Chapter Text
Ahsoka was grateful for Obi-Wan chasing her down after she left to give her what apparently was the usual resignation packet that all Jedi received when they decided that they were not meant to continue on the Jedi path.
This included resources on where to pick up skills, how to fill out a resume and interview for jobs, places and scams to avoid and more.
Some of it Ahsoka had been aware of, thanks to the wide variety of classes, and others she hadn't had a chance to learn due to being at war but some of it also probably was things she would never have experienced even without war, like how to get a job.
But the most important part was a chip that would give her the usual deposit that all those leaving the Jedi Order received to help them get on their feet without starting from nothing.
Apparently there was a whole separate account just for that, so that they could ensure that everyone had the best chance they could have.
That meant that Ahsoka was able to get a room to stay, and explore her options for a few weeks before she finally decided to get on a ship and just explore space.
She had enough skills between being able to teach better than some teachers, knowing how to fight, and Anakin teaching her mechanics that she could probably pick up a temporary job anywhere that would allow her to earn more money whenever she got low.
She couldn't get a brand new ship, but she got one that would do the job.
Ahsoka didn't mind doing some repairs on it before leaving.
Anakin had taught her a lot about how much work could be done to fix up junkers, so she knew what she was doing.
As she prepared to leave, the Force, quieter around her these days, urged her to pack more supplies.
Among them were supplies that she normally wouldn't use outside of building lightsabers, reading material, plenty of food, more clothes for some reason, and more tools than she had planned to keep with her.
Oh and her new staff that she was using as a weapon.
She had tried a few other things but the staff had felt the closest thing to right.
Her lightsabers felt best, but she didn't want to keep them if she wasn't going to be a Jedi, though Obi-Wan had offered when he caught up to her.
As she packed the last thing of supplies (first aid this time, particularly things that were more useful for togruta than others), the Force finally quieted and she breathed a sigh of relief.
She was running low on credits and space, so she wasn't even sure she could fit anything else into that ship.
Ahsoka knew better than to ignore the Force but she would have had to start picking and choosing soon.
She did a last check of the ship to make sure it worked, visited Padme in the hopes that Anakin was around for one last goodbye, and left a letter and gift when he was not, instead having a decent conversation with Padme before she finally climbed into her ship, and left.
It was time to explore the galaxy, and Ahsoka couldn't wait.
That lasted all of a week before the hyperdrive glitched and she found herself in an unfamiliar area of Wild Space.
Ahsoka stayed calm, ready to just take her time in navigating back to real space.
No wonder she had so much food. It was going to take her weeks to get back to a known planet from where she was, assuming her map was still accurate.
As she navigated around, Ahsoka found an asteroid field.
Thanks to the Force and her time with Anakin she was good at navigating it without an issue, but there was one stray one that got through.
Ahsoka kept flying when nothing seemed to go wrong from that hit.
And then a day later, she realized she needed to find a planet to land on immediately, and hope that there would be a way to at least contact others if not fix the ship so she could get back to civilization.
Maybe she shouldn't have gone for the one that needed a lot of repairs.
Ahsoka shook her head; now wasn't the time to focus on that.
Now was the time to focus on getting down in one piece on the nearest planet.
She finally spotted a planet she could land on. It had a lot of ocean, but she could make out some green.
If she was careful, she could land on one of those landmasses.
Well, crash more like at the rate she was going.
Then she realized that she was losing steering control as she entered the atmosphere.
She was headed straight for an ocean.
"Kriff, come on, come on," Ahsoka murmured as she tried to get the ship to aim towards the land mass again, but it wasn't working.
She spotted islands and hoped that it would work.
It took a bit more tugging and relying on the Force, but she not only landed on a rather small island, she was able to avoid the buildings she saw as she approached. Instead, she crashed into some trees on almost the opposite side of the small island.
Ahsoka sat there, dazed for a bit, then shook her head and pulled herself together.
She had to assess the damage.
She stood and winced. Maybe she needed to assess her own injuries first as she apparently was hurt in the crash after all.
Ahsoka checked herself over.
She didn't think she had a concussion though her head hurt a lot so she'd have to be careful.
Beyond that, a lot of bumps and bruises, and maybe her muscles would ache after a while from the crash.
Overall, not too bad...
Ahsoka started checking the engine and sighed. It was completely trashed. She would need to rebuild it entirely.
Which meant she really had to hope that she landed on a planet where she could get those materials, but she had a feeling there was a reason she had to pack as much as she had.
Ahsoka made sure fires weren't about to start before she started going over all the damage and what she'd need to be able to fly again.
She probably wouldn't be able to fix the hyperdrive, so she'd be at it for a long time, but she could maybe do it...
As long as they had the supplies.
Ahsoka heard something outside the ship so she went to the ramp, huffing when she realized that was perfectly fine.
Of all things that survived the crash.
She let the ramp down and stepped outside of the ship.
She immediately froze at the crowd of people that greeted her.
People who were pointing weapons at her.
Weapons without a power source. Nothing resembling blasters.
Slingshots and bows and arrows, spears and swords...
...kriff where in the galaxy was she?
...and what were those creatures behind the humans?
The leader, a huge guy with a beard, asked a question.
In a language she didn't know.
Kriff. She really was far from everything he knew.
Okay what did she do?
Ahsoka held up her hands slowly. "You can't understand me, I look nothing like you, and I crashed from the sky, yeah, makes sense that you would be upset..."
The humans started arguing amongst themselves until finally a teenager stepped forward and started drawing on the ground.
Ahsoka crouched to get a better look.
To her surprise, it seemed to be doodles about her ship.
She studied them for a bit then drew out the corrections.
The teenager seemed excited by her response and drew more.
Ahsoka was a bit relieved that at least they could at least communicate by drawing.
By the time they wound down the 'discussion' about whether or not she would be able to repair her ship and leave (based on what he shared, probably not), there was just one human (the one who spoke first) left, along with two of the creatures.
Strange. From her understanding, most people were always scared of the new, especially aliens falling from the sky, and it could be an uphill battle to get resources to leave, assuming they weren't immediately captured.
And they were willing to leave her mostly alone with the teenager, who looked to be her age
Ahsoka let out a breath. She would figure it out eventually. She would have to figure it out eventually. Even if this planet did have what she needed to get off she probably wouldn't get it for a long time.
The teenager smiled at her and pointed at himself. "Hiccup."
Ahsoka smiled and pointed to herself. "Ahsoka."
“Toothless.” He gestured at the creature, who had a saddle. Huh.
Ahsoka held up a hand and hurried into the ship to grab a bag of clothes and a pack of rations. She didn't know what kind of meat there was on this planet and she wanted to be sure she could at least eat something somewhat healthy in the meantime.
Hiccup was waiting for her. The other person was gone.
They must have talked while she was on the ship.
He gestured at the creature and climbed up.
It was at that moment she realized he was missing a leg, and the metal contraption that replaced it gave her an idea of how far technology had evolved here... she wasn't sure they were actually to the point of electricity or anything related, let alone beyond that, just based on that alone.
They were still operating with simple mechanics.
That leg had to be heavy.
Hiccup offered her a hand up.
She accepted it and settled down behind him.
She held on as the creature took off.
As they flew, she realized that the creature was missing a tail fin, and that the teenager was helping it fly with some sort of contraption.
Based on their drawn discussion earlier, she suspected that Hiccup had designed it himself.
Fascinating... But she still didn't know what to expect.
The flight was short.
She figured she could probably walk to the ship if she wanted, which put her at ease, but the terrain was unfamiliar, and she probably would have a hard time navigating it for the first time.
A ride was far nicer.
Finally, the houses came back into view and they were landing.
Most of the town was out to gawk at her.
Ahsoka couldn't blame them. As an orange togruta, she stood out among a group of humans in thick fur clothes.
It was a bit on the chillier side of what she was used to, though there was no snow.
Did this planet get snow?
There was so much she didn't know about where she was and it was going to take a long time to learn it.
But... she didn't have a choice.
Hiccup led her into the house that seemed to be the most prominent... and looked to be his house. The person that had spoken to her previously was there as well.
So Hiccup was the son of their leader.
He led her to an unused room and showed her the bed and some other things around before leaving her alone.
Ahsoka let out a breath and sat down on the bed.
It was more primitive, and did remind her of some places she had been.
But... Hiccup seemed nice and willing to give her a chance, even if everyone else was wary.
She would have to learn the language as quickly as possible so she could communicate.
Good thing she already knew three. Another one shouldn't be too hard, though this would be the first time she learned it without any common language or guide. She could do it. She was sure of it.
But...
Fitting in... in a new place with only humans... that was going to be difficult. She would just have to prove herself.
Good thing she was used to that. She had proved herself at war. She could prove herself here too.
"Are you sure about this, son?" Stoick asked, glancing at the room where they had put their guest.
"Yeah, Dad. She was hurt. Not badly but she had cuts and bruises and she can't leave."
"How do you know? We've never seen anything like that-that thing."
"Well, the things she was drawing were pretty unfamiliar to me but she seemed to recognize most of what I was drawing so I'm going to guess that they're way ahead of us when it comes to making stuff and probably have different materials which means that there's no way she will be able to make it work, from what she was pointing out was the problem in the drawing of her... transportation."
"You're certain?"
"I didn't recognize half of what she was drawing and what I did recognize is more stuff I've thought of but never tested. And you saw it. I don't think it's made out of the same stuff we have here."
"So where is she from?"
"I don't know, but I don't think she's going back."
"You think we can trust her?"
"It's either give her a chance or toss her to the dragons. You really think we should do that when she's not even tried to hurt any of us?"
"I don't like it. She looks different. How do you even know she's a woman?"
Hiccup shrugged. "I don't but that's the first thing that came to mind. I'm sure she'll clear it up once she understands us."
Stoick sighed. "If you hadn't been proving yourself for the last two years, I wouldn't trust you with this, but you've come a long way. What exactly is your plan?"
"I'm going to start with teaching her the words for things tomorrow when I show her around, and then I think we'll spend most of our time in the forge because she seems to have a good grounding in how that kind of thing works though I'm sure it’s still different, it's something she's familiar with. Once she's got a better understanding of us, then we can learn more about her and what she wants to do and why she's here. Then we go from there."
"You know that could take years."
"I know. I'm prepared for that. It'll give me something to do with Astrid on that trip." Hiccup winced at the look his father gave him.
"You miss her."
"Of course I miss her, but... we did agree that with her gone for at least a year, possibly longer, that it would be best if we... weren't dating and saw how we feel when she gets back."
"You've been moping since she left."
"I know I know, it was the right decision but I didn't really want her to go but the idea of going exploring and talking to other villages about dragons was something she was really excited about, I couldn't really say no."
"I know. Today was the first time I saw you excited about anything."
"...what are you saying?"
"Nothing. I think you're right. This will take your mind off of Astrid. But I'm not sure what that means, she's not like us."
"Dad! I'm not interested in her like that. She just has a lot of knowledge and I like learning!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes! Can we get back to my plan instead of talking about me being upset that Astrid left?"
"I don't have any ideas or comments. It will take years."
"I know. And I know it's risky, she might kill us all in our sleep, but... I want to give her a chance... she seemed really upset and sad at some points but she also seems to be really trying to stay calm and... I don't know."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out. You're far better at that than I ever was."
"Thanks Dad."
"Just do keep an eye out for any potential problems."
HIccup sighed. "Yes, dad. I'll make sure she's not showing signs that she'll murder us all."
Stoick chuckled.
Ahsoka kept to herself and let Hiccup lead her around the first few days, making sure that everyone saw that she was either sticking to the house or to Hiccup, that she wasn't about to kill them or something.
It took little time to realize that these people ate primarily meat though they supplemented it with plants.
If they were like most humans, they probably should have been eating more vegetables, but she wasn't about to tell them that even if she could.
At least it meant that no one batted an eye when she ate a lot of meat.
In fact, everyone seemed to like the fact that she could eat a lot of meat.
Which was strange for a bunch of humans, but then these humans seemed to be a bit of a violent bunch, apart from Hiccup who laughed and ducked away from the playful fighting of his peers, the laughter often awkward, but sometimes genuine.
Most importantly, Ahsoka was picking up the language quickly, mostly the words.
The creatures were dragons and there were a bunch of different types of them.
Toothless was a very intelligent dragon called a Night Fury.
The town or maybe the island was Berk.
Ahsoka found herself watching Hiccup make things from time to time.
From watching the other blacksmith, Hiccup was more advanced than anyone else on the island, so she offered him some tips, doing her best to make her drawings clear.
Focusing on learning a new language, on learning about the island, and the people, dragons, and helping Hiccup... that helped distract Ahsoka from the pain of leaving everyone behind, knowing she would never make it back to space. Not unless a miracle happened and they could repair the ship, but she rather doubted it.
At night though, she was trying to sleep on an unfamiliar bed, with unfamiliar sounds, and knowing she wouldn't see Anakin ever again…
Well, she cried sometimes. Sometimes she just laid there and cried. Other times she meditated, working her way through the feelings.
It was hard knowing she wasn't going to leave Berk, that she wasn't going to get to see anyone again.
That once she found herself, there was no chance of her rejoining the Jedi Order, no matter how much she followed the Jedi Order, she wouldn't be able to join them.
But she only allowed herself to really think about it at night, when she was alone and not about to be interrupted.
After a week, she was able to pick out most words, after two weeks she was starting to be able to communicate using words here and there, and Hiccup had picked up some of Basic to be able to understand her better.
He didn't have to do that; he'd never need it, but he did.
Ahsoka felt oddly special that he was willing to do that for her.
She told herself he was just doing it because he wanted to be nice, but she kind of didn't want that to be the reason.
Which was weird.
So she chose to mostly leave those feelings alone unless she needed a distraction from her wallowing.
It took a month before Ahsoka was able to communicate with most of the people of Berk without issue.
By then, she thought she understood how things worked for the most part.
After she had been there for a month, Hiccup walked with her back to the ship, where she found that he and possibly others had made sure that the ship would remain mostly untouched by the elements.
Ahsoka went through the ship, ignoring Hiccup following her. She pulled out everything that remained of her supplies, then went back to the engine to take another look now that the shock had worn off and she knew more about what the people of Berk were working with.
She shook her head after seeing it was just as bad as she remembered.
She wasn't going to be able to fix that.
Hiccup was poking at things with fascination, amazed by the parts that were still working after the month.
Ahsoka gave up on trying to figure out how to salvage the engine and sat back, catching sight of Hiccup exploring the ship with a look of awe.
She smiled, watching him.
Hiccup looked up and met her eyes, blushing as he looked back down at what he was fiddling with.
"What are you going to do with all this?" He spoke a little slower than usual to make sure she could understand, and have a chance to learn the full sentence if she didn't know some of the words.
Ahsoka repeated the sentence to make sure she had it right before thinking about her answer and the words she needed to answer it.
"I think... I'm going to take it apart as much as I can so it's not just sitting here anymore." Ahsoka hoped that she was understandable with her fumbles.
Thankfully, Hiccup nodded. "Are you sure? What if we can get you out of here?"
Ahsoka sighed. "I'm not so sure. There's a lot of things in this ship that you and your people haven't discovered. It would be better to dismantle it. We can keep it as together as we can as long as it's stored, I guess."
Hiccup moved and sat down next to her. "You don't think you're going to be able to leave, huh?"
Ahsoka nodded. "I don't. No one knew where I was because I wasn't in contact with anyone, there was a... mistake in navigation so I ended up nowhere near where I was going... next thing I knew, I was here." Ahsoka was surprised by how much she did know after all.
Hiccup nodded. "Alright. You have a place with us."
"Are you sure? I'm too different."
"We're all human here, you'd be alone. Everyone is starting to trust you and they trust me."
"I trust you too."
Hiccup smiled at her. "Then stay. We can figure it out. You're getting good at understanding us and talking, fighting is always good for us Vikings, you're good at making things, and you're really good with the dragons, a natural."
Ahsoka nodded. Having a dragon companion would be nice. She wasn't ready to explain the Force yet, but it did make it easier to connect with the dragons and understand what they needed.
But no dragon she had met felt right for her, even the ones that didn't have someone.
One day she'd find a dragon; that she was certain of, but it might take a while.
She realized that she had gotten lost in thought and Hiccup was still waiting for her reply.
Ahsoka backtracked through the conversation, came up with an answer and carefully translated it to his language.
"I'll stay, but I don't want to be forced on everyone. They can be upset that I'm staying, angry even. I'll just prove that I can be a Viking to them."
Hiccup lit up and hugged her, though he pulled away almost immediately like he hadn't meant to do that, cheeks turning pink.
Ahsoka smiled at him and pulled him back in for the hug.
She knew that Vikings showed affection more through violence than things like hugs, but she had always appreciated hugs, and Hiccup seemed to be a bit gentler than most Vikings, though he was pretty good at keeping up with them.
The hug didn't last long but Ahsoka felt better for having had a hug with him.
It was nice.
They needed to resort to drawing things out to discuss what to do with her belongings, what some things were for and what to do with the ship, but they were able to come up with a plan and start executing the plan to ensure that she had everything she needed and that the ship was preserved just in case.
Ahsoka had a strong feeling she would never leave this strange planet, and she was starting to come to terms with that idea.
But for now, so soon after arriving, she wasn't ready to break down the ship, especially since she didn't need to in order to survive.
Berk had plenty of resources, and she wouldn't even need to worry about running out of rations with how much meat they liked in their diet.
The only downside was she hadn't had the opportunity to get a good hunt in.
But that was okay. She could sort that out eventually.
Ahsoka still had a lot to learn about the way people lived on Berk, after all.
As they returned to Berk with the last of what she wanted to keep and would be stored in what had become her room, Ahsoka looked around the town, watching everyone go by, catching bits of conversation here and there.
She could live with this becoming her home.
She just needed to make herself useful.