driftfleet_ooc | SUMMER TEST DRIVE

Barriss! [Screw it. She runs after her, until she catches up and puts herself in Barriss's path. Her anger is gone, and now it's just replaced by old fashioned exasperation.]

I said wait. I-- look. I said that it was complicated. Not that I want you to-- to go off on your own on some kind of crazy self-imposed exile and punish yourself for something you haven't even done yet. That isn't going to help anyone or solve anything.

[ she'll stop, not rude enough to just step around ahsoka, but she's still that eerie nothing in the force. her expression is not so carefully schooled though- barriss almost looks like she's in pain. ]

It's not for me, it's for you. You're angry at me, at whatever I've done, and that's not something I want to be part of any more than you do. [ she shakes her head, wishing for better words, on the verge of asking what she could possibly have done to make ahsoka hate her, but knowing she'll despise the answer no matter what it is. ] This is a sort of complicated that I can't help you with. If I am the cause, I cannot be part of the solution.

[ and isn't that a nice summary for how she feels about the war. ]

What? That's-- easily the stupidest saying I've ever heard! People solve problems they created all the time! Anyway, that's not even the point!

The point is--

[But she cuts herself off, because Ahsoka isn't actually sure what the point is herself. She doesn't know. She doesn't know why she's saying all this, why she's pleading with Barriss not to go. Five minutes ago, she wanted Barriss to be anywhere but here. An awkward silence fills the air as it becomes evident that Ahsoka really has no idea what she was going to say next. But then, all of a sudden, words come tumbling out of her mouth again before she can stop them, before she can register what they are or what she's saying.]

--I missed you, too. This you. That's... what the point is.

[Her surprise at herself registers clearly in the Force and on her slightly stunned face. She never realised that, until just now. But it's true. How many times had she wished she could go back in time to when Barriss was still sane and talk her out of her madness and things could go back to the way they were? Countless. Countless times.

Ahsoka can never undo Barriss's betrayal in her heart. It's done. But maybe she can still save Barriss from an awful fate.]

[ barriss can't keep up her emptiness in the face of that. she knows how often ahsoka's mouth just says whatever comes to mind, but she also knows when it's genuine, even if it's still obviously complicated. some part of barriss is still incredibly wary, not knowing her own future or just where her and ahsoka go wrong, but... this is her best friend. she hasn't denied that in a long time. she's not sure there will ever come a point where she will, even if she unwittingly hurts ahsoka somewhere down the line. ]

Well, I'm here. I'm this me.

[ and that's all she can figure out how to say. now isn't the time for questions or philosophy or anything they could possibly disagree on. she just wants her friend. ]

But if you do need space, all you have to do is ask.

... Okay. Good. ... Okay.

[She can do this. Deep breaths. She can do this!]

Actually, more than all the "space" stuff... I need you to make me a promise.

[ anything, she nearly responds, but she catches herself. she has a great deal of respect for ahsoka and probably more affection than she should, but she still doesn't know what she's done to hurt ahsoka. if it was one of her beliefs, something she's not about to budge on, at some point they'll have to agree to disagree. or agree to part. ]

What is it?

If you're ever feeling like... I don't know. Depressed, maybe, or hopeless, or like... [she tries to think of Barriss's exact words in that corridor-- the first sign she'd had that something was really wrong with Barriss, and that she'd ignored] ... like nothing will ever change.

I want you to promise me that you'll tell me.

[ that's not exactly what she's expecting to hear. it's sweet, almost, but not particularly pragmatic. in fact, it's almost kind of silly, because those are all words barriss would use to describe herself right now if honesty like that had any place in jedi discourse, but it doesn't, so she won't, and ahsoka knows that full well so asking for a promise like that is just absurd and barriss can already feel the slightly hysterical sound crawling out of her chest—

until she covers it with a cough. until she just gives ahsoka a patient, placating smile.

now is not a time for laughing. ]

Things will always change, I'm well aware of that. So you don't have to worry, Ahsoka.

[Ahsoka doesn't look at all placated. If anything, she looks annoyed. Her arms fold over her chest-- she's well aware of just how good Barriss is at lying, now. And even though she can't tell if Barriss is lying now or not, she isn't willing to take the risk.]

I'm serious.

Promise. Promise me, Barriss, or I'll never be able to trust another word you say ever again.

Based on your greeting a few minutes ago, maybe that's for the best.

[ ahsoka didn't want her here, after all, and barriss only has a vague idea as to why. that frustrated hopelessness inside of her that simmers hotter after every mission she sees through, every council member she talks to, that could very well be the cause of their rift. ahsoka's plenty loyal to the convoluted mess that the jedi are, not the things their doctrine means them to be. and it's that same doctrine that has barriss mangling her own words, censoring them as they come out. ]

A Jedi can and should deal with emotions like that on her own. What good are we if we can't even keep the peace within ourselves?

Yeah? Well, I'm not a Jedi anymore.

So tough.

[ barriss, usually good at schooling her emotions, looks visibly surprised at that. it's not a declaration she saw coming, not something she would have expected from ahsoka based on their relatively brief but undeniably close friendship. it takes her a moment of gaping to shut her mouth again, swallowing hard. ]

I see. [ she doesn't, really, but it's something to say. ] For better or worse, I still am a Jedi, though, and I'll deal with my hopelessness in my own way.

[Ahsoka closes her eyes and inhales through her nose, mentally calling to the Force for calm, but also help. If she lets Barriss go now, it's just going to happen all over again. Maybe it'll even happen here, in the Fleet. Ahsoka's had eight long months to dwell on where things went so wrong-- Barriss will drift away from her, internalize everything, and then implode. She can't handle that. Not again. She has to say something, and she has to say it now, that will stop a repeat performance.

She exhales through her mouth. And tries again.]

... The Jedi are wrong, Barriss.

[You were right.]

[ a sharp intake of breath, a ripple in the force. barriss looks to the sand between them and steadies herself. this isn't the conversation she thought they would have, isn't a conversation she thought she could ever have with another jedi... but ahsoka isn't one, now, she says. so this is different.

she doesn't know how to articulate these feelings inside of her to someone who grew up a jedi. to letta, to the others she's met on coruscant or drongar, exhausted with the war and upset with the jedi position on things- sure, she can talk to them.

but this is different. ]

They are. [ when she looks up at ahsoka again, there's a helpless sort of pleading in her eyes, her hands spread out to the sides, fingers splayed, like barriss wasn't nothing to do with them. like they're covered in the blood that she so believes they are. ] We're not what Jedi should be, we haven't been in a long time. We're a disgrace to the title of Jedi and we're all blinding ourselves to that, making ourselves feel better by calling the clones by name, by liberating independent people who can make their own choices, even if they disagree with ours.

[ she shakes her head, hands clenching into fists, but still held out from her sides. there's something broken in her voice now. now that she's started, she doesn't know how to stop, how to bottle this up again. ]

We cannot keep the peace while we wage war. And I don't know why no one else can see that.

... I know.

When-- when I get out of here, when I go back home... I want to be a different kind of Force user. If we can't redefine what it means to be a Jedi, then... we can be something else, instead. Something new and different.

I want to do what we always should have done from the beginning-- I want to help the people who need it most, who are suffering the worst in this war. The overcrowded refugee camps, the farmers suffering from bandits who never get policed because local and galactic governments are stretched too thin.

... You should come with me. We could... we could do a lot of good.

[She conveniently doesn't mention her plans to help Anakin assassinate and/or capture Chancellor Palpatine. That part is too difficult to explain. And too upsetting. And not what Barriss needs right now.]

Edited 2016-06-28 06:23 (UTC)

I don't know how to be anything but a Jedi.

[ it's a sad, confused, but incredibly honest statement, from someone usually so censored and guarded, keeping her words carefully crafted. barriss looks down at her hands as she splays her fingers again, then finally drops them as she looks back to ahsoka. ]

The rest of the Jedi- I don't think they can see how they've fallen. We don't need to redefine what it is to be a Jedi, we have to remind them what their real duties are to the galaxy. We'd do the most good that way, not on our own.

["I don't know how to be anything but a Jedi." It's a sentiment Ahsoka understands deeply. When she'd first walked away, when she walked down those Temple steps... she'd felt the same way. Not just on that particular day, either. For weeks, even months after. But through her time here, she's slowly learning how. It doesn't happen overnight. It happens with time, and patience.

Ahsoka shakes her head.]

The current problems within the Order don't just stem from forgetting our true purpose. Though... that is a part of it. But they also come from the way the Order is structured now. Our rules and regulations, our dogma. We say that only the Sith deal in absolutes, but isn't that an absolute in and of itself? Our thinking is too black and white. Too dogmatic. Nobody listens. We should be flexible, but instead we're brittle. There's no room for change, or understanding, or evolution.

[This is something Ahsoka has thought on a long time. It isn't a conclusion she's come to overnight. It's something she initially rejected, an opinion she actively fought against. But many hours of arguing, of defending the Order's way of doing things with so many people-- with Luke, with Vima and Nomi Sunrider-- have highlighted the real problem.]

Even if you remind the Order where their real duties lie [and Ahsoka already knows that Barriss's methods won't] the deeper problem will still remain. You're right that the Order needs to change, but not in the way that you think.

So we need to make room for change, for that flexibility. Ahsoka, you just said everything that needs to be said about the state of the Order.

[ ahsoka makes sense. it's the first time someone trained as a jedi has made sense on this topic, as far as barriss is concerned. and it fills her with relief, with appreciation for ahsoka's way of thinking, and maybe just a twinge of hope. someone else sees what's going wrong here, so it's not just her. ]

Denouncing the Order may allow you to change yourself, but that won't help things on a larger scale. If we're going to make anyone listen, change needs to come from inside the Temple itself.

[Ahsoka looks down.]

... Maybe. ... But I'm not ready to go back yet, either. As things are right now... I don't have any confidence that things wouldn't be exactly the same as how I left them.

[ letting out a breath, barriss steps closer to ahsoka, reaching out to settle a hand on her shoulder. it would be a meaningful gesture from barriss toward most people, but it's how comfortable she's been with ahsoka for a long time now. and despite the emotional turmoil they've just shared with one another, some part of barriss is still just grateful to see her friend after too many weeks out of contact.

even if it's here. even if she's not sure ahsoka can forgive her for whatever she hasn't done yet. ]

If you don't believe things can change, they never will, Ahsoka. You must know that.

[Ahsoka's eyes snap up, but they look far from comforted. The unintentional hypocrisy laden in that statement means that Barriss's words have far from their intended effect.

Yeah, well they don't change by blowing people up, either, she thinks unkindly.]

I never said that I believed things couldn't change. I know that they can. I just said I'm not ready for it right now.

[ lips pressed into a thin line, barriss watches ahsoka for a long moment in silence, before her hand slips from the togruta's shoulder, fingers brushing bare arm briefly before they fall to barriss's side. there's a moment there that ahsoka's emotions feel louder to her, but she doesn't think much of it. they're hardly emotions she wants to get herself lost in. or to think about too much, knowing already that there's hurt and betrayal there, at the base of everything. ]

Well... I am. I can't give up on the Jedi, on what we're meant to be. The Order is all I have.

[Ahsoka regards her for a minute. Barriss's sentiments sound well-intentioned, but... Ahsoka can see now how easily they can go astray, too.]

... And if it can't be done? If the time comes... are you be prepared to let the Order go?

[Or will you cling on desperately to the idea that you can change them, and fall into the pit of the dark side?

It's a cruel catch-22, and Ahsoka knows it. She was faced with the same dilemma that day, faced with Anakin on the Temple steps. To be unable to let go of the Order and want to remain a Jedi despite it clearly being an unhealthy environment for her would in fact be the choice that would make her less of a Jedi, in her eyes. But to have the strength to let go of everything she knew and had, to let go of that which made her a Jedi in the strictest sense, because it was time... ironically, that was the Jedi way. She didn't understand why Anakin and Barriss couldn't see that.

Then again, that conclusion was something she wrestled with, and only come to after months in this place. So maybe she can cut them some slack.

Perhaps she wasn't a Jedi, as the current order would define it. But given the current state of the Order... she was okay with that. She was okay with being something else. Something Luke would be proud of.]

[ barriss hates ahsoka's phrasing. it's not often that word choice gets to her, but it does now, filling her with such a surge of annoyance, indignity, that it actually takes her a few seconds to calm herself down and give a real answer. ]

The Order isn't some... some relationship to be attached to! [ so maybe not as calm as she wants to be, here.

her upset with the order has been years coming, by now, whispering in the back of her mind since the first time she had to kill another sentient being. luminara had hugged her (much later, when barriss finally brought it up) and told barriss that so long as she never took another life lightly, she would find her own way to cope with the darker necessities of their peacekeeping. barriss looked for ways to cope, tried them all. but the answer has never been to leave, it has always been to find something to fix. she doesn't want to fight, she wants to heal. that's all this has ever been about, really. ]

It is an important, symbolic entity, a vessel for good and peace and a galaxy that refuses to have any of those. But it can fixed. The Order can be fixed, Ahsoka. I'll find a way- alone, if I have to!

I'm not saying I don't think it can be. And I'm not saying I won't help you. I will. If I can.

What I'm saying is that I'm worried about you, Barriss. You're so-- so caught up in this all-or-nothing point of view. [She thinks she understands, now, how it came that Barriss never told her anything of her plans. And it wasn't because Ahsoka wasn't a good enough friend.] Nothing is constant, Barriss, you know that. Not even the Order. It's as impermanent as anything else in the galaxy. If there's any other option, obviously I want to save it.

But if there isn't, I'm not going to cling to it like a faulty escape pod and let it drag me down with it, either.

SUMMER TEST DRIVE

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