Let it Happen

Before the duo could return to the interior, Ahsoka stepped in front of the Grand Moff who was going to let the Jedi Master's effects lay within the muddy dirt. His eyes looked at her, the emotions she had felt earlier were gone, no trace of them left behind. It as if they weren't there to begin with.

It felt as if he just witnessed a character in a fiction and it didn't necessarily stay with him. It was as if he wasn't actually here in a mental sense. It was as if he had no real attachment to this world. As if he never really belonged in the first place.

This was just an adventure for him, a universe for him to conquer and reimage.

Ahsoka deactivated her sabers, but kept them in her hands as she twirled them between her fingers. "You knew, you let it happen. That look you made before, you saw a change." Her tone was of accusation, she was hurt. She let herself trust him and it seemed he kept information from them. It was a typical Imperial, a boy with toys.

She pointed towards the dead girl who laid there, disfigured by his strike. "You knew she was dangerous and you warned us... But you didn't say why... If he knew what her ability was, he would have went after her first!"

The Grand Moff glanced way slightly, his brown eyes gazing over at Sariss, thinking it was a waste to have killed her, yet she herself wouldn't serve him. Well, that is unless he told her that he was rebuilding the Empire. The same reason why she followed Jerec.

"The Master Jedi had battle precognition," he spat out with an indifferent, without a care, tone. "He could've seen it coming."

Ahsoka's eyes narrowed on him all of her battle experience, trauma and memories being to fill her rage. She wasn't giving into her emotions, but she was letting them guide her. She wanted to attack him, but it was strange. This vergence which surrounded him kept him enigmatic to her precognition abilities.

Was this why the enemies didn't see him coming? How he could knock them down, push them around and couldn't defend against him right away? Thinking back about it, she didn't foresee what he was going to do to the duo she was fighting.

"You're hiding yourself from precognitions through the force..." She observed out loud as she released a brief intent to kill. She was using trial and error and couldn't foresee the fight other than the damage she would gain should she outright attack him. She didn't see the fight, just critical burns.

"I make it a point to kill those whom seek to kill me, don't try that again." The Grand Moff's eyes seemed dark and unforgiving the moment the gave her the warning.

Ahsoka could tell that it wasn't a threat, it was a promise. Her expression went blank for that moment. She could understand the ideals he held, but at the same time couldn't understand the way he thought.

Clicking her tongue against the back of her teeth, "tch.. It's like you're playing a game and this is just an obstacle course to you."

"Would you like to look the way you did during the Clone Wars? Aside from taller. A little baby fat, youthful." He completely changed the subject, gesturing beneath the eyes. "No stress under the eyes?"

Her upper lip twitched in annoyance as he was bringing something up like this. While any woman would like to look younger, feel younger and have less physical problems as they grew older. This wasn't something she wanted to hear from him. She holstered her weapons to disarm herself, to deter herself from continuing with the urge of attacking him.

"No." Ahsoka responded with a casual tone.

"Liar," Tobias could sense she was lying, as she was angry and unruly that not only did he allow for the Jedi Master to die due to the lack of information given. But he also shrugged it off like it was nothing.

She even knew the Jedi were suppressed when it came to emotions, but they did allow them to be outwardly expressed during certain events. Such as death, loss and then accepting it. Grieving was natural and there was time for it now.

Her eyes narrowed on the item in which he was taking out of his trouser's pocket. It was a bracelet. The moment she laid eyes on it, she could feel it's unnatural power. Though it wasn't dark, it wasn't light either. It was imbued with the force, a specific ability, the item was Metallurgically programmed. It was created through Alchemy that didn't yet cross the boundary into darkness.

Her lower lip opened up, revealing her teeth which remained closed together. Temptation was ringing out towards her. The item itself seemed to be semi-sentient, calling toward her. Just like with Rae Sloane, she could hear the voices in the back of her head.

"What is that... Why is it calling to me with incoherent voices? Why is it able to tempt me...?" Ahsoka spun words from her mouth as her eyes became curious, she took a few steps forward. She was clearly conflicted, but she was no longer a Jedi. No code bound her.

"Darth Plagueis, a recently deceased Dark Lord of the Sith studied this technique called Midichlorian Manipulation in order to ascend mortality. Sadly, his apprentice took everything he knew and killed him in his Sleep. He could save everyone he loved, except for himself."

In that moment a flash of the Dark Lord Darth Sidious appeared in her head as her eyes widened as she looked at him.

"Yes, his Master. The one who masterminded the fall of the Republic's economy and filicated Palpatine's rise to power through Queen Amidala through the Blockade of Naboo." Tobias began to swing the item along his finger, as if it was a rubberband.

The item looked like braided silver, it was flexible and relatively attractive. It had an unnatural glow to it and it's incoherent words were soft and loving. Anyone who had a traumatic life or a longing for more would be undeniably pulled to it.

"You've experimented with Sith teachings..The Darkside of the Force?"

Shaking his head slowly, Tobias simply tossed the force imbued item into the air in her general direction. She reached up and caught it, fumbling a bit before looking at it. "It isn't dark, it isn't evil. That isn't its intent as the cosmic force was not corrupted in its making. You wouldn't feel too good if you were filled with someone else's unruly negative emotions, now would you? Darkside corruption is simply punishment for abusing the Force through the midichlorians."

Even as a Jedi, she didn't know much about the Midichlorians other than the higher the count the higher the affinity one had for the force.

Suddenly she heard the grass bend under the weight of someone's feet as she was looking at the item in her hands. Her eyes shot up and there he was, a mere foot from her and his two fingers were pressed neatly against her forehead.

"Bang," The Grand Moff made a childish gesture of shooting her in the head.

"That's not funny," Ahsoka uttered under her breath as she glared at him for a moment with her big blue eyes. She didn't even pout all that much, like she had in the past.

"If I somehow went back in time, and stopped Offee from betraying the Order, betraying you. What would you have done?" The Grand Moff asked curiously as his head tilted to the side. He wanted to know how she would be like, twenty some odd years ago, should he had saved her.

"I... Would have stayed with the Jedi."

Giving a halfway smile, he nodded slightly at her conclusion. "You would have saved Anakin Skywalker from descending to darkness, or at least, changed the course of history as you know it by protecting him from his fear of loss."

Fear of Loss? Ahsoka did remember that being the main fear she had always sensed from Anakin Skywalker. Especially when the Senator was involved. Luke Skywalker has overcome his fears, faced the Empire and killed his father. Yet he still harbors more, the fear of failure and fear of destruction, fear of the dark.

"Or I could join the Jedi and take you as my apprentice, spare you from a reckless and overbearing master." What he said was a joke, she could sense it was a joke. He wouldn't dare change their adventures, their bonds through the Clone Wars.

"That's a horrible joke," Ahsoka retorted as she gripped the bracelet hard with her fingers. Despite its brittle silvery material and its flexibility, she couldn't break it with just her grip alone. It was imbued and protected by the force.

The Grand Moff winked at her, folding his hands behind his back as he did so, clasping them together. "True... But I'd still steal you away."

She didn't forgive him for indirectly causing the Jedi Master's death, but she wasn't going to fret about it. The Jedi Master died fighting three dark Jedi, a feat worthy of a warrior, even if he only was able to kill one.

"The Jedi Code doesn't allow things such as that," Ahsoka spewed out as she looked at him with a stern, yet somewhat indifferent, expression.

Shaking his head slightly, "No, it does. Love doesn't lead to the darkside. Love itself is redeeming. Uncontrolled passion, fear, lust and rage. Those when left unchecked, will lead to the darkside." He was quoting another Jedi's study of the interpretation of the Jedi Code. Believe it or not, the whole idea of marriage and fraternization between Jedi wasn't seen as against the code until the Order itself almost completely fell prey to someone who had been.

"The Jedi High Council simply restrained the Jedi way of life... Though clearly Anakin's attachment, obsession, with his lover was... Unhealthy for the duo. If only he didn't turn, then he might have raised his children as the future Jedi, even if Palpatine wasn't stopped. I'm sure he would survive during Order 66."

Ahsoka raised a brow when he brought up the Order 66 and tilted her head to the side. "Would you not have stopped Palpatine?"

"Not my place," The Grand Moff mused at the idea of destiny in which the Jedi held so dear at the waning years of the Republic and last few decades of the Order. Ahsoka somewhat understood this, but thought it was stupid for him to say, as he seemed to be a person who lived in the moment rather than the future or the past.