Puzzled:

World Between Worlds…

Kanan and Ahsoka wandered along their path of light until it came to a T-intersection. He looked left and right. To the left were many more portals, and to the right, only one at the end of the path. Logically, left made more sense because each new portal increased their chances of getting out of here, but his gut was saying go right, so that's what he did. Not like we can't turn around and go the other way after.

Ahsoka had also been looking both ways and when he focused to the right, she hummed in agreement. "I feel it too."

They turned that way and started walking with more purpose.

"Maybe now that I've accomplished what I was supposed to, this portal land is finally ready to let us out," Kanan said hopefully.

Ahsoka shot him a wry look full of decades of hard-earned wisdom. "You really think the Force is going to make it that easy for us?"

He huffed out a resigned snort of amusement. "Probably not. Nothing I ever do seems to be that easy."

"I've learnt that nothing worth doing ever is."

Kanan gave his friend a look of commiseration at her tone of resigned acceptance. "At least the work or pain usually results in something positive."

She gave him another sideways look, her mouth curving up into a smile. "Like becoming a master of Force Sight?"

He smiled back. "Exactly like that. Or trying to teach a moody teenager how to use the Force."

She laughed softly. "You think that was bad. You should try BEING a moody teenager being taught by a moody teenager."

Kanan snorted. "No thanks."

She shook her head as her expression turned wistful. "I don't know how Anakin and I didn't kill each other sometimes in that first year, but I wouldn't change it even if I could. In the end, our bond was unbreakable because of it. At least… it was."

Thinking of what he'd just witnessed before rescuing her from Death By Vader, Kanan touched her shoulder in sympathetic understanding at the same time as her bird nuzzled her cheek from the other side in a show of supportive affection. "Don't think of him as your Master. Vader is not the same person as Skywalker. He lost himself somewhere along the way and became someone else entirely."

They came to a stop in front of the portal, which was surrounded by the outlines of wolves frozen in mid-lope and currently showing two scout troopers walking through a camp of some sort, lit by many overhead lights. Since it was uninteresting to them, Kanan and Ahsoka turned partially away from it to continue their current conversation facing each other.

She sighed as she stroked a thankful hand over Morai's feathers before wrapping her arms around herself. "That's something that I've been thinking about every since I suspected who Vader really was. I don't know what all happened to make him turn, but I'll always wonder if my leaving him had something to do with it. I'll always wonder if I had stayed… would I have been able to convince him to stay in the Light? Would I have been able to stop whatever it was that made him finally snap?"

She looked like she needed a hug, but Kanan wasn't sure he was the one who should be giving it to her. Rex, maybe. Or Anakin himself, would be even better.

Now there's some prime wishful thinking, he thought with a mental snort and eye roll.

Since neither were likely at the moment, Kanan made do with squeezing her shoulder. "I'm sure you know this just as well as I do, but dwelling on the what ifs isn't going to make it better. And Skywalker's decisions were his own. It wasn't your responsibility to make them for him."

She squeezed his forearm in return, her sky blue eyes warming with gratitude. "I know." Then her eyes started sparkling with mirth as their hands dropped. "But I sure did try sometimes. And I also spent a good deal of my time keeping him alive. Master Kenobi always moaned over the fact that he couldn't decide which of the two of us was more reckless and why did the Force hate him so for giving him two Padawans with such similar personalities?"

Kanan laughed. "I can totally sympathize with him. If Ezra hasn't given me a hundred heart attacks by now, the count must be close."

"Hey, what's that?"

At the familiar sounding voice of the boy in question, though altered slightly by the speaker system of a helmet, Kanan and Ahsoka glanced at the portal and then did a double take and turning fully to face it. "Speaking of heart attacks…" he groaned.

The two scout troopers were now aiming for a section of a rock wall that was even more illuminated than the rest of the sort of deserted looking camp. (Maybe they're all at dinner?) And Kanan was now ninety-nine percent sure that one of them was Ezra. And judging by the figure on the other, it has to be Sabine.

The female voice that came out of the portal next confirmed it.

"I don't know, but this is definitely drawn in the same style as the tablet that lothwolf gave us."

As the back of the disguised teenagers approached the wall in question with cautious looks from side to side, Ahsoka glanced at Kanan with wide eyes. "Ezra really has grown up if he can wear that armour and…" She looked at the portal again, which was now focusing on the mural on the rock wall. "…Oh kriff. It's the Mortis gods!"

Kanan shot her a look of surprise and then looked back at the portal. The wall featured an old, bearded man in the center with the familiar outline of the Lothal Temple behind him, a dark looking bald man on the right, and a beautiful, teal haired woman on the left… Who had a bird on her shoulder just like Morai. That can't be a coincidence. "The who now?"

Ahsoka reached a hand forward as if to touch the mural but then quickly withdrew it. "Something from my past. I'll explain later," she said quickly, because in the portal, Ezra and Sabine had finished gawking and had raised the front of their helmets to talk to each other quietly.

Ezra's face was the same, double scar and all, and yet different. Longer maybe. More refined. His royal blue eyes were as striking as ever and Kanan nearly teared up to see them again, having missed the boy's expressive windows to his soul that showed affection so easily. Sabine had her hair in shades of chocolate and purple, which he'd heard about and imagined, but it was nice to see in real life. It suits her. Her face had also lost whatever baby fat had remained and looked glowingly healthy around the feature of her pretty amber eyes.

Kanan was so busy soaking in the sight of his 'kids' looking so much more grown up than the last time he'd seen them in living colour that some of their conversation passed by without much reaction from him until he managed to focus on it.

"It's amazing, whatever it is."

"I take it you've never seen anything like this before?" Sabine asked

"Nope. But this Temple is always full of surprises."

"Very old. Very intricate. Does any of this mean anything to you?"

"Well. I've seen a bird like that before. Whenever Ahsoka visited us on Atallon, it was always nearby. And look, lothwolves."

Kanan peeled his eyes off of Ezra's face to see that there was, in fact, gold outlined drawings of wolves on each side of the mural that he hadn't noticed before.

They matched the ones on this side of the portal and Kanan had a feeling they were important somehow. Unsurprising, I guess, since a lothwolf brought me here.

"Impressive beasties," Ahsoka murmured.

Ezra huffed. "But none of that helps us figure out how to get Kanan out of there. The wolf said he was in the Temple, but all of the other entrances have been removed. How is this painting going to help?"

"Just give me a minute. I'm working on it."

While the teenagers were staring at the mural in consternation (Ezra) and deep thought (Sabine), Ahsoka nudged him in the arm. "You know, since it's clear enough to me that we've found the right timeframe, we could just step through the portal and save them from having to figure out the puzzle."

Kanan looked back at her with a devilish twinkle in his recently healed eyes. "We could. Or we could let them gain the experience of another interesting test."

A slow grin crossed her face. "You think like a teacher."

He snorted. "Well, I do now. You should have seen me in the first few months of terrible attempts."

"I've heard the stories, don't worry," she laughed. "Knocking your new Padawan off the top of a ship hovering in atmosphere is not usually the recommended way to go."

The newly appointed Jedi Master winced with his whole body. "That… wasn't one of my finest moments."

She was still laughing when Sabine pulled a holodisc out of a pouch in her utility belt and a hologram of a stone tablet popped up."I thought so! Look, Ezra! The hands! They're the same on the figures as the ones here on the stone!"

"Then that means something." Ezra looked happy to no longer be staring at the painting with a helpless expression on his face.

In fact, he was now looking at Sabine like she'd just hung the stars in the sky. Which wasn't a new look for him, but Kanan had thought the boy had gotten more subtle about it.

Interestingly, Sabine didn't seem bothered by it at all the way she used to be when they were younger. In fact, she was currently rolling her eyes at the boy the same way Hera did to Kanan; with exasperation heavily laced with loving undertones.

"Ez'ika, it's art. Everything has a meaning. I think this is it."

Kanan gawked at the portal. What?!

"Did she just call him Ez'ika?" Ahsoka whispered as if the kids could hear them.

"I think she did." He shook his head in disbelief. "How did I not see that they're a thing now?"

Ahsoka shrugged as Ezra finished another long, hard, and unfortunately helpless, look at the painting. "What? What's it?"

Sabine very patiently explained, much to Kanan's relief, because to be honest, he didn't get it either. "The painting on the Temple is like a star map, but… none that I'm familiar with. Those lines are like paths and the rings are planets or… or doorways."

"That is one smart girl," Ahsoka said admiringly.

"Yes, she is," Kanan said as proudly as if she actually was his daughter.

"Okay, but which one leads into the Temple? How do we open this door? If it is a door." And under his breath, Ezra added, "It better be a door."

Hearing him too, Sabine's expression became sympathetic. "Don't worry, we'll get Kanan back, okay?"

Ezra took a deep breath, settling himself in the Force the way Kanan had taught him when his emotions were starting to impede his ability to think clearly. He nodded once. "Okay."

As Kanan puffed up with pride in his kids, Sabine smiled at Ezra encouragingly, grabbing his hand to squeeze for a moment before she activated the holodisc again. "Look here. The hands represent different configurations. Right now it looks like the painting is lined up with the central figure." She pointed at the hand at the top of the hologram that matched the open hand of the one on the female figure. "I think we want this one, where the lines are together."

"Great. What happens then?"

Sabine gave him that same exasperated loving look. "I don't know. It's your turn. Now do your thing."

"Right." Ezra grinned. Then his face fell comically. "Wait, what thing?"

Kanan face palmed while Ahsoka snorted with badly suppressed laughter. Even Morai squawked in clear amusement.

Kanan peeked between his fingers to see the Mando girl lose the loving part of her look and graduate to just exasperated. He didn't blame her at all. "Whatever it is you do to open the Temple?"

Poor Ezra was looking helpless again as he said, "Kanan and I always opened it together. It takes a Master and an Apprentice he said."

Sabine gave Ezra a look that clearly said, 'And I fell in love with you, why?' that made Ahsoka snicker even more and Kanan pinch the bridge of his nose. "Well, you're going to have to think of something, and fast, before everyone comes back."

"Okay, okay! Just give me second!" Ezra said, raising his hands in surrender as he backed towards the painting and away from the Mando girl who looked like she might bite the boy's head off if he didn't get his butt in gear and do something productive.

"That is one seriously lopsided relationship," Ahsoka said, amusement still in her tone.

"The genius Mando from a privileged upbringing and the barely educated lothrat Jedi? No kidding," Kanan sighed. "But he adores her. Always has. I guess that's enough for her."

"It would be enough for most girls," the Togrutan woman said softly, her expression now full of longing. "It was for me."

Since Kanan knew that Rex would do anything for Ahsoka and they were practically inseparable whenever they were in the same area, he knew what she meant; Rex was a clone who barely had any rights as an intelligent being and she had been raised as an all but worshiped Jedi. They were another lopsided relationship that worked anyway.

Meanwhile, Ezra had been staring at the painting of the woman whose hand matched the one in the hologram. He looked at his own hand and then hers and shrugged as an idea came to him. "Well, here goes nothing."

Pulling over a rolling ladder that had probably been useful in the examining of the very large painting, Ezra started to climb up it so he could reach the hand in question when he suddenly froze and looked beyond Sabine.

A chill chased down Kanan's spine at the same time in warning.

"What is it?" the girl asked in a whisper as her entire body tensed in readiness.

"Cold," Ezra whispered back. "It suddenly just got really, really cold."

Since Sabine hadn't felt the same thing, Kanan cursed. "Frag. Vader's there!"

Sabine also knew what this meant, since she was already whirling around with blasters drawn and scanning the shadows between floodlights for their enemy.

Ezra jumped off the ladder and ignited his green lightsabre, also looking for the threat.

Ahsoka had her lightsabres in hand as well, but not lit, and an expression of fierce determination on her face. "I think it's time for us to join this party, don't you, Kanan?"

"Kriff, yes," Kanan growled, since there was no way he was letting his kids face Vader on their own. Grabbing his own lightsabre in readiness, Kanan moved to push through the portal shoulder first and was thrown back right off his feet as it refused him entry.

Winded, he pushed up onto his elbows. "What the frag?!"

Looking at him in concern and then at the portal that now had Darth Vader advancing on the kids with what looked like a whole battalion of stormtroopers at his back and with a hunched over old man just a step behind, Ahsoka said, "Let me try."

Reaching more cautiously with only one hand, she touched the portal with a finger and then hissed as she shook her hand like it had been bitten. "We can't go through. I think… I think this is a special portal and it's going to stay closed until Ezra opens it."

"That's just kriffing great." Kanan pushed up onto his feet and glared at the portal. "I hate to say this, but… I have a really bad feeling about this."

Ahsoka winced as Sabine's blasters and Ezra's weapons were pulled right out of their hands and tossed off to the side with an easy motion of Vader's hands. "So do I."

A/N: I changed that conveniently placed boulder thing in the cartoon to a ladder because I don't think that when they excavated that they'd actually leave a rock there in front of such an important painting. (But a boulder is much easier to animate than a moving ladder.) If you disagree with me, oh well. :P