fun,” Ahsoka giggled. She leaned an arm forward on Anakin’s shoulder with a smirk on her lips. “You make it too easy.”
“I hope you remember these words the next time we run your forms,” Anakin said with a strained smile.
Ahsoka gave him an easy smile back. Anakin instantly knew something was up when she didn’t snip back at him.
He was right as she placed a hand on-top of his head and pushed herself up in a handstand. At the same moment, Anakin grunted as Fives tackled him from behind. Ahsoka used her other hand to use Fives’ back as a spring board and jumped out of the danger of being tagged.
“I’m sorry, general!” Fives apologized as he scrambled off of Anakin. “I was trying to tag the commander!”
“I can tell,” Anakin mumbled with his face pressed into the dirt.
“Oh my force! Master, that was so funny!” Ahsoka gasped in laughter, bending over as she held her stomach. “Quick! Someone get a holo of this!”
And by the force, one of the shines pulled out a holocam and he heard the snap as the moment was caught in an image forever.
A strained smile was pasted on Anakin’s face as he pushed himself off the ground, his left eyebrow twitching. He got himself on his own two feet again and brushed the dirt off of his front. “Snips, you have a two second head start.”
Ahsoka squealed as she pushed the pedal to the metal to run away from Anakin. “Yeah, you better run!” Anakin yelled after his padawan as he used his long legs to chase after her. The troopers around the area moved out of the way of the jedi master and his padawan, laughing at the two of them. More holocams were taken out to capture the moment, a lot of the men taking funny self-pictures with the duo in the background.
Rex just dropped his head and shook it. “I swear, these two are the biggest menaces in the galaxy.”
“And you got stuck with being both of their captain,” Jesse teased. He reached over to pat Rex on the back. “May the force grant you luck.”
Rex just gave a groan of defeat at that.