𝗔𝗵𝘀𝗼𝗸𝗮 𝗧𝗮𝗻𝗼

Chapter One

The soft glare of the setting sun washed over the pale stone. The clean, white bricks blurred from the salty sting in her eyes as she delivered the last words to end everything she had ever known.

"I know."

She didn't turn to see the conflicted eyes of the man behind her — she couldn't. For the first time in her life, she was too afraid.

Without a falter in her step — because she knew if she hesitated she would never move from the spot in the glare of the setting sun — she moved forward.

The white beams of light filtering through the clouds were not the only things blinding her. The salty blur began to sting her cheeks, and she walked on, forcing herself not to think of regret, or her Master staring heartbrokenly at her back as she walked away from the Order — and from him.

The sheer magnitude of what her last footfalls on the stone staircase meant overwhelmed her senses, and she continued on, not being able to pay attention to the lively city around her filled with roaring speeders and busy people.

How could she, really, when she had finally felt her sense of purpose — the meaning of her life — leave her, as she dismounted the staircase and went on?

The pale white stone, clean and crisp, an unreachable beacon above the dark and lost streets below, faded from view.

And for the first time in her life, Ahsoka Tano felt truly alone.

No friends.

No family.

No plan.

No purpose.

No guidance.

And as the realization hit her that she really had nothing, the streets that she had always seen from a disconnected point of view, where she never had to survive in them, just pass through them, seemed a whole lot bigger than she remembered from walking them next to her Master. 

Think, think, think. She repeated over and over in her head.

But she couldn't think.

The twisting, manafesting, pain clouded everything. Rising in her throat, and sitting in the pit of her stomach like a rock — no, not a rock. A spike — a burning hot, sharp spike.

No, Ahsoka couldn't think. Couldn't hear anything accept the echoeing mantra in her head that she was no longer held to, and just those phrases, the promise and knowledge behind them — everything she had ever known to be true, unwavering certainty — was nothing more than just meaningless words to her now.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

No. This was not peace. The swirling, inundating storm inside of her was not peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

But knowledge of what? No, Ahsoka did not know anything anymore. Nothing made sense, but for the first time, she was able to see past her ignorance. In her, no their, belief that knowledge would save them from ignorance, the Jedi had become ignorant to the very fact that it was not so absolute.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

But at what cost? The justice behind the mantra had been forgotten when faced with her trial, and the truth not a priority — just the blame, until the passion of her Master had saved it. But even that was not enough.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

Harmony. Ahsoka almost wanted to laugh — but she had to choke back a sob instead. There is no more harmony, she thought. The galaxy is in chaos, and we — they — stick to a belief in harmony. It had lost its meaning through the clouded conscience of the Order.