Asoka decided not to tell Anakin about her plan, because he almost never told Togrut about his movements, and if that was the case, then it wouldn't be a big deal if she let herself go unnoticed too. Skywalker, after all, would not fall apart if he missed his beloved wife for a few hours, whom he loved so much that he did not even want to look at her. And as for touching her, it would be better to lose his hand than to do that. Ah, if only Dooku were here, he would gladly help him get rid of his left limb. Continuing to indulge in these malicious thoughts, Tano reached Shaak Ti's house and asked Katuni to watch the children. She quickly got ready, putting on her old leggings and tunic, which she didn't mind getting dirty or torn. Then she took one of the speeders from the homemade hangar, started it up, and headed towards the forest. She was very skilled at piloting a togrut; in the Order, she was considered one of the best of her generation. However, she hadn't had much opportunity to practise over the last year, as her stepfather wouldn't let her fly on the farm, and the rickety ship she had stolen when she ran away after Robert's death was simple and primitive to control. This speeder was different from the ones on Coruscant: short, with a large steering wheel, it was more like a gravycycle and was intended for use in forest areas. However, Ahsoka quickly figured out how to start it and how to control it. Now all she had to do was stay on course and keep an eye out for any tempting prey. Her rifle was at the ready, slung over her back. She had taken it from Skywalker, smiling as she imagined how he would rage when he saw his expensive toy missing. Or both of them missing? And then she would suddenly show up at camp with a good haul of game. I wonder who would be laughing then. Thinking this, Asoka flew smoothly, plunging into the forest. It was the middle of the day, the sun was high in the sky and lit up the field and the trees standing guard around the bowl. But as she flew a little deeper, it immediately became darker due to the dense crowns of deciduous trees and the wide branches of conifers. The sun penetrated here only in thin rays, seeping through the gaps between the branches. The trees grew unevenly, sometimes almost touching each other, which meant she had to manoeuvre to avoid flying head-on into a centuries-old trunk, and at other times they stood at a great distance from each other. But this was not the place for the restless Togrut. The animals usually lived in the deepest thickets, where they behaved calmly, confident that humans would not reach them and completely unaware of any danger. At least, that was how it was on Shili, as her mother had told her about hunting the local predators — red, long-snouted beasts. The same rules must have applied on Endor, although the beasts there were completely different and Tano, to be honest, did not know which ones were edible. But the main thing was not to accidentally shoot an evok, that would be very unfortunate. The girl had never seen them, but she had a rough idea of what they looked like and really didn't want to harm such cute creatures. Asoka was also quite good at shooting, having learned from the clones, so she hoped to finally put it into practice now. She had already flown far enough into the forest and saw a fairly large cliff with tall redwoods standing close together. Perfect, a great place for an ambush. She smoothly landed the speeder near one of them and slowly got out, trying to tread softly. Then, throwing her rifle forward, she lay down on her stomach under the tree. She looked around; the place was completely isolated, the sun hardly penetrated here, the tree crowns closed over the cliff, and there was silence all around. The impression was a little eerie, suggesting that there was not a single living soul for miles around and that she, Asoka Tano, was the last representative of intelligent life. Togruta shuddered involuntarily and shrugged her shoulders, imagining that this was true. She immediately felt drawn back to the camp, to the warm, cosy house, to her close friends who loved her so much. To Anakin. Yes, even to him, but not to the man he was now, but to the man she had once known, the man she had trusted and opened up to, revealing all her secrets. The man whose departure from the Order had destroyed her, but whose memory had warmed Togruta's heart during the long months of hardship in her home. Anakin, Ani, Skywalker, she said silently, clenching her teeth, when Robert once again visited her bed. Ahsoka did not know then what he had become, and she did not know now if he would be the same, considering that he had only changed towards her, Ahsoka, while remaining the same to his other companions. However, her thoughts did not prevent her from carefully observing the area, which was still monotonously quiet, but then, near the edge of the ravine opposite, there was some movement. Togruta froze, holding her breath, and aimed her rifle in that direction, just in case. She turned her gaze in that direction, trying not to miss a single movement. Meanwhile, the grass swayed even more, and the dark brown head of an unknown animal appeared on the surface, its amber-yellow eyes shining brightly. The head was quite large, which meant that the body must be proportionate, and therefore, this fellow could well be edible. Asoka began to change the direction of her sights, adjusting them to the movement of the head. She decided to aim for the eye, just to be sure. Everything was ready, the position was chosen, the target was locked. Her finger slowly moved to the trigger.
"Baah!" The sound rang out like thunder in the clear sky, followed by loud, angry squeaks. Asoka listened and soon realised that it wasn't just one creature screaming, or even two; the squeaks were too different in tone. And it wasn't coming from just one place; the voices rapidly spread out across the area, appearing everywhere at once, making it clear that there was no place to hide and it would be better to show themselves immediately and voluntarily. Asoka had no intention of doing so, nor of revealing that she was there. They found a fool, and she gave her prey to someone unknown. By the way, she should take the carcass and fly back to the camp before her kin showed up to avenge their comrade. That's how sharks do it, so why should these creatures be any different? And Asoka slowly crawled along the edge of the ravine, trying not to get too close to the edge. She didn't dare to pull the prey in with the Force; she hadn't practised in a long time and could drop it to the bottom. However, when Tano looked to the other side to see how long it would take her to get there, she realised that the Force was not necessary at all in the art of dropping prey. She had managed it perfectly herself when, knocked down by Tano's shot, she flew a couple of metres forward by inertia. Now she lay peacefully at the bottom of the ravine, her brown skin glistening, and a decent pool of blood spread out beneath her head. But what was that lying nearby? It looked like gravisani, only broken. There was no time to think, and carefully getting to her feet, Asoka began to slowly climb down the steep slope, holding on to the branches of the bushes growing there. But the squeaking sound coming from all sides, sometimes getting closer, sometimes moving away as if mocking her, was driving her crazy, ringing in her ears and echoing in her head with a monstrous hum. It completely deprived her of the ability to think objectively or even think at all, let alone look at her feet. Asoka even lost all sense of where she was. So when she once again tried to put her foot down, the Togruta didn't notice that she had stepped on a thick tree root and, catching it with the toe of her boot, let out a quiet cry and fell down, rolling along the ground and desperately trying to hold on or at least slow her fall. But it was useless, she was out of control and hurtling downhill at great speed, picking up sharp stones and branches, while her twisted leg continued to ache painfully, even more than it had with a simple sprain. With each new turn of her body, the pain intensified. But then it was over, the slope hit the bottom, and the togruta, having gained speed in her flight into the abyss, crashed into the gravisani, or what was left of them, and seemed to lose consciousness. But not completely, because her leg still hurt and throbbed. And even then, she could still hear the growing squeaks of voices. Then, without opening her eyes, she felt something poking her insistently, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction. Asoka decided to look in front of her and, opening her unresponsive eyelids, almost fainted again. Standing directly above her were at least ten small creatures, no taller than her waist, covered in soft brown fur, each with its own distinctive mark. One had a red cloak, another a bone helmet made from a skull, and a third had something resembling a grass skirt. Without exception, they all held pointed spears in their hands, which they shook threateningly at the togruta, their eyes flashing menacingly. Asoka recognised them as evoks, but she had no idea how to behave towards them. They, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what to do with those who, albeit unwittingly, had deprived them of their beasts of burden...
========== Chapter 26. Friends rush to the rescue ==========
Anakin returned for dinner after helping Petro repair his speeder. The boy could have fixed it himself, but he decided not to miss the opportunity to chat with his idol, and Skywalker gladly agreed. He didn't know what Ahsoka was doing and didn't really think about it, assuming that she was busy with the children as usual. So when the speeder was repaired and Anakin returned to his room, he was very surprised to find Katuni sitting next to the twins' crib instead of Tano.
"Hello, Katuni," he said politely. "Have you seen Asoka?"
The girl got up from her chair as the older man entered and, lowering her gaze, clearly anticipating a negative reaction, replied,
"She said she wanted to go out for a while and asked me to watch the children.
"Where did she go? And alone?" Skywalker couldn't hide his confusion, remembering that Asoka didn't like walking alone, and she didn't know the Endor area very well.
"She didn't say," Katuni tried to remember all the details. "She just said she'd be back soon and bring meat for dinner."
"I don't understand," Anakin was completely confused. "Did she really go somewhere?
"She flew away," the girl suddenly remembered. "I saw her take the speeder.
At first, Skywalker calmed down, thinking that Ahsoka just wanted to take a walk and be alone, but then Katuni's words sank in, and a bad feeling began to creep into his soul, squeezing it with an icy hand. And as a final blow, he remembered a conversation with Tano in which she asked him to teach her the wisdom of hunting. Anakin had neither agreed nor refused at the time, and then other things came up and the subject was somehow forgotten, though apparently not completely.
"Sith!" he cursed loudly and with feeling, forgetting that there was a child nearby, or rather three. "She doesn't know how to do it! Katuni, sit with Luke and Leia for a while, I'll be right there!"
And with that, he rushed out of the house and headed for the hangars. He was driven forward by emotions and very mixed feelings. The first was indignation, because how could she do such a thing? She went alone, into the forest, completely unprepared. She'd probably come back with nothing, and covered in bruises. Then memories of their past together came flooding back, and he remembered how Asoka often behaved like this when she was his apprentice. She took risks without thinking about the consequences, ran away from supervision and didn't listen to orders. How much stress Skywalker had caused her. However, he now realised that back then, it had evoked completely different emotions and feelings. Yes, there had been discontent, but it was usually overshadowed by concern and anxiety for someone dear to him, as well as a secret pride in having raised someone like her. And now? Why was that no longer there? Or was it still there, just pushed somewhere deep into his consciousness, deliberately, so that he wouldn't think of her as he had before, or better than he should have. Anyway, what difference does it make? Right now, the main thing is to grab her by the scruff of the neck and drag her back to the camp so she never dares to run away from her children and husband again. The speeder picked up speed and, reaching maximum speed, rushed into the forest.
***
The heavy eyelids of the Togrut reluctantly opened, revealing no less than a dozen short creatures covered in thick brown fur and looking extremely ferocious. Then one of them, the largest, wearing a skull helmet, apparently the leader, stepped forward, coming close to Asoka's head and looking her in the eyes, and spoke in a terribly angry tone:
"How am I to understand this invasion? By what right have you come here? You have entered our valley! You have killed our mount! Did you think you could kill us?
These were the Ewoks, just as they were depicted in the images. The chief spoke very quickly, often swallowing the ends of his words and terribly mangling the basic galactic language. Asoka had to strain hard to understand what he was saying. Her attempt was complicated by dizziness and pain in her right leg, which intensified with any movement. She couldn't even look to see what was going on.
"It's not like that," was all the Togruta could say. "I'm one of you, I'm a friend, I won't hurt you, I came here to hunt.
"Are you out of your mind?" another evok, slightly smaller and wearing a red cloak, joined the conversation. "You can't be here, this is our territory! You'll be punished for this, taken back to us, and your fate will be decided.
"But I didn't mean any harm!" Asoka cried out indignantly, finally getting to her feet. "Ouch!" she cried out again, the sharp pain in her legs so intense that tears sprang to her eyes, and she realised she couldn't say another word when she finally saw what had happened to her. Her right leg was covered in blood up to the knee, which was still oozing heavily, her knee was completely immobile, and just below it, near the bone, a large splinter protruded from the soft tissue. It was enough to make anyone faint. It seemed that the evoks had noticed something too, because they suddenly stopped shouting, and the third one, in a white robe, came closer and, looking thoughtfully at her leg, said in a single breath:
"It looks like you have a dislocation and there is a risk of blood poisoning. We may have to amputate.
There was nothing to understand, tears welled up in her eyes again and streamed down her cheeks. This was it, the sad end. Well, of course, she didn't deserve anything else. Her whole life had been one long series of misfortunes. First her father died, then she was betrayed by those closest to her, then her stepbrother abused her in her own home, then her child died, which is why she ended up in the survivors' camp, where no one would have wanted her if it weren't for her milk. And now, finally, this trauma. Maybe it was all meant to end this way. After all, it is unlikely that anyone will rush to find her, and Anakin will only be glad to be rid of the burden that was twice imposed on him. And so her fate was sealed: to die slowly from pain and blood poisoning, remembering how happy she once was. She gazed with fading eyes at the patch of sky visible through the treetops. She thought about how beautiful the world was beyond the forest. Tears flowed freely, robbing her of her last strength. She was almost unconscious when an unexpected saviour appeared at the edge of the cliff. So ordinary in such a situation before, and almost impossible now. Anakin rushed at full speed, acting purely on intuition, simply flying towards where Asoka had taken off from and not veering off course. And finally, he saw the familiar red tunic at the bottom of the cliff, the same one she had worn in the Order, only faded and worn. And around her stood the Ewoks. He landed the speeder and, a minute later, noticing Thano's transport nearby, Skywalker began to carefully descend to the bottom of the cliff, listening to what everyone was saying.
"No one needs me, I'd rather die," he heard a familiar voice sob softly, and the Ewoks responded with sympathetic murmurs. There was such anguish in those words that it would have torn any soul to pieces, making them forget all their anger and resentment. Anakin was no exception. He jumped up to this interesting procession and, leaning over Asoka, wanted to speak, but froze when he saw her leg. The Ewoks, who knew him well, began to babble and interrupt each other, explaining the situation to him.
"She did it by accident, really, help her," said the youngest Ewok, standing behind his older brothers.
There was no need to explain anything to Anakin; he already knew what to do, but everything that had come crashing down on him in an instant made him lose his composure and say the first thing that came to mind:
"This is what arrogance leads to! Spikel, how many times do I have to tell you not to do things you don't know how to do!
He would have been better off keeping quiet, because his exclamation only confirmed what Asoka already believed.
"I don't care," she replied indifferently. "Why did you even bother coming? Just leave me, I want to die anyway."
Anakin was already unhappy with his lack of restraint and, deciding not to make the situation worse with words that clearly weren't working for either of them right now, simply picked Asoka up, not noticing how her blood immediately stained his cloak, and quickly carried her to the speeder. Even in flight, he didn't let her go, only for a moment to attach her speeder to his. She felt sick and was almost losing consciousness from the pain, but she could still feel Skywalker holding her close, asking her to hold on, and her heart beating next to his. If she closed her eyes, she could easily imagine the past, where they were Master and apprentice. The journey was short, and not wanting to waste any time, Anakin carried Ahsoka into the house and ordered Katuni, who was screaming in horror:
"Call Master Shaak Ti here immediately!
He stayed with Asoka, making her comfortable on the bed. He lifted the pillow, moved her injured leg closer to the edge, and slipped a sheet under it. In doing so, he apparently touched the sore spot and received a sharp blow to the back. He understood that it was a purely reflexive action, that neither of them meant any harm, but his emotions got the better of him and Anakin became angry again:
"Do you want to lose your hands too? You've become completely insolent! Be grateful that I'm even bothering with you, I could have left you in the forest! I took you in to look after the children, and now I have to look after you too!
"Well, I should have! - a wave of indignation washed over him - I didn't ask you to save me! Do you think I don't know that you hate me and would rather see me dead than both Siths? Come on, finish me off, there's a sword on your belt!
All the blood rushed to Skywalker's face at these words, and turning to Asoka, he blurted out without thinking, looking her in the eyes:
"Hate you? Want to kill you? How can you? But I loved you!
"What?!!!" Asoka cried out in response, stunned by his last words, but her words only reached Skywalker's back as he hurried away from the hut, away from his own revelations.
***
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