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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Wakefulness came in a flash, dragging Ahsoka from unconsciousness to reality in the space of a heartbeat.
Her throat felt tight – the product of a murky dream of ominous, repetitive breathing and invisible fingers clenched around her throat. She didn't flinch. She was too careful for that, when it wasn't a flashback stripping all her control away. But even so, the first breath of fresh air was so sweet she nearly sighed in relief.
It was still enough in the room that the sound waves reaching her montrals were too faint to tell her much about her surroundings. Somewhere to her left, Lux's presence was burning softly, a candle over the deep ocean of the Force just bright enough to make the waves below seem darker. Ahsoka resisted dipping her fingers in the waters for the answers. The Force would send a warning if something was wrong, and full awareness would return to her soon either way.
"Alynna, are you awake?" Lux called, his voice warm and teasing.
Ahsoka blinked an eye open, and found herself half-reclined on the futon in his office in the villa. That was it. Lux had been away at dinner with the head of a Lesser House, a woman who oversaw one of the smaller mines Lux had visited recently. Ahsoka had waited up for him, hoping to go over their training schedule for the next few days. Clearly, boredom and the late hour had gotten the better of her.
"What gave it away?" she asked, sitting up and turning to him.
Lux smiled without looking up from his pages of flimsiplast. In the low light, his hair was a honeyed version of its usual brown-black. "Your breathing changed. Not by much, but it's so quiet this time of night you catch every little sound."
Ahsoka nodded absently and rose to her feet, walking over to lean against the side of his desk. "You should've woken me sooner so I could get back to my own bed. I know you keep crazy hours, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to."
"I can give you something to get to sleep faster, if you'd like. On the really bad nights, I take melatonin supplements."
Ahsoka remembered those merciless claws squeezing the life out of her, the cold indifference in that unwavering breath. She stalled halfway through crossing her arms, and her elbows stuck awkwardly out to the sides until she had the presence of mind to tuck them in again. Quickly, she shook her head, shoving the strange dream to the back of her mind with the rest of the trauma.
Lux was still waiting for an answer. Feigning nonchalance, Ahsoka flashed him a smile and said, "I'd prefer to stay up for a bit, actually. Tire myself out."
Lux didn't buy it. "Was the dream a bad one?"
"What?"
"Like I said, it's so quiet I can hear minute changes. A few times, you were hyperventilating... which makes me sound like a creep who's been listening to your breathing all evening." Lux laughed, a soft, broken thing, and hunched down in his chair. His presence in the Force, which had been deceptively calm just moments before, was churning. "I'm sorry. I–I'm a little tired, and not watching my words."
