Disclaimer: Disney owns Star Wars, not me. All the characters and places (except for my OC Analise) belong to them.
"aaaa"-talking out loud. "aaaa" (bold and italics)-talking through a holo or com.'aaaaa'-inner thoughts.aaaaa-talking through a Bond. "aaaa" (bold)-another language. ("aaa") (bold, italics, and paraenthis)-talking through a holo or com in another language.
AN: Hi everyone:) I turned twenty-nine on Wednesday! I spent the day writing and playing Old Republic so it was nice:) My best birthday present actually came early. I got hired by a hotel at this beautiful place called Mackinac Island for the summer. It's been a dream of mine to at least work and maybe one day live on the island so I super excitied to be going up there. It looks like I'll be leaving in mid-to-late April and I'll be home in late October or early November.
But never fear! There is internet and I will be taking my computer up with me so Anakin and Analise's adventures will continue!
This chapter will be dark, but nightmares usually are. I'll be back next week with another chapter:)
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Interlude-Nightmares Rise
They were too late.
Too late.
Too too late.
Three bodies floated in space, creating an almost macabre dance. A ballet of death as they floated around busted pipes and metal torn free from rivets.
All three were male. One was clad in the uniform of an office. The other two wore white armor with painted desgins of blue. The officers hair was trimmed close in true military fashion. The hair of the other two were brightly colored and had been cut to form unique designs. Hairstyles was one of the ways that Clone Troopers, for that is what the men were, had to distinguish themselves. It didn't take long for men, fresh off Kamino and in their first deployment to start experimenting with hair colors, cuts, and even facial hair.
Their ballet would have been peaceful, soothing even if it weren't for the men's faces. Their faces were frozen in panic, absolute terror. Their death had not been peaceful, not not been gentle. It had been fast and harsh. Enough to frighten men that for the most part faced Death on a daily basis, only shrugging at it when it reached out for them in a near miss and raging against it when its reach instead took one or more of their brothers.
These men had gone to their deaths not fighting as they were meant to do and did often, but screaming in terror.
She knew these men. Had seen the officer often when the war had started and her foster father had been made a General. The officer had often been by his side when he made rare visits to their home. After she had become a Padawan, she sometimes saw them in passing on battlefields or at mission briefings.
Her heart beat faster as broken, jagged parts of metal became clearer...Familiar. She knew the ship, knew the men.
Knew that he would be there.
As if responding to her fear of seeing his fate and the longing to see just to know, something pulled her past the men she had known. It pulled her past wreckage, past more Clones frozen forever in terror near the remains of escape pods.
She tried to close her eyes, but something was not letting her. Something wanted her to see. Wanted her to witness whatever fate had befallen the man who had raised her. The man who had taught and nurtured her until the time had come for her to go to her brother.
But he was still there...Would always be there...
The space where he should have been was empty, blank. Like he had never been there at all.
A shape came into view. A piece of pipe still attached to to a junk of metal wall. The point of the pipe had been sharpened by whatever had blasted it into a point.
A point that had something impaled upon it.
Bile rose in her throat and she clamped her lips tightly together, but the moan still burst forth from them.
She knew...Just knew that his death had been even more painful than the Clones. His anti-ox would have kept him alive for some time.
He must have been in pain...He must have felt alone...Abandoned.
"Papa Plo..." Her body started to shake with suppressed sobs.
This wasn't right...
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The sobs halted when she realized that she was no longer traveling somehow through the vacuum of space. Now she was huddled on the floor of a jungle planet.
Teth...The name drifted through her mind. The planet of her first mission. The first time she had truly fought in the war alongside her brother and sister, even though her brother hadn't been too pleased to have his baby sister risking life and limb in warfare. It was bad enough their sister fought as often as she did with her gentle nature.
Screams filled her montrals.
Screams of the injured and dying.
They were so loud.
Standing up she realized that she was alone. Left behind when her siblings and their Troopers had pressed on ahead. She didn't understand why one of the men hadn't grabbed her if she been hit. Neither her brother nor her sister nor even the gruff, but well-meaning Captain of their men would have let her be left behind on the ground if she had been injured, but still alive.
After all, they never left a brother behind. The Captain had told her that. They never left a brother or any member of their legion behind. That strictly followed rule now included her even though she had no official military rank.
The screams grew louder and louder and louder. She wanted to press her hands as tight as she could against her montrals, but she couldn't.
She needed to find them.
Her feet thudded dully against the dirt on the ground, snapping sticks into pieces and kicking up loose rocks and planet life.
The sounds of battle began to reach her. Blaster fire, shouts of rushed orders. She ducked her head down to avoid looking at either side. Bodies in white armor littered the ground, mixed with the mangled parts of battle droids.
Suddenly she slipped, letting out a cry as she fell face down. A root had caught her foot and she wanted to let loose a stream of the curses she had learned from the men.
She reached out a hand to push herself up only to realize that the ground she had touched was wet. Wet and with some sort of dull, coppery smell. A smell that made her stomach roll as she pulled her hand back and pushed herself into a kneeling position.
Red.
Her hand was coated with red. Not the red of a fruit or flower.
It was the red of blood.
Slowly her eyes lifted and she realized she was kneeling at a vast ocean of blood that coated the forest floor. Blood that lazily sprang forth from bodies that were laying in the midst of that ocean.
Bodies she recognized.
The Captain who had seem so cold and hard, but who was really a great guy and was always teaching her something new when it came to figuring out just how exactly battle and the military worked or sweeping her away to join the Clones in some sort of reaction.
She saw more Clones that she knew. Clones that had welcomed her with open arms and others that been annoyed with her at first, but slowly warmed to her.
Something glistened among the red. Something light and almost golden in color. A blond hair slowly soaking up red blood.
She clapped a hand over her mouth as the she followed that one hair to an outstretched hand, a body. Tears ran down her face when she saw the face.
The face of her older sister. So gentle and loving, who had taught her songs and prayers, had told her stories.
If her sister was gone, than she was almost certain that her sister's husband was gone too. They were Soul Mates after all.
An outraged and pained cry tore her gaze from the still body of her sister to the form of her brother. He was wounded from head to toe. His right hand had been sliced away and she could see sparks rising from the severed circuits. His lightsaber was in his left hand, but she knew he wasn't comfortable with it there.
He was in so much pain...So much pain and something was keeping her from reaching him. Something was keeping her from calling out to him.
So focused was her brother on the opponent in front of him, he didn't see the figure behind wielding a lightsaber of the same deep red color as the pool of blood in front of her.
The lightsaber raised high and then plunged into her brother's back!
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"NO!" Ahsoka sat up on her bunk with a cry. Instantly she slammed her shields up so that her siblings, Papa Plo, and Obi-Wan wouldn't be aware of the turmoil that was currently racing through her system.
She was grateful that they were on the Resolute where she had her own room next to Anakin's. She was grateful that Anakin had sent her to bed and that he along with the rest of the leaderships were in a meeting about what their next steps would be.
She was too young for a meeting like that and besides, she didn't even hold an official rank.
Shaking hands reached up to wipe at the mixture of tears and sweat running down her face before moving them to free herself from the tangled blanket wrapped around her.
Ahsoka had never had nightmares like the one she had just went through before. They had never been so vivid or painful. So heartbreaking...
She took a deep breath, centering herself in the Force and releasing the turmoil as best she could. Ahsoka knew that if she kept her shields up for too long, Anakin would be pounding on her door and demanding to know if she was alright.
For a man not very opened when it came to talking about his own nightmares, he was very insitent with her about coming cleaning about her own nightmares.
No!
Ahsoka could not tell, would not tell anyone about her nightmares. She was a Jedi. She had to be able to handle these nightmares, no matter how horrific by herself.
Anakin said she didn't have to prove herself, but Ahsoka knew that he was talking about their family. She didn't have to prove herself to them.
She needed to prove herself to the rest of the galaxy and nightmares would only hold her back in that.
No...Ahsoka would never speak of her nightmares. Not to anyone.