Back in the Game (COMPLETE)

9.9.3

There was no way Ahsoka was taking the elevators down after that, so she walked to the shaft and hitched a ride down on a transport ship. She couldn't string together a single coherent thought for the life of her, so instead she made her way down to the Lower Levels in a haze, barely remembering which level she lived on. If someone had tried to mug her, they probably would have succeeded. 

The rest of the night went this way. She could eat, shower, do chores, or anything else just fine, but she couldn't think. When she tried to meditate, all that happened was she sat down and closed her eyes...and then fell asleep. It had happened multiple times to her when she was a Youngling, but needless to say, she was quite startled when she woke up at 3:30 in the morning, still sitting upright in the front room. After that, she retired to her bed. Nothing else was getting done that night. 

It was only after she woke up that her brain started working again. When she sat down to eat breakfast, she finally got a chance to think over what had happened the day before. Barriss is back.

Thankfully, she didn't feel like puking, but the thought still made her stomach drop. She had barely thought about her for over a year, far too distracted by Sideous to even remember her old mentor. Ahsoka flashed back to how she had looked yesterday, repulsed by what she remembered. That's malnutrition if ever I've seen it, she realized. She was so weak. I've never been able to overpower her that easily, or at all.

It stung, to see Barriss so frail and probably starving. Despite her fear and distrust of her, she did have sympathy, because she too had gone for far too long without food before. Not enough to back her up against the Republic, but she hoped Barriss got a decent meal at least once before her execution. 

Ahsoka twirled her spoon in her cereal. That couldn't really be avoided at this point. She had already been convicted before she escaped, and her sentence was death, as it would have been Ahsoka's if Anakin hadn't found her out. Ahsoka didn't know exactly how she felt about Barriss dying, but she knew how she would feel if an anonymous person had done the same thing. If that were the case, she wouldn't blink at an execution sentence. All logical voices in her head were telling her that justice was blind, and she should be likewise.

The emotional voices were in agreement with the logical, for once. There was a slight pang when she remembered who Barriss had been to her, the friend, the mentor, the ally. It was largely drowned out, however, by the angry, furious voices reminding her of everything else she had done, and what she had caused Ahsoka to have to go through. The murders, the lies, the betrayal especially, were all Ahsoka could see in her anymore. Part of her yesterday wanted to kill Barriss on the spot, just to ensure that she wouldn't do any more damage.

What really boiled her blood? Barriss had come to her, for help. Help? Now? And an apology? Over a year too late, in Ahsoka's book. The time to apologize would have been during the trial, or immediately afterward. Not now, after Ahsoka had been expelled, convicted, walked away, and went through twelve months of hell on Dromund Kaas. She would never have ended up there if Barriss had left her out of her bloody rebellion. 

She glanced down at her hand and noticed her veins were darker than normal. Ahsoka looked up at her reflection at the window and saw that her eyes were gold again. Her skin wasn't red, because she hadn't consciously thought about it, but she was definitely in the Darkness at the moment. 

To the Sister's surprise, Ahsoka wasn't all that mad about it. Honestly, after yesterday? I feel a little entitled to some emotion.

How come this never happened before? The Sister's voice asked. Ever since Ahsoka had started trying to balance the Light and the Darkness, these little internal conversations had become regular.