Ahsoka Tano One-Shots

A Walking Grave | Febuwhup Day 23

Heyo, human beings from outer space!

I'm baaaaaaaacccccckkkkk peoples.

I actually wrote this one before I finished the previous fic, but I'm obsessive in the way that I can't publish these out of order, so this is how it workssss. 

No audio on this one because I'm this cool thing called laaaaaazzzyyyy~

Read on if you dare. 

Ahsoka Tano trudged through one of the filthy lower levels of Coruscant. She could see the other dark figures on the street eyeing her up like she was a fried tip-yip and she wrapped her oversized cloak around her shoulders more tightly.

Ahsoka had always been fit and thin. She had to be in pristine shape, with being a Jedi and all, but now she had nothing to her but tight skin around frail bones. Her cloak had to be at least six times too large as it was, and it swallowed her knobbly form whole.

But as long as it hid her and kept her warm, it didn't matter how large or rough the cloak was against her skin. It wasn't like she had enough money to buy a new one. She chuckled darkly at herself. As a Jedi, she'd taken so much for granted: food, clothes, medical supplies... Now she worked her hide off every day, lived in what couldn't even be classified as a shack, ate in portions worthy for a mouse, and wore anything wearable that she could glean from the garbage-strewn alleyways.

She was as good as dead, she decided. She may as well be a walking grave.

Ahsoka turned the corner, trying to shake off the usual uneasy feeling of being watched and followed. A light flickered into darkness and she added an extra step in her pace. It was never light in the lower levels, not even during the day. It always felt like everyone there was headed to a funeral. And maybe they all were.

Or maybe they all felt as much like a grave as she did.

Only a few people still walked along the run-down booths of the marketplace, as anyone in their right mind (or with a day job) would be in bed at such an unholy hour. Ahsoka began looking around for something affordable to eat. She didn't expect to find much of anything, so she kept an eye out for any discarded food that looked almost half edible.

In her focus, Ahsoka failed to watch where she was walking and smashed into a man carrying crates of bruised, over-ripe fruits. She toppled back to the ground, two crates crashing over her head.

Ahsoka scrambled back to her feet, a rushed apology on her cracked lips, and began scooping up the further-bruised fruits to return to the man.

"Get your hands off!" the man snapped, whacking her so that she stumbled and dropped the fruits. "Theif, you'll steal all my food! Well, you aren't the only one who has to make a living around here, you know." He hurled one of the fruits at her head, which splattered over her montrals. Ahsoka, sensing that this situation would only escalate, quickly brushed past the man and turned sharply around a corner and out of sight.

She wiped the sticky, mashed fruit from her montrals. She didn't even eat plants. She was a Togruta, a carnivore for kriff's sake.

A little peep came from the alley next to Ahsoka and she stopped dead in her tracks. She turned her head to find two little children, just as dirty and thin as her, staring up with wide, hungry eyes. Ahsoka scraped the last bit of the fruit from her montrals and slopped it into one of the pairs of outstretched hands without thinking. It wasn't sanitary, she knew, but no one cared about that down in the lower levels of Coruscant.

The children began scurrying away at the same time they began shoveling the mush into their mouths, but then one stopped and turned back.

"There is yelling, down the road," he said. "Many men. Having a fight with words."

This didn't surprise Ahsoka the least bit. There was a cheap, dirty bar where people went to get drunk and often pick fights. "Thank you for telling me," she said anyway. "I'll be careful."

But as she rounded a corner, something felt off. And not in the way it always did. In a new way, a way that she hadn't felt in what may as well have been an eternity. It was a nerve-pricking feeling, a shadow in her mind. It was the Force, filling someone other than herself, and it scared her more than anything.

But she couldn't avoid the street. Her house was at the end and there were no other routes. So she trudged on, not daring to slow her pace. Ahsoka masked herself in the Force, flipped her hood over her montrals, and kept her head down.

Keep going, she thought. Keep walking so no one will see.

And then it hit her. A voice she knew all too well. Loudly spitting out sharp, rude words against other angry voices. And Ahsoka's breath hitched and tears stung her eyes.

She should have been happy to hear that voice, but it only made her want to run. She was empty, a dead shell, but the voice made her burn on the inside with everything she didn't want to feel.

Ahsoka forced herself to move faster. The faster she walked, the faster she'd pass the quarrel, and the faster she could be alone. She turned the corner and could see four men roaring at each other, their loud voices making her montrals throb.

"I just want you to tell me where I can find–"

"No!" snapped another voice. "If you wanna get to anyone inside, you have to get through me first!"

"You haven't even heard who I want to see," hissed the first voice. "How do you know that your bar has anything to do with it?"

"You're a Jedi, and you stick your nose everywhere!" said a third voice.

"Yeah, and if you come in, then you'll upset all the customers, shut us down, whatever. Folks gotta survive down here, Jedi, we ain't rich like your kind and we ain't your slaves, so kriff off."

Ahsoka stepped behind them, holding her breath and stepping along faster and faster with every footfall. Anger burned within the four men so powerfully that it made Ahsoka dizzy. She stumbled and almost fell, catching herself against a stack of crates, which toppled over and unceremoniously hit the ground while making all the noise they could possibly make.

And as Ahsoka froze, she felt the attention of the four men on her back.

No, no, no, no, no, Ahsoka thought. She tore herself from where she stood and made a break for the next corner, where she could lock herself in her sorry excuse for a shack. Tears filled her eyes but she didn't let herself sob yet.

She heard the all-too-familiar voice call after her, asking if she was okay, and she wasn't. Other voices rang out after her, too, telling the Jedi that he was scaring Ahsoka and making her run, like he would do with everyone else in the cantina.

Ahsoka tore around the corner and threw herself into her shack. And only then did she allow a sob to tear from her chest. She staggered to the corner and slid down the wall, crying into her cloak. The entire lower level may be able to hear her screaming sobs, but she could care less.

She'd just seen– and avoided– Anakin Skywalker. Why? Because she didn't know if she could handle talking to him. She was hollow, a fragile shell that had been beaten within an inch of her life, and talking to Anakin would make her shatter. She wanted him back so bad and she was weak and he would try to convince her to come back and then she might just want to go and— and—

Ahsoka shrieked and choked on another violent sob. She didn't know how much more of any of this she could take.

Ahsoka Tano was 17 and nothing more than a walking grave.

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Word Count: 1,311

Published: 26 May 2023 

I am INSPIRED right now. yes, I'm pumped up, very tired even though I got plenty of sleep last night, and binge watching The Rookie. So maybe just maybe I can crank another one of these or at least half of one out tonight. 

I don't know. That might just die in  five minutes after I go outside and feed my one thousand and two rabbits. 

Requests are open, feel free to message me or make a comment if you have any ideas!

Bye, peoples!