Author's Note: This ficlet ties in with my one shot A Burning Boat. You can probably understand this without reading that, but it would be helpful.
Smile
Crossover 4. A Dance
She ignited her lightsaber.
Holding it still and parallel to the ground, Ahsoka watched as the other girl stepped forward to examine it, blue eyes wide and mouth slightly open. She wasn't startled when she lit the blade, so Ahsoka assumed she'd seen this before. It gave her hope that Master Pizan had been given a proper burial, with her lightsaber in her hands.
She was also becoming increasingly hopeful that the data files Master Pizan had collected were still in once piece, and that was what the boy – Hiccup – was now retrieving. If they were, Ahsoka's solo mission would be a success, important intelligence on Separatist movements in the sector would be revealed, and Master Pizan would not have died in vain.
The girl standing before her, though – Astrid – was admiring the length of her lightsaber with obvious awe. She blinked, and bit her lower lip, looking down the length of the blade. She seemed to know not to touch it, and Ahsoka's hopes rose that it was because they'd found Master Pizan's lightsaber, and were either keeping it safe or had buried it with her.
Astrid backed up a step and lifted an arm, holding it parallel to the length of the lighsaber. Ahsoka blinked once, trying to figure out what she was doing, and then realized she was taking a crude measurement of the weapon's length. The blade was perhaps a handspan longer than Astrid's arm, not including the hilt.
Astrid said something then, a string of guttural sounding words in what was clearly a polite, eager tone. She lifted her hands tentatively towards the hilt of Ahsoka's lightsaber, and Ahsoka interpreted this as "I really want to see your lightsaber!"
Ahsoka pulled her lightsaber back quickly, trying not to look alarmed. Astrid's face fell, and Ahsoka felt a bit bad. A Jedi didn't just hand over her lightsaber to fulfill someone else's curiosity. Astrid was clearly a warrior of some kind – she had an axe strapped to her back that looked like it would be more appropriate for a man five times her size, and Ahsoka had little doubt she knew how to use it.
Ahsoka bit her lip, looking at Astrid. They were about the same age, she judged. Ahsoka smiled a little, trying to look consoling. She was pretty sure the girl was just curious, and judging by the technology level she'd seen so far, a lightsaber would look like something fantastical in the eyes of these people. She wondered what the two humans made of her, a Togruta. This planet was the most technologically primitive place she'd ever seen; they didn't have basic electricity or radio capabilities, much less anything spacefaring.
Atmospheric flight, though…Ahsoka glanced past Astrid to look at the brightly colored creature preening on the rocky beach they stood on. Astrid and Hiccup flew on those creatures like it was nothing. The creatures looked something like krayt dragons, but with wings, and far sleeker and clearly more amiable in personality. The blue dragon was industriously cleaning the underside of a wing, making quiet little squawking noises to herself while she worked. The dragon dwarfed the little red and grey Jedi starfighter parked beside her.
She had to admit, the dragons were impressive. It was rare that a species like that got along with humans.
Astrid sighed and looked again, longingly, at the lightsaber. "Sorry," Ahsoka apologized, and that earned her a puzzled look from the human girl. This would be so much easier if she had a protocol droid along to translate. These people were so far in the backwater they didn't even speak Basic, much less use technology.
Still, if she couldn't let Astrid handle her lightsaber, she could, at least, show her what it could do.
With a grin, Ahsoka dropped into the opening stance for the first Shien kata. Looking over her shoulder, she locked eyes with Astrid, giving her a wide smile she hoped was disarming. Then she slid into the second stance of the kata, slowly, letting the green blade of her lightsaber hum around her in an arc. The third step she made wide, careful to avoid hitting Astrid, who was watching avidly; not only the track of the blade, but also of Ahsoka's footwork, a small smile spreading across her face as she watched.
Ahsoka slid into the fourth step, then the fifth, slowly and steadily. The steps were intimately familiar to her, after so many years of practice. She could hear the steady sound of the beach's small stones sliding underfoot while she moved; then they began to echo, two pairs of feet instead of one.
Ahsoka looked again at Astrid. The human girl had her axe off her back and in her hands. She was a few steps away from Ahsoka, but poised in a very similar position. Their feet mirrored each other - weight on the back leg, while the front foot barely touched the ground. Ahsoka, though, was turned to the side, left arm out slightly from the hip, palm down, while in her right hand, the green blade of her lightsaber was out in a riposte. Astrid had adapted the motion for her heavier axe, and had both hands on the grip, right a few inches over left, ready to whirl the thing in an arc instead of perform a straight stab.
Slowly, Ahsoka followed through with her stab, bringing herself around, her knees soft, bent, so that her body was low. Astrid mirrored it, her axe moving differently than Ahsoka's lightsaber, but maintaining the pattern.
Ahsoka looked up at her, startled. She moved into the next step, and the next, Astrid not even a half second behind her. She twirled, and Astrid copied it, the heavy axe whistling through the air in a pitched counterpoint to the lightsaber's varied, doppler thrum.
They danced. Ahsoka began to move faster, Astrid half a beat behind. Together, they moved, back and forth, in darting jabs and swift blows, weight shifting from one leg to the other as they spun. Pebbles scattered beneath their feet as they slid their feet from one position to the next, always parallel to each other, the motions only slightly different and dependant on their weapon of choice.
At some point, Ahsoka realized she was grinning wildly; it was almost a challenge, to see how well she could do, how fast she could go without losing Astrid, and how quickly the human girl in armor and furs could keep up and adapt.
The sea beside them was grey, and the sky was beginning to sink into the reds and purples of sunset. They barely even heard a fresh flapping of wings in the sky as they moved together, running through kata after kata, and ignoring the return of Hiccup and his black dragon Toothless on the beach.
The dance went on, every motion growing more precise and practiced as they restarted the series of Shien forms again, and Astrid found herself repeating steps. They spun around each other, whirling, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Ahsoka was still long enough to see that Astrid was grinning just as wildly as she.
The two girls, paused in their steps, breathing hard, simultaneously burst into laughter.
Applause caught their attention, and not too far away was Hiccup, grinning and clapping his hands, while Toothless and Stormflight, on either side of him, thumped the rocky shore with their tails and let out rumbles of appreciation. Ahsoka could even hear R3's mechanical trill in the background, however overwhelmed it was by the noisier dragons.
"I guess some things defy language, huh?" Ahsoka asked no one in particular, and though neither Astrid nor Hiccup understood the words, they both smiled at her.
And she smiled back.
I don't think I'm ever going to write a full version of A Burning Boat, but this was one scene I always had in my head – Ahsoka and Astrid on one of the beaches around Berk, practicing a Jedi kata together. The crossover this time is with How to Train Your Dragon – if you haven't seen HTTYD, by all means, see it! Great movie, so much fun.
~Queen