The Republic has fallen.
In the final days of the Clone Wars, Chancellor Palpatine died under mysterious circumstances. With the Senate struggling to retain a sense of unity, it was the perfect time for the Separatists to strike. And strike they did...
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Ahsoka.
Anakin was calling out for her, reaching out for her. He needed her to catch him or he'd fall into the darkness threatening to swallow him up.
Ahsoka.
A form flashed by, its face so twisted in pain and grief she nearly cried out.
Ahso... nna."
He was gone. It was already too late to save him. But she had to–
"Alynna?"
She had failed him.
"Alynna!"
Ahsoka's eyes flew open, but she saw little through the veil of confusion that rises from suddenly waking out of a deep sleep. And even then, she was preoccupied with something far more urgent: her throat was closing in on itself.
Panic took hold, and she snapped into action, her diaphragm heaving. Her fingers scrabbled blindly over the neckline of her ratty sleeping tunic, and she would've started clawing skin away to reach her lungs and the tracker just below had someone not gathered her hands up tightly and whispered for her to breathe.
The voice that spoke to her was soft and gentle, and though she was too far past the edge to hear much, it flowed so smoothly around each syllable that before long the tension began to leave her. She started shaking a little as she sucked in that first sweet breath of air; it took every scrap of dignity she had to keep from sobbing in relief.
The hands withdrew, and she felt someone sit down beside her. "That's it, Alynna – deep breaths. Stay with me."
In the wake of so vivid a dream of the past, it took Ahsoka a few seconds to remember that was the name she went by, now, and a few seconds more to think to nod an affirmative. In a halfhearted attempt at a calming technique she'd learned as a child, she let her gaze move across the room, taking in every detail from the grey stone walls to the dozen sleeping pallets in neat rows along the floor.
Seven of them were empty. Their master must've had guests last night.
"Your nightmares have returned."
The calming technique wasn't working. Ahsoka was too highly strung to for close study, so she sat up and stretched. It was something to do, and it would buy her more time before she had to speak to the girl next to her: a pretty green Twi'lek a few months shy of seventeen, seen by many as the mother figure of their group.
"Ashalla, stop it. I'm fine," Ahsoka said, a little more harshly than she'd meant to. "It's not like I'm the only one who's ever had them."
"No, but I take notice when someone starts up again after weeks of quiet."
"Speaking of, you be quiet. We'll wake the others if we keep talking."
She could've come up with something better, she knew that, but it was still a valid excuse. Several of the girls sleeping around them were the master's favorites, and there was no telling how late they'd gone to bed. It wasn't enough to dissuade Ashalla, though – she merely crossed her arms and shifted closer on the sleeping pallet that was barely big enough to seat both of them.
