from @fospherus / @empirestrike: supportive: obi-wan to ahsoka!
smoke drifts against the dirt-clogged ridges and hills of the landscape beyond, a cumulutive backwash of debris, char, and burning plants and grass. the togruta teenager stands behind the fumes, her blue eyes gaping wide as she takes in the view of the planet they were meant to save. abruptly, she chokes against the billow, hastily turns her head, and coughs into her arm to smother the sound, and the cough turns to pain, to grief, to distress. it suddenly feels like too much to take in, too much to process in such a short amount of time — how is ahsoka meant to swallow down the brutality of the battle they just missed? how can she rationalize their delay in arrival against the destruction before her? if they'd only reached the planet sooner. maybe they could have stopped the droid army from rumbling through this valley. perhaps their presence would have dissuaded such an attack from going through. if only the blockade was easier to destroy. if only she'd sensed the change in the force. if only, if only...
maybe obi-wan sees how she stares. he's been standing beside her for a few good minutes now, arms crossed across his armor-plated chest. maybe he finds familiarity in her pain, her distress at the sight before them. the valley still fills with embers and smog, homes reduced to ash in the wake of the droid army's arrival; has he seen this sight before? obi-wan was a padawan once, too — he knows what this vulnerability feels like, the apparent uselessness of a single jedi against the evils of the galaxy. does he sympathize with her? does he pity her for their failure to reach this place in time?
no words are exchanged. no dialogue is needed. ahsoka's pain and heavy stare clouds the space between. suddenly, like an older sibling or an uncle might, like a teacher would, the older jedi faces ahsoka and places a venerable, chaste kiss to the top of her montrals. it's nurturing. it's foreign. it's harmless and kind and the most demonstrable display of connection ahsoka has ever experienced in her life, and she's speechless as obi-wan, grim-faced and sympathetic, dips his head in her direction and walks away. he understands, ahsoka accepts as he heads towards the gunship nearby. he knows what this feels like... because this is not some padawan-only emotion. guilt. grief. no, this feeling, this burden of responsibility given to the jedi to protect and preserve life... this never goes away.
