Where the Moon Walks

"May the wind under your wings bear you

where the sun sails and the moon walks."

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

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Ahsoka Tano had been on Onderon nearly two months before she understood just how rare a moonless night actually was.

She didn't know why she was surprised. Coruscant had four moons to call its own, after all, the same number as Onderon. Perhaps it was the fact that Coruscant's moons were small, unremarkable things – prizes filched over the eons from the big gas giants deeper into its star system. Perhaps it was that like a sabacc gambler who'd already swept a few sticky fingers over the pot, Coruscant hid the winnings of its gravitational heist so far away Ahsoka almost forgot they were even there.

Onderon couldn't be more different. Larger and denser than Coruscant by a fair margin, it flaunted its tetrad of moons even as it held them as close as a jealous lover. Dxun, Dagri, Evas, and Suthre dominated the space above the planet, and when they were all full, they lit the sky so brightly it felt more like midday than midnight. Having seen the light show that came of this delicate game of push and pull firsthand, Ahsoka thought it made the darkness of the collective new moon all the more striking.

The shadows were so thick she could practically breathe them in as she stepped from the old hunting trail into a small clearing made by the recent fall of one of the Iziz region's giant jungle trees. The night air was rich with a thousand scents: pollen, petals, leaf litter, humus. Her lekku twitched against the rough wool of her cloak as they worked to interpret and track bird calls, moving undergrowth, fluttering insects, and–

Lux Bonteri stumbled into the clearing after her, hissing curses in his mother tongue – most of them filthy enough he could only have learned them from Saw Gerrera. And the passage of errant Senators, she finished, smiling fondly.

Lux's pale cheeks flushed beneath his night goggles, and she knew in a heartbeat he'd misinterpreted her smile. "Karking weeds," he mumbled, brushing leaves and burrs self-consciously off his sleeve. "Always getting underfoot when I least expect them to."

"It is the jungle," Ahsoka said, offering him a bland grin.

"Well, not all of us have millennia-old hunting instincts to fall back on. You only wear night goggles when we're in open combat, even without the moonslight to see by." He sighed, raking a few stray locks of hair back off his face. "I don't understand why the others thought I'd be such a good fit for this mission. I can trip over my own feet well enough without it being pitch black, thank you very much."

Despite your best efforts, Ahsoka wanted to say. But in a show of discretion that would've made her tentative friend Senator Padmé Amidala proud and her Master, Anakin Skywalker, disappointed he didn't get a cheap laugh from the fallout, she said, "Steela has her reasons. She's a good leader."

Lux hummed thoughtfully, shifting the pack containing some provisions and their bedrolls – despite her superior strength, he'd insisted he carry everything in case they ran into trouble, with how important speed and flexibility were to her ability to fight – higher on his shoulder. "Actually, that was a lie." He sighed and tilted his head back to look up at the starry, moonless sky. "I know exactly why they wanted me to go. And I should know better than to curry sympathy with you."

Ahsoka paused at the edge of the clearing, biting her lip. She didn't have his ear for subtle jabs and hidden threats, of course, but she knew enough to tell there was no maliciousness in his words – only a bitter, resigned feeling of defeat. For some reason, that hit her harder than any naked resentment would have. Resentment, at least, she could check with a few harsh words and an intimidating glare. But this...