𝐒 𝐓 𝐀 𝐑 𝐖 𝐀 𝐑 𝐒 | 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐬 + 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬

all that's left (are words that can't be said)

Ahsoka Tano is twelve years old when she realizes she will never have a master.

For she is too much of everything all at once, and Jedi are not meant to thrive from passion and intensity, or so she is told time and time again by the creche masters. (Time and time again, until fighting the burning at the backs of her eyes is a losing battle, and she doesn't think she will ever feel anything as visceral as her frustration at being blamed, because it had been the senior padawan to tug on her lekku, and so she had put her fist into his face. But she is in trouble, anyway, because " revenge is not the Jedi way, " and Ahsoka doesn't think it is revenge, but she and the masters don't quite seem to see eye to eye on many things, and so she just must be too much of all the wrong things.)

And so she is too much of all the wrong things, and she will never become a real Jedi.

She wants to wish that things could be different, but she is a Jedi, at least for now, and so she does not wish. She does.

Ahsoka Tano does not give up easily, and so peaceful nights coddled under blankets turn into the harsh finesse of the glow of a blade; restful mornings turn to the sore pull of muscles and a metal hilt slippery with sweat, and Ahsoka Tano does not give up.

She hones her skills until she finds the floor a familiar place when she collapses, and the frowns and shaking heads of healers and masters alike just another part of her routine; until there is nothing for her to see but flaws in her form, but nothing to criticize for any one else watching on. Until Ahsoka is confident that it is a mistake to let her go, even if she falls short of things unspoken. And she may not become a Jedi, but she damn well tried her hardest, and she finds solace in the fact that she will not sit idly for it to pass her by.

Ahsoka figures that if she can be the best at something, then her shortcomings in the way she feels and the way she thinks will be forgiven in favor of well-practiced skills.

She thinks, that if she is competent in all ways but one, she will have a chance.

Ahsoka's thirteenth birthday comes and passes, and the Clone War begins. And although Ahsoka is not thankful for wartime, it is the only reason that she has not aged out of the Order quite yet, and if it is the will of the Force that she stays just a little while longer, then she is grateful for it.

But for all her hard work in other areas, she has never quite mastered the skill of keeping her mouth shut. And so Ahsoka's fourteenth birthday is fast approaching, and amid the frowns and disapproval of every instructor and master who her superb skills with a blade mean nothing to the clever way her brain works in comparison, Ahsoka wonders whether the AgriCorps will let her keep her lightsaber.

She is thirteen and nine months the day her waiting is done, and the Force sings through her montrals while in equal parts grieves. There is much sorrow for her on her path as a Jedi, but if it is the will of the Force for her to be a part of it, then she is ready to endure.

Jedi don't believe in luck, but when Master Yoda calls her into the council chambers, Ahsoka Tano thinks she is the luckiest sentient alive.

And maybe it stings, when she is not chosen, but assigned, but this is her goal all along, and she will not give it up for anything in the world.

And then she meets Anakin Skywalker.

And he hates her.

Jedi are not supposed to hate, but Anakin does not like her one bit. She almost doesn't blame him — she is too much , say the other masters, uncontrolled — but she is uncontrolled, and so she does blame him in the same vivid feeling that he blames her.