Snips of the Future Ch 4.

Ahsoka got very little sleep that night.

When she returned to the creche, and Master Tir-Lan had informed them of their upcoming trip, the entire group had been abuzz with excitement. Trips off planet were rare for any youngling, and trips to the Outer-Rim were even rarer. Many of the younger ones had never been off Coruscant since they'd been brought to the Temple. For the older younglings it was an oportunity to experience what life might be like as a padawan or member of one of the Corps, and she suspected a couple of the oldest hoped they would accomplish something that might bring them to the attention of a potential master.

The members of Clawmouse clan set to packing, though with little skill in the case of many of the youngest. The creches tended to give teenage younglings responsibility for one each of the youngest, with the Matron's assistants making spot checks on everyone, breaking up the occasional but inevitable tussels that would break out between clanmates. Ahsoka, as the youngest by far, would generally be assigned to one of the teenagers, but she was still very new, and all the current teenagers had already been assigned by the time she was brought to the temple. Last time she'd been assigned to Tolan, when the Ithorian turned thirteen in four more months, but she'd still tended to be separate from the other creche members.

At this time she was not separate at all. The other creche members swarmed around her, ignoring the usual cliques, curious about how she'd met Master Dooku, and what had led him to take them on this trip. Trips usually were scheduled months in advance, and almost never involved a member of the Jedi Council.

Then Shayl Le'tah let slip that she had video, and everyone batched her duel with Dooku, ooh-ing and ahh-ing until Tor Dahni, a Miralukan and one of Master Tri-lan's assistants stopped packing his own bags and came over to see what was going on.

"All right, everyone. Yes it's very cool. Yes Folani, I am aware that Master Dooku is a member of the Jedi Council. Zohl I need you to put those sticks down right now. I understand that you want to prove you could do better, but now is neither the time, nor the place. Besides, a Jedi is not concerned with fame or position."

That last one should be rephrased to 'a Jedi does not admit to being concerned about fame or position,' in Ahsoka's opinion, but the kids went back to their packing, though Zohl gave Ahsoka a challenging look, and Shayl Le'tah gave her a thoughtful one.


By Dinner time a bit of the excitement had faded, though she was not sitting alone as was her usual custom. Shayl Le'tah sat across from her, warding of Zohl, for which Ahsoka was grateful. The teenage Bothan girl brought six year old Barriss Offee who was responsible for, and for whom Ahsoka had decidedly mixed feelings.

Shayl Le'tah's friends followed her: Ulu Ulix gazed at her with his three black eyes, while his charge, the six year old Marseph tried tried to surruptitiously push his tuber casserole portion onto Ulu's plate. Xiaan Amersu and Voolvif Monn joind next, their lekku twitching at each other, followed by their charges Sha'a Gi reading a datapad instead of looking where he was going and almost ran into Maris Brood, who elbowed him to avoid that fate.

"So..." Shayl asked as everyone sat down, "How'd you learn to fight like that? I think you'd have had a good chance at beating me, especially attacking by surprise like that."

When Ahsoka didn't answer immediately, she continued.

"I know I'm no Master Dooku, but I have been trained with a lightsaber. I've even been putting in extra time practicing, what with the Apprentice Tournaments coming up. If Zohl actually does try something you'll wipe the floor with him. Skills like that don't happen overnight."

Again there was a pause, a little longer this time. Shayl would develop into quite a good investigator and covert agent, Ahsoka remembered.

"You might as well confess. You know me. I'm never able to leave a puzzle alone. I know you don't talk to others much, but I'm rather good at ferreting things out. If you don't tell me I'll just ferret it out myself. And while I do, I'll keep pestering you until I succeed."

Xiaan seemed torn between a desire to defend the young Ahsoka and her own burning curiosity. Marseph and Maris weren't staring in rapt attention. The trouble was, she wasn't really sure who she could trust with what. The real story was crazy enough they'd never believe it. But lying to a Force sensitive, especially one who was watching for lies, was tricky at the best of times. And Ahsoka remembered that Shayl had shown herself remarkably skilled at Truth-sensing as a Padawan and later Knight. She couldn't remember if Shayl had already had that ability at this age, but better not to risk it. Ahsoka decided she'd have to go for what Master Kenobi would call 'truth from a certain point of view'.

"That's actually closer to the truth than you realize. You remember the night with the storm."

It wasn't a question, and everyone shuddered, even Aayla, who as one of the oldest in the clan sometimes seemed to think she had something to prove.

"Well I'm obviously not one of the teachers, but I believe they would describe what I had as series of extremely intense and extended Force Visions."

The other younglings all goggled at her in surprise.

"So you learned lightsaber combat... in a vision?" Clearly Ulu wasn't sure whether to believe her or not.

"That is hype to the core!" Maris, obviously, had not trouble believing her at all.

"I wish I could have visions!" Marseph seemed somewhat jealous.

"Trust me. You really, really, really don't. Yes there was a lot of lightsaber combat, but that's because there was a lot of death. A lot of it was the sort of stuff no-one sane actually wants to see."

"And have you discussed this with any of your teachers?" The Younglings looked up to discover Tor Dahni standing behind Ahsoka with his own tray of food.

"Hello Assistant Dahni." Ahsoka nodded respectfully. Her honed paranoia had let her notice him walk up behind her near the end of her answer. She wasn't exactly happy about it, but it was probably better that the Creche team had some kind of explanation for her behavior.

"I discussed it with Master Tri-lan, as well as with Master Yoda after one of his classes with the older Initiates. They reminded me that the future is not fixed, and that we should never let fear of the contents of a vision to effect our actions." Of course there's a difference between fear and caution, which the Jedi seem to have forgotten, or blurred when it was their own fear, Ahsoka thought.

"Good," responded the Miralukan member of the Education Corps, "If you have any other visions you wish to talk about, please let me know. We are here for a reason."

"Well it seems like your vision affected more than just your saber skills," Voolvif said on a lighter note, "You talk like one of the teachers."

But Aayla was still watching her, as if she suspected that there was more that Ahsoka wasn't saying.

Ahsoka slept fitfully, familiar nightmares of the Clone Wars and the Empire being supplemented by nightmares of being declared insane and locked up where she couldn't help as all her friends died horribly yet again.


Notes: Thank you very much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews and comments are very welcome.

Tor Dahni, Tolan, Folani, and Zohl are OCs reated to fill out Clawmouse Clan.

Voolvif Monn, Aayla Secura, Shayl Le'tah, Xiaan Amersu, Ulu Ulix, Barriss Offee, Sha'a Gi, & Maris Brood are all from Legends.

Marseph is from Disney, but as far as I know nothing about him contradicts Legends.

One of my readers mentioned that Dooku wasn't talking to Ahsoka like a 4 year old in the last chapter. That's true. But first of all, he's already a rather formal person, and secondly, he's noticing how unlike a 4 year old she's talking and acting. He's not actually the only one, but I don't want to spend too much time on infodumps.