-An Unexpected Encounter, a New Friend, and a New Mission-

The pilot confirmed our landing with Temple Security and landed on a platform that slowly drew out towards us from one of the towers. The doors opened and we stepped out. My Master and I walked through the hanger to the lift. Once there he mentioned needing to speak with Master Yoda about the false intelligence before the Jedi Council debrief, so I handed him the datapad with the finished report on it before we parted ways. He was grateful to me for taking the time to finish it. We arrived on his floor and he also told me that he would see me later in the afternoon, at the meeting. I was still thoroughly beat so I decided to head down to the Padawan dormitories in the accommodation sector. I never made many friends within the Order besides my Masters and Etain, so I walked straight to my small, simple room that consisted only of a thin mat with a small pillow, and a quaint desk and chair. I always felt that the "beds" were a little degrading but, I had never known much else. I managed to fall asleep anyway.

I tossed and turned in my sleep; the screams of my dying men filled my brain and rang through my ears. The sound of an artillery shell whizzing through the air and exploding right on top of me with an ear-blasting boom startled me awake.

I checked my datapad and saw that the meeting started in an hour. I got up and walked out of my room and down the hall to the washrooms ignoring the other Padawans who also paid me no heed. Running some cold water into a sink and splashing it onto my face, woke me and ridded my head of the horrible sounds of battle. It truly was remarkable; the menacing chorus of battle was terrifying and horrible to hear, even if one side of the battle had mechanical soldiers without feelings or pain. After drying my face with a towel I decided to take a walk.

Not sure where exactly I was going, I did what Masters Yoda and Otarri told me to do every so often: I let the Force guide me, let it take me where it may. I never fully understood the point of wandering, but I wasn't in a hurry. I passed Jedi Masters and their Padawans conversing. I caught snatches of speech about the war, about the Jedi Code, and about technique in lightsaber dueling. Soon I found myself in the southeast corner of the Temple. The Jedi Council was in the northwestern spire. I checked my datapad and quickly regretted not going straight to the Council- I was going to be late no matter how I sliced it.

At least I can tell them I followed their instruction.

I decided to arrive sooner rather than later and sprinted through the corridors using the Force to detect anyone in my way around the upcoming corner. However, in my rush, I missed someone as I rounded the next corner. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor with a young Togruta female laying on me. Also, a multitude of stars lit up my blinking eyes.

The girl was about my age; around 16, so her lekku hadn't fully extended yet. My eyebrows rose in surprise, waiting for her to get off of me because I didn't know who she was and didn't want to make the situation any weirder than it had to be. Thankfully we were alone in the long corridor and she wasn't laying on anything really embarrassing. I noticed that she had two strings of Padawan beads dropping down either side of the lekku at the nape of her neck. The strings came to a point right above her forehead. Her lekku were blue and white striped as were her montrals. Framing her face were multiple triangular/pyramidal shapes, a larger one in the upper center of her forehead. Her petite face had white markings that stood out on her orange skin. The markings gave her eyebrows and two diamonds above either eye with an almost helix shaped marking running up between her eyes. Her cheeks also had white markings that continued to help frame her lovely face.

The girl groaned and put her forearm horizontally across my lower chest to prop herself up. Her free hand rubbed her head where I had run into her. She winced as her blue eyes opened to meet mine; they were dazzling and very large. She blinked for a second, looked at me, then down realizing she was on top of me, pinning me to the floor.

The young Togruta flipped off of me and onto the floor with a cry and got to her feet. I was finally able to get up and take a look at her completely.

The main color of her clothing was a dark reddish brown that highly resembled maroon. The same color was on her leather gauntlets, boots and skin-tight one-piece. Dyed leather strips ran up both of her arms like sleeves, but were not attached to anything, and had three cutouts of a diamond with a stripe going out from its horizontal vertices, around to the other side of her arm. A small solid line of the leather was hidden from view on the inside of her arm and was the only structure keeping her "sleeves" together along with the fabric's tight grip around her biceps.

The Togruta's slender back was exposed due to the one-piece's open back. Her shoulders were bare, most likely for better maneuverability, and two belts settled on her hips, crossing each other diagonally, each one holding a lightsaber. Both belts connected into one buckle. A long, patterned, purple piece of cloth came down from her belts' buckle and was triangularly shaped at the end. The long skin-tight stockings she wore were grey colored and also had a diamond cutout design, a large diamond at her upper thigh and five smaller ones descending to her boots. The girl's boots were cinched tightly with five gold buckles on the outside of either calf.

She had very thin, agile, athletic build and was tall for a girl. The other girls in the Temple were almost all shorter than me. Her eyes were about 3-4" under mine, whereas I was easily half a foot taller than most of the female Padawans in the Temple. However, she was roughly an inch or so shorter than me at the tips of her montrals. This girl was quite lovely and had no visible imperfections.

"Hey buddy...Hello? Anybody there?" She said, knocking my forehead with her fist. Her voice was sweet and had an air of innocence about it.

"Yeah, what? Sorry. Zoned out for a second. Are you alright? " I asked apologetically, shaking my head quickly to return to reality.

"Thanks, I'm fine, but for starters I was telling you to watch out and to look next time you take a corner. Then I explained how rude it was to stare at people...like you're doing right now..."

"Again I apologize, Miss..." I trailed off not knowing her name.

"My name is Ahsoka Tano. I'm Master Skywalker's Padawan." she told me proudly and cheerfully, offering out her hand.

"Well, Miss Tano," I said taking her hand but recoiling quickly due to the huge spark that passed between us, shocking both our hands. I flailed mine in the air to dispel the pain and she held hers. "Well, Miss Tano, I was saying that I apologize for running into you. Believe it or not, I was in fact checking my corners. I didn't feel you walking on the other side of the corner or else I'd have slowed. It's quite strange actually; I was able to detect a great many others before you. Anyway," I said nodding her way and bowing slightly, twirling my hand out to the side, making her chuckle. "Padawan Tokrin Helturus at your service; I'm Master Otarri's student."

I was never this outgoing.

What is going on?

This girl was different from the others. I noticed her, and I wanted her to notice me too. She was easily likeable.

"You are quite the character aren't you?"

"Well, I tend not to enjoy a great number of people present at a time, so I'm usually more outgoing around small numbers."

"Hmmm," she continued, pondering. Ahsoka snapped her finger loudly, saying, "Aha! Now I know why you seemed familiar: you're that Padawan that the others have been talking about that has the- the changeable lightsaber!"

I figured that, since I didn't have any other Padawan friends, the Council could wait so that I could have just one. And of course the fact that I thought Ahsoka was pretty contributed as well. I reached behind me and pulled the saber from its holder, bringing it in front to show her. I pressed the button and twisted both ways, separating my double-bladed hilt into two hilts.

"Wow," she said, admiring my creation. "How did you get that idea? Or even make it?"

"Actually I was going to train for two sabers like you, when I got the idea from Master Kenobi. He was giving us a lecture on Sith Lords and how to defeat them when a question arose about Darth Maul. I don't remember the exact question, but it originated from Maul's lightsaber, which, as you know, was double-bladed. It came to me when Master Kenobi told us that he cut Maul's lightsaber in half. I thought, Wouldn't it be effective to have a double-bladed and a single lightsaber, or even two single lightsabers on top of that? I asked my Master and he told me that it would be a good strategy because I would be able to switch attack styles in the middle of combat. Master Otarri warned me that it would take more training but that a Jedi's lightsaber was anything he-" I tipped my head in her direction. "-Or she wanted it to be. And the rest is history! The lightsaber just has a simple mechanism that allows me to attach and detach the two hilts to and from each other. Just push, twist, and pull."

I demonstrated reattaching the hilts and then gave it to her to try. She stared at the hilt and watched, transfixed, as it separated. "Very Cool. What color?"

"Blue. Yours?"

"Green and yellow."

"Huh, I can understand why you chose those. The green would look good against your...nevermind. I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that. This is usually why I like the company of just me; I almost always make a fool of myself in front of other people," I explained, turning red.

"It's not a big deal; I don't mind at all. Besides, I'm curious now, what were you going to say?" Ahsoka asked, staring at me quizzically, one hand on her hip and her weight shifted.

I figured that I just let a budding friendship flow right down the drain, so I thought 'What the heck?' and told her. "Well I uh...was going to say that the green would match your skin color, and the yellow would complement your outfit well."

"You think so?" she asked, looking at her outfit. "No one has ever told me that before. All of the boys I've talked to have just straight up flirted with me. It didn't end well..." she smirked before continuing. "For them. I didn't think about the colors when I crafted my lightsabers. Hey, now that I think about it, aren't you the one that sits alone in the Mess?"

Like I said, I didn't have many friends, mostly because I was either out in the field, or studying hard. I couldn't afford to have the luxury of them. So yes, although I am ashamed to admit it, I did eat alone almost every time I was at the Temple, but those days were few and far between.

I didn't say anything because I didn't need to. She knew. I nodded my head and looked away from her gaze in total humiliation.

Ahsoka shook her head and looked at me sadly. "I was going to sit next to you a few times but when finally I decided to, you were either already gone or on a mission the next day."

It was clear that she was embarrassed that she did not take action when she could have. I decided not to say anything about it.

"I didn't used to be alone you know," I told her, thinking of Etain. "One very close friend of mine recently completed her Trials. I got to see her again yesterday- well, more like, she saved my shebs from out of a battlefield." I said holding out my hand for her to shake. "I need to get going to the Council or else they'll have my hide."

"Hasn't that meeting already started? I just got debriefed from my last mission and was wandering through the Temple when you tackled me," Ahsoka added a small smile when she mentioned my accident. She hadn't taken my hand yet so I stealthily withdrew it.

"Yeah it has-hence the running. That's funny, I was doing the exact same thing before I realized the meeting had already started. I really have to go though," I told her holding out my hand again. This time she took it and again there was a small spark. "That is the strangest thing..."

Ahsoka looked puzzled, as if going over something in her head. "What is your comlink frequency? I'm heading out on a mission in a few days so even if I can't see you, at least we could talk."

I gave it to her and said, "See you later, or talk to you later, whichever works."

Ahsoka smiled, staying put where she stood saying, "Good luck with the report. Hopefully we'll talk later and fix that lunch problem."

Did she just say...? I thought. I couldn't believe it, I had a "date" to keep with Ahsoka Tano, Padawan of Anakin Skywalker.

Probably shouldn't tell anyone.

She waved for second and I waved back before turning to walk towards the northwestern spire.

I thought I heard a man's voice behind me say, "Hey Snips! Who was that?"

I kept walking, not wanting to awkwardly turn around, when I heard Ahsoka's simple, and quiet reply, "A new friend." I felt eyes burn into my back as I quickly walked around the next corner.

Once I was out of view, my feet couldn't contain their energy, because I shot off down the hallway, not caring who I was going to be in trouble with for being late. It took me about 5 minutes to get to the spire entrance.

I arrived at the elevator to take me to the Council and hurriedly pressed the up button. I stared at the ceiling of the elevator and released a long sigh.

-POV Change to Ahsoka to end chapter-

"Hey Snips!" Anakin said. "Who was that?"

"A new friend," I told him softly, deep in thought as I looked back at Tokrin who was walking around a corner and out of my view. "Master, can Jedi have friends? You know, like, close friends?"

"Well that depends," he started. "If you are so attached to your friends so that your judgement is clouded by your overwhelming care for them, than I would say no, you can't. But, if you care for them at a distance and accept the fact that you need to let them go if they die or something else happens, then I would say yes."

I looked down at the floor as we walked together, "That's what I thought."

"What's wrong Snips? You look gloomy."

"I just," I frantically searched for some way to explain my thoughts. "I guess I feel like the Jedi Code has doomed any chance we have for happiness; you know...true happiness."

"Oh, well, that's certainly understandable. I don't think I ever told you about my situa-" he was interrupted by his comlink beeping. "Yeah?"

Obi Wan Kenobi's voice came over the comlink's speaker, "The Council wants you and Ahsoka to be present for this meeting. There's been a development in Master Otarri's reason for retreat and you are needed. You'll be briefed on the details when you arrive."

At hearing this, my thoughts went to Tokrin. Maybe we'll go on a mission together! That'll give us time to get to know each other. I wouldn't see him almost at all the way things have been going around here. The war's taking up everybody's free time. I wonder who the other girl he was talking about is.

"We'll be right up Obi Wan," Anakin spoke into the comlink and ending the connection. "You heard him Ahsoka, let's go!"

We jogged through the Temple's halls to the elevator to the Council Chambers. We entered and Anakin pressed the button. The lift shot up to the very top of the spire. The doors opened to Tokrin and Master Otarri standing before the Jedi Council. Tokrin turned and met my gaze, clearly confused as to why I was there.