ExtraPenguin

A snippet from the WIP of doom, which is now 6 chapters/30k words long, and will swell to twice that. When I go in and add the stuff I missed, I wouldn't be surprised to look at 80k of fic followed by 3 sequels. The title in progress for this one is All That is Solid Melts into Air; All That is Holy is Profaned.

Despite her confidence and determination back in the audience room, she still had some doubts. She'd been about to decide to return to the Jedi – return home – before Mandalore, but it had been a fragile thing, easy to crush with doubts or disillusionment. Then the Republic had fallen and the Jedi Order with it, and she was the prodigal child never given the chance to come home before it burned to ashes.

She'd wanted to come. Oh, she'd wanted to come, she could now admit to herself. And now she couldn't.

And even if she could … who would knight her with her master gone? Anakin was dead. So was Master Plo. She couldn't sense Master Obi-Wan. Who was left, from whose blade knighthood would have any meaning?

Help me, Master, she thought, and reached out into the Force.

Anakin's ghost snapped to her, surprised. He felt like concern and urgency, wrapped around Ahsoka like a safety blanket. What ails you now, O padawan mine? Ahsoka could imagine him saying.

She could not speak words into the Force, but she could push all her feelings, the entire complicated tangle of them, at him. She wanted his advice, wanted him alive, and accidentally unleashed her cruelest, most selfish desire: to have her master by her side.