Precipice by shadowsong26

Part 5: Lessons

Lessons: Chapter 7

Well, that went well, Ahsoka thought, peering up at the hole in the ceiling.

Neither of them was hurt, at least—not seriously anyway; a few bruises apiece, but she'd at least managed to slow their fall enough that that was it. It also helped that she'd managed to make sure she ended up on the bottom. She could take the impact a lot better than Leia could.

Getting out, on the other hand...yeah, that was gonna be a challenge.

The hole up above them was—well, if Ahsoka had been by herself, it wouldn't have really been a problem. She could jump out, easy, and manage her exit so she wouldn't just crash right back through when she landed on the surface. But it wasn't quite big enough for her to fit through while holding Leia, and the landing would be that much riskier besides. And Leia probably wouldn't be able to make the jump by herself.

She and Leia had spent the day sneaking through this forest, practicing techniques for simple recon. They hadn't been on an actual mission, of course, just scouting the best way back to the spaceport where they'd left her ship from their campsite. So, they'd been looking for trails or other detritus left by sentients, so they could be either tracked or avoided, depending on the situation; and Ahsoka had been teaching Leia how to identify them as distinct from game trails. And figure out which natural trails, if any, were safe to follow, either for resources or to get a better vantage for a scouting mission.

And, on the subject of gaining a better vantage (and because Leia loved climbing things), they'd gone up into the trees to get a look around. Which had gone fine for the first half-kilometer or so, but then...

"Sorry," Leia said. "Um. I swear the branch looked sturdier than that, and I'm usually pretty good at telling…"

Which wouldn't have actually been an issue, if the ground beneath them had been more solid; but there was some kind of (fortunately long-abandoned) bunker or hiding place underneath, supported by mostly-rotted old timbers—probably a relic of some long-ago war or civil strife on this planet. Or maybe a mine; Ahsoka had no idea if there were any mineral resources here, but just going by design, this could have been part of a set of mine tunnels. If she had the time, or the resources, it might have been worth mapping them properly someday. Refurbishing them, even, for a future Rebel hideout or supply cache…

Well, whatever this cavern had originally been, and whatever use she and her friends might get out of the tunnels in the future, today, the supposedly-solid ground had buckled beneath her and Leia when they'd landed, dropping them several dozen meters deeper onto actually solid rock.

Ahsoka shook her head. "Not your fault," she assured her. "These things happen, even when you know what you're doing, and you're still learning."

Which didn't say all that much for her, except that, in her defense, she'd been a little more focused on avoiding what looked very much like the nest of some kind of a bird of prey halfway down the treetrunk. The bird, at least, hadn't noticed them-or, if it had, it hadn't cared. Small favors.

Not that that made all that much of a difference now, of course. She sighed, and poked at a tear in her sleeve. "Your dad is gonna kill me, though," she informed Leia.

Leia wrinkled her nose, and stared up at the very small opening to the cavern. "No, he's not. I mean, I'm supposed to be learning how to do stuff like this, right? Get out of traps, or solve other problems and handle accidents and stuff."

"Sure," Ahsoka said. "Your dad's still gonna kill me, because we didn't plan this one out ahead of time."

Leia sighed. "Daddy's dumb sometimes," she decided, and flopped back.

"He just worries about you," Ahsoka said. "But, on the subject of learning how to get out of traps…"

"Right," she said, and sat up again. "Um." She squinted up at the hole again. "…could we climb the walls?"

Ahsoka ran a hand along them. "Hm. I don't think so. Too smooth." And not stable enough for me to carve out handholds we could use to climb up, either. The last thing we need is a further collapse. Same problem with her jumping up and widening the hole, then coming back for the kid. The odds that she'd bring down more of the ceiling than she needed were a little too high for comfort.

And, unfortunately, it was just the two of them on this trip. Anakin and Rex were running down a possible lead on a weapons research facility they'd found in some of the data Anakin and Obi-Wan had stolen a few weeks ago, and Obi-Wan was trying to establish contact with one of the cells his friend Moonshot has pointed them towards. So calling for help to extract them from above was not an option. They'd have to get themselves up and out somehow.

She pulled out one of her lightsabers and ignited it so they could see a little better. Worst case scenario, they could go laterally-whatever this tunnel system was, it had to have an actual entrance somewhere. But that would take time to find, and there was a good chance that, even with the Force to guide them, they'd be lost for a while. Maybe as long as a couple days. Not ideal.

But, fortunately, there were bits and pieces of broken support timbers scattered around. Several of them were big-and hopefully solid-enough that they could maybe be used to piece together a ladder. Leia, at least, could climb up that—though Ahsoka wouldn't trust her own weight to it—and she could spot her on the way, and work out the landing once they got up there and she could read the ground a little more clearly.

And, if that didn't work, they'd just have to wander the tunnels until they found a way out.

"All right, I think I've got an idea," she said. "Do you still have the rope with you, or did you drop it?"

"Um." Leia checked her pack. "Got it!"

"Great. Okay, I want you to find the biggest and most solid pieces of wood you can."

She nodded and the two of them got to work.

Ahsoka kept an eye on Leia's search, sensing for any type of danger from the pieces she picked-unseen bits of rot, or potentially venomous insects making a home. But Leia, it seemed, was smarter than she'd given her credit for. She stopped halfway through picking up at least three bits that looked like some of the best, glowered at them, and moved on.

"I think we've got enough now," Ahsoka said, after about a half hour. "Let's start tying them together, see if we can make a big enough ladder."

"Okay," Leia said, and sat down next to her, taking half of the pile of wood. She watched Ahsoka binding them together for a minute, then started copying her.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, then Leia shifted abruptly and muttered, "Ow," followed by-

A word that a seven-year-old probably shouldn't know.

"What happened?" Ahsoka asked. "You okay?"

"Splinter," she said. "I forgot my gloves back on the ship, plus it's hard to tie knots when I'm wearing 'em."

"Let me see," Ahsoka said, setting her own wood aside and taking Leia's hand. Fortunately, the sliver wasn't in too deep. "All right, I got this." She did have a basic medkit on her, always; she grabbed the tweezers and started working it out. "Also, this is probably the part where I'm supposed to tell you not to swear."

"I promise never to do it again until the next time," Leia said solemnly. "Ow!"

"Sorry," she said, biting back a smile and adjusting the angle of the tweezers and starting to pull again, very gently. "Eh, I guess I'm already in trouble, and that part can be our secret." Even if the accident itself probably couldn't, especially if they wanted to use these caves later. "Just don't say that word in front of your dad, okay?"

"Where d'you think I learned it?" Leia said, rolling her eyes.

...good point. "When he's fixing things for your uncle and they're not cooperating?" she guessed.

"Mostly," Leia said.

"Some things never change," she said fondly, setting the sliver aside and pulling out the disinfectant and her smallest bacta patch. "All right, you're all set. Be careful, okay?"

"Uh-huh," Leia said, and started back to her pile. Then she hesitated for a second, staring down at her bandaged hand. "...hey, Aunt 'Soka, can I ask you something? Since we're stuck down here and everything?"

"Sure," she said. "I mean, I can't promise I'll answer, but if I don't I'll at least tell you why."

"Sure," Leia said. "Um. Do you ever...do you have dreams?" she asked. "About...about stuff that's happening somewhere else?"

...oh, boy. Anakin had at least warned her about that.

She picked her words carefully before answering. "Well, I've never really dreamed about the present like that before," Ahsoka said. "Or at least not clearly enough that I could tell that's what it was. I mean, before I ran into your dad and Uncle Rex, I did dream about them and Uncle Obi-Wan sometimes." Those hadn't been true visions-not like that time with Padme and Aurra Sing on Alderaan. Just...vague impressions, that they were out there. And she never remembered the dreams in any detail when she woke up. Still, it was probably the closest thing to Leia's dreams that she'd ever experienced.

"Right," Leia said. "I think...I have dreams sometimes, which I guess someone already told you, but I think they're kinda like that? They're not warnings or anything. Those feel different. It's like…it's like this whole other person living in my head, with a whole other life all their own."

"That's more detail than I ever got," Ahsoka said. "Does that bother you? That you pick up so much?"

"No," she said. "Not most of the time. Sometimes it's weird, I guess, but I always know what's me and what's the dream."

"Which is important," Ahsoka said. "Do your dreams ever make you want to get involved with...whatever this other person is struggling with, and you can't? Is that what you're worried about?"

"Not exactly," Leia said. "Well, sometimes. When they're really upset about something, or trying to help someone and can't so they get frustrated. But it's...I mean, most of the time, it's sort of...nice, actually, 'cause I get to see all these places I wouldn't believe in if they were just pictures. Like the silver planet, and the green place." She paused. "But...see, the thing is, this other person in my head is a lot nicer than I am."

"Oh, yeah?" she asked.

"Uh-huh," Leia said, wrapping another cord around the joined sticks. "I think that's gonna hold, right?"

Ahsoka tugged at it, then nodded. "Yeah, that seems pretty solid."

"Okay," she said, and started piecing together another set of wood pieces.

Ahsoka added Leia's to her own pile of finished rungs and started attaching them to each other, building the ladder itself. She didn't say anything else just yet-Leia would probably get to the heart of her question without actual prompting. That was probably better, in the long run, anyway, for both of them. It would definitely make the discussion a whole lot clearer, if Ahsoka let Leia explain and then asked for clarification if she needed it, instead of making assumptions.

And, sure enough, Leia was only quiet for a minute or so before picking up where she'd left off. "It's actually kind of good. I mean, it helps. That they're such a nice person."

"What do you mean?"

Leia frowned. "Well, sometimes, I get mad. Or, like, when Daddy got—when he got really hurt, before, with his leg. I wanted to do really mean things to the person responsible. And I talked about it with Uncle Obi-Wan later, and he said that that wasn't…that that didn't make me a bad person or anything."

Because everyone has knee-jerk reactions, and impulsive thoughts, and not all of those are good, or Light, Ahsoka thought. But it's how you process them, what you do with them, that really matters.

"But…I mean, I dunno if this other person has thoughts like that, but if they do it's not anywhere near as much or as strong as I do, I don't think," Leia went on. "So, like…when I do, I can stop and think about how they'd react, and it makes me a nicer person. …least until it's time to stop being nice. And I think they also help me figure out when it's actually time and not when I'm just mad. Does that make sense?"

"Sure," Ahsoka said.

"But…" She hesitated, fiddling with the end of the rope. "But...does that make me a bad person?" she asked, very quietly.

"That sometimes, you need an example?" Ahsoka asked. "To figure out the right thing to do?"

She nodded. "'Cause…'cause you and Daddy and 'specially Uncle Obi-Wan always seem to just know, and…I don't."

"No," she said. "No, sweetheart, it doesn't. And-we don't, you know. We argue about the right thing to do all the time."

"Really?" Leia asked.

"Really," Ahsoka assured her. "I promise. Look, everyone needs help and advice sometimes. And it's definitely okay to ask when you're confused about what to do, or you think you're a little too close to a problem to make the right choice. I know I always do, and Uncle Obi-Wan, too."

"And Daddy?"

"Your dad...well, he still has trouble with that sometimes," Ahsoka said. "But he's gotten a lot better about asking for help since you were born."

"Okay," Leia said, relaxing a little, her relief bleeding out into the Force. She dropped her half-finished ladder rung and darted over to give Ahsoka a quick, but fervent hug. "Thank you, Aunt 'Soka."

"Of course," Ahsoka said, hugging her back. "Any time."

She held her for a minute longer, then let go.

"Better?"

Leia nodded. "Lots."

"Good," she said, and smiled. "Come on, let's try and get this ladder finished before we run out of daylight, okay? Remember to watch for splinters."

"Yeah," Leia said, and dove back into her work with determined enthusiasm. "...hey, is this like that one cave where Daddy and Uncle Obi-Wan almost got eaten by a gundark except you saved them?"

Ahsoka bit back a grin. "Not really. Why, are you worried about gundarks? Because I'm pretty sure they're not native to this planet."

"No," she said. "I'm not worried."

"...you wanna hear that story again, don't you." She should've guessed right from the start. It was one of Leia's favorites.

She turned big, beseeching brown eyes on her, just barely visible in the dim light from the ceiling and Ahsoka's saber. Not an easy face to resist. "Please?"

Ahsoka did laugh at that. It would make the time go faster, keep Leia from getting bored or anxious while they were stuck down here.

Besides, if she were completely honest with herself, it was one of her favorites, too.

"All right," she said, and settled into a more comfortable position with the half-connected ladder rungs in her lap. "So, it all started a couple months after I first met your dad…"