This one is a bit saner than the last chapter, mostly because I wasn't sleep deprived. On the upside, it's longer!
Real life has struck again, so unfortuantely, this will be update sporaticly. And is probably going to devolve into something that isn't quite a story, because it wasn't exactly intended to be in the first place. If anyone has any "Ahsoka, Anakin, clones vs. other cannon male characters" I'd love to hear the ideas, because I don't exactly have a plan at this moment. Heh...
Thank you everyone for your lovely reviews, and I would really, really appreciate it if you did so again ;) Shamelessly begging, I know. Hope you enjoy!
Ahsoka woke up in the early morning in a room in the Jedi Temple with the distinct feeling that it was going to be one of those days.
Those days, being the days that every and anything imaginable went wrong to the point of beyond anger and straight into utter incredulity.
At the very least, there would be no humiliating herself in front of her men, because she was sort of stuck in the Temple until Master Skywalker said otherwise. (Read: She was totally grounded, for whatever reason he had now.) She was torn between relief and dread. There were plenty of other people to be afraid of mortifying herself in front of in the Temple, and potentially worse than her men.
She resigned herself to having a potentially horrible day before she even opened her eyes, as well as preparing to have lost her boots, her lightsabers, or having Bariss insist that she spend the day with her in the Archives.
She snapped her eyes open, and glanced around her room, preparing for the inevitable.
..
Nothing. She frowned, and sat up, scrutinizing the room.
..
Still nothing. Her boots were in the corner, her lightsabers by her mat, Bariss had yet to sweep through the door.
Huh. Well. That was unexpected. Normally her feelings were never wrong, she mused, and felt a little silly for getting worked up about it.
Until she realized that her normal outfit, which she'd thrown on the floor last night with her boots, was gone, and there was a large, brown lump of fabric instead, that she's sure wasn't there the night before.
Said lump of fabric looked more like a wild animal than a piece of clothing, laying menacingly on her floor in replacement of her normal clothes.
That very bad feeling was creeping up in her again as she stared at it from her mat.
Now, there was only one person that managed to out sneak Ahsoka Tano. Only one person who could manage to get in and out of her room without waking her up. The skill alternated between amusing and disconcerting for her when they did.
Although, this was one of those moments that passed disconcerting straight into really annoying and more than a bit alarming.
Skyguy. She groaned as she stared at the cloth monstrosity on her floor, and wondered if this was one of his really sick jokes that nobody thought was funny but him. It looked like it. Because, she could find no other reason for him to sneak into her room and steal her clothes.
And leave that thing on the floor that if she didn't know better she'd swear it was alive.
She wasn't sure which part was the more alarming of the two.
Slowly, carefully, she crept over to the thing on the floor, and poked the misshapen lump with her toe, incase it suddenly animated and started crawling around her room.
Hey, stranger things had happened. And, in her defense, she never knew with Anakin.
When it didn't move, she gingerly picked it up and held the offending item at arms length. It took her several moments to realize exactly what the thing was, before it hit her.
It was a robe. One of those giant, ugly robes that every serious Padawan was expected to wear around. The ones that made her look like she was drowning in fabric while she tried not to trip herself over the hem of the stupid thing.
Oh no. She'd burned her last one she was given, and then furthered her point by running around in a tube top and a skirt ever since. Well, until a year or two ago, when she got something a little more…appropriate.
She glowered at the offending article, and decided firmly this was one of her Masters really bizarre jokes, because there was no other reason he'd leave this here, when he knew how much she hated the stupid things.
Just what exactly was he playing at?
Her attention returned to finding her clothes, and she belatedly realized that she had yet to find them. She sighed, and threw up her hands. Figures. If it wasn't one thing, it was another.
Part of her suggested that her Master had snuck into her room at night and stolen her clothes might make her a little concerned.
.. ..
..
Well, at least her gut feelings weren't wrong.
She spun around her room, searching for something more acceptable to walk the halls of the Temple in than her sleep clothes, and the only thing she could find was that misshapen lump of dark fabric that laid on her floor like some sort of wild animal.
She was going to give Skyguy a piece of her mind.
Just as soon as she could figure out how to get out of her room without being half naked, or wearing the thing she was holding.
In the end, Ashoka was forced to reluctantly don the monstrosity-only after cutting off the long hem she was prone to tripping over up to her knees, and the sleeves at the shoulders. She'd hoped it would at least sort of improve the thing, but in the end, it only made her look like she was wearing a bag of some sort.
Scowling darkly, Ahsoka snuck out of her room and made her way down the hall to Bariss' quarters to steal her friends clothes, which would still look silly on her, but anything at this point was better than the thing making her look like some sort of hobo twelve year old.
She desperately avoided pupils in the halls, hiding behind pillars, and narrowly avoiding Master Windu by diving behind a statue of some long gone Jedi Master.
Just as she managed to reach Bariss's door though, O'Mer was exiting from his down the hall, and spotted her, even as she desperately tried to punch in the code to her friend's room. He raised a hand in greeting and then stopped, staring at her robe.
Her montrals darkened and part of her really wanted to melt into the floor as the elder Padawan gave her a puzzled grin, unsure of what to make of her attire, and the fact that she was trying to break into Bariss Offee's room, which wasn't quite working. (She must have changed her code again, that traitor. It wasn't like Ahsoka broke into her room THAT much.)
She muttered all the curse words in Mando'a (she'd bribed Fives and Echo into teaching her a little bit) that she could think of, and then kicked the door for good measure. Neither motivated the door to open for her, and the latter made her foot throb viciously as she swore some more, because it made her feel better.
O'Mer cautiously cleared his throat, and she was finally forced to turn and face him to explain that well, someone had taken her (kriffing) cloths, and she was (going to put her foot up someone's shebs) trying to get into Bariss' room to get some clothes, because she didn't really have any here besides this stupid robe that she was absolutely NOT going to wear a nanosecond longer than she had to.
O'Mer fixed her with a long stare that made her feel stupid and a little angrier, and she was tempted to start swearing at him in Mando'a instead of Bariss' door, until he offered to let her borrow the spare clothing he had in his room.
…
Really, she could have kissed him.
Full, on the lips, holobook worthy kiss.
Except for his eyes were glittering with silent laughter at her, and then she started to think a good hard kick would do better. (And would probably have more effect on him than Bariss' stupid door.)
Still, in the end, she was given a tunic to change into that was several sized too big on her, and hung loosely around her knees, but she was too grateful for an alternative to the thing on the floor that looked more like a hairy bag on the floor than a robe, or some sort of animal. She opted out of the loose pants that kept falling down anyways-he had no belt, he apologized, his eyes still laughing silently at her.
Her initial urge to kiss him was dead and she wanted to kick him again, but she owed him, so she settled on her best glare before stalking out-and tossing a thank you over her shoulder as she stormed out to find Skyguy.
Well, she tried to at least.
Her attempt at storming to the Senate building to find him-which is where he normally was if he wasn't in the Temple- was stopped by Hevy and Hardcase, who had been standing outside the Temple for Force knows how long, had told her very seriously that they were to accompany her wherever she went.
She was really, really tempted to laugh at them. Until she realized that no, this wasn't their attempt at a joke.
Screw that. She was going to hurt Skyguy. This was the weirdest, worst sense of humor she'd every seen (and that was counting Bariss' and all the shineys she'd met, so that was saying something.)
So, instead of storming to the Senate building, she was escorted dutifully by the clones who marched grimly on either side of her like bodyguards as she fumed, and thought of all the different ways she could get her Master back on this sick prank of his.
Halfway there, she noticed that the clones were giving her sideways glances at her clothes, while they both gave off impressions of suppressed amusement in the Force. She glared up at both of them, scowled darkly.
Too bad she still hardly looked older than twelve, and was lacking both the height, build, and uniform to look even half as intimidating as the men she was attempting to cow.
It didn't help that their amusement switched to mirth at the fact that both of them knew it too.
She officially hated males.
All of them.
She stormed through the Senate building, and finally found Anakin, but everything she'd worked up to say in that moment left her once she saw his expression, which was a mix of shock, annoyance and abject horror.
Really, all together, the mix on his face came off as a wonderful impression of a gaping fish.
Finally, after several long moments of staring at each other, Anakin finally managed to demand-weakly-where she'd gotten the tunic.
Embarrassment snapped at her, and reminded her exactly why she was here, and she drew herself up to her full height-which she tried to ignore was still a half a head shorter than him- and told him.
There was a long moment of silence, as he stared at her again. Then, his face slowly began to turn colors-from white, to light pink, to scarlet, and finally settled on an interesting shade of purple-y red, and she could swear one eye twitched as he told her –in a very strangled voice- that she shouldn't wear someone else's clothes-especially a boy's- when she had her own.
She might have laughed at the squeaky pitch of his voice, if she wasn't furious because he knew the answer. So, she archly informed-loudly- that if he didn't approve of it, he might not want to steal her clothes.
Anakin glowered at her, and reminded her that she had clothes.
She denied that the giant thing that had been on her floor in the morning counted as clothing.
He insisted it did, setting his jaw and pouting-pouting!- at her.
She threw her hands up and shouted at him that she'd rather run around naked than wear that thing.
Several scandalized exclamations reminded her sharply that they were having this argument in the hallway of the Senate building, and she was having a yelling match with her Master about losing her clothes in front of the most powerful people in the Republic.
Anakin's expression went between a gaping fish (again) and something equally repulsive as his eye-definitely, this time- twitched and a vein in his forehead began to pulse.
Both clones on either side of her stiffened, and Capitan Rex, who had been with her Master, cleared his throat awkwardly, as at least a dozen of sets of eyes stared at her in some variance of disbelief and horror.
Anakin Skywalker, for the first time Ahsoka could remember, looked absolutely terrified.
Ahsoka, montrals almost black with embarrassment, and feeling rather like a freak show, was reminded of her feeling that it was going to be one of those days. And since this moment officially proved it right, there was only one thing to do.
She drew herself up again, send her most scathing look at her men-and particularly her Master-before she turned on heel, and calmly walked out of the Senate building, head held high.
And locked herself in her room in the Resolute for the rest of the day.
The next morning, the tunic she'd borrowed was gone, and in it's place was another cloth abomination on the floor.
She tamped down her anger, recited the Jedi Code to herself, and then entertained several ideas of painful vengeance on her Master.
..
Then, smirking, she got dressed and headed to the mess hall.
She flashed a winning smile at Anakin as she sat down across from him, and wasn't disturbed by the look of horror on his face as she cheerfully greeted him.
Behind her Master, she could see several clones exchange bewildered looks, even as he was turning-oh, she didn't even know humans could turn that color!
Admittedly, her old outfit was a little small on her, and nowhere near as comfortable as the one that was missing-stolen- but it wasn't too bad.
Anakin demanded to know where her robe was.
She informed him she'd had a cleaning droid incinerate it.
He demanded she put on other clothes.
She sweetly reminded him she didn't have any.
Anakin made a strangled sound in his throat as he gazed around the mess hall, and Ahsoka was vaguely aware of how many of their men were staring at them.
Anakin did as well, and went white, then purple, then gray.
She smiled sweetly, and finished her breakfast before sauntering out of the mess hall.
The next day, her old clothes were returned.
Human men, she thought to herself, as she relished the feeling of her familiar clothes. She'd never understand them.
She never saw Padawan robes after that-or her old uniform, come to think of it. Still, she'd taught him not to mess with her, and the smug satisfaction of winning against Anakin left her content to let the issue go. Besides, she'd already figured out why her Master was acting so strange. It was one of the fundamental truths of the Universe:
Boys were weird.
But Anakin most of all.
