driftfleet | 3 AM we seemed alright, on our way into the mingle

[True to her word, Ahsoka appears like clockwork at the same time every week.]

Hey you. Ready to learn some new moves?

[Finn, for his part, looks a little surprised - but pleased. There's a strain around his eyes, but he's still glad to see Ahsoka show up.]

Hey, you're back to being big again! That was kinda weird.

[But sure enough, he's ready to run another round of practice. Probably.]

Yeeeeaaah, uh. Let's just not talk about that!

[She's faintly embarrassed.]

Here. We're going to do something different from drills today. Catch.

[She throws him a strip of cloth.]

[He snatches it out of the air reflexively.]

Uh, okay. What do you want me to do?

Blindfold.

Have you been keeping up with your meditation?

A blindfold?

[He looks unsure, but ties it around his eyes anyway.]

Yeah, in the mornings. Hard not to fall asleep though.

Yep! Today I want you to concentrate on deflecting my attacks.

Don't worry so much about your form for today. Just do what feels natural-- you've been practising enough, I think the form will follow.

Come on. Opening stance.

[Obediently, he activates his practice blade and gets into opening stance. There are plenty of non-visual cues he can use for this, right?

And at first he does all right. They have been practicing enough that as long as she sticks to one of the patterns they've worked on, he has no trouble at all - he's learned his basics well. As soon as she goes off-pattern, though, he stumbles.]

[Ahsoka grins.]

Don't rely on the pattern, Finn.

Use the Force. Try to sense where I am. [She tries him again, unpredictable once more.]

--Right. [Meditating is supposed to help with that. And they all seem convinced he has it, even if it's--

ridiculous no Stormtrooper could possibly have the Force, that's for real people like the Knights of Ren, not nobodies

--his stance falters after only one or two good blocks and his concentration vanishes entirely. Finn gets a good whack on the arm for his trouble and he yelps.]

Sorry! Sorry. Let me try again.

Focus.

[She says it patiently. The first time is always hard.]

Right.

[Try it again. He empties his mind, or tries to, down to the feel of the blade in his hand. And he doesn't just listen for Ahsoka but tries to reach out and feel her like she's talked about. There's a tick of something, and though he moves slow he moves in the right direction--

just like melee training, over and over again with other white-armored trainees, with a chrome overseer and a bored-looking man in uniform

--and and her hit catches him off-balance enough that he trips over nothing and falls on the practice mats.]

Damn!

[He reaches for where he thinks the practice blade fell (he's right) and clutches at it for a moment.]

I don't know if I can focus today.

[Huh. She could feel it-- he almost had it.

Ahsoka nods.]

You seem... a little distracted. Is there something on your mind?

[Finn pushes the blindfold up and rolls into a sitting position, knees held close to his body.]

Did you see General Hux's video?

Unfortunately. You guys are from the same time, right?

I got a bit of a run-down from Poe. He said you helped blow up their base? Are you afraid he'll come after you for revenge...?

It's more than that.

[He takes another deep breath, and then one more. No wonder he can't concentrate, with this hanging over his head.]

Someone I met who's been around for a long time said the Dark Side takes a lot of forms. The Sith. The Empire. And in my time, it's the First Order.

[You can do this, Finn. You can do this. He exhales.]

And the reason I knew how to deactivate the shields on his base is because I used to be one of them.

[Ahsoka pulls back in surprise.]

Wait-- what?

I'm a Stormtrooper, Ahsoka. The name they gave me was FN-2187 and General Hux was my commander. "Finn" is what Poe called me.

I don't understand. I thought... Stormtroopers were a part of the Empire?

And you're not a clone. Why do you have a number?

[He continues talking but doesn't look at her, voice somewhere between flat and miserable.]

They were. Stormtroopers were a symbol of strength, one everyone in the galaxy feared. When the Empire fell, some of its supporters fled to the Unknown Regions and secretly continued living under its philosophies. They knew it wouldn't rise again with the same name, so they chose a new one and updated their goals. They didn't have the resources for a clone army, so they took infants and raised them to know nothing but the Order, to be completely loyal because it was all they would ever know.

All we would ever know.

[The last part of Finn's speech has a shiver running down her spine.

"Took infants and raised them to know nothing but the Order, to be completely loyal because it was all they would ever know."

Peggy's words flit through her mind, when Ahsoka was arguing the necessity for bringing Force-sensitives into the Jedi Order at a young age-- Peggy had said, "I've seen such practices used in utterly horrible ways, too."

The parallel isn't lost on her.]

Oh, Finn...

[He continues in the same tone.]

And I was good at it. I was real good. Top of my class, even Captain Phasma said so. But when we got sent on our first mission, something changed. I looked--I really looked--and they weren't Republic spies or terrorists or dissenters. They were a frightened village and we were slaughtering them. I lied and said my blaster was jammed.

And when they sent me to reconditioning, I rescued the enemy target we'd just been sent after and hijacked a TIE fighter with him.

[Ahsoka listens carefully, her horror turned inwards. Finally, she composes herself. Then--]

... I'm proud of you.

[Finn bites his lip, and now his voice has a bitter cast to it.]

For being a liar and a traitor?

For doing the right thing.

Realising that everything you've ever been taught might be wrong... isn't easy. Deliberately going against it is even more difficult.

[If there's anyone here who'll understand that, it's Ahsoka.]

I wouldn't worry too much about being a traitor to the First Order. From what I've heard, that should be a badge of honour.

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