The week that followed her first call with Rex, Ahsoka got very little sleep. She just didn't have the time.

Further entreaties for Bail Organa's aid ended only in gentle encouragement to continue networking to find supply lines on-planet – so network she did. Loath as she was to bother them, Ahsoka flooded Mira Bridger's inbox with requests for people to contact and inquiries about possible meeting places. Blessedly, Mira's whole family was eager to chip in with their own areas of expertise.

Mira's grandmother, a retired doctor turned local healer, had affluent friends and acquaintances in a dozen villages – and many owed her favors. She told them of Lady Kindness' meeting, and the few who couldn't make it personally promised to pass the word on. Mira's father, with his intimate knowledge of the schedules of the closest towns, contributed a date – two days before Lux was due to return to Kyzeron – and, more critically, a location.

Armed with these, Ahsoka spent her days buried in datapads. She researched everything from local legends to Imperial civil code to Onderonian workers' rights to environmental concerns raised by the steep increase in mining activities. When the time difference and his duty roster allowed it, she spent her nights discussing the finer points of her findings with Rex.

Anakin had often preached the importance of not over-studying. She still felt underprepared as she walked to the edge of the estate on the prearranged day, but she could work with that. She had a far more critical hurdle to distract her from her nerves: the ray shield protecting Bonteri Villa from the jungle beyond.

The shield's control room was rigged with so many cams that tampering with it was impossible. Plus, in order to keep Lux so busy with training he couldn't call on any of the local nobles before today, she hadn't had time to test the shield for weak spots. Ahsoka was still bound to his biorhythms by her slave tracker, and if she wanted mobility, he had to program it himself to allow distance between them.

Ahsoka rubbed at her chest as she came to a stop before the shield, suddenly hyperaware of the tracker beneath her skin. In the bright sunlight of late morning, its transparent surface was vaguely pearlescent. It almost made her think she was enclosed in a giant bubble of soap, but this was far less fragile.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and extended a hand. The shield repelled it without distorting in the slightest.

Her chest tightened a little, but she pushed the panic away before it could set in fully. She'd known this could happen, and she'd come prepared. Taking another breath, she lowered her mental shields. Then, summoning the Force, she pushed.

This time the ray shield buckled back. Ahsoka put more and more power into it, strengthening the pressure tenfold until the shield thinned enough to take on a reddish hue from the strain. She grinned, fingertips tingling with anticipation, and pressed harder still. It was almost dispersed enough for her to break through.

The Force hissed a warning. Ahsoka paused, and felt rather than saw a flash of security personnel in the control room scrambling to reestablish the shield; the proximity alarms had been triggered, and they assumed outside interference was at work. Captain Felarra was on the verge of sending people to investigate.

Snarling a particularly nasty Huttese curse, she broke off. She didn't have much time before the Noreino guards got here. So how could she...

The Force swirled around her again, as though drawn to her distress. Gentle currents formed out of the ether and tugged at her, growing stronger the longer she resisted. They wanted to lead her somewhere, but the Force needed her to swim along with them first. They needed her to prove herself, somehow. They needed...

She thought of the ancient words of power, and felt the currents speed up. Smiling to herself, she shut her eyes and lapsed into a waking meditation.

Now a conduit for the Force, able to feel it moving through her and around her, she whispered, "I am one with the Force and the Force is with me."

Her presence in the Force distorted, phasing toward a more muted version of itself, but the power remained behind it – contained, but still useful. It was a lot like the shielding technique Anakin had taught her, the one she'd used at the auction.

"I am one with the Force and the Force is with me." She stepped forward through the undergrowth, and felt the buzz of the ray shield against her skin.

"I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. I am–" She paused as new words came to her. They weren't as strong when she turned them over in her mind, but they felt right to focus the power she'd already drawn into herself in the right direction. "I am sunlight and air and dust. I am the water molecules and microbes from which all life springs. You cannot see me because I am not here."

She passed through the shield and emerged, blinking, her presence still deadened, on the other side. When she turned back, the shield hadn't taken on even the slightest hint of redness. Grinning, she tried it again. No redness there, either.

Shouts in the distance drew her attention. Pushing her triumph aside for the time being, she shot off to a group of boulders – one of Lux's favorite places to read – a klick east. By the time the troops reached her, she would be seated calmly atop the tallest one, a datapad on her lap. Their guard would drop, focused on the apparently malfunctioning shield, and when she slipped away again, no one would be the wiser.

It felt so good to run. Not that this was her first time running in the last few weeks, but after a year cooped up inside, it still felt like a novelty.

With her natural gifts as a Togruta, the last month training and raiding, and the Force to sustain her, she cleared the ninety klicks to Dashonderon – the village where Mira's grandmother had been a patient, and all this had begun – in two hours. She was barely winded when she slowed to walk the last stretch.

But she stopped completely, biting her lip, as she crested the final hill before the town's northern gate – the less guarded of the two for its distance from the bustling market to the south. She touched her midriff, feeling the comforting shape of the transmitter hidden in her sash, and tried to push past her unease.

She pulled it out and commed Rex, barely aware her fingers were moving until she heard the quiet tone that meant a link between their devices was active.

"Commander?" The transmission was audio-only, as they often had to be for the signal to carry cleanly over so great a distance, but even without visual cues, his bleariness was palpable. It sounded like she'd just woken him up.

Ahsoka did some mental math based on the specs he'd given her for their new base. She cringed when she realized time difference made the unassuming hour on Onderon ungodly for him. "I'm sorry, Rex, I didn't check the time before I called–"

"Don't worry about it. 'S not the first time I've had to wake up in the middle of the night," he said cheerfully. Already he sounded more alert; fast wakeup times were one of the benefits of Kaminoan engineering. "So, what can I do for you?"

"I just... wanted to hear a friendly voice."

"Well, I don't think mine's particularly distinctive, but..."

Ahsoka smiled, rolling her eyes. "You know what I mean, Rex." She took a breath as she scanned the buildings below her. "I'm just looking over the town now, and for some reason I feel like I'm back on Felucia again."

"Why's that?" The words were casual, but his voice had gone tense.

"Because I left a position of relative safety to go off scouting for potential reinforcements, and hopefully pave a way for the main force," she said. She decided not to dwell on what kind of safety she meant: physical protection or her lack of obligations. "It's not a perfect parallel, I know, but it really feels... strange. Familiar. It's probably just that it's the first serious thing I've done since Felucia, but still."

"This'll go better than Felucia, Commander. I'm sure of it. You've just gotta... show 'em what you're made of. And that stuff, well, it's tough as beskar. I know that, and you know that. All that's left to do is make sure they know it, too."

Ahsoka smiled. "You must've been a Jedi in a past life. You always know exactly what to say when I'm down."

"Kid, I've been giving you pep talks since you were fourteen. 'Course I do."

" 'Kid'?" she echoed, feigning outrage. "Hey, I know Command is technically just being polite when they call me Commander Tano, but it's only a matter of time before they reinstate me officially. You won't outrank me that much longer."

Rex chuckled softly. "All the more reason to take advantage now, while you're technically not my CO. Besides, in my book, experience outranks everything."

"Then I definitely outrank you – no matter what the bigwigs have to say about it," Ahsoka teased. She frowned when the words started to fall flat in her mouth, and was thankful he couldn't see her face.

"Feeling better?" he asked warmly, forgoing a customary riposte.

She didn't feel entirely back to normal, but Rex was looking for improvement, not a complete recovery. Bless him for that. "I am."

"Right, good. Also, by my count–" he paused, as though checking a chrono, "–your meeting starts less than half an hour. You'd best be on your way."

"That's true. And Rex?"

"Sir?"

"Thank you."

"My pleasure." Ahsoka could practically hear his smile through the comm. "May the Force be with you."

Now that she thought about it, Rex really did have a way with words. In just two sentences, he'd reminded her she could fall back on him, plus her connection to the Force. It was the perfect way to underline his last comment about her strength, something that was so much easier to believe from a man who'd fought beside her.

"And with you," she said finally, and hoped he could hear in her tone how much that meant to her; sensing emotions was always tricky over long distances, and he severed the link before she knew for sure. Tucking the transmitter back into her sash, she started down the slope toward Dashonderon with a smile on her face.

Mira's grandmother was waiting to meet her, and Ahsoka barely recognized her with the rags she'd layered over her clothing. It was a smart move when the guards watching the gate had more incendiary types to watch out for than an old beggar woman, even if this one was carrying a mean-looking cane. She put that cane to good use and hobbled as Ahsoka made the predetermined sign against her thigh: a discrete interweaving of index and middle fingers to make a diamond shape.

With a steady hand at her back and efficient, abrupt instructions about which streets to take next, the elderly woman led Ahsoka past the few guard installations in town that were still staffed. Before long, Ahsoka got her bearings (familiar, yeasty smells from a bakery over there, the unusual way the gravel caught under her boots over here) and was able to keep pace with her guide instead of blindly follow.

Rex's encouragement still fresh in her mind, she smiled instead of grimaced when she spotted their destination: the large warehouse that was Dashonderon's makeshift medcenter.

Kyzeron and its sister cities were still under martial law as far as she knew, but lockdowns meant little this far into the jungle. Today was market day in Dashonderon, and the settlement was important enough that people had come from all the neighboring villages to buy and sell and trade. The local security wouldn't dare impede the influx when the business of the Houses that paid them relied upon it; in fact, according to Mira's father, the majority had been redeployed to the market to make sure things went smoothly.

It was perfect cover for a secret meeting. The invitees had an excuse to leave their villages and gather here, and fewer guards would be around to do the math and realize many more people were going into the medcenter than were coming out.

As Ahsoka stepped into the old warehouse, Mira's grandmother stripped off her disguise and bundled it into a bag she'd been wearing hidden beneath it. A handful of people perked up when they spotted the old woman, singling themselves out from those simply visiting sick relatives. Eyes followed Ahsoka in fascination as she passed by, the words 'Kyze Jarash' on their lips.

Ahsoka's guide led her deep into the building, stopping as they reached a small door in the nearest wall. A casual observer would think it led into another unremarkable storage room, but the dust on the floor had been replaced with a well-traveled path of mud and grime. Even the air felt different on Ahsoka's skin – drier, stirred up, smelling more of a crush of humanoid bodies than mold and moisture that had lingered in one place for too long.

This was the place, then.

"I'll go summon the others," Mira's grandmother said. She squeezed Ahsoka's shoulder comfortingly with one tanned, creased hand, then turned and left.

Ahsoka had thought to use pins to secure her shawl this time, but as she stared at the unassuming door, she tightened a corner on reflex. Anonymity gave her comfort now, made it easier to step back into her old role as Commander Tano. Only once she was sure nothing but her eyes were visible between the fold veiling her nose and mouth and the one over her forehead that she opened it and went inside.

There were perhaps a hundred people crowded inside. None of them had been talking very loudly amongst themselves to begin with, but as she made her way to the far end of the room, the hush that fell over the group was tangible.

It got worse once she'd scaled the dusty old crates placed there to make an elevated platform. One creaked ominously under her weight. The sharp sound was a distraction, but it gave her no reprieve from the rest of the expectant eyes, the apprehensively furrowed brows, the hopeful smiles.

All the options Ahsoka had painstakingly fleshed out for how to start the meeting fled her mind, and she was left scrambling to compensate.

Padmé, whom Ahsoka had initially meant to emulate in as she spoke, would draw the people in with considerate greetings and a passionate follow-through. Obi-Wan would charm them with his warmth and poise. Anakin would break the ice with a few jokes and an easy smile. Rex would make them stand straighter just by talking to them – to the uninitiated, his military sharpness was a contagious thing.

But none of those felt right, anymore. She was the product of all her mentors' teachings, an amalgamation of their experiences and wisdom. But Padmé, Obi-Wan, Rex, and Anakin weren't here right now, and they wouldn't know for sure how to connect with these people. Ahsoka was here, and she...

Rex's words from half an hour earlier floated back to her. You've just gotta show 'em what you're made of. And that stuff, well, it's tough as beskar. I know that, and you know that. All that's left to do is make sure they know it, too.

... and then she knew how to talk to them: as the slave of one empire to the slaves of another, in deed if not in name. As a slave who was trying to free herself, and wanted them to do the same, one small act of empowerment at a time.

"Thank you for coming. I know some of you from the closest towns have the day off to get to the market, but many others don't," she said. "It means a lot that you took this time away from your families, or from the livelihoods that support them."

The miners looked gratified, exchanging nods and faint smiles with one another. Ahsoka swept a tendril of energy around the room, subtly assessing mood, and sensed it had been the right move. That was a good start.

"Are you truly the Lady? Are you Kyze Jarash?"

Ahsoka's head snapped up at the sound, but the exact position of the speaker was lost to her as several others took up the question in turn.

"I am..." She took a calming breath. She'd read up on this. "I am not the Kyze Jarash from the old stories, the one who watched over the first to settle here with her siblings, who passed down their virtues and taught the people how to govern."

She was loosely paraphrasing the traditional beginning to an Onderonian folk tale, the kind where Kyze Jarash – Lady Kindness – was featured prominently. The crowd murmured undecidedly in answer, equally comforted by the ritual nature of the words and unsettled by the information they'd been used to convey.

"I don't have the same powers she did–" Ahsoka tried not to wince through the half-truth, "–but I do want to change things here and now. I've been called Lady Kindness because I protect those who need help, but I can't be everywhere at once."

"Why do you hide your face?" someone else broke in before Ahsoka could get to her next point: what she needed from them. She pursed her lips, but reminded herself to be patient. With her shawl and her nondescript clothing, she'd done little to dispel the mystery around her. These people would invariably have questions.

"I was a warrior before the Emperor rose to power. My face might be known to his forces, and I don't want anyone to be endangered by their association to me."

Silence.

Ahsoka grimaced beneath her shawl. She'd been talking for less than two minutes and had already struck a nerve. The galaxy had been under Dooku's thumb for less than two years, but people from old Separatist worlds like Onderon, people without protection from friends in high places... They'd already learned to fear those who spoke out against their new Emperor. Vague talk would get her nowhere.

Her mind whirred, grasping at and then dismissing ways to salvage the situation so quickly she almost missed it when gratified expressions started coming to her audience's faces. Many were wary, still, but many more looked hopeful.

"But the galaxy is a big place," she said slowly. "Whoever is in power abroad doesn't matter as much as who's in power locally. Change comes from the ground up, by joining forces to work toward a larger goal."

"You said you're a warrior! Will you help us fight to reclaim Onderon?" called a young woman near the front.

A Twi'lek nodded. "Will you to take the fight to Dooku? To the Noreinos?"

"What about the king?" a voice further back yelled.

The crowd yelled in agreement. The air of apprehension faded, and in seconds the room was saturated with a deep anger.

"I don't want you to go to war with anyone. I did that once, but there are a lot of benefits to a softer approach," Ahsoka broke in, hurrying to contain it. "I want you to watch, and to listen. I want you to be organized and connected, so when one of you sees someone else hurting, you can reach out through this network to get help.

"Already you're comparing me to a figure from legends for what I did on my own. Think about what many people working in tandem could do! By sharing her resources – her skill as a slicer – Mira Bridgers gave us a reliable communications network free of the taxes we can barely afford. By sharing yours, medical supplies could be passed on to all those who need them. Food and water could be slipped through the gaps in Imperial and Noreino watch to friends who are struggling."

A hush fell over the crowd. Ahsoka sighed in relief. They were listening – and more than that, her words had captivated them. "Think about it," she finished softly.

"How would this be done, Lady Kindness?" a Togruta man asked, breaking the stillness. She found him with her eyes when he stepped out from behind a tall Human woman, and smiled when she recognized him. He was the same man she'd given her bracelet to three weeks ago for defending the old man – Kesh Turaak, she'd learned his name was. He'd been first on her list of invitees for this meeting.

You've just gotta show 'em what you're made of. She carried all her loved ones' strengths with her, but beneath that, she was a headstrong girl who'd spent hours in the Archives or interrogating officers on the battlefield, diving deeper into topics far beyond her age because she wanted to be more capable than anyone expected. She wanted to be recognized as one of the greats. She wanted to fit in by standing out.

And she'd learned the best way to do that was to ask a lot of questions.

"You're not paid minimum wage for overtime work in the mines, are you?"

Some grumbled curses. Others simply shook their heads, exchanging long-suffering looks with their neighbors. Between the two, the consensus was clear.

"Thought as much. Your right to the minimum wage during normal work hours is defended by dozens of clauses in Onderonian legal code, but out here, your bosses have the monopoly on the entire market. There's nothing to stop them from sending overstock of medical supplies to other towns where they'll make more money–" she glanced meaningfully at Turaak, "–or hiking prices on food."

The angry rumblings grew louder.

Ahsoka took a breath. "And what does the law say about natural resources?"

"That Onderon is the home of the people who were born here or live here by lawful immigration," Mira broke in from the side of the room, recognizing her cue. Ahsoka needed a specific answer to continue, so the two women had planned this in advance. "Its mines, its jungles, its rivers... all of them belong to the people by right, and so profits made from them must always come back to the service of the people."

Ahsoka made a fist in the air and released it, as though scattering grains of sand to the wind. "But the promised services and wealth never find their way back here, even when miners like you and foresters and power plant workers are the ones doing all the work!"

There was an outright clamor at that. Good. This was how she needed them to be angry – not at something formless that would drive them into a blind rage, but at something specific they could do to change their situation. This was how they had to use their energy, be it positive or negative. She wanted a movement, not a riot.

"The Empire and the nobility under the Imperator are depriving you of the social services and goods you need to survive and thrive," Ahsoka growled, her voice heated, "sending hired thugs to police you when you ask for change. They break laws that protect the land – your inheritance – from exploitation trying to meet new profit margins, and nothing but a few extra credits ever makes it to your pockets.

"It's less than you're owed for such a high personal cost, and that's not fair. The planet's richness and diversity is being strained, and for what? Your employers won't give you adequate pay for the work you do. They deny you the basic needs you'd be due otherwise. That's a breach of the social contract the law maintains."

Ahsoka crossed her arms behind her back and straightened, summoning a military veneer. What she said next was sure to raise eyebrows. She had to quiet their rage with a commanding presence, with the implication that her ideas were coming from someone logical and self-controlled.

It was sort of true. Close enough of a margin to sell it.

"From a certain point of view," she said calmly, "that means the ore you mine after hours is yours by right."

The room had only quieted halfway after her audience's last outburst, and it devolved into a fresh round of yells the second the words left her mouth. People broke into groups – not that there was much space to break into anything – that whispered agreement or tore her words back and forth like anoobas with a bone.

The sudden blast of conflicting emotions made it impossible to sort out the direction the crowd's mood was moving in. Hoping to regain their attention, she turned widely on the crates and stalked across them in the other direction. It was a trick she'd often seen Padmé use when she needed eyes back on her.

Anxiety twisted itself into snarls in the pit of her stomach. Ahsoka swept on through it. The scrutiny and judgment of so many was nerve-wracking after nearly a year ducking notice, but she'd gotten this far, hadn't she?

"In theory," she continued, her voice loud enough to coast over her audience even with the noise level, "if you could get the ore out of the mines undetected, you could sell it to logging towns in need of material for tools, or trade to towns closer to Kyzeron who have a surplus of medical supplies."

"Can this be done?" a Human man asked, the words high and doubtful.

Turaak reached around a little knot of people to nudge the man on the shoulder. "The Lady will teach us."

There was a chorus of quiet praise for Lady Kindness. "It can be done if everyone chips in," Ahsoka corrected him gently. "Your invitations to this meeting weren't random. I can't get to every mine personally. I don't know where the cams are. I don't know how tight the security is. But you do."

And so with Obi-Wan's persuasiveness, Padmé's warmth, Rex's stern will to succeed, Anakin's confidence, and her own empathy, she extended a hand to the crowd and said, "Will you stand with me?"

Ahsoka picked out the influential people from the towns she'd been to and a few more Mira's grandmother had called, meeting each of their eyes. Her heart leapt when one unofficial leader put her right hand over her left breast.

"I stand with Lady Kindness," she said. One by one, the rest followed, each stepping forward and clapping a fist over their left breast.

"Agadjay Kyze Jarash!"

"Izadash will stand with the Lady!"

"We're with you, Kyze Jarash!"

Ahsoka beamed. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling like she had only to hold all their fervent belief, all their support, tight enough and she could make it stick. Just a little longer, and it would be a part of her. She'd believe, too.

She started when she felt the ghost of a hand on her shoulder, and the Force warmed around her like it always did when Anakin was proud of her. Blinking back tears, she pulled her datapad out of her sash and activated the holoproj.

"You honor me, friends," she murmured. Clearing her throat to strengthen her voice again, she called up a map of the Dashonderon mine. "Now, let's begin."

In the heat of anger, Ahsoka once called herself the stone that starts the avalanche. Now that her desire to avenge the oppressed on Onderon has faded into softer desire to help them personally, she's becoming something more – but trouble is always close at hand. Will her scheme to funnel iron away from these towns succeed? How much longer will the blockade keeping her on Onderon and away from the Rebellion hold? As she becomes more and more active, how much longer can she hide her real identity from Lux? Only time will tell...

*runs in waving a Rebellion flag* DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING SINGING THE SONG OF ANGRY MEN IT IS A MUSIC OF A PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT BE SLAVES AGAIIIIINNNN

Except me. I'm a slave to my muse, which has actually produced the makings for two really nice pieces of artwork for my portfolio since last I posted – plus summaries for another five flashback chapters for this fic. All in all, it's been a good week!

The amount of summary in this chapter irked me, but everything here is super important for the rest of the story. Ahsoka has learned an extremely useful new facet of the technique Anakin taught her – that the Force can mask her vitals so ray shields will let her pass like empty air – and laid the foundation for a project she unknowingly embarked on at the auction a month ago: saving Onderon.

I've strongly hinted throughout the fic that Ahsoka has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder without a good outlet or a support system until recently. It's the cause of her numbness and heavy cynicism in the first few chapters, a mindset she's slowly been growing away from as she relearns how to care for people and join causes she cares about. But this is a turning point for her because here being empathetic, TRULY empathetic, and acknowledging what happened to her is a big part of what allows her to sway these people. It's an alliance of underdogs just beginning to understand their power.

So yay for improving mental health! It's going to get better, and it's also going to get worse, but at least now she's taking some steps forward. I'm proud of her, even if I put her here lmao

We also got a bit more Onderonian vocab and grammar this chapter! You guys may or may not remember from chapter seventeen that 'dash' is the Onderonian word for iron and 'Onderon' translates to 'the people's home'; together they mean 'the iron people's home', which is a less poetic way of talking about miners or iron workers. 

A loosely guarded secret of mine is that I speak fluent French and have since I was little, so I threw that into my world building with the phrase 'agadjay'. The first-person singular equivalent of 'I' in French is 'je', so I tacked a similar word onto the end of one I made up to get something to the meaning of 'I stand with' or 'I back'. Simply put, the person Ahsoka hears in the crowd is telling her 'I stand with Lady Kindness!'

Next chapter we'll learn a bit more about the Rebellion of Onderon and see some secrets come to light as Lux and Ahsoka take a well-deserved night off. I'll talk to you guys then!