archived

ahsoka knew what she was risking when she told ezra to leave them  ;  the fear evident on his face so palpable that her heart ached for the boy  ,  simply because he doesn’t understand the extent of this wars history and the relationships to match  .

he knows only his anger  ,  and ahsoka only knows the ache in her chest when she confronts her master once again  .  she knows she will die  ,  but she is not afraid  —

and despite their battle  ,  and despite the pain and anger that slithered throughout her yelled words  ,  ahsoka doesn’t fight him when they make haste for his ship  ,  nor when he takes her lightsabers from her  .  she is too tired to care  ,  but blue eyes follow his movements all the same  .  this may be her last few precious minutes  ,  yet can she begrudge herself for being okay with them being in HIS presence  .  it’s like her breath is held  ,  her lungs burning as she awaits the fatal strike  ,  and still it doesn’t appear  . 

doesn’t when he lies about her survival  ,  or when his fists curl at the underlying suspicion brought forth from sidious’s lips  .

anakin doesn’t kill her  ,  and ahsoka doesn’t know what to do with that information  .

❛    why  ,    ❜    ahsoka asks in turn  , gaze flickering from the cold exterior of his ruined mask to the exposed eye  ,  the human operating the emotionless machine  .  she could have died in that temple  ,  all he had to do was leave her there  .  make his last deliberate strike and watch as she was swallowed up with the rest of the antiquities  —  a reminder of his past  ,  gone just like that  . 

is it wrong of her to say that she misses her best friend  ;  that she hates looking upon what he’s become  .  maybe she shouldn’t have left  .

❛    lying to him will only prove fatal to you in return  ,  ana —    ❜    she stops herself before the name cuts in  ,  knows that he’ll only bare his teeth at her  .  ahsoka looks away from him  —  anywhere but at this GHOST  .    ❛    what do you hope to gain  ?    ❜

she whispers  ,  more to herself than anything  .  yes  ,  she’s concluded  :  she misses her best friend  .

why.

the simplest, most obvious question, and yet the one that he cannot—will not, must not allow himself to answer.

what do you hope to gain.

she would never break if he turned her over to his master. he knows that too well. he knows her too well. she would not turn, would not supplicate herself before the sith as an inquisitor. she would not betray the living jedi or her insurgent allies. she would be strong, stronger than him, and she would die by his hand.

he had seen death spelled out by the force and he had taken another path. for an enemy, yes, a rebel, a rogue jedi, a threat, a target—

for ahsoka.

he had saved her. he had stopped her from dying.

“because i am a fool,” he says; he can give her no plainer answer than that—other than, perhaps, because i am weak. hearing the strain in his own voice is—unpleasant. for all he had cursed the suit and mask in the years he’d been confined to it, he’s more keenly aware now than ever how much he relies on it, on the metaphorical mask of the vocabulator and affected diction hiding his voice and speech patterns as much as the literal one concealing his expressions.

the thought that his master will kill him if he suspects his insincerity is a dispassionate one by comparison. what secrets he has still managed to keep, those scarce few that were directly against his master’s wishes—all could damn him. all could have already damned him. perhaps his master is aware of everything, simply biding his time, allowing himself to be entertained by events as they unfold before he strikes decisively the moment vader no longer serves a purpose to him. vader has lived every moment of his ill-begotten life since his rebirth in the fire of mustafar awaiting death and does not fear it. not his own.

this is altogether the most reckless thing he has done in a very long time, but certainly she could say the same of her own actions.

i won’t leave you. sentiment that should be sickening. thought she’d still kept up at least a pretense of fighting back until he’d disarmed her, there had been no conviction in it from the moment she’d spoken that name. weak. pathetic. and yet he’d still saved her life.

“perhaps not as foolish as you were in losing your resolve.” he crosses his arms over his chest, prompting an audible whirr of complaint from the servos in his prostheses as he forces them to action despite their suboptimal function. the drained power to them is serving its purpose, at least—according to the readout scrolling across his intact lens, the most critical systems are not in any danger of failure.

He is not even sure what drives him to lie.

(He knows exactly what drives him to lie.)

It doesn’t matter why. It matters that he does. It matters that he still can, even against the probing presence of his master.

I killed Ahsoka Tano. I sustained severe injuries subduing her and could not waste time retrieving her body before the Sith temple collapsed. Excavating the ruin for her remains would be worthless. I have her lightsabers as proof.

His master’s gaze had narrowed, searching, keen to pry open Vader’s very thoughts and lay them bare. Vader’s mental shields had held.

Well done, my apprentice. I feared your attachment to your former Padawan may have driven you to... hesitate.

She was nothing to me, my master.

—And now she’s looking at him as his shuttle hurtles through hyperspace to Mustafar, to safety, to wherever this lie will lead him, nothing to break the silence between them but the whining rasp of his damaged respirator. Her red-orange skin and blue eyes look unbelievably bright to his unshielded eye in the artificial light; something he refuses to give name to aches in him at the fact that she is a decade older now than Anakin Skywalker was when they had last parted on Mandalore.

(He could still kill her. Lies could become truth. She’s unarmed. It would be easy. It should be easy.)

He leaves the shuttle to auto-pilot and turns to her, dreading what she may be able to see on his face through the gash in his mask. The damage to his life support is not critical, crucial systems redirecting power from those less essential in order to compensate, but it feels like a handicap severe as the loss of one of his limbs.

He cannot be weak, least of all now.

❛  —-  am i supposed to be impressed  ?  ❜   let words slither off malicious tongue  ,  yellow eyes narrowing at the man before him  .  there is only distaste where supposed admiration should be  :  HE NEVER UNDERSTOOD WHAT HIS MASTER SAW IN HIM  .  yet he  ,  leader of the crime underworld  ,  has certain expectations presented before him  .  one cannot keep such a prestigious position without  ,  evidently  ,  appeasing the masses  .  even if that means biting said malicious tongue and accepting a  —  decidedly dicey partnership  .    /    @walkskies .

maul has not been sith in more than two decades, but the dark side is still strong with him, a swirling storm of rage and hatred—of power. admirable in its potency. vader would normally find the zabrak’s dismissive attitude an insult; he has stood in similar negotiations to these, bartering with crime lords who think themselves above reproach because of the guns and credits they can wave around. slime like that, it’s easier to kill his way down the chain of command until he finds someone who knows their place.

this is different. vader had come here with no expectation that he could intimidate, threaten, or murder his way into getting what his master desires from crimson dawn. every step of this mission would be an uphill battle to command the respect of someone learned in the dark side enough to see just what a shell of his former self kenobi had left him.

it is a test, of course, and vader permits himself to wonder, cynically, if it is intended as a suicide mission as well. maul will be no easy assassination, and too paranoid for any long con to actually give vader the advantage of surprise. the jedi he has killed were paralyzed by their code. maul will not be so weak.

a loose end, his master had called him. a threat to his unshakable reign if left unchecked, vader understands. a threat to the very foundation of sith principles, should maul decide he’d once again like to be a lord of more than crime.

❛  hmm ?  ❜    she’d all but be lying if she expected anything less from master skywalker , padme made sure of that . still , where else is he to get his information from , he wouldn’t have asked if he was able to pry it from obi - wan . though satine’s no stranger to gossip and whisperings , the effect undoubtedly changes when the topic centers around one’s self .

the duchess graces him with a small smile – ever the lady of status ,    ❛  as assuredly as you have your secrets , master skywalker , obi - wan has his own .  ❜    and it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest to go spreading them around , now would it ?    

but like any curious being , daring to hold the truth back only leads to ever more prying .    ❛  we were close in youth , if that’s what you’re asking . whether there was more or less , well , that’s a matter of personal opinion .  ❜

“spoken like a true politician, your grace,” anakin says, returning the smile—and for once he actually means that in a good way. more or less. for all her actual policies baffle him at best and strike him as—well, cowardly at worst, he can still see what obi-wan would have seen in her. sees in her, really. he’s obvious.

padmé’s friendly with her, too. and would probably be insisting he have some decorum, if she were here. but she’s not. and it’s obi-wan. he feels like he has a right, given that he’s had twelve years of be a little more like obi-wan and obi-wan’s the perfect jedi and—

and anakin doesn’t think any less of obi-wan as a jedi knowing that he’s in love with the duchess, is the thing. if anything, he thinks more of him. and that’s what makes this so important, because it means that—maybe it’s not him that’s got what it means to be a jedi wrong.

“So—you and Obi-wan, huh?”

Stay here, Anakin. Protect the Duchess, Anakin. If Obi-wan’s going to try and run off to play the hero without him, well—

It’s not like Obi-wan’s ever given any answers. And while Anakin has his doubts that this quiet is going to last, it’s there for the moment.