Joy in the Chase
by Amy L Hull
Written as a treat for JediFest December Drabbles 2017. Prompt: Ahsoka Tano, laughter. 250 words.
Plo Koon had, like all Jedi Masters, served every function in the Temple.
He'd taught methods of meditation, trained younglings, drilled lightsaber forms, prepared trainees for Initiate Trials, and taken on Padawans.
His true expertise, however, was reconnaissance and tactical planning.
No mission had tested his creativity as fully as this trip back from Shili, entertaining one so active.
With the motion of a finger, he bounced the colorful stone across the cargo bay. Again.
The tiny girl chased after it, peals of laughter ringing off the deck plates.
She grabbed at the stone. He scooted it away, and she giggled again, then pounced on it, rather like a tooka. Still laughing, she ran to him, clambered into his lap, and held up the stone.
"Mast-Plo! Again!" She threw the stone into the air.
He sent the stone loop-de-loop through the air. The bottom of its arc passed just above little Ahsoka's head and she toddled and ran and jumped like any child chasing a butterfly.
She jumped-higher than she had shown yet she could-and he felt ripples in the Force.
Yes, this child would be a formidable Jedi.
Her giggles were pure glee, exaggerated with each bounce's exhale as she skipped across the hold. "Mast-Plo, again!"
The Temple could use this kind of unfettered joy, too, he thought.
He twirled the stone up in a spiral and let it roll as if down a gravity well.
Ahsoka ran in circles and her shrieks of laughter echoed through the Force.