Snips of the Future: Prologue

Ahsoka had no idea where or when she was. She was having a hard enough time remembering who she was. What she was. Ahsoka Tano. Former Jedi Padawan. Former Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic. Fulcrum. Rebel agent. Last of the Jedi of whose ranks she was no longer a member. She seemed to be everywhere an nowhere. She saw a much older version of herself fighting a mandalorian. She saw a much younger Anakin being abused on a desert planet (Tatooine? Anakin had always hated that place.)

Thoughts of Anakin burned harsher than a slaver's electrolash. She remembered her duel with Darth Vader in the old temple minutes ago. Or was it hours ago? Decades?

How had she gotten out of there? She had thought she was dying. She had even welcomed the idea. Death had to be easier than knowing that Anakin Skywalker had...

No. She couldn't think about that. Couldn't allow herself to dwell on it. Ezra. That was it. Somehow Ezra had pulled her out, and into that strange "World Between Worlds" Somehow it had reminded her of Mortis. But just like Mortis the Dark Side had been there as well. Sidious had been there. How had she never seen his evil? How could she have been so blind? She'd told Ezra to run, made him think she was running too. But she had realized that no matter what, someone had to make sure that Sidious wouldn't be able to fully reach that place. And messing with that level of power was a death sentence. That was something else she'd learned on Mortis. She'd managed to redirect his attach into his own gateway, and with the last of her strength gave it the last nudge to destroy itself, but the blast had knocked her off the paths.

Another scene: a young boy who looked so much like Anakin being trained by an old man who looked like he could have been Obi-wan's father. The same young man facing Vader and Sidious, but this time Sidious was not so successful. Vader showed that a tiny bit of Anakin still lived. She wasn't sure if that was a relief or a cause for even greater grief.

A glimpse of a very young Obi-wan and another Jedi she didn't know facing off against Maul. This must be the fight that gained Obi-wan his Knighthood and the moniker "Sith-killer".

Another glimpse, and the young man who looked like Anakin with an equally young woman was facing off against... was that Sidious again? That man was such a cockroach!

Faster and faster the visions came, and she was getting swamped. She didn't know if there was any death in this world, or if she would just lose her mind and be subsumed. That wasn't a fate she relished. She might not be particularly eager to become one with the Force, but still less did she wish to become a broken husk, or a babbling distraction for whoever next came through here.

When she first saw the bird, she thought it was another element of the chaotic visions, but where it passed the visions stilled. As it came closer, she recognized it as the same bird she'd had at her side on occasions ever since Mortis. Then, to her complete shock, it transformed into a griffin of light, before transforming again into a beautiful woman of light.

"You?! But you died! How can you be here?!" Her surprise made Ahsoka's voice shrill.

"What is that saying you Jedi are so fond of? 'There is no Death...'?"

"...There is the Force." the rote repetition fell from her lips without thinking, before her shocked brain caught up. "And I am no Jedi, Daughter!"

The Daughter's smile was bright, yet full of sympathy. "You never ceased to be a Jedi, and you never will." Then her smile turned contemplative.

"Or perhaps, someday, a Je'Daii. But that's for another time. And to answer your question, as simplistic as it may sound, (death is real, after all,) for beings like us it contains a bit of truth. We can and do experience death, but it isn't something permanent. That being said, it generally takes hundreds of years for us to reform. Were it not you I was addressing, and were you not in this place, I would not be able to appear. But when I healed you, you became host and anchor to some of my power."

Ahsoka remembered Mortis, where she had met the three overwhelmingly powerful Force beings known individually as the Daughter (representing the Light side of the Force,) the Son (representing the Dark Side of the Force,) and the Father (representing a Balance in the Force,) who were collectively known as The Ones. It was not a pretty memory, but despite how it ended she'd liked the Daughter, and was glad to know that the Daughter's death on Mortis wasn't permanent.

"That may answer the question of 'How'," Ahsoka squinted her eyes, not entirely comfortable with the idea of herself as host to mysterious cosmic power. Skyguy, Anakin, had been seen as the prophesied 'Chosen One', and just look how that had turned out. "But it doesn't answer 'Why'. And if you all can just reform yourselves, what was the point of all that business on Mortis? "

A look of intense sorrow flashed over the Daughter's face. "Everything that happened on Mortis was real. But balancing myself and my brother isn't a matter of simple power. Father sought to test if your Anakin could accomplish the one thing that all three of us have longed for every day for untold millennia. In the end, Anakin had the power, and he even had the temperament to be able to understand her, but as you've seen he's actually too close to Mother in personality."

"Wait, 'Mother'?" Now Ahsoka was totally lost. She'd never heard mention of another entity, and the unrestrained sorrow and longing in the Daughter's voice and eyes resonated so strongly with her she found tears in her own eyes.

The Daughter sighed, and wiped her own eyes, and then Ahsoka's.

"I wish we had time for me to tell you of her, but our time is unfortunately limited. I hope that what we're doing will lead to a new hope for us, but for now, all you need to know is that the result of our meeting with the three of you, and the outcome of Anakin's life is something that all three of us regret, each for our own reasons, and for the reason that we three share. That and the fact that you falling off the path in this place leads to an opportunity that none of us can afford to miss."

She nodded to the various scenes still flashing in the background.

"You've seen these, and call them 'visions'. What you may not have realized is that in this place, time is not certain or linear. It is mutable, and all 'nows' are present. The paths you walked keep some subjective causality in place so that mortals can exist here, but you are not on the paths."
She looked to Ahsoka's left, and then to her right, nodding as if in acknowledgment, and began to glow.

"You cannot see them, but my Brother and Father are here. We will pool our strengths as we have not done since the first binding, and send you back. So that the world you lived might never be."

Now Ahsoka began to panic. She, who had never been good enough, who had never fit in with the Jedi, and who had never even finished her Padawan training, was supposed to go back in time and change the future? She was supposed to accomplish something that had been beyond the capabilities of great transcendent beings? And she was supposed to change Anakins mind?

"But what am I supposed to do?!" she all but screamed.

"We trust you. As much as we are capable of trusting anything but the Force itself. Know that the hopes of the Light, the Dark, and the Grey all go with you."

The Daughter was shining so brightly that Ahsoka couldn't see anything, and had to clench her eyes tightly shut against the pain. She could see the veins in her eyelids, and it was still unbearably bright. Yet through it all, the Daughter's warm voice still reached her.

"You can do it, little 'soka. You have always been a light in the darkness. We will advise you when and as we can. Family brought Anakin back once. Family is something all three of us understand. And you too are part of his family."


Notes: Hello everyone. Thanks for taking the time to read. This is the prologue to a new story I'm working on. It will primarily draw on Legends material, although obviously Rebels is going to have a place, and other things too if I think they will make a good fit for the story. I welcome feedback, and look forward to hearing from you.

I've added a little bit in for clarity. For those who missed the relevent episodes of the Clone Wars TV show, the Daughter is one of three ultra-powerful Force beings who represent aspects of the Force. To make a long story shorter they tested Anakin to see if he could become one of them and uphold the Balance, replacing the Father, but he refused. In Legends we later find out there used to be a mortal woman known as the Mother who took care of them and kept harmony, but as she aged she feared that her death would throw them out of balance, so she did something forbidden to gain power and immortality, which she did gain, but it drove her insane and made her super evil, so she had to be locked up.