Star Wars the Clone Wars - One shots

Burying the dead

Ahsoka wants to help bury the dead. Anakin wants to protect his Padawan from the horrors of war.

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Ahsoka remembered the first time she saw a dead body.

She was playing hide and seek with a few of her clanmates, and being the smallest of the group, Ahsoka was crawling through the Temple vents to be as far away from the seekers as possible.

Hide and seek was her favourite game. As an adult, she would link it to Togrutan heritage of hunting, but as a five-year-old, she just enjoyed the thrill of the game.

Ahsoka found refuge in a system of vents that she had never explored before. She found a loose panel and stumbled into a room that she had never seen before.

It was grey, a vast contrast to the cream-coloured walls and warm-toned furnishings that she was familiar with. The walls were made of metal, and one wall had a series of vault doors on it, reaching from the floor to the ceiling.

The room was cold enough to make her shiver. The young Togruta was still adapting to Coruscant's climate, and was often swaddled in several layers to keep herself warm. But this was freezing.

Unsure as to where she had ended up, she curiously walked further into the room. There was a large gurney in the centre of the room, similar to the one Master Plo had held her on as she received her vaccinations.

Somebody was on the gurney.

They didn't appear to be awake; it looked as if they were sleeping. Even at her young age, Ahsoka could tell that their chest wasn't rising and falling like it would be if they were merely asleep.

She couldn't see much of the person, an effect of her height disadvantage, but she could tell they were a Togruta by the length of their lekku. They reached the person's elbows as they lay on the stiff gurney, and their pale colour was unusual.

In fact, the person's skin was just as pale and grey. As monotone as the rest of the room.

The door clicked open, and Ahsoka turned around suddenly- afraid she was about to have the biggest telling-off of her life.

"Oh!" A woman gasped, a Zabrak with scrubs similar to what the Jedi Healers wore. "Gear, hang on."

"What is it?" A Twi'lek man said, appearing behind the woman. His eyes fell on Ahsoka as she began to shake in fright, "How did she get down here?"

What Ahsoka found so strange about the situation was that nobody ever told her off.

The Jedi who found her took her straight to the Halls, where Master Plo and her clanmaster were already waiting.

They all looked so worried as they checked her over. Master Plo kept her on his lap the entire time, refusing to let her go even when Master Windu arrived. They said someone was coming to talk to her.

Said person was a Jedi who introduced herself as a 'Mind Healer'. Ahsoka didn't know what that term meant, and was more focused on hiding under Master Plo's sleeve out of embarrassment. All this fuss because she took a wrong turn in the vents?

Ahsoka, the Mind Healer, and Master Plo had a very long discussion. She only stayed awake for half of it before she began to doze off. The Healer explained that the person on the gurney had died, and the room that she was inside of was called a morgue.

None of that really made sense to Ahsoka.

As Master Plo explained it to her, death wasn't much different from birth. It was an entirely natural part of life that couldn't be avoided. She shouldn't run from it.