Anakin settled in on Ahsoka's lap for the jump back to Coruscant. He closed his eyes, planning on napping for most of it, only wake up back in the jungle again. Either the retrieval team had been a stress-induced hallucination, or he had dropped straight into a Force vision. Based on the fact that there was no sound coming from the jungle and streams of tiny, golden lights flowed just beneath the treetops, Anakin was going to go with Force vision. It was surprisingly lucid for a vision, though. Usually they were just flashes of future pain and suffering.
A familiar, eight-legged feline dropped down from the trees. Anakin flexed his claws and tensed, preparing for the same sort of hostility he'd experienced earlier from it.
Instead of attacking, though, the feline sat down, staring at him with implacable, endless blue eyes. "Anakin Skywalker," it said, its voice reverberating through the forest, with deeper and higher undertones to its androgynous pitch making it impossible to determine what gender the creature was. The glowing lights flashed in time with its voice.
"What do you want?" he asked, forgetting for a moment that he was a kitten and therefore shouldn't be able to speak.
"Child of the desert," it continued as if he'd never said anything. "You have been chosen."
Anakin sighed. Great, another Force entity insisting he was the Chosen One. As if the whole Mortis situation hadn't been bad enough.
"What do you want?" he repeated, suddenly angry. As if turning him into a kitten and disrupting his life hadn't been bad enough, now this thing wanted to demand something from him. Well, he didn't feel like cooperating.
The creature shrugged. "It is not a matter of what we want. It is a matter of what has been given to you."
Anakin narrowed his eyes, suspicious of the creature. Nobody gave him anything for free; there was always a catch.
"It is also a matter of whether or not you are worthy of what has been given," it continued.
And there it was.
"How am I supposed to know if I'm worthy of this gift?" Anakin asked, suddenly tired of this whole affair. He wished he'd never come here, that this mission had been assigned to someone, anyone else.
The feline stood and began to circle him. Anakin watched it with fatigued eyes. He knew what a predator looked like when it was considering whether its prey was worth pursuing.
"Do you know what it means to have ultimate power?"
Oh. This is a test. Great, he thought he was done with those once he became a Knight, but apparently not.
If Anakin had ultimate power, he would keep everyone safe, make sure no one gets hurt. People had told him before that, as the Chosen One, he had more raw power than the majority of the Jedi. It sure didn't feel like it when he couldn't even save his mom, though.
"Ultimate power means that you're strong enough to protect people from anything," Anakin said.
The feline keeps circling. "An interesting answer. If you can figure out what the most destructive and beautiful thing for any sentient is then maybe you will be worthy of the gift that has been chosen for you."
"Wait, what do you mean?" Was this creature incapable of giving straight answers?
The jungle around him began to fade out into a gray mist. The last thing he saw before he woke was the feline's eyes, glowing a bright blue.
0o0o0
Anakin felt discomfited by his vision, but he was tired enough to try and nap for the rest of the flight, waking up occasionally when Ahsoka scratched behind his ears. He'd been doing a lot of napping since being turned into a kitten. Maybe the transformation had sapped more energy than he'd thought. Of course, his tiredness could also be because he'd opened himself up to more of the Force than usual or because he was in the body of an baby animal, and babies needed more sleep than adults.
He was very hungry by the time they got back to the Jedi Temple, a feeling which he shared with Ahsoka through their bond. It was probably another side effect of whatever was making him so tired.
She snickered and said "Alright, Master, let's drop off your stuff and then go see if the commissary has any food for us." before jumping out of the cockpit.
He carefully clambered after her, only to be swooped up and deposited up between her montrals. It was a very precarious position, and Anakin had to fight against his reflexive desire to dig in his claws to get a better grip. Masters were not to hurt their Padawans, after all, unless it was through extra katas or meditation.
They drew numerous stares as they walked through the halls from other Jedi. Anakin shot them baleful glares until they looked away and emitted a general prickly feeling in the Force. He didn't want to take the risk that they would try to pet him, and he was still a little miffed from the encounter in his vision.
They made a quick detour to their rooms to leave his clothes, prosthetic, and lightsaber somewhere safe before heading to the commissary for something to eat. There was only one problem with their plan: they had no idea what was actually healthy for a kitten to eat.
"Cats are carnivores, right?" Ahsoka piled a rare steak onto her plate and poked at another one.
Anakin sent her a feeling of dubiousness. He wasn't fully grown yet, and that steak looked like it was as big as he was.
They poked around the food selections a little more, but ultimately had to face the truth: they had no idea what Anakin could safely eat.
"Don't worry, Skyguy, I've got an idea," Ahsoka said, heading towards the nearest holonet terminal and leaving her plate behind. A quick search later, and she was pulling up a diagram of what kittens could safely eat by age. "Looks like kittens only drink milk until they're four weeks old. Do you feel younger than four weeks?"
Anakin jumped down onto the terminal and shot her the most deadpan glare he could. It wasn't a very impressive glare considering he was a fluffy kitten, but it was the principle of the thing. He was twenty two years old, no matter what his body looked like.
"You're right, you look a lot older than that. Maybe two months, which means you can eat meat, as long as it isn't raw."
There were very few people in the commissary when they returned, so Ahsoka and Anakin were able to settle in and eat in peace, Ahsoka with her steak that was so rare it was almost bloody and Anakin with a small pile of torn up chunks of meat, just as rare. It tasted delicious, and once he'd finished, the feeling of a full belly was making him sleepy again.
Their peace was interrupted when a group of younglings entered the commissary, chattering loudly about their lightsaber class. Anakin's ears flattened back against his head and he tried jumping down onto Ahsoka's lap to hide, but it was too late. They had seen him, and there would be no escape.
"Padawan Tano, where did you get a kitty?" one of them, a Tholothian, asked brightly after approaching the table.
"Can we hold it?" the Rodian girl asked before Ahsoka could answer, widening her eyes pitifully. "Please?"
Anakin looked up at Ahsoka, silently begging her to say no. Ahsoka's smirk was downright evil.
"Yeah, of course you can hold him. This little guy is the sweetest kitten ever, he loves children," she said as she scooped him up and handed him to the Wookiee youngling.
"He's so tiny and fluffy!" the Wookiee howled in Shyriiwook.
"Can I hold him next, Gungi?" the Rodian asked.
Gungi patted Anakin's head very roughly before passing him to the Rodian, who squeezed him so tightly he thought his ribs were going to crack. Anakin tried to escape the minute her grip loosened, not wanting to be injured any further.
"Oops, careful guys. You don't want to hurt him," Ahsoka cautioned as she rescued him from the younglings.
"Aw, I wanted to hold him," the Ithorian burbled.
Anakin hunkered down into the relative safety of Ahsoka's arm, resisting the urge to hiss at them. Jedi younglings should know better than to handle small animals so roughly. What if he'd been an actual kitten?
"We have to go see Master Kenobi right now, but maybe once we're done we'll come see you guys again," Ahsoka said.
Anakin sent a fierce denial at his Padawan through their bond. They would not be seeing any younglings until they learned the proper way to hold small animals.
The younglings pouted while he and Ahsoka left the commissary.
"Sorry, Master," Ahsoka whispered to him once they were alone. "I thought they would be more careful than that."
Anakin glared at Ahsoka for a moment, then rubbed his face against her arm and meowed to let her know that all was forgiven. It wasn't as if she had been the one to teach them, and he'd played worse pranks on Obi-Wan when he'd been a padawan. That time with the gundark had been especially comical.
"Although, I can't wait to see what Master Obi-Wan has to say about all this."
0o0o0
As it turned out, Obi-Wan thought Anakin's situation was hilarious. It took him a good five minutes to stop laughing.
"I'm sorry, Anakin, but a kitten? How? Just, how?" he asked through giggles.
Anakin squeaked at him in an annoyed fashion.
Obi-Wan took a few deep breaths to calm down and then replied "I suggest we check the Archives to see if there's anything more about the temple you were investigating that might have caused this."
Anakin clawed his way up to Obi-Wan's shoulder, claiming it as his perch.
"Anakin, no, get down from there," Obi-Wan scolded.
Anakin meowed pitifully. He was comfortable here. Obi-Wan had a broad shoulder and his beard was scratchy. He rubbed his head against Obi-Wan's beard a few times.
Obi-Wan's shoulder shifted underneath Anakin's feet as he sighed.
"Fine, you can stay there. But only until Ahsoka finishes with her meditation."
Anakin started purring.
0o0o0
Anakin was greatly enjoying the research that Obi-Wan was doing. All he had to do was open the page he'd used for basic research on Asinonyk, sit on Obi-Wan's shoulder and meow encouragingly every once in awhile. Obi-Wan would pet him occasionally, if he got too deep in his research to notice his surroundings. It was a very nice place to nap. Anakin could feel some of the stress he had been carrying around since the beginning of the war fade away.
Of course, then he couldn't help but think back to what had happened the last time he had fallen asleep on someone and the vision. The creature had seemed satisfied by his answer on what he thought someone with ultimate power should do, but he had no idea what the last question was about. How could something be destructive and beautiful, but only for sentients? Whenever Anakin thought about something with both of those qualities, he thought about a natural disaster, like a storm, or the Force, or the way Padmé could be when she was tearing apart her enemies, or how Obi-Wan stood at the front of an army, deflecting blaster bolts back at their shooters. Something told him that wasn't the answer, though, or at least not all of it.
He wondered what Obi-Wan might think was the answer to the riddle. Maybe something like death, with how it was destructive to the lives of those left behind but beautiful because the deceased became one with the Force. That seemed like a typical Jedi answer anyways, and Obi-Wan was always the perfect Jedi.
"Well," Obi-Wan said finally, leaning back in his chair and pulling Anakin from his shoulder with some difficulty. Anakin's claws had gotten a little stuck in Obi-Wan's clothes. "It looks like the Temple you were investigating on Asinonyk was created by a small group of Jedi who split from the Order due to disagreements over the rule of attachments."
Anakin blinked at Obi-Wan. That was an interesting fact, but he didn't see what it had to do with his current situation. There wasn't even any mention of the strange statuette. Also, it didn't explain why the Separatists had been interested in it or how a statuette could turn him into a kitten. It was too bad they had broken their bond when Anakin had been Knighted, otherwise he would have been able to provide more detail about the temple.
"Stop looking at me like that; I would need to do a few more days of research and probably visit the temple itself before I could come to a hypothesis about what happened to you," Obi-Wan sighed, slumping. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.
Anakin stopped thinking about the temple and focused on Obi-Wan, who smelled funny, like stress and the dregs of adrenaline and grief. Anakin probably would never have realized how badly the war was affecting his old Master if he couldn't smell it like this. Obi-Wan was so good at concealing his emotions, at being the picture perfect Jedi, that Anakin sometimes forgot that Obi-Wan could feel things very deeply.
Obi-Wan deserved better than to have to constantly scramble to keep up with the war effort. Anakin felt bad for dumping his situation on Obi-Wan's shoulders as well, but Obi-Wan was the only one he could trust to help him.
Anakin butted his head against Obi-Wan's hand, silently trying to offer some comfort. It wasn't Obi-Wan's fault that he couldn't find anything, and he shouldn't be beating himself up about it. Anakin was too small to make Obi-Wan sit and rest, but maybe he could use trickery and cuteness to get Obi-Wan to stay in the Temple for a few weeks.
For a moment, Anakin hated being stuck as a kitten. Before this, he hadn't truly minded it, beyond the vague annoyance that comes with being limited to this form, but now the limitations were too much. He couldn't speak, he couldn't fight, he couldn't do anything but be cute and fluffy and share his emotions with people in an attempt to get his point across. It had been working so far, but he was under no illusions about how well it would work in the future. He wanted to offer Obi-Wan more than silent comfort, he wanted to tell him about the vision he'd had leaving the planet, he wanted to be able to communicate in ways that didn't involve heavily accented binary. Even typing out what he wanted to say was such a long and laborious process that he wouldn't be able to fit all he wanted to say in time for it to be useful.
And then he was done with his feelings of hatred, bottling them up until he could unleash them on some unsuspecting Separatist droids as soon as he was human again. Obi-Wan was too tired to deal with his problems efficiently right now, so it was in Obi-Wan's best interest to stay in the Temple and get some rest for a while. Since he couldn't communicate this, Anakin would just have to use his brain and, yes, his cuteness to try and manipulate Obi-Wan into staying.
"I'll have to report this to the Council; they'll want to know why you can't go back into the field," Obi-Wan said, running his hand over Anakin's head. Something about being a kitten made it a lot easier for people to touch him, and Anakin was not complaining about it.
Anakin sighed heavily and curled up in Obi-Wan's lap, worn out just by the thought of interacting with the Council. Normally he was perfectly fine with being confrontational, but this day had been anything but normal. Hopefully he wouldn't have to face any of them. Master Windu would probably be unbearably smug.