Level 23c, Block 15, 5th Street.... and Set 4.

Ahsoka stopped, stepping to the side as to not hold up the foot traffic of the street as she finally located the address she had memorized.

She gazed up, apprehensive, skeptical, at the thriving cantina, it's flashing neon lights disorienting.

She sighed, and briefly closed her eyes before they snapped open again as she shook her head.

The hood of the cloak chaffed against her montrals, but she ignored it. Ahsoka was thankful for the cloak, she really was, but it had been obvious that Dex had not expected a growing Togruta girl to stumble into his diner in need of one, and Ahsoka really couldn't blame him for that.

The only cloak that would fit Ahsokas montrals and lekku was a large, brown robe that dwarfed Ahsoka so much so that the Paladuvan had intervened with some sort of pin from a sewing kit that Ahsoka didn't recognize. Thankfully, the friendly cook had recognized the disaster in progress before Ahsoka could trip in the hem.

"Alright," she muttered under her breath. "Here goes nothing..."

She stepped toward the door.

The dingy atmosphere seemed to dull the flashing lights and lively, but drunken, nature of the tavern. A haze seemed to cover the room, even though Ahsoka could see clearly. The hum of the asynchronous background noise seemed to cloak the place into a lull of suspicion and mystery — like the feeling of viewing an old picture, where everything seems to be frozen in place, but none of your senses (besides your eyes) are able to be utilized — it was like going in blind, or deaf, or numb... there's a lot more hidden than you originally assume.

The vividly faded scenery seemed to dim the rest of the tavern into a false sense of inconspicuous privacy — accentuated shadows complimenting bright and bold ornaments in the forms of beings whose features couldn't quite be remembered the morning after, but those feeling and rendition still stayed in ones conscience.

Ahsoka didn't quite know what to make of it. It felt like opposite ends of a magnet meeting — Ahsoka being one side, and the atmosphere of the tavern being another. Both were subtly repelling each other, though not so obvious that she would immediately be discovered as an outsider, she hoped.

The Jedi Temple, although having never taught Ahsoka what to do without its everlasting presence in her life, had taught her to adapt. And so she did, using her other senses, as well as the Force, to pick up ill intentions or hopeful endeavors.

She kept her cloak wrapped tightly around her to hide her features, and the hood low over her face in an attempt to move inconspicuously through the throngs of the nightlife of the Coruscanti underworld.

Several shoulder bumps and trodden-toes later, Ahsoka slipped into an empty barstool at the counter, keeping a low-profile still.

She and Anakin had been on several intel retrieval missions that took them to the dingiest taverns, and dirtiest cantinas in the lower levels, so Ahsoka called on her past experiences, as well as subtly analyzing the behavior and mannerisms of the sentients around her, in order to blend in.

If there had been one overall theme from her past excursions in the underworld, it was that no profile was better than any profile... unless that profile was a respect earned through cruelty and fear, which Ahsoka did not possess, so she decided to keep her head down and her intentions to herself.

A shadow came to rest over the Togruta girl, and Ahsoka looked up, being met with the distracted and passive face of a rough-looking human male.

His dark bangs hung into his eyes, and his face piercings reflected the dim lighting in a disorienting way, taking the attention away from his features. Ahsoka wondered if that was the point.

"What'd you want," He asked gruffly, less like a question and more like a statement, his mind obviously elsewhere.

"Work," Ahsoka answered, mirroring his succinct tone and attitude. She had learned from Anakin that matching the mannerisms and expressionism of a being made them more inclined to cooperate, so she hoped that generalization held true now. "Are you hiring?" She continued, quickly and calmly getting to the point.

At the job inquiry, the human finally turned his full attention to the cloaked being in front of him.

"That depends." He answered, eyeing the figure hidden in plain sight right in front of him — there was not much he could tell from beneath the hood, only that the hooded figure wasn't a human.

The lack of transparency and more mystery than fact didn't seem to bother the human, though — he was still indifferent toward her. "Come around and meet the boss." He tipped his head in the direction of the back room before slipping away from the counter and heading toward the door.

Slightly surprised at the simplicity of the course of action and immediate response, Ahsoka quickly slipped off the barstool and made to follow the tall, stocky human.

She stared at his back as they made their way through the crowd, him gruffly pushing his way through, and Ahsoka gracefully slipping past.

It wasn't long before they had made it to the relative quiet toward the back, and the large man opened a door, leading to a dimly lit hall with several doors lining it.

"In here," he gestured with a heavily tattooed arm, his deep voice still gruff and bored-sounding as he tilted his head toward the first door on the left.

Ahsoka nodded in thanks as he walked away, more of a stalking as though he was angry, but Ahsoka knew it was just impatience — she could feel it like a pin pricking her through the Force.

She vaguely wondered what he was so impatient about, as she knew it wasn't really her because she had felt his impatience long before asking for a job.

She pushed the irrelevant thought away with the shake of her head, focusing her mind to her objective.

Gazing at the door, Ahsoka found herself hesitant to knock, not exactly sure what awaited her on the other side.

She felt uneasy, but she placed the feeling on her exhaustion, as well as the unfamiliar setting.

She shook her head. Get over it! Just knock!

Blowing out air through her teeth in exasperation at her lack of progress, (a trait of impatience learned from her Master, no doubt), Ahsoka brought an orange hand out from beneath the folds of the cloak and knocked.

Two sharp raps later, and another deep voice resounded through the door, slightly muffled, but clear none the less.

"Come in."

The door creaked softly as she opened it, though the slight disturbance was hidden by the lively activity outside, and Ahsoka stepped into the office to be greeted with a single low-hanging lamp illuminating a bulky Devaronian.

"Who are you?"

Again, Ahsoka noticed the trend in getting straight to the point. No formalities like what the stuffy presence of the Senate building induced, where the polite masks of politicians concealed either corruption, suspicion, or both.

Here, it was just slight foreboding tones, showing suspicion and hiding a lot, too, but it wasn't supposed to be a secret that they were concealing something — there was no false deception of friendliness.

It's ironic. Ahsoka thought in a sarcastic, humor-like tone. The only thing that really sets the upper levels apart from the lower is that on the upper levels, people are too concerned with how they appear and how they are judged.

Not forgetting that she had been asked a question, Ahsoka thought on her feet, something that she'd had to do often with a Master like Anakin. His infamous "Skywalker plans" that somehow always seemed to work out included a lot of chance, improvisation, and, dare she say it, luck.

"I'm looking for work." She told him, deciding to keep her name to herself for the time being.

"Your hired."

Ahsoka blinked. She had to refrain herself from expressing her surprise. That was easy... Ahsoka thought, suspicious.

After a few seconds of silence, the Devaronian finally looked up from his work, which was a few papers spread across a makeshift desk built haphazardly from stacked crates.

"What's your name." Again, his gruff and clipped tone made it more of a statement or a demand than a question.

"Ana." The name slipped from her mouth before she could stop it. She was thankful for her improvisation, as she still didn't know how famous or infamous she was in public, but also cursing herself for thinking of the most painful name to be called.

Her thoughts seemed to still dwell on her Master, so much so that she had derived an alias from his name.

Well done, she aggressively shunned herself with sarcasm. Now you will never get over it.

She quickly shoved her thoughts down, turning her attention back to the situation at hand, fighting the urge to cringe.

"How old are you." Again, it was a demand, not a question. His flat, monotonous voice accentuated his disinterest, which Ahsoka was definitely grateful for.

"Old enough," she decided, assuming a sixteen year old would not be allowed to work at a bar.

The Deveronian gave her a blank stare before shrugging. "Good enough. Go to the kitchen and ask for Darra. She'll get you sorted."

With that, he turned back to his papers, which Ahsoka assumed were bills of some kind, and went back to acting like she wasn't there.

Ahsoka, slightly taken aback and still processing her suspicious shock, turned and headed back out the door, briefly hesitating at the threshold
on whether or not she should thank him.

From the overall interactions she had already had in the tavern, she decided against it and carried on, exiting the small, closet-like office, and stepping into the hallway as the door creaked shut behind her.

"Alright," she muttered. Now where's the kitchen?"

She shook her head and exited the small hallway. There didn't seem to be much else in there, and from the lack of noise, Ahsoka assumed that the kitchen was not there.

She had recalled seeing a double door further back in the tavern, and decided to try her chances with that.

Striding through the crowds again, she approached the door, and, peering through the small, circular, dirty windows, she could make out a kitchen beyond them.

Ahsoka pushed down all feelings of unease and the urge to act timid, and pushed open the doors, slipping into the kitchen to be met with a busy clatter and strong scents of food.

She scanned the busy room. It was small, not nearly as large as the one at Dex's diner, but it was definitely busy. No one had noticed her yet, and Ahsoka used that to her advantage, observing the beings and their behaviors before deciding her next course of action.

Two males, one a Paladuvan, and the other a human, were busy preparing food.

A third being, a beautiful, red, female Twi'lek, was unloading dirty dishes and glasses into a large basin.

Act like you know what you're doing... ask the Twi'lek... don't compromise the mission and don't let them know you're a Jedi —

She started in surprise as reality seemed to give her a harsh slap across the face. Nice going. She thought, blinking back tears that had surprised her almost as much as her previous thoughts.

She had been so focused on her objective, her goal, that for a moment, she had forgotten that she wasn't a Jedi any longer.

And as she remembered that she had no place to return to, no where to go, and nothing to call herself, Ahsoka felt a new sense of desperation and anxiety fill her.

No. Stop.

She chided herself, forcing down all doubts and intrusive thoughts. You don't have time for that now. Get it together.

And so she did. Giving herself a second to hastily rub the backs of her hands across her eyes to staunch her brief tears, she took a deep breath.

She walked carefully toward the Twi'lek, who she had inadvertently decided to approach first.

"Do you know a Darra?" She asked carefully.

The Twi'lek jumped, turning.

"What?"

"Do you know—" Ahsoka never got to finish, as the Twi'lek seemed to have calmed down enough to process the question.

"Yeah, I am Darra." She said, setting down the tray of dirty dishes she had been carrying and eyeing the hooded Togruta up and down.

She had an interesting accent — not from Ryloth, though. More modern sounding as though she had been born and raised in the underworld of Corascant, which Ahsoka assumed she had. "Who are you?" She studied Ahsoka, slightly wary, and Ahsoka couldn't blame her.

"Ana." She said, forcing herself not to grimace at her poor choice in an alias. "Your boss told me to find you... He just hired me." She explained.

The older Twi'lek, who seemed to be in her late twenties to early thirties, fully turned to face Ahsoka now, her eyes searching what she could see under the cloak. "Huh. Alright. Well, first things first... let's get you to work, Ana."

::::

Alright, we are finally out of Dex's diner and Ahsoka is in the real world!

How is it? sorry if it seems a bit rushed/short, but i'm procrastinating my homework and now i actually have to go do it...

I had to take the psat today, and it kinda sucked, but at least my classes were cancelled for the rest of the day so that was kinda chill. except for my math teacher who thought it would be funny to give us a test due tomorrow :/

i literally had a whole day to do homework and i still didn't do it... whoops... ;)

Anyway, thanks for reading! Bye!

*unedited

9/14/20

Word count: 2331