Clouded by the Dark Side

Chapter 32 - To Meet A Separatist

Ahsoka Tano

The fresh air greets us, a slight breeze blowing across us. Lux is sitting on the left side of the railing-like wall, and I can feel his gaze on us. "You're Jedi, aren't you?" his voice makes me stop in my tracks, and I glance back at him. He sounds genuinely curious, and given how his mother was acting, I doubt he'd hold it against us. I sense no ill-intent whatsoever. Besides, denying it would be pointless. We both have our lightsabers in plain sight.

"Yes," I confirm.

"How did you guess?" Alema adds.

"It was an educated guess," Lux explains. "It was the only way Senator Amidala could have gotten here. You know travel legally has been banned."

Alema can't help but smirk at the statement. "Well, disobeying senseless laws is excusable."

"Why did you ask?" I inquire, veering back to our original topic of conversation.

"Before the war, I was always told the Jedi were good," he answers, shifting.

"And now?" I prod, curious.

Lux jumps off the ledge, falling in line with us walking the rest of the way down the stairs. "I don't know anymore," he admits. "There are a lot of terrible things happening, a lot of killing. And now my friends are saying the Jedi are to blame."

"They're wrong," Alema supplies, sounding a lot less sure than she did before.

I nudge her in reminder that's hardly the right approach. "We're the first Jedi you've ever met, aren't we?" I inquire. Because otherwise, there's hardly a way a person could really believe that.

"Well, yes," Lux confirms.

I cross my arms, smirking. "Look at me. I'm not so bad, am I?"

He runs his eyes over me, from the top of my white and blue montrals, which have lengthened since I became a padawan, down to my dark red boots. "No, not bad at all."

I roll my eyes at him. "It seems boys are the same whether they're Republic or Separatists." I know that look. Why are boys always like that? They seem clueless there's more to a person than look. Alema laughs softly, the mood somehow seeming lighter than it has been since we left Coruscant. We turn to start heading down the path.

"Wait!" calls Lux, hurrying to catch up. "How many Separatists have you met?"

"What?!" Alema and I chorus, slightly surprised by the question. We've literally fought in many battles since the war started, and he's asking us that?

"I mean, you think we're all the bad guys. But how many of us have you actually met?" Lux inquires. "And droids don't count."

"Ventress?" offers Alema, then shrugs. "And Grievous. But they're both military officers..."

"So, none, I guess," I tell him. "You and your mother are the first."

Lux stops walking, staring at us with a half-smirk on his face. "Look at me," he says, "Am I so bad?"

"... Okay, I see your point," Alema concedes. There's definitely nothing evil about him. When I look at him, I don't see anything beyond a normal teenage boy, though he's had more than his fair share of loss in this world. He, like us, is already being pulled into things he's too young for, though there's a sense of peacefulness about him – still untainted by the chaos of battle – that draws me to him.

We turn to keep walking down the path, and this time, he doesn't interrupt us again. "I'm still having a hard time adjusting to this," I admit finally. "We've always been told all the Separatists are evil..."