#gotsposting

The mountains of Rattatak, the oceans of Serenno, Dathomir and its corpse-flowers and the leviathan which croons in its waters—all now lost to her. Asajj has never learned how to lay the dead to rest, only to mourn them.

For the past couple of months, I have been working on Ghosts of the Sleeper, an Asajj Ventress-centric canon-divergent fic taking place a year after the Empire rises. As the newly fledged Inquisitors start to hunt Force users to grow their ranks, Asajj gathers together a group of allies to take Vader down. She discovers that their pasts are deeply entwined with his. It's a story about about home, about grief, and about all the things which live in the water.

GHOSTS OF THE SLEEPER: A Story in the Empire Chapter 21: It Isn't Easy // Chapter 22: Live With It

Tano’s words about Offee chase themselves around her head. Asajj also doesn’t regret a single thing she’s done. But that isn’t the same thing as wanting something different for the past, which is itself an abyss away from wanting something different for the future.

Tano probably knows that too—the fact that she can’t do anything for Offee on any of those counts is likely what she can’t bear.

GHOSTS OF THE SLEEPER: A Story in the Empire Chapter 5: The Fall // Chapter 6: A Glimmer of That Flame

When Tano says Amidala's name, Asajj doesn’t even think she has intent behind it. It’s pure instinct. The Togruta is reaching for her friend in the pitch of her despair. Someone she sees as a sister, a mentor, a beacon of light. The same way Asajj had woken up in her wrecked ship after Dooku blasted her to Lotho and thought of nothing but Dathomir.

Instincts are cruel, sometimes. Instincts are selfish.

GHOSTS OF THE SLEEPER: A Story in the Empire Chapter 19: Flesh on Bones // Chapter 20: Where There Is Water

“We thought you would have come long before," the Sister says. "We thought you would have come willingly.”

“And be a part of your sweet little family?” Asajj sneers. That, at least, is muscle memory. Hard-earned and well-honed. “Stars, I’d rather rot.”

She would have, once upon a time. When she was young and naive and still believed that revenge meant something—that it would turn back the clock, sate the specters of the dead enough to bring them back to life so they can fill up all the hollow spaces around her. But she’s learned enough now to know the truth. The dead only return according to their own logic, and the Dark will not give her a home any more than the Light.

GHOSTS OF THE SLEEPER: A Story in the Empire Chapter 11: All They've Ever Known // Chapter 12: To the Dregs

Seeing the transport drop from space is an eerie sensation. Nothing makes sound in space, but the bone-white ship doesn’t ping on their scanners. It doesn’t ripple in the Force. All Asajj can sense is the void between the stars with its cold, aching hunger. If she focuses with all of her mind, she can hear the screaming from the edges of the cosmos rushing in on them, a harbinger of what is coming.

GHOSTS OF THE SLEEPER: A Story in the Empire Chapter 9: To Be Its Disciples // Chapter 10: Burning Sands

The Sleeper loved her like a star loved the planets which formed around it, with the knowledge that it molded them and would one day consume them. And along with that love came—amusement. It was amused that she would ask something of it. That she had the presumption to make demands of a godhead. It shouldn’t be surprised, Asajj thought. 

After all, it was the one who taught the Nightsisters how to be proud.

(Yes indeed, this is the Dark Disciple retelling that kick-started this whole story!)

GHOSTS OF THE SLEEPER: A Story in the Empire Chapter 17: One Selfish Thing // Chapter 18: Let It Be a Good One

The rebel starfighters start to fly down into the atmosphere, spiralling in the air to dodge the debris from the towers and the volleys from Czerka gunships. They are small and plentiful, gleaming as bees and pearlflies among the burial briars, bringing sweetness from flower to flower even though it might mean their death. The Force buzzes with them. Vos and Kenobi are descending onto the planet now, Unduli and Tano as well. A folk story come to chipped life, ghosts pulling themselves from the grave to fulfill their duty.

There will always be a haunting. Let it be a good one.

GHOSTS OF THE SLEEPER: A Story in the Empire Chapter 7: An Ailment of My Own Making // Chapter 8: The Inquisitors

Tralus is a frozen world. That is not to say that it is dead. Asajj has seen her share of dead planets, and beneath the ice fields of the Tralan plains, more creatures swim and seethe than in many a living world she has seen. Whales low their dancing songs, loud enough to be heard even through the ice. Talus, the planet’s twin, loops across the sky, brighter than any moon. The sky is clear and cold, a pristine spread of chlorophyll. The Sleeper’s hue, the color of memory. 

They’ve laid the trap. Dangled the bait deep into the depths where the strange sea-creatures swarm, hungry for their prey. All they need now is for their quarry to bite, so all they can do is wait.